I have a temporary crown in now, the permanent one takes two weeks to make.

Post from: Awaiting Inspiration

Getting Crowned

The (gs) was great but it suffered from slowness and had availability issues - I’m hoping that (cs) resolves those issues. Maybe I’ll go back when it’s available. Until then I’m really liking the performance and absolute control that the (dv) gives you.

Post from: Awaiting Inspiration

Can you feel the difference?

I wanted a way to easily and safely (or semi-safely) use my multimeter’s current measuring function (ammeter) on 120Vac devices.

To measure current with an ammeter you need to break the circuit and insert the ammeter so that the electricity flows through the ammeter on its way to the device being powered.

To do this easily and safely with devices powered via mains voltage (120Vac) I made this “interface.” One side of the circuit goes directly to the outlet, and the other is broken and goes to a terminal strip. An ammeter is connected to the terminal strip, completing the circuit and allowing the ammeter to measure the current being drawn from the device plugged into the outlet.

This was easy, took only about an hour to make, and all the parts can be picked up from any decent hardware store:

I started with a standard plastic surface mount switch/outlet box:

I used small angle brackets to attach the terminal strip to the box:

Drilled holes in the box to mount the terminal strip:

Cut some machine screws down to size:

The terminal strip attached to the box:

Drilled a hole for the wires to pass through to the terminal strip:

Wired up the outlet - this is wired the same way you’d normally wire an outlet except that one side (positive in this case) of the circuit is being broken by the terminal strip:

All together:

Only the last two terminals are used, the rest are just extra:

Measuring the current draw of a desk lamp (CLF bulb). Notice that I used longer screws on the terminal strip to allow alligator clips to be clipped on:

Now I can measure the current draw of a 120Vac device (or devices) easily and relatively safely using my multimeter. I say “relatively safely” because the terminals are exposed so caution should be taken when in use. Also, it should only be used for quick measurements, noting long term.

By measuring the current draw (amps) of a device you can easily figure out how many watts it’s pulling by multiplying the source voltage by the amps.

volts x amps = watts

My CFL bulb is drawing 0.12 amps, times that by 120 and we get 14.4 watts.

Post from: Awaiting Inspiration

120Vac Interface for Current Measurement

Download as mp3 - right click “Save Target As/Save Link As”

Related - “I’m not getting you…”

Post from: Awaiting Inspiration

“Do you need an organ?”

Case in point:

All that “This site is monitored daily” business makes me want to copy something off their site just to see what happens. And I love the “Share on Facebook” link right under the ominous do not copy anything off this site warning. Also, I’m lost on how monitoring their own site is going to protect their content; seems to me they’d want to monitor the internet for copies of their content and not their own site.

Again, it’s important to let visitors to your site know what is and isn’t OK when it comes to the use of your content. But a simple copyright notice or link to your usage terms is all that is necessary. Warnings and threats like this only serve to make you look like an ass; not something you want if you’re trying to run a business. Save the bitchiness for the person that missuses your content, not the innocent visitor to your site.

Bitchy copyright notice - merrickmgt.com

Post from: Awaiting Inspiration

Bitchy Copyright Notice

Download as mp3 - right click “Save Target As/Save Link As”

Related - “Do you need an organ?”

Post from: Awaiting Inspiration

“I’m not getting you…”

It’s important to note that this is not Mr. Weiss’ Job application; it’s that of a third party.

I wrote Mr. Weiss back to let him know what had happened; his reply:

Adam- Sorry for sending that to you. I did indeed make a mistake and typed a wrong address. Please honor the confidentiality of those documents. Sorry again for the inconvenience. Thank you for alerting me to this!

Wrong person to apologize to Mr. Weiss, your lack of respect for people’s personal data could cause someone quite a bit of trouble. This data breach is inexcusable, and your excuse “typed a wrong address” is a bit of a fallacy.

First, e-mail is woefully insecure – unless encrypted, the contents of e-mail (text and attachments) are sent “in the clear.” What this means is that anyone, be that someone sniffing the wire, or an unintended recipient can read the e-mail with zero effort. So, to say the least sending out private data, such as that in a job application, via e-mail as JPEG images is a bit… foolish. At the very least Mr. Weiss should have put the scans in a password protected/encrypted PDF or ZIP file. Even better (but requiring a bit more leg work) would be to put the files in an encrypted PGP ZIP file.

Second, Mr. Weiss first sent the e-mail an invalid address - adamtbyers [at ] gmail.com so his first e-mail got bounced back to him. After the bounce back he then forwarded the e-mail to adambyers [at] gmail.com, apparently thinking that the t was causing the problem. If you are going to send out private data, unencrypted via e-mail at LEAST make sure that you have the recipient’s correct address.

At the VERY least Mr. Weiss should have made sure that he was sending the e-mail to the correct address. This is what bothers me most about this; Mr. Weiss sent an e-mail, containing the personal information of a third party blindly out on the internet. The first e-mail bouncing back should have sent up an immediate red flag - verify the intended recipient’s address - but rather than do that Mr. Weiss decided to blindly send it to a random address. This type of action, when dealing with personal information is grossly irresponsible.

Shame on you Greg Weiss.

After my initial e-mail warning Mr. Weiss of his error I sent several more e-mails to him and Northland Church “management” informing them I would be making this post and requesting comments on the issue. All e-mails went unanswered.

Related: “Dear Curves: respect your client and employee data”

Post from: Awaiting Inspiration

Greg Weiss of Northland Church: Respect People’s Data

Post from: Awaiting Inspiration

iPhone post

NOTE: This Easter Egg existed in the 2.6 release candidates; what’s funny is that it survived to the official release.

See the WordPress 2.6 Easter Egg in action:

Post from: Awaiting Inspiration

WordPress 2.6 Easter Egg

01100001011001000110000101101101.com

That string of 0s and 1s the binary bits that run our modern world when converted to text spells “adam”. Fortunately for me the domain 01100001011001000110000101101101.com was available; so I registered it. Now I can sleep at night knowing that I finally have the domain adam.com… sort of.

Post from: Awaiting Inspiration

adam.com is mine!