PostSecret

Here is something a little different. Here is the site that invites all to send in a postcard with a secret on it. Cards are posted here: PostSecret: "Mail In Your Secrets Today".

It's a little hard not to be cynical and think these are fabrications, but the little pulls at truth and sadness, or utter, though anonymous confession, makes you know that even if it isn't true in this case, there are those out there with similar stories yet unrevealed.

I don't feel qualified to get all philosophical about this, but it starts cutting at the premise I always had that, though I have never been in the "In Crowd", perhaps NOBODY really has been, and everybody is on the outside looking in, at least in one way or the other. My bet is that pretty much everybody has a secret or two that should go on one of these clever or poignant post cards.

Example of one I like:

My Firefox Update

Just a post to say that I almost exclusively use Firefox now.

I love the tabbed browsing. I thought it might have been mainly because of my slower dialup access, but now that I have DSL, it hasn't changed. A browser without tabs would be a BIG step backward.

Especially when reading blogs, there are often several links I might want to go to, but if I go to them when I see them, it is a diversion, and I may never get back to the original or finish the current thought. Instead, I right click on each link, sending it to a new tab, and they are ready, loaded and available when I am ready to jump.

As far as the RSS, I have tried quite a few aggregators, and felt that it was the way to go, because you can scan all the headers for you selected sites and go to those that interest you without wasting time loading up each site. Firefox has made this the EASIEST yet with "live bookmarks" I put my favorites in a pull down menu in the top bar, and can peek at these, and since they are dynamic, I can always see the latest things.

Because of the open source, the programmers have been having fun adding little extension and add-ons that keep improving the environment, like the googlebar lite, with all of the goodies except page rank.

When I go to Microsoft's own site it's best to use IE, apparently because they use a lot of 'Active X' that is not supported in Firefox for security reasons.

Art in the 3rd dimension.

Brother Nardo sent me this link to the site of an unlikely and previously unfamiliar (to me) Dutch artist by the name of Rinus Roelofs.

Did I say WOooooaaaahhhwooohoogahgahgahgahbubububububyeeeeeehaaa yet?

I can't describe his sculpture, computer graphics, stuctures, optical brain toys all.

Hoping to be within fair use of his copyright, I will send you on your way to check it out with the image below, which is only a tiny sample of this amazing body of work.

Big Band Gig

I usually play best embedded (hiding?) in the midst of a concert band, playing a Sousa march or some overture or pops piece, but underneath, I really love the Big Band Glenn Miller or Dorsey type music. I don't have as much experience or skill at that, either, but from time to time I am asked to substitute in a local "Big Band of the 40's" for a "paid" gig where a musician can't make it. If you saw the check, you would know why I put quotes around "paid". This band is VERY good, many of the guys have been professional musicians in their younger years, or played this stuff for years. I do pretty well considering. It's so amazing to be playing these old 78rpm songs like "String of Pearls", "Sentimental Journey", "Jumpin at the Savoy". You have to keep remembering when reading the music that it "swings", for instance if you had four quarter notes in a row, they don't have the same value, the first and third grab a little more time; so you get: dah da dah da.

We played from 7 to 10pm. It was a special event for an older church group, and the people were dancing and tapping and swaying just like it was taking them back to the old days. A lot of fun for us and for them.

Wheel lugs

This is a mundane, non intellectual posting, but I get some traffic due to search engine hits on words from my archives, partially because my posts vary so much. So this qualifies as atypical, not unlike me.

Though my '91 Ford Explorer runs pretty well, it has a variety of ills, and one that nagged at me was that the lugs nuts on this era of ford were made really crappy (crapily?). For some reason they thought they would dress the little lugs up, so they pressed these silly metal caps on them for decoration. Trouble is, a few years of torque on these things and the caps split, and peel off, revealing a rusty nut underneath. And the nut that left is an odd size that doesn't fit any standard wrench. What, was I going to carry an 18mm socket and a rachet with me in case of a tire problem? Time for a picture:

You can see a "good one" on the left, a split cap, a beat up one, and the rusty nut that is left when they inevitably fail. Then the solid new replacement on the right.

I guess the real reason I started this post, other than the embarrassment Ford will feel in this blazing exposé, was that I am stuck in the old days when it comes to money. Everything surprises me. I rolled down to Auto Zone intent on replacing them all, couldn't cost too much. I was thinking five bucks for some lugs. Well they were 1.49 each: 5 lugs x 4 wheels=20 == $29.80 plus tax. Over 30 bucks! I am a relic. They do look better though.

