Saturday, April 30, 2005
Someone with a lot of spare time on their hands did a remix of dubya's speeches and added a beat. So now, for your listening pleasure, the prez sings "Imagine" and "A Walk on the Wild Side". A lot more of these can be found on DIYmedia.net, a advocate site for low-power FM radio.
The Elyria Public Library occasionally has little stacks of homemade free bookmarks laying around the checkout counter. They usually have something like a seasonal greeting, library hours, stuff like that printed on them. I noticed a new batch there yesterday with content that smacked me upside the head. It was this Lorain Morning Journal editorial: Ohio lawmakers push public libraries toward charging to borrow items. YeGods, what next.
Posted 7:31 AM by whatley (0) comments
Comments:
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
This is a bone for Andy since I tortured him with the the water-powered car garbage a while back. I came across this while looking for stuff on old Gnome Rotary engines. They claim 85% efficiency at low revs with higher torque. What do think?
OK, I sent this a week ago and I know you guys are all depressed about the Nucular Winter you seem to be suffering, but I would think that would be a good reason to bundle up and type some drivel into a computer. What's up?
Posted 8:19 PM by A. O. (13) comments
Comments:
- I must admit that I too get kind of disappointed when nothing new shows up here for a time. In the first year or two it really bugged me.
Next month the ol' RBT will have been around for four years, something I didn't expect when I started it. As best I remember I didn't really expect much of anything though. It was done more or less on a whim. I created a quick prototype then said "nah, nobody'll be interested", and deleted the whole thing. But the idea stuck with me and, partly because I had access to a server and no cost was involved, I recreated it and asked a few people to take a look and tell me if they thought the idea worth pursuing. The response was positive enough that I informed a wider audience and, because of their interest, registered a domain and away we went. It was a new toy, everybody posted occasionally, word spread further, and it was on a roll.
Well...., after a while I noticed that there were periods of time when I was the only one posting. I'd ask, "Hey, where the hell is everybody?” Silence. I'd say, "Y'know, you can post random thoughts, a slice of your day, anything! C'mon!" Nada. I got tired of seeing whole strings of posts with my byline. This was never intended to be a personal blog and I had no interest in writing one. I'd stop posting. Things would go silent. I figured that was the end of that. Then, eventually, a new post would appear.
Maybe in reality what had happened was that the initial flurry of people joining and posting had encouraged my expectations to become too high. I was ever so pleased with myself being able to create and contribute something that was so obviously used and enjoyed that when use fell off, as I said, it really bugged me.
My expectations gradually changed. Over time I saw (just) enough use to keep my interest and keep me motivated enough to spend effort improving the format and dealing with the odd glitch (damned comments!). Occasionally something especially poignant (Skip’s death) or especially cool (Andy and John sponsoring a full year – you could have knocked me over with a feather) happened.
I wish there was more activity here but hey, people do what they do. I still want to make it nice. Like putting the bullets in front of each comment, something I really thought helpful. That may seem a small thing but, for reasons I won’t bore you with, it took forever. On the other hand there’s not enough activity to justify major additions (I was thinking of an “RBT Reader” link where we could suggest and comment on books we’re reading. Maybe in a BBS type format.). A major addition takes too much effort only to find nobody uses it.
Damn, I do go on don’t I? Seeing someone else mention an absence (temporary I hope) of posts/comments just started me thinking I guess.
- By God, you do go on, Russell!
I guess my frustration derives from wanting a more sustained discussion as opposed to simply commenting (wittily, of course)and moving along, but then again we are the prototype for the TV, short attention span, instant gratification, disposable society.
- Multiple power pulses per engine crankshaft revolution equates to higher torque, lower vibration. Parasitic losses remain - valve (pushrod or overhead cam), accessories (alternator, water pump, a/c compressor, belt friction). Interesting mechanical variation with a real advantage on reduction of piston side loads against cylinder walls. The hammering taken by conventional crankshaft engines precludes more exotic materials (like ceramic). When we can go to all ceramic, we can dispose of cooling systems and lubrication, and increase efficiency even more.
- I'll assume that "dispose of cooling systems" means that ceramic will dissipate heat well enough by itself, but dispose of lubrication too? What's up with that?
