Daily Doings at the Line of Death Bar & Grill

The GoldChannel Project: Build a home theater PC for less than $1000.

poltr1 — Wed, 15 Mar 2017 02:02:13 GMT

For the last several years, I've been wanting a home theater PC. A few of my friends already had home theater PCs, through which they could play their music on their stereo, display their pictures on their TV, and play their videos on their TV. Some of these systems were based on the Windows Media Center edition OS. I didn't want a Windows-based home theater. Support for the Media Center versions of Windows has waned, and in the current version, it's practially non-existent. I had heard of Mythbuntu -- a flavor of Ubuntu [Linux] with MythTV support integrated into it -- and wanted to try it out.

The name for this machine -- and the project -- was GoldChannel, after the high-priority command-level communications channel on "Babylon 5". Since my main desktop is named "orac" (from "Blake's 7"), and my main laptop is named "tardis" (from "Doctor Who"), I wanted to continue using names from some of my favorite science fiction programs.

The goal was to build such a home theater system for under $1,000 using easily obtainable parts.

My starting point was an article on Lifehacker from 2015 that listed suggested parts for a home theater PC that could be built for less than $500. I used this parts list as an initial baseline. Another design requirement was that I wanted a system that could easily be expanded in the future as my budget allowed, by adding more RAM, hard drives, and features. And I wanted parts that could easily be obtained at a brick-and-mortar computer store such as Micro Center, or an online store such as newegg.com.

The specs (with links to the parts):
I started with the case: an nMediaPC HTPC 6000B. I wanted something that wasn't a mini-tower, would look nice with my stereo system, and had the capacity for multiple hard drives. The HTPC 6000 can accommodate several different sizes/styles of motherboard -- ATX, microATX, DTX, and mini-ITX -- and can hold up to 6 hard drives.
(1) nMediaPC HTPC 6000B case

Then came the motherboard: an ASUS M5A78L-M/USB3 motherboard. It has the microATX form factor, supports USB 3.0, has a few PCI express expansion slots, uses DDR3 memory, and has a number of audio and video outputs for home theater applications.
(2) ASUS M5A78L-M/USB3 motherboard

Next was the power supply: a Corsair CX500. It provides 500 watts of power, has plenty of outlets for peripherals, and is quiet. I don't want to be listening to fan noise when I'm listening to music or watching a video.
(3) Corsair CX500 power supply

Next came the processor: an AMD FX 6300. It's a 6-core, 64-bit processor running at 3.5 GHz.
(4) AMD FX 6300 Processor

Then came the memory: two 4 GB IPSG DDR3 Long-DIMM 1600 MHz (PC3-12800) chips, giving me an initial total of 8 GB of RAM. Error-correcting (ECC) memory would have cost me a litle more money. (IPSG is one of the house brands carried by Micro Center. The link refers to Crucial brand memory.)
(5) 4 GB DDR3 1600 MHz RAM

I also wanted an SSD Drive for the operating system, and selected the Samsung SSD 850 EVO, which holds 120 GB of data.
(6) Samsung SSD 850 EVO

The first hard drive for media storage was a Western Digital Green 3 TB drive (model number WD30EZRX). I've always had great luck with Western Digital drives, and wanted to stick with them for my media files. I went with the 3 TB drive since it had the lowest cost per terabyte. The Green series focuses on energy consumption; the Blue series is their standard tier.
(7) WDC Blue 3 TB hard drive

For the optical disk reader/writer: an ASUS BW-12B1ST. It can read and burn CDs, DVDs (both +R and -R), and Blu-Ray discs (at 12x speed).
(8) ASUS BW-12B1ST optical drive

Since the placement of the unit was going to be in my living room, and the router was in the upstairs loft, I added a wireless network card: the TP-Link TL-WDN3800. It has two directional antennas and uses the Wireless-N (IEEE 802.11n) protocol.
(9) TP-Link TL-WDN3800 wireless network adapter

For the keyboard and mouse, I didn't want to have to trip over or untangle wired connectors. And I wanted them to be a matching set. I went with THE Iogear GKM552R wireless keyboard and mouse.
(10) Iogear GKM552R wireless mouse and keyboard

Last was the OS: Mythbuntu 14.04. It's based on Ubuntu 14.04, with MythTV integrated into it. The distro is free to download. I burned a copy of it to a DVD, and used that to install from.
(11) Mythbuntu OS

I assembled the parts over the course of two evenings in January 2015. I ran into a few problems, such as forgetting to plug in a second power supply connection to the motherboard, and needing to get a small internal speaker, in case there were any beep codes to be heard. After assembling the CPU unit, and encountering problems I couldn't solve, I ended up pitting it aside for a year, and didn't set it up until August 2016, when I received some help removing my old tube TV and replacing it with a flat-screen TV.

The total cost of the parts came out to $818.82. This included a couple of manufacturer rebates.

Once I installed it and started Mythbuntu, it took me a few days to properly configure the system, but once it worked, it worked well.

I've since made a few additions: adding another 8 GB of RAM (maxing it out at 16 GB), a second 3 TB hard drive (Western Digital Blue 3 TB - WD30EZRZ), and a Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-955Q external TV tuner card.
(12) Hauppauge HVR-955Q TV tuner

There are still several things to be fixed and tweaked, including these items:
- The system doesn't wake up after being suspended/hibernated. (I'm suspecting it has something to do with the wireless card.)
- My cable TV system is not compatible with the Hauppauge tuner. (I'd have to get a PCMCIA card reader and a PCMCIA descrambler card from the cable TV company.) So I can't use MythTV's DVR capabilities.
- I can't seem to change the LCD display on the front of the box; it constantly says "Home Theater PC".
- It can't play commercially available Blu-Ray discs. That may be related to the encryption scheme used on the discs.
- The USB 3.0 port on the front of the case is inoperative. (Maybe something needs to be plugged in.)
- If I'm not running MythTV, the sound goes through the external speakers, and not through the HDMI cable to my TV.

Waxing Political: What do Democrats stand for?

poltr1 — Sun, 26 Feb 2017 01:48:37 GMT

So, the Democratic National Committee elected Tom Perez as their next chairman, and not Keith Ellison. That tells me that they are staying their course, whatever that happens to be. Why? "Because we've always done it this way." Or so it seems to me.

I honestly don't know what the Democratic Party stands for any more. What is their current mission statement? What are their core values? Are they living up to them? If not, why not?

Years ago, the Democratic Party stood for the little guy -- the working man, the laborer, for civil rights, and equality for everyone. That may no longer be the case (except for LGBT rights and same-sex marriage), and probably hasn't been that way since the early 1990s, after Bill Clinton was elected and NAFTA was passed. Their current mission and purpose seems to be "To oppose the Republican Party, everything they do, and constantly fundraise".

Despite their incessant pleas and repeated requests for $3, I don't give money to political parties, period. I don't think it's a good return on my investment. Where does that money go? For ads (or should I say "party propaganda"), and to pay staffers. I might as well gamble it away in a casino.

Bernie Sanders chose to run as a Democrat last year because they had avenues and money that wouldn't have been available to him had he run as an independent. But the party chose to stonewall him because he was an outsider, and go with their lifelong loyal subject: Hillary Clinton.

I would very much like to see more political parties enter the fray, and knock the donkey and the elephant off the see-saw they've been riding. But both the Libertarians and Greens can't seem to get any traction -- they lag in fundraising behind the Big Two, don't get as much media coverage, and are kept out of debates. I can see both Democrats and Republicans spliting up their parties, and spinning off two new political parties: the Democratic Socialists (for followers of Bernie Sanders and the progressives), and (for lack of a better term) the Tea Party (for the neo-conservatives and Trump supporters). What's holding them back? The people who keep saying "But I've always voted this way, and don't see a reason to change!"

