Seriously??
As if kids don’t grow up and get their hands on tech fast enough. Frankly tho it might be cheaper to get them a real phone.
So most anyone interested at all in the outdoors has read about the “Leave no trace” or LNT principles. Which in short state that nature is to be seen, not touched, not trampled on (IE. the outdoors is a museum to be looked at not interacted with).
I find fault with this, on many levels.
Let’s take the basic principles of LNT one by one. In the interest of simplicity in this post i’m going to break things down into “energy” meaning energy used and “impact” meaning physical environmental impact. Also “wilderness” refers to any wild area where mankind has had a minimal impact not designated Wilderness areas.
#1 Plan ahead and prepare.
This one is good. It’s hard to argue that preparing is an excellent idea. But, what kind of preparation are we talking about? Let’s compare a modern backpacker with a wood/bushcrafter.
Backpacker – Modern ultralight gear
Impact: High to Extreme. Consider everything in a modern backpackers gear. Titanium pot and cup, modern backpack, modern aluminum and steel stove, ultralight tent with nylon and aluminum, down sleeping bag, carbon fiber trekking poles, nylon or gore-Tex clothing. All the materials to make these things had to be mined or synthesized, almost nothing in a modern backpackers gear is natural. Think of the environmental impact of titanium and bauxite mining, fiberglass and epoxy resin for carbon fiber, not to mention all the chemicals required to process all these materials. Even if we say a modern backpackers gear will last a reasonable amount of time we all know that people upgrade their gear, and that gear breaks or wears out. Is that gear repaired? Usually not, it’s mostly just thrown away and replaced with something new which adds to landfill impact. Along with this add the packaging for many of these materials which is often not recyclable. (Think for example how some ultralight backpackers remove all the tags from their clothing, but do they bother to wonder of the impact of what they do with those removed tags?) Also consider those things that are intended to be disposable, such as fuel canisters, i’m sure many recycle them but many also just throw them into the garbage.
Energy: High to Extreme. From the mining of the raw materials, to the transportation, then the processing on to the processing to the construction then finally the transportation to the retail establishment and it’s purchase by the consumer there is significant energy expended here. There is also the energy of the petroleum fuel that is being used in the stove. It has to be brought up, refined and delivered.
Wood/Bushcrafter – Old traditional gear
Impact: Low to High. Consider what a bushcrafter might carry. Hatchet, knife, plastic tarp, wool blanket, backpack. Some of these things might be modern, and they might be old. For the sake of this post I’ll consider the bushcrafter with old gear. He uses a military pack he got at an army surplus store, and a hatchet he got there as well. His knife is a hand-me-down from his grandfather, the wool blanket he got from a local store made with homespun yarn, he carries a WW2 mess kit and canteen. He’s likely also wearing wool and cotton clothing. Yes, many of these things have impacts, but they are much lower than modern day gear, also they are more likely to be secondhand, which have no packaging or modern construction impacts. There is also the fact that his gear is likely going to last much longer than modern gear. A WW2 canteen is simply going to outlast a titanium cup due to it’s strength, the cup is built for minimum weight, the canteen was built tough. The wool blanket will outlast the modern sleeping bag, and replacing a tarp is much less impact than replacing an entire ultralight tent. Yes, he has impact of gathering wood and putting together a camp, but this can be undone. It does not leave things in a pristine state but the impact is usually minimal. If one leaves poles laying around for another to use in building a lean-to there is even less impact since the second has no need to gather so many resources.
Energy: Low to Medium. Since he is not making use of modern materials he has limited energy impact. Some things might be delivered between retail stores, and there is all the energy expended in the past to make his gear. He is having an energy impact by gathering wood to cook with, but this is considerably less than that of the petroleum fuel stove user.
#2 Travel and camp on durable surfaces.
Durable, exactly what is “durable”? Dirt? Granite? Asphalt?
If we try to say that hikers using a trail have less impact than those going off-trail is that true? The impact of this one is going to be the same for whoever is going into the wilderness, how much is that impact really? We see impact because, well, humans have an impact when they go someplace, step on something or touch something. Are we really trying to say “Stay on the trails” and expecting people will listen? And in telling people to use existing trails what have we done, in many areas we have paved the wilderness to allow more people into it, is that “low impact”?
This one is more wishful thinking than reality, people do not all color inside the lines, and if more people went further off-trail the impacts would be much less concentrated. However think about this really, to a deer or a rabbit does it matter if a slope is eroding? No. Does it matter to a fish is there is more particulate matter in a stream? Yes actually, because that means more nutrients.
The outdoors is not a fine glass figurine that must be treated with delicate care lest it shatter forever, it is a living thing, that can repair itself into new forms, the problem is that repair takes longer than humans are willing to wait, and the new forms are not what people want to see.
#3 Dispose of waste properly.
What is “properly”? For the sake of this post let’s assume that everything besides human bodily waste is being disposed of someplace besides the wilderness, or by fire.
Modern waste – Freeze-dried food containers, broken modern gear, aluminum foil packaging, plastic packaging.
Impact: High. Even if people pack out everything how many throw it into the garbage? This is still having an impact, it’s just not having an impact that we see in the wilderness areas. Rather we’re putting it into someone Else’s backyard. Plastics can be burned to ash in a fire, but that releases their toxins into the atmosphere.
Energy: Medium to High. Trash and recycling has to be transported and dealt with.
Natural waste – Paper, broken wood and steel gear, tin cans.
Impact: Low to Medium. Broken wood implements and paper packaging can be burned with minimal impact and no need of collection or modern disposal. Steel knives and hatchets can be reforged or re-hafted and reused. Tin (steel) cans can be recycled of course, but some people melt them down and directly reuse them, however even if steel is left in the environment it will eventually rust, and at a pace far greater than it would break down if thrown into a landfill. (I’m sure we have all seen 100+ year old tin cans rusting to bits)
Energy: Low to Medium. Self-made gear has little to no energy impact is made from natural materials. Someone forging their own hatchet or their own knife, or getting one that is handmade, will have much less impact than getting something mass-produced. Yes, there are still impacts but buying from a blacksmith 2 miles away where he makes knives from old car parts consumes much less energy than buying a brand new knife made in China.
#4 Leave what you find.
How much of what I find? Should I consider a rotting and rusting hulk of a covered wagon “historic?” What about an old Plymouth? How about a modern abandoned truck? Of course this is in the eye of the beholder, but any archaeologist will tell you that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
So let’s consider this to mean anything “Natural”. Dirt, rocks, native plants, deer antlers.
Does this mean that I leave non-native species? Should I tear out something I see growing that is invasive and then try to explain my actions to someone on the trail that thinks I’m not practicing LNT? What about a meteorite? (Yes, you can get extremely pedantic when considering these things, but most people don’t want to go there.) How about taking apples or nuts in season? Think about that in the “Respect Wildlife” section.
Yes, not following this rule could easily lead to taking massive amount of materials from the wilderness, but on the other hand collecting rocks, minerals and dead wood is often allowed in wilderness areas. If the contentious LNT follower wants to leave the wilderness pristine they might be better served by changing the law than acting morally superior to their non-LNT counterparts.
Consider the person who picks up a stick for walking, then discards it back into the forest against the one that buys a set of trekking poles whic will eventually be discarded into a landfill.
#5 Minimize Campfire impacts.
While this is “minimize” most modern backpackers seem to have taken this to mean “NO CAMPFIRES!”. Should we figure that burning the underbrush and dead wood in a forest is a bad thing? Well, forest fires are much less devastating when smaller fires come through from time to time and burn out the small growth. Many areas where humans are common have not had these preventative fires, mainly due to humans thinking that any fire in the forest is a bad thing.
While this rule is optional to modern backpackers it is a requirement for the bushcrafter who wants to stay warm. Is it more environmentally friendly to craft a modern sleeping bag and deliver it to it’s end user, or to burn some of the available wood for warmth? Which one will have an ongoing impact? (Consider at this time that sleeping bags cannot be recycled, and only the sleeping-bag maker Golite accepts it’s bags back for recycling, tho only to store them until they can someday be recycled)
#6 Respect Wildlife.
While the LNT folks say they have literature on making their principles work with hunting I cannot believe how they could. Killing the wildlife seems completely and directly opposed to the concept of respecting wildlife that modern environmentalists swear by.
Often this is taken to mean that humans should not “get in the way” of wildlife, but exactly how can we prevent this? Sure, we can not pitch camp in the middle of a trail, but simply having the scent of humans around is going to spook wildlife that might need to come near to drink from a lake or stream, etc. This is another one of those times when LNT = Stay at home.
And also if I go out and kill a rabbit for my dinner am I disrespecting it? Let’s think for a moment about the two sides of this issue.
