Braced against impact

Not much, just a broken fork. The wheel was also damaged (to lesser extent).






The steering tube is so thin, pretty much designed to break upon front impact to absorb the force.

PS: Always ride carefully (or at least responsibly), especially in the night.

USB Killer, wut?

Long story short, some Russian guy made USB-pluggable device to burn your computer; exhibiting high current on your USB port. Here's the story from Ars: http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/10/usb-killer-flash-drive-can-fry-your-computers-innards-in-seconds/

His personal statement are http://kukuruku.co/hub/diy/usb-killer (English) and http://habrahabr.ru/post/251451/ (Russian).

Most USB ports already have positive current limiter (simple diode to your GND, which serves as the current sink); this guy got around by using negative voltage on VCC or data pins (any pin will do given the high current); also supported by the fact that N-channel transistors allow higher current compared to P-channel counterpart on the same physical dimension.

Manufacturers better start equipping our USB ports with transistor-based current limiter making it dual-bias if necessary (adding another pair with reverse bias), or putting in some (small) user-replaceable fuses.

All in all, those small caps aren't that small!

Spring Air Japan

I just bought plane ticket for my mom and her friend from Hiroshima to Tokyo: Narita. Then I realized my google-translate-fu wasn't good enough (or literally my Japanese simply sucks).

I purchased extra checked-in baggage for two they won't probably need (3000 JPY each). When I tried to revise the order (somehow I managed to put my credit card credentials without a hitch in the first place for the order; my Japanese is pretty good for shopping in general :D ), I stumbled upon: * 支払済みの製品はキャンセルできません Good grief!

6000 JPY wasn't that much (that's pretty much more that one month of food for me though); one that hurts more is my own stupidity and carelessness. Though I suppose this was intended (the only confusing part to me on the site is only the baggage allowance): the UI design of the web, non-refundable additional feature (I ordered 2 weeks in advance if that matters, you can add features but not remove them from your order).

All in all I was just stupid (and I still really am).

Leatherman Skeletool

I had Leatherman Sketelool from March this year. I remember clearly when I used it to reshape the heel part of my friend's shoes which he said was hurting him quite so much in its first actual use.

And today I lost it.

I managed to smuggle it last week from Hiroshima Airport (Mihara, Japan) to Hazrat Shahjalal Airport (ZIA, Dhaka, Bangladesh) with no hitch as I put it on checked-in luggage. I've did this in several occasions with my more trusty Surge,

Last night, I tried something different from Dhaka to Bangkok (transit before coming back to Japan). Rather than stashing it on my checked-in luggage, I kept it on my carry-on baggage as my baggage doesn't even exceed 5 kg.

Things happened.

In Hazrat Shahjalal Airport, you will need a specific sticker for your checked-in luggage; as I already checked through the ticket counter by the time I knew this; I was too lazy to get it and just proceeded to take it as carry-on baggage.

Still I managed to get it through in Hazrat Shahjalal Airport and board Bangkok Airways.

I landed on Suvarnabhumi (BKK, Bangkok, Thailand) and they did extensive check on my baggage looking form something knife-like. I tried to buy some time but they eventually found the tool (I was claiming it as pliers though) and confiscated it. They must have had some feeling of achievement to be able to fish a solid metal :D

I (more likely) wouldn't lose the tool if I just put it on checked-in baggage. But from this I learned several things:
  • some airport care less, some care more: Suvarnabhumi require you to strip even your belt, shoes, and watch, that is not the case with Hazrat Shahjalal,
  • those guards are dedicated to their job even at 1 AM; they are willing to fish through your smelly and dirty clothes,
  • they were looking for solid metal thing, by solid I meant SOLID; it will appear as dark blue or black in the scanner,
  • they used divide-and-conquer approach to find specific item from a suspicious baggage,
  • they know how things look like--they weren't not really interested in my multimeter and umbrella and kept focusing in finding the tool.
I could go to arrival lobby rather than transit lobby to complicate things a bit, but they can always check even if I put the tool in my checked-in luggage if they have enough spare time, dedication, curiosity, and motivation.

Kudos to airport safety crews who worked hard to make every flight safe.


you've served me faithfully smally. but another skeletool is no-no for me atm.

Also, I never really love you anyway, Skeletool (the pliers suck and multitools are overpriced in Japan). But anyway, quite a (an expensive) lesson I've learned today.

I was clearly disappointed

Recently I was staying in a hotel in Dhaka, Bangladesh on a study trip, and by second night there I had the chance to eat in its restaurant (allegedly serving Thai and Chinese menu),.

First I've browsed around and asked my trip advisor, finding out that tipping isn't really necessary in Bangladeshi restaurants.

By the time I got to the place (I was also staying in the hotel it's attached to), I ordered simple fried rice and coffee. The waiter asked me about my nationality, purpose of visit, occupation, college (probably because  I definitely look like a student) in interrogative and rather offensive tone. This is already very unpleasant to me.

After I finished my meal; I simply paid the bill (the waiter--he--didn't hand me the bill before taking my money; I had to do as he ordered me to).

After that he was nagging, required me to give him tip (which I think wasn't really necessary). I had to settle on 40 BHT (after first refusing then bargaining for 10 BHT which he refused), after that I talked to him that he needs to brush up his English not to sound offensive to customers. He actually mistook "offensive" with "friendship" (how?!) then proceed with saying that he wasn't being friendly with anyone from my nationality. What?!

I badly wanted to express my frustration right in the place, but that's definitely uncalled for; instead I just walked out.

He should definitely learn to show actual Bengali hospitality (which people in village I visited showed us how beautiful it is).

