• Tag Archives technology

  • A Fed? LOL

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    43  bar steady  29.47 11mph  NNE  dewpoint 42 Beltane

                    Waning Crescent Moon of Growing

    Well, ok then.  The reader who wondered about my hydroponics is not a Fed.  LOL they said. 

    It is a weirdness about the Web that we can connect directly with people, yet know nothing about them.  The weirdness compounds when we realize the people with whom we come in contact in this way, we don’t know at all beyond a few words on a computer screen.  In the case of comments on a website or a blog like this one the stakes are, for the most part, low, but when you consider the apparent number of people who meet up in person after such interactions. 

    All this reminds me of Alvin Toffler and his book, Future Shock.  I still remember many ideas from that book because he was a good phrase maker.  High tech, high touch is the one that comes to mind here, but in a slightly different vein than Toffler’s.  His version was that the more we connect through technology, the more we will want to see each other in person.  I believe that’s true, but I’m on another tack here.  High tech, high touch heightens the need, the desire for personal interaction, yes. It produces that desire–the original sense of eros in the Greek, the desire for human contact–in a situation we have not evolved to understand.

    We are animals wired over hundreds of thousands of years to read the language in another person’s eyes, the way they hold their hands, the set of their neck, the wrinkles and twitches of the mouth.  Though we are often wrong even with those cues, at least in face-to-face encounters we have a chance to assess, to ponder.  Words on a page are not the same.  Not even close.  It may be that we have a sophisticated reader’s intution about how language reveals the author, but that’s a game often got wrong by critics, so how good can we be?

    The point is this, words without flesh, disembodied words put us at a disadvantage.  We can’t judge the intent of a phrase, the reason behind a conjecture.  This has led to the all too familiar problem of flaming where some unhappy soul takes this anonymity and uses it to vent, often just to vent.

    Toffler also described Over Choice, a situation where we face more decisions about more matters than we can handle with anything approaching wisdom.  This applies to people we meet through the electronic ether, too.  The reader interested in hydroponics might be a valuable interlocutor, one whose journey with indoor gardening might supplement and enhance my own.  And vice versa.  Or, they could be, as I speculated, a law enforcement officer hiding behind the web’s anonymity.   Because it is my nature to trust first and question later, I accept the response to my speculation at face value; but, I have no face.  Therein lies the dilemma.

    We must evolve some method, some means of reading people we meet on the web.  I suppose that’s what Facebook, Youtube, Myspace propose to accomplish, but there it is often meeting people to be meeting people.  And those social networking sites get gamed, too.  An endless loop. 

    Enough on this.  I have to get to work writing my piece for the Muse.  It’s taken an odd turn.  Wonder how it will finish?


    📂This entry was posted in Friends Garden GeekWorld Great Work 📎and tagged

  • A Cheap Lesson Overall

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    58  bar falls 29.68  0mph E  dewpoint 57  Spring  rain

                   Waning Gibbous Moon of Growing

    I have crossed a threshold today.   A while back my treadmill started to not shut off when I turned it off.  The treadmill kept going at a speed of 1.0 to 1.5 mph.  After calling NOW Sports in Arden Hills, where, it turns out, I bought the machine (when they were in Maplewood), Mike the repair guy called Landice.  They recommended replacing a harness that connects the dial to a rheostat and the computer board that controls the displays.  I looked at it, and it didn’t look  too difficult, so I ordered the $100 part.

    It came.

    Last night I took off the old harness and installed the new one.  No joy.  It didn’t work at all.  That was a step backward, but, it was not an unusual outcome when I set out to repair things, so I called Mike.  He said he’d call Landice and see if replacing the whole panel was the way to go.  After I hung up, I started to go upstairs and I noticed lights on the display panel.  Electricity!

    That meant I might not be as far off as I thought.  I went back at it, jiggling wires.  It went off again.  Jiggled and moved some more wires.  A click.  A good sign.  Then, I found the right position for everything, turned the treadmill to on and it worked.  The elevation worked.  I turned it off.  It still ran.  At this point you might think I was unhappy, but I wasn’t.  This just meant that I had replaced the old harness with a new one and both were good.  The important thing here is that I replaced the old one with a new one and the damned thing still worked.  If that had been the  solution, it would have worked.  As it is, I spent $100 to prove to myself that I can work on things electronic.  A cheap lesson overall.


