Ohm's Circle

There are four common variables in circuits.  P = Power, V = Voltage, I = Current, and R = Resistance.  Knowing any two of those you can find the other two.  To do this you must derive the right formula though.  I always remember that V = IR, and P = IV.  From that you can find these:
`V = IR = sqrt(PR) = P / I`
`P = VI = V^2 / R = I^2 R`
`I = P/V = V/R = sqrt(P / R)`
`R = V/I = V^2 / P = P/I^2`

I discovered something called Ohm's Circle which presents those formulas quite nicely.  However, I always just search for it and have never found a particularly well executed one.  Two of the top google image results have mistakes.  So, I decided to make my own version.  I derived the above formulas by hand to double check it was all correct.

8 horrible courtroom jokes and their ensuing legal calamities

http://www.salon.com/2013/07/26/8_horrible_courtroom_jokes_and_their_ensuing_legal_calamity/

Defending Texas’s abortion restrictions before the Supreme Court, attorney Mr. Jay Floyd decided to open oral argument with a sexist joke. Arguing against two female attorneys, Floyd begins: “It’s an old joke, but when a man argues against two beautiful ladies like this, they are going to have the last word.” The joke is demeaning and (as Floyd himself admits) unoriginal, but it also lacks the saving grace of at least being funny. A recording of the oral argument, which can be listened to here, demonstrates just how badly the joke bombed with the Supreme Court. Painful silence endures for just over three seconds.

Bear Party

The story behind football's innovative yellow first down line

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/nfl/news/20130718/nfl-birth-of-the-yellow-line/#all

While the line looks simple on TV, the technology behind it is very complex. Sensors were placed on the three main game cameras (at midfield and the two 20 yard lines), capturing the pan, tilt and zoom movements of those cameras 30 times a second. A three-dimensional, virtual model of each field had to be constructed, with the exact measurements of the crown of the field (the center of the field is always higher, for drainage, than the sides and ends, but the precise levels vary in each venue). An exhaustive color palette had to be produced on the fly as the game progressed, so that the green pixels of grass the yellow line replaced would be exactly the "right greens" even as shadows crossed the field and changed the grass hues -- an essential feature to assure replacing only the green blades of grass and not the green threads of a Packers or Eagles jersey.

Overriding BIOS limited CPU speed while running on battery

The Wrath of Dell

As it turns out, my work at salvaging a power adapter for my Dell Inspiron 6000 was not as much of a smashing success as I had initially thought.  I noticed that the battery charging tray indicator wasn't going away.  This happened sometimes, and required me to unplug the cord a few times.  However, I had duct taped the cord in place to prevent it from falling out, and didn't care to fix it.

Eventually I noticed that the power level was only going down.  I also noticed that I had suddenly lost the ability to watch .mp4, or just about any video over 480p.  The internet seemed even slower than usual, and I started noticing my cronjobs running even with their low nice levels.

I had a suspicion, but didn't want to look into it for fear of confirmation.  I eventually caved and discovered my battery was not charging.  The BIOS listed the AC adapter as an unknown device, and thus refused to charge.

I deduced that when I shorted the unknown-at-the-time third wire to the +19.5V wire I must have fried the chip on the motherboard that looked for other Dell products.

Further research confirmed my deepest fear: In addition to refusing to charge the battery, Dell forced the laptop to run at half speed if it didn't detect a Dell adapter.  I could certainly live with the battery not charging, as my laptop had long ago become a desktop, but an 800 MHz CPU was pushing it.


The Search for a Fix

I began looking for a hacked BIOS to undo all the Dell nonsense with renewed gusto.  Unfortunately, while it seemed possible, it didn't seem anyone had published anything.  I briefly considered hacking the BIOS myself, as my previous BIOS messing withs have gone well.

Eventually, I discovered that while the battery charging was controlled by the BIOS, the CPU speed was controlled by the OS, with the BIOS only able to suggest speeds.