Killing a rabbit or catching a fish in the wilderness
Impact: Minimal, animal is removed from the food chain. This opens up opportunities for another animal to fill. Sometimes this could even be considered helpful, such as removing an overpopulation of rabbits because the natural predators are gone (Once again, thanks to humans) or catching and eating invasive fish. (Crater lake for example allows no-limit fishing and all invasive fish are to be killed)
Energy: None save human energy to catch/prepare/consume animal.
Bringing your own food to the wilderness
Impact: Low to high. Depends on the packaging used and how harmful the creation of the food is. IE, home picked fruit is better than an orchard is better than a pig farm, etc.
Energy: Low to High. If I am bringing in freeze-dried food sealed in a foil bag how much energy was wasted by preparing that food, moving it, packaging it, and on making the packaging itself. On the other hand if you’re bringing in apples, grapes, nuts, pears, etc that you bought locally, or better yet picked from your yard the energy spent is low to minimal. In both cases there is still the energy spent hauling that food to the wilderness trailhead.
#7 Be considerate of other visitors.
On it’s face this is a good idea but like anything it can go overboard. If we go by the “Golden Rule” of do unto others as you would have them do unto you then we’re always going to have people with varying views of good behavior.
In the end there is a difference between being loud because you are just normally a loud person and dumping your trash into someone Else’s campsite. The slider here can be moved towards either end depending on your personal views of what is “considerate”.
In the end can we truly expect others to act the way we want them to act, especially in a space where the “rules” are so ambiguous? Do we have a right to impose our judgments when their views might simply differ from ours but their end goal is the same? And the culmination of this point is that perhaps LNT folks would not try and force their views onto others, right?
Sure, we’re having an impact, but my point is we will ALWAYS have an impact, sitting at home looking at pictures of the wilderness on the computer uses energy, but people have ignored those impacts and focused on the impacts they see firsthand in their own environment. We have been fed nice clean “rules” to follow, and just blissfully ignored the damage being done by the companies making the gear to fill the needs created by those rules. In the end I believe that is far worse than what the rules were made to prevent and that it has become too easy to ignore the harm we are doing because we feel we are doing good.
In the end the only way to truly leave NO trace, is to not go into the wilderness at all, and even then humans are having an incredible impact on the globe. When is it time to say the game is lost and throw in the towel?
I believe we are far past that point.
It’s always fun when you end up on both sides of a huge political gulf.
One side doesn’t like you because of your hobbies, the other side doesn’t like you because of your attitude.
Life is just so peachy sometimes isn’t it?
While it’s horrible that someone bombed the Boston Marathon there are a few things that I need to stand on my soapbox and say “no more” to.
#1 Having it on every news channel still after 24 hours and explaining it’s repercussions around the USA accomplishes what exactly. Here in Seattle do we really need to step up police patrols? This is just the connected world making the media and law enforcement concerned that they are going to miss something. Of course they’re going to miss something, they’re human, perfection should never be expected.
#2 There isn’t anything I can do about it from several thousand miles away, so I refuse to allow it to get me down. Is that cold? No, it’s simply logical. Sure, I’m empathetic to the victims but I refuse to feel bad because I can’t run and help with the investigation or donate blood to the victims, etc, etc.
#3 I’m seeing the same knee-jerk fear that happened after 9-11. I refuse to live my life in fear from day to day. Bad people are always going to do bad things, that does not mean that my life is going to be better if I cower in fear because of it. Nor am I going to agree with giving up civil rights over it.
Use your brain, it’s your best weapon. Do not give in to fear, uncertainty and doubt.
I found this on a website today while searching for work, it was attached to an opening for a network technician/admin position. I think it is absolutely brilliant.
How to Submit Your Application
Everything about working at Groundspeak sounding awesome so far? Now it’s time to begin showing us why you’re the one that we should choose. To submit your resume, just solve this puzzle and provide your work and answer in the “Comments, additional information, best time to contact you, etc.” box on the Application page. How do you get to that page? Just click on the “Apply for this Position” button down below!Calculate A + B – (C + D + E – F – G)/H and convert the result to hexadecimal.
A = The decimal value found in the third octet of the subnet mask for a network with a prefix size (CIDR notation) of 23.
B = The total number of IPv4 addresses in (all address ranges) reserved for private networks as defined in RFC 1918.
C = The DHCP Option Code for MTU Timeout.
D = The exact time when GPS selective availability was turned off, expressed in POSIX time.
E = The output of the following command when run on the default “hosts” file from a copy of Windows 7, Server 2008, or Server 2008 R2 and copied to a system running a recent linux distribution or Mac OS X: sed ’4,8d’
| grep -cv ‘c[ao].*m’ F = The ascii character code (in decimal) for the portion of a line break (EOL marker) in Windows format that’s NOT present in the UNIX format.
G = The number of different FSMO roles that can be transferred using only the Active Directory Users and Computers snap-in in Windows Server 2003/2008.
H = The permission mask in absolute mode for changing a file’s permissions to “-rwxr-xr–” in unix.
So the basis of western society is rugged individualism. IE. do what you can for yourself and screw anyone not part of your family group.
So exactly how are people supposed to form close lasting friendships when the entire point of life that we are taught is to only care about ourselves?
The very basis of trust is to signify that someone else isn’t going to screw us over, but in fact that is what we are taught as general principle. Screw everyone else over to get as much as you can as fast as you can, because the one with the most money wins.
So instead we only end up with a spouse, children or parents to trust because those bonds we’re “born into” instead of trying to develop, and therefore they are stronger.
Frankly I smell bullshit all over this.
Nothing quite like putting a ton of effort into something, then having some greedy ass come along and take it all away from you.
Today I got a “slap-upside-the-head” reminder about the pointlessness of trying to be socialistic in a video game.
So, I just got back from grocery shopping at QFC, like most human beings I need food. Yeah, thrilling I know. But today something a bit different happened.
Now, those that know me know that I have little patience for children, and I have even less patience for their parents. I made the horrible mistake of trying to be a nice person and give a kid a compliment on their clothes.
A neon green shirt in particular (BRIGHT frigging green, like painfully bright), with the saying “R is for Rad!” and the second “R” had an atom drawn in the eye of the letter. I noticed it, it made me smile and as the kid wearing it (a girl about 10 years old I guess) walked by I told her “Cool shirt”, to which she replied “Thanks!” in a happy chirp.
Then all hell broke lose.
Now let me interject at this point that I’m 39, wear black and have hair down past my waist. I don’t look like an axe murderer but I don’t look like a lawyer either. I’m guessing that had something to do with what followed.
From behind me I hear “WHAT THE HELL DID YOU SAY TO MY DAUGHTER!!” in literally a scream. Apparently her mother was watching and lost it.
I knew this was not likely to end well, took a deep breath, turned around, and in the calmest nicest tone I could I said “I told her that her shirt was cool.”
“DON’T YOU FUCKING LOOK AT MY DAUGHTER! AND IF YOU TOUCH HER!”, at this point she was seething with anger, as if she was going to break her own teeth and her eyes were going to pop out of her head.
Thankfully an older lady that was standing next to me when this happened said “He did what he said, he just gave her a compliment.”
At this point I realized that there were a dozen shoppers looking on that had stopped to watch the goings on here. I wanted to say something but caution got the better of me and I turned and walked away. I was surprised the mother had no parting words.
So yes, when people ask if I like kids this is why I avoid them like the fucking plague.
For those of you not following labor/politics/business/bad junk food, etc. Hostess is going out of business.
The CEO blames the strike, making labor the big bad bully.
But let’s look at the facts shall we? The workers were told to take a pay cut at the same time the CEO got a 300% salary increase. Now they close the doors, and guess who is certain to still keep their huge salary package? Definitely not the lowly workers at the bottom.
Let’s look at the Hostess CEO Gregory F. Rayburn shall we? Exactly what experience does he have in baking? None. Perhaps experience in retail? Zero. His background is in liquidating companies. Wow, perhaps he was not the best choice for the job.
“What’s happening with Hostess Brands is a microcosm of what’s wrong with America, as Bain-style Wall Street vultures make themselves rich by making America poor,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a public statement. “Crony capitalism and consistently poor management drove Hostess into the ground, but its workers are paying the price.”
It’s a shame when a few people can screw over 18,000 by destroying what was once a stable business.
I find it intriguing. Some people accept logical thought and apply it. Others let emotion overrule their logical faculties.
It’s not even the debate that matters, it’s how you have it. If you look at what someone else is saying and disagree that is one thing. If you look at what they are saying and say they are a fucking idiot that’s another.
