Stop Shouting!

     Alternative titles: "Get Off The Bus!" and "Partyline."

     It has nothing to do with politics.  I went to work on a transmitter yesterday; it's been behaving oddly, slow to "wake up" after power hits, and the first, simplest step was to replace the transient suppressors on the incoming power.  They're conveniently socketed, and somewhat inconveniently mounted -- you have to remove the front panel from a module and it exposes the incoming mains voltage, 208 Volt 3-phase.  So I had to shut it all the way off.

     I proceeded to do the task, transmitter off, breaker off, panel off, unplug and replace three little widgets, then put it all back together, look it over, flip the breaker, power up, wait for the hearts and brains of the thing to get happy (okay, the RF modulators and controllers, each nicely redundant) and then the ON switch, a little power-up cycle of yellow and green lights, and--  And--  And--

     And the darn green lights went nuts.  Multiple faults, amber and blinking red in the "Christmas tree" status lights down one side of each amplifier; on the other, where three power supplies should light up green and steady, instead it showed blinks, green and off, chasing one another down the front panel in waltz time, 1,23; 1,2,3; 1,2,3; 1,2,3.  One amplifier showed a few more faults than the other three.

     I started digging through the front-panel menus on the controllers.  They had apparently signed up with the Wobblies: one should be Active while its pal is on Standby.  Instead, they were both on Standby!  Checking the computer-screen GUI confirmed it.  They weren't a-gonna work.

     The manual recommends setting the power output to zero and rebooting.  So I did.  Nope.  The next step is to try shutting things off -- it will run with one controller and one exciter, after all -- and rebooting.  Nope.  At that point, I sat down and put in a request for tech support with the manufacturer,* then went back to trying things like shutting off each amplifier module one at a time, and trying to take off with one prop feathered.  No luck.

     Eventually, a note came back from the factory.  They were reaching out to their subject-matter expert -- who just happened to be the contract engineer who had supervised our installation.  I remembered him as a guy who'd known all the quirks of the transmitter.

     Back to trying things.  My phone lit up with a message: Their guy was deep in another crises, and suggested putting the old transient suppressors back in. That's right, he'd said those things could be flaky, back when we put the transmitter in.  So I did that.  No change.

     I tried a few other things, got a message saying a call to me was next in the queue, and spent some time going back through the manual.  There's no tutorial, but the English translation has all the drawings and implies quite a lot.  I rebooted the internal network switch, even though it mostly communicated with the outside world; internal communications uses a different system.

     Man, still no call.  It had been an hour and a half since the initial contact.  I sent another email to the factory support coordinator, suggesting I'd been waiting long enough to hire a truck and make a good start towards driving the thing back to their parking lot.  That got a reply.  "What?  He hasn't called you?"  By this point, I'd also told my bosses, and they were sending increasingly worried text messages.

     The expert eventually did call.  He was mystified by the symptoms.  We wasted a half-hour trying to connect to the amplifiers directly.  They've got USB jacks, but it takes a stone-simple terminal emulator; it pops up a blinking cursor and we got that far, at least.  From there, a menu should appear in response to a tap on the ENTER key, but none of 'em were answering the phone.

     This made no sense to me, and, at first, not much more to him.  Then he asked if I'd tried shutting things off and restarting.  I had.  "Have you tried shutting off two things?"  That, I had not. So, with the most-complaining amplifier and one of the controllers off, I did yet another reboot.

     It's a slow process, a power-up self-test that steps through each part.  Green lights came up, flickered amber, came back green one at a time.  Green lights that stayed green.  I tried turning up the output power and my analog meters flickered.  (They're external.  It bugged me that the thing didn't have a nice big "I'm happy!" indication I could see across the room, so I added them.)  I told the expert, and kept on turning up the power, a little at a time.  "You're not going to make full power, of course," he told me, "But it'll do at least fifty percent."

     With one of four amplifiers off, you might think 75 percent, but that's not how the math works; the combining uses clever physics tricks that only add up nicely when everything is balanced, and when it isn't, some energy is lost.  Fifty is still greater than zero, and that's where we ended up.

