What the hell is up with all these idiot drivers today?
2008
Mojave Desert and Death Valley
I don't know what it is, but I love the desert. Endless roads, warm air (115°F), wind (it's hard to tell but in the picture above the wind is blowing 30+ mph), flat land that seems to go on forever, and of course, very few people.
Crossing the the border between Nevada and California, a desert mirage looked like a giant lake. A few minutes later, I spent about an hour covering 10 miles of I-15 due to a truck that turned over going through Mountain Pass. I entered the Mojave Desert from the North through Cima, CA. The US Post Office for Cima looked more like a shack in the middle of the desert until I saw the original Post Office:
I tried driving up a dirt road, but turned around half way when I realized there was a chance I could get stuck (I had a Toyota Camry). So much for my sense of adventure.
Driving on I-40 the views were incredible (and so was the heat).
Before entering Death Valley, I thought of filling my gas tank. I decided to skip it when I saw the gas price was 4.91. Later, in Shoshone, CA, I ended up buying gas for 5.39 a gal. The sun was setting fast (and the smoke from the forest fires didn't help) and I wanted to get through Death Valley before the sunset.
The mountains and roadside were more barren than ever going through Death Valley. I read signs that said to be aware of the extreme heat and along a particular stretch of road there were "radiator water tanks" every few miles. I was passing through around 7PM and it was still 115 degrees, so I can't imagine how hot it must have been during the day.
I was only half-way through Death Valley when it got dark. A big section of route 190 was through the mountain with roads that curved left and right a thousand times. Many of the corners had no guard rails and whenever I dared to take my eyes off the road and look down, all I could see was pitch black. It was definitely nerve racking going around each corner not being sure if there was a big rock lying in the middle of the road (plenty of signs warned me of that possibility). I saw dozens of snakes crossing the road during the night, but decided not to get a closer look and risk being stung in the middle of no where.
As I exited Death Valley and approached 395, I could see the mountains to the West glowing orange. I quickly realized they were forest fires and pulled over to take some pictures (timer, 30 sec exposure, the roof of the car, and the camera strap for balance). After taking the pictures I drove South on 395 and ended up going through all the smoke from the forest fires. Driving on the highway at 75 MPH in 110 degree weather, white ash started falling like snow. Animals that were running to escape the fire were on the left and right side of the highway. As I approached them, they would look up at me; their blue, gray, and green eyes shining through the thick smoke. It was very surreal.
Total miles driven: ~580
Vegas, Lake Mead, Valley of Fire, and Hoover Dam
Friday night Sanjay dropped me off in front of the Bellagio on his way to the airport. The Strip was crowded as hell. I noticed everyone was looking out towards the Bellagio and realized they were waiting for the fountains to start. I found a good place to steady my camera and when it started I took some photos of the fountain.
Then I looked for the fastest, cheapest way out of there! It had only been about 20 minutes and I was already sick of the place. I took the monorail back to the Hilton for $5 and then caught a cab to the Plaza Hotel, which was North of The Strip. $12 including tip.
The Plaza Hotel was crap. I got a smoking room (they didn't ask me what I wanted), the TV was broken (it turned on and off randomly), and when I fell asleep with the TV on, a security guard opened my hotel room door, woke me up and asked me to turn down the TV... at 2:30 in the morning.
The next morning I needed to find a way to the airport to pick up my rental car. The person at the front desk said the shuttle to the airport arrives every 1.5 hrs and that a cab costs about $25 to the airport.
After having a coffee and waiting around a bit inside, I decided to get some fresh air and sit outside (the ceiling of the place was covered in bulbs). When I asked the security guard about the shuttle, she said it arrives every 30 minutes, but that it will most likely be full because it requires that you reserve a spot. She also said it has lots of stops and that it will take awhile to get to the airport. She said a cab is about $40 and that I should take the city bus; it comes every 30 minutes and is a lot cheaper. However it's a long 1 hour ride to airport because it makes lots of stops.
So I walked half a block and waited for city bus. When it arrived, I realized I only had a $1 dollar bill and a $20 bill (fare was $1.25). The driver said he has no change and that I should go find change elsewhere. As soon as the bus drove away, I realized I had 25 cents in my LEFT pocket (normally I only put money and change in my right pocket).
