I read all the labels when shopping for groceries. I look at calories, fat content, the types of fat and avoid anything that has trans-fats, MSG, aspartame, or the word hydrogenated. A familiar brand name is only important to me, if is a name that is strongly associated with higher quality.
When buying a car or truck, I read what consumer reports magazine has to say and also talk to my mechanic. When purchasing electronic products, I look at customer reviews at NewEgg and Amazon.com.
I do not watch much TV, so when I vote tomorrow, I will not have seen most of the campaign commercials. Instead, I have clipped various articles from the newspaper, and have been looking through the Clean Elections pamphlet, that most people in Arizona get in the mail. The 100 page pamphlet has information about every candidate.
The frequent announcements about security problems with Flash, is one reason why I started using the NoScript plug-in. A couple of encounters with aggressive fake on-line virus scanners, was the last straw in deciding that I should block both advertisements and scripting. I only enable scripting for web sites which I trust, or where enabling scripting seems to be necessary for using an important feature of the web site.
I would not be embarrassed by a more thorough search, if that is what they really want to do. I would choose the pat-down until the do they prove to me that the back-scatter body imaging machine is really safe. If they want to briefly touch my balls, between my buttocks, and wherever else, that would be OK. I also do not care if they do that in public or privately.
I am used to my doctor having to feel my balls and do a digital rectal exam during my annual physical. I would not really mind too much having the TSA do that too. Even if the TSA wanted to include a digital exam for rectal explosives, I could handle that. I wonder what the TSA employees will think about constantly having to feel the balls and large rear ends of mid-50s year old guys, like me.
Just to relieve my boredom, I might even pretend to be enjoying it.
Here is another wild improbable thought that I wanted to add. This is of course assuming that the guy is not just someone holding ice up to where he hit his head.
As long as they were stuck back in 1928 anyway, perhaps they might have decided to capture some good clear footage of missing scenes from old movies. Many old movies from that time period no longer exist, because the fragile old film has crumbled. In other movies, some portions of the movies have survived, but not other portions. That would explain what a time traveler was doing hanging around while a movie was being filmed. Perhaps he had also brought his small, well disguised, camcorder with him and was secretly capturing the footage.
Perhaps, every few days, the two time travelers might have tossed a small package, with what they have recorded, back through the wormhole, before it closes for good. In return, their amateur radio operator friends from the future could have tossed some more memory cards for their camcorder back through, to 1928.
While they were at it, the two guys back in 1928 could have also captured and tossed through a few not yet extinct live male and female specimens of several species of birds and animals which later became extinct.
I realize that I have let my imagination go a little wild, when the guy in the old photo is probably just holding some ice up against a bump on his head.
Perhaps it's a time traveler with a small hand held two way radio, instead of a cell phone. No cell tower would be needed for communication directly from radio to radio.
What he is holding would be about the size of the typical small dual band, hand held, 2 meter/70 cm radios that ham radio operators use. The 2 m/ 70 cm hand held radios are much smaller than the ham's large HF radios with the huge antennas, which they use for communicating on the shortwave bands over hundreds or thousands of miles.
Perhaps two hams from the future picked up a radio signal on a medium wave or short wave radio band from 1928. Then perhaps, using each of their directional antennas, they pinpointed where the signal was coming from. Then maybe they discovered a very small wormhole between 1928 and the future. Then perhaps, they got too close to the worm hole and accidentally fell through the wormhole back into the past in 1928. For a few hours after that, several of their local ham friends from the future were able to communicate with them through the wormhole, until it shrank to pinhole size and then eventually disappeared. Those several hams who remained in the future, probably discussed the unusual event at the next local ham radio club meeting.
Fortunately, the two hams stuck in the past each had their 2 meter / 70 cm radio attached to their belt. They then probably decided to use the FM mode on the 70 cm band, assuming that no one back in 1928, would have the technology to listen in on an FM transmission on such a high frequency. Hopefully, they brought along a battery charger, or were able to build an appropriate battery charger.
If they ended up in a nearby time line, perhaps they made some good investment decisions, based on their knowledge of events from their similar time line. They probably left a letter addressed to their ham friends from the future, with instructions to not open the letter until a certain year.
On the other hand, a more likely alternative explanation would be that the guy in the photo is just holding some ice to reduce swelling, where he hit his head on something.
I use Kubuntu 10.04 Linux at home, but have not noticed any obvious slowdown when copying large amounts of data in the background. At the moment I am using rsync to back up the files from my SATA hard disk to an external USB hard drive. I also have several other programs such as OpenOffice, Firefox, Inkscape, Dolphin and the system monitor open at the same time.
I have a several year old dual core AMD-64 with 2 GB of memory. I also have a 2 GB swap file on the hard drive. The computer is probably about 4 years old. While backing up my files with rsync, right now, one CPU is running at about 94 %, the other CPU is varying between 30% and 80 %. Right now, the CPU speed for each processor is varying between 1 GHz and 2.2 GHz, with both CPUs taking it easy, and saving electricity, by running at just 1 GHz most of the time.
I am not noticing any obvious slowdown while backing up my data with rsync.
Much of the spam I get is just one short sentence, followed by a link to a URL in Russia or somewhere. Are there actually people out there who would trust their charge card numbers or personal information to a website that does not look like a reputable company? The fact that such spam keeps getting sent out suggests that there must be enough responses to make it worthwhile.
In the past, I used to get spam which appeared to be from a well know URL, but when I would hover the cursor over the link without clicking, a much more complicated URL from a foreign country would be shown at the bottom of the screen.
The title of the email message is usually something like "Power in your pants" or "Hot chick visits senile grandpa." The short sentence in the email message is usually something like "Girls will go wild when they see your magnificent device."
Of course, some spam does try harder to look legitimate, such as the phishing messages claiming to be from PayPal, Amazon.com, or my bank. If the spam was using friend or relative's email address, I could see where that would also fool someone. The fake on-line virus scanning advertisements also do a reasonably good job of looking legitimate.
The possibility of getting viruses or malware in my email, is one reason that I am glad that I check my email from a Linux computer. I do also have a Windows computer, but I never check my email from the Windows computer.
When browsing the Internet with Firefox on either computer, I have installed the NoScript plug-in. I only enable the running of scripts on websites which I trust or where where enabling scripting is necessary.
Pack rats like to chew up the wiring of the cars and trucks where I live here in the mountains of Northern Arizona. That seems to be a problem on the outer edges of several of the cities at this elevation in Arizona, such as Prescott and Sedona. Usually, the pack rats build a nest in the engine compartment and then start chewing up the insulation on the wiring. When the nest in the engine compartment is torn out, the pack rats sometimes quickly rebuild a new nest.
Are they sure that it is really rabbits chewing the wiring in Denver, and not pack rats? We are at the same elevation as Denver, in a neighboring state.
Several of my neighbors have gone out to start their cars and found that they would not start because damaged wiring from the pack rats. One neighbor had to have her car's wiring replaced on more than occasion. I have heard that pack rats particularly like the brands of cars which use soy-based wiring.
In Sedona, the wiring harness on a Rolls Royce was chewed up very badly, several years ago, while it was parked in the owner's garage. The owner started spraying the wiring with a solution made from an extremely hot type of pepper, to discourage the pack rats from chewing.
In my old GMC Sierra pickup, they built a nest of sticks, dry leaves and cactus thorns under the air cleaner on two occasions. But fortunately, no damage was ever done to my wiring. The thick plastic shield around the main wiring harness probably helped protect it. My truck probably also did not have the good tasting soybean flavored wiring insulation. On two occasions, while driving back from town, I could smell the dry oak leaves cooking against the exhaust manifold.
