March 2005 - Posts
- speaking of hoisting, jeep says if other cars can get bras, he wants a jockstrap
- upon hearing this, self put in a request for a leather straitjacket.
and you thought kids were bad...
jeep is itching to take its top off, and has started bugging self about it. now self is bitching at me to do something about it. the problem is the that i have a two car garage and more than two cars' worth of crap to put in it. well, it's not quite that bad, if i could suspend the hardtop in there somehow. of course, there are hoist kits to buy, and ideas to rig one of my own. but this garage was finished by one of those bozos that felt it necessary to put in dry wall, so the rafters, studs and so on aren't exposed. so i have to put big ol' holes in the ceiling for bolts or what have you to do anything like that. and this is a rental place.
but, hmm, perhaps a handful of heavy duty eyebolts aren't that big of a deal. then i could rig whatever i wanted to those. the cheapest home-built hoist approach i saw was to use a bunch of trailer tie-downs. not the most efficient hoisting system, though, ratcheting each corner bit by bit, round and round, until the desired height was reached. another guy rigged ropes to an old manual trailer winch, a much better idea, but requiring a mount point for the winch. personally, i was thinking a multi-purchase rig would work as well, requiring a couple double blocks and a tie-off cleat in addition to the anchor points. at 4:1 i would need less than 50 lbs of pull. i could also rig this set up to hoist boat if needed (the top is about 150, boat is 250). (parts list: 5 eyebolts plus nuts/washers/plates, four s-hooks, cleat and screw or other tie-off, two double blocks, four single blocks, various links to eyebolts, fairleads?, and maybe 50' of line.)
i would just put the top in the backyard somewhere, but there's no way to get back there - it's surrounded by 6 foot chainlink, with a couple 30'' gates, and besides, all access is nearly blocked by house and garage.
ok, there are various engineers and skillled trades people in the audience, what's the most efficient rigging arrangement (in terms of parts/cost, installation ease, operational ease, etc.) ? what are some things to watch out for ? note that the store-bought systems use a single point of suspension for a t-bar that hooks to the sides and rear of the top. hmm - i guess i could just use a tripod harness/bridle of rope, and save three or four bolts, three or four blocks, and an s-hook. but that single suspension point would need to be solid, and this rig wouldn't be adaptable for boat (which isn't really necessary). and the top would swing/rotate, need to restrain that as well (easy, i would think).
yeah, that's it, a single center eyebolt connected to a harness on the top by a 4:1 pulley system (one eyebolt, two double blocks, 30' of line). ideas ?
arrrrghh! what is that bright thing in the sky ? what right does the mercury have to rise that high ? what's this green growth showing up everywhere ? and there's these noisy things in the air, in the trees...
i miss the white. i miss the dark. i miss the quiet outdoors. i miss the empty world.
* * * * *
i figure it's better to get my whining done here than to bother people with it directly. they just think i'm weird when i express things like that. or maybe it has nothing to do with expression, but anyway...
well, there's sailing to do, at least. i could do it during winter, but i'd have to spend more. summer is easier for many things. but everyone else feels that way as well.
work to do on boat, car, outside. things to buy to be able to do the work. and so on. winter allows such things to slumber, it seems to whittle things down to necessities, there's less concern for appearance, the pretense of excitement...
even with all this attention to things “extreme”, most folks tend to spend months inside. i'm glad for the all talk, no action people. hmm... i keep thinking places like colorado and alaska have lifestyles that would appeal to me more, but then those tend to be year-round outdoors people, right ? well, maybe more than in other places. but i hear that a lot of people also hole up for the darkness there too.
such a fair weather race. can't say i did anything more than hole up lately either. but i like holing up; i could do it indefinitely. or i could hang outdoors. that's an equipment thing, is all. just give me the world to myself.
the empty beaches. especially the empty beaches. empty woods. empty. so, i wonder - maybe doing the cruising thing is the way to go, really. single-handed sailing, i mean. a matter of getting started. so many unknowns.
