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No new postings
Due to password problems on LJ's end, I can't auto-post stuff from DW anymore. So I won't be posting much (if anything) here for the forseeable future.
You can follow me on Dreamwidth, same username as here (kengr)
It's been fun -
The tale of a power strip
The other morning (way-too-dark-thirty) I realized my CPAP had stopped. I rolled over and the clock was off too. But the room lights were on.
Ok, not a power outage. I crawled over to where I could reach things and the clock & CPAP started up again. I tried to check the plugs and they all seemed to be ok.
A while later, it happened again. This time ( Read more... ) -
kludged "soup"
So, I've had this package of Bob's Red Mill Whole Grains and Beans Soup Mix for some time (it was in a food box).
I finally decided to use it. I looked at the basic instructions (not the fancier recipes). It was pretty simple, take 4 cups of stock (I used chicken vegetable, also left over from a food box) , a cup of the soup mix, and whatever meat ( Read more... ) -
Gizmo design
I'm playing with an idea fir a gizmo for stories, and figured I'd try to get some "user feedback" on the design.
The device is a "water purifier". That's what they are sold as, though they do have other uses.
Their first appearance was donations to isolated medical clinics in third world countries. They later started being sold in such areas and ( Read more... ) -
needed skills
Been reading a lot of Tales from Tech Support, as well as other videos about Reddit posts.
I've noticed a ubiquitous problem that I first noted in second or third grade. People can't read something out loud.
Oh, they can "read" it. But what they say is *not* what the text says. They change words. Usually to some other word that they *think* is the ( Read more... ) -
more solar calendars
Ok, the other day I went into how you could set up markers for the solstices, equinoxes and the cross-quarter days.
That seems to have been popular in Britain and western Europe.
I the American Southwest, the natives did it differently.
They set up sun daggers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fajada_Butte
They started with a spot where sunlight coming ( Read more... ) -
ethical design
I was thinking about fabbers. That is, the ultimate version of 3D printers.
input a design/template, feed in a bunch of whatever that contains the required elements, and it builds the desired object atom (or molecule) by atom. Unneeded stuff from the feedstock gets output as blocks of something convenient to use when you need more of X element or ( Read more... ) -
clocks and calendars
I'm reading a story about some folks throw back in the distant past. They are talking about how to determine the season and set up a calendar. They aren't doing too bad, but they obviously don't know a couple of important tricks.
Ok, for time of day, set up a crude sundial to start. Just a flat piece of cleared ground with a tall stick or pole in ( Read more... ) -
Not so harmless
Came up with a weird idea while half awake.
Gypsy style wagon. Drawn by flamingos.
Ok, weird, maybe some nice local color. Then I remembered that pic of a T-Rex skeleton covered in lawn flamingos (caption: A flock of flamingos can strip a T-Rex to the bone in 90 seconds)
Suddenly that wagon isn't silly...
This entry was originally posted at https:// ( Read more... ) -
Poor ninja...
Something I'm reading reminded me of nightingale floors. And free association led me to something Id read about flooring that generated power from footsteps and was bio-luminescent as well.
Which led to this image od a ninja confronted by a floor where the boards light up in different colors *and* played an associated note as you walked on them.
Talk ( Read more... )