Stupid airport security

I think this issue is making people madder and madder, maybe some smart official will see the light at some point, but it really seems embarrassing that we still are frisking the old ladies and obviously non-threatening airport passengers.

Is it because if we are accused of targeting racially or based on profile that it would offend someone? I really don't think that would happen. It could be defended by logic.

Columnist Walter Williams has eloquently focused on this recently, and his column; Stupid airport security III says so much that makes sense.

Quote:
In managing our personal security, should we guard against possible or probable threats? Consider the measures and the resource expenditures I might take to guard Mrs. Williams and me against all possible threats to our security.

Even though I live in Pennsylvania, well outside of tornado alley, I'd construct a tornado shelter because it's possible for a tornado to strike anywhere. I'd no longer get into my car and drive off without doing a thorough check of my car's hydraulic brake system for leakage. I'd build an iron-reinforced roof to guard against the possibility of a meteor. I'd also purchase a metal detector to do sweeps of my property, to guard against the possibility someone might have buried a land mine. [. . .]
Were I to take those measures, I'm sure the average person would label me as either paranoid or stupid. Why? It would take resources away from guarding against more probable threats to our security, such as burglary. While my focusing on all possible threats wouldn't be smart, it would make me a prime candidate to become a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) official. Their vision of airport security is to focus on the possible as well as the probable.

It is indeed possible for an 88-year-old man crippled with debilitating arthritis to be a terrorist. It's possible that one of our Marines returning from Iraq for stateside reassignment, carrying ID and official reassignment orders, is also a member of al Qaeda ready to take out an airplane. It's possible for a mother accompanied by her four children, or a 92-year-old woman, to be "mules" paid by terrorists to bring something on board to blow up the plane. It is also possible that a pilot plans to blow his plane up with a shoe bomb. That's reason for making him take his shoes off. It's possible that a blind person carrying a cigarette lighter will give it to a terrorist accomplice to light a shoe bomb in flight. [ . . . ] End Quote

I think most people would accept the risk of ignoring these remote possibilities if we were really sure we were focusing and targeting the smarter probabilities.

Terrorists:

Quarters

Quarters. I have said for quite a while that I would be willing to chair the committee to eliminate dimes, nickels and pennies, and round off to the nearest two bits: the quarter. Financial transactions could still reflect cents, or fractions thereof, if they want to. Lets face it, these little dimes, nickels and pennies are more annoying than they are worth. My plan,for a period of time you could turn them in for real money, then after a deadline, they would be history. There would be negatives, but the positives are stronger.

Ever since they started the State Quarter minting a few years ago, I am not so happy with the quarter either, to be honest. It is thinner, and just looks cheaper and tinny compared to the older ones, but times do change. Click the coin below to see images of all the states issued so far. I think it is surprising what some of the designs the states ended up with, but a lot are predictable.

New Hampshire has a particular problem. No sooner than the coin came out, the Old Man of the Mountain's face fell off. Really.
I haven't heard if they plan to reconstruct it.

Click for other state quarters.

Update: I don't know about you, but I see a new "Old Man" profile in the new rock face. He even has long flowing hair if you squint right. I propose thet they call him a little old and tired and laid back now, give him a ball cap and call it a new era.

Optical dilusions

I have to pass on a couple of optical illusions that I ran across. Our eyes actually don't see things perfectly like cameras. Instead they have to report to the brain the partial data that they see, and then the mind interprets it from both eyes, and if it doesn't make sense, scans again quickly and tries to fill in the information that does not compute.

It does this quickly and uses experience and memories of previous images as the comparison. If the images, such as the two concentric circles below, contain so many false clues, the brain just can not resolve it correctly. but keeps trying as you look at different areas.


Click the image for circle validation.

Here is another one: It is an animatied .gif image of only two frames, alternating, but your mind dearly wants it to be going around like a ferris wheel, because that's what makes sense. However it can't decide which way it is rotating. Look at the right and left edges:

Patent search

A few years back I tried to look up patents on the internet and found you could not do it. I just found that they have changed that, and the U.S. Patent Office had a great searchable site.

I was successful in finding some patents by my old friend John Adams in Virginia, for instance #4524476

However, I also looked up an old patent number off a gadget for paint pinstriping I had shown to puzzlephotos for identification.