One neighbor had an old Lincoln Continental which he had to take to the junk yard after the wiring was ruined by pack rats. Another neighbor has resorted to keeping her hood open on her car at night, to make the engine compartment less desirable as a shelter for the pack rats. She also spreads used kitty litter around her car and in her engine compartment, so that the smell of her cat's urine will keep them away.
On a 35 year old diesel powered backhoe, pack rats (or possibly a squirrel) once built a nest inside the air cleaner. No damage was done to the old backhoe, but it really made the backhoe smoke badly when the engine was running, until their nest was removed. I wonder what living inside the air cleaner was like when the noisy old diesel engine was running. Fortunately, the old 1970s era diesel engine had a purely mechanical type fuel injection system and did not have an electrical ignition system.
I still watch my old mid-1990s era 13-inch TV set from 11 feet away. I have not felt the need to upgrade to HDTV or 3D TV or anything larger or better. However, I do not watch much television and rarely rent movies anyway.
The digital transition did not occur where I live, because the mountaintop translator between here and Phoenix was not required to make the change. I do not have cable or satellite, so I just use the amplified rabbit ears antenna for receiving the 7 available analog TV channels in the old analog NTSC format. The old analog TV broadcasts look just fine on my 13-inch TV set from 11 feet away. I am quite happy with that setup.
When I occasionally do buy a DVD, I always get the ordinary DVDs. I do not have a Blu-Ray player, so I doubt that I could tell any difference on my old mid-1990s era non-HDTV 13-inch TV set from 11 feet away anyway.
One other thought I want to add, is that it would be best if the data were recorded in some kind of standard well documented, non-proprietary file format (or converted to such a file format). The original software or hardware used to read the file might or might not be compatible with newer hardware used in the future. But, for common well documented non-proprietary file formats, new software that is compatible could still be written, or might already be available.
In many cases, when viewing the data, the original software program could be run in some kind of emulator, like DOSBox, or something like that. In other cases it might necessary to use newer software which could still read the old file format.
Of course, copyrights and DRM would most likely prevent many things from being saved in such a system.
I hope that system would also include regular automatic checksumming of all the archived data with md5sums or something similar to distinguish between the good copies and the damaged copies. I don't know much about p2p systems and RAID arrays and such, so for all I know, they might already have some kind of checksumming system built into either the software or the hardware. But anyway, the correct md5sums of the archived data could be compared to recorded values which have also been stored somewhere.
At home, I have various old floppy disks, CDs, old hard drives, beta tapes, VHS tapes, and audio cassette tapes from the last 20 years or more. I have sometimes plopped one of those in and been able to read what was on them, but have wondered if what is on them might be slightly corrupted (or not). It would have been nice to have md5sums recorded somewhere for checking if they are still in perfect condition, or not.
The data in your proposed p2p like archival system, could easily be copied to new hard drives or other devices every several years, but it would also be important to verify that the files are still in perfect condition. If multiple copies of each file exist, then the defective copies could be replaced with good copies.
Whenever I download a Linux CD off of the Internet, I always check the md5sum of what I have downloaded to make sure it is the same as what the official web page says that it should be. If the checksum does not match, than I would discard that copy and try downloading it again from somewhere else. I am not a computer professional or expert or p2p user, but perhaps something similar could be done in an automated manner when using your proposed p2p like archival system.
I am not sure about the raw vegans, but at least most vegetarians and ordinary vegans (not raw) include beans and and grains in their diet. Most types of beans are missing one amino acid, and most grains are missing a different amino acid. Both foods have complementary proteins and if eaten within a 24 hour (or so) time period, complete protein is absorbed. Beans are surprisingly high in protein. Then there are also soy beans, which have complete protein.
One grain like cereal that vegans and vegetarians sometimes eat is quinoa, because it has more protein than most grains. Chia seeds also seem to be popular for similar reasons.
I mostly just went around tasting their samples of food and even purchased my lunch and dinner at the event. I am not actually sure what was in most of what I was eating. For lunch, I had a faux tuna wrap "ninja" sandwich wrapped in a piece of dried seaweed and filled with veggies and tomatoes and faux tuna.
For dinner I had an uncooked raw veggie burger made from pistachio nuts and other ingredients, along with a side dish of rice and a salad. I also had a piece of raw uncooked pizza made from who knows what. The pizza tasted very good even though it was cold and did not have any cheese in it.
I also had a sample of some kind of uncooked cereal made from chia seeds and other ingredients. My understanding was that chia seeds are quite high in protein and the good omega-3 fatty acids (just like salmon and sardines).
If possible, it would be interesting to compare raw vegans other healthy diets, such as the Mediterranean diet, vegans (not raw), and vegetarians. If there are festivals for those events, it would be interesting to see how those people compare. As for myself, I suspect that the small amounts of extremely lean grass fed buffalo meat, when eaten in small portions like I do, would not have enough saturated fat to hurt me very much. The grass fed buffalo meat has not been fattened in a feedlot with corn, like most beef is. It is very very lean.
Although I am not a vegan, I have managed to slowly loose 40 lbs and add muscle and aerobic capacity over the last 4 years through 1 hour per day of exercise and healthier eating. I have done that while still eating as much as I wanted. But, my weight loss has leveled off at a point where I am still somewhat somewhat overweight. I am 55 years old.
I have a slight preference for small short young women, but am also attracted to one who are tall or average. I am most attracted to smaller short women that are probably from about 4'11 to 5'5 inches tall. But, that preference is slight. I would prefer that they not be over about 6'0 or so, because I am 5'11 and would prefer that they not be more than an inch or two taller than me.
Oddly enough, I also fascinated by smaller than average sized breasts. Whenever I see a young slightly flat chested 20-something year old girl at the cash register at the health food store or elsewhere, it always arouses my curiosity. I always wonder what she would look like with her shirt off. The lack of visible breasts leaves me wondering. My not being able to see the size of the breasts outlined through the shirt, arouses my curiosity and fascination. On several occasions over the years, a small breasted cashier has bent over to put something into the grocery sack, giving me a brief glimpse of a portion of her lovely perky small little breasts.
Of course a good hip to waist ratio always makes for a nice looking figure, which would suggest hormone levels appropriate for good fertility.
I have also noticed that when the face is viewed from the side, a significant distance between the chin and the throat makes makes for a much better looking face. I have also noticed that having eye brows that are sufficiently high above the eyes makes for a more attractive face.
By the way, I recently attended a nearby festival for raw vegans, even though I actually eat meat and fish myself, and cook most of my meals. Nearly everyone there looked amazingly healthy and attractive. Not one person at the festival was overweight (except for me) and nearly everyone had a wonderful skin color and complexion. Most of them looked like they were college aged or in their 20s, but in some cases were actually older than they looked. I briefly talked to one highly attractive women who said she was in her mid-40s, but who looked like she was in her late 20s. A 109 year old guy who was speaking at the event, showed me that he did not have any wiggle waggle under his arms.
Ninety percent of the women at the event looked amazingly attracive, the other ten percent looked good. Perhaps, healthy eating keeps women (and men) more attractive and healthy as they get into their 30s, 40s and beyond. I might actually try out a few of their weird recipes, at least for an occasional meal.
I wonder how detailed their terrain model will be and the accuracy of their predictions for mountainous areas. One link mentioned using terrain data from NASA. Will they pinpoint the location accurately enough using either GPS coordinates or a precise physical address or or a ZIP+4 version of the ZIP code? Will the software know if someone is near the top of a mountain instead of down in a nearby valley?
