Law Enforcement/Police/Supreme Court

Concluding the Supreme Court’s 2014 term

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

One thing that continually amazes me and pisses me off is how seemingly intelligent people can argue that more freedom is somehow a *bad* thing… And I’m not limiting this to just the many articles that have come out denouncing the recent Obergefell ruling.

At least one thing that can be said about this recent Supreme Court term is that they have slapped the government hard whenever Constitutional freedoms have come into play. They

  • declared unconstitutional a program wherein the Federal government seized without compensation half of a raisin production1Horne v. US Department of Agriculture
  • struck a law in Los Angeles, California, that requires hotels to keep records of patrons on file for 90 days to be searched upon request by law enforcement (I wonder what implications that has on 18 USC § 2257, actually)2Los Angeles v. Patel
  • declared part of the Armed Career Criminal Act to be unconstitutionally vague (and I consider it to be a violation of Ring v. Arizona‘s requirement that all aggravating sentencing factors be put before a jury)3Johnson v. United States
  • declared that a State government does not have to honor any proposed license plate design, as the license plate is considered “government speech”4Walker v. Texas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans
  • limited applicability of the Controlled Substance Analogue Enforcement Act of 1986, striking a blow to the perpetual “war on drugs”5McFadden v. United States
  • citing the First Amendment, struck a city ordinance that limited the display of signs to specific times and places6Reed v. Gilbert, Arizona
  • citing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, declared Abercrombie & Fitch violated the civil rights of a prospective employee due only to her choice of clothing, which was selected due to her religion7EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch
  • affirmed the mens rea principle of criminal law with regard to text published online, requiring that the prosecution show that text that appears to be threatening also be intended to convey a threat, that the mere possibility it could be viewed as threatening is not enough for a conviction8Elonis v. United States
  • limited the applicability of local income taxes to just income earned in that locality9Comptroller of the Treasury of Maryland v. Wynne
  • declared a police officer must demonstrate reasonable suspicion for extending a police stop beyond the initial cause for the detention10Rodriguez v. United States
  • declared a post-conviction GPS monitor to be a search under the Fourth Amendment11Grady v. North Carolina, per curiam, the question of whether it is unreasonable is up to the lower Courts to address
  • declared that Amtrak acts as a regulatory agency when it issues “metrics and standards” (i.e. regulations) regarding the performance and scheduling of passenger rail travel12Department of Transportation v. Association of American Railroads
  • declared that a “tangible object” under §1519 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 is “one used to record or preserve information”, meaning it cannot be applied to fish13Yates v. United States
  • declared that a Muslim prisoner can grow a beard of a reasonable length (in the case in question, it was ½”)14Holt v. Hobbs (unanimous) — which can basically be summarized as “They’re not allowing the prisoner to grow a ½” beard because of an interest to regulate contraband? Are you serious?”

* * * * *

I cannot escape discussion of King v. Burwell here.

The Supreme Court ruled that the judiciary should, in short, overlook any drafting errors in a major piece of legislation simply because the regulatory agency responsible for implementing the law is going off some unspecified legislative “intent”.

The facts of the matter are quite clear. The text of the law does not extend Federal subsidies to the Federal exchange — to say it does means you need to re-learn how to read. The IRS even acknowledged such when writing the initial regulations.15Cannon, Michael F. (2015, March 4) “Seven Things You Should Know about the IRS Rule Challenged in King v. Burwell“. But instead of taking it up with Congress to address the obvious oversight — since many have asserted, though it’s been contested, that Congress intended to extend the subsidies to the Federal exchange — the IRS just wrote the rules to extend the subsidies.

Part of the contest of the noted assertion comes this question: “Why have the States set up exchanges at all when the Federal government can just establish its own exchanges in a State and subsidize it from the Treasury?” The only reason the Federal government would’ve been required to at least give States the option of establishing an exchange is State sovereignty, which is still violated by the Federal exchange anyway.

The implications of this ruling are far reaching. While the ruling does not grant the Executive Branch authority to write whatever rules it wants, it does grant the Executive Branch wide latitude to interpret laws in politically expedient ways. Such wide latitude is contrary to the Constitution, as all Federal power originates with Congress — see Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution — who then directs the Executive Branch through legislation on how to carry out that power.

Further, the Constitution does not allow the Federal government to spend money without Congressional approval, of which subsidies can be considered money “drawn from the Treasury”. Such a restriction on Federal spending has now been weakened so long as the Federal agency in question can cite some “intent” of the law or Congress.

While the case and ruling itself are limited to the Affordable Care Act, do not presume that the law’s proponents and other authoritarian politicians will not mine the decision for statements they can use to justify other policy implementations.

This ruling will have other effects. Reason Magazine, through its ReasonTV production, noted that this could have the effect of permitting States to shut down their own State-run exchanges in favor of going the Federal route. This could lead to only further limited choice with regard to health insurance, completely contradictory to the original promises of the law’s proponents — I’m still waiting for my premiums to go down, as they’ve actually doubled over the last 5 years.

* * * * *

In a case in which I’m mixed, Heien v. North Carolina, the Court upheld the validity of a police stop based on a police officer’s mistaken understanding of a law regarding vehicle brake lights. The stop led to a consented search of the vehicle, wherein the officer found cocaine, leading to Heien’s arrest and subsequent conviction.

