Calliope Sounds

And what do we do when we don't have our laptops?

Some questions for the School District not addressed in the 1:1 FAQ [1].

At the June informational meeting it was said that the laptops would need to be returned prior to PARCC testing for "certification". Would you please provide more detail? For example, where are some questions that come to mind.

1. PARCC testing this year spanned 10 days, will the laptops be held securely during this period to ensure their continued certification?

2. How many days or weeks before the testing will the laptops need to remain with the school?

3. Will the student be allowed to use their laptop during this PARCC certification and testing period in school?

[1] Note that the FAQ was distributed as a PDF document and not as a link and so this link goes to my Dropbox site.

Update: Make sure to ask ALL your questions about the one-to-one FAQ on the feedback form because you can only use it ONCE!
Update: See School Committee stands for educational equity.

Cropping multiple pages at once

I print stuff, but I don't like wasting paper or ink. Research papers in PDF tend to be formatted for use in a journal. Chapters in PDF tend to be formated to use in a book. All have extra marginal whitespace. I found out today that OS X's Preview application can crop all selected pages at once. The steps are:

Choose the View menu's Thumbnails.
Select all the pages in the sidebar.
Choose the Tools menu's Rectangular Selection item.
Select the rectangular region you want to keep.
Choose the Tools menu's Crop.

Done.

Picking for scraping

One of our developers coded what is essentially a data scraper. The implementation is very brittle. It has to become more robust. Without rewriting it, one technique is to use "pickers" to get valid values from a poor quality input. The way a picker works is that you declare where to get the data, what type it is, and what a default value is. A different picker is created for each way a value is accessed. Don't worry, there tends to be only a handful of data access patterns so not a lot of code will be created.

For example, the following code caused an NPE this morning because result didn't have a "data" child:

Element data = result.getChild("data");
int count = new Integer(Strings.noNull(data.getAttributeValue("count"), "0")).intValue();

If a picker were used then the code would have returned zero, the default value.

int count = picker(result,"data","count",0);

The key aspect of the picker is that it checks every working value before using it. For the example above, the picker would be implemented as

int picker(Element tree, String elementName, String attributeName, int defaultValue) {
    if (tree == null) {
        return defaultValue;
    }
    Element element = tree.getChild(elementName);
    if (element == null) {
        return defaultValue;
    }
    String attributeValue = element.getAttributeValue(attributeName);
    if (attributeValue == null) {
        return defaultValue;
    }
    try {
        return Integer.parseInt(attributeValue);
    }
    catch (NumberFormatException e) {
        return defaultValue;
    }
}

Extra Credits: The Myth of the Gun

This is the best explanation of our culture's adoration of the gun by examining the cultural differences between us and Japan and the first-person shooter video games each creates. Well worth your time to watch.

Poor planning continues with one-to-one laptop initiative

Update: I have since heard that the School District is backing away (or correcting) statements made in the information meeting. In short, no student would be denied a laptop to be taken home because of family need -- those with hardships would be privately accommodated. Good to know that speaking out does work. However, we have yet to hear if the District continues to expect parents to still pay $55/year per laptop.

I attended yesterday's (June 2) information meeting about the High School's and School District's initiative to have students take laptops home. This was the second time this meeting had been given; having been given a month earlier. It was a poor example of a public meeting. There was no written agenda. There was no written details of important dates, costs, etc. There was no sign-up sheet so the presenters could follow up with attendees on questions unanswered during the meeting. And lastly, there was no one tasked with guiding the overall meeting.

The meeting was well attended. It looked like a full house of 50 to 70 attendees. I expect we were all there to get a clear understanding of the program and the expectations of teachers, students, parents, and administrators. We did not get that.

The meeting was divided into three parts. 1) An introduction which included an unnecessary motivational video and a welcome example of current use in a Spanish class. 2) Information on the laptops selected and the costs to the parents. And lastly, 3) information on the rollout in August.