I'm still registered as a Democrat. The primary reason is so I can work as a volunteer pollworker. My county allows only D's and R's to work the polls, in order to keep everything fair balanced. Independents or third-party members need not apply. Thankfully there are no "loyalty tests" I have to take, or minimum donations required.

Christmas spirit? We haven't had that spirit here since 1989....

poltr1 — Sun, 18 Dec 2016 19:33:50 GMT

(In which I look back on the events of my life and try to figure out why I no longer feel any joy this time of year.)

I used to enjoy Christmas. When I was a boy, I looked forward to getting presents that day -- usually new toys and games, and the occasional article of clothing. Dad would film my sister and I opening our gifts with his 8mm film camera and light bar. We'd also get together with the extended family -- my father's three sisters and their families -- and have Christmas dinner together. They'd take turns hosting the annual event.

In the '80s, I noticed that the Christmas season seemed to be a big buildup starting on the day after Thanksgiving, peak on Christmas Day, and then it was business as usual on the 26th. I also became aware of the rampant commercialism of the holiday.

Then I moved away in 1989 for work. I didn't return home for Christmas due to the threat of inclement weather, which would have made driving on I-90 treacherous. I also had no other family or relatives here in Dayton. The nearest relatives were in Lorain, about 30 miles west of Cleveland, and I wan't close to them at all.

And then, in the 1990s, I left the Catholic faith. I got tired of the hierarchy, or as I called it, "the oldest of old-boy networks", telling us how we should think and live our lives. Have you ever wondered why Christmas -- the birth of Christ -- is celebrated on December 25? Because some pope in the 4th century decreed it as such. It coincided with the observance of Saturnalia, and that pope didn't want his people to be left out of the festivities. And so, Christmas became "not my holiday".

Something else I've been missing since I moved here: the observance of Hanukkah. Even as far back as kindergarten, I've had Jewish friends who shared their holiday with me. We spun dreidels, had potato pancakes, sang and played Hanukkah songs in our holiday concerts, and heard the story about the the Jewish people taking refuge in their temple and the oil in the lamp in the temple lasting for eight days. We were multicultural before the term was even coined or even trendy, and no one complained about this at all. I often feel that I'm in Goys' Town USA because there's little to no mention of this holiday here.

Christmas is about family. Where's my family? I'm all alone now. Mom and Dad are dead and gone. My sister is in Colorado. I've been divorced since 2007. I still have relatives in Buffalo, but it's rare that I hear from them. I'm usually the one who initiates contact with them; they don't call or write unless I do so first.

And so I stopped decorating for Christmas. I haven't put up a tree since the divorce. I haven't put lights up on the condo. I don't even hang a wreath on the door any more. It's just too much work to put everything up, only to take it down a couple of weeks later.

For me, December 25 has just another day. But I do like the feeling and sense of stillness I notice from sundown on Christmas Eve to midnight (00:00) on December 26. It's like all the machinery keeping the world going has stopped for a short time.

"Whatever it takes. No excuses."

poltr1 — Wed, 30 Nov 2016 02:39:24 GMT

(Based on a Facebook post from a few months ago.)

One of my mantras has been "Whatever it takes. No excuses." That is what I demanded of myself, and expected of others. Where did I lean this? I'm not quite sure, but I've given some thought as to where I might have learned it.

20+ years ago, I attended a business seminar given by someone who was quite successful in their business, and looking for a few people to help him expand it. It might have been a sales pitch for Primerica, a multi-level financial services company. I remember some of the quotes the presenter had around his desk, or delivered in his presentation.
* "You can make money or you can make excuses. You can't do both."
* "Either you do it, or you don't."
* "Whatever it takes!"
* "110%"
* "Mind over matter"
So, what this told me -- or the takeaway -- is that if I want to be successful, I have to think like him and make these sayings a way of life. And if I don't follow these, I won't be successful.

In retrospect, this man was an overachiever. That personality type is common in sales, athletics, and in the military. People who had to dig deep within themselves and find the strength they didn't know they have to overcome adversity. But not everyone is cut out to do sales, excel in athletics, or be a soldier.

I know I've tried to be that type of person, as a way of motivating myself. I'm a "can-do" person. But it's unreasonable for me to expect others to be that way. It's turned me into an uncaring, unfeeling, task-oriented, ruthless tyrant. All that matters are the completion of the tasks. I've thought, heard, and perhaps said quotes such as "The mission is more important than the man.", "I expect results, not excuses.", or "If you can't do this job, I'll find someone who can." Is this someone I want to be, or need to be? I know I'd rather be a leader and roll up my sleeves and work alongside my team, instead of a boss who does nothing more than order his people around.

The video conversion project.....

poltr1 — Sun, 27 Nov 2016 21:11:08 GMT

A few years ago, I purchased a copy of Honestech's VHS to DVD program. The software -- I can't remember if I had version 3.0 or 5.0 -- came with a "dongle" device into which I could plug three RCA jacks (for audio and video) and plug the other end into a USB port of my computer. The program served as the capture device and created MPEG files of the video. I used it to digitize about 100 video tapes I had while I was out of work 3-4 years ago.

Since then, I upgraded my desktop computer to Windows 7. I thought I would have to re-install the program, since it had previously run under XP (and it's a good practice to do so). But I couldn't find the CD or the license key. The path of least resistance was to purchase another copy of the kit. And so I bought the Vidbox Video Conversion Suite, which included an updated copy of the Honestech software and a converter box. (Vidbox and Honestech appear to be two product lines from the same company -- Honestech for PC; Vidbox for Mac.)

Some backstory about my video tape collection: I purchased my first VCR in 1986. It was a Beta deck. I went with Beta because it had superior picture quality to VHS and put less strain on the tape. (I also had a friend in the local Doctor Who club who was big into video and recommended Beta.) I bought a VHS VCR in 1990. Over the years, I'd record a lot of programs over the air, but I never got around to watching them. And so I ended up accumulating video tapes -- around 100 Beta tapes and nearly 500 VHS tapes. The VHS deck died around 2006 due to a suspected power surge. I didn't have the money at the time to replace it, so I stopped recording. I didn't buy another VCR until 2010. By then, VCR manufacturers no longer included TV tuners inside VCRs as US broadcasters switched from analog to digital TV the previous year (2009).

With the earlier version of the software, I could digitize an entire video tape unattended. I'd put in the total recording time -- for a standard T-120 VHS tape recorded at slow speed, it would be slightly over 6 hours. The software would create a set of 70-minute MPEG files. I can't do that with the new version; I can specify a maximum of 3 hours. So now I have to record it into two or three 180-minute MPEG files. (The total file size is smaller, too -- the contents of a T-120 tape now takes up 10 GB of space, instead of 20 Gb.)

Once the tapes are digitized using the desktop computer, I then copy the files to an external hard drive, which is then taken downstairs to the home theater PC. I tried ftp'ing the files, but doing so is slow via the wireless connection. The placement of the two computers, and the layout of my condo, is not conducive to a permanent wired connection. The home theater PC, which runs Mythbuntu, includes the OpenShot video editor and the DeVeDe DVD creator. I use OpenShot to trim the filler content around a program, and to trim the embedded commercials. I then use DeVeDe to import those files, create a menu, and create an ISO file of the video, which can then be burned to a DVD. (Older DVD players will recognize only the DVD-R format, so I'll tend to use those for video DVDs and save the DVD+R discs for data discs.) It may be tedious work, but the end product is worth it, especially for programs that aren't commercially available on DVD or available in Region 1 format.