There is a website which predicts what channels I should be able to receive from where I live. My location is at a typical elevation compared to other nearby addresses. At this location in Arizona, it says that I should be able to receive 1 digital channel and 9 analog channels. I actually get 1 digital channel and only 6 analog channels. However, my one digital channel and two of the analog channels are actually different channels from what was predicted. It does not mention getting NBC and CBS on analog channels.
Presumably, the software and terrain models used for these devices, will give much better predictions. But, I still wonder about the accuracy of unusual locations such as mountaintops.
In case you were wondering, some smaller cities and towns (such as where I live) get their antenna reception from old mountaintop translators which were not required to make the digital transition. I am still watching analog TV from a rabbit ears antenna.
I would prefer to have a solid core or metal door with a good sturdy slide bolt for my bedroom. Most master bedrooms just have a hollow core door that an intruder could easily kick his foot through. I mentioned having a slide bolt, because bedrooms typically have a bathroom door style lock which can quickly be opened with a screwdriver. I would also want a good strong door frame. I would probably have just enough time to quickly get my.356 magnum from the pistol safe (or a shotgun if I ever get one). I should start regularly practicing opening the push-button combination lock quickly.
Unfortunately, my knowledge and experience with guns is very limited. If possible, I would prefer to position myself in a direction where any missed shots would be least likely to hit neighbors after passing through the walls. I wonder if shooting from behind a water bed would protect me from handgun bullets or not? Perhaps the distinctive sound of a pump type shotgun loading a shell into the chamber would discourage the intruders from continuing to try to break down the bedroom door.
Unfortunately, all I have ever had, anywhere I have ever lived, is flimsy hollow core exterior doors and hollow core bedroom doors.
Late at night, a few years ago, I had a minor encounter with a burglar who was trying to open the front door. I looked through the window in the front door and there was his face on the other side of the glass about two feet away from my face. We both started each other. There I was, unarmed and face to face with some guy who was covered with prison tattoos. As he took off, I noticed that there was also another guy who had been hiding in the bushes along side the building.
Perhaps, looking through the door's window face to face with the burglar was not the brightest thing to do, but it did scare them off. A sheriffs deputy later examined the minor damage to one window on the side of the building, and also the minor damage both the front and rear door frames and one striker plate. He wrote up a report.
I use a 64-bit Kubuntu Linux computer at home, but am not a professional computer person. But despite being concerned, I doubt that I am being rooted as I type this (at least I hope not).
Several security and other updates have been downloaded and installed during the last several days. One of them seems to have been an updated version of the kernel. When I type "cat/proc/version," it says that I am using is the 2.6.32-24-generic kernel. It was one of those rare updates where I was actually asked to reboot my computer.
A security notice at Ubuntu.com said that with Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, said that the linux-image-2.6.32-24-generic was on the list of packages which would correct the problem. So, it appears that the vulnerability on my computer had already been patched about a day or so ago.
I am the only user on my system and am not running a server. With my firewall, I always keep all the inbound ports closed and in stealth. In the outbound direction I have only a few ports open. I also have SSH blocked, in both directions. I have both the firewall on computer and the firewall in my DSL modem configured that way. I do not have wireless at home, just a CAT5 cable to my DSL modem.
I use both the NoScript and Adblock Plus add-ons for Firefox. I only allow the use of scripts on websites which I use regularly and trust, or on certain websites where enabling scripts seems to be necessary.
Perhaps terrorist groups are recruiting more engineers as members because of their qualifications. Finding more engineers as terrorists, would not necessarily mean that the engineers themselves are more inclined to be terrorists. It could just be that terrorist groups are trying harder to recruit engineers because of their qualifications.
This is much like the news from earlier this year about Aspartame being renamed as AminoSweet, by its manufacturer Ajinomoto. There has been a growing awareness of the dangers of Aspartame, so renaming their product is presumably an attempt to confuse the public.
So now the same thing is being done by renaming high fructose corn syrup as "corn sugar," also presumably because of its bad reputation. I will be sure to watch for either of those new names when shopping, so that I can avoid products that contain either "corn sugar" or AminoSweet.
Here are a couple of articles about the renaming a Aspartame as AminoSweet:
I still have 2 of my 4 wisdom teeth. For many years, I did not even realize that I had wisdom teeth, because all 4 grew in sideways and were not visible beneath the gum.
When I was in my 40s, my two lower wisdom teeth were removed. One of the wisdom teeth was causing a very slight problem with keeping my gum clean alongside the next tooth.
Both my dentist and the maxiofacial surgeon said they hope they never have to try to remove the upper two, because it would take dynamite to remove either of them. If I remember correctly, he said that they had grown together against my skull (or something like that).
Electric cars could charge up their batteries with the electricity from nuclear power plants. The cars would not actually need to be nuclear powered themselves.
They batteries in the cars could be charged up during off peak times when the electric rates are lowest. Recharging the cars at off peak times also means that they would not be contributing to the peak load electrical demands on the power plants. That would greatly reduce the number of extra nuclear power plants that need to be built.
It is also possible to recharge electric cars from solar energy. I know of one lady here in town who used to have an electric car which she would charge up from the solar photovoltaic panels on her homes roof. Her home probably has more photovoltaic panels on it's roof than any other home in the country. It far exceeds the electrical needs for her home. During the daytime, her electric meter was usually running backwards and selling electricity back to the power company. I am not sure how many miles per week she was able to travel on solar power from the solar panels.
A few decades from now, perhaps we will all be running around in cars, motor scooters and buses that get their electricity from nuclear and solar. Only on longer trips would gasoline, propane or diesel be used. On occasional longer trips which would exceed the battery pack's range, a small gasoline, propane or diesel engine could be used to keep the batteries charged. The engine would be quite small because it does not take very much power to cruise at a steady speed down the highway.
However, I suspect that tractors, backhoes, bulldozers, and tractor trailer rigs will sill be running on whatever diesel, gasoline and propane is still left. Another alternative would be use hydrogen powered engines for the tractors and trucks. Perhaps electricity from nuclear power plants could be used to create hydrogen from water. Another alternative would be to run those types of vehicles off of methane or alcohol from algae, sugar cane or other crops.
I am old enough to remember when "gay" only meant feeling happily excited. As you already know, up until about 40 years ago, the word "gay" did not have anything to do with homosexuality. It also was not a way to describe something as being "lame" either. It was not until the late 1960s or early 1970s, when I first started hearing the word gay being used to imply that someone was a homosexual.
There were many old books with the word "gay" in the title and a old few songs with gay in the lyrics. Below are the titles of several very old books, which are available from Gutenberg.org. Despite the titles, I doubt that any of those books have anything to do with either homosexuality or something being lame.
I once encountered a fake "Microsoft Warning" message on my Linux computer. That was probably about 5 years ago. The "Microsoft Warning" said that spyware had been detected on my computer. The pop-up recommended purchasing a specific anti-virus product to fix the problem. Seeing the Microsoft pop-up was funny, since I did not have any Microsoft products at all installed on my computer.
On two occasions since then, I have also been diverted to websites that claimed to have detected spyware and viruses on my computer. In both of those instances, I was browsing the Internet while using Firefox and Linux.
After having supposedly detected viruses and spyware on my computer they offered to scan my hard drive. When I tried to say "No" or close the tab or close the pop-up or whatever, the advertisement reappeared and pretended to begin scanning my drive "C." A progress bar showed the progress. After finishing, it listed the viruses and spyware which had supposedly been found in my registry and on drive "C." However, Linux does not designate hard drives or partitions by drive letters and Linux also does not have a registry.
My understanding is also that there has not yet been any problem with Linux viruses circulating in the wild. But, just to be safe, I looked up those virus names on the Internet, and found that they were listed as only affecting certain specific versions of Windows.
