The Big Stone House in Barnesville, MN

IMG_4514
Originally uploaded by nekosoft.

Forgot to post this when I took the picture in March. Doesn't the snow look refreshing?

In the small town of Barnesville, there sits a mammoth house well apart from the rest of the town. I asked a realtor: what's the deal? Why is it the only stone house in town. He told me that in the early days of the town, the land belonged to a doctor from out east. He set broken bones and delivered babies and when the farmers in the area didn't have money to pay him, he had them bring the stones they picked from their fields. It was these stones the doctor used to build his home.

Where my camera goes

I'm trying to get as many geographically disparate photographs geotagged as possible so my Mappr page will be more interesting. I need to travel more.

Converting Vinyl Records to MP3

I've previously blogged about the USB Turntable which is admittedly pretty nifty, but maybe not $150 dollars nifty if one already has a functioning record player. For those so lucky, all that is needed is a way to get the music onto a computer. Strictly speaking, all that is needed it to run a cable from the headphone jack (or speaker outputs) on the amplifier to the audio-in jack on the computer's sound card and capture the music with a free sound editing program. No cost whatsoever except for the cable.

If one wants to spend somewhere between $150 and $0, there's a couple of solutions that aid recording and help eliminate the pops and scratches endemic to vinyl records. Also, if a computer lacks a audio-in or microphone jack, these products are essential. The first is Griffin Technology's iMic. I've used this one myself to get audio into a PowerBook. It's supported under Windows, but Griffin's Final Vinyl software is Macintosh-only. The second solution is ADS Tech's Instant Music, which I saw today at my local Walmart. Amazon's reviews are mostly positive, the main complaint being that the "four step" software is a bit troublesome to use. Both these products plug into a computer's USB port and both cost around $40.

Working in the heat

A couple of interesting facts about working in the heat: sweat does not evaporate from the skin when the humidity is above 75%. Also, a person will get "used to" working in hot weather. This is not a psychological change, but an physiological one. After being exposed to hot temperatures for seven to ten days the human body becomes more efficent at cooling itself. Sweat production can increase from about one liter an hour up to three. In addition, sweat glands begin functioning at a lower temperature and their ability to reabsorb salts will increase, leading to better heat dissipation.

It's vitally important to replace that potential three liters of fluid, of course. Water and sports drinks are best (in fact, diluted sports drinks are better than regular). If I'm drinking nothing but water, I always crave sunflower seeds, as their salty coating replaces the electrolytes I'm losing.

Much more very clinical information is available at eMedicine.

Temperature week continues...

In keeping with this week's theme, I was going to write up the difference between
Ice Cream and Sherbet, but the difference is just too boring.
So very boring.

It was so hot today...

How hot was it? Well, it's good that I have a new toy to let me know precisely how hot things are: an infrared thermometer.

I picked up a unit from an online auto parts supplier and it's nifty: laser scope, backlit screen and measures temperatures up to 500 degrees F. It feels so high tech to use it, like a phaser and a tricorder rolled up into one. According to the instruction book, here's how an infrared thermometer works: magic. Some kind of thermal lens? I didn't grok it, and I'd like to think I'm pretty smart. Anyway, I took it around the yard this afternoon at the hottest part of the day to measure the surface temperature of various objects. Air temperature was around 94 degrees.



White plastic chair sitting in the sun: 114 degrees


Metal shovel blade: 125 degrees


Black car: 157 degrees


White tractor wheel: 110 degrees


Dirt in the sun: 120 degrees


Grass in the shade: 81 degrees


Flamingo in the shade: 91 degrees

Other temperatures include a concrete patio in the sun (110 degrees) and in the shade ten feet away (91 degrees). According to The American Egg Board, eggs need to be cooked to between 144 and 158 degrees, so the car could certainly fry an egg eventually.

The infrared thermometer is an neat tool for food safety and automotive trouble shooting, and a cool toy for other purposes. I'm not sure how much use I'll be able to give it, but it is fun to play.

Wildfire

click to enlarge


It took me a moment to figure out what this picture is. It's a satellite shot of the plume of smoke from the 30,000 acre fire in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in northern Minnesota. This blaze was not unexpected after the 1999 blowdown that turned 600 square miles of forest into firewood.

I know the occasional fire is needed for the long-term health of a forest, but it seems that the BWCA is so close to the hearts of everyone I know. Even my sister's boyfriend, who has been to Minnesota only once before, is up fighting the fire.