    📂This entry was posted in GeekWorld 📎and tagged

  • Kohler Generators

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    32  bar steep rise 30.22 4mph dewpoint 24 Spring

                   Waning Crescent Moon of Winds 

    “I simply cannot think that human beings will be able to discard their desire and need for something that is sublime, something that transports them, takes them out of time, takes them out of the banality of the everyday world . . . to make something is tremendously powerful in and of itself.” -Sean Scully

    “Men do not care how nobly they live, but only how long they live, although it is in the reach of every man to live nobly, but within no man’s power to live long.” – Seneca

    One last snowblowing adventure.  The snow has already melted off the driveway and the sidewalk.  It will remain longer on the yard and in the woods, but the days of the snowcover are near an end.  Even so, it was nice to get out one more time and see the arc of white curving up then fall toward the earth.  Good to be outside. (We’ll set aside being there with a two-cycle engine.)

    Roger came out today from Allied Generators.  When we went through a spate of disaster planning last fall, we realized our home would not fare well in a power outage.  Why?  No water since we get our pump from a well.  That’s the big one.  We could be here with all the water we needed 180 feet below us and no way to get it to the surface.  Dumb.  Then, of course, there’s powering up the cell phones and the computers for necessary communication.  If Kate is to survive in a reasonably mellow state, we need the air con to work, too.  All of our appliances have electric starter switches.  And so on.  

    The result of this got me to looking at generators.  Consumer reports pointed out an obvious problem with gasoline powered generators.  If there’s a problem with the electricity, filling station pumps don’t work.  So, how do you supply the generator?  Gas gets old, too, so storing much at home is problematic.  Anyhow, the Kohler line of generators run on natural gas which solves that problem.  They also supply enough power to manage the whole house.  Roger will send us an estimate this afternoon.  It might be a sledge hammer to take care of a mosquito sized problem, but we’ll see.

    Piece of trivia:  Kohler got into the generator business in 1918 so customers could use their flush toilets and their bathtubs.  What da ya know?

    I got on a tear this last week or so, completing several major tasks in a short period of time.  It reminded me of the way I used to work, juggling many complicated tasks over long periods of time.  Back then I was productive, really productive.  The old work method felt good to slip into for a while.  Don’t know that I’d want to sustain it anymore.


    📂This entry was posted in GeekWorld Our Land and Home Weather +Climate 📎and tagged

  • From Football Genius to Dastardly Spymaster

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    26  92%  28%  0mph WWN bar30.10 steep rise windchill26  Imbolc

                Waning Crescent of the Winter Moon

    Today I reap the benefits of advanced preparation.  None of that running around trying to get stuff together at the last minute.  I always forget important things when I do that.

    Got another batch of ping backs today.  Seems like they’ve picked up in volume in the last week.  Don’t know why that should be.

    Noticed Bill Bellichik of the Patriots has gone from football genius to dastardly arrogant spymaster in two days.  Shouldn’t lose.  It does bad things to your winning reputation.

    My sense of anticipation rises about a month on different ground than home.  Much as I love our home, the chance to get away, find other experiences ranks high on my list.  A retreat with my brothers in the Woolly Mammoths and then three weeks in Hawi’i will scratch some of that itch.  Went to sleep last night imagining early morning workouts on the beach.


    📂This entry was posted in Travel 📎and tagged

  • The Scent of Spring

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    2  56%  22%  6mph W bar 29.54  steep rise windchill-5

                    Last Quarter of the Winter Moon

    Kate brought me a spray of yellow tulips two days ago.  They have opened now and have the scent of spring.

    We’re seeking another dog, looking at Irish Wolfhound and  Scottish Deerhound rescues on the internet.  We won’t do anything until we get back from Hawai’i, but both of us have a sense of incompleteness in our family without a big dog.  I would like a mix with a breed a bit more long lived, since we still grieve the loss of each one of our eight Wolfhounds.  Grief underlines the bond developed with these dogs and, in a paradox, draws us back towards them in direct proportion to our sorrow. 

    Getting ready.  I have the portable DVD player, which I’ve never used, plugged in and charging the battery.  I do have a fix it role, but it entails electronics, not internal combustion engines.  Those I manage through repair services, but often the electronic stuff I can fix myself.  Go figure.  A partial credential for Geekworld.

