One year ago today: July 17, 2013, filler,
--and I talk about picking up women, my style.
Five years ago today: July 17, 2009, jammin' at the beach.
Ten years ago today: July 17, 2004, navigating Mars.
The Kodak is working, but still a lunk of a camera. Up to 40 seconds load time before you can take the first picture. Special charger required. No 640×480 setting. In other words, just about everything you don’t want in a camera. But it’s working and I don’t have time to familiarize myself with another different camera before I take some kind of trip in the camper pod. I’m behind schedule because of other people, that will be taken care of tomorrow. Here is a view of the caboose being fitted with the rear hatch. It is a solid piece for now.
I’ve also done some more thinking about the writer’s club, and I dunno. I think it is possible I may have learned most of what there is to learn over there. Progress has slowed and it is at the point where I’m getting criticism from people who can’t write as well as I can. Or worse, make suggestions I rejected twenty years ago. And in after-sight, I see that most of the writing that goes on there has, over the years, become channelized along predictable lines. I’ll give it one more chance, I think.
Here is the old Fender guitar, the one that is now left-handed. That means it is sitting upside down in this photo. And that further means it has not been used much. Not a surprise, because music takes time on a daily basis. I’ve often felt that the theories about adults not being able to learn music and new languages is sometimes the result of not having the time. I say sometimes because the major obstacle for most adults is lack of basic intelligence and obstinacy. Music is a special category. Very few people set out to play music for themselves in isolation.
I had to make a twenty mile trip at noon, and got caught in the rainstorm on the return leg. I keep a book handy, so I pulled into that little place on Ives Dairy and Dixie, called Mia Café. Spanish for my café. A factory empanada and a coffee set me back $6.00. I won’t be going back there. That’s were all prices are going, but that doesn’t mean all right here and now while there are still alternatives. At Senor Café, the same thing is around $3.80.
While reading some historical documents (on-line) I noticed the USA sold airplanes to both Finland and Russia in the early 1940s. Ahem, were not those two countries at war? Yes, so I picked through some files to find a video on these airplanes in action. Fascinating, even just to see the Finns keep the airplanes warm. It shows them heating the oil, putting a coil heater into the tank, and using a wood heater and shroud to keep the engine from freezing.
I was able to determine from the Mars Spirit Lander photo of January 10, 2004, that it was just past noon local time on Mars. The Mars obliquity, or planetary tilt is similar to Earth’s, so if I average half that number of degrees I’d be guessing the lander was not at either extreme. Therefore, the lander must be near the equator. My guess was 20°. Later I looked it up to be 14.57°S. I was in the wrong hemisphere and without knowing where Greenwich is on Mars, I have no clue about the longitude. But today’s trivial is that the dial in the photo (see link y’day) was designed by Bill Nye, the science guy.
Here is a Mars wind devil. As for the story making the rounds about the discovery of a four-winged dinosaur in China, that tale was cooked up in 2003. It regularly resurfaces always with one common aspect—the absence of photographs of the fossil. Hey, National Geo, pics or it didn’t happen.
Warning! The Vivitar “Image Manager” disk that arrives with all newly purchased Vivitar cameras is dangerous. When you first go to use it, thinking you are going to download photos from the camera to your computer, watch out. It takes all the photos on your entire computer, puts them in one massive file, and if you click on the wrong sucker button, uploads everything to the Internet. And I do mean ALL your pictures. The upload disables your mouse and keyboard. Beware. And, of course, never buy a Vivitar camera that is on sale. That’s just wasting your money.
I invested in a universal Li battery charger, said to work on over 300 brands of battery. Question, if your government is looking out for your happiness, why do they allow 300 brands of battery? Anyway, the first three batteries I tried (Kyocera 2035, Motorola BX41, Kodak Klik-8000) were exceptions. Designed to work only with proprietary chargers. I’ll disable that idiotic feature with a good pair of pliers.
One hour later, wow. You would not believe what I had to do to get that damn Vivitar software out of Vista. The uninstall feature leaves .exe programs on your machine, so watch out. I won’t tell how I did it, but you’ll need Agent Ransack and some type of third party file killer. But that is not fun unless you know DOS, how to unlock hidden files, and how to work in safe mode. Up yours, Vivitar. You suck.
In other news, we finally got two routers to communicate like we wanted. I was right, the directions given on-line are misleading. They give you instructions of the exact type of line you do not want to create. If you do that, all your traffic will go through a Google server and you don’t want that whether you know it or not. The correct connection is not easy, in fact, it is a bit of a nightmare. Maybe I shouldn’t talk, since in way, we got it working by accident.
And that’s it, everything that happened today.
ADDENDUM
Um, there is something else, a difficult topic to discuss, and that is the speeches of Adolf Hitler. Bad guy, yes, and that is that. But is it now? Most people are aware his speeches were purposely mistranslated by the western newspapers. That's putting it mildly, and the New York Times knows what I'm referring to here. Also, the only two speeches regularly broadcast in the West are the two very short clips where he raises his voice.
I'm not defending Hitler, I'm saying look at the facts instead of the newspaper propaganda. You can view the speech here and decide for yourself. Caution, when Hitler describes the behavior of the United States in violation of international law, you may find yourself wondering exactly which president he is talking about.
