Hardware on traviscj/blog

macos log command

Thu, 23 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

My work laptop has been randomly shutting itself off. I came across this stackoverflow post, it said to run

log show \
  --predicate 'eventMessage contains "Previous shutdown cause"' \
  --last 24h

which, for me, returns

risksys  ➜ log show --predicate 'eventMessage contains "Previous shutdown cause"' --last 24h
Filtering the log data using "composedMessage CONTAINS "Previous shutdown cause""
Skipping info and debug messages, pass --info and/or --debug to include.
Timestamp                       Thread     Type        Activity             PID    TTL
2019-05-23 11:29:01.874486-0700 0xaf       Default     0x0                  0      0    kernel: (AppleSMC) Previous shutdown cause: -128
2019-05-23 11:44:49.786722-0700 0xaf       Default     0x0                  0      0    kernel: (AppleSMC) Previous shutdown cause: -128
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Log      - Default:          2, Info:                0, Debug:             0, Error:          0, Fault:          0
Activity - Create:           0, Transition:          0, Actions:           0

This, combined with these MacOS Shutdown Causes paints a pretty bleak picture: I’ve got RAM issues :-(

big-ish personal storage

Wed, 25 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I was curious what it would cost to have something like 5-30TB of storage space on hand. The obvious choices are between buying some hard drives and paying for an S3 bucket or something.

The amazon costs are pretty straightforward: you pick a region, they tell you the cost. Starting with their pricing table:

aws = [
    {"level": "standard", "c_millidollars": 23},
    {"level": "infrequent", "c_millidollars": 12.5},
    {"level": "one_zone", "c_millidollars": 10},
    {"level": "glacier", "c_millidollars": 4}
]

we can say

inspired by magicmirror

Sat, 02 Jan 2016 18:45:00 +0000

I’ve been really inspired by the MagicMirror project. The basic idea is getting a piece of mirror glass and putting a monitor and computer behind it, then having a status page show some pertinent information about the day (like weather, calendar, news, etc). So it looks like a regular mirror, but when you look closely, it shows the extra information.

I’d like to put one in the bedroom to replace our tall mirror. That’ll be pretty cool, but it requires a bit of extra thought because our magicmirror setup would replace a tall and skinny mirror, so we’ll probably just want a monitor behind the top part of the mirror. That will require some extra bracing to hold the monitor up in the frame. I’ll need to think about that a while.

recent projects - sous vide, hydroponic pump, and another table

Tue, 17 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been working on a few fun projects recently.

First: I built a temperature controller out of a crock pot and a cheap import temperature controller. It looks like this:

![temperature controller top]({{ site.baseurl }}/assets/temperature_controller_top_s.jpg)

![temperature controller bottom]({{ site.baseurl }}/assets/temperature_controller_bottom_s.jpg)

I’ve used it to cook eggs and steak. Both turned out great! Here’s the only shots I got of the steak:

![steak vacuum sealed]({{ site.baseurl }}/assets/steak_vacuum_sealed_s.jpg) ![steak cooking]({{ site.baseurl }}/assets/steak_cooking_s.jpg)

Next, I’ve put together another refinement of the hydroponic tomato setup we have in our living room. Also, just realized I haven’t added the backposts about it yet. Allison and I started three tomato plants back in May:

carputer brainstorming ideas

Sun, 07 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000

As much as I enjoy driving, radio almost always annoys me. There’s a couple of particularly terrible stations and commercials around, but even the least objectionable of the pack really bother me. The focus did come with an auxiliary stereo input plug, which we have used extensively, but even that seems to have some shortcomings. In particular, one of the things I really miss about the radio approach is just that I don’t really need to think that much about it – it is just there while I’m driving around. Starting up spotify after I’ve started off isn’t safe or prudent.

Ditching the consumer grade wireless router

Fri, 24 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000

My fiancée and I both spend a fair bit of time working from home, so we notice downtime almost immediately. We had a NETGEAR WNDR3400 which periodically disconnected one or the other of us, or just didn’t seem very zippy anymore. I was originally considering a top-of-the-line router, such as an Airport Extreme, a NETGEAR Nighthawk AC1900, or an ASUS RT-AC66U.

