The 6am Smokers
Today, amid a heatwave in San Jose, I woke up extra early to start a pork rib smoke. I found two simple baby back ribs. One I planned to keep plain and simple with salt and pepper, the other with a pork rub and Kansas Style tangy sauce.
I started at 220F with Smoke level 5 on my WoodWind Pellet smoker. After 2-2.5 hours, I wrapped the ribs for 2 hours. Then I finished them off unwrapped. After 20-30 minutes rest, it was lunch time.
I was able to control the temperature very well. There were no big temperature swings. The final temperature for the ribs was about 189F.
The result tasted great. It was less juicy than I wanted, though it could also have been the meat.
Hour 2
Hour 3
Hour 4.5
Hour 5.5
Ready
I especially enjoyed the early morning quiet. Sipping a cup of coffee, reading, and watching the chimney of my smoker. (It was too early to play the banjo.)
August 15, 2020
Masterclass is … well … for almost-masters
Last month, I canceled my annual subscription to Masterclass. I truly enjoyed watching Malcolm Gladwell discuss his research and how he crafts his stories. I learned a lot from Commander Chris about Space Exploration. David Sedaris’ masterclass felt more like an evening with David Sedaris. The most practical class was Aaron Franklin on Texas style barbecue. Therein lies the rub (pun intended). I was looking for practical advice and feedback. Similar to many MOOC, masterclass isn’t designed for that, and doesn’t create a good feedback loop.
I subscribed to become a better writer. The class community does provide some input, though there wasn’t really any editorial feedback. I will be looking for a more beginner level class, where my writings and re-writings are marked up.
August 9, 2020
Internet of Grills
For weeks, my family had endured the my pellet grill advertisements.
“You can control the smoke levels throughout a 12-hours brisket cook”. “It tastes like a wood barbecue, with better temperature control, and the ease of use of a gas grill.”
I waited for a while to pull the trigger, waiting for a spring sale. Meanwhile, the free and unsolicited advertisements kept airing in our household. These grills are so popular that they sell themselves. There are few sales. My grill finally arrived on the weekend of the Fourth of July.
Thus far the grill has performed wonderful. I’ve made chicken, shrimp, chicken, ribs, sausages, lots of veggies.
A very nice feature is the ability to monitor and control the grill from my phone. With the four meat probes, I can check in on the temperature of the food. I can also adjust the grill temperature and smoke levels. It works over Bluetooth as well over Wi-Fi.
I realized this was the internet of Grills, when I also did an over the air update of the auger controller firmware and the Wi-Fi driver. I’ve never updated the firmware on our laundry machine.
I have yet to try an access the grill from outside my home network.
August 9, 2020
Engineering with a big E
There remains a big gap between the marvelous SpaceX engineering and the home networking technologies we have to deal with. See my previous two posts.
SpaceX created a rocket which landed back on earth, a new people mover, a recovery boat, and entire mission control center. The level of detail is amazing. If you were watching the splashdown broadcast, you must have seen the person installing a rubber into the hatch cavity, so nobody would snag on the metal.
What’s the difference? The mindset (and in this case, also the stakes). But mostly the mindset to do the right thing, build the right thing, train the people and provide the right support.
August 2, 2020
Splashdown
One of the most exhilarating times was attending the Curiosity Rover landing on Mars, at NASA Ames Moffett field, surrounded by astronauts, scientists, space geeks and enthusiasts. Similarly I felt like a little kid again when Space Shuttle Endeavour flew over the Bay Area as part of its thank you and farewell tour. We watched it a top of garbage mountain, overlooking NASA Ames Moffett field.
Needless to say I was all excitedly following the launch of Space-X DM-2 Dragon Endeavour a few months ago. I had been tuned into the events, part of the Launch America Virtual NASA Social.
Today, we came full circle and watched astronauts Bob and Doug splashdown near Pensacola. One of the best ways to watch these is to tune into Tim Dodd’s Everyday Astronaut Youtube channel. You still hear the Space-X commentary, but you also get the expert insight from Tim and his community.
Dragon Endeavour Splashdown
Space and engineering is cool.
