Be back next week...
Houston, We Have More Problems...
Last week, I posted some pictures of our kitchen after a pipe burst. Our intention was to rip the ceiling down, put a new one up, repaint, and then everything would be back to normal. Well, of course, things never go that easy...
The above picture is of the floor joists in the kitchen ceiling. We had our first look at them ever after the ceiling was pulled down (having only owned this home for 2 years). These joists support the 2nd floor bathroom, which has a really huge bathtub in it.
The finishing work on our house was beautiful, which was one of the reasons that we bought it. And since then, we have found that a ton of the underlying work was done in a really half-assed manner (see above picture).
The thing that is wrong with the above picture is that several of the joists have been cut almost all of the way through so that pipes could be run. Those joists are now sagging from the weight of the bathroom above. Obviously this has to be fixed first.
So, like every other home project known to man, it is expanding far beyond the original scope, and doesn't seem like it will ever end...
[More entries on this subject: Feb 18, Feb 19, Mar 6, March 12.]
It isn't my intention to turn this into a home improvement weblog, but my house has been preoccupying my mind as of late.
Last week, I posted some pictures of our kitchen after a pipe burst. Our intention was to rip the ceiling down, put a new one up, repaint, and then everything would be back to normal. Well, of course, things never go that easy...
The above picture is of the floor joists in the kitchen ceiling. We had our first look at them ever after the ceiling was pulled down (having only owned this home for 2 years). These joists support the 2nd floor bathroom, which has a really huge bathtub in it.
The finishing work on our house was beautiful, which was one of the reasons that we bought it. And since then, we have found that a ton of the underlying work was done in a really half-assed manner (see above picture).
The thing that is wrong with the above picture is that several of the joists have been cut almost all of the way through so that pipes could be run. Those joists are now sagging from the weight of the bathroom above. Obviously this has to be fixed first.
So, like every other home project known to man, it is expanding far beyond the original scope, and doesn't seem like it will ever end...
[More entries on this subject: Feb 18, Feb 19, Mar 6, March 12.]
Labels: homeowning
Keeping my Mental Illness to Myself
And you know, everyone stared at me in horror, and I remembered that I am supposed to keep those kinds of thoughts to myself. You know, the kinds of thoughts that expose the extent of my mental illness and/or obsessive compulsive disorders...
It's just like a nerd like me to turn a philosophical discussion into a scientific experiment that would determine if a prediction of death were an absolute prediction or an upper limit on your lifetime.
Picture of car crash courtesy of LorE Denizen's Flickr photostream [flickr.com].
The other day, someone asked a group of us one of those thought-provoking questions:
If someone could tell you what date you were going to die on, would you want to know?People had various answers, as can be expected. I ended up blurting out:
"I don't know... If someone told me the date I was going to die, I would be too tempted to drive into a bridge abutment the day beforehand to screw fate over."
And you know, everyone stared at me in horror, and I remembered that I am supposed to keep those kinds of thoughts to myself. You know, the kinds of thoughts that expose the extent of my mental illness and/or obsessive compulsive disorders...
It's just like a nerd like me to turn a philosophical discussion into a scientific experiment that would determine if a prediction of death were an absolute prediction or an upper limit on your lifetime.
Picture of car crash courtesy of LorE Denizen's Flickr photostream [flickr.com].
Pachebel Rant
It's a hilarious comedy bit about how horrible the part for cello is for Pachelbel's Canon in D. But the payoff at the end is something that anyone familiar with current popular music would love.
And if you're a classical music geek, you will totally identify with this guy.
Here's a video any music fan would love:
It's a hilarious comedy bit about how horrible the part for cello is for Pachelbel's Canon in D. But the payoff at the end is something that anyone familiar with current popular music would love.
And if you're a classical music geek, you will totally identify with this guy.
Labels: videos
More Kitchen Pictures
We essentially had to have the entire ceiling in that room ripped out, to ensure that everything could dry out (to prevent the growth of mold), and so that we could figure out what the original problem was in the first place (so that it doesn't happen again).
Through this process, of course, we are learning a ton about our house (which we have only lived in for 2 years).
In the meantime, we can't cook in there. Our dining room has become our kitchen, and we are learning about all of the things that can be cooked in a toaster oven, in a crock pot, or on a George Foreman grill...
