tapuk: January 2011

wallpaper It's Monday, What Are You Reading? #23

wallpaper The baby afghan is still taking most of my time and attention and so that I can work on it four to six hours per day, I've been getting most of my story fixes from videos this whole month but in spite of that and the bug I've been fighting for over a week now I have managed to spend some significant time with books this past week.

Though they were all either on their way back to the library or just coming home from the library.

In the first category:

wallpaper

The Case for God by Karen Armstrong

It's hardly surprising when I don't finish a nearly 800 page NF book even when the subject matter is one of highest fascination for me and the author one I gravitate to and trust the most on the subject. I'll be sending for this one again soon. Would like to own it.

It is no longer surprising but still very annoying and frustrating when a novel I've already started or am about to start or discover I really want to start, won't renew. I tend to torture myself in the last day or two it is in my possession by thumbing through and snatching a paragraph or two or three form random pages. That happened three times this past week:

wallpaper

The Wishing Trees by John Shors

wallpaper

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

I sent for this after watching the DVD over a month ago and actually read the first chapter the day it came home. It is a re-read for me of course and so was too easy to set aside. But that didn't make it any easier to let go of it when it came due this week. I really need to own my own copy again.

wallpaper

The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight by Gina Ochsner

And this is the second time I've had this out for more than a month! Not only am I fascinated by anything Russian since my love of Russian literature began in high school but the author is Oregonian.

Two of the books in the second category, coming home with me for the first time, are the NF:

wallpaper

Blogging for Dummies by Susannah Gardner and Shiane Birley

wallpaper

Getting Things Done by David Allen

Both are books with lots of useful information and tips and tricks immediately applicable. With the help of these two books I've continued to fiddle with my blog template and other technical blogging issues since Bloggiesta ended over a week ago and I've begun to tackle other neglected projects with the help of Allen's advice on organizing and planning.

wallpaper No Biggie

There have been a few reports today, in OregonLive, KGW and KATU, about a series of small quakes at Mt. St Helens over the weekend.

There were 15 quakes, mostly in the magnitude 1 range, with a couple around magnitude 2.5 recorded by the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network. They were about two miles deep just northwest of the volcano.

Small swarms like this are not uncommon under any of the major Cascade peaks and the surrounding area. All three reports appear to be based on the same AP source, and all agree that this shouldn't be taken as a warning of any incipient St Helens activity. On the other hand, if you're in the vicinity of Yellowstone, you might want to hightail it out of there. In fact, I'd like to recommend that any geological activity, anywhere on the planet, should be taken to indicate that the terror threat at Yellowstone has risen from red to at least crimson, and very likely ultraviolet.

wallpaper Monday Screening

Storm tomorrow for a bout 6 inches of snow and then a huge storm all day Wednesday for another 15 inches of the white stuff. Just unreal.

Monday Screening
Monday is screening night! I am working in The PPT and the 12631 tonight. Not much looking too interesting, I will update later if I find anything that I am going to trade.

Market is ugly right here and long side bets are harder to find all of a sudden. Figures.

Update:
Not much turning up on my screens. Best looking ideas are HSY, AMRC, and BMY.

Update:
Going in long with HSY and AMRC. Smallish positions.

Have a good night.

wallpaper The Anti-Centrifuge Conspiracy

Snow again for both Tuesday and Wednesday. Another 16 inches or so. No comment.

The Anti-Centrifuge Conspiracy
I have been thinking about something for a little while and now I want to share it with the readers. Are you sure you really want to know the truth? You cannot go back once you go forward.

I want to accuse the large conglomerate product makers, mega firms like Proctor and Gamble, of a worldwide centrifuge suppression conspiracy. There, now it's out there.

What am I talking about? From Wikipedia:

Centrifuge
A centrifuge is a piece of equipment, generally driven by an electric motor (some older models were spun by hand), that puts an object in rotation around a fixed axis, applying a force perpendicular to the axis. The centrifuge works using the sedimentation principle, where the centripetal acceleration causes more dense substances to separate out along the radial direction (the bottom of the tube). By the same token, lighter objects will tend to move to the top (of the tube; in the rotating picture, move to the centre).

It's all so clear to me now.

I of course use centrifuges all the time at work and thus I should have figured this all out before. What am I talking about?

You know that bottle of hand lotion that uses a pump to dispense the stuff? Or hand soap? Or anything somewhat viscous in a bottle? Yeah that stuff. Is it not strange that those bottles can still be HALF FULL yet you cannot get any more product out because it is not near the pick up for the pump? Then what? You have to BUY ANOTHER item, that's what! Volume sales indeed.

