Saturday in the house

By , April 12, 2008 10:54 pm

Been one of those days. Got a bit done on the computer but nothing else accomplished. Haven’t even finished going through the pile of books from yesterday and getting the rest of the stickers off and books sorted. Oh, well tomorrow is another day. Till then…

Whining, White Smoke & the Mechanics of Getting Unstuck | 43 Folders

By , April 12, 2008 3:54 pm

Whining, White Smoke & the Mechanics of Getting Unstuck | 43 Folders
Hack your way out of writer’s block – “Literally. Put five completley random words on a piece of paper. Write five more words. Try a sentence. Could be about anything. A block ends when you start making words on a page.”

Several good ideas here. Well worth the read. Going to have to spend some time at the site and see what there is to see.

Bob’s Red Mill – V2 – Whole Grain and Gluten Free Products and Recipes

By , April 12, 2008 3:49 pm

Bob’s Red Mill – V2 – Whole Grain and Gluten Free Products and Recipes

Nice range of products and from what I have looked at the prices are good too. Suppose to be carried at Rainbow Food Marts in the Gadsden area as well as several other places within a reasonable distance. Had planned on checking the Rainbow Food Marts out yesterday but things happened, so will see what they carry next trip that way.

EU forced to release list of objects you’re not allowed to take on planes – Boing Boing

By , April 12, 2008 2:30 pm

EU forced to release list of objects you’re not allowed to take on planes – Boing Boing
The European Court of Justice is forcing the EU into publishing its top-s33kr1t list of things you’re not allowed to take on airplanes. Oh noes! Now the terrists will have the complete, exhaustive list of all the devices it is possible to crash an airplane with. We are doomed.

Now if the US courts would do the same to TSA, though I’m not sure they have a list from the way they change the rules from airport to airport.

solecist.net

By , April 12, 2008 2:21 pm

solecist.net
The differences between Las Vegas slot machines and voting machines.

Yea, the slots are a much safer way to gamble. Pity that… 😯 👿

Steampunk Unboxing: Difference Engine Arrives in Silicon Valley

By , April 12, 2008 1:55 pm

Steampunk Unboxing: Difference Engine Arrives in Silicon Valley

I can’t help but wonder just how different the world today would be if this had been built back then. Amazing bit of work!

Brass Goggles » Blog Archive » Steampunk Magazine Issue #4 and the Gaslamp Bazaar

By , April 12, 2008 1:28 pm

Brass Goggles » Blog Archive » Steampunk Magazine Issue #4 and the Gaslamp Bazaar

And now the rest of the day is just gonna have to wait. Later, y’all… 😉

Slashdot | Robot Rebellion Quelled in Iraq

By , April 12, 2008 1:21 pm

Slashdot | Robot Rebellion Quelled in Iraq

And who didn’t expect this to happen? Too much, too soon, too little independent testing…

Take Your Music Open-Source With Ogg Vorbis – Wired How-To Wiki

By , April 12, 2008 1:17 pm

Take Your Music Open-Source With Ogg Vorbis – Wired How-To Wiki

Now with iTunes support, kinda. Going to have to look at Ogg again. Looks like it has grown up a bit since the last time I tried it out.

London teen orders ‘cab, innit’ | The Register

By , April 12, 2008 9:30 am

London teen orders ‘cab, innit’ | The Register

Too funny! 😆 😆 😆 Thanks to Steve for the link.

Update on Organic DIY Flytrap – Ecobites.com

By , April 12, 2008 9:07 am

DIY Organic Fly Trap – Ecobites.com

They posted drawings to go with the article! NOW it makes sense! And is also what I thought it was on first quick read through, but not what I got on further reading, which I posted about in the previous article which can be found here.

Just received two comments from supposedly two different people, who’s posts have the same tone and are posted from the same IP address, so I’m assuming that I have stepped on some toes with my post about not understanding the article and the subsequent remark about the the author. I feel these comments have such literary merit that they should be granted a place where everyone who ventures to this blog can see them so instead of condemning them to the spam pile or just deleting them, I’m going to answer them here. need to be addressed in a manner other than simply deleting them or trying to discuss them in the comments section of the blog. The above section that I struck out was written prior to coffee and in the heat of my first anger at the tone of the comments. I started to remove it completely but decided to leave it as an example (to myself if no one else) of how not to reply to this type of comment.

