Don Lancaster's What's New? 2012 Archive Blog

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Gotcha! Raspberry Pi is now working. The problem is
that you cannot simply copy an .img file to a memory
card. All this does is move the file just like any other.

Instead, a very special image mapping file such as
Win2imager.exe is required to actually change the
entire image of the memory card.

Note that this program is extremely dangerous
and must be used with extreme care.

Expanded and improved our home page video link access
to 64 entries.

Reasonable attempts have been made to verify that
all links work and are largely virus and porn free.

Please report any exceptions. Or suggested additions.

Note that these links can be used with a personal
computer to convert any dumb HDMI television
into a smart tv. At nearly zero cost.

I seem to be getting nowhere trying to boot a Raspberry Pi.

Things learned so far: It would seem best to buy an entire
package with a preprogrammed memory card. Boot time
is by no means instant and typically could take 35 seconds
with a class 4 card. Although 2 Gigs is only needed, at
least 4 Gigs is recommended.

Supply voltage is critical and can be measured from diagonally
opposite pins on the expansion connector. NTSC video may
be less flakey than HDMI. Besides the red power LED,
the activity lights should show activity during and after
booting. Memory cards to be self-loaded probably should
be initialized and removed only with the recommended
eject routine.

Trying to run the checksum routine on Windows 8 is
maddeningly infuriating. I'm working on a PostScript
routine to read the first few thousand program bytes.

Not sure where to go from here. I'll try a new memory
card and then an entire bundled package.

If this happy horseshit is happening to more than one
user in a hundred, the Pi should never have been sold.

"Smart" tv sets are basically an unmitigated disaster.

Their ergonomics are mesmerizingly awful, their
content is both pathetic and second rate, charges
can be outrageous, and attempts at micromanaged
control and DRM are ludicrous.

More discussion here.

But little known is that you can easily and cheaply
build your own smart tv with none of these problems!
Besides starting, stopping, reversing, or fast forwrading
many sources at any time. Accessing them totally
at your convenience.

Just make sure the plain old but fairly new tv has a
HDMI connector, find a cable and connect your
web connected personal computer to it.

An adjustment of the video resoution to 1920 x 1080
may also be needed. As might a VGZ to HDMI adaptor.

Run a preliminary test by using this xylophone duet.

Then check out https://www.tinaja.com/#video for
fifty free programming sources. Good early choices
include Fox, CBS, and A&E. My own vids can
be found here.

For remotes, you may want to add a wireless mouse
or a wireless keyboard.

I seem to be picking up a curious bug in Dreamweaver.
Not just just sure if it is just me.

Symptoms are thusly: Recopying one of the below headers
for reuse consistently truncates id="d12-28-12" into
"d12-28-"

But just cutting and pasting text into text behaves in
the normal manner. This may have something to do
with it.

UPDATE: This is a feature, not a bug. Dreamweaver does
not want you to intentionally duplicate a filename..

A preliminary new third party Magic Sinewave
calculator can be found here. It apparently solves
finding magic sinewaves that are either under or
over specified.

As I mentioned a time or two before, I strongly feel that
the solution to the peer review debacle lies in sites such
as Wesrch.

About ninety of my more recent and more important
papers can be found here. These are fast approaching
several hundred thousand downloads.

How to tell an extroverted engineer: They stare at your
shoes instead of their own.

Bizarre. Had a newer scanning fire pager block a nearby
emergency scanner. Curiously, if not plugged into their
chargers, the two could get within a few inches of each
other with no problems.

But if either or both were brought even near (!) their
chargers, they would interfere up to as much as
eight feet away! The receive-only pager ends up clearly
blocking its active channel on the scanner.

Producing a distinct bleep-bleep-bleep.. that is worse
than unacceptably annoying. Up the wall, even.

Both units were believed properly functioning and likely
both met the normal and usual FCC interference specs.
Adding power line filtering made no apparent difference.

My best guess as to what was coming down is that the
charger power wires were somewhere near a quarter
wavelength and somehow were resonating. Perhaps
in the same manner as the directors and reflectors in
a Yagi antenna. Thus "focusing" and "amplifying" the
interference directionality.

Or a "ground plane" effect was enhancing the patterns.

Apparently there also are commercial scanner intermod
filter products that deal with this problem.

And a more detailed explanation here of possibly what
is coming down.

The obvious workaround is to keep the scanner and the
pager at least ten feet from each other.

This is vaguely reminescent of an ancient and pretty
much long forgotten AM radio sensitivity enhancing
stunt. In which you placed a large tuned loop antenna
a foot or so away from the radio and let resonant
buildup and near field coupling do the rest.

The scheme ended up largely unused and unpopular
in that it was huge and required careful tuning and
repositioning for each station. Strong nearby signals
could also cause problems.

One of the reasons I have always been negative about
Linux and its UNIX heritage is that there are forever
rude surprises piled one on top of another - hardware,
software, rules, culture, and attitude.

Iffen the right one don't get ya, the left one will.

Ferinstance, that amazingly small Raspberry Pi
computer. There is no safe way to set it down unless
you seek out a third party case! The needed power
supplies are fairly hard to find locally and it is nearly
impossible to determine what their ratings are. Keyboards,
mice, monitors, and cables also need added.

While space is provided for removable flash memory,
nearly two Gigs of bloatware has to be first downloaded
into the chip with a "real" computer before you can even
begin. A minimum of four gigs is recommended.

A dedicated development workspace with a functional
Windows web computer seems to be a must.

Specs for a crucial board chip have Draconian access rules.
Direct VGA monitor support is lacking.

There is not the slightest doubt that the Pi is a major new
development. The question is WHEN in the hassle after
hassle after hassle pileup you switch back to the Basic
Stamp instead.

Stay tuned for the next level of problems.

For years, I've been fascinated by "secret" rumors of
spectacular wet desert hiking in Arizona's Santa Maria River
area. These days, its a simple matter to do a flyover using
Acme Mapper.

Of its 30 mile or so length, the last and westernmost third
seems pretty much wide, sandy, and dry. This part goes to
Alamo Reservoir from the Las Vegas Highway and routes
throug the Arrasta Mountain Wilderness area. A feeder
area called Peoples Canyon appears to be pristine but
likely quite dry and of restricted access.

Things get much more interesting in the middle third ten
miles between the Bagdad Road and the Las Vegas highway.
The area is often perennial with a few occasional pools.
Some appear eminently swimmable.   The riparian part
tends to get scrubbed out by violent but occasional floods.
This is definitely canyon country with the river cutting
through thousands of feet of  elevation difference.

Winter or spring are probably the best visit times.

But the best part would appear to be the initial ten mile reach
from the Muleshoe Ranch to the Bagdad Road. The ranch is
where the Santa Maria gets fed from Kirtland Creek and
others. This portion does look like it has bunches of
really spectacular desert pools and quite narrow canyon
vistas. Access would seem to be foot only.

While you are in the neighborhood, there's also opaque
apache tears, a pair of world class bridges, a warm
spring, six mile crossing, one of two remaining company
towns in Arizona, several wilderness areas and the "lost"
Zanarapolis ghost town. Which was really a tungsten mine.

No services, except for the rather unlikely Wayside Inn that
you can't get to from here. More Arizona stuff to do here.

Got my long delayed Raspberry Pi computer yesterday.
This, along with the Arduino seems to be redefining an
hacker electronics re-emergence.

An obvious use for the Pi is for the next generation of
Magic Sinewave research. 8-bit devices required
sneaky tricks to do 12-bit and higher precision delays
that led to code "pinch points" and extra complexity.
Their memory restrictions also made combining
frequency setting and waveform generation in one
deviceboth limited and tricky.

By dropping the Pi down into machine, simple
and brute force obvious{ pattern-value-delay}
repeat can be done for hundreds or more
different amplitudes and hundreds of different
frequencies.

There's also the ability of mixing and matching
magic sinewaves so that the number of pulses
decreases with increasing frequency. This could
limit the range of the first uncontrolled harmonics
and thus have filtering advantages.

The pi should help in evaluating potential new classes
of three phase magic sinewaves. There is potential
here for reduced early unwanted harmonics and,  
once again, filter simplification.

Some preliminary third party pi code can be found here.

Yeah, by any metric the Raspberry Pi completely and
utterly blows away the KIM-1. But I strongly like
the KIM-1 better and feel it ultimately will prove to
be far more historically significant.

Once again expanded and updated our Gila Valley
Dayhikes page. We've now newly reached our initial
goal of 365 major entries.

Enough to keep you busy for at least a year.

Please email me with any additions or corrections.

There's a virtually unknown "CCC Playground" somewhat
north of the Hawk Hollow tank. Here you will find many
dozens and possibly many hundreds of utterly useless
water spreader projects.

This area gives historic meaning to "shovel ready stimulus"
projects, aka "totally worthless boondoggles".

While the area is fascinating to visit, it does take some
remote bushwacking. The Allen Hanging Canal tunnels
under all of this worthless grunge and I have still been
unable to trace its exact path thru this labyrinth.

In places, the water spreaders clearly cross the original
canal route. Strongly suggesting that they are in no
way prehistoric. They also have a "too new" and "anal"
look about them, besides having jumbled patina.

The exact canal path is somewhat limited as it has to
be of constant slope, below its entry altitude and above
its exit altitude. Besides being likely to stay east of the
wash bottom.

Hawk Hollow tank is a mile or two southwest of Thatcher
International Airport. Which is rumored to still offer late
night DC3 service to Columbia.

Much more on similar stuff here.

One of the foremost rules of eBay selling success is to
offer unique products not available elsewhere. And then
become a manic expert in those products.

Our foremost example of this had been our water soluble
swimsuits. These, of course, were of primary interest to
quilters, magicians, and felters.

Other no longer available items included the dimpled chad
snarfed up by amateur astronomers ( voting boths make
outstanding suitcases-on-feet for remote nighttime viewing ),
civil defense porta-potties, bulk cargo netting for truly bizare
teen clothing, and our earthquake generators. Which, sadly,
got confused and inappropriately applied to subbass woofers,

Oddball stuff still remaining are our nuclear holocaust fashion
accessories, rare howdy orange bottle caps, and mint stadia computer
circular slide rules. Search our "abeja" store for "yield", "howdy"
or "stadia". Actual links come and go with listing expirations.

Still to be listed are a pair of 1908 Eastman commerical 35 mm
projectors. And many rolls of clear polyester film. You can
email me for details.

More on eBay opportunities here.

Coronado Vinyards has switched to a wine and tapas lounge
format from their restaurant. So far, the results are superb,
but I am wondering how well the venue will long term fly in
rural Arizona.

I'm not even sure how many of the locals would even know
the difference between "tapas" and "topless". At any rate,
Coronado is located just south of the easternmost Willcox
I-10 exit.

Arizona has a surprisingly wide variety of quality wines
and vinyards. But note that the Dos Cabezas Wineworks
is nowhere near Dos Cabezas. Not by a country mile.
Or eighty six of them even.

Be sure to check out Coronado's Dolce Veritas, an upscale
sweet and bubbly white.

The innermost key secret to being a farmer or a rancher
is to know the difference between "hunker" and "mosey".

Added InstantWatcher to our homepage video download
links. This is basically a free third party service that
makes searching the Netflix streaming videos easier.

Sadly, Netflix seems to be dropping more titles than they
are adding, and many of what they add seems sorely
second rate. Mesmerizingly awful, even.

I suspect the underlying cause is video supplier greed.

Graboid appears to be an interesting alternative, but I have yet
to check it out. Their hard-to-find rates for useful download
bandwidths vary from $5 to $30 per month. The system is
Usenet based.

Both the number of exoplanets being discovered and
the number of solar bankruptcies are approaching a
one per day rate.

It is not yet clear if the solar bankruptcies are causing
the exoplanets or not.

Yet another "oops" in the inevitable downfall of traditional
scholarly publishing can be found here. With comments here.

I very strongly feel that Wesrch gives us an accurate model
of the way things are gonna be...

Peer review will be done AFTER publishing,
not before.

A "peer" will be a properly identified anyone
with evan a minor interest in the paper's subject.

The cost of publication to the author will
be zero.

The cost of viewing to the reader will
be zero.

Upload/Download availability will be 24/7.

The probability of paper acceptance will
be 1.0 or 100 percent.

The maximum acceptable publication
delay time will be 23 milliseconds.

Emerging "way its gonna be" sources include  arXiv, Questia, 
open culture , free video, and Wesrch. While free online
university courses are found at coursera, mit, and stanford.

Some previous comments here.

Just placed a very rare vacuum tube GR 1142A Frequency
Meter and Discriminator up on our eBay site.

The unit seems eminently restorable, but I've resisted
powering it up since capacitors on this age equipment
need very careful testing and/or reforming.

I did an interpretation of this beast in one of the earliest
ever integrated circuit construction projects.

Here's some PostScript code from our polyester roll
project...

/india 2.00 store /thick 0.005 store /turns 200 store
/rolllength 0 store /curpos 0 store /totlen 0 store
/pi 3.1415926 store /curlen 0 store /curdia india store
/curcum india pi mul store

/mergestr {2 copy length exch length add string dup
dup 4 3 roll 4 index length exch putinterval 3 1 roll
exch 0 exch putinterval} def

/padprint {/hominy exch store dup length hominy exch
sub exch print { ( ) print} repeat} store

(\n\n\n) print
(turn # diameter length in inches length in feet\n) print

0 1 turns { /curturn exch store (\n) ( ) print
curturn 10 lt {( ) mergestr } if % pretty print
curturn 100 lt {( ) mergestr } if
curturn 20 string cvs mergestr 15 padprint % current turn
curdia 20 string cvs 15 padprint % current diameter
/curcum curdia pi mul store
curcum 20 string cvs 15 padprint % the current turn inches
totlen 12 div 20 string cvs 15 padprint % length in feet
/totlen totlen curcum add store
/curdia curdia thick add store} for
(\n\n\n) print

% EOF

What this does is convert sequential turns into a
cumulative length for auto product measurement.

There seems to be a GhostScript bug in that its scroll
only reports the last 80 or so lines. Some workarounds
are in the works that include using a separate file or
only reporting every tenth line.

Thought we would once again review how to find price
and value of items for possible eBay resale, especially
electronic components. Our usual price point for
"like new" items is typically one sixth of distributor
cost new.

Obvious starting points are eBay itself and Google.
Less obvious are OEM's Trade and PLC Center.

Plus, of course, the obvious mainstream suppliers
such as McMaster Carr, Allied, Newark, Mouser,
Grainger, and such.

I never cease to be amazed over how even the most
obscure part numbers can often be found on Google.

More eBay tips and techniques here.

We previously looked at some emerging opportunities in
HVAC energy efficiency improvements here. An
interesting new summary can be found here.

One of their interesting points is that a one inch diameter
water pipe can transfer as much "cold" as an eighteen
inch square air duct.

They did not mention magnetic refrigeration through the
magnetocoloric effect. I suspect this is because of
little recent progress and outrageous materials costs.
My own older tutorial appears here in column #33..

I suspect new opportunities and breakthroughs are just
around the corner in such areas as boundary layer
control, MEMS heat transfer solutions, variable
speed compressors, ground sinking, and such.

