Moral Dilemma

Dave Farquhar net.culture ,

I saw the following in one of my Backup Exec failure logs (directory names changed slightly to protect the client’s name, and me):

Directory F:\ITWEB\Flash Stuff\Welcome Page Animations was not found, or could not be accessed.
None of the files or subdirectories contained within will be backed up.

Hmm. Flash animations.I’m torn. My duty to the client who is paying me, of course, is to fix the problem so the file is backed up.

But they’re blinky, annoying Flash animations. Flash, of course, is the third worst thing to ever happen to the Internet, behind popups and spam. OK, it’s the fourth worst thing. I’ll put it behind spam. But I’ll even put it ahead of Microsoft Internet Exploiter.

So an opportunity to snuff out some blinky Flash animations that have been foisted on the world is a great temptation.

Or am I the only one who feels this way about Flash?

Incidentally, I turn off animated GIFs too–I find a Web without animated GIFs and Flash is a much more pleasant place. I don’t know if that makes me boring and extremist or what.

Wikipedia hits half a million entries

Dave Farquhar Copyright

Wikipedia made it. Half a million articles. 1.25 gigabytes of raw text.

That’s a lot. I remember when I first read about CD-ROMs, one of the best examples they included to talk about its 600-megabyte capacity–which was unthinkable in the days when 40-gig hard drives were mainstream–was that it was enough to hold a whole encyclopedia with room to spare.

Not this encyclopedia, I guess.It used to bother me that sports figures and entertainers were more likely to have entries than important historical figures. Seeing as my last few entries have been about baseball players–and bench players at that–I guess I’ve mellowed. Academic-style articles will happen eventually. I think Wikipedia’s value is as the people’s encyclopedia, rather than academia’s encyclopedia.

The history that almost nobody will care about in 20 years is being recorded, and I think that’s cool. What bothers me more today is that the history is much richer from 2001 on than pre-2001 will be.

But it’s reached a point where it’s not bad on academic matters either. I remember my first research paper well. It was a horrid assignment. I, along with each of my 8th grade classmates, was given the name of an obscure third-world country. We had to write a minimum 10-page report on the history and politics of the country.

My assigned country was the Central African Republic. I struggled to find any sources that were five pages long. The school library had absolutely nothing. The State Department had some free information. The public library scored me some information too, including what became the backbone of the report–the exploits of dictator and self-styled Napoleon wannabe Jean-Bedel Bokassa.

I note that Wikipedia’s entries on the Central African Republic’s history, politics, and Bokassa are all reasonably long and detailed and very good.

No resource like Wikipedia existed in 1989. I still maintain that assignment was totally inappropriate for an 8th grader–I never had to do anything like it in high school, and while I did some papers that were comparable in length and difficulty when I was in college, I also had twice as long to complete them.

But if any of those teachers are still around and torturing 8th graders today, Wikipedia will make those poor students’ lives much easier.

And did I mention that anyone can freely copy it for their own use, whether personal or commercial? Yeah, that’s pretty cool too.

A compelling toy train layout with animations done on the cheap

Dave Farquhar Toy trains , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Layouts featuring Lionel, American Flyer, and other O or S gauge trains don’t have to be expensive. Joe Rampola has lots of ideas for creating a good-looking layout with lots of animation (aside from the trains) using mostly inexpensive items. His site has lots of pictures and video clips.

His work has been featured in both Classic Toy Trains and O Gauge Railroading magazines.Among his better ideas: Lay a loop of HO gauge track, then put 0-4-0 mechanisms from cheap HO scale locomotives in the frames of 1:43 scale die-cast cars and make streets for the layout. This is a similar approach to K-Line’s new Superstreets, but Rampola did it years earlier, and his approach is a lot less expensive for those who can live without instant gratification. His approach also allows you to use any vehicle you want, so long as you’re willing to modify it.

He also has plans and instructions posted for lots of inexpensive animations he did using the cheap unpainted (and unfortunately, discontinued) K-Line figures from the classic Marx molds of the 1950s. Sometimes you can still get lucky and find a box of unpainted K-Line figures hiding on hobby shop shelves.

