Internet Censorship

•August 8, 2011 • Leave a Comment

Internet Censorship is a tricky thing, I think mostly due to peoples attitude toward censorship. You’re either for it or against it.

Don't these guys look tough

The internet was originally conceived as a computer network that would be able to continue operating while sustaining damage that might occur in a nuclear war.

Initial work on the internet was started in the late 1960′s and since then things have gotten more sophisticated with various ways to attack and defend. I like the words “Network Security”, they seems to imply everything needed to ensure that your communications go through as intended.

Censorship can be viewed as a form of damage. Internet technologies have sprung up to prevent that this type of damage. There is an ongoing battle between the censors and the anti-censors. Today I bumped into an article here that refers to a new technology that promises another tool for the anti-censors. If that link goes down here is a link to a page of one of the authors of the technology. If that link goes down you can just do a search for his name “J. Alex Halderman”. And if that link also goes down then it means the sensors, oops I meant censors, have won the battle.

And finally here is a quote from Alex’s blog

“I’m pleased to announce a research result that Eric Wustrow, Scott Wolchok, Ian Goldberg, and I have been working on for the past 18 months: Telex, a new approach to circumventing state-level Internet censorship. Telex is markedly different from past anticensorship efforts, and we believe it has the potential to shift the balance of power in the censorship arms race.”

Read more at his blog, he has an easy to understand description of the problem and solution…

Evoluent Mouse

•January 19, 2011 • Leave a Comment

Evoluent Mouse Review: In short, the best mouse I have ever used, though it is far from perfect.

Back when I was young, ergonomics meant nothing. I was made out of rubber and could adapt to just about everything. Now that I’m old and rigid, there is only one way and that is “My Way”.

the Poor & the Better

How can this mouse be the best, and still be far from perfect? I suspect the answer lies, in the modern drive to reduce cost and do whatever everyone else is doing.

It is the best because:

1) When used the wrist is in it’s most natural position thus reducing some of the most common strain. Most mice have your palm resting parallel to the working surface. Most other ergonomic mice rotate the wrist slightly in the direction of moving the thumb up. The Evoluent mouse does the rotation a full 90 degrees. If you let your hand hang down by your side and then raise it up to the hand shake position, you will find that your wrist is in the “Evoluent” position. Very natural and restful.

2) The mouse buttons work well. The action is light, positive and with good tactile feedback.

3) The mouse slides well with less effort than any other mouse I’ve used. The lowest friction mouse pad I have is from Fellows, with this pad the Evoluent mouse slides too easily. I now use the mouse on bare pine wood.

The bad:

1) When grasped normally your wrist is rotated almost 90 degrees. This means that only a small part of the wrist is in contact with the desktop, resulting in a stress point where the wrist contacts the desktop. If you look at that “Fellows” mouse pad you’ll see it comes with a palm support intended for use with a regular mouse. Well the Evoluent needs something similar but tailored for the wrist in a verticle position and it should be integrated into the mouse. My current solution is to grasp the mouse so my wrist does not contact the desktop. In this position the weight of my hand/arm is supported by my palm resting on the mouse. After a month of use, this has been a reasonable solution, although my fingers no longer align perfectly with the mouse buttons and wheel.

2) With the wrist in the verticle position your fingers are now elevated and subject to the weight of gravity. There needs to be some contouring of the mouse buttons to support the fingers in their proper position. With my adaptation of using my palm to support my arm weight mentioned above the fingers no longer droop in response to gravity, but as mentioned they are not perfectly aligned with the mouse buttons.

3) The wheel is one of the best around but still a long way from perfect. It has detents that serve to indicate definitive wheel action, such as, to scroll a single line for each detent. Depending on the software application used, these detents may correspond perfectly or not. This deficiency in correspondence is probably an industry deficiency and not something a mouse manufacturer can get right at this point in time. As usual the industry is in no hurry to implement a correction. In a perfect world the wheel would not have detents and some magic would detect when we intended a discrete response from wheel movement. I have never used a detentless wheel that worked well, where are the good engineers when you need them?

4) It is hard to pick up the mouse without depressing a button. This can be quite a pain especially when constrained to a mouse pad of limited size.

Moving the Evoluent Mouse:
1) Movement top to bottom is the same as a traditional mouse. Sideways movement on the other hand is different due to the differing orientation of the wrist. With Evoluent mouse I can move my wrist through 120 degrees. With a standard mouse I can move 60 degrees. Score one for the Evoluent. I also have better control in my sideways motion both in terms of fine motor control as well as in maximum force, score two for the Evoluent.
2) Because sideways movement is different some people are not going to like it. I personally had no problem adjusting.

Other additional points:

1) The palm rest and wheel are covered in a non slip rubber like material that works well. While the bottons are covered with a slippery material. Well done.