- Andy I came across that looking for stuff on old Gnomes because I thought the idea could be used to build a front -wheel drive motor cycle only to find that it was tried in 1922(http://www.7393.org/images/history_04_megola1922.jpg). The problem seemed to be the total loss lube system that threw out more oil than a '57 Panhead primary chain. If the Revtec system would allow for materials that don't require lubrication then the system becomes feasible again plus you get the added benefit of high lowend torque.
PS- Russell how do you insert a link into Comments?
- Tony - To make a link you need to use an html tag. Here is a brief how-to showing the tag and syntax.
- Link test 1922 Megola Front Whell Drive Motorcycle
- Posting seems to be a bit slow. It's been three hours and the last comments still haven't shown up on the site. There was real delay with the initial message also. Is this a page problem or a Blogger problem?
- I'm not sure I understand what you're referring to. From what I can see you created a successful link at 3:17pm, posted that you saw that it worked at 3:18pm, then that posts didn't show up at 6:34pm. What didn't show up or was delayed?
Could it be that your browser is reading from cache instead of re-downloading the source? Force a re-download through Ctrl-F5 and see if that helps.
- That could be it. I had checked the link from the comments page because the mesages were not showing up on the RBT. That prompted my last post. I'll keep an eye on it.
Post a Comment- The setting to force a browser to always reload a page depends on which browser you're using. It'll be under "options" or "internet options" somewhere. Look around, you'll find it. I always make my cache size very small as well.
FYI: When you "publish" a post in Blogger you're taken to a status page. When that page reports the post published you can be sure it's there. Adding a comment doesn't provide that verification. As best I can tell (it's new to me too) it goes into a "first come first served" queue then, depending if it's the first comment or not, a sequence of events take place that are different from those initiated when posting to the main page. Without going into anymore detail lets just say that comments can sometimes take a bit longer to appear than regular posts do.
Now they tell me. Study: Gov't Overstated Danger of Obesity: "Packing on the pounds is not nearly as deadly as the government thought, according to a new calculation from the CDC that found people who are modestly overweight actually have a lower risk of death than those of normal weight." What is it with these people? Remember when we were told that eggs were little cholesterol bombs that were gonna kill us? Oops, nevermind, guess they're ok after all. How 'bout the (just replaced) food pyramid that seemed to have mysterious shape shifting properties depending on which PAC was currently shoveling money at elected officials? Jeez.
In other news this symbol, the Individual-i, has gotten mention on a couple of fairly influential blogs recently. Probably never catch on but bless their little hearts for the thought.
Posted 6:27 AM by whatley (3) comments
Comments:
- I'm all for Individual rights and have been excercising that inclination tenaciously for years. The result is that I spend alot of time alone. Society is NEVER going to allow the notion of Individual Rights to endanger its collective existance. The individual will be supported and protected only to the degree that he can convince Society as awhole that he supports and will protect it. The Individual Rights/privacy promoters have to find a vehicle of cohesion among all those particular and diverse individuals which require enunciating some form of Social Responsibility or they will always lose to the Individuals controlling coherent social groupings like countries, religions, corporations and high school marching bands.
- "Society is NEVER going to allow the notion of Individual Rights to endanger its collective existance."
Silly me. I thought that's what the American Revolution was all about.
Post a Comment- And so it was, but without the balancing requirement of the individual's commitment to society, "... Our lives, our fortunes , and our sacred honor." kind of commitment society won't give a shit about the individual when push comes to shove. Its pretty obvious from the current fearful huddling together that produced a second BushII administration that collective fear will trump individual rights.
Monday, April 18, 2005
Well, it's begun. I just got done mowing my yard for the first time of the year. Notice I said "yard", and not "lawn" or "grass", as either of the later would imply that something besides dandelions and their broadleaf buddies grow on my property. I know I should be happy as the first mow sort of signals the arrival of summer (I have to admit the sun did feel pretty good out there) and, to my complete amazement, the mower started right up, so this time was ok. Problem is I know I'm gonna have to do it again and again.
When I was a kid we had a huge yard that took forever to mow and I eventually developed a deep and abiding hatred of everything lawncare related, an attitude I've kept into adulthood. And don't you try saying "isn't mowing grass better than having to shovel snow?"either. If God meant for us to shovel snow he wouldn't have invented 4-wheel drive ("But if you don't shovel what about the poor mailman?" Hey, he doesn't use the sidewalk, he cuts through the yard, and anyway, fuck 'im.). To make it even worse I'm surrounded by neighbors with immaculate lawns. It's almost odd to drive down this street in summer and not see a Chemlawn or TrueGreen truck parked with the driver spraying away. What's wrong with these people? I tell ya, If I ever see a great price on Astroturf it's a done deal.
