My name is
David Robins:
Christian, lead developer (resume), writer, photographer, runner,
libertarian (voluntaryist),
and student.
This is also my son David Geoffrey Robins' site. He has been abducted for 2220 days.
Mammoth Cave revisited, and Interactive Fiction hope
News ·Saturday August 31, 2013 @ 21:22 EDT (link)
Friday was our tenth anniversary; so I took off from work early; we had planned to go down to Mammoth Cave in Kentucky on Saturday, so we drove down to Elizabethtown, KY and stayed overnight at the Fairfield Inn there (with a nice whirlpool tub). The room was nice, but a little smaller than I expected; but then, it wasn't a suite. I gave Honey some diamond earrings I'd been shopping for a few weeks before when she was out of town, and she gave me a nice card (and might be getting me something else later; I'm supposedly hard to shop for). We ate at the Texas Roadhouse, which was fine but we planned to go somewhere special for our "real" anniversary dinner (see next entry). We left in the morning right before checkout at noon, heading down to the cave, mindful that we got an extra hour since it was in Central time and we weren't, yet.
We took two tours, which I had reserved ahead of time: the New Entrance tour at 1300, which we had to take a bus to the start of, and the Historic tour, which was right near the visitor center (although down a bit of a hill which was no fun coming back up at the end). Both lasted two hours, and happened to have the same ranger guides for both: John and Michael (Michael talked more on the first, John on the second).
The last time I had been in the cave was about 10 years ago, in March 2002 (photos). There were some new rules this time, notably, no backpacks or rucksacks (to help preserve the cave walls), and people had to walk on "biomats" (spongy mats with some sort of anti-bacterial soap on them) after leaving to avoid spreading "white nose disease", a fungus that kills bats. Also, when I went back then, I went on a tour (Grand Avenue, four and a half hours, $18, so $4/hour vs. $6/hour now) that wasn't being offered at present (due to cuts, i.e., Washington monument syndrome). I also got to take my tripod in; it wasn't officially sanctioned then (don't know about monopods, but they aren't allowed now), as one of the rangers told me at the end, but he didn't bother me about it since he could see I was being careful and not getting in people's way. Which is an eminently sensible attitude about rules (much like the range officer at Silverdale was saying when we were there last; rules are meant to serve man, not the other way around). I much preferred using a tripod and the lights set up in the cave to having to use flash as I did this time.
Michael was a very entertaining guide, and good at getting people, including the kids in the crowd, to quiet down (John was less good at that, but he told a good tale of his family's historical connections to the cave as inspiration for future generations to protect it). Both tours had us sit on benches in open areas for information and questions (and to help stragglers catch up, I suppose); we moved at a good pace but not too quickly.
There were a lot of stairs going down (280?) at the start of on the New Entrance tour. Michael told us they cost taxpayers $3000 (back 30? years ago)&hellip per stair, and asked if we thought we got good value for our money. Given that a nuclear sub contractor had done it, and probably overcharged a great deal just because they already knew their way around the federal bidding process, I expect not, but amortized over time it probably wouldn't have been a huge deal even if (and if only) it had only been paid for voluntarily.
At one of the areas with benches we were sitting near the front and I mentioned Crowther and Woods and Colossal Cave Adventure to see if he'd heard of them, and knew what locations (since I knew it was in Kentucky) inspired them. Not only did he know of them, but he programmed interactive fiction as a hobby. And yes, Colossal Cave does connect to Mammoth, but it is closed to the public although some IFers have been allowed in to write about the connections to the game. (I suppose over the years enough tourists would come by asking that even an uninterested person would look them up.) Which gave me hope for humanity, if a government employee is doing something like that. We talked a little later after the second tour, and he told me he used TADS 3, although said he would have to learn about object-oriented programming (it seems TADS 2 didn't do that; TADS 3 was pretty smart to go with prototype-based objects, for flexibility and ease of use, like Javascript). I read up on TADS a little later (Sunday), and it's a C-like language with some great built-in syntax for building rooms, objects, relationships, verbs, and the like. (I worked through a tutorial, and am playing through the web hosted version of Return to Ditch Day now, in fact.)
