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By Dave, September 5, 2006 9:35 am

Google Code – Updates: Announcing Tesseract OCR

Good show Google!   Now for the community to get this sucker ready for prime time.

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By Dave, September 5, 2006 9:26 am

Scotsman.com Heritage & Culture – Myths & Mysteries – Conan Doyle and the hoax of the 20th century

Interesting conclusions.  From what I have read of and by him I would think that yes he could be the guilty party or at least involved.  Way to go Sir Arthur!

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By Dave, September 5, 2006 12:22 am

BBC NEWS | England | West Midlands | Blind man was ‘dangerous driver’

Are they in compentition for the understated headline of the year?  No eyes.  The driver had that is…

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By Dave, September 4, 2006 11:56 pm

Guess it’s about time to get back to work. Got the end room about ready to work in.  Fixed a couple or 5 things today.

Started with a power strip with a cord which had had the grounding pin removed.  That’s a no-no around me so I cut the female end off an old computer cord and took the strip apart and after a bit of stripping of wires and soldering of the same had a useable power strip again.  20 minutes and maybe 5 cents in solder and electricity.  I figure it was a cost effective repair.

Next was my power control, isolation, and limiting station.  Put a couple of side boards on it and plugged it in.  Relabled the outlets and it was ready to go.

Then spent a couple of hours on a Hitachi 36 inch tv.  No joy.   Someone has already been the distance and I am about to the point of taking it to the landfill.

Came back over here and got a computer and monitor and took them back over and hooked up for a bit of hard drive repair.

After spending a half hour or so on repairing the laptop to standard drive adaptors, I started on Steves 80 gb laptop drive with the overly stressed plug.  Repaired 6 pins that had cracked loose from the print and tried it.  Nothing.  Checked continuity on all of the MANY pins.  Everything checked ok.  Tried again.  Nothing.  Check for 5 volts.  Got it at the plug and to one side of a SMD that is marked N.  After looking at the circuit I decided that it was most likely either a fuse or 0 ohm resister and since this one is not covered by warrenty that translates to nothing ventured nothing gained.  So got a small piece of copper wire and bridged it.  Put it back together and tried it again and the sucker came up!

Tried to install pclos on it but due to a flakey power supply and close to 800 feet of power wire just from the building I am working in to the meter which is another 350/400 from the transformer (all this means that I have a LOT of power fluctuations) I couldn’t get it to stay up long enough to get the install done.

Steve’s son Aaron came by and went to get some old power supplies he had.

While waiting for the install to finish or quit again I decided since things were going fairly well I would tear into a Zip drive that Steve had sent my way to fix.  Checked the usb cable and connection and both were fine.  Seperated the transport and board and after futzing with it for a while resoldered the USB connections just to make sure they weren’t broken loose on top.  I also noted that at the points where the board connections contacted the film the film was indented.  Some of the connections were also not quite as far out as others so I repositioned all of them to the same distance from the base.  Reassembled and tried it and it worked, so some of the above corrected the problem.  One to remember.

When Aaron got back with the power supplies I tried one and after it stinking and getting hot, tried another that Steve (thanks Steve!) had given him to bring over, and it worked and didn’t smoke so used it. And started the reinstall again.

Went to eat and when I came back it was still going.  Not sure if it is a drive problem or a cd problem.  Gave up after another 2 tries.  Downloaded the newest version of pclos on this machine and am going to burn it to cd and try again tomorrow.

While I was waiting for it to install the last two times, started to check out the power supply board for Mark H’s pinball machine.  Found a transistor and 4 diodes bad so far.  Suspect that there is other stuff bad in the machine. Since the damaged parts are all in the floriscan display high voltage circuitry I suspect that one or more of the score displays are damage also.  Will get back on that one tomorrow.
So all in all a good day of repairs.