[More entries on this subject: Feb 18, Feb 25, Mar 6, Mar 12.]
Yesterday, I had mentioned the problems that we had in our kitchen, after a pipe froze and burst in the ceiling. Well, here are some more recent pictures:
We essentially had to have the entire ceiling in that room ripped out, to ensure that everything could dry out (to prevent the growth of mold), and so that we could figure out what the original problem was in the first place (so that it doesn't happen again).
Through this process, of course, we are learning a ton about our house (which we have only lived in for 2 years).
In the meantime, we can't cook in there. Our dining room has become our kitchen, and we are learning about all of the things that can be cooked in a toaster oven, in a crock pot, or on a George Foreman grill...
[More entries on this subject: Feb 18, Feb 25, Mar 6, Mar 12.]
Wading Through Our Kitchen...
About a week or so ago, the temperatures here in Northeast Ohio dropped down into the single digits for a few days (which usually occurs a few times per winter in this area of the country). And apparently, there is a new problem with our house, because one of our hot water pipes froze, and then burst.
Luckily, Heimlich was home and was able to shut off the water relatively quickly. I had just gotten to work. I have a pretty long commute, but it is against traffic. That long commute became even longer, as I had to turn around and follow all of traffic back into town to go home. There, I found a formidable assembly of buckets that had converged in the kitchen to catch all of the water that had been pouring out of the ceiling -- along with Heimlich's family, who had saved our asses by dropping everything on a weekday to help us out.
So, for the past week, we have been living in a wind tunnel, complete with industrial dehumidifiers, which are doing an excellent job of drying out our skin.
All in all, it has been very stressful, but we are really lucky that the damage was confined to a pretty small area.
[More entries on this subject: Feb 19, Feb 25, Mar 6, Mar 12.]
A lot of people already know about this, but here are some pictures to go with the description...
About a week or so ago, the temperatures here in Northeast Ohio dropped down into the single digits for a few days (which usually occurs a few times per winter in this area of the country). And apparently, there is a new problem with our house, because one of our hot water pipes froze, and then burst.
Luckily, Heimlich was home and was able to shut off the water relatively quickly. I had just gotten to work. I have a pretty long commute, but it is against traffic. That long commute became even longer, as I had to turn around and follow all of traffic back into town to go home. There, I found a formidable assembly of buckets that had converged in the kitchen to catch all of the water that had been pouring out of the ceiling -- along with Heimlich's family, who had saved our asses by dropping everything on a weekday to help us out.
So, for the past week, we have been living in a wind tunnel, complete with industrial dehumidifiers, which are doing an excellent job of drying out our skin.
All in all, it has been very stressful, but we are really lucky that the damage was confined to a pretty small area.
[More entries on this subject: Feb 19, Feb 25, Mar 6, Mar 12.]
Valentine's Day
It's one of those nerdy Steve Jackson games that I love so much. It's based on Car Wars, and it's a card game that features cow-to-cow combat!
Anyway, so we're going to have to set a play date so that we can try it out. I can't wait, because it looks totally hilarious. Who wouldn't love to saddle up a cow with a minigun?
Did all of you get some cool loot for Valentine's Day? One of the gifts that I got from Heimlich was the game Battle Cattle [amazon.com]:
It's one of those nerdy Steve Jackson games that I love so much. It's based on Car Wars, and it's a card game that features cow-to-cow combat!
Anyway, so we're going to have to set a play date so that we can try it out. I can't wait, because it looks totally hilarious. Who wouldn't love to saddle up a cow with a minigun?
Labels: gaming
Michelin Next Generation Airless Tires
I tried finding something official about it, and all I was able to find was this pretty impressive video [qj.net].
Like a lot of technology releases, the information that you can find is heavy on the eye-candy, and short on the details and technical info. If they are able to bring it to market, it might be huge. No more checking your tire pressure, or worrying about punctures.
They'll have a lot of difficult hurdles to clear before then, though. If it's substantially more expensive to manufacture, people won't buy them. If they feel harsh when driving over bumps, people won't buy them. If the mass of the tires are significantly higher than conventional ones, or if they have higher rolling resistance, car manufacturers will not want them, because they won't be able to hit their fuel economy targets. Any of these issues have the potential to relegate this type of product to a niche market, like military vehicles, where ride and rolling resistance are of secondary concern.
