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Marilyn Levin has generously decided to give one of her kidneys to Thomas Harris. The transplant is tentatively scheduled for August. But without your help, the life giving transplant will be delayed.
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If I am on-line and you want to chat in real time, or if I am off-line and you want to leave a message with my local IM program, allow pop-ups, then :::
PDF and a JPEG image of my home power network - two up-step inverters & a transient power regulator with most household items on the same circuit
19 August, 2008 07:55
I am currently working on a detailed publication in relation to a major company re branding devices based on the type of customer with differences in price up to 350%. My research is almost complete, it has been verified, however I need another source of verification before I feel comfortable posting my content (hence the lack of any Blog posts).
In the mean time, here is a PDF and JPEG image in relation to my post: "jpg image of my power network - 2 up-step inverters and a transient voltage regulator - all devices on one outlet, most household items on the same circuit...".
The original description for this crazy segmented power network can be read by the above link, and by clicking on more and permalink links at the bottom of this post.. Chime in on this if you would like. I try not to tell many that come to my house that I do this because of its hard to believe personal safety issues they may have.
If you have similar network, or have any suggestions or ideas for better power utilization, let me know.. Enjoy my crazy and lazy PDF (power network.pdf), which is of much higher quality, and the JPG sketch you may click on above for the diagram...
to note: several more devices have been added since the related post...
A year ago I was writing: N.A.D.S - North American Defense against Squirrels
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going camping this weekend, should I bring this four gallon gas powered frozen margarita machine?
26 May, 2008 22:01
We have solved the problem with camping on public land, instead of a campground where of course you have the ability to plug in a blender and whip up a couple frozen margaritas.
This four gallon frozen margarita machine runs on a two stroke gas engine, now making it possible to party without the patrol of rangers.
I will not be the one carrying it on my back though. As much as I like margaritas, a Miller Light will do for me. I bet I could get someone in the party to drag it though. 9 mile hike, ha ha.. that would be a blast watching...
http://www.hackaday.com/2008/05/26/beverage-hacks/
Random Thought : have not wrote a random thought in a while...
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Global Consciousness Project - Physics Involved, "..the goal is to learn the sources of structure and understand mechanism."
26 May, 2008 04:56
cross-posted from: http://einstein.extracted.org/gravitational-waves/global-consciousness-project-physics-involved-..the-goal-is-to-learn-the-sources-of-structure-and-understand-mechanism.
"It is one of humanity's most enduring spiritual traditions: the idea that all life or all consciousness is interconnected. Human groups, whether ethnic, religious, or racial; as various as the Iroquois, the Sufis, and Western European Freemasons, all incorporate it into their belief structures. References to it can be found in ancient documents of the classical world, both East and West. It is a very compelling idea, spanning both millennia and the vast complexity of human cultures. Yet, as compelling as the concept is emotionally, only in recent decades has any objective evidence emerged that such a construct might be valid. Even this work, in fields as various as physics, parapsychology, and biology, has provided only suggestions, largely because the research was not conceived in global terms but, instead, focused on more limited vistas. Indeed, much of the relevant research has regarded only individual performances in experiments on anomalies such as telepathy, mind/matter interactions, and distant healing. Somewhat broader vistas are opened in studies of group resonance and morphogenetic fields."
"..the goal is to learn the sources of structure and understand mechanism." -- http://noosphere.princeton.edu/
"We have a habit in writing articles published in scientific journals to make the work as finished as possible, to cover up all the tracks, to not worry about the blind alleys or describe how you had the wrong idea first, and so on. So there isn't any place to publish, in a dignified manner,what you actually did in order to get to do the work." -- Richard Feynman In his Nobel Lecture, 1966
"The Global Consciousness Project (GCP) is an international effort involving researchers from several institutions and countries, designed to explore whether the construct of interconnected consciousness can be scientifically validated through objective measurement. The project builds on excellent experiments conducted over the past 35 years at a number of laboratories, demonstrating that human consciousness interacts with random event generators (REGs), apparently "causing" them to produce non-random patterns. A description of the technical implementation is given under procedures..."
"..Although information will be presented with the scientific rigor that is required for accuracy and clarity, the site is intended also to have a strong artistic and aesthetic presence, We expect to use music and dynamic images both for background and for display of information, and we will provide links to a variety of articles and scholarly resources. We believe important aspects of the project may be represented in stories, poetry and philosophy, including selected readings from Henri Bergson, Teilhard de Chardin, Carl Jung, and others who have thought deeply about consciousness. For example, one of the guiding models for this project is Teilhard's idea of a Noosphere, or layer of intelligence enveloping the earth, and his description of mankind's evolution toward a destiny to fulfill that role. While this metaphor is more spiritual than scientific, it provides a very interesting interpretive background (one of several that we may consider) for our specific scientific questions. A few examples of aesthetic expressions of the project's philosophy and mission are given in our poetic history. Even the scientific data sometimes create immediately meaningful pictures, as in the beautifully symmetrical traces that appear to note the death of Barry Fenn, our friend and REG host in New Zealand..." -- ..originally composed in early 1998 but it is still a good description of what the project is about...