     So what happened?  The internal communications is a kind of "party line," a shared serial data bus.  The expert figures the bad amp has been yelling for help -- but not flagging any alarms -- for a long time.  That's why the transmitter's been so slow to recover from power hits.  When I shut the transmitter down for half an hour, that's longer than it has been off since we put it in, and one of the controllers woke up unhappy.   I'm told that's a known problem.  And the controller was spamming the party line, too.  That's way too much traffic: neither controller could promote itself to active, the good amplifier modules couldn't report themselves ready for duty, and that transmitter wasn't going nowhere nohow until we shut off all the racket on the line.

     If it's not one thing, it's two things.  And it was.  The amplifier modules -- eighty pounds or so! --  are factory repair only, so they're shipping me a box and we'll cycle it through the repair process.    
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* Or as close as I can get.  It's actually imported, then fitted out to U. S. standards by the importer.  But both the overseas manufacturer and the U.S. importer are owned by the same multinational, headquartered in yet another country, so they're actually doing business with themselves.  Happily, all three are mostly geek-driven.  Unhappily, all three got downsized as the last of the U.S. digital cutover process met the COVID-19 pandemic.  There are a handful of engineers and techs left, in three languages.

Strange Bed- Er, Well, This Is Awkward

      Yesterday, CNN had "pool" video duty for White House Coverage; the job rotates between ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox and NBC, and with CNN barred, the others refrained from stepping up and say they'll be sitting out pool coverage.  (Not to worry -- the President just launched his very own TV channel, with nonstop, officially vetted and approved coverage of whatever the White House wants covered -- and nothing it does not.  For those keeping track at home, this is the exact opposite of a free press.)

     Radio and online/paper Press have their own pool rotations and a few of them have stepped back, too, which meant yesterday, the Print Media pool covering the President was led by....  Envelope, please!  The Washington Blade, which (per Wikipedia) is the country's oldest LGBT newspaper, backed up by the arch-conservative website, The Daily Caller.  Both of 'em are known to wear their political hearts on their sleeves, and to not avoid sensationalistic stories.  The dynamic out there in the reporter seats must have been interesting; I'm picturing a couple of earnest scriveners desperately trying to read over one another's shoulders while not getting, you know, too close.  What if it's catching?

     There's a certain amount of comfort in knowing that even in these fraught and conflict-filled times, we'll be getting a diversity of perspective on the Executive Branch -- and even more comfort in the thought that they're probably creeping each other out.

It's A Little Thing, But

     It's got me wondering: actors who do one-act plays, or shoot short subjects, do you wish them luck before a performance by saying, "Break a toe?"

It Wasn't A Dare

     Last night, I pointed to, and mocked, the increasing weirdness of the present administration and their Legislative counterparts (and let us not forget the nutjobs and partisan hacks they've ushered into the Federal Judiciary or who were already in place and happy to step up).

     Truth is, I was thinking it was just about Peak Strange.

     Guess again.

     The huge, ugly triumphal arch Mr. Trump would like to put up along the sightline from the Lincoln Monument to Arlington National Cemetery isn't something I've written about much.  While I think every bit of it demonstrates execrable taste, from the design and decoration to the location to the very idea of it,* it was indeed a matter of taste, and paled next to barring press organizations from attending public events of the Chief Executive of the republic, or the markedly violent immigration enforcement dragnets that have wept up legal residents and naturalized citizens, and which have resulted in the deaths of non-citizens and citizens alike.  The arch seemed like a minor detail, more gold-dripping frippery going up while the price of everything skyrockets.

     Turns out I was wrong.  Here's the President of United States of America, on his social media platform last night:

     "At the strong request of the United States Military, and for National Security purposes, I have agreed to convert the magnificent Triumphal Arch, [...] at the Receptive Circle adjoining the Arlington Memorial Bridge, into a top grade Military Complex/Triumphal Arch, to house, store, and have the rapid ability to use large numbers of drones, plus Snipers, on both the roof and plaza areas, and additionally have and hold large quantities of sniper ammunition in storage. There will be no facility like this anywhere in the World. [...]."

     Nothing like it anywhere in the world?  Ain't that the truth -- though I have seen similar setups, usually in church belfries, while watching reruns of Combat!  They were occupied by German Army snipers or sometimes machinegunners.  Lest someone accuse me of hostile editing, you can read the original in its entirety at the source.  You can also read news stories about it, but yes, this is just what it appears to be, a sniper tower just off the Mall.  That'll deter the next poor sod who picks up a loose flap of pool coating!  What it reminds me of are the later scenes in the recent film Civil War, when opposition troops are converging on a fortified White House cowering behind high walls -- well, that and the kind of thing military-obsessed boys liked to draw in middle school during class when they should have been taking notes.