So, Sarah and I have two original Droid phones under an unlimited data plan with almost no minutes of usage. We pay $140 per month for both.
But, now we want to add a mobile hotspot to the plan since we have a new Nexus 7 tablet we want data on and the phones cannot do the infrastructure WI-fi the tablet needs to connect to.
But, we can’t do that. Because Verizon does not want us to have our unlimited data plans anymore.
If we went to a new data plan to add the hotspot at our current data usage amounts we would end up paying $240 per month for all 3 devices. (In short paying 4g rates for limited data on our old 3G phones, and there is no phone play as cheap as the one we have now which must also be changed) And of course Verizon wants us to renew our 2-year contract if we change plans (We are currently a year out of contract and like it that way, we’re waiting for something to replace the Droids).
By comparison a T-mobile hotspot is $35 per month for a limited amount of data, but with no overage fees (They just slow down overage services) and a free device.
So much for the benefits of being a customer for 3 years and paying $5000 for their service, they offered me zilch.
Why is it, when you tell someone you do not want to talk with them, they often keep trying to talk to you, as if they either have not heard you, or do not care.
I caught wind of this on MotherJones.com, I suggest everyone with more than 2 brain cells read and watch it.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/secret-video-romney-private-fundraiser
In short it’s secret videos from a Romney fundraiser where he lays out what he REALLY thinks about things. You know, those little bits he doesn’t dare say on the campaign trail.
Sarah and I were thrilled to see them, we spent Sunday wandering Seattle and getting very sore in the process. (Damned those hills)
A fun time was had by all.
The details are posted here. In short:
“During the second week of March 2012, a Dell Vostro notebook, used by
Supervisor Special Agent Christopher K. Stangl from FBI Regional Cyber Action
Team and New York FBI Office Evidence Response Team was breached using the
AtomicReferenceArray vulnerability on Java, during the shell session some files
were downloaded from his Desktop folder one of them with the name of
“NCFTA_iOS_devices_intel.csv” turned to be a list of 12,367,232 Apple iOS
devices including Unique Device Identifiers (UDID), user names, name of device,
type of device, Apple Push Notification Service tokens, zipcodes, cellphone
numbers, addresses, etc. the personal details fields referring to people
appears many times empty leaving the whole list incompleted on many parts. no
other file on the same folder makes mention about this list or its purpose. ”“the original file contained around 12,000,000 devices. we decided a million would be
enough to release. we trimmed out other personal data as, full names, cell numbers, addresses,
zipcodes, etc. not all devices have the same amount of personal data linked. some devices
contained lot of info. others no more than zipcodes or almost anything. we left those main columns we
consider enough to help a significant amount of users to look if their devices
are listed there or not. the DevTokens are included for those mobile hackers
who could figure out some use from the dataset.”
You can see the full decrypted and decompressed list here, look for your device. If you find it, perhaps you should ask Apple why it’s on this list.
Update: A company by the name of “Bluetoad” said it found a 98% correlation between the list and their database of UDIDs. Supposedly it’s not shocking they would have this information, personally I think it is rather shocking.
So the USA is awash with people asking why James Holmes shot up a movie theatre.
Come on, you’re kidding right?
We have people going to watch a movie all about gratuitous acts of violence, and suddenly we cannot understand how they ended up in the middle of one.
This is like handling a rattlesnake and then being shocked when you get bit by it.
As if kids don’t grow up and get their hands on tech fast enough. Frankly tho it might be cheaper to get them a real phone.
So perhaps i’m behind the times buty today I heard for the first time that honey is not vegan.
Due to it being “enslavement of the bees”. Which made me wonder, why do vegans draw the line at honey and yet accept vegetables pollinated by those enslaved animals?
It’s well known that almost all crops in the USA are pollinated by “enslaved bees” rather than wild bees or other animals. Pumpkins, almonds, apples, cucumbers, citrus (Literally ANYTHING with fruit that is not native), etc.
What are vegans really allowed to eat? Well grasses do not need pollination, they use the wind, so wheat, bamboo and corn are acceptable. Native plants are fine, such as cactus and pine nuts. Also potatoes and other root vegetables that do not produce fruit are alright.
Of course, maybe we should look at the enslavement of microbes in the soil as well? Hrrm..
I’ve been grilling for 20 years or so, but the other day my landlady came by while I was grilling and was amazed that I could get a fire hot enough to grill on in the middle of the Seattle winter, in the rain no less.
I suddenly realized that I had a completely different view on grilling than most people do. And that my methods and tools are probably totally unique.
So, I’m going to post them here in the hope it helps someone else improve their grilling.
#1 The Fire must be HOT.
I’m not talking “normal grill hot” I mean HOT as in “OMG THAT’S HOT!” kind of hot. The hotter the better, I would grill on a steel forge if I could. If you’re worried that your grill is going to melt it’s just about right. (I have literally melted a grill thermometer because my fire was hotter than the probe could take) The meat should be barely above the coals as well, unfortunately this is difficult to accomplish on most grills. This is why I use a Smokey Joe grill.
It works fine for me and my girlfriend, a larger family should go with a larger Weber grill, but get a different size grill surface so that the meat is closer to the coals, The hotter the fire the better the resulting piece of meat will be.
If you’re thinking “That’s going to turn my food into charcoal!” you’re right, but only if you cook by time, not by temperature. Which is why you need a good grilling thermometer. If you’re cooking the center of your steak over 120f or so you are overcooking it. A good steak should only be on the grill for a max of 2 minutes per side, if you’re leaving a steak on a grill for 5+ minutes your fire needs to be hotter.
If you don’t believe me try cooking over a big campfire sometime, you’ll never go back.
#2 Use REAL charcoal.
You’re probably thinking “huh? Kingston is charcoal!”, no, I mean real true charcoal that actually looks like pieces of wood. You can probably find it at your local grocery store but it is going to be more expensive, your best bet is to try a restaurant supply store and buy it in 50lb bags. I use about 2/3 real charcoal under 1/3 briquets, this keeps the fire hotter longer. It also provides better flavor. On top of that real charcoal does not burn does as easily as briquets. (I have had real pieces of charcoal that started out the size of a baseball go through my grill 3-4 times.)
#3 You need more charcoal than you think you do.
On my little smokey joe I fill a Weber charcoal chimney all the way up and light it, then pour the whole thing into the grill, likely it’s far more than the makers of the grill ever expected, but you want to cook over heat, not half-cold charcoal. The larger the amount the more heat it holds. This isn’t wasted however since after you are done you close the vents on the grill and 2/3 of the charcoal cools off and is ready to re-use next time.
If I had to use a larger grill I would probably use 2 chimneys, chances are you would end up with more than one chimnet worth of leftover coals once you’re done.
#4 Let the meat warm up to room temperature first.
Let the fat warm up, it will cook better. It won’t kill you to let the meat sit on the counter for 4 hours, when you cook to temperature there will be nothing left to make you sick in chicken or poultry.
#5 You are probably overcooking your meat.
What temperature is suggested for different foods? I go by this list:
Beef Steak or Roast can be safely eaten raw, but I suggest 120f.
Poultry 165f
Pork (Not ground) 150f
Ground Beef 155f
Ground Pork 160f
Ground Turkey 170f
The USDA has recently reduced it’s recommended temperatures for most of those foods, but most grilling thermometers suggest temperatures 10-20f higher than those temperatures for legal reasons. Get a good thermometer that you can set your desired temp on and use it.
#6 Get a bellows.
A what? Oh, a crazy thing you squeeze to blow on a fire? Well, yes, but there are newer versions. I use a battery-powered pump for a rubber raft that I picked up for 10$. I blow it on the coals between the batches of meat on my little grill to bring the fire back to life. You won’t regret it.
#7 Other general suggestions.
What else do I suggest?
Fire handlers gloves. (Heavy leather insulated gloves, they make grill work much easier. You can grab a hot grill surface, clean up hot coals, etc. without concern)
A good set of long stainless tongs. (If you grill as hot as I do simple kitchen tongs will NOT work, you’ll burn the hair off your hands, get a long 2′ set)
A wide jar full of bacon grease or cooking oil if you use a chimney starter. (Huh? Yep, spread some bacon grease on your newspaper and you have a wick under the charcoal, it lights faster especially in cold or damp weather)
Get a chimney starter if you;re not using one. (Nobody wants to eat charcoal lighter tasting food)
Good luck, and keep your fire hot. 
It was cloudy and a tad hard to make out at first, but it was definitely the aurora. I had never seen it before at all.
Maybe I’ll get a better look before the sun quiets down.
I just love it when I see these silly things packaged in the exact same evil packaging they are supposed to be for opening.
This is the box I just got from McMaster-carr with some bolts I ordered.
