Talker Project

For anyone interested, there will be a how-to with all the fun details, when the talk-box is delivered and works to user satisfaction. Proposed user is suddenly hesitant, understandably, about potential interaction of cables and respirator tubes. (Valuing proposed user, this seems unlikely as all cables within 8' or so of the bed are encased in 1.5" wire loom).

Ah-ha

The pay, at best, is adequate - but why do I like working IT, and particularly tech support roles?

It's the ah-ha moments. Almost as bad as politics, tobacco, whisky, gun shops, and cute guys the the "ah-ha" moment subtly addicts, as the momentary flare of triumph over tech and/or the forces of ignorance (and now and again, fear and stupidity) surges through ones veins and a sense of rightness with the Universe pervades - at much lower cost than most other such vices - hell, I get PAID to have these little triumphs.

Today I got several - I won't turn down a raise, should one come my way, but keep me in "ah-ha" moments and the occasional compliments, and I can stay happy for a fair amount of time before economic reality sets in.

Really must adjust that viewpoint. :)

Friendly geeks chatting...re the talker project.

NWFreethinker says (9:04 PM):

brb...gotta check a backup...and if I'm lucky initiate a RAID 1 conversion

Ditmir says (9:04 PM):
ok
NWFreethinker says (11:52 PM):
bleh
Ditmir says (11:53 PM):
oh?
NWFreethinker says (11:53 PM):
lol
NWFreethinker says (11:53 PM):
I was hoping to bullet proof things a wee bit by mirroring
Ditmir says (11:53 PM):
ah
NWFreethinker says (11:53 PM):
as from dad's point of view this will be a mission critical app
NWFreethinker says (11:54 PM):
and had spent considerable time getting all set up so it'd be possible
NWFreethinker says (11:54 PM):
only to discover after taking the drives dynamic
NWFreethinker says (11:54 PM):
and achieving blue screen of death status
NWFreethinker says (11:54 PM):
requiring FINDING and then using an install disk, the repair console, and a new boot.ini to fix...
Ditmir says (11:55 PM):
ew. fun.
NWFreethinker says (11:55 PM):
that y'all can't get there from here. At least not without a 3rd HDD and a "scream twice and start over with a reformatted Hard Drive adventure."
NWFreethinker says (11:55 PM):
argh.

Of course, 4:30 is going to come awfully early, and due to some truly enthusiastic road work, the entire region is at risk of shutting down tomorrow morning…there is talk of 30 mile backups and other big fun.

Ah well. Did get the “talker system” put together, and the old data backed up onto a USB drive. And tested that a 16’ keyboard and nouse cord set, wire-loomed together to prevent tangling with Dad and/or medical equipement, actually works out pretty well. At the same time, got some waste wood pushed through the table saw to create a tray for the keyboard and mouse to rest on..

I’m having another glass of club soda, then off ta bed. G’night all!

A long day

It's a bit narrative, but...it's my blog, dammit.

Kept busy Saturday, crawling out at 7, and after breakfast, built a linux voice-to-text box utilizing the "Festival" package set. Can't say I'm really happy with it, but since I was making software designed for the KDE desktop to work on a Gnome desktop (quickly, where the various generations of Windows have ONE user interface that is "just Win" for that generation - Linux has DOZENS of possible user interfaces, the way things look/feel/act/interact and KDE and Gnome are the two big kids on the Linux User Interface block), I'm not sure it's a fair comparison to what I've been playing with building a similar Windows box.

Suffice to say it made ME cranky, and I'm not having to tramp through diminished motor skills to try and make it work. If I had diminished strength and skills in my hands, it would make me truly crazy. The fonts were not adjustable, you couldn't change the speed or pitch of the voice engine significantly, and importing additonal voices was...challenging. Most annoying was that you couldn't just type what you were trying to say and hit enter and have a voice erupt. You had to mouse up to the top of the screen and click on a teeny tiny "play" button.

Not good when your hands are shaky to begin with. We're sending the Linux text>voice concept back to the stable until I can dedicate the time to switch a box from Ubuntu to Kubuntu (Gnome vs. KDE) and run the software on the desktop it's intended to run on.