Last night, I produced the first two DVDs from digitized video -- a four-part BBC miniseries that was broadcast on the Arts & Entertainment Channel in 1986. The miniseries -- "The Consultant" -- was about a computer consultant, played by Hywel Bennett, who was hired by a bank to ensure that the system was secure and foolproof. During the course of his work, he finds data and programs that were corrupted by someone inside the bank, and traces it down. It's an interesting series, and often referred to it during my professional career. This had been recorded on two Beta tapes 30 years ago (in 1986), and there are some audio dropouts in the final product, but the quality of the end product is definitely watchable. This afternoon, I produced another DVD containing a two-part BBC miniseries of "The Hound of the Baskervilles", starring Tom Baker as Sherlock Holmes. I'm happy that this long-term project has begun to bear fruit. Now that I have a process in place, I hope to press on with the tape conversion.

This is a multi-year project, and the ultimate goal is to have all the tapes digitized, and a significant number of them burned to DVD. I don't need to burn DVDs of items that are commercially available. What could I do with the old tapes after I'm done with them? I could throw them out, but that seems rather wasteful. I thought about wiping them with a bulk eraser, and donating them to a local agency that specializes is items for non-profit organizations. Or I can try to sell them on EBay in lots of 5 or 10, for about $1 per tape. I've seen some Beta tapes available there for around that price.

Marching Band Memories - Part 2: The games....

poltr1 — Wed, 23 Nov 2016 14:40:41 GMT

Continuing my march down memory lane....

My high school -- Sweet Home -- was in Section VI, Division I of the New York State Public High School Athletic Association (NYSPHSAA). Section VI covered western New York -- Niagara, Erie, Chautauqua, and Cattaraugus counties. Division I was for the larger schools. The schools (and teams) I remember us playing against were Amherst (Tigers), Kenmore East (Bulldogs), Kenmore West (Blue Devils), North Tonawanda (Lumberjacks), and Jamestown (Red Raiders). Games were held on Saturday afternoons, and occastionally on Friday nights.

We played at both the home and away games. During the game, we'd play in the stands, and for halftime, we marched on the field and did our show. (We did one show a season -- the same show every game.) For the away games, we'd travel in school buses to the opponent's field or stadium.

Oh, we had fun on the bus trips! I forgot what we did to pass the time -- talk, play cards, etc. There was always a couple or two in the back seat, necking, or as I liked to call it, "working on their embouchures".

The trip to Jamestown was two hours long -- south on I-90 to Fredonia, and then south on NY 60 to Jamestown. We'd stop at the McDonald's in Fredonia for lunch or dinner. Andy Weinzler once demonstrated "the dribbles" there. He took the lid off a McDonald's chocolate shake, took a big swig, smiled, and the shake just dribbled out of his mouth. (Dude! Sick!) Jim Pancook said he liked being the first one off the bus, just to see the expression on the faces of the crew members when they realized there was a bus of hungry high schoolers in the parking lot.

When we played North Tonawanda, I tried to get our marching band to play Monty Python's "The Lumberjack Song". Unfortunately, only a few of us knew how to play the song.

Someone in the sax section was playing "Yakety Sax" -- the theme from "Benny Hill".

One of the cheers we did: When the opposing team scored a touchdown, we'd say "Awwwwww...... shit!" (Since we had the letters "SH" on the front of our uniforms, it seemed to fit.) That only lasted a few weeks, until the school board told us to cease and desist.

My worst moment: In my freshman year, at a home game, we were marching on a muddy field. I executed a sharp left turn.... and fell over. My whole left side -- and my clarinet -- were covered in mud. My reed was broken. But I continued the show, miming playing, as if nothing happened. I'm told there's a film of this, taken by one of the teachers. But I've yet to see it.

Speaking of uniforms.... our colors were blue and gold. We wore blue jackets and pants, with a gold stripe down the side, with a white overlay that had the letters "SH" on the front (as mentioned earlier), and a panther on the back. Our hats were big and yellow, with a chinstrap. They had a plastic shell or liner, coated with yellow fuzz or fur. We called them "Twinkies", due to their resemblance to the snack food. One year, for our yearbook pictures, we were in uniform and practicing on the field after school. One person's hat came off, and was run over by a truck.

I'm sure I'll come up with other memories after finishing this article.

Marching band memories - Part 1: The music...

poltr1 — Sat, 12 Nov 2016 19:07:03 GMT

A few weeks ago, one of the memes I came across asked if I could still sing my high school fight song.

I remember what our fight song was -- "Mister Touchdown USA" -- but I never sang it, because I was too busy playing it along with the rest of the marching band. And we never played the bridge section; just the verse. Here's the song. . (Trivia: It's one of the songs that the University of Nebraska's marching band often plays.)

The original lyrics are on the website of one of the song's writers, Ruth Roberts. But we had our own set of words. Here they are, courtesy of one of my classmates, John Pfetsch. (Thanks, John!)

We’re gonna fight for Sweet Home Central
We’re gonna fight for Sweet Home High
Blue and Gold we cheer your name
March down the field and we’ll win the game

We’re gonna Fight Fight Fight for our alma mater true
Fight for that sweet victory
We’re gonna do or die
All together Sweet Home High
This is the song of Gold and Blue

We also had the book of Big Ten Fight Songs. It had a yellow cover, and was published by MPL Communications -- Sir Paul McCartney's music publishing company. The songs we played from this book were "On Wisconsin" (Wisconsin), "Notre Dame Victory March" (Notre Dame), "The Victors" (Michigan), "Across the Field" (Ohio State), and "Go U Northwestern" (Northwestern).

I was in the marching band all four years of high school. I was disappointed to find out at the jazz ensemble reunion in 2014 that the marching band program had been discontinued, and the uniforms were sold or auctioned off. I'll talk about the uniforms, the trips, and the good times I had in a future post.

My Eureka Timberline 2 tent...

poltr1 — Sat, 22 Oct 2016 05:03:48 GMT

(Originally posted to Facebook on 10/20/16.)

[Backstory: Earlier this year, my friend Heather (aka maedbh7) had been looking for a "bivvy tent", and found one on Craigslist for $40. The seller was in Dayton, and had asked me to pick it up for her. And earlier this week, we finally took it on an overnight outing to Buck Creek State Park, east of Springfield, OH.]

While Heather tried out the Eureka Solitaire tent (and posted a review to her wall), I used my tried and trusty Eureka Timberline 2. I've had it since the early 1990s. It's somewhat styled after the 2-person tents we had in my Boy Scout troop. It sleeps 2 medium-sized people, or 1 large person. There are zippered vents at both the front and back of the tent to provide ventilation.

I use a 6' x 8' tarp below the tent as a ground cloth, and their "floor saver" (a sheet of thick plastic cut to fit this tent) inside the tent. There is an optional vestibule that attaches to the front of the tent to give me a little bit of storage space for gear and wet/muddy footwear. And there's a mesh "gear loft" that attaches to loops inside the tent to hold light items (flashlight, wallet, meds, cell phone, etc.).

Camping hack: I sprayed primer, fluorescent paint, and clear coat on the heads of the steel stakes so I can find them easier if they're laying in the grass. Brightly colored duct tape may work just as well.

My queen-size air mattress fills nearly the entire floor area. If it's inflated outside the tent, it's a little tricky to put inside. I often have to unroll the air mattress and then inflate it after it's inside. Ditto that for deflating.

Disadvantages: The tent isn't tall enough to stand up in, so changing clothes can become an adventure. If the fly touches the interior "roof" of the tent, dampness can occur inside the tent. And the zippers sometimes get caught and stuck on the sides of the zipper.

Despite these disadvantages, this is a great tent for a weekend outing.

To Darmstadtium... and beyond! (Revision 1)

poltr1 — Sat, 01 Oct 2016 06:27:41 GMT

"These are the only ones of which the news has come to Harvard
And there may be many others, but they haven't been discovered."
-Tom Lehrer, "The Elements"

Several years ago, I wrote about some of the new elements on the periodic table. And now I can't find that article. I looked as far back as 2008; didn't see it. So I'll write a new entry.