The bombshell that was dropped on the parents was that the district is not taking responsibility for the costs of maintaining the laptops. The parents are expected to buy insurance at $55 per year. It was also stated that the parents would have to pay for the full four years of insurance up front, i.e. $220. Multiply that by the number of students you have in High School for final costs. As the meeting broke up one of the presenters said that you might be able to make yearly payments. That these decisions were not known at the start of the meeting is just another example of poor meeting planning.

When the presenters were asked about why a student within public education was expected to pay for insurance there was no answer. Instead, we were told that having the laptop was not mandatory. That students could "checkout" one for the day when needed. There was no information on how this would be accomplished within the constraints of, for example, staffing or adjustments to busing needed to give the students time to checkout and return the laptops. It seemed clear that there that little thought had been given to even the most rudimentary logistics.

A second question that arrises is how is a teacher going to prepare a curriculum and its supporting educational materials for a classroom where he or she can not expect a uniformity of laptops and internet connections? For example, one of the High School's innovate math teachers has implemented the "upside-down classroom" where the student watches videoed lectures at home and does "homework" in the classroom where their questions can be addressed immediately and with appropriate, individual instruction. How does the student without the laptop at home or in a home without an wireless internet connection participate? Why is the teacher expected to create more than one teaching plan?

One presenter answered that students could use the computers at the public library as though that was a reasonable option. Given that the public library is funded by the Municipality and not the School District, let's only consider this solution when the School District steps up to funding the additional hours and computers needed to support this. Again, another example of a lack of planning.

I could continue to critique the planning around the one-to-one laptop initiative. When this initiative first started I asked to be involved. I was invited to participate in the planning meetings. After attending the first few meetings it was clear that the initiative was actually being driven by PARCC testing requirements for computers and the need to hide the costs of this under the guise of instructional advancement. Perhaps this characterization is too harsh, but I have yet to see anything from the District that shows me different.
Update: See School Committee stands for educational equity.

Packing up my wargaming stuff

I have decided to pack up my wargaming stuff for the foreseeable future. I had high expectations when I started. I really needed a hobby where I would be making stuff and then playing with it. Wargaming has this in spades. I did make and I did play, but in 3 years of time, effort, and lots of money I have made very little and played very little. Too little to warrant continuing when there are other draws on me.

The best aspect of this period was meeting the Wednesday Gamers. I am very grateful for Al's, Leo's, Kim's, and Maurice's fellowship, encouragement, information, insights, and, of course, the games we played. Leo and Maurice always have prepared or are in the process of preparing scenarios in the worlds of Lord of the Rings, The Lost Regiments, dark ages, American Civil War river conflicts, and WWII. All I had to do was show up and play. When we played Saga, however, I would bring my Welsh and Viking miniatures.

Al has hosted the Wednesday Gamers during this time. He and his wife are retiring now and by the end of June they will have moved to Tennessee. Now seems like a good time to make a break. I will play an occasional game with the Wednesday Gamers in Maurice's basement -- if they will have me.

Back to packing up my work table.

Update 1: The work table's paints, tools, and junk are packed up. Owen and I are using the big table to play the Firefly board game. (We can't play these long duration board games in the house as the the cats want to play too and, well, they don't follow the rules nor turn order.)

Update 2: Owen and I finished our first game of Firefly. We really enjoyed the game. And if, like us, you enjoyed the TV series then there is real joy when you get Kaylee or Wash to join your crew!

Product Idea #1

While walking Milo this morning we passed several groups of disc golfers wondering around in the scrub looking for lost discs. I suggested to Milo that perhaps the disc's should come with an embedded bluetooth beacon. He thought the idea was a good one, but that it would cut into his flushing work. I reminded him that, here, on this walk, there are always lacrosse balls to find.

Later it occurred to me that if the discs just chirped that would be sufficient.

