router madness

in an effort to 1) increase my wifi throughput and 2) set up a VPN server, i took the gf's old Linksys WRT54G wifi router and flashed it with ww-drt.

it was an interesting adventure, though not fruitful in the end. i was able to figure out which package to use for the router, but not by using the handy "find my firmware" tool on the site. instead, i crawled through wikis and forums to learn that that tool is out of date and could brick your router. hurrah!

i got as far as getting basic internet and wifi working, with WPA2+AES wifi security. sadly, it did not perform as well as my old Linksys WRT54G router, which still has Linksys firmware on it.

i was not able to get the PPTP VPN working. i went through many, many forum posts and wikis, trying to navigate the inconsistent, out-of-date and contradictory information. i had to call upon old unix skills to telnet into the router and update bourne shell scripts, run sed commands and the like. i took all the bits of info i could find and tried them in all the combinations i could, but still no vpn connectivity.

so i bagged that and set about trying to increase the wifi throughput. comcast internet is coming in at a zippy (for the US) 25 Mbps d/load speed, but over wifi it was 14 at best with the linksys firmware, and 10 at best with dd-wrt. i read through a number of threads about increasing wifi performance (one key parameter made available with dd-wrt is the transmit power of the radio, plus other cool stuff like assigning Tx/Rx to different antennas), but again was met with contradictory information.

each tweak i tried, guided by user recommendations, actually *decreased* performance. i got it all the way down to 3 Mbps. hurray internet!

after undoing most of the recommended tweaks, i was able to get it back up to a reliable 11 Mbps; still not as good as the stock firmware.

so in the end, i punted by putting back the router with the linksys firmware and ordering an asus RTN66U router. i'm hoping the n-band will provide wifi speeds closer to the 25 i'm getting through the modem, plus it comes with vpn capability. i'm reading that not only is the router software open-source, but its extensive configurability was based on open firmwares like dd-wrt and tomato.

now, here's hoping that the year-old threads i'm reading about the vpn issues with the asus are not indicative of an ongoing problem...

IL crosswalk law: good intentions and probably more deaths

some years ago, when commuting to Park Ridge for work, i noticed a curious plastic sign in the middle of a crosswalk. it had a pedestrian symbol, a stop sign symbol, and the text "State law: Traffic must stop for pedestrians in crosswalk."

And for the most part, traffic did stop. It was all very civil.

But i had not heard of this law, and saw no other mention of it. Until recently.

Recently, Chicago has been placing these plastic signs at seemingly random intersections in the city. I've noticed they're not quite as successful as that first one in Park Ridge, but about half the drivers seem to get it.

But Chicago is doing a couple curious things. First, they're not putting them everywhere, and where they don't appear, drivers don't stop. Second, they'll move them about, as if they only have a handful to spread around. So any given intersection may lose its sign, and as before, drivers no longer stop.

This is causing havoc. I'm worried as hell that, as a pedestrian, any given driver may know the law or not. And even if one does slow down or stop to let me cross, who knows if the guy coming the other way -- or the one behind who thinks the first guy is an idiot and whips around to pass -- is going to yield to me?

in fact, as a driver, on Damen last week a couple walked out onto the street right in front of me (which turns out is against the law) without warning. had i been paying just a tad bit less attention, it's quite possible i could have hit them. yes, they were in a crosswalk, but no, this one did not have the temporary plastic sign. imho, the pedestrians were a bit too optimistic about driver behavior.

given the general ignorance of the law, and infrequent signage, nobody knows what to expect anymore at any given intersection whose rules are not already indicated by a stop sign or traffic light.

to make matters even more confusing, the city has been painting new crosswalks here and there, but with different patterns. on the corner near my house (pictured), they've got two different styles going. is it supposed to mean something? as both a pedestrian and a driver, i have no idea what they mean and how my behavior is supposed to change. at least until the plastic sign makes its temporary appearance.

i like the zebra crossings in London. i think it's smart that they're not as prevalent as Every Single Intersection, and doubly smart that they're frequently not at road intersections, so drivers can react to the pedestrians only, and not worry about turning or other vehicles crossing their paths. i think there are far too many crosswalks in Chicago to make this practical, if pedestrians expect to be able to step in front of a speeding car and survive every time.

