I mean that pretty much sums it up. I was really hoping 5.01 would fix it, but apparently, no such luck. Basically, if you have your keyboard repeat rate set to anything other than dog slow, Safari starts animating the scroll, then in the middle of starting to animate it sees the next keyboard input and interrupts the first scroll and just gets terrible. Using the mouse is super silky smooth, the arrow controls work albeit a little chunky, but, I suspect it’s merely because the repeat rate is slower.

I’m sure a method is getting reentered and somewhere an if statement is missing or broken… e.g.

if (animating = YES) DON'T INTERRUPT ANIMATION!;

In the video I first use the keyboard arrows, then the pageup/pagedown, then the mouse controls and finally some more keyboard.

Safari 5.0/5.01 Terrible Keyboard Scrolling Video Click HERE

Scan for viruses manually with clamscan – Most of this is excluding the test directories and system devices.

clamscan -ir –exclude=/sys/ –exclude=/usr/share/doc/clamav-0.95.1/test/ /

Firewall aka. IPTables
Block IP address – * for a range

iptables -I INPUT -s 192.168.0.* -j DROP

List IP’s instead of RDNS

iptables –list -n

Delete the 3rd rule

iptables -D INPUT 3

Remove file with crazy name – Ever mange to munge a filename so bad rm won’t remove it?

ls -il
find . -inum 124043383 -exec rm -i {} \;

Hard disk tweaking – not sure how much this helps but it helped me.

cd /sys/block/sda/queue/iosched/
echo 1000 > write_expire
echo 0 > slice_idle
hdparm -Tt /dev/sda

SMART Hard Disk Check- run smart report if you have a Highpoint controller that supports it. Remember to run a periodic short/long test. I’ve found the basic report is often inadequate.

smartctl -a -d hpt,1/1 /dev/sda

Yum locate dependency- some package failing because it needs some dependency? This was a real lifesaver.

yum whatprovides yourlibraryhere

Did something before but forgot? grep the .bash_history file, it seems to keep everything from the beginning of time.

iptraf traffic statistics- need to know traffic flow on your machine right now? Yeah you could do some sort of netstat command but I can never figure it out on the local platform (its “netstat -I en0 -w 1″ on OS X).
This app will give you all sorts of useful live statstics on your ethernet connections.

Next time – SELinux – all you need to know to setup your apache/php/centos webserver.

P.S. Any useful commands you use that you think might be helpful? Leave a comment :)

So for fun random links I find interesting…

http://delicious.com/jriskin

Tineye.com

TinEye is a reverse image search engine. You can submit an image to TinEye to find out where it came from, how it is being used, if modified versions of the image exist, or to find higher resolution versions. TinEye is the first image search engine on the web to use image identification technology rather than keywords, metadata or watermarks.

They have indexed over 1billion images and I’m sure that number is going to grow rapidly.

Example: Here is an image of britney and all the other possible sources.

Uses:

Identification: Can’t figure out who someone is? Often with a few links to other areas, their name will be mentioned, or in the file name, or in the other images.
Validation: Is someone seem too good to be true on that dating site? Suspec that myspace profile is fake?
Copyright: Is someone using your image?
Quality: Need a larger source image for your wallpaper, print project, or artwork? Maybe you just want to see a larger/cleaner image from some blog post that has been reblogged so many times all you can see is the thumbnail.

Go check it out, it’s one of my favorite new sites of 2009.

MP3 Player? With hacked macro lens.

Over the years I’ve considered developing quite a few fun and interesting cell phone applications. Unfortunately, after developing some software to test and trying a dozen different cell phones some inherent physical limitations proved too large to overcome.

Most cell phones while having adequate resolution, are fixed focus lenses that can only focus about 2 feet away and farther. Much closer than that and the images become a fuzzy mess!

This totally destroys any hopes of some of the cool applications that can be made by barcode scanning products (e.g. price checks, order online) and scanning text (e.g business cards, subscription cards).

Imagine you walk in to a store in the mall and see something you like, but you’re not sure about the price. You scan it, and you phone opens google maps with all the nearby locations that have that product and the prices they charge. Things like this would be possible with the addition of a tiny bit of extra optical help…

Someday…

Zoomed in you can see the half tone patterns.

So full reinstall on the server, there were some broken things and wordpress got hacked (yet again) but I think we have it secure for the moment. Meanwhile I made some new business cards and wanted to share.

My friend Jonah had mentioned to me he used Gotprint.comto make some business cards and the quality was pretty decent. Having seen ‘digital’ printing in the past (I have a DTP background) I was a little skeptical, but realized it has been 6-7 years since I’ve tried anything and it has to be better right?

The answer is YES!