In once instance, after again declining to purchase their virus scanner, a box popped up asking me what program to use to open the Windows executable file that the website was attempting to download to my computer. It also gave me the option of saving the file to wherever I wanted on my hard drive, or canceling the download.
I neglected to mention that there is also a much closer repeater in or near each of the small mountain ranges where I usually hike. So frequently the nearest repeater is only about 10 or 20 miles away, on a mountain top. So with the help of the telescoping 5/8 wave antenna on my hand held 2-meter radio, I can usually access that or some other repeater. It also helps that there are usually repeaters off in several directions, since the hilltops are usually lower in at least one direction.
If it is just one small nearby hill, more often than not, the 2-meter radio signals seem to be able to bounce or bend themselves around that one small obstacle. But, I have occasionally been in places, such as deep canyons, where I could not access any repeater.
The mountains in this part of Arizona are not as rugged as in many parts of Colorado, so I am not sure just exactly how it would compare. But, about 12 years ago I had similar good results when accessing a couple of repeaters when hiking in southern Utah.
The 2-meter radio in my pickup truck is even more powerful, with 50 Watts maximum power and a 5/8 wave antenna on the roof.
My 2-meter radio works quite well when hiking in the mountains of Northern Arizona, where I live. From most locations I can usually access several different repeaters. It helps that I use a much larger telescoping 5/8 wave antenna, than the small rubber ducky antenna which came with the radio. On maximum power the radio puts out 5-Watts power.
Several of the repeaters that I can usually reach are on various mountain tops about 50 miles away. At that distance, using my old hand held Kenwood TH-22 2-meter radio and a telescoping 5/8 wave antenna, I can usually be heard quite clearly. In many cases, I have been able to access the repeaters clearly, even when smaller hills blocked my view of those mountains. Of course if I were down in a deeper canyon, I probably would not have been able to reach any repeater.
I have also talked directly to another ham when using my 2-meter radio directly without going through a repeater. I have sometimes been able to talk quite quite clearly, from about 10 or 20 miles away, line of sight, even when the radio was on its lowest power setting. In one experiment under those circumstances, I tried switching antennas and power levels and found that the 5/8 wave antenna using the 0.05 Watt power setting, performed about as well as the small rubber ducky antenna when using the maximum 5 Watts setting.
Each mountain top repeater, is located in different direction. So depending on which repeater I choose, I can talk to hams in a different city or town. Each repeater is on a different frequency.
About 5 or 10 years ago, a brief thunderstorm came up while I was hiking. After getting back to the main road at a view point, I spotted a very small fire off in the distance, in the forest. The fire was a barely visible spec of smoke off in the distance. Two people with cell phones tried to call 911, but could not get a signal. So using the 2-meter radio in my truck, I easily accessed the first repeater that I tried, to ask someone to report the fire for me. Another ham immediately, replied, saying that he could call it in for me.
A couple of minutes later, the other ham told me that someone in a lookout tower, could see it too. A few minutes later a smaller, off road type firefighting truck rolled up and 3 firemen got out with binoculars, a radio, a map, a some kind of device for pinpointing the exact location of the fire in the distance. As they talked into their radio, I could her them say that it looked like just one burning snag and that they could cancel the air tanker. It was good that they were able to quickly put out the fire while it was just one burning snag.
I am not very active in ham radio. But when hiking or backpacking I usually take along either an extra battery pack or an extra battery case, that holds 4 AA batteries. I also bring my cell phone too. My 2-meter radio frequently works in places where my cell phone does not get a signal. Living in Arizona, I would not want to run out of water after being stranded for a few days after breaking a leg while hiking or after my 4 wheel drive truck broke down.
Yesterday, I just starting reading a book about the documented health risks of GMOs. I had recently heard the author talking about his book on a late-night radio show. I have only just barely started reading the first chapter, so I am not yet very far into the book.
But in the first chapter, I read about a 1996 study in the UK, where GM potatoes affected "virtually every organ system of young rats - with most changes found after just 10 days. Their brains, livers, and testicles were generally smaller." Mr. Pusztai, the head researcher was interviewed on TV with permission from his director. A couple of days later he was released from his job and silenced with threats of a lawsuit, the 20-member research team was disbanded, and the project terminated.
Then the first chapter goes on to talk about a rat feeding study where rats fed GM tomatoes got bleeding stomachs and several died.
Also in the first chapter, there they mentioned a 90-day rat feeding trial where the rats were fed Bt corn. "During the 90-day rat feeding trial, a group of 20 males and 20 females fed the corn developed multiple reactions. Changes included those typically found in response to alergies, infections, toxins, and diseases including cancer, anemia, and blood pressure problems." "Also found were increased blood sugar levels, kidney inflammation, and liver and kidney lesions."
Flipping ahead beyond the few pages that I have read so far, I see headings like "sheep died after grazing in Bt cotton fields" and "farmers report pigs and cows became sterile from GM corn." A few pages further on is the heading "Mice fed Roundup Ready soy had unexplained changes in testicular cells."
The introduction to the book mentions that "soy allergies skyrocketed by 50% in the United Kingdom, soon after genetically engineered soy was introduced." I plan to keep reading until I finish the book. I also plan to continue avoiding foods such as corn, soy, canola, and cottonseed, which are the most likely to be from GMO crops.
The Wall Street Journal article talks about the "selective eating" psychiatric disorder, which will be in the new version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The article says that "doctors worry that over the long term such eating habits could lead to nutritional deficiencies linked to health concerns, including bone and heart problems." Despite being a selective eater, I eat a healthy wide variety of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, walnuts and grass fed buffalo meat. I believe my long term eating habits have been a varied, well balanced safe diet. However, I do try to avoid soft drinks, sweets, junk food, trans-fats, saturated fat, excessive pesticides, and GMOs.
Decades of "selective eating" has not hurt my health. I am 55 years old. With the help of a good diet and daily exercise, my total cholesterol is only 135 without the help of medication, my triglycerides are a reasonable low 108, my glucose level is 73, and by blood pressure is typically 125/74 without the help of medication. I recently spent a week in the summer heat, digging a ditch and prying up rocks by hand with a pick and shovel, in the hard dry rocky soil of the Arizona mountains. Unlike many other people my age, I can still do hard physical work, just as well as when I was in my 20's.
I dislike the idea that credit cards and drivers licenses will probably all eventually have RFID chips in them. I also dislike the idea of grocery stores using shoppers discount cards to track people's shopping habits. I use an RFID blocking wallet, even though my credit card and driver's license probably do not yet have RFID tags in them.
A few companies have experimented with putting RFID tags into clothing for inventory purposes. Unfortunately, those passive RFID tags would then remain in the clothes when worn by customers. The uniquely identifiable serial number on each item in my clothing or wallet, would then make me trackable when going from store to store.
I prefer to do much of my shopping at the two grocery stores in town which do not use shopper's cards. The other store's database probably shows that I eat lots fruits, vegetables, beans and whole grains, along with modest amounts of grass fed buffalo meat. It would also show that I prefer organic foods and low sodium foods, that I totally avoid transfats and GMO foods, and do not smoke, drink or eat junk food. Perhaps, I should hope that my health insurance company gets a hold of that personal information.
I am also dislike the idea of governments possibly being able to track everyone's daily movements by knowing where their cell phone is at all times.
Call me paranoid if you want. But, even though I am not a Christian believer, I would still definitely reject anything that might possibly be the mark of the beast. For instance, I would not ever accept having an RFID tag implanted in my body (or anything similar).
