cbalz's blog

Ubuntu in the Sky with Diamonds, Part II: ATI + Linux Woes? Vesa Driver Works for Me

nobody@vox.com(cbalz) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 00:06:24 -0700

Earlier, I detailed some travails with getting decent screen resolution on an external (workstation-style) monitor to my laptop running Ubuntu Linux. Initially, the proprietary ATI driver provided some relief, albeit at the cost of taking 'sleep' mode away from the operating system. A few months ago, tempted by the latest ATI proprietary driver, I upgraded. But after some torture it was all only to end up having to fall back to the low-res xorg-ati driver. Worse, the whole thing forced me to flee to my old Mac Mini!

So I am very happy to report that I've now got the best of both worlds -- good resolution and operating system 'sleep' mode. Very surprisingly, the humble vesa driver does the trick!

Possibly it was always so, but in days of yore for yours truly at least, good screen resolution on a 19" monitor and operating system 'sleep' mode were mutually exclusive! Linux forums are so loaded with people doing loops over problems related to ATI graphics cards that I would bet that it is one of the top obstacles to wider Linux adoption.

Maybe that's a chapter that can finally be closed.

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Wildflower Long Course 2008!

nobody@vox.com(cbalz) — Fri, 23 May 2008 07:39:15 -0700

1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run. Mile 50, bike course: Ugh, feel kind of sick, like I have the flu. Mile 7, run course: Wow, feel better!

Problem: "*Bummer*" something like the flu I had a couple weeks before, or a remnant of it, got to me after a couple hours out on the cool morning windy flats of wild eastern Monterey county, out by Fort Higget. Or maybe it was that bleachable stuff on the inside of my hydration system that I thought was on the outside!

Whatever it was, camping and cheering and having a decent swim, first chunk of the bike and last piece of the run made it all very worthwhile. A classic that has been going since eons before I had even heard of the sport, Wildflower is actually three triathlons over two days at an absolutely huge lake in Monterey County, Lake San Antonio. With upwards of 8,000 athletes and a few tens of thousands more fans all located about 50 miles from the nearest gas station, this is a unique event.

As a very amateurish "triathlete" it was a fun learning experience to train for and do the event with Team Sheeper. What a lucky privilege it is to participate with such a bunch of fine athletes.

Our camp:

Our Camp

Team Breakfast

A Neck of Lake San Antonio

Getting Food Ready, Camp

Lone Sheep in the Morning

The Country by Lake San Antonio, Monterey, CA

Transition Area

The massive Wildflower transition area, where the change from swim to bike and from bike to to run is made.

More Transition Area

Teammate in the blue-and-red jersey middle right, behind the orange water bottles.

Transition Area and Part of Product Exhibition

Me, All Set Up and Stoked for the Event

This is my little piece of paradise in the transition area. You'll notice the markings on participant's legs and arms. Everyone has to get their oldest-that-year-age (yes, tri culture is brutal) and number marked on them. The orange band on everyone's left leg is the timing chip device.

Just Out of the Water

Feeling good here after a successful swim. No heels or elbows in the face!

Beginning Swim to Bike Transition

Whoof, I'm out of breath. Swinging my arms to get up some momentum here, and taking a big breath to get more oxygen in and co2 out. I had kind of sprinted into the swim finish.

Starting Bike

More Bike

Yet More Bike

Finally Feeling Better

The first hour of the run was just savage for me, unfortunately, due to the factors I mentioned above. As far as I get it, this sport is about feeling good out there! However, here I am finally feeling a bit better. That first hour slowed me way down, but here I am just glad to be through that period.

Kick!

Even a little left over for the finish and feeling good.

Yay!

Glad to be done with this one, given that first segment of the run.

Ooof!

Recovering from that fun kick at the end.

Despite that first hour of the run it was a great event, and will have to bleach out my bike water tube and fully shake off any flus next time!

No matter how one fares in the actual event, camping out at Wildflower and cheering for friends in the other two triathlons that weekend always makes it fun.

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California Cities Adopt Grassy Swales to Filter Run-off Water

nobody@vox.com(cbalz) — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 23:33:52 -0800

The grassy swale: Consider this wonderful pursuit, perfectly combining function and design. A drier version of the marsh wastewater treatment plants such as that used by the City of Arcata, CA, they give us the option to do something good for the environment and, by extension, ourselves. Not to mention, they also provide some welcome landscaping.

