Lee.org

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.

• Baking 1 loaf of bread in my Breadman Ultimate automatic bread maker = 0.29 kilowatt*hrs = $0.03. When the electric bread maker oven is heating (maybe 1/2 the time the bread is in the bake cycle) running it uses 387 watts.
• Running the gas oven uses a constant 340 watts to keep the igniter hot. That’s to say using my GAS oven uses more ELECTRICITY than my ELECTRIC oven!

• My computer running at idle = 122 watts.
• My computer running at “full tilt” working on SETI@Home = 192 watts. So running SETI@Home is like leaving a 70 watt lightbulb on all the time in addition to running my computer. If I left it on 24×7, that’d be a $67 donation to SETI@Home each year.

• Charlotte’s laptop= variable between 18 and 50 watts
• When Charlotte’s laptop is turned off, the power supply uses <1 watt.

• My main LCD monitor running with mostly black on the screen = 33 watts.
• My main LCD monitor running with mostly white on the screen = 33 watts.
• Charlotte’s laptop uses 6 watts less when the screen is dark than when it’s bright.

• All of my gizmos turned “off” use 29 watts. Scanner=12, router=10, modem=2, answering machine=5, monitor1<1, monitor2<1, computer<1, clock radio<1. That’s $28 per year.

• Refrigerator=87 watts when running
• Catching it? Priceless.

My friend Geo worked on this amazing expanding automobile robot thing. Here’s where you can find it. It’s called Totemobile

Amorphicrobotworks.org

Watch a video of it changing

From the site:

The Totemobile is cubism in action. The iconic object is radically fragmented as it grows upwards. Its several sides are seen simultaneously from all sides.

A Citroën DS transforms through three stages of abstraction. First the structure separates into its geometric parts. These parts become organic forms, and by the time the sculpture reaches its 20 meter “totem” stage, the organic forms bloom with pure light.

MacMurtrie says: “The totem is a frequent reference in my work. I have created many totems as sculptures; as they grow upward, images and narratives are exposed.

“During my first visit to Citroën’s Champs-Elysees showroom, I was very excited about the possibilities offered by the height and windows in the architecture. I clearly saw an image of a totem growing from a car to great heights.

“I chose the Citroën DS, not because of Citroën’s sponsorship, but because it is an icon for European cars, and I felt that the live qualities it represented (hydraulic suspensions, organic curvature, and mechanical ingenuity) were emblematic of the time. I also chose the DS because it influenced my Mexican-American low-rider car culture. A low-rider was used by the Latin culture as a medium of expression… converting classic cars with hydraulic suspensions, utilizing elaborate paint jobs, became an art form.”

I’m on the Emo mailing list (not to be confused with the EMO mailing list) and he writes that he’s playing in NYC January 18th and 19th. He’ll be in Boston in May. No date announced yet. You should go. He’s really funny.

Here’s the whole email

Continue reading ‘Emo Philips playing in NYC and then Boston’ »

I get so many comments from people about my first post about speeding tickets in New Jersey, I opened up this second post for comments. Note that everything you need to know is in my first post on the subject. You don’t need to read this second post.

That said, feel free to add your own comments. If you ask a question like the following, I will not answer it because those issues have already been covered in my first post:

I got a speeding ticket in xxx. I was going xx in a xx zone. I shouldn’t have gotten the ticket because xxx and xxx and xxx. How do I get out of the ticket? What should I do?

If this information saves you $500, I would appreciate a $5 donation. Don’t send me anything until AFTER you have been to the courthouse and saved money! Here is a Paypal donation link:

This guy has put together a nice way of finding and then telling copyright violators of his website to cut-it-out. He finds plagiarism with Copyscape.com and then sends them a DCMA take-down form-letter.

This works even if your site is Creative Commons Attribution… If they don’t give you attribution, it’s still an enforcable copyright violation.

I came across this because I recently found a bunch of   spam sites using my content. Apparently webkinz are very popular among the spamming set these days. After posting about them, I’ve gotten several spam pingbacks. It’s not really worth it to me to follow up with DCMA notices to spammers because they’ll never get any Google Juice from me and I know fighting stupid Nigerian and Indian spammers just takes me down an endless hole. But there’s some info for you.

You’ve got to be kidding.

This comment recently appeared under my “Webkinz” post:

hi Im Debbie Rutter and the wife of the maker of webkinz World!! I have enery rare item and I get 2000 kinzcash a day for free! My computer is hooked up to a special program that alows to buy the rare items in the w- shop even the 10th webkinz beds!!! I can get a 10th webkinz bed for 10 kinzcash!! If you want 2,000 kinzcash a day and every rare item in the W-shop then e-mail me your username and password.
Me and my huspan just want to make kids happy!!
Thanks
Debbie Rutter

Apparently there is an active black market in virtual Webkinz items. That’s pretty obscene, especially considering that Webkinz are geared for kids under 15.