The Gotprint.com cards I had made for a paltry $20 are pretty decent! If I were to review them overall they would get the following grades:

A • Convenience
A • Price
A • Cardstock quality
B • Printing quality
B • Diecut quality
B • Speed (unless you pay extra)

Here are some samples from past cards I’ve made. Including some expensive high quality offset cards from around 2000, some medium quality offset (same year), an inkjet print from home and the Gotprint.com cards.

The high quality offset wins hands down, but they are expensive and take a lot more effort to find the right printer. The regular offset are still a hair better than the digital print in line quality but in absolute resolution the digitals are slightly better. So halftones will be smoother but the white lines are a little less solid. The inkjet has a great continuous tone look, but it sacrifices resolution as the same bleed that allows the smooth tones blurs out the sharp edges. I included it merely for comparison the paper quality can’t compare to real cards and cutting them also is an issue.

You might want to hold off on the unless you’re already experiencing problems like some new MBP users are. My latest not-so-scientific numbers show its a risky bet.

Check out my older post on the topic…

The graph is basically the number of positive to negative comments made on MacRumors.com.

10.5.6 Update

The Volkswagen Key Disassembly continues to be one of the more trafficked pages on my site so I figured I would commit one more selfless act of community service and bring you the all-new Mazda Key Disassembly page. This particular key is from a 2006 MX-5 (aka. 3rd Gen. Miata, or Miata NC), bit will probably work just the same as many similar keys. I’m not even sure if what Mazda might charge for this, but I’m sure its more than the $1-2 cost to replace the battery and 5 minutes of your time. It could also be useful to replace the keychain link or clean the contacts.

Enjoy…

So I thought it might be a bright idea to illustrate what has to be one of the more over complicated HTPC (Home Theatre PC aka. PVR, Tivo thing, etc…) setups ever, mine… Ok, probably not, I’m sure plenty of people have crazier setups. But, it does surprise me how reliable it has been, even with so many computers involved. So how does it work? Magic! Ok, maybe not but something like this…

SageTV controls most of it. But, after trying numerous 1394 (a.k.a. FireWire) cards I never managed to get Windows XP, the Scientific-Atlanta SA-3250HD STB, and Charter Cable’s crappy signal to get along. Magically (Apple did create the standard for 1394) it just works without anything special on a Mac. So, FireWire is plugged in to the Mac, Sage TV controls it, all HD and digital channels go through the Mac and get recorded to the main media server/raid as raw MPEG-2 TS (transport streams). SD signals get recorded directly to the RAID through a Hauppauge PVR150 in the Windows box. All channels SD and HD are controlled through the 1394 (no infrared blaster silliness).

The great thing about this set is you get pure digital recording and playback all the way to the display. Digital cable -> Firewire digital files -> HDMI TV. The only other systems that work like this are DirectTV TiVo, some dedicated cable/sat. company PVR’s and Cable Card based systems. Unfortunately, after many years of unencrypted goodness, earlier this year Charter turned on 5C encryption on all HD pay channels. Note 5C is the digital encryption for the HDMI not the encryption that protects which channels you get which I believe is DigiCipher 2.

So what does the future hold? FIOS TV and the Hauppauge HD PVR Model 1212 likely. Unfortunately, this may mean losing pure digital recording/playback. But, I would regain recording of all HD channels.

The future is more likely the Internet and Bit Torrent. It’s really too bad for the studios that downloading bit torrent TV shows are often higher quality, more convenient and let you build collections as compared to the ‘legitimate’ offerings (Hulu, NBC online etc… and even recording SD/HD TV from cable/sat). But, this is a rant for another time…

Update: For completeness I added my parents Mac Mini to the full diagram (click the image), it runs Front Row Apple’s not so good PVR software, its slow over the Internet, but I believe that might be something about Samba. She can watch movies via the remote mount to my RAID and I put aliases in her Movies folder in her home directory.

Tag	Warning!
Connected	Disconnected

So it took not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 or more of these strong magnets before it came apart easily. Anyway, much easier and safer than trying to Dremel it apart and much more immediate gratification than having to wait for the store to open, driving back and having them remove it.

Oh and be good, this is not for you bad guys out there!

So if you ever wondered what happens if you screenshare in a loop, here is a nice fun picture =)

People will argue until the end of time whether or not widescreen is better than traditional 4:3 monitors. Personally, I believe most webpages and most documents are much taller vertically than they are wide. So you want the most vertical space possible. I’ve heard the argument that with widescreen you can have two vertical documents simultaneously. But, nothing prevents you from having to vertical documents with even more vertical space on non-widescreen monitor. 1600 wide is really no different than 1680 wide when viewing two documents at once.

