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September 30, 2006
Deerfield Fair day
Went to the Deerfield Fair today. Apparently it is still becoming more and more popular. So popular that we where stuck in traffic for three hours just to get there. Luckily the wait is worth it.
The main reason I like the fair is for the food. When we arrived we shot straight for the turkey leg vender. They are like chicken legs but about three times larger. I am not sure what that cook them in, but the result tastes a lot like ham. Confusing but delicious.
Next i moved on to the fried dough. There is nothing better then starch that has been cooked in a vat of boiling fat. Then covering it with confectionary sugar. There is a good reason I only eat one of these per year.
After filling up there was plenty of time to just wander around and see the fair stuff. Around 8:00 we left so as not to hit the same outgoing traffic.
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September 29, 2006
Negative Reinforcement: Uprooting your childhood perceptions.
Here is a particularity good episode of Negative Reinforcement:
Interrogate your inner child
In this session, NR talks about taking the thoughts and perceptions given you you during childhood and reevaluating them in the present. I find this particularly insightful because I have been spending a lot of time reevaluating my own thoughts and perceptions and seeing if they still fit with the life I want to live.
Posted by binhqx at 2:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 28, 2006
Unexpected behavior from a Nextone VoIP Switch.
I was able to nail down the cause of a "488 Not Acceptable Here" error from a Nextone VoIP switch. It occurred when a particular type of call was put on hold. The port for the media is set to zero. This is a accessible call parameter because there is no media while the call is on hold. But of the Nextone sees a media port set to zero, it kills the call with a "488 Not Acceptable Here"
I was able to write a work around on the SIP Express Router that detected the case and filled in a arbitrary port number. This is a rather ugly workaround but it works. I need to submit the bug to Nextone, but they usually do not listen to support channels from non-customers.
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September 27, 2006
PCs: Another one bites the dust.
I have no luck with PCs. I keep a Windows machine on my desk at work just to use the serial port for administering Cisco equipment. Last week the PC I had been using for months just stopped working. It froze up and when i rebooted it, it had some type of error message about the BIOS being corrupted. I want to sit down and fix it, but I am in the middle of a big important project. So my boss tells me to take PC from someone else who is not using it much. Of course the person loosing the PC is not happy about it.
Then just yesterday, the new PC I was using stopped booting at all. And one again my boss tolled me to take a PC from someone who was not in that day. I bet that they will be real happy to know that their fully functional PC has been exchanged for a dead one.
I just have no luck with these infernal machines. I wish I could just use my Mac for everything.
Posted by binhqx at 2:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 26, 2006
40 hours?! I do not even know why I started playing.
This article by Clive Thompson on Wired reminded me of a problem I have found with video games recently. Maby games I start never get finished because they are too long. I simply do not have the time to play marathon game sessions anymore. There is this little thing called "real life" that has a tendency to pul me away from a game after just a few consecutive hour of game play. At some point in the game I find a puzzle that is frustrating or a difficult boss battle that stops the game progression. In the past I would have spent days working at it to master the though spot, but now I do not have that kind of time. If a game comes to a impasse and I do not have time to figure it out, chances are I will put the game down and not pick it up again. This happened in Elite Force 2. I came to a boos fight that I did not have enough ammunition to kill before running out of life. I retried the battle several times before giving up. Eventually a stopped playing and never felt compelled to finish the game.
Even worse than being stuck, is not knowing what to do next. This usually happens when there are so many side tasks to complete that the main task is forgotten or a direction to complete this task is lost. Then you are left to wander around without knowing where the next challenge can be found. It not the game that defeated you it is just the process of looking for the game.
Game designers need to keep problems like these in mind. They must find that line between challenging and frustrating. They must make sure that the player is never left guessing what to do next. The problem is that I have a real world that can be just as interesting and fun as a frustrating video game. So why should I be spending my time in front of a screen.
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September 25, 2006
Emotions are strange creatures.
Emotions are strange creatures. I call them creatures because they can act wildly and unexpectedly no mater how much one tries to control them. I postulate that one can control there feelings as much as they can control their hight or eye color. In other words, there is no control over them at all. It is up the the individual to determine how much to allow their emotions to influence their actions.