(via MetaFilter)

Infrared Paint Remover

I hope I never need one of these, but something tells me I will: an infrared paint remover uses quartz heating elements to cook exterior paint so it scrapes off without hassle. A commercial unit is $400 but an enterprising maker can build their own for a quarter of that.

(via Cool Tools)

The Dam at Noblett Lake

The Dam at Noblett Lake
Originally uploaded by nekosoft.

Sunday driving and writing, I sought out Noblett Lake. The 26 acre lake is only about five feet deep, and the excess water flows over the dam.

The dam was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps between 1938 and 1940. The workers used four small cement mixers, each holding only one bag of concrete each. There's a boat landing and a couple of picnic tables.

There was a Geocache in the area, but I didn't realize it until a few minutes ago. It's only ten minutes from my house, perhaps I'll seek it out this week.

Pen and Travel Journal

Pen and Travel Journal
Originally uploaded by nekosoft.

As aforeblogged, my new school supplies. I also ordered a backpack (black grey black) and an infrared thermometer.

The notebook is awesome, just the right size and shape and the cover is perfectly positioned. I'll never get lost now. The pages seem sturdy and there's a huge variety of different paper types, from graph to newsprint to lined to watercolor. Nifty as can be.

The pen is also awesome. Thirty dollars at Office Depot bought me the makings of four Mont Blanc equivalents. The ink is well worth the price: starts flowing as soon as it touches the paper, smoothly and effortlessly. Dries quicky too, says my lefthanded brother, who got friendly blue. I've been using high contrast black all day and it probably is the best non-fountain pen I've ever used. Now I've got to figure out a way to keep from losing it...

The Bones on the Moon

In the event that the moon landing had ended in tragedy, William Saffire, one of Nixon's scriptwriters at the time, prepared a speech for President Nixon to read on television. The Smoking Gun has a copy of the (thankfully unused) speech.

I'm reminded of the presidental speeches regarding space exploration catastrophe I've heard in my lifetime following Challenger and Columbia.

"He's a witch! A math witch!"

While working on framing a house today I got to teach a math lesson. We had finished the walls and had to frame in a triangular part under the roof, twenty-five feet in the air. My crew had measured the vertical part and the horizontal part of the triangle and were trying to figure out how to get a tape measure up to the peak of the roof to determine the length of the top board. I told them we didn't need to, we can figure that out.

Blank looks.

"a" squared plus "b" squared equals "c" squared didn't ring a bell. So I made a few calculations so the guy with the saw would have something to do and then showed the rest of the crew how the Pythagorean theorem worked. At the end of the day my saw man came over and demanded to know how I figured the diagonal studs out.

In retrospect, it might have been easier to nail the vertical and horizontal legs of the triangle together and then cut the diagonal board to fit, as multiplication is much, much more difficult in 97 degree weather. But I may not get another chance to have basic geometry make me seem cool.

July 20th Plotters

In addition to being the day that humans first landed on the moon, July 20th is remembered for the most successful assasination attempt against Adolf Hilter. In 1944, the German Resistance was becoming aware of the events at Auschwitz and other concentration camps. The Resistance movement had recruited Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg to carry a briefcase containing a bomb into a military conference. The colonel set the timer and excused himself from the room.

At 12:40 the bomb exploded, killing four people. Hitler himself, protected by the heavy conference table escaped with only minor injuries.

That night Stauffenberg and three other resistance leaders were court martialed and executed by General Friedrich Fromm. Between five and seven thousand citizens were linked to the plot and arrested, of those about 200 were executed. Many of those arrested were family members with no role in the plot but were implicated under Himmler's Sippenhaft (blood laws). General Fromm himself was tried and executed himself the following March for being aware of the conspiracy but not reporting it.

The July 20th Plotters are remembered at the site of Stauffenberg's death (now a memorial to the resistance movement).

--

I know this because July 20th 1994 is the day I stopped driving fast and started listening to NPR, following my first (and only) speeding ticket, east of Perham en route to Duluth, Minnesota.

Fourwheeling

fourwheelers
Originally uploaded by nekosoft.

North of Willow Springs, MO

Another reason to love Tuesdays

Tuesday is fast becoming my favorite day of the week: Daniel Pinkwater plans to release a chapter of his newest book to the internet every Tuesday. The first chapter is already available, but we have to wait for August 1st for the second. Before you ask, from the faq:
Will there ever be another Snarkout book?

Probably not.


Oh well... hurrah for Tuesday! Tuesday is now the new Friday.