First comment:

The first one came in from xxxxxxxxx@bigpond.com | 121.222.14.110 on 2008/04/12 at 1:26 AM local time (CDT USA) and is as follows:
Hey guys, I only had to read this once and have the idea. Very simple and easy to do. I thought it was us females who are supposed to have trouble reading descriptions.
Although, I must admit, my Dad had fly traps made from bottles around his organic fruit farm. They sure do work and a great way of avoiding chemical poisons. A photo of a cut bottle with tape ???, the dead fly photo tells the story.
🙂

Glad you understood it that quickly without a drawing to assist you or without seeing one in person before. Though from what you say in the comment you have seen these on your Dad’s farm before 😉 so you already had the idea while reading the article, which allowed your mind to fill in the blanks, which the article by its self didn’t do for me, or Steve, and I am sure quite a few other folks out here on the internet who read the article sans pictures/drawings. And NO the dead fly didn’t tell the story at all, it merely emphasized the idea that this device would kill flies.

The second comment came in from xxxxxxxxx@hotmail.com | 121.222.14.110 on 2008/04/12 at 3:20 AM and is as follows:
Wow, this site or Steve must be so dense. I don’t normally respond to stupidity, but here goes.
Firstly, I visited the link to ecobites.com. The article is so informative, that blind freddy could understand it.
Secondly, a quick surf of the website, indicates to poor dumb me that the site is photo intensive. More than most websites so what is the issue here. Didn’t you guys go to school. It pays to read to understand.
It is one thing to be critical or sensational in the hope it will attract surfers, but please be accurate or you just look stupid.

As I said earlier I guess I stepped on some toes with the earlier post 🙁 but I call it as I see it and when something doesn’t make sense I WILL say so. So lets take this comment one section at a time.

First – The IP adress is the same as the earlier comment so either it came from the same person or at least the same place. I had 3 folks sign up for accounts on the site last night, all from the same IP address but so far only 2 of them have tried to comment.

NOTE – No one gets to comment here without having their first comment approved by the site owner, which is me. Steve gets to comment since I have known him for 40 + years now. He can also write posts. I trust him. New signups have to earn that trust. But I digress. On to the second bit.

Second – Wow, this site or Steve must be so dense. I don’t normally respond to stupidity, but here goes. Firstly, I visited the link to ecobites.com. The article is so informative, that blind freddy could understand it.

Let’s see, you start off calling us dense and then stupid. Then go on to advertise the site the article came from and then to plug the article as being so informative that even blind freddy could understand it. Well not being from Oz I had to look up the reference to Blind Freddy and I found:
Blind Freddy
1. (Australia, informal) Imaginary incapacitated person. Used as a standard or archetype of incapacity, in the sense that if Blind Freddy can see or know something then it must be obvious.

Sorry, but as I said in the original post and have reiterated above the wording of the article in question was NOT obvious without either drawings or pictures or having seen the device in question and saying that I and Steve are dense and stupid is NOT going to change that FACT.

Third – Secondly, a quick surf of the website, indicates to poor dumb me that the site is photo intensive. More than most websites so what is the issue here. Didn’t you guys go to school. It pays to read to understand.

The site may be photo intensive (and in fact IS. Which is not always a good thing but I’m not here to critique the designers ideas of a “good” website) but the article WAS NOT. The one picture of the dead fly didn’t help me to visualize the device in question at all. Sorry.

And yes, as a matter of fact, Steve and I did both go to school (graduated from two of the same ones in fact, both high school and college), can read, write, and even count to 20 if we take our shoes off. 🙄 We also know how to both read to understand and ALSO how to write to be understood, which is something that I am not sure you and/or the author of the article have quite learned as of yet. It pays to reread any article or post you write with the idea in mind that someone in a culture different from yours may read it and want to duplicate it. So you need to try to use words in such a way as to paint pictures of the device in the persons mind. The article in question did not do that for me, and I am usually pretty good at visualizing things from words in print or verbal descriptions and attacking me is NOT the way to achieve understanding. Oh, well, onward and upward as it were.

And last – It is one thing to be critical or sensational in the hope it will attract surfers, but please be accurate or you just look stupid.

Excuse me? I should be accurate? Or I look stupid?
I’m truely sorry that you feel that me trying to understand the article in question and posting my attempts at visualizing the device was an attempt to attract surfers. About that I could care less. What I did (and still do) want to do was build some of the flytraps for use here on my farm, so I don’t have to use poison, but the written description without aid of drawings or pictures was not enough for my stupid dense mind to follow.

Please, next time you want to comment on my site (or any other) attempt to be constructive. If you had commented in such a way to help me understand what the article was getting at OR commented to tell me that the author of the DIY Flytrap had posted drawings, I would have welcomed you and your comments. As it is I am going to delete your comments from the original post though I will leave your user name(s) should you wish to reply to my post here.

Best,
Dave AKA Techno

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