Something Random

[CougTek]

I went on an ATV ride with a friend yesterday. He owns a Bombardier Outlander ATV and there's a trail for those vehicles not far from his house. He often rides it and he is supposed to be able to handle it fairly well.

I started driving on the go ride. I drove for ~5 miles. Then we decided that it was time to return and he took the driving seat while I ended up being the passenger. He didn't do more than 300 meters before we left the track and went down a ~7 feet deep moat at ~20 miles per hour. When everything stopped, we were on the side between the moat wall and the 750lbs ATV. Let's just say that my back took quite a hit. He's lucky to have had a helmet because he hit hard enough that one piece of the helmet broke. Except for a few bruises, we are ok. The ATV was stuck in the mud and we needed help to get it out of the moat. While waiting for help, I discovered that I'm quite popular with female mosquitos. I look like someone who has the measles.

My back is quite stiff this morning. I'll never ride as a passenger on an ATV again.

 

[LunarMist]

Do you write your own material?

I don't write much of anything lately. Mostly I review and approve various documents.

 

[ddrueding]

Drove to Lake Tahoe this weekend. Stayed at the Boss' condo in Northstar and drove my wife and mother-in-law around the whole lake. Just got home.

 

[ddrueding]

My Google Fu is weak today, or perhaps I just don't know the right terminology. I'd appreciate a hand if anyone is up for a challenge.

Looking for an audio extension cable.

1/4" Right-angle male to 3.5mm straight female, stereo, 12'-15'

Amazon would be awesome, Monoprice or Newegg would be great as well.

 

[Stereodude]

My Google Fu is weak today, or perhaps I just don't know the right terminology. I'd appreciate a hand if anyone is up for a challenge.

Looking for an audio extension cable.

1/4" Right-angle male to 3.5mm straight female, stereo, 12'-15'

Amazon would be awesome, Monoprice or Newegg would be great as well.

I think you'll have to roll your own by combining something like this plug with this cable. Cut of the 1/8" male end and solder on the new R/A 1/4" one. Alternatively you could use this adapter on the end and avoid cutting and soldering.

 

[ddrueding]

Thanks Stereo, that is what I was afraid of.

 

[Pradeep]

I went on an ATV ride with a friend yesterday. He owns a Bombardier Outlander ATV and there's a trail for those vehicles not far from his house. He often rides it and he is supposed to be able to handle it fairly well.

I started driving on the go ride. I drove for ~5 miles. Then we decided that it was time to return and he took the driving seat while I ended up being the passenger. He didn't do more than 300 meters before we left the track and went down a ~7 feet deep moat at ~20 miles per hour. When everything stopped, we were on the side between the moat wall and the 750lbs ATV. Let's just say that my back took quite a hit. He's lucky to have had a helmet because he hit hard enough that one piece of the helmet broke. Except for a few bruises, we are ok. The ATV was stuck in the mud and we needed help to get it out of the moat. While waiting for help, I discovered that I'm quite popular with female mosquitos. I look like someone who has the measles.

My back is quite stiff this morning. I'll never ride as a passenger on an ATV again.

Sounds like you and he were very lucky. Let me guess, he was running it hot to show off to you? Hope your back injury isn't anything permanent. Your huge muscular mass hanging off the backside prob threw off the balance of the vehicle At least that would be my excuse if I was riding. Actually I wouldn't carry a passenger on an ATV going at speed unless it was a side by side with roll cage/belts. A normal ATV requires you to shift your weight around during manoeuvres, how can one move enough to compensate for a fully laden CougTek on the back?

 

[Pradeep]

Hope Paugie is ok after yet another storm hits the Philippines.

 

[Chewy509]

I'm beginning to really despise my "networks" class, especially the main assignment.:cursin:
eg. Task 3, design a 3 network WAN, and demonstrate RIPv1 with routing in Cisco Packet Tracer.
In a written report, explain the network setup (including all network IP address allocations), explain in detail how to enable RIP (in Cisco Packet Tracer - not via the CLI), explain in detail how RIP works, and use examples from your setup to assist to show the routing tables before and after RIPv1 packet propagation. Also provide a list of shortcomings of RIPv1, as well as troubleshooting scenarios and solutions for RIPv1. All in less than 1000 words. My first try was just over 1600 words and I left a LOT out. (You get a 40% mark penalty for going over 1000 words).

