Final presentation largely complete, reflection paper done, I now step boldly towards what may be my last blog post ever. Hows that for dramatic? It is also, possibly, very inaccurate.
Since I was half the country away last week and missed Erik's talk, I am going to go on the alternate blog topic this week - something from the class that surprised me. The biggest surprise that I got this semester was that I don't hate blogging.
Oh, I did at first. Oh yes I did. I never liked reading blogs - and still largely don't - so I could not see the point of writing them. But tonight, as I listen to a huge possum eat out of the cat dish we leave outside - it really is big I should go take a picture - I am thinking that once I am done with this chapter in my academic life in August, I might pick up blogging again.
There are some bits that I will have to work out through, before I do. The first is a topic. Lets face it, the more interesting posts that I have put up have not been on emerging technology. While I have plenty of opinions, I don't have enough stored up crazy to enter the political arena. I have doubts that anyone would be interested to know about what stocks I am trading or why and given the low volume that I play with, I could hardly be called an expert in the field - and I'd rather write about something that I know about rather then making it up along the way. Which leaves old cars and family. I could write about either, and be content with my content.
The next is my audience. For this class, we had a built in audience, and that was kinda nice. I always knew that at least Amy was reading what I wrote, and maybe some of the other folks too. But if I start up my blog anew, I will not have the built in audience, and if no one is reading how long will I stay motivated to write it? If I am writing about friends and family, I am pretty sure I would have a few readers curious enough about what we are up to to read. If I write about the restoration business, I have the possibility of a rather large readership - but would have to accept that most of the readers would be argumentative jerks. Also, being that my focus for old vehicles is pretty myopic, I might not be able to compete with the folks who are blogging on the larger readership boards. Would knowing that I might be helpful to the next guy that wants to resto-mod an old army truck or unloved Porsche or Corvair, without reinventing the wheel, be enough to keep me going? I don't know.
And, I won't find out until September at the earliest. Summer class schedules are tight. I won't have any delusions about starting any new blogs until after graduation.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Life on a swing
A few weeks ago, I went online and bought my son a swing set. My wife and I had done a lot of research, and we decided that we did not want to get the uber expensive wooden sets that are all the rage these days, but rather the metal kind that was more similar to what we had growing up, and would hopefully save our son some splinters.
So, after lots of looking around, we settled on a Flexible Flyer (yes, the sled people) swing set. American made, and only a few hundred dollars, as opposed to the $1000+ for the wood sets from the Home Despot. We waited, and the swing set was delivered while I was out in Missouri early last week.
This weekend, having gotten a good leg up on my homework, I decided that I wanted to bolt together a little love, and headed outside to construct the swings. Please keep in mind that I have a well stocked workshop and build cars for fun - I did not expect this to be a challenge.
My initial impression was a good one. The set was well packaged. The hardware was very well organized in blister molded packs. The instructions, though, were a bit dubious - as they were clearly just photo copies stapled together and not the booklet that I would expect.
As I began to assemble the swings, things started going wrong. The metal poles had the mounting holes punched instead of drilled. The "hanging chads" were all simply bent into the structure. Also, the holes were much larger then the supplied hardware. The bolts and keepers wallowed in the assigned mounting holes. One very important tool not listed in the "required tools" section of the instructions was a 6 foot step ladder. Many of the connections can only be made if the opposite side of the upright is properly supported, and the only way I could find to get that support is by resting it just so on the step of the ladder, so that I could get the mounting holes to align and bolted in.
The other little bit of joy this swing set brought us today was the concrete issue. All over the Flexible Flyer website they have notes saying things like " we do not provide anchors for our swings. We suggest mounting the legs of the swing in concrete to keep it from moving." However, when we opened the box, we found a set of anchors. Interesting. Reading the instruction booklet, we found this: "If you choose to place the swing set in concrete, make sure to set the anchors in the concrete and not the legs of the swing, as doing so will cause the chains to be too short." This led to a, shall we say, debate between my wife and I. She taking the side of the Website, and myself taking the side of the instruction booklet. This debate has not been able to be brought to a close, so we are going to have to call Flexible Flyer on Monday for a ruling.
So, the swing set sits in the back yard, half built and unanchored. No reason to install the slide and swings until we have the frame fully anchored.
There is simply no reason for this to have been so complicated. What should have been a fun exercise in backyard engineering has left both parents frustrated with each other and with our recent purchase. I am still of the opinion that the wood swings are not what I wanted, but I did expect a better built unit then what we received. More consistency between the website and the packaging of the swings would have averted an argument that I am sure is enacted just about every time these sets are put up. As it is, I am considering welding an extra foot of pipe to the bottom of each leg so that it can be concreted in w/o putting the swings on the ground.
So, after lots of looking around, we settled on a Flexible Flyer (yes, the sled people) swing set. American made, and only a few hundred dollars, as opposed to the $1000+ for the wood sets from the Home Despot. We waited, and the swing set was delivered while I was out in Missouri early last week.
This weekend, having gotten a good leg up on my homework, I decided that I wanted to bolt together a little love, and headed outside to construct the swings. Please keep in mind that I have a well stocked workshop and build cars for fun - I did not expect this to be a challenge.
My initial impression was a good one. The set was well packaged. The hardware was very well organized in blister molded packs. The instructions, though, were a bit dubious - as they were clearly just photo copies stapled together and not the booklet that I would expect.
As I began to assemble the swings, things started going wrong. The metal poles had the mounting holes punched instead of drilled. The "hanging chads" were all simply bent into the structure. Also, the holes were much larger then the supplied hardware. The bolts and keepers wallowed in the assigned mounting holes. One very important tool not listed in the "required tools" section of the instructions was a 6 foot step ladder. Many of the connections can only be made if the opposite side of the upright is properly supported, and the only way I could find to get that support is by resting it just so on the step of the ladder, so that I could get the mounting holes to align and bolted in.
The other little bit of joy this swing set brought us today was the concrete issue. All over the Flexible Flyer website they have notes saying things like " we do not provide anchors for our swings. We suggest mounting the legs of the swing in concrete to keep it from moving." However, when we opened the box, we found a set of anchors. Interesting. Reading the instruction booklet, we found this: "If you choose to place the swing set in concrete, make sure to set the anchors in the concrete and not the legs of the swing, as doing so will cause the chains to be too short." This led to a, shall we say, debate between my wife and I. She taking the side of the Website, and myself taking the side of the instruction booklet. This debate has not been able to be brought to a close, so we are going to have to call Flexible Flyer on Monday for a ruling.
So, the swing set sits in the back yard, half built and unanchored. No reason to install the slide and swings until we have the frame fully anchored.
There is simply no reason for this to have been so complicated. What should have been a fun exercise in backyard engineering has left both parents frustrated with each other and with our recent purchase. I am still of the opinion that the wood swings are not what I wanted, but I did expect a better built unit then what we received. More consistency between the website and the packaging of the swings would have averted an argument that I am sure is enacted just about every time these sets are put up. As it is, I am considering welding an extra foot of pipe to the bottom of each leg so that it can be concreted in w/o putting the swings on the ground.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
My son turned 2 this week!
This past Tuesday, my son turned two. I thought it would be fun, given that our blog post this week is open, to jot down some thoughts on parenthood. And, yes, this is another avenue to show off some picture of my kid.
In the beginning, infants are very small. Yes, yes, you say. We know that. But you don't *really* know that until you see yours for the first time. Chances are, you are in a hospital. You have been there for a few hours, and you are exhausted. And suddenly you have this little purple cone headed... thing. And you panic, just for a second. "Is it supposed to be purple? Yes, they taught us that in the birthing classes. Is it always going to have a funky pointy hillbilly head? No, no, that rounds up in a few weeks. Come on, you know this stuff. Relax. Oh yeah, but WTF do I do now? Beats me, me. Relax and smile like everyone else is, and we will figure it out along the way."
Turns out, what you do next is sleep for a few hours while everyone else come in to see what you have made. And when you wake up, the kid is no longer an "it." He's pink, and healthy if still cone headed. At the hospital they teach you all manners of blanket origami, run lots of tests, and boot you out the door just as fast as they can. But home really is where the heart is.
Theo and Dad, three days old - first day at home.
As time passes, you figure out that somewhere deep down you kinda know what is required to keep an infant alive. Diapers (and the various fluids and semi-fluids that fill them) cease to be a disgusting mystery. Swaddling, feeding, cuddling and all the other things that need to happen on a regular basis become routine. You learn that infants are equipped with raptor claws - and I am SO not kidding about that. Somehow the liquid poo fountain that your child just shot several feet across the room (that you now need to clean up and will make you late for work) will be found to be amusing, and not the cause for summary execution that a similar act would have been before parenthood.
Buy the time they are 2 months old, kids have about doubled in size from when they were born. Cone heads are mostly gone, and they fit into their skin much better. As a parent, you find yourself excited over really basic steps. I was totally stoked that Theo was able to hold up his head "early." At this point they are looking at you, and maybe smiling at you, and melting your heart.
Theo, ~2 months old.
They keep growing more everyday, and the parents learn what the kids need at the same pace. By about 6 months old, they are learning and using new skills everyday. They are not infants any more. They still need lots of sleep, but not as much as before. And, oh my do they ever want to move. Theo was slow to figure out crawling but he started trying to crawl at about 6 months. He would be almost 9 months old before he finally got it.
6 months old
They are also very expressive.
Halloween - just starting to get his first teeth in.
1 Year. Nice!
Kids are learning so much at this point that it can be hard to keep up. They are transitioning from crawling to walking to running. My experience so far has been that once kids figure out how to run, they forget everything else. By 1 year, they also look more like little people and less like babies.
As they move through the 18 month period, words start to form. Not anything that can be discerned, mostly, but they are pointing and vocalizing and trying to communicate. They have definite personalities. By 18 months, Theo was captivated by Thomas the Tank Engine - though he ignored all the other TV bits. He had favorite foods, and was starting to demand that we not help him eat. I must admit, I was quite pleased when the little man began showing a large interest in Daddies old cars - primarily the old truck, which he has claimed as his personal jungle gym...