Grassy Swale for Runoff- RWC Post Office

Grassy Swale Public Info, RWC, California

Grassy Swale for Runoff #1, Menlo Park Office Park

Grassy Swale for Runoff #1, Menlo Park

Looks like it's catching on! It reminds me of my last doctor's visit, when whole wheat bread was recommended. Yet another innovation popularized by that group oft reviled as "hippies"!

What will we see next -- a Scientific American cover story about how solar energy can supply the bulk of U.S. energy needs? Compare that to the traditional response -- trillions for massively destructive warfare and strategic blunders in oil-rich areas such as Iraq. Well, looking at it from the perspective of a couple of the chief decision makers, why think when it hurts and you can get others to do the fighting you avoided when it was your turn, all to increase your influence?

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West Alpine Road, Santa Clara County, California: January

nobody@vox.com(cbalz) — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 23:20:46 -0800

Mirkwood

Branches Like Hair in the Wind

January Brush

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QotD: My 10 Things

nobody@vox.com(cbalz) — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 22:49:19 -0800

What are 10 things you've done that other people probably haven't?
Submitted by Janette.
Petted a butterfly for a long time as it sucked flower nectar
Painfully ran into the random-number generator bug in the Basic computer language on the Apple II+ (I know of one other soul who did as well!)
Grew the first commercial quantities of organic lettuce seed
Did Towers of Hanoi iteratively at at 11
Popped wheelies on a tractor
Saw a natural playground in Liberia ruined by bush tourists
Chased a large black bear off in a truck -- they really do run 40mph
Did a Long Course Triathlon including a very chilly ocean swim
Took a shower with the hydraulic oil in a D8 Caterpillar bulldozer
Floated down the Seine on a river barge, making excellent crayfish salads.

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Cycle Tour "Little Appalachia" in Silicon Valley

nobody@vox.com(cbalz) — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 18:47:54 -0800

Just a stone's throw into the hills from the bustling "Silicon Valley" of Santa Clara County, California lies a microregion seemly untouched by the tides of change below. Cycling along Stevens Creek Canyon road, which tracks Stevens Creek for about four miles, yields some juicy atmosphere. Conjuring images of Appalachia, it's a welcome break from the plastic wealth on display in the valley below.

The arboreal junkyards of rusting machinery by the road, with the dark dampness. give kind of a Halloween feel to the place. Truly, one enters a strangely isolated zone as one travels upstream. Throughout the area, tall trees (often redwoods) shroud everything in a seemingly permanent shade.

One time I took a buddy up there. A native inhabitant rolled by in his roaring 70s-era 4wd pickup. Both of us must have looked like skinny (well, by comparison to the local population) little colorful bug-guys in our colorful cycling gear with biking glasses that really make us look entomological: Bugs flying in from another world. So, taking advantage of the extra lookee-see time of the road curve we were on, he let out an unforgettable "hoooodllee".

Seeming quite out of place in my cycling gear, I made sure not too tarry to long while I took these photos:

California "Fixer-Upper"

Big Rock in Stevens Creek

Ancient Truck in Native Habitat

Junk Pile in the Woods

Rough Livin'

Deep Woods Junkyard

House in the Woods with Junk Cars

Weird Fortress

Old Moss-covered Foundation

Cool Waterfall Tributary to Stevens Creek

Stevens Creek in Full Rush

A Fresh "Keep Out" Sign

Flag over Old Bridge

Bike Frame Gate

End of the Road

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Talking Points on JavaScript for Software Engineering

nobody@vox.com(cbalz) — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 13:47:57 -0800

Perspective

Widespread agreement that object technology is effective
Less agreement that the kind of strict object development environment supported by, for example, Java or Eiffel is desirable
Systems containing large amounts of JavaScript code are now shipping on the Web
IMHO, JavaScript is less than ideal for software engineering

Not statically checkable (either in terms of state-space or concurrency)

Object-based vs. Object-oriented

Most obstacles to object-oriented can be overcome

Still, significant limitations:

Encapsulation

"Classless" objects cannot be completely prohibited
Randomly adding/removing properties to objects

Polymorphism

Method overriding cannot cleanly be done with separate methods
Poses a problem for Javadoc-like documentation generators

Data types

The loose typing makes the code hard to read, even when type prefixing is used and data types are respected.
Impossible to enforce strict typing

Interfaces

Can be done, but only "enforced" through a slow run-time process.
The enforcement routines could be removed for non-development-time situations.

Events: Cannot prohibit spaghetti-like "callbacks"
Packaging: Does not mirror the file system, and no enforcable naming convention

Aspect-oriented programming

Can be done, but significant run-time and code-clarity issues since JavaScript was not designed for this.
http://aspectes.tigris.org/

It could be much worse -- remember some thought that on the Web it would be VBScript!