I've formally asked for an extension of the word count (eg increase the word limit to 2000 words), citing 2 examples (of completed reports for the assignment, both are at least 40% over the word limit) and a sound logical argument as to why the assignment marking criteria makes it nearly impossible to get full marks with a limited word count of 1000. The lecturer's response: "You've done a wonderful job in your examples, and I'm sure you can get them under 1000 words". That's it. no acknowledgement, no discussion, no help what so ever.:eekers:

Mind you, several students have asked where to get Cisco Packet Tracer, and the lecturer directed them to Cisco's website. The problem is that in order to get the software directly from Cisco, you need to be enrolled in a Cisco approved network course (which IIRC are only the official CCNA/CCNP courses) with an applicable login from Cisco.... And reading the EULA for Cisco Packet Tracer, I'm concerned that we can't actually be using it, as the 'networks' course is not an official Cisco course of study - which is in the only means to use the software legitimately according to the EULA. And at Uni there are only 3 computer labs with it installed, and those labs are booked solid with workshops/tutorials, so the only chance to use them are on Saturday, Sunday or 8pm-9pm Mon-Fri.

At least I can take solace that most people I know taking the unit, are extremely unhappy with it. (eg, the mid-semester exam, the average mark was 20/50 or a fail. I managed 47/50, but I think that was due to my previous knowledge based on experience and not what was being taught in the lectures).

 

[Chewy509]

My little bike needs a replacement choke cable, and plunger/spring kit for the choke assembly. (The return spring has died and needs to be replaced, otherwise the choke is stuck in a half-open position, so the bike runs rich and at a higher idle RPM).

The kit may need to be ordered from Japan (the Yamaha stock control system shows none here in Australia), but due to manufacturing problems in Japan (as with most of the Japanese vehicle industry due to events there in the past year), their stock levels are extremely low and they may not even have the kit available. That is until they make them... (At least 3 month wait).

But the mechanic has been able to temporarily close the choke manually, and lock it closed until they can get the kit. Luckily we're mid way through spring, heading in to summer, so the choke isn't needed. So at least the bike is back on the road.

 

[Chewy509]

We still have the RadioShack stores. Most drug stores or supermarkets carry Dust-off or similar cans of the fluorocarbons here. A computer store like Microcenter has racks of them. :spiderman:

Yep, and most of the big electronics retailers here still have them on shelf. Heck, even BigW and KMart have them on shelf.
But yet a store that began life as an electronics store for hobbists (selling kits or bare parts like resistors, capacitors, etc, and had staff that could help you with your circuit design), not longer has it...
PS. For those in Oz, BigW is the cheapest source at the moment, even cheaper than Jay Car or Middies.

 

[Sol]

You could add lots of diagrams (you probably have a few anyway) and stick as much of the explanatory text in to the image as possible. That way when marking the content those words will count, but when marking the word count, they almost certainly wont. (assuming you're submitting the assignment in a digital form and the marker is sufficiently lazy to just use the word count from the software verbatim, which were both pretty safe assumptions when I was at uni).

 

[CougTek]

Or just replace the text part of the troubleshooting examples by comic books drawings.

 

[Mercutio]

Yeah. Your instructor wants to see diagrams.

As an IT certification instructor, I'd like to make it clear that we are some lazy mofos. Which is why your guy is telling you to use Cisco's thing that he's familiar with rather than something you're legally able to use, too.

 

[Chewy509]

Yeah. Your instructor wants to see diagrams.

As an IT certification instructor, I'd like to make it clear that we are some lazy mofos. Which is why your guy is telling you to use Cisco's thing that he's familiar with rather than something you're legally able to use, too.

Trust me, I've used lots and lots of diagrams... especially for the last task in the assignment (network packet packet and explaining HTTP). That one came in at 1050 words on first attempt, so culling 50 words was easy!

Also I'm submitting as PDF (the other option was docx), so there is no automated word count function... ;-)

 

[Handruin]

I'm taking a chance and trying out the newly announced Amazon Kindle Fire. It offers the features I'm looking for and the price is hard to argue.

 

[timwhit]

I'm taking a chance and trying out the newly announced Amazon Kindle Fire. It offers the features I'm looking for and the price is hard to argue.

I just bought a Kindle to give my wife for her birthday, now all these new ones are out. I should have waited.

 

[timwhit]

I just bought a Kindle to give my wife for her birthday, now all these new ones are out. I should have waited.

I haven't even opened the box yet. Who thinks I should return it and order the Kindle Fire?