Posted 3:06 PM by whatley (2) comments
Comments:
- Yep. I have raked the yard. Played pickup sticks. Shoved the broken pavement crumbles off the lawn and back into the street (damn those snow plows). Spread the granulated stuff on the yard. Every year I do the same, and water when it gets dry. And every year the bare spots get bigger. Astroturf, hell. I'm going with green concrete.
Post a Comment- Behold the second sign of summer on Longford Ave: Ant Invasion. Happened yesterday. Do they wait for me to mow?
Friday, April 15, 2005
Ok mookies, I think we're getting somewhere commentwise. As usual you'll see a comment link after the post byline which will include the number of comments for that particular (or in Andy's case peculiar) post. Clicking it will now display the related comments directly under the post, slightly indented for clarity. Clicking the link a second time will make them disappear. Hey, it's a toggle! I kind of like this method (vs. separate pages). Play with it and let me know what you think.
Posted 12:38 PM by whatley (4) comments
Comments:
- This morning I added a bullet in front of each comment to help visually separate/organize them. Makes for easier reading I think. Also, you may not have noticed, but the width allowed to individual posts has widened a bit and I moved the date headers a couple of spaces to the right.
Another thing I've picked up on over time is that the background color differs depending on the monitor/graphics card used. On my laptop (which I used when selecting the color scheme) it's a very light tan with (if you look real close) an ever so slight greenish element. On other monitors it's darker and bronzer and I personally don't like it that much. What do you think?
- Andy-Its a lie. I wanted him say something much harsher.(That's not very good word, rhythmically speaking is it, "harsher", no I don't like it much)
The background color on my monitor is a medium dirty green. Kind of tan, but not quite Ovacado. Sort of a lighter version of "Janitor's Uniform".
Post a Comment- Ladle grows along weigh, Tuney. Bitter yew consarn trait honor rote tudor in lantern mint an leaf udder pimples attar toads fur sum otter thyme.
Thursday, April 14, 2005
Comments - a continuing saga.
The story thus far: I've been trying to re-establish a comment system that remained based on a type of coding called "php", which is how our previous system worked. The goal was to have something not hackable by spammers and, by continuing with a php solution, keep all of our old comments accessible. Result: ain't gonna happen. A certain few php function calls, ones necessary to make a Blogger oriented comment system work, are so rife to outside exploitation that hosting companies (and really anyone running php on UNIX webservers) are disabling those calls entirely. Anyone who has tried to post a comment recently has seen three errors in the comment window. That's why.
What I've done: tRBT is now using the default comment system offered by Blogger (something we may have done right from the first anyway but it didn't exist then). It seems to work well, offers some additional features that our old one didn't and, as far as I presently know, isn't so hackable. The downside is that only members of tRBT can comment now, so if you're one of those who read/comment without being a member (and I can think of a few) you're toughouttaluck unless you join. We've also lost access to old comments. Sorry. If anybody has a better solution I'm all ears.
I know the comment pages are kind of ugly now. They inherit the same template as the main page which doesn't really work aesthetically. I'll fix that up as I get time.
Posted 8:16 AM by whatley (6) comments
Comments:
- Oh shit oh dear Andy. You happened to leave a comment while I was in the midst of customizing the thing (notice they now toggle on/off under the original post instead of bringing up a separate page). I guess it works. Cool?
- I like that feature. It is cool. (for many indescribable, probably purely aesthetic reasons) Any other zippy stuff associated with the new comments?
PS-I forgot the file name for the page where the pictures are stored. I wanted to add one for my profile.
- Tony - The Blogger comment system offers several options we didn't have before. Notice the little trash can icon under each of your comment(s) in the "Post a Comment" window (bottom left)? It means you can delete your comment if you want, something you couldn't do before. There are other comment related options in the Blogger post environment. Feel free to play around.
Storing pictures for your Blogger profile (I think that's what you're referring to) is done through the Blogger interface.
Post a Comment- Tony - Oops. I see now why you asked about storing pictures. I didn't realize Blogger doesn't store them itself. Makes sense when you think about it though. I'll email you the info.
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Just thought we shouldn't be the only ones to read this ...