I learned of CPU governors which were profiles that controlled the speed.  By running the command cpufreq-info I found my current governor was ondemand, and I had the common performance governor available.  I could update the governor with:
sudo echo performance > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor

I confirmed this with cpufreq-info, but it also showed my speed still at 800MHz.  The policy said that the speed had to be between 800MHz and 800MHz and that the governor could decide which speed to use between those limits.  This made me suspect that perhaps the BIOS had more control over the speed than I had hoped.  Still, I persevered as it seemed other Dell users had fixed this, although they were being coy about exactly how.


The Voyage to 1.6 GHz

The breakthrough came from this site and its comments, which revealed there was a seperate BIOS limit that I was missing.

For me, the key file was at: /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/bios_limit  You can edit this file similar to the above command, but I recommend opening it with a text editor to see its current setting.  For me, it was at 800000, and needed to be changed to 1600000, evidently in KHz.

This is all well and good, but it will be overwritten by the BIOS on each boot.  To prevent that you can edit your GRUB file at: /etc/default/grub to contain this magic line: GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="processor.ignore_ppc=1"  Follow that by running update-grub to, as the name implies, update grub, and reboot.

Now, cpufreq-info revealed that the policy could pick speeds from 800MHz to 1.6GHz, and what's more it was picking 1.6GHz.  I left the governor at ondemand since it was successfully raising the speed as needed.

PS
On a page full of technical Linux commands I found the most recent comment good:
"You all sound mega tech savvy so this might be a stupid answer but i fixed mine by blowing down the end of the cable….."

Why the McWrap Is So Important to McDonald's

http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/132030-why-the-mcwrap-is-so-important-to-mcdonalds

After lengthy discussions with produce suppliers around the country, Coudreaut managed to add one new ingredient to the McDonald’s arsenal: the English cucumber. That might not seem like a big change, but when the chain added sliced apples to its menu, it immediately became one of the largest buyers of apples in the country. The company had to build up reserves of edamame before it introduced its Asian salad. Coudreaut would like to add guacamole one day. Who knows what that would do to the avocado supply?

For cucumbers, McDonald’s went to Taylor Farms and Fresh Express, a producer and distributor owned by Chiquita. Then it had to figure out how the vegetable could be sliced, evenly, before it reached the restaurants. The chain expects to use about 6 million pounds this year. McDonald’s also tested the size of the chicken breast and the amount of lettuce. Initially, the sandwich was made with a half-breast of chicken and loads of produce. “We talked a lot about the veggies,” says Leslie Truelove, director of marketing in the U.S. “But we went too far. People thought it was a salad.” People wanted more meat. Now the wrap has a full breast of chicken, a handful of shredded lettuce, 10 leaves of spring mix, two cucumber slices, and two tomato slices—no more, no less.

Dell AC Adapter

I bring you today another chapter in my ongoing saga to squeeze every last minute of life out of my laptop.  About a month ago, my laptop randomly shut off.  Investigation revealed that I had managed to rip open the power cord by getting it caught between a table and the concrete floor.  I noticed that only bending the cable certain ways would cause the short.  So, I did the logical thing and wrapped the cord in duct tape and forgot about it.

Fast forward to last night, and the power indicator tells me I'm running on battery power; the led on the power brick is off.  I attempted to coax the cable into working, but to no avail.  I shut my laptop off to preserve potentially precious battery and went to sleep.

Attempt 1

This morning I removed the duct tape bandage and began to examine the tear in the cable.  The cable is similar to stereo cable from my last adventure, except (unbeknownst to me at this point) there is another layer of wire under the first.

I'll explain here that standard DC barrel connector have a ground and a positive voltage.  The ground is the outside of the plug, and the positive is the inside.  Similarly, in the cable, the ground is the outer wire, and then under an insulator there is the positive wire.  These are both wound around a common axis (ie coaxial).

The outer wire was almost completely broken, so I cut it and attempted to splice it back together.  The inner wire was in much better shape, with only a few broken strands.  I at first attempted to just wrap that up, but ended up cutting it and splicing as well.  I soldered these two up and used a multimeter to search for shorts between ground a positive.  I powered it up and detected 19.5 V between the ground and positive.

However, booting up my laptop with it confirmed my suspicion that there was indeed a third inner wire.  Dell conveniently adds their own third wire to standard DC cables for making more money through proprietary power adapter sales safety.  This third wire was shorted to the positive and I figured whatever it was connected to in the power brick was now destroyed.