18 months old
He always runs here as soon as he gets out the front door.
As we got nearer to the big 24 months, his eagerness to speak and sing showed up more and more. He understands many more words then he can say, but is learning daily how to better communicate with us. He sings all the time - and more often then not we can recognize the tune. He is even starting to add in some of the words to his favorite songs.
A few days before his second birthday.
Two has been great so far, if only because we don't need to keep counting in months. I never understood the need to count age in months before I was a parent, but it makes sense - especially when they are under a year old. But ~ 18 months it starts being a challenge to remember off hand how many months old he is, and it takes a second to do the math when someone asks: "awwwww, how old is he?" And then I look like a dummy for not knowing right off the top of my head that he is 20 months old - but I know that I am not alone, as I have seen many other toddler parents frantically adding up months. Some parents keep up the age in months thing for a bit longer - but I am happy to be past it.
Parenthood has been a constant challenge. Sickness happens. They take headers into all manner of things that you are not supposed to smack your head into. You have to give yourself an extra hour to go anywhere, and packing for an overnighter can just about fill the car. All of that is balanced out when you see them learning new things on a daily basis. Fatherhood, though at times bewildering and frustrating, has been the most fulfilling challenge that I have met.
In the beginning, infants are very small. Yes, yes, you say. We know that. But you don't *really* know that until you see yours for the first time. Chances are, you are in a hospital. You have been there for a few hours, and you are exhausted. And suddenly you have this little purple cone headed... thing. And you panic, just for a second. "Is it supposed to be purple? Yes, they taught us that in the birthing classes. Is it always going to have a funky pointy hillbilly head? No, no, that rounds up in a few weeks. Come on, you know this stuff. Relax. Oh yeah, but WTF do I do now? Beats me, me. Relax and smile like everyone else is, and we will figure it out along the way."
Turns out, what you do next is sleep for a few hours while everyone else come in to see what you have made. And when you wake up, the kid is no longer an "it." He's pink, and healthy if still cone headed. At the hospital they teach you all manners of blanket origami, run lots of tests, and boot you out the door just as fast as they can. But home really is where the heart is.
Theo and Dad, three days old - first day at home.
As time passes, you figure out that somewhere deep down you kinda know what is required to keep an infant alive. Diapers (and the various fluids and semi-fluids that fill them) cease to be a disgusting mystery. Swaddling, feeding, cuddling and all the other things that need to happen on a regular basis become routine. You learn that infants are equipped with raptor claws - and I am SO not kidding about that. Somehow the liquid poo fountain that your child just shot several feet across the room (that you now need to clean up and will make you late for work) will be found to be amusing, and not the cause for summary execution that a similar act would have been before parenthood.
Buy the time they are 2 months old, kids have about doubled in size from when they were born. Cone heads are mostly gone, and they fit into their skin much better. As a parent, you find yourself excited over really basic steps. I was totally stoked that Theo was able to hold up his head "early." At this point they are looking at you, and maybe smiling at you, and melting your heart.
Theo, ~2 months old.
They keep growing more everyday, and the parents learn what the kids need at the same pace. By about 6 months old, they are learning and using new skills everyday. They are not infants any more. They still need lots of sleep, but not as much as before. And, oh my do they ever want to move. Theo was slow to figure out crawling but he started trying to crawl at about 6 months. He would be almost 9 months old before he finally got it.
6 months old
They are also very expressive.
Halloween - just starting to get his first teeth in.
1 Year. Nice!
Kids are learning so much at this point that it can be hard to keep up. They are transitioning from crawling to walking to running. My experience so far has been that once kids figure out how to run, they forget everything else. By 1 year, they also look more like little people and less like babies.
As they move through the 18 month period, words start to form. Not anything that can be discerned, mostly, but they are pointing and vocalizing and trying to communicate. They have definite personalities. By 18 months, Theo was captivated by Thomas the Tank Engine - though he ignored all the other TV bits. He had favorite foods, and was starting to demand that we not help him eat. I must admit, I was quite pleased when the little man began showing a large interest in Daddies old cars - primarily the old truck, which he has claimed as his personal jungle gym...
18 months old
He always runs here as soon as he gets out the front door.
As we got nearer to the big 24 months, his eagerness to speak and sing showed up more and more. He understands many more words then he can say, but is learning daily how to better communicate with us. He sings all the time - and more often then not we can recognize the tune. He is even starting to add in some of the words to his favorite songs.
A few days before his second birthday.
Two has been great so far, if only because we don't need to keep counting in months. I never understood the need to count age in months before I was a parent, but it makes sense - especially when they are under a year old. But ~ 18 months it starts being a challenge to remember off hand how many months old he is, and it takes a second to do the math when someone asks: "awwwww, how old is he?" And then I look like a dummy for not knowing right off the top of my head that he is 20 months old - but I know that I am not alone, as I have seen many other toddler parents frantically adding up months. Some parents keep up the age in months thing for a bit longer - but I am happy to be past it.
Parenthood has been a constant challenge. Sickness happens. They take headers into all manner of things that you are not supposed to smack your head into. You have to give yourself an extra hour to go anywhere, and packing for an overnighter can just about fill the car. All of that is balanced out when you see them learning new things on a daily basis. Fatherhood, though at times bewildering and frustrating, has been the most fulfilling challenge that I have met.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Online classes
I have taken online classes, in two formats.
GB704 was taken as the "online" session - meaning that we met in class 1/2 as often as regular, but had to make several posts each week on assigned topics via the Blackboard forums. I would not have taken the class had I known it was the "online" session. Well, maybe I would have. The alternate session was being taught by the prior CIO for my University. I did not want to take him as a professor as that could have caused tensions with the current CIO with whom I work with closely on my current project. So, I signed up for the "online" 704, discovering the nature of the course on the first day of classes.
My impression of the course was this: while it was nice to have the extra sessions off, which allowed me to spend a lot more time with my family that semester, I never formed any sort of bond with the other people in the class. In fact, I had a difficult time getting into the class at all as there seemed to be little time to develop a continuity from session to session. The class struck me as being perfect for the student that was just grinding through and did not much care about the subject (as I have done through say - oh - finance...) but was not good for someone interested in the subject.
The other type of online classes I have done have been the webinar type classes. They have usually run from 3 to 6 sessions, and have been usually for training at work or some other work related function. They are good for what they are. I think that they will only be beneficial for the person taking the class if the student is interested and cares about what is going on during the webinar. Otherwise, it is simply too easy to be checking email, eating dinner, playing with your kids, whatever else may be more interesting and right at hand then the webinar. None of the webinar based classes that I have taken have been graded, though fo some I have had to fill out a web based form at the end.
On the whole, I think that online classes have their place. But I think that unless you have the kind of personality that is not easily distracted, you are going to get a lot more from a traditional class setting then you would an online class. For the webinar type classes, they are great for learning software, as they can often show you real time where the different functions are. But for other types of study - like the GMATS or the PMP exam, I do not think that kind of class would be very helpful for most people.
GB704 was taken as the "online" session - meaning that we met in class 1/2 as often as regular, but had to make several posts each week on assigned topics via the Blackboard forums. I would not have taken the class had I known it was the "online" session. Well, maybe I would have. The alternate session was being taught by the prior CIO for my University. I did not want to take him as a professor as that could have caused tensions with the current CIO with whom I work with closely on my current project. So, I signed up for the "online" 704, discovering the nature of the course on the first day of classes.
My impression of the course was this: while it was nice to have the extra sessions off, which allowed me to spend a lot more time with my family that semester, I never formed any sort of bond with the other people in the class. In fact, I had a difficult time getting into the class at all as there seemed to be little time to develop a continuity from session to session. The class struck me as being perfect for the student that was just grinding through and did not much care about the subject (as I have done through say - oh - finance...) but was not good for someone interested in the subject.
The other type of online classes I have done have been the webinar type classes. They have usually run from 3 to 6 sessions, and have been usually for training at work or some other work related function. They are good for what they are. I think that they will only be beneficial for the person taking the class if the student is interested and cares about what is going on during the webinar. Otherwise, it is simply too easy to be checking email, eating dinner, playing with your kids, whatever else may be more interesting and right at hand then the webinar. None of the webinar based classes that I have taken have been graded, though fo some I have had to fill out a web based form at the end.
On the whole, I think that online classes have their place. But I think that unless you have the kind of personality that is not easily distracted, you are going to get a lot more from a traditional class setting then you would an online class. For the webinar type classes, they are great for learning software, as they can often show you real time where the different functions are. But for other types of study - like the GMATS or the PMP exam, I do not think that kind of class would be very helpful for most people.
Travelling for work
This post will be less of a blog post and more of an open ended question. I have worked for the University for nearly 13 years, and during those years I have had to travel all of 6 times for work. 4 of those time have been this semester, and Monday I will be booking airfare to Kansas City for a conference that I have been instructed to attend (by the way, I won't be in class Monday the 26th.)
I have to say, I am not really a fan. I am a person who likes a routine. To be honest, right now my schedule would probably crush me if I did not rigidly stick to a set routine, at least looking at it in broad scope. Parenthood, work, my graduate school, my wife's graduate school, and now an increasing amount of kid activities pretty much dictates planning each week out well in advance, and giving lots of notice if my wife or I have to deviate from the set schedule. I go so far as to budget myself time for failure and corrective action if I am trying something new or testing something that might not work as expected. I don't mean to say that I plan my day down to the minute, but if I am testing a new engine or looking at a trip through TSA at BWI, I make sure that I have lots of room for error in case things go awry.
I am curious as to how people work travel into their job/home/class lives. Do you travel a lot for your jobs, if at all? How do you manage to finagle your travel schedule around classes or important family activities? Or do you just head out for the wild blue yonder, and pick up the pieces when you get home?