What’s going on in my life? Let’s see…

I went back to New Jersey for a week for Christmas and got to see the most beautiful girl in the world. She’s got long strawberry blonde hair and is 4′ tall. That’s my 7 year old niece Julia. :-)

I’m still working on the SWARM art project with friends. See a SWARM video I produced and some blog updates. about it.

I’m starting a new job as a residential solar power sales consultant at Premier Power. My good friend Barry introduced me to the position and I’m terribly excited at the prospect making a good income at saving the world. I had worked at Valley Yellow Pages over the summer specifically so I could get my sales chops. We’ll see how it goes!

Charlotte and I are doing well together. We’re still in our tiny 24th st apartment… with the new job looming, I’ve thought and said aloud many times, “I can’t wait until I have some money”. I haven’t often thought of how money could improve my life but now I am. Again, we’ll see how it goes.

I helped produce and sell $4,000 of Flaming Lotus Girls calendars for the Christmas season. That makes me pretty happy and proud.

I took a forklift certification class in December (anyone need a forklift driver?)

Went to a couple baby-shower like events recently… Pouneh from FLG and Michelle H. It looks like everybody is getting bulbous bellies these days.

I’ve been helping Tad create the ultimate workbench. I’ve gone over to his house a couple times to cut wood and move things etc… he’s got a LOT of electronics gear in his house and he uses it! Maybe it’ll give you some glimpse to know that he has a $400 electric bill each month, and he lives on his own! Helping him has been fun. I’ll try to post pictures when it’s done. It looks like it’ll be 3 shelves, each capable of holding 600 lbs of gear (and yes, he’ll use it), the main table level is about 4′ x 8′, with the back being occupied by 2′ deep gear like oscilloscopes and the like.

For Christmas, my folks got me a Tom Tom (which will be good for my new job!) and are getting me tickets to Burning Man. I like very much that they have enough acceptance of “those crazy hippies in the desert” that they’d do that for me.

I suppose that’s the most of it. You can find out more about what I’m thinking by reading the rest of my blog. I see that this blog thing is getting quite extensive. I’ve made over 1,200 posts to it since I started it 5 years ago in 2002. I make a point of only posting things that are important to me.

I welcome you to see the New Year card I sent to many people this year. It’s really quite pleasant.

If the card isn’t available anymore, here’s a local version. Originally, the interactive card ended with “Happy New Year” and “May this be a year of peace, love, growth and good news”.

I’m now a certified forklift operator, whatever that means. Flaming Lotus Girls organized a certification class with this OSHA certified guy. This was partially in response to Todd Blair, a member of SRL, being severely injured after the conclusion of Robodock; though a forklift wasn’t specifically to blame for his injury, I think it got us all thinking about safety in general.

And it’s not as if this certification will actually help keep anyone safe.

In order to pass, you had to score a 60% on a True/False quiz and drive the forklift around the yard without killing anyone. It’s hard to fail. The next time you see a certified forklift driver, know that they might have only scored a 61% on a True/False test.

The 30 minute video told us not to let people ride around on the forks, not to lift things that exceed the rated capacity of the forklift, not to lift things that are too big, not to drive around like a crazy person with the forks at head-height, to honk the horn before you go backwards, not to service the forklift unless you are “authorized”, and to never check a fuel tank with a lighter.

The hands-on instruction was fine. As has been said before, the way to get good with the forklift is to practice. I stuck around for a while watching the beginners and he helped them figure it out. Though no one I saw had any real trouble. It’s just a matter of familiarizing ones-self with the controls.

the $100 certification is good for 1 year. In the workplace, it will help protect employers from lawsuits if something unfortunate happens. (Note that FLG is not an employer). The instructor mentioned that he usually gets called out when OSHA came by for a workplace inspection of a company and the company called him so he could do an emergency certification class. He’d pre-date the certificates. Nice.

At least everyone found out that our forklift has a horn; it’s on the forward/reverse shifter.

If you really want a good forklift safety video, watch this and you’ll be all set. (no really, watch that video)

The best forklift training is
1 – a friend helping another friend with the controls
2 – practice

I’m on the marketing mailing list for Atlanta Hobby, a model airplane store I like. I just got this Christmas greeting that I rather appreciate. Here it is: Continue reading ‘Christmas Greetings from a Flyer’ »