So at the end of the day, what really matters is how many pixels get on screen and for any user who’s been around since the days of CRTs, for the most part widescreen has been a big downgrade not an upgrade. If you are buying a monitor for the first time in today’s market I can see how widescreen would not seem like a downgrade. But since most CRT users came from using either 1280×1024 or 1600×1200 the equivalent widescreen models have been downgrades.

I would argue that most users who had CRTs at 1280×1024 looking to upgrade to a LCD would have preferred 1600×1200 rather than 1680×1050. Unfortunately, widescreen monitors were much cheaper in comparison. Only recently in the last couple years have 1980×1200 become available at consumer prices. So I would argue that for the most part widescreen monitors have been downgrades rather than upgrades for anyone who has had a high-resolution CRT.

More recently 1920×1200 models have come out and they are still pretty pricey, some examples of very high rez monitors…

For me, when it comes down to it, maximum pixels on the screen means more to me than anything else. So 1.92MP is better than 1.76MP any day of the week, so i’ll be sticking with 1600×1200 until I decide to upgrade to a 1920×1200 model.

Gratuitous RX-7 pic I took

So i’ve thought about putting in a light weight battery for awhile now and earlier this year my old battery finally gave up the ghost, so I decided to try a light weight sealed AGM racing battery. I was a bit worried about whether or not he would become problematic, so I went not with the smallest possible battery but with something just ever so slightly larger. I’ve heard of people often using the Deka EXT14 (I’ve read these are the exact battery the more pricy racing brand Braille uses) which is a 200CCA 12lbs battery. I’ve also heard that if you don’t start on the first or second try it may not work. I’ve also heard that if you let your car sit for a too long it can be a problem. So I went for the EXT18L which is a 300CCA 18lbs battery. 33% bigger and more weight seemed totally reasonable to me. After removing the original battery tray and battery I saved 22lbs! Nice savings for a mere ~$80 battery which I picked up at Battery Power Inc. (818) 896-6455 (sylmar/burbank area of LA). Installation was 3 very large heavy duty zip ties.

So 6 months later? NO PROBLEMS at all… I’ve allowed my car to sit for seven days and it had no problem starting up and I’ve also had no problems turning it over multiple times. Actually, compared to my old battery which was way past due to be replaced its been a large improvement in the available power.

The only downside in going with a battery this size is that you don’t want to leave your car keyed on with the engine off for long periods of time. Also, note you’ll need some screw on battery posts. Here is a link with some pictures, links and discussion.

So, I recently ran into this article called “New Report Card Grades for the 12 Leading Lithium-ion Battery and Ultracapacitor Development Companies in the World”. Yes, I know, ridiculously long title… anyway this particular article was doing something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time which is consolidate all the battery technology advances I’ve been keeping track of in one easy to read blog post. Well, maybe not so easy to read but at least consolidated in one place. This particular article was written purely from a investment standpoint, which isn’t exactly what I had in mind. There are certainly benefits of looking at these companies from a financial perspective but I’m more interested in the technology.

Standard lithium chemistry batteries have some obvious issues. In the past battery technology (lead acid, nickel metal hydride, nickel cadmium, etc.) was too heavy and/or too bulky to be appropriate for modern vehicles. These days the current lithium chemistry that is used in a variety of consumer products is well within the range of powering a wide variety of vehicles. The problem is there are a few drawbacks with the current chemistry:

• Limited charge speed
• Limited current capacity
• Safety
• Cost

The good news is that these problems are being handled by advanced new lithium chemistries.

Section 1: Advanced Lithium Chemistries

Valence technologies
http://www.valence.com/
Technology: Lithium Phosphate
Claims: “Safe, rugged and reliable technology with a cycle life 3-4 times that of lithium cobalt” they claim after 1400 cycles at 115f (its maximum operating temperature) it will retain 80% (90% at 73F) of its capacity. They also claim a full charge in roughly 2 hours. This sounds like a solid technology for the average commuter car. Safe, long lasting, and reasonable recharge rate.

7/10

Boston power
http://www.boston-power.com
Technology: Lithium Manganese and softshell aluminum cases
claims: ”

• Longer life – up to three years of everyday charging
• Faster charging – up to 40% capacity in just 10 minutes, 80% in 30 minutes
• Safer to use – multiple, redundant safety features mean better protection for the user
• Better for the planet – awarded Nordic Ecolabel for environmental sustainability”

Unfortunately, there are no obvious data sheets on their products on the webpage. So, there is really no way to make a real comparison against the other products are. Again though, they seem to be squarely targeting EV’s. while these potentially have much better recharge time, the lack of real product information makes them lose a point.