AAAAA One year ago today: July 17, 2013, filler,
--and I talk about picking up women, my style.
Five years ago today: July 17, 2009, jammin' at the beach.
Ten years ago today: July 17, 2004, navigating Mars.
The Kodak is working, but still a lunk of a camera. Up to 40 seconds load time before you can take the first picture. Special charger required. No 640×480 setting. In other words, just about everything you don’t want in a camera. But it’s working and I don’t have time to familiarize myself with another different camera before I take some kind of trip in the camper pod. I’m behind schedule because of other people, that will be taken care of tomorrow. Here is a view of the caboose being fitted with the rear hatch. It is a solid piece for now.
I’ve also done some more thinking about the writer’s club, and I dunno. I think it is possible I may have learned most of what there is to learn over there. Progress has slowed and it is at the point where I’m getting criticism from people who can’t write as well as I can. Or worse, make suggestions I rejected twenty years ago. And in after-sight, I see that most of the writing that goes on there has, over the years, become channelized along predictable lines. I’ll give it one more chance, I think.
Here is the old Fender guitar, the one that is now left-handed. That means it is sitting upside down in this photo. And that further means it has not been used much. Not a surprise, because music takes time on a daily basis. I’ve often felt that the theories about adults not being able to learn music and new languages is sometimes the result of not having the time. I say sometimes because the major obstacle for most adults is lack of basic intelligence and obstinacy. Music is a special category. Very few people set out to play music for themselves in isolation.
I had to make a twenty mile trip at noon, and got caught in the rainstorm on the return leg. I keep a book handy, so I pulled into that little place on Ives Dairy and Dixie, called Mia Café. Spanish for my café. A factory empanada and a coffee set me back $6.00. I won’t be going back there. That’s were all prices are going, but that doesn’t mean all right here and now while there are still alternatives. At Senor Café, the same thing is around $3.80.
While reading some historical documents (on-line) I noticed the USA sold airplanes to both Finland and Russia in the early 1940s. Ahem, were not those two countries at war? Yes, so I picked through some files to find a video on these airplanes in action. Fascinating, even just to see the Finns keep the airplanes warm. It shows them heating the oil, putting a coil heater into the tank, and using a wood heater and shroud to keep the engine from freezing.
I was able to determine from the Mars Spirit Lander photo of January 10, 2004, that it was just past noon local time on Mars. The Mars obliquity, or planetary tilt is similar to Earth’s, so if I average half that number of degrees I’d be guessing the lander was not at either extreme. Therefore, the lander must be near the equator. My guess was 20°. Later I looked it up to be 14.57°S. I was in the wrong hemisphere and without knowing where Greenwich is on Mars, I have no clue about the longitude. But today’s trivial is that the dial in the photo (see link y’day) was designed by Bill Nye, the science guy.
Here is a Mars wind devil. As for the story making the rounds about the discovery of a four-winged dinosaur in China, that tale was cooked up in 2003. It regularly resurfaces always with one common aspect—the absence of photographs of the fossil. Hey, National Geo, pics or it didn’t happen.
Warning! The Vivitar “Image Manager” disk that arrives with all newly purchased Vivitar cameras is dangerous. When you first go to use it, thinking you are going to download photos from the camera to your computer, watch out. It takes all the photos on your entire computer, puts them in one massive file, and if you click on the wrong sucker button, uploads everything to the Internet. And I do mean ALL your pictures. The upload disables your mouse and keyboard. Beware. And, of course, never buy a Vivitar camera that is on sale. That’s just wasting your money.
I invested in a universal Li battery charger, said to work on over 300 brands of battery. Question, if your government is looking out for your happiness, why do they allow 300 brands of battery? Anyway, the first three batteries I tried (Kyocera 2035, Motorola BX41, Kodak Klik-8000) were exceptions. Designed to work only with proprietary chargers. I’ll disable that idiotic feature with a good pair of pliers.
One hour later, wow. You would not believe what I had to do to get that damn Vivitar software out of Vista. The uninstall feature leaves .exe programs on your machine, so watch out. I won’t tell how I did it, but you’ll need Agent Ransack and some type of third party file killer. But that is not fun unless you know DOS, how to unlock hidden files, and how to work in safe mode. Up yours, Vivitar. You suck.
In other news, we finally got two routers to communicate like we wanted. I was right, the directions given on-line are misleading. They give you instructions of the exact type of line you do not want to create. If you do that, all your traffic will go through a Google server and you don’t want that whether you know it or not. The correct connection is not easy, in fact, it is a bit of a nightmare. Maybe I shouldn’t talk, since in way, we got it working by accident.
And that’s it, everything that happened today.
ADDENDUM
Um, there is something else, a difficult topic to discuss, and that is the speeches of Adolf Hitler. Bad guy, yes, and that is that. But is it now? Most people are aware his speeches were purposely mistranslated by the western newspapers. That's putting it mildly, and the New York Times knows what I'm referring to here. Also, the only two speeches regularly broadcast in the West are the two very short clips where he raises his voice.
I'm not defending Hitler, I'm saying look at the facts instead of the newspaper propaganda. You can view the speech here and decide for yourself. Caution, when Hitler describes the behavior of the United States in violation of international law, you may find yourself wondering exactly which president he is talking about.
