Product Review – Gigaware WiFi HOTSPOT Finder

Presenting the Gigaware WiFi HOTSPOT Finder.

* Detecting Range: up to 500 feet (150 meters) in open space * Frequency: 2400~2483Mhz (IEEE802.11 b/g) * Operating voltage: 2.5 ~ 3.3V (power: CR2032 battery (2))

Cost: $10 + tax (Radio Shack)

Pros:

Easy to use and cheap. If you can get at least one green light, you can usualy get a useable signal.

Cons:

No indications on whether or not the wireless networks are encrypted or not, but that’s not really a big deal.

Rating:

4 out of 5 stars.

Product Review – RCA VR5220-A Digital Voice Recorder

Presenting the RCA VR5220-A Digital Voice Recorder.

Up to 200 hours recording time Built-in USB for direct PC connection Dual voice compression format Multi-task LCD display Automatic voice activated record Playback editing function Built-in speaker and microphone Date and time stamped recordings Selectable recording mode for conference and dictation 3 recording modes–LP, SP and HQ Headphone and external microphone jacks Key lock function

I’ve only had it for a few days, but I have some observations already.

Cost:

$39 + tax (Wal-mart)

Pros:

It seems to work very well indeed. Like I said, I’ve only had it for a short time, but I have few complaints.

Cons:

First, it doesn’t appear to work in Linux. I know most of the world is Windows and Mac, but come on. It mounts as an USB mass storage device in Windows XP (should also in Vista and OSX too) so why can’t it do so in Linux?

Also, the built in USB port is nice, and it slides out fairly easily, but you have to push on the end of the port to slide it back in. Sometimes the door which covers the port gets discombobulated and has to be straightened back up manually. In addition, the buttons down both sides make sliding out and retracting the USB port difficult as the buttons operate functions on the device in random ways unless you’re really careful not to hit them in the process.

Another thing is, if your USB ports are recessed at all, it makes it almost impossible to plug it in without an USB extension cord.

Oh, and would it be so difficult to include a normal printed manual instead of a GIANT sheet of paper covering all the functions?

Rating:

3 out of 5 stars.

UPDATE: (3/11/2010) As of today I noticed this recorder is showing up on my Ubuntu linux 9.10 desktop. If it doesn’t show up, it’s in the /media folder called “RCA_DVR”. Inside you will find (at least I did) four folders labelled A,B,C and D. Your recordings will be in these folders, labelled with an obscure file name such as “A0000015.VOC”. These are NOT standard .VOC files and cannot be read by anything on your system. However, a man named Dave Coffin has created a small C program called “devoc.c” to convert them. it requires compiling, but it’s painless. Also, there is a web based conversion program here.

I found instructions for using this program here. I’ve reproduced them below for your convenience.

I just got one of these, and I figured out the voodoo to make it work under Ubuntu!

When you plug this thing it, it looks like a usb thumb drive. Go find the .VOC files on it after you plug it in, and copy them off somewhere (they have names like A0000001.VOC)

Download the file devoc.c (hopefully the url will post right):
http://www.cybercom.net/~dcoffin/rca/

(if the URL above gets munged just look for “devoc.c decode VOC” on google and check out the cybercom.net link)

apt-get install sox libsox-fmt-all

gcc devoc.c -o devoc
(and put the binary file in your path somewhere)

devoc -c A0000001.VOC > output.raw

play -t raw -s -2 -r 8000 output.raw

or, to convert it to a useful format (wav/ogg/etc):

sox -t raw -s -2 -r 8000 output.raw out.wav

I moved the compiled program “devoc” to my “/usr/bin” folder and ran it from a terminal window like it says to above. It’s a bit of a pain to do it this way, but only because the files are non-standard to begin with.

I hope this helps someone.

New Poll

There’s a new poll over on the right based on Robert Heinlein’s character Lazarus Long in Time Enough for Love.

Lazarus Long lists several things a human being should be able to do. I got to thinking, how many of these things can my readers do?

Presto!

Take the poll if you’d like and let me know!

Hanging Together

In a quote most often attributed to Benjamin Franklin, right after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, he is supposed to have said:

“We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

Regardless of who actually said it, the sentiments expressed are as true and valid today as when they were first uttered.

Today, in the gun rights community, we see a strong polarization into two camps, those who take a pragmatic approach and those who feel that for the most part, working within the system is a waste of time.

The charges from each side, that the one side just wants to start shooting people and doesn’t take part in the political process, or that the other side will compromise their rights away and not fight back no matter the cost, except for extreme cases on each side are unfounded and untrue. I know people on both sides, so called “3pers” who write their congressmen and women, who vote their conscience and so called “prags” who have publicly stated that if anyone comes to confiscate their guns, they will shoot them. Both sides have more in common than not.

This is nothing as pathetic and transparent as Rodney King’s “Can’t we all get along?”, merely a call for some reason. None of us are the enemy. The enemy of our rights are the Brady’s and the VPC’s of the world, not each other. What we need to do is stop fighting each other and put our energies into fighting the real enemies of the second amendment.

Back when the early days of The United States during the time period of the expansion into the west, the Indians who lived there tried fighting back. They were unable to mount a solid defence. Why?

This quote from The American Plains Indians by Jason Hook and Richard Hook (page 40) I think illustrates the reason.