 

[Handruin]

I haven't even opened the box yet. Who thinks I should return it and order the Kindle Fire?

Hard to say. Do you think she'll care about the app store, music, video, or games? Is the extended battery life of the Kindle more appealing vs the 8-hour of the Fire? I find all those added features worth it for the price.

 

[BingBangBop]

I haven't even opened the box yet. Who thinks I should return it and order the Kindle Fire?

I agree it is hard to say. It is too new, so wait for full reviews.

That being said, if you want a tablet it is very hard to argue with the price point for the Kindle Fire. As far as I can tell, they are virtually giving them away.

If you want a kindle, for reading, then I would probably choose from one of the other new Kindles with e-ink as opposed to an ips panel. The fire will be much heavier with a much shorter battery life. A dedicated design for a specific purpose almost always does that purpose much better than a general purpose device.

 

[DrunkenBastard]

My little bike needs a replacement choke cable, and plunger/spring kit for the choke assembly. (The return spring has died and needs to be replaced, otherwise the choke is stuck in a half-open position, so the bike runs rich and at a higher idle RPM).

The kit may need to be ordered from Japan (the Yamaha stock control system shows none here in Australia), but due to manufacturing problems in Japan (as with most of the Japanese vehicle industry due to events there in the past year), their stock levels are extremely low and they may not even have the kit available. That is until they make them... (At least 3 month wait).

But the mechanic has been able to temporarily close the choke manually, and lock it closed until they can get the kit. Luckily we're mid way through spring, heading in to summer, so the choke isn't needed. So at least the bike is back on the road.

I should be picking up my '79 Suzuki GS750 (around 18K miles) on Friday. Was hard to resist at the price, and if I do happen to drop her I won't be crying on the side of the road. Felt OK in the test ride I took the other day. Even if it just lasts for the 12 months the inspection is good for. Apparently the engine with roller bearings can last forever.

Finally took in the Elantra for a timing belt change (30K miles overdue - oops), had them look at the check engine light that's been on intermittently. Their quote for the work on the exhaust which will fix it? $2100. He said at that point many trade theirs in. I told em to go ahead with the timing belt work, and then I'll worry about it when the next inspection nears (here at inspection time they hook up to the OBD port to check for emissions warnings - which this one is). Something about a flex pipe and two O2 sensors etc. That would prob explain the loss of power and the sound coming from the engine bay tho - I was sure the engine/tranny was crapping the bed.

 

[Howell]

DB, was it the cat or the manifold? Anything under recall?

 

[CougTek]

Damn it pisses me off to be broke right now. I could have a Dell Latitude E6320 with an i7 2620M CPU for less than a third of the MSRP from Dell's website. With the standard one year warranty. Damn!

 

[Mercutio]

A decently appointed i7 Latitude is the same $1500 that a decently appointed T420 or Macbook Pro are, as far as I can tell. What special deal are you seeing?

 

[LunarMist]

Damn it pisses me off to be broke right now. I could have a Dell Latitude E6320 with an i7 2620M CPU for less than a third of the MSRP from Dell's website. With the standard one year warranty. Damn!

How broke is broke, and do you really need it for work? Maybe they have a payment plan.

 

[DrunkenBastard]

DB, was it the cat or the manifold? Anything under recall?

Haven't picked it up yet, too busy tooling around in a lovely loaner '11 Azera with all the trimmings. There was a problem with manifolds cracking in earlier Hyundais that were dealt with under recall but not an issue for this model year.

But from what I understand it's the pipe that comes from the exhaust manifold, Hyundai managed to fit two catalytic convertors in there, one up front and one further down, plus the two 02 sensors. If I was in a less stringent region I could just straight pipe it all the way back but that would never pass with the scanning stuff they do here. Apparently one can buy the flex pipe and get a shop to weld it on to the rest of the conflagration for a couple hundred all up, hopefully harvesting the o2 sensors whilst they are at it. But at this point we are going to drive her till she dies (or inspection expires), no point putting further money in to it. I wanted to get the timing belt done tho so Hyundai couldn't argue if the engine craps out in the remaining 10K of powertrain coverage. Plus the potential for catastrophic failure was bothering the back of my mind, I prefer stress free bliss.

 

[time]

How many miles has it done, 130,000? I didn't think you bought it more than about 5 years ago - I guess time flies.

 

[DrunkenBastard]

How many miles has it done, 130,000? I didn't think you bought it more than about 5 years ago - I guess time flies.