$10 Plasma TV

Another project taken care of this weekend. I found a Vizio VP322 HDTV10A plasma TV last year that looked too new to be broken. So, I took it home and found that it was broken. It would remain powered on for a few seconds and then it would shut down. A check on the internet found that this model was built with capacitors that frequently failed. After opening it up I found that, sure enough, there were two "jiffy pop" capacitors. I bought replacements from Mouser and today installed them. The TV now works. Total repair cost was around $10.

I will keep it powered on for a few more hours to see if anything else breaks. Until then, I have plugged in a Chromecast and have DIY videos running in the background.

The hardest part of fixing the TV was not the soldering, but forgetting where the speakers' ground wires were connected and which screws were for which holes. I clearly made good guesses, but I do have several screws left!

The capacitors that Vizio had been using may have come from the manufacturer that had been making knock-offs from design documents stolen from a competitor. The problem, as I understand it, was that the documents were incomplete and so the materials created for the knock-offs was wrong and of a poor quality. When you open the back of any TV you will find many dozens of capacitors and, together, this adds a substantial cost to the manufacturing. So, that cheap TV from Walmart is cheap because it is made of marginal quality parts. But you already knew that.

123D

It is frustrating when you are using a new tool and don't know how to do something that you know is obvious to everyone else. How do I copy and mirror the "engine" of this space dreadnought? I need to track down a local 123D Design expert.

The Synchronicity War

I have been listening to The Synchronicity War. Initially this was because I saw that it was a free ebook and then I saw it was a $2.99 audio book. The story itself is not original, but as an operational description of fleet and squadron command it is a lot of fun. I stopped listening to it as fiction and started listening to it as documentary. It reminds of the Honor Harrington and Lost Fleet series.

A useful resource for spacecraft design and space navy doctrine.

Update: The action is non-stop. I found myself listening to it even when I only had 10 minutes available and I never do that. It ends with a cliffhanger, but I am going to give myself 48 hours before I impulse buy book two.

Update 2: I didn't wait 48 hours. I should have. There is nothing wrong with the 2nd book. I am just burnt out on the story's operational details.

Update 3: I finished the 2nd book. The beginning and middle of the book was a good continuation of the 1st's story arc. The last third seemed forced and rushed. It really could have been the introduction of the 3rd book. Unlike the 2nd book, I do not feel compelled to read the 3rd right away -- or even at all.

Hard time committing to painting ancients armies

I am having a hard time committing to painting my 6mm ancients armies even though I have mostly completed all my other modeling tasks. (There is always some task yet unfinished on everyone's desk or painting table.) These ancients were the first figures I bought since starting miniatures wargaming a few years ago. I have a feeling that my heart is just not in this period yet.

A Blogger Grumble

Slight grumble. For bogging I do like Blogger's simplicity. I also like that with it being part of Google the content is quickly indexed for searching (within the Googleplex, that is). However, the postings editor is low in features and WYSIWYG editor is buggy. Sometimes it is hard to understand how the same company can create Blogger and Google Docs (I like Docs).

The worse part of the editing process is that when you switch between WYSIWYG and HTML editing modes Blogger changes the HTML. Your careful preparation of text, tables, and images in correctly nesting containers gets replaced with a series of HTML break (BR) elements.

It would also be helpful when editing in HTML mode if image references were local to the posting: So the first image is, for example, "image-001.png" rather than "https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF1a0B73GnYj-U8-EP8S0HpzLzulzDm3e8eMNIEvd1Medj8lUOJ1T5jblL-Z18RDQfIT25qSatE0j8SOfIfIwlH50lDVeBWaWYY_JPhEaRRn4ACqksiFPAziwyAEgN2IEFmvCI7FbQ5m0/s1600/2015-05-16+15.52.53.jpg" and the anchor tag leading to the slideshow presentation be equally simple. Overall, the HTML editing experience is not good. But then, I am not their typical user.

The upshot is, unless you want a constant battle, live within the features of the WYSIWYG and accept the fact that sometimes your posting will need to be reentered.