Global Consciousness Project - Registering Coherence and Resonance in the World: http://noosphere.princeton.edu/
Realtime display of the project's random number generator (requires Java): http://noosphere.princeton.edu/bsktobsrv/basketobserver.wall.html
A package for downloading and analysing data from the GCP archives: http://www.treurniet.ca/GCP/
"Since we want the network to grow larger, and to be broadly distributed around the world, we provide information about hosting an Egg, and access to the software, with details on the basic hardware and operating system requirements for becoming a host." - http://noosphere.princeton.edu/software.html
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affordable power regulator on the cheap at newegg.com - (110V, 115V, 120V or 220V, 230V,240V) +/-20% Input Voltage + UPS
15 April, 2008 01:45
My apartment was absolutely nerve racking to live in with all my power drinking electronics.
It got so bad, my metal shelf had hot spots in various places along the height of the metal poles.
I needed a voltage regulator that I had been putting off for several months, along with some well gaged power cords.
(110V, 115V, 120V or 220V, 230V,240V) +/-20% - (110V, 115V, 120V or 220V, 230V, 240V)+/-7%
Along with the voltage regulator, I picked up a UPS for my networking device and NAS in case my nighttime backups were to be disturbed by night time lightning. The specs suck, but it will not be powering a computer nor a monitor, just a router, switch, and DSL modem along with the NAS drive in which the HD is usually sleeping at any given time. I could probably get 15 to 30 minutes out of the 3 minute specification. I don't feel like doing the math, so I will leave it with that estimate.
Full load runtime 1.5 Minutes (375VA), Half load runtime 7.2 Minutes (200VA), <4 Hours to 90% charge
The UPS comes with a serial cable and is Linux compatible, so I am thinking about picking one up for hamper, my trusty dirty server of mine. A lot of data goes through the hard drive bus consistently, and a clean shut-down would be nice.
The power regulator has kicked in 3 times for step-up inversion when heating up my toaster oven continuing the flow of clean and consistent power. I hope the step-down and breaker works as well as the up-step does.
Total cost after shipping: $79.58 Shipping kills good things in this world...
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the FreeBSD way, the route of happiness and speedy processing, plus good sleep at night - the Ubuntu and FreeBSD way, the route of happiness and overheated processor, but proven to work?
14 April, 2008 16:05
Most services on my hosted domains use a FreeBSD release providing SQL, DNS, and SMTP and POP access. The only software that I still use Ubuntu Server with is lighttpd, and fast-cgi.
My project for the next couple day will be migrating all my web data to a FreeBSD server, and do some benchmarks behind the scenes.
If everything checks out, I will go the BSD route for the web server also. It happens to be "just one of those things", I feel more secure - tight I should say, and have the comfort level to use the platform in a production system instead of Linux because of cuncurrent connections, light weight kernel, and blazing fast process priority management.
I still do love Ubuntu, and will undoubtedly use it as my desktop and server OS at home for the good of time. I just want to "test the water" so to speak.
If I don't blog about this again, or 20 something domains fall from the face of the net, either I am happy with what I have, or I have failed; that would be a very bad thing...
A year ago I was writing: I have a bone to pick with LifeType
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Postfix backup mail server using the defer and hold queues - Here are the parameters I used for this test:
28 March, 2008 01:51
First thing is first. If I decide to move out of state, and my home mail server is unavailable, I want to make sure mail is held for at least 45 days, even though the primary mail exchange server might have a week or two of queue lifetime.
The backup MX priority 20 will not accept any incoming mail other than the domains or addresses listed as I will describe bellow, it is not a matter of resource load, it is just a pure backup mall server.
For mx1.mailhost [DNS MX Priority 10, the first], I have the ONE variables defined to use, for relay to the backup after its own queue experiation:
SMTP_FALLBACK_RELAY = MY.MX2.IP.ADDR
I couldn't imagine not having the need to flush the queue after 45 days, so here is the variable I defined:
MAX_QUEUE_LIFETIME = 45d
Next you want to list the domains, or fully qualified e-mail addresses that you want backed up. You can store this in text, hash, mysql, sqlite, etc...
permit_mx_backup = host1.com host2.com user@host3.com user@host4.com
When you initially receive mail for the permit_mx_backup list, it is put immediately into a spool, that of which you can define the type of with FALLBACK_TRANSPORT. It is not touched: no attempt to deliver, scan the messages - it just plain forgets about the incoming mail that got stored. This is how I did this:
MINIMUL_BACKOFF_TIME = 43200
The above example is in seconds which equals 8 hours. I can get an easily repairable downed server up in that amount of time. The suffix can be appended with h (hour) or d (day).
After the initial back-off time, the next attempt will not be made for another 2 hours as defined in this following configuration variable:
QUEUE_RUN_DELAY = 7200
Consecutive attempts will be made every two hours, after the minimal backup time, until the max queue lifetime of 45 days expires, in which case you could use a non normalized form of archiving your mail to an external source, or a 3rd backup MX priority 30 for a third archive.
