Am I a writer?

My wife has ‘discovered’ she is a writer, probably fairer to say she has admitted she is a writer. This left me wondering if I’m a writer as well?

I consider myself a creative person; I believe I have an artist’s soul. I’ve found many ways to express myself over the years. I tried oil painting many years ago and enjoyed it although being a perfectionist I found I wanted to paint every single pine needle on my trees. Watching someone smash the brush on the canvas to ‘create’ trees seemed inappropriate to me. Trees aren’t random; they have incredible structure to the observing eye. Randomly smashing a brush felt like a cheap imitation.

Of course I may have missed the whole meaning here, the painting should be about what the viewer see’s in it, the emotions it evokes, the memories it stirs. It shouldn’t be an ‘exact copy’ of nature even if the anal retentive little F in me wants to make it that way.

So, I guess we can rule out painter.

I discovered computer programming at an early age and taught myself. I’ve made my living over the years programming computers or with the million other activities that make them useful and a curse. In programming there are times when beauty can truly be expressed, when the eloquence of the logic, the flow of the program, the way it is expressed has a kind of beauty. Programming, deep intuitive graceful programming can be truly beautiful to the observer conversant in the language and techniques expressed in the code. It was only recently that I looked at my 30 years behind the keyboard expressing logic to a machine as an expression of my need to write.

Humm… if programming is writing then perhaps I am a writer?

In the mathematics of chaos I find a beauty that for me feels the same as when I look at a lush green forest. I feel the face of God in the math and in the forest. Perhaps that is what I should try to paint. As I’ve come to understand chaos theory I’ve come to see it everywhere in nature. Fibonacci series, events that are random yet bounded, contained in a phase space. It brings a sense of beauty to me that is hard to describe, I don’t have the words for what I sense, what I feel as I see the world through these chaos inspired eyes.

Humm… is curiosity, is learning to see the world in new ways traits of a writer?

I also play a couple musical instruments, not well but I do play them. Having people hear one of my simple original compositions and expressing that they like it is a real rush. I’ve known for years I needed to express myself in music even if I’m not truly a musician.

Humm….I’ve created music, effectively I’ve written it, does this make me a writer?

I’ve drawn on and off my entire life, usually pencil on paper. I was encouraged to pursue a career in art back in school but instead followed my interest in technology. Pencil on paper gives me an opportunity to express the anal retentive little F in me again as I often draw three dimensional objects then light the scene with shadow. Geeky, yes, even I admit this.

Humm….I draw, perhaps I’m an artist?

I build things with my hands, from simple wood working to simple machines. I design electronic circuits and bring them to life, often with a small computer embedded to give it more life, more interactivity. I’ve come to understand this is yet another form of expression.

Humm.…I build things, perhaps I’m an engineer?

I’ve written for myself most of my adult life, typically a few paragraphs that should have been kept in a journal but weren’t and have been lost. The first warm blue day of spring typically results in my writing that spring is here, I find I need to express my excitement about it. I’d never realized this was ‘writing’ until recently.

So, seeing my wife admit she is a writer, that she has always been a writer inspired me to ask the same question.

Am I a writer?

I’ve always had the core idea for a sci-fi book, written a bit like Philip K. Dick meets Isaac Asimov.  I sat down to write it and instead a story flowed from my fingers that I had little control over. The core of it was revealed to me in dreams. I honestly didn’t know where it was going until each part was written. It’s the story of a biker, his riding companion and how he comes to know himself and his companion. It’s really sad in places. I cried as I wrote those parts, often so hard I had a hard time seeing the screen as I typed, as I lived the events with the characters. As a rule I don’t cry, still reading over what I wrote brings tears to my eyes. (This is actually a bit uncomfortable for me to admit.) I honestly don’t know if the words are reflections on my life experience or just something I made up. My daughter recently read it, she commented on how sad parts of it are and on how she cried as she read it. So perhaps I am a writer, defined by the ability to convey emotion, to create a scene in my reader’s head that is real enough to bring tears to their eyes?

Before I started this book I thought writing was about writing what I wanted to say, instead for me it has become about writing something else entirely, something I don’t yet understand, something that just has to be said. A couple other story ideas have come to me, in my dreams. Stories I would never have consciously thought to write, I’m working on them now.

Some say I’ve found my muse and she is guiding me, other say I’m crazy. Either way, honestly I’m comfortable.

So, am I a writer? I leave it to you to decide, all comments welcome.