6/10

A123 Systems
http://www.a123systems.com/
Technology: Lithium Nanophosphate
Claims: “At A123Systems we have developed breakthrough, patented Nanophosphate(TM) lithium ion battery technology that provides engineers and application developers significantly higher power, an inherently safer chemistry, and an order of magnitude longer life.”

From their data sheets, they claim 80% capacity at 800 cycles at 140f and 95% at 77F! The great news about these guys if they are shipping actual real products today! Both Black & Decker and DeWalt have lines of power tools that use A123 batteries. The world’s fastest” EV powered motorcycle the “kilacycle” is powered by their batteries. The current major downside is cost and lack of large cell availability. They advertise a small kit with 6 26650 cells for $110 each, but this is hardly a scalable solution. On a side note, its apparently cheaper to harvest them from power tool battery backs 3rd parties sell to the public.

7/10

Altair NanoTechnology
: “Nanosafe batteries”
http://www.altairnano.com/”
Technology: Nano-structured lithium titanate spinel oxide (LTO)

Claims:

• No operational safety issues
• Three times the power of existing batteries
• A one-minute recharge
• High cycle life–10,000 to 15,000 charges vs. 750 for existing batteries
• The capability to operate in extreme temperatures: -22* to 480*F
• Low life-cycle costs

While Altair batteries have a specific energy (~95wh/kg) higher than NiMH and similar to that of LiFePO4 batteries (in other words better than NiCad or lead acid but not as good as state of the art lithium-ion), they’ve made significant breakthroughs in specific power (available current). They make some bold claims that if they can deliver on would be fairly disruptive, including 10-100x watts/kg, the fastest recharge time, the most cycle life, the widest range of temperatures, and with total safety. They are closer to ultra capacitors in specifications in any other battery in this group. Pricing? Unclear…

8/10

Toshiba
“Supercharge SCiB”
Toshiba Press Release
Technology: unknown
Claims:

• Excellent safety
• Current performance equivalent to an electric double layer capacitor
• 5 minute recharge (to 90%)
• 3,000 to 5,000 cycles
• Low temperature use -30*C

Sounds very familiar doesn’t it? While not exactly as extreme as Altair is claiming, Toshiba is claiming much of the same advances. Which makes me highly suspicious they are either 1. using similar technology or 2. Sourcing technology from Altair.

“According to a report in the Nikkei, Toshiba will begin producing 150,000 batteries a month at a Saku, Nagano Prefecture, factory. It will shift to mass production by 2010 with plans to make 600,000 cells for hybrid and electric vehicles and 400,000 batteries for forklifts and other industrial equipment.”
— green car Congress
Green Car Congress

“Toshiba…19,440 kWh a year…”

“For comparison A123 is likely producing 40,000 in the eye in 2007. Altair is likely doing less than 3,500 kWh in 2007.”

9/10

ElectroVaya
http://www.electrovaya.com
Technology: “Lithium Ion SuperPolymer” (Lithiated Manganese Oxide)
Claims:

• 40-60 percent higher energy density compared to LiFePO4
• Comparable safety characteristics to LiFePO4

This Canadian company was founded in 2000 and makes a variety of lithium-based chemistry batteries. They seem to be going down the lithium manganese path as opposed to the lithium phosphate path. I don’t know a lot about them but I will start keeping my eye on them.
?/10

Generic Chinese LiFePO4
Claims:

• Safe
• Reasonable density 100wh/kg typical
• Decent temperature ranges
• Typically claim 1000-4000 cycles
• 1C-10C of available current

There are at least a dozen chinese companies building and selling LiFePO4 batteries. While most of them are still fairly pricey, a few of them are bringing costs down to the point where real EV’s are possible. I believe this is the most likely way consumers will see electric vehicles in the short-term. Major auto manufacturers will probably drag their feet and ignore these companies until the market pressure forces them to play their hand.

8/10

Section 2: The holy Grail… Ultra capacitors

While batteries store chemical energy and make it available as electricity. The disadvantage of this is that the chemical reactions necessary for rechargeable batteries are limited in the speed at which they can happen, in the number of times the reaction can be repeated and reversed, and in the shelf life of the chemicals. In contrast a capacitor stores its energy by putting electrons between a pair of conductors, there is no chemical reaction. This means they could potentially last forever and they can charge and discharge at very high rates. in the past, the problem with capacitors in general was capacity. Even the last generation of super capacitors were only capable of 1000th the capacity of the lithium-ion battery.