He even has his animations controlled by an old Timex Sinclair 1000 computer. He gives enough detail that I suspect someone good with homebrew circuits could adapt his circuit and his program to another computer, such as an Apple or Commodore. Even a 3.5K unexpanded VIC-20 ought to be up to the task, let alone a behemoth Commodore 64.

I’ve always bristled at the thought of adding electronics to my traditional layout, because my trains are my escape from computers. But using a real computer–real men only need 8 bits–to control parts of a layout does have some appeal to me.

Cheap ground foam for trains

Dave Farquhar Toy trains

Ground foam is a commonly used scenery material. You can use it to simulate grass and other ground foliage, and people often use it to make trees as well.

But there are two problems with it. What are the odds of you running out when working late at night when all of the hobby shops are closed? Too high. And it’s expensive. But I found two explanations how to make your own.You can see them here and here.

I’ve seen a similar method used where someone used cheap kitchen sponges from dollar stores. The source of foam doesn’t seem to matter. The materials you need are pretty much all the same: an old blender from a yard sale or thrift store, about a quarter cup of water, a bottle or two of cheap green acrylic craft paint and another bottle of a darker color to tint it, and some foam to grind up.

Cheap model railroading supplies can be hard to find sometimes. It’s nice to see one.

Super glue tips and tricks

Dave Farquhar DIY , ,
Super glue tips and tricks

If you want some secret super glue tips and tricks, I have you covered.

I just read a great tip about how to store Cyanoacrylate for long periods of time without it drying out on you. Cyanoacrylate (often abbreviated CA or CyA), sold under the Krazy Glue, Super Glue, Superglue, and a number of other brand names, is cured by the moisture in the air. Moisture in the air also causes a tube or bottle to dry out quickly after you open it.

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How to make a national sales tax work–fairly

Dave Farquhar Society

So the idea of a national sales tax to replace the income tax comes up again, and this time it gets some consideration, or at least some air time.

The usual people are howling about it: Sales taxes are regressive, and regressive taxes are unfair.

Here’s a fair way to fix that.If you haven’t guessed, I’m in favor of this. The yearly paperwork is a major pain, and getting it right is even harder. Without professional help, I never can. How many hundreds of thousands of hours are wasted preparing taxes, just so we can have a tax system that seems fair?

And it’s not really fair. It’s impossible to close all of the loopholes, and those who have reason to find the loopholes also have sufficient money to find and take advantage of them.

I like the sales tax idea because it’s based on the money we spend. Want to pay less in taxes? Save more money. So it encourages saving, which is something we desperately need to do. It’s also next to impossible to evade, since two people are going to get in trouble for it, and it’s not worth a merchant’s while not to pay it, so the merchant will collect it.

So, let’s hit the regression problem.

Sales tax is regressive because both rich and poor alike have to buy food. And since rich and poor alike pay the same price for the same loaf of bread at the same store, the sales tax takes a larger percentage of a poor person’s income. That extra dime hurts the person who makes $250 a month a lot more than it hurts the person who makes $250 an hour.

So why do we tax food in the first place? That eliminates the problem. That way the guy who makes $250 a month and can’t afford to buy anything but groceries can still live, and he pays no taxes. The guy who makes $250 an hour pays no taxes on his food, but he does pay taxes on luxury items, which, in theory at least, he will be buying in much larger quantities than someone with a sub-subsistence income.

One could even choose not to tax subsistence-type foods like bread, eggs and milk, but tax luxury foods such as chocolate. Alcohol absolutely should be taxed. Defining luxury foods could be a dicey affair, but could it possibly be more complicated than the current tax code?

Other necessities like personal hygiene products, medicine, and clothing could be handled much the same way. Perhaps some sort of a baseline price could be established on clothes, so that a generic $10 pair of blue jeans isn’t taxed, but a $90 pair of designer jeans is.

And I have a question: How much money does the government spend every year enforcing the current tax code? This change does away with the processing centers, the need to print lots of forms, the auditors, the help lines, and the expenses that go with them. Or is the creation and maintenance of all of these cushy jobs a prime motivating factor behind the current tax code?