     I'm now unwilling to believe the unprecedented actions and events will stop at the present level.  Buckle up, kids, there's no predicting what's around the next corner.
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* Most Roman triumphal arches, and all of the surviving ones, were built by the Roman Empire, not during the Roman Republic.  And the United States federal government has never built any -- certainly not in the national capitol.  There's a message there, for those willing to heed it.

It Just Keeps Getting Weirder

      There's no end to the strange turns.  Let's see -- the President says he's banning some U. S. news organizations from the White House, which is not a specifically enumerated or implied power of the office and which previous Federal court cases have determined is, in fact, not a power Presidents have.  At present, the credentials of journalists employed by MSNOW, CNN and Politico have been revoked.  This is a bad notion and I hope the courts won't let it stand.  I want our elected officials to be scrutinized from every angle, so I can make up my own mind.

     Elsewhere, Congresspeople are getting themselves in trouble of the slept-with-the-wrong-person or took-money-they-shouldn't've type.  You can look up the various scandals, not all of which have been to court, for yourself.  It's too tawdry to list.  This is why you need every shade of reporter looking at them.

     At this point, there are plenty of trailer parks in the U.S. with fewer outrageous and/or or illegal activities going on than there are among the elected officials of the Federal government, and among the wildest offenders you will find many of the same people who have been presuming to lecture us Great Unwashed about our bad behavior.  Y'know, there's no honest path to the moral high ground from waking up in bed with an employee or someone else's spouse (or someone other than your own), dead drunk and violating the U. S. Constitution and I'm sick of the politicians, most of the Press and a whole lot of the rest of us acting as if there were.

     Politicians, appointees?  Fix you own hearts and whatever vestiges of a soul or conscience you've got before you come after the rest of us.

This Is...Unwanted

     I missed a couple of doses of my anti-inflammatory this past week, and maybe I did a little too much awkward lifting on Trash Night last night.  Whatever I did, this morning I woke up with an unhappy back, and gentle exercises and soaking in warm water didn't help.

     So I have taken a muscle relaxer and called in sick.  I'm not going to try to tough it out.  The last time I did that, it ended up costing me most of the summer.

A Staggering Own-Goal

     Through misadventure, misjudgement and incompetence, the United States has led the way to a global shortage of diesel fuel.  Prices have skyrocketed -- and there are service stations in the U. S. where you can't buy it at all: they're out.

     This is bad when you go to top up the VW Golf and approaches catastrophic when the Super Duty pickup has run nearly dry, but you ain't seen nothin' yet.  Every single item on the shelf at the grocery store and the five and dime, every drug in the pharmacy and most children in the schools got there by diesel.  The box and tractor-trailer trucks and farm machinery all run on it.  The trains run on it.  The river barges are moved by tugs burning it.  Most school buses burn it.  The electrical peaking plants that keep the grid up on especially hot or cold days?  Diesel.  And speaking of cold days, fuel oil still runs many furnaces, and it's the next thing to diesel; if refineries adjust to make more truck fuel now, there'll be less heating fuel as winter comes in.  Jet fuel's another cousin (though even closer to kerosene), so close that hospitals and TV stations that fly helicopters sometimes get the emergency generators set up to run on the same fuel, sharing their supply.  And there have already been rolling jet fuel shortages.

     Big ships still run on thick bunker oil, which is pretty much at the bottom of the stuff refineries distill, what's left after they pour the diesel off -- but wait, some of them switch to clean-burning diesel as they approach port.

     Bottom line?  Everything you buy is going to get more expensive, and will stay that way as long as diesel fuel remains scarce and costly (and probably long after, until inventories turn over).

