Fifth Amendment

Sidestepping Miranda

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Several years ago I wrote an article going after an appellate court decision out of Washington that, in short, allowed police (in that State, at least) to sidestep the Fourth Amendment and obtain evidence they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to get while still abiding by the Constitution. Here, the focus is shifting to the Fifth Amendment and how police were able to get a confession from two suspects, who were also minors at the time of their arrests, without actually talking to them.

The case in question comes out of Florida on a habeas corpus petition to the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. In that case, then-16 year-old Jimmie Bowen shot and killed a rival gang member, shot and wounded a second adult, and shot and killed a 10 month-old infant sitting in that second adult’s lap. Bowen and his getaway driver, 17 year-old Bernard Jones, were fingered by one of Bowen’s associates, and they were arrested.

Upon an attempt at questioning, in a very smart move typically not seen out of youths, let alone gang members, Bowen lawyered up and the interrogation ended before it could go anywhere. But here’s where things get shaky: police put Bowen and Jones in the same room pending transfer to a juvenile detention facility. That room was monitored by security cameras with audio recording, and Bowen and Jones started discussing the incident, in short giving police… everything they would need to more-or-less guarantee a conviction.

Quoting the Eleventh Circuit discussing the trial motion to suppress their conversation (note: Solis is the arresting officer):

At the suppression hearing, Solis shared several motivations for putting Bowen and Jones in the room together. He first testified that it was so they could await transportation to the Juvenile Assessment Center. But he later admitted to recognizing that the two suspects might speak to each other about the murders—indeed, hoping they would—and conceded that this possibility informed his decision to put them in the same room.

The trial court denied the motion to suppress, and that was used as a basis for appeal. After exhausting all State-level options, Bowen appealed to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida for habeas corpus relief. And the District Court ruled that Bowen’s Miranda rights were violated. But the Eleventh Circuit reversed.

I’ve written on Miranda numerous times, stating specifically that the Fifth Amendment only protects you from being compelled to self-incriminate, and that it offers no protection when you willingly do so. And with Bowen and Jones, I fully agree there was no compulsion to self-incriminate.

But there’s another question to ponder: what is the likelihood Bowen and Jones would have self incriminated had the police not put them in the same room?

Bowen (and also his mother) asserted his Fifth Amendment rights before being placed into an environment where a confession was expected. It was the actions of the police that led to the confession, not anything Bowen did of his own free will. Had Bowen and Jones not been placed in the same room, it’s likely there never would’ve been any confession.

But as the Eleventh Circuit noted in their decision, Solis put them in the same room hoping they’d talk to each other. The officer hoped to get everything that could have come from an interrogation without needing to actually interrogate. To get everything that could have come from an interrogation after Bowen had asserted his Miranda rights.

The officer intentionally attempted to sidestep Miranda and the Fifth Amendment. And the trial court and now the Eleventh Circuit let it stand.

If this case is appealed to the Supreme Court, I hope they grant certiorari and emphasize that point specifically and rule that Bowen’s Miranda rights were violated. The police should not be allowed to create the environment in which a person willingly self-incriminates after that person has invoked their rights.

Update: A petition for writ of certiorari is forthcoming with the Supreme Court of the United States. As of this update, Bowen’s attorney has until August 5, 2024, to file that petition per an application for a time extension granted by Justice Thomas. In the petition for the time extension, Bowen’s attorney summarizes the case thusly:

In summary, this case involves the surreptitious recording of a juvenile suspect, Mr. Bowen, where police placed Mr. Bowen in a wired, police interview room with the juvenile co-suspect, Mr. Jones, for the purpose of obtaining Mr. Bowen’s confession after he had clearly and unequivocally invoked his Miranda rights.

The case is Bowen v Dixon, case no. 22-11744. Dixon is Ricky Dixon, the Secretary for the Florida Department of Corrections.

Update: The petition for writ of certiorari was filed on July 17, 2024, and Dixon (via the Florida Attorney General) waived their right to file an answer a week later. So now it’s on to the Justices to determine if they’ll grant the petition. Which, again, I do hope they will grant the petition and slate the case for oral argument.

Update: The Supreme Court of the United States denied certiorari with its order list published on October 7, 2024, meaning the ruling of the Eleventh Circuit stands.

Trial by jury

When “unanimous” isn’t

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

When a jury in a criminal trial returns a unanimous verdict of “guilty”, we generally presume they are in 100% agreement on that verdict. But are they?

Hannah Gutierrez was recently convicted in the negligent homicide that occurred on the set of the movie Rust. And while one could readily presume that means all of the jurors were in complete agreement on all facts going into that verdict, the jury instructions… shed light on the fact that may not actually be what happened.

The issue stems from the words “and/or” in the jury instructions.

The Massachusetts Appellate Court ruled in 1998 that including “and/or” in the jury instructions was “so confusing and misleading as to engender great doubt about whether the jury was unanimous with respect to some part or all aspects of its verdict or whether the jury may have convicted the defendant by finding the presence of less than all the elements the prosecution was required to prove”.[Commonwealth v. Johnson, 700 N.E.2d 270, 272-73 (Mass. App. Ct. 1998)]

And in quoting the above, the New Mexico Supreme Court issued a ruling earlier this month overturning a conviction because of “and/or” in the jury instructions and remanding for a new trial:

Based on the significant risk of jury confusion and misdirection created by the use of the ambiguous term and/or in identifying Defendants’ underlying course of conduct in the jury instructions as framed, we reverse Defendants’ reckless child abuse convictions and remand for a new trial consistent with this opinion.

And when you’re talking about complicated matters of law that are supposed to be understood by a lay person on a jury, ambiguous jury instructions are going to be a problem. And jury instructions have been cause for many appeals of criminal convictions.

And as the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled in 1998, quoted above, the inclusion of “and/or” opens up the possibility that a jury could be split on the facts but still convict, possibly even split on whether every fact required by law to be proven has actually been proven.

Jury instructions serve a vital purpose in a criminal and civil trial. They are explanations of the law that tell the jury what specifically they are being asked to determine, what facts they are to decide as the finders of fact have actually been proven. Beyond reasonable doubt in a criminal trial, beyond a mere preponderance of the evidence in a civil trial. And faulty jury instructions have been subject to appeal… a lot.