2) It is a USB mouse, which is good and bad. In most ways USB is not as good as PS/2, but our idiotic industry is moving to USB. Laptops do not support PS/2, but then laptops don’t do anything well except be portable. The PS/2 was designed specifically for the mouse and keyboard and works well, while the USB was not (e.g. USB has limited key roll over and response can be slow, may be important when gaming). Although I have not tested this, the dedicated hardware interface and interrupt driven nature of PS/2 should provide more robust and quicker response than USB. The PS/2 uses pin and socket electrical contacts while the USB uses the much less robust edge contact. USB has one nice advantage over PS/2 and that is, Plug and Play support. When Plug and Play was invented the boys decide not to include PS/2 because it was different, and not because it couldn’t be done (Those boys were just plain idiotic). In practice, lack of Plug and Play for PS/2 is not a big deal. It means that the mouse and keyboard must be plugged in when power is turned on (The mouse and keyboard are always plugged in, except for laptops). Once the computer is up and has recognized the mouse and keyboard, you can swap PS/2 mouse and keyboards. At this point in time 2011, I think all desktop computers support both USB and PS/2, while laptops only support USB. Another small point, most computers have limited USB ports, and I don’t like using two of these slots for mouse and keyboard, especially on a laptop.

3) The length of the USB cord is much longer than normal, easily allowing connection to a floor mounted computer. It could still be a couple feet longer supporting even stranger computer positions such as the one I use (I employ a USB extension cord). Of course in the ideal world there would be no cord. In our world the cordless models often leave too much to be desired.

4) Like many USB mice and keyboards the Evoluent comes with special software that must be installed to get access to all it’s buttons and activate vendor specific features. This is just idiot industry nonsense that no sensible consumer should put up with. Without the vendor S/W you get a two button wheel mouse, which is just fine by me (but I would like a good thumb button, but not enough to install S/W that may or may not work well).

I purchased my Evoluent mouse from NCIX.com because these guys are in the habit of trying to offer good equipment which is kind of rare these days.

Now, further on the subject of “good”, why is it that in my search for a decent mouse I could only find one and that was this Evoluent mouse.

Heat Pump Problems

•November 21, 2010 • Leave a Comment

I have what is known as a ground sourced heat pump. What this means is that there are two wells. Water is pumped up to the heat pump from the first well. The heat pump extracts the heat from the water and returns the now colder water back into the ground via the second well. The heat is transfered to air and blown into the house to keep it nice and snug in the winter. The process can also be reversed to cool the house in the summer, like an air conditioner, but on steroids.

Waterfurnace Heat Pump, notice the spare parts, tools and commentary

This is all supposed to be super duper green technology. The heat pump is supposed to consume only 1/5 the electric power as a conventional furnace. Sounds good, don’t it. The basic mechanism of the heat pump is the same as a typical refrigerator and these things are very reliable. Sounds even better until you hear the real life practical matters.

When we bought the house it came with a heat pump which included an electric furnace backup. Well this original heat pump self destructed within two months of us taking up residence in the house during one of the coldest winters on record. While I dicked around getting a replacement we burned 14 cords of wood in the wood burning stove. That is a lot of wood (basically a truck load), and this with the electric furnace backup working full time.

It turned out that installing a conventional high efficiency furnace was going to be about the same price as replacing the heat pump including a ten year warrantee, that the conventional furnace did not have. So we went with the new heat pump approach. Now, the old heat pump had failed because the well water had corroded the heat exchanger in the heat pump (heat exchanger is a radiator). So I had the water tested to find out exactly how corrosive it was. Turns out the water wasn’t bad but it wasn’t good either. So as an option on the new heat pump we got the super Nickle Copper heat exchanger that would be immune to the effects of the water. And in due course the thing was installed and everything was great for two years. At the two year mark the first of many well pumps failed in the middle of winter of course. Replacing a well pump in the middle of winter is no fun, but being without water is even worse, read, the toilets don’t work.

We are now coming up on the fifteen year mark of the new heat pump. We are on our fourth well pump, and with installation, they are not cheap. Just before the ten year warantee expired the heat pump died and then it’s control circuit also went. But the warantee did pay up and we only had to endure two weeks of ineffectual heating while repairs were effected. Now we have a benchmark of how long the heat pump is going to last.

But that is not all… Copper pipe running to the heat pump has three times needed to be replaced along with the troubles of no heat and water leaking all over the place. The water pump control circuit has been replaced twice. But the biggest pain has been the water valve that regulates water flow to the heat pump. That sucker has died four times. This valve is electrically operated under the control of the heat pump and it’s not cheap. There have been lots of other problems, I don’t think we have ever gotten through a heating season without at least one visit from the service guys.