Weekend Workbench

Boxes ...

This weekend has been mostly one of tidying up. My 10"x4"x4" cardboard boxes arrived and so is it now time to glue magnets to the inside bottoms for the figures to stand on. Which means that my figures need ferrous metal bases. All of my newer standing figures are on 1" fender washers, but the older standing figures and all mounted figures are on the plastic bases supplied with them. I had considered rebasing the standing figures, but decided that I want to play with them more than rework them. For these I am just going to glue a washer to the bottom. I wish I knew of a source for a thinner ferrous rounds.

For the mounted figures I cut rectangles from a sheet of 0.008" steel. I used a guillotine to make the cuts so it might be possible to find a "scrapbooking" circle punch to solve the problem for foot figures.

Last year I had bought 7"x4"x2" boxes for the same purpose. While I like the smaller boxes their height is not sufficient for mounted or figures holding spears vertically. The spears poke through. I would have prefered 7"x4"x3" boxes, but these don't seem to be available at a reasonable cost. (One of the best tools I have is Amazon Prime. I rarely buy anything from any other online or physical store anymore when what I want can be had from Amazon within a few days. Well worth the yearly subscription cost.)

Boards ... Last year (hum, a pattern) I built a 3'x3' framed board for playing DBA and small skirmish games. This week I decided that it was time to actually put a landscape on it. Since this is not a display board it needs to be flexible for many scenarios. However, I was not going to accept a flat field of felt with creases! I have spent far too much time painting my figures to have them play on such and ugly, non-naturalistic landscape.

My plan is to incorporate into the surface a gentle slope in a, roughly, horseshoe shape. I used a hand sander to scoop out the hollow I wanted, but it was difficult to get the shape right. In part, this was because I would catch the edge of the sander on the surface and the sander would carve out a "cliff" that I did not want. And in part, because making something that looks natural without an example to replicate is a fool's decision. I wanted it completed today and so what I made would have to do. I covered it with felt, ironed before applying, and glued it down with 3M's 77 Super spray adhesive. I will add color to the surface later.

The results are acceptable for a first try. Final judgment will come when I to see how it affects game setup and play.

Note: A non-flat surface of a uniform color is impossible to photograph!

Paints ... Assembling before painting the Large Earth Elemental was a mistake. There is no way I can get under the arms to paint them and the torso correctly. So it found itself in a bath of Simple Green after removing the arms with Super Solvent. I kept the head attached.

Now primed, I am ready to paint. I like the instructions at Painting Rocks Step by Step for painting stones.

Space fleet action games

I want to play a space fleet action game. I like what I am hearing about the new Star Wars: Armada, but it seems that there are too few models available today to make for an interesting variety of game play. However, in the end, I would rather have less specific models that can be played with many different game rules. And so I have been thinking about ships and design issues.

The Wikipedia page Interstellar Travel and the blog posting Spaceship Design 101 and its commentary are good places to start. Engines, radiation protection, heat dissipation, and life support seem to be the primary factors driving (real life) designs. Each factor helping to solve problems with the others: An annealed solution. But I still want cool models!

The web has a huge amount of creative work in this area being shared. If you look on Deviant Art or Pinterest for spacecraft you will find far more than you can reasonably review, especially without a plan. My current plan is to pick a rule set's ship design section and then using the point values for ship capabilities & capacities determine a visual volume of their sizes. For example, Warcosm has the following sized ships:

Typical Classification	Modules	Novas
Pinnace	10	10
Cutter	25	25
Corvette	40	50
Frigate	50	100
Destroyer	60	150
Cruiser	75	200
Battleship	85	300
Carrier	100	400
Dreadnought	120	500

I have then used this to calculate volumes with the proportions of length × width × height = 5n × 2n × 1n. I then use 123D Design to look at them and make an esthetic judgement about the relationships between the ships at high and low point size. For example, here are a horizontal and vertical Dreadnought next to a Cruiser and a Pinnace.

