technical ramblings

2019-06-23T12:22:00.002-07:00

I believe Donald Trump was elected because of a culmination of several different ideas and attitudes. I grew up largely in the South, and in conservative communities, so I experienced these attitudes first-hand. Below are as many of those ideas and attitudes as I can identify, written in the best words I can find to express the idea(s). I even have personally identified with some of these attitudes in my youth, but definitely not any more.
One important note: if anyone in the future ever quotes me as "saying" the things below, without putting them in the proper context (what I said in the above paragraph), I want to be clear now that I will consider trying to put the below words into my mouth (which I either never agreed with, or have not agreed with since I grew up and matured), to be defamatory action against me. Please don't do it.

Here are as many of the ideas and attitudes that I believe came together to allow Donald Trump to become president:

You can't tell me what I can and can't believe or what I can and can't like, or tell me what to think.
I grew up happy and proud of my (conservative/white) heritage, but now I keep hearing the message that I should be ashamed of it. This is one of the reasons I don't like politics. I feel attacked, and voting for Trump is one of the most powerful ways to fight back that I've come across in decades.
A huge part of politics deals with making sure that people are treated fairly. To me, this means making sure that I, (and people like me), are treated fairly. I might not be as preoccupied with making sure that "my people" are treated fairly if I already felt like this was the case, but it's not. I see so many people actively engaged in making sure that other groups of people receive special treatment long before I do, that I feel like I will be forgotten if I just sit back and don't advocate for myself in day-to-day life (and if I don't elect people who will similarly advocate for me in government). If I already felt like I was a member of a group of people who receive preferential treatment, maybe I could be more generous about groups I don't belong to also being treated fairly, but that's so far from my reality, that the idea that I actually get preferential treatment makes me laugh. In my opinion, any theoretical lack of negative treatment (something as far from "tangible" as anything that anyone could ever be asked to identify with) never makes up for the positive favoritism that I see others receive. The only way I could truly understand the daily reality of people who experience systematic prejudice would be to listen to people who have experienced it. A lot. Like for years on end. Who wants to do that? I avoid negativity, because it brings me down. Furthermore, not having to think about the crap others must deal with day after day is a privilege of being who I am. See #1.
Because of #2 and #3, I don't like politics in general (there is nothing positive in it for people like me, only negatives). Politics is nothing than people squabbling over who has the worst life, and trying to get other people to do something compensate for that. People just need to live their lives and get along, without having to try to get the government to make up for their bad luck or bad choices.
Politics is a necessary evil. And like other necessary evils, we can pay other people to deal with it so we don't have to. Politicians who are not white are almost always people elected and paid to try to screw me over. White, liberal politicians can't even be loyal to their own people, so screw them. And even white, conservative politicians too often have to make deals with the opposition, which compromises their integrity in my eyes. Since politicians are necessary, we have to have them, but we don't have to like them. Too often, they get into office just so they can have power and make a buck. Since Trump is already rich, he can afford to be the least "politician-like" politician more than anyone else. He seems to hate politicians, just like I do. It also seems like he's mad about a lot of the same things I'm mad about, so he represents me and people like me as well as, or better than, anyone else I've ever had the opportunity to vote for to be President.
Since all politicians are corrupt, I'm not going to listen to people who try to tell me how crooked Trump is. They are being hypocrites by voting for someone who is also corrupt, so that cancels out their argument about Trump being corrupt, period.
Trump seems to be against all the things that I have heard about on the news (prior to the 2016 election) that I am against, so he represents me better than anyone else remotely running for President.

New topic: tube amplifiers (especially guitar amplifiers)

2018-08-21T20:44:00.000-07:00

I've touched on several different things in my blog dealing with technology and law, and maybe even politics, and I'm currently exhausted with cutting edge technology and doubly tired with politics.
So I want to post a blog or three about my other passion: guitars and low-tech audio.

First Guitar, First Electric Guitar, and First Amplifiers

I purchased my first guitar in 2005 at a pawn shop in Austin, TX. In 2010, I began in earnest to teach myself the fundamentals of playing, including the common, first-position chords. In 2011, I got my first electric guitar, and shortly after that my first amplifier (a hybrid Vox). In 2013, I got my first tube amplifier (a Crate Vintage Club 20). At some point, I got an iRig adapter that let me plug my guitar into iPhone/iPad and use an app as a modeling amplifier. This let me experience at least a simulated version of many common amplifiers and pedals.
Being who I am, I tinkered with each guitar and amplifier as I had it, and learned how to perform the most common maintenance tasks for each one. I learned to re-string a guitar, perform a set-up on an electric guitar, re-solder the output jack, etc. On the amplifier, I learned to remove and replace the tubes, clean the potentiometers, re-flow solder joints in case of cold solder joints (a common problem with Vintage Club models). The more I read about luthiery and amplifier repair and building, the more I wanted to do those things. I bought a couple of guitars from Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace just to flip, and succeeded in making a profit on every one of them, even when the buyer was Guitar Center.

YouTube Glore!!
Throughout this whole time, I watched many YouTube videos, and followed many channels with great info on Guitar playing, fixing and building guitars, fixing, modding and building amplifiers, and electronics in general. Here are some which had the biggest influence on me:

Crimson Guitars: A gentleman in England with Biohazard symbol tattooed over his entire scalp, who shows in great detail how to build some very beautiful guitars
KnowYourGear: A guy in the Flagstaff, AZ area who has worked in the guitar and guitar paraphernalia selling/fixing/modding business for years, but now does YouTube full time.
UncleDoug: An Older guy who must be an Electrical Engineer, who teaches electronics theory and tons of info on tube amplifiers, like how to remove the "death capacitor from certain amplifiers, how to bias a new set of tubes, and who also happens to restore some really bad-ass automobiles
the Guitologist: This guy (a little younger than I am) takes old pieces of electronic gear which happen to use tubes, and converts them into guitar amplifiers. Like film projectors, watch timers, police scanners, radios, etc. He also fixes old guitar amplifiers and restores old radios and stereos. He can play quite well, and has been in bands, though not likely any I heard of.
Last but definitely not least: Rosa String Works! This older guy plays in a bluegrass band, but his channel is about mostly repairing instruments that people send him. Violins, cellos, guitars and mandolins mostly. He has also built his own saw mill from scratch (detailed in one or more videos), and is currently building an acoustic guitar from scratch in a series of videos. He made his own professional-grade guitar-side bending iron from scratch, as a part of this guitar build.