Slashdot Mirror
I read all the labels when shopping for groceries. I look at calories, fat content, the types of fat and avoid anything that has trans-fats, MSG, aspartame, or the word hydrogenated. A familiar brand name is only important to me, if is a name that is strongly associated with higher quality.
When buying a car or truck, I read what consumer reports magazine has to say and also talk to my mechanic. When purchasing electronic products, I look at customer reviews at NewEgg and Amazon.com.
I do not watch much TV, so when I vote tomorrow, I will not have seen most of the campaign commercials. Instead, I have clipped various articles from the newspaper, and have been looking through the Clean Elections pamphlet, that most people in Arizona get in the mail. The 100 page pamphlet has information about every candidate.
The frequent announcements about security problems with Flash, is one reason why I started using the NoScript plug-in. A couple of encounters with aggressive fake on-line virus scanners, was the last straw in deciding that I should block both advertisements and scripting. I only enable scripting for web sites which I trust, or where enabling scripting seems to be necessary for using an important feature of the web site.
I would not be embarrassed by a more thorough search, if that is what they really want to do. I would choose the pat-down until the do they prove to me that the back-scatter body imaging machine is really safe. If they want to briefly touch my balls, between my buttocks, and wherever else, that would be OK. I also do not care if they do that in public or privately.
I am used to my doctor having to feel my balls and do a digital rectal exam during my annual physical. I would not really mind too much having the TSA do that too. Even if the TSA wanted to include a digital exam for rectal explosives, I could handle that. I wonder what the TSA employees will think about constantly having to feel the balls and large rear ends of mid-50s year old guys, like me.
Just to relieve my boredom, I might even pretend to be enjoying it.
Here is another wild improbable thought that I wanted to add. This is of course assuming that the guy is not just someone holding ice up to where he hit his head.
As long as they were stuck back in 1928 anyway, perhaps they might have decided to capture some good clear footage of missing scenes from old movies. Many old movies from that time period no longer exist, because the fragile old film has crumbled. In other movies, some portions of the movies have survived, but not other portions. That would explain what a time traveler was doing hanging around while a movie was being filmed. Perhaps he had also brought his small, well disguised, camcorder with him and was secretly capturing the footage.
Perhaps, every few days, the two time travelers might have tossed a small package, with what they have recorded, back through the wormhole, before it closes for good. In return, their amateur radio operator friends from the future could have tossed some more memory cards for their camcorder back through, to 1928.
While they were at it, the two guys back in 1928 could have also captured and tossed through a few not yet extinct live male and female specimens of several species of birds and animals which later became extinct.
I realize that I have let my imagination go a little wild, when the guy in the old photo is probably just holding some ice up against a bump on his head.
Perhaps it's a time traveler with a small hand held two way radio, instead of a cell phone. No cell tower would be needed for communication directly from radio to radio.
What he is holding would be about the size of the typical small dual band, hand held, 2 meter/70 cm radios that ham radio operators use. The 2 m/ 70 cm hand held radios are much smaller than the ham's large HF radios with the huge antennas, which they use for communicating on the shortwave bands over hundreds or thousands of miles.
Perhaps two hams from the future picked up a radio signal on a medium wave or short wave radio band from 1928. Then perhaps, using each of their directional antennas, they pinpointed where the signal was coming from. Then maybe they discovered a very small wormhole between 1928 and the future. Then perhaps, they got too close to the worm hole and accidentally fell through the wormhole back into the past in 1928. For a few hours after that, several of their local ham friends from the future were able to communicate with them through the wormhole, until it shrank to pinhole size and then eventually disappeared. Those several hams who remained in the future, probably discussed the unusual event at the next local ham radio club meeting.
Fortunately, the two hams stuck in the past each had their 2 meter / 70 cm radio attached to their belt. They then probably decided to use the FM mode on the 70 cm band, assuming that no one back in 1928, would have the technology to listen in on an FM transmission on such a high frequency. Hopefully, they brought along a battery charger, or were able to build an appropriate battery charger.
If they ended up in a nearby time line, perhaps they made some good investment decisions, based on their knowledge of events from their similar time line. They probably left a letter addressed to their ham friends from the future, with instructions to not open the letter until a certain year.
On the other hand, a more likely alternative explanation would be that the guy in the photo is just holding some ice to reduce swelling, where he hit his head on something.
I use Kubuntu 10.04 Linux at home, but have not noticed any obvious slowdown when copying large amounts of data in the background. At the moment I am using rsync to back up the files from my SATA hard disk to an external USB hard drive. I also have several other programs such as OpenOffice, Firefox, Inkscape, Dolphin and the system monitor open at the same time.
I have a several year old dual core AMD-64 with 2 GB of memory. I also have a 2 GB swap file on the hard drive. The computer is probably about 4 years old. While backing up my files with rsync, right now, one CPU is running at about 94 %, the other CPU is varying between 30% and 80 %. Right now, the CPU speed for each processor is varying between 1 GHz and 2.2 GHz, with both CPUs taking it easy, and saving electricity, by running at just 1 GHz most of the time.
I am not noticing any obvious slowdown while backing up my data with rsync.
Much of the spam I get is just one short sentence, followed by a link to a URL in Russia or somewhere. Are there actually people out there who would trust their charge card numbers or personal information to a website that does not look like a reputable company? The fact that such spam keeps getting sent out suggests that there must be enough responses to make it worthwhile.
In the past, I used to get spam which appeared to be from a well know URL, but when I would hover the cursor over the link without clicking, a much more complicated URL from a foreign country would be shown at the bottom of the screen.
The title of the email message is usually something like "Power in your pants" or "Hot chick visits senile grandpa." The short sentence in the email message is usually something like "Girls will go wild when they see your magnificent device."
Of course, some spam does try harder to look legitimate, such as the phishing messages claiming to be from PayPal, Amazon.com, or my bank. If the spam was using friend or relative's email address, I could see where that would also fool someone. The fake on-line virus scanning advertisements also do a reasonably good job of looking legitimate.
The possibility of getting viruses or malware in my email, is one reason that I am glad that I check my email from a Linux computer. I do also have a Windows computer, but I never check my email from the Windows computer.
When browsing the Internet with Firefox on either computer, I have installed the NoScript plug-in. I only enable the running of scripts on websites which I trust or where where enabling scripting is necessary.
Pack rats like to chew up the wiring of the cars and trucks where I live here in the mountains of Northern Arizona. That seems to be a problem on the outer edges of several of the cities at this elevation in Arizona, such as Prescott and Sedona. Usually, the pack rats build a nest in the engine compartment and then start chewing up the insulation on the wiring. When the nest in the engine compartment is torn out, the pack rats sometimes quickly rebuild a new nest.
Are they sure that it is really rabbits chewing the wiring in Denver, and not pack rats? We are at the same elevation as Denver, in a neighboring state.
Several of my neighbors have gone out to start their cars and found that they would not start because damaged wiring from the pack rats. One neighbor had to have her car's wiring replaced on more than occasion. I have heard that pack rats particularly like the brands of cars which use soy-based wiring.
In Sedona, the wiring harness on a Rolls Royce was chewed up very badly, several years ago, while it was parked in the owner's garage. The owner started spraying the wiring with a solution made from an extremely hot type of pepper, to discourage the pack rats from chewing.
In my old GMC Sierra pickup, they built a nest of sticks, dry leaves and cactus thorns under the air cleaner on two occasions. But fortunately, no damage was ever done to my wiring. The thick plastic shield around the main wiring harness probably helped protect it. My truck probably also did not have the good tasting soybean flavored wiring insulation. On two occasions, while driving back from town, I could smell the dry oak leaves cooking against the exhaust manifold.