So I decided to wait for shuttle and ask the driver if there was room. He came 10 minutes later, I paid him 8 bucks. I was the only one on the shuttle, and he went straight to the airport in 15 minutes.
There was a single building for all the car rentals and the place looked like a mini airport! There were about 100 people in line for the shuttle back to the airport.
When I purchased something at the concession stand, the persona at the register said, "Have the best day!" instead of, "Have a good day!". I later realized a lot of people in Nevada said "Have the best day".
The car I rented was a Toyota Camry. It was rated at 35 MPG (I later tested my real fuel economy and discovered I was getting 37 MPG). The rental for three days was a bit expensive, but since I knew I would be doing around 1,000 miles and with gas prices where they were (between 4.50 and 5.80 a gal out West), having good fuel economy would definitely be worth the extra cost (I ended up doing 1,241 miles over the three days).
After picking up the rental, I drove towards Lake Mead on E Lake Mead Pkwy and then realized a better route would be to come down through the Valley of Fire. So I went back, took I-515 North to I-15 North, and came down route 167 through Logandale and Overtron.
Finally, I took route 147 to 166, and then onto 93 where I visited Hoover Dam. They were rebuilding the 93 highway with a new bridge that goes across the dam. I can see why. The current roads are very narrow and easily create a bottleneck in the flow of traffic.
I stopped briefly in Boulder City (which was beautiful) and then found a place to stay in Henderson, NV called Hawthorne Inn. This room was much, much nicer than the Plaza Hotel and it only cost me $50!
I will let the pictures and the map do the rest of the talking. Keep in mind that I took the majority of the pictures while driving. I just held my DSLR in one hand, and stuck it out the window over the passengers seat (yes, I kept a hand, and my eyes, on the road). Keeping the camera level was difficult and I had to learn how to judge where I was pointing the camera without actually looking through the viewfinder. With the amount of driving I was planning on doing, I couldn't afford to stop and take pictures!
Total miles driven: ~240
InfoComm 08 in Las Vegas, NV
I went to Las Vegas, NV last week to attend InfoComm 08, the largest Pro AV show in history.
We arrived Tuesday morning and setup the booth without much difficulty. I have set up many show booths in my lifetime (my parents used to attend gift shows every year around the country) and setting up the booth in three hours was a breeze compared to the ten-plus hours it would take to setup my parents booth.
The following three days consisted of me doing a lot of standing between 9AM and 5PM:
The experience was not much different from the gift shows I had attended. Instead taking orders for product hanging on the walls, I needed to ask (and answer) questions about the company's product and talk to the people who came by the booth.
My boss let me take breaks to walk around the show and I saw lots of really nice screens and cool technology. One booth was selling remote control helicopters with HD cameras attached to them. He flew the smaller one around his booth and over peoples' heads while I was there. That's one way to attract a crowd of men who are fascinated by technology! Unfortunately I didn't take my camera with me, so I don't have many pictures of the show itself.
Taking down the booth was just as easy as putting it up, but we had to wait a good two hours for our boxes to arrive. Once we had the boxes we were out of there in an hour. My boss was flying back later that night and I planned to walk The Strip and then find a room for the night.
MobileMe – Why Me?
@tweakt Irregular sleeping pat…
@tweakt Irregular sleeping patterns wreak havoc on your appetite & diet. Try going to bed or waking up (not both) at the same time every day.
Driving through a small town t…
Driving through a small town that grows garlic with my windows down. All I smell is garlic and my eyes are stinging.
Out here in Cima, CA gas is $5…
Out here in Cima, CA gas is $5.31 a gal. I heard people asking the store clerk if that price was real. I'm glad I don't need gas!
Water found on Mars, NASA scientists confirm
It looks like all those Sci-Fi books that talk about life on Mars are becoming more realistic. If there is one thing that never ceases to inspire awe, it's life on Mars and the idea of standing on another planet exploring places where no other humans have stood (at least not in currently known history).
That feeling of awe is what I experienced when I saw this news headline this morning: Water found on Mars, Nasa scientist confirm.
