Kahrs Kogitations

John McCarthy

2011-10-26T07:48:00.000-07:00

I wanted to write down a few remembrances of JMC: He was colloquially known at SAIL as just "J M C", not John, not Professor McCarthy. He was at the lab daily and often at night -- his office was in the front of the building. When I first started "flirting" with the AI lab during high school, I was afraid he'd toss me to the curb if he would discover that I was just a high school student. But I believe he just didn't care. In fact, the lab machine would allow you to create an account just by logging in.

When I worked for the computer music project, I saw him often. My most salient memory is when he came into my office (I shared with Bill Gosper and Mike Farmwald) to ask about the radical left poster next to my desk. He wanted to know if I believed whatever was on the poster. I didn't, but I liked the sort of visual style. He said, "OK, I just wanted to know" and walked away. (For those who don't know, JMC took a decidedly right wing turn during the 1970s. Given the background of his parents, that's a remarkable trend).

I can't really separate the contributions of JMC and Les Earnest towards the ultra cool working environment of the AI Lab. To this day, I don't know whether it was the fact that I was fresh out of college or whether it was just a cool place that made the AI lab so special. One must acknowledge that JMC approved of the computer music people coming in over night to use the machine. Without this approval, would computer music have progressed so fast? John Chowning and company depended on this largesse.

McCarthy's contributions to computer science are well known and don't bear repeating. But I'd like to mention two of them in particular: The first is timesharing. As I understand it, the reason the PDP-1 could timeshare was that the drum (not disk, drum) had the ability to read and write simultaneously. So, when the current running user was swapped out, the entire memory was written to the disk while the next user was read in! Second, Markoff's obituary in the Times points out that McCarthy invented Garbage Collection of memory. What a concept!

JMC clearly had a potent vision of that was possible with computers: he sponsored research in AI but also sponsored the system research that would propagate from the lab. So, while we remember McCarthy and Lisp, we should also remember his creation of the Stanford AI Lab and all that came forth from that place.

Dennis and language design

2011-10-15T12:44:00.000-07:00

I hadn't intended on writing this entry until Rick Floyd posted about Dennis Ritchie's fine and sparing taste. This brought to mind the influences of language design on C and (by extension) C's influence on further languages.

C's history is well known: it is descended from 'B', which is completely unknown. However, we can look at BCPL. BCPL is a descendant of CPL, which was designed by none other than Christopher Stratchey (talk about an illustrious family, the Stratcheys are amazing). A look at CPL is illuminating: if you know BCPL, then you can see the providence right there. For an example, see his checkers program by Peter Norvig's.

However, CPL was less real than BCPL. BCPL was designed by Martin Richards at Cambridge in 1967. It had a number of interesting features: First, it was designed to be portable over different machine architectures. Second, it's fundamental data type was the machine word. For an assembly language programmer like myself, this was heaven: I could write algorithms and imagine the assembly. Furthermore, the structure construct included both words and bits --- thereby providing an immediate mapping to the machine architecture (device drivers and other machine dependent code). BCPL was the first language for the Alto (which is where I learned it).

So, back to C. What did Dennis to do Ken's version of BCPL? Well, the first thing you have to know about Ken is that he codes fast ... And I think he hates to type. Ever wonder why the Unix kernel has so many short names? Blame Ken. So, then Dennis had to create a spare notation to match. But I think the most noteworthy change was going from words to data types. C goes away from the machine dependent side by incorporating types of Algol 60 lore --- except not making the mistake of calling floats reals. Now, I would be remiss if I didn't mention how C imported bits of the PDP-11 assembler syntax: Ever wonder why autoincrement is ++? Don't. But perhaps the key innovation was the use of the address and de-address operators (& and *). Now you can talk about pointers.

C has undergone many changes since I first learned it at Berkeley reading the Sixth Edition Code. But since I already knew BCPL, it was an easy move. Let me add that I've always loved the for statement in C (even though as a language guy, I know you shouldn't really have more than one way to say something). When you see a for loop used to traverse a list, then you know that's clever.

It's interesting that people mention Java as a descendant of C. If anything, from my perspective, Java is the anti-C. It's way more verbose and eliminates pointers. There are of course many other changes but C is pretty far from Java in my book. And then there's C++, C# and Objective C. They all include the name 'C'...

I wanted to add a personal note about Dennis: He was very private. I certainly knew very little about him during my time in 1127. I do remember when I first got there and a bunch of us were going out to dinner. I stopped by to ask Dennis if he wanted to go. He politely declined. When I reported this to my companions, they said "Sure, Dennis always eats at home with his parents". That's the kind of guy Dennis was. Nice, quiet ... and clever.

(Late) Impressions of New Zealand

2011-07-30T14:01:00.000-07:00

I had hoped to get this entry started earlier (that is, before my impressions bleach into whiteness). Better late than never.

First things first: The flight is long (13 hours), but the newer in-flight entertainment systems are really quite fun. I worked my way through just some of the very large music catalog and watched two movies. And, against all advice, I did have a glass of wine with the hope that it would enable sleep in spite of being in steerage. I managed to get about 5 hours each way --- That was enough to make the first day bearable.