EESTOR
Ultracapacitors
EEStor Wiki
Technology: barium titanate coated with aluminum oxide and glass capacitors
Claims:

• Nontoxic and non-hazardous
• Non-explosive
• For a 52 kWh unit, an initial production price of $3,200, falling to $2,100 with mass production is projected.[6] This is half the price per stored watt-hour as lead-acid batteries, and potentially cheap enough to use to store grid power at off-peak times for on-peak use, and to buffer the output from intermittent power sources such as wind farms.
• No degradation from charge/discharge cycles
• 4-6 minute charge time for a 336 pound (152 kg), 2005 cubic inch (33 L), 52 kilowatt hour (187 MJ), 31 farad, 3500 volt unit, assuming sufficient cooling of the cables.
• A self-discharge rate of 0.1% per month

Queue up EESTOR!
Claims to have Capacitors with storage density of 280 wh/kg. typical LiION is 100-200 wh/kg and in 10 times typical lead acid. In real-world terms this means you could build a vehicle that would get 4-500 miles per charge and recharge in roughly 5 minutes.

Secrecy and “adjusted schedules” has caused some concern of vaporware. On the other hand, defense contractor Lockheed-Martin has recently signed and exclusive deal for defense applications. I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t see consumer applications for awhile simply so that the US Military can get a good multi-year jump on building new technology around such game changing energy systems.

1 point off for my gut telling me its not going to be this cheap, 2 points off for lack of any real products.

7/10

Conclusion:

Pb (lead) – 30wh/kg, 300-500 cycles, can’t be discharged to 0%
NiCd – The past
NiMh – Memory issues, medium density, medium power
LiFePO4 – 100kw/kg, great cycle life, lots of power and reasonable price today, also doesnt have a huge environmental cost compared to NiMh.
LiMn2O4 – Reasonably safe, potential for higher density, wear quickly at high temperature and not as available.
LiCoO2 (“typical” Lithium ION) – NOT safe, best power/weight and very expensive.
Ultracapacitors – Ideal technology but not available yet.

So the winner is LiFePO4. As LiMn2O4 become more available they may have a chance and ultimately if and when EESTOR comes through on its claims, ultra-capacitors will win the long war.

Nice Lithium comparison chart

Misc…

Recent rage of adding some capacitors and batteries together to increase battery life and increase instantaneous current/power.
Technology Review: A Cheaper Battery for Hybrid Cars

Research

Stanford University – 10x lithium with nanowires
High-performance lithium battery anodes using silicon nanowires

MIT Ultra capacitors
MIT Builds Efficient Nanowire Storage to Replace Car Batteries

]]> http://riskinit.com/2008/07/08/mega-battery-technology-wrap-up/feed/ 0 http://riskinit.com/2008/04/24/window-explosion-distraction/ http://riskinit.com/2008/04/24/window-explosion-distraction/#comments Fri, 25 Apr 2008 07:08:30 +0000 jriskin http://riskinit.com/2008/04/24/window-explosion-distraction/
glass under pressure…

So, I was going to write a big post about battery technology. But, it is going to have to wait until tomorrow as a huge window in my house has just exploded… Thank the inventor of safety glass! I suppose this is one of the downsides of living in a house that was built in the 20′s. Well that and the fact that my office is tilted just enough that my chair always wants to roll away from my desk…okay and maybe lack of central air =P

It’s still crackling and splintering in a disturbing way…maybe I’ll take another picture in the morning.

]]> http://riskinit.com/2008/04/24/window-explosion-distraction/feed/ 0 http://riskinit.com/2008/02/02/restore-itunes-warning-about-deleting-playlists/ http://riskinit.com/2008/02/02/restore-itunes-warning-about-deleting-playlists/#comments Sat, 02 Feb 2008 21:52:04 +0000 jriskin http://riskinit.com/2008/02/02/restore-itunes-warning-about-deleting-playlists/
iTunes

I wrote a long thing on what to do, then my wireless went down and when i went to post it, it lost it. gee I love technology….any so now you get the short end of the stick =)

This worked for iTunes 7.6 Build 29 (no guarantees…)

Backup
~/Library/Preferences/cmp com.apple.iTunes.plist

Use a Hex editor and change byte 0x13FF from 01 to 00

Launch iTunes…presto bingo, the warning should be back.

]]> http://riskinit.com/2008/02/02/restore-itunes-warning-about-deleting-playlists/feed/ 0 http://riskinit.com/2007/10/23/topanga-and-malibu-fire-maps-and-information/ http://riskinit.com/2007/10/23/topanga-and-malibu-fire-maps-and-information/#comments Tue, 23 Oct 2007 22:27:43 +0000 jriskin http://riskinit.com/2007/10/23/topanga-and-malibu-fire-maps-and-information/
Topanga Canyon Fire Map as of 10/23/07 6am

So I’ve been showing my maps to a few people and decided they should to be posted. You’ll have to excuse the list of names, I’m sure you’re mom and mine aren’t in the same location!

