Category: General

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The Down side of NOT being a packrat (Updated)

Several years ago, there was a bit of a disaster at my home.

The practical upshot of which is that I no longer have the copious mound of electronic flotsam and jetsam that I once had.

Contrary to popular belief that mound of shit was useful… occasionally. It was always likely that I’d have a spare part, or small widget that wasn’t available anymore. Those odd bits and pieces I used to keep other cobbled together electronics in good repair.

After the disaster… I thought fine! Everything will be brand new and I’ll have no need for a ton of spare parts.

Flash forward to this morning….

I’m prepping to take a Hike.

On my hikes I take a cell phone, some water, and my two-way radio. and a couple of other items. I’ll grant you that I probably wont need the radio, or the cell phone. But they’re in the pack just in case…

I could fall down, I could get snake bit, I could have a heart attack, I could in theory get lost. So having these bare essentials with me just insures that If I have a problem I’ll be able to at least call for help and probably be able to have my carcass dragged out of the hills before the large predators start chowing down on me.

The two-way has a tracking/beaconing function and can be set to automatically send out a distress beacon.

I pick up the radio and notice I’m missing a mounting screw. The screw holds a steel mounting bracket that stabilizes the GPS module on the top of the radio. It’s stress relief to keep the module from snapping the unit off the radio and thereby damaging the microphone/accessory connector.

This is a minor issue but the bracket and GPS should be tied together just in case. It’s not like I slam the radio around, it’s either in the backpack or it’s in my pocket.

Anyhow… I think to myself, “probably a common metric size, the radio is Japanese, I’m sure I’ve got a screw that will fit.”

Except… That I DON’T. I probably did but not anymore…

I have another way to solve the problem but it’s not permanent. I call the local radio supply folks. They don’t carry spares politely suggested that I contact the manufacturer…

I know i’m not the only guy to have dropped a screw… (Don’t get funny…) I’m sure that all the guys have just gone to their handy dandy screw [bottle, jar, drawer,] and found something that fit. Just like I was going to do.

The problem is… I’ve been working very diligently at not having a bunch of spare parts laying around because I like everything being as uncluttered as possible.

Well as of this morning…. I’m starting a screw jar!

I’m off on my hike now…

————————–UPDATE————————-

Service with a smile.

I contacted the manufacturer of my two-way (Yaesu) Monday morning. I spoke with a very nice lady who told me the screws were .93 each. I bought 10… yeah what of it? I know I’m probably going to loose it again.

The screws showed up in the mail today Wednesday 1/18/2012.

Talk about service!

I’d been looking at their other products anyway, if this experience is the way they do business… I’m always going to check out their product line first for all my future purchases.

Well done Yaesu…

And Thank You.

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Justice! Say what???

I had the pleasure of sitting in a Jury Selection room yesterday.
Unknown

I used to actually believe that the system worked. I used to think that performing jury duty was a beneficial act of public service. I used to think that Justice was served and that it made a difference.

In the past few years I’ve become increasingly convinced that there is no Justice.

I guess it’s been a slow evolution. Thinking back, it started with the OJ Simpson and Rodney King trials. My thought that Justice is not only blind, deaf, dumb, and prejudiced, was cinched by Lindsay fucking Lohan and the lady who pepper sprayed the crowd in WalMart.

In the case of OJ we saw that money can indeed buy your innocence.

In the case of Rodney King we discovered that media coverage and public opinion was far more effective than actual facts. We also learned that the supposed protection of the “Double Jeopardy” clause wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on.

In the case of Lindsay… well that bitch need to find her ass in prison, and I’m really questioning the competency of the judge presiding over Ms Lohans train wreck.

In the case of the pepper spray woman. We learned that not only can you be above the law… But you can be below it.

We learned that if you plead or feign ignorance of the consequences of your actions you needn’t worry about being punished. I was raised with the concept that “Ignorance of the law wasn’t an excuse” WRONG! WHITEBOY! As long as you’re from a perceived ethnic minority you don’t have to be responsible for your actions.