Nevertheless, it's a very interesting design, and they are intriguing.
Jim recently sent me some information about Michelin's next generation airless tire. In the name of full disclosure, I will mention at this point that I work for a tire manufacturer (one of Michelin's competitors).
I tried finding something official about it, and all I was able to find was this pretty impressive video [qj.net].
Like a lot of technology releases, the information that you can find is heavy on the eye-candy, and short on the details and technical info. If they are able to bring it to market, it might be huge. No more checking your tire pressure, or worrying about punctures.
They'll have a lot of difficult hurdles to clear before then, though. If it's substantially more expensive to manufacture, people won't buy them. If they feel harsh when driving over bumps, people won't buy them. If the mass of the tires are significantly higher than conventional ones, or if they have higher rolling resistance, car manufacturers will not want them, because they won't be able to hit their fuel economy targets. Any of these issues have the potential to relegate this type of product to a niche market, like military vehicles, where ride and rolling resistance are of secondary concern.
Nevertheless, it's a very interesting design, and they are intriguing.
Labels: cars
Google Searches
It is very common these days for me to perform a search, and and get tons of non-useful links as a results. For example:
I have never once found any useful information on patentstorm.us. And more frequently, the links go to abstracts of papers or journal submissions that you have to pay to read (which is fine for a business model, but I'm not going to pay when I just have a passing curiosity about something in my personal life).
I wish that when you viewed the results from a search, I could click a link next to that search result, and it would remove all of the search results that link to patentstorm.us. Then I would be able to remove the next group of non-useful results, and so on. And then at the end, I would have a list of a few links that look like they might have what I am looking for.
Google has slowly and slowly become less useful to me, because more and more stuff keeps coming up in searches that isn't technically spam, but isn't what I am looking for either.
It is very common these days for me to perform a search, and and get tons of non-useful links as a results. For example:
I have never once found any useful information on patentstorm.us. And more frequently, the links go to abstracts of papers or journal submissions that you have to pay to read (which is fine for a business model, but I'm not going to pay when I just have a passing curiosity about something in my personal life).
I wish that when you viewed the results from a search, I could click a link next to that search result, and it would remove all of the search results that link to patentstorm.us. Then I would be able to remove the next group of non-useful results, and so on. And then at the end, I would have a list of a few links that look like they might have what I am looking for.
Labels: peeves
Sarah Silverman "I'm F*cking Matt Damon"
The premise is hilarious. But like a lot of bits on TV, it goes on way too long. It's still awesome, though.
This is awesome. I have always thought that Sarah Silverman was a funny comic. She produced a bit for Jimmy Kimmel's show a while ago, but only saw recently:
The premise is hilarious. But like a lot of bits on TV, it goes on way too long. It's still awesome, though.
2008 Saturn Astra
For a small car, it seems to be proportioned well, and has a well laid-out interior. The new offerings from GM are notably better than what they were selling only a few short years ago (which I never would have considered buying - EVER).
Some of the interior pieces seemed to be a little too cheaply made. But maybe that is inevitable in an economy car. It has a twist-rear axle suspension system. That is the first thing that I noticed that would make me hesitate to buy one of these, due to the tendency to not handle as well as multi-link systems.
Then I noticed that the front swaybar endlink was actually made out of plastic. That actually really shocked me, because that is not the type of part that you want to worry about failing on you. I don't think that suspension components should be made out of plastic. If a front endlink breaks, the swaybar will no longer be connected to the suspension system. The swaybar resists body roll, but also affects the front/rear balance of the vehicle. If you disconnect the front swaybar, the roll stiffness of the vehicle will shift rearward, and the vehicle will tend to oversteer (which is bad).
I don't think that I would buy a car that had plastic endlinks (or, at least, I would switch them with metal ones). I hope that this does not become a trend.
Picture of the European version of the Astra via mabarto's Flickr photostream [Flickr.com]
Recently, I got to check out the new Saturn Astra [motortrend.com]. I didn't get to actually drive it, but I got to poke my head around, and see it for myself (although I wasn't serious about buying one).
For a small car, it seems to be proportioned well, and has a well laid-out interior. The new offerings from GM are notably better than what they were selling only a few short years ago (which I never would have considered buying - EVER).
