K.C.'s Garage

mcwolles made an amazing 3d working representation of M.C. Escher's "Waterfall" : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v2xnl6LwJE It is nothing short of awesome. Below is my quick & dirty guess as to how it works:

Many of you saw my recent tweets complaining about the Sony PlayStation 3 firmware update version 3.21 that cripples the second operating system "OtherOS" feature of the PS3. Since then, I've received several questions as to why I thought Sony would remove such a feature, and why I cared so much. The answers to both questions require more than 140 characters. Here, I will try to explain. The PlayStation 3 as a Computing Platform Briefly, the PS3 is an amazing computing platform. It boasts a 7-core 3.2GHz IBM PowerPC cell processor architecture unlike pretty much anything available at even twice the price. It works with USB and Bluetooth Wireless input devices (mouse, keyboard, gamepads, &etc), has HDMI, Composite, and Component video outputs, digital audio output, an internal SATA hard drive, 802.11b/g wireless, and a Blu-ray DVD-ROM drive. Sony has, from the start, marketed the fact that this amazing "game console" also supports the ability to run Linu...

Metropolitan Industrial: The "Metro" is a large warehouse space divided into three main partitioned areas. The first area has an enclosed space occupying roughly 60% of the width of the space. That enclosed area has a couple of single-office sized rooms (one of which is psychadelic painted with glow-in-the-dark stars) and a bathroom with a working shower in it. The second partitioned area has a kitchen built in it, complete with counter space, a kitchen sink, a range, a dishwasher, and an "island" counter with electrical power and storage space. At the back of the second partition is another enclosed space with two small office-style rooms, another closed-sized bathroom, and a weird small unfinished alcove-like room (not photographed). The third partitioned area is open warehouse space, with a small semi-wall dividing it from the two large roll-up garage doors in the back. My photos do not include the front area's enclosed rooms because they had dark...

Hi folks! Just a quick note - I've moved to a new hosting provider. If you see anything wonky, broken links, or other such weirdness shoot me an email. When I first migrated the database (a few days ago) I ended up with some spurious Unicode characters scattered throughout the website. (E.g. lots of strange à characters stuck in around words, &etc.) Turns out the problem was mysql. Wordpress was correctly backing up the database as utf8, but when I re-imported it, it was re-encoding it for some reason. The solution was to add "--default_character_set=utf8" on the mysql command line during the database restore/import. E.g.: # mysql --default_character_set=utf8 -u{username} -p{password} {dbname} -h {hostname} Deleting and re-importing the database with the --default_character_set option fixed it right up! (I'm posting this as a reminder to myself as well.) Cheers! - K.C.

Alright, here's some photos of the beast: And, in no particular order, some answers to the questions I've received: 1. This modem uses Bell 103A modulation, in "Originate Mode" only. Unfortunately, that means you probably couldn't have two Livermore Data Systems Model A modems talk to each other. The "Model C" seems to be the first one that also supported "Answer Mode" modulation. 2. This modem is solid state; it uses transistors (albeit early, metal canister ones.) It doesn't have vacuum tubes in it. (Whew!) It functions exactly as I received it twenty years ago - I haven't modified or repaired it in any way. Yes, I am as amazed as you are! :-) 3. The host used in the video, as well as all the accounts, credentials, &etc, were set up in my lab specifically for testing the modem and were taken down the next day. Hence, I didn't have to worry about obscuring my typing or login credentials, &etc. Than...

It's late. Storms are in the area, but it has just stopped raining. On the way home from visiting some old friends I decide on a lark to drive by Pullman and see what's brewing. The Georgia Power substation development on the North side of the property appears to now be independently secured and fenced off. The open holes in the chain-link fence along the West side of the Pullman property have recently been replaced with new sections of fence. The property itself seem to have been cleaned up quite a bit with the addition of their new neighbor. It's as if the State of Georgia decided to clean up their house now that they are having company over. I wandered in to see what else had changed - sans flashlight, camera, or even appropriate clothing. Once inside the main central rail building I wandered into the darkest corner I could find and just stood in absolute nothingness for a while to let my eyes adjust. Abandoned buildings have a life their own to them. Anyo...

Today, I had an appointment with The Emory Clinic to follow up on my elevated blood pressure and refill a prescription for a cholesterol medication. Simple, preventative-maintenance type of stuff. I made the appointment three weeks ago when I noticed that I was on my last refill of the statin. My appointment was for 8:15am. I prefer early appointments, because in my past experience with The Emory Clinic - the later in the day you're scheduled, the less reasonable they are about seeing you in a timely manner. I'll withhold my rant on how demanding promptness from your customer obligates you to show them the same courtesy, for fear of starting to sound like an old codger. Anyhow... The clinic I visit has moved from its outgrown location on Candler Road. I haven't visited the new location yet. I took down the address and looked it up in Google maps. Nope, the address doesn't exist. Must be a new office park. Thankfully, the Emory Clinic VRU has directions on it...

23.45 ° Axial Inclination - that's the reason for the season . The earth's axis is tilted 23.45° from the plane on which it orbits. This tilt is for the most part constant as it orbits the sun. That gives us four seasons as each hemisphere alternates between being angled towards or away from the sun. Jesus is the reason for Christianity, but winter solstice celebrations are ubiquitous across nearly all cultures and religions. I don't know why I feel the need to point this out, but I suspect it has something to do with the apparent increasingly outspoken Christian voice here in the Southeastern United States. "Remember the reason for the season!" they keep telling me. So, okay. I did.