Moe Cason

At the Brownells 80th Anniversary event last weekend, there was a BBQ food truck by Moe Cason.  The guy next to me in line told me that they're award-winning, having placed at an international competition.  I can't recall if he said 1st or 3rd, but both are in Des Moines.  So next time I drive through Des Moines, I'll have to stop by.  And still hit Joe's in KC!

Packages via Mail

There are a number of places that still ship package bees via mail, either USPS or UPS.  3-lb packages, unless otherwise noted.

• Mountain Sweet Honey [GA] - Italian, $125-ish
• Kelley Beekeeping [KY] - Italian, Carniolan, or Saskatraz, $198-ish
• Gold Star Honeybees [GA/TN] - mixed-breed, winter hardened (supposedly), treatment-free, $185
• R Weaver Apiaries [TX] - Buckfast, clipped/marked, shipped via UPS, $175
• Winters Apiary [TN] - Caucasian, shipped via UPS, $140
• Roberts Bee Company (H&R Apiaries) [GA] - Italian?, $87 for 2-lb, $97 for 3-lb

It seems perhaps more economical to get a cheaper package initially, build up their numbers, and then introduce a queen of the desired type, since the queens are typically $30-40 each and could be used to split an established hive.

Food-Safe Filament

If planning to 3D-print items that would come in contact with food, it's wise to make sure it's food-safe.  The MakerGeeks store has a page listing a number of options.  t-glase filament I'd seen on Amazon as being food-safe.

VPN on Synology

Synology has a built-in VPN server, which is pretty nice.  Their knowledgebase details how to set it up.

Form 1 Forums

Once SD Tactical got their hand slapped by the ATF for selling solvent traps, their forum was gutted.  Someone else started a forum for Form 1 builds, which appears to have a lot of good info.  Well, I have stamps for at least three Form 1 cans that I haven't built yet....

One useful thread is the list of solvent trap manufacturers.  Another thread posted a link to B-tube-sized cones (not drilled).

HK91 Locking Piece for Sound Suppression

In order to use a can on a PTR-91 or other G3/91 clone, apparently it's necessary to use a different locking piece that slows down the bolt carrier with the increased back-pressure.  Rim Country Manufacturing sells a #17, 36° part that fits the bill.  $50 ain't so bad.  They also have US-made trunions, bolt carriers, and bolt heads for MP5- and 53-type actions.

Extending the Life of SD Card in Linux

Around the time I was looking at RPi power save, I was also checking into how to mitigate the effects of regular writes to the cheap SD card.  (Well, not so cheap, since I buy Samsung NAND.)  One link I found had references to several other sites.  The answer on the StackExchange page was pretty useful.

Amusingly enough, I left the HomeGenie event stream enabled for debug, which was generating output every 30 seconds...for at least a year.  I'd imagine the card is pretty well worn by now.

The Fake Internet

Apparently news isn’t the only thing that’s fake—much of the Internet is too!

LG TV

The 55UK6090PUA was on sale at Sam’s Club for $400. The picture was better than the comparable Sharp, and it was made in Mexico instead of China.  Another demerit to the Sharp was that the model in-store wasn’t listed on the manufacturer’s website, which gives me the heebie-jeebies.

What I didn’t care for in the LG is the lack of smartphone apps to control the onscreen display, like the Sony has, but if mainly using the Apple TV, the iPhone app can be used.  Overall, though, it was a good value and the picture is quite good.

HomeGenie

Well, I've had a motion sensor sitting around for at least a year, unused because I couldn't get it to work with HomeGenie.  Turns out I was just overlooking a comment in the settings to associate the device with group 1, as noted in an archived forum post.  (Yeah, I could use SmartThings instead of a roll-my-own system, but I figure it'll be harder for people to futz with an oddball config.  Plus, the homebrew system isn't open to the Net: I have to connect via VPN in order to get access, unlike SmartThings.)

Then there's linking the switch to the sensor with the built-in "Smart Lights" program.  That was disabled so I enabled it an it shut off the lights once, but the sensor appeared to have gone to sleep.  Getting closer, but not quite there yet.

Oh yeah, since the Pepper1 database of Z-Wave devices used by HomeGenie was shut down, as noted in the new forum, there's an alternate location to query.  I'll have to download the newer version of HomeGenie to see if they've picked up this newer site; otherwise, one can add one's own devices to a local archive.

One blog post I read when I was setting up my automation compared HomeSeer, HomeGenie, and Domoticz.  The author preferred Domoticz, but I don't like the idea of having a separate library for Z-Wave.

A.D.

A bit of publicly available information, from their website; a 2008 article about National Night Out; and the minutes of a 2011 meeting of the county board.