The concern and controversy with this decision lies in the fact that the law that prompted the stop was somewhat ambiguous. And while the ambiguity of the law was resolved by the Courts — meaning you only need one functioning brake light — there was still an adjacent law requiring that all originally installed rear lights be in working order. While the officer cited the brake light as the reason for the stop, the stop was still reasonable under North Carolina’s statutes, making the subsequent consented search still valid under the Fourth Amendment.

The brake light citation itself could be reasonably challenged and vacated, but because the vehicle was still not operating within what is required by law, the stop is still reasonable. This is line with other standing precedent regarding officers being sued for violating a person’s rights. Typically an officer is allowed general leeway to be reasonably mistaken about how the law is interpreted, but the law does not protect those who are clearly incompetent or knowingly in violation.

I’ve seen interpretations of this decision as allowing officers to be ignorant of the law, and that is not the case. And it certainly brings up one very clear point as well: never consent to a search of your vehicle. And as the Court ruled in another case in this term, if you don’t consent to the search, the officer must demonstrate cause for that search, and the extra time detaining you for it.

* * * * *

Another case that also garnered some controversy is Integrity Staffing Solutions v. Busk. This is the case regarding Amazon’s security procedures for individuals leaving an Amazon warehouse.

The opinion in the case said, to summarize, that the time between clocking out of your shift and getting to your car is not wage time. What made the Amazon case unique is that every person who exits the building is subject to a security search that could take up to an additional half hour of your time. The Supreme Court upheld the conclusion that the employees are not entitled to additional wages for that time, at least under the text of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

This is one of those cases where the Court applies the law, but Congress is still free to act. Many thought the Court should’ve ruled that the time is entitled to pay. Nothing in the law prevents an employer from making that time payable, they’re just not required to do so, so says the Supreme Court. Congress is still free to expand the Fair Labor Standards Act to make that time payable, so lobby your Senators and Representative if you feel the law should be expanded.

This is somewhat contrary to King v. Burwell as well. In Integrity Staffing, the Court applied the law as it was written, but in King, the Court basically had to “go out on a limb”.

One thing that was fun, though, was watching all of the various commentators and bloggers online continually writing articles saying “This case shows how the Court will rule in King” or “This case shows how the Court will rule on gay marriage”. So many facepalms all around in that regard.

References[+]

Colony West

Adding the GT 620

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment
Build Log:

In the previous article in the series on this project, I mentioned I had a spare GT 620. The card specifically is the Zotac GT 620 2GB. Unfortunately I couldn’t get it into the currently running system, but in making some considerations for additional hardware, I did come up with something else.

One product I’d seen on the shelves at Micro Center is the ASRock BTC Pro. For those unfamiliar with what it is, it’s a PCI-Express extension system — a PCI-E x1 “card” goes into the PCI-E slot on the mainboard, while a PCI-E x16 receiver goes onto the card. It has a custom 5-pin power cable to transfer power between the mainboard and graphics card, and it uses 2 standard SATA cables for data. Pretty nifty little thing.

And I used it to plug the GT 620 into the X2 mainboard to see how well it would work. And it’s working fairly well.

zotac

asrock_btc

Milkyway@Home is reporting the card functioning at about 18 GFLOPS, about 9x the performance of one of the X2’s cores, but — unsurprisingly — about 28% of the performance of one of the GTX 770s in Beta Orionis.

As the pictures above demonstrate, the card is just sitting out in the open currently — this is just a proof of concept more than anything else at the moment. And the temperature reported by the card is just under 50C (fresh thermal compound might do better), so it’s staying well around a decent temperature. The interesting thing is that since part of one CPU core is dedicated to talking with the GT 620, only one core is being used for processing, keeping the temperature inside the case significantly cooler: the cores are sitting under 40C and the chassis is reporting an internal temperature of 37C.

The custom power cable and use of SATA cables doesn’t really impress me, though, so, again, consider this setup just a proof of concept. Searching online I did find similar setups that use a USB 3.0 cable instead — male A to male A. This got some gears turning in my head as to how I could create a setup. USB 3.0 cables can be longer than SATA cables, plus the USB options have a standard 4-pin Molex or 4-pin floppy power connector, meaning they can be powered directly from the power supply.

Again, seeing these got the gears in my head turning, and I’ve got some more experimenting to do as a result. This also provides interesting implications for what to do with regard to future upgrades.

But first, I’ll want to test one of the GTX 660s to see what kind of performance it can provide. I just need to pull the water block off one of the cards to put the stock cooler back on.

Colony West

Colony West Project

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment
Build Log:

In an earlier post I wrote about my plan to put a bunch of older hardware I have just laying around back to work. As I intend this to be an ongoing, evolving thing, I’ve decided to dub it “Colony West”. Now this isn’t just some name I came up with out of the blue — it’s actually a fictitious name I’ve had registered first with Polk County, Iowa, and now with the Missouri Secretary of State.

Before going into this full-tilt, I needed to have an idea of what I’d be in for.

I already had an Athlon X2 system running. It was the gaming server I built for my wife with the X2 4200+. I installed BOINC to it and have been running it for over 24 hours continuously as I write this so I’d have an idea of what to expect. With both cores maxed out for that entire time, the CPU core temperatures stayed around the mid-40s Celsius. The CPU is being cooled by a Noctua NH-L9A CPU cooler, and the system has three intake fans: two Noctua 60mm fans and an Enermax 80mm fan. The chassis reports an internal temperature of 39C.