As we've seen in the past, for various reasons Peltier
ain't gonna cut it.

I was cleaning out some very old files and found a printout
of The Encounter of the Long Count Keeper, which I
feel is/was the finest cave ballad of all time.

It seems newly relevent with recent interest in the Mayan calender.

The Bear Springs area is a candidate for a prehistoric
hanging canal. While I've found nothing obvious so far,
it is unlikely such a major water resource would be
ignored by canal literate people.

There is a huge but abondoned and obviously modern
canal nearby. I had this going FROM Bear Springs
to the north. However, a study by a historian has what
likely is the same canal going TO Bear Springs from
the Lowland Union Canal.

Some of the historian photos do indeed have a prehistoric
look about them.

The only little problem I have with the reverse canal
is that Bear Springs seems to be around 150 feet or so
HIGHER than the Union Canal.

The mystery deepens, but the known prehistoric
canals take precedence in resolving known issues.

Let's once again summarize the key rules of ebay success...

Offer unique products not available elsewhere.
Become a manic expert in those products.
Maximize your personal value added.
Always seek out a minimum 30:1 sell/buy ratio.
Always aim for a 21 day payback.
The minimum profitable eBay sale is $19.63.
NO foreign bidders/buyers/transshipments!
Accept Paypal  only!
Adjust pricing for a reasonable hang time.
Never list anything you cannot hold at arm’s length.
Use both a scanner AND a 12 megapixel camera.
Spend at least TWO HOURS in image postproc.
NO dropshipping, pallet buys, or consignment sales.
Limit terms and conditions to TEN words maximum.
Pay EXTREME attention to inventory control.
Clearly state your revenue neutral shipping charges.
Give FULL refunds if the customer is unhappy .

Much more here.

A fundamental rule of engineering design: Any
uncontrolled parameter will likely go against you.

Two wildly different examples...

On our magic sinewaves, the tradeoff for zeroing
out any number of low harmonics requires that the
first few uncrontrolled harmonics will inevitably
be fairly large and require careful filtering.

On our prehistoric hanging canals, in exchange for
extreme energy efficiency in construction, the canals
will of necessity end up longer that would be optimal
using modern construction techniques.

Thus, longer "S' or "U" constructs are needed to
avoid energy wasteful cuts or fills. In other places
miles of parallel canal may be needed to gain a very
few feet of required elevation difference. The split
between the Mud Springs and Jernigan canals is
a typical example.

Excessive length gives us yet another potential proof
of prehistoric age .

One of our lecture attendees felt I was too harsh
on the compressed air car scam. Once again, there
are fundamental physical laws that absolutely
guarantee that compressed air cars flat out ain't
gonna happen.

The energy density of compressed air at best is
around 15 watthours per liter. Compare this against
lead acid at 30 wh/L or gasoline at 9600 wh/L.

Efficient air compression demands it not get warm
when squashed. At the very least, this takes multiple
stages and elaborate intercoolers. No means of
true isothermal air compression is known.

Compressed air motors are outrageously inefficient.
An efficient air motor would have to noiselessly exhaust
at zero velocity and at ambient temperature. And do so
over an extreme pressure range. With no ice issues.

The fire service has spent over a century trying to
use compressed air to perform useful work for
such things as vent fans, fast cutters, spreaders, and
such and has spectacularly failed. Again, due to
fundamental physical laws that trash efficiency.

Yes, compressed air is shop floor useful because
its convenience overwhelms its pitiful efficiency.
And huge public utility underground compressed air
storage might prove viable because it lacks the severe
vehicular restrictions.

More on energy efficiency here.

An obvious eBay rule: Make sure stuff works before
you list it or do any elaborate image postproc
work on it.

Had this "obviously new" and absolutely beautiful
Bodine motor. What could possibly go wrong?...

go wrong?...
go wrong?...
go wrong?...

The motor did take a special test setup of a series diode off
the power line. On doing so, it refused to run. A closer
check revealed that there were no brushes present!

Just replacing the brushes would add $30 overhead to a
potential $40 sale. And it was quite likely that the brushes
were removed because of a more serious problem.

A possible exception to the check first rule: If you have
a large pile of identical items and the first few check ok,
you can put off checking the rest until their sale becomes
likely.

More eBay tips and techniques here.

Another difference between GhostScript and Acrobat
Distiller is that GhostScript apparently does not completely
release files until totally closed. Which may limit their
accessibility to other programs.

The workaround is to make sure you explicitly use
closefile commands at the end of any program that
manipulates files.

More PostScript stuff here..

Believe it or not, there really is a Nothing, Arizona and a
Nowhere, Arizona. They are/were roughly 60 miles apart.

Things get somewhat confusing when Nothing sometimes
calls themselves Nowhere, and over some minor issues,
such as no population or signs that are conspicuously absent
or long gone.

At any rate, the two would make a very interesting winter or
spring bicycle tour, almost all of which would be on pleasant
paved rural roads with little traffic. But the route has few services.

There would also be Nothing to Nowhere race potential.

Nothing has some little known features of interest
nearby, such as a vast opaque apache tears field,
a pair of world class bridges, ( AZ. #5 and #6 or #7 and
#8, depending on how you count ), seasonal swimming,
the "lost" Zannarapolis ghost town, one of two remaining AZ
company towns, six mile crossing, the Upper Burro Creek
wilderness, a top "secret" hidden wet canyon and an
interesting warm spring.

Much more on little known Arizona things to do here .

The "anvil test" for camp coffee...

If the anvil sinks, it it too weak.
If the anvil floats, it is just right.
If the anvil dissolves, it is too strong.

A reminder that I'll be putting on a hanging canal slide
show this Saturday December 1st at 6:30 PM in the
Jupiter Room of Discovery Park.

You can preview the free show here. Discovery Park is
located at the corner of 20th Avenue and Discovery
Park Boulevard in Safford.

Several more online auctions just closed with huge numbers
of items unsold.

I think it is reasonable to predict that the number of online
auctions has temporarily far exceeded the available pool
of buyers. Especially industrial auctions of specialty items.

Which is a huge new opportunity pick stuff up for ridiculously
low prices.

Obvious things to do are to VERY closely watch the
closings of any lots you might be even remotely
interested in.

And then either make unsolicited lowball offers on
anything unsold. Or aggressively participate in
auctioneer "fire sale" post auction offer panics.

More auction help here. Your own custom regional
auction finder can be created for you per these details.

Found what may be a bizarre feature of GhostScript that may
cause some problems with at least some of my PostScript
programs. Particularly existing ones.

A lot of these programs use the log file as their primary
output. Normal GhostScript operation places a scrolling
limit of 82 lines or so in their reported log file results.

There is no such limit in Acrobat. But, as we have
recently seen, Adobe appears to be flushing any
Distiller use that writes disk files.

Here is a typical demo...

%!ps
0 1 1000 {= =} for
%EOF

An obvious GhostScript workaround is to output via custom
and specific files, rather than the quick-and-dirty use of the
stock log file.

A second workaround is to run GhostScript from the
command line. Right clicking on the command screen
can pull up properties that let you change the amount of
scrolling lines permitted.

Please report any problems you may run across running
my PostScript Routines. Old or new.

It is very easy to pick the wrong title words in your eBay offers.

If something seems slow selling, find out how others describe
it. And then reword appropriately.

Ferinstance, I was getting nowhere with our superb push-to-test
jacks. But they seem to have taken off just by renaming them
as spring loaded push-to-connect binding posts.

I've just reverified two of our more important and useful
PostScript routines as GhostScript compatible.

Our Architect's persepective utility normally gets used
to straighten the sides out of our eBay listings. A minor
change of a variable from max to max1 appeared needed
for GhostScript compatibility. The present filename is
ghotilt1.psl.

Our automatic backgrounder normally gets used to
place an automated, mottled, and vignetted background
on a bitmap, again for eBay use. It moved over to
GhostScript just fine and its present filename is ghoback1.psl

Note that both routines need renaming of their filenames
and adjustment of their parameters to meet your needs.

Additional image proc utilities appear here. These two
new routines are still under test, so please report any
difficulties.

Just received many thousands more of our unique spring
loaded push-to-connect binding posts from the Child Labor
sweatshop division of our Synergetics.

These are ideal for electronic component testing or making
speaker connections or whatever. While we now have
these newly bargain priced on eBay, they are otherwise very
hard to find, and mil spec versions sell for as much as
$24 each. Our price is in the forty cents each range.

Pushing the red or black button accepts any lead diameter
up to 50 mils or so. They are vaguely reminiscent of the
Fahnestock Connectors of yore.

These mount in a #8 clearance hole. While they are intended
for insulated panels, four cent nylon shoulder washers can
be added for conductive panels.

I have long recommeded using the Distiller in Adobe
Acrobat as a general purpose PostScript computer. It
has been the primary method for running and using my
many hundreds of PostScript applications.

Starting with Acrobat 8, Adobe made using the file
command in Distiller difficult. They recently appear
to be in the process of completely eliminating any
file capability. Any and all references on their
website to Acrodist-F and similar options have
apparently been meticulously flushed.

And I have been unable to get Acrodist-F to
work on Windows 8.

The good thing about the file command is that
it let you use PostScript to read or write virtually
any file in any language. This was particularly
useful for manipulating bitmaps or generating
fancy JavaScript programs. But, as our website
shows, has countless other uses.

The bad thing about the file command is that its
abuse potential is off the wall, since it can easily
plow an entire computer or network.

Fortunately, free GhostScript retains the ability to
deal with unfettered file commands. It also can
be used to run most of my programs and most of my
applications directly or with minor modifications.

The only minor problem I have found so far using
GhostScript is that max may be a reserved word.
In my Architect's Perspective distortion correction
utility, A change of the max variable to max1
appears to be a working solution.

Links on this after further testing.

The customer demand for online auctions may be
lagging waay behind the number of them being offered
by the traditional auction houses. There seems to
be a unique but temporary opportunity here with
many auctions apparently now having as much as
one quarter (!) of their items unsold.

Yeah, unsold stuff traditionally was scrap, junk, or
had massive rigging issues. But this seems different
in that there would appear to be a major unbalance
between offers and demand.

So, on any auction of interest, it now would seem to
certainly pay attention to what got unsold. And then
rethink your interest in it, make unsolicited lowball
offers, or aggressively participate in resales.

More auction tips and techniques here.

I'll be presenting a revised and updated talk on our prehsitoric
hanging canals Saturday December 1st at 6:30PM in the Jupiter
Room of Discovery Park.

Here is an excerpt of what may end up the Courier PR...

===============================================
"Prehistoric hanging canals of the Safford Basin"
subject of Saturday's free Discovery Park Lecture
================================================

Local author and researcher Don Lancaster returns
to Discovery Park this Saturday December 1st at
6:30 PM. As part of Discovery Park's ongoing fall
lecture series.

The presentation will report on the latest updates
and rediscoveries on a stunning world class
series of Safford area mountain stream fed prehistoric
canals that are literally "hung" high on the edges of
steep sided mesas.

Over twenty hanging canals remain virtually unknown
with a total distance of at least forty miles.
The canals are believed to date from the 1350's.
Some have also seen historic adaptation and a few
still remain in active use.

The construction of a hanging canal can be
exceptionally energy efficient in that its slope
can be made largely independent of terrain. The high
side of the canal is often "free" and construction
can largely take place across rather than along the
canal.

In many places, the canals provide a strong illusion
of "water flowing uphill". In reality, most of their
slopes are at a nearly optimum downhill grade. The
evidence suggests that virtually every drop of
northeastern Mount Graham stream water was put to
use.

While no survey tools are known to survive, "pilot
extensions" of the canals themselves were thought
to serve as water levels to establish the needed
grades. Many independent arguments verify the
prehistoric origins of these canals.

These include roads, tanks, fences, dams, and even
cemeteries that run roughshod over the canals
without access or accommodation; large Mesquite
trees and barrel cacti mid channel; uniform desert
varnish, caliche, and lichens; absence of any
apparent modern tool use; and, above all, a
purposefulness that clearly and uniquely meets
prehistoric needs. The newly updated presentation
can be previewed at Don's

< https://www.tinaja.com/canal/newhangshow2.pdf > website.
There is no charge and families are welcome.

Discovery park is located at the corner of Discovery Park
Boulevard and 20th Avenue in Safford. You can get more
info by calling Paul Anger or Jackie Madsen at
(928) 428-6260.

The slideshowcan be previewed here. And its underlying
paper here.

The slideshow will likely be repeated in late January
for the ARA, possibly on a saturday on the ASU campus.

Yet another free university level online computer course
can be found here. With a discussion here.

It seems that you can do most anything you did in the
older versions of Paint that you can do in the fancy
Windows 7 and Windows 8 updates. It is just that
some of the items are buried in non-obvious places.

The obvious need to draw a continuous traced line
over many points is now done with Shape #6 on the
top row. This is a non-obvious "slanty L" shape.
Sadly, I have yet to find a way to keep the shape
from closing.

Woefully underappreciated is the new quadratic
spline of Shape #2. While not nearly as good as
a cubic spline, this easily lets you draw smooth
curves.

The latest in a never ending series of free energy perpetual
motion scams is apparntly called the Joule Ringer. Details
either on the Keelynet or a Google search.

As usual, this one looks "not even wrong".

Secrets of bashing pseudoscience can be found here.

Non-obvious and "secret" details may get you every
time. Assumption is the mother of mistakes.

Radio shack has an interesting  270-391A  Battery holder
for four "AA" cells intended for use as a six volt dc
supply. And its up-down-up-down cell arrangement certainly
seems normal and reasonable. And well marked.

But what is not at all obvious if you are, say, after
a +3 and -3 volt supply, is that the cell stacking is
highly unusual!

The cell sequence is 1-4-3-2! The "center tap" is
thus at "three quarters".

Details like this will get you every time.

Alps has an interesting collection of eminently hackable
electronic components. A few of which are summarized here.

I've been refurbing a bunch of Variacs for our eBay
sales. These consistently seem to have two mystery
ailments: The neon pilot lights are burned out and/or
the power switches fail to work.

Both of which are inexplicable in that neon pilot
lights should be virtually indestructable and the switches
seem to have some burned black grunge in them.
Like their contact grease was set on fire.

Perhaps there is some transient phenomonen when
Variac power is applied in the wrong part of the ac
cycle. This, of course, should not be. And the great
irony of all this is that the Variacs were from an
online auction of a surge protection company.

A sneaky GhostScript trick: The easiest way to add your
custom fonts or font directories is to also have Acrobat on
the same machine.  

GhostScript will automatically find anything added to the
Distiller Font Locations in the settings pulldown.

Let me be sure I have this straight- There is a good chance
that Groupo Bimbo will be in charge of Ho Ho's.

Better play this one as it lays. It seems too easy a shot.

Canal 21 aka the Blue Ponds hanging canal may end
up being wishful thinking.

A field verification visit to this location has revealed
what looks a lot more like an early wagon road,
complete with broken horseshoes and an often
double spoil row.

And the obvious short canal at this location seems
to be modern, judging from its concrete diversion
section. And appears to be a simple switch to select
the upper or lower Blue Pond as a destination.