A jury’s verdict of guilty is to be unanimous. When a jury returns a verdict of “guilty”, it is right to presume it means all facts required to be proven beyond reasonable doubt have actually been proven such, and the jury is saying so unanimously. And the jury instructions must reflect that. Meaning judges need to be careful to not include “and/or” in such a way that a jury could wrongly believe they can return “guilty” even when they are split on all necessary facts.

So if such was also the case leading to Hannah Gutierrez’s conviction, then that conviction absolutely should be vacated and a new trial ordered with proper jury instructions given.

Nasira

Check your mainboard battery

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment
Build Log:

So let’s talk for a moment about a small part on your mainboard that might have a lot more influence over your system’s stability and even performance than is readily apparent. Given the title, I’m talking about the humble little BIOS battery. That simple and easy-to-overlook CR2032 coin battery on every mainboard.

So why am I bringing this up? Nasira – hence the inclusion of this in that category.

Currently Nasira’s mainboard is the X99 mainboard I bought when I upgraded my wife’s system to X99 back in… 2016. So about 8 years ago. And I upgraded Nasira from its original 990FX platform to X99 only a touch over a year ago. But it had been performing more-or-less solidly up until recently.

This past Saturday I tried to install a TrueNAS update through the web UI. The installation appeared to go well until the system went down for reboot. It never came back up. And the symptoms that appeared made me, at first, wonder if the TrueNAS update had again failed. Immediately I started wondering if I was about to lose a fourth SSD.

Fourth SSD?!?

Recall back in August last year that I was diagnosing some rather odd issues with the system not wanting to boot. After trying to install yet another TrueNAS update. At first I thought the issue was the 10+ year-old power supply when it was actually the 5+ year-old ADATA SSD, so SSD #1.

I replaced it with an Inland 128GB SSD from Micro Center, SSD #2. That died in November, so all of three months, and I replaced it with a Crucial BX500 240GB SSD that I also bought from Micro Center, SSD #3. And that didn’t even make it a month before dying – though I think it was showing SMART errors from day 1. But DOA parts happen.

So now the boot SSD is the HP NVMe SSD that I initially installed as an SLOG, so SSD #4. Anyway…

Like I said, the symptoms made me wonder if I was about to lose that SSD as well. It was still being detected by the system without issue. GRUB would load as well. But attempting to boot into TrueNAS caused the system to hang. Similar symptoms to what I was seeing before.

Except it wasn’t hanging trying to go into the BIOS, telling me the drive was initializing as expected, so this shouldn’t be a hardware failure. (Mostly.)

Corrupted update?

So did the TrueNAS update corrupt the system? That was my initial thought.

So I prepared a Rocky Linux boot drive with the intent of migrating Nasira to that and jettisoning TrueNAS entirely. Except… it wouldn’t boot. The UEFI boot failed to load, and the non-UEFI boot option would halt the system with either an “uncompression error” or “32-bit relocation outside of kernel”. Google searches on the latter pointed to this being a hardware problem.

Strange… Aside from the mainboard, processor, and graphics card, none of the other hardware was really all that old. And there’s no reason to think anything became unseated.

But it would occasionally, though not consistently, fail to POST entirely, not showing a picture and not allowing me into the BIOS. Resetting or powering off completely kicked it back to life and I was able to get into the BIOS to access the boot menu. And sometimes I’d get an error that the overclock failed.

So I pulled Nasira out of the rack and opened her up.

That’s when the glint of the CR2032 caught my attention. How old was that battery? Had it ever been replaced? Likely not. So I popped it out – system was unplugged, so this also did a BIOS reset – and replaced it with a fresh Energizer CR2032.

And on a fresh boot with a fresh battery, the system was a lot more responsive. And stable. And the Rocky Linux install loaded without issue. But I decided to let it boot into TrueNAS, which also came up without issue.

The system has been stable since. And performing better than previously, actually. So that’s something I really should’ve done last year before I put this board into service as Nasira.

So yeah, check your mainboard battery!

Another unexpected benefit! (Update: 2024-04-01)

Today was the first scrub since changing the mainboard battery and… the first with out any checksum errors.

Recall that Nasira is running on a consumer X99 mainboard with an i7-5820k, so no ECC RAM. And I’d been getting checksum errors with every monthly scrub since putting it into service. Until today. So there could’ve been something about the dying CR2032 that led to checksum errors when performing a scrub, which is definitely odd, to say the least.

If I get checksum errors on the May 1 scrub, I’ll update accordingly.

Update: 2024-05-01 – No checksum errors again on this scrub.

How often to replace it?

The lifespan of the CR2032 on your mainboard is dependent on several factors. The quality of the cell easily being the biggest one. How often the system is running versus how often it’s powered off being another.

And the CR2032 batteries that come with most mainboards aren’t the best quality available. But they also don’t really need to be.

And that no CR2032 cells were included was one thing that stood out when I bought the Machinist mainboards that went into my router and virtualization machine. But these coin cells are also Lithium cells, which generally cannot be included in air freight. But it also meant that I could more-or-less guarantee it gets a high quality battery.

So how can you know if you have a quality CR2032? Look up the brand and see if there is any information as to how long the battery can last in storage. Since all cells lose energy over time – that’s just the nature of it – and lower quality cells will degrade faster. While your system is powered on, that battery is sitting idle, meaning it’s every so slowly degrading.

Typically these cells should last 5 years in storage. Higher quality cells are generally rated for longer – Duracell advertises a 10 year lifespan under ideal storage conditions. While the system is powered off, that battery is being used to power the volatile storage for the BIOS, so it’ll drain faster. But it isn’t drawing a lot of current – we’re talking microamps- so it’ll still take a couple years for an idle mainboard to drain it.

And 5 years has generally been the guideline for how often to replace the battery.

One thing to also point out: you can’t always use idle voltage to determine whether the battery is dead. Nominal idle voltage for a CR2032 is 3V. Sure if it tests well below that with no load, then it’s definitely dead. But it might also register 3V when it is actually dead.