Long-Term Goal to Build a Tube Amplifier
I have had a goal for a long time now of building a tube guitar amplifier, but the parts are so very expensive if you go with a kit, and if you don't use a kit, it's very challenging to understand what parts to get and how to put it together. Just the wooden cabinet for a combo amp can easily cost a few hundred dollars, which is about as much as I've paid for any of my complete, working amplifiers, including the Crate Vitage Club 20. A 10" speaker looks to cost between $50 and $110, and the 2 transformers used by most tube amplifiers can cost $35 and $75 respectively (the best I can tell). A metal chassis for the actual amplifier part can run between $30 and $75, depending how fancy it is.
I discovered someone in my neighborhood builds guitar pedals, not just as a casual hobby, but possibly as a second income (he seems pretty advanced). By the time you get all the capacitors, resistors, switches, wire, sockets, and tubes (don't forget the tubes!) you are looking at $500-$1000 easily, depending on which model you are trying to build, and the quality of the parts you get. The hard part is ensuring the part you buy is quality by some other means than just throwing money at it.
But one day a few months back, when I had just a little money in my pocket, I was on Facebook Marketplace and found a 1955 RCA Ortheophonic radio and turntable console for $40. I jumped and got it.
It had tube amplifier and radio chassis inside!
So now I have tube amplifier I can really work on. Although 2 of the 3 speakers had the speaker lead ripped off at the braided wire behind the cone, this unit still picked up radio signals when I plugged it in and turned it on, and the turntable needle still produced sound when I moved my finger over it.
Unfortunately, my efforts to restore it so far have met with failure.
I replaced the paper and oil caps with new, polyethylene, orange-drop style capacitors, and the electrolytic capacitors with new electrolytic capacitors. Now when I turn it on, a large resistor in the power supply begins smoking within 20-30 seconds, and I have to turn it off immediately.
The good news is that just finding the right kinds of capacitors had educated me on the different uses for the different types of capacitors. The bad news is that I took something that sort-of worked and made it where it makes smoke.
Possible causes:

I mis-wired one of the new capacitors and somehow caused a short circuit
Something was already wrong inside the amplifier (like a bad tube), but one of the old capacitors was preventing that fault from causing the resistor to overheat, and when I put in new caps, that flaw was exposed (I don't see this as likely, but I'm just hoping it can be something other than I was trying to fix it and I broke it worse!).
Something else entirely (no idea what it could be)

Did I mention that this amplifier was constructed using point-to-point wiring? That means its insides look like this:

I don't know about you, but when I first saw electronics that looked like this inside, I had a hard time understanding how they don't start fires every time they are plugged in. Especially considering the fact that tube amplifiers like this regularly see internal voltages in the 100-300 Volt range.
Since I made the amplifier worse, I have built a current limiter, which will hopefully help me avoid burning up components before I can get the short fixed.
I have also extensively studied the schematic, and learned how power supplies in tube amps work. Now I have ideas on isolating the short so I can fix it.
Oh, I also have 2 more vintage radios. One is big and pretty, but solid state and ugly-sounding, and the other one uses tubes, and was built in Tokyo, Japan probably in the 60s (and it's cute). More on those later.

What is the future of work?

2018-08-20T10:50:00.000-07:00

This is a blog entry I last worked on in December of 2017. Like it says in the first line of the following paragraph, I often start but never finish posts like this. But I want to go ahead and publish this one because I think it's an important topic.

Over the past year or two, I have started a few posts on the topic of Work/The Future of Work, but I never finished or published them, because it's an amorphous concept at best for many people, and I try to keep my posts as understandable (if boring) as possible for anyone who finds them.

For many people this subject may be pretty new, and "out there." Someone unfamiliar with the concept may say or think "Work? People talk about that all the time!" But the topic I'm talking about is the nature of work itself to mankind in general.

I think one reason this topic is problematic for many is that people raised in societies built on Judeo-Christian values are told from childhood that 1) Good people enjoy work, 2) Bad people avoid work, and 3) God himself decreed in the Bible that mankind is to live by the sweat of his brow.

In this line of thinking, a loving God will always have work for man can find to perform, so why would anyone try to dream up a situation (except for extenuating circumstances) where there is no work? Not having work that needs to be done is an alien thought for many people, and to wish or dream for such a thing would even be considered 'sinful' by many. The problem is that "work" means so many different things to different people. If I hadn't had to do one type of work for 40+ hours a week at Taco Bell during my freshman and sophomore years of college, I may have accomplished a lot more in my life by now. Nonetheless, I would have still been working the entire time.

Even though spiritual and political leaders teach that work is good and avoiding hard work is lazy and bad, the free market has nonetheless pushed for the invention of technology which can perform every bit of labor needed in the world (harvesters, assembly line robots, roombas, etc.). Lately, this has even starting to include non-labor work (thinking and management), which only humans have been able to perform up to now. The acceleration of technology in general means that leaders should be thinking about where these trends will eventually take mankind.

Some background:

Many years ago, a man invented a series of science fiction stories set in a fictitious future, where mankind made a few breakthrough inventions which changed everything. We invented the ability to travel faster than the speed of light, and the ability to turn matter into a signal in one place, and then turn around and turn the signal back into the original object (or a copy of that object) in a different location, or at a later time. This allowed someone to step into a "de-materializing" machine in one location and step out of a "re-materializing" machine hundreds or thousands of miles away, in effect traveling without a vehicle. Perishable and non-perishable goods could also be scanned in, stored as signals (data), and later as many copies as needed could be replicated (materials, finished goods, fuel, even food).

They had no need to mine most precious metals or minerals, because they could just replicate whatever they needed. No need to farm when they could just replicate all the fruits and vegetables they needed (or even cooked dishes). No need to spin cloth or sew when they could just replicate all the cloth or clothes they need.

Because of this, (in this man's fictional future world), mankind stopped using money, and was no longer forced to live by the sweat of his or her brow. People did what they were passionate about instead of taking whatever job they could find which paid enough money to live. The people of the earth stopped fighting as countries against one another, and countries eventually disappeared. Instead of governments of countries on our planet, we joined a united federation of planets as a united earth.

If you haven't figure it out, or didn't already know, the man I'm talking about is Gene Roddenberry, and this science fiction world he created was the basis for the television show Star Trek.

Many who believe mankind was divided into races by God, and are destined to always fight against one another, might have a problem with this type of story. Others who firmly believe the link between work and starvation is the only thing stopping mankind from degenerating into worthless wastes of skin may also have a problem with a story like this. I’d like to think we have a brighter future than either of those things.

Star Trek was the first setting where I heard of the concept of work as we know it going away. Like most things in the Star Trek universe, I thought 1) much of it sounded awesome, and 2) It sounded very far-fetched. The funny thing about this is that since Star Trek first hit the television in 1966, more than a dozen pieces of technology like technology in this show have actually been invented. This includes automatic doors, tablet computers, voice-activated computers, GPS, bionic eyes for the blind, teleconferencing, real-time, vocal translators, and more. Is it possible that the amount of people working to feed and clothe all of mankind could be reduced to a small enough group of people that most people could choose their vocation based on what they were good or what they loved, instead of taking a job they hate, out of fear that they might otherwise starve or freeze to death?