So the system is definitely having no difficulty remaining stable and at a good temperature doing this. Currently the CPU time is being contributed to Milkyway@Home, chugging along at about 2.2 GFLOPS per core. My FX-8350, however, is getting close to 6 GFLOPS per core.

So I’m thinking this X2 4200+ system will stay running BOINC, and I’ll take the other X2 and use it for my wife’s Minecraft server. It’s a slightly slower processor, but the mainboard has 4GB of RAM on it. For some reason the MSI board won’t recognize the 4GB of RAM, but the Abit board has no issue with it. Oh well. The Minecraft server will benefit with the extra RAM more than BOINC. Plus that other X2 was my wife’s previous system, so it only seems fitting.

But the rest of the hardware will be purely running BOINC. I’m just not sure which system I’ll bring online next — likely transplant the running system into a 3U pr 4U chassis so I can use an AIO with it along with a better graphics card.

The current build for the X2 4200+ has a Radeon HD5450, which Milkyway@Home does not use — it only uses nVidia CUDA on Linux. I have a spare GT 620 I can put into this. I’ll have an extra cooling consideration, and it’s going to be fueling my decision on which chassis I buy next — I’m thinking a 3U chassis instead of the slim 2U.

I also have a couple GTX 660s still lying around too that I can possibly put into this — but that’ll likely happen when I get the 990FX mainboard up again. I’ve got a couple ideas in mind for that. Speaking of, I’ve opted for the FX-8370E for that system instead of the Opteron.

So given that my experiments have yielded desirable results, time to see where this’ll go. Next step, though, is building the cabinet.

Politics

On the Confederate flag

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Following the recent mass homicide in South Carolina, attention has turned once again to guns. But it’s also turned to the Confederate flag. Mass calls are coming from within South Carolina and without for the flag to be removed from the state legislature grounds in Charleston.

Here’s an idea: ask the people of South Carolina what they want. Since the legislature is supposed to represent the people, put it up for a popular referendum. Simple question on the ballot: “Do you wish to see the Confederate flag removed from the State legislature grounds?” Yes or no, with abstentions counting toward “no”.

Then once the people of South Carolina have had a say on the matter, regardless of the direction they choose to go, the rest of the United States can just shut the hell up about it. There are more important things that require public attention and scrutiny than a piece of cloth flying over a Confederate memorial in South Carolina.

Colony West

Putting older hardware to work

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment
Build Log:

If you’re like me, you’ve probably collected a bunch of older hardware that is left over from previous upgrades. And it’s probably sitting around doing nothing. I’ve decided to change that, at least in my instance.

In getting into rack mounting hardware, I figure what I need to do is rack up some of these older systems and put them to work. To that end, here’s the hardware in question:

  • AMD Athlon XP 2500+ with Abit NF7 nForce2 mainboard, 512 MB RAM
  • AMD Athlon 64 2800+ with ASUS K8U-X 754 ULi M1689 mainboard, 512 MB RAM
  • AMD Athlon X2 3800+ with Abit KN9 Ultra mainboard with 4GB RAM

The systems should all fit into 2U server chassis, such as the one used for the server I put together for my wife. The downside is that those are $100 each plus ground shipping, so I’d be looking at just $300 for the chassis plus shipping on all of them. Add in the power supplies and silent fans and things will add up quick. Hopefully I’ve got plenty of spare graphics cards laying around for this as well.

I’ll get started on building these systems once I have a rack cabinet built for all of this, and another rack surge suppressor as well.

So now the bigger question: why? This is all hardware that’s been sitting around — in some cases, for a long, long time. So it is computing power that could be put to use and actually serving a purpose, even if it isn’t my purpose.

I’m talking about distributed computing projects like BOINC, Folding@home, and distributed.net. While the systems mentioned don’t exactly have a lot of computing power to contribute to these causes, it’s better than just sitting around. If the hardware is still viable, I want to put it to use — though given the XP is only a 32-bit processor, it’ll be interesting to see how well it can be put to use.

I also have a 990FX mainboard I’m considering adding into this, along with two spare GTX 660s that I can add in as well. I have a 4U rack chassis that can support that mainboard easily along with both graphics cards, or I’ll go with something shorter. All I need to use that mainboard is just another processor. The question is whether to go with an Opteron or FX. The former would be preferred if I can find one as it’ll have a lower power consumption, but I can go with an FX-8370E if need be.

The plan as well is for the rack to evolve over time. When Absinthe or Beta Orionis are upgraded, those mainboards and processors will replace one of the existing systems in the rack so there is only ever just three or four systems to keep power consumption down — I don’t need to be maxing out a 20A circuit doing this.

But everything first starts with the rack cabinet. I’m probably not going to just stack a set of IKEA RAST nightstands, but will probably build up something — likely similar to the plans over on Tom Builds Stuff. I do need to consider ventilation and cooling on this, especially since we’re talking about systems that will likely be running around the clock. Speaking of, that’s going to mean an interesting consideration for the Athlon 64 (Socket 754) and XP (Socket A) processors and trying to find quiet, lower profile CPU coolers that’ll mount onto their respective sockets.

Beta Orionis

Beta Orionis – Part XX: New loop

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment
Build Log:

First a recap on the current parts of the system, starting with the base parts.