We drove back that day (getting in around 2300), and stayed up and slept in the next day.
Books finished: The Golden Compass.
Weekend in Canada: shooting and a barbecue
News ·Sunday August 18, 2013 @ 22:14 EDT (link)
We drove up to Canada Friday for the first time since moving to Indiana; I took a half-day vacation and we left a little after noon, driving via Toledo, Detroit, and then across southern Ontario on the 401, getting in before 2200. We finished a (3D) movie with dad, Rebecca, and Theo, who were leaving that night.
Saturday morning I went to the Silverdale range with Jon Yade; he shot his bow; I was going to, but it really didn't align right for me, being left-handed and custom-fit to his draw, so we moved on to the H&K SL8, which we were sighting-in at 60 yards. Jon had an EOTech red dot on it, like I have on my AR-15 (I also have a 3x magnifier, he did not). It was a little tricky since his binoculars weren't magnified enough for me to see the hits well; I wish I had brought my spotting scope with me. We did borrow the guy on the next bench's scope, but that wasn't real convenient. Also: strange Canadian rule: you can't even look through optics (even not attached to a firearm, like binoculars) during a ceasefire, or have them pointed downrange. We did manage to get his rifle a lot closer to being zeroed, but given the situation it wasn't as convenient as we hoped.
Honey and dad and I had planned a barbecue for the afternoon; we bought some steaks, and Jon accepted an invitation to stay, and had corn and potatoes; a great late lunch. Jon had to leave afterward; we rented Amazing Spider-Man (3D) to watch that evening, which was pretty well done.
On Sunday we went to Thorold South, saw the Trotters, and Jon was at the second meeting; Gary McBride spoke. We went home to eat—Honey made chicken Teriyaki in the crock-pot, and dad took us for ice-cream at Avondale on our way out to the 401. We got in around 2300—wanted to be able to spend some time and not have to go right to sleep.
Books finished: Debugging, Chapterhouse: Dune, The Leader-Manager, The Bell Jar.
Canoeing on Sugar Creek
News ·Sunday July 7, 2013 @ 15:46 EDT (link)
We went to Turkey Run state park—well, really just Sugar Creek, which runs through the park—and went canoeing down Sugar Creek. We rented our canoes from Sugar Valley Canoe Trips ($18 for a canoe, paddles, and life jackets, plus leaving a credit card as a deposit against loss or damage), and arrived at the drop-off spot (in their bus) at just past 1300. It was a bit chaotic: there were wooden stairs leading to a small beach, with canoes arriving, and some paddles in a canoe at the top of the steps and some left by people dropping off canoes. One had to grab a canoe as it arrived, and paddles, without any direction or assistance from staff. Easy enough, but it would have been nice to know that was how it worked. I grabbed a canoe, found a paddle of the right height, and Honey got one, and pushed off down the river.
It was very scenic, and very shallow at many points—large rocky and sandy bars and some treacherous snags. We took the 6-mile trip, and arrived at the destination point at around 1515, which was pretty good time according to the website, which suggested 2h30-3h30. We even made a stop to eat: we shared a Coke and had some Pringles on a long sandbar (there was very little shade near places once could stop). Even though swimming was forbidden (prohibidibidado!), at a few points people (or yahoos, sometimes) were stopped and swimming, sometimes out in the middle blocking passage (especially bad due to the frequent shallows).
There was a spot where it was possible to see falcons of some kind—they had a nest in a tree, and were wheeling overhead; magnificent.
The end is pretty rough: one has to drag the canoe up a set of wooden stairs. Near killed me (I was "feeling faint", as Emily would put it) but I bounced back fast and we got on the bus with almost no wait and headed back to our car at the main depot. No pictures, since I wasn't sure what to expect so didn't bring my canoe out.
A rainy walk at Mounds State Park
News ·Sunday June 30, 2013 @ 17:34 EDT (link)
I drove out to Mounds State Park today, to get in a little hiking (Honey was resting). The weather did not cooperate; I first went into the visitor center (pointing out an incorrect use of "principle" for "principal" on one of the printed wall panels to one of the rangers) and then Bronnenburg House, hoping the rain would stop. The House is well-preserved—actually mostly rebuilt from having languished by a volunteer society, a member of which gave me the tour. Alas, however, the rain actually got worse; nonetheless I headed out to the boardwalk and then to Trail 1 to the Indian mounds. I did have my Coleman poncho with me, but wished I had rubber boots too. It was a nice enough walk, but I was glad to get back to my car and eat the lunch I brought.
