computer – A Darker View

Throw me Away

Cleaning out an entire business operation has led to a few discoveries.

Hidden caches of tools, bottles of unknown substances, pieces of strange equipment that even I struggle to identify, and so much trash… All of the stuff a couple dozen employees leave behind in five years of a busy algae-growing operation.

This included a stack of five laptop computers, two Macs and three pc’s. So one evening I handed off the Macs to my wife to check while I diagnosed the pc’s.

One Mac is toast, a cracked screen and damaged case, clearly dropped at some point. Checking the model and vintage, we find it is not worth the effort to fix… One for the bin. The second Mac is questionable, with a flaky charge port and dodgy WiFi.

The pc’s? One, a very low-end HP model seems fine.

The second machine, a more promising-looking Lenovo IdeaPad that is only a couple of years old. Opening the machine, stuck beside the trackpad, I find a bright yellow sticky note with large, friendly letters written in Sharpie… “Throw me Away”.

Hmmm… Maybe not.

Well? The machine boots easily enough, screen, keyboard, and trackpad are working just fine. I am presented with the login screen for an employee who left the company over a year ago. I cannot go further, Windows and the drive are locked down pretty hard.

This is not a real concern, I really do not want another Windows machine. I downloaded the latest version of Ubuntu and set up a USB drive. The machine boots just fine into Linux off the thumb drive. It took some command-line futzing and a fair amount of AI assistance to find the right Linux commands to wipe the hard drive. I cleared the encrypted Windows partitions and configured an Ubuntu install.

After waiting for Ubuntu to install, I found I have an operational laptop that seems to be in pretty good shape. I wonder… why the doomed sticky note? Was it the lockdown and encrypted drive that stopped anyone from re-using the machine?

Well? I need a reliable work machine, and Windows has become increasingly unacceptable over the years, time to get serious about Linux. I peel off the yellow sticky note and follow the instructions… I throw it away.

Betwixt the Realms

For all of the many times I have done it, I have never gotten tired of typing a command, or clicking a button on a screen, and watching something happen in the real world.

GenPIC Processor — The microprocessor on a GenPIC PCB assembly

An LED turning on, the click of a relay, or even a motor beginning to spin… These represent a moment when the seemingly ethereal digital realm of our computers interact with the physical domain.

I have spent my entire career dealing in the interface between the ethereal and the physical, working where the two meet. Turning sensor readings into digital, and then turning the digital into actions in the everyday world. I played with this interface as a teenager, learning the basics. My wisely chosen college degree was tailored to this task, an electrical engineering degree with a heavy dose of computer science. Professionally I have dealt with microcontrollers, high performance analog to digital systems, and programmable logic controllers, all straddling the boundary line from digital to physical.

4K Screen Backgrounds

I was just re-editing one of my photos for use as a background. In my life complicated by multiple computers, many of which are virtual, I use unique screen backgrounds to remind myself which computer I am on.

Hmmm? Maybe I should share a few.

These are sized for the newer 4K monitors at 3840 x 2160, which is the usual 16:9 aspect ratio now used for most monitors. The images should display well on full HD monitors as well. You can use these for personal use only, no commercial use or re-posting to other services!

Use the ‘full size’ link under the image to download it.

White-Margin Nudibranch (Glossodoris rufomarginata) on the Kona coast

The glow from a lava lake in Halemaʻumaʻu lights the clouds prior to the May 2018 eruptions

Servers

A Pop, a Puff of Smoke, and an Ominous Red Glow… Not Good

When powering up a nearly three decade old computer for the first time I should really have a video camera running…

The loud pop, and the stream of smoke issuing from the side vents was bad enough. It was the ominous orange glow seen for just a couple seconds from the same vent that really sent me the message…

Not good.

I yanked the power cord as quickly as I could, then just sat there for a moment considering the implications of disaster. A Compaq Portable III, a design first marketed in 1987. A computer that runs DOS, predating the first versions of windows. This is the computer that holds the software that operates the Keck II dome.

Without this machine it will be very difficult to program the old PLC the dome runs on. I do have a replacement for that PLC controller running in my office, but I face the challenge of verifying the design, I would like to run the old software in the test setup to compare it to the new. I would also like to have a backup in case something goes wrong during the transition, a way of putting the old PLC back into the system and programming it.

Continue reading “A Pop, a Puff of Smoke, and an Ominous Red Glow… Not Good”

Acquiring Photons

Astrophoto Acquisition — A small netbook computer busy running an astrophoto setup

Postcard from the Summit – Keck 1 Operator’s Station

Passing of an Icon

My first computer was an Apple II+, I left home with an Apple IIe, and for a few years used a Fat Mac then a Macintosh LC. I carry an iPhone, my little iPod Nano looks quite worse for wear, and I am typing this on an iPad 2. Few people have had the impact on my personal life as Steve Jobs.

We constantly receive news of deaths… newsmakers, celebrities, sport heroes. Most mean little or nothing to me. Today’s news connects in a very unexpected way. Steve Jobs was a geek like me. One of the first icons of my generation to go. The products made by Apple have impacted my life in so many ways. While typing this I am taking stock of what he meant to me, and to our technological society. It is difficult to understate his impact. I hope that Apple can continue to innovate without his vision.

He will be missed.

Postcard from the Summit – Blinking Lights

Walking through the room I somehow fail to notice just how much equipment is there. At night, with the lights off, the sheer quantity of LED’s and other indicator lights underscore the number of servers and other equipment the room contains. Every direction you look, the room is filled with equipment… The telescope control computer, network switches, terminal servers, instrument servers, the ACS controller and the telescope drive system itself. All necessary to keeping the telescope on-sky…

Keck 2 Computer Room — Servers of the K2 Computer Room at night