The 05 is at 90,000 miles, timing belt recommendation is 60,000 miles. I like it now because I can take a deer hit without swerving, no need to worry about the damage to the car. If it was shiny and new, chances are I'd swerve to avoid and get into a more serious incident. You have to keep it in the back of the mind tho, at twilight/sunrise, think "if I see a deer I will brake but only in a straight line, no deviating from the lane". It's coming into prime deer impact season shortly. Now if this was moose country taking a hit deliberately wouldn't be an option. Prob something Coug has to deal with out in the boonies. Here there is an odd bear or two but never on the road, they are in the mountaineous areas or rarely out for a visit before the wildlife official tranq and drag them back to where they should be.

On the motorbike my technique will be to brake if upright, and swerve towards the ass end of the deer. I'm still amazed how quickly a bike can change direction compared to a car.

 

[Mercutio]

Funny you mention deer:

My uncle lives just outside an Illinois state park. He hits a deer on average once every 18 months.

My uncle retired back in May, and as a retirement gift to himself he bought a completely restored '69 Charger with 19,700 miles on the odometer. Basically the car he always wanted.

The very first time he took it out, guess what happened?

 

[CougTek]

A decently appointed i7 Latitude is the same $1500 that a decently appointed T420 or Macbook Pro are, as far as I can tell. What special deal are you seeing?

I ordered it. I'll figure out how to pay it later (Monday). On Dell's website, an identical model to the one I'll get is sold 1829$. I get it for less than 600$, but with a single year warranty. No, I don't need it, but I should be able to sell it with a nice profit quite soon.

It's not an online deal. It's directly from one of my suppliers. They sent me a promo e-mail about it Thursday.

 

[MaxBurn]

~There was a problem with manifolds cracking in earlier Hyundais that were dealt with under recall but not an issue for this model year.

But from what I understand it's the pipe that comes from the exhaust manifold, Hyundai managed to fit two catalytic convertors in there, one up front and one further down, plus the two 02 sensors. If I was in a less stringent region I could just straight pipe it all the way back but that would never pass with the scanning stuff they do here. Apparently one can buy the flex pipe and get a shop to weld it on to the rest of the conflagration for a couple hundred all up, hopefully harvesting the o2 sensors whilst they are at it. But at this point we are going to drive her till she dies (or inspection expires), no point putting further money in to it. I wanted to get the timing belt done tho so Hyundai couldn't argue if the engine craps out in the remaining 10K of powertrain coverage. Plus the potential for catastrophic failure was bothering the back of my mind, I prefer stress free bliss.

Far as I know emissions components etc have a crazy long warranty time and mileage. Things breaking in or near the cat pipe sort of fall under this far as I know. You looked into this angle yet?

 

[DrunkenBastard]

Far as I know emissions components etc have a crazy long warranty time and mileage. Things breaking in or near the cat pipe sort of fall under this far as I know. You looked into this angle yet?

Unfortunately the emissions warranty covers just:

Catalytic Converter
Engine Control Module
Onboard Emissions Diagnostic Device (OBD-II)

for 8 years/80,000 miles.

 

[MaxBurn]

Isn't the part that broke on your car part of the cat assembly? That is welded to it and not bolted to it? I also found references for 15 years or 150,000 miles for some cars in some states, generally PZEV or ULEV type stuff. Must have been what I was thinking of.

I would love for my cat pipe to break, then I could legally replace it and go stage 2. That will never happen though, it's a monster and not going anywhere on my car. I had a downpipe with legal cat all ready to go for my car and cancelled it when I found out the law is written such that it isn't legal to replace cats unless they are damaged or worn out, even if it's a emissions legal part, you just aren't allowed to change it period. There are a lot of people skirting the law on that one, not something I can do with my only vehicle that I need for work.

 

[Chewy509]

Just got my final assignment for my "Systems Programming" class. Need to write a multi-threaded webserver, that can handle GET, POST and CGI applications in plain C99 w/pthreads for POSIX environments (aka Solaris, FreeBSD and Linux). I have a little over 3 weeks to get it done.

