My name is
David Robins:
Christian, lead developer (resume), writer, photographer, runner,
libertarian (voluntaryist),
and student.
This is also my son David Geoffrey Robins' site.
Driving across America #3: Canada: Niagara Falls, high tea, Euchre
News ·Tuesday June 29, 2010 @ 21:38 EDT (link)
Continued from parts 1 and 2.
We arrived at my parents' house in Fonthill 0030 Monday morning. When we got up our first trip was to Niagara Falls, parking at Dufferin Islands (free parking) and walking down to the falls proper. We had a nice walk through the crowds and past various views of the falls; Emily enjoyed her first trip to the falls and the walk too, straying closer to the edge of the walkway than perhaps her mother would be comfortable with, although it was only a short drop where there was no barrier in place.
These first pictures are along the walk from Dufferin Islands to the falls, along the Niagara Parkway; the Skylon Tower can be seen in the first (it has a restaurant at the top, which rotates); in the next, an old barge caught on some rocks; in the next, one of the bridges to the USA; and next a section of the stone and wrought-iron barriers that line the walkway on the river side (as one approaches the falls, the drop unsurprisingly becomes rather precipitous).
The Maid of the Mist tourist boat, which goes in quite close to the falls; Honey and Emily sitting by the railings with the falls behind.
General shots of the falls (primarily the Horseshoe Falls).
We got ice cream at the Lazy Loon on the way home (in Fonthill, quite close to my parents'). We had pizza and wings for dinner later and then took a walk around the block. Swims were enjoyed at various times in the backyard pool. It was getting rather dark for unaided photography when we walked.
On Tuesday, Honey, Emily, and mom went shopping at the Pen Center. That evening Honey and Emily and I met with my friend/former co-worker (at Acres) Scott B. at Tim Horton's where we talked about getting together the next day to go canoeing. Mom put on a splendid "high tea" and afterward we played Phase 10 and Euchre.
Driving across America #2: Mullens, WV, to Fonthill, ON
News ·Monday June 28, 2010 @ 00:32 EDT (link)
New River
Emily's Wall of Rob
The previous leg ended Sunday, June 20. The first stop on our tour was Emily's wall of Rob; she's absolutely bananas over him and the Twilight books. We were staying in her room, so it greeted us morning and night. It had been a long time since I'd seen any of them, but Emily was of course most noticeably older but we still got along famously. (And if that usage seems strange to you, it's probably "Chiefly British", however it's perfectly cromulent and you can jolly well look it up.)
On Thursday we went over to the New River Gorge bridge near Fayetteville, and walked around a little, got a few photos.
I didn't make any notes about between Sunday and Thursday; we mostly stayed around the house, sometimes went out to run errands, watches movies in the evening.
We went to the local pool where Emily has a pass (we had to pay $3/each) one day, had a nice time, but I really missed having swim goggles and ended up picking some up in Canada—at Canadian Tire, naturally.
Some of the New River Gorge photos:
Some of the family pets: Smokey, the (skittish, but that's a downgrade from "very skittish") cat and Muffin the dog:
And then some random pictures of people (Emily and mom Christine, dad Doug passing a plate, Grandpa and Grandma Pollock, and you know the rest), dinnertime and Guitar Hero™:
We spent a week there—planned to spend a week at both parents' and a little more than that driving—leaving on Sunday the 27th at 1440. But we picked up a passenger, and this is the way of it.
Honey and I had been joking with Emily, or Christine, about taking Emily to Canada; and then we started thinking about it more seriously, and Emily thought she could handle it (not having been away from home or even out of state overnight much thus far). Her parents permitting, I called my parents and asked if we could bring her along, and they said they'd be happy to have her come with us: so we proceeded to cover our bases for the border. The official sites indicated the important things: a letter from her parents with contact information and giving us permission to take her to Canada with us, provide medical care if necessary, and so on, carefully worded according to the requirements. A photo ID card, from the DMV ($5); her insurance card and birth certificate. We put it all into a folder and put it with our passports. She packed a backpack with clothes a cloth net bag with swim gear. Everybody gave her spending money for Canada, too.