At the same time, I spent a fair portion of the Saturday cleaning up an old Windows 2000 PC and setting it up as Dad's talker box. Since there's software on there I'd like to keep, I can't just nuke the hard drive and start from scratch, and as a result it slows things down.

Amids all this , visited Dad, got the magazines as done as Mom will let me (years of accumulation, to the point of fire hazard and other issues), got a walkway cleared through the basement disaster area, and will start on the RAID box if I get all enthused again. A long day, over all, but productive.

Project #1 (Long, Geekish, Possibly Educational)

Alright, project #1 is multi-tasking.

1) Build & Test RAID 5 Array utilizing MDADM Raid Software under Linux. Take apart, go to #2
2) Build & Test (and perhaps set up for external exposure) RAID 1 under Redhat Antique, upgrading to utilize MADM 2.6.2 requiring GLIBc2.3
3) With spare HDD generated under 1 & 2, build text>voice PC for Dad, first under Linux, then under Windows XP or 2k.

Why, you ask, this rather complex approach? And what is RAID 1 or 5, and why do I care? And what's this about Linux? You're writing this on an XP box after all!

Well, the answer is complex. Suffice to say I need to first learn how to build a software-controlled RAID 5 array (I'll explain what that is in a minute) utilizing whatever flavor of Linux comes to hand (I like Ubuntu, a LOT - at least partly because it's an easy install on even moderately modern hardware), just so I know how and can say I've done it.

RAID translates to "Redundant Array of Inexpensive Drives" and comes in six main flavors with a variety of toppings; the main goal is to increase the speed at which the computer can get at stored data, and at the same time make that data safer (ideally) by hedging ones bets against hard drive crash. It's an approach mainly found on servers, but with HDD prices coming down, a RAID 5 array can give one a warm/fuzzy/safe feeling when it comes to ones data - and while no substitute for regular/religious backups, can get you back up and in business a great deal faster than restoring from tape/cd/dvd.

In other words, if you're a belt'n'suspenders sort who scatters fire extinguishers and firearms in safe and strategic locations throughout your life - RAID may just give you that same warm'n'fuzzy feeling about your data when combined with good backup practices ("I've done MY part, the rest is up to the Fates!")

"So what's this RAID thing you go on and on about?"

RAID Level 0 splits all your data as it is written and puts an equal portion on each disk. This is/was a speed trick, because by sharing out the data being read/written across several hard drives read/write heads, each head does a less work faster. Think of thirty folks writing " I will never use this" a total of a hundred times between them vs. one person writing the same sentence a hundred times - the group finishes the job first. Speeds things up, but if one drive crashes, every shred of data on the group of hard drives is gone forever - even if 9 out of 10 are just fine.

RAID Level 1 makes exact copies of data on several (2+) hard drives - if you have 1 primary disk, you have 1 secondary/mirror. If you have 10 primaries under this scheme, you have 10 secondaries. If a primary drive croaks, the secondary picks up the slack till you throw a replacement for the deader in, and then the "secondary" writes back to the new primary. Not cheap, due to the 1:1 ratio of hard drives.

RAID Level 2 obsolete, seldom if ever used in the real world. Requires 39 drives to pull it off (not 38, not 40). Not especially practical.

RAID Levels 3 and 4 take your data when it's being written and schmear it in equal portions in what are called "stripes" across several hard drives, and keeps a record of what's where (parity) on a special drive set aside from ONLY that kind of thing. Should a non-parity drive melt down (one of the ones with data on it) , the parity drive can rebuild the data. Downside is that this approach slows things down as the parity is figured out and written when the data is written, more steps=more time. Bonus is that if you do have a data drive drop dead, if you've put a spare drive on in advance, the array can pick it up and roll it in as a replacement without your intervention - but don't forget to pull the deader and replace it with a shiny new spare.