Auckland is built on volcanic hills and has only a few bridges. If you're going to walk all over town then it's going to build muscle and cardiovascular conditioning. My slogan for the city is "British Past, Asian Future". All over the city you hear different asian languages --- particularly Japanese and Chinese. Many of the menial jobs are now done by the Chinese. Even the chippie shops are run by the chinese (note: in Edinburgh, they are run by the Italians and Turks).

Architecturally, I wouldn't say that Auckland is that interesting, except for the indigenous bungalow style. There are a collection of repurposed buildings from the 1930s but unfortunately the new awnings damage the impression. But it was fun walking all over the city checking out the flora and fauna. One day we took a ferry to Davenport (just a short hop). From the top of this extinct volcano we had a very nice view of the city and harbor.

I kept looking for bakeries that produced something other than puffy white bread. I was unsuccessful. Other food expeditions were more successful: the Dim Sum was excellent and we had a wide choice of various asian cuisines. Food in NZ isn't cheap so while I'd hoped to give modern NZ cuisine a try, I would only succeed once in the trip (at a winery no less).

From Auckland, we rented a Toyota and proceeded to the volcanic center of NZ: Rotorua. As Americans, we take many things for granted. One of them is our National Park System. Imagine if you had to pay a commercial operator for every geological wonder in the US! In NZ, that's almost the case (the volcanic mountains are National Parks).

The volcanic landscape of NZ is spread out (the crust is thin and you don't know when magma will escape). But the overall impression is that Yellowstone is a good approximation --- except the state owns it instead of private parties.

The ecology of NZ is varied: In the grazing areas, I got the impression that the landscape had been radically altered by the western settlers. One could imagine dense vegetation but instead it was mainly fields of grass and cows (not as many sheep as I expected). Forests were clearcut down to the road. And, the introduction of various mammals including the opposum have been deadly to the local flora and fauna (Kiwis are killed by non-native mammals, esp. dogs and ferrets). And interestingly enough, it was the Maori who introduced rats into NZ. The Maori are relative recent immigrants to NZ: only a few thousands years since they navigated eastward from Polynesia.

Max Mathews

2011-05-22T09:23:00.001-07:00

I am overdue writing about Max. Max' recent demise at the "hands" of Community Acquired Pneumonia leaves Computer Music without its founder. Max (incredibly) conceived of computer generated music in the 1950s --- a time when computing a single sample of sound could take forever. At Bell Labs he rose through the ranks to become the director of the acoustics center --- all the while maintaining his lab in a tiny space off the spine of Building 1.

Max was a unique individual. He had this very distinctive craggy voice and a very bald head. He was extremely enthusiastic and supportive of all efforts with computer generated sound. While at the Labs, I wrote a "Studio Report" with Max on Computer Music at Bell Labs. At that particular point, he had moved into the construction of interfaces and away from synthesis. He was working on the Radio Baton --- as the New York Times obituary pointed out, presaged the Wii and all other gesture based controllers.

I should point out that Max conceived of music synthesis assisted by computer languages in the early 1960s. He started with Music I and eventually it became Music V. One can not underestimate the effect of this concept and implementation. At Stanford, this became Music 10 and was used by the composers when one second of sound required one hour of computation. It was rewritten as cmusic and the lineage of "unit generators" continues to this day.

What made Max so important was that he was decades ahead. He had what I consider to be spectacular forward vision: he could see what technology could do for the arts long before it became even possible. Max encouraged this interaction personally by inviting guests to his lab (both scientists and artists). His early work with Jean-Claude Risset showed how analysis and synthesis of acoustic instruments could be done with computers. His fundamental contributions to the start-up of IRCAM are also not to be ignored.

Even in his "retirement", Max continued to teach and encourage at CCRMA at Stanford. I have no doubt that this leaves a void in the CCRMA environment and in the world of Computer Music.

Redoing Paul Prudhomme

2011-04-01T18:39:00.000-07:00

n.b. I've been meaning to write this down for a long time. Now is as good as ever.

Paul Prudhomme can reasonably be considered the primary spark in the Cajun renaissance. By this I mean that before Prudhomme, cajun cooking wasn't really in the american cooking consciousness. Emeril can easily be considered a TV powered follow-on.

The problem with Paul Prudhomme is that he uses outrageous quantities of fat. With today's cooking, that is not a reasonable approach. However, I believe that his recipes can be easily recast in a (slightly) lighter fare.

His first cookbook is "Chef Paul Prudhomme's Lousiana Cookbook". Let's examine his veal, oyster and artichoke over pasta. His method here is almost the same as his recipe for veal and oysters in crepes (an awesome recipe BTW): first, a seasoned flour is prepared. The veal is coated and ... "Melt one stick of butter". Say What???. One whole stick of butter? Who is he kidding? He fries the veal and then he adds another half stick of butter (no, I am not making this up) while he adds the artichokes. Then another half stick of butter. Finally, it's time to add the oysters and 3/4 of a cup of heavy cream, just in case you haven't had enough. It's rediculous.

