Here is an excellent site to print out whatever graph paper you need. Incompetech graph paper. He’s got ALL kinds of graphpaper there. Regular, mult-width (Engineering), dots, hex, semi-bisected trapezoid, iso-dots, octagonal, hexagonal, variable triangle… yowza!
This is what I created out for sketching out solar installations. To the right is a png of it.
My very good friend Travis has been running a few independent businesses very successfully for the last 4 years or so. He’s been growing at a tremendous but consistent pace. He started with Smartflix.com. It’s now the world’s largest how-to video rental store. He then expanded to Heavyink.com which is poised to become the Amazon.com of comic books (and then some). Both of these companies are functioning and doing well. At last count, I think he’s got 8 employees or so. HeavyInk is new. He’d like to expand it. To do this, he needs to add stock and man-power to get it rolling. He’s looking to borrow money. I personally think this is an excellent opportunity. I’ve been wanting to invest in this business for a while and I’m going to try now. I’ll let him tell you about it:
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Speaking of growth: we’d love to borrow somewhere between $100,000 and $500,000. We pay a nice interest rate. If you or someone you know is interested in loaning us funds (min amount is probably $20k or so; minimum term is probably 2+ years), get in touch. References, spreadsheets, accountant-verified books, etc. would, of course, be displayed.
If you’re not interested in loaning funds, but are looking to invest, that’s not our first choice, but we can talk. Minimum amount is probably $100-200k.
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Email me directly at 
for more information.
Breaking the Spell by Daniel Dennet - I swear, I’ll never get through this book
The New How Things Work by David Macaulay - Fun bedtime reading
Farm Show Magazine - I love it!
Listening to lots of podcasts… The Sound of Young America from PRI is surprisingly good. It took a little bit to get past the knee-jerk reaction that it’s trying too hard to be the sound of young America.
A 2 ton 45 foot animatronic humpback whale
update: it’s not really for sale, just a prank :-(
While FastCGI has been running, calls to Wordpress have gone from about 4 seconds to 2 seconds. Calls to Mediawiki have gone from 8 seconds to 5 seconds. :-)
I installed PHP_FastCGI on the blog and the (private) Flaming Lotus Girls wiki. I had tried installing it a year ago but it proved unstable. New instructions were put on the Dreamhost wiki and it’s been running well for the last few days. Here’s how I installed it:
in my root Wordpress folder, I created a file called php5-wrapper.fcgi. In it, I wrote:
#!/bin/sh
export PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN=2
exec /usr/local/dh/cgi-system/php5.cgi
and then set the file to be executable like so
chmod u+x php5-wrapper.fcgi
Then I added the following to the .htaccess file:
AddHandler fastcgi-script fcg fcgi fpl
AddHandler php5-fastcgi .php
Action php5-fastcgi /php5-wrapper.fcgi
Done!
Now 3 PHP sessions stays active, waiting for people to call on my server instead of PHP starting up every time I get a hit. When I run ‘ps aux’, I see the processes just sitting there, waiting. Sometimes there’s up to 6 processes temporarily.
I just got an HP Color Laserjet 2605dn printer. Wow, the color images come out like photographs. HP is selling them on their website for $250 after a rebate.
As I was recommending to my sister recently…
Don’t buy an inkjet printer, the cost of the ink will kill you over time.
HP has the guts to tell us how expensive it really is.
With the good HP 99 ink, they says you’ll get 130 4″x6″ photos out of a $25 cartridge. That’s $0.20 per photo for the ink. Multiply that by 4 if you’re printing 8 1/2″ x 11″ = $0.80 per sheet.
For the laser printer, I recently printed 400 8 1/2″x11″ full-color brochures and the toner monitor tells me I’ve used up 20% of the capacity… IE I’ll get 2,000 full-size-full-color copies out of my $250 in color cartridges. That’s $0.12 per sheet.
But wait, there’s more! I can refill my color toner twice before the drum wears out for $80 per refill (I’ve refilled toner before and it takes < 15 minutes) That makes the cost per page for 6,000 full-size-full color pages $0.07 per page.
And if you’re not into refilling cartridges, then listen to this: the HP 2605dn comes with full toner cartridges… That means you get $0.12/sheet color printing out of the box. when the toner is empty, throw the whole printer away and get a new one for the price of toner cartridges. (that isn’t very ecologically minded, is it? No!)
