End your programming, do things that matter.
I am keeping it short today both in the writing and the podcast. You can hear in my voice that I am severely congested and feeling the effects of having Covid. You can hear all about it in my podcast.
End Your Programming Routine: The show must go on. Probably when I get a bigger library of content that I will probably skip podcasting when I get like this. But, this is about discipline!
I said on Monday, this is going to be a big one. This book has the tiniest font I have ever seen in a novel and it is over 1000 pages long. At this point, I have no real expectations. I am reading it for two reasons 1) is a suggested compliment when you look up 1984 on Amazon and 2) it was suggested by a co-worker back in 2004.
Part of what has shied me away has been the length of the book. I didn’t want to check it out at the library because I know I would need months. I didn’t want to add to the volumes of books that I won’t ever read again either. I have a hard time keeping interest that long. But, now I have a cause. I am hoping that is the motivating factor.
Against better judgement, I read the introduction. I must say that I had a hard time concentrating on the subject matter. But, the one thing that I got out of it was Rand’s methods. She would think about situations and scenarios, then write a story (or chapter) about it. For that reason, she was anointed the title of philosopher.
Like the other books that I have reviewed, I am going to focus on the concepts of the chapters and not the plot or the characters. I guess we will see in the end if all the pieces and parts add up to the tome that it is supposed to be.
There are some characters introduced. It is hard to know who is going to important and who is not at this point. So, I will skip the names, roles and descriptions at this point. There were two things that stuck out at this chapter. One was simple and the other more inciteful. Let us start with the simple.
“Who is John Galt?” Random characters keep uttering this phrase throughout the chapter. From what I know, this is foreshadowing to the hero character later in the book. We are going to have to wait to see what this is all about. But, using the phrase seems like an analog to ‘What is going to happen?’ or “Does this make any sense?’ It does seem like the world of the book has some things that don’t really add up. This leads us to concept two.
There are a couple exchanges in the book where people are doing things that they don’t really understand why they are doing them. There is a scene where train that stops. Characters get off the train to understand the purpose of the stoppage and the people that run the train are just staring at the stop signal. The net of communication was that they didn’t know why they were instructed to stop, how long the stoppage would be and how to proceed.
The short of it was people were doing as they were trained. It took leadership to get the train going again. If this is a persistent theme, then I am going to be really into this book.
End Your Programming Routine: This might be a mistake to analyze this book as we go, but I guess we will see. I envision doing a chapter a week unless for some reason I get way ahead or it makes sense to combine chapters. It does look like they average around 30 pages a week, so that seems pretty reasonable
During the holiday weekend, I finally got some time to mess around with my chronograph. My initial test was not very favorable. I wasn’t able to get any readings the first time I messed with it (before vacation). But, I spent some time last Saturday to try and figure out what was wrong.
Today, I am going to talk about math again. I know, I know it is less fun than watching paint dry. I want to talk about looking at the dataset, calculating average with standard deviation and energy as a result of my velocity measurements. Should be fun.
A quick aside about math. We use math to describe physical behavior. I am not just solving problems for problem sake, like sudoku. I am looking at the data so that I can compare certain behaviors like 1) how consistent is the rifle 2) is a lighter faster pellet better than a heavier and slower pellet (when I look at the energy)? 3) Does pellet shape make a difference with the same weight?
Maybe it is the cold medicine talking but I came up with this idea this morning. Art and math are very similar. Both are attempting to describe life in different ways. One is by representation and the other is by description. One is subjective by interpretation and the other is deterministic, using concrete laws and methods. What I am trying to say is that you don’t have to know how to do math (like art) to appreciate what it does for us. Unlike art, I can show you how I got to my final numbers.
I went about this in a pseudo scientific way. I shot a bunch of times and recorded the data that I liked the best. In all seriousness, I need to spend more time with this device to understand what a good reading looks like. However, I had a lot of readings that were similar and some that were way off the reservation. I threw out those measurements as outliers. In science, those would have qualified reasons to be excluded. There are mathematical ways of proving those outliers, but that is super advanced math. That being said, I am just going to ignore them as bad measurements.
Here is the dataset I ended up with (feet per second or fps). I think you can see why excluded the results in the images above.
The first thing that we need to calculate is the mean. Another word for that is average.
What I have calculated is the average pellet velocity is 955.8 fps. We will need that number to calculate the standard deviation. It looks reasonable so far but I think that I will save that calculation for next week. Before I end, I will plug the average velocity into the energy calculation because that is the number I am looking for to compare everything in the future.
End Your Programming Routine: If I assume that the outlier measurements were problems measuring and not exactly irregularities firing the rifle, I am pretty impressed with the consistency of the velocities. I did ignore values that did not change after firing. Again, I don’t know if the velocities were the same, but I assume that the pellet did not measure. Give me some time with this device and I can have more confidence in the actual results.
I spent a couple hours on Sunday doing some demo. I was dragging my feet a bit because I was waiting for driveway work to be done. The reason being is that I have stuff in my trailer that I just want to move out of the way and I didn’t want to pile garbage on top of it. Nevertheless, I cannot wait any longer to start. I am going to have to work around the other things and focus on what I can control. That is my project.
I got the lap siding off. Most of it came off in one piece so I am thinking that I can re-use it and save myself some money. The T1-11 siding that was under the lap siding was nearly completely rotten. I also found what I suspected, there is 5/8″ drywall as sheeting. I have some pictures below.
What is that all about? It is definitely not structural. Based on what I was reading, it seems that sometimes drywall is used on the exterior when the setback (distance) between two buildings is too close. In case of fire, it is less likely to spread between the two buildings because of the hour burn drywall.
I think I am going to have to cut the bottom 4 feet off. It has been wet too long and no longer has any integrity to it. Due to the fact that I am changing the construction on the siding, I need to make sure that it doesn’t get wet again. So, I am mulling about how to protect the new drywall and whether building paper will be enough or do I need to go to a rain screen.
Yesterday and today there is rain so that is crimping my plans. This was the weather that was suppose to be here on the 4th, so I guess I can be thankful for that. It does look like summer is coming after this short rain spell. It is dry and temps in the 80’s and 90’s. To top it off, my wife has Covid and I am starting to feel like I have caught some of it too. I hope this doesn’t derail my week.
End Your Programming Routine: I am not saying that I am going to drag this out. But, I might have built up how much work it will be in my head. I still have a couple of sheets T1-11 to remove but I got what I needed to see which was the extent of the damage. I am confident that a couple good weeks of deliberate focus will get this project done.
In my quest to get better AM reception, I ran across this very affordable antenna setup. First, I am going to beta test this versus the traditional loop antenna (the one that came with the receiver). If all goes well, I will permanently mount this outside. If this setup doesn’t work, I have one more play, there is another antenna available from CCrane that I might try.
I actually didn’t really realize this, but the AM band is the same frequency of some shortwave bands. Signals on the AM band range from 530 – 1710 kHz. This antenna is rated for 0.5 – 30 mHz (or 500 – 30,000 kHz) so it should work beautifully. This antenna is specifically intended for shortwave reception, conveniently AM radio is in the appropriate range.
My first test was to simply assemble the antenna and connect it. I did a quick scan through the spectrum and picked up 20 or so channels. That was a positive sign.
Now that I knew it was going to work, I started researching cable extensions. This particular antenna is built with a 10m (33ish feet) of cable. I haven’t measured anything, but I am probably going to need 100 feet or more. In this case, my preference would be to build my own cable but I need the proper tools to do that. The connection is called an RJ-476 which looks like a miniature TV cable end.
Another problem that I had to solve for is my radio has two wire connector input, not an RJ-476. As you might know, with a cable there is a conductor and a ground. The conductor is the center wire but the ground comes off the shielding. Typically, the ground connection is made when you screw the connector in place. Now we are talking about solder and other things. Fortunately I found a cable that splits for appropriate use. The lesson is know how your are going to connect to your radio.
It’s going to be awhile before my priorities are going to align and I actually mount this antenna on the roof. I would hope to get it done before the end of summer. Regardless, I built a frame for the antenna because the loop is so floppy. Since AM signals are directional, the frame allows for a much easier ‘tuning’ of the antenna since it is so floppy.
My hope is that I get the antenna out of the basement and up on the roof I won’t have as much as a need for directional tuning. If that turns out to not be the case, then I have a couple stations in mind that I have not been able to get with any current antenna setup and I will be happy.
End Your Programming Routine: It must be that nobody listens to AM radio through their stereo tuner. I am speculating that the majority of AM listening must be in the car. I am rather surprised by the lack of antenna choices (or information) anywhere. Maybe there is a business opportunity here? I will be happy to eventually tune into the local university sports though.
I feel like going off a little like I did on Memorial Day. It has more to do with people’s ridiculous reaction to recent Supreme Court verdicts. People are so up in arms about things that they really have no idea about what they are talking about.
Normally, I would take today as a holiday. However, I do have some things to say on this subject. In addition to that, I am making a move to switch podcasts to Monday rather than Friday so that Friday’s can be focused more on book analysis. I am getting ready to start a series on Atlas Shrugged. This book is tremendously long. Remember, this forum is about changing your programming.
End Your Programming Routine: I am completely fine if you don’t agree with me. I feel that it is my responsibility to do what I can to create a world that has the potential to be great. In my opinion, freedom and choice are the number one way to do that. Despite what all of the celebrities say, all three of these rulings create both.
I am going to end the week of Spain here. Today I am talking about how eating in Spain works. There are a fair number of etiquette and traditions that go along with it. I try to simplify and define the rules as I know it.
End Your Programming Routine: It was an absolute honor to be treated like family and share most meals with the Roca family during our vacation. I feel so privileged that we were invited to spend time and meals with family and friends. Many thanks to making this a great experience.
I was being kind of indecisive on what to talk about today. Originally I was going to talk about the Supreme Court decision NEW YORK STATE RIFLE & PISTOL ASSOCIATION, INC., ET AL. v. BRUEN, SUPERINTENDENT OF NEW YORK STATE POLICE, ET AL and it’s potential implications. But, I decided to not do that because I really haven’t read the decision and have only heard a few other’s opinions on the matter.
