Including my mechanic, who knows this machine has been tip-top maintained. The best synthetic oil, complete checks every 500 miles, and good new rubber all round. But every working part has at some point been replaced, including the motor. Too bad about my mechanic, if I didn’t say, the guy has a brain tumor and is getting double vision but won’t admit it.
Who recalls years ago the mystery of the bicycle tire going flat? I found the answer. I’ll explain the process, but I can’t explain the number of peckerheads I met who said it could not happen. They said put the tube underwater, like they were the genius who thought of that. Well, it did happen, so you guys listen up.
The tube did not leak when you tested it because there was never any weight on the bike at that time. It turns out one valve cap had a slight sliver of plastic left over from the extrusion process. When twirled down thumb-tight onto the valve stem, things were fine. Until the weight of the rider increased the pressure just enough for the plastic to wedge the spring nozzle ever so slightly to one side. It only leaked when the bike was moving.
To add to the confusion, in those early days before I learned to double-bag my tubes, this defective valve cap was interchanged randomly with the front tire, where it did not leak. So there, I did not say that the tire didn’t leak, I said it had a leak I could not detect. Well, neither could any of you big idea men. So there.
Time for a little talk on security issues. Beware of Flashplayer Pro. For openers, you never click any automatic install. You do a custom install and read every screen that pops open. Flashplayer attempts to hijack your system unless you find and hit the Decline button until you get to the install that you want. Because they are axxholes, that’s why.
Google has succeeded in duping the masses. They have people cheering them as protectors of private data. But not questioning why Google is keeping their private data in the first place. God, the American public are a stupid lot. Is Google spying on you? Yes, if you even have the browser installed. The newest updater app is impossible to delete, even in safe mode. I’m working on it. Check your system, if you find a mysterious “Removable Disk (x):”, you’ve got it.
Also, do you use a browser other than IE? Do you think you have deleted your browsing history? Nope. Even with IE inactive in the background, it is recording your travels. Yet, you cannot delete it because some ancient sites, like the US government, won’t work except with IE. Remember to also delete the IE history in addition to your own browser’s cache.
This is a view of the ventilation port in the making. That’s aluminum screen to cut down on mosquitoes. The green pot-scrubbler material shown is not the one to be used, it is there to check the depth. The 2” hole has to be drilled very carefully. The diameter of the plastic makes for a super snug fit and it is not like the plastic can be hammered into place. Even when behind schedule, I still pay this kind of attention to detail. Old habits die hard.
Yes, the same metal as the iridium layer. What’s that? If you dig down in undisturbed ground to 50 million years ago, you find a layer of clay ¾” thick all over the Earth. There is no variation in thickness so this layer covered the entire surface while still liquid. This clay is rich in iridium, found mostly in meteorites. No dinosaur fossils are found above this layer. That’s the source of the theory that a meteor hit the Yucatan and killed everything that weighed more than 50 pounds. Mass extinction.
There’s more. None of this will be on the exam, but as usual, it would take a lot of reading to sift out these facts and put them in one place. I’ve done that for you. Why do they think it was a meteorite? Because iridium on recent falls show a consistent concentration of 455 ppm, or about 150 times the normal on Earth. Well, if there’s that much in space, how come there is so little on Earth? Ah, because iridium, like most of the iron, sank into the Earth’s interior billions of years ago.
It is day two of the government shut down. I don’t know about you, but nothing changed around here. It may sound cruel, but I hope the stoppage continues long enough to really bite deep this time. Does the local Department of Justice really need 230 lawyers? [This country gets along fine without too much justice.] Does the base at Homestead really require 400 civilian contractors? Why is the government running ferry boats? Why is the National Guard chaperoning flood control?
The bottom line is the country could not continue the way it was going. Maybe it is time these civil servants felt the same stress and worry as the private sector. Send them all home and tell them if they want a job, it is minimum wage until they raise it. I know the media presents the issue as Obamacare, but that was merely the culminating incident. The waste had to stop. A postal worker is not worth $125,000 per year. Welfare has been blatantly paying unwed mothers to breed for years. The whole system was bloated past the limit.
I find it just amazing to hear these people talk on TV about how they can’t buy groceries and gasoline. Ha, you’re a little late and tired with that one, Chumley. The working poor don’t want to hear it. It’s the ant and the grasshopper tale all over. These people knew the system wasn’t working, but they aren’t concerned about fixing it. They just want to go back to collecting their fat paychecks and to hell with where the money came from. There are few things worse than a dodo who thinks he should be paid whether or not his job is productive.
The government runs out of what little money they have in two weeks. I say bring home the soldiers, cut off all foreign aid, shut down the embassies, and get those damn mandatory drug tests underway. No, government hirees do not have the same rights because they don’t take the same chances. No, welfare people are wards of the public and should obey the law at all times. And it’s time for a red money day.
[Author’s note: Strange. I cannot find a single mention of “red money day” on the Internet. Am I using the wrong term? I don’t think so, as I’ve used it for thirty years anyway. It works like this. The government announces a deadline of two weeks. People are required to bring in all their green money and exchange it for red money. After that day, green money becomes worthless. And anyone who shows up with more than $10,000 has to explain precisely how they got it.
The money does not actually have to be red. It is the concept we're looking at.]
Speaking of red, have you seen those lame-brains who say red light cameras cause more accidents? Statistically, they do, as driver’s slam on their brakes to avoid a ticket and get rear-ended. Ah, but those type of collisions rarely result in deaths. Let’s not count the number of accidents, but the number of deaths. Yet somehow, I don’t think they are going to shut up and go away.
PS: Don't bother with Wired magazine. It has devolved into the photo mag format. Five pages of article, a hundred pages of advertisements. It seems to be the rag of choice for selling ridiculously expensive wrist watches. But on page 127, there is a 3D scanner that might just make a 3D printer worthwhile.
ADDENDUM
One year ago I began sending a variety of publishers and editors (but no authors) an e-mail outlining the strange coincidence between this blog and articles or topics appearing in their magazines. Listen what I say because I did not say plagiarism. Only that their choice of topics was following a pattern--mine. I am the past master pattern-matcher. I had no proof whatsoever that anything was wrong other than the choice of topics that followed this blog at regular intervals. But the problem ceased immediately. There have been no recurrences for twelve full months.
You are free to quote this blog as long as you include the source. Plainly, you should also not lift my ideas and reword them. We’re onto that.