hmm, is that fear i detect ? not as in shaking in my boots, but a discomfort with uncertainty ? or is that perhaps simply a recognition of my (current) limits ? time to stretch those limits, then. not sure where to start. i have, like, no experience in such things, and the same for outside help. books only get you so far. so, i'm going to make a lot of stupid mistakes that those with a different background would scoff at. ahh - fear of ridicule, that sort of thing. well, suck it up, i guess, or go nowhere.
in an empty world, there is no ridicule, and only one fool...
i so wanted to go visiting this weekend, i really enjoy spending time with family. but toting my butt on a 600 mile round trip only 3 weeks after concluding a 2000 miler just wasn't sounding appealing :-(
i'm spending the weekend with that old “western tradition” telecourse i wrote about, oh, say, a year ago. what i did, though, was set up an asx metafile for wmp so that i could bypass the annenberg website stuff and just play all the episodes straight through. this also allowed me to put additional information in for each clip, and the overall course. and the best part is that i can put in start and end times for each clip to skip the two to three minutes of introductory and credit material in each of the 52 27½ minute clips, saving somewhere between two and three hours of viewing time. of course, i'm only done with the first eleven; i'll update the file with the completed times later.
mathml blurb from the string coffee table site (no, i won't link there, since it treats even root links as a trackback to the latest post, and i still get hits from the last time i did that. i feel bad about such web-herrings, but hey, it's not my fault.):
... MathML. To see the equations, you either need Mozilla (with the requisite fonts) or IE/Win users can download a plugin for MathML. ...
so here it is, the westerrn tradition telecourse asx file (< 20kb). enjoy ! basically, it's a packaged wmp playlist, so you could just load it from here, but i suggest right-clicking and saving the file on your own computer somewhere (perhaps in your videos folder), then loading it from there.
nifty thing, that asx format. i was thinking of creating mix-lists of various educational and entertainment resources. and it can link to live broadcasts, as well as flash, still images, etc.
in other news, craig made a humorous number theory goof the other day, which he quickly covered up. i was kidding him about it. i guess you could call it a prime rib ;-)
ooh, geek points for me ! (and a deduction for craig ;-)) now i can't get my mind off a visit to outback.
but, well, i've been bucking for extra geek points recently anyway, with that pi-day post a couple weeks ago, and then a misfired happy-spring mailing. i've been wondering off and on whether i should use mathml on this blog. i mean, there's enough crap here already without asking people to download and install more crap to be able to read this stuff. then again, if you've stayed with me this far, what the hell. the alternative is to load graphics (yuk), try and use text representations, or leave such shit out altogether. and you know i won't do that last option ;-)
hmm, seems to be a problem with mathml when posting in this particular blog engine - you're saved !
?
update:
?
2
?
"\[Rule]"
k
/
m
-
F
=
-
kx
-
x
?
(
t
)
?
"\[Rule]"
x0
?
cos
?
(
t
?
?
)
+
v0
?
sin
?
(
t
?
?
)
?
-
F
=
-
kx
2
-
x
?
(
t
)
?
"\[Rule]"
6
?
x0
(
?
?
t
?
x0
?
?
+
6
)
2
,
x
?
(
t
)
?
"\[Rule]"
6
?
x0
(
6
-
?
?
t
?
x0
?
?
)
2
ahh, that's better ;-)
just because i haven't been posting doesn't mean i popped out of existence. who was it that did the classic object permanence work ? piaget ?
i kind of switched into email mode for a bit. in retrospect, some stuff may be of mild interest to others, so here's a couple links to out-of-thread posts:
and oh yeah, easter is coming up. i should be finishing up a drive to michigan right now, but i'm getting tired of those drives. so hard to get moving...
dye, eggs !
plucked from recent email threads:
- state of the 'net:
Where did The Onion archives go?