The question now is do the size differences look right?

One of the lesser known parts of the Bayeux Tapestry

Weekend Workbench

The family and I just came back from a week's vacation and so not much modeling has happened this weekend. I did, however, clean, assemble, and prime a Bones Large Earth Elemental for use with my VSF Rugged Constabulary. I also prepared a small pile of rocks so that I can test painting techniques before committing them to the elemental. (Yes, I am painting rocks to look like rocks.)

Update: Am disassembling & stripping the Elemental. Having the arms in place will make painting him difficult. I am also not happy with the primer (Vallejo) -- it remains tacky even after weeks of drying.

Weekend Workbench Workbench

I did not finish it until today, but I did start it on Sunday. We needed (or I wanted) a heavy duty workbench for outside projects. Most of the wood has been sitting in the bulkhead this winter and Sunday was the day to start building.

The problem now is that it is so heavy I will need both sons to move it.

Weekend Workbench

This weekend I assembled one of the row-houses I lasercut some weeks ago. The following is a short tutorial for the Wednesday Gamers to assemble their own.

To assemble a row-house you only need white glue and a careful hand. However, having a collection of Lego available for making jigs for ensuring square corners is very helpful.

There are two tools that you will likely need to create. The first tool is used to apply pressure around the perimeter of the house as it is drying.

The second tool is used to apply the window stone work. This will be shown later.

To help keep track of parts, place each part from the polybag on to the parts diagrams. Extra diagrams are available at parts diagram 1 and parts diagram 2. (Note that there are extra parts that were part of the original design and no longer needed.)

First create the roof. Take the gable end and chimney parts and glue them together as shown. Note that all edges face the sides of the building. It is expected that the buildings will be place in a row and so the building's sides will not been seen as much.

The roof is supported by the two gable ends and by two internal rafters. Glue each rafter so that the rafter's peak aligns with the roof's top edge. (The top edge is the one with the notches for the chimneys.) The rafters are placed 1 1/4" from each side.

Once the gable ends are dry then assemble the roof. (Note that chimney parts do not connect well to the roof. This is a design mistake.)

Finish off the chimneys with their tops. (This can be done when assembling the gable ends too.) Note that a couple of coats of white glue over the tops will help hide the seams.

The row-house has three floors. The first floor has 3 windows and a door per side. The second floor has 4 windows per side. The third floor has 4 windows per side. It is important to note that the third floor is shorter than the other floors. So pick your parts carefully.

Each floor is assembled in the same way. A front and a side are glued together.

While these are drying prepare the floor. The floor is raised 1/16" within the walls. Glue to each corner the L-shaped raisers. Note that when the floor is glued to the sides the raises are underneath.

Now glue the two front and side parts together and to the floor. I found it is best to apply a lot of glue to the edge of the floor and the edge of the walls and then push the walls to the floor. The perimeter tool is now used. It surrounds the walls and is angled upwards at a corner so as to apply equal pressure to each wall.

With the perimeter tool in place your hands are free to adjust the upper parts of the wall so that they align and are square. Again, corner jigs made with Lego are helpful.

Your row-house is will look like this at is point.

Finish assembling the floors. Your row-house is almost complete.

At this point, the building is not stable. The roof and the floors sitting upon the one below and so a small bump to them or the table with topple them.

The reason why the floors were raised is to allow room for the alignment tabs. Add the alignment tabs to the second and third floors.

Add alignment tabs to the roof.

The last step is to apply the window and door stonework. This task can be very fiddly, but is made less so with a small tool. This tool is assembled from the portion of the window that was cut out, glued to a slightly wider rectangle, and a handle is added to the back. (The window part is in the polybag and has the letter W written on it.)

Now a window's stonework can be place on the tool, glue added to the stonework with a brush, and the stonework is push into the window's opening. A stiff brush is used to push the stonework against the wall.