John F. Morse wrote:
> Bill wrote:
>
>> I have to skim read and just get the juicy parts, except for things
>> like DR. Dobbs which I try to digest in full.
>> Have YOU ever tried to read 30 journals a month and keep up with the
>> daily update emails? I'm an engineer (mostly) but also a chemist of
>> sorts, Medical research addict, sub-atomic nuclear physics, designing
>> neat things for the military (Those balls under the UAV planes have a
>> lot of my designs in them, and time out to exercise. I just can't read
>> and be an expert on everything, but if I get a contract to do
>> something next Monday, then the whole weekend goes to getting up to
>> speed.
>
> I no longer can read print media very well. Back in the early days
> before my eyes got so weak, I could read 30 journals per month. But then
> there was no Internet in 1970. ;-)
I solved that by buying 3 pairs of glasses, one clear for outdoors when
the sun is overcast, a tinted pair that I put polarized, UV blocking ski
goggles with some 20%% car window tint over the lenses, and another pair
for close up computer and reading duty. Bifocals just don't work for
computers when you would have to tilt you head up and your eyes down.
My ski goggles only pass about 10%% light but in sunlight that is still
bright for me. I tried to pass this on to my daughter and my
step-daughter's kids, now 'my' grandkids, and they still think they are
indestructible and won't wear them. When they hit 40+ they will learn.
>
> Having a lifetime membership in the ARRL, I receive "QST" every month.
> It usually is tossed into a pile unread. When the pile gets too big, I
> take all of them to the basement and add them to the collection that
> dates back to 1960.
>
> Good technical material in them -- if you still run 807s and 6146 final
> amplifiers in your transmitter.
All of my 'real' radios have tubes, Hallicrafters S-108 (my dad bought
me a brand new one in 1962 so it's a fond memory, a Hammarlund HQ-129
that is a really serious radio, and the tuning dials are so accurate I
could almost verify WWV at 2.5, 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 MHz. It picks up
everything. There are more in my garage but no room to hook them all up.
>
> I toss all of the other free offers for technical journals that I used
> to read. No point when up-to-date info is available backlighted on the
> Internet.
>
>
>>> But you must have failed to read my rather lengthy post in this group
>>> yesterday about the ntp program in Unix/Linux.
>>
>> Like I said I can't read everything. I'm busy working on three
>> possibly patentable inventions now so I am scattered pretty thin.
>> One was just inspired by the death of a pregnant 17 year old Mexican
>> girl from heatstroke. If an invention can save lives then I will do it.
>> Then maybe some homeless, undereducated Americans might do the work
>> instead of looking for a government handout.
>
>
> I salute you for your reasoning.
>
> As for the homeless, we never know why they choose to live on the
> streets. Some are certainly under the grip of alcohol and other dope.
> Some may have just fell so far down they cannot even bathe or wear
> clothes that don't smell so bad they can't even get a job.
My friends step daughter lives that way by choice, but she does all
kinds of drugs and has 5 children by 5 different fathers, and lives in
an area we call the river bottoms, full of trees and places to stake out
as their territory. She is now 42 and her oldest daughter made her a
grandmother when she was only 16. Great morals she is teaching her kids.
A new generation of welfare class perpetuating the mess.
>
> Either class above could be caused from circumstances and not choice.
> Corporate stupidity and greed is a big cause of job losses and
> unemployment. Giving jobs to India and China certainly doesn't help keep
> America strong. It only produces slavery by having foreigners do the
> work below what we legislate as minimum pay.
Which is the main reason my friends kid chose to be homeless instead of
work and still be broke. Minimum wage won't even begin to cover rent and
utilities.
>
> I would bet many homeless people are just fed up and don't want to
> remain part of the "American Dream" since that bubble burst years ago.
> When your government starts "picking" on you, and you know you can't
> beat them with your lowly single vote, some times it is better to throw
> in the towel than continuously take a beating.
I don't know about you, but the only time my vote seemed to count was
when I crossed over party lines and voted for Arnold (Governator)
Schwarzenneger, because the two democratic choices were hopelessly
corrupt. I voted against Bush in 2000 (rigged by his governor brother in
Floriduh) and in 2004 where he beat Kerry by a suspiciously large
margin. Again I think the Republican party is so corrupt that they can
bend the vote tallies in their favor. If McCain wins this year, then I
will know it for a fact. Nobody I know, even some republicans, wants 4
or 8 more years of Iraq, $6-$7 gasoline, and a bankrupt, second class
country that the world hates.