Posted by binhqx at 4:15 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 24, 2006
Another quite Sunday
Today was a nice quite Sunday. I just spent all day with friends doing the things we think are fun. Play video games, watch TV shows, and just sit around and talk. There is nothing better then sitting around with friends over a episode of Stargate and just having fun.
This particular Sunday I had a chance to learn about some guitar basics. Jack spent some time to teach me a a few chords to practice. A guitar looks like a simple instrument of taut strings but it contains so much hidden intricacy. The toughest part is the getting the finger of my left hand to make fast precise movements on the neck of the instrument. The next tricky part is how much the strings hurt the tips of the fingers after a practicing awhile. Jack promises that calluses will form that make playing much easier.
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September 23, 2006
Taking Devin out to his first rock concert.
When I found out Paranoid Social Club was holding a all ages show at the Stone Church in Newmarket, I knew that I have to bring Devin along.
Devin is Jacks younger brother but over the years he has become the younger brother we always wanted. The group has taken him under our wings and molding him into the productive member of society we think he should be.
Small venue concerts are such a visceral experience. They are hot, crowded, social and most of all a lot of fun. I wanted to have Devin experience this first hand. The concert was great, PSC was at the top of their form that night. I made sure that Devin got the full deafening experience right up at the front.
Posted by binhqx at 11:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A new iron!
So I have these cool linen shirts that I bought during the summer. I love them, they are light and feel great. However I have discovered a unfortunate property of 100% linen garments, they wrinkle like crazy. Then just recently I got some very nice cotton shirts that are starting to do the same thing.
So I gave in and bought a iron. The one I picked is a Sunbeam Steam Master 4215. It has all kinds of features like auto-shutoff to prevent me from burning down the house. I find that I rather enjoy working with it. It heats up fast and produces lots of steam, this can make ironing a nice activity on cold days. It also has a sprayer on the front that is used to moisten overly dry spots.
I find that ironing can be a zen-like activity. Taking wrinkly clothes and bring their surface back to smooth. Then taking all these uniformly flatted and toasty garments and hanging them in the closet so they line up perfect order. I find it relaxing.
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September 22, 2006
Party Night
Tonight we randomly decided to have a bit of a dinner party. Matt made up some of his famous steak marinade and I cooked up some baked potatoes with broccoli. Just about everyone one showed up for the evening. Darrel, Nick, and Heather drove down from manchester and Jen came from Maine. The food came out great and there was plenty drink and merriment.
I love these random social get-togethers. Later that evening we went out to Trophies for a game of pool and fuseball. We have some funny photos of the rest of the evenings activities. I just need to figure out how to get them off my phone without paying for the file transfer.
Posted by binhqx at 8:19 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 21, 2006
Images from Katahdin
Jen uploaded a few images from the camera she brought with here up mount Katahdin. Click on the images below to see them at full resolution.
These were taken in a area called bolder field.
Posted by binhqx at 1:07 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 20, 2006
Avaya and Cisco Annoyances
The plan was simple. All I need to do is see if a Cisco 2600 could be used as a effective VoIP gateway for a PBX using a PRI line to interface the two of them. If it worked, we would have a way to extend the capabilities of existing PBX systems.
For this setup I used a Cisco 2600 router with a NM-HDV2-T1/E1 card for the PRI interface. For the PBX I used a Avaya Merlin Legend. I think I am now regretting that decision.
The Merlin Legend is a very capable PBX system, but it is hard as hell to configure and even harder to debug. Half the problem is with the documentation. The manuals may have all the information in them, it is just not laid out in a way that makes any operational sense. Every thing as organized by the name of features. However, how can one figure out what to do if the name of the feature is unknown? I have been looking for things like "Procedure to add a new phone to a system and setup its permissions," or perhaps "Procedure for connecting PRI to a service provider." In these cases, the manual suggests calling a certified Avaya technician and pay him a pile of money to fix it for you. I cant stand equipment like this. Even simple things like factory reseting the system are made needlessly difficult. In this case I had to find a menu in a unrelated system and hit a unlabeled button twice.