Instead you need to have a resistance load – 1kΩ works fine – on the battery when testing the voltage. You can find DIY solutions online for this. You just need a coin cell adapter, 1kΩ resistor, and a voltage display of some kind.

It’s generally a good idea to replace the battery if the mainboard had been sitting unused for a very extended period of time – e.g. Greg Salazar’s attempt to build an X58 system from a brand new, unused mainboard (the battery absolutely needed replacing, but that wasn’t the only problem). If you’re buying a mainboard on eBay that’s more than a few years old and the seller doesn’t mention in the listing they replaced the battery, just replace it as soon as you get it to avoid it giving you any issues.

Different mainboards will react differently to a dead or dying battery. Some will still POST but may display a warning that the battery needs replaced. And with those boards, it’ll also display a message that the BIOS was reset if the battery completely dies. Some will not POST at all.

And then you might get stability issues like I noticed with the ASUS X99 board in question. And given some stability issues I’ve had playing with the Sabertooth X99 I still have laying around, I might just see if replacing the battery alleviates that issue.

So if you’re noticing some weird system stability issues, it might be worthwhile to change out that battery. A simple, cheap little part that’s quick to replace, and something a lot of us likely overlook. Especially if the mainboard is older – again, I bought Nasira’s mainboard in 2016 – and you don’t recall ever replacing it or you know it’s never been replaced.

Make sure, though, to replace it with a quality brand as well – Duracell and Energizer are who I typically go for – to ensure the new battery will also last.

Make sure as well that you replace the battery with the system unplugged. This isn’t for any kind of safety concern, but so the CMOS is also cleared. Yes, this means you’ll need to change all your settings back and reapply any overclock, but it’ll also ensure the CMOS doesn’t have any potentially-corrupt data.

Espresso

Stop complicating espresso

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Time to get something off my chest.

On YouTube I’ve seen plenty of videos talking about using filter papers and puck screens in the portafilter to get better extractions. Lots of people are advocating for them, and you can find them all over Amazon and at other places selling coffee equipment.

And, really, can we stop with this?

Espresso is already complicated enough with the need to dial in a grinder and get your puck prep right. Do we really need to keep adding stuff to make it even more so?

I’ll say this up front: puck screens and filter papers won’t save you from bad puck prep. It’s like a gamer thinking his gaming system is holding him back when he just sucks at the game he’s playing. Or a photographer thinking they need a high-end camera when they just need more practice and better training with what they have.

And it seems people have become convinced that puck screens and filter papers are a shortcut to a great espresso shot. Sorry to burst your bubble, but they aren’t. They won’t save you from bad puck prep. They won’t save you from a bad grinder. They won’t save you from bad coffee.

Here’s a simple test. If you have a bottomless portafilter, what does the underside look like when you’re pulling a shot? Since that’s the first sign of how even the flow is through the puck. If you don’t see the coffee coming through the underside in a relatively even fashion, meaning all the little holes in the underside come to life at about the same time, you don’t have even flow.

A few things to check first, then, in this order:

  1. Your puck prep
  2. Your shower screen
  3. Your portafilter basket

So let’s discuss…

Puck preparation

It is of paramount importance you start here.

You’ve probably heard of the Weiss Distribution Technique, or WDT. If you aren’t already doing this, start here. It is the single-best improvement to your puck prep that you can make. A simple tool is all you need – tons of options abound on Amazon – along with a tall dosing funnel. Watch some videos on YouTube about the technique and practice it.

This alone will drastically improve your extractions if you aren’t already doing it or aren’t doing it right. It wouldn’t surprise me if that alone is enough to get the bottom of your portafilter “lighting up” in an even and consistent manner.

But if not, the next thing to check is your shower screen.

Shower screen

How often are you cleaning your shower screen, to begin with? If it’s easy to remove – i.e. just need a screw driver – take it off every once in a while and clean it. (I realize it’s not easy to routinely do this with an E61.) At minimum, brush it every once in a while with a soft-bristle brush (like one of the toothbrushes your dentist gives you).

And make sure you’re backflushing your machine regularly (using a detergent like Cafiza), if you have one that requires that.

If you can upgrade your shower screen, do so. I upgraded to this one from E&B Lab (i.e. IMS) over 3 years ago (as of this writing), and it’s been working phenomenally:

See that mesh screen on the front? That will do what a puck screen normally does and spread out the water across the puck. You can see that quite readily by watching the water flow through it. And… it’s only 28 USD (as of this writing), less than the cost of premium puck screens and only about twice the cost of the lower priced options from companies like Normcore.

It’s only if you can’t upgrade your shower screen that you could look at puck screens to help even out the water flow. But before you go that route and complicate your routine, look at your portafilter basket first, since it works in tandem with your shower screen to extract the shot.

Portafilter basket

You don’t need to go all-out here and buy the Sworz billet basket. But that doesn’t mean your existing portafilter basket doesn’t suck, because it likely does. You will be far better served getting a better basket before adding filter papers or a puck screen into your steps.

And, like replacing the shower screen, this isn’t an expensive upgrade either. I was shocked when I saw the price of the filter basket I currently use: the VST 18g 58mm basket. And other comparable baskets are on the market at around the same price point.

If you have one of the lesser-end or entry-level espresso machines, look to see if there’s a basket upgrade available for your portafilter. Especially if you’re using a pressurized basket. Switch to a non-pressurized basket first before complicating your routine. This will require investing in a decent grinder, though. And if a non-pressurized basket isn’t available for your machine, upgrade to one with that option. Since having the pressurized basket itself will significantly hold back the quality of your shots.

If you already have even flow…

…why are you looking at adding puck screens and/or filter papers? You’re just going to mess up a good thing. So… don’t. Just don’t.

The only reason to add a puck screen is to keep your group head cleaner. But does it eliminate the need for periodic cleaning? No. So you’re maybe lessening how often you’re cleaning your group head… by introducing something that needs to be cleaned every time you use it. Yeah that sounds really smart…

And before getting filter papers, get a better portafilter basket if you have that option.

Final thoughts

Before adding in puck screens and filter papers, check your puck prep and equipment first. Since the puck screens and filter papers won’t save you from bad technique, bad equipment, or bad coffee. And with the filter papers, it’s added waste – and an added carbon footprint, especially if you’re ordering them premade.