I've always been fascinated by chemistry and physics. Around 1974-75, I read Issac Asimov's Building Blocks of the Universe, and another book on the elements. This other book was the first mention of elements 104 (rutherfordium) and 105 (hahnium), and also theorized that element 114 would be relatively stable since it appeared under lead. (Sidenote: Hahnium was later renamed dubnium, to honor the Russian nuclear physics research facility.)

This past December, IUPAC announced the confirmation of the existence of four new elements -- elements 113, 115, 117, and 118, thus competing the seventh row of the table. And in June, IUPAC announced their official names and symbols -- Nihonium (Nh), Moscovium (Mc), Tennesine (Ts), and Oganesson (Og). (Technically, these are only proposed names at this time; they will become official in December, if there is no dissent.)

Of course, this renders the periodic table charts in most chemistry classrooms obsolete. But instead of requiring schools to purchase new charts, I'd like to see the scientific companies publish a sticker containing elements 104-118 that can be placed as an overlay on the chart.

So, for those of us who haven't picked up a chemistry textbook in years, what are the elements past Lawrencium (103), the last element of the actinide series? Collectively, this set is known as the transactinide series -- elements 104-118.
104 - Rutherfordium (Rf) - named for Ernest Rutherford
105 - Dubnium (Db) - named for the Russian town of Dubna (home of the research facility of the same name)
106 - Seaborgium (Sg) - named for Glenn Seaborg
107 - Bohrium (Bh) - named for Niels Bohr
108 - Hassium (Hs) - named for the German state of Hesse
109 - Meitnerium (Mt) - named for Lise Meitner
110 - Darmstadtium (Ds) - named for the German city of Darmstadt
111 - Roentgenium (Rg) - named for Wilhelm Roentgen
112 - Copernicium (Cn) - named for Nikoulas Copernicus
113 - Nihonium (Nh) - named for the country of Japan
114 - Flerovium (Fl) - named for the Flerov Laboratory in Russia (named for Georgy Flyorov)
115 - Moscovium (Mc) - named for Moscow, Russia
116 - Livermorium (Lv) - named for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
117 - Tennesine (Ts) - named for the US state of Tennessee
118 - Oganesson (Og) - named for Yuri Oganessian

But nuclear physicists aren't going to rest on their laurels and stop there. They're going to continue smashing atoms together and try to create more new elements. While they haven't been created yet, Element 119 would have the placeholder name of Ununennium (Uue), Element 120 would have the placeholder name of Unbinilium (Ubn), and so on. Starting with element 121, electrons will start filling the g-block. An extended periodic table has already been devised to accommodate this new row of elements -- the superactindes.

The soundtrack of my life, in 12 albums.....

poltr1 — Thu, 11 Aug 2016 14:48:36 GMT

So, on Facebook, Jeff Bonhoff asked some of his online friends about music, and what 12 albums would be the soundtrack to their lives. I don't know Jeff very well (and I'd like to change that), but two of the people who responded were Rand Bellavia and Phil Mills. I'm putting this on LJ instead of Facebook due to its length. (At one time, Facbook used to limit the size of posts. I don't know if they still do.)

The challenge was this: List 12 albums that are, in some way, the soundtrack of my life.

When I constructed this list, I intentionally limited this to one album per artist. I also started with 25 albums and eventually whittled the list down to 12.

1) Glenn Miller, "Greatest Hits"
My father was a fan of big band music from the 1930s and 1940s -- Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, et al. He'd often play recordings of this music at home while he was relaxing, working around the house, or working in his workshop.

2) Supertramp, "Crime of the Century"
One of the first albums I bought. The band got a lot of airplay on the local radio stations. I remember hearing "Bloody Well Right" in March of 1975, when my father was in the hospital for an ulcer.

3) Styx, "The Grand Illusion"
Another one of the first albums I bought. Ray LaVere, a high school classmate of mine, loaned me his copy on cassette tape. JY's ARP Odyssey solo in the bridge section of "Come Sail Away" got me interested in synthesizers.

4) Electric Light Orchestra, A New World Record"
Twin brothers Alan and Kevin Payne had painted the ELO logo on a wall in their basement, and several of us in the neighbood came over to listen to ELO. Who was with us? Dan Clune, Kirk Komasara, Mike Polino.

5) Synergy, "Games"
Studio musician Larry Fast recorded several solo albums under the name Synergy. This album, released in 1979, was one of the first electronic music, or electronica, albums I heard. A notable sound on the album was the lead violin line on "Delta Four", which was an early example of digital synthesis.

6) Paul Simon, "Graceland"
7) Big Audio Dynamite, "This is Big Audio Dynamite"
8) Prefab Sprout, "Two Wheels Good"
These three albums were the soundtrack of my time in college. I have fond memories of hanging out with my Delta Chi brothers at the chapter house, talking about anything that came to mind, and listening to these albums.

9) Gowan, "Strange Animal"
Some other friends of mine from college were fans of Gowan. I saw him live in the summer of '86 at the Crystal Beach Pavilion.

10) White Zombie, "La Sexorcisto: Devil Music vol. 1"
When I was dating Amy ("Zon") Mundhenk in '93, this is what we listened to as we hit the various haunted houses around Dayton.

11) Pat Metheny, "Secret Story"
I love listening to Metheny's music when I'm driving long distances. I could have picked any of his albums.

12) Jonn Serrie, "And The Stars Go With You"
This artist's music often accompanies planetarium shows. I like to listen to it as I try to fall asleep at night.

My first 7 jobs.....

poltr1 — Mon, 08 Aug 2016 03:54:20 GMT

So, one of the memes going around Facebook this week is to identify one's first seven jobs, marking them with the hashtag #first7jobs. Here are mine, with some explanation.

1) Newspaper carrier for the Buffalo Evening News (1977-81)
Back in the days of afternoon newspapers, teenagers such as myself would deliver newspapers door-to-door, and collect the weekly subscription fees. I delivered to my neighborhood on Parker Blvd. betwen Ellicott Creek Rd. and St. Clare Terrace (along with some houses on Ellicott Creek Rd.), and Parker Blvd. between St. Clare Terrace and Greenhaven Terrace. On Saturdays and Sundays, they published a morning paper, which I also delivered. Nowadays, papers are delivered in the early mornings by adults, using their automobiles.

2) Remote batch terminal operator, SUNY/Buffalo (1982-83)
I was the guy who loaded the punched card decks into the card reader, separated printouts as they came off the line printer, made sure the keypunch machines were working, and tried to keep the site neat and orderly. We had Harris 1600 series remote job entry equipment that communicated via the university's multiplexer network to the mainframe computers.

3) Graphics consultant, SUNY/Buffalo (1983-88)
This was a student assistant job, helping students (and faculty) with the various graphics packages and hardware we had at the time -- a Calcomp 936 plotter, Surface II, DIGRAF, DI-3000, Raster Technologies Model One, SAS/Graph, and TeX, to name but a few. We also had a Zeta 8 plotter, and eventually, we received 6 Sun workstations. (Old and obsolete technology by now.)

4) Programming intern, Allied Corp. (1986)
Thirty years ago this summer. A former boss of mine was now working at Allied Corp., and needed someone to work on a program that can be taken to trade shows, and to show that it was less expensive to use their brand of CFC solvents -- the Genetron product line. They gave me the equations; I wrote the Fortran code. Sadly, the program didn't do as well at trade shows as had been originally hoped, and the projet was scrapped.

