Hashemian Blog

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Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Recycling Grocery Store Bags

Years ago when I lived in Germany for a short time, most people used their own canvass bags when grocery shopping. Initially I attributed that to the European environmental consciousness, which is probably somewhat correct. But then I found out that grocery stores charged for their bags and most people probably didn't want to pay for them. I believe the system is still the same over there and it works well.

In the US stores, grocery bags are an expected perk. Sure, we all pay for it in the form of tiny margins added to the cost of other items, but that is lost on the consumers. Grocery bags are abundant and free. At home we use these bags as trash can liners but when I go to my local grocery store's salad bar for lunch, the cashier would place the container in a plastic bag and I would promptly toss it in the trash at my desk. For years I felt guilty about this practice, but I wasn't about to change that habit.

Then a couple of months ago as I was leaving the store I noticed the long rows of the checkout lines filled with the yellow plastic bags. The sight and sound of hundreds of these bags crinkling and rustling as they were being filled made me consider the amount of waste that was being generated. This was just one moment in time, in one store, in one town. I was overwhelmed by the thought of millions of these bags being dumped in landfills everyday and right then I vowed to change my bagging habit. I wasn't quite ready for canvass bags, but I decided to save the plastic bags and reuse them every time I go to the store, until the bags become unusable.

It took a few false starts, but I finally made good on the promise. In the past couple of months that I have been reusing the bags, I have become quite accustomed to recycling them at the checkout counters. By now I have probably prevented 40 or so bags from going to the landfills and I feel pretty good about it. It wasn't difficult, nor was it inconvenient. It was just making a slight adjustment to correct this wasteful habit. Yet I wondered how many bags can be recycled if everyone shook the old habit.

Today I saw a glimmer of hope to that end. When I presented the clerk with my bag, she credited me with two cents off the total. When I inquired about the credit, she showed me a stamp imprinted on the bag indicating a 2-cent credit for re-use. The grocery store, ShopRite, is obviously trying to portray itself as an environmentally conscious company and I applaud them for that. Whatever their motivation (probably a mixture of business sense and green ambitions), this could set the stage for saving millions of bags from being wasted so needlessly. Other stores have also begun with their own similar initiatives to show their green sides. They just need to promote this a little. Grocery store bags could be going the same way as the beverage bottles and cans went years ago, and that's a good thing.

grocery stores,plastic bags,recycling,environment,green,landfills,trash
Labels: environment
<Recycling Grocery Store Bags>

// posted by rh

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Proxy Server Woes

Troubleshooting misbehaving Web applications is a part of my job at work. Most of the time it's some buggy code that I or someone in our team had written. But sometimes I get approached about system problems too, like when a browser is having connection issues and can't access Web sites. If you are in the help desk business you know how the question is posed, "Is the Internet down?". I've always been tempted to reply: "Why yes, it is down. All that redundancy worked into it back in the DARPA era was a pile of lies. The whole Internet is toast."

Most of the time browser problems are not browser problems at all, they are network issues. The browser just gets the blame because it's front and center. A bad cable kicked once too many, an unplugged Wi-Fi access point, or a beleaguered DHCP server are the usual suspects. But the one that trips me most of the time is the proxy server setting. I've gotten better at it but I still occasionally miss this little item from my checklist.

As you may know proxy servers are protocol-level servers (appliances) that work as brokers between clients and servers. The most commonly used is the Web (HTTP) proxy server. Traffic passing back and forth between browsers and servers is funneled through them. Why use them? A detailed discussion is too boring, but in a nutshell, they make network admins' lives easier (more granular control, central management, etc), and they can cache and compress data saving on bandwidth and thus speeding things along.

Proxy servers are helpful, as long as one remembers that they're being used, especially when troubleshooting. Case in point, the other day I was working on a laptop connected to the Internet over Verizon Wireless broadband EVDO. No matter what I did I couldn't browse to the laptop's local Web server. Everything was fine when wireless was off, but as soon as I started it up, the local Web server would become inaccessible. What was happening? I could successfully ping my own server (duh), the Web service was running fine and listening on the local address, and there was no proxy server setting hidden in my browser (obvious place to look, but easily missed, specially when frantic).

After hours of investigating, including recruiting assistance from a colleague, the issue was revealed, quite by accident. Verizon Wireless comes with an add-on product called Venturi (enabled by default), used for optimization and compression. Turns out Venturi was the cause of this issue. When disabled, everything began working as expected. Venturi inserts itself in the TCP/IP stack and reroutes Web requests to a proxy server. No wonder I couldn't browse to the local server, the external Venturi proxy server had no idea how to access it, nor anything else on the private LAN.