RAID Level 5 is for big kids and kids that like really cool toys. It takes your data as it's being written ans splats it AND the parity data across several hard drives (3+, all identical). Since it can read and write at the same time, speed picks up, and again, if one drive drops life is good. Two or more drives dropping at once, and you're in deep kimchee with total data loss (unless you've been backing up regularly). A bonus on this approach is that you use multiple identical drives, and the storage you get boils out to "n-1" where n represents the total number of drives - thus, if I have 3 100gb HDD in a RAID 5, I effectively have 200gb of HDD storage available to me; conversely, if I'm flying at RAID 1, if i have two 100gb HDD, I've 100gb of effective HDD space. Ick.

The reason that RAID is cool at home or in other environments is that it's dependable (like all things, if done right) and in 1/3/4/5 (additional levels exist, I've just burbled enough), and if you've ever restored the hard way (from CD/DVD/Tape/Etc)...it's a whole bunch faster. And for the bad children among us who don't back up, RAID can save your bacon (not "will", but "can") if all goes well after a hard drive crash.

For just a nasty moment or two, think of what's on your PC - and how much fun it would be to lose it all. Now, think back-up and RAID and see how warm'n'fuzzy it leaves ya feeling.

Now as a less-evil techie guy, I *like* to test out stuff on my own gear before trying it on other folks. I tend to think this approach adds a certain...stability and peace of mind to my little world. Cuts down on the number of embarrassing surprises.

That brings us to building that Redhat Antique box. A buddy has an Antique box that he uses in his business - someone back in the late '90's built it for him and hung, what for the time, was a cool new thing called RAID 1 on it. It's getting old'n'sick, but he's asked me to limp it along for him and keep an eye on it for him. So...before setting my alleged evil genius loose, I've kidnapped an old PC of mine and am using it as a disposable box that if I succeed I'll turn into a back-up file server here at the house - but if I fail, I've only trashed my own equipment.

We'll see how it goes. G'nite all.

Catching Up...

Things have gotten a tad busy and/or I've been known to decline into "me go home now, fall down, go boom" level of directness when sufficiently tired - with necessary levels of crankiness employed to remove obstructions between myself and the corner I've chosen to fall down in. By mid-week, I was fairly direct and have largely remained thus.

Just about Tuesday, as I mentioned before, Dad made what we all hope will be his long term escape from ICU to his first therapeutic stop over at the Breathing and Extra Complicated Care Facility. Between one thing and another, he qualifies.

Thursday I got over to see Dad after work, and he was quite tired but was watching television. He is still getting accustomed to his tracheotomy tube, and in attempting to adjust it Thursday morning started some bleeding which took a bit to resolve, but finally cleared up.

I'm told that last night he made the trip to London on Hallucinatory Airlines and didn't get a wink of sleep, but apparently enjoyed himself. As I recall all too well, departing tedious reality when cooped up in a hospital can be a morale boost as well as offering recuperative benefits - given the choice between being miserable and mentally present, and miserable and off in happy-land, I'm pretty ok with folks visiting happy-land so long as it's not overdone and the return trip is properly scheduled.

However, after such an exhausting trip, Dad was quite tired today, and slept a good deal - however, the folks at the facility have had him sitting up for a couple of hours a day now, and taking a few walker assisted steps. Small, but significant progress.

This weekend is likely to be another busy one...I'm going to try and start a load of laundry before I hit the sack, but in addition to visiting Dad, there are a couple of ceilings calling out to me as needing painted, and with a couple of exceptions (mainly the keyboard and a trackball) I've got the pieces I need for a build of the machine itself, and the software has been ready for sometime.

Mom is tired, but mostly well. She is, of course, quite concerned about Dad - but the upshot is that she can now drive herself over to visit him without serious drive-related stress, and that's (I think) good for her, allowing a previously difficult level of independence for her, and more ability to set her own schedule without worrying about rides or cabs. We all have our good days and our bad days, but are bearing up.

A good friend sent me this....

Back in December, Seattle had a bit of weird weather. In fact, it had a whole winter full of weird weather, even for Seattle, which while it doesn't have the worlds weirdest climates, certainly has one of the damper, soggier, and moldier ones - combined with very steep hills, lots of trees (many of them rather....shallow-rooted) and about once every four or five years, serious snow.