Sure, there still isn't one hundred percent scientific proof that water has been found on Mars, but the scientists feel sure enough to confirm it. They saw a white substance, which was present a few inches underneath the surface, "melt" away over the course of a few days. That confirmed the substance wasn't salt or CO2 ice (CO2 ice would take hours, not days, to melt and salt wouldn't melt at all). Of course there's a chance that the substance isn't water either, but something unknown to scientists. I hope not.
Finding water on Mars would swing the door wide open to future human trips to the planet and would make setting up a base on the planet a whole lot easier. One of the biggest problems with human space travel is the need to transport our water supply, something that is both heavy and very costly. Having a base on Mars with access to water would not only allow astronauts to explore Mars, but also use it as a refill station for other exploration.
I just hope that near-future space exploration is not hindered by other events on this planet. We seriously need to fix our energy problems (by fixing our political problems) and stop turning our only home into a dumpster. Recycle!
The wild-west of Mexico a peek into the future?
Mexico is like the wild-west of the United States. There are gambling rules, but you're allowed to gamble with "credits". There are no privacy rules; if you use your phone to play an SMS game, your phone number and information is collected and sold to the highest bidder (but spamming is not allowed). The government encourages businesses to figure out ways of tracking people using technology (again, no privacy laws). Individuals, not businesses, own buses and they must individually get permits from the local towns where they want to run a route. Gas is subsidized by the government, so there is no gas competition. A lot of people live day to day buying food for one or two days because they don't have enough money to buy food for the week.
Indian music in a Japanese res…
Indian music in a Japanese restaurant creates an odd atmosphere
Vegan Discipline
It's difficult being vegan. Being vegan means you need to be willing to sacrifice. It means accepting the single vegan choice on a restaurant menu of fifty items and skipping a latte if they don't offer a soy option. It means making it known to the world that you don't eat meat when ordering an item you're unsure about. It means always packing alternatives (ProBar, almonds, trail mix). It means having respect and care for what you put into the one and only machine you are truly responsible for maintaining.
Landed in Las Vegas. Flight wa…
Landed in Las Vegas. Flight was packed; had a middle seat. Temp is 105 & sunny. We were asked to close our shades to keep the plane cool.
Headed to Las Vegas
I'm going to Las Vegas tomorrow to attend InfoComm with my boss. The flight leaves at 8:00AM and we setup the booth the same day. Wed-Fri we work the show.
Since I'm already out there, I decided to stay a few extra days and drive around a bit. My return flight is from San Francisco, CA at 11:40PM (I get back to Boston at 8:20AM Tuesday morning). I'm bringing my DSLR and I will try to post pictures every day with a map of where I've driven. You can also expect some Twitter updates if you're following me.
Father's Day Weekend
I spent the weekend fixing bathroom plumbing at Cumberland RD, helping my sister and brother-in-law put together a vinyl fence (note to self: vinyl fences suck), rode Thea's Honda CBR600RR around the neighborhood (first time on public roads with my motorcycle license), and played badminton at my parents place (my dad got a lot better!).
Installed DenyHosts to Help Prevent SSH Attacks
When the LogWatch report from yesterday (for web.akmai.net) arrived in my Inbox, it had over 20,000 failed SSH login attempts. Today I decided it was finally time to do something about all those attacks.
After looking around a bit, I found several different solutions. Some solutions utilized firewall rules and others monitored your /var/log/secure (or /var/log/auth.log) log files for multiple failed login attempts and then added those IPs/Hosts to the /etc/hosts.deny file.
I decided to go with the latter method and quickly found a nice tutorial for setting up DenyHosts (be sure to download the latest version (2.6 as of this writing) instead of the older version 2.0). Rather than reinvent the wheel, here is what the DenyHosts website says about itself:
What is DenyHosts?
DenyHosts is a Python script that analyzes the sshd server log messages to determine what hosts are attempting to hack into your system. It also determines what user accounts are being targeted. It keeps track of the frequency of attempts from each host.
Additionally, upon discovering a repeated attack host, the /etc/hosts.deny file is updated to prevent future break-in attempts from that host.
An email report can be sent to a system admin.