One neighbor had an old Lincoln Continental which he had to take to the junk yard after the wiring was ruined by pack rats. Another neighbor has resorted to keeping her hood open on her car at night, to make the engine compartment less desirable as a shelter for the pack rats. She also spreads used kitty litter around her car and in her engine compartment, so that the smell of her cat's urine will keep them away.
On a 35 year old diesel powered backhoe, pack rats (or possibly a squirrel) once built a nest inside the air cleaner. No damage was done to the old backhoe, but it really made the backhoe smoke badly when the engine was running, until their nest was removed. I wonder what living inside the air cleaner was like when the noisy old diesel engine was running. Fortunately, the old 1970s era diesel engine had a purely mechanical type fuel injection system and did not have an electrical ignition system.
Pack Rats
I still watch my old mid-1990s era 13-inch TV set from 11 feet away. I have not felt the need to upgrade to HDTV or 3D TV or anything larger or better. However, I do not watch much television and rarely rent movies anyway.
The digital transition did not occur where I live, because the mountaintop translator between here and Phoenix was not required to make the change. I do not have cable or satellite, so I just use the amplified rabbit ears antenna for receiving the 7 available analog TV channels in the old analog NTSC format. The old analog TV broadcasts look just fine on my 13-inch TV set from 11 feet away. I am quite happy with that setup.
When I occasionally do buy a DVD, I always get the ordinary DVDs. I do not have a Blu-Ray player, so I doubt that I could tell any difference on my old mid-1990s era non-HDTV 13-inch TV set from 11 feet away anyway.
One other thought I want to add, is that it would be best if the data were recorded in some kind of standard well documented, non-proprietary file format (or converted to such a file format). The original software or hardware used to read the file might or might not be compatible with newer hardware used in the future. But, for common well documented non-proprietary file formats, new software that is compatible could still be written, or might already be available.
In many cases, when viewing the data, the original software program could be run in some kind of emulator, like DOSBox, or something like that. In other cases it might necessary to use newer software which could still read the old file format.
Of course, copyrights and DRM would most likely prevent many things from being saved in such a system.
I hope that system would also include regular automatic checksumming of all the archived data with md5sums or something similar to distinguish between the good copies and the damaged copies. I don't know much about p2p systems and RAID arrays and such, so for all I know, they might already have some kind of checksumming system built into either the software or the hardware. But anyway, the correct md5sums of the archived data could be compared to recorded values which have also been stored somewhere.
At home, I have various old floppy disks, CDs, old hard drives, beta tapes, VHS tapes, and audio cassette tapes from the last 20 years or more. I have sometimes plopped one of those in and been able to read what was on them, but have wondered if what is on them might be slightly corrupted (or not). It would have been nice to have md5sums recorded somewhere for checking if they are still in perfect condition, or not.
The data in your proposed p2p like archival system, could easily be copied to new hard drives or other devices every several years, but it would also be important to verify that the files are still in perfect condition. If multiple copies of each file exist, then the defective copies could be replaced with good copies.
Whenever I download a Linux CD off of the Internet, I always check the md5sum of what I have downloaded to make sure it is the same as what the official web page says that it should be. If the checksum does not match, than I would discard that copy and try downloading it again from somewhere else. I am not a computer professional or expert or p2p user, but perhaps something similar could be done in an automated manner when using your proposed p2p like archival system.
I am not sure about the raw vegans, but at least most vegetarians and ordinary vegans (not raw) include beans and and grains in their diet. Most types of beans are missing one amino acid, and most grains are missing a different amino acid. Both foods have complementary proteins and if eaten within a 24 hour (or so) time period, complete protein is absorbed. Beans are surprisingly high in protein. Then there are also soy beans, which have complete protein.
One grain like cereal that vegans and vegetarians sometimes eat is quinoa, because it has more protein than most grains. Chia seeds also seem to be popular for similar reasons.
I mostly just went around tasting their samples of food and even purchased my lunch and dinner at the event. I am not actually sure what was in most of what I was eating. For lunch, I had a faux tuna wrap "ninja" sandwich wrapped in a piece of dried seaweed and filled with veggies and tomatoes and faux tuna.
For dinner I had an uncooked raw veggie burger made from pistachio nuts and other ingredients, along with a side dish of rice and a salad. I also had a piece of raw uncooked pizza made from who knows what. The pizza tasted very good even though it was cold and did not have any cheese in it.
I also had a sample of some kind of uncooked cereal made from chia seeds and other ingredients. My understanding was that chia seeds are quite high in protein and the good omega-3 fatty acids (just like salmon and sardines).
If possible, it would be interesting to compare raw vegans other healthy diets, such as the Mediterranean diet, vegans (not raw), and vegetarians. If there are festivals for those events, it would be interesting to see how those people compare. As for myself, I suspect that the small amounts of extremely lean grass fed buffalo meat, when eaten in small portions like I do, would not have enough saturated fat to hurt me very much. The grass fed buffalo meat has not been fattened in a feedlot with corn, like most beef is. It is very very lean.
Although I am not a vegan, I have managed to slowly loose 40 lbs and add muscle and aerobic capacity over the last 4 years through 1 hour per day of exercise and healthier eating. I have done that while still eating as much as I wanted. But, my weight loss has leveled off at a point where I am still somewhat somewhat overweight. I am 55 years old.
I have a slight preference for small short young women, but am also attracted to one who are tall or average. I am most attracted to smaller short women that are probably from about 4'11 to 5'5 inches tall. But, that preference is slight. I would prefer that they not be over about 6'0 or so, because I am 5'11 and would prefer that they not be more than an inch or two taller than me.
Oddly enough, I also fascinated by smaller than average sized breasts. Whenever I see a young slightly flat chested 20-something year old girl at the cash register at the health food store or elsewhere, it always arouses my curiosity. I always wonder what she would look like with her shirt off. The lack of visible breasts leaves me wondering. My not being able to see the size of the breasts outlined through the shirt, arouses my curiosity and fascination. On several occasions over the years, a small breasted cashier has bent over to put something into the grocery sack, giving me a brief glimpse of a portion of her lovely perky small little breasts.
Of course a good hip to waist ratio always makes for a nice looking figure, which would suggest hormone levels appropriate for good fertility.
I have also noticed that when the face is viewed from the side, a significant distance between the chin and the throat makes makes for a much better looking face. I have also noticed that having eye brows that are sufficiently high above the eyes makes for a more attractive face.
By the way, I recently attended a nearby festival for raw vegans, even though I actually eat meat and fish myself, and cook most of my meals. Nearly everyone there looked amazingly healthy and attractive. Not one person at the festival was overweight (except for me) and nearly everyone had a wonderful skin color and complexion. Most of them looked like they were college aged or in their 20s, but in some cases were actually older than they looked. I briefly talked to one highly attractive women who said she was in her mid-40s, but who looked like she was in her late 20s. A 109 year old guy who was speaking at the event, showed me that he did not have any wiggle waggle under his arms.
Ninety percent of the women at the event looked amazingly attracive, the other ten percent looked good. Perhaps, healthy eating keeps women (and men) more attractive and healthy as they get into their 30s, 40s and beyond. I might actually try out a few of their weird recipes, at least for an occasional meal.
I wonder how detailed their terrain model will be and the accuracy of their predictions for mountainous areas. One link mentioned using terrain data from NASA. Will they pinpoint the location accurately enough using either GPS coordinates or a precise physical address or or a ZIP+4 version of the ZIP code? Will the software know if someone is near the top of a mountain instead of down in a nearby valley?
