Sunday, February 24, 2013

Wind Chill, Bonjour & Multicast

I needed to get up here to Barrow to get a few things started before the groups start arriving. After the 737 Combi (passengers + freight) landed in Barrow, I had second thoughts on whether I really needed to come up here due to the temperature and accompanying wind. The 40 mph wind moving very cold air really cuts through any kind of winter gear you may have. These are north facing windows at the BARC facility with a lot of windblown snow sticking to the glass. No outdoor pictures today due to the wind.

Yesterday evening, I could barely see anything beyond the hood of the truck. On the road from the facility towards the rest of the NARL campus, I would be stopping every 50 ft or so to check on where the edges of the road were. Today, I won't make that mistake again and left while there is still some daylight. By the way, sunrise was at 9:32 today and sunset isn't until 6:00 tonight. Daylight is returning quickly though there is still very little thermal gain from the sun. That won't come until later.

I had set up a controller based wireless system to support the BARC and shortly after I had installed it, the vendor sold that portion of the company so, technical support is no longer available. I figured out how to get multicast running between the wired and wireless networks so Bonjour is now available over wireless. Bonjour was needed to provide some often requested capabilities. Airprint, zero-configuration printing for your Apple iDevice and an Apple TV in the conference room to simplify communication to the projector.

The Lantronix xPrintServer works as well as I've heard and I now have the legacy network printers accesible to all of the iDevice users. But it did take the better part of a day to figure out why multicast wasn't working between the wired and wireless parts of the network. (Bonjour and IPv6 both require link-local multicast) It turned out to be a barely documented "feature" of the wireless controller.

To bring a little bit of moto content into the post, I finally watched One Crazy Ride, a film by Gauruv Jani about a small group of riders traveling across the north eastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh to see if it was even possible. They are all riding overloaded Royal Enfield motorcycles with no support or chase vehicles. I've had the video for quite a while but have never watched it before. It was pretty good and most of it is in English and he has some other videos out that I want to try and find.

15 comments:

  1. I remember having to drive like that. In high school my car's defroster quit and in a blinding icy snowstorm I had to drive on a county highway home. Every quarter mile or so I had to stop and get out and look around. Then I just rolled down the window and stuck my head out and made it the rest of the way OK. THAT was an adventure.

    Interesting movie. I will have to check it out.Thanks!

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    1. Those types of adventures are best to avoid. Needing to have an ice scraper in your hand while driving down the road to periodically clear the ice off the inside of the windows isn't unusual, especially if you park your car outside.

      Another of his movies is Riding Solo to the Top of the World looks pretty interesting.

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  2. My winter clothing consists of a woolly fleece and long pants. So I'm guessing in Barrow I'm dead. Mind you if I'm expected to drive while unable to see the roadway it amounts to the same thing. Good luck.

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    1. In the airport, there were a number of gas field workers on the same flight and as soon as they got their luggage, they started to suit up for long shifts working outside. That's a rough job.

      With all the global warming talk, Barrow will soon be like KW...

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    2. Conchscooter is a funny guy :^ D

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  3. I have had that type of driving experience up in Prince George. I remember getting into the car one night to go home and it was so cold that when I closed the door the driver's side window shattered. I had to drive home with no window and it was about -47 or colder. Unfortunately it was snowing and my defroster wasn't working well because of the broken window either. Ugh I do not miss that cold.

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    1. Fortunately, the air temperature today is only -15°F and the wind is down to 20mph. It may be a good day for a walk....

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  4. Richard, funny thing is that I didn't even really need outdoor photos to put extra emphasis on Barrow Cold. I felt a shiver here just reading about it.

    I've heard about the video and their trip but haven't watched; I'll have to make the effort. Thanks for mentioning it.

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    1. I guess I could've posted a white picture as that is what it looked like. Blowing white snow against a white background. Even all of the buildings and vehicles were coated in white.

      This video was worth seeing especially when compared to the Long Way 'Round videos with much higher production costs.

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  5. Sadly Richard, I understand all the techno terms....

    More moto content please.

    dom

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  6. Richard:

    sometimes I wished that I had an Airprint printer . . .

    I have one layer more than Mr Conch. I wear a fleece but then put a jacket on over it

    bob
    Riding the Wet Coast

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    1. These little boxes work great. They turn just about any printer into an Airprint printer and they make a home version.

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  7. Richard, I will never understand how you can stomach the devastating cold white place.

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    1. Given the choice between this and hot, I'll take the cold any time. I've spent a lot of time in hot and there isn't anything you could do to cool off. When you're cold, there are a lot more options.

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