Camping California

Posted on June 3, 2017 by Gareth

The last few weeks have given us the opportunity to do some camping in and around LA, namely Monte Cristo in the Angeles Forest and a trip to Joshua Tree.

Angeles Forest – Monte Cristo

Our first weekend we headed out to the Angeles Forest and spent a night at the Monte Cristo campsite. Campsites are all first come first serve. We got there midday on Saturday and about half the campsites were still available, but by the time sunset came around, the campground was pretty much full.

There’re no rangers at the campsite, so you buy yourself a permit at the entrance, and drop money in the drop-box. There are no ablution facilities besides a couple longdrop toilets which were surprisingly clean. Each site is quite large and has parking for two vehicles. Even though all the sites were full, there’s enough space that you don’t feel people are on top of you. Drinking water taps are shared between adjoining campsites.The campsite is nestled nicely in one of the valleys with a river running through it. It is right next to the road, but traffic isn’t that heavy. While the Angeles Forest has plenty of hiking opportunities, none are close enough to the campsite to hike from there. You’ll have to drive to a trailhead before starting a hike.

It was nice to be able to quickly get out of the city and just relax with nothing going on. We didn’t get any cell reception at the campsite itself, adding to the quietness. Angeles Forest has a lot of other campsites which we’re keen to checkout, especially with summer on its way, opening up some of the campsites which were inaccessible during the winter.

Joshua Tree – Joshua Tree Lake

The next week, we headed out early on Friday and drove out to Joshua Tree. Joshua Tree has a mix of reservation and first come, first serve campgrounds. The reservations were full weeks before, and only arriving late on Friday afternoon, we decided to play it safe and camped just outside Joshua Tree at a private campground, Joshua Tree Lake.The campsite is quite close to the West Entrance Station of Joshua Tree, which never closes, so you can head into the park whenever it suits you. Joshua Tree Lake has a mixture of campsites and RV spots. The campsites aren’t demarcated, so you just find a spot where there’s space. It wasn’t particularly busy so we chose a spot without anyone nearby. Barrel fires and camping tables are provided, although if it gets very busy, I doubt there’re enough for everyone.

Being in a dessert environment, there’s no grass for camping, but even with a howling wind the whole time, dust was not an issue. Ablutions were clean and showers are also provided.We spent Saturday in the north end of the park, hiking Ryan Mountain and Lost Horse Mine. All the trailheads have limited parking, and in the busy spring, you’re not guaranteed a spot. We were lucky though, arriving early enough at Ryan Mountain that there were open spaces, and getting lucky at Lost Horse Mine that we arrived as another vehicle was leaving.

Neither hike was particularly difficult. Ryan Mountain is a straight up, straight back down route that is quite popular and offers good views from a central location. Lost Horse Mine was a flatter and longer loop. It goes past an old gold mine, and some of the buildings still remain there for you to see.

My wife has apparently been here before.

Before heading back to our campsite we decided to drive out to Keys View. It’s well worth it, with spectacular views into the Coachella Valley, spanning as far as the Salton Sea. We considered doing a section of the Geology Tour Road, but it’s marked 4×4 only, and although some of it is supposedly accessible to two wheel drive vehicles, we didn’t feel like risking getting stuck in the sand.

On Sunday we drove all the way through the park towards Cottonwood Springs. It was pretty amazing seeing the vegetation change from the Joshua Tree packed Mojave Desert in the North, to the Colorado Desert in the South. We did a short hike up to Mastodon Peak, which again offered good views.

Lost Horse Mine

While we knew Joshua Tree was popular, we didn’t have major expectations, which resulted in an amazing trip. I don’t know if it was just the recent rains, but the park offers stunning scenery with many hikes and other points of interest to keep you busy. We stopped off at Hidden Valley to watch some of the rock climbers do their thing too at some of the world famous routes too.

California has camp grounds everywhere you look, so we’re looking forward to doing some more exploring in the future.

Snow Driving – Tire Chains vs Tire Cables

Posted on April 20, 2017 by Gareth

Note: I originally wrote this article for the now retired outdoorus.website. An archived copy of the post can be viewed here. Affiliate links are present in this article.

The diversity of the US means that some people at some times are going to need to do some driving in the snow. If you live in a city you may be able to get away with your all seasons, but for those heading out on a ski trip, or who live out of a plough zone, a set of chains are critical. While certain states have legal requirements for tire traction devices (check your local DMV website), always use some common sense when driving as to whether a set of chains will be beneficial or not.

What are termed ‘tire traction devices’ come in many different varieties, beyond the well-known snow chains; cables, spikes and other devices are also available. While they all have their application, the most popular and universal are tire chains and tires cables, so how does one go about choosing?

What is the difference?

