Sun Dial

This is a neat little Google mashup that lets you make paper sundials.

http://sundial.damia.net/vertical/index-en.html

Broke my Hamate bone

Riding my bike, I felt a tug on my shoe. I looked down and there it was, my shoelace, wrapping itself around the pedal. Having read online that when this happens on a "fixie", it's a guaranteed crash, I forcefully squeezed the brake levers and skidded to a stop.

Crisis averted... put your feet down...

Shit.

 I'm falling away from the foot that isn't tied to the pedal... maybe if I put my hand out...

*snap*

I rolled away counterclockwise a quarter turn onto my back. My immediate thought was that I had broken my arm. The remains of my summer flashed before my eyes. I looked at my forearm, wrist, then hand, there was a tiny laceration in the middle where it caught a rock, but it didn't look to be injured past that.

My fingers still worked.

I turned my attention to my right foot. My leg was still caught underneath my bike in the middle of the road. I quickly unwound my shoelace from it's hitch on the pedal, and picked up the bike, moving it to the boulevard.

That's when I noticed my little finger was numb immobile. I brought my bike home and after seeing that my hand had swollen to twice it's usual size, I hopped in the car to get to an MIR clinic. Turns out, driving a stick shift with a broken hand isn't much fun! Eight hours later, I've got a removable cast and a diagnosis;

"Mr. Carnahan, you've got an occult fracture in your Hamate bone. We'll see you in a week."

Reading up on it, I probably started the fracture golfing earlier in the year; my little finger went numb after lifting a litre of turf out of the tee-off area with a driver.

It's been getting better each day, I broke it Tuesday, it's Sunday of the same week and I think I'll be riding my bike 10km to work tomorrow with the cast on.

Your CPU has been composting.

Your CPU has been composting., originally uploaded by worldcoast.

If your computer is constantly rebooting after a few minutes of use there's a good chance the heatsink is clogged up. To clean it out, turn the power supply off, use q-tips and canned air. Take care not to spin the the fan with the air uncontrollably as you can damage the bearings.

I need two cinder blocks, real ones, none of this farmville bs

Bonfire!

Down to one bag of waste a week. Everything else gets composted or recycled. Woopty woo!

Mmm silverfish

Streetzfm

mms://wms141.netromedia.net/ciurfm?stream=ciurfm&station=streetz%20FM&link=www.streetzfm.com

Best buds

Cock soup anyone?

Firepit liberated from the bowels of the yard

It took about an hour to dig it up and then about two weeks to work up
to filling in underneath it.

Gravity

What if a vacuum really isn't "nothing", but a form of capturing reversed pressure in absence of mass. F = Vacuum Pressure/Mass

Think about it.

Vacuum becomes the universal polar constant opposite gravity.

Rocks

1991 1992 1993 1994 Tercel Tire Pressure

The official manufacturer recommended tire pressure for a 4th Generation Toyota Tercel is 32 PSI.

 

I'm posting this because it's really not anywhere on the car but in the OEM manual. Even Haynes doesn't have it!

 

http://socaltercel.com/manuals/94%20Tercel/Suspension%20and%20Axle.pdf

 

This PDF lists it :)

Waiting for mail.

Nanotube RFID's

RFID chips that can be embedded into paper, they've just been developed. This gives rise to the possibility of absolute tracking of documents. Truly anonymous notes could become a big ticket item if they need to be printed on paper that'll be about as easy to come by as 8mm film.

Imagine, not going to the printer to find your doc, you just hit the track button on your printer program and any number of RFID receivers will fire up in the office and index every piece of paper. No more printing things five times each time they can't be found. Your employee didn't get a copy of the new agreement? Yes they did. You've got it all right here in your micrologistics software.

Just sayin'....

Cat-bite biscuits ( we hope )

Brave New World

"Brave New World."

It appears on each and every stemcell and nano post on the Internet in the comments. While the commenter probably feels they are being profound by invoking the title of Huxley's work, they are simply reminding us of the worst possible scenario that they (with their pop culture education) can fathom. This is after all just one possible branch in a series of events. Something much worse could come of these discoveries, or hopefully something much better.

