Casey Halverson

Poor, Neglected Blog

Oh poor blog. You are neglected and ignored. I have a confession to make, blog: I am cheating on you with another blog I write (invite only).

But don't you worry seattlewireless.net, I am going to start backfeeding/cross posting all my content onto this blog too, so the internet at large can read what I have been up to (for better or for worse).

Oh, and I have very depressing news. I really wanted to do another mail bag, but frankly, nobody emails me anymore. Maybe they read the public scathing unleashed in my last (and only) mailbag.

Reporters Seeking Dirt on Palin's Kids From Alaska Teens on Facebook?

I stay far away from blogging political items, but this one just takes the cake.

I am hearing talk from young inlaws (high school age or recent graduate) -- in particular residents of the matsu/wasilla Alaska area -- that reporters are contacting them via facebook (some claiming to be from US Weekly) in an effort to stir up dirt on Palin's kids.

Wow, thats incredibly dirty.

God bless the internet.

Top Ten 'Im Not Buying an iPhone' Excuses That Will Save You Money

So the new iPhone comes out tomorrow. Your friends (if you have any) might be asking you if you are going to totally buy the new iphone or not. Well, here are some excuses you can use to avoid having to buy another piece of electronics tomorrow and fighting the crowds.

10. I can't justify spending ~~$599~~ $199 on a cell phone

9. I am going to wait until the 3G 4G version comes out

8. ~~It doesnt have GPS~~ No stereo bluetooth is a deal killer for me

7. ~~You can't have third party applications~~ Apple needs to approve all applications, so its not really open

6. The (insert obviously inferior iPhone knock off handset name here) is way better than the iPhone, I am going to buy that instead

5. I am going to wait until the one with the mini-DLP projector comes out

4. I don't want to sign another 2 year contract

3. The back is plastic now ... i liked the old iPhone's metal back. too bad I can't buy the old one now

2. The plans are $10 more expensive now

1. Steve Jobs is the devil

Green Paradox

Whats funnier than recycling by mail? Well, how about earning airline mileage for buying carbon offsets!

May 13, 2008, Austin, Texas - BeGreen, the carbon offsets division of Green Mountain Energy Company, announced their participation in the American Airlines AAdvantage® program. The exclusive offer provides eco-conscious AAdvantage members with the opportunity to earn miles while also reducing their impact on global warming through the purchase of carbon offset products and "green" gifts from BeGreen's online store.

Check out how you can have your cake and eat it too! Greenwash yourself today, take unessassary free flights later!

And for the record, I think buying carbon offsets are stupid.

Electric Floors

Whats better than a series of tubes under your floor keeping it warm? WiFi? Maybe...but...how about normal, electrically heated floors? (Girl not included).

SunTouch marketing photo

I recently completed the installation of a SunTouch heated floor mat and programmable thermostat into the "master" bath. Its recommended application is under tile.

Glob on thinset over mesh thingy,
plop tiles like normal on top of thinset

Installation was probably the easiest part of the entire tiling job. So much that it was the only part i finished (I had a contractor finish the rest of the tile cutting and placement). The idea is to take the mat, lay it on top of the cement backerboard, put your thinset over it, and put your tiles on top. Oh, and there is a little sensor you put into the thinset that measures the temperature. Wire up the GFCI themrostat, and you are good to go. An installation video (VHS) comes with the mat.

The website touts specialized contractors for this type of installation. I do not think its required. All you need is A) a tile flooring guy who isn't afraid to smear thinset on a flat, plastic woven mat -- that ain't hard B) someone willing to hook up the magic thermostat box to electricity.

GFCI thermostat can
keep the "shock" away

Out of morbid curiosity, I cranked this thing to 104F (maximum setting), but it becomes plenty toasty by 80F. 80F only took it 15-20 minutes. I am sure it will take a while to get to 104F though.

Total current draw is about 2A with my mat, or about 200ish watts. As with any radiant heat technology, that heat generated will just reduce the time my furnace runs.

Electric is great for small, directed applications (ie: walk areas, bathrooms, kitchens, etc) where you want heat, but I think a hydronic system is better suited for whole-house applications. Another benefit to electric is how cheaply it can be done. Just remember, if you decide to lay down this mat in your next flooring project, The cut-off between the mat and non-mat under the tile is a considerable drop off! Its down right chilling!

I have another bathroom remodel coming up. You can bet I will be putting in some more of this.

Mail Bag

I really, really, really hate mail bags.

I don't pretend like I have a big blog, and I don't want to lead anyone to believe I even get any mail. But recently I got a few pieces of mail. I get so few that I will just use every single one of them for the mail bag.

I stole the image of this mail bag from google images, it was on the first page, and it kind of looks like a bag of mail because it says "Hong Kong Post" on it. China really doesn't follow any intellectual property laws, so I think i am on safe legal ground. You can send me an email if you object.

First, comes an email from HJ C.:

http://seattlewireless.net/~casey/2006/02/27#feb272006
The over-usage of the question mark probably has more to do with some intern's inability to use copy-paste correctly than knowledge of proper punctuation usage. It seems like where the ? mark appears there should be a bullet point, and someone probably copied it directly from a Word doc to a format that doesn't support non-readable characters, at which point it just shows up as a question mark.

At first, I thought he was complaining about one of my blog posts, and that I was the intern. But I really should have read my blog post which pokes fun at question marks.

Now we can all laugh at Sprint or the software company that made "America's Best Pix" for using non-readable characters! Stupid interns using Microsoft Word.