There is a website which predicts what channels I should be able to receive from where I live. My location is at a typical elevation compared to other nearby addresses. At this location in Arizona, it says that I should be able to receive 1 digital channel and 9 analog channels. I actually get 1 digital channel and only 6 analog channels. However, my one digital channel and two of the analog channels are actually different channels from what was predicted. It does not mention getting NBC and CBS on analog channels.
Presumably, the software and terrain models used for these devices, will give much better predictions. But, I still wonder about the accuracy of unusual locations such as mountaintops.
In case you were wondering, some smaller cities and towns (such as where I live) get their antenna reception from old mountaintop translators which were not required to make the digital transition. I am still watching analog TV from a rabbit ears antenna.
I would prefer to have a solid core or metal door with a good sturdy slide bolt for my bedroom. Most master bedrooms just have a hollow core door that an intruder could easily kick his foot through. I mentioned having a slide bolt, because bedrooms typically have a bathroom door style lock which can quickly be opened with a screwdriver. I would also want a good strong door frame. I would probably have just enough time to quickly get my .356 magnum from the pistol safe (or a shotgun if I ever get one). I should start regularly practicing opening the push-button combination lock quickly.
Unfortunately, my knowledge and experience with guns is very limited. If possible, I would prefer to position myself in a direction where any missed shots would be least likely to hit neighbors after passing through the walls. I wonder if shooting from behind a water bed would protect me from handgun bullets or not? Perhaps the distinctive sound of a pump type shotgun loading a shell into the chamber would discourage the intruders from continuing to try to break down the bedroom door.
Unfortunately, all I have ever had, anywhere I have ever lived, is flimsy hollow core exterior doors and hollow core bedroom doors.
Late at night, a few years ago, I had a minor encounter with a burglar who was trying to open the front door. I looked through the window in the front door and there was his face on the other side of the glass about two feet away from my face. We both started each other. There I was, unarmed and face to face with some guy who was covered with prison tattoos. As he took off, I noticed that there was also another guy who had been hiding in the bushes along side the building.
Perhaps, looking through the door's window face to face with the burglar was not the brightest thing to do, but it did scare them off. A sheriffs deputy later examined the minor damage to one window on the side of the building, and also the minor damage both the front and rear door frames and one striker plate. He wrote up a report.
I use a 64-bit Kubuntu Linux computer at home, but am not a professional computer person. But despite being concerned, I doubt that I am being rooted as I type this (at least I hope not).
Several security and other updates have been downloaded and installed during the last several days. One of them seems to have been an updated version of the kernel. When I type "cat /proc/version," it says that I am using is the 2.6.32-24-generic kernel. It was one of those rare updates where I was actually asked to reboot my computer.
A security notice at Ubuntu.com said that with Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, said that the linux-image-2.6.32-24-generic was on the list of packages which would correct the problem. So, it appears that the vulnerability on my computer had already been patched about a day or so ago.
I am the only user on my system and am not running a server. With my firewall, I always keep all the inbound ports closed and in stealth. In the outbound direction I have only a few ports open. I also have SSH blocked, in both directions. I have both the firewall on computer and the firewall in my DSL modem configured that way. I do not have wireless at home, just a CAT5 cable to my DSL modem.
I use both the NoScript and Adblock Plus add-ons for Firefox. I only allow the use of scripts on websites which I use regularly and trust, or on certain websites where enabling scripts seems to be necessary.
Ubuntu Security Notice USN-988-1 September 17, 2010
Perhaps terrorist groups are recruiting more engineers as members because of their qualifications. Finding more engineers as terrorists, would not necessarily mean that the engineers themselves are more inclined to be terrorists. It could just be that terrorist groups are trying harder to recruit engineers because of their qualifications.
This is much like the news from earlier this year about Aspartame being renamed as AminoSweet, by its manufacturer Ajinomoto. There has been a growing awareness of the dangers of Aspartame, so renaming their product is presumably an attempt to confuse the public.
So now the same thing is being done by renaming high fructose corn syrup as "corn sugar," also presumably because of its bad reputation. I will be sure to watch for either of those new names when shopping, so that I can avoid products that contain either "corn sugar" or AminoSweet.
Here are a couple of articles about the renaming a Aspartame as AminoSweet:
I still have 2 of my 4 wisdom teeth. For many years, I did not even realize that I had wisdom teeth, because all 4 grew in sideways and were not visible beneath the gum.
When I was in my 40s, my two lower wisdom teeth were removed. One of the wisdom teeth was causing a very slight problem with keeping my gum clean alongside the next tooth.
Both my dentist and the maxiofacial surgeon said they hope they never have to try to remove the upper two, because it would take dynamite to remove either of them. If I remember correctly, he said that they had grown together against my skull (or something like that).
Fortunately, I still have all my other teeth too.
Electric cars could charge up their batteries with the electricity from nuclear power plants. The cars would not actually need to be nuclear powered themselves.
They batteries in the cars could be charged up during off peak times when the electric rates are lowest. Recharging the cars at off peak times also means that they would not be contributing to the peak load electrical demands on the power plants. That would greatly reduce the number of extra nuclear power plants that need to be built.
It is also possible to recharge electric cars from solar energy. I know of one lady here in town who used to have an electric car which she would charge up from the solar photovoltaic panels on her homes roof. Her home probably has more photovoltaic panels on it's roof than any other home in the country. It far exceeds the electrical needs for her home. During the daytime, her electric meter was usually running backwards and selling electricity back to the power company. I am not sure how many miles per week she was able to travel on solar power from the solar panels.
A few decades from now, perhaps we will all be running around in cars, motor scooters and buses that get their electricity from nuclear and solar. Only on longer trips would gasoline, propane or diesel be used. On occasional longer trips which would exceed the battery pack's range, a small gasoline, propane or diesel engine could be used to keep the batteries charged. The engine would be quite small because it does not take very much power to cruise at a steady speed down the highway.
However, I suspect that tractors, backhoes, bulldozers, and tractor trailer rigs will sill be running on whatever diesel, gasoline and propane is still left. Another alternative would be use hydrogen powered engines for the tractors and trucks. Perhaps electricity from nuclear power plants could be used to create hydrogen from water. Another alternative would be to run those types of vehicles off of methane or alcohol from algae, sugar cane or other crops.
I am old enough to remember when "gay" only meant feeling happily excited. As you already know, up until about 40 years ago, the word "gay" did not have anything to do with homosexuality. It also was not a way to describe something as being "lame" either. It was not until the late 1960s or early 1970s, when I first started hearing the word gay being used to imply that someone was a homosexual.
There were many old books with the word "gay" in the title and a old few songs with gay in the lyrics. Below are the titles of several very old books, which are available from Gutenberg.org. Despite the titles, I doubt that any of those books have anything to do with either homosexuality or something being lame.
I once encountered a fake "Microsoft Warning" message on my Linux computer. That was probably about 5 years ago. The "Microsoft Warning" said that spyware had been detected on my computer. The pop-up recommended purchasing a specific anti-virus product to fix the problem. Seeing the Microsoft pop-up was funny, since I did not have any Microsoft products at all installed on my computer.
On two occasions since then, I have also been diverted to websites that claimed to have detected spyware and viruses on my computer. In both of those instances, I was browsing the Internet while using Firefox and Linux.
After having supposedly detected viruses and spyware on my computer they offered to scan my hard drive. When I tried to say "No" or close the tab or close the pop-up or whatever, the advertisement reappeared and pretended to begin scanning my drive "C." A progress bar showed the progress. After finishing, it listed the viruses and spyware which had supposedly been found in my registry and on drive "C." However, Linux does not designate hard drives or partitions by drive letters and Linux also does not have a registry.
