Lee.org

A while back I paid a dealer to “fix” my brakes because they were squeaking when I drive at low speed and put the brakes on. I would pull up to an intersection and SQEEEEEEEEK to a stop. Having the dealership work on my car did not work out too well. I paid $400 and I got… pretty much nothing for it.

Here is how to fix your squeaky brakes: just get your brakes very hot. That will clear the glazing off of them. Every now and then I have done this and my brakes stop squeaking. One way is to drive down the highway at about 50 miles an hour while holding your foot on the brakes pretty hard for 2/10s of a mile. After a riding like this for a short bit I notice that the brakes feel a little different and I am done. After they cool off, they feel the same only they don’t squeak anymore. just yesterday, I held the brakes on for two full blocks while driving through the Mission. No more squeaks.

Many brakes (including mine) rust very quickly. In the morning my brakes squeak the first time I come to a halt. Then they are good all day.

:-)

I was speaking to a solar panel prospect of mine a while back. I was telling him how he probably should not buy panels made by Sun Tech because you can’t really trust the reliability of high-tech products from China. I started telling him about how unreliable products from Harbor Freight are and he told me a story.

He went to China recently, up the Yangtze River and some of those “brand new” cities that are being built there. I had heard a while back that China is building a city every week (yeah, wow!). He had gone into one of these cities of like a million people or so. He described how every building is built exactly eight stories tall because at nine stories the local law says that you have to put in an elevator.

He told me that he was a bit confused at what he was seeing; everything was broken down. All of the concrete on the sidewalks was cracked. The buildings had cracks in them, the paint was peeling, structures were crumbling.

He met this older gentleman and spoke to him for a while. The gentleman was a farmer that had been displaced into the city after dam construction had flooded his farm. He was living on the first floor of this eight story building. Actually, it wasn’t the gentleman’s apartment but he had been crammed into his niece’s place. Apparently, my prospect surmised, he hadn’t been given too large a stipend when he was forced to move.

My prospect and the farmer spoke in his apartment building for a while. He noticed this large structural crack in the wall that… well, it looked downright scary. Here he was living on the first floor of an eight story walk-up and the building had a crack in the wall that looked liked they should condemn the place.

My prospect asked the farmer, “why did they put you in this old city?” The farmer explained how the city was completely new. Construction had been finished just a year before. But the concrete sidewalks didn’t use enough rebar or high enough enough quality concrete so they crumbled immediately. And the buildings… well, that huge crack in the wall told you all you needed to know.

—-

“So -that- is why”, I cut in, “you should not buy Sun Tech panels.” And there is also the bit about how they’re probably dumping all of their toxic solar panel waste into the Yangtze. You can sure make an inexpensive panel when you don’t have to worry about recycling your toxic waste products. 

China is being built like Harbor Freight builds tools. I can imagine them saying, “Chromium is too expensive to put in steel, we won’t use it. We’ll be fine without it. Molybdenum? Never heard of it.”

Today: went to acupuncture. I feel great after.

Mailed off several boxes of photos from Morley’s house. Productive…

Went to the Box Shop. I was greeted with 3 different people wanting help from me :-).

1. Figuring out how to keep a Mac Mini cool on the playa (put it in an ice chest in a waterproof box, replace the ice daily, (to be experimented with))
2. batteries for Mutopia (loaned from the vast pool of batteries that Peter Luka gave SWARM)
3. Welding together some petals for this firey flower. I practiced and then was able to TIG weld the thin stainless steel for the first time. :-)

Finally got FL Studio. I’m excited about making 6 part music for SWARM. One thing I’m going to do is transcribe some poliphonic african drumming music I learned in college and have each orb play an instrument :-). That music from Professor David Locke’s class is STILL buzzing around in my head more than 15 years later.

Over the last few days, I’ve cleaned house in a few ways.

I went to my neighbor Samantha’s apartment and her place looked so gosh darn airy and serene. I vowed to make some of that happen in my apartment so I’ve cleaned the house and put lots of things AWAY. Clearning the sight-lines is the best… I cleaned the tops of bookshelves so you can see more wall and glass-doors. Charlotte got into the act and cleaned such that it’s easy to open and close the doors between the kitchen and living room. I was really struck that in Samantha’s place, all the doors were workable; in our place, we’ve blocked open one set and blocked closed one set :-(. That’s got to be some feng shui no-no. In any case, it feels better to have a clean place.