    Sat down the other day and read a Taoism lesson.  As I read, I realized a strange feeling had crept over me.  It was contentment.  In fact, I feel it now.  I had, for many years, a knot, a frissón of unease lodged in the lower left of my gut.  Even when I felt otherwise comfortable, a gut check would reveal a free floating angst speaking to me, soma telling psyche all is not yet right.  Right now, it’s gone.


    📂This entry was posted in GeekWorld Memories Our Land and Home Travel 📎and tagged

  • Crossed Speaker Wires

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    26  80%  21%  0mph SSE  bar29.64  steep fall  Windchill26  Winter

              Waning Gibbous Winter Moon

    Performed the test of the sound system today with the microphone that listens to output from the speakers and adjusts them according to prestablished program.  It sounds out whistles, clicks, rolling thunder, static and a loud rush of static.  Then it tells you if things are optimal.  First problem:  I’d crossed one set of speaker wires, the smooth to the positive instead of the ridged.  Checked all twenty connections, on speakers and on the receiver, found one set wrong and fixed it.  Second problem:  difference in volume excessive.  No idea what that meant, but one of the solutions was to move speakers around.  I did that and the next time through, pass number 3, No Errors.  This ends the first phase of the new video and sound system.  All of it is in place.  All of it works as intended.  

    Next phase will be optimization of various aspects of the receiver, the DVD player and the TV.  This will take place over time and really never ends.  Fun.  A hobby in itself.

    Watched an interesting Discovery channel program tonight on the Great Wall.  It presented the Great Wall as largely a product of one general in the early Ming Dynasty.  While the existing wall traces much of its current form to that era, wall building as a defensive strategy began much earlier, in the Spring and Autumn Period of the Eastern Chou dynasty.   Various pieces of walls got built at many stages in Chinese history.  The reason the Ming Dynasty effort was so vast lies in their resting power away from the Yuan Dynasty.  During the Yuan Dynasty China became a part of the Mongol Empire, ruled by Kublai Khan first.


    📂This entry was posted in GeekWorld World History 📎and tagged

  • A Retreat, Then An Advance

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    19  82%  21%  omph ENE bar29.90  windchill19  Winter

                 Waning Gibbous Winter Moon

    A DVR.  Hadn’t planned on getting one, but the hdmi connection with the TV demanded it over the HD converter box alone.  Surprise.  I like it.  Already I’ve taped two movies, Cronicas and Killer of Sheep.  When I’m watching a movie, I prefer to start at the beginning and the start times of movies often don’t conform to my schedule.  In the past I would check the replay schedules and try to find a time that worked or I’d skip it.  Now I can press the record button and the DVR records the movie and I can replay when I wish.  Kate’s also used it to tape a TPT series, Jewish Americans.  Guess you never know.

    No more tours until March.  I have ten days before I go to Dwelling in the Woods, days I’ll use to finish the garden planning, edit my sermon for Groveland and produce a 1-page Transcendentalism for Brights, work on my new novel and a short story.  Also, I’ll do the various pre-trip preparations like stopping the newspaper, the mail, reserving a ride on the Airport Shuttle, packing. 

    Also have to plan a one-hour presentation to the brothers, something I want to share with them, a passion or a part of my life right now.  Could be anything.  We switched to this format last year and we liked it.  The way we’d done it before involved a focus on a theme and a common thread in what we presented:  Fathers, Mothers, Death, Myth.  Last year we had a theme, Darkness, but the suggestion was to present the theme in a creative manner.  I chose a ritual of darkness which involved reading poetry excerpts (Dover Beach, The Night by Rilke, Stopping by the Woods on A Snowy Evening that sort) and, in a room lit only with candles, extinguishing a candle with each reading.   This year, don’t know yet.


    📂This entry was posted in GeekWorld Travel Woolly Mammoths 📎and tagged

  • OMG! Bush Lied!

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    -1  72%  18% 0mph W bar30.10  steady windchill-1  winter

                           Full Winter Moon

    I now have sound going from the DVR/Cable box to the receiver and the 5 speakers.  I also have sound going from the new Blu-Ray DVD player to the 5 speakers.  This is close to total success, but I still have two hurdles remaining.  I have not been able to get any radio signals yet, in spite of connecting the antennas and I have not run the test microphone which will balance the speakers.  Still, I feel largely done with this project.