My understanding is also that there has not yet been any problem with Linux viruses circulating in the wild. But, just to be safe, I looked up those virus names on the Internet, and found that they were listed as only affecting certain specific versions of Windows.
In once instance, after again declining to purchase their virus scanner, a box popped up asking me what program to use to open the Windows executable file that the website was attempting to download to my computer. It also gave me the option of saving the file to wherever I wanted on my hard drive, or canceling the download.
I neglected to mention that there is also a much closer repeater in or near each of the small mountain ranges where I usually hike. So frequently the nearest repeater is only about 10 or 20 miles away, on a mountain top. So with the help of the telescoping 5/8 wave antenna on my hand held 2-meter radio, I can usually access that or some other repeater. It also helps that there are usually repeaters off in several directions, since the hilltops are usually lower in at least one direction.
If it is just one small nearby hill, more often than not, the 2-meter radio signals seem to be able to bounce or bend themselves around that one small obstacle. But, I have occasionally been in places, such as deep canyons, where I could not access any repeater.
The mountains in this part of Arizona are not as rugged as in many parts of Colorado, so I am not sure just exactly how it would compare. But, about 12 years ago I had similar good results when accessing a couple of repeaters when hiking in southern Utah.
The 2-meter radio in my pickup truck is even more powerful, with 50 Watts maximum power and a 5/8 wave antenna on the roof.
My 2-meter radio works quite well when hiking in the mountains of Northern Arizona, where I live. From most locations I can usually access several different repeaters. It helps that I use a much larger telescoping 5/8 wave antenna, than the small rubber ducky antenna which came with the radio. On maximum power the radio puts out 5-Watts power.
Several of the repeaters that I can usually reach are on various mountain tops about 50 miles away. At that distance, using my old hand held Kenwood TH-22 2-meter radio and a telescoping 5/8 wave antenna, I can usually be heard quite clearly. In many cases, I have been able to access the repeaters clearly, even when smaller hills blocked my view of those mountains. Of course if I were down in a deeper canyon, I probably would not have been able to reach any repeater.
I have also talked directly to another ham when using my 2-meter radio directly without going through a repeater. I have sometimes been able to talk quite quite clearly, from about 10 or 20 miles away, line of sight, even when the radio was on its lowest power setting. In one experiment under those circumstances, I tried switching antennas and power levels and found that the 5/8 wave antenna using the 0.05 Watt power setting, performed about as well as the small rubber ducky antenna when using the maximum 5 Watts setting.
Each mountain top repeater, is located in different direction. So depending on which repeater I choose, I can talk to hams in a different city or town. Each repeater is on a different frequency.
About 5 or 10 years ago, a brief thunderstorm came up while I was hiking. After getting back to the main road at a view point, I spotted a very small fire off in the distance, in the forest. The fire was a barely visible spec of smoke off in the distance. Two people with cell phones tried to call 911, but could not get a signal. So using the 2-meter radio in my truck, I easily accessed the first repeater that I tried, to ask someone to report the fire for me. Another ham immediately, replied, saying that he could call it in for me.
A couple of minutes later, the other ham told me that someone in a lookout tower, could see it too. A few minutes later a smaller, off road type firefighting truck rolled up and 3 firemen got out with binoculars, a radio, a map, a some kind of device for pinpointing the exact location of the fire in the distance. As they talked into their radio, I could her them say that it looked like just one burning snag and that they could cancel the air tanker. It was good that they were able to quickly put out the fire while it was just one burning snag.
I am not very active in ham radio. But when hiking or backpacking I usually take along either an extra battery pack or an extra battery case, that holds 4 AA batteries. I also bring my cell phone too. My 2-meter radio frequently works in places where my cell phone does not get a signal. Living in Arizona, I would not want to run out of water after being stranded for a few days after breaking a leg while hiking or after my 4 wheel drive truck broke down.
Yesterday, I just starting reading a book about the documented health risks of GMOs. I had recently heard the author talking about his book on a late-night radio show. I have only just barely started reading the first chapter, so I am not yet very far into the book.
But in the first chapter, I read about a 1996 study in the UK, where GM potatoes affected "virtually every organ system of young rats - with most changes found after just 10 days. Their brains, livers, and testicles were generally smaller." Mr. Pusztai, the head researcher was interviewed on TV with permission from his director. A couple of days later he was released from his job and silenced with threats of a lawsuit, the 20-member research team was disbanded, and the project terminated.
Then the first chapter goes on to talk about a rat feeding study where rats fed GM tomatoes got bleeding stomachs and several died.
Also in the first chapter, there they mentioned a 90-day rat feeding trial where the rats were fed Bt corn. "During the 90-day rat feeding trial, a group of 20 males and 20 females fed the corn developed multiple reactions. Changes included those typically found in response to alergies, infections, toxins, and diseases including cancer, anemia, and blood pressure problems." "Also found were increased blood sugar levels, kidney inflammation, and liver and kidney lesions."
Flipping ahead beyond the few pages that I have read so far, I see headings like "sheep died after grazing in Bt cotton fields" and "farmers report pigs and cows became sterile from GM corn." A few pages further on is the heading "Mice fed Roundup Ready soy had unexplained changes in testicular cells."
The introduction to the book mentions that "soy allergies skyrocketed by 50% in the United Kingdom, soon after genetically engineered soy was introduced." I plan to keep reading until I finish the book. I also plan to continue avoiding foods such as corn, soy, canola, and cottonseed, which are the most likely to be from GMO crops.
The Wall Street Journal article talks about the "selective eating" psychiatric disorder, which will be in the new version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The article says that "doctors worry that over the long term such eating habits could lead to nutritional deficiencies linked to health concerns, including bone and heart problems." Despite being a selective eater, I eat a healthy wide variety of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, walnuts and grass fed buffalo meat. I believe my long term eating habits have been a varied, well balanced safe diet. However, I do try to avoid soft drinks, sweets, junk food, trans-fats, saturated fat, excessive pesticides, and GMOs.
Decades of "selective eating" has not hurt my health. I am 55 years old. With the help of a good diet and daily exercise, my total cholesterol is only 135 without the help of medication, my triglycerides are a reasonable low 108, my glucose level is 73, and by blood pressure is typically 125/74 without the help of medication. I recently spent a week in the summer heat, digging a ditch and prying up rocks by hand with a pick and shovel, in the hard dry rocky soil of the Arizona mountains. Unlike many other people my age, I can still do hard physical work, just as well as when I was in my 20's.
I dislike the idea that credit cards and drivers licenses will probably all eventually have RFID chips in them. I also dislike the idea of grocery stores using shoppers discount cards to track people's shopping habits. I use an RFID blocking wallet, even though my credit card and driver's license probably do not yet have RFID tags in them.
A few companies have experimented with putting RFID tags into clothing for inventory purposes. Unfortunately, those passive RFID tags would then remain in the clothes when worn by customers. The uniquely identifiable serial number on each item in my clothing or wallet, would then make me trackable when going from store to store.
I prefer to do much of my shopping at the two grocery stores in town which do not use shopper's cards. The other store's database probably shows that I eat lots fruits, vegetables, beans and whole grains, along with modest amounts of grass fed buffalo meat. It would also show that I prefer organic foods and low sodium foods, that I totally avoid transfats and GMO foods, and do not smoke, drink or eat junk food. Perhaps, I should hope that my health insurance company gets a hold of that personal information.
I am also dislike the idea of governments possibly being able to track everyone's daily movements by knowing where their cell phone is at all times.
Call me paranoid if you want. But, even though I am not a Christian believer, I would still definitely reject anything that might possibly be the mark of the beast. For instance, I would not ever accept having an RFID tag implanted in my body (or anything similar).