Computers

I have a storage dilemma

Posted on by Timothy Foreman

So I have this FreeNAS server that I built a while ago. I’ve been pretty happy with it but recently it lunched it’s OS drive.

I farted around with it, tried to replace the OS drive with a CF card, no luck. FreeNAS is supposed to run off a USB stick, but my motherboard is too old and the BIOS doesn’t support booting off a USB stick.

Over the weekend I booted it off the FreeNAS CD and copied all the data to my 1TB USB drive, so that is a win anyway.

Yesterday I finally gave up and went to MicroCenter and bought a reconditioned 80GB hard drive for $15(!). I installed the latest version of FreeNAS (8.0.2) and rebuilt the ZFS RAID array. I have to say, the v8 interface is very nice compared to the v7 interface.

Then one of the drives in the array started tossing errors. SMART is detecting bad sectors. All three drives are the same age…

I started shopping for drives. Both MicroCenter and Newegg have 1.5TB SATA drives for $70. I could buy two and mirror them. BUT both Newegg and MicroCenter limit purchases to one drive! WTF? How am I supposed to build a RAID array with one drive?

AND my motherboard is old and does not have SATA on it. Nor does it have PCIe. It has PCI-X. So I would have to buy a SATA controller for $45. And SATA cables. And power cord adapters.

For those of you counting along that would be around $200.

****** OR ******

I could buy an Iomega® StorCenter™ ix2-200 with 2TB of storage for $200.

The reviews on Newegg are not bad, and C|Net gave it a Very Good rating.

Sounds kind of like a no-brainer actually. My home brew NAS is big – it’s in a huge rack mount case. It sucks a lot of juice. It needs $200 worth of parts to make it go.

The iomega NAS is small, uses much less power and is $200.

I think I’m going to buy the iomega…

*UPDATED*

I bought the iomega NAS. Can’t wait until it gets here!

Motorcycles

Keys, keys, who’s got the keys…

Posted on by Timothy Foreman

I thought I lost my keys to the K bike this evening.

I drove the truck to work and back today, so the last time I remembered having them was yesterday. They live in my pants pocket all summer, but when I stuck my hand in there this evening to get my Swiss Army knife out it was the only thing there. Hmm. That’s odd.

I figured that I must have hooked them onto the truck keys and pulled them out of my pocket somewhere. That meant that they were either in the parking lot at work, the parking lot at the high school or in the street by my house.

I was pretty sure I had felt them in my pocket earlier, so I figured they were most likely in the high school parking lot.

Well, I know I have a spare ignition key… oh, wait, it’s locked in the Givi bag. I put the spare key in the Givi bag when I ran the MN2010 rally.

I then hid the spare Givi key…. where did I hide that key? Uh-oh.

So I had to do some head scratching. I thought I remembered taping it to the bottom of a saddle bag, but I also thought I remembered removing it after the rally.

I went out to the garage to have a look around.

Hey! My keys are hanging in the lock on the Givi bag. D’oh. Guess I had enough stuff to unload that I forgot the keys.

And there is the spare ignition key in the Givi bag, still on the Dr. Pepper key chain. It came that way from Eddie.

Now where is the spare Givi key? Not on the bottom of the saddle bags. Hmm. What’s in this saddle bag? Gloves, rain suit, first aid kit… You don’t think…

Yes! The spare Givi key was in the first aid kit!

The spare set is now safely together and in the box on my dresser with all my other spare keys.

Whew.

Shooting

More 1911 hacking

Posted on by Timothy Foreman

While I had my 1911 apart today to install my DIY light pipe front sight (see previous post) I decided I might as well detail strip it and see if I could make the trigger pull any better.

It wasn’t too bad to begin with, but it was a little stiff and gritty. I had already done a little work to it, but I thought I’d take another stab.

The things I ended up doing were:

  • Polishing the sides and back of the trigger bow – I had already done this a little, but I made it even smoother.
  • Polishing the face of the sear – I used 1500 grit paper with a hard backing and some oil and only polished it until the bluing was gone and it was smooth. I did not mess with the size or angle.
  • Polished the sear hooks on the hammer. Again, same thing as the sear. Just enough to make them shiny and smooth.
  • Polished the feet of the sear that sit on the disconnect – these were really rough, so I smoothed them out a little.
  • Polished the back of the disconnect where it sits on the trigger bow. Again, just a light polish to smooth it out.
  • As I was fitting the trigger back into the frame I notice that it was hanging up a little. There was a little rough spot where the machining for the bow slot ended. So I smoothed that out. I think this made a big difference.

As long as I had it apart, I did some cosmetic polishing too. I had seen another 1911 where the owner had polished the sides (just the sides) of the hammer. I thought that looked pretty slick, so I did that.

I also polished the sides of the trigger. But I was getting tired of polishing at that point, so I didn’t do a stellar job. I wanted to get the pistol back together to test the trigger pull so I’ll have to go back and polish the trigger some more later.