I have to say, I am not really a fan. I am a person who likes a routine. To be honest, right now my schedule would probably crush me if I did not rigidly stick to a set routine, at least looking at it in broad scope. Parenthood, work, my graduate school, my wife's graduate school, and now an increasing amount of kid activities pretty much dictates planning each week out well in advance, and giving lots of notice if my wife or I have to deviate from the set schedule. I go so far as to budget myself time for failure and corrective action if I am trying something new or testing something that might not work as expected. I don't mean to say that I plan my day down to the minute, but if I am testing a new engine or looking at a trip through TSA at BWI, I make sure that I have lots of room for error in case things go awry.
I am curious as to how people work travel into their job/home/class lives. Do you travel a lot for your jobs, if at all? How do you manage to finagle your travel schedule around classes or important family activities? Or do you just head out for the wild blue yonder, and pick up the pieces when you get home?
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Speakers, Part 2
Several weeks ago one of my blog posts was about building a set of speakers for my workshop. I had been using an ancient pair of powered PC speakers hooked up to my iPod, but I wanted something better. A friend of mine sent me a picture of someone who made a set of speakers out of an old NATO 50cal ammo can, and I knew what I had to do. During the Part 1 post, I wrote about buying parts. Well, the speakers are built and tested, so this blog post will include what I did, and what I might do differently the next time.
The completed unit
The ammo can that I decided to use was an East German, or possibly WWII Nazi issued 8mm box. I chose it as it was the same width as the standard NATO 30cal box, but just a little longer, which would give me room to mount everything in a narrower case then what I had seen pictured. Everything came in on time except for the 30 watt amplifier kit, which ended up being backordered for two weeks. All of the hardware not ordered from Parts Express came from the local True Value hardware store, except for a tube of electronic soldering flux which I picked up at Radio Shack.
The first thing that I did was sketch out what I wanted to make on graph paper. This let me determine before I started cutting where the best place to mount everything would be. Once I knew where I wanted it to go on the model, I marked off the center points on the ammo can, and cut them out with a 4 inch hole saw, a drill press, and lots of cutting oil. Holes cut; I dressed them with a pneumatic die grinder to remove and leftover flashing.
I thoroughly cleaned the face of the can from years grime and grease, and masked off the top and sides of the can, which I wanted to remain OD green, with 50 years of patina. I then primed the face, and then painted it John Deere yellow (which also happens to be a perfect match for all of the 1950 and 1960s era fallout and radiation bunker signs.) I let the paint dry for 24 hours before moving to the next step.
I covered the face with 2 inch blue painters tape, and drew on my stencil with a pencil and compass. The stencil was then cut out with a fresh razor, and the areas to be painted were peeled off, leaving a perfect mask. Two coats of satin black later, I was done painting. Once the paint had set, I pulled off the rest of the mask before the paint had time to completely dry and stick to the tape mask.
At this point I was ready to put in my insulation. I was using RaaMatt automotive deadener – and I will not be using it on future boxes I build. The black tar that sticks the stuff to anything made a mess once the speakers were mocked in for test fitting.
To help solve the problem, I sprayed rubberized undercoating on all the insulated surfaces. This has helped, but not eliminated, the problem.
When the amp got in, I spent an evening soldering in the bits the needed soldering – which was not as much as I had expected. The amp, unlike many of the kit amps that I had found, came largely built. All I needed to solder on were the four speaker wires, aux power leads, and two output capacitors in line with the speaker wires. The amp was mounted onto the internal iPod pocket I had made out of some scrap sheet metal in my shop. It was attached with industrial strength mounting tape.
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The final touch was to add rubber feet to the bottom and back face. This was to keep the metal can from rattling against whatever I had it set on when it was playing – or rattling against the wall if I had it hung up. The speakers can be used two ways. For outdoor usage, everything can be kept internally. The speakers will run off batteries, and the iPod has an internal pocket to keep it out of harm’s way. However, this makes it hard to change what you want to hear, and the batteries will eventually die. For regular usage, the iPod can attach to an input on the back of the speakers via a three foot cable. There is also a 12 volt AC adapter that plugs into the back of the set for constant use near a standard power outlet.
The set has surprisingly good bass given that it is only two 4 inch speakers. Sound quality is excellent, until the volume is turned up – at which point the amp picks up a interference and distortion. I have read that better output caps would help with that, as well as bridging the channels – which I did not do. That said it is considerably louder than the 3 watt per channel PC speakers that I had been using.
If I make more of these – either for sale or as gifts – the primary change I need to make is in insulation. I need to find something better then the automotive tar/asphalt based stuff that I used. A tall order, given the slender form factor I have to make use of In order to continue to use the 30cal ammo cans. Future units would also not use the internal iPod pocket, at least as I made mine. Fabric, instead of sheet steel, would be a simpler option.
The completed unit
The ammo can that I decided to use was an East German, or possibly WWII Nazi issued 8mm box. I chose it as it was the same width as the standard NATO 30cal box, but just a little longer, which would give me room to mount everything in a narrower case then what I had seen pictured. Everything came in on time except for the 30 watt amplifier kit, which ended up being backordered for two weeks. All of the hardware not ordered from Parts Express came from the local True Value hardware store, except for a tube of electronic soldering flux which I picked up at Radio Shack.
The first thing that I did was sketch out what I wanted to make on graph paper. This let me determine before I started cutting where the best place to mount everything would be. Once I knew where I wanted it to go on the model, I marked off the center points on the ammo can, and cut them out with a 4 inch hole saw, a drill press, and lots of cutting oil. Holes cut; I dressed them with a pneumatic die grinder to remove and leftover flashing.
I thoroughly cleaned the face of the can from years grime and grease, and masked off the top and sides of the can, which I wanted to remain OD green, with 50 years of patina. I then primed the face, and then painted it John Deere yellow (which also happens to be a perfect match for all of the 1950 and 1960s era fallout and radiation bunker signs.) I let the paint dry for 24 hours before moving to the next step.
I covered the face with 2 inch blue painters tape, and drew on my stencil with a pencil and compass. The stencil was then cut out with a fresh razor, and the areas to be painted were peeled off, leaving a perfect mask. Two coats of satin black later, I was done painting. Once the paint had set, I pulled off the rest of the mask before the paint had time to completely dry and stick to the tape mask.
At this point I was ready to put in my insulation. I was using RaaMatt automotive deadener – and I will not be using it on future boxes I build. The black tar that sticks the stuff to anything made a mess once the speakers were mocked in for test fitting.
To help solve the problem, I sprayed rubberized undercoating on all the insulated surfaces. This has helped, but not eliminated, the problem.When the amp got in, I spent an evening soldering in the bits the needed soldering – which was not as much as I had expected. The amp, unlike many of the kit amps that I had found, came largely built. All I needed to solder on were the four speaker wires, aux power leads, and two output capacitors in line with the speaker wires. The amp was mounted onto the internal iPod pocket I had made out of some scrap sheet metal in my shop. It was attached with industrial strength mounting tape.
The final touch was to add rubber feet to the bottom and back face. This was to keep the metal can from rattling against whatever I had it set on when it was playing – or rattling against the wall if I had it hung up. The speakers can be used two ways. For outdoor usage, everything can be kept internally. The speakers will run off batteries, and the iPod has an internal pocket to keep it out of harm’s way. However, this makes it hard to change what you want to hear, and the batteries will eventually die. For regular usage, the iPod can attach to an input on the back of the speakers via a three foot cable. There is also a 12 volt AC adapter that plugs into the back of the set for constant use near a standard power outlet.
The set has surprisingly good bass given that it is only two 4 inch speakers. Sound quality is excellent, until the volume is turned up – at which point the amp picks up a interference and distortion. I have read that better output caps would help with that, as well as bridging the channels – which I did not do. That said it is considerably louder than the 3 watt per channel PC speakers that I had been using.
If I make more of these – either for sale or as gifts – the primary change I need to make is in insulation. I need to find something better then the automotive tar/asphalt based stuff that I used. A tall order, given the slender form factor I have to make use of In order to continue to use the 30cal ammo cans. Future units would also not use the internal iPod pocket, at least as I made mine. Fabric, instead of sheet steel, would be a simpler option.
Site Visits
Last week I was travelling to different Universities to do site evaluations for the different vendors bidding for the Paperless University project that we are running. We hit two different schools in two different states in two days. I have now seen six different vendor demos and site visits for this project, and I have learned a lot of what to do – and not to do – when suggesting a site visit. The following will be a simple list of things NOT to do as a technology vendor during a site visit. Sadly, I got to experience all of these “not to do” points.
1) Do your homework! When you arrange the site visit with the hosting company, make sure that the company is actually using your product the way that you have told your prospective customer. And if you are not sure what the hosting site is doing, err on the side of caution. Nothing irks a prospective customer more than feeling like the time and money spent in going to the site visit has been a waste.
2) Listen to the prospective customer. If the customer tells you what they want to be able to see during a site visit, make sure that they see it, or make sure that they know why they are not going to see it at the site that you have set up for them to tour. If the customer says that they want to see they best that you have to offer, make sure that they see it. This is closely related to Item 1.
3) Don’t Hover. Part of the reason a customer goes on a site visit is to be sure that they get to talk candidly with the staff and administration of the host group. This can’t happen if the vendor has someone minding the conversation at all times. A vendor that will not give its potential clients time to speak freely with the hosting company could lead to the assumption that the vendor does not want candid conversation.
4) Show up! The other side of the coin is sending the potential vendor to the site with no vendor control. It is helpful to have time with the vendor to talk about the product and explain other ways that it can be implemented. One of the biggest disappointments that my travel team had to deal with last week was the vendor paying for lunch, but not sending a rep to mind the time. The result was that the host treated the site visit as an excuse to take a long, fancy lunch – and we got very little value out of the site visit before needing to catch our plane back home. This leads us to the next and final point.
5) Cater food on site. The site visit, for the customer, is about content, not lunch. The potential customer has a limited amount of time in which to get the best idea possible about how the system they are reviewing works. While a catered lunch may not be as sexy as a fancy seafood place, having to take the time to drive to the restaurant and then wait for service is not a good use of time for the prospective customer. Have food catered on site, and plan a lightweight meeting around lunch.