Scowling Thinking Pirates Laughing

Scowling Thinking Pirates Laughing
Originally uploaded by nekosoft.

West Plains, MO

The word I'm looking for is Supercute

Even though I have enough Pokemon stuff to last me a thousand lifetimes, this is damned near irresistable. Must... resist...

My ovaries hurt, that's so adorable! They also have Mudkip and either one is just five bucks (smiling child not included).

Keyword: Phallic

P1010117
Originally uploaded by nekosoft.

My choices were "Jumbo Corndog" or "Super Jumbo Corndog". I chose, of course, the latter.

Hey Kids, Comics

There's a lot of attention paid to webcomics on this blog, mainly because they're cheap and easy. But the web is home to many "dead tree" or "newspaper comics" as well. Yes, many of the comics themselves aren't funny, but the people who make fun of them are.
Rex Morgan not funny enough? (Martha, you'll love this)
Having trouble understanding Marmaduke?
Need to know the secret to make Garfield funny every day, no matter what?

The internet is proof that god loves us and wants us to be happy.

Demo Derby at the County Fair

P1010106
Originally uploaded by nekosoft.

New photoset up at flickr taken at the county fair in West Plains, MO.

The red flag means stop, the green flag means start and the black flag means the event must stop forever.

I thought I really liked cars crashing into each other, but after the third heat it got rather tedious. Well, as tedious as flaming wreckage can be. Speaking of which, I broke up with the Cyborg today.

Whew.

Over at I Blame the Patriarchy, Jill (aka Twisty) seems to be up and about after surgery (at least enough to take a quick picture). The internet makes friends of us all, as evidenced by the worrying I did about someone I've never met. It turns out that the city she was a food critic in was St. Louis, and her review of Tony's makes me want to drive there right now. Granted, it would be nearly four in the morning when I got there; such is the power of writing. The fact that Twisty has no problems identifying the sub-standard and the mundane makes me more confident that her assessment of the excellent is accurate.

Get well soon!

Metafilter Goodness

Three from Metafilter today, three things that've stuck in my head in the past. Now they've come around again.

Mondegreen. This word popped into my brain today as I was chainsawing, but I couldn't remember what it meant. Thanks Metafilter!

The holy grail of rural land development: grass that grows to a certain height and then just stops. Coming soon?

DJ Food's Raiding the 20th Century is a meta-mash-up, an exploration of cut-ups, remixes and acoustic experiments. It mentions/samples/explains Alvin Lucier's piece "I am sitting in a room" and today Metafilter provides a link to a recording (of a recording, of a recording) and discussion of the work.

The 8th Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I've got to get to a decent office supply store: take a $3 pen and put a $12 ink refill in it an get the writing functionality of a $200 Mont Blanc pen.

I can't help it... school supply season is here. I need high quality pens and paper!

I also bought a new handmade journal because my Moleskine won't lay flat so I can't use it while I'm driving.

Edit- Here are the top ten most wonderful times of the year circa 1986:
1: Christmas
2: My Birthday
3: Last Day of School
4: Halloween
5: First sunny day and all the snow starts melting
6: Surprise three day weekend for teacher's inservice
7: Fourth of July
8: School Supply Season
9: Half Price Candy Day (February 15 and November 1)
10: Thanksgiving

Bridge Out

On the way to (and from) Colorado, I encountered the bane of my highway existance: lane closed ahead. Some lane closures are alright, such as left lane closed. Right lane closed means I have to change lanes, which is more work than I like to do out on the road. This particular lane closure was a left lane, and a very short one - just around a single overpass. The eastbound lanes under the overpass were taken up by the most sturdy scaffolding I had ever seen. It looked like railroad ties nailed together. And there wasn't any construction equipment around either, as if someone had just built this structure and then forgotten about it. I wanted to stop and shoot some pictures, but it's bad luck to stop on the highway unless absolutely necessary.

Reading Snopes today revealed the story of how this came to be (with pictures):

A hoe weighing 8 tons is on top of a flatbed trailer and heading east on Interstate 70 near Hays, Kansas. The extended shovel arm is made of hardened refined steel and the approaching overpass is made of commercial-grade concrete, reinforced with 1 1/2 inch steel rebar spaced at 6 inch intervals in a criss-cross pattern layered at 1 foot vertical spacing.

Solve: When the shovel arm hits the overpass, how fast do you have to be going to slice the bridge in half? (Assume no effect for headwind and no braking by the driver.)

Extra Credit: Solve for the time and distance required for the entire rig to come to a complete stop after hitting the overpass at the speed calculated above.