Books finished: Hackers.
Impressions of Indiana
News ·Tuesday June 18, 2013 @ 19:36 EDT (link)
We've been in Indiana—NE of Indianapolis, in the town/city of Fishers in fast-growing Hamilton county—for about two months now, so it's time for some initial impressions.
We haven't had much of a chance to travel around the state and see the scenery, except on driving I-70 to WV and on the drive up, which we plan to remedy—it would be nice to get out to some parks. We did get to go to Lafayette for a gun rally, though.
The area is nice; people are friendly; there's sort of an "Anytown, USA" feel about it; it is distinguished more by its *lack* of distinguishing features that, say, Florida, Boston, or Seattle had. Most construction is fairly recent, so streets are wide and there's plenty of parking. There's some construction nearby on the IN-37/I-69 which slows down getting to/from work sometimes, but it's not a huge deal. It's been warm since we got here; the coldest I've been is when I got up at 0700 back in April for a "Fishers Code and Coffee" meetup.
We've been looking at houses—trying to find something balanced between all of our needs and wants: not too far from work, trees (since it was all cornfields not too long ago, that's not as easy as it sounds), land (enough for a private shooting range, although as flat as it is that might require moving in some earth for berms), a reasonably modern house with a nice kitchen, perhaps a deck and/or pool—the usual things people look for. Our real estate agent has us on an automatic search that sends us new properties and updates periodically. There are some "maybes" but nothing perfect—older or tiny houses tend to go with a lot of land, for example.
Work has been interesting: being a lead for the first time, which really wasn't as strange or difficult as I expected; my two secret weapons (OneNote and Source Insight) have stood me in good stead, and I've made a release of the API on schedule and submitted some changes for a key partner well ahead (which will be part of another release). I have a lot of ideas for improvement (e.g., automated testing) which I will have opportunity to implement (or oversee implementation). And the developer "brown bag" lunch talks that took six months to get set up/approved the last place I worked are starting tomorrow after minimal fuss.
We like the area; the biggest problem so far is that our LTCH (License to Carry Handgun) is expected to take three months (even though the law says we are supposed to get it in 60 days); but the state's protection rackets will be with your alway, even to the end of the earth. (Next up, we need driver's licenses, which hopefully won't be such a miserable process as to merit its own post.)
Books finished: The 50 Best (And Worst) Business Deals of All Time.
Comcast scumbags
News ·Monday June 17, 2013 @ 18:14 EDT (link)
Comcast, either out of massive ignorance or massive incompetence, is charging us for our brief "X-finity" use, even though it was within the 30-day money back guarantee. They also sent us to some collection agency about a week after they sent the bill. Two of their representatives—one online, one when Honey returned the modem (which we have a receipt for, of course) told us we owed nothing on our bill and it was "taken care of". Liars all.
AT&T U-verse has been a much better experience throughout. Avoid Comcast. AT&T surely have their problems too, but not with us.
WV; meeting Eileen and Doug
News ·Monday June 17, 2013 @ 00:36 EDT (link)
Since some unanticipated relatives showed up in WV while Honey was there (cousin Jonathan Edwards, his wife Adair, and aunt Debbie), I came up for the weekend, leaving Friday evening after work; we left after church Sunday at around 1300.
I took the opportunity to contact Eileen about stopping in to visit her and Doug (near Dayton, off the US-35), and we were able to stop in around 1900 (after eating at Wendy's). We brought some Timbits®—Dayton apparently has four! Tim Horton's. (I also stopped at one on the way up and got a cappuccino and sandwich and half dozen donuts.)
We ended up talking in a lot behind their house—we set up some camp chairs by our cars—for about three hours. It was great to meet them and discuss everything from anarchy to theology; Doug prayed before we left (in part that we would escape the attention of the state's enforcers as we drove); we got in shortly after midnight.
Books finished: Know-How.