The number was clear and on the end of the bottle: US PAT 92,148. It seemed low - maybe old, I thought. Strangely enough, that number probably was bogus, since it refers to an old 1869 patent for a wagon wheel gage.

Bet there is a story behind that.

Anyhow, the Patent search site is amazing. There is a text only section that gives all the legal sounding description mumbo-jumbo, i.e. "Be it known that.. this abstract states . . . refer to figure #21. ." etc. But even better is the image section that shows the actual drawings and pages from the patent itself. I had to install a special advanced TIFF plugin to make it work, and it actually works BETTER in Firefox than IE!

k-e-double-l-o-double-g-s

I was browsing historical photos on the Connecticut state archive site, and just liked this old picture of a Kellogg's truck. Check out the corn flakes boxes on top. Ask for the WAXTITE package.

Copyrights? © © © ©

© I was reading some material about copyrights on a government site after a discussion with some musicians about making copies of musical scores. Buried in small print, I discovered an interesting concept that I had not realized before, and I think most people have the same mistaken concept as I did.

© I thought that copyrights (and patents for that matter) were established to protect the rights of the original creator. I thought the goal was that he will be allowed the opportunity to profit from or at least control the use of the original material, and to prevent others from doing so.

© That seems very logical, and indeed is the effect, but believe it or not, it is not the base reason the copyright laws were created, and continue to exist. It is not about the individual, but the society.

© The real reason is to insure that the creative process is encouraged, not discouraged in our society. A system that stifles or slows down innovation would be bad for all. Copyright laws are just a means to that end, and may not be the only way to do it.

© The idea is that if people do not have a reasonable chance to profit from their work, they would not do it. That is a very capitalistic and intellectually sound concept, but not a universal truth. For instance, monks in the renaissance created beautifully crafted Biblical paintings and scrolls with neither copyright protection nor stimulation by the profit motive.

© As we re-think the laws, updating for the new technologies and the digital age, these concepts will come into play.

Eminent Domain Abuse

I have typically kept my governmental and political views out of this blog, but I feel a need to voice an opinion about an important constitutional issue here in Connecticut that has risen to the Supreme Court. The issue is eminent domain:

Typically we were taught that if an interstate was going through, or a new town hall was being built, and the government needed the land, a private owner was duty bound to sell at market price, yield to the public use and public good. Seems like a civilized thing. Even though there may be some losers, the society would gain.

U.S. Constitution: Amendment V No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Only mentions property taken for public use. It was just assumed that they can't take private property for other reasons.

But over the years, apparently the cities and courts have been pushing this public use clause limit, and have allowed cities to take land that the "public use" was not so clearly defined.

Now this test case is being argued. It is a classic example, not fuzzy at all. New London Connecticut has condemned and wants to kick homeowners off their own land, out of their own houses for: . . . . get this . . . a private business park and shops complex! Probably it will bring in much more revenue for the city! Not a city owned project, private. So New London thinks that if you pay your mortgage for 30 years like this one family did, play by the rules, own your own home in the working-class section, Fort Trumbull, near the harbor, the city can force you to sell it to somebody else because they will possibly pay more taxes (the public use angle)? American spirit, right?

To say this is outrageous seems to be an understatement. This was argued last week in front of the Supreme Court, and they will render the opinion in the next few months, I guess. If they don't rule this unconstitutional, It will be a shame.

If you want to read some more details about this, a place to start would be Jeff Jacoby's article here. Quoting Jacoby, here is the bottom line if not reversed:

"Anyone's property can be taken by eminent domain if the government believes another owner would use it to earn a higher profit. . . . . The question now is whether five Supreme Court justices will agree to kill off this piece of the Bill of Rights for good, or to bring it back to life. The fate of more than just seven Connecticut homeowners is riding on their decision."

Kuni - Kunihiko Makita

Fire up the way-back machine ~~~~~ Our family hosted an AFS exchange student from Japan when I was a junior in high school. Kuni was a friend and "brother" to us.

He went on to a career in the foreign service of Japan, and we followed him from a distance. I never knew how significant and important his roles were. I knew he was a "China Watcher " among other things. The first official post name I heard for him was "Director-General of Asian and Oceanic Affairs". He was ambassador to Singapore for two years, then in July 2004 became ambassador to Egypt. THE Japanese ambassador to Egypt. Here is the website of his embassy in Cairo.
Here are few pictures I googled of Kuni from the last four years.





