mybrainhurts war is over...apparently

published on 2007-05-03 in uncategorized

Apparently the mybrainhurts.net guy that e-mailed me a few years ago to tell me how bad ass his site was going to be and how he was going to somehow kick my ass on the internet has turned into this:

Other than the girl being pretty cute, I am very certain that he has lost whatever war he was trying to wage.

Meat slicer? Get serious.

Victory 1 for .com. Yea, um, take that.

Ham Radio

published on 2007-03-21

Multi conversation PSK31

Check out what I've been up to lately. After 10 years, I finally upgraded my FCC Amateur Radio license to the next class, from Technician to General. I passed the exam 9 hours after the morse code requirement dropped. It was decently hard, but worth the studying. And I didn't have to learn morse code! Now I have HF abilities! The picture to the right is a shot of me running fldigi on my Linux box, decoding PSK31. It's a new digital mode that has the same properties as CW (morse code) in terms of penetrating thru the noise and bandwidth usage. A normal FM conversation would fill that waterfall but you can see 4 PSK conversations going with plenty of room. The 2 people talking are HAM's, one from Kansas, the other from Washington. Pretty neato to pick that conversation out of the air with just a wire antenna (dipole).

My Antenna has some SWR problems...that is the ratio of radiated vs reflected power is too high. I have done something wrong, not sure what yet. I will get it worked out and post more about it later. I can't wait to get on the air with PSK myself. I bet I can hit up my friends back east easily, especially if i bump the power up a bit.

Update: I figured out the SWR problems just now. While my dinner was rotating in the microwave, I went up on the roof, in the dark, untied and moved the antenna to another part of the roof. Apparently my proximity to some rooftop spinner vents let the RF take a spin too. I just made my first QSO on HF in PSK! 1500 miles!

my morse key pic

published on 2007-02-27 in photography

...I got a letter from Dave, who asked if he could put up one of my Flickr pics on his blog. Pretty cool article too!

http://blog.flashicon.com/?p=83

FM 94.9 on Linux

published on 2007-02-19 in computing

Don't have a windows PC? Prefer Linux CLI? Easy solution! Add this to your .bashrc:

alias 94.9="mplayer http://wmc1.liquidcompass.cc/KBZT"

Now you can type '94.9' at the command prompt and the best radio station in San Diego will play.

KPBS on Linux

published on 2007-02-19 in computing

I started wondering if I could do the same thing I set up for 94.9 with SD's local PBS station, KPBS. Unbelievably, they also use Windows Media. WTF is wrong with the world? You'd think that PBS would give them MP3 streaming ability, not like they care about DRM (Public Broadcasting?) Anyway, here is the same command for KPBS:

alias kpbs="mplayer http://media01.kpbs.org/kpbs-fm"

Enjoy!

Bruce is back

published on 2007-02-06 in uncategorized

And he even has is own website - http://www.bruce-campbell.com. Check out his new ad: "Experience is Everything" I also read on the website that he is working on a new tv-series and a remake of Evil Dead. w00t!

Gift Cars

published on 2007-01-30 in motorcycles

I have provided below, for courtesy, a list of cars that I would like to own, should someone ever want to buy me one:

New

Used

  • 98 Toyota Supra Turbo Targa
  • 95 Mazda RX-7 R2 (red)
  • 92 Mazda RX-7
  • 84 Delorian DMC-12
  • Toyota MR-2 Spyder
  • 1996 Nissan 300ZX

Classic

  • 64 Lamborghini Miura
  • 66 Lincoln Continental Convertible with Suicide Doors
  • 57-66 Lotus Elise
  • 79 Mazda RX-7
  • Perfectly running 1972 Fiat Spider Sport with 1608cc motor
  • 72 Datsun 240Z
  • 70 Porsche 911 E
  • 66-84 Toyota FJ40
  • 72 BMW 2002
  • 72 Chevy Nova SS
  • 66 Ford Mustang Fastback

I'm sure I'll think of 20 more as soon as I click publish, so I'll be updating this page often. ;)

Google Calculator Broken today?

published on 2007-01-01 in uncategorized

I use this daily as my calculator so I was perplexed when I couldn't seem to create the right syntax this morning. Turns out it's just broken.

Here is the example from Google's own help page:

And here it is not working:

What gives?

Klaatu Barada Nuhnuhnuh.....necktie?

published on 2006-12-14 in uncategorized

SpamAssassin on CentOS 4 Quickly

published on 2006-12-14 in computing

Here's how I did it company wide:

  1. install spamassassin. I used an RPM for ease, and went with 3.1.x for it's sophisticated new filters and sa-update ability.

  2. install perl module dependancy for sa-update:

      # perl -MCPAN -e "install Archive::Tar;"

  3. install procmail

  4. run sa-update:

    # sa-update

  5. start up spamassassin:

    # /etc/init.d/spamd start

  6. create global procmail rule like this:

    LOGFILE=/var/log/procmail.log

# send mail thru spamassassin
:0 fw
* < 256000
| /usr/bin/spamc -f -u $LOGNAME

DROPPRIVS=YES

# All mail tagged as spam (eg. with a score higher than the set threshold)
# is moved to "spam".
:0:
* ^X-Spam-Status: Yes
$HOME/mail/spam

  7. Don't forget to bootstrap SpamAssassin:

    # chkconfig --add spamassassin
# chkconfig spamassassin on

Now all your users' mail that scores a 5.0 or greater (default settings) will go into a folder named 'spam'. Now isn't that nice.