The trouble with proxy servers is that it's hard to detect that your applications are using one, unless you pay attention to the telltale signs. First, with most applications, including browsers, you can check the network options and see if a proxy server address is configured. Next you can visit an IP address and header lookup page like whoami/My IP Address on this site, and check out the results. This page and the likes will display whatever information they can glean from your connection. Sometimes, but not always, proxy servers add headers such as "X-Forwarded-For" or "Via" to reveal the actual source of the request. You can also compare the shown source IP address to the IP address of your own machine. From the command line enter the "ipconfig" command (in Windows) which will display your actual IP address. If the lookup page is displaying the same IP address, chances are there is no proxy server in between, otherwise your traffic may be going through a proxy server and that would explain the irregularities of the sorts I was experiencing.

proxy servers,verizon wireless,evdo,ip address,ipconfig,tcp/ip,networks,browsers,http
Labels: networks, technology, web
<Proxy Server Woes>

// posted by rh

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Adult Bicycle Helmet Law

A couple of entries ago I griped about the seatbelt law and how I was caught and ticketed for not wearing one driving in Westchester county, NY. Little did I know that there is a move afoot in the same county to make bicycle helmets mandatory. Mind you, this is not for children (which I support), but for everyone, including adults.

I just don't understand how people can tolerate this erosion and intrusion into their personal rights. This is yet again another obvious attempt for municipalities to transform law-abiding citizens into law-breakers and collect money. It always comes down to money, doesn't it? A bunch of bureaucrats got together one day and brain-stormed about how they can raise more money and this emerged as a good candidate under the guise of protecting public safety.

The slippery slope is indeed upon us and you can be sure that it won't stop with mandatory adult bike laws. Soon, there will be mandatory blood tests to measure your bad cholesterol and fine you if it's over some arbitrary limit. Like to exercise? There will be laws forbidding you to raise your heart rate beyond a certain number of beats per minute. Like to shovel your own snow? There will be laws banning that. How about swimming? There will laws requiring flotation devices for everyone; laws that will ban lifting heavy objects, laws against strenuous hiking, laws against running with scissors, laws against wearing too few layers during the cold, laws against hammering a nail without a permit, and laws against other laws to make sure everything is covered.

You laugh now, but all these laws will be enacted to save you from yourself, and of course each offense will carry its own scheduled fine. Why not even a law to punish you if you haven't committed an offense for a certain length of time? The justification is that it's unfair for some people not to pay into the system while others are being bilked. And you had no idea you were a criminal a hundred times over already.

helmets,bicycle helmets,helmet law,laws
Labels: law
<Adult Bicycle Helmet Law>

// posted by rh

Monday, October 08, 2007

Half Marathon 2007

My Half Marathon Running Shoe - nice Achilles hole

Maybe it was the heat and humidity, or my pony tail, or my worn-out shoes, or my usual lackadaisical training, but the results of my 2007 half marathon was nothing to write home about.

This was my third annual half marathon race in a row in my hometown of Ridgefield, CT, and by far the worse performance of the three. Just like last year, I hadn't done much to prepare for this event, short of sending in my registration fee. I am an avid jogger, rarely, if ever, missing my every-other-day jogging habit. My regular distance is about 4 to 5 miles. On weekends I might push that to 6 or 7 miles. The only time, as of recent, I went farther than that was the Sunday prior to the race when I covered a 10-mile distance.

Still, there is a big difference between casual jogging and a long-distance race, specially one that covers 13.1 miles and where speed matters. I had thought that I might have a chance of breaking my personal time from 2 years ago, but that goal proved to be elusive this past Sunday.

I had a good rest the night before the race and, as this was my third race, I wasn't feeling much anxiety. I arrived at the starting point with just enough time to pick up my number and soon the race got on the way at 8:30. The first few miles were pretty typical for me. I'm not a morning person, let alone a morning runner, so it took some time for me to get comfortable and find my pace. I don't know about other runners, but for me it takes a few minutes for my body to warm up and then everything kicks into automatic. But around the 4th mile I started to feel some fatigue and had to downshift. A runner had collapsed on the side of the road and people were tending to him so I continued on. Soon I was hearing the commotion of sirens in the background; obviously the medics were on their way. There were still some 9 miles to cover.

Things were going okay but with every passing mile I could feel the fatigue growing. Finally around the 9th mile I had to slow down to a fast walk. Going into a walking pace is something I always dread, but I also realize that ignoring the body's signals could have devastating effects, least of which would be failing to complete the course. After about a 1/4 of a mile and downing some water at one of the water stations, I was back in jogging pace, only to revert to a walk again at around the 11th mile. Another 1/4 mile down the road and with the finish line within reach, I picked up the pace and finally crossed the line at 2:02:32. A devastating blow, having breached the 2-hour time, but nevertheless I had finished my third half marathon race.

As I guzzled down cold spring water and chewed on an apple at the end of the race I contemplated what I had done wrong. I could blame the weather, my old shoes, my age, or other factors, but in the end I knew it was my own lack of preparation that lead to the poor performance. Will I be better prepared for the next year's race? I don't know but, disappointed as I am, I know there's no sense in dwelling on this. The silver lining for me is that there will be no formidable personal time for me to shatter next year.

I'll be remiss if I didn't mention the great job the race organizers, Wolfpit Running Club, the volunteers, the police, and the sponsors did in this event. They have delivered superbly every time. And for the real good news, word has it that the runner who collapsed during the race was doing okay.

Here are my personal times for each year:

Year  Place  Age  Age Group    Time     Pace
----  -----  ---  ---------    ----     ----
2005   286   38   50 M 30-39  1:54:05  8:43/M
2006   287   39   66 M 30-39  1:55:52  8:51/M
2007   299   40   87 M 40-49  2:02:32  9:21/M

marathon,half marathon,running,jogging,racing

Labels: running

// posted by rh