5) SAS programmer for a doctoral dissertation student (1988-89)
My first job after graduation, and a freelance one. A graduate student was working on her doctoral disseration. The topic of the dissertation was to examine how undergraduate students learn. Students taking the "Methods of Inquiry"class took a survey about their study habits at the beginning of the class, and at the end of the class. My job was to take the survey results, display them in bar-chart format using SAS/Graph, and to help identify the key factors that were found to be most effective. (Apparently the class is still being taught, or had been as of 2006. See http://www.buffalo.edu/ubreporter/archive/vol38/vol38n15/articles/FSEC.html.)

6) Night operator and data entry, Norrell Services (1989)
From what I remember, I worked jobs for two different clients through Norrell. For one of the clients, I went in on the weekends and performed tape backups of their computer on a weekly basis. For the other client, I did some data entry: typing in names and phone numbers from a telephone directory, in order to build a contact database for the client.

7) Programmer/Analyst, Battelle (1989-91)
My first "real" job (i.e. full-time). I was a subcontractor to TRW, which had a contract with the 88th Communications Group at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base to support one of their computer systems. They had between 20-30 locally-developed applications that were used by various system program offices (SPOs) in the Aeronautical Systems Center. They were written in Fortran and COBOL, interfaced with an Oracle database, and ran on a clustered environment running VAX/VMS (now OpenVMS). My job was to provide level-2 support on these applications: find the bugs, correct them, submit them to the software library, and prepare the required documentation (release notes, baseline change request).

Fit the Fourth.....

poltr1 — Tue, 19 Jul 2016 15:46:56 GMT

Years ago, when I was in college, I fell in with a group of people who had the common interest of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The group was called "Don't Panic!", and were working on their version for the school's low-power AM radio station, WRUB. (It broadcast its signal via power-line communication, using the electrical system in the dormitories.)

Who was in the group? John Feinberg, Larry Fein, Ron Odde, Don Henk, Tim O'Brien, and a few others whose names I can't remember. We all had copies of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy Radio Scripts, and used that book as our script.

The first show of theirs that I was involved in was the final episode, "Fit The Twelfth". They had previously broadcast the preceding eleven parts. In this episode, we crowded into the studio. There was a section where a man was feeding his cat, whom the man calld "The Lord". And several of us were meowing like cats.

The decision was made to re-record an episode (with higher quality), and the fourth episode -- "Fit the Fourth"-- was selected. I played the part of "The BBC Radiophonic Workshop", in which my role was to create sound effects for the program. With the help of my trusty old Minimoog, I came up with sounds for the demolition beams, and the sounds of a spaceship door opening and closing. When it came time to record, we all crowded into the studio, and it went well.

We never recorded the other episodes, and I wonder what happened to the tapes of the show. I wouldn't mind having a copy for posterity. I know I still have the patch diagrams for the sounds.

Another one rides the bus.....

poltr1 — Sat, 23 Jan 2016 02:39:37 GMT

Earlier today, someone on one of the Facebooks groups I'm on mentioned old school buses. And it reminded me of my bus riding experience.

My school district -- Sweet Home Central, based in Amherst, NY -- had a rather sizeable fleet of buses used to transport its students to 6 elementary schools, 1 junior high school, and 1 high school. Many of the buses in service at the time I went to elementary school were built by Carpenter Body and had an International Harvester chassis with manual transmission. I think there were around 60 buses in the fleet in the early 1970s. Their fleet numbers ranged from around 21 to 96.

In addition to the buses in active service, the fleet also included a few older buses that were used as replacement or substitute buses when an originally designated bus would be out of service and in the shop for repairs. The average lifespan of a school bus is 10 years. After that time, a bus would be retired from regular service and used as a replacement bus, or used for spare parts. The buses the district purchased in the 1950s and 1960s were built by the Superior Coach Co. and were also built on an International Harvester chassis, and were used as substitute buses in the late 1960s. I remember when one of these buses (fleet number 15) picked me up for kindergarten, instead of my usual bus (fleet number 34?). The front of the bus looked rather scary.

Boy, did I hate the sound the transmission gears would make when the driver would shift gears and inadvertently grind them. I was the kid who had his hands over his ears so that I wouldn't hear that sound.

In 1975, the district bought 5 buses built by Ward, and were the first ones in the fleet to have automatic transmission. Their fleet numbers were 101 through 105. I rode bus #105 in 7th grade. And in 8th grade, we tried to tip the bus over when rounding a curve by moving to one side. We got the axle to scrape the pavement; thankfully, we didn't manage to tip it over.

In following years, they went back to buying Carpenter Body buses. (Must have been a low-bid contract the year they bought the Ward buses.) I don't remember riding any of the newer buses in high school. Since graduating from high school in 1981, all of the buses in the fleet have been replaced. I think the fleet numbers are in the 300s now. (Unlike the school district I live in now, Sweet Home does not recycle its fleet numbers. That may be a state-wide convention vs. a district-wide convention.)

The neighboring school district was the Kenmore-Tonawanda School District. Their fleet numbers were slightly higher than Sweet Home's; either they had more buses, or they started their fleet earlier than Sweet Home. And their buses included "UFSD" as part of their district name, or "Union Free School District #1". What did that mean? Did it mean that their teachers could not belong to a teacher's union, such as the NEA or AFT? No. From a webpage detailing the types of school districts in New York State, a union free school district is a district resulting from a "union" of multiple common school districts, "free" from the restrictions that previously barred them from operating high schools. Union free school districts are governed by a board of education composed of between three and nine members.

I'm amazed I still remember these details from over 40 years ago. I had a keen eye for detail back then, and I still do.

Winning the Big One.... (2016 edition)

poltr1 — Fri, 08 Jan 2016 02:12:34 GMT

Last night's Powerball jackpot was $500 million, and there were no winners. Saturday's jackpot is over $700 mllion -- a new record.

The rules for both multi-state lotteries have changed since I posted this article four years ago. So let's update this a little, shall we?

Mega Millions: Players now pick 5 of 75 white balls, and one of 15 red balls. Drawings are still held on Tuesday and Friday nights. Cost to play is $1.

With the 75 white balls, what is the probability of getting all 5 of your numbers drawn? Let's figure it out. Draw the first ball from the pool of 75. Then draw the second ball from the remaining pool of 74. Then draw the third ball from the remaining pool of 73. Then draw the fourth ball from the remaining pool of 72. Then draw the fifth and final ball from the remaining pool of 71.

Mathematically, that would expressed thusly: 75 x 74 x 73 x 72 x 71 = 2,071,126,800. To 1 against.

Then divide this number by the number of permutations possible within those 5 numbers. If you're familiar with number theory and factorials, you know that there are 120 possibilities that the numbers can be drawn. (1 * 2 * 3 * 4 * 5 = 120.) Try it out: with the letters a, b, c, d, and e, how many five-letter combinations can you come up with? With one letter, there's one permutation -- a. With two letters, there are 2 permutations -- ab, ba. With 3 letters, there are 6 permutations -- abc, acb, bac, bca, cab, cba. With four letters, there are 24 permutations. And so on.

Back to the math: 2,071,126,800 / 120 = 17,259,390.

Now, bring in the draw for the red ball. A player has a 1-in-15 chance for their number to be drawn. So let's multiply the previous result by 15.

17,259,390 * 15 = 258,890,850.

There you have it. 258 million to one against.

Powerball: Players now pick 5 of 69 white balls, and one of 26 red balls. Drawings are still held on Wednesday and Saturday nights. Cost to play is $2.

For the white balls, the probability of getting all 5 of your numbers drawn is 69 x 68 x 67 x 66 x 65 = 1,348,621,560. To 1 against.

Divided by the number of permutations: 1,348,621,560 / 120 = 11,238,513

Multiplied by the 1-in-16 chances for the red ball: 11,238,512 * 26 = 292,201,338

Well there you go. 292 million to 1 against.