First, let's change his method of dealing with the artichokes. I consider boiling 'chokes a crime. So, I vote for the Italian method here. Remove the outer leaves and steam them separately (and eat them as a side). Take the inner choke and slice it. Then saute it in a little olive oil and butter. Add water and cook gently until tender.

Let's change the first stick of butter to just enough oil (Canola is a good cheap choice) to fry all the veal pieces. You'll know how much by the volume of the veal. When brown remove the veal from the pan and put in the oyster water. Or white wine. This will generate a nice sauce. Add a few tablespoons of creme fraiche and stir. Then put in the oysters and cook. Lastly add the artichokes and the veal.

He serves over pasta but my critics think it would have been better over rice. I use oil instead of butter, trying to avoid saturated fats. A Tb here and there of butter improves the flavor. But two sticks of butter? That's crazy talk!

Ron Surak

2011-03-20T12:04:00.000-07:00

I received mail in late February that my friend, Ron Surak, died in late January. Ron was a friend from Rutgers days. We met when somehow he heard that someone over in Engineering was interested in Computer Music. He called me up and he came over to the EE building. I remember our first meeting: He was dressed in a kind of natty way: tweed jacket and he was smoking. He was unapologetic for the cigarette --- but in the end, that's what killed him: he was struck down by a cerebral hemorrhage. What I didn't know is that smokers are much more likely to die of brain aneurysms than non-smokers. I wish he hadn't smoked.

What I liked and appreciated about Ron was his wry sense of humor and also his taste in music. We would agree on the aesthetics of many (but not all) computer music pieces. In my experience, the computer music community is all too eager to accept trashy music as good just because someone used a computer to create it. This may have changed in recent years, but Ron and I often agreed about what was trash and what wasn't.

After Rutgers, Ron retreated to his parents house in Coal County in the very center of Pennsylvania. It wasn't on the freeway path but I visited him twice. It was a small house and was attached to the remnants of his parents' store. He had his grand piano there. It still looked like the store it was many years ago. I can not imagine cleaning that out now.

When Noah was showing signs of musical talent, Ron was my source of valuable advice on how and where to educate him. I made a special trip to visit Ron with Noah so that Noah would have a chance to talk about music with an active composer.

Besides music, Ron liked fly fishing for trout (catch and release mostly). When I visited him last, he offered me a fish from his freezer. I didn't take it.

Ron was 70 years old but I thought he was younger. He had been having issues with macular degeneration but we used to exchange email now and then. He followed Noah's musical education with great interest. In his last email, he promised me a copy of his score for vibraphone and piano as soon as his printer was fixed (so that Noah could see it). Three weeks later, he was dead.

Ron's manuscripts are in the hands of his son and "consort". I believe they will find a good home. They are a lasting legacy of his taste and artistry.

Godzilla vs. the smog monster

2011-03-20T11:53:00.000-07:00

If I haven't blogged since December then you know it must have been a dark and depressing winter. However, spring is in the air... So, how is web serving from home? Well, I wish to report that openbsd is a great system. It is still up (actually 147 days and counting). As for those shitehead script kiddies, no, they haven't given up. I watch as they hit the machine with constant root password attacks. What they don't know (as ignorant script kiddies) is that root ssh logins are completely disabled. They might as well bang their head on a wall. They've also attacked every user name in the book. But if you only do it once, you're not likely to succeed. Also under attack is the samba server --- but once again, I was (unusually) detailed and prohibited connections from anywhere outside the local network (that's 192.168.1.*). Same goes for nfs. Losers.

I have to say, I was tempted to install a "honeypot" on a new guest account. But better sense prevailed.

I also monitor the access to web pages --- this tells me what people are looking at. Once again, I find that my test equipment pages are popular. So, I took a few hours to update them a little. I also discovered various errors by monitoring the logs. So, I fix them now and then. I got tired of seeing errors when the spiders came along so I put in a robots.txt and also a favicon.ico (the latter is that little icon that shows when you load a page). Since the official webmaster is Fishy, the little icon is of Fishy (of course).

openbsd has proven to be an excellent choice. Robust, secure and it's a fast system even though it's on an obsolete sun system. What I really need now are gigabit switches. Soon...

Web serving from home (Part 2)

2010-12-08T07:02:00.000-08:00

As related in the previous post, I installed a clean version of OpenBSD on a Sun Netra T1. With all the daemons running, I decided to put it on the web --- if I could. After all, this means I have to open port 80 (http) and since we had switched to FiOS I didn't know if I could do this.

So, I logged into the router and set the security to nothing. I then realized I could put the new machine (shieldaig, named after a small coastal town in Scotland) in the DMZ. This is a more secure idea than exposing all of our machines to the wild wooly world. But, to do this meant I had to have a static address for shieldaig. That was easy enough to do ... but then I didn't have a local name! Why not? Because... in order to register the machine with the local DNS server at the router, I have to use the DHCP server. But, for once I remembered how I'd solved this problem: aliases. shieldaid has two addresses: one static, one dynamic. The static one doesn't have a name, so that's OK. Back to the router: I put the new static address in the DMZ field. I now checked that port 80 was open. It was!