  • CPU, mainboard, RAM: AMD FX-8350, ASRock 990FX Extreme6, 8 GB
  • Graphics: PNY GTX 770 4GB (2 in SLI)
  • Power supply: EVGA 1050GS
  • Case: Corsair 750D

And the water cooling system:

  • CPU: Koolance CPU-380A
  • Graphics: Watercool GTX 680
  • Radiators: AlphaCool UT30 — 3x120mm (1) and 2x120mm (2)
  • Pump: Koolance PMP-450 with AlphaCool HF D5 clear acrylic top
  • Reservoir: Phobya Balancer 150 Silver Nickel
  • Tubing: Type L annealed cooper, 1/2″ OD
  • Fittings: PrimoChill revolver, Koolance 90-deg, Swiftech SLI fittings, a few others

A few things about the loop will be changing:

  • CPU block: EK Supremacy EVO Copper Acetal
  • Reservoir: PrimoChill CTR Phase II D5 enabled
  • Voltage regulator block: Koolance MVR-100
  • Northbridge block: Watercool Heatkiller NSB 3.0
  • Southbridge block: Watercool Heatkiller SB 3.0

As mentioned in the previous article, the pump and reservoir will be mounted externally. To get the power through to the power supply, I ordered a power bracket from Amazon. But let’s start off with a little potential “oops”.

Wrong block?

In the list above you’ll see how I ordered the MVR-100 with a 140mm extension plate. Well, the 140mm plate was definitely not necessary, and it seemed the MVR-100 was going to be too large. Now the plate is 100mm long with 92mm between the centers of the mounting holes. In the interim I wondered if this would fit.

The ASRock 990FX Extreme6 mainboard is basically the Fatal1ty 990FX Killer without the upgraded network card — as one person discovered, they actually tape over the Fatal1ty logo with an Extreme6 label before selling it. But this means that finding a picture of either board to use for measurements should give me an idea of what I’d need. And I managed to find a review of the 990FX Killer board in which they removed the heatsinks. Lucky day it’d seem.

And it’s a tough call. Attempts at measurements from the photos show the block being a tight fit. I knew from another online post that the MVR-100 fits the Extreme9 mainboard. But the Extreme9 mainboard also has a longer heatsink based on measurements from images, so I’d expect it to fit. In fact it wouldn’t surprise me if it barely covers all of the VRMs. But I have another option: MVR-40 with an 84mm extension plate. But then the question is whether the 84mm plate would be long enough.

Of course I can shortcut this entire discussion by doing something similar to the previously-linked instructions for the Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 board: modify another plate. It wouldn’t be the 140mm plate I bought, because that’d be a little too long and can only be mounted to the MVR-100, which might already be too long. Instead I’d look at getting the MVR-40 and the 107.5mm extension plate, and drill a hole closer to where I’d need it to be so I could properly mount the plate.

Now the 40mm block combined with a nearly 70mm longer cold plate isn’t going to provide the greatest cooling — I’d prefer the 100mm singular block if I can get it to work — but some IC Diamond between them should help things perform a little better, with Liquid Ultra probably being the best for it. So that is the route I decided to go with the order: buying the MVR-40 and adding the 107.5mm plate to it. I needed additional hardline fittings anyway for this — I ordered two sets of four on those just to be sure I had plenty. And the rush order fee for Performance-PCs was a great way to push the order over the $100 threshold for PayPal Credit to defer the interest.

Having both options available will be good when I actually take everything apart. If the MVR-100 fits and can be secured without concern, then I’ll use it. If I can’t get that secured down, then I’ll have little choice but to modify the 107.5mm plate and use it with the MVR-40.

Figuring out the loop

Okay let’s see if I can figure this out. One idea that cropped back up that I touched on during the original build was using acrylic tubing for the graphics cards. And I had purchased the fittings to do it, but decided against it because I didn’t have a proper mitre box. Thankfully Michaels had what I was wanting, and I picked one up, but that was after the build was finished and I never got around to doing it again.

If I leave the graphics cards in parallel, or even if I drop down to serial, I can do this. The issue is the southbridge chip cooler. Basically the way I’m seeing the loop is the southbridge goes to the outflow while the inflow goes to the lower graphics card — the rest just goes from there. The southbridge chip is centered right behind the second 16x PCI-Express slot, meaning the southbridge cooler is actually not an option — I can’t mount it and retain clearance on the second graphics card.

This might actually push me back to the Gigabyte board, as the southbridge on the 990FXA-UD3 isn’t centered behind the 16x slot. I could use the NSB cooler on the southbridge and the SB cooler on the northbridge with that mainboard. That’d just mean setting aside the Extreme6 board to use in a higher-performance server with an FX-8320 or FX-8370E processor in a 3U chassis so I can use an AIO to cool the processor and a spare full-size power supply to run it — which is what I actually planned to do with the Gigabyte board.

It’s a consideration, at least. I moved away from the 990FXA-UD3 due to how it operated when overclocked. But since I have a heartier power supply, I may not have the problems I did previously. And the whole point of going this far is to see how much of an overclock I can get.

If I stick with the Extreme6 board, then the loop is pretty well figured out. The graphics cards will still run in parallel with the inflow and outflow beneath the cards. The inflow would go to bottom, front, then top radiator, to the CPU, voltage regulators, northbridge, graphics cards, then back out.

If I switch the mainboards, then the southbridge would be part of the flow. I could still keep the graphics cards in parallel, but that would complicate things. The inflow would still go to the radiators first, then the CPU. From there I’d probably take it to the northbridge, then the voltage regulators, then the top graphics card. From there it’d go to the southbridge, then second graphics card, then to the outflow.