While this solution doesn’t solve all of the problems or potential problems with such an extensive overhaul, I do hope it helps prevent the idea from being dismissed just on the basis of it being regressive. It doesn’t have to be. And I hope it encourages those in favor of such a code to make it fair.

Tonight I did something I’ve never done before

Dave Farquhar Personal

Tonight I did something I’d never done. I went out with a group from my church that gives blankets, coats, candles and batteries, and hot food to the homeless.

It was eye-opening.I’ve written before about how my standard of living is much closer to that of a billionaire than it is to the people who live in some parts of this country. But this was scarcely 10 miles from where I live, and probably fewer than four miles from where I work.

I heard stories. Lots of stories. There were the expected can’t find work, family kicked ’em out types of stories. One came here from Washington, spent all her money to get here, found out the person she came to see wasn’t here, and ended up on the street. One guy admitted he had drug problems. I think he told me he’d been clean for a few days. One guy told me he was out there because he felt sorry for others who were homeless.

It was 18 degrees tonight. The last group of people discussed amongst themselves which of them would be able to get into Larry Rice’s shelter.

I was cold too. I wasn’t as smart about the way I dressed as they were. But when the night was through, I had my three-year-old Honda Civic with a moonroof and power windows and power locks and cruise control and, most importantly tonight, a good heater, and it transported me back to my house in the suburbs where I can turn my heat as high as I want. The temperature in my house may drop to 56 degrees tonight, but only because I’m a cheapskate. If I wanted to put the thermostat on 90, I could put it on 90, and when that bill came, I could pay it.

Some of the people I met tonight won’t have much more than the blankets we had on hand to give them to keep them warm.

I found myself wanting to understand the problem and solve it. The first part is possible; the second, less so. Familiarity is a difficult hurdle to overcome. When you’re homeless, those problems are familiar. The problems of living somewhere, although much more minor to you and me, could be scary, I suppose.

Those of you who pray, please do me a favor and pray for Ernest. Ernest has an appointment in the morning to get assisted housing. If all goes well, tonight was his last night on the streets. It’s going to cost him $1 a month. He told me he makes $250 a month. I should have asked him what he was going to do with the $249 a month he had left over. I didn’t think of that.

Ernest impressed me. He had a lot of book knowledge, including knowledge of scripture. Obviously he had some education. He had plenty of drive, too. But drive can be fleeting. And as I watched Ernest’s behavior, while I saw loads of promise, I also saw the potential to relapse. He asked me for a quarter. I didn’t have any money with me at all. For all I know, he may have wanted money to make a phone call, or he may have wanted money to buy something he shouldn’t be buying. I hope it’s the former.

I’d be surprised if Ernest turned out to be someone who could change the world, but if his potential could be fulfilled and his energy focussed, he could certainly make big changes in the community where he lives. I’m certain that people are going to follow him. The question is whether he’ll lead them someplace desirable, or someplace they don’t need to be going.

The people with the biggest potential also face the biggest challenges. So that’s why I’m asking for prayers for Ernest tonight. I think these next few days could prove to be pivotal. He needs for what I saw tonight to be real and lasting. He needs fire and he needs drive. The things that he said tonight need to be not only in his head, but also in his heart.

If those things happen, chances are the next time I see Ernest, he’ll be handing out hot food on the same streetcorner where he used to receive it. That’s what I want for him.

Dvorak’s PC Magazine Linux column: Crazy or Clueless? Clueless.

Dave Farquhar Linux ,

Linux zealots are arguing over whether Dvorak‘s latest in PC Magazine is stupid or crazy.

I won’t call it stupid. But it’s ignorant.

Linux doesn’t need Windows’ plug and play layer. When it comes to low-level devices, like SCSI and IDE chipsets, network cards, and stuff like that, Linux actually puts Windows to shame. I can take a hard drive out of a Linux box, put it in a completely different machine–different NIC, different SCSI card, everything–and have it up and responding on the network in five minutes flat.

Now, sound cards can sometimes give Linux some troubles. But those devices have historically been problematic under every OS. I was pretty sure I had a five-year-old war story about my battles with an Avance Logic sound card under Windows here somewhere, but maybe that was on my first site. Some cards won’t work in Linux without divine intervention. Others won’t work in Windows without said intervention. It’s irritating when it happens, but it happens. It doesn’t mean the operating system is worthless, but it might mean the card is.