The third wire is a data wire.  It sends a signal from the laptop to the adapter to make sure you are using an official dell adapter.  If not it complains, but still powers the laptop.  However, it does not charge the battery.  There was some debate online about if the battery would indeed charge, just a slower rate, but I did not get any charge over the few hours I had it hooked up like this.

Attempt 2

It just so happens that I had procured a second power adapter long ago.  In fact, this adapter was the second one.  The first had failed a few years ago.  It developed a noticeable kink near the power brick, and with that, presumably a short. 

I decided to open it up and have a look.  This video purports to show the adapter being opened.  Note the comments accusing him of faking the opening.  I'll agree that there is no way that was the first time he was opening the brick.  It took me about an hour to get mine open, and I had to use just about every method I read online or could think of.  I started with just a screwdriver, but that did nothing but tear up the plastic.  I put some alcohol, and then acetone in the seam, which also did nothing but begin to dissolve the outer plastic.  I hit it with a hammer on the corners, which along with constant attacks with the screwdriver did begin to weaken the adapters defenses.  I only stabbed myself with the screwdriver three times before I put on a glove.

While the adapter was weakened, there were some parts that were clearly intent on making a valiant last stand.  I ended up using a clamp to squeeze the bottom piece away from the top piece.  This still required a constant attack with the screw driver.  When it finally came apart, both parts of the plastic case looked like they had been gnawed on by a honey badger.

Now I pulled back the insulation to reveal the wire below.  While this wire was about half broken it didn't seem like the second layer of insulation had any holes.  It didn't seem like there was any short here.

I tested this with the multimeter and it confirmed the positive was separate from the ground.  However, moving the cable around created a short.  Further investigation revealed that the short was actually way up by the plug.  This was rather annoying as I had hoped to use this better plug.

Attempt 3

I began to rip apart the plug to determine what was wrong with it.  The rubber came off easily with a razor blade.  Once off, it was clear that the insulation between the two wires stopped early and there was a short.  I don't really know how this design could possibly work.  It seems to be just begging for the insulation the wiggle its way down a mm and create a short.

The two wires were shrink tubed and soldered on to opposite sides of the plug.  I had to get at least the ground wire free so that I could wrap the inner wire up to keep them separated.  The problem was the wires were encased in something similar to hot glue, but much more rugged.  I suspect it was just liquid plastic poured in.

It was quite strongly bonded to the shrink tubing.  I tried acetone, which seemed to help, but I still had to chip away with screwdrivers and wire cutters little by little until the wire was free.

I wrapped the inner positive wire up in some electrical tape, and then wrapped the outer wire as well.  I added several layers of duct tape around the whole thing for good measure.

Now I revisited the kink by the power brick.  Here I decided to use a bit of solder to keep the broken half of the wire together.  I did this and applied a generous amount of electrical tape.

I was pretty incredulous that this would produce a working cord.  I did a lot of testing with the multimeter looking for shorts.  Then I left it powered and did a thorough wiggle test.  It passed both of those, so I plugged it into the laptop.  The laptop recognized it as a fellow dell product and graced me by charging the battery.

The 156 Best Episodes of Star Trek

As promised I've gone through the data from IMDB for all the Star Trek series, and found the best episodes across all the series.  I took the top 25% of episodes in each series and combined them.  Then I cut it off to only those episodes that had a rating of 8 or above, which only cut off a dozen or so episodes.  Here are the episodes, sorted by series and then air date.  I'd add you should probably watch any two part episodes, even if they aren't listed, because they are usually both good and important to the plot.  In DS9 the ending arc begins with S7E16, and even though some didn't make the cut, skipping any of those would be madness.

I've previously written some overviews of each series, so maybe couple that with this.

