Jonny the Jalopy--on a stick

A few of you will understand where I got that name...

So driving stick is fun. :) Mind you, it's also a pain, but today's experience wasn't too bad.

Before my first lesson earlier this year I made sure to get my dad to explain the clutch to me. No, not just what "in" and "out" mean (which are actually highly variable), but blast it, give me a mechanical drawing, principles of operation, potential quirks due to emergent behaviors of a simple system...a basic understanding of the beast. That had been the most intimidating part. After a session with my dad, a chalkboard, and some dumb ;) questions, I thought I had it. At least kind of. (Turns out the transmission has some black magic of its own: synchros.)

My first time behind the wheel of a stick was interesting. I learned a lot but didn't go very far.

Last driving practice on a manual was a bit rough. I killed it once, had a nasty bucking session (match power feed with the time constant of the flywheel mass and clutch spring constant and voila: you're sitting on a driven oscillator), and putted around the neighborhood for about 5 or 10 min. before both my instructor (Mom or brother; don't recall) were too fed up with the process and I jerkily settled the car in the driveway. This session was important, but I butted up against the session restriction: no "high" (read: 3rd or higher) gears until you master starting and stopping. You Will Master The Clutch And First Gear Or You Will Not Do Anything Cool. 'Master,' mind you, not 'get passing good with.'

Thus started today. My dad and I decided to go to the temple. We then decided to take the stick. I hadn't 'mastered' starting, let alone passing the 'sit stationary pointed uphill using just the gas and clutch to stay put' test my mom required of my younger brother before letting him hit the highway, so I figured I'd be the passenger.

"You wanna drive?" Dad asked?

"Um, sure, but we'll have to hit a driveway and..." So I explained.

"Ok. Sounds good." His response was nice; I'd get some practice in. :D

I wandered through back roads leading to the latest possible highway entrance, only managing to buck significantly once and kill it once. "Par with the last session. Stop while you're ahead, K?" I thought to myself. Well, about halfway through the leg of the trip prior to the highway, I've been up to fourth gear and started and stopped a few times without much trouble, So, methinks, I'm doing alright."

About now Dad springs on me the idea that highway driving isn't much different. Just get into 5th gear, handle the throttle differently, and you're good. If you're comfortable with open freeway driving in an automatic then driving a stick isn't much different.

He was right.

Aside from downshifting during on ramps, using the engine to brake, and some other tricks you pick up on the smaller roads, it was. I made it to the temple and back (about 20 min.) safely. While I do still have some work to do on my starting, all the time in higher gears and actually moving gave me a lot more confidence so that I could talk shop with my dad as he described how to improve. (That's where the driven oscillator conversation happened. Turns out the idea is to pick a different point to start feeling for the catching sensation or use a different initial motor speed.) I even started to make superfluous complete stops so that I could start implementing the changes. While I do still have some work to do on my starting, all the time in higher gears and actually moving gave me a lot more confidence in my ability to drive a stick. This, in turn, made refining my skills a much more pleasant and much less nerve-wracking experience.

Eat that, last driving session.

Happy Final Exit

That sounds incredibly deep and of great import.

It's not.

It's just that I was afraid of my Mathematical Proofs class final, as I hadn't done any homework the last two weeks of class and we covered a topic that still kinda confuses me--delta epsilon proofs. I crammed for an hour prior. It seemed hopeless; I'd done well on previous tests, but the sheer volume of material and the emphasis on this last concept worried me. I forced myself to complete a d-e proof end-to-end. It was a simple one for a wee little linear function.

Lo and behold, as promised by the professor, it was on the test. Only it was a quadratic this time. After some finagling and tweaking, I found a workable delta. I even had time to double check it. All the other proofs weren't terribly worrisome either: even the inductive proof was straight induction and algebra.

I says to me, "Self, you oughta be proud of yourself. You did great. You had an answer for every question; one that felt right, even!" "Well," says I, "pride is dumb. I'll be humbled in a minute here when I see my multiple-choice score. Some of those were tricky and I'm not the best at details." "Well, self, you'll see."

Down the stairs, out the door. Pause, assess high-load layout and traffic patterns, shuffle over and look at the score monitor.

"You? 100%"

W000000000000000000T!

Hoorah!

Erm, :D

Who do I tell?

Meh. Nobody.

I could blog about it...

Happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!one!!!!!!!!!

Eat that final final from the semester of internal pwnage and panzerfication! I can prove stuff!