The circle of Life and Death

Today our six pullets (young chickens) were introduced to the side yard. They been in several cages as they have grown, today with some temporary fencing and netting a safe habitat in the side yard was setup. It took only a few seconds before they started scratching in the short grass and exploring the new environment.

As we were setting up the temp cage for them I needed to check the light in the coop, the wife had reported it was not working. She had tried a new bulb however it was still intermittent.  Using a flash light to see into the coop we found one of our existing grown chickens dead in the coop. She had been acting a bit funny the last few days. She had stopped laying some time ago and had lived out her remaining years free ranging with the other grow chickens in the side yard. I buried here under a large tree where her sisters have been buried over the years.

We didn’t start out to make pets of the chickens; however with time their personalities become know. Each is very different from the rest; each has her own way, her own favorite dust hole. Occasionally they make it up onto the back deck, we’ll be sitting watching TV and one, then another, then another chicken will pass the back sliding door as they look over the deck for any scrapes the dog may have missed. All I can say is ‘good luck’ as the one thing our old dog does well is get every last crumb. Heck, she watches the blue jays and squirrels hide peanuts in the yard, she then digs them up and eats them.

We’ve had as many as a dozen layers, now we are down to five old hens, all beyond their egg producing prime.

The pullets will add 5 hens and a rooster to the mix once we feel they are big enough to hold their own against Bertha, the head hen. I suspect a new pecking order will be established with the introduction of new blood and a rooster, we’ll have to wait and see.

One of the pullet hens seems to have splay feet; her feet don’t curl down, they curl out to the sides. Her feet are very symmetrical. She’s every bit as big as the two other hens of the same breed. Based on these two observations I’m convinced this is genetics and not a nutritional issue. She currently manages to roost; we’ll wait to see if she can once she’s full grown.

Today we saw the circle of life, the old die to make room for the young, it is as it’s always been and should always be. Personally living forever isn’t something I would wish on anyone.

NIXIEs, PIXIEs and Numitrons – Oh, my! – Part 2

If you missed part one please click http://neilb.wordpress.com/2007/03/10/nixies-and-pixies-and-numitrons-oh-my/ 

Let’s take a look at the anatomy of a typical NIXIE tube clock. In this part we look at NIXIE tubes and common methods to drive them.

Acknowledgements – I have provided links to several peoples web sites in this article. I thank them in advance for providing data and examples on their web sites.

NIXIE Tubes

So, let’s start with the NIXIE tubes. As they are no longer made many types are slowly become more and more rare. The B7971 tube have become very hard to find. By all appearances warehouses of some NIXIEs look to have been found in the old Soviet Union. A search for NIXIE on www.ebay.com will reveal several vendors selling tubes.

NOS or New Old Stock tubes. Many of the old Soviet tubes are what are known as NOS meaning literally that although they are old they have never been used, the net effect being they are like new.

You should be cautious of NOS tubes. It has been a common habit over the years to place a bad tube into the box the replacement came from. Sometimes these bad tubes in what look to be NOS boxes are sold as NOS. Sometimes NIXIEs are in flats that hold multiple tubes. NOS tubes in flats will all tend to be the same date code, if used tubes were placed back in the flat the Date codes tend to be mixed. Check with the seller to makes sure they are NOS.

Date codes. Most NIXIEs are marked with the manufactures name and a code that indicates when they were made. For example 7826 is most likely the 26^th week of 1978.

Used. These are tubes that have been used. NIXIE tubes have a finite life time. They fail in several ways. The filaments that form the numbers will slowly erode. Often the filament will erode depositing the eroded material on the inside of the tubes glass darkening the tube. Sometimes the filament will break rendering that digit inoperative. Multiple insertions into a tube socket can cause the seal between the tube and its pins to leak allowing the internal gases to leak out killing the tube. Tubes with flying leads (wires coming from the tube) that have been de-soldered can also leak at the wires due to mechanical or heat stress.

A good write up on cathode poisoning can be found at http://www.tube-tester.com/sites/nixie/different/cathode%20poisoning/cathode-poisoning.htm

Many of the tubes coming from the old Soviet Union are coming from ‘factory cartons’. These are typically NOS and are generally safe to buy.

Top, side or inverted side views. Some tubes are designed to be viewed from the top, others from the side of the tube, Inverted side tubes require the pins/wires to be oriented up in use.