Last winter was kind of a jackpot. Wind, rain, snow, and a fatality by drowning. Kate Fleming, the narrator of some 250 audio books, and mourned by family, friends, and her partner, Charlene Strong.

Charlene's account was published in the Seattle Times the other day, and a friend forwarded this to me. There's a reason folks think marriage is a good idea....for everyone that can find someone mutually tolerable.

Dang it...

I'm falling behind (again), dang it. I'm trying to keep up and for once make 31 *quality* posts in 31 days, and I'm already two days behind. Drat.

But before I get going I need to steal a phrase and ask "What in gay hell is THIS?" GayPatriot gets the credit for bringing this to my attention, but I can't say I favor this any more than a fire or police chief forbidding his/her/etc sundry troopies from marching in uniform on their own time, perhaps even w/ departmental eqp't that's not immediately mission-critical (I'm a little more conflicted about tax payer dollars being spent to have ANY governmental employee paid to march in ANY parade - call me an equal opportunity cheapskate, if you must!).

But moving along, after noting that I hope the firefighters involved can retire to a comfortable life of ease on their winnings and wishing a year of daily wedgies on the dingbat who would give such an order...as GayPatriot notes, a gay firefighter ordered to attend the Rev. Phelps B'day Party, Revival, and Cross-burning Parade would certainly be entitled to a big ol' hissy fit with judges and juries and chocolate icing...certainly turnabout seems only fair.

Dad has made the great escape (hopefully for the duration) from the ICU at the local version of the GFB Hospital on Pill Hill to a place specializing in resipiratory and complex cases, and noises are finally being made about a diagnosis of TIA rather'n stroke, which suggests a more positive prognosis.

Pace picked up today a bit at the office, with some linux and software RAID issues, testing a database script, and sundry other adventures. Of course, with the phone system melting down, the first half of the day was kind of slow.

And, speaking of melting down, it's that hour of the night when I'm starting to wrinkle around the edges, so a good evening to all, and to all a good night.

Updates and things

Well, Dad is perkier and much more alert, but conversely, since he's more alert, he's much more desirous of his usual chatty ways and much more easily frustrated when communications via letterboard fail. Overall, he's better.

A social worker spoke to Mom on Friday about moving Dad from ICU to an acute care facility now that he has his tracheotomy in place and stomach wall feeding tube. A family friend with a history in nursing brought some salient questions to the table about the importance of continuity in care and questioning why a transfer direct from ICU to an off-campus acute care facility was advisable when non-ICU beds were available on-site and much closer to more intense services should it all go pear-shaped...

On another front, I learned to turn a WinXP box into an assistive text>speech device (next: migrating application from test-bed to production environment). A free program called DSpeech translates typed text to spoken word rather nicely, and I know where I can get a large key keyboard.

My biggest problem is that ideally, I need someone clueful that can weld or do amazing woodwork (welding is better, I suspect, from an infectious disease standpoint - easier to wipe down metal and keep it sterile). What I am imagining is a mutant hospital bed table wherein as Dad lays in bed, the top of the stand holding the keyboard at an adjustable height and a flatscreen LCD monitor and a pointing device (I'm thinking a large trackball with low sensitivity/click rate).

Ideally the CPU box would be a tower, slung low on the support base of this mutant wheeled table.

So, am beginning the quest in search of someone that knows how to weld (I don't) and contemplating which PC gear to pirate for my cause out of the house here, or alternatively, picking up a new dedicated box (appealing on a number of fronts) that Dad can wheel around - essentially a disposable PC that's designed around the notion it's going to take a beating, fail, and then be replaced.

Mom is running low on steam as we approach 2 months in, and I grow concerned. Understandably, she wants to be at the hospital every day, but at when approaching the eighth decade that is not an entirely supportable pace - particularly when to/fro involves cab rides or, alternatively, attempting the drive herself or doing the bus thing.

