business travel on amtrak

content/blog/2023-09-25-business-travel-on-amtrak/index.md

@@ -0,0 +1,98 @@
+---
+title: Business Travel on Amtrak
+date: 2023-09-25
+tags:
+  - climate
+---
+
+My new year's resolution for 2023 was to avoid airplanes whenever possible. Let's see how I'm doing!
+
+| Dates | Transport | Trip Description | Comment |
+| --- | --- | --- | --- | 
+| Sep 29 - Oct 8 | Rail | Business trip to Washington | |
+| Oct 30 - Nov 18 | Car | Business trip to Colorado | |
+| Oct 20 - 30 | Rail | Business trip to Washington | 1st rail trip with a bicycle |
+| Jul 30 - Aug 18 | Air| Three back-to-back trips | Only possible with air travel |
+| Jul 22 - 23 | Car | Vacation to Colorado | |
+| Jun 5 - 16 | Car | Vacation with my father to Montana | |
+| Jun 1 - 4 | Car | Dance trip to Arizona | |
+| May 21 - 23 | Car | Freshman college orientation | |
+| May 5 - 14 | Rail | Business trip to Minneapolis | |
+| Apr 21 - 23 | Air | Dance performance in Chicago | Everyone else on this trip was flying |
+| Mar 26 - 28 | Air | Job interview in Washington | I had almost no input into how this was booked |
+| Feb 9 - 13 | Car | Dance trip to San Diego | I don't remember if I went on this trip or not! |
+| Dec 19 - Jan 3 | Air | Vacation to Iceland | This trip convinced me to try rail |
+
+Not bad for year 1. It took a few months for me to get into it, and there are still things I cannot do
+any other way, but overall I'm happy with how this is going.
+
+People seem to be a combination of amused and curious about taking Amtrak to get somewhere.
+Most folks think of Amtrak as a quirky but impractical curiosity, or maybe like an amusement park ride.
+A lot of people are under the impression that rail is more expensive than air (rail is almost always cheaper),
+or that one must get "a sleeper car" (coach on rail is like first class on air).
+
+I will say that this is not practical. There is one train per day on the routes I take, and they are frequently
+delayed, which can cause a full day layover if I miss a connection. Amtrak's web site won't let you reserve a
+multi-leg trip that involves an overnight stay. There's no WiFi, and cell coverage is spotty. If you are the sort
+of person who's in a hurry, rail travel will drive you up the wall. Rude passengers are rude for *two days*,
+not just a couple hours until you land. Getting your company to let you go by rail might range from frustrating to
+impossible.
+
+However, I am now in a life situation where I can do this: I don't have children at home, I have a fully
+remote job that lets me work wherever, and I have an employer who can wrap their head around rail travel.
+Maybe if I do this enough, I can convince a couple other people to do this.
+And eventually we'll have more ridership, and maybe Amtrak will get better.
+
+I wish I were capable of Great Feats in order to help deal with climate change.
+It allows me to continue to be employed, while pretty drastically reducing the carbon emissions I am
+personally responsible for.
+Maybe undergoing this pain in the rear,
+and documenting it, will pave the way for others.
+So it's going to have to be my small role to play here.
+
+
+Booking / Expensing business trips
+-------------
+
+LANL let me take whatever means of travel I wanted, I just had to demonstrate it was equal to, or below, the cost
+of going by air. It always is.
+
+PNNL makes it even easier: I just tell them I want to get to city X by date D by rail, and a travel agent figures
+it all out for me, including overnight stays. I'm still figuring out the itinerary beforehand, because I'm that way,
+but so far their bookings have been fine.
+
+LANL would reimburse me for the trip, but I had to add "personal days" onto the trip for the extra time spent
+en route. I only took two rail trips at LANL, and both ate weekends. There is a process for obtaining approval
+for working someplace other than my house that I never had to attempt. LANL would not reimburse an overnight
+hotel stay on a personal day, even when I demonstrated that the train fare + hotel was still cheaper than air.
+I was preparing for a years-long fight to try to move the needle on this one, but then I switched jobs.
+
+PNNL has yet to reimburse me for a rail trip, but I think it's going to be similar to LANL. They may allow me to
+consider the airfare against the rail+hotel--I'll try--but it seems more likely that they will also make me pay
+the hotel myself. However, because I have a remote work position, I don't need to request permission to work
+on a train: I can just tell my manager I'm doing it.
+
+
+What to take
+------------
+
+{{< figure src="backpack.jpg" alt="Contents of my backpack: only a few articles of clothing, some wires, food, and the things I list below" >}}
+
+Here are some essentials for a train trip that air travelers might not have considered:
+
+* A long extension cord provides power to the aisle seat without needing to drape USB cables over the window
+  seat's lap.
+* A travel washcloth and towel can help you clean up in the restroom on long trips.
+* A blanket is pretty handy. I like being under a blanked when I sleep.
+* An eye mask is also nice. I made one out of some left-over Batman print fabric. It's cool.
+* Earplugs are pretty important for me, a light sleeper. I just got some fancypants bluetooth sleep buds that
+  can play music/audiobooks and generate white noise to mask outside noise. I've slept with wired earbuds, too.
+  These bluetooth things are even smaller, which so far has been nice for sleeping on my side.
+* You absolutely, positively, must download all your TV shows and movies before you go to the train station.
+  You're going to lose Internet almost right away on the Southwest Chief, so you can forget about downloading
+  new episodes en route.
+* I use my phone for watching movies and whatnot. I printed a 
+  [flat phone stand](https://www.printables.com/model/175598-phone-stand) to hold it up on the tray.
+  The seat in front of you is about 5 feet away, so attaching your phone to the seat back doesn't really work.
+* Book / work / video game. You are going to get bored. Bring something to do.
+