1962?

CT Tobacco Barns

Connecticut does have a Tobacco industry. It is just a sliver of what it used to be, though. Most of it is "shade tobacco" protected by net screens looking like so many square miles of spider web supported by scaffolding to make a sort of a greenhouse effect during critical times of the plant growth. This produces good tobacco for wrapping cigars, I am told. Local people my age remember having summer jobs in the tobacco fields, helping migrant and local workers with planting, screening, or hanging harvested leaves up to dry in the classic tobacco barns.

Well, the barns are my real interest. A Connecticut staple of country landscape are these large and blocky barns, with their weathered red, brown or silvery sides. They almost are invisible because of being so commonplace. You see old ones over-run by vegetation, roof caved in and boards stripped for somebody's rec room. You see them turned into all sorts of storage buildings, but mostly they stay in their unique original form. The planking on the sides is articulated so that every other board can open to vent, and so they are not air tight structures at all, as barns go. Sort of an imaginary architectural vision comes to me with one of these barns to live in, the outside being rustic and original, then the inside maybe a ultra modern house. The contrast would be stunning.

To illustrate, from my "vast archives" I draw these pictures Martha and I took(except the shade pic) over in South Windsor, down by the Connecticut River a couple of summers ago.

Jew's Harp Revisited

I was thinking that the fairly decent Jew's harp I have squirreled away in my drawer was a dying breed.

Even in the old days when Johnson-Smith was the my Jew's harp source; (see my archive blog) and when Froggie the Gremlin (another past blog) was twanging, or Gerald Mc Boing Boing was boinging, we in the Brooks family were strangely proud to know the difference between a toy or cheap Jew's harp and a quality one that would really bang (twang?) out a tone.

After sitting on or losing a favorite twanger, we would finally get Dad to take us in to Rochester to get a real nice one from a glass case in a music store. The stiffer yoke and the tuned blue-black steel tang would really talk to you . I saw a "Jaw harp" on a card at a store lately that was the awful pot metal toy that I'm sure would have had the weak airy sound that surely would kill off the species. I don't know what is worse, somebody buying that, thinking they would get the great sound, or using the P.C. name "Jaw Harp" that somehow implies that saying Jew's Harp is in some way objectionable or anti-Semitic or something. Dopey.

Anyhow, I had almost decided that quality Jew's harps were dying when I found this link that is just short of the Holy Grail if you are a Jew's Harp fan. Reviews and descriptions of scores of creative and wonderful harps. makers from around the world, pictures of them all. A strange and handmade site that shows the quality and variety seen for the humble musical tawanger.




Just one more reference to make this blog as rich as possible. Here is an audio clip from the grandaddy of all Jew's harps, I guess. It is a clip from "Ghenghis Blues" album with Paul Pena and Ondar from Tuva. (great story, should be the object of another blog) . The jacket reports it as a homus, a Tuvan instrument. Hearing these strange overtones, I can see why a lot of folks like me who like this sound also are fascinated by throat singing and similar overtone rich sounds like the Australian didgeridoo.
Here is the clip of Kongar-ol Ondar and the Tuvan homus Jew's harp.

Spring Thing

This might seem very popular science weekend project-ish, but I have been enjoying the tools on puzzlephotos, so I have a few gadget related blogs in mind, including this one.

I have installed too many door closers in my time, most are finicky and either take too long to close the door, or don't really latch it right, or slam it anyway eventually as the hyraulics fade, or the screws loosen. Well, I found an elegant solution for our back door here the last time a closer croaked. Not for every door, but perfect for this one.

Just a simple spring mounted vertically to the jamb, positioned to stretch as the door is opened. It's gentle, does the job and is out of the way. The spring could be adjusted by changing the mounting point.
______

Back Door Spring - makes an elegant door closer.

Pogo Stick owners manual?

Our family was reminiscing about stilts and pogo sticks that we over-used as kids, but Martha, as expected, did us one better. Not only does she still have her pogo stick from the old days, but she has the spare parts envelope with instructions that came with it! My attitude would have been, if you can't figure out what to do with the cotter pin, or had to read instructions (for goodness sake) to use the Pogo, you were out of luck. No healthful exersise for you!