So, what's the name of this machine? That's the question. Since I'd paid for kahrs.us what I needed was a DNS mapping from this name to it's IP address. I found a free DNS server --- but now the problem was how to make the DNS address point to the IP address. It took me several days of off and on tinkering to realize that the DNS server had to be all on the free DNS server. Once I did that, then the free DNS server was happy and accepted my IP address.

Now, I have to mention that FiOS has Dynamic IP unless you want to pay big bucks. It's just another layer of DHCP above our router after all... So, this means our address could change. But it appears that Verizon has set a huge timeout for the Dynamic DNS, so thus far I haven't had to reset our DNS address. Cool.

One last thing: I was trying to figure out why going to www.kahrs.us didn't work from outside. Well, turns out it gets mapped to shieldaig.kahrs.us and unless that's in the DNS entry as well, it won't work. Simple fix again.

At this point, shieldaig was now on the web. And lo and behold, immediately it was under attack. The samba server was hit constantly but since the addresses weren't local, it just failed. Then there's the constant script kiddy attacks on the sshd daemon. If it weren't so funny, I would love to trap them. I watch the logs that show constant login attempts to root (which is disabled via ssh) and then also watch as they march up the alphabet trying name after name.

I also see what's going on with web access. The machine has been found by both google and yahoo (yahoo was first). I'm wondering when random web accesses will start... thus far it's only been people who we know.

The last conundrum is why accessing www.kahrs.us fails locally but succeeds outside. I've just put this as a DNS question and decided that it doesn't really matter.

My final step was moving the machine down to the basement to live next to the router. Thus far, OpenBSD has been rock solid. And the shitehead script kiddies are deeply unsatisfied. Excellent!

Web serving from home (Part 1)

2010-12-04T09:03:00.000-08:00

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I was going to lose my long time web home at caip.rutgers.edu --- Since I was long gone from caip, I suppose it was about time. So, what was I going to do for a replacement? I decided maybe now was the time to take it into my own hands...

Sometime earlier I had acquired a Sun Netra T1 as a possible web machine. I had an X1 in mind, but the T1 was certainly cheap enough. It's packaged in a nice 1U box and has a very simple interface to the outside world. Two ethernet ports, a serial port and that's about it. My machine didn't have a disk but included one sled. Good thing. I happened to have a stockpile of 40 GB disks, so I installed it in the machine. Good, what next? Software, that's what. I decided to go for OpenBSD because (a) it's a BSD derivative and I know BSD from my grad skool days (b) The price is right (c) it's said to be very secure. But how do I get it onto my disk? Fortunately for me, I had torn apart a PC and had a CD-ROM available. So, I plugged it into the second IDE slot and powered the machine up. Oh yes, and connected the serial port to my lab PC.

The machine came to life easily enough but proceeded to put my in the Sun Lights Out Monitor (LOM). The LOM is yet another supervisor layer for the machine --- reminds me of the PDP-11/45 used on the PDP-10/L ... So, the problem was as soon as I told it to boot from the cdrom (in the console) then it would complain about the Fast MMU error. I'd seen this before --- a long time before but couldn't remember what it was. Google to the rescue. I found a post that claimed that this error was due to a missing password in the LOM. You've got to be kidding. But what had I to lose? I created a password and tried again. Still failed. Ah! Maybe I should logout and log back in? You guessed it. It worked. So, there I was booting from the CD-ROM and writing to the disk. I couldn't believe it.

I installed OpenBSD and it all worked. But then I changed my mind about the disk allocation. Maybe I should put most of the space for web pages? It was almost trivial to go back and re-install. After that, I had to work on the ethernet interfaces. I wanted to have two ports: one for the router and one for the local machines but decided it really didn't make much difference. So one port it was. OpenBSD comes ready to serve pages: it already has Apache on it. So, I really didn't need to install any packages. In addition, I decided to move the services served by my own machine to this server (such as BOOTP, RARP and friends). I easily moved them over.

Finally, I was looking at a reasonably nice machine. I was impressed at how fast it served pages. It seemed fairly secure. I enabled samba for the local house machines but turned it off for everyone else (this will turn out to be important). Finally, I decided it was time to remove the CD-ROM and put the lid back on. The next and final step would be to place it on the net ...

Marshall Leach

2010-12-04T08:49:00.000-08:00

I find obituaries fascinating. There are so many interesting people that we never meet. I think it's only fair that I contribute. In this case, I never met the man. Marshall Leach died at age 70 as a full professor at Ga. Tech. He was certainly not retired and had a full teaching schedule. What's notable about Leach is that from all appearances, he was an idiosyncratic type with a great sense of humor. But what I know of him is his academic legacy. My last paper on SPICE modeling of headphones is a direct descendant of his paper on SPICE modeling in Electroacoustics. It was his paper that led me into all of Olson's papers on electroacoustic modeling and simulation. Unlike many, he published sporadically but his papers were always interesting to read. His paper on low noise electronics in Proc. of the IEEE is a clear exposition of the problems and solutions to low noise design. He received four teaching awards from the students. Clearly, he was perfect in his roles as teaching and advisor. His legacy comprises the papers he published and the many students he taught. And that's a life well lived.

