The Blog Within

In pictures

I have nothing interesting to say today, so make sure you have no food or drink in your mouth, and watch this video:

As an avid mountain biker, I don’t make a habit of looking for bikes or accessories at Walmart. However when I saw a Zéfal CO2 inflator for only $14.99, I couldn’t resist giving it a try.

The Zéfal accepts threaded 12 gram cartridges and either threaded or non-threaded 16 gram cartridges. It has no levers or trigger, but rather uses the pressure of the CO2 to depress the valve stem and compress the seal around the outside of the valve. This also allows it to automagically detect Presta or Schrader valves without any annoying head changes or adapters.

Instructions for inserting the cartridge and operating the unit are on the back of the package and are super simple:

One note: the CO2 cartridge that comes with it has a rubber sleeve around it that prevents attaching the body of the inflator, but with threaded cartridges, it turns out the head of the unit can be used without the body attached. For threadless cartridges, the body must be screwed down in order to break the seal and activate the CO2.

Since I already had a flat tire from my last ride, I decided to go ahead and try out the new inflator.

After inserting the CO2 cartridge and disassembling the flat, I broke out the new tube and hit it with a quick burst from the inflator in order to prep it for the tire. Pushing the head onto the valve activated the inflation, and pulling it back stopped it, with no lost pressure.

After completely installing the tire I pressed the inflator onto the valve and let ‘er rip. Since the pressure is what depresses the valve stem, as the CO2 is depleted from the cartridge, the valve stem retracts until a sort of “break-even” point is reached. At this point I removed the inflator, again with no loss of pressure, and the tire felt well inflated. As a sanity check, I attached my floor pump and it registered about 50psi, which is significantly more than I normally run on the trail. Also, since my tires are 26×2.1″ I think it’s reasonable to assume that one 16 gram cartridge in this inflator would be suitable for a 26×2.3″ or possibly even a 29er tire.

Based on performance and ease of use, this is definitely a keeper! My Crank Brothers mini-pump was a pain in the butt to use, and never really worked all that well. The CO2 inflater is slightly heavier, but noticeably smaller with rounded edges that are conducive to stowing it in a pack.

For transport, there is a hole in the bottom of the inflator body that allows a cartridge to be inserted upside down with the head of the pump screwed part way on. This saves space without the cartridge seal needing to be punctured until it is ready to be used.

This inflator has already taken its place in my camelback and will be traveling with me from now on.

There a few other considerations.

Even though the inflator is less expensive at Walmart than anywhere else I’ve seen, the cartridges are considerably more. Walmart wants $9.99 for a pair of threaded 16 gram cartridges, while Performance Bike charges $7.99 for the same thing and $6.99 for non-threaded. REI carries 16 gram non-threaded for $2.50 a piece.

If you use threaded cartridges, you could save a few grams by carrying just the head and not the body.

For solo expeditions deep into the wilderness, it would be prudent to carry a CO2 inflator that has a built-in, backup hand pump.

The bottom line: at $14.99 with an included cartridge, this is the best deal going for a CO2 inflator that works quickly and efficiently. It is small, stows well, and I have no problem recommending it, even if it IS from Walmart.

When I work at the office, I occasionally need to log into the desktop of a Linux box located remotely at the Data Center.
I could use VNC, but it is slow on this network, and unless I install tightVNC, the remote machine has to be already logged in order to access it.

My laptop is also Linux, so setting up remote X11 over SSH was actually quite simple.

Here’s a step-by-step how-to.

**Please note**

The following is case sensitive.
Pay attention to the different file names.
This assumes the ssh server is installed and running.
If your distro does not have an ssh server, consult its documentation for installing and enabling it.

On the remote ssh server machine, edit /etc/ssh/ssh_config.
Uncomment or add the following lines and make them match this:

ForwardAgent yes
ForwardX11 yes
ForwardX11Trusted yes

Still on the remote ssh server machine, edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config.
Uncomment or add the following lines and make them match this:

X11Forwarding yes
X11DisplayOffset 10
X11UseLocalhost yes

After editing and saving the above config files, restart sshd on the remote server, or simply reboot it.