I put the blame squarely on the shoulders of my heat pump manufacturer Waterfurnace.Not only does the heat pump itself need to be more reliable but all the ancillary equipment also needs much better reliability.

These ground sourced heat pumps place huge demands on the water systems. Demands that typical water systems are not designed to deal with. Effectively, in winter time the furnace kicks in and it does not shutdown until spring. This means that the water is running full time.

On the positive side… when this thing is running it runs well. Low risk of fire. Efficient. Green, no smoke. Cooling is really powerful. Good quiet variable speed fan. Reasonable air filter.

Other beefs (may write about these later):
Thermostats
Water analysis
Well pumps
Support for heat pumps (Not too many organizations provide repair services)
Water systems
Electrical systems
Backup heat

Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R Motherboard Boot Problem

•November 21, 2010 • Leave a Comment

The GA-X58A-UD3R motherboard doesn’t boot consistently (Mostly it fails to boot).

I’ve finally tracked the problem down to an incompatibility between the BIOS version (FA) and the SSD (Solid State Drive).

The boot problem occurs when the Sata Hard Disk Drive (HDD) is also plugged in, as in the normal situation where we have the primary disk as the SSD (drive C:) and the secondary disk as the HDD (drive D:). If the HDD is unplugged the system boots just fine.

The solution appears to be to update the BIOS to version FC from the original FA version. Now she still doesn’t boot properly.

Curiously Gigabyte does not recommend updating the BIOS unless there is a problem. They site the fact that re-flashing the BIOS is risky. I say, the development team has not finished their job until re-flashing the BIOS is safe.

I should also state that the GA-X58A-UD3R motherboard is the Rev 2.0 version.

I’m placing this info on the web so that it may hopefully help others. When I was having my boot problems I couldn’t find reasonable help on the web.

Since I originally wrote this article I’ve upgraded the SSD to a Vertex3 120 Gbyte model and the computer is now booting much more reliably. I originally bought the smallest SSD that would do the job the Vertex2 60 GByte model, figuring that by the time I needed more space the price and speed of the SSD’s would have come improved. Well in 10 months the speed has improved as the next generation is out, but the price hasn’t moved much.

Oh, and by the way moving Windows 7 from the old SSD to the new one was a pain in the ass, thanks Microsoft. You know, moving the operating system to a new drive is something that should be expected on any computer through it’s life time and thus it should really be simple.

Here are the other particulars of the computer that might be relevant:

CPU – i7-950
CPU heat sink – Noctua NH-D14
Motherboard – Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R version 2.0
BIOS updated to version FC
Memory – G.SKILL F3-12800CL9T-6GBNQ 6GB DDR3 3X2GB DDR3-1600 CL 9-9-9-24 Triple Channel Memory Kit
SSD – OCZ Vertex 2 Extended Sandforce 60GB 2.5IN SATA2 Solid State Disk Flash Drive SSD
HDD – Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB – internal – 3.5″ – SATA-300 – 7200 rpm – buffer: 32 MB (ST31500341AS)
Bluray – Samsung SH-B123L 12X BD-ROM & DVD Burner Combo
Graphics card – ASUS EAH5450 SILENT/DI/512MD2 (LP),RADEON HD5450
Case & PS – Antec Sonata III 500
OS – Windows 7 Home Premium 64b

Musical Tuning

•May 20, 2010 • Leave a Comment

Hah ha I knew something was amis.

Turns out that notes in tune are not perfect steps. Check this article “The centuries-old struggle to play in tune“.

from the article… “There have been some 150 tuning systems put forth over the centuries, none of them pure. There is no perfection, only varying tastes in corruption.”

The kids, Yamaha Acoustic Guitar

The Digital Elites

•January 29, 2010 • Leave a Comment

I’ve just finished reading an article from the BBC.

It would appear that we use the web through filters and the most pervasive of the filters are the search engines. This quote from the BBC article is kind of disturbing; “The search engine works on a principle of the “madness” or “wisdom” of crowds, basing its results on which websites receive the most links to their pages.”

Caterpillar web

The Web

If that is true then it leads me to believe that without change the web will deteriorate into something akin to our crappy TV. I’m hoping that the web will continue to evolve and that our filters improve.

The Bicycle

•October 12, 2009 • Leave a Comment

The Bicycle has got to be a significant technological innovation.

Click here for a summary of Bicycle History.

Over then next little while I intend to update this page with more bike technology.

First the bike transmission. Unfortunately we are currently saddled with chain derailleurs as the ubiquitous bike transmission.
1)They have a hard time covering the range of gear ratios needed. Current tech probably provides gear ratios that satisfy the rider that has spent the time to build vary large and durable leg muscles, but it does not provide adequate ranges for more normal people riding in environments where there are hills.
2) Derailleurs require constant maintenance.
3) Derailleurs are difficult to shift well.
4) Derailleurs are difficult to get a continuous set of gear ratios at the right spacing (Typically you need to shift both front and back derailleurs to get progressive gear ratios).