We had two boxes of camping supplies and food in the back set so things were within easy reach; I stacked one on the other to make Emily room to sit (and sleep—it's about a 10 hour trip). We also left a few things with Honey's parents to make packing the trunk easier (and since Canada frowns on the rights of free people, I stashed my two handguns with Honey's grandfather—papa—hoping against hope that I would see them again). Emily was very excited about going to Canada ("If the border people ask where you're going, what will you tell them?" "CANADA… duh!")
We took the I-77/I-64 to the I-79 and up through Pennsylvania, stopping for gas and the state welcome center (to get a map… I like to collect state maps) and then at 1900 at Wendy's for dinner. We hit the I-90 tollway in New York at 2215, stopped for gas again, had an uneventful border crossing (I don't even think they asked for any of Emily's paperwork, or asked her any questions, although we made sure she was awake), and arrived at my parents' house in Fonthill at 0030.
Books finished: Give Me a Break, Beyond This Dark House, The Constitution In Exile.
Driving across America #1: Redmond, WA to Sumner, IA and Mullens, WV
News, Bad Drivers, Guns ·Sunday June 20, 2010 @ 17:20 EDT (link)
This summer we elected to drive across these United States, to visit our parents and see the sights along the way. And this was the way of it.
The trip to West Virginia, where we were headed first, was about 42 hours, which we did over three days. We left our apartment in Redmond at 1640 on June 19, but I-405S was so jammed up near I-90 that it took about an hour to get onto it. Shout-outs to bad drivers WA 958 VQP in a maroon Ford Contour, "Fairest" sticker in rear window and WA 742 SVU in an old dark green Nissan Sentra, for letting half the world butt in line. Honey was driving; I took over near Spokane. Lot of beautiful mountain views from the windows (although it was dark when we drove across most of the Cascades in Idaho: a short but very twisty crossing of the panhandle).
We hit the Montana border at 2335 PST (time zone change at the border—following times MST), stopped briefly at a rest area before Missoula, leaving at 0141, and then stopped for a brief sleep at another rest area, 0321-0727, with Honey driving again. Of course, you don't see all that much from the highway: some nice scenery, for sure, but it's nothing like having the time to explore, take in some parks, maybe even camp for a few days, which we'd like to go back and do in some of states within driving distance, especially Montana. And there weren't any pictures while I was driving.
We reached Wyoming at 1615, just crossing a small strip of it on US-212 rather than heading further south on the I-90, rejoining the I-90 in South Dakota: in retrospect we probably didn't save much time since the two arcs (212 and 90) are about the same length: but Google Maps sent us along the 212, possibly not accounting for conditions. We either missed the sign or there was no sign, so didn't notice when we crossed into South Dakota. Since people had spoken highly of it—and there were signs for miles—we stopped in at Wall Drug, but it really wasn't that impressive: it's a set of touristy stores under one roof with a Western theme; we weren't there long. We stopped at 0035 in Mitchell, SD at the Kelly Inn, about 70 miles west of the I-29 crossroads (and Sioux Falls). We rested well and checked out at 1026. Since I had my handguns with me, we had to make some stops to reposition them according to the patchwork of local laws that infringe in various ways on the right to property and self-defense, following, at worst case, the federal safe passage law that inhibits states from bothering travelers if firearms are stored in a certain way (FOPA). Many states allow open carry in vehicles; some have reciprocity with Washington, or accept any permit, or don't require one at all ("constitutional carry"). I had brought a printout of the various restrictions with us, but we had no trouble.
The Goldens', Sumner, IA
Many years ago—it must have been around 1990—Ted and Lois Golden had left the Welland Gospel Hall (link is to the Brethrenpedia… I'm as surprised as you are) where we attended when we first moved to Canada; "Uncle" Ted was my Sunday School teacher, and we knew their children well and visited often. They left suddenly—plant shutdown—and moved to Iowa, which to me was as remote as outer space at the time, but I filed it away. I'd found Virginia ("Ginny") on Facebook, and through her Ted and Lois, and contacted them about stopping by on our trip, since, fortuitously (providentially!) we were passing through the state. As it happened we weren't to be too far from their home in Sumner, and when we arrived at 1745 Lois invited us for a delicious home-cooked dinner and we visited with her, Ted, Virginia, and the kittehs—Virginia rescues them and there's always a number around.
