Lee.org

I tried Fungavir for my persistent toenail fungus yuckiness. It’s “too good to be true” claims are too good to be true. The website offers vaguely worded claims that it has special ingredients that get under the nail where other products fail. It does not.

It works about as well as any other topical antifungal I’ve used, but it’s more expensive and the advertising is shadier. Don’t buy it.

I’ve written a lot over the years about anti-fungals, take a look. Short form: Most topicals keep the infection at bay but none get under the nail to the root of the problem. Prescription orals sometimes work, sometimes don’t. There’s no reliable cure for nail fungus, this is especially true for topicals. Oral medicines work from the inside-out so you’ve got a better shot at a cure but they aren’t reliable either.

Fungavir’s website is filled with weasel words and hot air. Read some of their ad copy with that in mind:

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There are many discussions about nail fungus going on on my blog. Search my blog for the word “fungus” for more.

This is just awesome.

http://jamius.com/Robot/Robot.html  Make sure to watch his youtube playlist with  68+ videos… he’s been building this giant robot for some 5 years… and it’s still a work in progress! Rock on!

For 1 million extra points, he is building all this in the Vermont woods.  He built the mile-long road  to his  home built workshop!!!!

His documentation of the project is so wonderfully real, scrappy, resourceful and completely utterly awesome!

And he’s built a whole pile of “creations” too. :-)

Here are some good posters to bring to your next Occupy Wall Street event

There are lots more (and the commentary that goes behind them) at http://wedontmakedemands.org/posters.php

After seeing the GoDaddy Superbowl ad, I have decided to drop them as my domain host provider. Their ads are consistently demeaning to women and that’s not cool.

My subscription is paid up til 2015. I put it on the calendar to drop them in 2014.

For reference, the ad I saw opened with, “This sure is a crazy way to draw attention to .co names from GoDaddy. Who won’t notice a hot model in body paint?”

Here’s a link to the 30 second ad on Youtube. It’s gotten 60 Thumbs-Ups and 200 Thumbs-Downs. It’s not often that soft-porn gets a Thumbs-Down!

local version:

OK Go – Needing/Getting: a music video made with a car

local version:

Holy crap, look at the amazing world we live in and imagine the mind blowing world we are going to live in.

Short form: Take their free online class and “… in seven weeks you’ll learn how to program all the major systems of a robotic car, by the leader of Google and Stanford’s autonomous driving teams.”

Long form: I got this email from the free Stanford Artificial Intelligence class that I signed up for:

Hi Lee Sonko,

Thank you for your interest in AI Class and congratulations to those who
successfully graduated. We were totally amazed that over 23,000 students
made it all the way to the end in a Stanford graduate-level class.

Due to popular demand, we are teaching a follow-up class: AI for
Robotics at www.udacity.com . Also due to popular demand, we now have
a programming environment, so you can develop and test software. Our
goal is to teach you to program a self-driving car in 7 weeks. This
is a topic very close to my heart, and I am eager to share it with
you. (This class builds on the concepts in ai-class, but ai-class is
NOT required).

We are also launching an introduction to programming class, where
students will learn to program a search engine, without any prior
knowledge of programming. This will be great for students new to
computer science.

We are doing this with a new university: Udacity. In the next months,
we will offer an entire computer science curriculum through Udacity,
and offer certification services so that an entire degree can be obtained
online.

I would love to see you in class again! I would also love if you could
help us spread the word and recruit students. Udacity is an experiment
in democratizing education, in making free education available for
everyone in the world. It can only succeed if you join us and help
spread the word.

Sebastian

http://www.devastatingexplosions.com/

That is all.

Here’s a note from JD and Gil at WhatWillYouLearn.com. I’ll be teaching Beetlebots :-)

Hello there!

We’re very excited to announce the next Workshop Weekend!

• WHAT:  Workshop Weekend #3!
• WHEN:  March 17-18, 2012
• WHERE:  Tech Liminal, Oakland
• Want to teach?  Visit  http://whatwillyoulearn.com/teach
• Suggest a workshop:  http://whatwillyoulearn.com/#suggest

Our next weekend of soldering, programming, building, crafting and exploring is coming up in just six short weeks —  March 17th and 18th at Tech Liminal in Oakland.

 

Interested in teaching?

We just opened teacher registration this week. If you’re interested in teaching, or know someone who might be, send them to our website at  http://whatwillyoulearn.com/

The deadline to sign up is  Wednesday, February 15, just twelve days away! Sign up even if you don’t have a perfect idea for a workshop — we’ll work with you to develop your vision into a great workshop.

 

Want to take workshops?

We’ve got commitments from teachers for a few old favorite workshops — including  Arduino,Sewing with Electronics, and  Electroluminescent Wire Sculpture  — and we’re adding a few new frequently-requested workshops, including  Programming,  Robotics,  Web Development, and  Lockpicking.

If you’d like to see a new workshop, but haven’t told us about it yet, let us know! Fill out our workshop suggestion form:  http://whatwillyoulearn.com/#suggest

We’ll send another email when student registration is open, in about two weeks. In the meantime, be sure to save  March 17-18!

 

Happy 2012, and see you in March!

Cheers,
J.D. and Gil

Now that I’m a student, and I can get to all my classes and volunteering by train and such, I’ll be selling my car. Of course, I figure I’ve got to fix the car up enough so that the Check Engine light stays off first. And then it’s all Zipcar, BART and biking for me.

So I bought a bike. At $630 complete, It should pay for itself in the first month or two of not having a car (my car costs about $600/month to own!).

Isn’t she pretty?