You can find examples of these styles of tubes at http://www.tube-tester.com/sites/nixie/trade01-nixie-tubes.htm and http://www.tube-tester.com/sites/nixie/trade03-nixie-tubes.htm – More examples of tube types can be found at http://webx.dk/oz2cpu/clock/nixie-collection.htm

Specialty NIXIEs. Most NIXIEs can display the numbers 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9. There are however some NIXIEs that display special characters such as +/-, or only 0 and 1. Other tubes display scientific symbols or electronic symbols. Make sure whatever you order can display the required digits for your application.

You can find examples of special character tubes at http://www.tube-tester.com/sites/nixie/trade02-nixie-tubes.htm

Invereted fives. Some tubes used an upside fire (5) for the number two (2). Personally I think this looks awful. Again, knowing what you are ordering will help you in being satisfied with tubes. This was done to make the tube cheaper to manufacture.

The packaging of the tubes is important; I’ve seen pictures of tubes where nearly every tube was broken in transit. Don’t spend big money on tubes then wimp out on the shipping costs. Check with the seller to see how they ship them and if they will replace broken tubes, most will.

Driving the tubes

NIXIE tubes require about 180 volts to work. Most modern microcontrollers and drivers chips can’t deal with this high a voltage so some kind of driver electronics are required. (Future posts will cover power supplies.)

Direct Drive – Each NIXIE tube is individually driven, this is typically the simplest to implement.

In the era of NIXIE tubes special ICs (chips) were made to drive the tubes. The 7441 and 74141 were common. The IC is passed a 4-bit Binary Coded Value using standard logic levels, the IC selects one of ten outputs, and each output is connected to one number inside the tube. Recall that ‘0’ is also a number the tube needs to display it as well so we have ten total outputs. These parts haven’t been made for decades and have become hard to obtain. However there are again old Soviet parts that fill the same function.  Searching ebay for K151Id1 will usually result in several hits for driver ships.

Data on driver chips can be found at NIXIE Driver ICs.doc

Using one driver IC per NIXIE tube implements the display portion of a direct drive NIXIE clock, a four tube clock would use four driver ICs, a six clock would use six.

Some kit designs use high voltage transistors to handle the high voltage, some use modern chips that can handle the high voltage. These tend to be the exceptions and are beyond the scope of this article.

Multiplexed Drive – Each NIXIE is turned on individually for a brief moment in sequence, this happens fast enough that the eye can’t see them flicker. It’s generally believed that by multiplexing the tubes they will have a longer life.

The same ICs as is listed above can be used. Only one IC is required for clocks with up to four tubes. Basically each NIXIE has the high voltage switched to it with the correct BCD code being sent to the driver IC.  This of course requires coordination of high voltage switches and the driver IC. Every multiplexed clock I have encountered uses a microcontroller to accomplish this, the multiplexing logic being implemented in software within the microcontroller. In a four tube multiplexed design each tube is powered up for ¼ of the display cycle time.

Clock with more than four tubes are generally multiplexed in what is known as a 2×3 scheme. Basically the first three tubes are multiplexed together while the last three tubes are separately multiplexed together. Two of the driver ICs mentioned above would be needed, one for each group of three tubes. This results in sufficient brightness as each tube is powered up 1/3 of the display cycle time. If all six tubes were multiplexed together they would only be powered up 1/6 of the cycle time, this scheme typically results in dim tubes.

Some people have been successful with 1×6 multiplexing schemes so please don’t take my advice as absolute – please see http://www.webx.dk/oz2cpu/clock/nixie-clock.htm for a great example.

More technical info on multiplexing can be found at http://www.decodesystems.com/multiplexed-nixies.html

In part 3 we will examine the Microcontroller.

Lucky the Parakeet

This afternoon the three ducks we keep in our garden were making their typical racket, each day for us is filled with various duck calls. The female in the groups makes it very well know she is hungry and wants some feed. We have the ducks to deal with the slug problem; living in the Pacific Northwest we have more than our share of slugs.

Early afternoon today the female duck started calling loudly, it was a mix of her “I want something” and “I’m distressed” calls. My wife went out to investigate. All three ducks had managed to get inside the small fence around the greenhouse at the center of the garden. The small fence is there to keep them out of the herbs and flowers. The female was calling for extraction from the hot zone, much like commandos might call for extraction after a raid.

As my wife worked to get the ducks on the right side of the fence she noticed two crows diving into a nearby bush; this caught her attention. In the bush a flash of color was seen that didn’t seem to fit, blue against the green of the bush.