Orange kitteh
Ted, Virginia, and Lois Golden
Honey holding a kitteh
We stayed about four hours catching up, and left at about 2115. At 0015 we entered Illinois, one of the most anti-gun (anti-individual, anti-rights) states in the nation (up there with a few other contenders such as CA, NY, NJ, MA, MD, HI— the usual suspects). No stops there: just passing through. Their neighbor, Indiana, is much friendlier and would be a place we'd consider living if we moved back east; beautiful scenery (trees and hills rather than the mountains and plains further west), nice mix of rural and urban. We slept at a rest area again, 0147-0600, drove all day, and arrived at Honey's parents in Mullens, West Virginia at 1720 on Sunday, June 20, as planned on our trip calendar, which sketched out dates and gave us plenty of time for a somewhat leisurely journey. It had been a long time since we had seen everyone, especially for me, and the barbarous people shewed us no little kindness.
Books finished: Rich Dad's Guide To Becoming Rich Without Cutting Up Your Credit Cards.
epguides.com schizophrenia
Technical, Media ·Sunday June 13, 2010 @ 23:17 EDT (link)
epguides.com seems to be a bit schizoid. It seems to have two versions of most shows' episode lists, one of which is hopelessly out of date. For example, (the new) Doctor Who is currently showing as either having 6 or 13 episodes in season 5 (refresh a few times to see the other one).
This drives my monitor/show renaming program a little crazy, especially as it caches results (cache is cleared daily so the error doesn't last too long if the wrong version is read). I wish they'd fix it.
Books finished: Life At the Bottom, The ABC's of Building a Business Team That Wins, Kaplan LSAT Direct.
Shooting on Whidbey Island
News, Guns ·Saturday June 12, 2010 @ 19:43 EDT (link)
Georgeo, an ally on the Lively Politics discussion list at work, invited us to come out to his gun club on Whidbey Island, Holmes Harbor Rod & Gun Club. When I got to Mukilteo, I hadn't expected such a long wait for the ferry—although it wasn't as bad as it could be, judging by the ferry wait lines on the road. I got to Mukilteo at 1130 and waited about an hour for a ferry (caught the 1230). We were supposed to meet at the club at noon, but fortunately Georgeo and his friend (girlfriend's brother-in-law?) Dave from Chicago were still there shooting. I really like the setup there—nice wood shelter and benches, wooden boards to attach targets to (rather than the wood or iron stands at SVRC), and plenty of sandbags and benches in the rifle area. We shot pistols first; I shot both my 9mms and Georgeo's Beretta, and did pretty well (but we were shooting at a fairly short distance). Victor and his son Eric arrived a little after I did and his son fired a pistol for the first time. Georgeo seemed to like shooting my Glock and EMP.
Then we headed over to the rifle area; I shot (and zeroed) my AR-15, and Georgeo had several rifles (an AR-15, a Remington 700 PSS in .308, and a cowboy rifle in .45 long Colt). He had a spotting scope (a Barska, 15-45x60?, straight eyepiece) which made zeroing my red-dot site very easy, and then I kept in the black and was exploding soda cans one by one. I also brought my box of used bowling pins which people seemed to enjoy shooting. Georgeo's Remington 700 was great, very light trigger, and very little recoil (compared to my Mosin Nagant, at least). I really want one… probably still the 5R milspec or the SPS (synthetic) Varmint. But the spotting scope is next on the list.
Afterward we went over to Georgeo's place for some food and talk. Great place on 15 acres, had the land cleared and house built himself, very open layout. He just put in a generator, and has landscaping plans and plans to increase self-sufficiency, like getting some livestock. With some clearing, he has a water view.
Victor and I left I think around 1800, and this way there was no wait for the ferry: we got onto the first one.