Origins

How do Self and C-- add up? JavaScript!

A hard-to-meet deadline for Brendan at Netscape in the 1990's
The language's market: Not necessarily software engineers

Paradox Supreme: The rarified, research facility life of Self, compared to the ubiquity of JavaScript!
In a paper on Self, its creators wondered if true class inheritance, as distinguished from Self's prototype inheritance, would predominate in software engineering in the future.
Self and the SmallTalk Community: Killed by Java?

StrongTalk: The built-in event-basis of SmallTalk with the structured object development provided by Java?
http://www.strongtalk.org/
http://www.strongtalk.org/history.html

Where did that source code come from?

In early versions of Netscape (version 4, circa 1998, and less), the 'select' html element was implemented as a first-class window object.
That meant that it could not be hidden by other html elements on the screen.
Clearly a bug, this was fixed in Netscape 6 around 2000.
Was present in the early IE browsers that took Netscape's market share.
Still exists in IE 6

JavaScript Considered

High power-to-weight ratio!

As with Self, "The Power of Simplicity".

Fast start time

Ability to self-modify the language

Allows us to do object-oriented software engineering in JavaScript, and implement concepts from other languages, such as binding objects through an event system.

Property value lookup very slow at high memory load

Closure overhead

Machine capabilities now growing -- so is the low weight of JavaScript really such a big advantage anymore?

JavaScript's Future

EcmaScript 4 Proposal: Adding Structure

'strict' option not yet in reference implementation

Tamarin JIT and Adobe

A tools strategy by that company, not a platform play with Flash as it may appear?

Interesting post by Brendan Eich, creator of JavaScript, on Microsoft opposing EcmaScript 4, the proposed new version of JavaScript:

http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roadmap/archives/2007/11/es4_news_and_opinion.html#more

The compatibility issue: A corporate "we can't" (make a reliable, interoperable implementation of ES4) from MS?
MS management's considerations: A competitor to Silverlight and C#?
Is there a Neutral Ground Solution: A language such as StrongTalk? In reality, it might be Python:

http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roadmap/archives/2007/07/new_projects.html

My guess: It depends on Google and Apple. If they apply their full weight, Microsoft will implement ES4.

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Star Wars Over the Years

nobody@vox.com(cbalz) — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 08:23:10 -0700

The "Star Wars" science fiction movie series is so iconic that it is no barometer of culture, but rather an interacting component of living society. The saying, "as California goes, so goes the nation", would apply equally, if perhaps not more so, to director Lucas' Marin County, California creations. Spanning some thirty years, the complete series provides a unique opportunity for cultural reflection.

Communality pervades the 70s and early 80s episodes. Witness the the Jawa with their giant mobile techno-rust-caravan of the desert, the perfectly-balanced cloud city in "The Empire Strikes Back", "Return of the Jedi"'s space convoys, and its Ewoks, with their Rainbow Familyesque situation in the old-growth redwood forest and primitive drumming. The episodes treat us to visions of encapsulated, usually acephalous community existing in seemingly perfect balance with the surrounding environment.

The early episodes feature long, meditative periods, as if to conjure themes in Eastern religions. As part of this conjuration, the audience gets a lesson in how appearances can be deceiving with the first appearance of Yoda in the swamp of Dagoba. Yoda comes first as a silly little green swamp creature. Later, the opposite is revealed.

In the very first episode, Luke has a psychedelic trip-like experience in the swamp of Dagoba as part of his Jedi training. There Yoda says, "Know fear you will." Going back to the raw 70s Marin County original, without the major motion picture filtering, the wording is, "Know bad trips you will."

These cultural alternatives to mainline Western culture are, at best, subdued in the episodes from the 2000s. We see the Jawa, where Annakin gets tips from them about the location of a group of desert inhabitants. But nothing of their interactions amongst themselves is presented. The film shows only smoothly-operating Jawa caravans at night with their lights shining brightly.

That scene makes a marked contrast to the funky rustiness of the caravans and the Jawa society that was on display in the first-released episode. Overall, the closest thing we see to communality in the later-released episodes is its nightmare: the clone army. The film shows a perfect inversion of the former visions in this vast replication of the ultra rugged-individualist, bounty hunter Jango Fett.