PKE in a Browser

Filing away for future use: about the Web Crypto API from 2014 (making the info likely too far out of date) and from 2017, a demo encrypted web chat.  Apparently the library implements RSA, and is available on Github.

Of course, the worry is that the browsers' implementations are compromised, but in the event someone needs to decrypt an encrypted email, it'd be better done locally.  Presuming common PKE methods are supported, that is.

According to a post on StackOverflow, DH was excluded from the Web Crypto API, but ECDH is included.  There's a DH implementation in JavaScript available on GitHub, however.

Freestanding Decks

This article was useful regarding bracing, which they call “Y bracing”.  I didn’t end up using the “V bracing” for my shed foundation because the plywood subfloor should function similarly—different from usual decking.

FGMO

A 3rd-year beekeeper I met recently claimed success at knocking down mite counts by fogging with food-grade mineral oil (FGMO).  Beesource has a thread discussing it, with the OP who tried fogging for a while and eventually converting over to oxalic acid vaporization (OAV).  There's also a link to a 2004 USDA study on FGMO that declared it ineffective.

DemandSphere

CEO Ray G. mentions some formative books.

Macross

Since the fam and I watched Macross, now I'm into it again, although the modifications from the Robotech version confuse things for me.  A couple interesting links:

• Episode notes in English for the AnimEigo release of Macross
• Japanese dialogue from the DYRL movie

I was surprised to see that Macross was released with English subtitles some 15 years ago.  It's neat that it's available on Amazon Prime Instant Video, though!

Bitcoin Again

• The Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) process, from the Bitcoin git repository.
• Deconstructing Bitcoin transactions.
• The dark underbelly of SegWit.

Hacking Ya Life

Goofy, but they make one think.

• How to Get Rid of Your Scariest To-Dos: have a "reckoning" day to flush old to-do items
• How to Make Japanese-Style Iced Coffee: not earth-shattering, but the headline is amusing

Milling a TNACo 80% Receiver

Just in case, here are some instructions, along with a 2-part video series on how to do it [1, 2].

Expedient Homemade Firearms

Now that Paladin Press is defunct, I'm finding books they used to publish that are now out of print.  I have to wonder how one gets started in the publishing business...and if one could license some of Paladin Press's old texts.

One of the publications was by Philip Luty, Expedient Homemade Firearms.  It sounds like a practical text to have in addition to the more modern version by Cody Wilson.  Unfortunately, a well-used copy is over $100 on Amazon.  Unfortunately, Mr. Luty passed away in 2011, so unless his estate has someone looking to sell the rights to the book, it will likely remain out of print.

Ethash-Based Alts

I must've posted something like this on Facebook, because I don't see it here.

WhatToMine shows that often Ethash-based altcoins like Expanse (EXP), Ubiq (UBQ), and Musicoin (MUSIC) are at times more profitable than ETH.  Trezor supports EXP and UBQ via MyEtherWallet.  Musicoin apparently can be supported via MEW.  There aren't any such instructions for Metaverse, which for a while last week was the alt on top.  There are a few options, but the lack of easy support makes it a hassle.

The reason I started looking into this is because 1060 cards were still north of $300, but 1050s (non-Ti) were around $150.  The Ethash hashrate of 1050s is shown to be around 13.9 MH/s, whereas 1060s are 22.5 (somewhat optimistically); the power usage is 53W for the former and 70W for the latter.  So the thought was to build a rig of 1050s.  At least before the Antminer E3 came out.

I should've snagged one while it was $800, because I knew I'd be able to use it.  The real problem was that I didn't know where I'd put it...I'm out of space and circuits as it is.  Chance favors the prepared, and I was unprepared when Bitmain opened it up to 5 per person--and of course after Vitalik Buterin's announcement that they weren't going to fight ASICs (until PoS, that is), Bitmain jacked up the price to $1800.

The thing is, a build of 1060s would cost more than an E3 at that price, but the power usage would be 2/3, and it could mine other alts as well.  There's utility in GPUs still, but it's costly and troublesome to maintain.

Bonus: In MEW's FAQs is a link to a place with free SSL certs, which could be useful.  There's gotta be a catch, though.

Children and the State

In my social media travails I've run into the following quote, attributed to Adolf Hitler:

It [the State] must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. . . .  And conversely it must be considered reprehensible: to withhold healthy children from the nation. Here the state must act as the guardian of a millennial future in the face of which the wishes and the selfishness of the individual must appear as nothing and submit.