Shân & Russ, NYC
Is This A New Dark Age? Little proof to the contrary that we are indeed in a very long, bleak tunnel. Is there any light?
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, March 25, 2005
Then come those times when you read about a 16-year-old girl slashing the throat of a 75-year-old woman for no apparent reason, a woman who was merely walking with her husband near a Berkeley public garden and it's right next to the one about the 16-year-old kid smiling and waving and donning a bulletproof vest before shooting nine people and himself to death in a remote, poverty-stricken region of Minnesota and you can feel the numbness like a wave.
And alongside that is the morbid and insipid case of poor Terri Schiavo and the equally insipid Bush evangelicals who trumpet the backward morality of maintaining her vegetative brain-dead state and the sad, tormented parents who can't face reality and the insidious GOP that has zero shame in using her decrepit body as a political football and that kowtows to its pseudo-religious contingency by making humiliating and rather illegal congressional maneuvers to try and keep a feeding tube in place and you just go, oh my God just stop already.
And it all seems to line up with one of those weird phases when everyone in your own life seems to be getting hit by something tragic or sad or somehow ridiculously painful -- a sister with a neck trauma, a best friend going through major depression, a parent struck by illness, certainly almost everyone on the progressive Left feeling sucker-punched and morally eviscerated -- friends and family and loved ones all seeming to suffer in ways you don't want to imagine and it's all against a backdrop of more war dead and more violence and the most bleak and Bush-ravaged era in recent American history and you say to yourself, what the hell is going on?
Because something in you knows. Something in you senses there is more at play right now in the world than mere depressing coincidence, that all the war and disease and brutality has more surrounding it than mere chance or fluke. Do you think? Do you feel it?
Proof? All you have to do is spend five minutes with any true healer or energy worker or divinely connected spiritual teacher in the world right now and they all say the same thing: This is not a good time. This is not the lightest, not the brightest, not the best period to be a human being. In fact, it's one of the darkest. Fiercest. Meanest.
It is, in other words, a low period in human, and especially American, history. And it's only getting lower.
We are in dark times. Five years of economic bloodshed and three of brutal warmongering and the worst environmental president in American history and you simply cannot deny that as the ruthless American agenda goes, so goes the populace, so goes the collective attitude, the shared vibration, the health of the planet and the feeling that this particular karmic sinkhole has no known bottom.
In other words, it is all connected. It is all of a piece. There is a direct correlation between the violent and heartless tone and attitude of our country and the mental and spiritual health of its people and by way of comparison just look at the Clinton era, which brought eight years of unprecedented prosperity and peace and a nearly balanced budget and high economic flush.
It's true. There was, we forget, a decided lack of sexual anxiety and uptight moral rigidity in the nation, minimal pseudo-religious puling from the uptight Right and much moderate lawmaking and I don't care a whit for what you say about the man's personal moral compass -- under Clinton, America had deeply supportive allies, intelligent foreign policy, more genuine concern for the planet and the health of our forests and oceans and air, and we had a president who was incredibly articulate and deeply intelligent and greatly beloved the world over and the nation enjoyed one of its most prosperous and nondivisive and peaceful periods in its history.
And now, the exact opposite. Everywhere you look, the culture is fractured and divisive and mean. Everywhere you look it's war and pollution and more toxins, red versus blue, good versus evil, more garbage and less concern where to shove it, fewer restrictions on industrial polluters and fewer controls on corporate abuse and an administration that has so shamelessly leveraged the worst tragedy in American history to further its brutal and hawkish right-wing agenda it would embarrass Mussolini.
The sad fact is, there are a great many among us who believe we have entered into a new Dark Age, that it will be a long and brutal slog indeed and BushCo is merely the precursor, the devil's handmaiden, and that we have a long way to go into the bleak and the bloody and the environmentally devastating before the pendulum begins its slow swing back toward the light.
Just look around. No one anywhere, not priests, not nuns, not healers or mystics, not Christians, not pagans, not Repubs or Demos or Libertarians, no one anywhere in this country is saying, hey, doesn't it feel like we're entering into a new era of health and healing and positivism and spiritual rebirth? Aren't our schools just teeming anew with eager students who seem to be getting smarter and more articulate? Isn't the air getting cleaner and aren't we proud of our government for protecting the health of future generations by pushing for more natural foods and signing on to the Kyoto Treaty and advocating antitoxin regulations and by protecting our forests and improving school textbooks and revolutionizing the hideous national health care system?