The HTTP part is easy enough, as well as handling the pipes for CGI. It's the threading part that is the problem or more specifically, waking threads that are blocked on accept() or sem_wait(). dealing with sem_wait() is easy, as I can just issue sem_post() times the number of worker threads, and they will wake up. But the accept() is the issue... on Solaris pthread_cancel() will wake it, but on Linux pthread_cancel() will kill the thread, so for Linux we use pthread_kill(thr, SIGUSR1) to wake it... why can't they decide on the easy way... For those that deal with socket programming all-day, every day, is there an easy and single cross platform way (beside pthread_cance/kill) to wake accept()? (PS. All signals are blocked, except SIGUSR1 and SIGINT (which SIGINT goes to a specific handler that kills the others before exiting), and SIGUSR1 is delivered to the thread that is blocked on accept()).

 

[DrunkenBastard]

Rode my trusty steed home in the rain, had the wife follow behind just in case. Apart from the first few corners where I was tense and nervous, once up to speed she's stable, it's been raining all day so no issues with oil on the road:

- Nice and smooth at 55.
- Good to be able to really see traffic from all directions without A-pillars blocking chunks of vision
- You are so much more connected to the road on a bike. Look into the corner, a little press on the bars and she's thru.
- There was a big and small ambulance parked beside the road at an stop sign halfway during journey. As I was coming to a stop from 55 i was thinking god I hope I don't drop her right here My wife said she thought the same thing in the car behind.

 

[Sol]

Why would you need to wake the thread blocking on accept? I'd just have one thread accepting new connections and spawning threads to handle them. (Or actually since I'd probably be writing it in Java I'd have a thread pool with worker threads and pass the task to one of them)

If you're really stuck just check out how Apache handles it, or find a lightweight BSD licensed server.

 

[DrunkenBastard]

Isn't the part that broke on your car part of the cat assembly? That is welded to it and not bolted to it? I also found references for 15 years or 150,000 miles for some cars in some states, generally PZEV or ULEV type stuff. Must have been what I was thinking of.

I would love for my cat pipe to break, then I could legally replace it and go stage 2. That will never happen though, it's a monster and not going anywhere on my car. I had a downpipe with legal cat all ready to go for my car and cancelled it when I found out the law is written such that it isn't legal to replace cats unless they are damaged or worn out, even if it's a emissions legal part, you just aren't allowed to change it period. There are a lot of people skirting the law on that one, not something I can do with my only vehicle that I need for work.

Actually you are correct, the auto 05 now has more power then my manual 04, which was not the case before. I can only imagine how much power has been sapped by the emission controls.. They are both SULEV rated. I just warned the wife about making sure there is plenty of ventilation when sitting still, to avoid any carbon monoxide issues.

 

[Chewy509]

Why would you need to wake the thread blocking on accept? I'd just have one thread accepting new connections and spawning threads to handle them. (Or actually since I'd probably be writing it in Java I'd have a thread pool with worker threads and pass the task to one of them)

If you're really stuck just check out how Apache handles it, or find a lightweight BSD licensed server.

Assignment criteria says that all threads must exit cleanly, and not be killed...
I've currently got 1 thread accept()ing, and 30 threads in a thread pool which take the connections as needed. (which is how it mst be done in accordance with the assignment specification). Basically:

Thread A (the accept() thread), blocks on accept() waiting for connections. On accept() returning it takes the socket returned and places it at the end of a linked list. It then signals one of the threads in the thread pool (via sem_post(), as all threads in the thread pool are blocked on sem_wait() waiting for incoming connections).

One of the threads in the thread pool wakes, and takes the first socket from the head of the linked list (or if the list is empty, checks a global state variable and exits if it's set to 'exit'), and then handles the complete HTTP request. Once the request is dealt, it'll then block on sem_wait() waiting for the next request.

I have another thread (thread B) that handles incoming signals (the server must exit cleanly on SIGINT or SIGHUP), and on receiving one of those signals sets a global state variable to 'exit', signals the 30 threads via sem_post() (which will unblock them on, when they are blocked on sem_wait() ), and then must signal thread A to exit.

It's that last bit is the problem. The best cross-platform way to signal thread A, so that unblocks accept() (so accept() returns a EINTR error) and it can close all listening sockets and free any thread-specific malloc()'s.

 

[Chewy509]

It's that last bit is the problem. The best cross-platform way to signal thread A, so that unblocks accept() (so accept() returns a EINTR error) and it can close all listening sockets and free any thread-specific malloc()'s.

Got it solved. I basically create a dummy signal handler for SIGUSR1 in Thread A, and signal thread A with SIGUSR1. Since I'm handling the signal, accept() will be interrupted, but the default action won't take place.

 

[LunarMist]

I have not purchased a hard drive on almost two months. :erm:
I cannot take it anymore. :shake2: What should I buy tonight?