I’ve been cleaning at the Box Shop. SWARM’s work space had become a mess. Under our work table was this scary jumble of parts with no order. I found all the items that don’t belong and told the mailing list “claim it or it gets discarded”. Some items were claimed and some are destined for the trash bin. I put all the scrap in a scrap bin, put all the long items in one pile, got some parts boxes and put parts away. I threw away like 5 large cardboard boxes and 30 tiny boxes. I found that we have duplicates of lots of bolt-y things. Hopefully, that process now has a chance of reversing itself. Everything fits in 2/3 the space and is much more findable. There’s a ways to go with sorting through electronics items that we might or might not use any more but things are way way better.

WATCH THE TRAILER

SF-based, female-driven and fuel-powered art collective The FLAMING LOTUS GIRLS announce a benefit with the screening of “Dust And Illusions”, by director Olivier Bonin for our mega fire-art project MUTOPIA, destined for the playa of Black Rock City 2008. All proceeds go directly to the Flaming Lotus Girls.

PLEASE SAVE THE DATE!! JUNE 28th 2008 at CELLSPACE.
2050 Bryant St., San Francisco, CA 94110. MAP IT

Door Cost: $10-$20 Sliding Scale

Doors open: 8pm

Movie at 9pm. Make sure to come early, 100 seats limit.

Meet the director at 10:30pm after screening.

Film Synopsys: Once a year, on a vast Nevada lake bed surrounded by mountains, the Burning Man festival brings together tens of thousands of people who are attracted by the festival’s promise of seven days of “decommodification,” “community,” “artwork,” and “revelry.” But increasingly, many question whether Burning Man’s mainstream appeal threatens—or even upends—the festival’s utopian vision. Through a series of in-depth interviews of the festival’s founders, organizers, and participants, DUST AND ILLUSIONS traces the festival’s history, while examining whether the festival is a victim of its own success.

Thanks for all your support!!
Your Flaming Lotus Girls

Heh.

Beer: Now Cheaper Than Gas!
“Drink, Don’t Drive”

Last week I went to another wedding with Charlotte. This one at the Shipyard in Berkeley. The vows were performed by several Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Yes, really. It was a blast!

And yes, that’s the Neverwas Haul

Handfasting

And the space! That’s Charlotte and I in the lower left, talking with Michael P and his friend.

Comparing TJIC’s blog ranking to Lee.org on Alexa

Trav said he had only 15 readers. I disagreed, did the math and then…. agreed.

15? You must have many more lurkers than that. I get like 1000 page views a day. How many do you get?

Oh yes, that’s right. you have no idea because you don’t have any stats tracking. ;-)

Hmm. Maybe you’re right… click here

Wow…
.000097 / .00121 = .08
my 1000 page views * .08 = your 80 page views/day
your 80 page views/day / your average 6 posts per day = 13.3 readers.

OMG, you really -do- have 15 readers.

Then again, I’m betting that his readership is less likely to install the Alexa toolbar.

Some fliers made it to the front step of the building. They remind me that I live in San Freaky Cisco.

From the website…

Rent control has been a road block for Landowners, but it does not stop them from taking advantage of renters. For example:

- 2 bedroom apartments being advertised as 4 bedrooms
(calling the living room and dining room bedrooms),
charging twice the value of the apartment to maximize profits.
So, this guy didn’t actually notice he was moving into a tiny city apartment?

- realtors bribing senior tenants to move out so they
can jack up the rent to “market value.”
Hmm, good idea

- renters fixing their apartments themselves instead of calling
the Landowners afraid inspections will force them out.
So this guy would rather continue to live in a place that -should- be condemned rather than use the existing laws and force the landlord to make repairs? Ok… umm…

I like that the website has a (insane) poison pill statement

The FBI in the Bay Area with help from the police have been known in the past to spread disinformation to prevent popular movements from interfering with business as usual, (COINTELPRO era and beyond). DO NOT TRUST any rent strike statement you see that is racist, authoritarian, anti immigrant, sexist, factional, or contradicts anything you read in this statement. With the economy in the state that it’s in today a rent strike could very well scare many wealthy Landowners and realty companies (look up COINTELPRO).