Along with the cultural alternatives presented in the early episodes goes their delight in technology. Gone are the long droid soliloqueys and duoliloqueys of the early episodes. Whereas in the early episodes, technology offered liberation for many, in the later episodes that role is limited to the child Anakin's winning the pod racer contest. While in the early episodes we saw much promising fix-it wrenching and welding, such activity is limited in the later ones.

In the later episodes, an equally interesting angle replaces the early themes, however. Corporate society envelopes almost everything in a suffocating embrace. And the technology of the 2000s episodes reinforces the current world, instead of transforming it. The spaceships land with perfect grace, often turning slightly upon landing or performing other graceful, smooth, last-second maneuvers to perfect a landing. They do this as if to say that their essential technical function, space transport, is beyond much significance, and the only remaining excitement is in their style.

Happily, the 2000s episodes support not only science fiction content but in-depth love stories. While the primacy of the individual seems lost amidst a suffocating corporate galaxy, exemplified in the city-planet where the galaxy finds its capitol seat, the personal dramas stand out clearly. As in Balzac, the interest lies in the individual dramas, highlighted against the intentionally boring backdrop.

With this highlighting of the individual comes an emphasis on physical fitness. The light saber duels that formerly focused exclusively on the philosophical schools of the combatants, representing the intensity of the clash of will in the humming of the clashing light sabers, now feature pervasive gymnastics. 70s acid trips are out; physical fitness is in. Pointed politics is also in, especially when Anakin (as the newly-minted Lord Vader), tells Obi Wan Kenobi, "If you're not with me, you're my enemy", echoing a recent statement by the President of the United States.

Kenobi responds, "Only the Sith deal in absolutes." And the exquisite portrayal of Anakin's turning to the Dark Side stands head and shoulders above the melodrama in the earlier episodes. Anakin's straightfoward mind is bent and twisted to Senator Palpatine's ends. In this end of the beginning of the series, the democratic Galactic Republic turns into the totalitarian Empire.

From the outset, the film introduces us to Anakin's thinking early on and its progression makes the evolution into Lord Vader seem understandable. For any film, the level of sophistication is impressive. For an American film, it is shocking.

As large corporations dominate American society today, it is fitting that the Star Wars series should find its zenith in depicting good turned to evil in a misguided struggle for corporate power. Perhaps the great American novel is, in fact, this movie series.

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My First Long Course Tri -- Big Kahuna, Santa Cruz, CA

nobody@vox.com(cbalz) — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 21:00:52 -0700

What can be said about Big Kahuna (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run) but "bushy bushy blond hairdo, Surfin' USA"?

Big_Kahuna_2007-Banner

Well, maybe Swimmin' USA! The crazy, epic swim set the tone for the whole event: You weren't looking forward to it, but once you started it was so fun you did it anyhow! Just like in "Waiting for the Sun", standing there at dawn on Freedom's shore, we raced down to the sea.

Here's (roughly) the route -- 1.2 splashing miles past sea monsters and through swells big enough to obscure the marker buoys and make you feel like a human submarine:

Big_Kahuna_2007-swim

Sighting in these conditions wasn't crazy hard but definitely a notch harder than I'd ever experienced. Basically, I realized that I needed to glance up a fair bit more or time my glances with the swells to avoid going off course. Here is one wave near the end of the pier on the way out to sea:

Big_Kahuna_2007-swim-people

I did this one on a slightly funky foot, but it felt fine throughout the event (and still does). It was a little weaker than usual, which showed a bit. The 56 mile bike was a great tour of the striking coast there, with farms and wildlands alternating.

Cb_big_kahuna-2007

Above, I'm wearing regular biking shorts over my tri shorts . . . with chamois butter. Worked out well . . . until I forgot to take the bike shorts off for the run segment! Checklist time. Also, I'm over pinning my event number on! Those safety pins pop out too easily. I really wasted some time at transition-1 that way. It's race belt from now on.

Very unfortunately, two or more participants wiped out on the railroad tracks at Davenport. The race organizers did hold up their end of the bargain, warning everyone clearly beforehand. They are full-size tracks sunken in slots that cross Highway 1 at about a 45-degree angle.

You can guess how they cause bikes to wreck. I'd biked over them a couple times before, and had no problem when I set my wheel perpendicular to the tracks. As for getting CalTrans to do anything about the situation, it seems a fat chance. They certainly don't seem to have much built-in incentive to fix small problems around the state.

When I crossed the tracks on the return trip during Big Kahuna, I saw the second person I'd ever seen who had fallen there. And I've only crossed those tracks six times! He didn't look too bad, but was already in a neck brace. Thinking perhaps maybe something could even go wrong with the perpendicular approach, I slowed and practically walked across those voodoo tracks.