This is not made any better by the impending 11 day traffic adventure in the area, with the major north/south freeway closing to one lane in each direction - traffic is predicted to back up to 33 miles (or more) by the State DOT unless at least half of commuters abandon their cars in favor of buses or other forms of transportation.

Finally, on a more upbeat note, Mom and I picked up some lights for the kitchen today on the way back from the hospital. Working on getting the house sufficiently beaten into shape that Mom feels confident she can make the whole thing work on her own, if she needs to (the new job requires me to travel, if naught else).

Being able to see to cook, run the furnace controls, and generally keep the place in working order has its' little advantages. Dad's not got a lot of strength in his hands so I'm struggling to install some faucets that turn easily I bought a few years ago, before he gets back so he can at least wash his hands w/o asking for help...a ramp in front of the house is also on the "to-do" list.

Another day, another adventure.

Simpsonized...where's me glasses?

Prejudices

Now and again, it can be nice (in a warped kind of way) to get the kind of sharp poke in the slats that while it doesn't do any actual harm, does provide an inspirational stimuli and a bit of food for thought.

Perhaps I'm just odd, but I don't insist that I agree with everything I read or everyone who writes it - not merely at the detail level, but at the macro level as well. Everyone sitting around in a circle nodding their head while uttering "uh-huh, uh-huh, Kumbayah" in self-congratulatory agreement doesn't strike me as terribly stimulating, or likely to produce a great deal of original thought (or even thought that while previously expressed by others, is bright/shiny/new unto the thinker).

I read folks and material I disagree with, sometimes regularly, to the extent my digestion will tolerate such adventures - because I disagree with them, because they are thinking differently than I am, and in some cases because I want to keep a weather eye on them.

For instance, I'll read an anti-gun blogger, just to see what happy fun the lovely souls of that inclination dream of ram-rodding through the next meeting of the Legislature. On the same note, I keep a weather eye out for the Rev. Fred Phelps and his vile ilk out of a similar sense of wanting to know where the hostiles are - but those are extremes, and much more commonly, I'll enjoy reading a pro-life piece or a pro-abortion piece (I actually disagree with both schools of thought in that arena) because, who knows? Some writer in either camp may come up with a take on things I hadn't considered, and re-order my thoughts for the better.

We all come to the table with prejudices, some more socially acceptable in a given era than others, just as we all come to that same table with preferences - two sides of the same coin, really. To me, intellectual honesty demands I admit it when, based on whimsy/prior experience/rampant emotionalism/etc (take a choice on a given day) that to the best of my ability I fess up to these shortcomings (I.e., "I rarely agree or rarely agree on a 1:1 basis with thus and so, but consider them a good person/writer/carpenter/etc) and having admitted the intellectual flaw, man up and try and wade through the prose with what passes for an open mind - i.e., being conscious of my preferences/prejudices, and trying to keep them somewhat restrained as I scroll through.

Other folks do it differently.

Blog Tag....

The Queen of Dysfunction has tagged me, and it seems only reasonable that if I expect HER to respond to the meme tag I sent her several days ago, the least I can do is respond to her tag.

1. Copy and link to this post (meaning these rules and the Award icon).
2. Reflect on five bloggers who cause you to gnash your teeth when reading their posts, but who you nevertheless feel compelled to return to and read time and again. Write a short sincere (or not) paragraph about each one
3. Make sure you link this post so others can read it and the rules.
4. Go leave your chosen bloggers a comment and let them know they,ve been given the award.
5. Put the award icon on your site.
6. Did I mention you should link this post?

This award should make you reflect on five bloggers who have motivated you to unleash fire breathing partisan posts of your own. Carefully crafted logical arguments and good writing are a bonus but don't overlook particularly sharp satire, biting snark, or a high octane flamer. Try to keep the quality high, but in a pinch, feel free to substitute your basic journeyman partisan hack.

Well. Such an assignment. I'm honored, really. I think I've managed the first bit.

Now on to the second, honoring bloggers that on occasion launch me off onto tangents either by request or because they simply provide enough of a bump in the road to jar loose original thought.