Mise en Place and Garde Manger

2010-09-19T08:50:00.000-07:00

This post is stimulated by two items: First, I am reading a commercial book entitled "Modern Garde Manger" by Garlough and Campbell. Written for the aspiring chef, it's full of little historical tidbits such as the origin of the brigade system (dating back to Escouffier). The authors try to instill pride in the student... So different from a university textbook (an interesting topic perhaps for another day). The second inspiration is from a recent Times article concerning a recent cookbook by Sara Mouton. This chef has discovered that home cooks don't do mise en place - shock and amazement. So, now onto my take on this: when is mise en place appropriate?

Let me start with a bit of personal history: I really learned to cook during my junior year in college. I was living in an on campus apartment with four other guys. And, I was the only one who had a clue about how to shop and how to cook. My mother had sent me to Macy*s with the assignment to buy something for the school year. She had hoped I would buy some shirts or something. Instead I came back with "The Joy of Cooking". Far more useful, really. So, I spent most of that junior year shopping and cooking. And one of the most important lessons I learned was how to time the various dishes so they would come out at the same time. This is a critical skill in any cook. For complex meals, I actually work out a diagram that shows dependencies complete with timings. This is so I don't have to worry about losing track of what to do next and as a warning not to get involved with something that's not on the time critical path.

So, back to mise en place. There is no reason to do this for most meals. Frankly, half the fun of cooking is working several stations at once and then having it all come together at the end. I enjoy the multi-tasking that requires. However, for a complex meal at home (say, the French Laundry), then mise en place is essential. I find this particularly appropriate when you need to finish a dish while guests are at the table. There is no time to lose --- everything must be ready. Earlier in my cooking career I was often miss half the meal since I'd be at the stove. Now, I've figured it out. Mise en place must be totally complete --- don't wait until the last minute to chop those herbs, do it before you're out of time. Make half the dessert and then finish it as you need it (this is particularly effective with the molten chocolate cakes). The only downside is that the cleanup at the end is more because all of those little dishes are hanging around at the end.

As for Garde Manger, I am pleased to note that I already knew most of it. The recipe for haggis was new, but for the most part, I was competent although my skill in turning potatoes into rondelles is unknown. I've always fought against such fussiness. But when it comes to dice, I'm there.

On chickens and stock

2010-04-18T13:53:00.000-07:00

Some number of uncountable years ago, I was fed up with the commercial butchery of chickens. I decided to learn how to "process" them. What follows are some of my thoughts on this (messy) process. After washing the bird inside and out, I set out to (1) remove legs and wings (2) cut off the breasts and then create a stock. Oh, and fry up the liver for the liver consumer in the household.

Start breast side up. In step (1), I first remove the legs (and thighs). This is done by pulling gently on the leg with one hand whilst slicing gently through the skin. Next, viciously dislocate the joint by pulling the wrong way. You'll know it. Then slice around the joint. There, you have a thigh and drumstick. From there you separate the two by slicing through the joint. You can find it by feeling it. Even if you miss it's still easy to separate (it's not bone). Repeat for the other side.

In step (2), you dislocate the joint again and cut around with the knife. I cut off the wing tips to put in the stock pot. My mother objects because this is one of her favorite parts. So it goes. Repeat on the other side.

The last step is to cut along the breast bone, keeping the knife close to the bone but not into the bone. It's more of a clean slicing action. You'll also need to cut around the wish bone to release the breast. The supreme (where's my accent?) can be removed if you want. Repeat on the other side. The knife work is done.

At this point, you have a carcass. I throw it in a tall pot with whatever I can find, but celery is a must add. Onions also. I add cold water and turn on the heat and try not to let it boil. And I do skim the scum off the top when I can remember. I push it to the back burner and let it do its thing for hours (until I go to bed). If I was truly obsessive, then I suppose I could use egg whites to create a raft and really get a clear stock. I'm not that fussy.

I freeze the stock unless I have immediate plans for it. Like risotto. But that is the subject of another post.

On the web

2010-03-18T10:54:00.000-07:00

Or, subtitled, how I fought the Verizon modem and won.

For DSL service, Verizon supplies a model 7500 Versalink modem. This modem is also a router and I have it set up to be our DHCP server as well. It certainly works well and I am fairly content with it. But recently, I was threatened with the loss of my web page. This was enough for me to swing into action and put an ancient Sparcy (Ultra 2) into action. It's interesting to note that the current version of Solaris is incompatible with ancient hardware like this. So, my next choice was something secure, so I went for OpenBSD. I had various adventures with the dead CD-ROM reader, the incompatible external CD-ROM reader, etc. I finally was able to netboot it only to discover that OpenBSD didn't like the onboard SCSI drives. Say what? Well, that meant NetBSD. And you know what? It worked right out of the box. I had to get the package manager up and running so I could get apache. And apache also worked straight up. So, onto the web... And the router.