NFL rules i learned today

1. in the final 2 minutes of a half, a fumble cannot be advanced by the offense
2. if the 3rd QB is put into the game before the 4th quarter, the #1 and #2 QBs cannot re-enter the game

i disagree with both, especially the second. where's the harm in freely subbing in your QBs? How does this recent flurry of wildcat formations factor into this? are there any other positions where you have to declare your depthchart at the start of the game? what rules apply to those positions?

please be more vague, Ms Palin

i mean, i'm having far too easy a time parsing what you mean by this:

"My number one criticism of President Obama is he promised to and he's trying to fulfill his promise of fundamentally trying to transform America," Palin said. "We don't need a fundamental transformation, we need a renewal and a restoration of what is good about America."

huh?

100% compliance

my casual observation is that, in the mens' room, 40-60% of guys wash their hands after urinating.

i started at a new client 3 weeks ago, a downtown bank, and am shocked to note a full 100% handwashing compliance. further, there are a lot of guys doing a pretty thorough job of it.

somehow, it's strange: maybe Big Brother-like, maybe Stepford Wives-like. a religious handwasher, i now feel as though i'm slacking, by not using enough soap, or water hot enough, or not being thorough enough.

am i seeing the result of a very successful company-led handwashing campaign? i've even entertained the idea that there are cameras in there, and either 1) everyone knows it, or 2) the company hires only those who were observed to wash their hands while their for interviewing (and bad luck to those who didn't need to go!).

what kind of madness is this?

you start feeling old when...

... the Rams throwback uniforms worn today vs the Panthers don't look very old at all.

then you research how long ago this was, and these uniforms are from 2000, when they won the Superbowl. Kurt Warner was quarterback, Christina Aguilera was part of the halftime show.

i don't feel so old after all.

i'll go back to thinking about the remake of Valley Girl currently being filmed.

costco, item of interest #2

must fruit continually get larger? this does not look appetizing to me, it just makes me feel that the growers 1) concentrate on embiggening fruit without regard to taste or health, and 2) believe size is all that matters to consumers.

i like to think that a piece of a particular kind of fruit has a fixed amount of flavor, and that flavor is distributed throughout the fruit. strawberries larger than golfballs is where i obtained this theory (oh Driscoll, i shall never buy produce from you again).

when will the madness end? and where can i find a watermelon the size of volkswagen?

that was rhetorical. the answer is, of course, Costco.

costco, item of interest #1

three times the heat of *what*, exactly?

i stopped a shopper and pointed at the sign which i thought was so hilariously ambiguous. not understanding that i was pointing out a flaw, she was dually impressed that this item did, apparently, offer three times the heat.

realizing she didn't quite get it, i said, "do you see? it says three times the heat. but three times the heat of what?"

"wow, that's a lot of heat," was her response.

indeed.

"i would not trust him with my left shoe"

Democrat Alexi Giannoulias, running against Mark Kirk for an Illinois US Senate seat, has an approved vox pop commercial. The people-on-the-street are all saying negative things about Mark Kirk. Pretty typical stuff, "he's out of touch," "how can he vote against middle class tax cuts," and so on.

but the last person says, "i would not trust him with my left shoe."

i'm not sure what she means, and i'm not certain under what circumstances i personally would trust Mr Kirk with my own left shoe. have i removed this shoe for his inspection, such that if he were to abscond with it, i'd be trying to find a way home with only one shoe? is it cold? is there snow? am i driving or taking the el?

serious issues, indeed.

extra clicks = extra good

i receive a junk email to my inbox in Outlook. the following quick steps are all i need to deal with it:
1. select the email
2. right-click and select Junk email/Add sender to block list
3. observe that a new, unread email is now in my junk drawer
4. select the junk drawer
5. re-select the email
6. right-click and select Mark as Read
7. right-click and select Delete

simple and straightforward. good.

now what about that nightmare known as Apple's Mail?
1. select the email
2. press the Junk button

what? how can that be it? what is this magic? how did it know to automatically add that address to a block list? WHAT IS APPLE TRYING TO PULL HERE?

i'm way low on my protein intake

i was having a lunch with a co-worker yesterday, discussing nutrition. he asserted that most people actually eat less protein than they need. naturally, i asked how much protein i should be eating.