More benefits to color laser printing:
Oh and did I mention that the HP 2605dn has automatic duplex printing (IE, double sided printing)? Oh and it has ethernet built in too if you wanted a network printer.
Go buy a color laser printer. Tell ‘em I sent you.
I have copied my old Flying Journal (and) out of it’s original flat-file HTML and into Wordpress. You can now find all my old and new entries by looking in the “RC” (IE Radio Controlled) tag in my blog.
Right now, there’s 52 entries, going all the way back to May 2003.
Update: This promo has passed, look for more recent discount info on my blog here.
These coupon codes will get you 10% off your annual or bi-annual subscription to Mozy. They’re only good this month. So here’s what to do:
The code is only good this month. Look on my blog for a more current Mozy discount code.
I just got update:returned a new laptop. It has Windows Vista, mostly because getting Windows XP via Dell would have cost $200 EXTRA. Though I heard last night from Rick L that if you call them on the phone and tell them, “I’m not buying a computer from you if it has Vista”, you can get XP at no additional charge.
I’ve been using Vista for about 1 hr and I’m just about ready to go back to XP. Vista is very pretty. Performance-wise, it makes my 1.9 Ghz dual core processor feel like a 400Mhz PII. It’ll often show you a screen but actually it’s not ready for you to click on it for 3 or 5 or 8 seconds. It’s very frustrating.
And for the security… this is how I feel (original):
.
2-12-08 Followup: I returned the Vista Laptop. Here’s another humorous video on the subject (original)
“I switched back to XP 3 weeks ago. …So much happier.”
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Ok, this is pretty fun…
I got this in an email from Smartflix.com today
The Top Ten Wackiest DVDs at Smartflix.com
Work at home? Want to work in a cubicle but don’t have one? Want a short term office rental with perks? Consider CitizenSpace in San Francisco.
Citizen Space is a coworking space in San Francisco located at 425 Second St on the third floor. It is generally open from 10am - 6pm weekdays.
The idea of Citizen Space is to take the best elements of a coffee shop (social, energetic, creative) and the best elements of a workspace (productive, functional) and combine them to give indie workers the chance to have their own, affordable space. Citizen Space was built on coworking philosophy.
Day-tripping and casual guests can visit for free and if you want to leave your stuff, we rent out desks for $350/month. We also hold various events at our space and are happy to consider making our facilities available for event hosting.
And there’s HatFactory and NASA CoLab and 2431 Mission and Sandbox Suites.The list goes on!
Hey will ya look at that. Regseeker actually made my computer a little faster. I had it remove a few thousand unused registry entries and my Windows XP computer got a little faster. I was a bit worried that it would do Very Bad Things to my registry. I made backups and stuff. It’s been a week and so far, no earth-shattering “kaboom” like that accident with the space modulator.
It’s freeware available in many places, including locally.
My
favorite t-shirt is one that I purchased about 15 years ago in Boston. People often ask me about it. They are simply memorized by it! I likely purchased it at a Tufts University on-campus sale. I’ve been meaning for years to try and find more by the same artist, Ken Brown.
I tracked him down via the Mirror Image website. Rick Roth at that site forwarded my message on to Ken and he wrote me back.
He wrote
Rick forwarded this little time capsule today and it gave me a chuckle. I wish I could help you out with a shirt selection, but I’ve been out of the biz for many years. I do miss it though and may yet reconsider. Meanwhile, check out hoopla.org (the ken Brown section at the top o the noggin’) for recent rantings. )
I took a look and… wow, that art brings back memories and gives me a great smile. I’m pretty sure I recognize a few and I -definitely- recognize the style. It reminds me of a card and “stuff” store that was on Mass Ave near Gypsy Moon. Apparently, he’s the guy they bought all their cards from!
Take a look at Ken Brown’s comical commodities!
I saw this really funny set of photos at this site two weeks ago. I made a note to go back and check it out again. This is what I found today:
Grrr. I -used- to run my own server. No, the only way to be totally sure this kind of thing doesn’t happen is if I run my own server ISP internet.
