Burning Man Update: The Jack Rabbit Speaks
Volume 12, Issue #18 (Resources Edition)
July 9, 2008
Welcome to the Resources Edition of your Jack Rabbit Speaks Newsletter!
OK, so apparently there are oodles of great resources out there that can help you prepare for Burning Man. In fact, it seems a full-fledged cottage industry has sprung up around the event. Big surprise, right? Well, we get emails from some readers pretty regularly, offering up wares to other attendees, and in the early days, we just passed on the ones we thought were truly relevant to preparing for Burning Man. But for the past few years, rather than mention them piecemeal, we gather ’em up into a single issue so you can refer back to it and save yourself going bonkers searching your inbox.
I paid $3 apiece for two Vanson NiCad NiMH battery chargers at BatteriesandButter.com. I’m astounded that this same charger and many like it are for sale on Amazon for $20+.
I also got 28 GP Brand 1700MaH AA batteries for $1 each.
We’ll see how it works out. In the mean time, here are the instructions for the charger. The most useful details are this:
For AA batteries
When set to “Nicad” it delivers 200mAh for 5 hours
When set to “NiMH” it delivers 200mAh for 10 hours
For AAA batteries
When set to “Nicad” it delivers 100mAh for 5 hours
When set to “NiMH” it delivers 100mAh for 10 hours
After it’s finished, it delivers 10 mAh until unplugged.
I verified with a multimeter that it delivers the same amount of power to each cell regardless of how many batteries are plugged in. That’s good.
It looks like I got a super-duper deal. Check back on this page in a few months and if you don’t see me swearing, then they’re probably peachy keen.
(The instructions OCR-ed with no proofreading)
AUTOMATIC Ni-CD / Ni-MH BATTERY CHARGER WITH IC TIMER CONTROL FOR 8PIECES AA & AAA
OPERATIN6 INSTRUTIONS:
1 . Set the battery type switch according to the type of your battery. ie. NiCd or NiMH.
2. Place 2, 4, 6 or 8 pieces of batteries (AA or AAA) in the battery charging compartment. Do not place batteries of different size or kind in a charging group. The charging group provides the correct charging current when only 2 rechargeable batteries of the same size are in 1 battery group. In case, accidentally, put in 1 charging group are placed different batteries (AA and AAA), then automatically both batteries are charged with the charging current of the AAA battery. DO NOT MIX NICKEL-METAL HYDRIDE AND NICKEL-CADMIUM BATTERIES.
3. Plug the AC plug into the wall outlet.
4. Each compartment’s indicator lights where batteries are inserted. ^
If you have inserted batteries in a compartment, and the charging indicator for that
compartment does not light, unplug the charger immediately. Remove the batteries
and clean their contacts. Then, re-insert the batteries, confirm correct polarity, plug
in the charger again. If the charging indicator still does not light, either the charger
is not working properly or the batteries you are trying to Charge are defective.
5. After the 5 hours charging for NiCd (AA: 600-800mAh; AAA: 200-300mAh) or 10 hours charging for NiMH (AA: 1300-2000mAh; AAA: 500-800mAh) battery, the recharging System has delivered 80-90% of Charge cycle to the batteries and LED goes off. The charger automatically switch to trickle Charge to assure a safe 100% füll Charge. (At trickle Charge Status, it will keep the batteries füll for instant use.)
6. Unplug and then replug the charger each time when you recharge the empty batteries.
7. Unplug the charger and remove the batteries from the charger when not in use. CHARGING CURRENT:
FAST CHARGE:-
‘AA -200mA
‘AAA’ -80mA
TRICKLE CHARGE:-
‘AA/AAA – 15-20mA(APPROX.)
CAUTION:
1 . Before charging, read instruction.
2. This charger is intended for use with Nickel Cadmium and Nickel Metal Hydride batteries only. Attempting to Charge other types of batteries may cause personal injury and damage to the charger.
3. Recharge only one type of battery (Ni-Cd or Ni-MH) at each time.
4. Do not Charge longer than time specified. Overcharging may cause damage to the charger and battery.
5. Do not expose charger to rain or moisture. Indoor use only.
6. Remove from mains when not in use.
7. The supply cord of this charger cannot be replaced; if the cord is damaged, the charger should be discarded or retumed to the supplier for repair.
8. This charger is intended to be correctly orientated in a vertical or floor mount position.
I’ve spent hours catching up on my emails from being away for a week.
Yesterday I responded to someone who was looking for a welder for a short job. It turns out they had already found someone to do the work. But at the end of the email, the would-be weldee, who found my website via my email address wrote this:
I’m off for a week to go see family. I’ll land in New Jersey and then we’ll be wisked off to Vermont. I haven’t been there in… geez… years. But I’m confident that the place will be relatively unchanged and comforting.
I heard on Security Now about Crash Plan. It looks like it might be an excellent online backup tool. I had been fiddling with the idea of using BoxBackup (local mention). But it was too much of a bother to set up (and limited to <2 GB files).