A presumed hanging portion remains unchecked
here, but it now would likely seem to be a wagon
road continuance. Closer aerial photo inspection
again suggests double spoil rows in places.
Although it is not quite clear why a wagon road
would get hung on a mesa edge.

There are some sparce tradeware shards remaining
in the area. And the location is certainly reasonable
for a major early hanging canal.

Canal 21 cannot quite be written off, but its
evidence to date seems to be diminishing.

There are apparently additional valid solutions
for three phase magic sinewaves. Some of these
may offer significant reductions in the strengths
of early uncontrolled harmonics or have yet unknown
other usable features.

Here are two of the new verified solutions...

16.255629683788598   20.191301125192197
32.551048840219450   39.8086988748078
48.535419892869260   57.227786092490504
62.772213907509496   71.46458010713074
76.255629683788600   87.44895115978055

10.158354180504617  11.617102180257803
20.704135563839685  23.75748871430516
31.648858023520518  36.242511285776445
42.731357524419295  48.382897819891284
53.209901586429936  58.447497940974394
61.552502058956060  66.79009841344269
70.158354180391300  77.26864247549328
80.704135563873620  88.35114197654599

If the wrap map is to be taken as necessary and
sufficient, the 20 potential new canidates for one or
two tiers of delta friendliness would seem to be...

XXXXXX
XXXXXX
......

XXXXXX
.XXXXX
X.....

XXXXXX
XXXXX.
.....X

XXXXXX
.XXXX.
X....X


XXXXXX  XXXXXX
XXXXXX  XXXXXX
......  ......

XXXXXX  XXXXXX  new n=5 suggests 2-5-8-11-14...
XXXXXX  .XXXXX
......  X.....

XXXXXX  XXXXXX 
XXXXXX  XXXXX.
......  .....X

XXXXXX  XXXXXX 
XXXXXX  .XXXX.
......  X....X

XXXXXX  XXXXXX
.XXXXX  XXXXXX
X.....  ......

XXXXXX  XXXXXX 
.XXXXX  .XXXXX
X.....  X.....

XXXXXX  XXXXXX 
.XXXXX  XXXXX.
X.....  .....X

XXXXXX  XXXXXX 
.XXXXX  .XXXX.
X.....  X....X

XXXXXX  XXXXXX
XXXXX.  XXXXXX
.....X  ......

XXXXXX  XXXXXX 
XXXXX.  .XXXXX
.....X  X.....

XXXXXX  XXXXXX 
XXXXX.  XXXXX.
.....X  .....X

XXXXXX  XXXXXX  original n=7 verifies 3-7-11-15-19...
XXXXX.  .XXXX.
.....X  X....X

XXXXXX  XXXXXX
.XXXX.  XXXXXX
X....X  ......

XXXXXX  XXXXXX 
.XXXX.  .XXXXX
X....X  X.....

XXXXXX  XXXXXX 
.XXXX.  XXXXX.
X....X  .....X

XXXXXX  XXXXXX 
.XXXX.  .XXXX.
X....X  X....X

The immediate questions are which of these allow convergent
full amplitude solutions and what reductions, if any, can be
provided in close in filtered unwanted harmonics.

There would seem to initially be 4 + 16 + 64 = 84 possible three
tier solusions covering n=2 to n=12. And 340 possible four tier
solutions covering n=2 to n=16. But there would seem to be
no point in exhaustively evaluating these if their one or two
tier predecessors were previously found to be nonconvergent,
limited amplitude range, or disallowed..

In general, the "less uniform" the "carrier" is, an assumption
can be made that the spectral energy will be shifted higher.
How far this can go and how much improvement can be
made has yet to be determined.

Classic Paint has been significantly improved in Windows 7
and Windows 8. But it does take some practice and relearning
to get back up to speed on its many nonobvious changes.

It still does not have a high quality resizing routine. You can
find these down to one degree in Imageviewer32 and to a
tenth of a degree in Irfanview.

A tutorial of the new paint features can be found here.

I can't seem to be able to get Acrodist-F to work
in windows 8!

Yes, you can get the command line in Windows 8
back by seaching on aps that start with "c" and
creating a C:\Windows\SysWOW64\cmd.exe shortcut.

The PostScript language has long been exceptional
in that it can read or write most any disk format in
most any language! I've personally based many
thousands of PostScript programs on this ability.

The easiest and simplest and most mainstream way
of deaaling with this was to use Acrobat's Distiller
as a general purpose PostScript computer.

However, way on back in Acrobat 8, Adobe decided
that the abuse potential of this incredibly powerful
write-or-delete--any-system-file ability had some
utterly awesome evil possibilities.

So they placed what then seemed like a reasonable
restraint on disk access by requiring you enter Distiller
via a command line Acrodist-F any time you genuinely
needed full disk access.

I get the feeling that they want to completely eliminate
any possible Distiller use for better and more important
PostScript applications. Partial proof of this is that Adobe
has kept Acrodist-F a secret and seems to have dropped
any mention of it on their website for several years now.

The obvious workaround is to use public domain GhostScript
to run unfettered PostScript programs.

Preliminary testing shows that must of my aps will work
just fine under GhostScript.

The energy density of gasoline is 9600 watthours per
liter. Considering heat engine efficiency limits, any
battery that was to one on one compete with gasoline
would have to have around a 4500 watthours per liter
energy density.

Lithium Ion batteries have a theoretical imit of about
1500 watthous per liter, but off-the-shelf units are
lucky to hit 250 watthours per liter.

But a new and close-in development uses a crushed
silicon anode that approaches 1000 watthours per
liter. Per this anouncement and this analysis.

Better yet, there is a potential lithium air battery
technology that has the ability to theoretically exceed
gasoline! The only tiny problem is that nobody has the
faintest clue how to build these.

More on energy fundamentals here.

One of the most heinous crimes against humanity
in Windows 8 is that the search puppy dog is now
missing and presumed deceased.

No upgrades or replacements seem available to date.

The plot thickens till it clots. Org.

Got to the northernmost obvious portion of the Blue
Ponds canal. On closer inspection, this seems to be
an abandoned but historical build or adaption. There
is a definite concrete headgate that lets canal water
apparently be routed to the northern or southern
blue ponds. Seemingly via short wash segments.

The canal portion here seems to have somewhat
high spoil banks and a moderately deep Vee,
It also is clearly in the prehistoric hanging style.
There is a huge mesquite tree present.

There are many examples of "stole the plans"
prehistoric rebuilds. This seems to be the case here
but is by no means proven.

Flood damage makes southerly exploration difficult.
More here.

There seems to be a whole new class of Delta
Friendly 3 phase magic sinewaves. These include
n = 2, 5, 8, 11, ...

A n=8 example appears here...

10.158354180504617  11.617102180257803
20.704135563839685  23.75748871430516
31.648858023520518  36.242511285776445
42.731357524419295  48.382897819891284
53.209901586429936  58.447497940974394
61.55250205895606   66.79009841344269
70.15835418039130   77.26864247549328
80.70413556387362   88.35114197654599

This seems to have a better "minimum visible pollution
theorm" appearance and seems to significantly reduce
the prefilter amplitudes of the first few uncontolled harmonics.

Much more needs done on this.

I've just about convinced myself that Canal #21 is major
and real. Getting within 300 feet of the hanging portion
sure looked promising and a major cut appears to
exist well downstream.

Current thought is that the canal sources in Frye Creek
and serviced fields presently under the southernmost
Blue Pond.

I'll likely rename this one the Blue Ponds canal after
more evidence accumulates. Much more here.

Org. Came very close to permanently losing a lot of
irreplacable data.

It will still take a few days for the dust to settle, but we
have moved to a newer windows 8 machine.

I cannot emphasize too strongly: Back up often and six
ways from sunday!

Obvious backup routes are to place a hidden copy of your
pc on your web server and vice versa. External USB hard
drives have become ridiculously large and insanely cheap.

You can use a few extra of these for routine backups.
There are also several automatic backup systems available,
as well as software archival sources.

While the Wayback Machine does provide many useful
services, it would be really dumb to rely on it for your
possible livleyhod. It also tends to be partial and way
out of date.

Many thanks to those of you who attended today's
BLM Brown Bag lecture on the hanging canals.

Further expansion is planned early December in
Discovery Park and at the ARA in Late January.

As usual, there's bunches of research to be done on
these world class discoveries. Field mice are definitely
needed and your skills can be as limited as knowing
what a GPS location is, bringing along your own catclaw
on a hike ( just in case there is not enough along the route.
The word "trail", of course, is not in your vocabulary. ),
and having a reasonable offroad vehicle.

Contact me for more details.  

There seems to be a resurgance of hobby electronics.
Centered in particular on the Raspberry Pi and the
Arduino.

Sparkfun is one of many emerging sources, and useful
publications continue to be Make and Circuit Cellar.

A newly emerging hot area are the Santa Claus machines.
 Sources include Tinkerines Ditto, MakerBot Thing-O-Matic ,
Solidoodle, , and UP!3D.

Even Radio Shack seems to be making a renissance of sorts.

And the Steampunk crew is apparently up to something,
although it is not completely clear exactly what.

A case can be made that "important" southewestern
archaeology sites largely evolved from wherever the
U of A's Dr. Emil Haury happened to be standing at the
time. Our own Safford Basin of the Upper Gila Valley
remained very much out of the mainstream, primarily
because its location was far away from the focus of
the major research institutions.

The deep dark secret is that there are great heaping
bunches of world class prehistoric stuff here that,
despite a few dedicated researchers, are absolutely
stunning but remain woefully underexplored, largely
uunderpublished, and underappreciated. And that
the Safford Basin apparently played an extremely
importatnt role in much of regional prehistory.

Some of the many classes of stuff that clearly
merits additional local study includes...

• Spectacular tradeware that shows strong
  interactive trading links to virtually all major
  known Southwestern cultures.
  
  
• Extensive lowland canals that clearly formed
  the basis of local modern agriculture.
  
  
• Many dozens of unique mountain stream
  canals literally "hung" on over 40 miles (!)
  of steep mesa edges.
  
  
• Tens of thousands of agricultural grids
  apparently used for Agave production.
  
  
• Numerous aproned check dams on
  even the most minor of drainages.
  
  
• Cuirious "mulch rings" all over everywhere
  apparently used for moisture retention.
  
  
• An regional population possibly as high
  as today represented by a rich assortment
  of habitation sites and field houses.
  
  
• Odd rock alignments that remain more or
  less enigmatic and undated.
  
  
• Water management engineering and energy
  efficiency bordering on the astounding.
  
  
• An obviously exceptional societal structure
  that seemed to make all of the above possible.
  

Very often, unsold autcion lots can be picked up afterwards
literally for a song. And, lately, there's been bunches of stuff
missed on online auctions.

Chances are the unsold stuff WILL have problems and WILL
need heavy triage. But IF you are in the neighborhood, some
outstanding buys can result.

Branford in particular has taken to notifying their better
customers about unsold lots. Usually on very short notice.
But unsolicited offers can and do work elsewhere.

More auction help here.

I'll be doing a BLM brown bag talk on the hanging
canals this thursday November 1st. Here is the
announcement that purportedly will appear in the
local paper...

======================================

           November BLM Brown Bag Talk
“Prehistoric Hanging Canals of the Safford Basin”
 
Safford, Ariz.  As part of Bureau of Land Management
(BLM) Safford Field Office’s ongoing Brown Bag lecture
series, Thatcher author and researcher Don Lancaster
returns on Thursday, November 1, at noon.  His
presentation will report on the latest updates and
rediscoveries on a stunning world-class series of Safford
area mountain stream fed prehistoric canals that are
literally “hung” high on the edges of steep sided mesas.

There is no charge and families are welcome so bring
your own “Brown Bag” and spend your lunch hour learning
about these unique local features.  The BLM is located at
the corner of 14th Avenue and 8th Street in Safford.

Over 21 hanging canals remain virtually unknown with a
total distance of at least 40 miles.  The canals are believed
to date from the 1350s.  Some have also seen historic
adaptation and a few still remain in active use.

The construction of a hanging canal can be exceptionally
energy efficient in that its slope can be made largely independent
of terrain.  The high side of the canal is often “free” and
construction can largely take place across rather than along the
canal.

“In many places, the canals provide a strong illusion of “water
flowing uphill,” said Lancaster.   “In reality, most of their slopes
are at a nearly optimum downhill grade.”

The evidence suggests that virtually every drop of northeastern
Mount Graham stream water was put to use.  While no survey
tools are known to survive, “pilot extensions” of the canals
themselves were thought to serve as water levels to establish the
needed grades.

Many independent arguments verify the prehistoric origins of
these canals.  These include roads, tanks, fences, dams, and
even cemeteries that run roughshod over the canals without
access or accommodation; large mesquite trees and barrel cacti
mid-channel; uniform desert varnish, caliche, and lichens;
absence of any apparent modern tool use; and, above all, a
purposefulness that clearly and uniquely meets prehistoric needs.

The newly updated presentation can be previewed at
Lancaster’s website.

– BLM –

An alternate third party calculator for Three Phase Magic
Sinewaves can be found here.

It is still not clear whether any other solutions besides
n = 3, 7, 11, 15... exist.

Updated and expanded our Gila Valley Dayhikes library
page. The latest additions also include a major update of
the hanging canal paper and its companion slideshow, plus
a little known dayhikes slide show.

We are now only three entries short of our goal of 365
major useful listings. Please email me with any further
suggestions or corrections.

Our own Vee Machine book image capture system can be 
seen here. With an assortment of other manufacturers
here and even a cardboard version here.

The next step up is to have a system that automatically
flips pages and automates capture of an entire book.
A new scheme appears here where the book slides back
and forth and suction from a vacuum cleaner changes one
page at a time.

The unit still seems a tad unreliable and in need of further
development, but it is a cute solution and can be built for
around $1500. Which is a tiny fraction of the going rate
for high volume automated scanning machines.

I was appalled that somebody on a newsgroup had to ask
what the computational heritage of PostScript was.

PostScript was related to and derived from Forth. In a
third cousin, twice removed sort of way.

Forth in turn was largely invented as a control language for
astronomers. Its hallmarks were being strongly stack oriented
and using a Reverse Polish notation. When a command is placed
on top of the stack, underlying stack entries contain all the info
that is needed to carry out that command.

Much more on early PostScript sneaky tricks here, and more
on PostScript here.

Just found out that Lindsay Books will cease publication
and sales next February.

They are a former banner advertiser of ours that had long
specialized in out-of-print machine shop and craft and science titles.

Since most of these titles are now freely available as ebooks,
it is not surprising that their customer demand has dropped.

Be sure to stock up now if you need printed copies.

Three free open source programs that do much of what
Mathworks does can be found here and here.

A slashdot discurrsion of GNU Octave 3.0 can be
found here.

I'm not at all sure about Windows 8. One of its more
impressive features is that it seems to be able to get
its own drivers for most of the printers or scanners or
whatever that is plugged into its USB ports. And does
so largely hassle free.

I think the Metro View concept is best described as
mesmerizingly awful. Here's some hints about doing
some immediate repairs...

To switch between metro and normal desktops, use
your windows key on the keyboard. Note there is
a "desktop" icon buried in the rest of the aps.

Note also that a windowskey-D will also get you
to the desktop.

To turn the computer off, go to metro and mouse the
lower right hand corner. Then click on the lower
"gear" settings icon and select shutdown or
restart.

To get the command prompt back, search the apps
under "C", select the control panel, and the put a
shortcut on your screen to route to
C:\Windows\SysWOW64\cmd.exe

I have yet to find an easy way to turn a printer's
duplex feature on and off. This seems to work:
Go to metro and click lower right corner. Then
search on "C". Then click on the control panel.
Then select the printer and right click on it.
Then select preferences and turn the duplexing
on or off. Arrrgeh...

I've found no way to put a control panel shortcut
on the desktop.

The method of getting into and out of full screen
mode is now totally different. Grab the very mid top
of an ap. Slide it up for full screen and down to return
to normal.

I still do not have positive proof over whether "Canal 21"
is real or not. Because of rough 4WD tracks and difficult
hiking routes.

But I did manage to get within 300 feet of what sure
appears to be a typical mesa hanging portion.

I did also verify that the more western traces a few
hundred feet to the west are almost certainly a city
of Safford water line. One of the hints is that there
are very few prehistoric canals that include chlorinator
buildings. Handmade "old style" rivited steel scrap
pipe gives additional age and use clues.

If real, #21 would be one of the more significant canals.

It would appear to originate in Frye Creek and seems
to be headed to yet unverified fields under the Blue
Ponds. Getting to Longview would seem to be a stretch.

Field mice welcome. More here.

Several electronic distributors appears to be the worst
offenders in not having the faintest clue what the difference
is between a radial and an axial component. And then
spreading "not even wrong" info about them.

As is intuitively obvious, and as any 1929 radio book
will tell you, an axial device has its leads going out its
axis: A radial device has leads going out its radius.

Detailed image examples appear in this tutorial.

Two popular forms of electrolytic capacitor are the
single ended axial in which both ends go out the
bottom and the double ended axial in which one
lead goes out the left and one out the right.

Radial electrolytic capacitors are exceptionally
rare. It is highly unlikely you have ever seen one or
ever would have any need for one.

It  still continues to amaze me how many people
try to "correct" our eBay listings while adamantly
making making utter fools of themselves.

Those old "oval" three pin round HP power supply cords
have pretty much gotten impossible to find at sane prices.

More often than not, there is not enough room behind the connector
to allow some more modern chassis mounted solution. Not to
mention some awkward nibbling or filing,

One workaround is to take an IEC C-14 male three pin power line
connector, shorten it to a few inches and solder it directly to the HP
pins. The live connections can then be shrinkwrap protected or
glopped with silicon rubber.

The middle pin is always green and safety ground. There are two
different conventions, depending on manufacturer for the outside
pins. If possible, route white to white and black to black.

But it usually does not matter much, unless there is some hot
chassis issue.

This is clearly my kind of useful adjunct to porcine whole
body cleanliness.

Additional discussion here and here.

And similar stuff here.

An interesting and useful free online computer course
can be found here.

Two years ago, Newsweek magazine did a repurposing and
redesign that permanently and totally trashed all content,
reducing both its interest and value to less than zero .

I am utterly amazed that it took this long for their print
version to fail.   I predict the online version dreg will last for
an additional seventeen minutes and fifty four seconds.

Normally, I am in favor of helping the handicapped. But
their apparent choice of a middle school special ed class to
do the relayout and redesign for them was clearly suboptimal.

One of the more interesting things to do with Google Earth
and the .kml custom programming language might be to
slice up an area to only show imagery between two different
altitudes.

Our canal research still has many unknown gaps. Usually
Ockham's Razor lets you conclude that the canal going into the
gap is the same one as the one coming out. It is also a
given that the reach in the gap can be no higher than the
input elevation and no lower than the output one.

A further reasonable assumption is that the slope in the
gap is more or less constant, and will likely be near half the
height at half the distance.

The lower slice could be opaque black, while the upper
one might be a highly transparent white.

Other potentially more nerfarious uses of altitude slicing
could be to pin down the location of a site for which you
only know the altitude and general neighborhood. The
strength and direction of the altitude gradient could
also sometimes be of help in further narrowing things down.

( BTW -- Wickipedia nothwithstanding, "Ockham"
is the correct spelling and we do not know William's
last name. "William of Ockham" was then the equivalent
of calling me "Don of Thatcher". )

A possible twenty first (!) hanging canal canidate has been
tentatively identified here...

http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=32.77046,-109.78618&z=16&t=S
&marker0=32.76937%2C109.79064%2C7.2%20km%20W%20of%20Cactus%20Flat%20AZ &marker1=32.76471%2C109.79453%2C7.5%20km%20W%20of%20Cactus%20Flat%20AZ
&marker2=32.76787%2C109.79210%2C7.3%20km%20W%20of%20Cactus%20Flat%20AZ
&marker3=32.77410%2C109.78285%2C6.6%20km%20WxNW%20of%20Cactus%20Flat%20AZ
&marker4=32.77068%2C109.78890%2C7.1%20km%20WxNW%20of%20Cactus%20Flat%20AZ
&marker5=32.76669%2C109.79353%2C7.4%20km%20W%20of%20Cactus%20Flat%20AZ
&marker6=32.77525%2C109.78139%2C6.5%20km%20WxNW%20of%20Cactus%20Flat%20AZ
&marker7=32.77251%2C109.78482%2C6.7%20km%20WxNW%20of%20Cactus%20Flat%20AZ
&marker8=32.77182%2C-109.78677%2C6.9%20km%20WxNW%20of%20Cactus%20Flat%20AZ

This has not yet been field verified, but the topography
and imagery both seem quite favorable. It would seem
to source in Frye Canyon and deliver somewhat west
of the Longview area.

Total projected length might approach four miles.

A hanging portion is likely at the second and third
southernmost markers.

The somewhat more obvious reach roughly 500 feet
to the west is believed to be a buried City of Safford pipeline.
Presently in disuse because of a chrolinator issue.

While there are many examples of "steal the plans" and "dig
out an old ditch" in the area, there is no compelling evidence
yet for an underlying prehistoric reach along this particular
portion of the more western pipeline route.

But the earlier "Deadman Branch" of this pipline route
further to the south was almost certainly stolen.

Some Raspberry Pi sourcecode for Magic Sinewave
generation can be found here.

The code is potentially much simpler and easier to write
than PIC code because of the availability of high resolution
and low jitter single step delays.

The enormous memory space also makes internal generation of
both frequency and amplitude quite feasible.

Brute force machine language remains required. Service routines
in Linux introduce unacceptable jitter that adversely affect
supposedly rejected harmonics .

It still might be desirable to shorten the actual code generation first
by using quadrant symmetry and second by going to some sort of
indexed or table lookup for the delay values.

But, even at 1K words per magic sinewave, only 100K is needed
for one amplitude, and 10 Megs for a hundred frequencies. Thus,
entire families of magic sinewaves should easily fit one SD boot card.

As is often the case these days, brute force can thus triumph over
elegance.

A magic sinewave high speed calculator can be found here.

As we have seen, .kml is html related language addon that
can give you amazing personal control of Google Earth.

The .kml reference manual appears here and a more
detailed tutorial text here.

A hanging canal example of .kml use can be found here.

Our newly revised hanging canal slide show can be found
here. And its main paper here.

These are based on this slide sourcecode and this paper
sourcecode.

Google Chrome seems to have an infuriating property that
can cause you all sorts of grief: It does not check too thorourghly
before deciding to reuse a cached copy of a requested filename.

Ferinstance, say you are doing some site maintenance and upload
a .pdf file that is bad or needs modified for one reason or another.

You find the problem and fix it, retaining the same filename. Chrome may
refuse to give you the new file, using the one in its cache instead!

The workarounds are to switch to a different browser anytime you
suspect this is happening to you.

Waiting a day also seems to usually clear the problem.
Rebooting may also help. As may temporary filename chnges.

Or go to Chrome's tools History submenu and clear any problem file.

Or its tools clearBrowserData and then clear the download history or
empty the cache.

If you are at all into creating or selling your own arts and crafts
online, two sites of interest are www.etsy.com and www.pokono.com.

Some older resources can be found in our Santa Claus Machine library.

This older and rather crude aerial image of Pacman, Arizona
shows us some of the potential of blended satellite and topo
imagery.

Some interesting new Trackstick GPS loggers are now available in
USB thumb formats. There are several models wiith pricing in the
$200 range.

These continuously records location and altititude and speed
and even temperature every few seconds for many thousands
of data points.

There's a few additional features I would like to see added.
While you can post identify any location, there does not seem
to be any real time way to mark or label a particular point.

An obvious workaround is to run a hundred feet east and then
run back.

GPS altitude resolution remains basically terrible due to fundamental
geometry constraints. Adding an onboard  altimeter could very
dramatically improve this.

Gotcha.

A directory of Arizona lighthouses can be found here.

The US town with the greatest number of lighthouses is
Lake Havasu City. With further details here.

A listing of the more significant Green Valley lighthouse
consultants is found here. And the better known Avondale
lighthouses here.

And, of course, a navigation lighthouse is planned for the
Superstition Mountains.

Common mode chokes are a somewhat unusual and sometimes
pricey component used to reject ingoing or outgoing ac line borne
interference.

They are basically a two winding toroidal coil. One winding goes in
series with each ac input power wire. Together the bucking action of
the two working together provide a high impedance in the low
Megahertz range where much of RFI and interference is centered.

A physical safety barrier is also usually provided. This is usually
a "spanning" insulator. Common mode windings are often
paralleled bifiliar or tetrafilar to improve their high frequency
rejection and maximum current capability.

We have several versions of these newly up on our eBay site
under username "tinaja". All are "as new" from an electronic
auction. At unbeatable pricing.

Some photos appear here, here, and here.

Two Tucson area electronic surplus sources that I can very
much recommend are Asset Liquidators and Southwest Liquidators.

Our own surplus bargains can be found here and here.

There's a lot of hidden or little known features of Google Earth.

Ferinstance, you can use the history bar to find out when the
last resolution upgrade was made. And you can request
notification of your favorite area updates by using this link.

There's also a time of day slider that can be used to vary
the contrast in any particular area. I've found this very
useful to reveal hidden mesa edge details in our canal studies.
The image tone is also somewhat adjustable.

Also available is a ruler that can measure exact distances in
your choice of units.

The altitude reading changes as you mouse around, and does
so apparently to much better than GPS resolution. One of
the characteristics of a canal is that it has to go downhill at
a constant and measurable slope. Repeated checks can
separate a potential canal from a cowpath or 4WD track.

Acme Mapper also uses the Google Earth and Google Map
underlying data base. So one way to find the age of an Acme
mapper image is to bring the same area up in Google Earth
and read its date in the lower lefthand corner.

One thing I sure could use seems to remain absent in these
services. It sure would be nice to be able to variably blend
topo and images on a custom basis.

Expaspirated coach:" "OK. We are going to start again from scratch.
"Now this, this is a football."

Voice from the back of the room "Hey coach. Not so fast!"

Some of the latest entries in the low end Santa Claus Machine
area include Tinkerines Ditto, MakerBot Thing-O-Matic ,
Solidoodle, and UP!3D.

Even newer products are likely to show up at the next Maker Faire.

But one thing most of these are missing: The materials are outrageously
expensive in small quantities. The old "give the razor away and sell the
blads" ploy. AKA as "ripoff price all the inkjet cartridges".

There is no reason an extruder addon could not be used to create the
needed materials in the needed forms on the fly. Bulk ABS pricing is
typically around fifty cents per pound.

A church in Gila Bend decided not to buy a chandelier
because nobody in the congregation knew how to play one.

They can also be a bear to tune.

Meanwhile, CSI Gila Bend continues to be by far the best in
the tv series.

The water powered car overunity fiasco continues unabated
on the web. Driven primarily by one or more individuals in terminal
denial over how bad they were ripped off in a "gross and
egregious" fraud scam.

Believe it or not, overunity electrolysis is in fact possible up to
one-sixth overunity. This is caused by the process being up to
one sixth endothermic at very low gas production rates. But
cell losses utterly and totally overwhelm for reasonable or
amortizable production rates.

The cause of further overunity claims rests on largely incompetent
measurements, outright scams, delusion, or not having the faintest
clue over what legitimate science and genuine research is.

There is a thermodynamic concept called exergy that tells us that
a kilowatt hour of grid, pv, or alternator electricity is worth ridiculously
more than a kilowatt hour of unstored hydrogen gas. Caused by the
reversibly recoverable energy fraction being much less.

Which tells us that electrolysis from high value sources simply
ain't gonna happen because the process is identical to 1:1 exchanging
US dollars for Mexican pesos.

The economic loss in electrolysis at best would be 3:1 since no
way is known to convert hydrogen back to electricity at greater
than 33 percent efficiency.

Otherwise known as an electrocity.

Which tells us that the first 300 percent discovery in overunity
electrolysis would not be of ANY interest in the least, because it
STILL would be destroying value.

The kicker, of course, is this: Any higher percentage overunity results
would have long ago been totally and painfully obvious. Even without
their necessary side effects of black holes and any similar explosions
that might only take out a city block or two .

Evidence against any possibility whatsoever of the water powered
car can be found here and here. More on "real science" energy here.

Wikipedia's take on all this here. Plus more on a genuine energy
efficiency breakthrough here.

We recently picked up bunches of Polycase products at
an auction. These are molded ABS black boxes with lots
of different uses as electronic project cases or encapsulation
shells.

We have some of these up on eBay. Of particular interest is
a premachined "wall wart" style that includes a duplex outlet.
These should be particularly useful for home energy monitors,
wireless power remotes, custom wall warts, surge suppressors,
or noise filters.  

We also have bunches of the Polycase  products from less than
an inch to six inches in size. Many of these are in small quantities
which makes them awkward for us to sell at bargain prices.

So, we decided to offer sample selections of forty boxes each in
assorted sizes. Typically with at least two of each size. All are
guaranteed useful and in the most interesting and most useful
sizes. Some may include mounting holes or other useful openings.

Details on our eBay "abeja" site.

You are also welcome to visit  and mix and match your own assortments.

Major Progress.

A collection of high energy physics scholarly publications have
now agreed to go open source. Per this announcement  and this
discussion.

Individual access to the published papers will be free and
apparently without major restrictions.

Income models will apparently be based on member support,
library subscriptions, author charges, custom packaging, and
web associate relations.

I'm still waiting for a free online copy of Sallen and Key.

It is ludicrous that significant early technical papers remain unavailable,
while such noteworthy tomes as Mad Magazine's 43 man Squamish
have unlimited zero charge instant world wide distribution.

Significant free online pub resources include arXiv, Questia, open culture ,
free video, and Wesrch.

While free online university courses are found at coursera, mit,
and stanford.

Updated and expanded our Gila Valley Dayhikes page.

Some of the more unusual hikes can be found here.
And bunches of similar stuff here.

The latest version of our interactive Google Earth
Hanging Canal map can be found here.

It is essentially complete but could still possibly use
some additional data points and some smoothing.

More on the hanging canals here.