The trigger pull feels much smoother and possibly lighter – wish I had a gauge.

And yes, the pistol passed all safety checks. Now I need to go shoot it and see if the mods make any difference.

Shooting

1911 DIY Light Pipe Sight Mod

Posted on by Timothy Foreman

I bought a Rock Island Tactical 1911 pistol this spring and have been trying to get good at shooting it ever since. I have not been doing a very good job. I think part of the problem is that I have old eyes and have difficulty seeing the front sight. I tried painting it white but that didn’t really help.

I had been thinking about getting a red dot light pipe style sight to install, but because I am cheap, and have tools, and think I can do anything, I decided to save the $25 or so that a real front sight costs and do it myself.

Of course I ended up spending more than $25, and it took me longer than I expected, but that’s not the point. Or maybe it is and this is a warning. 🙂

Anyway, over on the 1911 forum there was a guy who had a 1911 with trench sights. I didn’t know what that was, but apparently the sights are just a groove down the top of the slide. He decided that he needed more than that and he bought some light pipe and glued a piece in the trench at the front.

The light pipe is just colored plastic rod that they sell at hobby stores! Wait a minute! So I ran to the hobby store and bought a package. I bought 3/32″ diameter in red. They had red, yellow, blue, green and clear (white) in three different diameters. It was $6.25 for 8 12″ pieces (enough to do at least 96 front sights…)

Details and photos below the fold…Continue reading →

Shooting

Range report – Hudson Gun Club

Posted on by Timothy Foreman

First a little back story: I’ve started to get into shooting guns. I have some that I inherited from my grandparents (I’ll blog about those later) and I went out and bought a Pietta replica of an 1858 Remington New Army .44 caliber black powder cap and ball pistol. I’ve also started to reload cartridges for my Remington 740 .30-06 rifle. More about that later too.

Today Dave and I made a recon run to the Hudson Gun Club today. The following is my report.

Continue reading →

Security

Airline Boycott Letter

Posted on by Timothy Foreman

I just sent the following letter to my congresscritters, my representative and Delta airlines:

As I’m sure you know the TSA has started requiring passengers to submit to going through a back scatter scanner (the porno-scanner) which takes nearly naked pictures of you and has unknown x-ray exposure ramifications not to mention the images produced would be considered kiddie-porn if they were found on my laptop, or an “enhanced” pat-down procedure that would be considered sexual assault if it wasn’t being performed by a government employee.

As the father of two teen-aged daughters I feel it is my duty to protect them from this astonishing abuse of their personal rights and invasion of their privacy.

As such, my family will be boycotting the airlines until these procedures are reined in.

Sincerely,

Timothy Foreman

I would suggest you do something similar.

Life

Burtrand Russell’s Ten Commandments for Atheists

Posted on by Timothy Foreman

These are pretty applicable to theists in addition to atheists.

  1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
  2. Do not think it worthwhile to produce belief by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
  3. Never try to discourage thinking, for you are sure to succeed.
  4. When you meet with opposition, even if it is from your family, endeavor to overcome it with argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
  5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
  6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do, the opinions will suppress you.
  7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
  8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
  9. Be scrupulously truthful even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
  10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that is happiness.

Burtrand Russell is also the author of “Why I Am Not A Christian” a very strong article about his atheism.

And then there is this single commandment for atheists. Which I have a hard time following.

Life

Memorial Day

Posted on by Ben Lutgens

*edit* I’m no writer, and failed to have my author friends proofread this before asking timmay to post it as me. I just want to convey my heartfelt appreciation for our troops

In honor of those who have given their lives or sacrificed in the pursuit of the core principles which make up our great nation I’d like to extend a warm, heartfelt Happy Memorial Day to ALL Americans.

I flatter myself to wish to be included among those who have won us this fine day by my meager contribution of service. I am no Audie Murphy by any stretch of the imagination, but I did have the distinct honor of serving with many who are (or were) soldiers of that caliber. I have no doubt that I cannot begin to comprehend the courage, honor, and just plain awesomeness which those that have and do possess, that guarantee our freedoms.

Without our fantastic military people, we’d be nothing.

I ask of you, dear reader; that on this day you ponder the values our service people stand for. Regardless of your race, creed, or religious affiliation, we’re all still Americans. You may worship whichever god(s) you choose to, I don’t care. Brave, selfless individuals before us sacrificed more than you can imagine to allow us all to do so. You may feel persecuted for your beliefs or lack thereof, but rest assured, the spirit of what they were fighting for, will protect you.

This day isn’t about you or me however, its about those who are gone. Those who have died in defense of our liberties. Honor them in this subtle way: a day off, some good food with family, some reflection, some appreciation.

Happy Memorial Day America.

Lastly, to our men and women serving in the military as I once had the distinct privilege to do:

We love you.
We miss you.
We are proud of you.
Come home safe, and know that we will always be here for you!