This can be expressed as a mathematical formula: ((w!/(w-d)!)/d!) * r, where w is the number of white balls, d for the number of white ball draws, and r for the number of red balls.

So, for Mega Millions, the formula is ((75!/70!)/5!) * 15, and for Powerball, the formula is ((69!/64!)/5!) * 26.

In short, the odds of you -- or anyone else -- winning is, in a nutshell, not bloody likely! This is why lotteries such as these are often called "a voluntary tax on those who are are bad at math". If you do play, do so responsibly. Don't spend more than you can comfortably afford to lose.

And, to paraphrase the announcer from "Hardware Wars": "You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll kiss two bucks goodbye!"

Has it really been six months?

poltr1 — Mon, 21 Sep 2015 03:56:22 GMT

My last entry to LJ was back in March. I haven't had a large block of time, or the inclination, to write a long, thought-out post.

The last job: Tech lead and I got along like Spock and McCoy. One time, I asked my agency to put me on another job, and they didn't. I stopped short of quoting the Gestalt Prayer at him. We got two more programmers. And the week before Memorial Day, I was informed that Friday would be my last day. This caught me off guard. I thought the task was ongoing. But they cut it short, and never gave me any heads-up. I felt betrayed.

Anyway, a few weeks later, I interviewed with a defense contracting company that was looking to bid on a position. Part of the interview was to write text about my capabilities that would go into the proposal. And they gave me an offer, pending the award of the contract.

So I kept interviewing. I had an interview with another defense contractor, which kind of went strangely because the recruiter verbally offered me the job a few days later, pending some sort of contingency, and I never heard from him again. And I had an interview (and job offer) with a bank in Columbus.

At the end of June, while I was on vacation, I received word that the first company won the contract, and that I would start the following week. I had to tell the other two that I would be out of integrity if I didn't take the position, as it would leave that company in the lurch.

So what am I doing now? Some programming and mostly system administration for a home-grown cluster of Debian-based systems. Can't say much more about it, since it's DoD-related. But it should last a year.

I try to be a team player....

poltr1 — Wed, 04 Mar 2015 04:07:06 GMT

The new job is working out OK, I guess. But it could be better. The project is to write a file-based source control system to manage remote servers. Puppet is package-based, and doesn't give us the necessary granularity to manage items on a file level.

This past week, I've been trying to learn how to write plugins for yum. Yum stands for "yellowdog updater, modified", and is the installation package manager for RedHat, Fedora, and CentOS. It's completely new to me. Plugins are writen in Python, which I've worked with before. But I have no familiarity with the modules I need to import.

My tech lead gives me partial information, and expects me to figure it out on my own. That may be how he learns things, but I need more hand-holding and spoon-feeding than that. The tried-and-true method of RTFM doesn't work for me; most of the documentation is written from the point of view of someone who understands how it works. Man pages are a reference, not a tutorial. And if I look at the code, which often doesn't contain any commentis, it doesn't make sense to me.

Deep down, I know he's not out to mislead me or send me on wild goose chases or snipe hunts, but it certainly feels that way at times. So why am I projecting or superimposing my past experiences onto him? Because it's what I know. And I'm reminded of several bad experiences I've had while being on teams.

The first was 8th grade social studies class. Mr. Heffley, our instructor, split up the class into 4-person teams, and each team was to come up with a paper describing various aspects of thee 1930s. My team was given the topic of Entertainment. I kept asking my teammates what I should work on, and they never answered my question with tasking. My name wasn't on the final paper, and I got a 0 for that project.

The second was an independent study in college. Several of us were working on code for an Adage image processor system. Again, I asked what I could do, and wasn't going to step on anyone's toes or duplicate someone else's work. And again, my requests were ignored. I got an Incomplete on that, which soon became an F.

The third was for a greeting card company in Cleveland. Mike, one of the project leads, spent very little time with me. When I asked him for help, he'd respond with "Google is your friend!" or provide me a link to letmegooglethatforyou.com.

The fourth was for a major pharmaceutical company in Indianapolis. Johny, my tech lead, often told me he didn't have time for me. That may have been true, as I think he was working on several different projects. But I took "I have no time" or "I'm busy" as a convenient excuse for avoiding me. I asked him to join me for lunch, and his response was "I eat at my cubicle".

In all four cases, my efforts to be a good team player were rebuffed or rebuked. Instead of being a valued team member, I was backstabbed and thrown under the bus. They made themselves look good at my expense. Is it any wonder why I don't trust people in general or teammates in particular?

This makes answering the interview question "Are you a team player?" difficult. They don't want to hear that I'm a loner, or that I prefer to work alone. But that is my truth.

So I'm a genius. Big Fat Hairy Deal.

poltr1 — Fri, 13 Feb 2015 06:45:31 GMT

One aspect of myself that I'm particularly fond of is my keen intellect. I don't need those Facebook quizzes to tell me I'm a genius. I already know that I am. But this is something I rarely ever talk about. Why? Because when I do, it sounds like I'm bragging or boasting, as if this attribute makes me better than anyone else. It doesn't. I'm better at some things than other people, and they're better at other things that I am.

How is it determined or measured? Psychologists have developed the concept of "intelligence quotient". It's basically a ratio of a person's "mental age" to their chronological age. The average "score" is 100, and tails off at both ends in a frequency distribution known as "the bell curve". But does the test gauge a person's knowledge base, or does it test how people apply knowledge in certain situations? That I'm not so clear on. But the IQ test is the best thing we have right now to measure and quantize this attribute.

In my opinion, "genius" is overrated. So I scored high enough on an IQ test to be in the 98th or 99th percentiles -- the top 2%. Big whoop. So I'm a genius. Big fat hairy deal. That and a dollar can get me a cup of coffee. Two bucks if I go to Starbucks.

I grew up as a gifted kid. I was the darling of the principal and assistant principal, but the school secretary was indifferent to me. But I also had ADHD, which made me a challenge. In first grade, I was put into a special ed class because they didn't know what else to do with me. One of the students from one of the second grade classes came by to escort me to their class for reading. After ten weeks, someone decided that I could spend the rest of the year in second grade. (Except for the day the class took a field trip to a factory. I was going to the bathroom too frequently to go on the trip.) I think I spent half of the third grade in the corner, becuase my very authoritarian teacher, Mrs. Schraufstetter, didn't know how else to handle me. It wasn't until 7th grade -- junior high -- that I was exposed to advanced-level classes, and other gifted kids. But they didn't care for me. I stayed in advanced-level classes throughout junior high and high school. And I graduated from high school, one month shy of my 17th birthday.

College was a different world. I was able to go at my own pace, and wasn't held back by lesson plans. In 1987, the local chapter of Mensa offered their admissions test. Mensa is the oldest of the high-IQ societies, limited to the top 2%. Originally, it was to be like a think-tank, but it soon evolved into a social organization, or as some of us jokingly referred to it, "a support group for the severely gifted". I did some research and found that I could get in based on my SAT score. (This was years before the SAT test got watered down.) So I ponied up the money and took the test anyway. And I passed. I was offered membership, but declined at the time.

In 1993, I was working with a young woman who had mentioned Mensa, and invited me to the local group's RG (Regional Gathering), DAMNations. I got to meet some people, and I joined soon after. There were some great activities over the years -- the monthly newsletter assembly party, the open houses (I remember meeting someone who worked on the original "Cosmos" series, and I got to hold her Emmy award), the First Friday pizza dinners at Marion's, the Wednesday lunches at Tuty's, and the Final Friday Fermentation Foray (dinner at a local brew pub). I was even the coordinator of the national-level special interest group for Babylon 5. And I was a member of the volunteer security group, the Hell's M's.