From a terminal on the local ssh client machine, enter the following:

This command will create an instance of the X server at tty12:

X :12.0 vt12 2>&1 >/dev/null &

It will also switch you to the as yet unused tty12.
Press <control+alt+(F1-F7)> to get back to the terminal you launched the command from.

This command will open the ssh session to the remote server and activate X forwarding:

xterm -display :12.0 -e ssh -X -C your_user@remote_server &

Now switch to the terminal at tty12 by pressing the following keys:

<control+alt+F12>

You should see a password prompt, enter the appropriate password for the user.

If it is the first time connecting, enter yes to accept the ssh key.

Once the user is logged in, enter the command to start the desktop environment for the remote machine.

startkde
xfce-session
gnome-session

Your remote desktop environment should now come up on your local screen as if you were sitting at the physical machine.

There are a couple of minor caveats:

-You may need to set the screen resolution to be appropriate to the local monitor

-There will be a terminal window open with X11 messages scrolling in it. Do not close it or press <control+c> in it
as it will kill your X session and you will have to start it again.

-If you created and started the remote X11 session from a terminal in your local X11 session, closing this local terminal window will kill the remote session on tty12.

-I create the X instance at startup in /etc/rc.d/rc.local and then log into it when needed from a tty terminal.

-This allows my local X11 session to be completely detached from the remote one.

When you are done, simply logout of the remote desktop environment as you normally would.
You may also logout of the ssh session if you wish, or keep it active for later use.

The upper loop of Quarry Mesa Trail:

The same loop, opposite direction, following a friend:

And finally, the trail back down off the mesa (with a nearly flat tire)

These were all edited with AVIDemux, and resized with ffmpeg. The soundtracks were mixed with Audacity.

Recently I won a VoldR Contour HD helmet camera from a contest at Singletracks.com.

I haven’t been able to go mountain biking since it arrived, and I couldn’t wait any longer, so this afternoon I attached it to my bike and went for a spin around the cul-de-sac.

As you’ll recall, my old helmet cam filmed like this:

The new camera is AWESOME! It can film in 720p HD, and the difference is stunning:

VholdrR first test from Corey Maddocks on Vimeo.

If you’re not a mountain biker, or married to one, you probably have never heard of the Leadville Trail 100 race.

This year, in his second attempt, Lance Armstrong won it, and they are making a movie out of it!

We’ll be in Moab that day, so maybe:

• They’ll show it in the theater there
• I can talk Jen into seeing it
• We can talk the kids into seeing it

Probably not, but I’ll sure be in line to get the DVD!

As of yesterday Comcast upped our internet speed from 6Mbps to 20 Mbps, so tonight I rebooted the cable modem per their instruction.

It didn’t come back up and we had no internet :(

I called and had them do the automated reset thingy, and it came back.

After the ‘upgrade’ our internet speed has gone from just over 15Mbps to … wait for it …

just over 15Mbps.

I’m overwhelmed with excitement. At least they didn’t charge us any extra for this amazing speed boost. :|

Recently Jen got me to try Pandora.com, since she has it on her shiny new phone, and I made several stations, one of them based on Evanescence.

So far so good. Great music, not very many thumbs down yada yada…

So in the mix there’s a Dutch band called Within Temptation who sounds a LOT like Evanescence, so I checked them out. They formed in the late 90′s, about the same time Evanescence did and, well, see and hear for yourself:

Imaginary.mp3
The_Howling.mp3
Taking_Over_Me.mp3
Hand_of_Sorrow.mp3

Some photos…

[View with PicLens]

Album covers…

A couple of music videos…

So there you have it…am I wrong, or are these two bands freakishly similar?

Ava’s and my plan to go mountain biking in Lakewood was foiled by construction on C470 funded by the federal bailout. So clearly it’s Obama’s fault, but I digress.

We decided to go to Hidden Mesa instead, and picked up Jen and Laney on the way by the house. They hiked one direction on the loop, we rode the other way and met up with them at the rock garden section.

So anyway, here’s a couple of pics Jen took as I was showing off: