When driving North or South along the I-5 corridor in Washington, there are a few billboards that don't try to advertise a commercial product you can buy, but rather they merely try to change your opinion. For examples, there are a couple religious ones, which typically quote the Christian bible, and there are a couple political ones, which have a picture of Uncle Sam saying things like, "Does Gov Lock drive away jobs?" It appears that someone (or a group) who owns some land adjacent to the freeway put up a giant billboard (or simply rents one), and displays their opinions.
You don't have much influence with your single vote. It is hardly a drop in the bucket. But to have your own billboard is quite another matter. I counted around 60 vehicles per minute going by it on a Sunday evening. Assuming that each has around two people on average, that comes out to roughly 2 people/vehicle * 60 vehicles/minute * 60 minutes/hour * 24 hours/day * 365.25 days / year = 63,115,200 people passing the billboard each year. I would call this an unrealistic upper bound for unique viewers of the billboard, so let's assume [reaching up ass and pulling out:] half this rate for the average whole day, only a fifth are unique viewers, and only half actually read the sign. Still, that leaves 3,155,760 unique viewers per year. If half of them vote and you positively influence the minds of only say, 10%, your vote has become 157,788 votes! Owning property adjacent to a busy freeway may be undesirable due to the noise and air pollution, but if you don't mind adding to the visual pollution, the electoral influence or plain advertising such property affords seems incredibly valuable. Of course you can express your opinion by purchasing advertising, but rarely is it so inexpensive.
I just returned from Eureka. After 11 hours and fifteen minutes in the car, my butt hurts. In the car we listened to a fictional book-on-tape, Honor Among Thieves, about Saddam Hussein stealing the U.S. declaration of independence with the intent of burning it on July 4th. The story was a bit dated considering the current state of Iraq. The tape finished with 5 more hours of driving to go, and my dad wanted to start the next book-on-tape, even though, at 10 hours long, we couldn't finish it. I didn't think it was a good idea, and I was right. Dad didn't like my suggestion that we quietly meditate on life for the rest of the trip, so we listened to the first two tapes of Hard Rain, and found the third tape was totally blank; moreover, I noticed the last tape was missing. Hopefully the library will believe us when we return it damaged.
On Sunday I rode down 600 miles with my parents and their two dogs to Eureka, in northern California. We are staying with my Aunt at her apple farm for a week, and my parents will attend their high school reunion. Unfortunately, cousins Mike and Matt are south in Fresno and Los Angeles.
Also unfortunate is the internet connection, which has improved somewhat over time, but still is quite lacking. A few years ago it was a noisy 28k modem. A few months ago it was unidirectional satellite (with DirecPC), so the downloads were faster, but uploads were still over the modem. Now it is with bidirectional satellite (again with DirecPC). It is not as fast as I hoped. The bandwidth appears to be much less than 128 kbps, which I thought was what the provider advertised, though I now can't find any numbers on their website (they just say broadband). The latency is just awful:
Pinging www.chanceofrein.com [66.114.146.249] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 66.114.146.249: bytes=32 time=1194ms TTL=51
Reply from 66.114.146.249: bytes=32 time=1116ms TTL=51
Reply from 66.114.146.249: bytes=32 time=866ms TTL=51
Reply from 66.114.146.249: bytes=32 time=1659ms TTL=51
Ping statistics for 66.114.146.249:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 866ms, Maximum = 1659ms, Average = 1208ms
Last Friday around 1:18 a.m. I received an email in slightly broken English from some random person who had read my bithack page and wanted to know how to swap two bits in a byte. I assume he was a novice programmer, since the obvious solution seemed straight-forward. I emailed him the answer but continued thinking about it for about 5 more hours, and came up with a couple improvements, so I added Swapping individual bits with XOR.
Later I created an ontological tableau of the various operations and solution methods to highlight where the holes are. I should figure out more precisely how many operations things take and add that to the table, and then format the table as a webpage, with links from each cell to the code.
At noon I walked eastward on the Tolt Pipeline trail. I hadn't previously ventured more than a mile east on it, but today I continued to the end and beyond.
My mom retuned from her cousin's funeral in Shasta, CA last night, and I happened to ask about her dozen aunts and uncles. She told me they were all dead, most due to heart problems. The last several months of reading the web for exercise have not done wonders for my physical fitness levels as I had hoped, so her statement made my need for exercise even more pressing.