Of course, this process has been in motion for decades. When America was founded, the overwhelming majority of jobs were agriculture-based.

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics says that as of 2016, only 3% of the US workforce has jobs in the agriculture sector. That includes, forestry, fishing, and hunting, wage and salary as well as self-employed. So even though Americans may still have to work to eat, 97% of us do not help produce food, lumber for housing, nor plant material for clothing. source

Only 8% of Americans work in manufacturing, (source) but it looks like less than 1% of that is in apparel manufacturing source

Another trend, at the heart of the reality prompting this blog entry, is that even though US manufacturing jobs have disappeared, output from our US factories has actually grown at the same time. source

Similar dynamics are occurring everywhere right now. Less people are needed by the big companies of the world to produce more output and make those companies even more money.

I think it’s great that less human labor is needed to feed and clothe every person in the world, due to advances in farming and manufacturing. Since the turn of the century, we have seen similar trends even in the white-collar world, where less and less people are needed to do the paperwork of and manage more and more people and things.

The good news is that many of the things we love in life end up costing less, since the company producing them must pay less to make them. What's the bad news? The bad news is this trend where the people with the money, the people who own the farms and the factories and all the companies in general, need you and I less and less as time goes on. Why do we care? We care because most of us are either not independently wealthy, or we have children who are not independently wealthy, or both. So most of us still count on jobs to provide ourselves and our family with food, shelter, and clothing, and for paying for an education, so we can have more of a choice over which jobs to take or create, and so the jobs we are offered or create are higher-paying jobs, giving us more freedom to choose what we want to do with our time.

We may never get rid of money like they did in Star Trek because we like the idea of owning things, and as long as we own things, there will be money of one kind or another.

The ugly reality that impossible to keep ignoring forever is that most, of the jobs now in existence could go away in the historically near future, due to advances in robotics and artificial intelligence. Conventional thinking would suggest that if this happens, huge portions, or even most people may not have work to perform, nor a way to support themselves. Trends in employment during my lifetime (born in 1972) have included less job security and the rise of the "gig economy," as less companies want the burden of employees (yet they still need people to do the work that lets their companies function). I can only see these trends increasing as AI and automation continue to eliminate human job positions.

You may say that overall growth still out-paces losses to automation and AI, and I think you would probably be right. At any point in history, we have been able to assume that there will be more total jobs tomorrow than there are today, because of growing populations, growing markets, and new markets invented as new products are invented. All of this has depended on a healthy, or at least a growing middle class. But the middle class has been reduced over the past few decades by the employment trends I named in the previous paragraph. Lack of consumer sector growth is just one non-ideological reason that a growing wealth disparity is a bad thing.

Regardless of your ideology, how much longer can the business world in general continue to make long-term plans based in continued overall growth across all markets? We have seen certain sectors' growth plateau in developed countries. One example of this is Coca-Cola. As much of a workhorse as that company was for the US economy for so many decades, their only growth market today is in developing countries. I believe the Coca Cola company was in fact recently bought by a Mexican-owned company. Does the developed world collectively even desire to contribute in this or similar ways to the developing world's potential childhood obesity epidemic, if they follow in our footsteps of soft drink addiction for all? If our continued ability to make money depends on each of the developing countries building their respective markets to anywhere near the strength of the current US market, we will undoubtedly need to continue to innovate as we will undoubtedly deplete the earth of certain important minerals, rare earths, clean air, etc.

Even if you don’t think automation will take your job in your lifetime or your kids’ lifetime, so many US positions are nonetheless affected by outsourcing of work overseas. And if one focuses only on protecting US jobs with stiff laws, this will even more and more money to be poured into automation research.

As widespread automation increases its effect of making larger groups of people unemployable for anything over a subsistence-level wage, many people with conservative leanings will see the majority of people being on a type of welfare as a great evil. Both conservative-minded and liberal-minded people know that human beings need a way to feel valued in society, for their own mental health, and right now (right or wrong), pay is largely how many people quantify their value in society. What will we will do about this. I am not aware of anyone of any ideology who looks forward to a society where people literally don't have any work to do, regardless of whether it results in starvation or not. Even in Star Trek, most Earth civilians I remember seeing were anxiously engaged in work of some sort.

Whether you are old-fashioned, and think idle hands are the work of the devil, or forward-thinking, and concern yourself more with whether each person can find his or her best and most creative place in the world, it seems we are headed for further thinning of the middle-class herd, and a larger disparity of wealth. Concern over wealth disparity should concern everyone, because it is the doing away of with the American dream, it shuts down class mobility, it is the perfect breeding ground for corruption, which eventually undermines law and order, eventually forcing those in power to choose between anarchy and fascism.

So when we get to the point where automation (including Artificial Intelligence) has replaced the lion's share of jobs in the world what is everyone else in the world going to do? I'm sure if it comes to that, there will be battles over words, whether the unemployable, who are desperate enough for food that they will take any job offered to them, are referred to as modern-day slaves or some yet-to-be-invented word. Half of the voting population will want the government to provide basic necessities for everyone, so that everyone has the opportunity to become educated enough to find challenging work that they enjoy, and the other half of the voting population will see a person's position in life (determined by who they are born to) as divinely appointed (a back towards feudalism).

Maybe by the time the artificial intelligence of the world turns into SkyNet and launches a war against mankind, it won't matter as much, since most of us will have starved to death by then

So far, NOT so good (Where has technology gotten us, and where is it taking us?).

2016-04-06T20:25:00.001-07:00

I consider myself a technophile; Understanding and using technology keeps a roof over my head and food on the table. And what an exciting ride the latter part of the 20th century has been for technology!

Even as far back as 100 years ago, there have always been established businesses (such as buggy-whip makers) in the position to be made obsolete by the latest cutting-edge technologies (like the automobile). The technologist's attitude has always been something like: "Luddites! Get with the times and stop worrying so much. When a door closes, a widow opens, if you pay attention and learn your binary math, like the rest of us.

If you are a farmer and the harvester is invented, learn to fix tractors instead. If you are a travel agent and the Internet now lets everyone book their own travel, learn to sell websites or SEO. If you are a clerk, and QuickBooks is invented, learn Business Intelligence. If you are a weather observer, and equipment takes your job, learn to support software for a living. Work your way back up from the bottom if you have to (again, this type of thing has been the mantra of all of us who don't want to be accused of yelling "who moved my cheese!")