Notice anything odd?
Can’t believe I didn’t think to make these sooner on my 3D printer.
I have some excess pulleys here that are no use to me since I’m using GT2 belts. I’m selling them off.
Pitch: 0.080″ (2.03mm)
Outside diameter: 0.362″ (9.19mm)
Hub & flange diameter: 0.551″ (14mm)
For belts up to 0.16″ (4.05mm) wide
Number of teeth: 15
Bore: 0.2″ (5.08mm)
Set screw: 4-40 (Included)
Material: Aluminum alloy
2$ Each, includes shipping inside the US.
Send me an email if you’re interested, thanks.
Well, seems the concept of downloading files to print your own stuff has finally reached the world of Piracy.
Piratebay as added a “Physibles” category, https://thepiratebay.org/browse/605 and it already has it’s first infringing file that was removed from Thingiverse.
I have a feeling it’s not going to take long to fill up as those files removed from sites based on copyright infringement (Really it’s patents that have to be claimed on 3d creations, but that’s a topic for another post) show up on Piratebay.
Someone was nice enough to point this out to me today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowling_v._United_States_(1985)
The federal government brought its initial case against Dowling in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, arguing his guilt on the basis that he had no legal authority to distribute the records. Dowling was convicted of one count of conspiracy to transport stolen property in interstate commerce, eight counts of interstate transportation of stolen property, nine counts of copyright infringement, and three counts of mail fraud. The charges of mail fraud arose out of his use of the United States Postal Service to distribute the records.
Dowling appealed all convictions besides those of copyright infringement and the case moved to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, where he argued that the goods he was distributing were not “stolen, converted or taken by fraud”, according to the language of 18 U.S.C. 2314 – the interstate transportation statute under which he was convicted. The court disagreed, affirming the original decision and upholding the conviction. Dowling then took the case to the Supreme Court, which sided with his argument and reversed the convictions. From the Reporter of Decision’s syllabus:
“The phonorecords in question were not “stolen, converted or taken by fraud” for purposes of [section] 2314. The section’s language clearly contemplates a physical identity between the items unlawfully obtained and those eventually transported, and hence some prior physical taking of the subject goods. Since the statutorily defined property rights of a copyright holder have a character distinct from the possessory interest of the owner of simple “goods, wares, [or] merchandise,” interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud. The infringer of a copyright does not assume physical control over the copyright nor wholly deprive its owner of its use. Infringement implicates a more complex set of property interests than does run-of-the-mill theft, conversion, or fraud.”
So I hear is that this is the code to jailbreak a PS3 that Sony itself retweeted.
Welcome to the Streisand Effect Sony.
import sys, hashlib, hmac
print hmac.new("46DCEAD317FE45D80923EB97E4956410D4CDB2C2".decode("hex"), sys.argv[1].decode("hex"), hashlib.sha1).hexdigest()
Posted here under my First Amendment rights, and as the Copyright Office concluded in 2010 that, “while a copyright owner might try to restrict the programs that can be run on a particular operating system, copyright law is not the vehicle for imposition of such restrictions.†(I don’t even own a PS3, heh)
Consider it payback for your illegal 2005 CD rootkits.
So my landlord got a new Dell color laser printer, and I was curious about the “yellow dot tracking” that new printers use. So I printed a page and scanned it at 600dpi.
Ok, nothing crazy going on there, as one would expect, so I looked closer.
Hrrm, look there, I see some yellow dots. Let’s strip away all the colors but blue so they get darker.
Well, will you look at that. Sure enough the page is covered in little dots in a specific pattern.
I guess it’s all totally true, color laser printers are adding information to printed pages to show where they came from.
I can’t say that makes me overly happy.
Recently I caught wind of the “classic” or “retro” shaving movement. For those unaware this is the concept that the evolution of the razor ended with the invention of the “safety razor” in 1880 (Yeah, 130 years ago…) and the invention of it’s replaceable blades in 1901.
Simply put it makes the case that from that point forward companies competed to “buzzword enhance” the razor rather than actually improve it’s practical functioning. (IE. modern fights between Shick and Gilette over who has rights to a 3/4/5 bladed disposable razor are just fluff, and that these devices do not do a better job of shaving than the razors our grandparents shaved with)
Since I despise shaving with an electric razor, and disposable modern razors don’t do much better I figured I would add a badger brush and a safety razor to my Christmas wishlist. Tonight I got around to trying them.
In a phrase? Holy crap.
First there was the old-fashioned thick lather and brush, then the heavy steel razor, the whole process just exuded a feeling of timelessness compared to a can of foam and a plastic razor. On top of that there is a certain comfort to knowing that you can get safety blades almost anywhere in the world and very cheap compared to modern plastic disposable cartridges. Along with that the razor itself will probably outlast me. Also gone was the clogged disposable razor issue that I had come to despise.
The process will take some getting used to, it’s much easier to razor-burn yourself than with a disposable (especially if one rushes), but the shave is much closer as well. I was probably a tad overly cautious, but repeating the process bordered on enjoyable.
In the end it was an excellent example of how the new ways are not always really an improvement over the old.
Sarah’s mother has gifted us with a ton (38 aluminum and 12 carbon) of arrow shafts. Now, we just need to find a good deal on 50 foam stress balls.
So for awhile now I’ve thought that gold is way overvalued, and is going to have a sharp correcting within he next 5 years.
I’ve talked to other people regarding this, and many agree, but they brush off the risk by saying that it won’t be that bad since the average person is not invested in precious metals.
Yet today what do I see on TV? An ad for a “Gold IRA”. Sure, invest your retirement savings in gold.
How many people will be stupid enough to make this risky a move? Time will tell I suppose.
A Throwable Panoramic Ball Camera
You literally toss the thing in the air, and when it reaches the highest point in it’s trajectory it takes a picture with each of it’s 36 digital cameras giving you a complete 360 degree panorama around all three axis.
I am certain that people who know me will find this utterly hilarious, if only due to the name of the song, heh. For those unaware this is a dream sequence from the House M.D. Episode “Bombshells”.
As far as I was able to find out that is in fact Hugh Laurie and Lisa Edelstein singing, and Hugh playing the piano. (I just love that, I hate it when they dub in someone Else’s voice or piano playing in a show/movie.)
(Direct Download link: Here)
I ran across a tidbit from back in 2009 on Cracked.
The list is as follows:
1. Power
2. Genius
3. Beauty
4. Wealth
5. Fame
What DOES make people happy?
Friendships, altruism and religious practices.
And the number of people killing themselves for wealth, power, fame, etc. that actually believe this information? Too infinitesimal to bother pondering.
Sarah got a birthday card that was as follows:
“Happy Birthday from Charlie, the Birthday Armadillo!”
(The front shows a very depressed looking armadillo wearing a party hat)
The inside is as follows:
“Look, you and I both know there’s no birthday armadillo, but charlie’s had a run of bad luck – no work, a bitter, messy divorce – so please, just humor him and have a happy birthday, okay? This could be the one little thing he needs to turn his life around. Thanks, and have a good one.”
Yeah, makes me feel cheery, what about you?
EDIT: We decided to return the money, since that is what seems to be important to them.
I was just asked today to help someone break into a facebook account.
I’m sorry, but what? They want me to risk my freedom and my livelihood so they can stick their nose into someone else’s little back and forth squabble?
Hell no.
The USA has gotten stupid as a society.
We’ve allowed people with the most money, the scariest message or the loudest voice to convince us they are right without us demanding proof of their wild speculation.
What happened to intelligence trumping emotion?
Years ago some nut would say “The end is near!” and people would say “uh huh, sure, I’ve got work to do.” and now they’re able to build a huge cult following.
And now in politics there is no positive message, there is just a message of fear against the other guys.
It’s a no-brainer that this is unsustainable in the long term.
The US economy is in the tank, consumer confidence is down, sales are stagnant, but to listen to the GOP getting thigns turned around means “Less regulation and less taxes on business.”.
My take on that? In a word, bullshit.
Talk to a small business owner, chances are they will tell you they are not hiring people right now because demand for their products or services is down. If nobody wants something done there is no reason to pay someone to do it.
Frankly. business has one goal, “To make money”, and if that means it’s more profitable for a business owner to fire 500 people than to hire 500 more which do you think he’s going to do? You guessed it, 500 people get pink slips.
I might not trust the US government firmly, but I trust it a hell of alot more than I trust business to “do what’s right”.
We need a huge spending package to put people back to work or this mess is going to last a long, LONG time. And by the look of Washington, it’s not going to happen.
Maybe things would change if the government was not made up of the rich and the business owners who are trying to take care of, well, the rich business owners.