Here's a summary of the links to our Hanging Canal
field notes...

https://www.tinaja.com/canal/rework/fieldnotes/allennotes2.pdf
https://www.tinaja.com/canal/rework/fieldnotes/bandoliernotes2.pdf
https://www.tinaja.com/canal/rework/fieldnotes/bearnotes2.pdf
https://www.tinaja.com/canal/rework/fieldnotes/deadmannotes2.pdf
https://www.tinaja.com/canal/rework/fieldnotes/fryenotes2.pdf

https://www.tinaja.com/canal/rework/fieldnotes/henrynotes2.pdf
https://www.tinaja.com/canal/rework/fieldnotes/jernigannotes2.pdf
https://www.tinaja.com/canal/rework/fieldnotes/ledfordnotes2.pdf
https://www.tinaja.com/canal/rework/fieldnotes/lefthandnotes2.pdf
https://www.tinaja.com/canal/rework/fieldnotes/longviewnotes2.pdf

https://www.tinaja.com/canal/rework/fieldnotes/marynotes2.pdf
https://www.tinaja.com/canal/rework/fieldnotes/mudnotes2.pdf
https://www.tinaja.com/canal/rework/fieldnotes/pranchnotes2.pdf
https://www.tinaja.com/canal/rework/fieldnotes/riggsnotes2.pdf
https://www.tinaja.com/canal/rework/fieldnotes/robinsonnotes2.pdf

https://www.tinaja.com/canal/rework/fieldnotes/ropernotes2.pdf
https://www.tinaja.com/canal/rework/fieldnotes/shinglenotes2.pdf
https://www.tinaja.com/canal/rework/fieldnotes/tranqnotes2.pdf
https://www.tinaja.com/canal/rework/fieldnotes/twineastnotes2.pdf
https://www.tinaja.com/canal/rework/fieldnotes/twinwestnotes2.pdf

More on the hanging canals here with ongoing developments here.

For a number of reasons, it pays to work backwards on any
online auction. For your best buys and best winning odds
strongly favor the high lot numbers.

Firstoff, the auction house tends to use the lowest lot numbers
for the really pricey stuff that you are unlikely to be interested in.

Secondly, there are far more early bids on the first page of
an online auction than there will be on higher pages. And the
fewest early bids ( if any ) will show up on the last auction page.

Early bids, of course, are utterly pointless and monumentally stupid.
Your best online auction strategy is always to proxy bid your max
ONCE just BEFORE the time that trips any automatic extensions.

Thirdly, your competitors are likely to have their needs fulfilled,
become bored, or run out of money late in the auction. Especially
if there are thousands of lots or several days involved.

More auction help here and here.

I've been planning on copublishing my hanging canal info in a
( literally ) hide bound traditional scholarly journal.

But the problem is that paper journals are now hopelessly passe.

Let's see. Acceptance of a Wesrch or equivalent online paper is
guaranteed and instant. The audience is hundreds or thousands of
times higher. Moreso if the journal is so expensive that even large
libraries cannot afford a traditional printed copy.

Online publishing costs are nearly zero. 100 percent searching and
full color is the norm. There are no restrictions whatsoever on size or
layout. "Click to link" and "Click to expand" are givens. Revisions
are trivial. Availibility is 24/7 and potentially forever. And Google
is your friend.

Peer review can involve many more individuals and be vastly better
done. Bibliographies can largely be replaced with actual links to
real content. More detail can be provided only for only those who
really want or need it.

And best of all, the "faculty tea mafia" is no longer in control.

My hanging canal paper has been expanded, updated,
and revised.

You can find it as https://www.tinaja.com/canal/newhang2.pdf
And its sourcecode as https://www.tinaja.com/canal/newhang2.psl >

This will also be GuruGram #122, and it has been uploaded to
Wesrch as well. But the Wesrch version lacks the fancy interactive
map and the clickthrough links to the field notes.

The race to the bottom for the solar bankruptcies continues
unabated. Although, surprisingly, most auction recent items
tend to end up on with pricing on the high side.

Typical sources for current listings include Branford, Dovebid,
Bidspotter, and Auction HQ.

Much more on auction opportunities in general here, here,
here, and here.

The super secret insider directory of Arizona indian ruins has
long been maintained by ASM, aka the Arizona State Museum.

The basis is a gridded system, such as CC-1-37 in which the CC
is a main grid, 1 is the subgrid., and 37 is the 37th entry in that region.

Access to the data base has been tightly restricted and often outrageously
expensive. But they have recently added a new but severely limited public
access website.

All of which may be far too little and far too late. The web has absolutely
guaranteed that "secret anything" is now utterly and totally pointless.

Google Earth and Acme Mapper have made instant topos and aerial photography
available to all. And just about everybody now knows what a GPS coordinate
is and how to use one. And Geocaching is now a popular sport. As are small
recreational vehicles.

Or how about this: Most archaeological sites can now be located given only their
( usually reported ) elevation and ASM number! Just write your own .kml routine
to strip out and plot plus or minus ten feet of elevation from the subgrid.

Then pick an elevation gradient direction and slope. Chances are that with a little
more skulduggery, the exact location can be nailed down to a very few candidates.

That was fast. If you want an answer to ANY reasonable question,
try the sci.electronics.design newsgroup. Several Mac users verified
that yesterday's interactive map works just fine for them.

But it did turn out I had an extra comma at the end of the Marijilda
latlon entry in the .kml file

It also turns out that Google Earth  keeps all of your previous work
in a "Temporary Places" file. And will pile new stuff on top of the
old. Including any parsing problems or potential errors.

The workaround is to always save the important stuff anywhere BUT
the temporary places file. And to routinely and often clear your
Google Earth cache.

I need your help on a little problem: We are using Google Earth
for some of our new Hanging Canal papers. This file works just
fine for PC users, but one Mac user ends up with a symptom of
"stuck on South America".

Does the file work for you on a Mac? It is supposed to show zoomable
and panable Safford basin prehistoric canals.

The problem could be the user's JavaScript, not waiting for a full load,
ISP issues with carriage returns versus linefeeds ( we already elimated
all of these from the coordinate data ), or my own .kml coding errors.

Note that a .kml file can be viewed in any word processor.

Very cute.

There's some websites here, and here that show you how
to convert a broken CD-R and a pair of dull razor blades into
a zillion dollar spectrophotometer.

While certainly interesting and useful, the performance sadly
is not really all that great.

Solar pv panel prices are clearly in free fall. Although still nowhere
remotely near being a renewable or sustainable resource capable
of net energy production.

Sites such as this one or this one are offering panels in the
fifty to eighty cents per peak panel watt range. And some
China sources are talking thirty cents per peak watt.

New schemes are dramatically reducing the amount of
material needed and the costs of those materials. And
learning curves and economics of scale are rapidly
setting in.

Subsidies with their obscene price supports and "iceberg"
hidden costs thankfully have nearly vanished.

But, curiously, the closer pv panels get to net energy production,
the MORE they will temporarily continue to be a gasoline destroying
net energy sink. Why? Because of the zillions of new investment
dollars thrown at emerging opportunities.

More on the equivalence between dimes and kilowatt hours here.

Net energy breakeven ( along with renewability and sustainability )
can be anticipated eight to ten years AFTER the average panel price
drops under twenty five cents per peak watt.

While we ain't there yet, breakeven may now happen earlier
than most people anticipate. Assuming that the present
trends continue.

More on pv and energy in general here.
More on secrets of technical innovation here.

Two useful sources for info on the ongoing pv panel
debacle include Solarbuzz and Solar Industry.

More pv panel myths shattered here and here.

Sincerity is everything.

Once you have that faked, all else falls in place.

An interesting and thoughtful newsgroup post from the ongoing
water powered car "not even wrong" fisasco...

Absence of proof is not proof of absence, but it's a damn good
indicator...especially if it requires a branch of physics that's
not yet been invented.

More on bashing pseudoscience here.

An interesting traditional cable tv reference can be found here.

It still has bunches of useful technical content.

The original Dilbert Cubicals can be found here.

And more details here.

One of our associates requires that we occasionally publish
a disclaimer.

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING appears on our website that we
do not genuinely believe in and cannot heartily and
personally recommend.

We NEVER do link exchanges or any uncontrolled third party
advertising links.

We do have associate relationships with third party banner
advertisers and with FatCow, Amazon, eBay, and a very few
others. For which renumeration is sometimes paid.

IF you have a product we can believe in or an associate relationship
that makes sense to us, you can proceed here.

As usual, the ongoing source for the absolute worst in the
way of perpetual motion machines is Keelynet.

Which, of course, leads to unintended but utterly fascinating reading.

As with ALL of the others, the latest stupidity is not even wrong
in several fundamentally different ways.

It consists of an inverted cap falling in water. Potential energy is
somehow converted to electricity as the cap falls.

Problem number zero is that the system is obviously thermodynamically
irreversible as unwanted waste heat will inevitably be generated due
to the water viscosity.

Problem number one is ( just like no windmill can exceed 59 percent
efficiency ) is that the cap would have to fall at zero velocity for
an efficient recovery.

At the bottom of the cycle, a bubble of air is introduced into the cap.
Allowing the cap to float back to the surface for the next cycle.

Problem number two is that water exerts a pressure of roughly half
a psi per vertical foot. Thus, the injected air has to have work done
on it to allow its introduction.

Problem number three is that no method is known to efficiently compress air.
For efficient compressibility demands an isothermal process.

My own very first perpetual motion machine, of course, bypassed all these
problems. See column #33.

More on bashing pseudoscience here.

Free online reprints of early issues of LIFE magazine
are available here. And, while somewhat more obscure,
you can get many Desert Magazines here.

Curiously, rectocranial inversion can be both acute and
chronic at the same time.

A free Raspberry Pi online computer course is newly
available from the University of Cambridge.

I continue to be galled by old line industrial manufacturers who
refuse to provide instant pricing. Only a third of them so far have
picked up on the fact that survival DEMANDS one-click registration-
free website pricing available to anyone at any time.

Discovered an ancient and really cute algorithm to find out
how many ones are in a digital word. Simply AND the word
with itself MINUS ONE and repeat till zero. Increment a
counter on every repeat pass.

Southwest Liquidators have just dramatically improved
the photo coverage of their auctions.

These are typically Pima College surplus and tend to be
held every few weeks or so.

More auction help here.

There seem to be hoards of thermodynamically challenged epsilon
minuses out there calling for government subsidies to "force" the
thermo and engineering economics fundamental violations needed
for the "hydrogen economy".

Next time you run into one of these turkeys, ask them WHICH type
of subsidy they prefer...

    (A) The CALIFORNIA model in which virtually all of the pv
           paybacks went into boiler shop scams that set pv back by
            many decades.

   (B) The ARIZONA model in which you were given a free large
            SUV for an unconnected one gallon tank.

   (C) The MIDWEST model where a monumental energy sink was
            cleverly disguised as a twelve billion dollar vote buying scam.

   (D) The SOUTH CAROLINA model where they added a five ton
            evaporative cooler to get their 3 ton but nonworking solar
            adsorption cooler to look good.

   (E) The DETROIT model where their bus demos are trucking
            hydrogen in from Pittsburgh,

Or, of course...

   (F) The BRAZIL model that nearly bankrupted the entire country
           over monumental ethanol stupidity.

The best possible way for alternate energy to succeed is if the Feds
GET AND STAY OUT OF THE WAY!

More here, here, and in ENERGFUN.PDF.

In response to an ever-diminishing number of requests, here
is a list of the most profitible eBay selling items arranged by
season...

        January - eBooks of dropshipping resources
        Feburary - UK cable descramblers
        March - Plasma HDTV displays from Rumania
        April - Nigerian lotteries
        May - Add three inches to your mortgage
        June - Pallet liquidations
        July - Norfolk & Waay overstocks
        August - Korean laptops
        September - Home theater pyramind buying rights
        October - Escrow companies
        November - Password phishing software
        December - Microsoft and Disney replicas

More here and on our Auction Help page.

The "Tesla Turbine" nonsense is infesting the newsgroups again.

One more time: Bladeless turbines and pumps DEMAND a
thermodynamic irreversibility for their FUNDAMENTAL operation
of maintaining a lossy shear force in a viscous medium. And are
thus useless when high efficiency is a factor.

They, of course, do not work at all if the fluid has zero viscosity.
I'd expect them to be far less efficient in vapor rather than liquid.

These devices ~are~ superb as shit pumps or when pumping frozen
chickens or live fish. As the now defunct leading supplier
tells us, blades have to be added if higher efficiency is needed.

Most of these problems would go away if they were simply called
"shit pumps" rather than naming them after the patron saint of the
church of the latter day crackpots. More in our Tech Musings library.

There's a new fly swatter from the Cayuga Manufacturing Company
thea has an extendable handle that reaches as far as twenty feet.
And thus there is no insect that can "fly above Cayuga's swatter."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-xzeG-E4CY

A .kml file executes when you send it to a browser. Or can
be viewed or edited by any word processor.  Here's some
truncaded example code...

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<kml xmlns="http://www.opengis.net/kml/2.2">
<Document>
<name>Multiple Canal Example </name>
<description>More detail here </description>
<Style id="redLineNoPoly">
   <LineStyle>
      <color>7f0000ff</color>
      <width>12</width>
   </LineStyle
</Style

<Folder>
<name>Folder.kml</name>
<open>1</open>
<description>
A folder is a container that can hold multiple other objects
</description>

<!-- Allen Canal -->
<Placemark>
<name>Allen Canal</name>
<description>Sources in Spring Canyon,
overrun by Allen Dam,
major Culebra Cut,
end fields unknown</description>
<styleUrl>#redLineNoPoly</styleUrl>
<LineString>
<extrude>1</extrude>
<tessellate>1</tessellate>
<altitudeMode>relativeToGround</altitudeMode>
<coordinates> -109.83547,32.78239,0
-109.83472,32.78241,0
-109.83437,32.78272,0
-109.83385,32.78414,0  
     . . . .
</coordinates>
</LineString>
</Placemark>

<!-- Next Canal, etc...-->

</Folder>
</Document>
</kml>

I'm in the process of updating our Prehistoric Hanging
Canals paper and lecture. Plus possibly generating some
new "real" papers as well.

A master resource directory can be found here. It should
be reasonably complete and up to date except that
the map still needs expansion and verification.

I hope to finish the map in a day or two.

Much more here.

Drawing custom publishable maps has been ridiculously
improved and simplified by some new extensions to
Google Earth.

In particular, there ia new language called .kml that gives
all sorts of extensions to .html or .xml. These extensions
let you add bunches of custom stuff to Google Earth.

.kml stands for Keyhole Markup Language. It is basically
a few dozen commands in the usual <something>...</something>
.html format. A .kml tuturial and reference can be found via
these links. .

An example ( which should dramatically improve in the next
few days ) can be found here. And its viewable code here.

One nonobvious hint: If you want several canals ( or whatever )
on your map with individual clickable ballon data, you should
bracket your selections with a case sensitive <Folder> and
</Folder>.

The altitude data can be skipped, but you must enter
with Longitude first and Latitude second in a continuous
comma separated string. Note that this is the opposite
sequence than that used in Acme Mapper. And that you
likely will have to change Acme's reporting format. The baloon
title and data appears in a <description>...</description>
container.