But, for Christ’s sake, can we stop complicating espresso even more than it already is?

Espresso/Product and service reviews

Timemore Chestnut C3 manual grinder

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

I’ve said in coffee reviews on this blog that my grinder is the Compak K3, which is a motorized grinder with 58mm flat burrs. And for 8-1/2 years, it was the grinder on my counter, faithfully grinding coffee without issue – except for the very dark roasts (like this one and this one) that I think would bind up any grinder out there.

So why am I now talking about the Timemore C3, which is a manual grinder available on Amazon for under 80 USD? Well… I’ll get to that in a minute.

First I’ll mention again that my espresso machine is… nowhere near cheap. It’s the ECM Technika IV Profi. When available, it was north of 2,000 USD (depending on retailer and whether it was on sale). And I’ve had it for over 7 years.

And the idea of pairing an 80 USD grinder, especially a manual grinder, with a 4-figure espresso machine would likely have a lot of coffee snobs screaming. That there is no way a cheap grinder can grind fine enough for that kind of espresso machine. That it’s best paired with one of the cheap machines from DeLongh’i (like the now-discontinued EC-155, replaced with the ECP3220 and ), or even the Breville Infuser at the upper end of the spectrum.

And for the most part, they’d be right. It’s nonsensical to pair such an inexpensive grinder with a high-end espresso machine. But they’d also be wrong. It can produce grinds fine enough for a high-end espresso machine.

Would I recommend this grinder for anyone wanting to make espresso with a high-end machine? Certainly not. Even if you want a manual grinder, there are better options available that are more suited for that application.

But is it incapable? Absolutely not. Don’t fall into the mental trap of thinking better options being available means lesser options are incapable. Something I see happen way, way too often.

Like I said, it’ll produce grinds fine enough for my high-end machine. And I didn’t need to bottom out the burrs or modify it in any way to accomplish that.

It is a conical burr grinder, though, while my Compak is a flat burr. And yes, that makes a difference. When I upgraded from the Breville Smart Grinder to the Compak K3, I didn’t notice a difference at the time simply because I hadn’t been a home barista for all that long. But going from the flat burr K3 to the conical burr Timemore C3… it was noticeable, and not for the better.

The small burrs are a big part of that. Larger burrs, whether flat or conical, produce better grinds. But that there is also a difference in grind quality between conical and flat burrs plays into this as well.

Now whether flat or conical burrs are better is a matter for debate and personal choice. The best grinders use flat burrs. But the very popular Niche Zero uses conical burrs. But at 63mm, those burrs are also much larger compared to most motorized conical burr grinders, let alone the manual ones.

Conical burrs, though, allow one to build compact grinders. You can only get so small with flat burrs before they’re useless for espresso.

Why a manual grinder?

As I said, my previous grinder was the Compak K3. And it dutifully held its own for over 8-1/2 years. Then the threads bound up hard when I was trying to take it apart to clean it out. No idea how that happened, but one of my recent dark roast misadventures probably had something to do with that.

So I started looking for a replacement. Something not easy to do when you’re… unemployed.

And I first started looking at the lesser-expensive motorized grinders from Baratza, Breville, etc. But reviews about using them with higher-end espresso machines left me wanting. I was still looking for a replacement for my Compak, but I needed a stop-gap, and preferably one that wasn’t going to drain my savings.

And manual grinders are typically far less expensive compared to their motorized counterparts.

Looking for reviews online, I discovered that James Hoffmann did a review of several manual grinders, targeting espresso specifically, one of which was an earlier version of the Timemore:

And seeing the price for the C3 online, I jumped on it to, again, have a stop-gap while I figured out what to do with the Compak.

The experience

And having used electric grinders the entire time I’ve been doing home espresso – first the Breville Smart Grinder, then the Compak K3 – using a manual was… an experience. And not really a great one for someone only a little over 4 months off a dislocated shoulder and less than a month out of physical therapy for said dislocation. Non-dominant shoulder, thankfully, or this definitely would’ve been a far worse experience.

Dialing it in for espresso was interesting, though. It is a stepped grinder, not stepless. But I’ll just say to be prepared to modify your dose size along with the grind setting to get your shots pulling within the proper time frame. In dialing this in, I got to a point where one click finer choked off the machine, while one click back from that produced a gusher. So the only way around that was to go to the finer setting and reduce the dose size – I settled in on about 15.5g dose for the grind setting.

Going to a fine grind for espresso does mean additional work being involved, and is far from an enjoyable experience when you’re making your morning latte after feeding the cats… And numerous times I considered measuring the hexagonal shaft to determine what hexagonal bit I’d need to power this with my drill. Which answers another question you’ve probably had in your mind reading this. No, I didn’t chuck it into my drill.

I don’t see any reason to think you cannot do that, so long as you can control the RPM to keep it at a pace on par with what an average person can produce – meaning under 150 RPM, probably closer to 100 RPM.

And as I said, it produced grinds fine enough for my high-end espresso machine. They definitely aren’t the greatest grinds to be produced, but it wasn’t something I can complain about much either. While one really could say having a grinder is better than no grinder, that isn’t true with espresso. For one, it needs to be able to grind fine enough for espresso, and this one, again, definitely can do that.

But the grinds it does produce also need to be fairly consistent to get good results with an espresso machine, and that’s where this falls short. But given the compact size of the grinder, meaning also the compact size of the burrs, that’s not unexpected. Again, larger burrs produce better grinds. There’s just no getting away from that. And with manual grinders, you can only go so large before the effort needed to grind the coffee beans becomes too much.

On the plus side, being a manual grinder means it doesn’t come with many of the downsides of electric grinders. For one, no need to worry about powering it – whether with batteries or off the wall.

But easily the major one is… static. There’s still some static, and some of the grinds will cling to the side of the collection cup. But a firm tap with the side or bottom of the cup against the counter top will dislodge most of that without an issue. Spritzing the beans with water – formally known as the “Ross Droplet Technique” or RDT – will likely help with that too.

Being manually powered, though, also means it’ll take longer to grind compared to a motorized grinder. But its compact size means you don’t need to dedicate counterspace to it and can just keep it in a drawer.