Removing Landowners’ control over properties they don’t live on would be real property reform. They definitely shouldn’t control or profit from land they don’t need (use your imagination). Striking rent could be the beginning of this process. Our ability to organize our community will determine how successful striking rent will be.

I went to his recommended website and found this list of how terrible CitiApartments/Skyline is. From that site:

* Showing up at tenant’s doors late at night with a couple of big guys, for “inspections”
The law says they have to be “announced” and appear at a “reasonable time”. Dude, just tell them to come back tommorrow!

* Snooping around tenants’ apartments on false pretenses like inspections, and then looking for things they can use against tenants
What illegal activities were you hiding?

* Telling tenants “we can do this the easy way, or the hard way”
So you did something that caused the building to be condemned, got caught and the landlord asked you to leave. It was time to quit yesterday. Why didn’t you just leave?

* setting up tables in the lobby with a photo copier and demanding ID from tenants
Huh?

* putting notices up saying tenants aren’t allowed in the building
Wha?

* refusing to repair elevators in buildings full of seniors
If the elevator is in the lease, make them fix it. If not…

* telling tenants they will call the FBI, homeland security, or immigration on them
Ok, what did you do? Really?

* (in at least one case) showing up at a tenants’ door wearing fatigues and a firearm
The landlord has a license to carry in your San Francisco neighborhood? Man, you live in a shitty neighborhood. You should really move!

* pretending they didn’t receive rent and then issuing evictions for lack of payment of rent
You didn’t pay by check and you didn’t get a receipt. Ok.

* issuing evictions for roommates “in violation of lease” when roommates are legal tenants
Are they? What -exactly- does your lease say? Your friends can’t crash on your couch forever, really.

* refusing to pay interest on security deposits
Dude, it’s like 1% interest. $20/year or something. Just let it go.

* telling immigrants or people of color that their “money isn’t good here”
There are serious laws about that. If you can prove those statements, you’re golden.

* videotaping tenants as they walk out of their doors
That sounds like a good thing, since even the landlord, who is packing, got mugged with your rent money.

* letting bedbug epidimics run unabated
Umm…. get a new bed? Bedbugs are hard to get rid of, really. Sorry.

* doing construction on buildings in such an irritating way that tenants are forced to leave
Yes, you’re right, they should use hammer muffs.

* demanding meetings with tenants at the church and market office
Those Bitches!

* trying to impose draconian house rules on tenants
Which one? “Turn off your faucet before you go out of town” or “It’s 11 o’clock, turn down that crazy rap music!”

* trying to require that tenants tell them when they’re leaving town
Huh?

* issuing evictions when tenants leave town for the weekend
Evictions take weeks. And why are you getting evicted? Oh yeah, you left the faucet on for 3 months while you were out of town.

* issuing evictions for messy apartments
Dude, if it smells that bad, you really should clean it up. And yes, you can get evicted for that.

* requiring tenants to hand deliver their checks
The lease has the landlord’s address at the top of it. On the 26th of every month, write and mail a check. Is it that hard? Apparently. That’s why I advocate building in late-fees to leases so when people like you write your rent check late every freaking month, the landlord says, “No problem. If received after the 5th of the month, you owe an extra $20. Pay or get out.”

* failing to fix the heat
San Francisco law is quite clear about how much heat an apartment should get. If it’s substandard, lodge a complaint. But if you want a sauna, move to Iceland. They have lots of those there.

* claiming tenants are “nuisances” and then offering them market rate rooms in other buildings
Well, with your crazy parties and running the faucet for months at a time and that smell, that smell! You should move further away. Or save some money buy your own place so you can do all those things in your own house.

Here’s the new chant for our picket line:

Free Housing! No Rent!

Free Rent! No Housing!

I run several Mediawiki wikis and Wordpress blogs on my Dreamhost shared hosting. I continue to work on improving performance on my wikis.