"you should be eating half your body weight."

"really? over what time period?"

he seemed thrown by this question, as the answer was obvious: "every day."

i agreed that, by that measure, i am certainly low on my protein intake. i suggested that may be a bit high, but he insisted this was the case.

i finally brought out some real numbers: "so you're saying that every day i should be eating some 85 pounds of protein."

"what? no! 85 grams".

oh, my mistake.

eggs

some years ago, when i would occasionally buy a dozen eggs from the grocery store, i was completely lost when trying to figure out the difference between eggs labeled "cage free", "free range", "organic" and "omega-3".

i was also unsure how i was supposed to decide among all the providers.

with the recent salmonella outbreak, traced to two large producers in Iowa, i'm seeing that it doesn't really matter whose branding you like best.

Wednesday's recall covers eggs branded as Albertsons, Farm Fresh, James Farms, Glenview, Mountain Dairy, Ralph's, Boomsma, Lund, Kemps and Pacific Coast [...] The earlier recall covered the Lucerne, Albertson, Mountain Dairy, Ralph's, Boomsma, Sunshine, Hillandale, Trafficanda, Farm Fresh, Shoreland, Lund, Dutch Farms and Kemps brands

wow, that's a lot of brands from two producers. i wonder if there are additional brands that haven't (yet) been recalled.

the gf and i lucky to have quality egg producers available to us every Saturday. i don't know what i'd be doing otherwise.

it costs me more to come home than it does to go to work

what's up, CTA, with your silly fare structure?

like the Oyster Card, i do appreciate the simplicity of my Chicago Card Plus. but i thought the advantage of buying into the low-personnel-involvement solution was savings passed on to the rider. perhaps not. looking at the fare structure, it's minimal.

further, it costs me $2.25 to get to work, taking a bus first and then a train. the reverse, with the train first, costs me $2.50. i don't understand why the order matters.

the station near my work is next to a bus depot. if i were so inclined, i could leave work, card into a bus, immediately leave the bus and get on the train. my last transfer would be free, so this would save me 25 cents.

how counter-intuitive is that?

i remain nitpicky

i think they mean the food is affordable, as i like to think that the prices are free. "How much for a burger and fries?" "I'll tell you for only twenty-nine cents."

good god, backup really is that complicated

at least if one wants to duplicate the convenience of apple's Time Capsule.

i've been combing over posts @ readynas.com, which is an excellent resource for Netgear NAS products. though it seems easier than ever to run Time Machine software with non-Apple devices, there are still a lot of issues. upgrading osx versions, running multiple Time Machine users, and running Parallels caused issues for a number of users.

those anecdotes are also peppered with cries of "NAS isn't a backup solution!" Which is a shame, given that's exactly what i wanted to use it for. so then i was pricing out 2 TB external drives to back up the NAS.

Time Machine tracks revisions to files, such that one restore their computer to the exact state from a date in the past (chewing up a lot of extra disk space in the process). That's a neat use case, but one I don't really need. I version my own files when it's important to me, what I need from a backup system is something for that rainy day if my laptop is stolen or the drive dies.

iow, I need the latest snapshot, that's it.

seems I already have everything I need for that: external firewire drives and Super Duper. I contacted the author and he confirmed for me that NAS solutions, while having some nice features, doesn't allow Super Duper to make a bootable backup the way it does with a dedicated device.

so I suppose I'll stick with my 3-prong approach, using Mobile Me Sync, Backup of some files to the apple servers, and Super Duper for the entire image.

a little back patting

i'm about one month away from my first year of Eating Better. labels are always a bit tough here, as the Food Plan doesn't really fall neatly into any already-named category, but loosely what started as something like South Beach has become something like Primal.