There have always been people warning that robots and AI will eventually put the vast majority of blue collar workers out of a job. I avoided worrying about this because 1) that's a long way off 2) hopefully we can evolve as a society before this happens, where money isn't needed (you know, like in Star Trek) 3) technology has a lot to give humankind before it takes it all away, if that ever happens.

But the truth now is: 1) if they have self-driving cars on the streets RIGHT NOW, and "big dog" and bipedal robots that can carry hundreds of pounds effortlessly, then maybe it isn't so far off!

2) the past 25 years had the biggest increase in worker productivity in history, due to computers and other technologies. Has this resulted in any type of societal shift, where mankind as a whole realizes there is enough food and wealth to go around, and the most important thing in the world is he contribution you can leave for all of mankind? NO.

In fact:
3) Technology may still be giving mankind a lot, but it seems that not all are in the position to catch these blessings as they fall from the sky. The proof is in the pudding, and the aforementioned record-breaking productivity has resulted in:

1. Record-breaking profits for companies (especially really big ones)

2. Record-breaking layoffs for workers

3. Record-breaking hoarding of cash by multinational corporations in offshore shell corporations to protect from taxes. Panama Papers, just broke 3 days ago.

4. Record-breaking unemployment and under-employment for regular people

5. Record-breaking numbers of people signing up for government assistance

6. The decimation of the middle-class

7. The postponement of the American Dream for many while their salaries effectively stagnated for a decade.

8. Instead of society evolving, we actually seem to be getting worse. It's a presidential election year, and neither side of the political spectrum can stand their own candidates, much less the other side's.

9. Greed, corruption, graft, Machiavellism, etc. rules the day. Don't get me started on how close Donald Trump has come to running the whole thing literally (and the fat lady hasn't sung on that yet)!

If this is what somehow, eventually leads up to a Star-Trek utopia where people get to follow their passions I stead of following a carrot on a stick their whole lives, I'm not seeing it. And they haven't even invented a free-walking robot that fools people in the same room into thinking that they are real people yet.

But maybe it isn't technology we should fear, but what mankind does with technology.

2016-01-14T15:04:00.000-08:00

Today's blog contains a logical discussion on a political subject.
It was written to be readable from the viewpoint that Climate Change (CC) is the gospel truth, or from the viewpoint that CC is akin to witchcraft, and is tantamount to scaremongering. Please don't read your beliefs (or anyone else's) into my words; Assume I am neutral (if you believe in such a concept).
After watching Tomorrowland (2015 George Clooney, Hugh Laurie), it became much more clear in my mind why people who identify as conservative can be so much more resistive to the concept of Climate Change, and the implications that seem to be the natural results of that concept.
I was raised conservative, though I tend to identify more centrist these days. I have viewed the world from the conservative viewpoint for several years as an adult, so I could be qualified to make these observations.

The most generic definition of political conservatism is the resistance to change from the current state of things. Accepting CC and all its implications is a huge change, fundamentally, of mindset, regarding the relationship between man and the earth. Not a few conservatives have the mindset that the earth and all of the resources on it are, by design, created for the use of mankind. In addition to the Big Bang and Evolution, conservatives are also being asked to believe that, in fact, God did not create the earth for man to use as he sees fit. A conservative might say something along the lines of: "If the world as we know it is coming to an end due to our wickedness, where's our Noah?"
The other big (and more immediately affecting) change is how CC changes every single man-made system in the world, and how they work, going forward. The implications of Climate change are what really upsets a conservative's apple cart. Conservatives can easily be among those who intuitively understand what happens when there is a shortage of an important substance (I don't think many Doomsday Preppers vote Democratic very often). The shortage of a commodity can get ugly very quickly, unless there are viable alternatives, or unless the shortage is with something we can easily do without. Climate Change implies the eventual shortage of habitable land, fresh water, and other staples that are critical for survival in general. But those are the eventual consequences, while it is the more immediate changes accepting CC would require us to make which more adequately explain why it's so hard for a conservative to swallow the Climate Change pill whole. Those implications to which I refer are this: The only way to prevent a man-made CC apocalypse is for people to stunt the growth of everything man made. The faster anything grows (population, commerce, any sort of progress) the more resources it uses. Even if everyone agreed on the concept of Climate Change, there is no way everyone will agree on what mankind's collective response should be. Have less children? The total fertility rate across the globe has halved since 1960 because better health care and technology means we don't need to have as many children, and because birth control means that people can more realistically decide whether or not to have another child. Christians and Muslims are the only groups of people whose current population and fertility rates suggest a majority share in the foreseeable future. Christians in America fit nicely into the conservative corner, and right now, the idea of there being more Muslims in the world than Christians would seem to have a larger likelihood to influence their reproductive choices than Climate Change would.
I realize that this part of my theory requires a zero-sum mentality, and not all conservatives have one. I also realize that innovation has and will continue to minimize the negative impact that each person and each percentage of growth has on the earth, as long as we keep that goal in our priorities. But unless someone comes out with a technology that makes more people and more growth become somehow good for the earth, my point stands.
Growth and progress has been the constant theme for the world in recorded history. Growth and progress have been the trend for just about everything man-made (over time), since the history of ever (generally speaking). By "growth" I am talking about the growth of population, revenue, income, consumption, 'the tax base', the labor force, GDP, society, technology, etc., etc. For all intents and purposes, each of these things seems to be tied to all the others. Certainly no reasonable person advocates complete abandonment of progress for humankind altogether, but how do we divorce the growth of everything else from progress itself? I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm suggesting that it may be difficult enough that conservatives may prefer to try any number of things before embracing the slowing of all growth in general. If we are not immediately running out of resources, but the use of those resources is killing the planet, the most immediately obvious way to try to slow that effect is to pass laws that will seem to inherently prohibit growth itself. For the longest time, many conservatives have already believed that the concepts surrounding free enterprise and free markets are near to sacred, and conversely, nearly any artificial control of business or markets is the path to the dark side, with the potential to wreck whole economies, and enslave mankind in a socialistic or communistic hell of unintended consequences and central control of the country or the world by a small group of people ill-suited to run it.
America was founded on the idea that peoples' freedoms trumps any sort of "God-given" right of a king to rule said people. A major tenet of many American conservatives' belief system is the concept that any right not expressly given to the Federal government by the Constitution is effectively denied from the federal government, and reserved for more local governments to deal with as they see fit. So if you don't like a law in your state and can't get it changed, you have options to move to any of the other states where you like the laws better. Climate Change throws all of this out the window. In fact, the less advanced countries will likely continue to effect CC more than the more advanced countries who restrict their own citizens from climate-harming activities. Those less-developed countries will also easily benefit from those same rules as long as they are developed enough to compete in any way with the advanced contries, since they don't have to follow the same self-limiting laws. This creates all sorts of problems for people who run businesses and who don't want to see third-world countries and companies from those countries become more powerful relative to their own, because their own countries "shot themselves in the foot" with the self-imposed limits of climate change laws and rules.
Until recently, there were still scientists around who would argue that either CC is not proven science, or that mankind's causative actions are not proven to be the driving force behind it (so there is no way to know if anything we do will have a positive effect in preventing the bad consequences). I haven't personally taken a poll among qualified scientist (not that I would know how), but it seems that scientists who are willing to say any of this are now few and far-between, or they have been effectively silenced or discredited. The politics and hype around the entire subject has been so great that no evidence made readily available to everyday people can be considered unbiased.