Topanga Canyon Fire Map as of 10/22/07

Topanga Canyon Fire Map as of 10/23/07 6am

T-Cep (Topanga Collation for Emergency Preparedness) Fire Zone Map

T-Cep Information Updated Live information

NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

Air direction and speed map Red numbers are air-speed, black are temperature. Direction is the line heading away from the + symbols.
Regional visible satellite images 1KM Loop (daytime only and requires Java)

City of Malibu page (source of original fire maps)

Update: 10/24/07 9am The Fire Department reports that the fire is estimated to be 4500 acres and is now 75% contained. Full containment is expected by Friday, October 26. All major highways are now open in both directions. Press Release

Update: 10/24/07 9am Charter expects that customers will have service restored between 6:30 and 8:30 pm this evening. Charter Press release

Southern California Fire Map google mashup (doesn’t seem to be frequently updated in many locations)

]]> http://riskinit.com/2007/10/23/topanga-and-malibu-fire-maps-and-information/feed/ 0 http://riskinit.com/2007/10/10/deca-tv/ http://riskinit.com/2007/10/10/deca-tv/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 05:50:54 +0000 jriskin http://riskinit.com/2007/10/10/deca-tv/
Deca.tv

Long time no post…

So I’m working at a new company. First job since some where in the early 90′s. No really…ok first time I’ve worked for someone else since then. We are a digital studio…the official marketing blurb…

“DECA is committed to creating unique, high-quality digital entertainment properties that combine premium video, social media applications and community. Our goal is to consistently provide new and exciting digital brands to consumers, marketers, distributors and creative talent.”

Reality:

Dog and Pony Show: cheeky interviews with business innovators.
BoingBoingTV: Boingboing…but video

So wish us luck and check out the content and let us know what you think!

]]> http://riskinit.com/2007/10/10/deca-tv/feed/ 0 http://riskinit.com/2007/03/26/somewhere-inbetween-the-moon/ http://riskinit.com/2007/03/26/somewhere-inbetween-the-moon/#comments Tue, 27 Mar 2007 03:13:06 +0000 jriskin http://riskinit.com/?p=46
The Moon (warning its a biggie)

So back in November I did this set of photos of the moon. Recently I borrowed this 8″ Celestron telescope and got a shot of Saturn. I was both impressed (that you could see it at all) and mildly disappointed I couldn’t capture what you could see with the human eye. Hence I aimed my scope at something a little closer to see if I could improve on my past attempts without a real long lens. The results are not too shabby.

So until next time I can think of something else to take a picture of…signing off…

Update: Ok, so I managed to find some mostly free image stacking software, did a quick 10 stack and substantially improved the resolution, enough so that I’m willing to show the 100% version. Warning this is 3872×2592 but its quite impressive what you can do to remove the atmospheric distortion with multiple photos.

]]> http://riskinit.com/2007/03/26/somewhere-inbetween-the-moon/feed/ 0 http://riskinit.com/2007/03/13/things-close-upthings-far-away-saturn/ http://riskinit.com/2007/03/13/things-close-upthings-far-away-saturn/#comments Tue, 13 Mar 2007 08:42:34 +0000 jriskin http://riskinit.com/?p=45
Saturn

So instead getting an image of something really close up (which I often like doing), here is something far far away. It’s nothing spectacular or amazing like this. But, its the best I could do with equipment on hand and not being NASA. Maybe if I can get the tracking a little better I could improve it marginally, but really I bet better viewing conditions would have a much greater impact in quality.

It’s also really overkill but impressive on things much closer to home. Here is my best shot with a marginal quality 320mm lens. Same thing at 2032mm (no eye piece and reduced to 50%). Impressive!

I’ll get a much better moon shot once it rolls around, its not coming up until like 5am or something silly.

Celestron C8 Telescope (2032mm F10) 8mm eye piece (so like 254x magnification)
Pentax K10D 10MP Camera

]]> http://riskinit.com/2007/03/13/things-close-upthings-far-away-saturn/feed/ 0 http://riskinit.com/2007/01/11/iphone-my-2-cents/ http://riskinit.com/2007/01/11/iphone-my-2-cents/#comments Fri, 12 Jan 2007 02:38:11 +0000 jriskin http://riskinit.com/?p=43
Everyones new talking point

So as a techie, my biggest complaints on the iPhone (besides the inevitable scratches that will drive everyone nuts to the point of class action lawsuits) are…

1. No 3G high speed network support. EDGE is 2.5G and barely acceptable for the type multimedia this phone is capable of.
2. No expansion. A simple SD card slot would make your 4G unlimited gig…
3. Battery not removable.

So I got to thinking about it and so far no one has said how long the ‘exclusive’ Cingular thing will be. It could be as short as 6 months maybe a year at the most.