It’s sloppy, but most importantly it works, and it backs up EVERYTHING. Terrain maps, world map image, .oar, .xml, all three .ini files, mysql database, etc.
I based this off the backup script here:
I’m running Ubuntu 11.04 server, x64 btw and this all works.
I store both scripts in /home/username/backupdir/scripts, the shell script gets run as a cron job.
#!/bin/sh
;Not that it *really* matter that we tell people, but I think it's polite, heh.
screen -S opensim -p 0 -X eval 'stuff "alert Beginning full simulator backup, things might be slow for a bit.^M"'
;Yes, I'm redundant, this is just in case I missed something
cd /home/username/backupdir
;Copy the old backups to a holding directory, I clean them out by hand every so often. This could be an offsite location.
mv /home/username/backupdir/*.* /home/username/backupdir/old
;This line runs the second command script inside the opensim process.
screen -S opensim -p 0 -X eval 'stuff "command-script /home/username/backupdir/scripts/osbackup.txt^M"'
;Now dump the mysql data to zip and date it.
mysqldump -ulogin -ppassword opensim | gzip > /home/username/backupdir/opensimbackup_`date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S`.sql.gz
;Copy and date the 3 .ini files
cp /home/username/opensim/bin/OpenSim.ini /home/username/backupdir/opensim_`date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S`.ini
cp /home/username/opensim/bin/Regions/Regions.ini /home/username/backupdir/regions_`date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S`.ini
cp /home/username/opensim/bin/config-include/StandaloneCommon.ini /home/username/backupdir/standalonecommon_`date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S`.ini
;The next line is just a delay so the .oar output can finish, it might take your server much longer, change as needed.
sleep 30
;There is likely a much more efficient way to do the following, but this was what I could figure out
timestamp=$(date)
;these rename the opensim dumped files to add timestamps to the names. I think this makes them easier to manage later.
for f in epsilon.*
do mv "$f" "epsilon_$timestamp.${f#epsilon.}"
done
for f in techrealms.*
do mv "$f" "techrealms_$timestamp.${f#techrealms.}"
done
for f in theta.*
do mv "$f" "theta_$timestamp.${f#theta.}"
done
for f in delta.*
do mv "$f" "delta_$timestamp.${f#delta.}"
done
for f in connections.*
do mv "$f" "connections_$timestamp.${f#connections.}"
done
; Guessing this could also probably inform something in-world that could record backups. I'm not sure how tho
screen -S opensim -p 0 -X eval 'stuff "alert Backup complete, thank you.^M"'
This second script is executed inside the screen that is running opensim.
;Script Name = osbackup.txt
;executed with "command-script /home/username/backupdir/scripts/osbackup.txt" inside opensim
;
change region root
; Persist objects to the database now
backup
;
change region techrealms
; export world map image
export-map /home/username/backupdir/techrealms.jpg
; save terrain
terrain save /home/username/backupdir/techrealms.r32
; save prims to XML
save xml2 /home/username/backupdir/techrealms.xml
; save the current region to an opensim archive
save oar /home/username/backupdir/techrealms.oar
;
; repeat as needed
;
change region delta
export-map /home/username/backupdir/delta.jpg
terrain save /home/username/backupdir/delta.r32
save xml2 /home/username/backupdir/delta.xml
save oar /home/username/backupdir/delta.oar
;
change region theta
export-map /home/username/backupdir/theta.jpg
terrain save /home/username/backupdir/theta.r32
save xml2 /home/username/backupdir/theta.xml
save oar /home/username/backupdir/theta.oar
;
change region epsilon
export-map /home/username/backupdir/epsilon.jpg
terrain save /home/username/backupdir/epsilon.r32
save xml2 /home/username/backupdir/epsilon.xml
save oar /home/username/backupdir/epsilon.oar
;
change region connections
export-map /home/username/backupdir/connections.jpg
terrain save /home/username/backupdir/connections.r32
save xml2 /home/username/backupdir/connections.xml
save oar /home/username/backupdir/connections.oar
Use them however you want. If someone wants to clean them up for me that would be appreciated.
Thanks & good luck.
So I ended up with a dozen Blue Jacket carbon arrows, and needed nocks for them.
Which turned out to be a bit of a problem. The arrows are 230s, which means they are .23″ in diameter. That’s not a size anyone makes parts for anymore since Blue Jackets have been out of production for many years now.
So after multiple failed attempts to check at archery stores I rustled up nocks that normally go on kites at Goodwinds. As it turns out they fit perfectly.
Goodwinds also deserves a nod for their reduction of their shipping costs since they’re only an hour away from me by car, and their good attitude with my over the phone while I ask about archery uses for kite parts.
On to fletching.
“Reality has a well-known liberal bias.” – Stephen Colbert, White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, 4/29/2006
So a few months ago it was all doom and gloom about how the increase in Seattle parking rates would drive away business and send people to the outlying areas with cheaper parking.
Yet just this Tuesday I was downtown in a car (odd for me) and there was zero parking available anywhere. Literally no space available, at all.
This would seem to indicate to me that all the gloomy predictions are not founded in reality.
All but the main chip.
If you’re curious it’s this: http://reprap.org/wiki/Sanguinololu
The control electronics for a 3D printer.
Thanks again to Fenchurch for his adorable arduino boards.
Tomorrow we see if I can program them.
Not too bad, both harder and easier than I expected in certain ways.
Only screwed up one component.
So in the last few days I have gotten several notices from meetup.com.
They are all for “women only” meetup groups. For those of you that are unaware I am both male, and a strong advocate against sexism towards men.
So I was curious, I searched for what groups where specifically “women only” and found quite a few near me.
Someone please tell me how this would be accepted if groups were listed as men only?
It wouldn’t, so how it is that it’s acceptable for groups to be listed for women only?
EDIT: Apparently meetup works on the “These are all independent private clubs, they can do whatever they want”, etc. Of course if someone started a “whites only” group I’m rather sure it would suddenly be removed even tho it was “private” since they would say it “offends people”.
So out of curiousity I asked when my cable provider would have this up and running.
“Q2 2011 at the earliest” they said.
IE. They are not rolling things out until absolutely required.
So the Republicans won the House of Representatives, but they don’t have the Senate or the Presidency, so they can accomplish nothing. However, they can hold up everything.
I think personally it’s one more example of why both parties are going the wrong direction.
Young people are more liberal, that’s a given, they want to work together not fight across the aisle.
I guess it’s going to be 20 years or so before we truly see that change in Washington politics.
So our “relatively new” Mayor in Seattle wants to raise downtown parking rates.
His budget proposes parking meter fees of $4 per hour. A sharp increase from the $2.50 per hour that is charged now. People are taking sides on the measure now with some downtown businesses saying it would be very bad for their bottom line.
My take on it as a North-Seattle resident with a car? It’s not enough. I say double the current rate to 5$ per hour.
I’ll happily explain why.
First and foremost I only own a car because I previously owned it before I moved to Seattle. Most things I need are within walking distance for me, and if I want to buy something big I could easily go rent a pay-by-the-hour car to pick it up. My car is old and I’ve been hesitant to replace it, because I really just don’t need a newer one. Moving out of Phoenix reduced my driving by over 95%. It’s much better to take the bus and let someone else do the driving. Having said all this if I want or need to drive downtown for something that requires a car I want to be able to find a parking space.
Downtown Seattle is notorious among residents for it’s lack of available street parking with a large number of the available curbside slots taken up by downtown workers that drive. They find the $20 parking fee for 8 hours curbside beats the average 25$ daily commercial garage fees and it’s hard to blame them.
This seems to indicate that a rise in parking fees would be beneficial rather than detrimental to downtown businesses allowing more customers parking spots for an hour or two since fewer workers are using them. I know I would pay more for this.
Also, one needs to look at what businesses there are downtown. The area is not filled with dolor stores, or big box stores, or huge furniture outlets, it’s primarily small retail establishments and high-end restaurants with a smattering of expensive furniture stores and art galleries where the customers are most likely happy to have things delivered and don’t care about the added expense.
The there is the amount of the increase, which would make us the second most expensive city to park in behind Chicago.
Again I say that’s a terrific idea. Seattle is tearing down the Alaskan Way Viaduct and building a multi-billion-dollar tunnel to route traffic past downtown in favor of pedestrian amenities on the surface. This was supported over cheaper projects that took a huge chunk out of the waterfrost area for an above-ground road.
In short we are simply not a “car-friendly” town and our parking rates should support the general attitude of the population to move towards public transit and pedestrian access and away from automobiles. There was no public outcry over previous parking increases, and I doubt there will be one now.
So I decided that if I was going to let my girlfriend drag me back into WoW I was going to play with at least 2 toons i a team. Hence I would need some control software for this functionality.
