http://www.pithed.org Adventures in linux, audio equipment, and other things technical Mon, 22 Sep 2008 02:26:06 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Want to increase convenience at the potential expense of security? Don't we all. Well here's how to authenticate without passwords*, and make aliases for your hosts while you're at it. First of all let me get that * out of the way. While it is possible to set ... http://www.pithed.org/2007/11/26/ssh-with-no-password-no-username-and-ssh-host-aliases/ So, youre sitting there listening to music and all of a sudden your amp clicks out, the power light goes red, and theres no music. 'Shit. Its broken', you think. Power off/on? Same thing.. Once it cools down, it powers up, but it clicks out again after ... http://www.pithed.org/2007/10/12/nad-c370-protection-circuit-repair-amp-fails-goes-into-protection-mode/ This weekend I rigged up a jacob's ladder from an old microwave oven transformer. Due to the low voltage (~2kV) it won't self start. You can see me starting it with a paperclip on the end of a paint stirring stick. Although the voltage is a bit ... http://www.pithed.org/2007/09/30/jacobs-ladder/ I just put up a website for the Ryerson Hobby Electronics Club. Not much point, really.  Just linking it so the googlebot checks it out. http://www.pithed.org/2007/09/19/ryerson-hobby-electronics-club/ Thanks to my local freecycle list, I just got myself a new oscilloscope. click image for full size The Tektronix 585A, from what I've read, represents the peak of tube oscilloscope technology. It was originally designed to be a 100Mhz scope, but the plugins never realized this figure. The plugins ... http://www.pithed.org/2007/07/23/tektronix-585a/ Just came across this excellent list of keyboard shortcuts for linux. Definitly worth a look. linkage http://www.pithed.org/2007/02/13/linux-keyboard-shortcuts/ Well, after playing with water cooling off and on for a couple years, I've finally gotten sick of it. I had a system that worked well for a while, but then my pump died. Good pumps are expensive, and the cooling system just seemed to be a sink ... http://www.pithed.org/2007/02/10/thermalright-ultra-120-vs-water-cooling/ I just received a letter from one Domain Registry of Canada, informing me that my domain was soon to expire (its renewed now. no stealing for you, bitches). This letter looked very much like a bill, and offered to extend my domain registration for a while. The problem? ... http://www.pithed.org/2006/12/23/domain-registry-of-canada-garbage/ Like really really horrible. No, worse than that. You wont even believe. Just listen to this nonsense. Him: Write down one cent. How would you write one cent? Floor Manager: 0.01 Him: How do you write half a cent Floor Manager: uhh that would be... point... 0, 0, 5 of a cent... i ... http://www.pithed.org/2006/12/09/verizon-reps-horrible-at-math/ I've recently wanted to rip some CDs to several different formats at once. Say a FLAC copy for the computer, and an mp3 for the portible. After some searching, Abcde (A Better CD Encoder) seems to be the best package on linux for this. It is based around a bash ... http://www.pithed.org/2006/10/20/encoding-cds-to-multiple-formats/