I made a surprisingly similar mistake on the run leg to the one I made the first time I tried an Olympic-distance tri: I didn't take enough electrolyte capsules, relying instead too much on Heed sports drink. I think that drink is great stuff, but it doesn't keep my muscles from cramping.

So I was slowed way down for the last four miles of the 13.1 mile run, but finished smiling at the soft-sand beach finish line in 6:26. The announcer was a classic tri finish line maven, so you couldn't help but laugh as he drawled out, in his best surfer, "Finishin' the Biiiiiiiiiiiig KaaaaaahUnnnAAAA!" Plus the soundtrack was great, with a good rage of "American Idiot". Even better, the post-event feed was stocked with top-notch burritos and more!

The five-foot carved-wood Tiki Man totem was in evidence at packet-pick up the day before the race, but mysteriously disappeared at about 5pm. We didn't see him again until the turn-around point on the run segment -- standing proud out on the coastal mesa! But then he reappeared later -- in the form of Hawaiian-style "bling" that we received upon crossing the finish line:

Big Kahuna "Tiki-Man" Medal 2007

The lei is of artful artificial flowers, small glossy snail shells make up the necklace, and the medal is ceramic.

Also some serious funds for research on leukemia cures and leukemia treatment were raised by my Team in Training teammates. I did this tri with Team and Training as a Training Captain. So I was partially responsible for training my teammates, leading them (in a somewhat grinding Monday evening routine) through open-water swims with large stingrays in Bay lagoons.

It was all made possible in the first place by those individuals who generously donated fifteen, twenty-five, and a hundred bucks to my first tri this Spring! My employer double-matched that sum, and I went on to (I hope) make a contribution to getting many fundraising participants across the finish line in fine style this Summer season.

Also, our coaches were fantastic. I never would have done that big ocean swim without their training. So here's my thank you to my fundraising donors from Spring season and the coaches:

Big Kahuna Medal 2007 - Reverse 2007

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First Fun Ocean Swim

nobody@vox.com(cbalz) — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 20:40:48 -0700

Being the land-lubbing sort, and having started some triathlon-type activities, it's taken me a while to adjust to open water swimming. My first full-ocean swim, at Santa Cruz, CA, was on a dark morning when the water was black, freezing, and not placid. Despite ingesting a cup of near-boiling hot oatmeal-soup just before jumping in, it took me about a quarter of a mile to just warm up to the point where I could get a full breath of air.

Today was such a contrast. The water was a fair bit warmer, the sun was out, the water was a light, friendly green, and was fairly placid, save for the swells. Swimming into them is the equivalent of running or biking uphill.

I've always loved to look out into the ocean, as do, it seems, most humans. The majesty and vastness of it seems to communicate to all of us in some unheard, unseen language. However, to be part of that scene, versus merely an onlooker, was even more engrossing. I never imagined before that I would be!

So it was fun to finally open up to the adventure and freedom of the open water. I imagine it must be akin to what a newbie pilot of a small, maneuverable aircraft must feel. The day looked like this photo of the location:

Monterey Bay from UCSC

Our group went from buoy to buoy, regrouping at each buoy on the way out, and then swimming straight back. It was cool to see how people in the group have improved over time, with the practice effort they have put in. At one point, our coach-lady was a dozen feet or so from the group, telling us about something, when I abruptly said (as riveted as one can be in deep water), "There's a sea lion right behind you."

I would have said "large", "1000-lb.", or at least "big", since I do love to ham things up when possible, but there simply wasn't time. However, it probably was at least a 500-lb lion. (Here is a file photo of a smaller one, below:)

Santa Cruz Sea Lion

The sea lion seemed to be in a completely placid mood and reminded me of a good-tempered dog, except that it wasn't bobbing at all as it swam -- it moved like a ship with its neck cutting the water as a boat prow would, and it moved as fast! Another exception would be the fact that you don't give wild sea lions any s*** whatsoever, ever. Anyway, our coach-lady got herself well out of the way and the sea lion cruised by unperturbed. At most it would have brushed up against her, although she did remark about the wave it left behind!

Despite the fun, open water swimming does carry its risks -- and probably especially in the ocean. I'm not one to be out there more than necessary. One pet peeve of mine is the tirelessly-repeated statistic about how improbable a shark attack is. Perhaps it truly is, but, incredibly, none of the numbers I've seen attempt to do the numbers in terms of hours spent by people in the (deep enough) water. Instead, they just seem to take bulk population, a vastly different measure.

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