Doesn't that tone of enthusiasm and hope sound just completely silly, wrong, out of place, like so much Prozac-grade bulls--? Damn right it does.
There's a reason for that. We are not headed for light. Not yet, anyway. The coming years are not going to be about friendship and repaired foreign relations and a sense of our shared humanity, about equality and sexual freedom and a renewed sense of human rights. To believe this is to believe in fairy tales almost as insidious and hopeless as evangelical Christians who are right now stuffing themselves with Cheez-Its and pink wine and praying for Armageddon.
So, you do what you have to do. You focus inward and work on the self and radiate as much love and open-hearted support as possible, grit your karmic teeth and hope you survive this dark house of mirrors without cancers or tumors or bloodshed or getting stabbed in the garden by a vicious teenage girl as you ignore the fact that in all of North America, from Mexico to Canada's Prince Edward Island, there exists only one state, province or territory that does not yet have a McDonald's. (Nunavut, in northern Canada, inhabited by the Inuits at a density of one person per 3,300 square miles). Small solace, indeed.
So you pray your ass off to a forgiving and ambisexual and dogma-free pantheistic feminine god and you digest the increasingly nasty headlines as best you can, ever seeking that pinpoint, that tiny speck of light way, way down, at the end of this rank and desperate tunnel. Do you see it? Is it even there? It's one of those things you just have to believe.
Posted 10:47 PM by Russ (2) comments
Comments:
- Russ - how great to see a post from you! Sorry that when you re-visited the ol' blog was in such disarray comment-wise. Life in the, uh, big city, so to speak.
Welcome back.
Post a Comment- The Romans knew that the Universe was dissolving when the barbarians crashed the gates. Imagine living during the North American Civil War. The hate and fury that Lincoln faced for his single-minded policy of unity at any cost. GW will pass, and we will struggle to overcome the loss of our world economic leadership. It is not enough to just be a citizen of the USA in the moral knowledge that the rest of the world wants to be like us. The rest of the world wants what we HAVE, not what we are. So two other groups are now ascendant - 1) the United States of Europe, and next, 2) China. We will be one of the has-beens, the also-rans, like most of the other countries around the world. Welcome to reality therapy.
Monday, April 11, 2005
Motion Induced Blindness is an optical delusion that lets you tell just how much your eyeballs really move when you are trying to hold them steady and unblinking. That and other permutations at
Optical Illusions and Visual Phenomena by Michael Bach.
Posted 12:43 PM by Andy (1) comments
Comments:
The comments utility evolution is entertaining. Currently, it tells me that I was "successful" in posting a comment, but has three paragraphs of warnings preceding it, and shows not comments when I go back in to look.
Anyway, my pending comment is re: the Unscientific Americanism. They are following in the iamb-prints of the Journal of Irreproducible Results for whom every day is the first of April.
Posted 12:13 PM by Andy (0) comments
Comments:
Saturday, April 09, 2005
Thursday, April 07, 2005
The Editors at Scientific American admit their guilt: Okay, We Give Up -- We feel so ashamed
Posted 4:12 PM by whatley (0) comments
Comments:
As you may have noticed I'm trying to configure a new comment system. Bear with me. It's gonna take awhile.
Posted 8:55 AM by whatley (0) comments
Comments:
Monday, April 04, 2005
Sorry to take so long in dealing with the "comments" problem but it's turned into a more complex issue that I expected. For one thing it seems that the problem isn't limited to our particular environment. If you're interested in the techy side of what's happening take a look at the link below. I'm not sure right now how to resolve the situation.
SecurityFocus BUGTRAQ Mailing List: BugTraq
Posted 11:14 AM by whatley (2) comments
Comments:
Sunday, April 03, 2005
I don't know about you, but I know I thought seriously about preparing my living will and getting a medical power of attorney in place recently. Lo and behold, a web search led me to the following site, which will give you information and forms for these (and other things) that are acceptable in the state of Ohio. Remember, if you use a document you must print all the pages (clearly listed on each page- page one of twelve, two of twelve, etc.) Also, (something I found out) if you have the pages stapled together, then remove the staples (to make copies, for instance) it invalidates the document. Make copies BEFORE you staple. Hope some of you find this useful.
Sally
http://www.ohpco.org/living_will.htm
Posted 8:37 PM by Sally (0) comments
Comments:
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