Both devices have the same goal, to improve your traction on snowy roads, but have a different design. Snow chains are the most well-known, they are literal chain links that are linked to create a mesh that you can wrap around your tire. Cables are slightly lower key, and are made from strands of steel cable that create a web covering your tires. Usually additional small metal rings are looped onto the cables to provide additional grip.

An example of tire chains (left) and tire cables (right)

What to Consider

Clearance

A limiting factor to what you can install on your vehicle is its clearance. While most SUVs and pickups have plenty of space around the wheel arch to accept any type of chain or cable, certain vehicles, especially sedans and hatchbacks with low ground clearance also have minimal clearance in the wheel arch. This not only makes installation difficult, but if you were to install chains, may result in damaging your vehicle.

Check how much space there is around your wheels, and consult your owner’s handbook for recommendations. If you are concerned about the amount of space, you should definitely go with a set of snow cables. They have a much lower profile than snow chains and are less likely to damage your vehicle if slightly loose.

How much snow

The next thing to consider is the amount of snow you’re going to be driving in. If it’s just a few inches, snow cables are more than capable. But if you’re going to be driving in much more than that then you definitely want a set of chains. The more snow there is, the thicker the type of traction device you want. Cables are relatively thin by design, which means they can’t get you through as much snow as a solid set of chains.

How much Use

You also need to consider how much you’re going to be using the device, and how far you are going to have to travel. If you’re not expecting to use them very often, and only for a couple miles, then cables are more than adequate. If you are going to be using these several times a week and covering tens of miles each time, chains are more durable and will provide you with a longer life. Some of the more expensive cables are also designed for extended use, but expect to pay for the extra quality.

Price

The cost of snow chains can vary a lot. If you know you’re going to be travelling in an area that may experience snow, buy a set ahead of time. If you have to buy chains last minute in an area that’s just had snow, chances are the prices will be high, especially if you have an uncommon tire size. Otherwise cables are usually the cheapest. We’ve discussed the compromise you will make buying cables over chains, and if you’re expecting to get lots of use out of a set, you should definitely pay extra for a good set of chains.

In the grander scheme of things they are not particularly expensive, with very good products available for much less than $200. This for a product that you can use repeatedly for a long time.

How many do I buy

Chain sets are usually sold in pairs. Most states and vehicle’s owner manuals recommend that a single set of snow chains be installed on the driving wheels. For a FWD vehicle, this will be your front wheels, and for a RWD vehicle your rear wheels. If you have a 4×4 or AWD vehicle you can place them on either set, and for extreme conditions installation on all four wheels is usually permitted.

Recommended Products

Now that you know what type of product you want to buy, you’re still left with choosing between many different products that will fit your car. To help you out, we’ve selected two chain sets and two cable sets to get you started on the search. All products come in different sizes, so be sure to check your car’s tire sizes before purchasing a set of chains.

Glacier Cable Tire Cables

A relatively cheap set of no fuss tire cables. A simple design with easy installation. Depending on requirements you may want to opt for an additional tensioning cable.

Security Chain Company Quik Grip Tire Chains

A solid set of tire chains, mainly for larger vehicles. Very well rated at a decent price.

Security Chain Company Tire Cable

A moderately priced set of cables with angular traction pattern providing slightly improved traction. The set includes a built-in rubber tensioner, requiring less attention while driving. Very good customer reviews.

Konig Snow Chains

If you’re looking for quality, Thule is a big name in outdoor equipment and their Konig snow chains are no different. While quite pricey, they still come in under $200 (for most tire sizes) and include a 5 year warranty. Good traction pattern with self-tensioner. Top choice if you’ll be making regular trips.

Conclusion

A tire traction device is a must for anyone who needs to do some driving in snow, even if just a few inches are present. Whatever type you decide, be sure to install your traction device soon after you purchase them and ensure they fit properly, and that you know how to install them. Putting them on in the snow, when you’re in a hurry is not a fun experience, made worse by ill-fitting chains. Chains are not one-size-fits-all, so you will have to check a manufacturer’s model table to determine what product is suitable for your tires. With this knowledge of the differences between tire chains and tire cables, you have no excuse to get outdoors this winter.

Wikipedia article not indexed

Posted on April 2, 2017 by Gareth

Recently I’ve been doing some freelance writing for various people via the online service UpWork. For the most part these have been product reviews of some kind, with odd jobs in between. Recently I had the opportunity to create a Wikipedia article for a musician.

In the past I have on occasion made corrections to Wikipedia pages, but never created a new one before, so it’s been interesting to see the whole process and learn all the checks and balances that Wikipedia tries to employ.

By Wikimedia Foundation – Wikimedia Foundation, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

Wikipedia is constantly barraged with new articles, some worthy, some not so much. An army of well-respected Wikipedia users man the front, patrolling new articles, marking them for deletion, offering improvement advice, and in some small cases, approving the articles. The problem is, everyone thinks they deserve a Wikipedia page, but that often isn’t true.