i can't argue with any of the results, the standouts being weight and some other lab-measured values.

as a side note, Google docs to the rescue when i needed to convert some spreadsheet data into a chart. after struggling for longer than i care to admit with an ancient copy of Excel (nice chart, but it wouldn't let me scale the y-axis) and AppleWorks (nice min/max on the y-axis, but it kept running the dates along that axis), i spent about 5 minutes in google docs uploading the file and generating a satisfactory chart. huzzah.

update: i uploaded a new chart with all my historical weight data, but due to 1) lack of early data points, 2) a consistent weight for two consecutive days counting as one data point, and 3) not finding any way to tell the chart-generator that the x-axis is time and it should examine the dates and draw the chart accordingly, it's still a bit skewed. maybe the 22nd century will have better software...

finally, i left off the first data point (april 8 2009) as it was a whole month until my next data point, and that may 8 one was an actual weigh-in (the april was a guesstimate).

you can't get there from here

youtube has a nice warning system in place, letting me know recently that my version of Firefox would soon no longer be supported by their site. And they made some recommendations, including FF 3.5.

so i went to see what version of FF i was running on my (vintage 2004) ibook: FF 2.0.0.20.

okay, that's a little old, let me go to "Help / Check for Updates..." and see what I can get. Mozilla makes it easy to upgrade FF versions, downloading/installing in one step and even restoring your open windows. nice touch.

it updated me to 3.0.15. Not even close to the 3.5 I would need to keep using youtube. At this point, I began to get a little worried that my hardware, and OS (Tiger), are a little too outdated to run the latest of FF.

So back to "Help / Check for Updates" and BAM it installed 3.0.18 for me. Try again: BAM now I have 3.6. Try again: I'm at the latest.

I assume there's a good technical reason that i couldn't go straight from 2.0.0.20 to 3.6, but I'd love to know what it is.

Now when is that damn Macbook Pro refresh coming?

how hard is it to program a microwave oven?

i don't mean as an end-user, i mean as a developer.

What I want, as an end-user, is that if i program it for 2 minutes @ power level 5, for it to run at half-power for 2 minutes. No microwave oven I know of does that, so I suspect there may be an issue with running at less than full power. Let's take that as a given.

Thinking as a developer, I now have the task of running the oven for 2 minutes, but applying full power for 1 minute. I'm probably also looking at a minimum time of "engagement", i.e. the hardware guys tell me that the MTBF plummets if the engagement time is anything less than, say, 15 seconds.

Okay, now I have my parameters. Engage for 15 seconds, disengage for 15 seconds for 2 minutes. But I quickly -- and by quickly I'm comparing 5 minutes vs 30 years -- realize that for those last 15 seconds, the oven will not be engaged. Just spinning uselessly with the light on, but no heating taking place.

I then think to myself, "hey, as a developer, I could probably write a simple algorithm whereby the oven is always engaged when the timer starts, and when the timer ends."

And that may be a thought that has never occurred to any programmer of microwave ovens, ever, at any point.

so what gives? are there no "real" programmers programming these devices? is it all forestry majors and electrical engineers? (sorry, i think traditional-discipline engineers make crap programmers). Perhaps there are, ultimately, just one or two manufacturers of microwave oven control chips, and all the logic is built into there?

what gives? why is this so hard?

remember those scary baby masks in Brazil?

i found this disturbing mannequin at Nordstrom.

in rather bad taste

Verizon just started running a new Droid commercial with stealth fighters. here is a link, though i'm not certain for how long it will be good.

i must say, in this post-bush era, the image of US stealth fighters dropping payloads onto american soil is a little disturbing to me. and maybe it's simply my cold-war era sensitivities, but seeing missile streak through the skies while people watch from the ground, confused and concerned, does put me off.

but to do this just a couple days after the Fort Hood shootings? that seems to be in pretty bad taste. i don't know if there are a lot of people making such associations, but i doubt that's what Verizon wants in our heads.