For the short time I used this, it worked great as a stop-gap. And I’ll likely keep it on hand in case I need a backup again in the future.

Final thoughts

As already mentioned, I absolutely would not recommend this grinder for high-end espresso machines. If you want a manual grinder, there are better options available. Just pay attention to reviews with regard to grind consistency.

If you have one of the many good lower-end options that have sprung onto the market over the last several years, then it’s a great inexpensive choice if you don’t mind the work involved. I could easily see pairing this with one of DeLonghi’s inexpensive options, for example.

If you do pick one up, make sure to also pick up Grindz with it to run through the grinder every once in a while. Being a manual grinder doesn’t mean you get away from maintenance.

I can’t really speak to the quality of this grinder for French press, drip, and pour-overs. But I think it safe to say that if it’s a capable grinder for espresso, it should do well there too. Again, better options exist, but that doesn’t mean this grinder is incapable.

Espresso/Product and service reviews

Verena Street Shot Tower Espresso

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

I’ll say up front that it’s possible my experience with this coffee is one-off. And I certainly hope it is. But it’s a horrible enough experience that I’m steering clear of them in the future.

To preface, I was recently laid off, so in a bid to cut some costs, I decided to take on lesser-priced coffee compared to what I typically get from Messenger Coffee. And my nearby Hy-Vee is where I’ve gone in the past. So when I saw Verena Street in the Hy-Vee app, and saw it was on sale for $8 for 11oz (not 12 oz, unfortunately, not that would’ve helped much here), I decided to give it a try. Especially since the 2lb bags can be had for only a little more than a 12oz bag of Messenger.

Anyway…

Now Verena Street’s Shot Tower Espresso is dark and oily, like the previously-reviewed Pitch Black Espresso from Black-Out Coffee. And it has the flavor notes of charcoal and smoke that I also noted with Pitch Black.

Only my experience with Verena Street was worse. Way, way worse. To say I’m livid is a massive understatement.

I’m writing this not even 48 hours after I bought the bag. I got 4 lattes out of the entire 11oz bag. More of the coffee grinds went into my trash can than were used to pull a shot. The reason: any attempt to grind fine enough for espresso created grinds that clumped up and blocked up my grinder. And the 4 lattes I did get out of it were mediocre at best simply because I couldn’t get my grinder dialed in.

It was just impossible.

(For immediate reference, my grinder is the Compak K3 Touch, which has 58mm flat burs.)

The morning after I bough the bag, it took me nearly an hour to get something workable, fighting with my grinder the entire time, burning through probably a hundred grams of beans in the process, if not more. It was a royal pain in the ass… And for each of the other three lattes, it was much the same. Fight with the grinder to at least get something mediocre.

This morning I even took apart my grinder and cleaned it out. And that helped. I got close to getting it dialed in, and figured I’d just adjust things with each next grind. Only I never got that chance. Because only for this morning, cleaning the grinder helped. Only. for. this morning.

This afternoon it was back to the same experience of fighting the grinder to get something… mediocre. Six (6) hours is all the grinder was sitting. Just. Six. Hours. And something happened with the latent grinds in the grinder…

Now my grinder isn’t exactly “high end”. Yeah it’s definitely not the cheapest thing on the shelf. But there are other grinders that are far better than mine, and far pricier. But it’s price is due to it being made for espresso, able to grind super fine for espresso or Turkish coffee. And if a coffee bean is advertised as “espresso”, I should be able to put it through any grinder made for espresso, whether it has flat burs or conical burs (mine is flat), and grind it to the fineness needed to pull a shot of espresso on an espresso machine.

But this bean is way, way too oily to do that. It’ll clump up inside your grinder in such a way that nothing will flow out. At least on a flat-bur grinder. If I still had my conical bur Breville Smart Grinder, I probably could’ve been fine. Probably…

But for the most part, trying to do a fine grind with an oily bean will lead to a bad time.

Don’t call your blend an espresso blend if it can’t be ground fine for espresso. The experience alone means this isn’t even worth a 0/5.

Due process

There’s no injustice here

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Here’s the article headline: “Kansas City man, acquitted of murder, remains in jail weeks later“.

And in reading the article, I found the headline to be very strange. Since he was acquitted, why was he not released… immediately?

Here’s the missing detail: he had been on parole before being arrested on the murder charge. And he now awaits a new parole hearing.

And here’s the even more relevant detail: he was on parole after spending time in prison for a murder conviction in 1971, being sentenced to life with parole eligibility. He was initially paroled in the 1990s, but was sent back to prison after being arrested for a robbery, but was later paroled again. He had his parole revoked when he was arrested and charged with another murder that occurred in 2021.

Now that he’s been acquitted, he’s just waiting for a new parole hearing.

Being on parole means you have to stay clean. If you get arrested, you risk being sent back to prison. And it doesn’t matter what you’re arrested for.

And an acquittal doesn’t automatically reinstate your parole, only your parole eligibility.

Far too many people make the wrong association that acquittal means innocent. It does not. Which is why an acquittal doesn’t automatically reinstate parole. Nor should it.

Which, to reiterate, his parole stemmed from his life sentence for his 1971 murder conviction.

As such the evidence in the murder trial may be used against him at his next parole hearing to argue against his release. The evidentiary standard at a parole hearing is “preponderance of the evidence”, which is far lower than the “beyond reasonable doubt” standard needed for a criminal conviction. To reiterate, “not guilty” does not mean innocent.

As such, here’s the right headline for the article: “Kansas City man awaits a new parole hearing after being acquitted of murder”.

Update: As of September 2024, Dave Steele remains in prison. Missouri Department of Corrections ID 22720. It’s unclear whether he’s had a new parole hearing as the schedule isn’t made public and there is no indication on the DOC website whether he’s had a parole hearing.

Espresso/Product and service reviews

Pitch Black Espresso – Blackout Coffee

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Okay… I decided to give in. I’ve seen Blackout Coffee advertised by a couple YouTube creators I follow. And I’d been… wishy-washy about trying them out given my less-than-stellar experience with Black Rifle Coffee.

But I decided to give in. After looking at their site and seeing they have an espresso blend, I decided to try it.