.kml coding can be done in any old word processor.
Wordpad works just fine.

Yes, it may make sense to use pv panels on featherweight
student racers to teach engineering constraints and tradeoffs
involved in system design .

But pv panels on a full size vehicle are ludicrously absurd.
Far beyond the "What are they on and where can we get
some of it?" level.

Incoming solar radiation on a clear Arizona summer day might
approach 1000 watts per square meter. Present pv efficiencies
beyond the inverter or sweet spot optimizer rarely exceed
ten percent. For 100 watts per square meter.

But a car panel will almost always be pointing in the wrong
direction, in shade, under clouds, or inside a carport or a
garage. Which means the effective panel output will be
very lucky to approach thirty watts total for only a very
few minutes on a very good day.

Which would almost ( but not quite ) be enough energy for
the power mirrors. Provided you did not adjust them very
often. And that is before you factor in the energy needed
to pay for the panel, the cv aerodynamic degradation of
the vehicle, the panel heating, and the excess cooling needs
from being in the sun all the time.

And ignores the fact that not one net watthour of pv energy
has yet been produced. Despite dramatically recent improved
pricing and performance, all of pv today remains a gasoline
destroying net energy sink. Net energy breakeven can be
anticipated eight years after the panel pricing drops
under twety five cents per peak watt.

It might be interesting to ask what can be done with a 55
foot eighteen wheeler trailer totally covered with panels.
At best you would have about fifty square meters of misaligned
panel surfaces. At ten percent efficiency, peak power
might be about 5 kilowatts. Or something like seven
horsepower.

aka... not worth pissing over. And certainly unamortizable.

Much more here.

A possible interesting new development in biofuels that
is apparently capable of net energy can be found here.
And its discussion here.

There's a spectacular series of prehistoric agricultural
grids north of the Gila Valley. That number in the
many thousands total.

There are also grids south of the Gila Valley, but these
are far fewer and pretty much spread out. But one fairly
impressive southern collection can be found here.

More on Gila Valley prehsitory here.
More on neat Gila Valley stuff to do here.

As we have seen previously, the two new computer systems
to bet on are the microcontroller class Arduino and the PC
class Raspberry Pi.

There's a new online magazine called MagPi. It does turn
out that there is a fairly serious comm issue that is
further detailed here.

Once again uppdated and expanded our Gila Valley Day Hikes.

We are now only five entries shy of our goal of 365 major entries.

Please email me with anything I missed or suggested improvements
or elaborations. I still have a hollow feeling I left off something really
big and glaringly obvious.

Finding Free online acces to USGS topo maps is readily available
many places on the net, with Acme Mapper being my favorite.

But finding the name of the topo map you are looking at can end
up tricky. This site gives one convenient solution.

17 Equations that Changed the World is a highly readable
math book on the most important math concepts of all time.

Covered is much of everything from Pythagoras to Economic
Derivative Yields.

A termite walks into a bar and asks "Is the bartender here?"

A reminder that we have a pair of eminently restorable 
1908 era commercial silent movie projectors available.
These are presently disassembled and thus easily
shippable via UPS.

I really would like to find a good home for these and I
seem to have too many other projects going to spend
the time for a full assembly and restoration.

You can email me for further details.

The AMOE gets at least a dozen requests a week as where to find
instant wholesale drop shipping suppliers. Since eBay prices are almost
always well BELOW wholesale, the only recommended company here
would be Norfolk & Waay.

Who this week only have free sample pallets with free shipping from
their choice of Sears, Neiman Marcus, Land's End, Sharper Image,
Macy's, or Bruno's Trucking.

The REAL key eBay source secret is simply this: Quality merchandise
MUST have taken a stupendous hit in value BEFORE it will be of
interest to a successful eBay seller. Sources that work for me include
mil surplus, community college auctions, industrial bankruptcies, and
dot com failures. Some recent medical stuff has also worked out well.

Other key eBay success secrets include always seeking out a 30:1 or
higher buy sell ratio, seeking out sales above $19.63, listing not less than
75 items at any time, spending at least two hours post processing each
photo, and selling US only and Paypal only.

More auction help here and on our Auction Help page and in our
MYEBAYS.PDF and MOREEBAY.PDF tutorials. Custom assistance
also is available by way or our InfoPack services.

Some industrial suppliers still do not get it: If you are to survive
the next few years, you ~will~ have one-click and registration-free
pricing of ~all~ of your products on your website, and you ~will~
have instant shopping cart small quantity ordering.

The outcome is not the least in doubt.

How can you deal with shipping or receiving the wrong
eBay item?

Any individual who receives something in the mail that they
did not order is under no obligation whatsoever to do
anything. The item can be treated as a gift or thrown away.

Issue a full refund or fully comp the item if you are an eBay
seller.

Under no circumstances should you ask the wrong
recipient to forward the item. Even getting it returned
is risky.

Did I ever tell you about the day I invented the frisbee?

It was at a Sunday School picnic at Rose Barn in North Park.
Sometime around 1953. Seems they had a kiddy contest that
involved sailing paper plates for a ball mitt.

The first six kids sailed their plates right side up and they
all went about seven feet plus or minus an inch or two.

I was last in line and decided to sail my plate upside down.
It almost went thirty five feet. Until the last instant when
a puff of wind caught it and blew it out of sight downhill.

Reymer's Blennd, any of yinz guys?

I finally found out what that big fan is for at the front of single 
engine aircraft. It is to chop holes in the clouds so the pilot 
can see.

A secondary purpose is to keep the pilot cool. If the fan stops,
the pilot immediately starts sweating.

All you need to know about ships: The binnacle goes on
top and the barnicle goes on the bottom.

Interchanging the two is a serious breech of maritime
etiquette.

A superb ( but woefully ancient ) classic collection of Tektronix
reprints can be found here. And more here.

The thermodynamics folks are at long last addressing
whether hell is exothermic or endothermic.

If hell is exothermic, eventually all hell breaks loose.

If hell is endothermic, eventually hell freezes over.

Two fundamentally different methods have been used
earlier to solve the magic sinewave  equations.

The basic problem is to solve math equations similar to...

cos ( 1*p1s ) -cos( 1*p1e )+…+cos( 1*p7s ) -cos( 1*p7e ) = ampl* pi/4
cos ( 3*p1s ) -cos( 3*p1e )+…+cos( 3*p7s ) -cos( 3*p7e ) = 0
cos ( 5*p1s ) -cos( 5*p1e )+…+cos( 5*p7s ) -cos( 5*p7e ) = 0
cos ( 7*p1s ) -cos( 7*p1e )+…+cos( 7*p7s ) -cos( 7*p7e ) = 0
cos ( 9*p1s ) -cos( 9*p1e )+…+cos( 9*p7s ) -cos( 9*p7e ) = 0
cos (11*p1s)-cos(11*p1e)+…+cos(11*p7s)- cos(11*p7e ) = 0
cos (13*p1s)-cos(13*p1e)+…+cos(13*p7s)- cos(13*p7e ) = 0
cos (15*p1s)-cos(15*p1e)+…+cos(15*p7s)- cos(15*p7e ) = 0
cos (17*p1s)-cos(17*p1e)+…+cos(17*p7s)- cos(17*p7e ) = 0
cos (19*p1s)-cos(19*p1e)+…+cos(19*p7s)- cos(19*p7e ) = 0
cos (21*p1s)-cos(21*p1e)+…+cos(21*p7s)- cos(21*p7e ) = 0
cos (23*p1s)-cos(23*p1e)+…+cos(23*p7s)- cos(23*p7e ) = 0
cos (25*p1s)-cos(25*p1e)+…+cos(25*p7s)- cos(25*p7e ) = 0
cos (27*p1s)-cos(27*p1e)+…+cos(27*p7s)- cos(27*p7e ) = 0

There is a fundamental proof that polynominal equations
above order five cannot directly be solved. On the other hand,
a carrier can be distortionlessly modulated and demodulated,
so viable solutions should exist.

One approach is called Newton's Method in which you make
a guess, improve that guess using the function slope, and
keep iteratively repeating the process till acceptable accuracy
results. Variants on Newton's method might involve Taylor
Series, Chebycheff Polynomonials, or trig identities.

My earliest and simplistic approach can be called "Shake the Box".
While excruciatingly slow, it was responsible for first proving the
viability of the magic sinewave concept and finding real results.
Examples of the method can be found in the Magic Sinewave
Historical Archive.

With "Shake the Box", you first make a 0.1 degree change in the
first edge of your first pulse. You keep making changes till
the distortion no longer improves. Then you repeat with an
0.01 degree change, then 0.001, etc... You then go to the second
edge of the first pulse and then repeat this for all pulses.
After several long trips an acceptable solution should result.

In hindsight, we are really just solving a partial differential
equation set. It might be interesting to use fancier math to
clean up and speed up this primitive approach.

The "standard" method used in the present calculator and
its still buggy improved version makes use of this trig
identity...

cos(a+x) = cos(a)cos(x) - sin(a)sin(x)

If x is very small, this enormously simplifies to...

cos(a+x) is approximately cos(a) - x*sin(a)

Since cos(a) and sin(a) are plain old numbers from
our previous guess, the trig vanishes! Poof. Gone.

You can substitute cos(a+x) in the above equations
and then rearange the terms so the variables are
on the left and the constants on the right. Which
leaves you with a plain old nxn linear equation set.
One that is easily solved by Gauss Jordan Reduction,
provided you watch for problems on higher n.

As the present calculators show us, the results are
amazingly and increrdibly fast, approaching real time.

I've recently been made aware of an alternate solution
method that uses even fancier math to improve the
stability and solvability of higher n values. I still do
not fully understand the method, nor appreaciate its
claimed benefits.

A complementary pulse series is used that with the
intended pulse solutions sums to a square wave.
Coefficients on the sought zero harmonics become
1/3, 1/5, 1/7, 1/9 ... on the complementary series.
Each pulse is placed in a vector space that involves
a cycloid. Solutions are apparently iteratively
based on differentials only.

More on Magic Sinewaves here.
Consulting, design, and development services available.

Few people realize that the word "gullible" is not in
any major dictionary or spell checker.

Incredibly, solar energy bankruptcies seem to be approaching
a one per day rate. Caused by subsidy ripoffs vanishing, governments
clearly betting on the wrong horses, the silicon shortage now
becoming a massive glut, new CIGS and similar "roll by the mile"
technologies blowing traditional solutions out of the water, China
becoming a major player, and plummeting panel pricing.

Yet, the best present panel pricing at best remains about TWELVE
TIMES the twenty five cents per peak panel watt that is clearly
needed for net renewable and sustainable energy generation.

As previously reported in several different sources, along with  Maricopa Solar, Solar Hybrid,  Ralos New Energies,
Oderson, Stirling Energy Systems, Evergreen Solar, Photowatt,
Solar Millenium, Sun Trust, Solar Trust, and Q cells, we can newly
add Abound Solar, MX Solar, Schott Solar AG, Global Solar,
Konarka, Energy Conversion Devices, and Centrotherm.

And Seagate just offered to by the Solandra dregs for pocket
change. Branford alone has three upcoming auctions for Abound
Solar and Solar Power Industries. Dove has part of First Solar,
Silex, and Duetsche up for grabs.

An early scorecard here. And much more on the pv solar
debacle here. More auction resources here.

An alternate third party derived Magic Sinewave calculator
can be found here.

As the algorithms and the math are totally different from mine,
this provides a strong and independent collaboration. Results
agree to well beyond nine decimal points.

I do not yet understand or appreciate the algorithm which
is based on a complementary series that brings up the
waveform to an ordinary square wave. Apparently there
are major computational advantages to this transform.

My own magic sinewave calculator here with a still buggy
improvement here. More on magic sinewaves here.

Stay tuned.

A reader of our Fundamental Factors Underlying Recent
Technical Innovation paper suggested I should have
included statistical quality control developments.

The upside here is that electronic reliability has increased
ridiculously. Largely brought about by far less heat being
involded with transistors and integrated circuits than
vacuum tubes.

But the downside is that quality control is largely a political
scam. The annual Balderdash Awards consistently go to
the firms with the worst products with the poorest reputations.
And often the quality control programs are misrun by detestably
incompetent absolute epsilon minuses.

After some careful research, I think I may have found the source
for all of the cathair that is jamming up our keyboards.

It turns out that there is an ancient and rather obsolete $3 tool
called an IC Puller. For at least some keyboards, these can
make an excellent cap remover. The cathair can then be
blown away and the keycap replaced.

One tip: Press down both adjacent keys to get the hooks
under the cap you want to remove.

We've seen here and here that many Magic Sinewave solutions
can be based on making a guess, and then improving that
guess by solving a square nxn linear equation using Gauss
Jordan reduction and some extra care.

Once again, Regular Magic sinewaves are somewhat inefficient in
that they zero out two fewer low harmonics than the Bridged Best
Efficiency ones. But they retain a curious property in that their
first uncontrolled harmonics can be precisely opposite in sign
to BBE. Sadly, to date, any cancellation attempts have met with
failure. Largely owing to loss of quarter wave symmetry.

But the Regular magic sinewaves had a problem in that you seemingly
had only n-1 equations in n unknowns. A previous workaround
held one variable at its "best guess". This did work, but may have
produced "not quite right" results. It did, however, offer a modest
range of tuneability. Whose implications have yet to be explored.

Here's an alternate workaround yet to be checked out: Write a new
zero equation halfway between the first and second groups of
larger uncontolled harmonics. Ferinstance, on a n=8 regular magic
sinewve, the first uncontrolled harmonics center on h31 and the
second larger ones on h61. Write a new equation zeroing out h45
or h47.

Consulting services available.

Well, maybe one more punchline only...

"I'm a furry with a syringe on top."

If air powered cars are so utterly and laughingly ludicrous, why
are power utilities considering to use air powered peaking
storage?

The energy density of compressed air does not quite approach
that of lead acid. 15 watthours per liter is very hard to acheive.
And recovering even a fraction of that can be exceptionally tricky.

Further, air tends to heat when it is compressed and cools when
it expands. Both of these severely rob the efficiency. And
air motors work best at LOW pressure differentials that do not
change much. Normal industrial air motors are highly inefficent.

The utilities beat these limits by using huge insulated storage
tanks in the form of underground caverns. The heat of compression
can be stored along with the air itself. Only a tiny fraction of the
stored air needs used on any cycle, making for much higher
recovery efficiencies. And the pressure differentials can be
quite low, further aiding efficencies.

A compressed air car might approach this by using a 20,000
cubic foot highly insulated storage tank. Low cost and low drag,
of course.

Even then, the best real world efficiencies of compressed
air peaking storage today is only slightly over fifty percent.
But the large cost differential between baseline power and
peaking power can make air storage projects both
compteitive and cost effective. Especially if building a
new power plant can be avoided.

More on these topics here, here , and here.
A previous post of mine on aircar absurdities here.
And more energy fundamentals here.

Continuing the rough drafts of the updates to the prehistoric hanging canals...

