Looks like Austin has now joined the ranks of cities covered by Google’s All Seeing Street View. I’m not a big fan of the product (from a privacy standpoint), but it’s an easy way for out-of-towners to tour our area. You’ll need to open the Google map (links below) and click on the Street View button on the map.

Our Apartment Complex (face South)

Historic Homestead Near Us (face East)

Downtown Austin, Congress Bridge (face East)
(See the guy and his dog? That’s where the bats emerge.)

Texas State Capital Building (face North)

Climb Mount Bonnell, Highest Point In Austin (face West)

…that’s the sound of me punching my monitor.

Main page of CNN. One of the neverending profiles of “Everyday folks tell[ing] their stories about hard economic times.”

Kent and Mysti Cope met and fell in love working for one of the nation’s top subprime lenders. Now, their life has been turned upside down after the sudden implosion of the subprime mortgage industry. … The two didn’t say exactly how much money they made at their last jobs but Kent admitted they each had six-figure incomes.

Their home equity line, mortgage, health and life insurance premiums alone cost about $10,000 a month.

Goodie! A mortgage AND a home equity line! All at a low-low price of $10,000 a month. Too bad Mysti (what a name) lost her job last May and the hubby in August.

On the bright side, they are making adjustments to their lifestyles:

Despite their financial problems, the Copes have worked hard to protect their credit rating, staying current on bills. And they’ve made cutbacks: trading in Kent’s Corvette for a Suburban and getting rid of the gardener, for example. But the couple also has learned that it didn’t need everything it used to spend money on.

At that point I just stopped reading.

Handmade Electronic Music

I start out first with a recent purchase, a book called Handmade Electronic Music. This is a really nice introduction to making your own musical gadgets. The author starts out with the basics, get’s into circuit ‘bending’ (modifying existing electronic gizmos), and then moves toward more complex work using CMOS chips.

Nothing here is rocket science, so don’t expect to walk away being able to make a full synth. However, it does cover introductory to moderate level skills, and gets into some nice projects for the guitar heros out there. If you are a musician and wants to learn how those distortion pedals work, this is a good starting point.

Unlike a lot of electronics books out there, this one is very readable. The author covers components just enough, and doesn’t swamp you with extended explanations of how the chips work (there are other books to do that). In the end, you end up making fun sounding stuff really quickly.

In addition, I am pleased to report that this book was well edited. I’ve yet to find a typo in the text or schematics. Even better, this author uses commonly available, inexpensive, non-retired parts, and also includes Radio Shack and Jameco part numbers. Very handy, especially for people who don’t want to get into electronics “whole hog”. Most of the projects can be made with about $20 in parts (tops).

CMOS Cookbook

Once you have played around with Handmade Electronic Music for a while you’ll want to more about the nitty-gritty behind the CMOS chips used in many of those projects. The classic CMOS Cookbook is a good place to start.

This book, originally written in the late seventies, and reviewed/revised in the late nineties, is a great intro to CMOS logic chips. Basically, CMOS chips are logic devices. Feed a signal in, they do some work, and out is your result. Inverters are a basic example of a logic gate (send in a 1, get 0 in the output). There are also things like decade counters (used for the “KITT Car” scanning light effect, among other things), and dividers (put in one frequency, get base 2 divisions of that frequency on different output pins).

The beauty of CMOS is that is still comes in a basic DIP package (those larger “chip” sizes which are easier for experimenters to use), they have a wide voltage range (about 5V to 15V), and require very little power to run (versus TTL logic chips). Plus, they are a long-used technology (since the early 70′s) so there’s a lot of info out there. As an added bonus, they are dirt cheap. In single units most are in the 25 cent range (if you purchase from a larger supplier, like Allied). This means you can destroy a few without going broke.

The CMOS Cookbook is a great introduction to CMOS, and also a solid introduction to logic circuits. There are lists of the most common chips, and what they do. There are sample projects of all sorts. And there are excellent descriptions of the different logic states, and how you can use them.

