I just heard that Pope Benedict XVI has praised Galileo. Well, maybe I am a salad bar Catholic, but if the Catholic church continues to wait 400 years to apologize for things that they got wrong, I sure hope that the church someday remembers that they are human, and fallible. It is hard for me to feel comfortable in any church except the Catholic church, though I feel so out of place when I go into a church today. Will my views exile me to hell, until the church decides to say We changed our mind, and now you’re a good person.

Isn’t the core behind most religions just Be nice to each other and do good things? It seems that so many people overlook these simple concepts. Love, peace, harmony… pretty universal no matter who you see as a prophet.

It comes up on occasion: “Will you sell hazmat.com?”

That’s a really hard question, and I just wrote this to someone that inquired today:

I don’t have a set price that I would sell the domain for (how do you price memories?). I have thought about this in great depth in the past, which is why I can come up with what is, to me, a pretty profound answer: will it allow me to retire comfortably? (not extravagantly) (of course, this is after taxes, lawyers and the resultant amount wisely invested). I don’t expect to ever have the will to stop working- I would just like the opportunity to work on what I want to (simply put: building cool stuff).

I do believe that hazmat.com is valuable, and in a non-obvious way, it is particularly valuable to me: it is one way in which I communicate with the world, and it could not be easily replaced.

If I keep running the domain forever and it doesn’t lead to my retirement, I’m comfortable with that. Right now, I have a good job, a family and all the other stressors that come with a suburban middle class American life in the 21st century. No one has offered an amount that would affect my life as much as being the proprietor of hazmat.com. Your client is free to make me an offer, considering the above, but I won’t set a price.

First Shot of my newest air cannon.

All the parts that make up this project could be purchased at Home Depot or Lowe’s. This is a double reservoir air cannon. This shot was a 20oz plastic (Diet Coke) bottle full of water. The barrel is 5 feet of 3 inch PVC pipe. Elevation was about 30°, and it went about 125 paces… roughly between 350 and 400 feet. 60psi in each reservoir, each reservoir feeding from a 1″ sprinkler valve into a 1.5″ galvanized T. What you see fluttering down is the label from the bottle that got ripped off during the launch. No wadding, but the plastic bottle fits pretty snugly.

I’m going to leave the math of what it should do at 45 degrees as an exercise for Desi.

I’ve got some more:

• Literally: As in “It’s literally raining cats and dogs out there.” C’mon, lets just stop with this one.  Far too much misuse.
• Could care less: Every time I hear this, I feel the pain of the “n’t” being forgotten.

I was thinking about this motor, since I saw it in the catalog that was just mailed to me- What I’d like to do is use one for a robot gripper mechanism- to emulate a tendon that would make a finger close around an object- you would need a couple, of course.

The key to it would be a mechanism to measure the tension that the finger was actually applying- and do that by running the cable over a spring mounted pulley, in a sort of triangular arrangement- as the cable had more tension- think three pulleys in a row, under, over, under- the two “under” pulleys are fixed, and the center “over” pulley is the one that is spring mounted- as more tension is in the cable, the more the cable wants to straighten out- pulling the “over” pulley down.- with a spring on the over pulley and a potentiometer to measure displacement, you could have a pretty precise method to measure tension and therefore squeezing force of the finger.

So I saw Quantum of Solace this past weekend with my friends Glen and Alayna, and I think that it was a good use of the word Quantum, which is one of those pseudo-sciencey type words that typically gets used in such a wrong way, it is like fingernails on a chalkboard for me.  I figured since the world values my opinion so much, I’ve decided to create a list of words and phrases that should be retired:

• Quantum: If you’re not a physicist, you’re probably using it wrong, in particular, when used in conjunction with the word leap.
• Light Year: A measure of distance, not time, and unless you’re an astrophysicist or science fiction writer, you’re probably using it wrong.
• Now more than ever: such a vague cliche, it is a waste of breath.

So I logged in to Change.gov, and decided to enter my own comment:

Please, do not add me to any telephone, email, or mailing lists. I would be delighted to talk or email a person, but deeply saddened if the information gathered from this website was used to solicit for money, rather than for ideas.

My vision for the company is summarized in the first 3 words of the preamble to the constitution “We the people.” The government has to be returned to the people. I believe that since my vote carries the same meaning as a billionaire’s vote, we both should have the very same access to our elected officials and their appointees. Unfortunately, it is only the rich and corporations that have the resources to address our government in a manner that is actually heard. I’ve had people tell me “that’s the way it is, and you’re not going to change it,” but I believe a phrase that has become popular: “Yes, we can.”

I wonder what I will hear back

Just Saw George A. Romero’s Diary of the Dead. A good documentary about what can happen to the unprepared. I’m surprised it took so long to come out- the DVD extras were mentioning that it was filmed in 2006. Yet another outbreak, kept quiet by both the liberal and conservative media alike. Keep your zombie survival kit handy, and don’t forget, always, always, go for the brain.

Well, I want to make sure my check engine light works- so I’m working on a circuit that will read the voltage from the car, watch the voltage for noise and then turn off the CEL once the engine is running. With all the ricers running around, I would have figured this was something that I could buy just about anywhere… but no.

So I’m working on a circuit that does it with some smarts. I’ll still have to pass the “sniff” tests, which is really the important part, right? Just because I have an aftermarket ECU, does that mean that I can’t have OBD2? It looks like I will be able to do it with a minimum number of parts, thanks to the wonderful features of the PIC16F886.