content/blog/new

@@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
+#! /bin/sh
+
+cd $(dirname $0)
+
+case "$1" in
+  ""|-*)
+    cat <<EOD 1>&2; exit 1
+Usage: $0 SLUG [TITLE]
+
+Makes a new blog page with the slug SLUG.
+Also uses SLUG for the page title,
+unless you provide TITLE.
+You can, of course, change this later.
+EOD
+esac
+
+SLUG="$1"
+TITLE="${2:-$SLUG}"
+DATE="$(date +%Y-%m-%d)"
+
+slug=$(echo "$SLUG" | tr 'A-Z ' 'a-z-')
+dir="$DATE-$slug"
+index=$dir/index.md
+
+mkdir $dir
+cat <<EOD >$index
+---
+title: $TITLE
+date: $DATE
+tags:
+  - untagged
+---
+
+EOD
+
+echo $index
+vim + $index

content/misc/baud/baud.c

@@ -55,7 +55,7 @@ main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
         noiselen = atoi(argv[3]);
     }
 
-    int cps = baud / 8;
+    int cps = baud / 10; // 8N1 has 10 bits per octet: 8 data, 1 start, 1 parity
     int delay = SECOND / cps;
     int noisybits = 0;
     int c;
@@ -68,11 +68,7 @@ main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
             }
 
             if (noisybits) {
-                if (rand() < RAND_MAX/2) {
-                    c &= ~(1<<bit);
-                } else {
-                    c |= 1<<bit;
-                }
+                c ^= (rand() & 1) << bit;
                 noisybits -= 1;
             }
         }
@@ -81,4 +77,4 @@ main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
     }
     
     return EX_OK;
-}
+}

content/misc/baud/index.md

@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+---
+title: baud.c
+---
+
+[baud.c](baud.c) is a program to simulate going through a modem.
+It reads stdin, and prints it to stdout at the provided baud rate (bits per second).
+
+If you'd like to see what life was like when I got my first modem, try
+
+    cat file | ./baud.c 110 40
+
+Run that for a few hours, then try
+
+    cat file | ./baud.c 1200 20
+
+And you will understand how mind-blowingly fast 1200 baud modems were at the time.
+
+---
+
+This is the second or third time I've written this code.
+I'm putting it on my web site so I don't have to write it again.