Indy 500
News, Photography ·Sunday May 26, 2013 @ 15:41 EDT (link)
I bought a couple Indy 500 tickets from a co-worker who couldn't use them, and we went to the race today. I will say it was an experience, and I am happy I did it, taking advantage of being so close to it; but would probably not do it again.
The drive to the track was supposedly about 35 minutes, but we knew that would not be the case, and indeed we encountered the "beginning of sorrows" on the I-465 (we were routed around on the I-465 rather than, say, Binford, so ended up approaching the track from the west even though we're on the east side). There was a huge lineup at the I-465/I-865 split, taking us about 20 minutes to get through, and then again at the Crawfordville Road exit. We had left perhaps around 1000, so we had time—barely. Police were out directing traffic at the exit and along Crawfordville Road (nice to see them doing something useful).
We ended up parking just off West 22nd Street for $20; we may have been able to get closer, but it was such a mess that it didn't seem worthwhile to take the time to drive past and come back as I had originally planned. All told, the walk from there to our seats in stand C was about 1.7 miles; the "paddock" stand seemed to go on forever. First we had to get in, though; the ticket line started as a mob surrounding the gates, and wound back along the outside of the track and then forward again. That took us maybe another half hour to get through, even with only the most cursory bag checks (and I don't see why they bothered; with that level of checking, people could have easily smuggled in a suitcase nuke, the parts for a fighter jet, and enough rocket launchers to outfit a squadron). We brought backpacks and I had a small collapsible cooler; and since I had expected the event to go until 1800 (which is actually just when the track closes), I brought too much food and drink (two water bottles apiece, two soft drinks, three beers, and other assorted snacks).
We got into our seats just in time—1210—for the start, although Sandi Patti sang the US anthem while we were still outside the stands. As a few wise guys said on my Facebook status, the start and end are exciting and the middle is not so much; and the end was a bit of a let down as the cars finished the 200th lap under caution and Kanaan won sort of "by default" although certainly he had to fight for it in the previous laps.
Getting out wasn't too terrible, really. The race finished around 1415. Of course there was the long walk back, but we weren't too snarled up in traffic; I think maybe it took us only about 45 minutes to get back to Fishers. I had taken a few photos, but didn't really have a great viewing platform.
In future, I'll watch it on TV; better viewing angles, and shorter lines.
Books finished: And Thereby Hangs a Tale, Leadership, The One Minute Negotiator.
Fail2ban succeeds
News, Technical ·Friday May 10, 2013 @ 18:40 EDT (link)
Fail2ban is a utility written in Python that scans log files and, if it finds authentication or other failures over a given number of attempts, it will ban the host for a specified time.
Fail2ban comes with a number of filters (files defining regular expressions to match in log files, and how to extract information such as the host name or IP address) and actions (such as sending an email notification or adding a ban via iptables). It works pretty well out of the box; I just had to point it at my log files, and configure it to ban attempts in the Postfix (mail) and SSH logs. It is set to email me when it adds bans (status can also be checked via the command-line fail2ban-status tool).
Fail2ban "just works", with minimal configuration; it does what I needed. We were getting a number of SSH attempts, and someone was relaying mail using an apparently-guessed password, even though it was of reasonable strength. This will make it difficult for (non-distributed) password guessing to guess many before being blocked (currently for an hour). I'm seeing a handful of bans a day at this point. Great utility; two thumbs up.
DEFCAD mega pack 4.2 download
News, Technical, Political, Guns ·Thursday May 9, 2013 @ 18:47 EDT (link)
Sometimes it becomes a moral duty to distribute information, in the name of freedom of speech and in the furtherance, one hopes, of other freedoms. This is such a case, and everyone should be mirroring this file or seeding it. Perhaps those that have no access to defense due to repressive states will gain some measure of freedom.
Defense Distributed's DEFCAD mega pack 4.2: [download no longer available, see below]. Torrents also available (don't kill my server).
Update: Downloads have, indeed, been slowing down our Internet connection quite seriously; so I'll let the ones running finish and then, sorry, you'll have to download via BitTorrent instead (the torrent is very well-seeded). I think I've distributed enough copies to help out with the effort.
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