It sounds complicated, but I don’t think it’s going to be all that bad. There’s another slight complication to changing the mainboards though that might also end up working out in my favor: the MVR-40 and the 107.5mm expansion plate may not be needed. But the voltage regulators on the Gigabyte board would potentially be more difficult to cool without doing something a little custom — likely involving modding the 140mm plate in the fashion similar to the Sabertooth board.

So the question is definitely what I’m going to be doing. I’m leaning toward the Gigabyte board, in large part because I can prepare the board before disassembling everything else. I already have the chipset blocks and the MVR-100 with the 140mm extension plate. The next order with the fittings arrives next week, so we’ll see how things pan out then.

Beta Orionis

Beta Orionis – Part XIX: Taking it outside

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment
Build Log:

The fan experiment is going fairly well so far. I’ve been keeping an eye on temperatures and basically looking for a sweet spot for dialing everything in. As of when I write this, I have the fans running at about 7.5V as I continue running benchmarks and the like as part of continuing the temperature testing. The pitfall with a lot of temperature and stability testing is that most test the CPU and GPU in isolation rather than together. If you’re overclocking, this won’t give you the most accurate picture of how stable your system will be.

That’s why, as mentioned in a previous chapter of this series, I ran Prime95 and a Bitcoin miner (in benchmark mode) simultaneously — and watched the temperatures climb and felt the copper tubing get noticeably warm to the touch. Alternatively you can run Unigine Heaven or Valley along with Prime95.

But that’s not what this particular article is about.

Changing up the loop a little

Back when I first contemplated Absinthe, I wanted to mount the reservoir externally and have it feed the coolant to the pump through a pass-through fitting. What pushed me away from doing that was the pump. Any method I contemplated would’ve only led to more complication. I didn’t have a way of also mounting the pump externally to allow for what I wanted to build within a price I was willing to pay at the time.

Recently I discovered a pump and reservoir combination unit that would allow what I wanted: PrimoChill’s CTR Phase II reservoir, specifically the one with the D5 mount. The only consideration is that I’ll have to devise a way to get the pump cabling into the case, such as through one of the tubing pass-through holes or a power bracket, along with figuring out how to mount it.

So aside from the obvious “because I can” answer, why am I doing this? This is actually what I wanted to do from the start, but couldn’t figure out how. What reminded me to do this is a rig posted to the JayzTwoCents forum built into the Corsair Air 540. The loop is quite phenomenally built, and given the graphics cards, it didn’t look like there was much choice but to mount the pump and reservoir externally. But the build also used the PrimoChill CTR Phase II D5 reservoir, telling me it was certainly possible and giving me an idea of how it’d look.

About the only complaint I’d have about the reservoir is just simply that they don’t have an attachment for covering the pump — D5s are ugly, so being able to cover it up would’ve been a bonus.

But let’s go further.

The airflow in my system I will readily admit sucks. All intakes but one — a single 120mm fan in the 5¼” drive bays — are obstructed by radiators. Now they’re low fin radiators, so they don’t obstruct airflow that much, but there’s still an obstruction. There’s a single 140mm fan in the rear helping to draw air across the mainboard.

And the VRMs especially need to be kept cool, but the heatsink on them I don’t think is entirely tasked with the job unless I mount a couple small fans over it — a pair of 60mm fans would likely do the job of helping to circulate air over it. I’d thought about water cooling everything else on the mainboard in this build but wasn’t sure if parts were available. Sure there are blocks available for the northbridge and southbridge chips without a problem, but I wasn’t finding anything for the VRMs.

Then I came across two posts.

First one was a reply to me on the Linus Tech Tips forum (which is about as anti-AMD as they seem to come) by a person who used one of Koolance’s universal options to cool the VRMs on his ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 board per instructions found on OCN. For VRM cooling, Koolance has two blocks available: MVR-100 and MVR-40. Along with these, they also have additional heat transfer plates that are used with the MVR-100 or MVR-40 if needed for your specific mainboard. The parts mentioned specifically in the reply were the MVR-100 with the MVR-PLT140 plate, which is a 100mm VRM cooler using a 140mm expansion plate.

Now I’m unsure if I need the 140mm plate for my mainboard, bringing me to the second post: a build in the Corsair 900D using the ASRock 990FX Extreme9, but using only the MVR-100 and not the additional 140mm plate. To be safe I ordered the 140mm plate anyway. It was only $11 extra on the order at Performance-PCs.

Now for the northbridge and southbridge, options are available. In the above-linked article regarding the Sabertooth board, the instructions used the Koolance CHC-122, but it required modification to fit around some of the electrical components on the board. In the reply to me on the forum, the person mentioned they instead opted for the Heatkiller NSB 3.0 for the northbridge due to not being able to find the CHC-122 where he lived. I decided to do the same, though the CHC-122 is available. One of the reasons I went that direction as well is I should not have to mod it to get it to fit.

And for the southbridge, I decided to stay with Heatkiller and go with the SB 3.0 southbridge cooler. The southbridge cooler is a specific block designed so that it’ll be low profile against a PCI-E slot, which should allow for clearance for a graphics card. If there is only one graphics card and no intention of getting a second, then you don’t need the southbridge cooler specifically and can go with a northbridge cooler or the CHC-122. Koolance previously had a southbridge cooler called the CHC-125, but it’s no longer available except in some limited stocks you might be able to find online.