All Onion archived content is now only available through an Onion Premium membership. The Onion Premium Archives contain all of the Onion content from the past nine years, from August 1996 through the present. Nearly 350 complete issues are now available, with more coming soon. You can browse by issue, by topic, by section, or search the entire archive by keyword. Click here to join Onion Premium.
have you noticed that the web is constantly breaking down, in spite of efforts by archivers such as the wayback machine ? the effect is accelerating. worth a post, i think. it's a type of senility in some sense. we are losing the factual connections with the internet's origins, leaving us, now, with myth, and eventually, with nothing at all except the artifacts that arose from them and thus implicitly contain their origins. just like genetic and memetic evolution. our computers / systems are increasingly a house of cards gutted from within.
well, not entirely - some fossils are preserved, sometimes living, sometimes petrified. i wonder if some ai someday will be searching for the digital holy grail, or worshipping - or even _dependent_ on - the infinitely embellished archaic cobol subroutine.
hail the allmighty dip switch, for it hath created life !
- communicating with aliens:
I know you were reading up on this recently --
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/21/1237237&from=rss
thanks. although not as disappointing as other /. threads, this one is fairly naive despite good efforts by the contributors. no, i didn't read it all. but in the first half or so, it was pretty clear that no one had bothered to search the web for related materials. if they had, they would have found minsky's stuff immediately, then that other long paper (that i never finished) would have shown up as well.
the reason i find the topic fascinating and valuable is that, if done properly, it represents the most fundamental research approach to the topics of communications, epistemology, metaphysics, etc. once one considers that all things not human are in the "alien" bucket, and then further, that humans are aliens to each other, and even within themselves, our illusions become apparent. it's the ultimate in copernican frontiers. anti-anthropy ?
as for whether there are such things as aliens, it doesn't matter. funny, though - have you ever seen a _plan_ regarding alien contact ? communication is only the beginning. maybe it's not practical to pursue at all, especially from a cost/benefit perspective. it's probably best to just react to events as or if they occur. so, it isn't even worth our time to consider the actual possibilities of alien existence per se. yet, as with so many other things, the mental exercise can lead to advances is what originally seem to be unrelated areas of knowledge (technical, philosophical, psychological).
but, hmm, a cost/benefit analysis would show that some basic preparations are probably worthwhile, similar to the reasoning supporting the "what would we do if an asteroid threatens?" considerations. we probably can't do a lot right now, but we can at least flesh out some outlines, and perhaps test a few things out. prudence from the global community ? probably not going to happen at this level, current u.n. shake-up proposaly notwithstanding.
geez, took me a while to figure out where i posted those links - they're in that post on "solaris" at the beginning of january. frickin' google doesn't index my blog well. perhaps because of the crap on the side ? anyway, here's a page with a good list of links on this topic: Interstellar Communication hmm, the whole website has got fun stuff at this last one. wouldn't you know it, a nasa guy ;-)
(uses ie5.5+ transition; mouse-over -out for effect)
trials: 0
interior: 0
pi: 0
(completed) runs: 0
mu: 0
sigma: 0
there are many, many pi sites on the web.
here's a related twist. why are so many fundamental constants (π, φ,
e,
i, ...) related ? must be some sort of (weak) anthropic principal at work; they are “fundamental” because
we say they are, and of course, the internal consistency has that same basis in “we”. just a thought.
also note that the numeric value of “π” (and thus pi-day, etc.) depends on choice of metric, spatial curvature, and dimension, none of which are necessarily restricted to niceties such as integers, squares and so on. so this is “euclid's pi-day”, and perhaps that is the mathematician to be memorialized.
yet the
definition of π remains the same, independent of such considerations. and there's nothing particularly magical about
that, now is there ?
oh, great: ethical wills. saw this is an ap news story. if you want to formalize such a conservative (in the sense of continuity and past-preserving) process in a family's traditions, then you better also formalize more progressive instincts for adaptibility and innovation as well. i guess it depends on where the balance is between these (and other) micro-cultural forces. there has been a sense of loss of community that has very real consequences in terms of personal and social instabilities that is directly connected to modern phenomena such as mobility and communications technology. and although the structures being disturbed have no objective claim to superiority, they are the ones with which we have evolved, with too-quick changes having the results noted.