After 8, 10, or 45 days, you may then deliver the mail back to your primary mail exchange server by flushing the hold queue into the active queue, with instructions in "man postsuper"
Since we re not accepting incoming public mail on mx2, I use this variable to defer the e-mail at each connection attempt until mx1 can be brought back on-line:
SMTPD_RECIPIENT_RESTRICTIONS = defer
This will defer the message from all - FROM: email@ANY, and notify that the sender that the e-mail is temporarily unable to be received. It will then try other MX priority servers in your DNS entries.
If the address or domain is in the permit_mx_backup list, than this list is the only mail that will be accepted and backed-up. Make sure you have your trusted networks in which this is allowed defined for this. I use the following variable (incoming mail):
SMTPD_SENDER_RESTRICTIONS = permit_mx_backup, defer
Make some modifications to the above, and see what works best for you. I have only tested, needed, and used this for two days, so numerous modifications may be needed, not to mention modifications in conjunction with other SMTP provisionings you may have.
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NS 347 NAS LAN Disk - excellent firmware for the RDC2882 chipset
28 March, 2008 00:26
A little more than a year ago, I blogged about my NS-347 NAS LAN Disk, and my inability to utilize any of the features of the SMB and FTP built in services, and that the connectivity issues were weak and almost unusable.
After trying a couple third party firmware software systems, I decided it would make for a better USB external drive instead, mainly because of the aluminum casing and the ability to format a ext3 file system - also making the NAS capabilities unusable.
About 6 months ago I formated the drive with a FAT file system so that I could have a portable large storage device.
I mostly forgot about the networking aspect of the machine, until I found a firmware update in which currently allows me password protected windows (SMB) folder shares, and username & password FTP accounts, including public FTP access to a designated folder.
For the last couple of days after updating the firmware, I have decided to keep it on the LAN permanantly, as the dependability is now solid enough to use for both personal, and personal project type storage application needs.
Trying to find the IP address I set a year and a half ago was pretty easy. I used tcpdump -i ethX -vvv, set a snap-length of 3500, and discovered the UDP SMB advertisements of the shares I set way back then, and with that the IP I had set on the network of that time.
So now I had the IP, but damn if I could remember the password I had set for the machine.
Documentation for the NS-347 is not centralized, so it took me a bit to figure out how to reset the firmware configuration.
The first thing I did was look inside the casing on the bread board for a reset button, and I could not find one. I later read on a forum that their was, quite indeed, a button on that board.
I took another look, and by god I found it. That button is damn small, and looks more like small chip, like a power regulator, or resistor.
In order to reset the device to its default settings, you must hold down the button while powering up the system - holding for about 10 to 15 seconds while it boots its operating system. I had to give this firmware a shot.
The default IP for the LAN disk is 169.254.0.1, with a subnet mask of 255.255.0.0 - how strange. I set my ethernet device to an IP on that network address, fired up my browser, and received a login / password prompt.
The default username and password for the NS-347 is admin / admin.
I didn't even play around, knowing quite well the last third party replacement was just as cheap as the factory default firmware, so I immediately update the device.
I have tried NAS-BASIC 47, and I was not happy with it, switched, and now I updated to 48, with the same boot loader, hoping I could maintain some productive usability with it.
Once the firmware was updated, I was overjoyed to see that you could set per folder passwords on Windows File Shares. No ability for custom usernames however.
Next I realized that I could now set both username and passwords for FTP folders, read write permissions, along with the options of enabling public FTP on a specific folder, and changing the default FTP TCP port.
I quickly moved to the testing faze. SMB shares, which were once unusable for more than single access, one file per session transfers, now has the ability to support sessions with multiple access to the file system. At this point I was pretty much sold on keeping it on the LAN, instead of a USB drive.
FTP access is great for providing WAN access, as the software has the ability of using both a username and password of 12 characters per account. Do a dd on /dev/urandom, and you have a quite secure FTP server in which I feel comfortable putting on the WAN side of my network for several projects of mine in which I need to exchange data. In the past, I have always used sftp, scp, or netcat (nc) from my remote sites.
You can set a private static IP for the NAS, or use DHCP to retrieve network information. It also has a built in DHCP server which I have no use for.
You may also set a hostname for internal DNS, and a group name for workgroups.
Another nice feature is it's built in NTP client in which you have the ability to update the date and time from any time server you choose, for filesystem accounting information.
It now has all sorts of application possibilities on my quite active home network.
The RDC firmware version mentions wget access, however not accessible, so this port also probably has hidden abilities that one might find hacking the firmware binary.
NAS-BASIC48 can be found at this link: http://www.aroundmyroom.com/landisk found ON THIS blog post from the author at aroundmyroom.com. You will love the background image!
A year ago I was writing: Yahoo! ups the anti with mail storage to infinity, and beyond?
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my current project: (dot)Project VMWARE VM for a home based, project management system
18 March, 2008 23:02
A buddy of mine became interested in my installation of .project, a project management system. He asked if I would be willing to build a VM, and I readily said yes, as I could use a home based installation of this incredible application.
I then started thinking that the public might be interested in such a VMWARE product, so I decided to start documenting the progress of the installation.
I will call this version 0.0.1 and my Tomboy notes can be found here.
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