It seemed simple enough: just enable port 80 (HTTP) and we'll be ready to go. Not so fast! First, there's the issue of host addresses: I wanted the machine (now named "cullen" after the town in Scotland named for skink, a certain stew) to have a static IP address. Well, if I did that then the router had trouble (I went for a different subnet and it didn't like that). I eventually figured out that I could have it both ways! In the deep recesses of my mind was the notion of aliases and this is what I did: One static, one dynamic.

Back to the router. I tried to open up port 80 by creating a new profile called "cullen" (shock). Didn't work. All the external tools said it was closed. After sleeping on it, I decided that maybe this additional port forwarding didn't work... Maybe I should add it to the "default" profile. And lo and behold. The port was open.

One of the interesting tidbits from this is that in spite of registering with dyndns.org, if I try and put the symbolic host address into the brower, I'll get the modem/router home page. But if I am external, I definitely get the right page. At this point I don't care. Originally, I was also going to enable SSH but I am tired of script kiddies, so for the time being it's closed. I might open it when I go away...

The machine also had two ethernet ports --- I might use one for a direct connection to the router and the other for internal net traffic. It should handle that. Famous last words.

White Sauce Pizza

2010-03-18T10:42:00.001-07:00

I know, it's an abomination, but I've been working on "white sauce pizza". As I see it currently (subject to change), there are 3 (count 'em) methods of pizza construction: (1) red sauce (2) white sauce (3) no sauce. The typical american pizza is of course #1. Escarole and caper is an example of #3. So, what about #2? Well, it all starts with salsa besciamella (a.k.a. bechamel). So, it follows the following "rule": 2:2:1 --- 2 T butter, 2 T flour and 1 cup of milk. A whisk is a good accessory here. It's also important to keep the heat low so that the butter doesn't brown and the flour doesn't toast (this isn't a cajun roux after all). I add parmesan and romano cheese to the finished product. The last step is to add the vegie (last experiment involved swiss chard and carmelized onions). It was tasty but I thought it had a few faults: (a) the sauce should be thick --- if it's too loose, it will be too wet and so will the pizza. Which leads me to (b) Perhaps a light coating of olive oil would prevent the dough from getting excessively soggy. Other toppings I've done with a white sauce include baby artichokes with pancetta (a power combination if there ever was one).

Pizza

2010-01-14T10:55:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about pizza lately. I believe that a lot of cook shy away from it because they believe that it's complicated. Nothing could be more untrue. I will say, however, that having the right equipment makes it easier. This means (a) a pizza stone and (b) a pizza peel (that's the paddle). The reason for the stone is to get the nice crust on the bottom --- the reason for the peel is to extract the floppy pizza from the oven (and turn it if you are so adventurous).

Let's now discuss the dough itself. It's not complex, even for someone who is not a baker. I use Nick Maglieri's recipe from How to Bake. I have it memorized: 3 cups flour + 1 tsp salt. Then 5/4 moderate temperature water (this is the secret: it should be like baby milk) and 1 pack yeast. I like to goose it up by adding a tiny bit of honey to the warm water. The yeast eats it up and starts to "bloom". Oh, and some olive oil. I mix wet with dry, use the paddle until it looks right (meaning not too wet [sticky] and not too dry [can't stick together]). Then I switch to the dough hook and let it go until it's smooth. Then it's onto the marble for a quick knead and then back in the bowl to rise.

Meanwhile, I make the sauce. Sometimes tomato and sometimes not. Escarole and capers (and olives) is a favorite. The secret here is to saute (anyone have an accent to spare?) the escarole with garlic first ... and put in a colander. Then you can add the rest later if you want. In my experience, I can literally do the whole thing in an hour. The new super fast yeast will do its thing while you make the sauce.

Now, I have to admit, this does not result in a true Neopolitan crust that I remember from my time teaching at the Universita di Napoli... That crust is super thin and cooked in a special conical oven. But in spite of this, it's a worthy consumable.

Finally, a note on flour. I have tried both the Italian 000 pizza flour and the American pizza flour (again obtained from PennMac). Both are good. It is rumored that the American flour has more malt in it. I'd like to experiment with that sometime in the future.

Rewriting Paul Prudhomme

2009-12-06T18:33:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to post about Paul Prudhomme for forever. Tonight I made seafood gumbo again (it's one of my favorites) and I'm reminded how I "rewrite" his recipes. First, let me say it's a lot of fun to cook out of his books. The spicing is interesting and the taste is delicious. But, let's face it, this stuff can be unhealthy! For example, in said gumbo recipe, he calls for 3/4 of a cup of oil for the roux. I cut that to 1/4 (along with the accompanying flour). Sure, that means less stock but who cares?!? Then, he calls for the roux to be added to the boiling stock! Say what? This reminds me of chem lab: it's acid into water and not vice versa --- likewise, it's liquid into roux, not vice versa. Otherwise, you can't control the thickness and you might get lumps! So, what's with that anyway? Of course, I add the stock to the roux and keep going. Also, a missing note from this particular recipe: I use the shrimp shells (I only buy wild gulf shrimp these days) to make a very simple stock. One of his pasta recipes literally calls for a stick of butter. That's just horrific. Might be tasty but I just don't cook like that. A final note: I use andouille sausage from my local sausage provider: Parma Sausage. Sure wish they made tasso!

