pilot-friendly iPads

I made a spreadsheet of iPad versions for a CAP friend who found out, the hard way, that he'd bought the wrong iPad for flying purposes. He intended to buy an iPad with 3G capability, because [whether or not you activate 3G service], 3G models have a GPS receiver. But a BestBuy sales droid convinced him to buy a non-3G model and add a mifi device that connects to Verizon. While that can help you create a small (4-5 machine) slow-speed WiFi network in a place on the ground that doesn't have any WiFi, it does nothing for you in an airplane because most of the time you won't get cell tower signals. In an airplane, you need to receive signals from GPS satellites.

The issue of whether you can benefit from an additional GPS receiver with WAAS capability, either plugged into your iPad, or connecting through the air [short distance] via Bluetooth, is a separate issue. One friend has a Bluetooth GPS, I bought the plugin kind, and I may switch to the Bluetooth variety. The GPS inside my iPad works fine, but the extra receiver gives you better reliability and precision. The plugin kind gets power from your iPad but itself can be plugged in to your cockpit's cigarette lighter keeping your iPad charged; its main drawback is that you can't use it with a certain kind of knee strap. The Bluetooth kind needs to be charged before you fly.

Generate list of numbers 0..n-1 in randomized order using DrRacket

The most fun was looking at shuffle-list.

Nice travel video about Kazakhstan

Our fourth exchange student, Adil, who is coming from Almaty, Kazakhstan for the 2011-2012 school year, sent us this travel video made by a Russian videographer friend of his, Denis Matveev, who visited Kazakhstan in the summer of 2010. The video reminds me of Colorado, where I lived in 1972. Denis is creative and his other videos are good too. Take some time to browse his site; it will put a smile on your face.

Pain after macports "routine" MySQL/PHP update, now relieved

I did a port selfupdate, and updated a few ports, then spent four hours underwater dealing with things that suddenly stopped working:

  php5 fatal error call to undefined function mysql_connect

Making sure I had the following installed (with options I needed) fixed the error above.

• mysql5-server 5.1.42_0 (was already OK)
• php5 5.3.1_1+apache2+darwin_10+fastcgi+macosx+mysql5+postgresql83+sqlite
• php5-mysql 5.3.1_2+mysqlnd

I checked the setup with php_info(), but then I got another error:

  mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]: [2002] No such file or directory (trying to connect via unix:///tmp/mysql.sock)

After some investigation, I created a php.ini file:

$ sudo cp /opt/local/etc/php5/php.ini{-development,}
  $ sudo chown username /opt/local/etc/php5/php.ini

Edited php.ini:

< mysql.default_socket =
  --
  > mysql.default_socket = /opt/local/var/run/mysql5/mysqld.sock

(I have a memory of having done something like this before, but apparently I had to do it again.)

Then, of course, I got new errors:

mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]: OK packet 6 bytes shorter than expected.
  mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]: mysqlnd cannot connect to MySQL 4.1+ using old authentication in ...

The Google helpfully led me to this stackoverflow answer (why didn't I think of that first?!), and the answer was a total surprise. Happily, after the final fix, everything is working again:

mysql> select Length(`Password`), Substring(`Password`,1,1)
  from `mysql`.`user` where `user` = 'username';
  +--------------------+---------------------------+
  | Length(`Password`) | Substring(`Password`,1,1) |
  +--------------------+---------------------------+
  |                 16 | 3                         |
  |                 16 | 3                         |
  |                  0 |                           |
  +--------------------+---------------------------+
  3 rows in set (0.07 sec)
  mysql> set password for 'username'@'localhost' = PASSWORD('password');
  Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)
  mysql> select Length(`Password`), Substring(`Password`,1,1)
  from `mysql`.`user` where `user` = 'username';
  +--------------------+---------------------------+
  | Length(`Password`) | Substring(`Password`,1,1) |
  +--------------------+---------------------------+
  |                 41 | *                         |
  |                 16 | 3                         |
  |                  0 |                           |
  +--------------------+---------------------------+
  3 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Now that a good chunk of my "free day" has been used up, I think I'm going outside for some fresh air.

Building ghc-6.12.1 on Novell SUSE GNU/Linux

If you are building ghc-6.12.1 on Novell SUSE GNU/Linux, make install may fail with the message:

ghc.mk:95: Extraneous text after `else' directive
ghc.mk:96: Extraneous text after `else' directive
ghc.mk:96: *** only one `else' per conditional.  Stop

The solution is to install at least GNU make version 3.81.

Building PIL-1.1.6 on Mac OS X 10.6

I was trying to get the Python Imaging Library installed on Snow Leopard. (This is for a "Python from python.org" environment separate from Apple standard and Macports.) I read a number of posts on the net, but it took a combination of ideas I found to arrive at a solution that worked.

Prerequisites: Install Xcode from the Snow Leopard disk. As you do that, make sure you check the box that enables continued 10.4 SDK support.

Then:

$ curl -O http://effbot.org/downloads/Imaging-1.1.6.tar.gz
$ tar zxf Imaging-1.1.6.tar.gz
$ sudo bash
# cd Imaging-1.1.6
# export ARCHFLAGS="-arch i686"
# export CFLAGS="-arch i686"
# python setup.py build
# python setup.py install
# exit

I don't like the cheap trick ("sudo bash"), but I found I needed the ARCHFLAGS and CFLAGS settings for both the build and install steps.

See also Rich Atkinson's use of pip on his blog post. That might be all you need.

Unhappy with HealthAmerica

I am very unhappy with HealthAmerica, our college's health insurance provider. Our son had an ingrown toenail and the toe was infected. He was in great pain and was treated in January. Then we were billed the full amount. HealthAmerica said this was not covered. They have gone out of their way to wiggle out of paying anything. We appealed, they sent it to their Complaint Committee, and the committee sent us a final letter denying coverage for the procedure ("You have exhausted your complaint rights"), saying that "routine foot care" is not covered. The letter says that by exception "Medically Necessary surgery for ingrown toenails" would be covered. They didn't judge the relief of our son's pain or infection to be medically necessary. If you ever want to get a parent mad, that's it!

Other than helping my friend Dr. Ogan Gurel with his 700 mile Walk for Healthcare, I've been too passive in the ongoing debate about health care reform. The arrogance of companies like HealthAmerica angers me. I must and I will write my congressman and senators and urge them to vote for solutions that regulate such corporations more strictly and give Americans a public health care option. I have no confidence that HealthAmerica would actually cover us if something more serious were to occur.