The author, Don Lancanster, has written more books and articles than I can count, and offers a lot of very useful real-world advice. In addition, since the book was written thirty (!!!) years ago, you don’t get a lot of heavy (and complicated) microcontroller/microprocessor stuff. I love the microcontroller stuff, but I think it’s best for beginners to understand, at least a little, how the most basic logic chips work. Heck, you can make your own computer, with RAM and ROM, with the CMOS line.

If you are working with CMOS, which is pretty popular in the analog/digital synth circuit, then the CMOS Cookbook is well worth your time.

Don also has a TTL Cookbook, which I also own. However, since I don’t do much TTL, and it’s more of a pain to work with, I’d advise sticking with CMOS. Most of the TTL logic chips have been re-created with CMOS anyway, so why bother with TTL? (I know, there are reasons. But for most homebrew people, CMOS is the way to go. It’s newer, too! LOL).

Evil Genius Books

The TAB company (an old tech publisher) has recently been putting out a whole line of “Evil Genius” books. We own two of them, one on microcontrollers (PICs), and this one (Spy Gadgets).

These books are really a mixed bag for me. On one hand, they are easy to read, pretty chatty in style, and have some interesting projects. On the other hand, I’m concerned about their editing. I can’t speak for the entire series, but the “Spy Gadgets” book is filled with errors. Now, there’s nothing earth-shattering, but there’s enough to make a beginner’s life a lot harder. For example: mislabeled parts, text not matching schematics, illogical schematic flows, and glossing over of some critical components.

If you are a beginner picking up electronics, be sure to have an experienced person look over your shoulder. If you don’t have someone to help, check their forums for updates, and check the data sheets on the key components (at least the pinouts and common ratings for off-board components).

Again, I really like these books for the ideas, but I don’t think they are “tight” enough to provide a solid introduction to electronics. Maybe that’s not their goal, but they should at least be as accurate as possible.
With this I have a couple of words of advice for electronics books writers:

• Use common parts. If you can’t get it from 3 major vendors, don’t use it.
• Include options and cross references. Beginners don’t know that a 74C114 can be replaced by a CD40106.
• Proofread. Proofread. Proofread. Proofread.
• Follow industry standard schematic conventions. I like big bold schematics, but I don’t like non-standard parts symbols.
• Where possible, have your schematics flow top-bottom, left-right. (At least for Western readers.) A big annoyance with the Spy book was that some schematics went logical left-right, while others went right-left. Very confusing!
• Include complete parts lists. This makes it so much easier for people to order everything at once, and save on shipping. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to pay $8 to ship a 25 cent part. (This is one of the reasons I try and keep a tight inventory, and triple-check before ordering parts. Better to buy a little too much than to sit for a week waiting on something to come in.)

Another week, another “blockbuster” designer drug that does nothing. In case you haven’t heard, recent studies have shown that stuff like Prozac does little for people with moderate (read: normal) depression. This week, we find that the popular (read: over prescribed because drug reps push it) cholesterol drug, Vytorin, fails to improve heart disease even though it reduced risk factors.

The last part is the important point. You see, we hear things like “high cholesterol is bad” and “high blood pressure is dangerous” and so on. Drug companies, doctors, the media, and every other ill-informed shmuck out there is running around worried about their High Cholesterol. Mine it too high, I have to get it down! I’m eating better, and I’ve got these neat-o pills to help me!

Now eating better and reducing the bad cholesterol is a good thing, but they’re missing the point. High cholesterol isn’t a disease.

We get so caught up with our symptoms that we miss the forest for the trees. It’s not the high cholesterol or the high blood pressue that we’re trying to avoid, it’s a freaking heart attack or a stroke. High cholesterol doesn’t kill you, a blocked artery does.

But drug companies like helping with symptoms because those are a lot easier to solve. Let’s take an example: You have a cough. JumboComboPhamaCo has just come up with a Blockbuster drug. Something that you’ll learn about in every magazine and TV commercial. Take LiCoutraCal PM and you’ll never cough again! It’s amazing, and it works. You don’t cough any more. You are cured! The only problem is, you still have Tuberculosis!