When humanity follows a similar path to that of a sci-fi author's works, then by definition that book can be considered prophecy. It makes me wonder sometimes if Rome is preparing a new compendium?

Day 2 of no caffeine

I definitely had some trouble getting to sleep last night despite being very tired. 

I'm experiencing some muscle soreness on waking for day 3. Also, it snowed.

Minnedosa Childhood

 Here's my bedroom, the window on the left. I endured an endless amount of teasing from a handful of kids for living above a Chicken Delight. The awnings above the lucky dollar foods (used to be Burgess) could be accessed from the next apartments. We often had epic water battles on this street, using the awnings as a sniper perch, with a full 5 gallon pail being our weapon of choice.

 

I used to hang out on these steps with the local ruffians. We'd chill out and listen to music on my ghetto blaster. 8 D cells it took.

 

Here's the laundromat we used to hang in after hours. It was open 24/7 with washing machines all over and a few arcade games inside. The laundry soap vending machine could be defeated with a strong magnet tied to a string as it was made of a non-ferrous metal. We played arcades for free with this trick. I wonder if they ever caught on?

 

This dollar store was a pool hall and arcade when I first moved to the town. I spent a lot of time there in the first few months.

 

The scene of my first and only major bicycle accident. I tried to take the turn onto this street too sharply with a paperbag on the wrong side of my person. As a result I wiped out and slid from the stop sign to the curb. Every part of my body not covered in denim had a thick scab for the next month.

 

My first capitalist venture was undertaken at this corner store. I rented out my Sega Genesis on consigment. Net profit: $55

 

I walked down this back alley to the gate in the fence in the distance to cross over the bridge to the brokenhead river to get to school every morning. The "cool kids" used to hang out on this bridge, shaking it back and forth violently trying to break it from it's moorings.

 

The pumphouse bike jump. Go too fast and you'll hit the bricks. There was a step on the back of this building that we used to hide our adult magazines under. Behind the pumphouse was a large wreckage of some building that was never hauled away, lots of cement slabs everywhere, perfect for playing war with friends.

 

The fairgrounds home to the Minnedosa Rodeo. More amusing however, home to a snake den. In the spring we would grab snakes by the bucket and terrorize the town. The hills in the background were perfect for toboganning on, and the bush was perfect for partying in. Also the first place I had ever held and later fired a loaded rifle.

 

We used to fish and swim in the spillway at the base of the man-made lake. The beach a little further up was groomed twice a week with a tractor when I was kid. Free of sticks and glass!

 

One of the town doctor's families lived here in "The Castle". I think it's a bed and breakfast now? I spent a lot of time here with the kids, mostly playing on the trampoline. Across the street was the dentist.

 

I could go on for hours with memories of this town, but I'll cut it there.

 

 

Day 1 of no caffeine

I'm noticeably jumpier, reactions to small noises for the most part.
The water line on the coffee maker kicking in made me jump. I've
noticed that there is only one caffiene-free tea choice at work. I may
have to resort to just drinking water.

My eyes are dry, but that could be just from the season.

I don't have the shake in my hand today. That's a bonus.

Are calculators making our children dumb?

My parents constantly told me that I had it easy because I was able to
use a calculator in my grade 10 physics courses. They had to use a
slide rule. I can't imagine how frustrating using and caring for a
slide rule must be.

I've been restraining from telling my children how easy they have it
being able to do their homework on a laptop. Your rough draft becomes
your final draft with a few keystrokes. You no longer have to re-write
the entire document to correct mistakes, it's simply a matter of
highlighting offending passages and hitting a delete key. But isn't
this just working smarter?

You can solve twenty physics problems in the amount of time it took to
solve just one in the past. This should allow you to harness more of
your attention span and tie everything together.

So are calculators making our children dumb? Only if you take them away.

Bear

Made in Winnipeg's north end?

Avatar figurines with live action miracle grip!

I made it!

You can even buy babies at Costco!

On what?

Dishers?

The Red Truck

This truck was visited often in the hayday of our laptop operations.

Original Writeoff

Coal and Bear

"walked into a door"

Olympus Micro Four Thirds on a Four Thirds body

I've been looking at some of the Micro Four Thirds system lenses such
as the "M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 17mm f2.8" pancake lens used for the PEN
cameras. I wanted to mount it on my E-Series DSLR. I phoned Olympus
tech support and the guy was trying to tell me that I needed an
adapter to mount a regular lens on a Micro body, but, that I wouldn't
need an adapter to go the other way. Understandably this didn't make a
lot of sense to me, so I asked him to show me a webpage on his site
that demonstrated this. The tech then proceeded to tell me that the
website had changed, and he would need to put me on hold while he
found the new information. 30 minutes later, I'm fairly sure his
Bejewelled score on Facebook has gone through the roof.

I did my own research and found out that the Micro Four Thirds
definitely DOES NOT mount directly to the Four Thirds system. The
Micro system is 6mm smaller and needs to be set closer to the imager
than on the regular Four Thirds system.

Had I not listened to my own logic, I would have dropped almost $400
on a lens that I would not be able to use. They don't make a mount to
my knowledge nor would it really be possible considering the offset to
the imager.

Failure Olympus customer support, epic failure.

How do you pronounce Jysk?

Often times our customers ask how to pronounce our name. So to set the record straight, here it is: JYSK (yi-sk). We honestly don't mind what you call us, as long as you call us again and again.

http://www.jysk.ca/pages.aspx?id=&docid=237

Kitty kat

The frog in the attic

Basic Knife Skills

Basic cutting skills. Check it out, save your fingers.

How To Learn Basic Knife Skills from Apartment Therapy: The Kitchn on Vimeo.

Volume Widget

I love useful system widgets. Sometimes they're packaged with laptops or new computers, but for us roll-your-own folks there aren't many preinstalled options for bypassing Windows controls.

I was reading over on LifeHacker today about a nice little volume control tool called 3RVX. Simply put it's a volume controller. Dig a little deeper and you'll find that it's skinnable and will configure hotkeys for you. I've got mine set to use Windows+scroll wheel, up or down does the expected and a click will mute the sound.

You can download it here:

http://matt.malensek.net/software/

Did your food preparer wash their hands?

Sarah and I walked into a Subway a few nights ago and observed the sole employee rolling up a very wet, salty, disgusting floor mat while on the phone. The employee’s call ended with a few foreign words and the sound of sucked teeth. She then walked around behind the counter and put the phone away.

 

I observed the employee very carefully as she had just been handling the rubber mats. She made it to the sink, but not to the soap. Her hands darted under the running water as if she was washing sand off her fingertips. No soap, no amount of time, just a quick flick under the tap. A pair of gloves were handled, and instead of looking at them to be careful not to contaminate them, she rubbed her hands all over the surface that was about to touch my unmade sandwich.

 

“Whart kind of surb would you lirke?” the foreign lady asked me.

 

“Actually… I’ve changed my mind, we’re going grocery shopping instead.”

 

We saved a few bucks and didn’t get the shits from Subway in Kildonan Crossing that night.

 

Radiator under the counter

I have a hot water radiator that the previous owner thoughtfully
installed a countertop overtop of. The heat used to absorb into the
countertop and dissipate out through the exterior wall.

To remedy this, I've installed foil backed bubble wrap on the
underside of the counter. Now the hot air rolls right out into the
middle of the room where the counter top ends instead of being
absorbed into the wood.

Future herb garden

Update: Google Expansion

Well I've got 200GB of Google-Room now. Time to backup those photographs.

 

In addition they're sending me a special little prize that Sarah will like at some point :)

Busy?

I can tell when I've been busy based on what time of the day I actually get around to reading http://www.lifehacker.com

Please Rob Me

I've recently received a Facebook message.

 

Just for you
http://www.pleaserobme.com

 

Come on people. It's an interesting project for sure, but do you really think that the average thief is going to be sitting at "their computer" waiting for you to post that you're anywhere but at home? More likely they'll be studying your habits, finding out when you're at work and generally watching the house. I'd be more worried about telling everyone you're going to FolkFest; every hippie with a drug problem knows you're there. 