So There I was sitting in the Jury Room wondering why it was that 98% of the people in the room with me were white. Especially when one considers the demographics of the local area from which the Jury pool is formed.

As I sat there I recalled a conversation that two former co-workers had regarding a Jury Summons.
“Just trow that paper away girl! They ain’t gots enuf police to come and get you. They put that shit about it being illegal to ignore the paper just  scare the white folks into wasting their day. How the court ever gonna know you got that paper in the first place??”

Ahhh… That explains why I found myself sitting in the Jury room with a mostly white crowd.

My darkening reverie was interrupted by an announcement that all of us were now invited… AKA forced to watch a short video. The video was well produced and extolled the virtues of performing jury services. The video portrayed the process as educational, fun, and perhaps a way to increase your circle of friends. Uhhhh Right!

I thought it was well done and somewhat informative, but the music was a bit over the top in my opinion. I also didn’t believe a single frame of it. I’m a cynic… so what.

After the video finished, there was another announcement. “We have posted your new panel and juror numbers on lists near the front and back doors. Please find your name, and note your panel and number. If you cannot find your name, please let us know so that we can include you.”

At this point the “airplane” mentality took over, 150 people jumped up and headed toward the lists. A nice gentleman sitting next to me commented on my remaining absolutely still and not leaping up to stand in a line.

I replied, “I heard the announcement… I have no desire to re-create the airplane debarkation drama. I’ll sit right here until the crowd thins then I’ll mosey up and get the information.”

The man chuckled,  “What? You’re not going to participate in the American pastime of being impatient and pushy?”

“Nope, I’m not. I’m having far too much fun feeling like Jane Goodall among the chimpanzees. Human crowd behavior confirms that we are indeed primates!”

He laughed out loud at that, and I’d spoken loud enough that I drew a scowl from several of the women standing in the line.

We chatted some more about politics, the state of the state, and the current crop of candidates. It was interesting to note that we were about the same age and had pretty much parallel ideas. He pointed out that even if someone was convicted they’d be out in no time, because the jails and prisons are overcrowded so really what is the point? The point he said, is that this justice and political systems is like the Circus Maximus in Rome. It’s a way to keep the masses entertained and occupied so that while our asses are being sold out we don’t notice.

I admit this is something that I’ve contemplated myself on more than one occasion. I don’t believe in the system anymore, I’d really like to, but at every turn I’m presented with yet more evidence that the system is broken, not repairable, and we need to start over.

Our conversation was interrupted by another announcement.

“Good News everyone…. Panel X has been dismissed because the parties have decided to settle”

Being part of Panel X I pulled a vanishing act that Houdini would have been proud of…

My jury service requirement is fulfilled until next year… or until the most inconvenient of times, whichever comes first.

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Republican Nominees Am I missing it or are they pretty much all the same?

Reps
Alright, I admit it…

I actually sat through one of the New Hampshire debates. Well most of it anyway, before I had to go throw up.

Now that Ms. Bachmann has left the race I find that I’m paying more attention the the so-called “real” candidates. I just couldn’t help myself before. I kept focusing on ol’ crazy eyes and thinking to myself this woman is already a member of Congress representing Minnesota.

How the hell did that happen?

Now that she’s out of the race I was watching the posturing by the remaining candidates and discovered that if I closed my eyes i honestly couldn’t tell the candidates apart. There were two exceptions to this I could identify Gingrich and Romney.

Perry, Santorum, Huntsman and Paul pretty much sounded alike. I’m speaking here of their answers and their voices…

They all sounded like the background chatter at a really bad party. You know, the kind of party where everyone is just drunk enough to make complete asses of themselves but not quite drunk enough to leave.

I will say this, Romney “sounds” Presidential . He’s got a resonant quality to his voice that is compelling and commanding. By comparison Gingrich, sounds a little whiney.

Romney also has the classic “Presidential Look”. Gingrich by comparison looks a bit like the kind of guy who should be in the back room of a meat packing plant with a fat cigar making deals about who is going to have control of a trash delivery route.