Now the one thing I forgot to order… fittings.

Well I didn’t forget to order them so much as intentionally not order them. There were a few things I needed to figure out — one of which was how many additional fittings I’d need.

New loop configuration

First, a couple shots of the system before I discuss the upcoming changes.

bori1

bori2

bori3

In the last picture, the fan to the right is cooling a dynamic voltage step-down regulator. It’s what I’m using to do the voltage testing mentioned at the start of this article. It’s also the reason the back isn’t on the machine.

The current hardline fitting count is almost two per component, including two on the pump and two on the reservoir. The graphics cards are in parallel, so there’s only one each there. So 14 hardline fittings total currently. With the pump and reservoir combined, I’ll only need two fittings there. But the three additional heatsinks will require six additional fittings. Plus the pass-through bracket will require four additional fittings. And there are 90-degree fittings to consider as well — some of the existing ones will be moved around.

Basically the loop will need to be redesigned as there are going to be major changes to the flow path of the loop to incorporate the additional components while also having to account for relocating the pump and reservoir to outside the case. If I was feeling really daring, I’d see about moving one or both of the 240mm radiators externally — perhaps later.

I already have a few ideas in mind for the flow as well. The pass-through bracket is a Koolance BKT-PCI-G. Right away the intake and outflow is basically decided without any additional guesswork. It’s just a matter of how to run the rest of it.

I’m not sure if I’m going to keep the graphics cards in parallel. I might do as demonstrated in the above linked Air 540 build and split them apart, letting one graphics card receive the inflow and the other graphics card be the last component on the loop before the outflow, or letting the southbridge cooler be the last component. In fact that’s not too bad of an idea — flow going from the inflow to the lower graphics card, through the radiators (bottom, front, then top), to the CPU block, VRMs, northbridge, top graphics card, then southbridge to the outflow.

Alternatively I can go from the northbridge to the southbridge, looping around the length of the first graphics card, which will allow me to take the outlet on the southbridge to the top graphics card, then to the outflow. The memory slots may get in the way of that idea, though. It’ll depend on how I can position the block.

There are three drain ports on β Ori., and that’s not changing. The drain port on the front radiator nearest the case window will be moved, though, likely to the outflow on the external part of the case. The drain design on this loop was made to allow for a drain port in the places where coolant was likely to get trapped trying to drain everything. Saying to have the drain “at the lowest point in the loop” doesn’t make much sense if coolant can get trapped and there isn’t much of a way to get the coolant moving.

The tubing going from the top radiator to the CPU block will be redone to give it a 45-degree bend off the 90-degree bend and eliminate the need for the extension fittings. As it is now, it’s not perfectly straight and may be impacting flow as a result — albeit not by much as the churning in the reservoir tells me it’s not a problem. It just doesn’t exactly look right.

So that’s basically it for now until the new blocks arrive. It’ll be interesting to see what I can do as far as overclocking is concerned after getting the blocks mounted and figuring out what fittings I’m going to need to make this happen.

Driving/Law/Solicitations

Solicitation

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

As much as I advocate for free market capitalism — you know, the ability to enter into whatever transactions you want, so long you’re not… say… hiring a hitman to take out that annoying man known as your mistress’s husband — even I have to admit that it’s tempting to call for restrictions on the things that annoy you. Like a letter I received in the mail this evening. Some context first.

On June 5, 2015, I was involved in an automobile collision. I’m typically not all that great keeping an up to date insurance card in my car for ready demand by an officer. I haven’t been pulled over for any kind of moving violation since 2010, and the last time I was pulled over at all, I wrote an article about it — and I had a proper insurance card at that time.

But when you’re involved in a collision, the police tend to take interest, mainly because someone points it out to them.

So because I didn’t have up to date proof of insurance to produce on demand by the police officer, I got a citation for it. Citations are public record. And apparently there was a law firm in my area keeping watch for new citations:

calbi

Quoting for those who might be using accessibility technologies:

Dear Kenneth Ballard:

According to police records you may have received a violation. If it is a moving violation we may be able to get it reduced to a non-moving no points violation.

I am an experienced criminal defense attorney. I am confident that I can help defend your rights. Please call 816-221-2400 for more information. Payment plans may be available. All major credit cards accepted.

Sincerely,

Robert N. Calbi

Disregard this solicitation if you have already engaged a lawyer in connection with the legal matter referred to in this solicitation. You may wish to consult your lawyer or another lawyer instead of me (us). The exact nature of your legal situation will depend on many facts not known to me (us) at this time. You should understand that the advice and information in this solicitation is general and that your own situation may vary. This statement is required by rule of the Supreme Court of Missouri.

Yeah. I got solicited by a lawyer. What’s worse is the listed specialties. None of them cover traffic violations: bankruptcy, personal injury, and worker’s comp.

Now in Kansas City, if you don’t have proper proof of insurance, you are likely to get a citation for not actually being insured — the officer has no way of knowing if the insurance card is merely out of date, and they can’t rely on your word. For Kansas City, that’s listed as a violation of ordinance 70-270(A). Pleading it is quite easy: bring proof you had insurance on the date of the offense and just plead “not guilty” when asked about the citation. Here’s the kicker: depending on jurisdiction, this may not get you entirely off the hook.