Nikon film scanner: SOLD
News ·Saturday June 12, 2010 @ 02:02 EDT (link)
Sold it for the same price I paid for it, $500. Had a little trouble since it doesn't work out of the box on Windows 7, but I found some instructions and got it to work on my new laptop, since the buyer wanted to use it on Windows 7 64-bit. The scanner.inf file needed one more tweak: the LS-50 (CoolScan V) line needed to be copied from the [Models] section to the [Models.ntamd64] section, which covers 64-bit operating systems, and then it installed. Argh, Windows… it gave me such trouble recognizing the device and trying to do things as administrator. The buyer wanted to use it to let his mother scan some negatives. I hope he's happy with it. I never really got around to using it, and I think given the time I calculated it would take to scan my thousands of negatives, it might be better (cost a little more, save a lot of time) using a negative scanning service like ScanCafe.
Books finished: Rich Dad's Who Took My Money?.
New laptop: HP from Costco
News ·Sunday June 6, 2010 @ 16:19 EDT (link)
My old Acer laptop gave up the ghost recently; it was quite sudden; it had exhibited some hard drive slowdowns and occasional boot trouble, but then a few weeks ago it either failed to boot up entirely or required a lot of power-up attempts to start, and then froze up completely a few minutes in. I suspected a heat issue, as did the technician at Hard Drives Northwest where I took it for service, although he also suspected that it was just the motherboard wearing out. He managed to back up the drive, which was going bad, to another IDE drive in a USB enclosure.
I brought the laptop in for service on May 5th; they had it for several weeks; I picked it up on May 28th, a couple days after the technician gave up on getting it to stay booted. Much of the time was spent copying the drive to another one (also an IDE, since the first plan was to put it back in the hopes that the disk was the only problem). Total cost for the repairs and new drive (old drive was 100G, new 120G, the closest they had) was $156.56, not bad given the diagnostic work done and new drive too. I just attached the USB enclosure to a machine today and everything is accessible (even the Linux ext3 partition). The most important data I think was a OneNote notebook, which is unfortunately in the binary format difficult to view from Linux. I'm not sure if any open tools can open it and (due to sharing, range-locking, etc.) they don't have an XML format. I will attempt to convert it (via export, or possibly writing a convert myself in Python or Perl using the public MS-ONE OneNote file format specification).
The old Acer was a TravelMate 4504LMi (Intel Pentium M, 1.8GHz, 100G HD, DVD±RW, 1G RAM, 802.11b/g). I checked the database—I was wondering how much I paid for it—and I'd forgotten to enter it, but I found the original receipt (turns out I bought it at Hard Drives Northwest). (When I was looking at laptops at HDNW after picking it up, I noticed that a good many were slower than my Acer; improvements now are more in the multicore or low-power areas.) I bought it on May 14, 2005, so it lasted almost 5 years, which isn't a bad run for a laptop, around when we were getting our Washington drivers' licenses, so not long after we moved here.
The price I'm paying for laptops, probably of equivalent quality at time of purchase, is trending down: my Sony Vaio was $2381.45 (June 2002, Circuit City, Memphis, TN), the Acer was $1630.91 (May 2005, HDNW, Bellevue, WA), and the new HP was just under $1000 (Costco, Woodinville, WA).
I haven't unpacked the HP from Costco yet, but I liked the store demo model because it was reasonable small, among the lightest on display, and I'd been told by users that HP was a reliable brand (although I'm sure each line has good and bad models). I bought it from Costco because they have a 90-day no questions asked return policy. I'll bet that it gets abused by some (device "rental", returning items they damaged—they've even accepted returns of half-eaten food I hear), but it's also such peace of mind that it probably drives a good number of people to buy there and cancels out the cost of abuse. Since I'll be taking the laptop on our trip cross-country, where it will get more use than in the few weeks before, I might not find problems with it until then; so HDNW's 30-day return policy would be insufficient. Furthermore, Costco has stores all across the country and they probably allow returns at any of them.
A report on using the laptop will surely follow (assume no news is good news).
Books finished: Winter's Heart.
Word development party at Rob's
News ·Friday June 4, 2010 @ 00:19 EDT (link)
I went shooting in the morning (WCA, Glock 34, moved up to 30' and shot some good targets). Guys in the next booth had something very loud (maybe just a .45) but they left before I was done.