I think it’s going to come down to a Romney nomination.
If we assume that President Obama is out, then I’m betting as people choose among evils I think they’ll choose Romney.

The thing to remember is that The President really has far less impact on policy than we give him credit for.

America is a very big ship, and like the Titanic it doesn’t turn on a dime. The presidential influence over a four year span is pretty minimal. If you consider that we ended up where we are after two terms of a fiercly conservative President and essentially 8 years of fighting wars on two fronts (Everyone knows that’s a bad idea…) then it’s completely unrealistic to expect a President to change the countrys direction in a single term.

Yet that is exactly what people expected of President Obama, and here we are poised to have the same unrealistic expectations of a New President.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fan of President Obama. But the reasons aren’t because he “Failed” to bring about Change or increase Hope. I have always been concerned that President Obama was inexperienced and that he’s way too much of an apologist.

As to his ability to govern, well that is directly related to how co-operative the congress is. I think we ALL know how that’s working out.

It’s a given that the current crop of Republican candidates are going to be conservative. If anything the Republican party is attempting to present an almost polar opposite choice to President Obama. This is typical thinking of the current Republican party. Most of the moderates have decided to shut up and sit this one out.

The GOP is all about an almost binary logic (On/Off, Right/Wrong, Belief in God/Atheist). They’re sadly missing the point that a large majority of America is actually pretty moderate.

I’m increasingly having a hard time forcing myself to believe that our system is still working…

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New Years Eve

As I’m scanning & shredding documents, backing up computers, and trying to collect all the little bits of flotsam and jetsam that will be required for my tax guy, I’m struck by a number of things from the year gone by.

We came into this new year with 2 wars raging.

The housing crisis was, and still is with us. Government propaganda not withstanding.

The people (as in We the People) are learning to flex their muscle using social media and I was surprised to see in the latter part of the year corporations yielding to pressure from consumers. I sincerely hope that more corporations and especially the United States government agencies take note.

The TSA is still strip searching folks based on racial profiling. (Yes, think about it… think about the demographics of the TSA abuses…) This is an organization that needs a major overhaul but they also serve as an object lesson in how Power corrupts absolutely.

Our Economy has taken some serious hits, so has the world economy. I was watching the news the other night and the reported mentioned that China was experiencing an economic downturn. I blew my drink out my nose. The reporter almost sounded like they were trying to spin it as “Poor China” which was annoying… But the more interesting thing is that since so much of the stuff in the stores is Made in China… What does it mean if China is having a manufacturing / economic slump? One would hope that it means Americans are buying American goods. Somehow I doubt that is the case since it takes time for manufacturing companies to move factories and supply lines.

Occupy Wall Street was a good and a bad thing. On the Good side… It demonstrated that Americans are getting fed up with greed and obscene abuses of wealth, power, and their good will. I’m actually glad to see that happen.

On the bad side, There wasn’t a lot of coherent thought in the Occupy protests and I think Occupy… wore out it’s welcome in the minds of the American People.

We lost some good people this year. Classic actors, thinkers, and creators. I hope in 2012 we’ll see people step up and fill those voids in our culture.

It seems that everyone is ready to have this year come to a close. I’m personally right there with them.

I don’t know what 2012 will bring (Other than a Presidential Election, which is sure to be a major embarrassment for America) but I, like all Americans am built to be optimistic.

For an American, a new year is opportunity and it must be better than the previous year.

As you all head out to your New Years Eve revelries please remember…

Be safe, enjoy your parties, your families, and your friends. Lets make this new year a good one.

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RAID Array is toast… (Update)

My Buffalo LS-QL R5 8TB started failing in September. Since that time I have re-formatted the unit, tested the drives (no problem found), re-formatted again, re-flashed the firmware (Lots of fun finding that..) And through it all been completely unable to get any response out of Buffalo Tech.

I thought I had everything squared away but the unit died again after 10 days of operation.