Now you've shared in that happy moment. :D

Old piece

Hello!

First, this piece is REALLY old. Some may know how old, most won't. It may or may not be autobiographical and may or may not refer to reality...I'll go with the disclaimer side. Oh well.

Wednesday - Here
The UNS Fife was holed stern-to-aft this evening by the rail cannon of a tentative-friendly fleet during reportedly routine maneuvers over White Mountain Harbor. Few sailors were lost as most were plunged into cryostasis immediately after the impact, though casualty lists are not yet available. The ship managed to reach the nearby United Navy Station Drydock Hermit where it was locked down under multiple layers of physical and network security. We have not received word yet as to its status or repairablility. The few messages passed on by the crew reflect the harsh atmosphere under which the ship is being kept. Only the most necessary interactions with other fleet members are permitted and Srizbinski quantum pumps are being used to maintain a cool one kelvin and a hard vacuum. Few crew members have been resuscitated pending further analysis of the damage and its causes, as the AI and numerous other systems are suspect in provoking the incident.

Saturday - UNSD Hermit - UNS Fife
The lockdown continues today as investigators pore over the rather sparse evidence. Speculation runs wild: is this a covert UNS op gone wrong? is the oft-touted AI running the fleet's most powerful warships truly and deeply flawed? was the UNS Fife pursuing a ship that seemed friendly but simply did not want pursuit? These questions rattle our understanding of the UNS' operations in this sector and defy explanation; however, a few friendly nations have extended support by offering damage inspectors, grief analysis experts, and past incident experience. This has allayed many of the suspicions of the high brass, and we look forward to forthcoming information in the near future.

Sunday - UNSD Hermit - UNS Fife
Work is progressing rapidly in repairing the structural damage and thawing soldiers. Contact with the UNS was established late Saturday by the captain of the ship who fired on the UNS Fife, and a great deal of understanding was received regarding the provocation in the attack. This has led to selection of several specific subsystems for revisal and modification. Authorities are still searching for answers to a handful of questions before certain major shielding and navigation systems are completed, though most repairs are nearing completion. We have learned that the shot originated from a vessel in a fleet with a tentative-friendly IFF while awaiting an opportunity to clarify treaty provisions via a secure channel. Communications from the UNS Fife are still under close guard, but many of the most severe security restrictions have been lifted and the crew are being permitted leave on the station as fast as they are revived.


The investigation concluded three months later, about when repairs had been completed. Crew members interviewed more recently insist that a friendly foreign power was instrumental in completing many repairs, and some major retrofits are still underway. A UNS spokesperson declined the opportunity to comment. Two years after the incident. further investigation has shown that the UNS Fife was severely needing a refit. The damage from this encounter enabled some core changes that would have otherwise been left until 'later' due to cost and red tape. Other diplomatic ties are currently under cultivation and have led to many advances in naval theory and technical capabilities.


Thanks for reading. Cheers!

Eratron PPC 8200 and family

Howdy!

You're no doubt tearing your hair out looking for some tidbit of technical data on a piece of Eratron equipment. Me too. I've found a few things that might help you:

Eratron is another name for ERA, or Energy Research Associates that was based in or near San Francisco some time ago. (Source) The patent application mentioned below indicates it was Campbell, California.

They patented their electron beam power supply design. It's rather brilliant compared to the more conventional design the Mideast Industries PR-40 uses, but its brilliance shows up mostly in electron beam applications where output arcing is not uncommon.

The patent number is 4,314,324. If you use the USPTO site, you'll want to go to http://www.uspto.gov/. In the left column under Patents click Search. Scroll down to the heading "USPTO Patent Full-Text and Image Database (PatFT)" and click on either Patent Number Search (if you want just the text) or View Patent Full-Page Images (if you want the partial schematics). Enter the patent number on either page and it'll zap you right to the patent.

Now if you're like me, the computer will be grumpy and not show the TIFF image the image viewer embeds. If this is the case, right click on the side of the page, select View Source, scroll down in the new window to the bottom and start looking for:

<embed src="/.DImg?Docid=04314324&PageNum=1&IDKey=219CCF24E627
&ImgFormat=tif" width="570" height="840" type=image/tiff></embed>

Now for a bit of surgery. Take the URL you've found for the image viewer. For me it was:
http://patimg1.uspto.gov/.piw?Docid=4314324&idkey=NONE

Snip up and paste together a Frankenstein URL using the first half of the image viewer URL and the embed tag's data:
http://patimg1.uspto.gov/.DImg?Docid=04314324&PageNum=1&IDKey=219CCF24E627
&ImgFormat=tif

Paste that into your address bar and the image should come up after thinking a bit. Now, see that PageNum=1 bit stuck in the middle? You can use your original page viewer to see how many pages there were and what sections they were divided into to navigate simply by changing that one number.