Here are some performance hints for the Mediawiki LocalSettings.php file I am running right now:

## Compress output if the browser supports it
# I commented this out in favor of wgUseGzip below. I -think- it offers better
# performance. LCS 5-6-08
# if( !ini_get( ‘zlib.output_compression’ ) ) @ob_start( ‘ob_gzhandler’ );

# Enable the basic file cache for static pages for non-logged-in visitors
$wgUseFileCache = true;
$wgFileCacheDirectory = “/home/.author/leedh/lee.org/[my temp folder]“;
$wgShowIPinHeader = false;

# I set wgUseGzip to be true and commented out the bit about ob_gzhandler
# above. I -think- this makes for better performance. LCS 5-6-08
$wgUseGzip = true;

$wgEnableSidebarCache = true;

#default is 1, changing to a higher number will be a little bit
# nicer to the database
$wgHitcounterUpdateFreq = 10;

$wgUseETag = true;

I also run my own PHP executable on Dreamhost and PHP_Fast_CGI. I didn’t take the time to install my own PHP. This is a bit of a hack but it works fine. I control the php.ini file… read below. The part I like the most is that I don’t have to manually upgrade PHP every so-often. Dreamhost will do it automagically. Here is an excurpt from the .htaccess file of the root of my website that tells all the PHP programs on my site to use my PHP and PHP_Fast_CGI.

# This is to run my own PHP and PHP_Fast_CGI. Since this is in the root
# of my web site, the whole website will run this way.
# note that I modified php5-wrapper.fcgi to run my own copy of PHP
AddHandler fastcgi-script fcg fcgi fpl
AddHandler php5-fastcgi .php
Action php5-fastcgi /php5-wrapper.fcgi

The contents of the php5-wrapper.fcgi file in the root of my account is:

#!/bin/sh

# Run PHP with 2 persistant processes
export PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN=2

# Run PHP
#exec /usr/local/dh/cgi-system/php5.cgi

# Run my own PHP with increased limits
exec /home/.author/leedh/lee.org/cgi-bin/php.cgi

The php.cgi file in the cgi-bin directory is the PHP executable fetched from where it normally lives on the Dreamhost server at /dh/cgi-system/php5.cgi. Once a month I run this script to make sure I have the latest PHP. This script also fetches the php.ini and modifies it so I can upload files using PHP up to 100 MB instead of the 7 MB limit.

#!/bin/sh

# This script copies over the latest php5 to my folder so I can run PHP locally.
# running locally lets me use my own php.ini (in the same directory as php.cgi)
# So then I can set the max post size and max filesize to larger than 7 megabyte
s!!
# Hurray!

CGIFILE=”$HOME/lee.org/cgi-bin/php.cgi”
INIFILE=”$HOME/lee.org/cgi-bin/php.ini”
rsync -a /dh/cgi-system/php5.cgi “$CGIFILE”
# REMOVE THE FOLLOWING LINE TO CREATE THE UPDATE-ONLY SCRIPT:
cp /etc/php5/cgi/php.ini “$INIFILE”

perl -p -i -e ‘
s/.*post_max_size.*/post_max_size = 100M/;
s/.*upload_max_filesize.*/upload_max_filesize = 100M/;
‘ “$INIFILE”

Enjoy.

When I switched my permalinks from http://lee.org/blog/archives/… to http://lee.org/blog/… I had several links in my blog with the old “archives” links. Thankfully, the Permalink Redirect plugin redirects hits to those pages with “303″ errors. But I still needed to change the 30 or so posts with those old links. Search and Replace Wordpress Plugin to the rescue. Of course I backed up my database first but it worked peachy keen, changing links en-mass. Here’s the search-replace strings I used. Doing it this way kept some direct links I had to the “archives” folder intact.

href="http://lee.org/blog/archives/2008 --> href="http://lee.org/blog/2008
href="http://lee.org/blog/archives/2007 --> href="http://lee.org/blog/2007
href="http://lee.org/blog/archives/2006 --> href="http://lee.org/blog/2006
href="http://lee.org/blog/archives/2005 --> href="http://lee.org/blog/2005

etc…