Some of the interior pieces seemed to be a little too cheaply made. But maybe that is inevitable in an economy car. It has a twist-rear axle suspension system. That is the first thing that I noticed that would make me hesitate to buy one of these, due to the tendency to not handle as well as multi-link systems.
Then I noticed that the front swaybar endlink was actually made out of plastic. That actually really shocked me, because that is not the type of part that you want to worry about failing on you. I don't think that suspension components should be made out of plastic. If a front endlink breaks, the swaybar will no longer be connected to the suspension system. The swaybar resists body roll, but also affects the front/rear balance of the vehicle. If you disconnect the front swaybar, the roll stiffness of the vehicle will shift rearward, and the vehicle will tend to oversteer (which is bad).
I don't think that I would buy a car that had plastic endlinks (or, at least, I would switch them with metal ones). I hope that this does not become a trend.
Picture of the European version of the Astra via mabarto's Flickr photostream [Flickr.com]
Labels: cars
Bridgestone Firestone Investigates New Center
The facility, which employs almost 1000 people, is located in a building that is nearly 100 years old. One of the options is an extensive renovation of the current facility. Or, a completely new facility could be built somewhere else in Akron, or near Nashville, where the corporate headquarters of North American operations are located.
Earlier, Goodyear had threatened to move its technical center out of Akron, allowing it to negotiate a ton of incentives from the city and state [ohio.com] to keep the jobs in Northeast Ohio. So, it is possible that Bridgestone Firestone is attempting to get the same sort of deal. On the other hand, if they are going to build a new facility, you could see how it might make sense to build it near the corporate headquarters.
Bridgestone Firestone is now debating about renovating or relocating [ohio.com] their North American Technical Center, which is currently located in Akron, Ohio.
The facility, which employs almost 1000 people, is located in a building that is nearly 100 years old. One of the options is an extensive renovation of the current facility. Or, a completely new facility could be built somewhere else in Akron, or near Nashville, where the corporate headquarters of North American operations are located.
Earlier, Goodyear had threatened to move its technical center out of Akron, allowing it to negotiate a ton of incentives from the city and state [ohio.com] to keep the jobs in Northeast Ohio. So, it is possible that Bridgestone Firestone is attempting to get the same sort of deal. On the other hand, if they are going to build a new facility, you could see how it might make sense to build it near the corporate headquarters.
Bird Poop News Blooper
It's a video of a local news person doing a story on location -- the typical fluff piece. Anyway, a bird poops directly into the guy's mouth and he starts gagging.
It's awesome, because nothing is funnier than watching people get hurt.
Here's a link that has been going around:
It's a video of a local news person doing a story on location -- the typical fluff piece. Anyway, a bird poops directly into the guy's mouth and he starts gagging.
It's awesome, because nothing is funnier than watching people get hurt.
Labels: linkage
Superbowl
The commercial breaks seemed to be dominated with commercials for lame TV
shows and movies that I would never even consider watching, interspersed with a
ridiculous number of embarrassingly bad local commercials (the commercials
for Kent State University sounded like they had general-MIDI music from an
early 90's video game playing in the background...).
The last few Superbowls have taught me that only beer companies and obscure internet domain name registrars can be depended upon to create entertaining commercials.
Meanwhile, I hadn't seen Tom Petty in years, so I was surprised to see that
he has hit the wall. His appearance was so bad that upon seeing and
hearing him sing, Heimlich asked me whether Willie Nelson was the halftime
show performer.
At least the game was incredibly exciting. Suck it, Patriots fans!
The commercial breaks seemed to be dominated with commercials for lame TV
shows and movies that I would never even consider watching, interspersed with a
ridiculous number of embarrassingly bad local commercials (the commercials
for Kent State University sounded like they had general-MIDI music from an
early 90's video game playing in the background...).
The last few Superbowls have taught me that only beer companies and obscure internet domain name registrars can be depended upon to create entertaining commercials.
Meanwhile, I hadn't seen Tom Petty in years, so I was surprised to see that
he has hit the wall. His appearance was so bad that upon seeing and
hearing him sing, Heimlich asked me whether Willie Nelson was the halftime
show performer.
Labels: sports