1) Do your homework! When you arrange the site visit with the hosting company, make sure that the company is actually using your product the way that you have told your prospective customer. And if you are not sure what the hosting site is doing, err on the side of caution. Nothing irks a prospective customer more than feeling like the time and money spent in going to the site visit has been a waste.
2) Listen to the prospective customer. If the customer tells you what they want to be able to see during a site visit, make sure that they see it, or make sure that they know why they are not going to see it at the site that you have set up for them to tour. If the customer says that they want to see they best that you have to offer, make sure that they see it. This is closely related to Item 1.
3) Don’t Hover. Part of the reason a customer goes on a site visit is to be sure that they get to talk candidly with the staff and administration of the host group. This can’t happen if the vendor has someone minding the conversation at all times. A vendor that will not give its potential clients time to speak freely with the hosting company could lead to the assumption that the vendor does not want candid conversation.
4) Show up! The other side of the coin is sending the potential vendor to the site with no vendor control. It is helpful to have time with the vendor to talk about the product and explain other ways that it can be implemented. One of the biggest disappointments that my travel team had to deal with last week was the vendor paying for lunch, but not sending a rep to mind the time. The result was that the host treated the site visit as an excuse to take a long, fancy lunch – and we got very little value out of the site visit before needing to catch our plane back home. This leads us to the next and final point.
5) Cater food on site. The site visit, for the customer, is about content, not lunch. The potential customer has a limited amount of time in which to get the best idea possible about how the system they are reviewing works. While a catered lunch may not be as sexy as a fancy seafood place, having to take the time to drive to the restaurant and then wait for service is not a good use of time for the prospective customer. Have food catered on site, and plan a lightweight meeting around lunch.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Disruptive tech in the workplace
There were several very interesting presentations made on the various disruptive technologies. The assignment to to choose one of the technologies for use in my place of work was an interesting problem. The University that I work for has stated that its technology goals include adopting technology earlier into the Gartner hype circle. We already use some of the technology on campus. The campus has embraced social networking. We have been developing web mashups. There are other technologies that do not apply to a university, such as the full body scanners. At least i would not like to work here if we did.
There is an obvious choice, though, and it was not made by me. The CIO for the University had named cloud computing to be the future, and we must boldly step towards it.
The question is not when, but how. Nearly every new application being brought on campus is being looked at through the view of placement on the cloud. I am not sure that I agree with this view yet, but it is only because I am not sure that it will work as well as we are told it will work.
Costing for the clouds, while advertised as low, can actually be more expensive then traditional servers, depending on the costing scheme. Many of the cloud based systems are cheaper only if you reduce your workforce - and that simply is not the University way. There are still many questions to be answered before cloud technology will be fully accepted, but I think that many of those questions are going to have to be answered on the fly.
There is an obvious choice, though, and it was not made by me. The CIO for the University had named cloud computing to be the future, and we must boldly step towards it.
The question is not when, but how. Nearly every new application being brought on campus is being looked at through the view of placement on the cloud. I am not sure that I agree with this view yet, but it is only because I am not sure that it will work as well as we are told it will work.
Costing for the clouds, while advertised as low, can actually be more expensive then traditional servers, depending on the costing scheme. Many of the cloud based systems are cheaper only if you reduce your workforce - and that simply is not the University way. There are still many questions to be answered before cloud technology will be fully accepted, but I think that many of those questions are going to have to be answered on the fly.
USB 3 is comming
Easily transportable data storage has always been something that I have been interested in, even before I worked in technology. I was one of the few people that bought Jazz drives in the late 1990s. I did not know what I would ever do with one whole gig of storage, but I knew I wanted it.
Of course, tech has advanced a lot since then. USB2 revolutionized storage with the advent of the flash drives. However as drives got bigger, USB2's slower transfer rate became the limiting factor. An 8 gig flash drive can take over 20 minutes to move data into. While the small size makes them handy in a pinch, the slow transfer rate make them unwieldy for use in applications where speed is needed.
USB3, which has been delayed now for almost a year, is supposed to come on line in 2011. When it does, the higher throughput will make using larger drives in situations where speed counts a possibility.
Depending on your source, USB3 is to have a theoretical throughput of 4.8gbps. Though that speed will not be possible in real world applications, even 50% of that speed will still be 10 times faster then USB2. USB3 will also provide more power to devices then USB2. Even so, the USB3 will throttle back the power when it is not needed. It will also be fully compatible with USB2 devices.
It is going to be a major improvement.
Of course, tech has advanced a lot since then. USB2 revolutionized storage with the advent of the flash drives. However as drives got bigger, USB2's slower transfer rate became the limiting factor. An 8 gig flash drive can take over 20 minutes to move data into. While the small size makes them handy in a pinch, the slow transfer rate make them unwieldy for use in applications where speed is needed.
USB3, which has been delayed now for almost a year, is supposed to come on line in 2011. When it does, the higher throughput will make using larger drives in situations where speed counts a possibility.
Depending on your source, USB3 is to have a theoretical throughput of 4.8gbps. Though that speed will not be possible in real world applications, even 50% of that speed will still be 10 times faster then USB2. USB3 will also provide more power to devices then USB2. Even so, the USB3 will throttle back the power when it is not needed. It will also be fully compatible with USB2 devices.
It is going to be a major improvement.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Zach Through the Ages
I have always had a deep love for history. While many of my current academic peers have business degrees, I dual majored in History and Fine Arts. The summer of my junior year I met a guy at a party that did historic reenacting. He was a member of the 1St Maryland Rgt, a group that reenacted the American Revolution. Nervous as all get out, not knowing what to expect, I went with him to a reenactment. The folks there made me feel welcome, lent me clothes and gear, and I was hooked. Over the years I have gotten to do things and visit places that many people never get to do(have you spent a summer crawling in the rigging of a tall ship?) The list is just going to be a chronological recap.
1720's, ships crew on the Kalmar Nykle out of Wilmington Deleware (2000, 2001).
For about a year, I mixed a love of history with a love of sailing. Normally, we did not sail in costume, but it was very cool when we did. I learned the trade over the winter - taking a 3 month course on working the ship, learning where all the lines go, and how to climb safely. Which I am doing in the next picture.
Amusingly, I very nearly died moments after that picture was taken. The leather soled shoes slipped on the painted rigging and I lost my footing before I could clip in. I nearly took a 50 foot express trip to the deck. It was the last time I ever wore "correct" shoes aloft.
I'm in the brown coat, commanding one of the ships cannon. The cannon is loaded, which can be determined by the fact that there is a leather glove over the touch hole. You don't want an errant spark setting off 1/2 pound of black powder before you are ready. People have literally lost hands at events when that kind of thing has happened.
I eventually stopped as the commute from Baltimore to Wilmington most Saturdays sucked and was eating too much of my time away. I'd still be doing it if I lived a bit closer.
1780. First Maryland Regiment, American Revolution. 1996 - 2007
Where it all began for me, and the only group that I have stayed with over the years. I have traveled to other countries, camped on the battlefields where our nation won its freedom, climbed handmade wood ladders up the walls of old forts, and even got married reenacting the Rev War. I was the commander for the 1MR for 4 years, and only gave it up as I knew I would not have time to continue running the group as a father and a grad student. When I finish my MBA in August, I am looking forward to being able to go and play with the 1MR again.
First pic is my old private's uniform, taken on the Guilford Courthouse battlefield in North Carolina.
The next is when my wife and I got married in Oct. of 2006, at Williamsburg, VA. Nerdy? Yes, but it was the single coolest thing I have ever done.
1812, Ships Company, USN (2005-2007)
This was another cross over for me. Another chance to spend time on the water with some folks that I had gotten to know through the 1MR. Plus, at the time they were trying to get funding to build a replica ship rigged cutter to sail on the Bay. I played with them for a few events, but started this period right before I stopped reenacting to concentrate on being a grad student and a dad. I mainly liked the idea of playing on boats in funny clothes.
For this one, some of us were doing small boat drills on the Canadian side of the Niagra.
1870's, Market Hunter (2000 - 2007)
This was a fun period to reenact. I did this period for years, but only did one event per year. The event, "Marching Through Time," held in April every year near College Park, was a timeline event - where several different groups from several different time periods set up historical set pieces. It was always laid back, the weather is springy and fresh, and I always looked forward to it. It was as much a chance to see people that you had not seen all winter as it was to educate folks about the past. Our group usually put together a camp of market hunters - those guys that killed all the buffalo and sent the skins back East to drive the American industrial revolution. I was the camp cook, and spent the entire weekend cooking and drinking and talking and... drinking. I great way to pass a weekend.
My wife and I, not thinking about Monday.
1944, Belgan SAS, 15th Scottish Recce (2001-2005)
WWII. Next to the American Civil War (ACW) it is the most popular reenacted period world wide. Folks I knew from the Buffalo Hunters camp convinced me to give it a try. So I did, and I did not have a great time at first. Time periods prior to the ACW tend to be family oriented. Events are created with the idea that they will be attended my the public. You get a chance to talk and educate. With WWII, my experience was that it was a bunch of middle aged men playing a very expensive game of cowboys and indians. Then, one day we were camped with another commonwealth group that were playing with armored cars. I jumped ship, and started doing that and realized I was having fun again. So I helped restore 3 armored cars and, and spent the weekends in the drivers seat. Did you know that you could pop a wheelie in a 4 ton 60 year old armored car? You can! I found out while drag racing one of the other armored cars on an old grass runway. Serious business. :)
I left the group in 2005 when they started bickering and in-fighting. I did not want to do that, I just wanted to wrench on old iron.
This is the vehicle that I did most of the work restoring. I wished I was in a place to have bought it when the owner sold it. I'm standing in the drivers seat, right before a parade (its English, so the driver sits on the right.) The armored car is a Bren Gun Carrier, made in Canada in 1943. Fun Fact: Canada and the US supplied England with nearly their entire war machine, after the Brits had to abandon everything during the retreat from Dunkirk in 1940.
This is the only C-15T/A left in running condition in the world. And I got to drive it. Wicked cool armored car.
1720's, ships crew on the Kalmar Nykle out of Wilmington Deleware (2000, 2001).