My… equipment

Espresso machine: ECM Technika IV Profi with VST 18g basket
Grinder: Compak K-3 Touch

Accessories: 58mm 13mm-tall dosing funnel, WDT tool, 58mm Coffee Distributor

Initial thoughts

Blackout’s Pitch Black Espresso is… well… pitch black. “Dark” is a bit… light of a word to describe this.

This is a very dark, very oily roast. Easily the darkest roast I’ve had. Darker still than The Roasterie’s Gotham and Nitro espresso roasts.

It took a few tries to get this dialed in. Largely because it initially would not grind through. This was my fault, though, as the very oily bean seemed to bind onto latent grinds in my grinder. I should’ve run Grindz through before this, but had just run out with my last bag of coffee and neglected to pick up more. (For those in Kansas City, The Roasterie plant off 27th Street typically carries it for less than Amazon.) To get around that, I needed to open the grinder up wide after also dumping out what I attempted to grind.

Anyway… the final dial-in was about 16g with the grind being only slightly coarser than with Messenger’s Relay at 17g. Pulling shots, even while dialing in, I noted a very rich crema.

First latte

16g in, about 35g out on the shot. Milk is A&E Whole Milk. Steamed enough to make about a 16oz latte.

And… smoke… Wow, there’s a heavy taste of smoke and charcoal that penetrates the milk. I’m used to the flavor of the coffee being sweetened by the milk, tempered by it. The coffee flavor blending into the milk. But this charcoal flavor just punches right through.

And lingers on the tongue as well.

Experience through to the end

The smoke and charcoal flavor died off quite a bit during the run through the bag and was not nearly as pronounced toward the end. So it’s definitely most intense at the start of a bag. I typically extract the shot directly into a mug, and I noticed the crema creates a very pronounced concave meniscus. Something I’ve never seen before. (And somehow I remembered that term from my high school chemistry classes before verifying I had it right.)

I also had to back off the dose. I’m not sure what about my initial dial-in landed me on a 16g dose, but I had to back off to about 15.5g on the dose the next day. That proved to be the sweet spot, going for about 32g to 35g out. I did not need to adjust the grind or dose any further beyond that.

The resealable bag Blackout Coffee uses does not have a one-way valve for degassing, so I transferred the beans into an Airscape for storage. And during the time I worked through the beans, I did not notice the beans going stale. They stayed as fresh at the end as I’d normally expect, and was in line with my typical experience with Messenger’s Relay Espresso. Again the only “aging” I noticed was the smoke and charcoal flavors not being nearly as pronounced.

Overall

Overall, it was a pleasant experience with Blackout’s Pitch Black Espresso. The strong smoke and charcoal flavors are not for me. I definitely prefer medium roasts. But thankfully that wasn’t so overpowering it completely turned me off. Though it had no difficulty overpowering the flavor of the milk. I don’t think adding flavor syrups would’ve done much to temper that.

And when you have that strong of a charcoal or smoke flavor, you definitely need to be careful what flavors you pick to avoid creating something… unappetizing. But then if you’re buying this kind of a dark roast, you’re likely not doing any kind of adulteration to it anyway. Instead you’re buying it because you want that smoke and charcoal flavor.

How the coffee performed during the time I had it was most important. It took me about a week to get through the beans, and during that time they stayed as fresh as I’d expect being stored in an Airscape.

So overall if how I’ve described the flavor is something you typically go for, then give it a try. If you’re new to dark roasts, this will probably feel a bit extreme on the flavor spectrum, meaning you’ll either really like or it’ll send you straight back to the medium roasts.

Just make sure that you clean your grinder first before trying to put this through to avoid the issue I described above.

Product and service reviews/Raspberry Pi

Geekworm X680

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

As said in my review of the KVM-A8, I picked this up at the same time, though I had to wait longer to put it into service. At the time I bought the KVM-A8, I already had a Pi 4B in hand, but needed to wait when it came to getting a CM4.

So now that I was able to put it into service, time to talk about it…

(Buy now through AliExpress or Geekworm)

What do you get?

You have the option to buy the X680 on its own or in several kits depending on how many systems you need to control via ATX. In my instance, I needed support for 3 systems: Nasira, Cordelia, and my mail server. That was “Kit C” (on Geekworm’s site, “X680-X630-A5-3” on AliExpress), which comes with three X630-A5 boards and requisite cable harnesses, along with three 1m Cat5e cables.

If you buy the X680 on its own, you get 4 USB 2.0 cables plus the power brick, which will still allow you to control up to 4 systems, but you won’t be able to remotely control the power and reset function.

It does NOT come with any HDMI cables.

Note: buying the kit with the X630-A5s is less expensive than buying the X630-A5s later. So depending on where you’ll be deploying this, it may be worthwhile grabbing the full kit with four (4) X630-A5s now so you won’t have to buy them later if you anticipate needing to control four systems eventually.

You have three boot options: NVMe SSD, microSD, or onboard eMMC. I think most everyone who uses this will be using either microSD or eMMC, though, so it’s rather… strange they included an NVMe slot. Sure, NVMe is more versatile compared to microSD, and probably more so compared to the onboard eMMC. But getting it set up is a little bit of a chore.

And it’s not like you need the write endurance of an NVMe since the Pi-KVM OS operates with the file system on read-only.

Initial impressions

I paired mine with the CM400200, which is the 2GB “Lite” version of the Raspberry Pi CM4, meaning no onboard eMMC and no WiFi.

Again, the X680 gives you the option to boot from NVMe or microSD along with the onboard eMMC (if your CM4 has that). I went with the same microSD card I used with the KVM-A8: Samsung PRO Endurance 32GB. It was just… far easier doing that. If your CM4 has eMMC, it must be 16GB to use it as the boot device.

Like the KVM-A8, this does also have an onboard real-time clock which needs a CR-1220 or CR-1216 battery. It’s the same socket used in the KVM-A8, which I already said will accept a CR-1216 without issue.

The main unit is also 30cm x 9cm (12″ x 3.5″) and about 2.75cm tall (a hair over 1″). This isn’t large enough to fill a 1U space and does not come with rack ears – nor does it have any screw holes for attaching them. So you will need a shelf if you’re putting this in a 19″ rack.