The second thing I thought of was, hey this is standard apple operating procedure. Release a product that is amazing in every way but a few, then 6-12months later ‘blow everyone’s mind’ by adding all the missing features and forcing everyone to upgrade =)

So the lack of HSDPA/EVDO is because 6-12 months later they’ll announce ‘iPhone Pro’ with a removable battery and HDSPA and twice the memory or SD card slot or similar. It will also fix the crippling xyz bug that all the first gen owners are inevitably going to complain about (buzzing, hissing, or some other odd glitch that really drives 1% of the users mad).

Anyway, i’ll probably wait for the 2nd gen, cause my Treo700p on EVDO does 95% of the functionality with 1% of the stability and 5% of the fineness.

My 2 cents…

]]> http://riskinit.com/2007/01/11/iphone-my-2-cents/feed/ 0 http://riskinit.com/2006/08/07/bump-key-video/ http://riskinit.com/2006/08/07/bump-key-video/#comments Mon, 07 Aug 2006 19:41:41 +0000 jriskin http://riskinit.com/?p=42
Click for video

So, I was just reading Engadget and I realized I don’t think I ever posted my bump key video.

For those of you out of the loop, locks don’t work. Even a total amateur can break in to some of the most sophisticated locks without any skill what-so-ever. In fact I’ve personally found it EASIER to break in to more expensive locks with this method, than cheaper old ones that are lose inside. Wiki on lockpicking.

I made this key in under 5 minutes with an old key I found in a drawer and a Dremal.

So without further ado…the bump…

]]> http://riskinit.com/2006/08/07/bump-key-video/feed/ 2 http://riskinit.com/2006/07/08/frys-a-love-hate-relationship/ http://riskinit.com/2006/07/08/frys-a-love-hate-relationship/#comments Sun, 09 Jul 2006 05:08:17 +0000 jriskin http://riskinit.com/?p=41
$39.99 or $14.99

So I was in Fry’s Electronics today and I wanted a 16foot USB Repeater cable. Its basically a 16 foot USB cable (the maximum the spec. allows) and a little bus powered hub on the end. Anyway, after searching the “USB Stuff” isle for about a minute I realized it was on another isle. No problem, ah…the “USB Cable” isle, hmm product 1. $39.99, ah another one, crap $39.99. I was also looking for a plain extension. 10Ft $12.99…ouch…

So after about 5 minutes of digging, I give up and start wondering again. Out of the corner of my eye on a random isle, ah, mixed in with the Firewire cables, a few lone USB cables. Found the SAME 16foot extender $14.99 and the same one bundled with a 10foot and a 6foot cable for $19.99!

Aye…I feel sorry for all the poor saps who just pay full price…

Check out the picture, yellow is HALF the price of blue!

]]> http://riskinit.com/2006/07/08/frys-a-love-hate-relationship/feed/ 0 http://riskinit.com/2006/07/03/snakes-on-a-pole/ http://riskinit.com/2006/07/03/snakes-on-a-pole/#comments Tue, 04 Jul 2006 07:05:12 +0000 jriskin http://riskinit.com/?p=40
Snake on a pole

Wow an update, crazy…been distracted with other things in my life, like
Turbo and other stuff. But I took some good pictures recently and thought I would share…

Snake

How the snake got there…

Back off buddy, my snake!

]]> http://riskinit.com/2006/07/03/snakes-on-a-pole/feed/ 1 http://riskinit.com/2005/08/04/rx-7-still-rediculously-fast/ http://riskinit.com/2005/08/04/rx-7-still-rediculously-fast/#comments Fri, 05 Aug 2005 06:57:36 +0000 jriskin
G-force Graph, click for full run data

While part of me feels like I’m getting old, I know I’m not quite over the hill yet. So I got my car back from the shop after 3 months of engine rebuild. Its not quite running right yet…but in the twisty’s not much is faster. Back in March I made this post about the G-Tech Pro. I never got around to posting any of my runs, so I’ll post this one.

Disclaimer: Pseudo-professional Driver on a Closed Course. (hey it works for the car ads)

While in theory on a closed course I have no fear of crossing the center divider and should have the same cornering room, lets just say I was trying to practice normal style driving, just faster =). Now notice how I’m a total wuss when corning left only getting about 1.0g’s while to the right I peak at 1.34g’s. I know there is more room to run out in case I get in trouble on the rights…

Anyway I just like posting graphs. Enjoy…

]]> http://riskinit.com/2005/08/04/rx-7-still-rediculously-fast/feed/ 2 http://riskinit.com/2005/08/04/volkswagen-key-disassembly/ http://riskinit.com/2005/08/04/volkswagen-key-disassembly/#comments Thu, 04 Aug 2005 19:12:30 +0000 jriskin
VW Key

Volkswagon, Volkswagen, VW, Beetle, Jetta…ok that should feed the search engines enough variations =P

Ok, need to replace the battery on your VW Key fob? Or need to replace the metal keychain thingy on it? VW will charge you a fortune for either…I made a page a few years back on my personal web page thats pretty popular, so I decided time for some update pictures and add the fix for the broken keychain…

Enjoy the savings!