Report Last night at Midnight

Running Time
: 10 days
, 15:34:32
[HDD Usage Status]
RAID Array 1 Usage Rate
: 747128112 kbytes / 3890505728 kbytes (Usage Rate
19%)
[DISK error status]
DISK1 0
DISK2 0
DISK3 0
DISK4 0

Report This morning at 5am

HDD error occurred
Disk(s) the error occurred
:UnknownDisk()
(sda) WRITE sector:12016445 count:1
Disk writing error
Some data may not be recoverable.
Immediate change of disk is recommended.

I’d happily change the disk IF I COULD FIGURE OUT WHICH ONE!

“Unknown Disk”??? How is that possible?

NAS Navigator for Windows appears to be accurate (more or less)

NAS Navigator for Mac reports:
“Unformatted / Unconnected” at the same time the drive is in fact running. and also reports “E13: An error has occurred on RAID ARRAY 1”

But that’s it! Nothing specific enough to actually diagnose or correct the problem.

I’m really not up for doing the math to figure out which drive that sector is on.

All the drive indicator lights are green and the drive is doing a disk check after powering down due to the error. I was hoping that at least one of them would be flashing red.

Buffalo Technology is not interested in providing products that are reliable or serviceable. This can be easily illustrated by reading their support forums, if you can… Some of the comments from the buffalo support team are far less than customer oriented and in some cases downright nasty.

Their software is buggy, and they do not appear interested in updating anything to correct their deficiencies.

If I had to do it again, Buffalo Technologies equipment would not be anywhere on my list of potential purchases.

If you’re looking for a NAS… Look at another manufacturer.


————– UPDATE —————–


After fooling around more with the Buffalo unit and at one point “BRICKING” the array and it’s enclosure entirely. I have identified that 3 of the four drives consistently fail. This is after having formatted and tested the drives on another computer and each of the drives reporting no errors. I did figure out that (sda was drive 1 buy moving it to slot 2 where it became sdb.) You know… I didn’t want to guess about that and with 3 drives reporting problems I wasn’t wanting to make any assumptions. It appears that Disk 1 is sda, Disk 2 is sdb, and so on through sdd. That might have been bloody useful to actually PUT IN THE FAQ on the Buffalo Web site. Even a simple “yes that’s the way we report a failure.” would have been helpful.


A 75% drive failure in the same enclosure is interesting as hell to me especially where there has been no abuse, vibration, or other factors outside of normal operation. This is well beyond what the MTBF numbers say should happen. Nonetheless, when the drives are all put back in their array, they fail I’m now two for two and am calling the 3 drives toast.


I think it’s suspicious that the failure occurred on all three drives at the same time. But then again I’m a suspicious kind of guy.


So now I’m left with spending $165 per drive to replace them, thereby bringing the Buffalo unit back online and wondering if there’s something else going on… Or I could just bite the bullet and replace all 4 drives and hope the problem isn’t in the enclosure itself….


OR I can purchase a WD 3TB Mybook NAS. It’s non-raid but apparently Buffalo Technologies RAID5 array isn’t as redundant as its supposed to be. 


On the upside… I have significantly LESS data to worry about now anyway.


If I could buy 4, 3TB drives and put them in my existing Buffalo enclosure I’d consider it, since it would be an upgrade. BUT Buffalo technologies isn’t updating the firmware on my enclosure so that’s not an option.


TO BestBuy Boy Blunder! …………………………………..


I now have a nice happy WD 3TB My Book Live plugged into the port the Buffalo Tech unit used to occupy.  I paid 200.00 for the new machine. I have several ports open on my maser switch so If I need additional storage space… I’ll buy another 3TB and move on.


Yep, no RAID but as long as I’m going to have to backup the data to another media anyway who CARES?

I noticed some variant OS builds on the net for the Buffalo enclosure. Maybe if I get really bored I’ll flash one of those to the unit and see if someone else’s FREE implementation works better than the factory build. I’m going to have to be REALLY BORED!

By really bored… I mean so bored that masturbation is off the table… AS IF!

Again if you’re looking for NAS devices… Avoid Buffalo Technologies.