Video is sometimes a headache. But that’s not a problem with the Linux kernel. That’s the XFree86 or the X.org guys, depending on the distribution. And this is where Dvorak’s argument falls apart. You see, what Dvorak is calling a “video driver” looks a lot more like an application than a driver, on the system level.

You need more than a driver to get a GUI. You need an API. Plugging the Windows drivers into the Linux kernel doesn’t give you the X Window API. I suppose Microsoft could provide the Windows API, but what good would that do? None of the graphical Linux software would run on it. Microsoft would have to write its own X server. They could do it–others have–but what’s the point? Where’s the benefit? It’s a lot more work than just kludging the Windows Plug and Play layer to run with the Linux kernel.

So, basically, Dvorak’s editorial proves he doesn’t really know how Linux is put together, on the system level. It’s nice theory for CIOs to talk about while they wait for their turn at the tee on the golf course. But it won’t play out in the real world, because it’s just not that easy.

A User Friendly waiting to happen

Dave Farquhar Humor/Satire

Your new customer service manager’s name is Dev Null. Please refer all further communication to Dev Null, who will handle your matter speedily and appropriately.

Or something like that.It sounds just believable enough that lots of people will fall for it. The problem is getting anyone with Unix familiarity to keep a straight face while saying it.

Coincidentally, BOFH fans will also know that /dev/null is an incredibly fast backup device.

A train layout photo

Dave Farquhar Toy trains , , , ,

A number of people have asked me to post a photo of some trains, so here’s a photo of a train, with some scenery, mostly hand-made by Yours Truly.

You’ll have to click here to see it, as it’s larger than my blogging software allows.Gatermann will notice that the tender is facing the wrong direction. Just pretend I’m auditioning for Ebay.

The train is a Marx. The locomotive is Marx’s CP locomotive, a gift from my fiancee. It’s one of Marx’s more desirable locomotives because it’s attractive, but common enough to still be affordable. It’s called a CP because it’s loosely based on a Canadian Pacific locomotive of the 1930s. With the exception of the Pennsylvania Merchandise Service car, all of these Marx cars are worth between $3 and $5. The Pennsy car is worth a bit more. It’s not particularly rare, but Marx made a lot of variations of it, and collectors like to get all the variations, which drives the price up.

The tiny gas station on the left is my design. Yes, the sign reads “Farquhar Oil Co.” Now you know the source of some of R. Collins’ fortune. This was one of the first paper buildings I tried to design and I think it turned out OK.

The confectionery and penny store are based very heavily on a series of building-shaped candy containers made by West Bros. around 1914. They were a lot of work but I’m pretty happy with how they turned out. They are paper as well.

The buildings on the right are free downloads from a company called Microtactix. They specialize in wargaming. Those two buildings happened to be about 20% undersize compared to mine, so I blew them up a bit and used them. Not quite the look I’m going for, but they’re close enough for now and they were easier than designing my own.

The tin lithographed train station in the distance was made by J. Chein, probably in the late 1920s. Chein made a lot of tin litho toys; I don’t know if their trains were windup or if they were strictly pull toys. It’s in terrible condition but putting it on the back of the layout obscures that somewhat. Guys like me are conditioned not to worry about scale too much; the Chein station is close enough, looks the part, and cost me a fraction of what a Marx station would cost, which in turn would cost a fraction of what a comparable Lionel would cost.

The block signal behind the confectionery is Marx, as is the red tower. The “snow” is white tissue paper, and the streets, which aren’t very visible, are a cobblestone pattern printed on paper that I cut out and affixed to the tissue paper with tape. Not very traditional and definitely not durable, but it worked.

It’s not much, but it’s a decent start of what I’m envisioning. I think if I draw a neighborhood of buildings in the style of those West Bros. ripoffs, it’ll make for a nice layout reminiscent of what a good toy train layout could have looked like in the 1920s and 1930s, as well as reminiscent of city neighborhoods that are rapidly vanishing forever, to make way for more convenience stores and Walgreen Drug Stores–oops, they don’t call them that anymore.