None of what I have discussed (except the one sentence on innovation) does anything to help us take better care of our environment, but just in case anyone out there thought that conservatives are only willfully dense and stubborn, perhaps it can benefit everyone for these thought processes to be better understood.

Calls for Better Electronic Security for Automobiles

2014-08-09T04:35:00.004-07:00

This is a welcomed development: a grass-roots pro-cyber-security organization named I Am the Cavalry Group challenges automakers to step up their game in auto cyber-security.

They even have a 5-Star Safety Program:

Safety by design
Third Party Collaboration
Evidence Capture
Security Updates
Segmentation and Isolation

Will automakers respond to this challenge? Will it complement or even spur on their current efforts to share intelligence on security threats? Right now, I guess we will have to wait and see.

A Blast from the Past (Lexmark prebate program in the news).

2014-03-26T05:55:00.001-07:00

I wrote about Lexmark's "Prebate Return Program" way back in 2008, when I was the IT director at a private school. At the time, what I considered remarkable about the program was the fact that the court had ruled that the user of one of their "prebate program" printer cartridges was bound by law to the agreement printed on the package (what is known in the software world as a "click-wrap" agreement*). What made this notable to me was the fact that this was the first time I was aware of a court ruling that the agreement printed on the packaging of a physical product (as opposed to just software) is binding to the consumer, by the act of the consumer opening the packaging. Legally, users of these cartridges were agreeing, just by opening the box, to return the cartridge to Lexmark, as opposed to selling them to recyclers (or anyone else), and Lexmark, in return, priced these cartridges significantly less than cartridges that did not have this restrictive agreement. I felt that this threatened the first sale doctrine, though I didn't opine about it greatly at the time.

This program and Lexmark's surrounding business practices are in the courts again. In 2002, Lexmark sued a company who reverse-engineered the computer chip which determined whether a replacement cartridge was "genuine" or not, when said cartridge is inserted into a Lexmark Printer. Lexmark alleged that this company, Static Control Components, was violating the "no circumvention" clause of the DMCA. The logic was that since the chip somehow protects access to Lexmark's intellectual property, and a reverse-engineered chip mimics the authentication sequence used by Lexmark chips, and tricks the printer into accepting an aftermarket cartridge, it was circumventing Lexmark's intellectual property scheme. Or it may be simply because Lexmark's authentication scheme was patented, or both. If it was the former, I am not sure what intellectual property this embedded authentication chip scheme protected in the first place, unless they were referring to the automatic copyright on Lexmark's quarterly earnings statement (ha ha). Not only did Lexmark sue Static Control Components, but they also waged an agressive letter-writing campaign to companies who refilled printer cartridges (SCC's potential customers, who would potentially buy and embed SCC's chips on the cartridges they refilled, so that the refilled cartridges would work when a customer installed them into a Lexmark printer). These letters from Lexmark stated that Lexmark believed that SCC was violating copyright law.

The Supreme Court just ruled that Lexmark does have to stand trial over the false advertising that was allegedly committed by Lexmark when they sent out all those letters calling SCC lawbreakers, thereby damaging SCC's reputation.

Lexmark, meet chickens, chickens, meet roost (oh, you have already met). But not for the reason that had troubled (and continues to trouble) me in 2008.

*Of course, these days, in the software world, an end user license agreement is much more likely to be only a "click through" agreement than a click-wrap agreement, since there is no packaging on apps that simply download.

Disclaimer

2014-03-05T13:28:00.002-08:00

Here is the disclaimer that I promised in my previous post.:

My disclaimer:

I am not writing this blog in order to bless the world with my knowledge or anything silly like that (though some valuable information may or may not be included in my posts), but mostly, I want to foster healthy, informative discussions on topics that effect my life and the lives of those around me. I plan to facilitate this by expressing my own opinions. I welcome, even encourage other view points (as long as the discussion can remain civil) in comments to my blog entries. I hope to gain other perspectives as I go (not just be exposed to them, but to learn and grow, and include some of them into my own).

While I am at it, any opinions expressed in this blog are not necessarily the opinion(s) of any employer of mine, past or present.

Besides my B.S. in Information Technology from WGU Texas, and various IT industry certifications, I have zero formal credentials that would make me an expert on many of the topics about which I write. I am not an economist, an HR professional, or scientist of any type, nor am I a mathematician. I am not a lawyer, and I am not offering legal advice. I am not a doctor, and I am not offering medical advice. I am not a mental health care professional, and I am not offering personal counseling.

I reserve the right to remove comments that are offensive, or which take more away from the conversation than they add (assuming the Blogger comment system lets me). This is my blog; if you want to run the show, get your own blog (I understand they are free). If I am too busy making a living to support my family, I may not have the resources to cull the millions and millions of comments, so read them at your own risk.

Change in focus -Widening of future topics.

2014-03-05T11:14:00.002-08:00

Up to now, my blog posts (prolific as they are) have been focused on technology purely in a professional sense, including news and developments. But I have not written much based solely on my experiences or opinions.
But now, I have decided to make an effort to put forth more of my own experiences and opinions. My reasoning is that people can get news anywhere, but experience is harder to come by, so maybe this will make for better blog entries.
I may stray into areas that have less to do with technology and more to do with other aspects of my life. Since technology is pervasive, though, I will always stay in this neighborhood, only maybe it will be more interesting. From what I understand of how Google ranks blogs for authority, the variations in topics should ensure my continued lack of relevancy, even if the change manages to bring a reader or two my way (yes, that is self-deprecating humor).
I will likely ask as many questions as I attempt to answer.
Some areas that I anticipate possibly exploring:

Technology and its effects on unexpected aspects of life.
How data mining changed x
How GPS changed x
How additive manufacturing is changing x
How mobile technology changed or is changing x
Career development in today's world.
How IT itself has changed in the past x years.
How business has changed in the past x years.
They don't make 'em like they used to - business, competition, race to the bottom.
Grow or die--This is why we can't have (the same) nice things forever.
MBA's, degree or curse upon the earth?
Pendulums - don't they swing the other way at some point? (America in decline?)
America's role in the global economy of the future
Innovation - the difference between Crisis and Opportunity.
The future of America
The future of the developed world
Economic growth and sustainability (with and without the environmental overtones)

As I will cover in an upcoming disclaimer, my expectations are that I will hopefully foster thoughtful discussion. I hope whatever comment management scheme Blogger.com has in place will allow me to keep a handle on the state of reader comments. The last thing I want is to re-create the atmosphere of the old YouTube comments section (flame city).