For about a year, I mixed a love of history with a love of sailing. Normally, we did not sail in costume, but it was very cool when we did. I learned the trade over the winter - taking a 3 month course on working the ship, learning where all the lines go, and how to climb safely. Which I am doing in the next picture.
Amusingly, I very nearly died moments after that picture was taken. The leather soled shoes slipped on the painted rigging and I lost my footing before I could clip in. I nearly took a 50 foot express trip to the deck. It was the last time I ever wore "correct" shoes aloft.
I'm in the brown coat, commanding one of the ships cannon. The cannon is loaded, which can be determined by the fact that there is a leather glove over the touch hole. You don't want an errant spark setting off 1/2 pound of black powder before you are ready. People have literally lost hands at events when that kind of thing has happened.
I eventually stopped as the commute from Baltimore to Wilmington most Saturdays sucked and was eating too much of my time away. I'd still be doing it if I lived a bit closer.
1780. First Maryland Regiment, American Revolution. 1996 - 2007
Where it all began for me, and the only group that I have stayed with over the years. I have traveled to other countries, camped on the battlefields where our nation won its freedom, climbed handmade wood ladders up the walls of old forts, and even got married reenacting the Rev War. I was the commander for the 1MR for 4 years, and only gave it up as I knew I would not have time to continue running the group as a father and a grad student. When I finish my MBA in August, I am looking forward to being able to go and play with the 1MR again.
First pic is my old private's uniform, taken on the Guilford Courthouse battlefield in North Carolina.
The next is when my wife and I got married in Oct. of 2006, at Williamsburg, VA. Nerdy? Yes, but it was the single coolest thing I have ever done.
1812, Ships Company, USN (2005-2007)
This was another cross over for me. Another chance to spend time on the water with some folks that I had gotten to know through the 1MR. Plus, at the time they were trying to get funding to build a replica ship rigged cutter to sail on the Bay. I played with them for a few events, but started this period right before I stopped reenacting to concentrate on being a grad student and a dad. I mainly liked the idea of playing on boats in funny clothes.
For this one, some of us were doing small boat drills on the Canadian side of the Niagra.
1870's, Market Hunter (2000 - 2007)
This was a fun period to reenact. I did this period for years, but only did one event per year. The event, "Marching Through Time," held in April every year near College Park, was a timeline event - where several different groups from several different time periods set up historical set pieces. It was always laid back, the weather is springy and fresh, and I always looked forward to it. It was as much a chance to see people that you had not seen all winter as it was to educate folks about the past. Our group usually put together a camp of market hunters - those guys that killed all the buffalo and sent the skins back East to drive the American industrial revolution. I was the camp cook, and spent the entire weekend cooking and drinking and talking and... drinking. I great way to pass a weekend.
My wife and I, not thinking about Monday.
1944, Belgan SAS, 15th Scottish Recce (2001-2005)
WWII. Next to the American Civil War (ACW) it is the most popular reenacted period world wide. Folks I knew from the Buffalo Hunters camp convinced me to give it a try. So I did, and I did not have a great time at first. Time periods prior to the ACW tend to be family oriented. Events are created with the idea that they will be attended my the public. You get a chance to talk and educate. With WWII, my experience was that it was a bunch of middle aged men playing a very expensive game of cowboys and indians. Then, one day we were camped with another commonwealth group that were playing with armored cars. I jumped ship, and started doing that and realized I was having fun again. So I helped restore 3 armored cars and, and spent the weekends in the drivers seat. Did you know that you could pop a wheelie in a 4 ton 60 year old armored car? You can! I found out while drag racing one of the other armored cars on an old grass runway. Serious business. :)
I left the group in 2005 when they started bickering and in-fighting. I did not want to do that, I just wanted to wrench on old iron.
This is the vehicle that I did most of the work restoring. I wished I was in a place to have bought it when the owner sold it. I'm standing in the drivers seat, right before a parade (its English, so the driver sits on the right.) The armored car is a Bren Gun Carrier, made in Canada in 1943. Fun Fact: Canada and the US supplied England with nearly their entire war machine, after the Brits had to abandon everything during the retreat from Dunkirk in 1940.
This is the only C-15T/A left in running condition in the world. And I got to drive it. Wicked cool armored car.
VW-Porsche 914 Restoration (in pictures)
Over the past 10 years I have restored, or helped restore, seven different vehicles; only two of which actually belong to me. I love working with my hands, and I don't get to do it all that much with my job and school. I also need outlets for stress. I used to get this through competitive sailing, but now that I live in PA I am land locked. This kind of hobby helps me blow off steam and focus my thoughts. So, I thought I'd blog about how I went about restoring an old Porsche.
My 914 (sold as a Porsche in the US, and a VW in Europe) is my favorite toy in the world. After helping build several old WWII British armored cars, I decided that I had skills enough to build something for myself. I knew I wanted something sporty and air cooled. When I discovered 914s, I fell in love. I bought mine in October of 2005.
It was dented, the engine did not run, the paint sucked - but the body was not rusted too much and the car was complete. It took forever to get it home, but by midnight that night, the car was in my garage and I was happy, if tired. The very next day I started taking it apart.
The first year was spent taking the car apart and fixing all the stuff that had broken over 30 years. I had to learn how to weld. What rust I found I cut out and welded patches back in. This included needing to cut out and weld in an entire front trunk pan (since the engine of a 914 is in the middle, it has front and rear trunks).
Old and busted.
Replacement welded in.
By Oct of 2006, the engine had been removed, all the parts were stripped from the body, and all the rust had been fixed. It was time to paint. The first thing I wanted to do was build a car rotisserie. Similar to the kind used for cooking, this is something you mount the car on so that you can spin it on its axis. It makes life easier for stripping and painting the car. You can see how it works in the pictures. Also, note that the car has been stripped to bare metal - and that metal has been all beat to hell. I found out when I stripped the old paint off that the car had been wrecked at some point. :(
By October of 2007, the car was painted and off the rotisserie (which I then sold, and made a tidy profit on to boot).
However, things were slowing down. In 2007 I also started the MBA program, AND found out I was going to be a father in early 2008. I was putting the car back together, but it was still going to take 2 more years before it was road worthy.
Next up was the engine. The stock engine was a VW T4 motor, similar to the ones used in the Bus and the VW 411 Squarebacks. It had been tuned by Porsche and had more power, but at 95hp it was rather lack luster by modern standards. So, I built a better one. Not having the budget to go too big, I bought parts to build up a motor with a small displacement increase, but significant torque and power increase. I got this by increasing the compression ratio (how much the fuel/air mix get squished before it is ignited), electronic spark distribution and putting in a more aggressive camshaft. I also sold off the original fuel injection system and added dual Weber IDF carburetors, as the old injection system was a power bottleneck. the last big change was the exhaust. All aircooled VW and Porsche cars get heat by running fresh air over the exhaust pipes and then blowing that into the cabin. However, if you ditch the heat exchangers for equal length headers, you can squeeze even more power out of the motor. As the car is a summer toy, I did not think twice about loosing the ability to heat my car. On chilly mornings, I wear a jacket. :)
The first picture is the engine case opened up to show the crank, rods, and camshaft.
This picture is the engine and transmission hooked up on a testing stand I made to run the motor out of the car. This way I could test and tune my rebuild before reinstalling the motor.
The other neato mini project that I did during the January of 2009 was start producing shifter knobs for these old cars. In the late 1960s Porsche made a race car called the 917. It was the real star of the Steve McQueen movie "LeMans." These cars had a simple wooden shifter knob, that I later learned was turned from poplar plywood. It was very lightweight (made for a race car, after all, but also insulated the drivers hand from the shift lever which got hot during the race. The knobs are a popular add-on for vintage Porcshes, but are not commonly reproduced. I made a small run of five knobs, turned from maple and mahogany. I kept the first one I made, and sold the rest at $50 a knob. I glued up blanks to make 10 more, but have not had the time to go back and cut them out and turn them. The following pic is the unfinished prototype, and the next is the finished knob in my car.
FINALLY, over the summer of 2009 - nearly 4 years after buying the car - I got it on the road in time for the Hershey Park Porsche Swap Meet in April. I had a wonderful summer driving the car.
The car isn't "done." I doubt it will ever be done, as my tastes change - and then the car changes to suit my new interests. While put away for winter, I made MANY changes already, but none of them major.
So, whats next? Well, I bought this 1968 Jeep M715 ex-army pickup that needs a little love. Its been sitting for the past year as I just did not have time to do much with it and I promised myself I'd finish the 914 before I started it. Work starts this spring. :)
My 914 (sold as a Porsche in the US, and a VW in Europe) is my favorite toy in the world. After helping build several old WWII British armored cars, I decided that I had skills enough to build something for myself. I knew I wanted something sporty and air cooled. When I discovered 914s, I fell in love. I bought mine in October of 2005.
It was dented, the engine did not run, the paint sucked - but the body was not rusted too much and the car was complete. It took forever to get it home, but by midnight that night, the car was in my garage and I was happy, if tired. The very next day I started taking it apart.
The first year was spent taking the car apart and fixing all the stuff that had broken over 30 years. I had to learn how to weld. What rust I found I cut out and welded patches back in. This included needing to cut out and weld in an entire front trunk pan (since the engine of a 914 is in the middle, it has front and rear trunks).
Old and busted.
Replacement welded in.
By Oct of 2006, the engine had been removed, all the parts were stripped from the body, and all the rust had been fixed. It was time to paint. The first thing I wanted to do was build a car rotisserie. Similar to the kind used for cooking, this is something you mount the car on so that you can spin it on its axis. It makes life easier for stripping and painting the car. You can see how it works in the pictures. Also, note that the car has been stripped to bare metal - and that metal has been all beat to hell. I found out when I stripped the old paint off that the car had been wrecked at some point. :(
By October of 2007, the car was painted and off the rotisserie (which I then sold, and made a tidy profit on to boot).
However, things were slowing down. In 2007 I also started the MBA program, AND found out I was going to be a father in early 2008. I was putting the car back together, but it was still going to take 2 more years before it was road worthy.