My blog was getting slow so I called Dreamhost support. They wrote back
Okay, I see a pretty big issue. It looks like you’ve got 92MB of overhead (i.e. unoptimized queries) on your blog’s database. Optimizing the queries seems to have knocked your DB down to a more sensible 37.8MB - which can be trimmed further if you go thru and purge any questionable comments in Spam Karma as its tables take up 7.6MB. Go ahead and see how the optimizations have helped and let me know if you happen to have any further questions. I’ll be more than happy to help you get things sorted out if you need me to.
Thanks!
Jason
That helped muchly. I put on my calendar next to flipping my mattress, “Repair blog database tables to remove overhead. Then Optimize tables. Enjoy.”
I got a ticket, a “citation” for having an expired car registration in Oakland. That’s handled in the “Superior Court of California, County of Alameda”. Actually my registration wasn’t expired but I didn’t have the new registration in the car at the time. But that’s not the point. The point is, I wasted 1 1/2 hours of my day this morning going to Oakland Superior Court and I’m here to tell you how to make your experience easier.
At
the bottom of my citation, it said that I was supposed to go to court on 1-22-08 at 9am. This is wrong. Here’s how it really works: It takes 4-8 forever(?) weeks from the time the citation is issued until it’s in the computer. Then I’ll be sent a “courtesy notice” by snail mail telling me what I’m supposed to do. Note that my violation was on 11-22-07. Today is 1-24-08… 8 weeks later and my citation still isn’t in the system. I should also note that the phone number the officer wrote isn’t the correct number… but when you call, it tells you what the new number is.
The nice gentleman at the information booth told me to check the status of my citation every 2 weeks at http://www.acgov.org/courts. (note: the site actually forwards to this site). Or I can call the Wiley W Manuel Courthouse - Traffic Division at 510-627-4701. But I’ve called that number and sat on the line waiting for someone to answer the phone for 20 minutes in vain. Use the website instead.
The
citation said that I was supposed to show up at 9am. This is wrong. The nice gentleman at the info desk told me that registration for the morning court session opens at 8am. Shortly it will open at 7:30am. But at 7:30am, there is already a long line outside so you’ll do best to show up at the courthouse at 7am or even 6:30am. That way, you’ll be able to register for one of the 120 spots in the 10am morning court session. If you don’t get into the first session, you’ll be registering for the second session which starts at 2pm (IE your entire day wasted). And if there were too many people in front of you, you’ll be told to come back tomorrow, rinse and repeat. Also note that there is no afternoon court session on Thursdays. The nice gentleman at the info desk told me that many people were turned away today (Thursday) because of that.
The address of the Wiley W. Manual Courthouse is 661 Washington, Oakland, CA between 6th and 7th st. When I approached the building, I initially almost walked into the detention center (IE: Jail) in the same structure on 7th St because it looked all governmenty. Don’t make that mistake.
Marnia asked me to sign up for GoodReads.com. A while back, Jen asked me to sign up for…. umm something like “Book Exchange”. I’m sure they are both wonderful sites. But such sites come and go. I like to keep my commentary in one place. Hence, this post starts the “What I’m Reading” Category in my blog. Check in on this Category every now and then. Offer up a comment. Point me to your own Reading List.
Find out what I’m reading at http://lee.org/blog/category/reading-watching-listening/
All manner of solar books including (and all from the San Francisco Public Library)
Freakonomics - Very Good. Audiobook. It’s just as “useful” as Blink and The Tipping Point but I don’t like hearing this author read quite as much as I like Malcolm reading.
The Omnivore’s Dilemma - Excellent. Audiobook.
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell - Excellent. Audiobook.
The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell - Excellent. Audiobook.
Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology by Valentino Braitenberg- A really good “autonomous robot” book. I haven’t had time to get into it too much lately. But I will eventually!
Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman - (Audiobook) A very fun to read/listen to story!
Tickets went on sale at 10am. I got in virtual line at 10:15 and checked out at 1:30pm with 6,100 people in front of me. The first tier of 10,000 tickets had already been sold. But I’ve got mine.
:-)
I borrowed Barry’s Kill a Watt. It’s a gizmo that tells you how many watts and kilowatt*hours your appliances are using. I found out a couple interesting tidbits.
Electricity costs me $0.11 per kilowatt. In my small apartment, I never get out of the first tier of electric rates, which peak out at $0.36 per kilowatt.