1) Lawdog. Lawdog's was the first blog I could be troubled to read after running across his fine writing on TFL (I believe) and coming to the conclusion that I wanted more of those stories -and the conclusion to the Pink Gorilla Suit Story. However, once in a while he (I am certain with no particular intention) will wind my crank and off I'll go....

2) DiamondMair. Back in December, she was the first one to stumble and comment on my blog, and has once or twice suggested topics for me to play with - and the posts I wrote even turned out half-way decent. She's also a pretty good writer.

3) Babs. A fount of kindness and common sense, as well as good writing - and no small beauty in the bargain. I enjoy the incisive way she cuts through the silliness to the core of matters, and the occasional goring of sacred cattle is a pleasure to behold. If only she were a guy .

4) Marko. I *know* I have a soft heart, and one that will likely always keep me a (l)ibertarian rather'n a (L)ibertarian. He makes logical points, is a talented writer, and believes in his principles. I just can't always bring myself to agree with him, even when intellectual honesty coerces me to admit that he's right on the facts and the logic. A good read, and a good inspiration for the allegorical pen to emerge on occasion.

5) Riverdog. Well, what can I say? I rarely agree with him, but he certainly can inspire the occasional responsive rant....

Now that we've got that out of our system, what say we have a lovely Friday night doing laundry and chores? :)

Disaster & Imperial Visits

Alright, I've had it. Been good and held my tongue, but just can't anymore.

The last thing in the whole wide world that a medium to major disaster/crisis area needs is a visit from the President or First Lady and their security/support entourage to soak up resources that could be better devoted to rescue and damage control - and a pox with purple pustulent boils upon the genitalia of those who would suggest that not rushing to inflict Presidential Presence on a disaster area is an indication of a lack of caring, support, or interest by said President.

A Presidential visit, or even a recently past President/First Lady visiting, is a huge pain for local emergency services ranging from amp'd up emergency medical response lest the Great One inhale a stogie, stroke out, pass out in a compromising position, or whatever - and limited law enforcement resources are drained away from actually helping to protect the Great One from said Great One's "un-friends".

Our President and sundry lesser Great Ones (at least in their own mind) need to have the balls and the self-respect to stand in front of a television camera and say "No, I'm not going to disaster du jour - my presence would inflict unnecessary suffering on those already hurting, divert needed resources from assistance and recovery, and just generally screw things up beyond current levels of chaos. I care, I wish I could responsibly go, but where my presence will only make a bad situation worse I know it's my responsibility to stay away."

George, Laura - stay home or stay in the air. Unless you can run a crane or hold a degree in forensic mechanical engineering, y'all are a burden, not a help.

Feh & Other notions

Well, Dad had his tracheotomy today, and I'm told he came out of it reasonably well. Still a bit logey when Mom left for the day, but well.

I won't be seeing him for a couple of days...I've been staying away because I thought I *might* be coming down with something, but I'm increasingly certain that as my chest and sinuses intermittently turn to slime that staying away from the ICU is a favor to everyone on the floor.

Hopefully things will continue to improve for Dad, and I'm exploring the nature of some assistive technology. The way it works is that someone with vocal difficulties types a word or phrase into a computer, and the computer then blats forth in a depressingly artificial (yet understandable) voice the typed phrase. Mom tells me Dad is excited by this notion, but I am still exploring the tech - given that he's in isolation (due to the MRSA issues) I *really* want to know if:

a) A computer I place in that environment should be *disposable* (i.e., once it goes in, it can never come out). This will affect my choice of hardware, at the very least.

b) The EMI issue - will a *normal* PC tossed into a medical environment interfere with monitoring equipment? Granted, the in-room PC that the staff use for medical record-keeping appears a fairly standard beast...but for all I know, once you pop the top it could have all sorts of funky shielded cabling and boards and oddness. Experimentation does not seem an appropriate practice in this environment.

I suspect I'll need, given that Mom is distinctly non-tech, to have a little chat with the Rehab folk and the hospital folk - I'm also told that many hospitals maintain an "assistive technology library" under one organizational title or another....something to look into, though remotely for the moment...