TubaChristmas

I had a new musical-social experience last week. TubaChristmas 2004. I was encouraged into it by a friend, who wouldn't let me use the excuse that I am not good enough, joking that nobody would know if I was off or not, among 200 other tubas! About 5 months ago, I got a used Baritone horn, or euphonium, which is sort of a baby tuba. I thought I could learn the fingerings fairly quickly, and it is in the same range and uses about the same mouthpiece and music as my trombone. It turned out to be tougher than I thought, and I got through the beginner stage fine, but really have a tough time when things get faster or more advanced. But I had gotten to the point that I can play the basic stuff, and I thought, "How hard can Christmas carols be?" Well they kept me jumping, that's for sure.

TubaChristmas is a national thing, occurring in more cities every year, organized locally, usually one per state in December, and promoted as a free public concert. I know there was one in Rockefeller Center, NY the day after ours in Essex Connecticut,because I met someone who was in it. The participants all play some size or shape of the tuba family, from giant double basses, to Sousaphones, to baritones and more rare configurations like double-bell euphoniums (euphonia?) . Four part harmony starts at low and goes down. What a great sound, though. Well, it turned out there were only ~100 Tubas, but still a feast for the brass lover's ear.

Did I mention it was held in an unheated old railroad warehouse in the restored train complex in Essex? People who had come to ride the old trains heard the music and wandered in.
=======================================

College age Sea Monkeys?

A posting on Fragments From FLoyd gives me another reason to doubt the flexibility, sense of humor or at least the appreciation of life of the next generation. Fred, professor of biology in Virginia (and so much more), did not describe this incident to disparage the students, but as a tongue-in-cheek failure of his stand-up comedy approach to a class lesson. However, I read more into it.

He enhanced his lessons about "brine shrimp" by relating some tales of the experience and folly that old fogeys like me remember well. These creatures were sold as "Sea Monkeys" in exaggerated ads in the back of comic books and magazines in the 60s and 70s. Great fun. Maybe we didn't really believe the hype, but in ordering these or planning to get them, we visualized the little faces and personalities of the mail order pets as depicted in the ads. Anyhow, Fred's college kids didn't get it, or they got it and were bored.

I don't know about you, but I lived breathed and cheered for professors with attitudes and stories like this when I was in college. Above and beyond the bland facts and figures. Maybe it was because Allegheny College was quite a strong and advanced liberal arts school, but I remember a lot of great teachers like that, seemingly bursting with enthusiasm for their subjects, especially my first two years (way back then). I loved it. I was sometimes a lousy student, but I loved it.

I still have a vivid image of Dr. Paul Cares (gee, I will have to look up his name to be sure) that I had for a History of the Far East. He was a large man, deep and powerful voice, heartily explaining the chapters we had supposedly read for that class.

In this particular lecture, he was illustrating that habits and cultural differences between nationalities could not be easily set aside, and are easily misunderstood. He told the story of a wealthy man in the US who had an Asian chef in his household serving him loyally for years. He knew the man prepared meat on the floor, in that typical baseball catcher-like crouch position, that looks so uncomfortable to most of us. So he decided to get him a large butcher block table as a gift -- hopefully to make his job easier. Of course the chef thanked him profusely for the new table, but when he used it, he hopped up on the block, crouched down and worked as usual. When he told that story, Cares was animated, eyes sparking with humor, arms waving, cheeks and jowls in motion, totally immersed in the story. I still remember it after about 40 years. Not boring, that's for sure.

CADD drawings show their age.

The year 1947. The task: an architect drew by hand with artistic stroke and tedious detail the plans - multiple pages 36" x 48" for the dam and associated buildings, occupied and controlled by the Army Corps of Engineers.
The Place: Buggs Island Lake - the huge reservoir on the N.C. - VA border that flooded untold acres and provided water for the region with watersports and vacation property a byproduct.

The year 1995: I was involved in training the army personnel to scan and convert those plans and others to images to be stored for archive on computer media. It sounds simple, but making the whole system work, from the hardware interface, with wide scanners, plotters, and PCs, plus the the software control and image format options made it quite a complicated process.

I squirreled away and somehow still have a couple of the images of a cross section of the main dam, with the power turbines, dam construction, and main headquarters building. There is much more to see on the complete drawings, with the great handwork, but here are a couple of clips that are interesting. They show some of the engineering but also a bit of social history common in 1947 Virginia. Check out the separate facilities on the third clip.

Title Block area for the Powerhouse section.

Cross section of the dam and turbines.

I was in this building in 1995, and I don't remember the rooms being marked this way.