]]> http://riskinit.com/2005/08/04/volkswagen-key-disassembly/feed/ 13 http://riskinit.com/2005/06/25/rx-8-sales-by-month/ http://riskinit.com/2005/06/25/rx-8-sales-by-month/#comments Sat, 25 Jun 2005 22:44:40 +0000 jriskin
RX-8 USA Sales. Click for bigger version!

I’ve always been a big RX-7 fan, but for some reason or another the RX-8 just doesn’t do it for me looks wise. Anyway, I did this for MY FRIEND ADAM and just remembered one of the reasons I started this site was so that my seemingly pointless efforts may be useful for someone other than just myself.

USA Sales by year
2003 – 12,346
2004 – 23,690
2005 – 6,992
Total – 43,028

P.S. I noticed I didn’t label the graph, so if it isn’t obvious its in cars sold per month.

]]> http://riskinit.com/2005/06/25/rx-8-sales-by-month/feed/ 2 http://riskinit.com/2005/06/24/minisd-a-tasty-treat/ http://riskinit.com/2005/06/24/minisd-a-tasty-treat/#comments Sat, 25 Jun 2005 03:08:26 +0000 jriskin
100dpi MiniSD w/dime. Click for GIGANTIC size!

So, I was thinking today and it occurred to me that digital photography has changed things a bit. In the past if you took pictures of things that the powers that be didn’t like, they would likely take your camera and smash it and pull out the film and possibly search you for more film and destroy that too.

Well, digital memory can be small, really small! Its also really tough, surviving drops, water, plane crashes, and lots more. So the weird guy that I am I think, hey why not swallow it? My normal SD cards are easily small enough to be swallowed, and MiniSD is even smaller and can be adapted to SD. So you could keep a spare SD card, when they go to take your stuff swap out the card and swallow the important one. Its definitely small enough to pass through, but no guarantees =)

P.S. The image is 90DPI which should be close to real sized on many monitors. 72-100dpi is fairly typical these days. My Dell 20″ is spot on 100DPI.

]]> http://riskinit.com/2005/06/24/minisd-a-tasty-treat/feed/ 2 http://riskinit.com/2005/02/23/fios-insanity/ http://riskinit.com/2005/02/23/fios-insanity/#comments Thu, 24 Feb 2005 07:33:22 +0000 jriskin /?p=20
FIOS Availability

So I went a little crazy and put in a bunch of my neighbors address in to the Verizon FIOS availability form. Mix in a little Photoshop and you have what is driving me mad. FIOS is available in what appears to be completely random locations.

The picture is a link to a map of my neighborhood. Click it…

Ok, explain that! I’ve thought about it and its either 1. random (maybe to stage the workload?), 2. computer error or 3. the bundles of fiber not hooked up at the CO have no particular order. What ever it is…its driving me a bit insane…

I’ve called and the CSR filled out a engineering report, but I don’t have any high hopes of that changing things.

]]> http://riskinit.com/2005/02/23/fios-insanity/feed/ 1 http://riskinit.com/2005/01/31/nano-explosives/ http://riskinit.com/2005/01/31/nano-explosives/#comments Tue, 01 Feb 2005 00:12:13 +0000 jriskin /?p=18
108nm Al

I was recently reading Defense Tech and read a small interesting post that made a big impact. Nano-Explosives…

I hadn’t considered the implications and relative ease for nano-tech in the explosives realm. Unlike many of the far reaching nano-technologies (tiny robots to fix cells, etc…) the structures for nano-explosive are orders of magnitude less complicated. The implications for high-energy radiation free explosives are nothing short of staggering. The blog link points to a news article on Technology Review where they discuss the technology in a bit more detail.

Researchers can greatly increase the power of weapons by adding materials known as superthermites that combine nanometals such as nanoaluminum with metal oxides such as iron oxide, according to Steven Son, a project leader in the Explosives Science and Technology group at Los Alamos.

I’ll summarize a bit, 1000x the chemical reaction time to current high explosives. If you know anything about explosives, you know that its the velocity that counts and this is some serious improvement.

Here is an older but interesting look at the topic from Feb 2, 2002 from Small Times, a look at the Los Alamos Team on the bottom of this link, and some interesting electron microscope shots from Texas Tech.

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