Sounds like the Matrix has this one!

2013-11-01T06:46:00.001-07:00

Have you ever had one of those impossible-to-delete malware infections?

You know, no matter what you do, it keeps coming back?

You can't even boot from a CD-ROM, because it won't let you.

Furthermore, you unplug the network cable. And remove the network card, and it is still communicating with the outside world, somehow.

This bad boy (badBIOS, actually) they found out, was using the laptop's built-in microphone and speaker to communicate via ultrasonic sounds!

Good narrative here.

Be careful of who you link/friend, regardless of who else they know. Fake ID gets endorsements, job offers, etc.

2013-11-01T04:48:00.003-07:00

Something to think about when you get new LinkedIn or Facebook requests. Several security professionals befriended this fake social media identity (matching fake LinkedIn and FaceBook accounts) in this story.
This non-person received endorsements and job offers. Some offered to help her get a laptop at her new job that would help her get access to things she would not have otherwise had access to.
When "she" sent out an e-card around Christmas time, it contained a link to some software that installed spyware on people's computers. It required their interaction to allow it to install, but it worked very well anyway.
I think my number one takeaway from this story is the fact that the first people duped into linking up and friending this fake person gave her the credibility to link up with other people who would not have been fooled otherwise.

Latest Java Update. They sure have been busy this year (especially for this one)!

2013-04-19T04:47:00.000-07:00

If you use Java, as my job requires me to, then it's time for another Java Update.
Apparently, this time, they plugged 42 security holes in Java, 19 with base CVE score of 10 (the highest you can go) and 39 related to the Java Web Start plugin which can be remotely exploited without authentication.
That almost makes it sound safe now, doesn't it?
If you are somewhat new to this, don't forget to uncheck the Ask.com option at the appropriate point, or else you are going to get some crapware installed on your computer (if it's not already there). Like I told a friend of mine, I think the Java department of Oracle is going to be sending Ask.com Christmas cards this year (due to all the revenue Ask.com must be sending Oracle's way for all the sneaky installations they are slipping onto people's computers along with each new Java patch).

The Devil's in the Details

2013-04-19T03:30:00.000-07:00

Here is something that should be pretty obvious, but which I have not heard anyone else comment on. So I am going to comment on it. This is an incidental advantage of all the advances that have been made in digital photography and digital video. Specifically, the vast increase in resolution the typical cameras owned and used by people today, combined with the ubiquity of the internet.
I first noticed it after my wife and I had been watching the new Dr. Who series for a while (after the series was (re)started in 2005). I noticed that I "felt" like I had visited London, to some degree, because of all the on-location Dr. Who footage I had been watching. It hit me that background details are so much more visible in HD than they were in NTSC*.

So I imagine this is true for any current show which shoots on location somewhere. I generally don't watch TV besides The Walking Dead (Hello, downtown, deserted Atlanta). And after looking at so many high-definition still pictures of downtown Boston (after the unfortunate Boston Marathon bombings recently), I have a feel for what downtown Boston looks like.

And this isn't even getting into locations included in a modern video game. Most are fabricated, but some locations are modeled to some degree after real locations, with varying degrees of accuracy. How many gamers feel like they have actually been aboard the Normandy from Mass Effect, or the Pillar of Autumn from Halo? What is your favorite place to "visit," which doesn't really exist? The island in "Far Cry?" Not being a genuine, dyed-in-the-wool gamer, I imagine there are lots of places in games that I have never experienced which would rate far better than the ones that I have mentioned.

Anyway, to you young whipper-snappers, back in my day, it took some darned good game programming to make someone feel like they had really been inside your game. You guys have it lucky!

*Yes, I imagine the older Dr. Who was shot and broadcast in PAL standard, but by the time I watched the older Dr. Who episodes, they had been converted to NTSC, because I lived (and still do) in the US, and my only access to the older episodes was via PBS (which was only broadcast in NTSC, like the rest of US over-the-air programs).

120 GB SSD HD for $100 and no one cares

2012-12-17T06:05:00.001-08:00

I just noticed 2 things:
1) On Ben's Bargains (http://bensbargains.net/) this morning, there is a 120 GB SSD HD for only $100.

2) No one cares, as evidenced by the hotness meter:

Is this because it is a low quality SSD hard drive, or because market prices for SSD hard drives have dropped this low without me noticing?
I hope it is because of #2. Anyway, happy shopping (only 5 shopping days left until Christmas).

Edit12/18/2012: Someone else noticed the trend, also:
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/12/ssd-prices-are-low-and-theyll-get-lower/

2012-09-29T15:39:00.000-07:00

So I was with my wife last night at my daughter's 30-minute-long junior high school band concert. I took a couple of pictures of the scene with my Iphone 4s, including an obligatory panoramic shot using iOS 6's new panorama feature. A few minutes later, I watched the approximately 12-year old girl in front of me recording video of the proceedings with an iPad. In the back of my mind, I had been aware of how my "sweep of the arm" panorama capture could have possibly been perceived by those present (trying to show off my tech-savvy, my "iOS6-edness", etc.). But watching a "tween" hold up a full-color, 11-inch display, only one row in front of me like it was a very large, very shaky flip-phone, the absurdity of the visual overcame me, and I was a little bit embarrassed for her. Not that she wanted or needed me to be, but I was, nonetheless. She couldn't care less. Her parents didn't care. Had she been able to see it from my perspective, I still doubt she would care. Such is the blessing of being young and carefree (not that I would remember).
My mind, being the dry-humored mind that it is, decided that it needed to satirize the moment by figuring out how to take it to the next level. Here is what I came up with:
"Honey, I have decided that from now on, I am going to only take panoramic pictures with my iPhone. After all, it is the logical next step in the evolution of photography."
I can't remember exactly how I got across to her that I was only kidding (maybe being married to me for 16 years did the trick). I told her to imagine that we were taking group pictures at some event, and I said "Say cheese!" Then I did the slow panorama arm-sweep with my phone, "capturing" much more than what would have been necessary to get the imaginary group posing in front of me. We laughed.