This goes on and on from toothpaste to body soap to motor oil in the bottles. There is tons of product left that you cannot get to!

A home centrifuge would allow you to spin down the product to concentrated areas so all of it could be used. Here is a centrifuge with a rotor and holders that could work:

wallpaper
Now these are kind of expensive, but that has to do with the fact that scientists buy them. If I buy aluminum foil through our Biotech supplier, it is like $20 for a box of Reynolds wrap! I can buy it at Walmart for $2. It's how the game is played.

I would think GE or Sears would have made a home model centrifuge by now to allow the full usage of the product that you paid for. As such, there are none because the power players obviously buy up any small company that tries this and closes the doors forever. Think of all the profit they stand to lose if you actually use the full amount of stuff you bought! Think of all that toothpaste alone!

There comes a time to speak truth to power.

A home centrifuge must be allowed to market. It will be good for the environment. It will result in less waste. You will be able to look your children in the eye and feel that you are doing the very best you can for them. All this and so much more.
Disclosure: Long assorted centrifuge device makers, but that is not a conflict as I see it.

Have a good night.

wallpaper This is Cool

Scale from Brad Goodspeed on Vimeo.

Though as the source notes, "Needs more Saturn." This embedding code looks like the style I was fighting with yesterday, so if the clip doesn't show up for you, follow the link to the source or to Scale, and you should be able to see it. It's only about a minute long, and quite impressive.

Followup: Yep. And as it turns out, Vimeo also offers "the old code," which is code for "the code that actually works." Hopefully, this is fixed now.

wallpaper Today in Stupid

wallpaper Which does Faux News not get: plate tectonics or geography? (Hint: I'm betting on both.) Hullabaloo

wallpaper This Bunsen Boehner looks suspiciously like that other guy: (image above and awful pun mine)

wallpaper SwansonTea: F*@&ing Bill O’Reilly — How Does He Work?

As long as there is one thing that science can’t explain (or he doesn’t understand), all is well with his world. It’s amazing to me that this argument makes sense to him.

wallpaper EB Misfit points out that the designers of this logo have the Wright brothers the first to fly a heavier-than-air craft... backwards. Whether this bodes poorly for the competition remains to be seen.

wallpaper Sunday Serenity #214

I'm been watching movies this week end. Yesterday it was this documentary Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus which is a tour through the American south with singer song-writer Jim White and writer Harry Crews as guides. Both of whom had lived there as children. The video featured much haunting scenery and music and interviews of the locals that amounted to storytelling at its most basic.

I enjoyed the comments Harry Crews had on the meaning of story to us and how the natural story-telling of those around him as he grew up has influenced his own written stories.

Sense and Sensibility was a re-watch for me. Can't get enough of it. Cannot believe never realized that Emma Thompson who played Elinor had also written the script adapted from Jane Austen's novel.

This was her Golden Globe award for best screenplay acceptance speech in which she in the words and persona of Jane Austen herself. Funny.

wallpaper Sunday Funnies

wallpaper Sober in a Nightclub

wallpaper Criggo

wallpaper God Hates Protesters

wallpaper PhD Comics, via Bits and Pieces

wallpaper Darius Whiteplume's Tumblr

wallpaper Fake Science

wallpaper

see more funny videos

wallpaper Married to the Sea

wallpaper Saturday Morn ing Breakfast Cereal

wallpaper Cyanide and Happiness

wallpaper Via Propagating Waves

wallpaper Criggo

wallpaper Skull Swap

wallpaper Pharyngula

wallpaper The High Definite

wallpaper

Digging a foxhole. See more Lolcats and funny pictures

wallpaper EpicPonyz

wallpaper This is an older one I posted two or three years ago, but it's still funny. BizarroBlog

wallpaper

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

wallpaper

see more Historic LOL

wallpaper Criggo

wallpaper

see more Hacked IRL - Truth in Sarcasm

wallpaper My First Dictionary... the real punchline to this one is that the above are the actual illustration and definitions given in the original 10940's children's dictionary that Ross Horsely uses as his source.

wallpaper

The Daily Irritant

wallpaper Joy of Tech

wallpaper The Far Left Side

wallpaper Slowpoke... speaking of bankers, here's a piece from The Guardian that just showed up: banker jokes! Just one to whet your appetite, but there are quite a few at the link.

A man is stuck in traffic. He asks a police officer about the hold-up and he replies: "The head of the Bank Of England is so depressed about the economy he's stopped his car and is threatening to douse himself with petrol and set himself on fire. So we're taking up a collection for him." The man asks: "How much have you got so far?" The policeman replies: "About 40 gallons, but a lot of people are still siphoning."