IEEE: Notice of Retraction

I was browsing through IEEE Xplore for papers on wireless sensor network; for term report due this Friday.

Then I stumbled upon a paper containing unusual first page, it says:

Notice of Retraction 
 After careful and considered review of the content of this paper by a duly constituted expert committee, this paper has been found to be in violation of IEEE's Publication Principles. We hereby retract the content of this paper. Reasonable effort should be made to remove all past references to this paper. The presenting author of this paper has the option to appeal this decision by contacting TPII@ieee.org.

Scary, definitely.

But still, the content looks normal: it shows model on residual energy consumption on circular direction propagation from actually-used and wasted energy to propagate the waves. It then compares total energy consumption on grid and non-grid cluster of wireless-networked sensors.

It was pretty interesting read.
O, poor folks.

FYI, it's DOI 10.1109/ETCS.2010.342.

Phone on Bike (2015 Letour Grand Depart)



From Letour Grand Departure this year. Several professional riders brought out the camera cellphone while riding to stage. They did this purposely more likely to cherish this special moment with fans and everyone--which is a good thing. But something is missing.

The act isn't really educational. You shouldn't use cellphone while your bike is moving, despite one-hand bike handling on low speed isn't that difficult (they are pros anyway); but it's just distracting--and disregard to such kind of problem may further precede ugly accidents (hope not).

Jeremy Roy is a nice guy, he had bike cam instead of cellphone.

Lastly, it'd be great if helm maker could make small camera mounted on helmet, which just fit in the the helmet rather than making obstructive appearance and giving wrong impression on speed and distance.

lseek()

If you ever wonder how to use basic open, seek, read/write operations on native file descriptor (in Linux), here's a brief example. It should give general overview on how it's done.
I was actually not quite sure how to lseek() before writing this post myself.

#include <unistd.h>
#include <fcntl.h>


int fd;
int main(){
    fd = open("foo",O_WRONLY | O_CREAT, S_IRWXU);
    lseek(fd, 0, SEEK_END);
    write(fd,"abc\n",4);
    }


See, the offset and whence value can be played around. I can do {SEEK_SET, SEEK_END} to get exactly the same result. :D

Anyway, it's nice to see OR operation on enum values.

IBM 7094 Daisy Bell

It was dubbed "first computer to sing"; a bunch of guys hacked into IBM 7094 to make it sing (or make some mass-understandable beeps in this regards). It probably involved some degree of speech and music synth. The song was Daisy Bell (A Bicycle Built for Two) written in 1892 by Harry Dacre.



Daisy, Daisy,
Give me your answer do!
I'm half crazy,
All for the love of you!
It won't be a stylish marriage,
I can't afford a carriage
But you'll look sweet upon the seat
Of a bicycle made for two.
...
  Harry, Harry, here is my answer true
  You're half crazy if you think that that will do
  If you can't afford a carriage
  There won't be any marriage
  Cause I'll be switched if I'll get hitched
  On a bicycle built for two


I wish she's willing to be my stoker.

Hamradio HT

One of my dream was having all-you-can-have-it portable transciever device. So these good guys made it. 50-1000 MHz sounds like a broad choice of bands you can play with.
https://github.com/testaco/whitebox

You can download the presentation to Algoram: Hamcation here
http://algoram.com/presentations/Hamcation2015.pdf



_____
I like the way they refer to Handy-talky; I've always been a Motorola fans.

Zenwalk 7.9.3; memoirs of a slacker

I've been on Slackware and many of its derivatives for quite some time already. I just take them for granted and use those distros with it-just-works approach with Salix (64-bit) these days.

Until an email came several days ago:
Hi,
An improved and up to date version of Zenwalk 64 : Zenwalk 7.9.3 is ready. http://download.zenwalk.org/x86_64/7.9.3/
This unofficial release is stable (at least as stable as any official release, and it is maintained via the current repository).
It could be released as a beta or even "RC 8.0", but I prefer to wait for Slackware 14.2.


I cried like a little girl.

I've used Zenwalk when it was still exclusively build for 32-bit boxes (4.8 to 7.2, if I recall it right). Then I moved to Salix because I'd like to run 64-bit operating system on my old Aspire 4720z laptop, at that time Zenwalk didn't support 64-bit CPU; it was the time of Slackware 13.0 or 13.1. I experienced tgz -> tlz -> txz transition and ext4 failing.

I'd liked Zenwalk better than Salix. This is just too much for me at the moment.

I downloaded Zenwalk-current ISO already, yet I am not sure if I'll use it in any of my recent box.
______
PS: I think I am in love

Soundcloud: ze-consciencia

This guy is just great: https://soundcloud.com/ze-consciencia

Significant Other

I'd been arguing with my sister about what love is. I won pretty much by saying that love is "giving other people enough power to destroy you; and hoping them not to do so". I made an example how a mother taught her daughter how to cook--how to handle knife; trusting the little kid not to stab her someday in the future.

This is pretty much how people with huge chunk of responsibilities do this, or at least, that's how two of distinguished professors in my university have it. Although both of them belong to the same faculty, the two didn't take exactly the same approach to the technology they're developing. They didn't rather different focus in researches though they work together in (fewer) other projects.

And here's the good part:
0. they love each other,
1. they get credit for the work they'd done personally (or with their respective research group),
2. they get credit for their spouse's work--for being a supportive figure (while not being directly related to the work),
3. they are referred on citation references in entries that are similar (that they share family name); more citations!
4. they have enough power to outwit their spouse's work--yet at this point it refers back to point (2).

Damn, that's just uber!

____
My significant other will surely have more than enough power to end my life, anytime she desires so.