Why I hate cables

2009-12-03T11:31:00.000-08:00

Does anyone else besides me despise them? I started to hate them when I was building hardware. It was so easy to damage them, to get the pins backward and generally fail. Now, that I'm trying to get these machines to work, they are in my way again. For example, to talk to my very nice Sun T3 disk array, I need to have a special cable to connects to an RJ-11. Say what? A telephone jack for a serial cable? Thanks Sun. What about my SPARCy? Now I need a 25 pin to 9 pin converter. And of course, there's the matter of getting the gender correct. Sheesh.

One can never, ever have too many cables and connectors around. Also, FWIW, it holds for RF as well as digital. Is it SMA or 3.5 mm? Is it N or 7 mm? It never ends.

Once more, into the breech

2009-11-19T18:02:00.000-08:00

I have been informed that my web page, now more than a decade old, will cease to exist soon. The machine that hosts it (www.caip.rutgers.edu) is "being retired". What's really going on is a typical academic stunt of changing names and seizing control. It's evil, but it's what happens in academia regularly. Life goes on.

So, I am preparing to move my web page to a new web site: but where? After considering all my options, it appears that the best option is to host it meself. Allow me to explain: First, why should I pay someone to host my fiiles? Second, if I ask Verizon for a static IP then I have to be a business (and be prepared to pay for the privilege). So, it would appear the cheapest thing to do is use dynamic DNS and host at home.

OK, so what next? Well, it wouldn't hurt to have an industrial strength router, but that's a story in itself --- next blog. So, besides the router, what else? Who's hosting the web page? No way is it my machine. But that's why I have a vax. Really! So, if I can have openbsd on the vax (which I can, to hell with VMS), then I will host from there. If anyone complains about the speed, then I'll tell them they don't have a sense of history.

So, then how to port openbsd on the vax? Wellllll, the "best" way (according to the web page) is to have it netboot. So, I could port over all the daemons to do that, but then since I need to bring up my Sun machine anyway to talk to my T3 fileserver, then why not have the Sun serve? And, what's more, it appears that Sun does this stuff regularly under the name "jumpstart".

Next step? Putting Solaris 10 on the Sun. I thought about netbsd, but if I want it to the talk to the T3, why not have it stay in the family. And I'm just getting started...

My cooking philosophy

2009-05-12T07:15:00.000-07:00

My DSP buddy, Jean Laroche, told me I should have a cooking blog. Since I already started a blog, I thought I would just enlarge this one --- besides, who wants to hear me whine and complain about linux administration all the time?

So, since I lead a food centered life, I thought I would start by writing about my cooking ideas and philosophy. I don't believe in fast food, I believe in slow food. I don't like to buy other people's ideas of how things should taste, so I don't buy prepared food (for the most part). One of my strongest beliefs is in the transformative ability of a great meal. Babette's Feast is my example of what a meal can be. Not every day, but every once in a while.

Most of my cooking is of the Italian/French variety, in part because I am a carbohydrate eater and I like pasta. I have cooked other styles including indian and chinese, but because most of my life I am cooking like a short-order demon, I choose what I can do fast -- with minimum prep work. Most of the time I cook without measuring. And cooking requires all the senses: besides sight, I listen to the timbre of the frying food, I feel the meat to see if it's done and I smell what I am cooking. I taste when I am in doubt, but my sense of smell is often enough.

I am much more of a cook than a baker --- which is a bit strange since I excelled in the chemistry lab in both high school and college. But I am now to the point where I can use yeast very reliably. But to get the crust to have that nice crunch, that requires steam in the oven. I've tried but it just don't compare with what I can get from the nearby bakery. That's a topic for another entry.

There a very important aspect to reading a recipe: imagining what it will look like in the various steps. I can't explain how I know what to expect, but I do. I think this can only be gained by experience. So, when I read a recipe, I have to understand the transformation at every step. Only when I understand the procedure will I start. In complex meals, I will take the time to diagram the "flow" so that I know what I can do in parallel. It's task scheduling and it's NP-complete!

My last comment concerns guests: I look forward to having guests because they are my excuse to experiment and try new and complex recipes. But I don't have many guests for dinner these days, so most of my cooking is of the fast "trattoria style".

Woeful linux

2009-04-25T12:28:00.000-07:00

Before I lose it again, let me praise the apt installation package. In comparison to "yum", this software seems to work effortlessly; upgrading to the latest and greatest Ubuntu distribution ("jaunty jackalope") was just a pleasure. Almost.