Cool, eh? :) I thought so anyway. It's a simple hack. If you want to actually read the images or keep them, you can use a tool like wget with the Frankenstein URL to pull the TIFFs straight off the server.

Have a nice day!

...and remember, 3-phase can kill you. :)

Where has the Wavetek 195 Gone??

I was recently asked as part of my employment to find a manual for a Wavetek 195. After much Googling and hunting and prodding and sifting, I found absolutely nothing. This is why I'm writing this post.

The Wavetek 195 was renumbered as a Fluke 282.

It's that simple. I had to call Fluke, ask, and be called back as they had a hard time rediscovering this fact for themselves. The Wavetek 195 shows up in exactly one document in all of their internal systems, and that document is what you, the reader, can find for yourself. It's about 1 page and not terribly useful.

Oh, mergers...what fun! ;)

Motorola Droid disassembly

Taking things apart is fun...especially when it was expensive, has been replaced, is out of warranty, and needs fixing. So my boss handed me his recently bathed Droid to take apart, rinse out with ethyl alcohol, and reassemble. A brief Google search found these two links:

Dr. Wreck's Motorola Droid teardown
Note commenter Jeremy on the second page of comments.

Dr. Wreck's analysis of the carnage


These are nearly comprehensive and very impressive. However, I would like to insert an omission or two.

When pulling the back cover off, there is a black flat piece that runs along the top (camera end) of the battery compartment that needs to be pulled down as it has two tabs around the first silver torx' socket's base.

Note that the mic will lift right out.

The antenna board seems to be glued in, but it doesn't seem to interfere with removing the edge cover so I didn't remove it during disassembly.

Keep track of the three buttons: I nearly lost one to the floor. One doesn't come out until you remove the edge connector.

This phone has a sticker under the battery that holds a significant part of the edge cover down. Peel this back, lift the screen-ward edge in the direction of the back of the phone and the opposite edge will disengage towards the front of the phone.

The screen mount has NINE (9) screws holding it in. Five you can see with the phone open and four you can only get to with the edge cover off. I am presently having incredibly amounts difficulty getting the center right keyboard edge one to come out. Judging by their use of glue in holding the edge connector on, it has probably been loc-tite'd into place so it's brutally obvious to a trained service tech when I have invaded the inner sancta of the phone... EDIT later today: every device has failed to break the screw loose, so I had to drill out the head.

Also keep track of the various rubber buffer pieces on the main board. In my considered opinion and lack of specific experience, they can hide water damage and are essential to vibration protection.

UPDATE: Even with two separate water damaged Droids, no combination was successful in restoring life. Luckily, my boss' Droid was still able to recognize a USB connection and dump anything useful onto his PC.

Mormon Exodus

The trek undertaken by early Mormons from Illinois to Utah is a well-studied and fascinating phenomenon. Studies have been done correlating the Mormon Trail with the Oregon Trail and other routes while looking at mortality, demographics, and socioeconomic statuses (statii? statae? states?); however, one topic that is often overlooked is the motivation behind this monumental movement.

Section 136 of the Doctrine and Covenants gives us several insights into it. The verbage used is extremely reminiscent of the Exodus books, so we expect the people and the leadership to see this journey as a religious pilgrimage. For example, the terms "covenant" and "statute" figure prominently. The direct commands from God are also very similar to Deuteronomy's style, not to mention how the first verse starts out with the "Word and Will of the Lord" to the "Camp of Israel." This is then followed with archaic constructions involving 'captains of <insert number here>' and the formation of 'companies.' It might have been just as effective to use military organizational jargon like 'platoons' and 'brigades,' but the specific terminology lends a more religiously impactful weight to the directions.

A few of the commandments are noteworthy in this vein. Particularly, verses 20-30 contain several 'cease' commands in addition to several 'thou shalt' constructions. It's hard to get closer to Exodus 20 in style. This comes with verse 22, where the Lord identifies Himself in one of His oldest ways: as the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.

I also note, in abstract, that vv. 34-36 carry an old-school wickedness-punishment weight, while v. 39 points out a justice-balance issue.

Thus this short and scatterbrained blog post ends.