Right now I use Mozy and I’m very happy with it. I needed it a few days ago when AVG Antivirus thought it would delete some files it thought were viruses. One of them was an .mbox file of a mailing list I ran several years ago that did indeed have a virus. The trouble is, it DELETED the file instead of putting it in the virus vault or the “Recycle bin”. It would have been GONE forever, fuckers.
That said, Crash Plan looks very interesting. The demo shows a very pretty interface. You can backup files to your friends’ computers securely (so there’s no ongoing monthly payments). The $60 Pro version allows versioning. When my subscription is coming up, I’ll seriously think about using it. I know that if I had a total crash, I’d be grumbling at the time it takes to download the 90+ GB I have on the Mozy servers. They have a $30/DVD plan where you can burn copies of your data. That’d be quicker but still a bother. If the files were on a relative’s computer, I’d have them mail it to me.
Hmm, and with a linux install, maybe I could put my Dreamhost disk space to good use.
I’m proud and jumping-up-and-down happy to be part of a group and project that could read like that! W00t!
Below is the Serpent Mother portion of the article. If you click on the image to the right, you’ll see an image of the entire article. It’s funny and oh-so endearing!
You can right-click-view this strip-looking screen capture of the original Cracked.com page
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The Serpent Mother
The Serpent Mother is an interactive sculpture, originally designed by The Lotus Girls for the Burning Man Festival which, for those of you who don’t know it, is essentially a bunch of filthy hippies getting burnt off of their asses, stripping naked, and then welding monstrous devices out of scrap metal in order to dance around them. Kind of like combining a Phish concert with the A-Team, if that helps.
The Serpent Mother is 168 feet long, 20 feet high, includes 41 separate flamethrowers, and a hydraulic head and jaw. The sculpture is fully interactive. All flamethrowers and crushing jaws are controlled by the audience that, up until this point, has mostly been made up of ‘shroomed out hippies who would sooner eat a steak than harm a fellow human being. It is now, however, attempting to go on a tour which promises to look a whole lot like the biblical apocalypse.
The artist claims:
From the website: “There has never been a sculpture like the Serpent Mother. The warmth of her fire and her circular design create an experience in which over 1000 people come together–drawn in by her embrace … She prompts her audience not only to interact with the art, but also with one another. Wherever she exists, she creates new communities … The Serpent Mother challenges the traditional art perspective by creating an interactive experience which is the opposite of passive viewing. Unlike an unapproachable painting in a prestigious museum which invites only an intellectual admiration, the Serpent Mother invites viewers to physically engage in her art.”
Our explanation:
The above explanation could be considered fairly accurate. It’s just that it ends that last sentence a tad bit early. It really should read “the Serpent Mother invites viewers to physically engage in her art, by lighting them on fire and devouring them, so that they might be consumed amongst the ravaged steel of her burning guts.”
The audience control over The Serpent Mother extends not only to the flamethrowers that run along her spine, but also to the hydraulics of the head and jaws–all fully operational. They also control the blue flame jets that burn from her teeth, as well as the directed bursts of steam she shoots from her nostrils. Watching this video of The Serpent Mother in action should make you more fully aware of the size and scale of the thing.
local version:
It is truly, awe-inspiringly massive. Also, it will serve as incontrovertible proof that the devil exists, as only he could finally combine three of the greatest fears of man throughout time–fire, giant snakes, and deadly robots–into one enormous monstrosity. Word is that the artists, in an attempt to more completely expose your darkest, most secret fears, are currently upgrading The Serpent Mother to make it shoot thousands of poisonous spiders that tell everybody about your impotence and how you cried that one time while watching The Little Mermaid.
Danger level:
The real danger of The Serpent Mother comes from its audience participation. As the video makes clear, there are no safety measures around it. Anybody can and does crowd around. It can be walked in, crawled through and climbed on with nobody there to warn you when the flamethrowers kick on. Who would be stupid enough to climb on it? Well, drugged out hippies for one.
For two, its head is mobile–controlled by a joystick in the audience. This joystick also works the jaws, flaming teeth, and jets of burning steam that we mentioned earlier. Thus far it has only been controlled by peace loving flower children, but we remind you once again that it’s going on tour and if there’s anything that Bruce Willis has taught us, it’s that organized terrorist cells are waiting literally everywhere to take over anything that could be used as a weapon.
The fact that you made it a snake–Jesus, you might as well just send a fucking handwritten invitation to Cobra Commander. And, you know, good luck handling C.O.B.R.A with your crack team of barefoot vegetarians, Burning Man.
Update 3-25-09: I found an even better solution. It’s the back brakes that are always squeaking. So when I pull out in the morning, at the first stop I pull up on my emergency brake. That cleans the crap off the brakes in a few seconds and I’m good to go for a day of driving!
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.
[Joseph] Pujol became the first flatulence musician. It was a skill that eventually made him the most well-known and highest paid entertainer in all of France.