That's right, almost. You see, I decided to use my spiff Linotype scanner. And you see, that requires the sg kernel module. No problem you cry! Why it's just "modprobe sg". Not so fast. There isn't a sg.ko in /lib/modules anymore! Say what? Did it go away? After downloading the kernel sources (yes, I did that), I regret to say that guess what? You guessed it. The sources are there. As it so happens, I have the kernel headers. So, I stripped out the sg code and compiled it. Minor complaint but I get a .ko; and what happens when I modprobe it? You guessed it, didn't you? It didn't load.

A posting on the Ubuntu bugs list is of course ignored. Need I say more? It's linux, isn't it?

Planar Microwave Engineering

2008-12-18T11:19:00.000-08:00

Let me first say that I might be a little biased because of the rave review Tom Lee gives to my sampling review paper in this book. But, I have to say this is the most entertaining engineering book I have read in quite some time. His writing is colloquial --- which I personally favor. It's full of witty asides (like this one on E&M: "More than a few students have caught on to the fact that electrodynamic equations ... are a devious invention to torment hapless undergraduates"). The writing is clear and he takes the time (and ink) to derive various results. His experimental hints (such as how to build probes) are the kind of useful bits you'd like to see in a practical book. Coupled with the CD in the back, this is really a complete book for the RF and Microwave student. I am sure that some of the more anal retentive engineering types won't like some of the gloss given to their favorite subject. That's OK --- this book is not for them. It's just too bad that most engineering books can't rise above the hum-drum writing and presentation that gives engineering a bad name. This book isn't one of them --- it's terrific.

Stephen F. Adam

2008-11-24T09:25:00.001-08:00

Steve Adam died recently. He was my "mentor" in the HP Microwave Lab when I was but a tender high school student. Palo Alto had this fabulous program called "ROP" (Researchers Observer Program) that would place students in various research labs. I was excited by the HP 8410 Network Analyzer and said so. And so, I ended up at the passive components section of the HP Microwave Lab. It was a small group with Steve Adam and Larry Renihan -- I don't recall anyone else, sorry. Located at 1501 Page Mill Road, I used to ride my bicycle up there after school. I had a orange HP badge that would get me in the building and the guards were constantly amazed.

Unfortunately, enthusiasm is no substitute for calculus or E & M, so I think they didn't know what to do with me. I was pointed to the computer terminals and that's how my computer career begin -- burning up HP's money on timesharing systems. When I was offered a job at Tymshare for $1.50 an hour, that's when I stopped going to HP. But I never lost my interest in microwave measurement. Or sampling.

But what I remember about Steve Adam was that he was interviewed by someone and he said "If you ask a high school student what an engineer does, they think it's the guy who drives the locomotive!". True then. True now. I missed my opportunity to say hello at the last IMS convention I went to in San Francisco. I regret that even more now.

Linux --- not ready for civilians

2008-11-24T09:10:00.000-08:00

I'm an old hand Unix user --- I've been using it since 6th edition. So I am "amused" by the claims of the Linux hands that "even a caveman" can install Linux. Not.

My linux experience started out with Redhat. Initially, since my motherboard was so new, there wasn't a driver for the NVIDIA chip. I did get this to work by hacking this and that and trusting (but not verifying) the kernel modules. This worked well for a long time, at least until I decided to upgrade. Mistake. It couldn't do the upgrade well and I ended up stranded in the middle.

Finally, after the sabbatical, I returned to my homebuilt machine. I installed a new DVD writer and backed up the files. Then I tried to install Ubuntu (after all, it's good enough for Google [gubuntu]). Botch. It got hung trying to access the floppy! Thanks to google, I was able to locate the thread that discussed how to get around that --- fiddling with the grub options. Now, who are they kidding? Who is going to get this right except someone who's willing to hack it up? Then it's time for the Xorg.conf section of hell. Each time I got it wrong, there was no recourse but to reboot.

Now, there's a new distribution. OK, one thing I really like about Ubuntu is the aptitude upgrade manager. Just fantastic. So, I go ahead. Looked good until it asked me about installing the NVIDIA kernel modules --- I thought, well, why not? Well, we're back in Xorg.conf hell again, that's why not. Fortunately, I was able to get it work by looking at my past configuration (I was able to do the install of Ubuntu without blowing my files away by installing the new system on my formerly shared file system).

So, now it's running well. And it's fun to use. But tell me --- is Linux really ready for novices to install it? I don't think so.

Ed Klima

2008-11-13T13:11:00.000-08:00

Ed Klima died recently at the age of 77. He was a linguist extraordinaire and also a very nice guy. When I was an undergraduate, I was infatuated with formal languages and their application. While taking musicianship, it occurred to me that harmony was a set of rules that could be formalized with grammars. Somehow (and I don't remember how), I was sent to Ed Klima. At the time, he was chair of the linguistics department, so I had to make an appointment to see him. He was soft spoken and quiet but interested, and so he set me to work on an independent study. My lasting impression of him is sitting out in the warm La Jolla sun. And my lasting conversation from him is this: "Klima: Do you read French?" (Me: "No."). Klima: "For an intellectual to not read french is a shame". (He wanted me to read his friend Ruvet in the original). (n.b. I can read technical french... now).