Series	Episode	Rating	Num Ratings	Title
TOS	S01E10	8.1	877	The Corbomite Maneuver
TOS	S01E11	8.4	854	The Menagerie: Part I
TOS	S01E12	8.3	806	The Menagerie: Part II
TOS	S01E14	8.6	1042	Balance of Terror
TOS	S01E18	8	805	Arena
TOS	S01E22	8.6	1083	Space Seed
TOS	S01E23	8	739	A Taste of Armageddon
TOS	S01E25	8.3	787	The Devil in the Dark
TOS	S01E26	8.1	717	Errand of Mercy
TOS	S01E28	8.7	1326	The City on the Edge of Forever
TOS	S02E01	8.6	871	Amok Time
TOS	S02E04	8.6	981	Mirror, Mirror
TOS	S02E06	8.7	845	The Doomsday Machine
TOS	S02E10	8.5	687	Journey to Babel
TOS	S02E15	8.6	960	The Trouble with Tribbles
TOS	S03E02	8.4	665	The Enterprise Incident
TOS	S03E23	8.1	578	All Our Yesterdays
TNG	S01E24	8.1	669	Conspiracy
TNG	S02E03	8.1	697	Elementary, Dear Data
TNG	S02E08	8	607	A Matter of Honor
TNG	S02E09	8.6	882	The Measure of a Man
TNG	S02E16	8.5	834	Q Who?
TNG	S03E10	8.2	638	The Defector
TNG	S03E13	8.4	678	Déjà Q
TNG	S03E15	8.5	1019	Yesterday's Enterprise
TNG	S03E16	8.1	685	The Offspring
TNG	S03E17	8.1	571	Sins of the Father
TNG	S03E23	8.1	585	Sarek
TNG	S03E26	8.6	1074	The Best of Both Worlds: Part 1
TNG	S04E01	8.6	958	The Best of Both Worlds: Part 2
TNG	S04E07	8.3	570	Reunion
TNG	S04E11	8.1	583	Data's Day
TNG	S04E12	8	545	The Wounded
TNG	S04E14	8.2	607	Clues
TNG	S04E21	8.1	612	The Drumhead
TNG	S04E26	8.3	550	Redemption
TNG	S05E01	8.2	545	Redemption II
TNG	S05E02	8.4	780	Darmok
TNG	S05E07	8.3	562	Unification I
TNG	S05E08	8.3	549	Unification II
TNG	S05E14	8.3	563	Conundrum
TNG	S05E18	8.7	771	Cause and Effect
TNG	S05E23	8.5	662	I Borg
TNG	S05E24	8.1	533	The Next Phase
TNG	S05E25	8.5	1462	The Inner Light
TNG	S05E26	8.2	575	Time's Arrow: Part 1
TNG	S06E01	8.2	587	Time's Arrow: Part 2
TNG	S06E04	8.4	617	Relics
TNG	S06E10	8.2	587	Chain of Command: Part 1
TNG	S06E11	8.6	611	Chain of Command: Part 2
TNG	S06E12	8.5	593	Ship in a Bottle
TNG	S06E15	8.7	689	Tapestry
TNG	S06E21	8.2	538	Frame of Mind
TNG	S06E25	8.5	546	Timescape
TNG	S06E26	8.2	499	Descent: Part 1
TNG	S07E11	8.6	599	Parallels
TNG	S07E12	8.3	518	The Pegasus
TNG	S07E15	8.3	577	Lower Decks
TNG	S07E25	8.4	4923	All Good Things...
DS9	S01E18	8.7	505	Duet
DS9	S02E08	8.2	337	Necessary Evil
DS9	S02E14	8.2	337	Whispers
DS9	S02E19	8	323	Blood Oath
DS9	S02E22	8	320	The Wire
DS9	S02E23	8	314	Crossover
DS9	S02E26	8.5	326	The Jem'Hadar
DS9	S03E01	8.2	323	The Search: Part 1
DS9	S03E02	8	317	The Search: Part 2
DS9	S03E09	8	314	Defiant
DS9	S03E20	8.5	337	Improbable Cause
DS9	S03E21	8.6	346	The Die Is Cast
DS9	S03E26	8.2	299	The Adversary
DS9	S04E01	8.6	429	The Way of the Warrior
DS9	S04E02	8.7	653	The Visitor
DS9	S04E07	8.3	378	Little Green Men
DS9	S04E10	8.1	302	Homefront
DS9	S04E22	8	285	To the Death
DS9	S04E25	8.1	286	Broken Link
DS9	S05E01	8.1	293	Apocalypse Rising