Too many people think zombies are just something that only happens in the movies. Remain vigilant, be prepared!

I constantly think about how our country (mostly the government) could be improved, and it mostly centers around making sure that the government is for the people, not for the corporations, despite the 1886 Supreme Court decision granting the 14th amendment rights (equal protection) to corporations, as stated in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. This decision is just plain wrong. Maybe it requires an amendment to the constitution, but I think it is important that this concept be changed. A part of the solution is this: if you can’t vote for ‘em, you can’t contribute to them.

We have to make sure that each politician is accountable to the people they represent, not the corporations or any particular lobbying interest. The corporations and lobbyists have way too much influence- I think that they should have influence, but only as the agglomeration of people that own and work for the corporation, or belong to that special interest group. Ultimately, a government must be accountable to the people it governs, and only to those people. I’m open to criticisms of this concept- I’m just not aware of any that I think are valid.

I found a solution to the vacuum leak that has been vexing me for so long- I pressurized my intake, corking the tailpipe and used my handy home-made smoke generator:

Dry-ice in a ketchup bottle wrapped in a towel (to insulate it), and duct tape liberally applied, with a straw hot-glued into the lid to draw the “smoke” from the center of the bottle when the bottle is inverted. Add warm water to make the smoke start.

I saw an unusual amount of the fumes being pulled into a stream from just about the most inaccessible place on the engine- under the supercharger and above the manifold. So it was off with the supercharger.

Can you guess where the massive vacuum leak is?

I put a new gaskget in (a thinner, stronger material) and the MAP levels are reading in the 30 range at idle, and no idle fuel-cut oscillations!

Now, I might just be able to tune!

Jeff, Tom and I had a great call with a customer. Tom was driving us back to our cars and I noticed something unusual- the driver’s side door was open and there was someone in it! I jumped out of Tom’s car and ran towards my truck. The gentleman in my car was busy searching for additional things to remove. He jumped back into his truck and tried to drive away. His window was open, so I reached inside his truck and tried to turn it off and grab his keys- but I didn’t have much luck- so I grabbed his gear selector and tried to rip it off. He was busy fighting me- trying to put it into gear and drive off- for a while, my hand was caught between the gear selector and ignition switch. In the meantime, Tom and Jeff we’re calling 911 and reading off the license plate. The miscreant started to beg me to let him go- I politely told him no, though I did ask him to give me my stuff back (OK, I didn’t say stuff, but I did say a word that begins with “S”). I may have asked him a couple times- and finally he threw my briefcase out the window. He punched me in the head a few times, and even got his foot up to kick me. He finally was able to crush my hand further and get the truck into gear. Not wanting to hang off his truck as he drove down the highway- I let go, and this bottom-feeder made his escape. Unfortunately, I think my lab-notebook may have been left in the miscreant’s truck. As he left- he managed to drive over my briefcase- There’s a nice tire-track across it- some of my development tools got a little crushed- the jury is out. I think the laptop is still working (I’m writing this on it)- though my battery caught some damage… a bit crushed on the corner.

The police came after about 15 minutes, took our report… and I left for the emergency clinic to get my hand bandaged, X-rayed, and a tetanus shot. I’m now sitting in my recliner, emotionally and physically drained, with a throbbing hand and a truck with a popped drivers door lock. What a fucking day.

P.S. Not to try an cast a racial stereotype, but like lots of the crime around here, the guy was Hispanic (probably Mexican- dark skinned)

Got some X-rays done of my recent spinal fusion- I figure the doctor could have installed the plate a bit straighter, but I’m not going to go back in for warranty work.

Thankfully, now I’m clear to drive again, and I get to do some self-PT (as in, I can turn my head for normal day to day looking around).

In a bit of Ebay driven Nostalgia, I decided to purchase a Questech Microbot Teachmover. It came yesterday- and after some tweaking, like properly rerouting the gripper cable, I decided I needed to replace a number of the cables that drive it. In searching around, I found a kick-ass resource- Small Parts. Their prices don’t seem exorbitant, and their catalog is chock-full of cool parts that everyone really needs, like spools of nitinol wire, stainless metric socket head screws… and they have a downloadable catalog. But their catalog would be a good thing just to thumb through on on the odd hacking urge.

UPDATE: Watch your shopping cart- their return policy is pretty bad- a 25% restocking fee, and they wouldn’t waive any of it if I used the credit to buy something else from them. It was my fault, I know, so I’m paying the price for not being attentive.

You can trick out your ride, but you ain’t trick until you’ve tricked out your body. I’m not talking about those easy things like piercings and tattoos- I mean serious Titanium improvements.

In my case, I’ve added the Titanium to my spine.

Well, I saw this stuff at Seven-Eleven yesterday and I figured I might try it. With the pain meds I’m on due to my herniated disk, and due to the cold I think I caught via Angie… I’m dragging. Mostly Caffeine and some artificial sweetener. We’ll see how this goes.

UPDATE: 1.5 hours later- no Niacin flash, a little tightness in my throat, still not 100%

I like the little Smart cars. I really think they are the type of cars we need to see in the USA. They say they are Challenging the status quo. Not really. I asked if they were going to be bringing in their Diesel- their response:

Dear smart Enthusiast, Thank you for your interest in smart USA. At this
time, there are no plans to offer a diesel version of the fortwo here in
the US. If you have any other questions or concerns, please contact us
via email or by phone at 1.800.smartusa. Thank you for your interest in
smart USA. You will be hearing from us soon! James McMurray Customer