I stumbled around and didn’t really find much information regarding the different software packages out there and how they compare with each other. I ended up going for “Pwnboxer”, which I have ended up regretting.
It does have a rather simple setup, and does simpler operations like cloning keystrokes well and laying out window locations and setting CPU affinity. What I didn’t realize is several other software packages do that too, and do it much better.
My list of issues, gripes, etc. (Which has gotten more and more negative as I dug around looking for details on the software and it’s author)
#1 Only videos for setup and information. Not only is this impossible to use if someone is deaf, but it’s also quite hard to search for a specific piece of information. Pwnboxer has no written documentation at all, no database of bug reports, nada.
#2 No contact information on their website. This should have been a huge red flag for me. The only way to get in touch with the person that wrote the software is to post on another forum that is not owned by Pwnboxer and hope you get a reply.
#3 The affiliate system and it’s advertisement. When you start Pwnboxer you get a “Message of the day” that pops up. It tells you about the latest patch (7 months ago at this point) and asks you if you “Want to earn $$$ promoting Pwnboxer?”. Uh, no, I don’t, I already paid for the software so I would just like this blatant advertisement to go away. But you can’t shut this off, this is behavior I expect from shareware, not retail software.
#4 The issues. I could never use the “Mouse Broadcasting” to clone my mouse on all the other screens, it would cause the screens to break from their set locations and spread all the way across both of my monitors. This was not high on my list of priorities at the time, but I later found I needed that to work. Which is something their competitors software did straight out of the “box” without any issues.
#5 Screen placement. For some reason Pwnboxer does not like to accept how big I want my screens to be. I would repeatedly put in “720×450″ and it would change it to “719×448″ or something, leaving annoying gaps between the screens. The most maddening aspect was that this behavior was random, neither the times it did it nor the numbers were the same twice.
#6 No program control functionality when you are inside WoW. IE. I couldn’t set different things in Pwnboxer to be controllable inside WoW. Well, I suppose maybe I could but I couldn’t check for that on their documentation could I?
#7 Well, so I went digging around and found multiple Pwnboxer reviews that I had seen before, but oddly I had never noticed they were ALL positive, with nothing negative to say about the software at all. Interestingly enough they also have Clinkbank links from them to the affiliate program, so that when a user clicks through and buys the reviewer gets a cut of the purchase. Does that seem unbiased to you?
Disagree? Ok, count the number of comments on the reviews you find. Hrrm, Seems most don’t even allow comments, the others don’t have any comments. Doesn’t that seem just a tad odd to you?
#8 No trial option. If you want to see what the software is like you have to cough up money in advance.
#9 The author is apparently shunned by the multiboxing community. Something I did not know to begin with. If you look around you will find that Pwnboxer is not listed on dual-boxing.com. Nor is it listed alongside other multiboxing software like Keyclone or ISBoxer. Now I don’t know why exactly, but it raises another red flag in my mind.
I think the authors own words help sum up the basis of my complaints nicely:
“These days I can say that there are tens of thousands of people using Pwnboxer”
Which at 35$ per yearly subscription is $700,000.00 gross. And yet his support system?
“I’m trying to close resolved support threads to keep me on target with helping people out, so if you (or anybody else reading this) encounters a problem, please feel free to post what it is.”
Color me unimpressed with the support given for that level of profit. Perhaps that many users are just a few too many for one person to support directly? Perhaps he should put some of that money into making his product feel more like retail software that is worth paying for? I still have 10 months of my subscription, go ahead, impress me, I dare ya.
In a word, disappointing.
A panel of 4 hardcore female gamers mostly patted themselves on the back. Rather than have a male on the panel to provide an opposing view, or a female gamer that enjoys “girly” games they seemed to just be trying to empower the women in attendence.
Heavy on jokes, heavy on putdowns of older male-dominated gaming, light on the future of females in gaming.
Quoting Steve Jobs from his press conference this morning regarding the Iphone 4.
But how is this not a lie? Their solution is to put a “Bumper” on the phone so the antenna issue does not occur. That is literally a band-aid if ever there was one.
He also said:
“looking at the data, we don’t think we have a problem.”
Well, if you don’t have a problem, then one must ask why you are offering everyone with an Iphone 4 a free case to fix a problem that you say you do not have.
Quoted from here: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20010351-1.html
The seemingly unending saga of the iPhone 4 antenna issues has grown yet again. After a negative report from Consumer Reports, Apple has apparently deleted all threads about the findings from its popular Support Discussions forums. As Kent German reported earlier today, Consumer Reports has issued their official stance on iPhone 4 and they can’t recommend it.
Moderators for Apple’s Support Discussions forums quickly deleted growing threads discussing the Consumer Reports articles. Though these threads are no longer viewable, you can read through cached versions via Bing.
Despite the generally positive reputation that Consumer Reports enjoys, many Apple fans vehemently defend iPhone 4 throughout the thread. It will be interesting to see what sort of fallout this finding will produce in terms of sales for iPhone 4 moving forward. Despite the early reports of these very issues, iPhone 4 still out sold iPhone 3GS by nearly double over its first few days. Not to mention, Consumer Reports has already stated that the issues related to iPhone 4′s antenna are not unique to iPhone 4.
Reminds me of that Mythbusters quote, “I reject your reality and substitute my own!”
Glad only men are allowed to enjoy good cutlery.
Sexism is the new norm, right?
I mean the latest Acura commercials make an excellent demonstration that only men make illogical luxury purchases.
Don’t you love how this little gadget to open plastic packaging comes inside that evil plastic packaging itself.
“Sure, all this will fit back in the box sir. No need to put a bigger box on there!”
“If aliens were among us then it would be all over the papers and if it was being covered up by the Governments then they are doing a far better job of it than they have managed with anything else”
“The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.†– Confucius
So AT&T will change it’s pricing plans and do away with “unlimited data”.
“AT&T defends its decision to eliminate the unlimited data plan, saying statistics show that 65% of their customers use less than 200MB of data per month, while 98% of their customers use less than 2GB of data on average each month.”
Yes, I agree those numbers are likely correct. However, they are making this change in conjunction with the rollout of the new Iphone 4G. Now who really thinks that someone with 4G is going to use less than 200MB.
I am rather certain we’re going to see customers screaming bloody murder over this one in the near future. Nothing like increasing profits in the short term while you make customers unhappy.
So my girlfriend got Pokemon Soul Silver for her DS. And I must admit i’m oddly attracted to the idea of how to cheat the little pokewalker pedometer that comes with the game.
Also, it takes around 2 million steps to unlock the highest things in the game so it seems most people think it’s not that bad to cheat.
It seems to gain it’s steps based on an accelerometer, once it hits a certain level of “shock” intensity a step is recorded, so a gentle motion doesn’t seem to work as well as a sharper one (I guess it reads the shock of the step).
I scrounged out the vibration motor from an old PS/2 rumble controller and used a paperclip to make a wire “hanger” on the back so it could be removed.
After that I added some foam so it wouldn’t rub against the motor. Then after a few wire connections, and a string to hang it from I plugged it in and checked the number of steps it recorded over 1 minute, 72.
Not that bad, but not awesome either. Then I slid the walker so it was not hanging off the motor, but rather directly in-line with it and checked again, 144 steps per minute!
I think that should be good enough, heh.
No, I will not make you one, but if you want detailed instructions end me a note.
So what’s come to the top of the pot in the US recently?
We’re found that both BP and the Government were grossly wrong about the flow rate of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico (No shock there really, what company isn’t going to make it’s figures as low as possible when it’s impact on the environment is concerned).
We’re learned that Transocean who owns the rig has received 411 million dollars from it’s insurance company, but is trying to use a law written in 1851 to limit it’s liability to 21 million total.
To top it off the last flight of the shuttle Atlantis is scheduled for this afternoon, and the final flight for all the shuttles is a November launch of Discovery. The replacement launch vehicle “Orion” has a scheduled launch date of 2015, anyone that seriously thinks that is going to be on target is fooling themselves.
The US has ignored the job of the Federal Government to push the envelope for the good of the nation and instead now has handed off such trivial things to private corporations. Those corporations are now almost completely running the show, able to do almost anything and ignore the consequences of their actions.
In the end tho isn’t it the people that need to do something about this? Given the great divide in US politics I don’t see that happening for more than 20 years.
So all we can really do now is keep fooling ourselves into thinking that we matter while of course remembering to bow to our corporate masters who demand our money and ruin our environment. Yeah, I am no more thrilled about this idea than you are.
As I was saying, there is a smoothie place in Seattle named “Crazy Cherry” but upon trying to get a cherry-flavor smoothie was told they do not make cherry.