DS9	S05E02	8	277	The Ship
DS9	S05E06	8.4	621	Trials and Tribble-ations
DS9	S05E14	8.5	312	In Purgatory's Shadow
DS9	S05E15	8.5	310	By Inferno's Light
DS9	S05E26	8.6	337	Call to Arms
DS9	S06E01	8.4	300	A Time to Stand
DS9	S06E02	8.6	306	Rocks and Shoals
DS9	S06E05	8.4	288	Favor the Bold
DS9	S06E06	8.6	341	Sacrifice of Angels
DS9	S06E13	8.5	541	Far Beyond the Stars
DS9	S06E18	8.1	283	Inquisition
DS9	S06E19	8.3	657	In the Pale Moonlight
DS9	S06E26	8.1	268	Tears of the Prophets
DS9	S07E06	8.1	248	Treachery, Faith, and the Great River
DS9	S07E08	8.4	334	The Siege of AR-558
DS9	S07E16	8.1	276	Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges
DS9	S07E20	8.4	245	The Changing Face of Evil
DS9	S07E21	8.1	234	When It Rains...
DS9	S07E22	8.5	249	Tacking Into the Wind
DS9	S07E24	8.2	257	The Dogs of War
DS9	S07E25	8.4	438	What You Leave Behind
VOY	S01E06	8.1	350	Eye of the Needle
VOY	S02E18	8.2	330	Death Wish
VOY	S02E21	8.1	299	Deadlock
VOY	S03E08	8.2	340	Future's End: Part 1
VOY	S03E09	8.1	311	Future's End: Part 2
VOY	S03E21	8	264	Before and After
VOY	S03E23	8.3	310	Distant Origin
VOY	S03E25	8	260	Worst Case Scenario
VOY	S03E26	8.3	397	Scorpion: Part 1
VOY	S04E01	8.6	370	Scorpion: Part 2
VOY	S04E08	8.5	357	Year of Hell: Part 1
VOY	S04E09	8.3	328	Year of Hell: Part 2
VOY	S04E14	8.6	360	Message in a Bottle
VOY	S04E16	8.1	246	Prey
VOY	S04E23	8.6	339	Living Witness
VOY	S04E25	8	270	One
VOY	S04E26	8	254	Hope and Fear
VOY	S05E02	8.3	345	Drone
VOY	S05E06	8.5	357	Timeless
VOY	S05E11	8.1	299	Latent Image
VOY	S05E15	8.2	290	Dark Frontier: Part 1
VOY	S05E16	8.2	270	Dark Frontier: Part 2
VOY	S05E22	8.1	284	Someone to Watch Over Me
VOY	S05E24	8.4	292	Relativity
VOY	S05E26	8.3	279	Equinox: Part 1
VOY	S06E01	8	292	Equinox: Part 2
VOY	S06E04	8.3	319	Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy
VOY	S06E10	8.2	283	Pathfinder
VOY	S06E12	8.6	394	Blink of an Eye
VOY	S06E24	8.2	256	Life Line
VOY	S06E26	8	242	Unimatrix Zero: Part 1
VOY	S07E25	8.3	540	Endgame
ENT	S01E26	8.5	236	Shockwave: Part 1
ENT	S02E01	8.5	656	Shockwave: Part 2
ENT	S02E22	8.3	256	Cogenitor
ENT	S02E23	8.4	726	Regeneration
ENT	S03E08	8.6	310	Twilight
ENT	S03E13	8.4	211	Proving Ground
ENT	S03E18	8.6	229	Azati Prime
ENT	S03E19	8.5	203	Damage
ENT	S03E22	8.6	197	The Council
ENT	S03E23	8.7	204	Countdown
ENT	S03E24	8.7	223	Zero Hour
ENT	S04E04	8.5	218	Borderland
ENT	S04E05	8.5	208	Cold Station 12
ENT	S04E06	8.6	212	The Augments
ENT	S04E07	8.7	202	The Forge
ENT	S04E08	8.6	195	Awakening
ENT	S04E09	8.6	203	Kir'Shara
ENT	S04E12	8.7	204	Babel One
ENT	S04E13	8.6	190	United
ENT	S04E14	8.6	195	The Aenar
ENT	S04E16	8.4	190	Divergence
ENT	S04E18	8.7	360	In a Mirror, Darkly: Part 1
ENT	S04E19	8.7	327	In a Mirror, Darkly: Part 2
ENT	S04E21	8.4	227	Terra Prime