Unfortunately this does NOT support Power over Ethernet. But even if it did, I’m not sure I would want to use it via PoE anyway. The KVM-A8 being powered via PoE is perfectly sensible since it’s inside my OPNsense router. This is a purely external appliance.

Like with the KVM-A8, I set this up before connecting anything. This also gave me a chance to replace the SSL certificate and make sure it had all needed updates.

Given the commands to set this up, I actually wish Pi-KVM included a Bash script that could be run instead. Perhaps I’ll look into writing that later. It would just make it a lot easier on everyone for the setup instructions to include “run setup_pivkm.sh and follow the prompts” for the most common setup and customization steps.

X630-A5 and low-profile servers

Why is there no low-profile bracket available for the X630-A5?

That’s a bit of a pain since my mail server is in a 2U chassis. So to get this to “work”, I just removed the card from the full-height bracket and… attached it to the side of the chassis using VHB with the Ethernet cable just… dangling through the back.

In all seriousness, how could they NOT anticipate needing a low-profile bracket? PiKVM has a low-profile bracket for their ATX control board – though it’s odd they sell that separately. So Geekworm should get on that.

And I wonder if the Pi-KVM ATX control board works with the Geekworm appliance, if the pinouts match.

Display troubles

Getting this to work was… interesting. The mail server worked fine pretty much out of the gate. It did have this interesting error, though:

Nasira and Cordelia? Not so much.

Powering off the KVM and powering it back on with everything connected brought Nasira around. So there must’ve been some kind of hiccup with whatever video driver TrueNAS is using. (Which I’d expect it to be a generic graphics driver, not anything specific to any chipset.)

Cordelia was a bit more involved. And it’s safe to say the NVIDIA driver was the issue.

I have a Docker container for Frigate, and a GTX 1060 for video transcoding. And that video transcoding requires the NVIDIA proprietary driver. But I had installed the driver via packages from Ubuntu’s repository. This had… kinda worked with the Frigate container. And removing the NVIDIA proprietary driver packages brought Cordelia around to cooperating with the KVM – though also presenting the same EDID error as the mail server.

Now to figure out how to get the NVIDIA proprietary driver working here. Provided that’s possible. Obviously I can’t speak to the AMD drivers since the systems I’m controlling don’t have AMD cards, and I don’t have any spare AMD cards to test.

Update (2024-08-01): I think I have this figured out. When you’re powering on a system connected to the KVM, the KVM switch needs to be set to the input you’re turning on. For example, I have Cordelia on Input 2. If I don’t have the KVM set to Input 2 when I turn on Cordelia, I’ll never get a picture until I power off Cordelia and then power it back on with Input 2 selected. A reset doesn’t appear to change this. Geekworm has since released a new version of the X680, so hopefully that little issue has been resolved.

Conclusions

So first point of order: if the servers you will be controlling have an NVIDIA card running Linux, don’t use the proprietary drivers. And if you must, you’ll likely be better served using one of the other single-machine Pi-KVM options available. I can’t speak to Windows servers for this, so your mileage may vary.

(Note: I’ll update this article if I manage to get the proprietary NVIDIA driver working, but for the time being I’m leaving things as-is.)

Though if you need to control a mix of Windows, Linux, and Mac servers, you may be better served doing this:

And I considered doing this as well when I ran into the above-mentioned frustrations.

But the cost of the standalone Pi-KVM v3 HAT and the ezCoo KVM he used surpasses the cost of the the Geekworm X680 kit. Though if you use Geekworm’s KVM-A3 (buy from Amazon, AliExpress, or Geekworm), you’re about breaking even. But having an all-in-one solution I feel is better.

And once I got past the hiccups… it works.

Now does it work better than what it’s replacing? Yes and no.

There’s much higher fidelity in the video feed going to the browser with the Pi-KVM for… obvious reasons. Keyboard and mouse input latency is much better than the Avocent MPU. The Avocent MPU also had this weird… offset issue with the mouse cursor that is definitely non-existent with the Pi-KVM. Never did get that fully troubleshooted.

But I’m not going to be controlling these servers through the KVM the vast majority of the time. I use the TrueNAS web interface for Nasira and SSH for the mail server and Cordelia the vast majority of the time.

While a KVM-over-IP solution can be used for remote server management, it isn’t the most efficient means. Windows servers can be remote-administered using Remote Desktop (RDS), VNC, or one of the several remote admin products available. Most Linux servers are remotely administered via SSH.

So why have a KVM-over-IP solution? So you can see that a server comes back up when you reboot it – e.g. after doing package updates – and troubleshoot it remotely if it doesn’t. The ability to control the power and reset remotely on all connected servers is a nice bonus with the Geekworm X680.

Driver issues aside, my only real gripe with this is cable bulk. Since you have three cables per system you’re administering: USB, ATX (Cat5E), and HDMI. Cable sleeving can help tame the madness. I just wish it was as easy making custom-length USB and HDMI cables as it is Cat5E.

Which is the advantage of the Avocent MergePoint Utility KVM-over-IP solutions. The individual control modules contain both USB and video, and talk to the main appliance over Cat5E. One module – one cable – per system you’re administering.

While there are other KVM solutions with combined cables, the Cat5E means you can build your cables to whatever length you need. The modules that went to the mail server and Cordelia ran off short patch cables typically used to connect a patch panel to a front-facing switch. Plus they have modules for serial consoles for switches and uninterruptible power supplies.

Adding something like that to a Pi-KVM would take a LOT of effort. (Provided Vertiv doesn’t own any patents on that.) But that’s largely not worth it since the Pi-KVM is built to control just one system, the Pi-KVM OS written for controlling just one input. A substitute for IPMI, not a replacement for existing KVM-over-IP solutions designed from the outset for handling multiple servers.

That Geekworm was able to make the X680 is remarkable taking this into account. And it works… reasonably well.

Would using the ezCoo KVM with the PiKVM v3 HAT, or similar, or the v4 Plus work better? Likely. But simply due to the external KVM being what’s switching between systems.