I’m sorry to say I hope this disaster is as bad as can be thought of.
I want to see hundreds of millions of gallons spread from Texas to Florida.
Why?
Because it’s going to take that kind of a massive disaster to get people to stop ignoring the ecological price of filling their gas tank.
This sure seems like a Banksy, I saw it by Harvard Exit in Seattle by chance.
But since there is a Banksy movie opening in the theater next door I’m skeptical.
So lately i’ve been playing around with electronics parts, and I stumbled upon a post that said there was a really good accelerometer in the Wii Nunchuk controller.
Not wanting to let a good thing pass me by I ordered a cheap one on Ebay for $5. Well, that was my first mistake.
The data was horrible, totally substandard, today I bought a true Nintendo brand nunchuk used for $15 and well, the data speaks for itself.
Lesson learned, I now wonder what other controller devices have such awful components in them that we never “see” outside the packages, nor get a look at the raw data.
A friend pointed this stuff out to me today. It’s aluminum t-slot building parts for small project and hobby use (Think large stable erector set parts)
http://www.microrax.com
I’m tempted to buy some but I don’t have a real need for it at the moment.
Now to start with I in no way condone the actions in Austin, Texas this morning. Violence does not solve problems. Killing innocent people is horrible. Period.
But when something like this happens in our modern era and online information turns up about it that information seems to vanish at a shocking pace.
Case in point, Joe Stack’s website at embeddedart.com. If you went there after about 10am PST this morning you got this message. You could still see the cache of the page on Google, but that was cleared about an hour later.
For future reference I post a cache of the original site here.
Strangely enough the hosting company T35.net returned the page as it was originally while I was writing this for unknown reasons. Then by the time I finished writing the site was offline again and pointing to http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2010/0218102stack1.html. That page says the original replacement message said the page was taken down at the request of the FBI. Perhaps in all fairness the company was not the one covering it’s butt, rather it was the Feds.
When I emailed the webmaster at T35 they responded with: “Yes, we did receive several requests from the FBI (to remove the page). They were made over the phone.”. I would give a lot to know what the FBI was thinking when it made those requests.
Likely, we’ll never know the whole truth.
Ever so often an image comes along that sums up a problem so very nicely.
This is one of those images.
Can’t wait for my new electronics parts to get here so I can really start doing crazy stuff.
Whee!
Now if only someone would pay me for doing crazy stuff, that would be awesome.
This is beginning to really annoy me.
More and more the USA is becoming a nation of “if you can’t accomplish something yourself, you’re a loser”.
Even here in Seattle people are still judgmental and arrogant with their individualist thinking.
Makes it a bitch to try and stop acting like that myself, heh
I’ve been waiting for a viable “slate” device for 10 years. Knowing this was going to be a big thing when it hit the public market. Today I got the first hint that the markets are ready for a slate, but it’s not the slate I was expecting. I still think I was right and this is a game changer, but is this going to be the “Next big thing” for Apple? I don’t think so, here is why.
First, the iPad is not the iPhone, even tho they want people to compare the two. The iPad will have an app market, but it’s not an “app” device, it’s a true computer, and people will want to use it as a true computer. They will want to read books and comics and websites on it along with working on their business functions, which is not something the iPad will really allow, you only get one application at a time and you don’t get a true OS you get the iPhone OS.
Secondly it has no camera, stylus or mouse capability. People want all-in-one devices, they want options, they want precision, slates are going to be used for EVERYTHING, finger-touch will not be good enough.
Along with those you cannot make any calls off the device even tho it has the audio capability. A slate needs to be able to make calls over Skype or other providers.
You also cannot use spare batteries to extend your work time, this is something basic to netbooks and most notebook computers.
Lastly it has no expansion capability, no USB ports, no SD or even MicroSD card slots, on a device this big that’s like not including a spare button on a $200 sweater, it’s a silly lack of basic functionality that people are going to want.
In short, it’s not being treated like a computer it’s being treated like a big phone that you cannot make calls off of. Seriously who is going to be open to that type of limited functionality? When the first slates come to market running full OSs they will dominate multiple fields that the iPad will not be useful in, such as medicine, research, college students, anywhere where a full-size computer is useful and needs to be carried around (Think the PADD devices you saw on star-trek) slates are going to be the pocket-calculators of the new techie revolution.
Now, the key is what companies to buy into to ride the wave. Unfortunately I don’t know yet, Asus and Acer will be big players, Dell is sure to make it’s own device, but it’s OS that will determine who succeeds, any of these devices can be made into functional PPCs (I’m thinking this is a good shorthand for “Pad Personal Computer”) by installing Linux, but people are still stuck on Windows, so I think the model with a functional copy of Win7 at a good price will be your first hit.
All hail the beginning of the next technical revolution, in ten years i’m betting PPCs will be replacing netbooks and small notebooks completely. (Well, at least i’m hoping)
Thanks to the Supreme Court corporate money can now flow into political campaigns with reckless abandon.
If money is now considered speech then those with more money have more right to speech.
So much for the average voter actually having a meaningful voice anymore.
It seems Google has raised quite a few of eyebrows with it’s public announcement of attacks from Chinese sources.
I think it’s way past time to hold tongues just because of profits.
Oh i’m very unhappy about this one.
Reports are that gmail accounts have been compromised by Chinese governmental organizations.
Precisely what is out there to stop them from trying to get into mine? Sure, I have nothing on it that China would care about, but that’s not really the point is it. It’s that my data is *MY* data, not China’s data.
I feel if Google wants to live up to their mission of not being evil they have little choice right now but to leave China for the good of all their other users around the globe.
Seems that being the largest private torrent tracker in the world has some downsides.
Especially when music is relatively small and fast to download. If you end up with new invitees just downloading what they want and trying to upload it to have a positive ratio you’re going to have alot of people waiting a very long time.
Their solution? Screen new members in an “interview” process. Make sure they’re capable of uploading something. But how many really ever get anything worth uploading that isn’t already there yet?
“I could upload my parents collection of Korean folk songs, but I doubt anyone would want it. However it’s the only thing I have that they don’t already have on the site.”
Also invites are only now being given out to users that upload, no uploads, no invites.
But thinking about percentages this isn’t really going to help them out. There is only so much music out there that “online downloaders” want in the first place. If you have 99% of it already then anyone you add is going to have a harder and harder time of maintaining a positive ratio. And you’re going to get more people uploading junk because that’s all they can find to upload.
The solution? I suggest converting to a private pay site, no other fix it going to deal with the ratio issues music entails.
Just in case anyone ends up searching for information about them.
My GF and I got 2 Droids from them on the 27th of November at 1:04pm.
Her Droid developed an issue and needed to be replaced. We took it back on December 27th at 5:01pm.
They promptly told us the 30-day warranty had expired 4 hours ago and we would have to get it replaced through the manufacturer, have a nice day.
Needless to say this is not what I consider good customer service. Be warned.
Just a little note for those folks searching out a sweet red wine.
I’m partial to “Sweet Lucy” from Kokopelli Winery. (http://www.kokopelliwinery.net)
So they are recalling 50 million window blinds due to the deaths of 5 children.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/ConsumerNews/50-million-blinds-recall-child-deaths/story?id=9336171
Literally because a 1-in-10 million chance of death is too high.
The odds of being struck by lightning each year? 1-in-750,000.
MIT team wins Darpa’s treasure hunt in less than one day
From Bobbie Johnson, San Francisco – guardian.co.uk
A $40,000 online challenge proposed by the US government has been won by a team of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – just hours after it was launched.
The Darpa Network Challenge, which took place on Saturday, offered a cash prize for the first group to successfully locate 10 large red weather balloons hidden at a string of secret locations across the US.
Competitors were asked to use the internet and social networking sites to discover the whereabouts of the balloons, in what Darpa – the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency – said was an experiment to discover how the internet could help with rapid problem solving.
More than 4,000 groups eventually registered to take part, but although the organisers had given players up to nine days to track the balloons down, the team from MIT scooped victory within nine hours of the launch.
“Darpa salutes the MIT team for successfully completing this complex task less than nine hours after the balloon launch,” said Regina Dugan, the director of the agency.
The winning team has not explained precisely how they came to discover the location of all 10 balloons, but the process detailed on the team website explains that they created a viral campaign to encourage people to put forward information they gleaned about the locations.
The team offered the first person to spot a balloon a $2,000 share of the prize money, but smaller awards would also be given to those who referred that player to MIT’s website – a scheme of incentives aimed at getting people to urge their friends to take part.
Whatever happened in the end, it appeared to work – and quickly.