Next, what looks like on paper a bunch of decent bike transmission (All very expensive).

Rohloff Speed Hub – 14 properly spaced gear ratios, with no derailleur crap.

Rohloff Bicycle Transmission

Rohloff Bicycle Transmission - 14 properly spaced gear ratios

A user gives his impression of the Rohloff Speedhub – real life feedback, with criticism and comparison to Derailleurs.

Shimano Nexus

Shimano Nexus, Internal planetary geared rear hub

Shimano Nexus and Alfine – nice write up from Sheldon Brown.

SRAM Imotion – Internal geared hub, vendor site requires navigation.

Sturmey-Archer 8-speed Hub

Sturmey-Archer 8-speed Hub

NuVinci - continuously variable planetary (CVP) transmission

NuVinci - continuously variable planetary (CVP) transmission

Click here for a nice chart comparing several transmissions.

Evidence of Apollo 14 on the Moon

•October 1, 2009 • Leave a Comment

Did man really land on the moon? For me it is just mind boggling that with the technology of the 1960′s, man could get to the moon and back. I’ve been waiting patiently since the 60′s for some sort of evidence. You would think that with all our modern tech we could get a decent photo of the equipment supposedly left behind.

So far the images linked to below are probably the best. It sure doesn’t seem as if our modern photo tech matches those mechanical marvels from the 60′s.

Apollo 14 on the Moon

Evidence of Apollo 14 on the Moon?, photo NASA

Get Your Own Domain Name and Host for Free

•September 30, 2009 • Leave a Comment

Here is a newbie guide to getting your own Domain Name and Finding a Host for free.

A Domain Name is just an address on the internet. Another simple way of looking at Domain Names is to compare it to a telephone number. Getting a Domain Name for the web is the same thing as getting a telephone number for the phone system or getting a street address for your house. Now we have to ask ourselves, why should anyone pay for a telephone number or Domain Name or Street Address.

Getting your own Domain Name allows you to do what you want with that address which is quite different from using the services provided by others. For example you might have a Flickr account at Flickr.com. Your account at Flickr gives you a URL or address on the net but you can only do what Flickr allows you to do. Flickr allows you to upload and store pictures and provides a way for you to share these uploaded pictures with others.

To do anything useful with your Domain Name you will need a computer and some software that sits on the web and responds to activity directed at your Domain Name.

With your own Domain Name and host you will have to upload software to your Host to provide any functionality you want resident at your domain name. Writing your own software is a large task but there are many freebies on the net that you can use. One example is the WordPress software that is running presenting this here article.

The Host is the computer that runs your software and it is setup to responds to activity directed at your Domain Name. How is this different from my computer connected to the web you might ask. It really isn’t any different except that currently your ISP will block any Hosting software that you might want to run unless you pay them big bucks. I suspect that one day in the not too distant future the ISP’s will not be charging big bucks for self hosting computers. This is probably only going to change when free self hosting services, provide enough competition.

A Domain Name with a Host and Software allows you to do pretty much anything you might want on the web.

Here is a link to free Web Hosting Services. These thing change constantly so at some point the info will become dated.

Internet Performance

•June 5, 2009 • Leave a Comment

These days our technology is not yet at that special place where we no longer need worry about speed. Just as in the 1970 and early 1980′s we worried about computer processor speed.

Many of the technologies involved in determining our internet speed are not under our control other than to say we use this or that technology.

We can however do something about our page design to improve it’s performance. I notice that Google has authored a tool that will help this goal by measuring the speed performance of our web pages. Check it out here.

Currently I am having a real problem getting our Motorola radio link to the ISP to work properly. One of those things beyond my control.

Old Wireless Internet Antenna

The internet antenna is that small box on the mast above the house. The dish is for the Satelite TV.

Well the boys came and fixed the radio reception on the internet link by replacing the box antenna with a dish, and putting it on a taller mast. This new equipment also came with a more expensive subscription package. It has a claimed burst speed of 6 Mbits/sec and a sustained speed of 1 Mbits/sec. In practice the sustained speed is an average over a period of say 30 seconds. In that 30 seconds you get drop outs, so streaming does not work well.

The new antenna for the radio internet link

Update: As of today, Aug 2011, Bell has finally gotten around to providing DSL service to my house. After several teething issues it’s now running fine at 5 Mbits/second sustained with no drop outs.

I also notice that these wordpress pages do not load at lightening speed. Wonder if it is server performance or page performance. Suspect the former.

 
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