Chasing My Own Tale
Interesting Reading: http://writ.corporate.findlaw.com/dorf/20020306.html
It looks at the issues revolving around what position Congress should be taking in regards to Bush’s War.
I’ve included the text in the Read More section.
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Yes! http://phonezilla.net/3stations/archives/000400.php
Finally a way to stop some of this stuff, legally.
I’m at WebVisions today, where I’ll be the Stage Manager. Wish me luck! http://www.oregon.org/webvisions/
I recently cut off 9 inches of my hair, just a bit short of what’s needed for this organization: http://www.locksoflove.org/. It’s too bad as I would have loved to have donated my hair to this group, and I could have taken another inch off to get it to that length.
I should be out to that length in another 4 years or so… I’ll have to try again then. It will be interesting to see if I have my journal archives still available in 2006… 🙂
Now that the Wi-Fi connection is working, I’d like to get a couple of accessories for my Newton MessagePad 2000. Highest on my list is a power adapter, so that I can plug it into the wall and operate withput having to drop in freshly recharged batties constantly. (The wi-fi card takes a lot of juice.)
So I’ve found the following info:
http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/newton-faq-hardware.html#IIB7
7) What kind of AC power adapters should I use?
“The best advice is to use a Newton-branded adapter. Any Newton adapter will work with any Newton. There are two adapters, the original adapter (shipped with MP1x0s) and the 9W adapter (officially for MP2x00 and eMates). Both work in every Newton but the 9W adapter charges batteries faster than the original adapter (except in the MP100).”
More in the read more section.
Then there were some recent e-mails:
“The Radio Shack unit that is mentioned in the FAQ (http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/newton-faq-hardware.html#IIB7) has been working fine for my wife now and hasn’t given us any problems. It’s
also fairly useful since it comes with a million adapter tips so you canuse it with pretty much anything in your house.”
And this message as well:
“The other issue is that the Newton is very well matched to the voltage/current characteristics of the original power adaptor. So you can achieve optimum results for charging the battery inside the Newt in case of you use the original power supply only.
“The ideal alternative power adapter should have voltage regulation AND active current limitation as well.
“Most of the ac adaptors you can find are very simple – only one way rectifier, no regulation, no active current limitation. I do not recommend using such an adaptor.
“If you use a regulated adaptor with an output of 6 V I do not expect any risk for the Newt, but the batteries will charge very slowly.
“If you intend to use an regulated adaptor with 7.5 V output voltage you should be very careful regarding the max. charging current.
“What I successfully did was using a laboratory power supply, set to max. 7 V output voltage and max. 1A output current. But charging in this configuration is still remarkably slower compared to charging with the original power supply.
“You should be very very careful doing experiments with different power sources – I am burned already – I destroyed my MP2100 once completely.”
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I was looking at a can opener in the grocery store yesterday and there’s a fundemental flaw with most of them. There’s three pieces that are at issue: the circular blade, the geared gripping advancer, and the hinge.
The blade and the advancer only work well when they remain aligned, right next to each other. The cutting of the top of the can only works smoothly if the force from each side are focused closely together.
The mechanism that keeps them aligned is the hinge of the two arms of the can opener. This hinge is made to swing open *very* easily for no particuar reason. It is also very loose and it wobbles so that the alignment between the blades and the advancer slips more and more.
It seems to me that a spring assisted mechanism should be used to hold the two pieces together. I think we should look to a scissor based tool where the hinge is stronger, more like a cutting shear, or a pair of pliers.
Amy sent me a great link: http://www.mapscience.org/ (nw) which has some great maps to check out.
The site shows proposed routes that nuclear waste will take in its travel to Yucca Mountain in Nevada. (Privacy tip: just put in your zip code.)
Their use of the Baltimore train tunnel fire is more than a little over the top, but it does point out the fact that there are a number of different scenarios that could play out with this incredibly toxic waste.
It’s hard to imagine that humans could produce such a deadly toxin and think that the small amount of electricity that it generates would be worth it. The electricity is gone the instant the power plant shuts down. But the toxin will remain for geologic *eras*.
It’s too bad we haven’t found a way to switch that around…
One of my pet projects has been to collect some info on the best way to format links in e-mails so that they are clickable in the widest number of e-mail clients. One of the missing pieces has been AOL’s mail client, since I don’t have a way to test it. So I was glad to stumble across this article. It goes into detail about how they see most of the AOL mail clients handle the situation. It would be nice if they ahd a chart showing supported methods in each version, but I’ll have to wait for that, or figure out some way of doing it for myself…
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Step 1: Register TrashPlanet.com or some similar consumer friendly domain name.
Step 2: Design a logo, layout and visual style for your site.
Step 3: Write articles, create links and invite guests to write about the environmental impact of disposable products.
Step 4: Write articles, create links and invite guests to write about the alternatives to disposable products.
Step 5: Let others know about your site. Publicize it on the web and in environmentally oriented news sites. Also target consumer product review site like epinions.com.
Step 6: Scope out a number of high volume consumer products that advertise their ‘trashability’ as their number one reason for being.
Step 7: Create labels that can be added quickly and easily to the back or sides of said boxes that blend into the packaging and subtly lets consumers know that they can “Find more info about this product at yourdomain.com”.
Step 8: Apply the tags liberally at stores in your local area. Avoid the one store that you shop the most at in case you are banned from the store.
Step 9: Repeat process for other issues such as overuse of ‘anti-bacterial’ agents which will simply provide us with stronger bacteria in the long run.
Google has released a Google Box, a stand alone server that you can basically plug and play into your network and have your own Google inside. That’s all lead up to idea number one:
The E-Bay box. Have a box that will have the various pieces of crap that your employees are normally selling *outside* of your company’s network.
Idea number 2? The latest name for my band: “Oss Rolson and His Friends from the Morgue.” My Goth band is finally on its way.
I just came across a great pair of reads in the form of two articles written by a BattleBots builder. His team’s bot is quite innovative and it’s great reading his workup of the control system.
The second article isn’t finished because he’s not allowed to announce if he won or not until the show airs later this year. I wish him post-competition luck!