The really funny thing about this is that the latest new fads are indistinguishable from a jokes like this (where something sort of cool is taken to the absolute extreme).
Example: "From now on, I am going to do all my blog posts from my phone, each of 140 characters or less. After all, it is the logical next step in the convergence between blogging and mobile technology."
or
"Virtualization is good; let's virtualize servers. And telephones (Skype, etc). No, on second thought, let's virtualize a whole laptop (chromebook). No, on third thought, let's virtualize everything (the Cloud)."
or
"Multi-player is good; let's make everything multiplayer. Even appointment reminders (flash mobs), and blogs (Web 2.0) and handheld games (literal).
or
"Streaming video is good. We finally got network latency that is so low that someone could virtualize an entire massively multiplayer game on the server, and just send the streaming video of the results back to the player (Onlive). On my tablet. Or phone.
or
Tablets are good. From now on, we will develop an OS only suitable for tablet computers, even for desktop and laptop computers. We will allow people to open a desktop UI if they want to, but every time they try do anything at all, we will yank the desktop UI away and shove the tablet UI back into their face. After all, it's just the next logical step in the evolution and convergance of evolution and convergance.

Wait...

Installing iOS 6

2012-09-20T05:38:00.000-07:00

I admit, I have historically been a bit behind when it comes to wireless technology. I didn't get my first cellphone until 2004, and even then, it was one of the previous year's models (Sony Ericcson candy bar phone) that only cost a penny with a 2-year subscription. My next upgrade was a Windows Mobile (it came with Windows Mobile 5, but I quickly upgraded it to Windows Mobile 6) Samsung Blackjack (1)-This was probably a week before the Blackjack 2 phones came out, and I got my Blackjack 2 for a penny. A few years later, I graduated to a genuine Smartphone, one of the smallest android phones ever made, which also had 2 or 3 names, depending on who you ask. It was an HTC Intruder/Aria/Liberty. I got it for a penny (don't act surprised). It ran Android Froyo, which I quickly upgraded to Gingerbread. Then, I graduated to a real smartphone with a real screen and battery, the HTC Inspire (got it for a penny on Black Friday or Cyber Monday, I forget which). It was a single-core processor phone as dual-core processor phones were coming out. It came with Gingerbread. I rooted it and put a custom ROM on it, but I don't think I got ICS on it in the process. Before I had that phone for very long, my new job (at the time - March 2012) got me a phone, and my choices were basically either Blackberry or iPhone 4S. I went with Apple, gave the Inspire to my wife (as hers had been dropped resulting in her camera only taking X-rays instead of photographs), and I made my backup phone my small HTC Aria.
So, although I didn't get it until it had been out for nearly 6 months, I had the latest Apple phone. I am moving up in the world.
Only having my iPhone 4S for 6 months, I know I won't be one of the first to get an iPhone 5. But I am one of the first to get the associated iOS6!
As of yesterday, iOS 6 launched. I checked during the day, and no software update was available on my phone. Last night, it was available, but kept timing out.
This morning, I started downloading it. I had to leave for work, and I knew it would likely not continue to download without wi-fi, so I had to turn on the wireless hotspot feature on my HTC Aria to keep the download going while I drove to work.
It unpacked for a long time, then installed, then rebooted.

It finally finished the reboot. Can't wait to take it for a spin!

Kids are awesome because they don't know any better yet

2012-04-17T06:09:00.003-07:00

I love this presentation!
The presenter does a good job of presenting the information in a way that everyone can relate to.
One part that is really interesting is at 11:05 in the persentation, when he shows the methods that they use to "rewire" people's brains to be more optimistic. I have heard of most of these before somewhere.

WiFi Protected Setup too easy to be good? Yep.

2012-01-03T05:03:00.000-08:00

Just like Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols says in his blog entry of 28 December, 2011, I, too never liked WiFi Protected Setup. It is one of those solutions designed to take something reasonably easy and make it idiot-proof. When it comes to security, unless you know how something works behind the scenes (or unless it has been around long enough to be proven by time and enough eyeballs), you trust it at your own peril.

The bottom line here is for anyone responsible for a network that contains even one access point that may have WiFi Protected Setup as a feature needs to make sure that this feature is turned off. And know that it is normally turned ON by default on devices that it is included on.

Don't use both cables at the same time

2011-11-18T13:34:00.000-08:00

I work consumer computer support. Today, I took my second case where the customer has a nice Dell computer with a nice monitor, but sometimes the start menu, task bar, and the icons don't show up. This happens because the computer thinks that there are 2 monitors connected to the computer, and the output showing on the monitor is for the second monitor. If you have ever had a dual-monitor setup, you know that one of the monitors is considered the main display, and has the task bar, start button , and the icons that initially show up on the screen. The secondary monitor will show any icons that are dragged over to it, but there is no task bar or start button.

What happens is that the monitor that comes with this computer is a versatile monitor, and is equipped with both an old-style (VGA) connector, as well as a new-style (DVI) connector, so that no matter which type of connector your computer has, this monitor can connect to it without having to use an adapter. The computer is similarly versatile, having both a VGA and a DVI output, so that no matter which type your computer has, you can hook it directly to the computer without an adapter. It also allows you to use the VGA connector for one monitor, and the DVI connector for a second monitor.

These customers were doing what most computer users do: they unpack the computer, and stick all the cables into the ports that match up. In this case, they end up with 2 cables connecting their monitors to their computers, making the computer think they had a dual-monitor setup. It's not a big deal at first, because the main display is the one that is displayed on the only monitor. But when the computer goes to sleep and then is awakened (or sometimes when it starts up), it somehow sends the signal for the second monitor to the only monitor, thus showing a screen with a background, but no icons, task bar, or start button.

The fix is simple: don't use both cables at the same time! :)

2011-10-20T15:55:00.001-07:00

I just read Slashdot's collective opinion on this Rossi guy and his exothermic reaction generator named e-cat. It ain't good. Ah, well. Maybe one day...

Cold Fusion? We've heard that one before...

2011-10-20T15:34:00.000-07:00

There is a man named Andrea Rossi who not only claims to have finally discovered cold fusion, but has a worldwide demonstration planned for October 28, 2011. I found out about it from Mark Gibbs at network World. I must have been slacking in reading slashdot to not have heard about it through that website first. Man, it will be nice if this thing is real. It would upset so many people's oxcarts (disruptive technology) that who knows exactly how it will effect my own life. It seems like it would have to put the price of oil through the floor. The materials involved in the process would become worth so much more than they are currently.

I guess I'd better get over to Slashdot and see what all of those eggheads think about it.

2011-08-17T17:05:00.000-07:00

Since my last post, I have moved to Dallas!

I got a one-year contract doing phone and e-commerce support at a really, really big software company. I have been working the 7pm-4am shift for the past month, but starting next Monday, I get to climb up the seniority ladder to the 3 PM to midnight shift. This is good for me trying to finish my degree, and other things.