For Office 15, Word and Publisher (and PTLS—Page, Table, and Line Services) are merging into a new team called PARC (IIRC, it stands for Publishing, Authoring, Reading, and Collaborating, with a nod towards the Xerox PARC laboratory that produced so many innovations). Our new development manager (a Word lead when I started, who then moved to be Publisher's development manager, and originally started as a Word intern), Rob, invited us all to his place for the afternoon. He's not too far from our apartment, actually—a little way up Avondale and east on 116th.
I got to Rob's around 1330 and let myself in (event start at 1300, people actually got there on time), didn't bother ringing the doorbell since I could see people I knew. He's on a very steep road, and I parked at the bottom as suggested in the invite, even though there did happen to be space in the driveway. There was plenty of food and drink—Mexican themed—and then people gravitated to the Xbox and played Roy's Street Fighter IV game. In between, Rob said a few words about people that were leaving the former teams or arriving on the new one, both full-time and interns. I took a turn with the game—Roy's "fight stick" is great—and just used Blanka's shock repeatedly (what can I say, I don't know the game, so I stuck with what worked). Jessica had a good run, and Roy's blindfolded win against Levent was epic.
It was raining when I left—the crowd had thinned considerably and most people were heading out—around 1730, so I raced down the steep street (117th) to my car. Mark's ride had left without him, so I took him back to work and then got to face the usual 520/Avondale traffic. It was a decent party, and Rob says he'll be having more. With a new development manager and a lot of great new code projects to work on, Office 15 looks like it will be a lot of fun (and hard work).
Books finished: The Limits of Power, Universally Preferable Behaviour: A Rational Proof of Secular Ethics.
The UW healthcare debate: wrestling with a pig
News, Political, School, Law ·Thursday May 27, 2010 @ 19:40 EDT (link)
I went to the universal health care constitutionality debate at the UW law school today and, while the debate itself was rather a waste of time, I was reminded of an important adage: Don't get into a fight with a pig, because he'll win, you'll both get dirty, and the pig likes it. The guy from the CATO institute did that, and he regretted it.
Here, the "mud" is the constitution-as-currently-interpreted (CACI) and the pig is the UW law school expert steeped in all those rationalizing court decisions about whether something is a tax, or can be taxed, or can be regulated using the taxing clause, or if the interstate commerce clause can be used to regulate growing wheat (or marijuana) for one's own use, or whether the necessary and proper clause conveys absolute power to congress (of course it does! need you ask?) and so on. You're on their playing field, the playing field of the CACI, and the CATO guy was doomed before he started. He should have tried to arrange for a morality-based debate; but then nobody at UW would have stepped forward to debate him.
The UW law professor did make a valid point that would exist even in an originalist debate, though: the current lawsuits are generally problematical in that the court only hears "cases or controversies" of "injury in fact"; and since many of the provisions that require the states to pay don't go into effect until 2016, nor the individual mandate until 2014; and the states do not have standing to bring a case for their residents anyway. So it seems many of these suits will be validly dismissed for lack of standing.
It's was very clear that the originalist constitution and the CACI are two extremely different things. In one, for example, the federal government only has the powers explicitly delegated to it; in the other, all sorts of things creep out of the penumbras and emanations, giving congress powers never imagined by the framers. I think the CATO guy gave it a good shot and would have scored a lot of points if he was debating the morality of the healthcare bill, or how pro-liberty it is or is not, but on holding it up to the current interpretation of the constitution and active precedents, the UW law professor picked him up by the scruff of the neck and swept the floor with him. He even took him to task with the economics of it all, emphasizing a potential free rider concern, that, of course, is really made worse by the exclusions of pre-existing conditions from insurer consideration (if your house is burning down, you shouldn't be able to buy insurance).
We (libertarians) are too used to thinking of the original constitution, not the 300 years of corruption it's undergone to become the CACI. Thus, we still think of it as a good thing, and we still think that blatantly, obviously (originally) unconstitutional laws can be challenged on constitutional grounds. And they can, but big government will win just about every time because it's their pigpen—and SCOTUS is part of the government too, and they don't get appointed for being in favor of shrinking it.