Next up was the engine. The stock engine was a VW T4 motor, similar to the ones used in the Bus and the VW 411 Squarebacks. It had been tuned by Porsche and had more power, but at 95hp it was rather lack luster by modern standards. So, I built a better one. Not having the budget to go too big, I bought parts to build up a motor with a small displacement increase, but significant torque and power increase. I got this by increasing the compression ratio (how much the fuel/air mix get squished before it is ignited), electronic spark distribution and putting in a more aggressive camshaft. I also sold off the original fuel injection system and added dual Weber IDF carburetors, as the old injection system was a power bottleneck. the last big change was the exhaust. All aircooled VW and Porsche cars get heat by running fresh air over the exhaust pipes and then blowing that into the cabin. However, if you ditch the heat exchangers for equal length headers, you can squeeze even more power out of the motor. As the car is a summer toy, I did not think twice about loosing the ability to heat my car. On chilly mornings, I wear a jacket. :)
The first picture is the engine case opened up to show the crank, rods, and camshaft.
This picture is the engine and transmission hooked up on a testing stand I made to run the motor out of the car. This way I could test and tune my rebuild before reinstalling the motor.
The other neato mini project that I did during the January of 2009 was start producing shifter knobs for these old cars. In the late 1960s Porsche made a race car called the 917. It was the real star of the Steve McQueen movie "LeMans." These cars had a simple wooden shifter knob, that I later learned was turned from poplar plywood. It was very lightweight (made for a race car, after all, but also insulated the drivers hand from the shift lever which got hot during the race. The knobs are a popular add-on for vintage Porcshes, but are not commonly reproduced. I made a small run of five knobs, turned from maple and mahogany. I kept the first one I made, and sold the rest at $50 a knob. I glued up blanks to make 10 more, but have not had the time to go back and cut them out and turn them. The following pic is the unfinished prototype, and the next is the finished knob in my car.
FINALLY, over the summer of 2009 - nearly 4 years after buying the car - I got it on the road in time for the Hershey Park Porsche Swap Meet in April. I had a wonderful summer driving the car.
The car isn't "done." I doubt it will ever be done, as my tastes change - and then the car changes to suit my new interests. While put away for winter, I made MANY changes already, but none of them major.
So, whats next? Well, I bought this 1968 Jeep M715 ex-army pickup that needs a little love. Its been sitting for the past year as I just did not have time to do much with it and I promised myself I'd finish the 914 before I started it. Work starts this spring. :)
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Internet liberalization
One of the speakers from our last class, Gretchen Klebasko, spoke of something I had never heard of. The idea was interesting enough that I wanted to do some reading to find out more about it.
Mrs. Klebask mentioned that she would be needing more staff to continue protecting Legg Mason's IP once ICANN instituted its new Internet Liberalization policy. Initial googleing on the subject was not successful, however, as ICANN refers to the new policy as "New gTLD." Totally descriptive.
"gTLD" stands for Generic Top-Level Domain. They are the 2 to 4 character strings that define an IP domain name. I.E.: ".com" is a gTLD. Well, starting "sometime" in 2010, for the low, low price of $185,000 (plus fees amounting to $25,000 a year), you too can buy your own custom gTLD.
ICANN proposed opening up its gTLD structure in spring of 2008. Though they expected accolades (more choice is better, right?) they got slammed by everyone from IBM to the United States government. The program has been delayed for the past 2 years as ICANN has tried to work with governments and businesses to make the new scheme workable. According to ICANN's website, the New gTLD program will start this year.
At issue is that if folks can buy up the new TLDs, it will be relatively easy to spoof businesses. For instance, for about $200,000 IBM's rival could purchase ".IBM" as a gTLD and either hold it for ransom (cybersquatting) or use it to set up a site which could harm IBM.
The past 2 years have been spent with ICANN working out vetting processes to make sure that situations like the example above to not occur. However, businesses are still concerned about what will happen once the new program is launched.
Mrs. Klebask mentioned that she would be needing more staff to continue protecting Legg Mason's IP once ICANN instituted its new Internet Liberalization policy. Initial googleing on the subject was not successful, however, as ICANN refers to the new policy as "New gTLD." Totally descriptive.
"gTLD" stands for Generic Top-Level Domain. They are the 2 to 4 character strings that define an IP domain name. I.E.: ".com" is a gTLD. Well, starting "sometime" in 2010, for the low, low price of $185,000 (plus fees amounting to $25,000 a year), you too can buy your own custom gTLD.
ICANN proposed opening up its gTLD structure in spring of 2008. Though they expected accolades (more choice is better, right?) they got slammed by everyone from IBM to the United States government. The program has been delayed for the past 2 years as ICANN has tried to work with governments and businesses to make the new scheme workable. According to ICANN's website, the New gTLD program will start this year.
At issue is that if folks can buy up the new TLDs, it will be relatively easy to spoof businesses. For instance, for about $200,000 IBM's rival could purchase ".IBM" as a gTLD and either hold it for ransom (cybersquatting) or use it to set up a site which could harm IBM.
The past 2 years have been spent with ICANN working out vetting processes to make sure that situations like the example above to not occur. However, businesses are still concerned about what will happen once the new program is launched.
Speakers, part 1
I like to tinker. This may or may not be a surprise to folks by now. My friends know this, and occasionally send me ideas. Friday, as I was starting into work for the day, I got an email from a friend with a link to a gizmodo article.
Long story short, some company in England is charging $600 for this:
Right now I am using a pair of beat up old PC speakers in my shop, and have been looking for something that sounds a little better, has a bit more volume, and is a bit more sturdy. PC speakers usually have 3 watts per channel - they are only meant to work on a desktop, not really a room. The "A-Box" has 13 watts per channel - or 35 watts per channel if you really want to spend the cash. The 25 watt version (the "cheap" one) was still over $400. No freak'n way.
BUT! How hard could it be to build? And thus, every spare minute I had Friday I was of searching the web for parts. Luckily, someone suggested I check out Parts Express. I found 4 inch speakers with a pretty good range (for 4 inch speakers - • Max. music power: 120 watts • Nominal power handling: 25 watts • Frequency Response: 35 Hz to 30 kHz • Sensitivity: 87 dB • Impedance: 4 ohms • Dimensions: 4-1/8" • Mounting depth: 1-3/4")
I found fan grills that would match the mounting holes to the speakers. And I also found these, which are even cooler...
I found several possible amps. But the one I chose was a little 35watt DIY digital amp. It has been years since I actually soldered together an amp, so this really called to me. I even bought a new soldering iron after a friend derided my ancient iron as a "soldering machete."
It is just a simple 2 channel amplifier. But it is very small, and has a remote volume pot. And I get to build it. Even better. The amp has a jack for a 2000ma 12vDC plug in adapter, so I bought one for wall socket use. But a also bought an 8 cell AA battery holder that I am going to solder into the amp, so that I can use it away from house power.
The case is just an old ammo can - used by the military to hold ammunition. Most guys have some laying around somewhere, and DIYers tend to use them for just about anything. A-Box is using 50Cal cans. I have a few of them, but they are actually being used holding stuff, they make great parts holders. I have several 30cal cans that are empty, though. While these are slimmer then the 50cal cans, everything that I ordered will easily fit into the 3.25 inch internal width. The can is actually 3.5 inches inside, but roughly 1/2 inch will be used up with RaaMat automotive sound insulation (which I had on hand from my automotive projects). This is important or else the can will resonate and sound like poo.
I ordered the parts on Friday night after work. My cost was $82. If I had gone with cheaper speakers, the cost would have dipped down into the $60s. However, the cheaper speakers did not have as wide a range.
I vetted ideas through a few forums that I visit, and I have already had people asking me what I was going to use for a sub. At this point, I am not planning to use one. I'd have to use a bigger ammo can, and a different amp. If this project turns out well, I may make a MkII version out of a 20MM ammo can, that has a sub woofer, and a 100watt amplifier.
Part 2 will be the build post, assuming that I get around to building this before the end of the semester.
Long story short, some company in England is charging $600 for this:
Right now I am using a pair of beat up old PC speakers in my shop, and have been looking for something that sounds a little better, has a bit more volume, and is a bit more sturdy. PC speakers usually have 3 watts per channel - they are only meant to work on a desktop, not really a room. The "A-Box" has 13 watts per channel - or 35 watts per channel if you really want to spend the cash. The 25 watt version (the "cheap" one) was still over $400. No freak'n way.
BUT! How hard could it be to build? And thus, every spare minute I had Friday I was of searching the web for parts. Luckily, someone suggested I check out Parts Express. I found 4 inch speakers with a pretty good range (for 4 inch speakers - • Max. music power: 120 watts • Nominal power handling: 25 watts • Frequency Response: 35 Hz to 30 kHz • Sensitivity: 87 dB • Impedance: 4 ohms • Dimensions: 4-1/8" • Mounting depth: 1-3/4")
I found fan grills that would match the mounting holes to the speakers. And I also found these, which are even cooler...
I found several possible amps. But the one I chose was a little 35watt DIY digital amp. It has been years since I actually soldered together an amp, so this really called to me. I even bought a new soldering iron after a friend derided my ancient iron as a "soldering machete."
It is just a simple 2 channel amplifier. But it is very small, and has a remote volume pot. And I get to build it. Even better. The amp has a jack for a 2000ma 12vDC plug in adapter, so I bought one for wall socket use. But a also bought an 8 cell AA battery holder that I am going to solder into the amp, so that I can use it away from house power.
The case is just an old ammo can - used by the military to hold ammunition. Most guys have some laying around somewhere, and DIYers tend to use them for just about anything. A-Box is using 50Cal cans. I have a few of them, but they are actually being used holding stuff, they make great parts holders. I have several 30cal cans that are empty, though. While these are slimmer then the 50cal cans, everything that I ordered will easily fit into the 3.25 inch internal width. The can is actually 3.5 inches inside, but roughly 1/2 inch will be used up with RaaMat automotive sound insulation (which I had on hand from my automotive projects). This is important or else the can will resonate and sound like poo.