hmm - ok, maybe if people got more of a sense of security in their personal lives through mechnisms such as these, they might be more willing and comfortable with social tolerances and innovations. an anti-backlash effect, maybe. conservatism that breeds courage and liberalism ? why not ?
still, i would feel more comfortable with these “ethical will” things if those writing them also had the forethought to include a list of freedoms and imperatives to be oneself and go beyond the deceased's existential gestalt. as if the people on the receiving end really care anyway. which is another perspective, that these exercises in moral / behavioral legacy will have little or no practical effect anyway (as in, healthy stays healthy and vice versa).
how about this for an ethical legacy: go to the f'ing library ! use your f'ing brains !
of course, the above discussion takes place in the context of the first order reality that we live our daily lives in. at the root level, things like ethics and choice are simply mechanistic derivatives and merely illusory. it's kind of like being in the matrix and discovering the underlying truth. except that the illusions are more pervasive, and the reality far more base. in fact, flip them around - weren't events in the matrix's illusory world seen as largely controlled, and the outside reality had free will ? well, in our reality it's the reverse.
not that i like invoking analogies to the matrix (yuk), but perhaps such a popular vehicle will help people understand.
me: “ok, one more load to go, back to the house...“
self: “i think i'll jump that mud puddle and land on that brick walk. here we go...”
me (airborne): “*huh? hey! those bricks look awfully slick. what do you think you're doing ?!”
self: (flying through the air) “uhhh, i dunno - something stupid ?”
me: (slipping on the bricks) “damn straight. so what do you intend to do about it ?”
self (falling now): “ummm - land softly ?”
me (hitting the ground): “like you left us any choice...”
jeep (staring at us sitting in a puddle): <says nothing, looks embarassed, tries to ignore the whole thing>
since i've recently been pretty enthusiastic about the wikipedia, even to the point of introducing a nephew to it for use with a homework assignment, i feel it is necessary to also highlight the caveats when using such a source. the first couple of links in this k5 article on wikipedia are a good start. i feel a bit remiss about not pointing out such concerns to my nephew at the time, but his mom reads this blog, so i hope she can take care of it for me ;-) (sorry, mom, i know this is extra work :-( )
in some sense such caveats really need to be observed with respect to any reference material, including pre-internet sources. the existence of reviewing processes does not guarantee correctness, especially in cases where even the meaning of that the word “correctness” is debatable.
these issues are certainly related to “free” speech and intentional limits to accuracy, the development of new ideas in science, and so on. there is a balance between conservatism / control and change / freedom where some optimum level of self-organization occurs. it's the old chaos-stasis thing yet again. of course.
i liked the point made in one article where the author traces the deterioration of an example entry in the wikipedia. the mean on his normal distribution could be seen as representing the balance point between the “forces” of entropy and self-organization [within the 'net mind!]. unfortunately, the balance seems to fall unsatisfactorily far on the side of mediocrity.
“control” could be applied to help shift this balance. and control, really, is a form of self-organization at a higher abstraction level. some minds / entities have more of this quality internalized than others, and might be seen as more reliable or responsible - and also as stubborn and narrow minded. two sides of the same coin.
so, while exposing such effects in external efforts such as wikipedia is intended to mitigate the less desirable effects, it has the (equal?) potential of incurring undesirable effects as well.
really off the wall now, but this is banging around in the back of my mind: what if we licensed minds ? and this is what we really do in so many forms, academic, corporate and so on. but this system of licensing has evolved - self-organized - in a more fuzzy sea of information and control than we have available to us now. what if we were to more intentionally consider and constuct a replacement system ? what are the benefits vs. dangers ?
think of such a system as applied to the business of science, government, law and “morality”.
oh, edit, edit: thoughts: privileges and responsibilities to be associated with levels of mind licensing - ? and the broken-ness of the monetary / credit system with respect to mediating such things. what if all life needs were more than adequately provided for by entitlement programs ? as in, all monies are associated with non-essentials. what would this do to motivations ? “obsoleting greed”. thoughts related to my ongoing readings in social insurance systems. something forthcoming on that; still finishing various materials.