The temperature was over 80° F, and I was hot, even in my shorts, mostly due to a sweatshirt. Forgetting sunscreen was mildly unfortunate.
I walked without first viewing a map, and let my curiosity lead me. I stopped for a minute to read a sign before a creek, which apparently is breading waters for five different species of salmon. I hoped for a nice view, so I continued along the trail uphill, to a plateau.
After arriving at the end of the plateau, the view of the Snoqualmie river valley was nice. I could see the small town of Duvall across the valley, and yonder, the Cascades. Duvall didn't appear too distant so I decided to continue on the pipeline trail, which appeared to head towards it and perhaps intersect a road.
Unfortunately, the pipeline came to an end as I started heading down the hill. I pressed onward and was met with an increasing grade and spiteful stinging needles and briars. After another 50 feet, my scratched, bloodied, burning legs helped me decide that I wasn't a Roman centurion after all, and so I veered left towards a ravine. The Devil's Club, fallen tries, and steep slopes of the ravine made for little improvement, but eventually I wandered onto an overgrown logging road, and then someone's backyard. I exited quickly through the cyclone gate at the end of their driveway. (People with such fences don't take kindly to trespassers, I suspect.)
At last I was on the road, which had its own problems -- namely, the fast and frequent cars and trucks, their exhaust, and the lack of a shoulder. I traveled a mile on the road, then turned left, and went another mile or more across the valley and over the river and then into Duvall.
I went to the first convenience store I saw and called home at 2 p.m. I was greeted by the answering machine, so I left for mom a message, asking her to drive towards Duvall and pick me up if she was bored.
I bought a quart of Powerade! (Artic Shatter flavor), as I never before tried one. It was better tasting than Gatorade; amongst other ingredients I think they add more sugar. I bought a couple protein bars, ate one, and commenced my return journey.
After over 12 miles, my burning legs, aching chest, and blistered feet increasingly hurt. It is amazing how many cars look like my Mom's white Lexus from a distance. Finally, at 4 p.m, her air-conditioned mobile oasis arrived, about 1.5 miles from home.
A couple years back, my friend Dave and I started discussing what might be good plot elements for a skit, book, movie, etc. In the hope that we might come up with something entertaining by combining a few good ideas, we brainstormed for a bit and made a list, occasionally adding to it later. Plot elements are not necessarily the entire plot, but rather a component of it or merely something to spice up the story. After many months, my friend Noelle and I added several more entries to the list. Noelle and Dave have since asked me for the list, so I've provided it below. Be warned that some items may offend folks, and many are just plain stupid. New suggestions are welcome.
1. "Obesia" -- fat girl's name (Italian?)
2. Motorized Lazy-boy char -- can drive around town
3. LCD polarizing privacy windows for homes/bathrooms and power outages
4. Scientology
5. Amway
7. Crystals that heal
8. Diarrhea in large animals
9. Asparagus piss
10. Porcupines
11. Smelling books/that new book smell
12. Pants and rotating belt
13. Goldfish in X
14. Prison labor programmers, cross-stitchers, etc.
15. Nuclear powered scooters
16. Mad scientist invents tic-tac-doe game that always wins, devestating people to tears. He then feels great anguish.
17. Geriatric flasher
18. Blue ice (sewage falling from airplanes)
19. Road kill in freezer
20. Microsoft intern at BillG's house during a summer intern dinner party jams toilet, floods house with raw sewage.
21. Grandma farts a lot
22. 3 thumb movie reviewer
23. Environmentally-correct washable cloth "toilette paper"
24. The heads on coins are alive and talking
25. Student reports answers in "Chinese"
26. Instant Messenger comes up during presentations with embarrassing messages.
27. Professional dog walkers
28. Odd classes at college, e.g. dog bed-making
29. Bravest mini Chihuahua in the world, maintains his stare, never blinks
30. Martha Stewart Prison Show
31. Brain surgery on wheels/mobile doctor.
32. Putting grandparents in rented public storage shed to help "get rid of the clutter"
33. Renting a car to enter in "smash-up" derby and returning the car wrecked
34. Complicated way to make peanut butter and jelly. Boiled peanut brittle, jelly extracted from doughnuts, bread from McDonald's hamburger
35. Home pregnancy-type test to determine if gay
Mom wanted another external faucet, so with my assistance, my handyman-father regretably set out to install one, and almost succeeded.