First Impressionism

First Impressionism
Originally uploaded by OldOnliner.

Via Boing Boing

Snake Eyes

Why is Snake Eyes so cool? Despite having a filecard that doesn't indicate any personality whatsoever, never speaking and a name that makes him sound like he plays for the other team, he is perhaps the most popular GI Joe.

Well, first of all, he's a ninja. Secondly, black goes with everything. The most popular version of his action figure (or doll, if you prefer) comes with a sword, a gun and a timberwolf (or accessories, if you prefer). As for the bad guy-sounding name, it's ophiophagy baby!

More than that, I can't imagine a more perfect action figure for fantasy play. No face, no voice, ultimate power: the figure is the kid holding it. In the tradition of Roald Dahl, the protaganist of the story is purposely underdeveloped, letting the reader project themselves into the leading role. I'll maintain that the Harry Potter books are another example of this phenomenon, but I can't think of any examples in adult literature. I'm sure there's term for this sort of character that I'm also unaware of.

Anyway, that's what I was thinking about when deciding whether or not to get rid of my Snake Eyes minibust. Turns out it was a statue of me all along.

Sunday Night Bookmark Roundup: Yee-ha!

SeismoMacBook: Is there anything my new laptop can't do? Besides not making that soft mooing noise, that is... (via Gizmondo)

Pinball level photography (via Waxy)

How Cheney Invests (via Robot Wisdom)

Bouma - the shape that the letters of a word form

The Lyrebird

Egg of the Conqueror

Out in Colorado I finally got a picture of the only thing I've ever painted that's on display (not counting Lego figures, of course). A bit of explanation, otherwise the subject matter makes me look a bit odd. K admired the opening to the anime Berserk and wished she had a painting of the image: a withered hand holding a Behelit (an object that enables one to have their ultimate desires realized, after paying an ultimate price). Here's a screen capture (click for larger image):

I said that it wouldn't be a problem (despite not having painted anything larger than my thumb in the previous decade). I built an easel out of scrap wood and set to work. Here's the result (again, click for larger image):



A slightly different version and I wish I'd made the Behelit stand out more. It's red (more red than the picture indicates) but it doesn't stand out quite enough. I was happy with it, as was she. I wouldn't hang it in my own home, though it's fun to look at and think "I made that".

63 New Blank White Cards

More cards over on the Blank White Card page from the recent Colorado adventure, bringing the grand total to 795-ish. Also, someone wanted a list of all the cards so far: happy to oblige!

This guy can't catch a break. He's had a hole in the head, approached wildlife, been casually smacked and now this. I really like this guy. He's got stylish shorts and impending danger. One thing he doesn't have is a name.

More found photos

By now, my interest in found photographs seems more like an obsession. Rain tipped me off to a site that I was unaware of: Look at Me. 572 (as of today) photos that are all over 20 years old. A pretty enjoyable batch with many coming from outside of the United States.

In all the previous discussion I don't think I mentioned Found Magazine. Found collects the streetcorner ephemera that I always pick up too. Speaking of which, I don't think I've shared this with the internet either... typed in purple on cash register tape, found in a gutter in Duluth: the story of Chainmail.

Stacy's Homemade Mouse Bait

Peanut Butter and Coumadin.

Take a spare Coumadin tablet and crush it to powder. Put a little bit of water in a shot glass and add the powered tablet. Microwave for a bit to dissolve the solution and mix it into the peanut butter.

Serve to rodents.

Kansans in Space

According to Wikipedia, three people from Kansas have been into space: Joe Engle, Ron Evans and Steve Hawley. Their hometowns are highlighted with highway signs commemorating their achievements and each hometown is on I-70. Hence, I thought Kansas was home to dozens of astronauts - that virtually the entire population of the state yearned to reach the stars. Nope. Just the three.

NASA has a PDF worksheet that lists astronauts by home state.

Eastern Colorado

Eastern Colorado
Originally uploaded by nekosoft.

I thought, "why would someone build a huge black wall out here?"
Then I realized it was a train. I've seen trains before. I've been around trains. It's not often a train surprises me. This one did, such was the size.

The Table of the Damned

P1010062
Originally uploaded by nekosoft.

Friends of the wedding party, photography crew and small children all have to sit at the same table.

U2 - Angel of Harlem

IMG 5451
Originally uploaded by nekosoft.

Denver, CO

New Apple Store

New Apple Store
Originally uploaded by nekosoft.

The mall at Flatirons Crossing now has an Apple Store!