August 2, 2020
Setting up eero Pro mesh Wifi with an AT&T U-Verse PACE router/modem
The Wifi in our small house has been dismal. At first I thought it was the Wifi router’s band steering feature that was the cause. I disabled it and split our network again into a 2.4GHz and a 5GHz segment. The improvement was marginal, as measured about the number of connectivity complaints in the family. In addition, the Wifi range was quite limited preventing me from attending a video conferencing from my hammock.
This weekend, I updated our network to a new eero Pro mesh wifi network, consisting of a small white “hub”, hardwired to my router/modem combo, and a beacon. I can always add more beacons in the future it I wanted to extend my network.
The setup process of the eero system was a breeze. It is however curious that there is no web-interface. Everything is done through a smart phone application. Tough luck if you have a computer and swear by that flip phone. Within minutes, my Wifi network was upgraded.
- Disable existing Wifi in my router.
- Follow the few steps in the eero application to get the eero hub configured. I used the same 2.4GHz SSID, so I didn’t need to reprogram any of the hard to set up devices, such as the Ring doorbell.
The configuration of the AT&T U-verse router/modem was less smooth. There are two options to make both routers play well with each other: bridge mode and IP passthrough. The article Setting up eero with AT&T U-verse describes both.
If you are going to take this step, generally, we recommend reaching out to U-verse support.
Since I also had 4 devices connected to the PACE modem via Ethernet, I called AT&T U-verse support, while crossing my fingers. My previous experience hasn’t been stellar.
When I had to spell “passthrough” a few times to the AT&T support agent, I knew I was in for an adventure. I described a few times what I wanted to do - something I assumed was a common configuration question. I was then offered a for-fee service to help it set up, either for a one time fee or a subscription fee.
Abort abort abort.
Plan B was simple: the eero Pro has two ethernet ports. One is used to connect to the router/modem. I moved all ethernet devices over: most of them also had a wireless interface. I only kept my NAS on the ethernet.
Without a need for the PACE router ports, I now only had to bypass it and found these instructions:
2Wire/Pace Gateways: The passthrough mode for 2Wire/gateways in referred to as DMZplus mode. The device that you would like to be placed in DMZplus must be connected directly to the gateway and configured to obtain an IP address through DHCP.
- Open a browser on a computer that is directly connected to the RG.
- In the address bar, enter http://192.168.1.254.
- In the GUI select Settings, then Firewall, and then Applications, Pinholes, and DMZ.
- Under Select a Computer, click the device name or IP address of the device you wish to put in DMZplus mode.
- Select the Allow all Applications(DMZplus mode) radio button.
- Select Save.
That’s all folks. Without the A&T U-verse support detour, this was all a simple set up.
Tomorrow will be the real test of the new network when we start three concurrent Zoom meetings. I already enabled the eero Labs feature: optimize for video conferencing.
August 2, 2020
Motorboats are for the rich
As I enjoy an afternoon On the shores of Donner Lake, the slushing of the water is occasionally interrupted by the noise of a fast motorboat. The spiffier the boat, the older the driver. Up and down they go in the lake.
Having a speedboat is truly for the rich. The sleek wooden sixties boats of Lake Tahoe are for the ultra rich.
It takes a lot of effort to own a boat. You need a decently powerful car or SUV to pull it. You need a place to store it. You have to maintain it. And most days of the year you are not using it.
Owning an expensive car is different. You are still driving your $100,000 car to the store, to the farmers’ market, to work or when you go on a road trip. Even though it is expensive, it has utilitarian value. That is not the case when you own a motorboat. Unless you are a fisherman, or live on the water, they are typically only for leisure.
Of course, there are the ambitious, who like the idea of owning a boat. Yet the boat never leaves their driveway. That is an expensive front yard adornment.
July 31, 2020
Continuing Claims
The pandemic shoes start to drop. The stock market had recovered a lot of its initial pandemic losses. Yet, companies have been laying of people. Factories have been closing or operating at reduces capacity.
It is no wonder that the bad news would eventually arrive.
The big economic report was a mixed bag: GDP fell at a 32.9% annual rate, which — while awful — was slightly better than expected. But a week-to-week increase in unemployment filing has economists antsy.
Market Place’s Kai Ryssdal explains why he is concerned about this. It is referred to as continuing claims.
Continuing claims are people who file for unemployment for at least a second week in a row. The number and trend hint where we are in the economic recovery.
And it ain’t looking good folks.
July 31, 2020