In the bush was a blue male parakeet, both of his feet were gummed in tree sap. He was hanging by one leg upside down, his other foot covered in sap, unusable. My wife shushed the crows away and started to rescue the poor parakeet. Our chickens came to investigate and had to be locked in the run outside their coop. The little frightened parakeet fought back as my wife worked to free him, biting her several times.

Once she had him freed she noticed his wings were clipped, there was more tree sap on his tail. A quick phone call to the local vet provided my wife a game plan to remove the sap. The vet was afraid of the parakeet getting it inside his beak if he tried to remove the sap himself. A few minutes with Goo-Gone, a solvent used to remove label glue freed his feet. A foot soak in diluted vinegar neutralized the solvent. She picked the remaining spots of sap from his tail.

We have several cages on our property, a suitable cage was found, and perches installed, feeder and waterier bought.

The vet mentioned that if he was outdoors last night he will most likely die from pneumonia within a day.  There is nothing she can do to prevent this. Morning will tell if he will live or not.

I would guess by now you’ve figured out why he was quickly named Lucky, the ducks getting into the herb bed lead to his rescue. Hopefully his luck will hold out and he will live past tomorrow.

He’s spent the day in our bedroom, exploring his new cage. He’s played with the bell and even perched on my wife’s finger a few times. He seems healthy and happy so far. His feet seem fine. All toes work, he perches fine and moves around the cage like a pro.

We’ll watch the neighborhood for signs, the local paper for lost ads. We live in the country and are fairly isolated from our neighbors. The one neighbor we were able to contact reported no missing parakeets.

If he lives and isn’t claimed by his owners he’ll have a happy life here. For friends he’ll have three crazy ducks, a dozen chickens; half of which are old enough they no longer lay. We let them live out their senior years free ranging and enjoying cracked corn as a treat. Lucky will also need to get to know two rabbits, a dog and our cat. It’s a zoo but honestly we wouldn’t have it any other way.

A quick update – Lucky is doing well. He’s healthy and happy having joined our family.

Another update – Lucky has been with us for over a year now, he’s healthy, happy and noisy.

Working from home.

My day job is in the tech sector where I work for one of the largest producers of software and software based services in the world. They have a great work from home policy. As most of my job is accomplished in the virtual world created by computers and networks it really doesn’t matter where I do the work from.

I call into a conference line for many meetings removing the need for me to be physically present at them.

Most of what I do at work is virtual; most meetings can be held virtually. They even pay me with virtual money that is ‘direct deposited’ into my accounts, I never actually see a check, heck even my paystub is virtual as it’s online.

I use a decent laptop computer for the majority of my work; I have a ‘work’ station both at work and at home, the core environment: two LCD displays, keyboard, mouse and docking stations are duplicated at both sites. You could say they are virtually identical – pun intended.

Connecting to my employer from home is simple enough. A broadband connection at home, some software installed on my laptop that allows me to connect to the VPN connection my employer provides.  It’s simple and clean overall. The only time I really notice I’m ‘remoted in’ from home is when I need to push a large file out from my home network, a 512K upload speed may sound fast, and it generally feels that way until a large file is uploaded.

There are many other upsides to working from home. I don’t burn 2-3 gallons of gas during the commute. I don’t add wear and tear to my car. I don’t spend 2+ hours in the car sitting in traffic. I can work in shorts and a tee-shirt, oh wait; I can wear shorts and tee-shirts to work as well. At home I can be more focused as my phone isn’t ringing every 10 minutes and I don’t have the random person walking into my office.

Still it turns out the one thing I miss is the interaction with people, as disruptive as having someone stop by my office can be I miss hearing about their weekend or being invited to make a coffee run.

Personally I’m not a fan of email, or IM, or any technology that breaks the ‘person to person’ connections I have with my coworkers and customers when we are physically in the same room. I’d much rather discuss an issue on the phone then in email, or even better; face to face. I hate IM, it’s the ultimate randomizer of my day. Some of my co-workers use IM for everything, there is a constant ‘ding-ding’ from their laptops as the IMs roll in.

So – I Guess I’m fickle; I don’t want the interruptions at my door as I try to work yet I miss connecting with people face to face. I want my cake and by god, I want to eat it too.

Computers were supposed to herald the age of paperless offices, instead they account for an increased need for paper in the workplace. Wasn’t technology supposed to make communications easier? At times technology meets this expectation a bit. Still for me, email and IM have no soul, you can’t see the other person (and no, I don’t believe having a webcam and sharing real-time video will alleviate what I feel is missing.)

Sometimes, a handshake, a genuine smile and a shared laugh are what the relationship needs to keep it ‘human’.