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Work is going well
I'm working on a USB video driver. The way it works is quite complex so I ported from Linux rather than writing from scratch:
#define spin_lock_t IOSimpleLock *
Some things didn't have such simple ports, so I guarded them with #ifdefs. Then my coworker removed all the Linux-specific code as well as the ifdefs. Sucks to be him when it's maintenance time.
I get a big check when it goes to beta. I'm going to donate a good chunk of money to homeless shelters, soup kitchens and rescue missions.
And I'm going to buy a car.
The car won't help much with getting to work - because of the all-day rush our here in Portland, I'll stick to the light rail. But it might be worthwhile to drive instead of taking two busses to get from home to the North Portland light rail station. I expect that will cut my commute from two hours to ninety minutes.
More important to me in the short term is that I can go places where the busses don't go. Like the beach, the desert and the mountains.
I like to camp in the desert.
Say that ---^ in Reno and you get a 10-day involuntary hold for being a danger to yourself. That's because "camping in the desert" is a local euphemism for "committing suicide".
"But I'm not from Reno! I really _do_ like to camp in the desert." My pleas fell on deaf ears.
A good chunk of Eastern Washington, Eastern Oregon and Northeast California is a desert.
I get another big check when we ship. There will be quite a lot of work between beta and shipping; I have to support multiple dongles, as well as harmony with the competitor's dongle, as well as some other featureful things.
I'm going to get my stuff out of storage in Canada. I don't know yet how much that will cost but I'm guessing three grand.
I'll get my piano back. I mean like a real piano, with wires and wood.
It was way out of tune when I recorded this. I later had it tuned, but I wanted to record its memory in case tuning it broke some of the strings. While they could be replaced, the new wires would spoil the distinctive voice of the piano that I had lived with since I was a toddler.
In my experience, if you enjoy my recordings, you're not right in the head. One of my two biggest fans has Borderline Personality Disorder - I met her by playing a piano in a nuthouse - and Schizotypal Personality Disorder.
I also have a Fatar controller in storage. It doesn't make sound, I have to use a MIDI Sound Module for that. But it has a hammer-action mechanism that makes it feel like a real concert grand.
I also - presently - have an M-Audio ProKeys 88sx Lightweight Stage Piano. I bought it for playing open mics.
The Hell am I going to do with three pianos? My apartment is tiny! But I cannot bear to part with any of them.
Lately I've been writing down my favorite artists when they're played on Radio Paradise. Then ever couple of weeks I go to a real good record store and buy a half-dozen CDs. I've got over a hundred artists in my list, I'm going to be enjoying lots of new music, with the approval of the MAFIAA.
Ah! The privileged life: a couple weeks ago I bought parmesan cheese for my spaghetti.
Daily Science Fiction (mostly pretty short stories)
Amateur writers, but some of them are pretty good. I thought I'd share this humorous take on airline safety with everyone. Visit http://dailysciencefiction.com for more!
On second thought - the story loses formatting when I c/p it. Looks like crap, and I'm not bright enough to fix it. Direct link to story - http://dailysciencefiction.com/hither-and-yon/humor/oliver-buckram/darkening-skies
Enjoy!!
Is this a fluke?
All-righty - I have just nominated myself for a smart ass award with my post here - https://soylentnews.org/~FakeBeldin/journal/2592?&noupdate=1#comment_560273
And, it crosses my mind that a lot of folks here probably use multi-meters from time to time. I wonder how many of you might be using a ten dollar meter, from the bargain bin, at your local auto parts store? Maybe I can convince some of you to upgrade . . .
Like many of you, my first meters were cheap. As an apprentice or a helper, money is tight, so you're not willing to waste money on an expensive meter. But, those cheap meters can cost your life!!
Check the fuse in your multimeter. Is it a glass fuse? Most are, and if that thing is ever hit by a real high energy surge, it will become a plasma grenade, right there, in your hand! Check this PDF http://support.fluke.com/find-sales/Download/Asset/2041429_6001_ENG_A_W.PDF
Personally, my money goes to Fluke. Don't take that as a super-strong endorsement, it's just what I've settled on. There are other companies that make good, safe, quality meters, but my first decent quality meter was a Fluke 77 original. Not a Series II through Series IV, but an original Fluke 77 without a Series designator. Today, I'm very happy with the Fluke 179 - it feels right, it's reliable, and it's like a Timex - takes a licking and keeps on ticking.