Having an integrated solution, I feel, is easier to deploy and manage. And with the Geekworm X680, you also have remote power and reset control. The ezCoo KVM doesn’t have that function. So if you require that, you’ll have to figure something out for it. And the Avocent MPU also doesn’t have that.

So, in the end, I would still recommend this. If your use case is like mine, and you’re controlling a bunch of Linux servers without the need to work with a graphical desktop, this should work fine for you.

OPNsense router/Product and service reviews/Raspberry Pi

Geekworm KVM-A8

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

For the longest time I wanted a KVM connection to my OPNsense router.

I have a KVM-over-IP appliance on my rack. An Avocent MPU2032 I bought back in 2018. (Vertiv, the company that now owns the Avocent brand, discontinued support for it only last year.) And it works very well.

And given where I have my router, hooking all of that in would require running Cat5e to it for the interface module. Up through and across the attic, down into the networking closet, then down through floor to get to the router.

Yeah… no.

There really aren’t many other options for KVM-over-IP for controlling just one machine. Virtually every other KVM-over-IP solution is built with a rack or bank of servers in mind. Since the whole idea of KVM is controlling several computers from one keyboard, mouse, and screen. Making the Pi-KVM project somewhat unique in that. And thankfully in the years since that project started (2019 from what I can find), better options for that have come available so you’re not doing everything DIY.

And you don’t need to rely on the external box, either. Geekworm and blicube have introduced internal options, though designed for a rear I/O slot. Such as the option I chose: the KVM-A8 by Geekworm. (Buy on Amazon, AliExpress, or direct from Geekworm)

Very convenient

The package includes everything you need, including a 30cm (12″) HDMI cable. Just add the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B, and an HDMI adapter if needed. It’s fairly easy to assemble, though not entirely intuitive.

Geekworm recommends powering this via Power-over-Ethernet (PoE), and I second that recommendation. It’s just a lot more convenient if you have the option since it eliminates the need for an external power supply. It does not require PoE+. An injector (such as this one by TP-Link) is a useful alternative if you don’t have a PoE switch.

I also recommend using Cat6 or better for the Power-over-Ethernet if you have the option, simply to get full Gigabit bandwidth to the Raspberry Pi.

Quick note on the RTC battery

If you can’t find a CR-1220 battery, a CR-1216 will work just fine. So don’t fret if your local battery retailer has CR-1216s but not CR-1220s in stock – e.g. Micro Center. Just pick up a CR-1216.

The only difference between the two is thickness. A CR-1220 is 2mm thick, while a CR-1216 is 1.6mm thick. So 0.4mm. The underside contact for the coin cell has more-than-enough tension to make contact and power the RTC.

Set it up first

Given the target audience for this device, and the Pi-KVM project in general, I really should not have to say this, but I will anyway. And this goes for any Pi-KVM appliance you select: set it up for Pi-KVM before attaching it to or installing it in the system you intend to control. This just ensures you don’t have a one-off dead component on your hands, and that it’ll work with your Power-over-Ethernet setup.

You don’t need to have it connected to the target system to set it up. So take advantage of that. You only need have it powered and connected to your network to finish the setup. Just look for “pikvm” in your DHCP leases list on your router to find the IP or connect to “pikvm.local”.

And make sure to get the base OS completely updated as well. It uses Arch Linux, which uses pacman as the package manager. So to update everything, use these commands:

rw
pacman -Syu
reboot

Then connect it to the system you intend to control with it.

Replacing the SSL certificate

This is only relevant to you if, like me, you have your own SSL CA for your home servers. If you don’t and want to create one, I just followed the instructions on here to create the root signing certificate using OpenSSL.

The Pi-KVM system software uses nginx for the web UI, but the service configuration isn’t at /etc/nginx/.

As of this writing, the server certificate is stored in /etc/kvmd/nginx/ssl. You could just overwrite the public and private keys already there. I dropped in new files, leaving the originals in place, and updated the configuration: /etc/kvmd/nginx/ssl.conf.

When you’re done, restart the kvmd-nginx service.

One small complaint…

It doesn’t fit entirely within one slot width. So whether this will work with your server depends on a few details. In short, you’d want to avoid having any cards in the slot immediately below it.

And I feel this could’ve been avoided with a simple change to its design. The black screws in the above image mark the outline, more or less, of the Raspberry Pi. So if the “hat” board was just an inch longer, they could’ve better accommodated the FPIO without overstepping into the next slot by having the connectors on the Raspberry Pi’s side of the board.

Alternatively, instead of using the 8-pin pin connectors they did integrate, they could’ve used a USB 3.0 type-A female plug, which has 9 pins, or USB type-C. Not having the shroud around the 8-pin connectors might even be enough to give the needed clearance. So next time I open up the router – which will come soon since I do need to change out the front fans – I might just see if I can pull the shroud off the pins.

Alternatively if you can source a Raspberry Pi CM4, Geekworm also makes makes the X652 (buy it on Amazon, AliExpress, or direct from Geekworm), which looks to actually fit within the width of a single slot. It’s also low profile, so can fit in a 2U server with the included low-profile bracket.

Conclusions

Well… not too much to say here other than that it works. And I’ll reiterate that you should use PoE to power this if possible just to make your life a little easier depending on the proximity this will have to any power and the switch.

If you need a KVM-over-IP for just one system, then this will work great and is much more cost effective compared to trying to use a KVM-over-IP solution for multiple systems. It’s only about $100 for everything you need. Just add the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B and microSD card – I used a Samsung PRO Endurance 32GB for mine.

If you need a KVM to handle multiple systems, though, this will NOT be cost-effective in the slightest. Since you’re talking one KVM-A8 and one Raspberry Pi 4 Model B per system you need to control remotely. Plus needing to provide power to all of them – whether through USB-C power adapters or Power-over-Ethernet. Plus unique hostnames for each one. (IPs as well, but most-everyone uses DHCP, so that’s not an issue.)

But Geekworm does have a KVM-over-IP solution for up to 4 systems. And I do have one that I ordered in at the same time as the KVM-A8 to replace my Avocent MPU2032 in my rack – which has 32 ports but I’m using only… 3 of them. I’m just trying to source a Raspberry PI CM4 to put it into service. So stay tuned for that review.