“One reason for the futility of the Indian cause was that they were divided by tribal feuds; Custer, for example, was guided to the Little Bighorn by Crow and Arikara scouts. A united Indian nation could have defended their lands more ably, but, in the words of Sitting Bull, they were ‘an island of Indians in a lake of whites’.”

If we’re not careful, I fear this will be our fate.

Quote of the Day

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”

- Robert Heinlein’s character Lazarus Long in Time Enough for Love.

Security Theater

Found on the net in various places.

303 Maple Street – Chapter Two

Please be warned in advance that the story may contain violence, strong language, mature situations, sex and whatever else happens in real life. This isn’t a children’s story folks. Having said that, if you’re still willing, I hope you enjoy the story! This installment ratchets up the action in a big way.

First the standard legal boilerplate:

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental

All material contained within, even though presented for free, remains the property of it’s author. If you want permission to repost it, please ask first.

So there.

I’d like to thank dixie, Gay Cynic and Árni Inaba Kjartansson for their kind assistance in the production of this story. Your help is much appreciated!

(more…)

Joe Biden Again

After revealing the location of his secret bunker, in addition to being a general thorn in the side of the Obama administration, Joe ” Gaffe Machine” Biden, took the time to be interviewed by a popular morning news program. Here, Joe gives his advice on how to avoid the swine flu.

WARNING: NSFW!

Playboy Interviews Ayn Rand

The year was 1964 and when this interview with Ayn Rand first appeared in Playboy. I found this via David Codrea’s War on Guns blog. Thanks David!

Here are a few of the exchanges I found interesting and most relevant. You can find the whole interview online here.

PLAYBOY: What, in your view, is the proper function of a government?

RAND: Basically, there is really only one proper function: the protection of individual rights. Since rights can be violated only by physical force, and by certain derivatives of physical force, the proper function of government is to protect men from those who initiate the use of physical force: from those who are criminals. Force, in a free society, may be used only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. This is the proper task of government: to serve as a policeman who protects men from the use of force.

PLAYBOY: If force may be used only in retaliation against force, does the government have the right to use force to collect taxes, for example, or to draft soldiers?

RAND: In principle, I believe that taxation should be voluntary, like everything else. But how one would implement this is a very complex question. I can only suggest certain methods, but I would not attempt to insist on them as a definitive answer. A government lottery, for instance, used in many countries in Europe, is one good method of voluntary taxation. There are others. Taxes should be voluntary contributions for the proper governmental services which people do need and therefore would be and should be willing to pay for—as they pay for insurance. But, of course, this is a problem for a distant future, for the time when men will establish a fully free social system. It would be the last, not the first, reform to advocate. As to the draft, it is improper and unconstitutional. It is a violation of fundamental rights, of a man’s right to his own life. No man has the right to send another man to fight and die for his, the sender’s, cause. A country has no right to force men into involuntary servitude. Armies should be strictly voluntary; and, as military authorities will tell you, volunteer armies are the best armies.

PLAYBOY: What about other public needs? Do you consider the post office, for example, a legitimate function of government?

RAND: Now let’s get this straight. My position is fully consistent. Not only the post office, but streets, roads, and above all, schools, should all be privately owned and privately run. I advocate the separation of state and economics. The government should be concerned only with those issues which involve the use of force. This means: the police, the armed services, and the law courts to settle disputes among men. Nothing else. Everything else should be privately run and would be much better run.

PLAYBOY: What about force in foreign policy? You have said that any free nation had the right to invade Nazi Germany during World War II….

RAND: Certainly.

PLAYBOY: …And that any free nation today has the moral right—though not the duty—to invade Soviet Russia, Cuba, or any other “slave pen.” Correct?

RAND: Correct. A dictatorship—a country that violates the rights of its own citizens—is an outlaw and can claim no rights.

…

PLAYBOY: Would you favor U.S. withdrawal from the United Nations?

RAND: Yes. I do not sanction the grotesque pretense of an organization allegedly devoted to world peace and human rights, which includes Soviet Russia, the worst aggressor and bloodiest butcher in history, as one of its members. The notion of protecting rights, with Soviet Russia among the protectors, is an insult to the concept of rights and to the intelligence of any man who is asked to endorse or sanction such an organization. I do not believe that an individual should cooperate with criminals, and, for all the same reasons, I do not believe that free countries should cooperate with dictatorships.

…

PLAYBOY: You are a declared anticommunist, antisocialist and antiliberal. Yet you reject the notion that you are a conservative. In fact, you have reserved some of your angriest criticism for conservatives. Where do you stand politically?

RAND: Correction. I never describe my position in terms of negatives. I am an advocate of laissez-faire capitalism, of individual rights—there are no others—of individual freedom. It is on this ground that I oppose any doctrine which proposes the sacrifice of the individual to the collective, such as communism, socialism, the welfare state, fascism, Nazism and modern liberalism. I oppose the conservatives on the same ground. The conservatives are advocates of a mixed economy and of a welfare state. Their difference from the liberals is only one of degree, not of principle.

…

PLAYBOY: What do you mean by dictatorship? How would you define it?

RAND: A dictatorship is a country that does not recognize individual rights, whose government holds total, unlimited power over men.

I sense a disturbance in the force…

Youtube videos come and go, but some seem to grab people’s imaginations. What causes this is anyone’s guess. Take Chris Crocker for instance:

Now, we have the newest Youtube sensation, Dancing Alan. Behold:

Apparently I’m not the only one to notice this trend.