I still have not figured out how to allow outgoing calls. No-mater what I do, every outgoing call returns a "Permission denied."
So I have been fighting with the Avaya and Cisco for about a week now. I have setup the PRI connection thanks to this walkthrough. Setting up the Cisco side has been relatively painless. Except I am now having problems with one way audio on the VoIP side. The Cisco is just not sending any rtp packets.
This whole thing is becoming incredibly frustrating.
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September 19, 2006
Back to running.
It seems that every autumn I get a urge to go running. So I cam up with this 1.75 mi. route in Dover.
Right now I am running it every other day and it takes about 16 minutes. Perhaps in a week or two I will push it up to a 2 mile run. I just started, so this gets me pretty winded right now.
Posted by binhqx at 4:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 18, 2006
Things to research when bored: The Grimoires
Sometimes when I need a break from work, I like to just read esoteric source material. I had heard about a book called The Key of Solomon The King. I found a copy of the manuscript in the Internet Sacred Texts Archive. This lead me to a whole set of works under the subject Grimoire.
Grimoires are books of magic written about at about the end of the medieval period. They contain magic spells and information about various demons and other supernatural beings. The Sacred Texts Archive have a whole set of Grimoires here.
I found The Key of Solomon and The Lesser Key of Solomon to be the most interesting. They contain practical magic for day to day needs. Spells for the retuning of lost or stolen objects or conjure sprits to do your bidding.
Fascinating stuff.
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September 17, 2006
Off to see the folks.
No trip to Maine is complete without a trip to my parents house. They have been putting a lot of work into the property there. Two new decks have been installed on the back and the side of the house so there is plenty of space to stretch out in the sun.
The best part of this visit was another trip to Jordan Pond House. I love the ice tea and hot popovers there. We also took a drive up Cadillac mountain to check out the cruse ships in the harbor. So many of them come are making port in Bar Harbor recently.
Too bad it is a long drive home. I would have liked to say longer.
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September 16, 2006
Up Mount Katahdin
So Jen and I spent the whole day climbing around on Mount Katahdin. Unfortunately we did not reach the summit but we did learn some important mountain climbing lessons. Around 4000ft we examined our water supply and realized that we did not have enough to get to the top without severe dehydration. We started the climb with a bit more then a liter of water per person but after breaking the timber line it was not enough.
Still we did get high enough to see some very expressive views. I will post some pictures from Katahdin when I get them.
Posted by binhqx at 5:17 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 15, 2006
Another Maine trip!
This afternoon I am taking off to a weekend trip to Maine. This time I plan on climbing Mount Katahdin on Saturday. I hear that this can be an interesting climb. I am leaving right from work so I can get up there before it gets too late.
Posted by binhqx at 2:58 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 14, 2006
Asterisk and RFC2833
It look like Asterisk does not really support RFC2833 in its stable branch. Instead they close approximation of RFC2833 that works most of the time. See this bug report about it.
However, we just found a situation where it always breaks when working with a RFC2833 compliant system like Allworx. The rtp event packets have a tendency to arrive slightly out of order thanks to the Asterisk implementation. This can cause it to detect a single dtmf event as multiple dtmf events.
So all you Asterisk using service providers, (I am looking at you RNK) you need to step up to the plate and get some developers to fix Asterisk. That is the point of open source after all.
Posted by binhqx at 3:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 13, 2006
The hardest to replace bulbs.
I had a few bulbs burn out in my car. Unfortunately they turned out to be the hardest to replace bulbs. The first to go where the indicator lights. To get these out, I need to take apart the entire driver side dashboard and drop the steering wheel. The next lights to burn out where my license plate illuminators. These should be easy to replace but the screws that hold them in have rusted into tiny piles of iron oxide. It is likely that these will need to be drilled out and replaced.
I do not have the time or resources to do this myself so i had the shop do it. The bulbs themselves only cost $3 total, I wonder how much it will be to get them into my car.
