MORNING
This was pure coincidence. I found this light switch* on Imgur moments ago. I see they found a new dinosaur in Scotland, where, no doubt, somebody already married her. An article in Evolutionary Psychology shows people in ill health vote for the pretty candidate. And PhysOrg says they can cut down heating bills with super-insulated clothing. Who remembers parents like that? “Go put on a sweater, I’m not paying to heat the house up to ninety.”
Another organization I may withdraw my membership with is the Meet-Up. That’s the place I found the fake Nova robot club and the spinny old ladies writing club. I’ll continue as a guest, since the clubs listing are a great indication of the shallowness of our times. African Dance, Chihuahua Owners, Intellectual Gamers, and Ultimate Frisbee. The most common category remains social clubs for older women.
There is a proliferation of investment and entrepreneur clubs. I don’t personally like those, as they are often vehicles to sign you up for MLM, which should be out-lawed. There is a ukulele players organization, but how long before that drives you batty? Real estate clubs are picking up again. All you need to make a small fortune is a big fortune. And, of course, publishing books remains one of the most tightly controlled ways to make money, with absolutely no way to author and sell anonymously on any real scale. Then again, who’d want to do that?
And I heard what you were thinking. "Intellectual" gamers? In the same vein, see today's last laugh.
NOON
Here’s something new for me. A water meter that attaches to a fire hydrant. I suppose I should have known these existed. This one is to provide water to the small community of trailers that accompany the annual midway in the casino parking lot. Gotta have running water. Look closely, the meter is the blue object on the right of the hydrant, with two small hoses running from the other end.
The movie is three hours, great scenery, a lot of driving around in carriages and infinite letter-writing campaigns, which as far back as 1793 were one terrible way to keep a secret. Mind you, every letter was a work of art. You know, I’ve tried to read English books from 1790 and you would need a translator for most of it. Once more, production-wise, these are first rate movies with real plots, although I don’t buy the poet falling for the older, already-married sister. That’s wishful thinking.
I did some thinking about what I could cut with the scroll saw that isn’t in the now-wearisome example books. I had never intended to make wall plaques and toy puzzles so it was disappointing to find there are no other extensive examples of what this tool is capable of. I’ve come up with a few ideas that are totally original to me. The library was no help, but I got lots of trivia for you. Did you know that linoleum was originally a mixture of ground up cork and linseed oil? That proved fireproof so they added asbestos up until 1970, since then the flooring is make entirely of vinyl.
I further examined wind turbine blades, you recall my recent post about airplane propellers. Same technology, maybe I’ll take another look. The computer fan I used to experiment with has some kind of braking mechanism that stops itself at low speed. I learned that the tips of a wind turbine blade turn at six times the speed of the wind. If the wind is 10 mph, the blade tips are 60 mph, so stay the hell out of the way.
During this research, the same book (printed ten years ago in 2005) says the US Navy operated 83 nuclear warships. It mentioned the comparison with coal, that in a year, the coal burning plants of the USA create 750,000 tons of waste. The nuclear power plants produce 50 tons.
As for pure trivia, every year 2.6 passengers totally disappear off cruise ships. Poof! Check your garden shed. And for the record, stem cell research in the USA is perfectly legal. The government did not ban it, rather refused to fund it as a scientific research. Private industry finds the research too expensive. You know why they use stem cells? Because the adult cells turn poisonous. And that’s plenty for now.
AFTERNOON
Here’s North Korea by night. South Korea on the bottom, Japan to the right. This is the country they say is about to launch a nuclear attack? Well, I suppose the military industrial complex has to create some kind of enemy since the USSR collapsed and the WMD fiasco. But a country with no electricity? Nonetheless, we have all these routine assurances from our ever-so-trustworthy officials and scientists that the threat is real, so time to reoccupy that bunker. Provided you have not been using it for a grow operation since the late 80s.
There were some vision slits and an escape tunnel. He had a concrete culvert to enter and a water tank, but he could collect rainwater. That was neat. He also had an interior steel blast door with pistol ports in case anyone got that far. I suppose it works best when your daddy leaves you a backhoe and forty acres deep in the woods.
I further looked into gear theory and quickly ran into a huge pack of Internet Idiots. There is a major difference between a logarithmic spiral, like a seashell, and an Archimedian spiral, which I was after. What fun to watch an egghead like James Cassar give a complete lecture on the wrong kind of spiral. I've pulled some boners in my life, but they don't result from not paying enough attention.
Here is an "unwinding a string" spiral, not the same as Archimedean, but of interest to me as the type of spring you would find in old wind-up wrist watches. And a polar co-ordinate form to keep you focused. These animations are not copied, they are links to Wiki.
EVENING
My Argus camera arrived and it is the wrong model. Nearby you should see the first photo taken with it, some work on the monster-bike. Same model number, but this one is different and harder to use. But it is a step up from my the Jazz, which lasted a month before acting up. Naturally, Win 8.1 won’t accept any of the drivers, so I have to download on my XP. But tomorrow we’ll see if it makes any difference. This may seem like a retrograde step, but let me explain something.
So you see, there were many other considerations that whether or not the pictures looked good. I’d also learned not to buy any device until it dropped below a hundred dollars. That’s still wise because any hardware that is ultimately high-priced has always been undercut in time. Remember the big Beta player scam from Sony? I know a guy who got taken for a lot back in ’82. For something like $2300. That’s around $5,900 today.
This was also about the time I was looking at MP3 as a music format. These decisions were made in isolation back in 2005. I worked in a computer shop at the time and nobody, repeat nobody, could give any advice whatsoever. Business was booming with people bringing in brand new computers, but never once, then or now, did I ever meet a person who could show me the ropes with the newest offerings. Nobody knew a thing about a blog, or MP3, or jpeg, they were stunned clueless when asked. Hence, I made the decisions on my own. I have no faith whatsoever in the younger generation’s true knowledge of what is going on in the computer field. I can’t even find one of them with a PayPal account.
Who was that so called whiz-kid that came in, the guy with the bad breath? He knew all the specs and all what was popular, but not one useful thing of any real value. When asked which was better, WAV files or JPEG, he asked what those were. So give me a break, what I did was based on my own judgment of what would work and obviously for the most part, I guessed right. I will continue my search for a real Argus 1610.
The club met up at Dunkin Donuts, but other than a general discussion about the scroll saw, nothing was advanced. I suppose the saw will cut metal if I get the right blades, but until I saw a lot of lumber, I’m not springing for it. The welder is sitting idle as the roll of wire Harbor Freight sold me was the wrong type. I specifically asked for the wire that worked with the welder and got junk instead. Sixty days passed before the first roll was used, so now I’m stuck with it.
*You move the knob at the top to operate the switch, Patsie.
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