I was trying to find if this was in fact what was said, since the current progressives in the U.S. seem to be spouting the same line.  It appears to be from Mein Kampf, and Project Gutenberg in Australia has one translation:

It must proclaim the truth that the child is the most valuable possession a people can have. It must see to it that only those who are healthy shall beget children; that there is only one infamy, namely, for parents that are ill or show hereditary defects to bring children into the world and that in such cases it is a high honour to refrain from doing so. But, on the other hand, it must be considered as reprehensible conduct to refrain from giving healthy children to the nation. In this matter the State must assert itself as the trustee of a millennial future, in face of which the egotistic desires of the individual count for nothing and will have to give way before the ruling of the State.

Pretty sick stuff, to lay claim to others' children.

It's odd that the main Project Gutenberg doesn't have the text of Mein Kampf.  Afraid people will read it and be disgusted with the modern-day progs?

What to do if you find a machinegun in the attic

An SOT on Arfcom documented this, and it's informative.

Maybe my second career should be law, specifically firearms law....

Desert Eagle

I've always wanted a Desert Eagle in .50AE.  That Magnum Research is based out of MN is one more reason.  American Rifleman has an interesting FAQ.  A thread on SilencerTalk has a link to a video of a guy shooting a suppressed "Deagle".  Apparently one has to cut down one of the 10" barrels, and even then the gas system spits out much of the pressure.

Estrogen

Ray posted a link to an article on "xenoestrogens," which motivated me to ditch my Soylent subscription.  An article specifically on soy that Jim forwarded wasn't enough, but this did it.

Tears in Heaven

Lately I've been trying to introduce Kid#1 to songs and movies that I think were formative for me.  Today I had her listen to some Prince, the MTV live clip.  She'd mentioned a kid at school named Boston, who had said something goofy; it made me think of "More Than a Feeling", so I played that for her too.

For some reason, Clapton's "Tears in Heaven" popped into my head, and I went to look up the history on Clapton's young son who died.  There in the references was the sordid history of Clapton's relationship with the wife he had that child with.  And I thought my marital relations were screwed up!

Python Scripts

If I don't clean these tabs off my phone, they'll be there forever!  Two more:

1. noethfee.py, a hack to redirect the mining devfee via IP tables, specifically for Claymore
2. watchdog.py, a script to drive the USB hardware watchdog dongle available on Amazon

I had to run with the latter because the one featured in a YT video, the SSR, is out of stock, and I got sick of the crummy system locking up.  The USB dongle is nice because it has power and reset buttons on it: it avoids the need for a separate cable, and it's nicer, too.  The one I got has a heartbeat LED, although Kid#1 commented it'd be more like a heartbeat if it were red instead of blue.

As one might expect, there's a gotcha.  If the GPUs lock up but the script can still run, then the system doesn't reboot, so there's a window between the software watchdog in Claymore and the hardware watchdog where the rig stays in zombie mode.  Perhaps an IoT power outlet is required to address that case, as well as to log power usage.

Maybe I'll have to learn Python after all; these useful scripts are after all in that language.

Nvidia GPUs & Linux

A couple more non-link-dump link dumps:

1. Ubuntu Nvidia binary driver howto, which has some troubleshooting info
2. Using integrated graphics for display, albeit with a laptop; I ran into the login loop, and found elsewhere driver installation via PPA

This is tricky stuff.  Lots of compatibility problems, disinformation, and apathy, and money hangs in the balance.  Mining definitely isn't for everyone.  I'm not sure I'd do it again if I could go back--but I'm kind of committed now, at least until I recoup the hardware costs.

Mining Disinformation

One page on how to build a mining rig claims that WhatToMine shows stock numbers.  No...for GeForce GTX 1060s they list 22.5 MH/s on Ethereum, which is an average overclock.  I have some cards that start out at 15 stock, and only make it to 20 OC'ed.  Some go up to 23.5.  It seems to be the hardware lottery.  I've read that Hynix memory is the stuff that sucks, but I can't run the hardware check because they're all for Windows.

Speaking of, the aforementioned page links to another site that has activation keys for cheap.  I'm thinking it must be pirated somehow, but at $43.49 for Windows 10 Professional and Office 2016, it's tempting....

Mining Rig Power

One amusing thing is that all the GPU risers I see for sale include a SATA-to-6-pin adapter cable.  According to this hugely useful page on "PlayTool", the SATA port can only handle 54W through the 12V pins, whereas the PCIe spec shows the 6-pin connector as required to supply 75W.

In other words, the card could try to draw 75W through a connector only designed for 54W.  Sounds like a fire waiting to happen.  It's unclear how a 120W card would draw power, i.e. if a standard 6-pin is used for the riser and the adapter cable is used for the auxiliary connector, would most of the power come through the riser first?

Well, since I run close to the minimum, 60-75W for 120W cards and 90W for 150W cards, it shouldn't be a problem if 50-50, but if power is pulled through the SATA connector primarily, that wouldn't be good.  I think I'll spend a few extra bucks and get the right kind of cables.