So don't take up offers to play in their pigpen; if you must wrestle, wrestle in the light of day and over morality and economics, not in a pigpen designed, built, enclosed, and fully controlled by the other guy. Don't get sucked in to hopeless causes; don't walk onto a stage where their rules prevail and morality is utterly irrelevant. Why waste your time?
Books finished: Why Popcorn Costs So Much At the Movies.
XBMC and VDPAU headaches
News, Technical ·Sunday May 23, 2010 @ 06:42 EDT (link)
I upgraded XBMC from source control recently and all the background textures (overlays?) were gone—the Confluence skin looked like the sample but but without any of the shading behind the menus, weather info, or dialog boxes. Menus and movie info were quite hard to read with the text superimposed on other text or the background image without any contrast.
First I checked if it was the nVidia OpenGL, by switching temporarily to the (much slower) X11 OpenGL, but it had the same issue. I debugged around the code a bit to ensure the textures in question were being loaded, and they were.
Then I figured I'd play a movie anyway, but XBMC crashed in VDPAU code. It looked like it was trying to detect the graphics card or support, and eventually on a hunch I went to verify if my card actually support VDPAU and/or VAAPI. It turns out VAAPI uses VDPAU as a backend on nVidia cards (as in the crash callstack) and my particular card does not in fact support VDPAU. So it gracelessly decides that crashing is a robust solution: bit of a fail.
I uninstalled the VDPAU (libvdpau) and VAAPI (libva) packages and rebuilt the dependencies (primarily MythTV, Transcode, and XBMC), and as it happens the background overlays came back too, which made me happy, even though it was rather a long aggravating process. (To top it off, the machine I was using to debug—the machine I am typing on—also had some issues: D-Bus problems, KDE sync dependency hell, KDM ignoring keyboard and mouse input—the last was fixed by re-installing evdev). What a mess!
Does this mean Linux sucks? No, but it means if you want to run a source-based distro (Gentoo) and upgrade it frequently and to the bleeding edge, a little expertise is required. But nobody has to run a source-based distro (there are plenty of binary distros) nor use leading-edge packages. But where's the fun in that?
Books finished: The Path of Daggers.
<Previous 10 entries>
This summer we elected to drive across these United States, to visit our parents and see the sights along the way. And this was the way of it.
We hit the Montana border at 2335 PST (time zone change at the border—following times MST), stopped briefly at a rest area before Missoula, leaving at 0141, and then stopped for a brief sleep at another rest area, 0321-0727, with Honey driving again. Of course, you don't see all that much from the highway: some nice scenery, for sure, but it's nothing like having the time to explore, take in some parks, maybe even camp for a few days, which we'd like to go back and do in some of states within driving distance, especially Montana. And there weren't any pictures while I was driving.
Georgeo, an ally on the Lively Politics discussion list at work, invited us to come out to his gun club on Whidbey Island, Holmes Harbor Rod & Gun Club. When I got to Mukilteo, I hadn't expected such a long wait for the ferry—although it wasn't as bad as it could be, judging by the ferry wait lines on the road. I got to Mukilteo at 1130 and waited about an hour for a ferry (caught the 1230). We were supposed to meet at the club at noon, but fortunately Georgeo and his friend (girlfriend's brother-in-law?) Dave from Chicago were still there shooting. I really like the setup there—nice wood shelter and benches, wooden boards to attach targets to (rather than the wood or iron stands at SVRC), and plenty of sandbags and benches in the rifle area. We shot pistols first; I shot both my 9mms and Georgeo's Beretta, and did pretty well (but we were shooting at a fairly short distance). Victor and his son Eric arrived a little after I did and his son fired a pistol for the first time. Georgeo seemed to like shooting my Glock and EMP.
I went to the universal health care constitutionality debate at the UW law school today and, while the debate itself was rather a waste of time, I was reminded of an important adage: Don't get into a fight with a pig, because he'll win, you'll both get dirty, and the pig likes it. The guy from the CATO institute did that, and he regretted it.