Last time I had to plead on a “not properly insured” charge — remember how I said I’m terrible about keeping an up to date insurance card with me — the charge got knocked down to a lesser offense of not having proper proof of insurance, which carried a $25 fine. The difference between the last time and this time? The previous ticket was issued for Gladstone, Missouri, not Kansas City, Missouri. For Kansas City, having evidence you were properly insured on the date in question is an absolute defense, nullifying the charge.

So either way that’s my annoyance for the evening. I know that the law firm has no way of knowing if I was actually properly insured based on the citation. But rather than sending out a form letter, how about determining if the violation is actually a moving violation — which not being properly insured is a moving violation — instead of writing “If it is a moving violation” in the solicitation.

That and it also helps when you’re soliciting to assist with a moving violation to actually say that you handle moving violations. After all you don’t call a bankruptcy attorney to talk about a speeding ticket.

But what would I restrict with regard to this letter, if I was up to the task? People can use public records as sources for new leads. After registering a fictitious name with the Missouri Secretary of State back in 2009, I started receiving various solicitations in the mail addressed to that fictitious name.

So yeah, if there was something I could restrict, I’d look into that, finding a way to disallow businesses from using public records for the purposes of soliciting business. But such a measure wouldn’t survive the Courts — a similar measure that was on the books in Rhode Island was struck down in Federal Court.

Debt/Politics

Reply to Lee Siegel regarding student loan default

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 4 Comments

When one person defaults on their debt, it isn’t the end of the financial world. But as we saw in 2008, when a lot of people default on their debt, it can bring down entire industries. When a lot of people defaulted on their mortgages, it created a crisis in the housing market from which we still haven’t recovered — and has led some economists to actually suggest that we need another housing bubble like what predicated the 2008 recession.

So what would happen if a comparable number of people defaulted on their student loans?

Bear in mind that the number of people who defaulted on their mortgages was not a significant percentage of the entire population of outstanding mortgage notes. But it was large enough. And if many do what Lee Siegel has done, chaos just might be the result.

Most do not know how loans and our monetary system work. If they did, they wouldn’t think it conceivable to not pay back their debts unless they just flat out had the inability to do so. Not only do you have a moral duty to pay back your debts, it’s a legal duty as well secured by a contract. So let’s get into what Siegel wrote in his New York Times piece called “Why I Defaulted on My Student Loans“.

His story is not uncommon: taking on massive loans to attend a private college before transferring to a lesser expensive public college closer to home. After college, he was left with massive debt for which repayment is now being demanded.

I could give up what had become my vocation (in my case, being a writer) and take a job that I didn’t want in order to repay the huge debt I had accumulated in college and graduate school. Or I could take what I had been led to believe was both the morally and legally reprehensible step of defaulting on my student loans, which was the only way I could survive without wasting my life in a job that had nothing to do with my particular usefulness to society.

I chose life. That is to say, I defaulted on my student loans.

While default just means you are no longer paying within the bounds of what is required by the contract, it is clear in the remainder of the article that Siegel just stopped paying altogether. So rather than trying to do what many other writers have done and do his writing on the side while trying to make a living enough to repay his debts, he chose to just not repay his debt.

The one thing rather intriguing about Siegel as well: he’s almost as old as my parents. He’s not some guy in his 20s to early 30s who just decided he’s had enough with his student loans and is refusing to pay them, and his words give the indication he never put a dime toward them.

Having opened a new life to me beyond my modest origins, the education system was now going to call in its chits and prevent me from pursuing that new life, simply because I had the misfortune of coming from modest origins.

And here we start to see the entitlement mentality whose origins is actually when Siegel was in college. These are the trains of thought that included being entitled to a free post-secondary education. And he is exercising that mentality by evading his student loans. He readily admits to being a deadbeat and acknowledges the consequences his default may be having on his credit. Yet I can’t help but find his attitude disgusting.

Or maybe, after going back to school, I should have gone into finance, or some other lucrative career. Self-disgust and lifelong unhappiness, destroying a precious young life — all this is a small price to pay for meeting your student loan obligations.

We can’t all get what we want, and when we have obligations to fill, sometimes we just need to bite the bullet, acknowledge our standing, and do what is necessary.

In The Simpsons, for example, Homer walked away from his job at the nuclear plant to take a job at a bowling alley. When Marge becomes unexpectedly pregnant with Maggie, Homer at first did what he could to make the bowling alley more profitable so he could get a raise. It didn’t exactly work, so Homer knew what he had to do, even if he didn’t want to do it: he went back to the nuclear plant to see if he could get his job back. And the next 20 years following that episode is history.

Yet Siegel chose to default on his debt because trying to repay it meant taking an employment path he wouldn’t want. He easily could’ve been writing on the side while taking some kind of worthwhile job to repay his debts and trying to at least make some kind of living until writing could be his living. After all, that’s what Stephen King did.

Sure he’s not Stephen King. And neither am I. I highly doubt this blog will lead to a living as a writer — especially since I tend to get a little long winded when I write (no doubt, herein as well). But the question needs to be asked: what if writing never panned out for him? What if he was never able to make it as a writer? Well, for one, I wouldn’t have the subject matter for this article — what a great loss to society that would’ve been — but at the same time, would he have swallowed his pride and found some kind of worthwhile work to pay his debts and support his family?

Or would he have wallowed in the pools of his shattered dreams and lived a mediocre existence trying to figure out why it just didn’t work out while still refusing to pay back his debts because he didn’t get the career he wanted?

Let me guess that you, dear reader, probably think this is a bit of a stretch to be implying. If that is your thought, re-read the above quote and read his entire article if you haven’t yet.