I’m  not saying you shouldn’t be taking your blood pressure medicine or your cholesterol lowering drugs. I am saying is that you should be challenging your doctors. For any drug they want to prescribe, you ask these simple questions: What disease are we trying to avoid / cure? Has this medicine been proven to reduce my chances of ____ disease? I could give a flying fuck in LowCholLiveForever HCT lowers my cholesterol in 5 different important ways. I want to know if the fucking drug is going to help prevent a heart attack.

We’ve picked up a couple of DS games which we’re enjoying. Here’s a quick review of them:

Prism

I believe this first came out as a web-based game. Your goal is to “light up” guys on the board using mirrors, beam splitters, color filters, etc. It’s a neat idea, and is very easy to pick up and put down. There’s no time limits (except for the “Hyper” mode), so you can play at your own pace. There are also hints at many levels, so if you are really stumped you don’t have to worry about being stuck.

The multiplayer mode, while enjoyable, is super-slow to download. Because of this we rarely play multiplayer (DS to DS, local). Also, like many of these bargin ($20) games, there is no good game-save mode, and records, etc, can’t be saved to an individual. This kinds sucks, but since it’s more of a “quick bite” game, it’s not a big deal.

Word Jong

I believe we learned about this based on a recommendation from Tiff. It is what it says: A combination of Scrabble and Mah Jong.  I believe it’s also a DS version of a web game. You pick tiles off the stack, making up words. The longer the words, the more points. Like Prism, it’s quick to learn, and keeps you entertained.

The multiplayer mode is better than Prism, since it downloads fast. Players take turns making words. The downside is that the multiplayer options are very limited, but it’s fun nonetheless. I haven’t tried any of the internet based play, as I can’t stand playing with 13-year-olds who play 20 hours a day. Not fun. (Probably the most not-fun is internet based Tetris. I swear those people are robots.)

Anyhow, the single player modes are pretty good. There’s a basic puzzle mode, a daily puzzle, and a challenge mode. The challenge can be annoying, as you can’t “back out” of a puzzle without dumping your points. (You gather points to make it to the next level.) I’ve been frustated a couple of times after making a series of great words, but end up reaching the lower part of the “pile” with a bunch of stupid “U”s and “V”s. You can undo, and try to get rid of them, but it can be a pain sometimes.

Like Prism, the game save sucks. You can’t have multiple players, which is a lot more annoyting with Word Jong than Prism. This isn’t a big deal if you are an only player, but Ev and I swap games all the time, and it would be nice to have separate records.

I find Word Jong to be more re-playable than Prism, but Prism can be pretty addicting, too. Prism is more “play 2 minutes at a time”. Word Jong is a little longer term.

Professor Layton and the Curious Village

Professor Layton and the Curious Village is a longer term game. It reminds me of the not-exactly-linear games of LucasArts fame. It has some nice animation, good sound, and in interesting (if simple) story line. The long and short of it is that you move around this village, searching for clues. The trouble is, the people in the village are all jerks, and make you solve puzzles to get answers. The game play is moderately linear, but no where near as A > B > C as a game like Phoenix Wright. (I like the PW games, but they are way way too read-through-the-story, go-to-next-step. You feel like you are being led through the story, versus really exploring. In Layton you do a lot more exploring.)

This game is all about logic puzzles, so if you hate them, then don’t bother. The only way you can move through the story is to solve the puzzles. Some are very easy, some are annoying, and others are very tough. There are hints along the way, and you don’t need to solve all of the puzzles to make it through, but you do have to solve enough of them. (For example, you can’t talk to person X until you solve Y number of puzzles.)

I had a lot of fun with this game, but was able to rip through the main story far too quickly (about 12 hours of gameplay). This is a little too quick for a $30 game without a lot of replay value (more on this later).

The production values are very nice, and you can have multiple players. I liked the fact that you can’t get really stuck, and you can never die. Don’t worry about using “too many” hints or anything. Nothing you can do will hurt your progress and finishing a “perfect” game (no hint use) does nothing to the outcome (I tried).

In addition to the story line, you can replay any of the puzzles. On the surface, this sounds really great. And it is. But the problem is that many of the puzzles are “trick” ones, meaning that once you know the answer, that’s it. It’s no longer fun. There are only about 10 puzzles that have any real replay value. On the bright side, this is better than the Pheonix Wright series, which has absolutely no replay value at all.