If you read that PDF above, you may feel safe using your cheap multimeter, because you never get into Cat III or Cat IV. There's not enough energy to be really hazardous, you say. Hmmmm. Maybe. And, maybe not. Watch some crazy Aussies blowing shit up, then analyzing the results - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-FZP1U2dkM
I just want to make everyone aware that those ten to fifty dollar meters are a safety hazard. Make your own mind up. Maybe you don't need all the features that I need - all of which adds to the cost. But, whatever you do, you most likely need all the safety that I need. You probably enjoy the use of both of your hands, as well as both of your eyes! Just think about it . . .
Boy Scouts Accused of "Covert Campaign to Recruit Girls"
Boy Scouts 'Exploring' Co-Ed Programming Provokes Girl Scout Ire
Girl Scouts Accuse Boy Scouts of Recruiting Girls, Souring Century-Old Friendship
Editorial: On their honor, the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts should settle their boundary issues
Parents, Don’t Let Your Girls Join the Boy Scouts
Lots Of Girls Want To Join The Boy Scouts. What's The Problem With That?
I can sense film scripts being written about this.
Trump-Faced Ecstasy Tablets Seized in Germany
A Short Eclipse Note
Interesting fact that nobody bothers to mention about solar eclipses. It feels about twenty degrees cooler during totality than it does half an hour before or after. This is a good thing during a Tennessee summer.
Joss Whedon: "Woke Bae" No More
Joss Whedon fan site shuts down after ex-wife's critical essay
Joss Whedon's Ex-Wife Warns He's A Hypocrite 'Preaching Feminist Ideals'
Joss Whedon Is a 'Hypocrite Preaching Feminist Ideals,' Ex-Wife Kai Cole Says (Guest Blog)
Five times Joss Whedon, self-proclaimed 'woke bae', blew his feminist credentials
Also saw eclipse
Anyway, the park consists of two areas, the Teton range of mountains which goes something like 20-40 miles (30-65km) and has a impressive vertical rise (up to 6000 feet or around 1800 meters) over the second part of the park, a very level valley which runs along the entire east side of the range. There are several lakes in the valley area including the fairly large Jackson Lake of which Colter Bay is a part.
We had scouted the Grand Tetons the day before. The authorities had done a relatively good job of managing the situation. There were five areas where visitors were encouraged to go (which in theory would handle a good portion of the visitors the park was expecting to receive) and everything in the park was scheduled to open at 6am this morning (Mountain Daylight Time). It still sounded like way too many people for too small a space, but I'm not seeing what the park could do better. I guess I'll hear how things went later in news or the local Yellowstone rumor mill.
I and some friends managed to find a vantage point near the marina located there to view both the Tetons with the bay in the foreground and the sky where the Sun would be situated during the eclipse. I'd say about 200-300 other people also found this spot, so it was a bit crowded.
We got lucky, the clouds completely vacated the area around 10am and there were no clouds to interfere with our viewing from start to finish of the full eclipse period (about 3 hours in length).
One interesting aspect was the changing of the sky behind the Tetons. My digital camera didn't do it justice since it automatically adjusted for light levels, but you could see the shadow approaching from the west behind the range and later the lifting of the shadow, providing a sort of weird false dawn near the end of the eclipse.
Prior to this expedition, I had prepared some observation tools. I didn't finish the ambitious scheme I vaguely outlined in this post (ran out of time and energy), but I did come up with a nice, simple projection method (small telescope projecting normal image into a box) by which I could count six sunspots on the Sun and partially melt the plastic frames on two very cheap eyepieces of a very cheap telescope that I acquired for this purpose (when the telescope was off-center, the sunlight going through the scope was brushing the edges of the eyepiece holders). Worth the price, but not a problem that I was aware of from reading up on this sort of telescope design. I didn't bother with it at later stages of the eclipse since I had also brought solar glasses and one could observe the total eclipse itself with the naked eye.