I had been looking into alternatives for a while, and decided to pull the trigger on the following setup:

digital photography

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Recently I’ve decided to dedicate a slight bit of time to get a bit better at taking pictures. I’d always wanted to get a truly nice camera, and the opportunity presented itself, so I decided to go for it and bought a Nikon D5100 DSLR. I also ended up getting a complete steal on the Nikon 55-200mm DX VR lens, which was pretty awesome. Project 365 would be a great move from here, since I’m certainly no photographer, but it’s been fun just learning about it all the ins and outs and how it all works together. In any case, I did start a Flickr: drtraviscj account which I’ll be posting stuff.

TiVo Router Project

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

My girlfriend’s TiVo only has an ethernet port. Well, technically, it only has a USB port. We went looking for a TiVo compatible Wifi adapter but were less than successful. We did manage to find a USB-ethernet converter at Fry’s Electronics, though. But this means it requires a machine there to bridge from Wireless to the wired port, which is a bit of a hassle on her Windows Vista laptop(though, honestly, what isn’t a pain in Vista? </soapbox>).

Computer Ressurection and Elastic Cloud Experimentation

Sat, 29 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I was home on Thanksgiving Break with Sharvil, and we decided to revive some old computers. Partly I’d like to experiment with some clustering stuff without incurring CPU time at the AMATH department or Teragrid stuff I’m likely gonna be working on soon with Shea-Brown’s neuroscience research. So, it turns out I resurrected about 5-6 old computers(final tally is still waiting on the number of successful Xubuntu installs on them, among other practical issues(where the hell am I going to put six computers…?): The very first computer I built(a P3 450), P3 700, Dual P2 266, a couple of AMD64 3200’s, and a Sony Vaio P3 733. The cool thing is that the neuron spiking models are basically embarassingly parallel(well, each run isn’t necesarily, but from what I’ve gathered so far, we’re looking for averages over a bunch of them. So, sweet! Again, this would be terrible for actual research, especially against something like TG or even Amazon’s EC2–which is another thing I really need to check out.

Happy Birthday to Me, Pt. 2

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

As always, a picture’s worth a thousand words:

A few more exotic uses for older hardware

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

There are tons of posts on the internet about what to do with older computers. In general, they say some of the same things: Linux/Firewall, Media Server, and ‘BitTorrent Box’. (Incidentally, the lattermost somewhat confuses me. I guess people want to download files on a separate machine in case it has viruses or whatever… but if you’re using bit torrent so much that it’s worth having a separate box for, you’re probably still gonna be upset if a virus takes it out. Or you could just use antivirus or an alternative OS. But I digress.) Anyways, for the uses I’ll outline here I’m going to assume that you (at least roughly) fit into the prototype of ‘I have a pretty decent computer sitting around that never really gets used.’ In my case, I tend to upgrade and want to keep the old one around because it’s still a pretty decent computer, but want to use the newer one for bigger and better things. Like reading xkcd and refreshing google news over and over again. Heh.

iPhone 2.0 - Impressions and Favorites

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I know that about every other iPhone owner has posted to their blog about this and almost a month ago already, but I’ll throw my own take into the mix.

I originally planned on waiting a while before installing the second major revision of the iPhone software, but Sharvil tried it almost immediately and told me that I needed to give it a shot. So, I finally upgraded it, and have not been disappointed. Some highlights:

Skeletool CX

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

So, I finally got fed up with never having a screwdriver when I needed it unexpectedly. Perhaps this was due to the recent MacGyver watching binge, but either way, I’m calling it excess frustration. It seems like it always throws me off when I’m trying to do something at work or at a friend’s house to their computer or… whatever. I had started to carry my little red Swiss Army knife a while back, and it came in handy at least a couple of times a day, so I decided it was probably worth further investment to get one with a real screwdriver on it.