» 2003 » April

Article posted on Apr 25

"I have the burner. Now let us never speak of this day again."

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on April 25, 2003, 7:03 pm

Ugh. So we have these power control modules at work which allow us to get stats and control power strips via SNMP. But the firmware in the units that were shipped to us were so defective that it wasn't funny. For example, if you do an SNMP get or two, the device locks up for a half hour. Now, most modern embedded devices allow you to upgrade the firmware via the device itself (tell it to go to a TFTP site, download, etc), but that functionality was ALSO broken.

The vendor sent us a pair of new firmware chips (two 44 pin PLCC chips per device) and the firmware image files to make sure that new firmware solved our problems (they did), but delayed the entire procedure when they found out that we needed to replace the firmware on over 100 devices. My deadline for implementing the power monitoring system was coming up fast, so I looked into getting an EEPROM burner.

Needham's Electronics (hmm, their web site is down at the moment, weird) had just what we needed. The programmer and PLCC adapter was $450, but I figured we could sell it on eBay after we were done with it and eat the difference as a business expense. I called them yesterday morning to see if they could overnight a unit to us. They could, but I noticed they were based in northeast Sacramento. Hell, less than two hours each way; I might as well go down and pick it up, giving me a few extra hours of implementation time.

Before I left, a co-worker mentioned that it was snowing on Donner Pass and chains may be required, so I borowed her chains. That should have been the first indication that I should have just had the device shipped to me.

Oh god it was horrible. Over 30 miles of chain controlled area. And the chains I borrowed were very loose fitting, so my car shook to death whenever I exceeded 23MPH. 2 hours turned into 5.

I eventually arrived in Sac and went to their office. Neat place; they did all of their manufacturing, sales, everything in this little office. They also had a company dog. I bought the programmer and started back.

I stopped in Auburn for gas and went to Kragen to buy a new set of chains. The ones that I got were nice... easier to install and tight fitting, allowing me to get up to 35MPH or so. And then this happened:

Click the pic for photos from other angles. No, I didn't lose control on the snow and hit a guard rail or anything; this was the result of briefly taking my foot off the brake from a standstill and hitting the truck in front of me as were were waiting to turn out of the parking lot.

Fuck. I can't believe all that damage as the result of a collision at less than 1 or 2MPH.

The drive home was "only" about 4 hours instead of 5 because of the new chains, but still, this was the day trip from hell.

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Article posted on Apr 22

No Title

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on April 22, 2003, 8:41 am

It's snowing. April 22, 2003. Snow. Reno never ceases to amaze me.

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Article posted on Apr 21

No Title

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on April 21, 2003, 4:09 am

It's 4AM, and I'm sitting at work in the noc, sticking multimeter probes into a giant mutant raisin (seriously! it's like 4 times the size of a normal raisin, and it's not like 4 raisins stuck together or anything!), ignoring the fact that I have to unfuck the ticketing system.

I built a PoE module this afternoon. Well, most of one. I learned a few lessons:
1) I can't solder worth shit.
2) The WAP11 had a minor revision between 1.0 and 1.1, but for some reason they changed the size of the power plug between revisions.
3) Always check that the plug you bought from radioshack actually FITS the device before you spend an hour soldering and constructing.

Ho hum...

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Article posted on Apr 17

No Title

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on April 17, 2003, 9:32 am

Yesterday I went to Wild Oats for dinner. Wild Oats, which I have mentioned once before, is one of those natural/organic food stores. There are three types of people who visit these types of stores: people who like the concept of natural foods who mostly shop there, people who go there to complain and boycot them carrying the evil Snapple brand because once a delivery truck ran over a rabbit (these types of people I affectionally refer to as "goddamn hippie freaks"), and people like myself who do grocery shopping at Albertsons, but like the salad bar and oatmeal raisin cookies at Wild Oats.

So anyways, I'm eating my salad, and noticed a promotion for Earth Day. The grand prize? A new car. That kinda confused me. Them, of all places, giving away a CAR to celebrate Earth Day? Then I looked closer and realised the car was a 2003 Honda Civic hybrid. Okay, that makes sense.

That got me thinking, as I stared into the parking lot. The lot was full of SUVs and trucks. And right in the middle of it was my little 52/45mpg super-ultra-low-emission-vehicle (yes, that's the name of the EPA class the vehicle is in) Toyota Prius.

A smile came over me when I realized that I was a better person than everybody else in that store. Yes, you heard me. :)

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Article posted on Apr 9

Coincidental Spam

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on April 9, 2003, 9:58 am

This was kinda cute...

+>D 2211 Apr 8 beauty@easy-celebr (3688) Did you know?
+ D 2212 Apr 8 Carmen Worth (8172) Oh no you didn't...

Though they were probably for porn, it was still neat.

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Article posted on Apr 2

New Community

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on April 2, 2003, 10:12 am

I have set up a new community, (linuxuser) True Linux User Stories (ala True Porn Clerk Stories :) to track the progress of a non-newbie switching completely from Windows to Linux. Can you guess the name of that person?

It was earth!

DON'T DATE ROBOTS!

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Article posted on Apr 1

No Title

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on April 1, 2003, 1:35 am

Everyone's having sex these days, except for me.

Fuck.

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