I think that the designers knew they had limited replay, because they did add a nice feature: The weekly download puzzle. Every week (for a year) you can download a new puzzle. It’s a neat add on, and does create additional value.

Also, if you unlock enough of a certain puzzle, or collect enough of certain “mystery parts”, you unlock special new puzzles. There are also “hidden” puzzles all over the game, so you end up clicking all over looking for “hint coins” and new puzzles. (In total, there are 120 main puzzles in the game.)

Again, I really enjoyed the game, but once you are done that’s pretty much it, except for some of the replayable (get the thing out) puzzles and the weekly stuff. I really wish it lasted longer. On the bright side, this is supposed to be a series, so I’m really looking forward to the next one.

Those who know me know that I’m a big knife fan. Whether it’s a good chef’s knife, a fancy limited edition, or a simple folder, I’m into it.

As my collection grows, I’m moving away from the hyper expensive blades, and searching out solid, dependable knives that I can use every day. This first happened in the cooking arena, where I put aside my hand-made Masahiro and replaced it with a stamped Dexter Sani-Safe. If I want to cut fish into 1/16″ slices, I grab the Masahiro. For everything else, the Dexter is the one I go to.

The same thing goes for folders. I love my Ken Onion Random Task, but it’s a valuable, and hard to replace, knife. Which means I don’t want to use it for every day work. Instead, I have been using the cheaper Kershaw Leek, in the Rainbow pattern:

As a friend of mine calls it: “The Hippy Killer”. It’s a fast, and light, knife. But the one I have doesn’t have a serrated blade (useful in certain situations) and it’s just too nice to use. It also has a pretty thin blade, and it’s not something I’d want to have in a “life or death” situation (ex. hacking off my own leg or something gruesome).

All this brings me to my newest knife, the CRKT Model M16-12ZERC. I happened on it pretty much by chance while roaming around the REI site. (I was trying to find good use for a coupon and my dividends.) I thought to myself, what the heck, it looks okay and it has decent reviews, why not.

Boy, was I pleasantly surprised. Why? Because I was expecting a weak-ish knife with a shitty opening mechanism. Instead, I got a brute that opens super fast and locks tight.

Let me diverge for a moment: Buy folding knives which (a) have locking blades and (b) can be opened with one hand. Let me reiterate: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, ONLY USE FOLDERS THAT LOCK AND CAN BE OPENED WITH ONE HAND.

Pretty strident, huh? There’s a reason. When you are trying to use a knife, the last damn thing you want is the blade wanting to slip back into the handle, cutting your fingers in the process. A liner lock, or something similar, is absolutely necessary. Do not carry a tactical folder that doesn’t lock. Period. They are dangerous and unreliable.

Second, and this holds true mainly for tactical folders, you want a knife that can be opened one-handed, as quickly as possible. Whether you are trying to untangle your legs in a river, or fending off hobos, you want a knife that opens fast, with one hand. Now I know there are a lot of people who are afraid of fast knives. Don’t be. They are some of the safest, best engineered, tools available. Any bozo can stamp out a simple folding knife. But it takes proper craftsmanship to make a high-speed opener.

Back to the M16-12Z: This knife opens fast. You can’t see it in the photo, but it uses a setup called a Carson Flipper. It’s on the back of the knife, near the pivot point. Pull it down / push it in (easier done than said) and the blade flips open. I judge the speed of the knife by how much it scares people. This knife scares people, because it flips open so quickly, and with a definite “this is the wrong person to fuck with” sound (due to the blade width). The other nice thing about the Carson Flipper, besides it’s speed, is that it acts as a blade guard when the knife is locked open. It helps prevent your fingers from slipping too far forward–excellent for dangerous situations.

The M16-12Z is a liner lock, which is pretty common these days. This means a piece of springy metal in the handle moves up when the blade passes it. This locks the blade and prevents it from wanting to fold back into the handle. To unlock the knife, you simply push down on the liner with your thumb and ease the blade back in. Again, much easier done than written about.