Another email, which I am quite certain is a flame, came in from Joe S in regards to my creative writing piece / travel blog post about a 416 mile dirt road to nowhere in Alaska. Joe S. writes:

From: Joe S.
Subject: Your June 2005 blog

Casey,
Why do you include incorrect information? It creates skepticism in the readers mind.
The Yukon River Bridge is not rotten wood its not even wood.
See the picture:

[Image of the Yukon River bridge built of concrete and steel -casey]
[Oh yeah, that image is mine ass, kthnxbye -casey]
Thats concrete and steel - $30 million worth.

I'm sorry I made fun of your bridge. I am sure it took a lot of effort to make. I will quote my own blog with the alledged defamatory content in question:

After hours of driving, we approched the Yukon River. The river was pretty large and spectacular. The bridge was made out of, you guessed it, rotten wood.

I really could have wrote:

Its a concrete and steel bridge, with a wood deck. Chained up trucks caused all the damage you see in the pictures, and the bridge is not rotten.

But now my 4 readers are bored to death. Who really wants to read a story about a safe, steel bridge i crossed? I think ill keep it as is. Better to tell an exciting lie and than a boring truth when you write a blog.

But do you really want to know why I lied? I have a confession to make. I was paid money to post that blog. $7800 to be exact.

It all started when I received this letter in the mail from the Bush Trucker Assocation of Alaska:

How could I pass that up? Free trip to Alaska to visit family AND $7800 for a lousy road trip?

I am really quite embarrassed over the situation. But, yes, its true. This blogger was paid off to write that article. I still don't reget it much.

No HDMI for Wii

I decided to do some more shopping for my game system, and went to the store to buy a (non existant) HDMI-Wii cable.

"I see the component cables, but where do you keep the Wii HDMI cables?", I ask.
"The Wii is not high definition, its just 480p", looking smug, as if I was a complete idiot (subjective).

After a quick iPhone googling in the store -- there really was no such thing. No need to argue, it just does not have any digital out. Lots of forum posts with this exact same HDMI question, and plenty more Fred Meyer electronics section employee-esk responses.

Ugh. Time for video school forum posters and store clerks alike:

HDMI does not equal "high definition only", its a cable specification that carries a variety digital video and audio signals. 480p works just fine over HDMI and is part of the specification.

Converting a digital signal to analog and then right back to digital is silly, no matter what the resolution. Virtually all televisions that accept component will put it back into digital format anyway. Why introduce analog artifacts needlessly? Wii's component output is not perfect. There is noticable ghosting between pixels of high contrast. Especially so on a large TV.

HDMI carries digital audio, reducing the need for extra wires and yet another ADC/DAC step.

I don't care about the "jaggies" or blocky video game graphics. All I want is there to be one mario, not one mario and three of his ghosts, because nintendo has a slight impedance mismatch on the component jacks.

1080p

Its great to finally see some higher resolutions in the plasma market at affordable prices. It also appears that all of my complaints about plasma dot pitch (aka, the gap between the pixels) have gone away with some of these new sets. It no longer looks like peering through a screen door! Now if only they weighed less and did not buzz so much. :p

Price drops are also getting silly in the LCD market. If you look around, and do not care much about the nameplate on the front, you can pick up a high quality 1080p 42" set for under $1000. Most of these are OEM from well known brands.

How great do things look on a 1080p set? Couldn't tell you. I'll wait for this Blu-Ray/HD-DVD thing to finish and let you know later. I am not putting my money on either format just yet.

ZipIt2

Matt got me to impulsively buy the second generation ZipIt, which features a color screen and loads of new features.

Some of the highlights:

Color screen (duh)

Backlit keypad

WiFi connectivity

MiniSD slot

MP3 player

Image viewer

Internet radio player

Headphone jack

Runs linux under the hood

and then one of the most interesting features:

Lots of really strange ports and jacks

There is a port inside the battery compartment, a larger ipod-isk connector on the back, and a small 4 pin jack next to the headphone jack. I am not really certain what any of these do.

The battery on the unit is unusually large for the capacity of the battery. I can get the same capacity with half the size, and nearly double capacity (2000mAh) in that exact form factor. Sounds like the first hack for this nifty device, as it could really use a lot more run time.

Second, a lot of the configuration (backdrop, themes, and radio stations) are pushed to the device from the company's website control panel. I am certain that these can be intercepted by faking the DNS on a local network. It could also serve as a way of uploading new code to the device, as it frequently checks for firmware updates from ZipIt.

No word on whether the device will be "opened up" or perhaps an SDK offered. Hopefully the GUI menu is expandable with new applications, as its not a bad launcher, so someone will not have to re-invent the wheel.

Anyway, I have no time to do anything productive with this device, so i will wait until someone gives me a serial port with "terminal", an IRC client, an SSH client, and all that jazz.

One Thousand Monkeys on One Thousand Typewriters

Can one thousand monkeys on one thousand typewriters eventually write a novel? For fun, I decided to put this to the test.

No--I did not fill a warehouse full of monkeys. I used the next best thing: /dev/random. This unix device, or file, can generate a limitless stream of random text and binary for your enjoyment. We are also making /dev/random do something it was not designed to do: produce non-random data.

Conclusion: They probably can't write a novel. But they can write a few words.

If you ever get bored in a shell, and have a lot of computational power at hand, you could try something like this:

cat /dev/random | strings | grep -i wtf\?
wtF?_HO
wtf?

Wow! now that was kinda creepy. Lets gather some statistics...

Use the 'tee' command and try to count just how much useless noise there was before our monkeys typed something of interest:

$ cat /dev/random | tee junk | strings | grep -i wtf\?
Wtf?'
^C
$ wc -c junk
330432512 junk
$

So there you have it. In 330 megabytes of sheer randomness, our monkeys finally asked "wtf?".

You can also try using base64 or uuencode to make /dev/random generate alphabetical characters to increase the odds..