R. W. Apple in the NYT takes a crack at Salumi, to which i was happy to bring my parents and Viv last week. Yummmm.
Spin
After much fussing, I have our turntable fully operable. It’s amazing what the crackle of vinyl adds and subtracts from the listening experience. I swear that it was bar for the course to get better dynamic range off the grooves than that I hear today, but maybe thathas to do with a few years of gigging in front of amps. Who knows. Hearing the crackle is delicious and organic, each side my own and known by skips at learned places in the song.
Heat
Man, what a beautiful day. Not a cloud in the sky, high seventies, a mild breeze.
I finally got up on the ladder and started cleaning my gutters, after I hung some plant baskets for Viv.
I owe Patrick and others a roundup and writeup on my findings concerning video post-and-host services; my take appears to be in opposition to the direction most providers are heading toward.
Anyway, hope your afternoon is as pleasant as mine has been.
Wet Lens
Old camera? A dunk might make it new again.
Network Cable Madness
I’m losing my mind over a home LAN problem, so here’s the gory bits to help me know if I’ve properly defined the problem.
My current LAN topology is roughly this:
ISP access point, no DHCP –> fixed IP DSL modem, bridged –> 5-port 10/100 Ethernet switch –> 2 fixed-IP desktop units, 1 fixed-IP Airport acting as DHCP for both wired and wireless network, 1 DHCP IP desktop unit.
The desktop DHCP box picks up the Airport IPs just fine and everything in the Airport cloud behaves properly, which allows all the client machines to use a printer made available via an Airport Express unit.
I have run a 50-foot ethernet cable from the point of entry / modem / switch up through the floor to the center of the building on the top floor where the Airport sits, giving housewide coverage. What I need to do is add another 10/100 hub or switch in that location to allow me to add more top-floor cabled devices to the LAN.
I have successfully inserted three 10/100 hubs into the network in the following topology:
5-port 10/100 switch -> additional n-port 10/100 hub device -> Airport
This works so long as the in port on the additional device is in uplink mode or connected to the first router via crossover cable. The Airport, in this configuration, remains connected to the second hub by the long cable.
So far so good.
When I tote the new hubs upstairs and add the hub to the LAN via the long cable, the hubs report linkstate. However, when I plug the Airport into an available port, the hubs do not report good linkstate to the Airport, all the Airport client devices, wired and wireless, lose connectivity.
As far as I can tell, the only change in the topology is that in the first instance, the cable out from the first hub into the uplink port on the second hub is about 4 feet long, and the cable out from the second hub to the Airport is fifty feet long. In the second case, this is reversed, such that the cable out from the first hub is fifty feet and the cable out from the second hub is about four feet. It’s my understanding that the rated length for the hubs and most similar devices is 100 meters. I just do not get what is going on.
Rat trap
Combimouse – Combination Keyboard and Mouse, via Things. Cool or absurd? Let’s split the difference.
Boom
Pursuant to our vapor-provisioning crisis, I had dinner with my folks and one couple of my aunts and uncles tonight. My uncle’s career was in welding, specifically as a pipefitter, and worked on the Alaska Pipeline back in the seventies. As soon as he heard my tale of gas-pipe woes, he first asked me a bunch of technical questions that, of course, I could not answer as I was unfamiliar with the terminology. Then he said, “It’s probably a good thing you had all that taken care of. Slow leaks like that can lead to gas pockets in the house that can blow a structure completely off the foundation slab.”
I suppose I knew this and all, but when a man who spent fifty years building pipe-based mechanisms for transporting flammable material over long distances tells you this, you hear it.
As an aside, I caught a really interesting American Experience a couple weeks ago which was about the construction of the Pipeline. My uncle tells me that he knew three of the guys that were interviewed for the show, and that he felt it accurately captured his experience on the project. I was glad to hear it, because watching the documentary had made me proud of my uncle.
Burning a Candle in the Window
As we returned from my parents’ one-night hotel room around the corner, we saw a PSE van pull up, and – oh happy day – hhe restored our gas services.
Gas Haul
Two-thousand-odd dollars later, a more responsive HVAC company has identified and repaired no less than five additional leaks in our internal gas piping. Puget Sound Energy, of course, can’t be here until tomorrow. While I’m pleased that the gas infrastructure now hold water, I’m a little peeved that my wallet has been relieved of that unsightly bloat.
Gastly
PSE, sweet talked into inspecting our new pipes, found another leak and on those grounds did not reactivate the gas. We have a different service company coming tomorrow at 8am.
My parents are currently on the tarmac at SeaTac, taxi-ing into their gate before coming here.