>
> I don't know what kind of government handout homeless people get. They
> usually shun the government, and for good reason if their government is
> headquartered in Washington D.C., U.S.A.
I really don't know, since I have only talked to her step dad, and he
doesn't know how they are surviving. Her mother died 4 years ago at only
55 from an infection on top of another, both in her lungs. Fine one day
and dead the next. The hospital never really told us what happened but
she was my wife's best friend and now I have a kind of lost wife with no
decent friends.
>
> Whatever the reason someone is existing on the street, doesn't mean they
> do not need some kind of help to overcome their problem. The first step
> would be to get reasonable and good people elected to public office.
> People who can see beyond oil profits and personal pride.
As in clean all the republicans out of D.C. and the states. Bush is so
tied in with his oil concerns he would stay in Iraq long enough to
bankrupt us to protect his oil empire. I'm sure he is making money from
this war, even if he had to sign his stock over to his dad for the
duration. There are many more things to be done, such as the economy,
which will continue to go down as long a China-mart keeps growing, we
are spending ridiculous amounts of money on oil, the jobs, including
most of mine are going away, and the fool 'weed' doesn't even care.
>
>
>>> Seeing the spew of newsgroup articles you posted yesterday, I'm
>>> beginning to wonder if you've mis-adjusted your communication
>>> balancer to favor output above input. ;-)
>> I post in spurts because I am out a lot and turn off the computer to
>> avoid adding to the A/C load and save the power bill from the greedy
>> computer. Where I post may be proper netquette, but I will answer line
>> by line.
>> Enough for now.
>> Bill Baka
>
>
> I know the A/C loading effect on the electric bill! In the summer I run
> with only a few computers powered up 24/7. Right now there are five in
> the basement where it is relatively cool anyway due to falling cold air.
> Normally there are only four running, but I'm slowly developing a new
> mail server, so it's been running for the past 14 days.
>
> There are no HVAC registers open, even in the winter when the computers
> keep the basement around 70. I do have a couple of fans running to blow
> away any heat pockets that build up around computers. It's a good place
> to work year round.
Building an A/C unit that has double the efficiency of current units is
what I am doing now, but there are a lot of trade secrets I can't share.
If I can get a patent on some of these ideas, then I can be retired and
rich.
>
> Three floors above, in the computer room, my main computer (this one)
> runs 24/7. However my wife does shut hers down when she goes to bed or
> out to spend the day and evening with her daughter. On a weekday her PC
> runs from around 1030 until 0200. The computer room is on the southwest
> wall of the house, and the outside wall is a mansard roof, with dark
> asphalt shingles that absorb and hold the sun's heat. A neighbor's big
> tree helps shade the house in the afternoon.
>
> I normally keep the thermostat set at 79 in the summer, and 66 in the
> winter due to the high cost. That's all I can afford on my Social
> Security disability check, which is all of the income we have. That
> temperature range is even outside the storage range for my VA
> medication, but I either take pills as they are, or stop buying
> groceries. Even with the A/C set to any cold setting, the computer room
> temperature never drops below 80 in the summer, so fans are a necessity.
> So is nudism when I can get away with it! ;-)
>
> I don't like seeing natural gas and electric bills above $300, but
> that's the way they were last winter and last summer. This house, a
> five-level split built in 1965, is insulated, has storm windows and
> doors, and I've recaulked it a couple of years ago. It's not leaking
> air, but it certainly leaks money!
>
>
I'm with you since I bought a 3,500 square foot home in Minesnowta and
it had 4 types of heat, Propane forced air, oil fired water radiators,
baseboard electric, and 3 wood burning stoves around the house. I
started with the 8 cords of wood I had and went through then in about 2
months of -30 degree nights and 15 degree days, then went to the
propane, then either gas or electric depending on which was cheaper.
The house was built with 2 by 6" outer walls packed with insulation, but
even that was marginal with that kind of weather. We had snow on the
ground until May, then summer hit with 80's and some 90's and we
discovered we had no A/C, but the house never really got that warm.
Bill (way off topic, but..) Baka