I ordered the parts on Friday night after work. My cost was $82. If I had gone with cheaper speakers, the cost would have dipped down into the $60s. However, the cheaper speakers did not have as wide a range.
I vetted ideas through a few forums that I visit, and I have already had people asking me what I was going to use for a sub. At this point, I am not planning to use one. I'd have to use a bigger ammo can, and a different amp. If this project turns out well, I may make a MkII version out of a 20MM ammo can, that has a sub woofer, and a 100watt amplifier.
Part 2 will be the build post, assuming that I get around to building this before the end of the semester.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Not so Nucelar Free any more
When my family moved from California to MD in 1989 and we took up residence in Rogers Forge, there was a sign that always seemed to grab my eye. It was not very big or imposing, just a simple black and white 8x10 metal sign riveted to a stop sign post that also happened to be the border between Baltimore County and Baltimore City. It was at the the corner of Charles St and Gittings Ave, and said "Baltimore, A Nuclear Free Zone."
The sign was there for years, with no real explanation of what it meant. It was still there when I moved to PA in 2005 - perhaps a relic of a bygone era. But I do remember that people in Baltimore and Baltimore County did not like nuclear power in the late 80s and early 90s.
It is interesting how the views on nuclear energy have changed over the past 21 years. During President Obama's speech in Lanham MD last week, he hinted that Maryland would be getting fed backed loans to build a new nuke plant in the very near future. It should seem that Maryland is slated to have one of the the first a dozen new nuclear reactors built on US soil since Three Mile Island in 1979. According to the press this morning, the Baltimore buzz has been very positive.
The sign was there for years, with no real explanation of what it meant. It was still there when I moved to PA in 2005 - perhaps a relic of a bygone era. But I do remember that people in Baltimore and Baltimore County did not like nuclear power in the late 80s and early 90s.
It is interesting how the views on nuclear energy have changed over the past 21 years. During President Obama's speech in Lanham MD last week, he hinted that Maryland would be getting fed backed loans to build a new nuke plant in the very near future. It should seem that Maryland is slated to have one of the the first a dozen new nuclear reactors built on US soil since Three Mile Island in 1979. According to the press this morning, the Baltimore buzz has been very positive.
It has been a week....
Ever have one of those weeks where things just don't seem to go right? I'm guessing that a few of us had them last week while we dealt with the aftermath of the snow.
Baltimore was paralyzed all week, with major arteries into the city being restricted to single lanes as late as Thursday. Accidents amplified due to the fact that there was often no way around them if you got caught near one. There were several days last week where I spent 4 hours commuting to work my 8 hour day.
And then, of course, the catch up work. "Hey, Zach, I was supposed to give this to you last week, but we were closed. This two week project needs to be done by Friday." "Hey, we need 2 more site visits scheduled this week for action by the end of the month." "Can you come visit us at the remote campuses? We can't get some tech working, IT is too busy, and you can usually get it working faster anyhow. Plan to spend a full day out in the Columbia AND Timonium campuses."
So, it all got done somehow. Friday arrives, and I kiss my wife goodbye while she takes an extended weekend at OC with her girl friends. An estrogen filled outlet shopping bonanza; I am happy to be left behind to hold down the fort with my son.
Until I checked my email while the little guy was napping...
"Hey, Zach. Those trips you planned, we need to reschedule them. I know I said to do it by the end of this month, but now we want them scheduled for mid next month so we have more time to prep. Get it worked out this weekend and call me Monday with our schedule."
"Happy Monday, commuters. For those of you on the inbound Harrisburg and JFX, there are multiple accidents at Mt Carmel and 28th. Best call the office, as you are getting nowhere fast."
And thats why I'm bloging at 11 AM Monday rather then over the weekend like I had planned.
Baltimore was paralyzed all week, with major arteries into the city being restricted to single lanes as late as Thursday. Accidents amplified due to the fact that there was often no way around them if you got caught near one. There were several days last week where I spent 4 hours commuting to work my 8 hour day.
And then, of course, the catch up work. "Hey, Zach, I was supposed to give this to you last week, but we were closed. This two week project needs to be done by Friday." "Hey, we need 2 more site visits scheduled this week for action by the end of the month." "Can you come visit us at the remote campuses? We can't get some tech working, IT is too busy, and you can usually get it working faster anyhow. Plan to spend a full day out in the Columbia AND Timonium campuses."
So, it all got done somehow. Friday arrives, and I kiss my wife goodbye while she takes an extended weekend at OC with her girl friends. An estrogen filled outlet shopping bonanza; I am happy to be left behind to hold down the fort with my son.
Until I checked my email while the little guy was napping...
"Hey, Zach. Those trips you planned, we need to reschedule them. I know I said to do it by the end of this month, but now we want them scheduled for mid next month so we have more time to prep. Get it worked out this weekend and call me Monday with our schedule."
"Happy Monday, commuters. For those of you on the inbound Harrisburg and JFX, there are multiple accidents at Mt Carmel and 28th. Best call the office, as you are getting nowhere fast."
And thats why I'm bloging at 11 AM Monday rather then over the weekend like I had planned.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
The joys of being hacked
I'll admit it. I've been hacked. Well, not me personally, I'm not yet Borg, but a server that I used to administrate. Here is the surprising part, it ended up being a really good thing.
When I started working my current job, back in the dark ages of pre-1.0 web, my job title was "Web Administrator." These days a Web Admin tends to be nearer to the bottom of the food chain, but back in the mid to late 90s, we were hot stuff. I was working for an office that the campus IS team viewed as having gone rogue. When we launched our first website, we had beaten nearly every other department on campus to the punch, and we were doing it via our own server outside the IS cluster. Records had hired two webmasters before me, but they each left after one or two years as the web industry was quickly ramping up salaries more then the College could pay.
I inherited an old Sun Spark station that was used as the primary server. At the time I was a Mac guy - primarily a graphic artist with an interest in learning new stuff, so Solaris was a fun and interesting challenge. Turns out, though, that keeping an old Spark secure took more then making sure it was patched and Solaris kept up to date. We got hacked, root was compromised, and my little old spark was used as a relay to get into NASA. NASA was none to pleased, and threatened the College with legal action. It was not a fun week. The server (excepting the web ports)was locked down from outside the Loyola IP range, and the hacker had used an open machine on campus to get into ours and used ours to get out to NASA.
There was a big silver lining though. This forced the Loyola IS crew to rethink their stance on "rogue" offices using technology. We were the first but by the time we got hacked, there were several other departments that had been forced to get their own servers in order to have a web presence. Not only web servers, either. several departments (including mine) had application servers running apps that IS had refused to take on. It was a less then ideal situation all around, and had left the campus very open to attack. None of my application servers ever got hacked, but others on campus did. The campus's very conservative IT policies began to shift to encompass the rapidly evolving reality that the College would advance IT, whether or not the IT department was on board.
It has been almost a decade since I got hacked, and policies have changed considerably, if slowly. Some individual offices still have their own web and application servers, but they are all now housed within the IT server room, and given the same security policies and maintenance structure as IT servers. Flexibility and security have both been enhanced, and the College is a much more secure environment because of it.
When I started working my current job, back in the dark ages of pre-1.0 web, my job title was "Web Administrator." These days a Web Admin tends to be nearer to the bottom of the food chain, but back in the mid to late 90s, we were hot stuff. I was working for an office that the campus IS team viewed as having gone rogue. When we launched our first website, we had beaten nearly every other department on campus to the punch, and we were doing it via our own server outside the IS cluster. Records had hired two webmasters before me, but they each left after one or two years as the web industry was quickly ramping up salaries more then the College could pay.
I inherited an old Sun Spark station that was used as the primary server. At the time I was a Mac guy - primarily a graphic artist with an interest in learning new stuff, so Solaris was a fun and interesting challenge. Turns out, though, that keeping an old Spark secure took more then making sure it was patched and Solaris kept up to date. We got hacked, root was compromised, and my little old spark was used as a relay to get into NASA. NASA was none to pleased, and threatened the College with legal action. It was not a fun week. The server (excepting the web ports)was locked down from outside the Loyola IP range, and the hacker had used an open machine on campus to get into ours and used ours to get out to NASA.
There was a big silver lining though. This forced the Loyola IS crew to rethink their stance on "rogue" offices using technology. We were the first but by the time we got hacked, there were several other departments that had been forced to get their own servers in order to have a web presence. Not only web servers, either. several departments (including mine) had application servers running apps that IS had refused to take on. It was a less then ideal situation all around, and had left the campus very open to attack. None of my application servers ever got hacked, but others on campus did. The campus's very conservative IT policies began to shift to encompass the rapidly evolving reality that the College would advance IT, whether or not the IT department was on board.
It has been almost a decade since I got hacked, and policies have changed considerably, if slowly. Some individual offices still have their own web and application servers, but they are all now housed within the IT server room, and given the same security policies and maintenance structure as IT servers. Flexibility and security have both been enhanced, and the College is a much more secure environment because of it.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Communication through the Blogoshpere
Since starting this class, and this blog, I have become interested in what other bloggers might have to say. After all, I (and everyone else not living under a rock for the past decade) have been being told by the press, from Fox to NPR, that the bloggers are starting to shape policy in both politics and business.
Having now begun to look into other meaningful blogs for the first time, I hope the above statement is untrue.
The first issue I had was trying to find blogs that I was interested in reading. There are a million of these things floating around the web, and the vast majority are horrible. Trying to separate the wheat from the chaff seemed to be more work then it was worth. Then, when you have found a blogger that can cogently string words together to actually get his or her thoughts across, you have the comments.
I am pretty much assured that the average blog commenter is a mouth breather. While I get it that folks are more vocal when they disagree, but the utter vapidity with which most commenters spew their bile through a keyboard... If your response to something that you don't like makes whatever you don't like look great, why try? I'd kind of expect this response with political bloggers, as if there is one thing that Americans like to fight online about, its politics; but I found it across the board.
I started with the political blogs, but had to stop with them after I realized they were causing my brain to start dripping out of my ears.