 

Really think about it, who do you know that has been robbed in the last little while?

• Someone had their van stolen.
• Someone was robbed blind by their roommate.
• Someone was mugged.
• Someone had their car towed from their place of work by a police officer who had been cut off by said person two hours earlier while off duty
• Someone had their iPhone stolen

Now I know alarms aren't foolproof, but how many of those people had a monitored alarm (with cellular backup in the case of a cut line) protecting that property? Police respond priority on two zone trips, and I have plenty of zones for anyone bigger than a cat to trip. Priority response? Well basically if there isn't a riot or a report of a violent crime in progress they're going sirens blaring to my house. What happens after that? Well the motion detection camera I have set up sends me an email with a video and snapshots of the perp. Sure you might have a hoodie, but if you're robbing me based on my twitter, chances are I probably know you. No, I wont show you the device.

 

But you know, better safe than sorry right? Maybe I should also start:

• parking my car in the garage 
• leaving at staggered times through the week 
• always take a different route to work
• get a job where I can work shifts so it's harder for thieves to find out when I'm not home
• stop going out
• get a doberman
• forward my home phone to my cell phone so that people can't tell that I'm not at home
• get a doorbell that barks
• not have people over so they can't case the joint
• board up my windows
• get a gun

My house is alarmed so that I don't have to be. But I mean if you want to be alarmed for me, go nuts!

 

Just a test

Testing.

Mah Fuggin Hexacopter!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJrfwryxC7c&feature=player_embedded

 

Holy balls.

Will the Jets rise from the ashes?

OK, here's the rumour: Wealthy David Thomson of Toronto, the man who most of the shares of the MTS Centre and True North Sports and Entertainment in Winnipeg, has purchased the Atlanta Thrashers of the National Hockey League and will move them to Winnipeg for the 2010-11 season. The Moose will move to Saskatoon. The announcement will be made right after the Olympics. Thoughts?

Terrorism and Anti-Semitism

If you're an anti-semite in America, you're just that. If you're against Christianity, you're probably going to be labelled a terrorist. The term anti-gentile never is used, possibly because the only people who could possibly be are a minority in all countries but Israel. So I wonder does the term anti-gentile get thrown around in Israel? Or are there enough self-identifying groups in the 1/4 of the population that isn't jewish that anti-gentile is a broad spectrum term to be lost in the annals of histroy.

 

All the place I'd love to go.

Nick's present

Bussin' aint easy

Okay well it pretty much is. I've been bussing it for the past two weeks, except for one or two days when I needed to run errands after work.

 

It's not so bad.

 

I mean there's a bit of a psychological barrier leaving to walk two blocks instead of just right out front and in the car. But once you get over that it's not a bad thing, it's a bit liberating actually. I can walk where I want instead of where the road tells me I can. I notice a lot more now as well. There's houses around that aren't well kept, people who leave at the same time every day, dogs let out and well I'm just sounding creepy now.

 

The same people are on the bus each day. There's the creepy old lady, the Scottish immigrant with his Asian immigrant side kick. The gangster girl who landed a decent job and makes appointments on her Blackberry all morning. The ratty school age girl who listens to Justin Timberlake declare he's bringing sexy back all too loud

 

It takes about 20 minutes longer, but I catch up on my email on the way. I get what work I can done on the way and I catch up with other early birds through SMS.

 

Gas consumption has dropped signifigantly. Where I was putting in $35-$40 a week, now I'm popping in maybe $20 a payday. And I've switched it to pleasure insurance saving about $240 a month. Add in $75 for the monthly pass, $64 after the tax credit, its a bit of a savings.

 

It's nice being able to meet up with Sarah and hang out after work, it's cool running into people.

 

Bus for the win.

As seen at Cityplace

Checkered flag snowmobile jackets

Decidedly rural. Similar to SunIce in the 80's. That is all.

Handyman fixes bathtub faucet

Office Chairs at Revy!

Just $35.