Posted by binhqx at 10:00 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 12, 2006
Nights are getting cold.
It was so cold out tonight that I had to go to the store and buy a jacket. I could have pulled out one of my old jackets, but they where too big for me and looked pretty disheveled.
I found a nice light jacket at TJMax, it should get me through the rest of the fall.
Posted by binhqx at 1:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 11, 2006
Cisco IOS confusion
Now I understand why Cisco trained technicians make so much money. It has nothing to do with their ability to operate a piece of Cisco hardware. Insted, it is all about knowing what IOS to use. The Cisco IOS is the operating system that runs on just about all Cisco routers. The problem is there are a million different variations of the IOS for different hardware and feature sets. So before I can even figure out how to do something with a router, I first must figure out if I'm running the right IOS to do that.
That is what a spent all day doing. I was following the online instructions to set up a PRI connection with a T1 controller card and the commands would not be accepted. It ended up being that I was running the wrong IOS to this. Now I need to get the right IOS from the Cisco distributor.
This is becoming a big pain in the butt.
Posted by binhqx at 3:22 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 10, 2006
Lazy Saints Row Sunday.
Did not do too much today other then make trail mix and watch people play Saints Row.
Saints Row is like a better version or GTA. However, I do not find these type of games to be terribly interesting. Basicly, it takes street violence and makes it mundane. It's just mission after mission of kill these guys or deal these drugs, or blow up these cars.
I see aints Row as just another par gangster game.
Posted by binhqx at 5:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 9, 2006
Afternoon with Paranoid Social Club at the Redhook
The Redhook brewery in Portsmouth threw a big anniversary party. The musicl guest we came for was Paranoid Social Club. After hearing them back in August, we have been looking fro another opportunity to see them live.
It was a out door concert and the weather was perfect for it. The sun was hot but there was plenty of Redhook beer to keep everyone cooled off. The performance was great and there where a few new songs I never heard before.
Unfortunately, the other band that played where not all that good. So we did not stick around too much after.
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A intereting place to meet people.
I found a new and interesting place to meet new people.
After the night out, Jack decided that he had too much to drink this evening and would not go straight to bed. Instead he would stay up and sober up for a few hours. Everyone was going to bed in the room, so he decided to hang out down in the lobby.
I was not feeling particularly tired yet, so I went down to give Jack some company. The hotel we stayed at is quite comfortable. Jack picked a bench near the entrance and reception desk so we could watch the comings and goings of the hotel patrons.
To keep from getting too board we would randomly talk to the people coming in from a late night. I was surprised to find many other like us who where just spending the night in town for some entertainment. So anyone who walked in this late probably had a interesting story about the events of their evening.
Jack and I got to meet all kinds of interesting people.
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September 8, 2006
Night at the Medieval Manor
The Medieval Manor is this cool medieval themed dinner show in Boston. Earlier tonight Jack, Darrell, Nick, John, Heather and I drove down to see it. The whole thing coasts about $40 per head, but that includes a multi-course meal and a lot of beer.
We got a hotel room so we could stay in town for the night and took a cab to the Medieval Manor. The show centers around a king and his court. There are jokes and songs and plenty of hilarious interaction with the audience.
The food in interesting because there are no utensils to use. All food in is eaten with hands. That is not too much of a problem because the meals are hand friendly. Loafs of bread, ribs, mussels, and shrimp are just some of the items that are served.
We all had a fantastic time there.
Afterward we took cabs to Jillian's. The Red Sox had just lost to the worst team on the league so everyone there was a little down. However, it is our night on the town and we made the best of it.
Posted by binhqx at 11:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 7, 2006
Strage stuff in Evanescence's My Immortal
There has always been something about My Immortal by Evanescence that seemed a bit odd. At the very end there is barley noticeable, high pitched tones that sound like some type of digital artifacts.
Yesterday I heard Cap listening to My Immortal in his computer. I decided that I would analyze the song to see if the sound really existed. I got a copy of the song from Cap and got to work.
The place where the tones are most noticeable are in the last 20 seconds.
Here is a clip of the last 20 seconds.