%%%%%%%%%% DEADMAN CANAL %%%%%%%%%%%

% Date of this update: Jul 25 2012

/shiftin {/xposhold xpos store /xpos xpos 4 add store /txtwide txtwide 20 sub store} store
/shiftout {/xpos xposhold store /txtwide txtwide 20 add store} store

startnewpage

%%%%%%%%%%%%

% Deadman Canal map some of these GPS locations may be approximations.
% some locations are from < http://mapper.acme.com > . Others are
% field measurements using a Garmin eTrex 30.

Map:

http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=32.76101,-109.76835&z=14&t=S
&marker0=32.76066%2C-109.78128%2C6.2%20km%20W%20of%20Cactus%20Flat%20AZ
&marker1=32.76239%2C-109.74375%2C2.7%20km%20W%20of%20Cactus%20Flat%20AZ
&marker2=32.73496%2C-109.76228%2C4.6%20km%20W%20of%20Swift%20Trail%20Junction%20AZ
&marker3=32.73923%2C-109.81145%2C7.0%20km%20NE%20of%20Mount%20Graham%20AZ
&marker4=32.74495%2C-109.80656%2C7.7%20km%20NE%20of%20Mount%20Graham%20AZ
&marker5=32.75132%2C-109.79433%2C7.5%20km%20W%20of%20Cactus%20Flat%20AZ

USGS Topo Name:     Thatcher, AZ 7.5'
Canal Length:             6.4 kilometers or 4 miles depending on yet undertermined delivery points.
Canal Slope:               6.5 percent includes projected mesa dropoff
Nominal Size:             1 meter wide 30 cm deep
Land Ownership:       Begins in Coronado National Forest; Mostly in Arizona State Lands
Access:                      Difficult to very difficult: Mostly foot or small ATV only
Field Verified:          60 percent
Hanging Features:    Presumed high but buried by modern pipeline.
Study Confidence:    Very high but Twin East or other use areas still need resolved

Locations of interest:

N 32 44.354' W 109 48.687' Presumed Deadman Creek takein point
N 32 44.697' W 109 48.394' Pond ends modern userpment
N 32 45.079' W 109 47.660' Typical delivery reach along HIGHEST mesa elevation
N 32 45.640' W 109 46.877' Possible 3-way routing switch in unique location
N 32 45.743' W 109 44.625' Southernmost verified limit of Twin West pondment
N 32 44.098' W 109 45.737' Alternate Twin West source deemed less likely

Signifiant Features:   Significant hanging canal presumed buried by modern pipeline
                                   Canal flows year round to this day
                                  Modern adaption as city water supply and stock tanks
                                   Apparent prehistoric portion consistently along HIGHEST mesa elevations
                                   Possible three-way delivery "switch" in highly unique location
                                   Delivery fields unknown, but Twin West a credible candidate
Images:
                                  < http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=32.76073,-109.78131&z=20&t=S
                                  &marker0=32.76073%2C-             1   1 10      

Images:

< http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=32.76073,-109.78131&z=20&t=S
&marker0=32.76073%2C-109.78131%2C6.2%20km%20W%20of
%20Cactus%20Flat%20AZ >
shows location of possible three way switch

Present work that needs done on the Robinson Canal...

\267 Survey and map the entire canal.
\267 Verify that the hanging portion did in fact exist.
\267 Seek additional evidence of three way switching.
\267 Prove or disprove Twin West link.
\267 Seek out and study any historical records.
\267 Clarify Longview and possible other destinations.

(|c|h
The |jDeadman |jCanal
|d
The Deadman canal is presumed to be a 6.4 kilometer long partial historic rebuild
and reuse of a prehistoric original. The route is well marked on the topo maps
and is believed to originate in Deadman Creek near its perannual flow limit.

The reach of the canal between < N 32 44.354' W 109 48.687' > and
< N 32 44.697' W 109 48.394' > appears to be consistent with other significant
hanging portions of nearby canals. This reach has apparently been completely
buried by a City of Safford water project pipeline. There is no present use of
this resource owing to a chloninator issue.
|h
There is a small collection pond at < N 32 44.697' W 109 48.394' > that marks
the diversion limit of extensive modern rework. The canal continues eastward
along the HIGHEST portions of Deadman Mesa still in its apparent original
prehistoric form. This portion of the canal flows year round to this day. Some
diversions into modern cattle tanks seem to have been done. Some of these
appear to be in current disuse. No apparent use of modern tools and
techniques appear below the collection pond.
|h
At < N 32 45.640' W 109 46.877'>, the mesa top is literally two meters wide,
with a one meter canal centered on it. It is unlikely there is any similar routing
anywhere in the entire southwest. Attribuiting this to coincidence would seem
highly improbable. At this point, diversion of the canal into three different
routes would appear easily done. Thus forming a "three way switch". One
route would lead to Porter Springs tank and a well established Longview
prehistoric habitation area. However, only very limited hints of canal
structures have been found in this area, which is characterized by numerous
apron enhanced check dams. The center diversion currently routes to an
apparently abandoned Lower Deadman Tank. Fields or prehistoric
evidence in this area have yet to be extensively studied. The eastern
diversion presently seems to route to Upper Deadman Tank and would
appear to be consistent with linking to the Twin West canal.
|h
An alternate source deemed less likely for Twin West could be found
at < N 32 44.098' W 109 45.737' > As considearably time, energy, and
engineering obviously went into the Deadman Canal, use questions arise
if Twin West is not a credible primary destination.
|h
Some enignmatic constructs near < N 32 45.564' W 109 45.864' > and
< N 32 46.251' W 109 45.860' > have yet to be evaluated.
|h
( to be continued... )

) cl

An improved version of our standard Magic Sinewave
Calculator can be found here. It still has some fairly minor
issues, so I'm still not officially releasing it just yet.

Properly working are new harmonic calculations out to the
177th. Solutions for Best Efficiency, Bridged Best Efficiency,
and Delta Friendly are now available up to n=23.

The internal calculations are only partially extendable without
code revision.

n=8 examples have been added for Regular and Nonzero Bridged
magic sinewaves. But have yet to be expanded to other n values.
These are less efficient but have the curious property that their
early unwanted harmonics are opposite in sign to BE and BBE.

Attempts to exploit this feature have failed to date, largely
to a lack of quarter wave symmetry.

The new calculator includes a new and vastly improved way
of calculating real world quantization. Its only tiny drawback
is that it is not yet working properly. I suspect this is due to
a minor math error. The ability to export quantized values
has also been newly added.

I'd also like to add spectral plots, both a linear and a log one.
For which I am still exploring JavaScript bar code solutions.
I think I just found a good "steal the plans" source.

Some guidelines for both the old and new calculators can
be found here. And more on magic sinewaves here.

Well, maybe just the punch line...

The koala tea of Mercy is not strained.

"Pretty Printing" techniques have largely fallen by the
wayside, so perhaps a review is in order. When printing
multiple columns, you want them to stay aligned, even
if the number of digits in a count are different or if
the math rounds off trailing zeros.

Here's some stunts that were used in yeasterday's
roll distance measurement scheme:

First, the process is infinitely simpler if you use
a fixed pitch font such as Courier.

Leading edge adjustment of simple counts can
be crudely done some something like this...

dup 10     lt {( ) print} if
dup 100   lt {( ) print} if
dup 1000 lt {( ) print} if

Trailing edge roundoffs and auto spacing can
use code similar to...

/padprint {/hominy exch store
dup length hominy exch sub
exch print { ( ) print} repeat
} store

More PostScript magic here.

We picked up a great heaping bunch of polyester rolls.
To make them eBay sellable, we need to cut them up into
100 foot pieces that fit a priority mail triangular box.

The problem is to come up with a simple measurement
scheme that is both accurate and minimizes the
sheet handling. This routine seems useful.

What the code does is generate a log file that creates
a table of turns versus total length for a given initial
diameter and film thickness.

I'm still working on a companion machine. Present
thinking is plywood ends and a PVC clampable crank.
You turn the crank the magic number of times to get
the needed length.

Details on using Distiller as a general purpose PostScript
computer can be found here.

More on the wonders of PostScript here.

Multiple exposures can solve a lot of problems during
image post processing.

Consider this original and this final. Besides our usual desire
to switch to Architect's Perspective and improve backgrounds,
some of the black stuff is too black and lightening it would
wash out the nice body color and form excessively brighten white
highlights.

Instead, make a second image copy using ImageViewer/32 or
whatever. Lighten the black parts and back way off on the Gamma.
Then use Paint to cut and paste back into the original. Finally, adjust
the paste edges for continuity.

Do make sure the copy and the original remain the same size
during this process.

Consulting and processing services available.

There seems to be a new tendancy in online auctions to
externalize all sorts of  charges.

Such as a 15% buyers premium, a 3% credit card premium
and ( if you do not have a tax stamp ), up to a 10% city or
state sales tax.

For a whopping TWENTY EIGHT PERCENT overcharge!

Not to mention the "secret" hidden tax of online auctions
where the opening price and the increments are often
much higher than a traditional live auction.

Which, of course, can make the difference between a really
big lot win and a buy that is marginal or worse.

The solution is to always factor in these charges and
proportionally underbid if necessary.

More on insider auction secrets here.

Continuing the rough drafts of the updates to the prehistoric hanging canals...

%%%  RIGGS COMPLEX WATER CHANNELS %%%%%%%%%

% Jul 18 2012

/shiftin {/xposhold xpos store /xpos xpos 4 add store /txtwide txtwide 20 sub store} store
/shiftout {/xpos xposhold store /txtwide txtwide 20 add store} store

startnewpage

%%%%%%%%%%%%

% Riggs Complex map  some of these GPS locations may be approximations.
% some locations are from < http://mapper.acme.com > . Others are
% field measurements using a Garmin eTrex 30.

Map:
http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=32.77863,-109.78884&z=18&t=S
&marker0=32.77721%2C-109.79120%2C7.4%20km%20WxNW%20of%20Cactus%20Flat%20AZ
&marker1=32.77832%2C-109.78998%2C7.4%20km%20WxNW%20of%20Cactus%20Flat%20AZ
&marker2=32.77933%2C-109.78817%2C7.2%20km%20WxNW%20of%20Cactus%20Flat%20AZ

USGS Topo Name:        Thatcher, AZ 7.5'
Study Length:          Very short until Robinson Canal Links can be verified
System Slope:          approximately two percent
Nominal Size:          varies; one meter wide by 20 cm deep
Land Ownership:        Arizona State Lands
Access:                Rocky foot access off 4WD road
Hanging features       None apparent
Field Verified:        North end only
Study Confidence:      Low to medium

Locations of interest:

                       N 32 46.633' W 109 47.472' Typical braided water channel
                       N 32 46.699' W 109 47.399' Typical braided water channel
                       N 32 46.760' W 109 47.290' Typical braided water channel

Date of this update    July 19, 2012

Present work that needs done on the Frye Mesa constructs...

                       \267 Begin more detailed field studies.
                       \267 Determine age and purpose
                       \267 Seek Robinson Canal or similar source link

(|c|h
Frye |jMesa |jConstructs
|d
There seems to be a minor assemblage of artifacts in a rocky area of Frye
Canyon just south of Riggs  Mesa that suggest braided prehistoric water
channels. Their age remains somewhat indeterminate but they would appear
to serve no obvious historic or more recent purpose. The workmanship and
quality of construction seems to be lower than most of the hanging canals in
this study. Terrain is extremely rocky Holocene valley fill.
|h
Channels at < N 32 46.633' W 109 47.472' >, <  N 32 46.699' W 109 47.399' >,
and < N 32 46.760' W 109 47.290' > are typical. These seem to end in sudden
drops into modern wash erosion. There are also a few minor CCC water
spreader projects and several unknown age check dams in the area. No
linkup with the Robinson Canal or Frey Mesa water  further south and
upcanyon by 0.3 kilometers or 0.5 a mile has yet been determined. Terrain 
further north would appear to be largely inhospitable to either canal
construction or end use fields.
|h
There are habitation sites 1.6 kilometers or 1 mile further north downcanyon.

( to be continued... )
) cl

Many newcomers to the PostScript language will get
maddeningly infuriated when the contents of their
strings suddenly and mysteriously change well into
a program's execution.

The cause and cure is often simple: PostScript
normally does NOT duplicate a string each time
it is newly referenced. Instead, it only provides
a pointer to the original string.

This makes for much lower memory use and
greatly simplifies garbage collection.

The solution is to provide your own new
and involatile string every time you need one.

This is called string dereferencing. Here is one
way to do it...

(reusable_string) dup length string cvs ----> (safe_string)

Much more here.

Continuing the rough drafts of the updates to the prehistoric hanging canals...

%%  POTENTIAL FRYE MESA WATER RELATED CONSTRUCTS %%

% Jul 15 2012

/shiftin {/xposhold xpos store /xpos xpos 4 add store /txtwide txtwide 20 sub store} store
/shiftout {/xpos xposhold store /txtwide txtwide 20 add store} store

startnewpage

%%%%%%%%%%%%

% Frye Mesa map  some of these GPS locations may be approximations.
% some locations are from < http://mapper.acme.com > . Others are
% field measurements using a Garmin eTrex 30.

Map:
http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=32.75592,-109.81852&z=15&t=T
&marker0=32.74614%2C-109.83803%2C5.8%20km%20NxNE%20of%20Mount%20Graham%20AZ
&marker1=32.75028%2C-109.83785%2C6.2%20km%20NxNE%20of%20Mount%20Graham%20AZ
&marker2=32.75209%2C-109.83726%2C6.4%20km%20NxNE%20of%20Mount%20Graham%20AZ
&marker3=32.75326%2C-109.83762%2C6.5%20km%20NxNE%20of%20Mount%20Graham%20AZ
&marker4=32.75527%2C-109.83506%2C6.8%20km%20NxNE%20of%20Mount%20Graham%20AZ
&marker5=32.75560%2C-109.83377%2C6.9%20km%20NxNE%20of%20Mount%20Graham%20AZ
&marker6=32.75773%2C-109.82875%2C7.4%20km%20NxNE%20of%20Mount%20Graham%20AZ
&marker7=32.76001%2C-109.81430%2C8.4%20km%20NE%20of%20Mount%20Graham%20AZ
&marker8=32.76009%2C-109.81143%2C8.6%20km%20NE%20of%20Mount%20Graham%20AZ
&marker9=32.75892%2C-109.81366%2C8.3%20km%20NE%20of%20Mount%20Graham%20AZ
&marker10=32.75778%2C-109.81514%2C8.1%20km%20NE%20of%20Mount%20Graham%20AZ
&marker11=32.75978%2C-109.80788%2C8.8%20km%20NE%20of%20Mount%20Graham%20AZ
&marker12=32.76674%2C-109.79865%2C7.9%20km%20W%20of%20Cactus%20Flat%20AZ

USGS Topo Name:        Thatcher, AZ 7.5'
Study Length:          up to 8 kilometers or 5 miles depending on ultimate actual verified source
System Slope:          presently indeterminate
Nominal Size:          braided channels open to interpretation
Land Ownership:        Coronado National Forest and Arizona State Lands
Access:                Difficult: Rough access 4WD roads. Mostly foot only or small recreational vehicle.
Hanging features       Highly significant and possibly world class
Field Verified:        0 percent
Study Confidence:      Extremely speculative and remaining highly unproven.