Since I was setting up DenyHosts on a RedHat-based machine (CentOS) and not a Debian-based machine, I needed to change this line:
update-rc.d denyhosts defaults
to this:
chkconfig denyhosts --add
Other than that, the installation steps were just as the tutorial described. I decided to enable the ADMIN_EMAIL option so that I would receive an email every time something was added to hosts.deny, but within minutes of starting DenyHosts I had a dozen attacks with a dozen emails on my BlackBerry. I had to disable ADMIN_EMAIL to stop the spamming!
To make sure DenyHosts was working properly I tried logging in with the wrong password three times. When I tried to connect again, here is what I received:
ssh root@akmai.net
ssh_exchange_identification: Connection closed by remote host
DenyHosts also has the ability to report to a central server the hosts that are trying to break in and you can also download a list of hosts that have been reported by others. I choose to opt out of doing this for now. The DenyHosts statistics page is pretty cool. Notice how the majority of the hosts come from China? Hmm.
UPDATE:
I quickly discovered that DenyHosts was adding my IP address to the hosts.deny file. When I watched /var/log/secure I discovered the problem:
Jun 13 20:18:46 web sshd[5959]: reverse mapping checking getaddrinfo for 75-147-49-211-newengland.hfc.comcastbusiness.net failed - POSSIBLE BREAKIN ATTEMPT!
Jun 13 20:18:46 web sshd[5959]: Accepted publickey for fooUser from ::ffff:75.147.49.211 port 57926 ssh2
Jun 13 20:18:48 web sshd[5994]: Did not receive identification string from ::ffff:75.147.49.211
I'm not entirely sure how to fix this, but for now I added my IP address to /usr/share/denyhosts/data/allowed-hosts (I had to create this file) which prevents DenyHosts from blocking my IP no matter what (see this FAQ for more info). Also, I had to restart DenyHosts (/etc/init.d/denyhosts restart) before the change to allowed-hosts took effect.
iPhone: The future of mobile computing?
I just finished watching the WWDC 2008 Keynote Address and I am fully convinced that the iPhone, along with the developer tools Apple is providing, will lead the way for a new generation of mobile devices over the next few decades. The applications they demonstrated, particularly in the medical and social networking fields, just blew me away.
If you have some time, watch it and tell me what you think.
Rubik's Cube Algorithms
Part One
ALGORITHM KEY
`F` = Front side
`U` = Up side
`L` = Left side
`R` = Right side
`D` = Down side
`i` = Turn counter-clockwise (otherwise, you always turn clockwise)`Fi U Li Ui` = Turn the Front side counter-clockwise, then turn the Up side clockwise, then turn the Left side counter-clockwise, then turn the Up side counter-clockwise.
Watch the Part One video for a full explanation of how to use the algorithms below!
LIST OF ALGORITHMS
Fi U Li Ui
Ri Di R D
U R Ui Ri Ui Fi U F
Ui Li U L U F Ui Fi
F R U Ri Ui Fi
R U Ri U R U U Ri
U R Ui Li U Ri Ui L
Ri Di R D
Krishna commented that those last two are wrong; they should be:
U R Ui L U Ri Ui Li
Ri D R DiKev commented that Krishna's correction was incorrect. I've reverted to the original algorithm.
Part Two
Thanks for the Rubik's cube tips, Dan!
Don't go food shopping hungry….
Don't go food shopping hungry. You'll end up buying too much! $85 in food should last me until middle of next week.
Passed Evaluations for Motorcycle License
I passed the evaluations for my class M license today with a 100% score on the knowledge test and only 4 points for going 1 foot outside the boundary box during the tight cornering phase of the road test (21+ points = fail). Many thanks to Jeff Thorpe and Ken Whitcher of Training Wheels for their guidance and instruction.
I felt the past two days were more an endurance test than a motorcycle license test; the 95 degree weather with clear skies and the class regulation that required boots, long pants, a long sleeve shirt, full-fingered gloves, and a helmet made for two very hot, sweaty, and exhausting days.
As is tradition at Training Wheels, Jeff took several photos during the biking sessions and a group photo at the end. They post these pictures online. Since they are a few weeks behind uploading pictures, my class (F23B) isn't there yet. I'll let you know when the pictures from my class have been uploaded.