Wikipedia has a number of guidelines for what it terms, notability. Especially when it comes to living persons, notoriety helps determine whether someone is deserving of a Wikipedia page. It’s also frowned upon to create your own Wikipedia page, or to even create one for someone else, with the expectation that you place such information into comments when creating a new page (see conflict of interest).

Regardless of all this, I set about learning all this information and creating a new page for this person. Wikipedia has created a Draft space for articles. It means you can create a page, work on it for as long as you want, and then submit it for approval through the articles for creation process. During this time, the site is live, but is not part of the normal Wikipedia Article space. So other’s can see and edit the page, but it isn’t listed within Wikipedia. The goal of the Draft article is to help people build a proper Wikipedia page, before it’s made live.

So this is what I did. Over several days I successively built up a Wikipedia entry for the artist, and when I was happy with the content and references, I submitted it for review as a draft. Here a draft can either be approved (which will make it live), or rejected. In my case the page was reviewed, and a user suggested that I require further references.

So I went and found further references, updated the comments and waited. But now the article falls into a major backlog that both Drafts submitted for approval and live Articles fall into. There are too many pages for the moderators to get through them all. Usually articles which are made live, or which request approval go to the top of a list, get reviewed and life goes on. But now my article was stuck in the backlog, never to be reviewed again.

So I took the power granted to every user, and made the page Live myself. Usually when an Article is made live, it will go to the top of a new list of new pages. But because my article had been created two weeks earlier, it fell into the backlog of another round of moderation, called the new pages patrol. This isn’t a major problem. An article doesn’t have to be patrolled to go live. So the article was live, you could link to it within Wikipedia, and it came up in Wikipedia searches. However if a page is not patrolled, it cannot be archived by Google, or other search engines.

This was a problem. At first I couldn’t figure out what was actually wrong, and eventually came across an article which showed that an article had to be patrolled before indexing is allowed. Fortunately the people who made these rules recognize some of the shortcomings of Wikipedia, and if an article isn’t approved after 30 days, it can start to be indexed.

30 days later, the page still hasn’t been patrolled, but it now shows up when you search for the artist on Google. It’s been a fun project, and makes me appreciate the tens of thousands of people involved in the Wikipedia project, I Just don’t understand where they find the time.

PS: It’s still possible that the page I created will be patrolled at some stage. Hopefully by then the page would have grown a bit and the artist would have built up a bit more notability (he was in a grey area when it comes to this).

More Particle Internet Button Projects

Posted on February 22, 2017 by Gareth

I posted a few months ago about the Particle Internet Button I’m playing with (link). I’ve created another 2 projects in the mean time.

Adjustable Timer

The first is an adjustable timer. The lights on the Internet Button are used to indicate 30s steps, ranging from 30s to 5min. When it turns on you specify the length of time you want to run it for by either increasing or decreasing the steps. When running the 30s that are currently active flashes. At the end of the time, the Internet Button beeps and flashes red. It can be easily adjusted and reset.

Left: select length of time
Right: Timer running

I made this back in November, but actually had a problem with it that I couldn’t figure out. I had intended to post to the Particle forums for help but never got round to it. I had in the mean time uploaded the offending code to Github. I recently reinvestigated the code with the intention of this post, and found that someone else had found my code, and solved my problem, so thanks to Github user mseneshen. Working code can be found here: source

Dice

The second project was a set of dice. Playing Catan and having people complain about how there were no 3s rolled in a game gets old, so why not create a set of dice that keep track of this and tell you facts. Apps are available for this, but then the screen turns off and it becomes a hassle. So I wrote some code to mimic a set of dice.

Left: Dice being rolled
Right: Dice have been rolled

To roll the dice you gently shake the Internet Button sideways. The code randomly generates two numbers between 1 and 6, adds them, and outputs them by lighting up the appropriate number of LEDs. To make it easier to read, LEDs are colour coded in groups of 3. The Internet Button only has 11 LEDs, so I if a 12 is rolled, the 11th LED changes colour. Because a 1 is never rolled, I could have used that LED, but it seemed less intuitive. Also, because we play Catan, if a 7 is rolled, all the lights go red.

The whole time the dice are running, a tally is kept of how many times each number is rolled. At any time you can click a button and a distribution is published to the console. I might update this later to automatically graph the data and tweet it, but haven’t tried that yet.

When I first tested the code, I was getting reproducible random numbers, so I introduced a seed from one of the analogue pins which appears to have solved that problem. Because it uses an accelerometer to trigger a throw, when it is on it’s side, gravity is enough to trigger a throw and allows me to get thousands of throws without destroying my wrists.

Some plotted results can be seen here, with actual roll percentage (bars) vs statistical roll percentage (dots).

Code is available here: source

Temperature and Altitude

I recently bought an Adafruit BMP180 that I’m trying to get running with the Internet Button. Will post details once it’s active.

Fiddlings

Gareth's Random Blog of Fiddlings