And he spouts off against the economically privileged as well despite living in a pretty well-off part of the country. If Wikipedia is accurate, he lives in Montclair, New Jersey, which has a median income higher than the State median, and a housing value that is significantly greater than the State median. Given that, I really hope his wife is the one who handles the household finances.

When the fateful day comes, and your credit looks like a war zone, don’t be afraid. The reported consequences of having no credit are scare talk, to some extent. The reliably predatory nature of American life guarantees that there will always be somebody to help you, from credit card companies charging stratospheric interest rates to subprime loans for houses and cars. Our economic system ensures that so long as you are willing to sink deeper and deeper into debt, you will keep being enthusiastically invited to play the economic game.

Yes because where there is demand there will be supply. There are many loans that are issued that never should have been — of which the loans this guy took out to go to school are easily on the list. But to call all of American life “predatory” is absurd.

But the “reported consequences” of having no credit or destroyed credit aren’t “scare talk” to any extent. They are very well documented. For instance I’ve paid off many previous debts, including my student loans, yet I was recently viewed as a deadbeat simply because all of the defaulted and charged off debt, all of which is paid off, hasn’t fallen off my credit report yet. The consequences associated with the possibility of obtaining future credit are also very well documented.

Here’s one consequence of that student loan that Siegel may not have considered: the government may put a claim against his estate after death. They could take everything bearing his name and put it on the auction block to recover what they believe they are owed, and can probably produce the promissory notes backing up what they want to do. If the online court system for Essex County, NJ, wasn’t down for maintenance as of when I write this, I’d try to see if there have been any lawsuits against him and any default judgments regarding his defaulted loans.

From here, though, we see that Siegel actually has higher motives in mind in acting self-righteous about his defaults.

I am sharply aware of the strongest objection to my lapse into default. If everyone acted as I did, chaos would result. The entire structure of American higher education would change.

Actually, so long as banks or the government were writing loans that paid for post-secondary education in this country, it wouldn’t change. It wouldn’t have any incentive to do so. What it would do is starve the loan servicers of the money they would need to stay afloat and fund additional loans — not just student loans, mind you. This, in turn, would cause post-secondary education in the United States to basically collapse, as the Federal and various State governments would also be starved of tax dollars from all the people put out of work from the collapse of one segment of the financial sector.

The government would get out of the loan-making and the loan-enforcement business. Congress might even explore a special, universal education tax that would make higher education affordable.

And the government should get out of the loan business entirely. The only involvement should be through Courts in enforcing contracts — like the contract that Siegel signed in the first place. Certainly the easy availability of funds for post-secondary education has put us in a precarious situation with regard to post-secondary education in the United States. And many have looked to Europe as a means of salvation. Perhaps we can mimic them, provide a free post-secondary education to all students, like Europe? Like the Europe that is currently not far from eating itself alive from the inflation they are experiencing caused by debt crises in EU member nations.

What we really need to do is get away from the “a 4-year degree is absolutely necessary” and ask the question of whether post-secondary education is absolutely necessary. Like what I have done here on this blog, and what Mike Rowe does through his organization.

Instead of guaranteeing loans, the government would have to guarantee a college education. There are a lot of people who could learn to live with that, too.

The government, in actuality, shouldn’t be guaranteeing either. Again this shows that Siegel is now speaking to a higher agenda regarding why he defaulted on his student loans. He’s taking his own personal protest and trying to turn it into a national pattern, which will not be good for the economy or the financial sector — regardless of what you think about it, and about the bank, if they sink so does our entire nation, and it won’t be pretty.

And then there’s the message many are starting to believe, one which is being espoused by plenty of people, and implied in Siegel’s article: I don’t have to repay my student loans if I don’t get the career I want. And that is a dangerous message indeed, because it places the burden on loan writers and colleges to not only guarantee an education, but guarantee a future career for the students.

And, again, many students are already believing that is what should be happening.

Life/Science

Homo wifius

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 1 Comment

“And here we are today on the trail of the elusive creature, Homo wifius, also known as the American wife. It’s late in the morning, but it’s still early for the breed of his creature we’ve heard reports could be found in this very house, and that is the Kansas City Christina wife.”

I walk down the hall to the bedroom.

“As you can see, this particular individual has taken up homage under this twisted mass of fabric colloquially known as blankets. Apparently this individual either has issue keeping control of body heat while sleeping, or it just likes sweating out enough to overflow the Great Lakes. Whichever way, I’m sure this isn’t typical of all individuals of the Homo wifius species.”

The cat appears at my feet and meows at me.

“Ah and my trusty cat Lucas is here to help me with this individual. I hear rousing them from their sleep can be quite a dangerous idea indeed. Many who have attempted to rouse Homo wifius from sleep have lived to tell about it, but always mention close encounters with the grips of death in telling their tales. Perhaps Lucas can distract the creature a little as I attempt to rouse it.”

The blankets shift as the alarm goes off. I look down at the cat. “Lucas, will you sacrifice yourself to get my wife out of bed?”

The cat looks to his side a moment, toward my wife, then looks back up at me and gives a single mew, before turning around and walking away. Whoever says housecats don’t understand what we say has never owned a cat.

“Coward.”

* * * * *

I originally wrote this about three years ago and just never published it anywhere, so enjoy. “Lucas” is my cat Charlie, who actually died back in 2013. “Christina” is my wife (not her real name, obviously). Based on actual events.