The problem with liner locks is that they can become unlocked under high torque twisting motions. This is a pretty uncommon movement, but it could happen under emergency conditions (like fending off a brown bear). To solve this problem, this knife includes an AutoLAWKS safety. this is a little safety level which automatically engages when the liner lock does. This means that when the life is locked, it’s locked. To close it, you have to engage the safety, push down the liner lock, and then fold the knife.

It’s kind of funny: With a handgun, and some folders, you have to disengage the safety to open/fire the device. With LAWKS you disengage the safety to disengage the knife. You see, the whole point of high-speed tactical folders is to get them open and ready as quickly as possible. These are life-and-death knives–you don’t want to be fiddling with them, or have them close one you unexpectedly. On the downside, this knife is a little more difficult to close single-handed; it will take some practice to do it quickly. But, then again, it’s more important that it opens quickly than closes quickly.

The other thing I like about this knife is it’s girth. It’s a chubbier knife, with a thick tanto-style blade. The tanto part refers to the tip, and how the thickness of the blade changes (very thick along the top edge). Long story short, it’s designed to stab and slash. The name comes from a Japanese style dagger which was developed to pierce through armor. This kind of blade will pierce sheet metal without a problem.

The handle itself is Zytel over a stainless steel frame. Zytel is a heavy duty material, and comes in a lot of colors. This knife is available in black or orange. I went with the orange, because it’s easier to find/see. The one I have comes with a 3 inch blade, serrated toward the lower half of the blade. One half of the tanto tip is also sharpened, which is different from some other tantos I have (the Random Task comes to mind).

All in all, this is a sturdy, very well made knife. At first I was fooled by the day-glow “plastic” handle, but the Zytel is some tough stuff and this knife is not at all flimsy. It can be found for between $40 and $50 and is a great deal. Highly recommended as a daily use knife.

Today’s the big day! Aren’t you excited?!?! Starting today, at 8 PM local, cities across the world will turn off the power in a few of their unused office buildings as a meaningless symbolic gesture to the “Earth Hour” movement.

I mean, really. Besides the neat-o factor of seeing downtown Chicago dark, what is this trying to prove? If you really want to save energy, turn off the 50-bazillion streetlights. Or the parking lots which are illuminated like the noon-day sun at all hours of the day or night.

I know, I know. It’s to “raise awareness”–but that line of B.S. is worn out. All this fucking “raising awareness” and feel-good crap which actually does very very little to solve any problems. I feel good about myself for running in a breast cancer awareness race! Now I don’t have to think about that problem for another year. Give me a break.

Instead of “raising awareness” all the god-damned time, why don’t we actually do something to solve the problem. Always looking for the easy way out. Trouble is, the easy way is never a viable long-term solution.

It would be a “killer joke” (as Evelyn would say) if our antiquated power grid fails this evening, just because a couple dozen office buildings turn off their power all at the same time. That, my friends, would be unintended consequences in action.

I’m pleased to see that The Maker Store is now carrying a few of the Gakken kits. Gakken is a company in Japan which makes a whole bunch of stuff, including their line of “Sophisticated Science Kits for Adults”. I love this line of products because they focus on adult kit makers, a market which is sorely underserved.

Here are a couple of them:

Vacuum Tube Radio Kit

This great kit allows you to put together a real, functional, vacuum-tube radio! Includes a pin straightener for the vacuum tubes, a testing microphone so you can make sure everything is hooked up correctly to produce sounds, rubber feet on the fiber board to minimize “howling,” a variable condenser to allow for finer tuning, a recreation of 60-year-old circuits, and a more powerful transformer for better volume and sound quality.

Cup Phonograph

This replica kit uses the same technology that Thomas Edison used, replacing Edison’s waxed pipe and stylus with a plastic cup and a needle, but the end results are the same! You record your own voice on a plastic cup — and play it back!

The Gakken line of Adult kits are really great. A couple of years ago I picked up one of these, and it was a lot of fun to put together:

It’s a Gramophone that etches sound waves (with a needle) onto the back of a piece of plastic. They use an old CD for the plastic disk, which is really clever. The speaker code / mic is actually a plastic cup. The base is made out of very sturdy plastic. It’s not cheap feeling at all. 