When we moved, my wife spent a lot of time picking out the house that we would lease, because she wanted to not make me commute an hour each way, but she wanted to move where the schools were really good, because she wanted to put our kids back into school. She has been homeschooling for 7 years, and only wanted to stop homeschooling if the schools she was putting the kids into were really good. So we ended up about 40 minutes from my work, in a north Dallas suburb where the rent is high and the schools are all rated "exemplary."

We have been here about 2 months now, and we have only had ONE day since we got here that the temperature didn't reach 100 degrees. Wow.

Anyway, maybe by the time I post again, I will have a more permanent job, but at least this one pays good. $5 more per hour than back when I worked directly for this very, very large software company (so it's the most I have ever made before).

Oh, BTW, I realized that I need to be a developer instead of a non-developer IT person. The future of IT people making lots of money does NOT rest with people who do support or maintain infrastructure. It rests with project managers and developers. I recently applied for a Software Development Engineer Test position, but haven't heard anything.

washer back up, and a call from Bentonville

2011-04-07T18:55:00.000-07:00

So continues the story of the broken $1000 washing machine:

My wife gave me her strong opinion that she would order the part new, but then caught herself, backtracked and said she trusts my judgment, whatever I order, because this is my project. All well and nice, but I couldn't very well order the used part now, on the off chance that it may go bad sometime in the next 10 years, making me wrong about something that she was right about. I'm sure she meant what she said about trusting me, and that she wouldn't say "I told you so," if that actually happened, but still...

Anyway, the new part came today, and after I got home from work, I put the washing machine back together. I ran a test load, and no water ended up on the floor. I am happy. I wonder how much it would have cost to have someone come out and look at it (I wonder how much I saved). I guess I'll never know.

In other news...

So I got a call out of the blue from a guy at a very large retail chain who happens to headquarter in Bentonville, Arkansas yesterday (think King of Retail). He ran across my resume somewhere, and wanted to know if I would be able to work during the hours of 6am to 6pm if they were to offer me a job. Apparently, they have had too many people go through the interview process, only to turn the job down because they can't work the hours needed (maybe they all are in school or something). I said yes, and we set up a longer, more involved call for today.

So he calls me back today, and lays out a really cool job scenario: they are the Unix Administration team for this large (understatement) corporation, and they support the Unix systems that run the whole business. He wants to interview me for a member of that support team. It would be first line support (internal customers, obviously). He said that his people get poached all the time to manage other areas in the IT part of this major corporation, because of the awesome stuff they learn on this team. Sounds compelling. But because of my level of education and experience with Unix (or lack thereof on both counts), they would only be able to offer me $13 per hour. That's $4 less than I make now, and it doesn't go very far with a wife and 4 kids.

It killed me to do it, but I had to tell him that I wouldn't be able to live on that salary, so I shouldn't waste his time any further. Then I cried. No, I didn't really cry, but the more I look back on it, I want to a little bit. He said I was the only person outside his local area that he was even calling about the job. I feel really flattered for even getting the call. I am having faith that when the right time comes, I will get the right job in the right place.

That's a real nice washer you got there. It'd be a real shame if anything happened to it...

2011-04-02T20:32:00.000-07:00

The picture here isn't of me nor is it an avatar of mine. I ran across it today on the internet, and it gave me a good laugh. Let me tell you the story:

So the washing machine decided to dump a few gallons of water on the floor today. Awesome.

We already had a packed schedule for today and tomorrow, and now we have water on the laminate flooring soaking into the dirty clothes piled in front of the washing machine. And I had to leave the house within an hour. So I googled "how to open a kenmore oasis," and got some basic instructions to remove the fasteners at the back of the machine, and then the whole top will flip up towards the front.

On my model, apparently, there was a little more to do. Several wires had to be unplugged from the main circuit board, and there was still the grounding wire running from the top part to the lower part of the machine, which wasn't allowing the top to flip up. And that is how I had to leave it while I went to my church meeting. When I got home, I continued to take the machine apart, and was able to remove the offending green grounding wire. After that. the whole top part, including the hose connections, and the part where the electrical plug wire attaches to the machine, easily lifted off the bottom part of the washer. Weird.

So then, to make a long story short, I was able to lay the bottom part of the machine on its side, and see where water was dripping from. It was one of the 2 pumps (the larger of the two) that pump water to various places. The more expensive of the two pumps, apparently. I found a metal part inside it, which had apparently punched a hole in the side of the pump, allowing water to leak out. It also broke off one of the impeller blades inside the pump, and may have royally messed up the pump motor shaft (It feels a bit loosey-goosey, but I don't know what it's supposed to feel like in the first place). The sticker on the side of the pump says, among other things Part No. W10049390, and also made in Italy.

So I googled the part, and find it on a few places, including eBay. The part looks to be around $70.00. But one of the places I see has it for $51.75. The domain name of the place is (yes, in all caps), PICKMRAPPLIANCE.COM. a domain name in all caps for no apparent reason alone is enough to scare me off. There was no picture of the part, which was another reason for me to not trust the site. Then there was the slogan on the website: "PICKMRAPPLIANCE--YOUR PARTS SPECIALIZE." Okay, so I imagine there are plenty of honest e-store proprietors who happen to have some language other than English as their first language. But then I really notice the picture of the person on the website.

It was if he was saying,"That's a real nice washing machine you got there. It'd be a real shame if anything were to happen to it." I almost want to buy from this website just to see what I get from them.

2010-07-27T21:25:00.000-07:00

So my wife's new laptop stops working tonight, when my 11-year-old daughter accidentally pops out the battery while the thing is not plugged in, and is under a heavy load.
The only thing it would do is give the Dell splash screen then say F2 for setup F12 for Boot Menu and then no matter what option you chose (or if you chose no option), it would go to a black screen and the following words would display in white:
time-of-day clock stopped .

I googled this message, and it appeared that either the motherboard battery was dead, or some data got scrambled (or maybe both). Others said that replacing the CMOS battery did the trick. Since I had some CR2032 batteries in the house, I downloaded the maintenance manual and got to work. I only had to remove the hard drive, the DVD drive, the heat sink assembly, the display, the palm rest, a daughterboard, the motherboard, and flip the motherboard over to get to the CMOS battery. It only took about 2.5 hours to disassemble, replace the battery, and reassemble the laptop. It worked, by the way. Simply removing the battery and putting it back in may have also fixed the problem, but unlike a desktop computer, where you can test it while the case is still open, I pretty much had to reassemble the whole thing before testing the fix. I can, however, test the battery I took out with a meter, and if it reads normal, I can use that less-than-six-months-old battery in something else.