    In order to get Blu-Ray quality movies you have to get Blu-Ray discs.  Not cheap.  I watched one this evening, Beowulf and Grendel.  This movie takes a spare approach to the story and gives a backstory for Grendel.  It is gorgeous, shot in Iceland by an Icelandic director.  I liked it a good deal, though I’d not heard of it.

    The big screen, HD TV setup came from my love for movies.  This is a stunning way to watch movies at home and, with the surround sound, surprisingly close to the cinema experience.  Movies are as important to me as literature, music and the fine arts.  I’m glad to have this way to view them.

    Now:  It can finally be said.

    “WASHINGTON (AP) – A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks. The study concluded that the statements “were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.”

    The study was posted Tuesday on the Web site of the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism.”

    The life and times of celebrities must be difficult.  Heath Ledger’s death today, whether suicide or accident (and I would wonder if accident isn’t suicide by another name), puts another name in the column of this felled by fame.  To those in the limelight all the time there must be a moment when you either choose life or choose self-destruction, a decision many of us face only obliquely, perhaps at the dinner table.


    📂This entry was posted in Cinema and Television GeekWorld Politics 📎and tagged

  • BMI 25.1, Blood Sugar 98. Yes!

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    22  82%  28%  2mph NNW bar30.06  wincdhill21  Winter

                Waxing Crescent of the Winter Moon

    These next three weeks are, on average, the coldest weeks of the year.  I’m glad to see them come.  I love the snug as a bug in a rug feeling of very cold days, work I love and a home place to do it.

    Weighed in this morning.  My BMI is now 25.1 and my blood sugar is 98.  I’ll continue on with the nutrisystem at least for the rest of this month, then I’ll have to have a good maintenance plan in place because I will head off for the Dwelling in the Woods, then 3 weeks in Hawai’i.  Hawai’i should be ok because the fish, fruit and vegetable type menu is common there.  It would not be the same if we were headed to, say, England or Austria.  I feel good about this effort so far.  The challenge now will be a healthy long term eating plan, one I strayed from too far for too long.

    Still no joy on the sound system.  I had the DVD player sending signals through the five speaker set up, so I know I have them connected and working.  When I exchanged the Toshiba HD DVD player for a Panasonic Blu-Ray player, however, I eliminated the sound success I had made.  Since I won’t get the Blu-Ray until next week, I don’t know yet whether I can convince it to communicate with the speakers.  I know, right now, that the coaxial cable I got to connect the DVR/HD box to the receiver did not produce instant results.  Sigh.  I may have to talk with the folks at Ultimate when I go in to pick up the Blu-Ray.  This is part of the learning curve, less steep now than when I opened the first box, but steep enough to block my vision so far.

    Today is more work on the Faery Tale and garden planning.  This is the work I love.t


    📂This entry was posted in Faith and Spirituality GeekWorld 📎and tagged

  • Has Your Light Gone Out Yet?

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    32  72% 27% 1mph N bar20.68 steady windchill32  Winter

                        New Moon

    Simplicity.  Ah.  About two hours ago I called Comcast to activate the new digital box I got downstairs because the old one, according to Comcast, was a non-responding box.   So, I call this guy.  A disembodied voice that asks me all the usual questions:  phone number, address, name, size of my boxer shorts and my ring finger.  As he talks, he says he’s aboot got my account up. 

    I say, so, you’re in Canada.  Yes.  I am.  How did  you know?  An o or two that stayed longer than usual for my ear.  Oh.

    We talk about Stratford and his fiance and how they want to go their once.  How Chatham, where he lives, has just had a remodel.  He thinks it will become an art city like Stratford.  Then he sends a jolt to my box from Chatham, Ontario.

    It should go out.

    It hasn’t.

    I’ll send another one, a stronger one.  This from a guy in Chatham, Ontario.  He’s communicating directly with my TV converter box.

    Still not out.

    Well, wait about 20 minutes. That should do it.  If it doesn’t, just call back.

    It’s not out yet–an hour and a half later.  So, I’ll call back. Talk to someone else in Chatham.  Start over.


    📂This entry was posted in GeekWorld 📎and tagged