So, what else would I talk about? How about firearms and Spain. This is another subject that I really don’t know much about but I got curious because my airgun pellets are from Spain. I also know that there is some kind of gun culture in Spain for manufacturing fine(r) shotguns.
One of the podcasts I listen to is the Orvis Hunting and Shooting Podcast. I didn’t re-listen to this but I am pretty sure the story went like this… Makers of shotguns were looking for a more inexpensive alternative manufacturing base. For instance, a Beretta Silver Pigeon is in the $3000 range. While most people probably could swing this, it isn’t super likely that is going to compete well against a $300 Remington 870.
There is a niche for sure, but makers started moving manufacturing to Spain to get shotguns down to a more appealing price range ($1000-2000). I seem to recall that this happened in the 1970s. That being said, most of the value shotguns are now made in Turkey which happened in the early 2000s as it is too expensive to make in Spain now.
So, there is a small culture of making in-between entry level and fine shotguns. Orvis was one of the companies that purchased and branded Spanish shotguns. There are some other Spanish brands like Star, Astra and Llama that ultimately succumbed the same industry collapse in the late 1990s. Although it seems like that CZ-Colt bought and is using the Llama brand as I can see items in stock at Sportsman’s Warehouse.
Within the air rifle category, Gamo is probably the biggest brand. Amongst the biggest brands Daisy/Crossman – American, Umarex – German and Gamo – Spanish. There were several models that I wanted to by before I ended up buying my Crossman. I made my decision more because I had a gift card to the place that I bought the rifle rather than the brand, but I was really looking for a Gamo first.
It would seem that it is possible to possess firearms in Spain. It does appear that there is some kind of licensing system with the federal government that depends on what you are trying to own and what you want to do with it. Here are some other global examples, so Spain doesn’t stand alone.
End Your Programming Routine: In a small way, the recent Supreme Court decision relates to owning firearms in Spain. If you recall my earlier definitions, rights are not granted, they supersede laws and the existence of government. In theory, we all have the same rights. It is a cultural matter if we collectively decide to defend those rights.
A lot of my travel information I wrote and talked about was before the trip. Now having gotten back, some things have changed from what I knew (or thought) was true before hand. I thought I would throw some grab bag items out there.
I didn’t spend much time in the water. I am very susceptible to the sun and since it was literally 58 degrees as a mid-June high when we left, I didn’t have much time to toughen up. So, I limited my water time until after 6pm just to avoid massive sunburns. The kids went into the water here and it was a summertime high 80s. I wish I could, but the view was amazing.
Does this look like paradise or what?
End Your Programming Routine: I am wrapping up my week on vacation. There will be one more on Friday but I promise I am moving on. You cant exert that much money, time and effort and not have it play a factor in my work and opinions. I know that it is hard to enjoy someone else’s vacation, but hopefully there was at least some good information presented.
I sometimes tease my wife that she is the only person I know that has a favorite architect. There may be some competition with the previous title holder after our trip to Spain. The truth is, I am pretty much enamored as well.
Where we were both exposed to architecture as an art was in college. We both took Art History 101 and 102. From there, we learned about Frank Lloyd Wright. For Americans, his work is much more approachable since we can more easily travel and visit some of his buildings. Wright was prolific and there is even one of his houses here in Oregon. In 2002, we made a specific destination as “House of Falling Water” on an east coast road trip.
The genius of specific architects is that they are visionaries. For instance, Wright invented the Ranch style house. Arguably, that is the most popular American home style ever. It is simple to build, easy to maintain and infinitely adaptable.
Another architect that we learned about in Art History was Antoni Gaudi because Spain was out of sight, out of mind in 1995 so it got filed on the backburner. However, modern Barcelona is the city that Gaudi built (and is still building despite his death in 1926).
I am not going to go into all of the specifics of each work, but you can check the link for additional information. Above is Casa Batllo, a personal residence Gaudi remodeled in 1904. It is remarkable for the use of color as light direction, ventilation as a function of design and flexible spaces with movable room dividers.
Park Guell was originally envisioned as a housing development outside of the city. Only two houses were built but much of the infrastructure was and that is what has become the park. The dragon fountain is the symbol of Barcelona and it is in this park.
Gaudi’s real masterpiece in my mind, and I think much of the world’s is Sagrada Familia. This is a categorized as a Basilica not a Cathedral and it is still in progress. When it will be done, who really knows. Gaudi kicked it off knowing that he would not see it completed but laid out the master plan and then also left it open for future generations to make their particular personal stamps.
End Your Programming Routine: Barcelona is a top twenty-five world destination and Gaudi is part of that. As you know me, I am not all about collectivism or subjective interpretation but I can admire a future thinker and a reverent one at that. Gaudi is one of the founding voices in modernism. It has taken me a while to appreciate that type of expression but in many ways modernism is a more complex presentation. It may appear simpler or cruder even but there can be more behind the image.
Recent Comments