But when I started bringing Rebecca (my girlfriend/fiancee/wife) along, she wasn't happy at all. She wasn't a member, and I'm not sure if she would have qualified, and if she did, if she would want to join. She resented having to participate in a party to make 10,000 buckeye candies for the 1998 AG (Annual Gathering) in Cincinnati. She couldn't stand some of the people there. And when our daughter was born in 2002, there were no activities for parents with young children. I ended up letting my membership lapse in 2003.

One of the long-time members, whom I'm Facebook-friends with, asked me to come back to the club. I said "Thanks but no thanks. Club friends aren't real friends". There were some members who just rubbed me the wrong way. A few came across as know-it-alls, a few dominated the group conversations, and a few were sarcastic to the point of being hurtful. A good majority would not do anything with me outside of the parameters of the club. And I got the impression that a couple of the folks just couldn't stand me.

I know several people who are intelligent enough to qualify for membership. So why don't they join? I've heard responses such as "I don't need to join and prove to the world how intelligent I am", or "Too many personalities". Some people probably equate "Mensan" with "asocial loser" (based on their experience with gifted people), and stay away.

There are other high-IQ societies out there, with different membership criteria: Intertel (top 1%), the Triple Nine Society (top 0.1%), the Prometheus Society, the Mega Society, and so on. But I haven't been interested in pursuing membership with these organizations.

Based on my observations, I have my own definition of "intellectual": A person whose head-voice speaks so loudly and strongly that it drowns out their heart-voice and gut-voice. It can also be described as "Mensans from the neck up". That isn't what I want for myself. Since doing the NWTA in the fall of 1997, my want for myself is for my heart-voice to be be as strong and powerful as my head-voice, and for them to balance each other out.

But I still want to use this gift of intellect to make this world a better place to live. That's what I've always thought my purpose on Earth was -- to make this a better place then it was when I arrived.

New additions to the Sonic Arsenal.....

poltr1 — Mon, 09 Feb 2015 05:31:58 GMT

So, in the past year or so, I added a few pieces to my collection of musical instruments, collectively known as the "Sonic Arsenal".

November 2013: Found an old Hohner "Piano 27" melodica at a local antiques mall. (Picture of one is here.) It's a cross between a harmonica and keyboard instrument.

November 2013: Picked up a Yamaha WX11 wind synthesizer controller on EBay. Its fingering scheme is similar to that of a saxophone. I would use it to play a sound set up on a MIDI keyboard. Face it, some solos cry out for such an instrument. (Picture of one is here.)

February 2014: Picked up a Novation Launchkey 49 at the local Guitar Center. It has a 4-octave keyboard, but doesn't have any onboard sound generation. But it plugs into computers via a USB cable. And there's software to go with it. (Alas, I can't use Cakewalk Music Creator 2002 with it, as it doesn't know about MIDI via USB. So I'll have to upgrade it soon.)

May 2014: Picked up a Novation Launchpad S at the local Best Buy. You've probably seen the demos by M4Sonic on YouTube. It's a programmable 64-button drum or sound controller.

December 2014: Picked up an Ensoniq SQ80 synth on EBay. It's the successor to the widly popular ESQ-1. It has 5 octaves, MIDI, a floppy disk drive, and a slot for proprietary ROM cartridges. I'm still trying to learn this instrument. I have a PDF of the manual, and need to spend some time with the control panel -- it's all buttons (and 2 slider pots); no knobs.

These join my Gemeinhardt flute, Normandy clarinet, Bundy bass clarinet, Martin alto sax, Native American flute, recorders, assorted noisemakers, and my Minimoog Model D synthesizer.

What else would I like to get? A straight (i.e. not curved) soprano sax, a tenor sax, an alto clarinet, and a Kurzweil K2600S synth workstation. Maybe someday.....

OVFF 30 highlights.....

poltr1 — Wed, 29 Oct 2014 03:17:01 GMT

After taking off a year from all filk conventions, I attended OVFF this year.

Rather than give a detailed con report, I'll give some of my own personal highlights as buillet points:
- Arriving early enough on Friday afternoon to talk with fellow attendees. Most were happy to see me and were glad I attended. (That was not my experience two years ago.)
- Performing "Starlight and Saxophone" with billroper, who was drafted at the 11th hour to play the song after filkertom was unable to attend due to missing car keys.
- Listening to Copy Red Leader while I was trying to figure out my new Novation Launchpad S controller.
- Karen Lindsley's concert.
- Being a "melodica ninja" at Debs & Errol's concert. (If I knew their song was to the tune of "If I Had A Million Dollars", and knew the key, I could have played it myself.)
- Hanging out with rms_butterfly and maedbh7 at the registration table.
- The Sunday afternoon jam, led by min0taur.
- The dead dog dinner party at BD's Mongolian Barbeque, and chatting with a convention attendee who knew of Raquy and Carmine.
- And most importantly for me, the feeling that I'm still wanted and welcome in the filk community.

And why was this so important? In past years (even going as far back as 1998), I felt marginalized, perhaps even unwanted and unwelcome, at this con. People would walk by me in the halls and not greet me, or not remember me from past years. It's as if I was invisible. I've often said, "If filk is a family, I'm the black sheep of the family." But after talking with a number of folks at the con, I was made aware of some things I wasn't aware of:
1) Some fans are often so focused on where they're going that they don't see anything in their peripheral vision. I'm constantly in wide-scan mode, so I notice more things that are going on around me.
2) Many fans are, by nature, mostly shy and introverted, even more so than I am.
3) Some fans have what's called "face blindness" -- a lack of facial recognition. I don't have this.
4) Some fans only see me once a year, so there's often no recollection of me from year to year. I remember what people look like.
5) There isn't a lot of time to socialize at cons, especially when the programming schedule is packed with activities.
So why was I taking these as snubs? Because that was my history with people. From the 7th grade classmates who didn't want me to sit with them at lunch, to the kids in my high school gaming club that didn't want to associate with me. And those same old feelings from high school were triggered. I'm thankful for those who assured me that I wan't unwanted and unwelcome, and helped me feel appreciated and valued, especially judifilksign, hofdave, jhayman, ldwheeler and Diane, ohiblather, Rand and Erin, autographedcat and kitanzi. The list goes on, so if I left you out, I apologize.

But I still feel that I'm not in the "inner circle", and probably never will be. Filk has a strong bias toward soloists and guitarists. I play keyboards and woodwinds (and not guitar), I'm more of an ensemble player than a soloist, my musical background is through high school concert band and jazz ensemble, and I'd rather make music WITH people than FOR people. I'm still a relative unknown, even though I've been in the community for over 20 years. There are folks in the community to whom I'm a stranger, and are perfectly content to keep it that way. Yes, I'm sad about it, but a musician has to have a thick skin, and so I say "Their loss."

The Coffee Can Emergency Kit.....

poltr1 — Mon, 29 Sep 2014 00:50:32 GMT

I had been thinking about making some of these kits for the Holiday Bazaar my UU Fellowship is having in early December as a fundraiser. But I would need some metal #10 coffee cans for this project, and permission from the man who originally posted this. (I used to work with him years ago, and have since lost contact with him.) But alas, the page on which I originally found this is no longer there.

I carry one of these kits in my car year-round. It has saved me several times, from giving the lighter to a fellow driver, to the duct tape for emergency repairs. So I will pass on the list of contents so that you can make one of these for yourself.

Ken Fussichen's Coffee Can Emergency Kit
(used to be at http://www.baproducts.com/coffecan.htm)

1 #10 coffee can
1 plastic grocery sack
1 sewing kit
1 box of waterproof matches
1 utility knife
1 compass
1 butane lighter
1 P-38 can opener
1 small roll of picture hanging wire
1 small sponge
1 small roll of toilet paper
1 small can of 3-in-1 oil
1 roll of twine
1 small roll of duct tape
1 notebook
1 dust mask
1 pencil
1 handi-wipe or mesh towel

Another year here....

poltr1 — Fri, 26 Sep 2014 05:08:31 GMT

So, I re-up'ed for another year of LJ earlier this month.