Some things to keep in mind with these kits:

• The ones I’ve made require little or no electronics skills. This is either a pro or a con, depending on what you’re trying to learn. The boards are pre-populated, so you plug stuff in, but have to do no soldering.
• Instead of soldering, you will have to do some mechanical work. You’ll build the cases, have to carefully align some parts, and so on. It is not overly difficult, but best handled by an adult or a child with good mechanical experience.
• The kits do not require any speciality hand tools. If I recall correctly, the only tool I needed for the Gramophone was a simple regular (slotted) screwdriver.
• The cases are made of high quality plastic. They look pretty nice, but not quite as nice as the photos. Regardless, they will look good on your mantle.
• The Gramophone took me a short evening to complete. The phonograph looks to be about the same. I’m guessing that the tube radio will take a bit longer.

I’m really pleased that these kits are being made more available in the US. Previously they had been quite hard to find (mine had to be imported though a Manga vendor).

In many ways, I prefer these kits to many of the electronics ones out there. Too many of the electronics kits are just soldering exercises, where you learn very little about the circuit you are putting together. While these kits are also “assembly” exercises, they do seem to give a greater sense of accomplishment. Plus, the mechanics are simple enough that you can get a good grasp of how they work.

This is going to be one of those extra-rambling posts. You have been warned.

Let’s see, should I talk about the idiotic letter I got from the IRS informing me that I might, or might not, receive a tax “rebate” of unclear value at some point in the future to be deposited into one of my bank accounts (unsure which one)? Thanks for sending me that utterly useless letter!

Or maybe I should talk about the “bail out” of investment banks? Or the cry to “bail out” all the homeowners who purchased homes beyond their means? Evelyn was reading an article where someone said that we should help “anyone who faces forclosure”. Heck, isn’t that every homeowner? Illness and job loss have hosed people much more than a shitty mortgage. Does this mean I never have to worry about failing to meet my financial obligations?

Perhaps I’m extra grumpy because I had to make my quarterly estimated tax payment today. That always puts me into a dour mood, especially when I look to see what I’m getting for my money (read: nothing). As a small business person I’d much rather have put that sizeable chunk of change into a slew of new test equipment. Instead, it will go to paying for a machine gun.

Don’t even get me started on our tax system. Isn’t it grand that my blood-sweat-and-tears money gets taxed at upwards of 30% while returns from stocks (capital gains) gets taxed at 15%? What kind of incentive is that to work hard?

It’s interesting that my tolerance for the “do just enough to get by” people is just about nonexistent these days. I think my general response is along the lines of “they can go fuck themselves.” If you aren’t trying to move forward, and you’re just complaining without doing anything about it, then I don’t fucking care.

This is not to say that I’ve become an unsupportive uncaring asshole. An asshole I’ve always been, but my tolerance for people who don’t help themselves is gone. You want to be miserable? Go right ahead. I could care less. You want to be happy and productive? Then I’ll do everything in my power to help.

Recently Evelyn was reading New Scientist and ran across a reference to A Canticle For Leibowitz. “That’s a great book. You have to read it!” I exclaimed, and so she is. The only trouble is that Miller uses some $10 words which leave her stumped.

So today, while doing our usual second-hand store run, we picked up a little pocket dictionary for her to keep by her side. Flipping through it, I saw the definition for “privy” (noun):

A water-closet or necessary house.

Well, how quaint! What year was that definition written, 1908? To my annoyance, neither “water-closest” nor “necessary house” existed in my New Pocket Pal Dictionary. What will future generations think of us? What will they guess a “necessary house” to be?

necessary: such as must be
house: a building for the habitation of man

So, a privy is a house that must exist. Hmm. So, what about “water closet”? Well, water is in there, but not closet. So much for that.

On the bright side, even though the dictionary is confusing and incomplete, it does tie back into A Canticle For Leibowitz. After all, those monks had a heck of a time figuring out what a blueprint was. It’s all about context. Without proper context we begin thinking that Mayan toys are complex accounting devices.