“The challenge has captured the imagination of people around the world, is rich with scientific intrigue and, we hope, is part of a growing ‘renaissance of wonder’ throughout the nation,” said Dr Dugan.
In the end the eight-foot balloons were hidden in locations across nine states: Arizona, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.
I’m quite happy with this little gadget (Especially now that there is a browser that uses multitouch and zooms in much farther than the built-in browser)
The fact that it links with all my existing google data, and it gives me realtime bus routing in Seattle it’s perfect for my needs. Audio “phones” are beginning to become archaic, data devices are the future yet they are just barely becoming available.
The New York Yankees have won 27, or 25% of the 105 World Series to date and have 43% of the 61 AL wins.
Go ahead, tell me that it makes things fair and interesting when the richest team wins 1/4 of the time.
From Kitmous:
I came here from the “Stumbling toward Ecstasy” post at Shapely Prose. I was reading about your struggles with diminished smell/taste, and thought I would come offer a suggestion.
I was in a car accident more than a decade ago that resulted in cranial nerve injuries. I have diminished smell and taste, and ‘sweet’ (because it’s on the tongue and not reliant on smell for intensity) is also the one that for me is strongest and most reliable. What I’ve taken to doing is pursuing REALLY strong-flavored foods–sharp English cheddar cheese instead of mild American cheddar, dijon mustard instead of yellow mustard, “everything” bagels instead of plain bagels, filet mignon instead of cheaper/less tasty cuts of beef, that sort of thing. Foods (for me, anyway) that actually have flavor. I don’t need to eat as much of them because I can taste them, so my body/brain is satisfied with less.
I’m just some random human on the internet, but I thought I’d pop over and offer a suggestion.
I do tend more towards VERY sweet things (IE. I like a little tea with my sugar in the morning) and I adore extremely sharp cheddar.
Sometimes tho a taste will completely overpower everything (Shitake mushrooms are a good example of this, coffee is another).
If I want a mild flavor I have to eat ONLY that thing (Shrimp, crab legs, steak fit that catagory)
Some flavors are powerful, but fade quickly for me (Mustard, horseradish fall here)
I also like to make a huge pot of soup with lots of veggies and lean meat, I can eat lots of this and it’s both low in calories and very good for me. Compared to snacking on other foods.
I appreciate the info, I never knew that certain tastes were not at all nose-dependent.
To quote Mark Greenbaum of the Christian Science Monitor:
In a nation that is so diverse economically, culturally, and politically, a party that enforces a rigid litmus test for membership will not be able to remain viable.
If Republicans continue to move from the center in areas where adherence to conservative ideology is not palatable to a majority of voters, the GOP will not be able to regain Congress or the presidency anytime soon.
I think they’re dying, they just haven’t been buried yet. The sooner they realize this the sooner we can quit having “us or them” politics.
I’ve thrown my support behind the “New Atheist” movemtn.
“Intolerance of ignorance, myth and superstition; disregard for the tolerance of religion.
Indoctrination of logic, reason and the advancement of a naturalistic worldview.”
Right up my alley.
Republican National Chairman Michael Steele issued a grudging statement this morning in response to the president’s being awarded the Nobel peace prize.
“The real question Americans are asking is, ‘What has President Obama actually accomplished?’ It is unfortunate that the president’s star power has outshined tireless advocates who have made real achievements working towards peace and human rights,” Steele said.
“One thing is certain – President Obama won’t be receiving any awards from Americans for job creation, fiscal responsibility, or backing up rhetoric with concrete action,†added the former Maryland lieutenant governor.
His attitude is a very good example of the sad state of US politics. I think it’s time to come together and be US Citizens instead of making everything a partisan fight.
Whatever happened to being proud to be in the USA?
Heaven is Where:
The Police are British,
The Chefs are Italian,
The Mechanics are German,
The Lovers are French and
It’s all organized by the Swiss.
Hell is Where:
The Police are German,
The Chefs are British,
The Mechanics are French,
The Lovers are Swiss and
It’s all organized by the Italians.
This place is nice, they give you power plugs next to network jacks with crazy speeds. For free!
This is totally hilarious.
So the other week we went to Game Crazy which resides in Hollywood Video to get a used DS Lite.
They were nice enough to give us a sheet of 12 free rental tickets, one per month. As the gentleman said “These are so you have something to play on your new system”
“Oh, you rent DS games?”
“No”
??? right….
I’m having a cruddy week of fighting the “Seattle Freeze” effect. (It’s a Seattle thing, people want you to “Have a nice day, someplace else”).
It’s odd how it seems alot of other people also have this problem, but we can’t network worth a crap.
So most of the globe is shocked and saddened that Michael Jackson is dead.
Personally I feel that it’s hardly a big loss, he had not contributed much to society in quite some time.
Everyone dies, it’s just a matter of when and how.
I noticed this on Zdnet, it’s well worth reading.
Why Raid 5 stops working in 2009
By Robin Harris, July 18th, 2007The storage version of Y2k? No, it’s a function of capacity growth and RAID 5’s limitations. If you are thinking about SATA RAID for home or business use, or using RAID today, you need to know why.
RAID 5 protects against a single disk failure. You can recover all your data if a single disk breaks. The problem: once a disk breaks, there is another increasingly common failure lurking. And in 2009 it is highly certain it will find you.
Disks fail
While disks are incredibly reliable devices, they do fail. Our best data – from CMU and Google – finds that over 3% of drives fail each year in the first three years of drive life, and then failure rates start rising fast.With 7 brand new disks, you have ~20% chance of seeing a disk failure each year. Factor in the rising failure rate with age and over 4 years you are almost certain to see a disk failure during the life of those disks.
But you’re protected by RAID 5, right? Not in 2009.
Reads fail
SATA drives are commonly specified with an unrecoverable read error rate (URE) of 10^14. Which means that once every 100,000,000,000,000 bits, the disk will very politely tell you that, so sorry, but I really, truly can’t read that sector back to you.One hundred trillion bits is about 12 terabytes. Sound like a lot? Not in 2009.
Disk capacities double
Disk drive capacities double every 18-24 months. We have 1 TB drives now, and in 2009 we’ll have 2 TB drives.With a 7 drive RAID 5 disk failure, you’ll have 6 remaining 2 TB drives. As the RAID controller is busily reading through those 6 disks to reconstruct the data from the failed drive, it is almost certain it will see an URE.
So the read fails. And when that happens, you are one unhappy camper. The message “we can’t read this RAID volume†travels up the chain of command until an error message is presented on the screen. 12 TB of your carefully protected – you thought! – data is gone. Oh, you didn’t back it up to tape? Bummer!
So now what?
The obvious answer, and the one that storage marketers have begun trumpeting, is RAID 6, which protects your data against 2 failures. Which is all well and good, until you consider this: as drives increase in size, any drive failure will always be accompanied by a read error. So RAID 6 will give you no more protection than RAID 5 does now, but you’ll pay more anyway for extra disk capacity and slower write performance.Gee, paying more for less! I can hardly wait!
The Storage Bits take
Users of enterprise storage arrays have less to worry about: your tiny costly disks have less capacity and thus a smaller chance of encountering an URE. And your spec’d URE rate of 10^15 also helps.There are some other fixes out there as well, some fairly obvious and some, I’m certain, waiting for someone much brighter than me to invent. But even today a 7 drive RAID 5 with 1 TB disks has a 50% chance of a rebuild failure. RAID 5 is reaching the end of its useful life.
“An American-born journalist imprisoned in Iran for espionage is expected to be freed today after an Iranian appeals court cut her eight-year prison term to a suspended two-year sentence, her father said this morning.
Roxana Saberi, 32, “will be freed today, hopefully,” Reza Saberi, waiting outside the jail in Tehran, told CNN. “The papers are ready … it is just a matter of time, a couple of hours.”
The Iranian court of a appeals “reduced her jail sentence from eight years to two years of suspended sentence … and she will soon be free,” said her lawyer, Abdolsamad Khorramshahi.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2009/05/11/2009-05-11_iran_to_free_jailed_american_journalist_roxana_saberi_after_appeal.html#
”
About time.
So I stopped by their little shop the other day, and they have a nice selection.
The people however seem to be a little full of themselves. For instance if you are going to argue about technology with your customer it helps to know what you’re talking about. Telling me a USB port could not be put on a detector because it wouldn’t be waterproof when the detector itself is not, and waterproof USB ports do in fact exist does not show much wisdom.
Also one could say it’s not wise to try and argue religion when your customer, especially when they obviously do not see the issue the same way you do.
These are both good reasons why I myself am not in business.
Would this stop me from shopping there? Not likely, but it does make me not want to go ask them for help.
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|o=o=o=o=o=o==o=o=o=o=o=o|
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