I still post here on a very occasional basis. This is where my long and thought-out posts get posted, instead of Facebook.

And I have several topics I want to talk about. I just haven't had the time, energy, or inclination to blog about them. I have titles -- "Thinking in Metric", "So I'm a genius. Big Fat Hairy Deal." , and others.

And frankly, the user base on LJ has shrunk. I don't get as many responses to posts as I used to. Which leads to a "Why bother blogging? No one will read it anyway" mindset.

What is "the cloud"?

poltr1 — Mon, 01 Sep 2014 21:28:45 GMT

A lot of companies are touting "the cloud" or "cloud computing" as the Next Big Thing in computing. Or even the Current Big Thing. But they don't take the time to explain what "the cloud" is.

I'm a skeptic and a cynic. I won't trust my precious data to something I don't know, understand, or have confidece in. And so I do research, in order to educate myself, and eventually, educate others

What "cloud computing" is, in a nutshell, is using the Internet -- or more spefically, sites on the Internet -- to store data, store applications, or even computing power. The details as to where the data or app is stored aren't often detailed. (But I think they should be, particularly if a company wants to use cloud storage for something that is export-controlled or proprietary. At the moment, I would advise against using cloud storage for that type of data, unless they can be assured that the data would remain on a server physically based in the United States.)

So, what are some examples? Google's Google Drive, which enables Google users to store and share their data with others on a collaborative basis. Microsoft has the SkyDrive (now called the OneDrive), which I'd expect to have similar features and capabilities. (I don't use Sky Drive, so that's an assumption.) Ubuntu One had a cloud storage service, but recently shut it down. wser And I'd bet that Apple also has cloud storage availalable for its iOS and OS X users. Other examples in this arena are Carbonite (cloud-based backup and storage).

There are also some apps available via "the cloud", typically on a subscription service. Microsoft's Office365 is a good example. So are some of the Google apps. Adobe is moving toward this software model. No more downloading and installing software to your computer. And hopefully, no more software piracy.

And some are a hybrid of both storage and app; Evernote is a great example. Their note-taking app runs on many different platforms, and cloud storage is used to store the notes. They also have a web-based app for us Linux folks who don't yet have our own version of Evernote.

As for hitching up a cloud server to help out with computing tasks, I don't think we're quite there yet. But it could be a few years down the road.

Where is it useful? If you have multiple computing devices, cloud storage is a good way to keep your browser bookmarks and files sync'ed up with each other.

What is "white privilege"?

poltr1 — Mon, 01 Sep 2014 20:44:44 GMT

Backstory: A few weeks ago, a man of color was in a Walmart in Beavercreek, OH, carrying an air gun and allegedly aiming it as if to shoot people with it. Police was called and shot him. There are plenty of other cases similar to this. Ferguson. Over-The Rhine (a neighborhood in Cincinnati).

[Origninally posted as a note on my Facebook wall.]

We have a socioeconomic caste system in the US that many people don't talk about, or are afraid to talk about. Some of those class lines coincide with racial divides, specifically, the "white" vs "black" divide. Many of us "whites" -- mostly Americans of European descent -- don't know how good we have it. Our ancestors came here either by their own free will, or escaped political and/or religious turmoil back home -- not captured, put on a ship, and sold into slavery.

I want racial equality. I want to undo this caste system. But what can I do? What am I able and willing to do to make this happen? First, I can take a look inward and examine my own prejudices, and the fear that lies underneath them. Second, I can encourage others to do the same. I can't change people; they have to change on their own.

Suggested reading:
"Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack" by Peggy McIntosh
https://www.isr.umich.edu/home/diversity/resources/white-privilege.pdf

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
http://newjimcrow.com/

"Why Black Men Don't Open Carry" by Vyan (liberal point of view)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/08/1320164/-Why-Black-Men-Don-t-Open-Carry

"What Happens When Black Americans Open Carry? Not Much, Apparently" by Charles C.W. Cooke (conservative point of view)
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/386219/what-happens-when-black-americans-open-carry-not-much-apparently-charles-c-w-cooke

[I may add more to this list in the near future.]

Remembering Robin Williams...

poltr1 — Sat, 16 Aug 2014 04:47:26 GMT

I first saw the news when I was coming home on Monday. A neighbor was watching CNN, and on the bottom of the screen were the words "Robin Williams dead". Of course, as soon as I got home, I got online to confirm this. At first, I didn't want to believe it. But over the next few days, more details came out: it was a suicide, and he was recently diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

This one hit me hard. I've been a fan of Robin since his first appearance on "Happy Days" as Mork from Ork. The character was spun off into his own series, "Mork & Mindy". I bought his first comedy album, "Reality: What A Concept" when it came out in 1979. (I loved "Shakespeare: A Meltdowner's Nightmare", where he received a couple of topic suggestions from the audience and delivered a short play scene, complete with iambic pentameter. A line that still sticks out in my mind is "I shall go forth and touch myself anon.") He soon starred in movies, with roles ranging from the comic to dramatic. He also did voice acting. And he did improvisational comedy, where he shone most brightly. (IMDB has the complete list here.)

I nerver met him in person, but I was touched by his performances. He often crossed the line between comedic genius and insanity. He was a modern-day Pagliacci, the legendary Italian clown who was constantly laughing and entertaining, depite his own personal sadness. Years ago, I had heard about his struggles with depression and addiction. But I had tucked that away in my mind. I too have bouts of depression and mania that I somehow manage to get through. I plan to cover that in a separate post.

Robin, thank you for all the laughs and good times. Your spark of madness will be missed, and the world is a little less lighter due to its absence.

My Google Nexus 7.....

poltr1 — Wed, 25 Jun 2014 00:26:23 GMT

When the Google Nexus 7 tablet first came out in 2012, I wanted one. A few folks I knew already had iPads, and I really had no desire to acquire one for myself. (I like Apple's innovation, but I don't like their price tag, or their proprietary nature.) And in December of last year (2013), I purchased one for myself. It's a second-generation model, built by Asus, with Wi-Fi and 16 Gb of memory. I also got a case for it. (Best Buy made me the proverbial offer I couldn't refuse.)

After six months, it's still being useful to me.

My goal -- and want -- is to have this tablet replace my Franklin Planner notebook. It would contain all sorts of information, and I could have many notes stored on it. But I still take notes faster with pen and paper rather than on the tablet.

What are my must-have and/or favorite apps?

1) Graffiti for Android. I'm an old PalmPilot user. (In fact, I still have it somewhere.) I kept fat-fingering the on-screen keyboard. So I was very happy that this was available.

2) The Weather Channel. I like to know when bad weather is on the way, so I can prepare for it.

3) Papyrus. I can write on the creen like I would paper. But it doesn't do OCR.

4) ColorNote. It's kind of like having Post-It(R) notes on my tablet. But exporting info to a text file is a little tricky.

5) Kindle and Nook. I can read books for either device. Although I'm still not sure which is going to become the preferred platform.

6) Franklin Covey Tasks. Since I'm an old Franklin Planner user, this was a welcome find. Nearly everything else is already duplicated via Google apps. (Google Tasks doesn't enable me to priotize them.)

7) Microsoft OneNote. Even though I dislike Microsoft, I like this app. I've been using to to create an electronic notebook of my projects at work.

8) Quicken 2014 and/or Mint. I used to use this on the desktop to keep track of my spending.

9) Microsoft Office and/or OpenOffice for Android. I want to be able to read Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint slide decks. And the best part -- they're free.

So what are your favorites?