actually, that title is incomplete. that's because the content is so brief that it could have been a part of the title. the gist:
- convene a constitutional convention.
dangerous, yet provocative. such a convention has the power to rewrite the constitution, if they so wish. oh, the problems they could solve - but are we up to it ? we could also commit egregious errors as well. and if we cannot rely on our judgement well enough to confidently engage in such an undertaking, what does that say about us and our conduct in interpreting our current constitution ?
of course, this begs the question of why i would propose such a thing in the first place. i think this has been alluded to in recent earlier posts. alas, fatigue prevents me from actually presenting the case ;-)
i love this ! which is relevant to the discussion of looking for “flags” (red, orange, yellow) in this country, and deciding what to do about them. i've been having that discussion off and on now for the past year, most recently with a few people on the recent shanty creek trip. seems i'm not the only one, but perhaps i'm one of the early clear articulators of such concerns in bringing the subject to that level.
as in:
- what are the flags we should be looking for ?
- when are they severe enough (likelihood and level of impact) to merit personal action ?
- what action options do we have (proactive, reactive, avoidance, etc.) ?
- how best should we prepare for such actions ?
- what timing is best for taking the various actions ?
- what are the consequences of taking these actions too late or not at all (eg, the openness of various other countries to expatriots - refugees)?
- how does the current period in history compare with others, and how can we learn from those periods in terms of the above items ?
and so on. if it seems like an exercise in risk management, you are correct. and if it seems like paranoia, think of the events leading up to world war ii, and other closed societies in recent - and current - history.
i am thinking that i will create a new blog category called “flags”, and i was thinking of using the much satirized homeland security alert level color scheme in rating such “flags”. i spent some time mulling over the definitons for each level, but i need to spend more time on this.
also, i wish i had the flag category earlier on - there are a lot of things here to which such labeling could have been usefully applied. oh well, it has to start somewhere.
as to the video in this specific instance, it may not be 100% completely fair and accurate, but it sure is effective at pointing out some real concerns. just as with psychological self-diagnosis, it is easy to come up with full spectrums of symptoms indicating just about any disease. so care should be taken to put this in perspective. yet generally speaking, i think it is far closer to the point than not, and so this will be the innaugural “flags” post.
colors and levels will follow later.
a link from craig: pizza flash movie
it's pegging my cpu for some reason, so i'm not getting any sound, and only the dialog box image.
so what if anyone has all the information ? it's like fire etc. - depends on how it's used.
i think it's interesting how people have this reliance on "fuzziness" - sometimes. it's like i've said, sometimes you notice things about a person, but politeness dictates that you let it pass unremembered and unremarked upon. it's the same with any "data". people have an objection to awareness and accurate records in some cases, while insisting on them in others. it's cultural trends, not issues of ethics (unless, of course, you consider ethics relative to dynamic culture).
other related items: security by obscurity (for example, the recent harvard business school records exposure); the aversion to "social engineering" (it's ok as long as it isn't (too) scientifically done); other examples slip my mind at the moment, but the world and history is full of them. in fact, our legal and moral systems and how they treat "responsibility" are the biggest examples of stopping "knowledge" at the first complex node (a "person") and arbitrarily assigning a beginning to cause and effect at that point. the same exercise leads many to stop their rational processes lest they invade upon the realms of mysticism, for example, anti-evolutionists, and those physicists that veer off the scientific path.
we have already arrived at that stage where technology is impinging upon what were previously non-issues. people claimed to want total freedom of information. now that this is possible (well, more closely approximated, anyway), they are having second thoughts. i suppose those who only had oral traditions may have felt similarly about the advent of writing, and so on. this is closely related to the (vanishing) temporal buffer issues that i've talked about with respect to "efficient" market systems, especially the stock market.
in any case, these developments bring up difficulties that hopefully will reveal the "real" issues. it's not the information that's the problem. so what is ? we need to deepen our knowledge and refine our perspectives. those abusing either side of the issue without first engaging in these undertakings are the true "criminals".
More Posts
Next page »