This photo from Aug 25, 2013

This old photo from January 2012

And when she gets stolen, I’ll tell people:

Body: 2011 “Fuji Absolute 3.0″ hybrid. Color: Grey with orange on the inside of the chain stays and underside of the seat stays. Serial ICFU12I01883. That serial number could be mistaken for ICFU12IO1883. 21″ frame. 23.6” back to front. Aluminum.

Seat: Black with an orange swish. It is secured to the frame with a length of wire.

Wheels: “Fuji Aero-V 25 700C/622 Etrto”. Both the front and rear wheel are secured with Pinhead Locks locking wheel hubs.
Update 2/13/13: I also got a Pinhead seat post lock and saddle lock. And apparently a Gator Grip tool can defeat these locks so Pinhead now gives away a locking washer thing on their website that prevents that problem.

Tires: “Panasonic Panaracer Pasela Tourguard 700x32C”, black with tan sidewalls.
Update 8-21-13: Rear tire is now a Continental Touring Plus 700Cx32, black with black sidewalls and a reflective tape.

Accessories:
Kickstand: On 8-23-13 I added a Greenfield Rear Mount Stabilizer Kickstand, adding 14 ounces to the bike. I tried adding a regular Greenfield kickstand but it had the same problem that ALL regular kickstand have, all the way back to when I was a kid: no matter how hard you tighten it down, the mount sometimes swivels on the bike, messing everything up.

Rack: made by Axiom, mostly to hold my Kryptonite lock.

I’ve registered the bike on Bikeshepherd.org and I got the 30 year registration with the National Bike Registry. Yowza, will they even have bikes in 2042? Or will we all have jet packs?

.

.

.

For the little I’ve ridden around, she rides like a dream. Of course, my last bike was a POS. I originally had a moderately crappy Burning Man bike. But at Burning Man 2009 it got stolen. After the end of the event, I went to center camp and stole a comparably crappy bike from the abandoned bike pile. When I was there, I got into this evil-eye discussion at center camp with a guy stealing his own bikes, but that’s a story of another time…

The new bike was actually quite a step down from my old bike. The steering was loose such that it was best to not steer too quickly, the front brake had virtually no grab, the handlebars had rolled down into an awkward position, the bike was several inches too small for me (I had extended the seatpost to it’s limit to no avail), it had big inefficient knobby tires, the rear brakes only worked moderately well, and it had been spray painted (partially and poorly) an awful shade of brown. That is how I rode it on the playa and that is pretty much how I rode it for 2 years. It’s a good thing I didn’t ride it often, otherwise, I’d be dead now. It is now terrorizing some kind soul at the San Francisco bike kitchen.

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Specs from the Fuji Bikes website.

Specification:

SIZES	S (15"), S/M (17"), M (19"), M/L (21"), L (23")
COLOR(S)	White/Red, Semi Gloss Gray/Orange
MAIN FRAME	A2-SL alloy w/ tear drop down tube, double water bottle mounts (on SO frame only)
REAR TRIANGLE	A1-SL alloy, forged road dropout w/ replaceable derailleur hanger
FORK	Elios 1, 1 1/8" fork w/ CrMo steerer
CRANKSET	Fuji alloy forged 28/38/48T
BOTTOM BRACKET	Sealed cartridge bearing ST
PEDALS	Alloy cage w/ Boron axle
FRONT DERAILLEUR	Shimano FD-M191, 31.8mm
REAR DERAILLEUR	Shimano Altus, 8-speed
SHIFTERS	Shimano Acera
CASSETTE	Sunrace 11-32T, 8-speed
CHAIN	KMC Z72, 8-speed
WHEELSET	Fuji alloy 32H QR hubs w/ Fuji double wall alloy 32H rims
TIRES	Hutchinson Flash, 700x28c
BRAKE SET	Tektro Mini-V, forged alloy
BRAKE LEVERS	Tektro alloy
HEADSET	Fuji 1 1/8" standard semi-cartridge
HANDLEBAR	Fuji alloy
STEM	Fuji adjustable alloy
TAPE/GRIP	Fuji double density kraton
SADDLE	Fuji sport comfort
SEAT POST	Fuji micro-adjust alloy, 300x27.2mm
FENDERS	N/A
HEADLIGHT	N/A
TAILLIGHT	N/A
REAR CARRIER	N/A
OTHERS	7075 alloy water bottle bolts
WEIGHT	25.39 / 11.52

Geometry:
Name		Diagram			Sizes
SIZE			S(15")	S/M(17")	M(19")	M/L(21")	L(23")			
SEAT TUBE, CENTER TO TOP TUBE	A	381	432	483	533	584			
EFFECTIVE TOP TUBE LENGTH	B	535	550	575	600	625			
HEAD TUBE ANGLE	C	69	70	71	71	71			
SEAT TUBE ANGLE	D	75	74	73	73	73			
CHAINSTAY	E	440	440	440	440	440			
WHEELBASE	F	1050.3	1048.4	1054.8	1080.4	1106.5			
HEAD TUBE LENGTH	G	120	145	170	190	220			
BOTTOM BRACKET HEIGHT	H	269	269	269	269	269			
STAND OVER HEIGHT	I	730.3	767.3	805.4	839.7	880.3			
CRANK LENGTH	J	170	170	175	175	175			
STEM LENGTH	K	100	110	120	120	120			
HANDLEBAR WIDTH		580	580	600	600	600

I’ve found a couple really great apartment hunting tools:

Craigslist.org. It is the go-to.

Housingmaps.com – an aggragator of Google Maps and Craigslist

Padmapper.com – a great aggragator of several sites (including Craigslist) with a good map and good selection criterion! Charlotte used this November 2011 to great effect in Seattle.