Then I went to tech blogs. These tended to be better on average, until you got to the commenters. Engadget, a popular tech blog that is verging towards being an e-zine, recently had to kill comments for a few days due to profanity, threats, and other garbage being offered up by its readers.
Business blogs? I tried. Talk about snoozers. Some of the investing blogs were interesting, but in the end, I really just don't trust most of the bloggers enough to invest in their top picks. The amusing part to this is that I do read Fool.com. I'm not often sure that they are better then a *good* blog a lot of the time.
Car blogs? Just... don't ever go there. I'm am a guy that tends to obsess over old cars. I have more then I can drive, in states from show ready to rusty stasis (waiting for the end of grad school). I thought I'd get a kick out of car blogs. After all, I spend several hours each week on BBS boards related to my current projects. I was _so_ wrong. I forgot how dumb kids are between the ages of 15 and 21. Who populates car blogs? Kids aged 15 to 21. After sifting through various mouth breathing trolls for an hour or so... I'm OUT!
I remembered that a friend of mine used to write for a foodie blog, so I searched that up. I was impressed. I did not feel dumber for having read it. Most of the bloggers there seemed to have a clue, and the commenters actually seemed intelligent. I found out about some places in the DC area that I'd like to try out, then next time I get the insane urge to drive 140 miles just for dinner. Stranger things have happened.
I also found blogs by a few friends. Some of them even had more then one posting. These were nice. A view into people's lives that I am simply too busy now to keep up with otherwise.
There is an issue, though. I kinda doubt that blogs pertaining to foodies and old friends are the stuff the media tells us is shaping public policy. Its the over the top political blogs and WAG investing blogs that are getting the press. If policy is being created by online idiots e-screaming at each other, then I weep for our future.
Having now begun to look into other meaningful blogs for the first time, I hope the above statement is untrue.
The first issue I had was trying to find blogs that I was interested in reading. There are a million of these things floating around the web, and the vast majority are horrible. Trying to separate the wheat from the chaff seemed to be more work then it was worth. Then, when you have found a blogger that can cogently string words together to actually get his or her thoughts across, you have the comments.
I am pretty much assured that the average blog commenter is a mouth breather. While I get it that folks are more vocal when they disagree, but the utter vapidity with which most commenters spew their bile through a keyboard... If your response to something that you don't like makes whatever you don't like look great, why try? I'd kind of expect this response with political bloggers, as if there is one thing that Americans like to fight online about, its politics; but I found it across the board.
I started with the political blogs, but had to stop with them after I realized they were causing my brain to start dripping out of my ears.
Then I went to tech blogs. These tended to be better on average, until you got to the commenters. Engadget, a popular tech blog that is verging towards being an e-zine, recently had to kill comments for a few days due to profanity, threats, and other garbage being offered up by its readers.
Business blogs? I tried. Talk about snoozers. Some of the investing blogs were interesting, but in the end, I really just don't trust most of the bloggers enough to invest in their top picks. The amusing part to this is that I do read Fool.com. I'm not often sure that they are better then a *good* blog a lot of the time.
Car blogs? Just... don't ever go there. I'm am a guy that tends to obsess over old cars. I have more then I can drive, in states from show ready to rusty stasis (waiting for the end of grad school). I thought I'd get a kick out of car blogs. After all, I spend several hours each week on BBS boards related to my current projects. I was _so_ wrong. I forgot how dumb kids are between the ages of 15 and 21. Who populates car blogs? Kids aged 15 to 21. After sifting through various mouth breathing trolls for an hour or so... I'm OUT!
I remembered that a friend of mine used to write for a foodie blog, so I searched that up. I was impressed. I did not feel dumber for having read it. Most of the bloggers there seemed to have a clue, and the commenters actually seemed intelligent. I found out about some places in the DC area that I'd like to try out, then next time I get the insane urge to drive 140 miles just for dinner. Stranger things have happened.
I also found blogs by a few friends. Some of them even had more then one posting. These were nice. A view into people's lives that I am simply too busy now to keep up with otherwise.
There is an issue, though. I kinda doubt that blogs pertaining to foodies and old friends are the stuff the media tells us is shaping public policy. Its the over the top political blogs and WAG investing blogs that are getting the press. If policy is being created by online idiots e-screaming at each other, then I weep for our future.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
26 inches? Ho hum.
Like many of the Mid Atlantic residents this weekend, I got a little snow. It has been a good year for snow, with two big storms, a few small storms, and (supposedly) another moderate storm on the horizon for early next week.
We got 26 inches up here in York, and I understand that Baltimore got over 30. After digging out this morning, I was kind of amazed on how little the storm affected my life. Other then a little exercise, the 26 inches of snow could have been 5.
Back in 2003, Baltimore got crushed by a measly 28 inches of snow in late February, and it brought the city to a standstill for a full week. 6 years later, I am doubting that a similar amount of snow is going to have Loyola even opening late come Monday. What has changed?
Everyone has better communications now. Even my 90 year old grandparents have cell phones, and were able to call to let the power and land line people know when service failed. Clean up and emergency crews are able to respond faster to events taking place in a very dynamic environment. Heavy snow, hills and valleys no longer block the older radio equipment that require a LOS in order to function well.
Also, snow removal and road clearing has been GREATLY aided by GIS and computer mapping technologies. The planners are able to send out the plow trucks in a much more efficient pattern now then thy have been able to do in the past. Even with the county being out of salt and cinders from the previous big storm, my road has had black top showing since the first flakes fell. Considering that where I live the road is not a primary (or even a major secondary, more just a farm maintenance road) that is pretty impressive.
We got 26 inches up here in York, and I understand that Baltimore got over 30. After digging out this morning, I was kind of amazed on how little the storm affected my life. Other then a little exercise, the 26 inches of snow could have been 5.
Back in 2003, Baltimore got crushed by a measly 28 inches of snow in late February, and it brought the city to a standstill for a full week. 6 years later, I am doubting that a similar amount of snow is going to have Loyola even opening late come Monday. What has changed?
Everyone has better communications now. Even my 90 year old grandparents have cell phones, and were able to call to let the power and land line people know when service failed. Clean up and emergency crews are able to respond faster to events taking place in a very dynamic environment. Heavy snow, hills and valleys no longer block the older radio equipment that require a LOS in order to function well.
Also, snow removal and road clearing has been GREATLY aided by GIS and computer mapping technologies. The planners are able to send out the plow trucks in a much more efficient pattern now then thy have been able to do in the past. Even with the county being out of salt and cinders from the previous big storm, my road has had black top showing since the first flakes fell. Considering that where I live the road is not a primary (or even a major secondary, more just a farm maintenance road) that is pretty impressive.
Why X Y?
The X and Y Theory of management was postulated by Douglas McGregor in the 1960s. In short, it says that the X theory of management is not as effective as the Y theory for a modern workforce. The X theory revolves around the notion that employees will not work without reward or punishment, and need to be directed at all times in order to be effective. The Y theory maintains that the workforce may be intrinsically motivated, and will perform better if the management is supportive rather than coercive. In theory, the X staff will not perform as well as the Y staff, due to the higher moral and personal involvement that Y staff has invested in their work.
When McGregor did his study, 50 years ago, the Theory X managers and Theory Y managers were split 50/50. While my personal experience is far from scientific, I have had twice as many Theory X Managers as I have had Theory Y. Given that the X/Y typology has become accepted in management training, why are there still so many Theory X managers?
My thought is that Theory X management is the cultural heritage of our nation. And I mean more than simply in the work place. Many (all?) of us were brought up under Theory X parenting. “If you clean your room you will get your allowance, if not you will be grounded” is not very Theory Y. Also, school from K-College is traditionally very Theory X; while some educators do follow a Theory Y approach, they are a minority. Even at the Graduate School level, in an MBA program, the majority of the classes are run in a Theory X style.
So, going from school into the workplace, most incoming managers have nearly all of their work experience in a relatively Theory X environment. Even if they understand the importance of a Theory Y manager, being that manager is a major cultural shift.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Something Old, and Something New
I got a call Friday night, which I had been hoping to get. A friend called and said he had bought a new truck for his farm, and I was welcome to come over and take his (rusted to the point of being unsafe to drive) 1985 Chevy ¾ ton pickup for free. This was great news, as I wanted the engine (a four bolt main, freshly rebuilt small block 350) for a 1968 Jeep that I am restoring.
At this point, I am sure you are wondering what the hell this has to do with technology, as the newest tech I have mentioned was created 24 years ago. One of the things that I am looking forward to doing to this grossly inefficient motor, once it is freed from its rotted carcass, is convert it to a modern, customizable and fully programmable electronic fuel injection (EFI). While nearly everyone takes EFI for granted these days (if you drive a car made in the last 15 years, you have it in one form or another), there is a niche market for tech savvy tinkerers to build – from scratch – modern fuel systems for old engines that were only offered with carburetion. The EFI kits range from total DIY efforts, where you are literally soldering together the motherboards, to nearly plug and play offerings with base tunes for the type of engine that you are retrofitting. Nearly all of the available kits offer laptop based tuning and programming through a standard USB interface. All of them offer the ability to tune an old engine in good working order to the point where it rivals modern engines
So, why is this important? How is it relevant? First, it is actually “greener” to keep older vehicles in use and in good tune then it is to scrap them and buy something new, if you look at the energy required to scrap and build them. Even better, though, is to take the older, inefficient engine and give it modern components that make it *MUCH* cleaner to run. In the case of the truck engine that I am going to convert, the gas mileage should jump from 7mpg to around 17mpg, or more – which is not bad for a 40 year old truck with a 25 year old motor. It is more than simple gas mileage too, though that is the first thing that people think of when considering a swap from carbs to EFI. Tailpipe emissions are also reduced using a modern, computer tunable fuel system. Sensors placed in the exhaust continually test and adjust the induction for optimum fuel to air mixture. This creates far fewer unburned hydrocarbons (greenhouse gasses) being released into the atmosphere. Also, the ROI for the conversion can be seen usually within one or two years of the conversion due to the increased mileage and more efficient running characteristics.
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