Here is a sonogram of the sound clip:
Notice that odd single frequency right at 2.66kHz. I used Garageband to build I filter to isolate the 2.66kHz tones and amplify it.
Here is a clip of the last 20 seconds after being filtered and amplified (Warning: this sound is really annoying.).
Here is a Sonogram of the clip.
So the sound is quite real. The only other question is "What is it?" At first glance, it sounds like Morse code but it is just gibberish. Some searching around the web reveled that I am not the first person to notice this. The story goes that is sound was produced from a error in a synthesizer that Evanescence used. They like the sound, so they just left it in.
Of course little things like this drive geeks like me mad.
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September 6, 2006
My work PC just died.
I was working on some Cisco equipment from my workstation when it just up and died. It just froze up and would not reboot. Eventually it did get to the BIOS and gave a cryptic error about the checksum. I hunted around for a flashing utility to attempt to reload the BIOS but all I got was site after site in Chinese.
I give up...
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Update 3: Phones, the old fashion way.
Phones, the old fashion way continued...
All the missing parts of the PBX came in while I was out in California. The dropped them in and everything came to life. The phones I hooked up could call each other and everything. The system could even receive calls coming in from the PSTN when I hooked it up.
So the next step is to get it to talk to a Cisco router using the T1 interface. I have all the pieces of the Cisco setup on route, so they should be here tomorrow.
Posted by binhqx at 11:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 5, 2006
500th blog entry!
I just took a look at my counter and saw that I had 499 blog entries. This makes 500!
Some of them are long and some are short, but all are meaningful (well to me anyway).
Posted by binhqx at 11:52 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 4, 2006
Another travel day...
All of this Labor Day was spent in transit....
There is something about airline travel that is appealing to me. I enjoy the feeling of air travel its self. The plane bounces around in all directions in a rather jovial manor. These motions upsets some people but not me.
I also like watching the travelers mill about in the terminals. They rush around to exits or other terminals. Other people sit around looking board or impatient. In general there are so many different types of people all squished together into one location. It is like a human zoo.
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September 3, 2006
Beach trip on the west coast.
SB and I got a chance to visit the Pacific Ocean. We to a day road trip with Al's and Calli's roommate Erica, friend Lindsay and internet friend Nicole. We all piled into the van and took the drive from Sacramento to the west coast. It took a few hours, but it was well worth it.
The ride was was thrilling for me. I love to see the hills created by the local tectonic activity. Compared to east cost geologic formations, this hills are hot out of the oven.
The Pacific Ocean is very different from the Atlantic. It looks different, sounds different and even tastes different. The trip to the ocean was completely sunny, but once we where within a few mile from the coast, the sky became completely overcast and the temperature dropped ten degrees.
So the beach itself was cold and gray. Too cold for our Californian friends, but just right for SB and I. The tiny pebbles that make up beach where incredibly diverse in coloring. We sat around searching the ground for the most interesting stones. SB climbed some rocks and played in the serf.
Around lunch dinnertime we found a place that specialized in hot-dogs and offers bottomless baskets of french fries. We also picked up some saltwater taffy. It appeared that taffy was a specialty of this place. It all tasted rather good.
Eventually it got late and we had to return Sacramento. Tomorrow is a very busy day.
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September 2, 2006
Alex and Callista are married!
Whoohoo! After a fantastic ceremony, Alex and Callista are married!
Posted by binhqx at 1:20 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 1, 2006
Pre-wedding
Today was the big wedding preparation day. Tons of stuff going on and everyone stressing out over it. I got to meet many members of both families. It is great to be at a wedding and not be related to either family. I am pretty much able to do what ever I want without embarrassing anybody.
Other then that I was able to be helpful to the overall process. Just going around and doing all those little tasks that need to be done.
The other job I have picked up is pre-wedding recorder. I have been running around with my camera snapping pictured of everything going on. I think after it is all over, I will take Comic Life and make a hilarious comic out of it.
I need to get to bed early tonight. Tomorrow night it is SB and my job to get Alex to the wedding on time. i think there is a song about that.
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