More in the pipe already for tomorrow so will close for the nonce… 😉

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By Dave, September 4, 2006 9:15 pm

Wish it were different but still no joy… :-(  Maybe tomorrow they will be back at work and starting to catch up on things.

http://www.technorati.com/blogs/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.technoprimitive.org%2Fwordpress

is the link to my wayback machine at technorati.

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By Dave, September 4, 2006 1:33 pm

UserFriendly Strip Marvin the Martian

Via a heads up from Steve.  Thanks Steve.  Good strip.  Vi and Emacs on the same machine… 😉

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By Dave, September 4, 2006 12:25 am

YouTube – Broadcast Yourself.

geriatric1927 is still going.  Some good footage of a dying breed.  Good stuff!

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By Dave, September 4, 2006 12:06 am

xkcd – A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language – COMPLY

Hampster ball.    😉

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By Dave, September 4, 2006 12:02 am

Hottest Sauces in the World – Hot Sauce Store – Tijuana Flats Hot Foods Inc – hotsauce bottles – Smack My Ass and Call Me Sally Hot Sauces and Holiday Gift Ideas – The hottest sauces and peppers

These folks are plumb nuts…

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By Dave, September 3, 2006 11:49 pm

Chapter 4: Read Excerpts from the New Science Fiction Book Variable Star by Robert Heinlein and Spider Robinson

Chapter 4 is out!  Getting better all the time.  Something in the flavor makes me wonder if this was written/started around the time of The Door Into Summer?

Chapter 5 due Sept 7.  Can’t wait!

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By Dave, September 3, 2006 1:22 pm

Simple Shoes – Official Simple Shoes Brand Site for Simple Sneakers, Clogs, Shoes and Sandals – FREE DOMESTIC GROUND SHIPPING ON ORDERS OVER $75

Haven’t tried or even seen their products but I like the way they think.  Gonna have to go to Parisians (probably spelled wrong) in Gadsden (closest dealer to us) and see what they look like and how they feel.

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By Dave, September 3, 2006 1:10 pm

Burning Man: Black Rock City Year Round – Webcast
Here is the url for the webcast but looks like it’s toast.  Been trying to get a video feed from it for 3 days now and no joy.  Now looks like the site may be down too.  Video feed is at   http://137.110.119.202/live.sdp for those wanting to try anyway.  Wish I was there!

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By Dave, September 3, 2006 1:07 pm

Treehugger: Living Like a Hobbit. Small House, Travel & Adventures
I’ve read about Dan Price before but there is a lot more available now. Lynette Chlang has written an article on meeting him and visiting his place in the woods.  Good stuff and sound like really good people.

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By Dave, September 3, 2006 12:53 pm

William Gibson – Official Website

Guess the title says it all.  Blog, books, assorted bits and bytes.  Good stuff!

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By Dave, September 3, 2006 12:49 pm

Cory Doctorow’s craphound.com » News

Cory’s personal site. Books, stories, podcasts of books and stories, blog, and more. Good stuff!

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By Dave, September 3, 2006 11:50 am

The site says 47 days but the last post is showing 50 days. Guess they are taking a long holiday so will not chastise them untill tuesday…

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By Dave, September 2, 2006 9:00 pm

YouTube – The Simpsons vs Star Trek

From Steve.  Funny as hell!  Would embed it fi they supported wordpress blogs but they don’t so this link will have to do…

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By Dave, September 2, 2006 10:11 am

The Federal Vampire and Zombie Agency

Someone has WAY too much time on their hands…

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By Dave, September 2, 2006 12:18 am

WWdN: In Exile: It’s funny. Laugh.

Will, drinking Guinness and telling a bad, but funny joke… 😉

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By Dave, September 1, 2006 11:49 pm

Rumsfeld Does Damage Control To Prevent No Confidence Vote… | The Huffington Post

Dude, I listened to the speech and that is what you said! Quit lying and then just quit! Asshat!

Yes that is 3 ! in one post but the jerk stood there and said just exactly what he is now saying he was misrepersented as saying. Oh yes time to take the meds and quit thinking about these jerks…

/rant