My mom had wanted to add an external faucet to the side of the house that didn't have one so she could water her plants more easily. Dad and I went to McLendon's hardware store, bought 40 feet of 3/4" copper pipe, a faucet bib, and miscellaneous fittings for around $50. We then crawled under the house, which is our very own slice of hell. It is cramped and requires sliding on one's belly to pass under ventilation ducts and wood beams. There is plastic on the ground, but the plastic is filthy throughout, missing in places, and occasionally, wet. There is fiberglass insulation above, and dust everywhere, which probably contains fiberglass slivers, dried cat feces, and rat feces. The builders splattered concrete from the bases of the vertical supports, and the result is very rough on the knees and elbows, scraping or bruising when crawled over. Our first problem was the pipe had to either go through a 4x10 or under it; we chose under, so we needed four additional right-angle fittings. The next problem was a 6 inch cement foundation that we had to bore through with a 1 1/4 inch bit. We went to Home Depot and rented a rotohammer, which is a 1300 watt percussive drill with a large carbide bit, and picked up the fittings. The drill came to around $40 for 4 hours (including $3.50 for damage insurance), and the fittings were perhaps $10. The drill worked fine until we ran into some rebar, at which it balked. We tried a smaller bit and drill and then chiseling on it. After a half-hour, we were finally able to wear it away enough to resume with the rotohammer. We passed the pipes in through the hole, and proceeded to solder, starting at the faucet. Aside from the silver (lead-free) solder not working very well and then running out, things went ok. We next shut off the water to the house, opened every faucet to cold, and let the water drain. After a few minutes, we cut into a pipe and drained it. The severed pipe released a quick gallon, but it didn't stop with that; it kept dripping. So we opened faucets for hot water, and more water came forth. We decided to let it peter out while we ate dinner. Mom cooked and washed with a garden hose attached to a neighbor's house. An hour later, it was still dripping at around one Hertz. I checked the water meter near the street, and it indicated nothing was incoming. We decided to tackle it anew the next morn. Unfortunately, the incontinent pipe was still dripping the next day. We were baffled as to wherefrom the water came. We emptied what we could locally by blowing or manually pulling out the water and attempted to solder anyway, which didn't entirely work. The water was dripping in at a rate that exceeded what we could boil off with the torch, and so the pipe section failed to reach the melting point for solder (370° F). I wasn't ready to give up. But we hadn't showered, and my dad's rate of vulgarities was reaching a crescendo. He decided that rather than desoldering, cutting, making another trip to a hardware store, and spending another day, he would call a plumber. My dad has never called a plumber in his life. There weren't many plumbers working on the Fourth of July weekend, but we found an expensive but reputable one; he came out immediately and for $40 estimated that it would cost $460 to fix (including $60 for limited access and $350 for copper pipe work). My dad agreed. The plummer cut out our aborted attempt, plugged up the water with a rag, which soaked and dried much of the water out temporarily, and installed a ball valve. With the valve open, it doesn't accumulate water while being soldered. Once installed and closed, it isolates the other connections from the drip. Voila. We now have a new external faucet, costing $600, about ten times what we initially expected.
Three days ago, my dad observed that my rear differential was leaking oil, and he said I needed a new gasket. I read about fixing them online, and proceeded to Schucks auto parts store for more advice and parts. The employee with whom I talked had worked in a car shop previously, and he recommended a caulk instead of a gasket, so I bought the sealant, a couple quarts of gear fluid, and a bottle of degreaser for cleaning the driveway for around $25. I drove the back-end onto red ramps to elevate it, and laid on the wheeled sled for car repair. There were eleven bolts that had to be removed to take the differential cover off, and the fellow at Schucks suggested I start from the bottom to prevent the remaining oil from making a mess. One of the bolts had a metal tag on it, and I wondered what the numbers on it signified. The differential gear was shinny steel and blue oil and had a petroleum odor. The oil took 20 minutes to drain, during which time I cleaned the old rubber sealant off the differential cover. Everything went smoothly, although I had some difficulty locating the port for adding fresh gear oil. I found it on the front of the differential housing, plugged with a bolt having a square indentation. Fortunately the socket wrench had the mating gender shape and size (about 3/8ths of an inch per side). I added nearly two quarts of gear oil, and I hope that is enough. I still need to dispose of the used oil at a filling station. The degreaser and a spaying hose cleaned about 80% of the oil off spots on the driveway. I used the degreaser on my engine, and the engine became cleaner, though not something off which I would want to eat.