The final interesting aspect of this was the traffic. I have never witnessed heavy traffic so purposeful as today. We must have traveled 50 miles in heavy traffic (on single lane roads) that was at or above the speed limit aside from occasional burps. That is unheard of either in Yellowstone or Grand Tetons National Parks (we started our trip in the former around 4am). Usually some animal ambles onto the road or an RV putters along at 25 MPH, putting a halt to that. Not this time.
Seeking Beta Testers for Warp Life for iOS
Warp Life is a particularly fast implementation of Conway's Game of Life. Golly may be faster but it doesn't run on the smaller devices, just the iPad.
If you're willing to help, I'll need the UDIDs of each device you want to test with. Follow these instructions to obtain your device's UDID.
Mail your UDID(s) to mdcrawford@gmail.com.
You could really help a brother out if you would forward the URL to my beta test page to anyone you genuinely feel would be interested in or would benefit from it:
Yggdrasil
Race Bias #1 - "Blissful Ignorance"
I began the "Race Bias" series in 1995 in response to a post on the alt.politics.nationalism.white newsgroup to the effect that there was no discrimination in employment, university admissions, or otherwise, against European-Americans.
I was stunned that the regular posters to the group had no instant supply of material to post in reply.
Most regular posters and "lurkers" on the newsgroup, have some first-hand experience with anti-White race preferences. But very few of them are aware of just how pervasive these anti-White preferences have become. Unfortunately, the primary weakness of our defensive political movement is that a commanding plurality of _Whites_ are utterly unaware of it. They have no clue that the nice sounding phrase "Affirmative Action" means the systematic disfavor of Whites and race based preferences for non- whites.
Indeed, it is hard to imagine how a White can grow up in this society and not be aware of the legal and social impediments imposed on him, but a recent survey from the Washington Post found that 41% of Whites think "affirmative action" included benefits for white men. (Affirmative Action for White Guys? Washington Post, Oct. 22, 1995, p. C5.)
A Harte-Hanks Texas Poll conducted for media outlets by UT's Office of Survey Research and reported in the June 29, 1996 Austin American-Statesman (p A1) is consistent with the Washington Post results:
"A vastly lopsided percentage of Texans, eight of 10, oppose giving any consideration to race when admitting students to college. But when asked about affirmative action in general, respondents were more positive than not."
However, when asked "whether affirmative action for minorities and women "has had a positive effect on Texas," the response indicated that most had no clue what the words "affirmative action" really mean:
"Forty-seven percent of the 1,000 respondents either agreed or strongly agreed that affirmative action for minorities has had a positive effect, while 33 percent disagreed or strongly disagreed."
"When asked about affirmative action for women, 59 percent agreed it has had a positive effect on Texas and 23 percent disagreed. The higher percentage favoring affirmative action for women is not surprising, experts said, because women make up half of the population."
Of course, the issue is not whether "affirmative action has had a positive effect on _Texas_" - a proposition that asks the interviewees to speculate on the impact of race preferences on an inanimate parcel of real estate, but whether affirmative action hurts or harms the interviewee.
But the survey itself highlights one of the means by which large institutions hide the truth from Whites. By selecting the term "affirmative action," conjuring images of a little extra recruiting effort to overcome any "information deficit" that non- whites might have in the marketplace, most Whites are kept in the dark.
Only the minority of Whites who read newspapers will know the truth. Those who get their information from TV will be blissfully ignorant.
The problem is that nearly half of this nation's Whites lack the basic vocabulary and the rudimentary facts needed to defend themselves in the political process.
With this in mind, I produced the "Race Bias" series.
I am a firm believer that the people of the Euro-American nation need facts more than they need ideologies. With that in mind, the series has been reorganized and lengthened from the original 30 to a revised 42 posts.
Copy them and circulate them to others!
Yggdrasil-
(As a P.S., I am indebted to "American Renaissance" magazine for reporting the Washington Post survey [Volume 7, Number 4, April, 1996] Subscriptions to American Renaissance are $20.00 per year. Make checks payable to: American Renaissance, P. O. Box 1674 Louisville, KY 40201.)
http://www.whitenationalism.com/rb/rb-01.htm