     The problem here is not Orange Man Bad.  Sure, he is, but we've had absolute bastards in the Presidency before (Jackson, Wilson, Nixon...); it's not actually a disqualification.  Nope, the problem is Orange Man Dumb and Orange Man Have Poor Impulse Control. Not to mention Orange Man Not Listen To Qualified Experts, of which his administration has vanishingly few anyway.  We're all going to pay the price for it -- all of us who are not high-and-mighty Federal officials and politicians, anyway.  They're still tucking into nice steaks and rick, thick Senate Bean Soup,* the ingredients for which were carried to the Capitol by train and/or truck, and paid for with your and my tax dollars.

     They've shot themselves in the foot, but we're doing the bleeding for them.
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* Apparently, it's not all that great.  My own 15-bean soup is undoubtedly better, though I rarely have time to make it. It's based on the Hurst packaged beans but uses a different recipe and is served with raw chopped onions and celery for toppings, and generous amounts of fresh cornbread.  And you'd never guess what fuel brought all that wonderful stuff to the grocer's.

Running, Running

     These have been a busy two days. Both cats had early-morning vet appointments, Holden on general principles and to schedule teeth-cleaning, Huck other to check his blood pressure.  Yes, they use a tiny cuff and it's a real struggle to hear the change.  Sometimes they have to shave a spot for the electronic stethoscope microphone, but not this time.  Offer him a Churu treat and he's pretty tolerant of whatever they need to do.

This Timeline Is Deeply Wrong

     "Lay down with dogs, get up with a job at the FBI," shouldn't be a thing, but here we are.  2026 is the gift that keeps on taking.

Getting The Lead Out

     I bought a filtering water pitcher, and the reason is--

     City water tastes pretty lousy if it sits for more than a few minutes.  I drink bottled water and I'd been thinking about a filter carafe for a long time, but, well, what motivated me is that the LSLRP crew has been working two blocks over, and it worried me.  That's the Lead Service Line Replacement Program, our local water (and gas) utility's effort to replace lead pipe from the main to the "meter pit," which around here is more likely to have a shut-off valve in it while the actual meter lives in your basement and is connected to a wireless access port on the outside wall of your house.

     I hadn't been too worried; my house was built in 1924, the water line into the house is galvanized, and I was okay, right?

     Apparently not.  Between ordering the pitcher and receiving it, I got a letter advising me that what I keep thinking of as "L-Slurp" was in the neighborhood, swapping out the old lead pipes and yes, my house was on the list.

     Apparently, I've been running on leaded for twenty years.  Probably not much -- our various water utilities (the thing kept getting bought up and going bankrupt) have known for years and been careful about the chemicals they used, but, still.

     Like smoking, the best time to give up lead is before you start and the second-best time is right now. (And yes, the filtering widget I bought, a well-known name brand, promises it really does remove the lead, honest, cross their heart.)

That Whole Charlie Kirk Anniversary Thing

     Not the terrible thing that was done to him.  I wrote at the time and I'll say it again: nobody has that coming.  Certainly not a guy whose shtick was showing college students that if you go arguing with a man in a venue he controls, where he sets the ground rules and picks the issues, you're going to lose.  It may even be a valuable lesson or two: the grown-up world does not play fair.  You cannot reason someone out of a position he holds on faith.

     I disagreed with most and maybe even all of his positions.  Nevertheless, the violence that was committed against him was absolutely inexcusable and should be condemned by every decent person.

     But I don't quite get why all the media outlets made a point of noting the anniversary of his murder.  What are they after?  They've been covering the trial of the man accused of killing him, and that's appropriate, but this is someone who didn't hold public office, and whose fame was based on employing his rhetorical gifts in remarkably uneven debates.  Big fun if you agreed with him, I suppose, but he wasn't otherwise notable.  The organizations he founded have faltered as cultural forces without him, and many people on the far Right have drifted towards even more extreme figures.  That's not great -- but it's likely those individuals were already headed in that direction.  He wasn't a moderating influence.  I'm sorry for the loss to his family and friends.

     We've got too damn much political violence in this country, and we're too easily chivvied into "Us vs. Them" conflicts that pit working people...against other working people.  Meanwhile, the rich get richer, no matter what their politics happen to be -- and their politics have often been shown to be remarkably flexible, depending on which party is in power and what they they think it can do for them.  Against that, making killers famous, marking the date of their crimes and shedding performative tears over their victims is an utterly cynical sideshow.

Forward-Looking Perspective

     Data centers are the abandoned Kmarts and dead malls of tomorrow -- and tomorrow is right around the corner.