Michael Jackson's Moonwalker for Sega Genesis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N68qvYFpTA

I watched someone play this for about an hour last night.  Keep in mind that this is a real game, made with Michael Jackson's consent. 

It involves him collecting children (from trunks of cars among other places), his monkey bubbles jumping on his head and guiding him, and an inexplicable Conan O'Brian-esque celebrity mouth bit.

Replacing a bad hardwired speaker cable with a jack

I have a pair of Logitech X-230 computer speakers that have served me well for close to 10 years now.  One issue is that the cable that runs from the speakers to the computer is hardwired in.  Recently, a wire failed and I was left with mono sound.  While this was fine for fireside chats, music sounds much better in stereophonic sound.

I decided to open up the speaker and see how feasible adding a jack would be.  The layout was simple enough.  I identified where the wires connected to the circuit board and used a multimeter to determine which wire went to which part of the plug (tip, ring, bottom).  I labeled the circuit board with my findings.

I then closed up the speaker and debated what to do.  I could have easily just spliced in a new wire.  The problem was I didn't like the idea of ruining a new wire, and I liked the idea of a jack for future flexibility.

The problem was I hadn't soldering in 10 years, and even then I had no idea what I was doing.  I decided to learn how to solder and attempt this as a first project.

I was making a large electronics purchase from Sparkfun, and so included a soldering iron and 3.5 mm stereo jack in the order.

If you read the comments on that jack they are pretty bad.  The only other choice at Sparkfun was this jack.  Note that the first one is panel mount which meant it had a nut to hold it in a hole drilled in a panel.  The second one would have to be held in place internally somehow.

This animatronic parot gave its life
so I could listen to Manowar

I watched a lot of soldering tutorials, and read some stuff.  Then I found some solid wire from some old network cable I had, as well as some stranded wire from an old talking parrot toy I had.  I made some splices and soldered them.  With that I declared myself the world's foremost authority on soldering *.

The first order of business was removing the hot glue holding the audio cable in place.  Following some internet advice I used some acetone and it released the cable immediately.

I cut the cable giving myself about 8 inches to work with inside the speaker.  I tested the part that would remain inside the speaker to make sure the broken wire wasn't in there.  I also stripped the ends of the other part so that I could use it for testing.

A quick note, there are three wires in a stereo audio cable.  Right and left channel, and then a common ground.  The ground is often bare wire twisted around the outside of the other two wires which serves as a shield.  I just twisted up that part of the ground wire, with no regard for interference inside the speaker.

Now I had to install the jack.  I drilled a hole in the side of the casing and put the jack in.  However, as the comments had forewarned, the jack was not deep enough to fit through the wall.  Actually it was just about perfect depth to fit, but with no space left over for the nut.

I thought about gluing it in place, but ended up drilling a slightly larger hole and then by pure luck having the nut fit perfectly in there.  I then could screw in the jack to the nut.  Once it was screwed in it was pretty much locked in place.  This meant I had to do the soldering inside the speaker.

For some reason only the ground tab had a hole to thread the wire through.  I probably should have drilled holes for the other two.  It took about 3 hours to solder the wires on.  Including soldering the first one on the wrong tab and then having to unsolder and then resolder it.  The angle of the case made it very difficult to get the iron in a good position.  The ground and another tab were quite close and I kept getting bridges between them.  The ground wire with its holey tab took about 10 minutes.

I did a final test with the multimeter to make sure there were good connections from the solder points on the circuit board all the way to the bare ends of the audio cable.

I closed everything up and just about had a heart attack when an audio test revealed the left and right channels to be mixed up.  Then I remembered that I don't care about the channels being correct, and as a result the speakers are physically on the wrong sides.

I must say the end result is about a billion times more professional looking than it should be.

Secret soldering expert?

* Note "the world" is the name I call my house.  Even then this is a tenuous claim, as I believe my cat may have substantially more soldering knowledge than it is letting on.