Locations of interest:

                       N 32 44.768' W 109 50.282'  Base of Frye Mesa Falls
                       N 32 45.017' W 109 50.271'  Linear image feature
                       N 32 45.125' W 109 50.236'  Linear image feature suggestive of canal
                       N 32 45.196' W 109 50.257'  Possible canal continuance
                       N 32 45.316' W 109 50.104'  Beginnings of braided stream channels
                       N 32 45.336' W 109 50.026'  Channels showing possible CCC spreaders
                       N 32 45.464' W 109 49.725'  Well defined possible CCC spreader area
                       N 32 45.601' W 109 48.858'  Apparent distinctly braided channel area
                       N 32 45.605' W 109 48.686'  Potential distribution pond region
                       N 32 45.535' W 109 48.820'  Possible counterflow canal delivering UPCANYON
                       N 32 45.467' W 109 48.908'  Possible manmade water deliver channel
                       N 32 45.465' W 109 48.836'  Low slope area suggesting possible use fields
                       N 32 45.587' W 109 48.473'  Possible Robinson canal delivery channel
                       N 32 46.004' W 109 47.919'  Western limit of previous Robinson canal study

Signifiant Features:   Highly enigmatic and still undated braided water channels along the
highest portion of Frye Mesa. IF prehistoric and IF the takein point was in fact the base
of Frye Mesa falls, this would clearly be the crown jewel of the hanging canal system and
would represent utterly exceptional world class civil engineering. Somehow, this
assemblage or a non-obvious alternate apparently has to provide Robinson Canal and
possibly Riggs Complex water. Not yet field verified.

Date of this update    July 19, 2012

Present work that needs done on the Frye Mesa constructs...

                       \267 Begin extensive field studies.
                       \267 Verify which image features are or are not canals.
                       \267 Determind ages of component features.
                       \267 Attempt to map feasible canal source route.
                       \267 Define Robinson Canal water source.
                       \267 Explain the reverse flow upcanyon channel.
                       \267 Resolve Riggs Complex involvement.

(|c|h
Frye |jMesa |jConstructs
|d
A recent revision of Acme Mapper < http://mapper.acme.com/ > has revealed
some unique potential artifacts along the northern and upper elevations of Frye
Mesa. There is a possibility of a hanging canal system that sources the Robinson
Canal as well as some potential field regions both up and down canyon. If these
as yet largely unstudied discoveries are in fact prehistoric, the engineering
implications could well be stunning. Besides beng the "crown jewels" of the
entire regional hanging canal systems.
|h
The fact that most of Frye mesa is lower in elevation than the constructs would
tend to exclude watershed gathering possibilities. Shuttling water "sideways"
from Spring Canyon would also appear rather unlikely. Strongly suggesting
Frye Creek itself as the Robinson Canal source. The highest feasible water
takein point would likely be at the base of Frye Mesa falls at < N 32 44.768'
W 109 50.282' >.  It is not yet clear whether any viable hanging canal route
exists, nor whether it was in fact prehistorically exploited. But there are
definite linear satellite imagery features at < N 32 45.017' W 109 50.271' >,
<  N 32 45.125' W 109 50.236' >, and < N 32 45.196' W 109 50.257'>
that suggest potential canal reaches.
|h
A unique series of braided and presumably manmade water channels of yet
to be determined age appears to begin near the Frye Reservoir turnoff at
< N 32 45.316' W 109 50.104' > and routes to a potential gathering and
dispersal pond at < N 32 45.605' W 109 48.686' >. While intermediate
areas clearly show definite signs of CCC water spreader involvement,
these structures would appear to be later add-ons of opportunity running
across rather than along the braided channels.
|h
The ponding area appears to split into two separate potentially prehistoric
canals. The western one at < N 32 45.535' W 109 48.820' > seems highly
unusual as it would appear to deliver water UPCANYON. This canal ends
in a deep and presumably manmade channel at <  N 32 45.467' W 109 48.908' > .
A study of the USGS topo map would reveal that Frey Canyon widens
considerably at this point while assuming a much more modest elevation slope.
Leading to the possibility of prehistoric fields in this area that could be the
reason for the unusual water delivery system direction.
|h
A second eastern apparent delivery canal at <  N 32 45.587' W 109 48.473' >
seems to route water downcanyon in a reasonably expected manner.
And could be the water source for the Robinson Canal whose study area
extended from <   N 32 46.004' W 109 47.919 > northeastward.
|h
An alternate water source could be in the area of Frye Mesa Reservoir.
The topography in this area was seriously compromised both during initial
construction and later rebuilding and revision. This alternate does seem
somewhat more topographically favorable, but would exclude some of the
earlier potential channels and braided delivery routes.

( to be continued... )

) cl

Continuing the rough drafts of the updates to the prehistoric hanging canals...

%%%% %%%%  JERNIGAN CANAL %%%%%%%%%%%

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%%%%%%%%%%%%

% jernigan map  some of these GPS locations may be approximations.
% some locations are from < http://mapper.acme.com > . Others are
% field measurements using a Garmin eTrex 30.

%  N 32 49.659' W 109 49.170'  Takein "headgate" off the Mud Springs Canal
%  N 32 49.751' W 109 49.132'  Well defined area just west of 4WD Track
%  N 32 49.806' W 109 49.086'  Route becomes indistinct and unknown
%  N 32 50.215' W 109 48.898'  Credible waterbar crossing of W. Layton road
%  N 32 50.364' W 109 48.850'  Possible western branch leading to aquaduct
%  N 32 50.347' W 109 48.926'  Possible aquaduct or enigmatic historic construct
%  N 32 50.410' W 109 48.763'  Well defined near recontact with Mud Springs
%  N 32 50.574' W 109 48.760'  End of easily traced area
%  N 32 50.570' W 109 48.869'  Canal resumes near possible cutout
%  N 32 50.550' W 109 48.871'  Large Mesquite Tree mid channel
%  N 32 50.528' W 109 48.884'  "U" turn at wash crossing
%  N 32 50.564' W 109 48.927'  Significant hanging and fairly deep cut
%  N 32 50.526' W 109 48.962'  French drain drop into fields

http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=32.83835,-109.81483&z=15&t=S
&marker0=32.82765%2C-109.81951%2C6.2%20km%20WxSW%20of%20Thatcher%20AZ
&marker1=32.82918%2C-109.81887%2C6.1%20km%20WxSW%20of%20Thatcher%20AZ
&marker2=32.83011%2C-109.81811%2C6.0%20km%20WxSW%20of%20Thatcher%20AZ
&marker3=32.83692%2C-109.81497%2C5.4%20km%20WxSW%20of%20Thatcher%20AZ
&marker4=32.83941%2C-109.81417%2C5.3%20km%20WxSW%20of%20Thatcher%20AZ
&marker5=32.84017%2C-109.81272%2C5.2%20km%20W%20of%20Thatcher%20AZ
&marker6=32.84290%2C-109.81267%2C5.1%20km%20W%20of%20Thatcher%20AZ
&marker7=32.84283%2C-109.81448%2C5.3%20km%20W%20of%20Thatcher%20AZ
&marker8=32.84214%2C-109.81474%2C5.3%20km%20W%20of%20Thatcher%20AZ
&marker9=32.84273%2C-109.81546%2C5.4%20km%20W%20of%20Thatcher%20AZ
&marker10=32.84211%2C-109.81603%2C5.4%20km%20W%20of%20Thatcher%20AZ


% Jernigan photo...

%< https://www.tinaja.com/images/jern1.jpg >

%%%%%%%%%%%%

(|c|h
The |jJernigan |jCanal
|d
The Jernigan canal is a western branch of the Mud Springs Canal. It
likely is 2 kilometers or 1.2 miles long  It terminates in a French Drain
cascade and routes to an apparent prehistoric field area in the vicinity of
the old Central dump and near sites previously studied as EAC field
projects   << Jim -- Need Site Numbers and Jernigan Reference?  >> .
The Jernigan Canal is characterized by sweeping "double S" curves
apparently used to maintain slope independent of terrain and is
moderately hanging near its northern terminus. A fairly deep ( 90 CM )
and fairly long ( 100 M ) cut is present near its northern extreme loop.
One seven inch Mesquite tree is present mid channel suggesting antiquity.
At one point, thet canal mid route returns remarkably close to the Mud
Springs canal, with a kilometer or more of converging dual channels
apparently purposely used to gain only a very modest elevation difference.
|h
Two large gaps remain in the canal's exploration, possibly explained by
sheet flooding or unverified alternate routes. An associated "solid
aquaduct" like structure has yet to be age determined and remains
highly enigmatic. Significant portions of the canal remain well defined,
while other areas are only suggestive or seem to be missing entirely.
|h
The Jernigan Canal apparently branches off the Mud Springs Canal in
a "T" structure at < N 32 49.659' W 109 49.170' >. Several smaller
rocks in the otherwise uniformly coarse Holocene valley fill soils
suggest a possible unexcavated "headgate" or similar diversionary
structure. Both canals in this area are not well defined. However,
seasonal dead wildflowers at times rather strongly reinforce this
likely routing.
|h
The canal becomes better defined just west of the 4WD track at
< N 32 49.751' W 109 49.132'> and may even have a second parallel
channel at this point. Size is the typical one meter wide by 30 cm deep.
After crossing the track near < N 32 49.806' W 109 49.086' >, the
canal route seems to vanish entirely without a trace. Considerable
time and effort has been spent trying to find the projected missing
600 meters or 2000 feet of route without positive results.
|h
The most credible canal crossing of the West Layton Road would
appear to be the modern waterbar at < N 32 50.215' W 109 48.898'>.
The potential route between here and < N 32 50.347' W 109 48.926' >
is rather vague but seems to be the only somewhat reasonable
"Ockham's Razor" choice.
|h
There is a possible western canal branch at < %  N 32 50.364'
W 109 48.850' > leading to a possible partial aquaduct at
<N 32 50.347' W 109 48.926' > However, this structure is highly
enigmatic and could in fact be a historic wash crossing.
|h
At < N 32 50.410' W 109 48.763' >, the canal is very close to
West Layton Road and amazingly near the adjacent Mud Springs
Canal. It is only slightly higher in elevation. Extreme length
measures were apparently taken to gain this exceptionally
modest height gain.
|h
The Jernigan canal continues north in a well defined manner
and then suddenly disappears near < N 32 50.574' W 109 48.760' > .
A large "S" turn is anticipated at this point and sheet flooding is
a possible reason for the lack of on-ground evidence. There is no
obvious connection between this point and the continuing northerly
Mud Springs canal after its road crossing.
|h
The Jernigan Canal resumes at < N 32 50.570' W 109 48.869' >.
There is a possible west trending cutout at this point dropping into the
wash. This may go to minor fields, may have been used for flow
regulation or desilting, or may not exist at all. The main canal is
well defined south of here and includes a large Mesquite tree mid
channel. Finding this portion of the canal proved quite difficult
because of a non-obvious and unexpected "U" turn when
crossing the wash from the west.
|h
The canal makes another "U" turn in an obvious well hung
portion that includes a fairly long and deep cut at < N 32 50.564'
W 109 48.927' > It then routes northerly and drops into an apparent
French Drain type of structure that feeds some well defined apparent
prehistoric fields.
|h
This east viewing photo  < https://www.tinaja.com/images/jern1.jpg >
shows a hanging portion of the canal just above the fields with the
tentative French Drain structure just off image to the right.

Present work that needs done on the Jernigan Canal...

   \267 Resolve the route over the two missing pieces.
   \267 Further interpret the possible headgate structure.
   \267 Verify the credibility of the modern waterbar crossing.
   \267 Determine the age and purpose of the potential aquaduct.
   \267 Core date the mid channel Mesquite Tree.
   \267 Resolve the possible cutout.
   \267 Further study the French Drain.
   \267 Investigate the fields for northern contuiance.
   \267 Study the relationship with nearby habitation structures.

( to be continued... )

) cl

Continuing the rough drafts of the updates to the prehistoric hanging
canals...

%%%%%%%  ALLEN CANAL %%%%%%%%%%%

% Jul 15 2012

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%%%%%%%%%%%%

% Allen Canal map  some of these GPS locations may be approximations.
% some locations are from < http://mapper.acme.com > . Others are
% field measurements using a Garmin eTrex 30.


% N 32 46.943' W 109 50.130'  Diversionary takein point.
% N 32 47.119' W 109 49.984'  Hawk Hollow tank overlay
% N 32 47.198' W 109 49.931'  Numerous CCC water spreaders
% N 32 47.461' W 109 49.691'  Fairly long and deep cut
% N 32 48.043' W 109 49.186'  Crossing Mud Springs Back Trail
% N 32 48.652' W 109 48.717'  Well defined mesa route
% N 32 49.732' W 109 48.094'  Presently untraced off mesa edge
% N 32 50.022' W 109 47.702'  Resumes from under Allen Reservoir
% N 32 50.133' W 109 47.870'  Exceptionally deep and long Culebra Cut
% N 32 50.133' W 109 47.870'  Northern limit of easy traceability
% N 32 50.945' W 109 48.027'  Presumed destination field area

http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=32.81772,-109.80646&z=13&t=S
&marker0=32.78239%2C-109.83550%2C9.6%20km%20NxNE%20of%20Mount%20Graham%20AZ
&marker1=32.78532%2C-109.83307%2C10.0%20km%20NxNE%20of%20Mount%20Graham%20AZ
&marker2=32.78663%2C-109.83218%2C9.8%20km%20SW%20of%20Thatcher%20AZ
&marker3=32.79101%2C-109.82818%2C9.2%20km%20SW%20of%20Thatcher%20AZ
&marker4=32.80072%2C-109.81976%2C7.9%20km%20SW%20of%20Thatcher%20AZ
&marker5=32.81087%2C-109.81194%2C6.6%20km%20SW%20of%20Thatcher%20AZ
&marker6=32.82886%2C-109.80156%2C4.6%20km%20WxSW%20of%20Thatcher%20AZ
&marker7=32.83370%2C-109.79504%2C3.8%20km%20WxSW%20of%20Thatcher%20AZ
&marker8=32.83556%2C-109.79783%2C4.0%20km%20WxSW%20of%20Thatcher%20AZ
&marker9=32.83359%2C-109.80515%2C4.7%20km%20WxSW%20of%20Thatcher%20AZ
&marker10=32.84909%2C-109.80045%2C3.9%20km%20W%20of%20Thatcher%20AZ

Ownership: Predominately Arizona State lands
Percentage field verified: Approximatly 60. Destination remains unknown.
Slope: 4.1 percent includes mesa edge drop

% Allen Dam photos:

    < https://www.tinaja.com/images/allen0.jpg > near takein point before
Hawk Hollow Tank
    < https://www.tinaja.com/images/allen1.jpg > hanging portion just
above Culebra Cut

% Allen dam document collection:

   < https://www.tinaja.com/glib/allendam.pdf >
   <
http://electronics.wesrch.com/paper-details/pdf-EL1GP93JWDSFI-allen-reserv
oir-failure-docs
% McEniry Scam info

   < https://www.tinaja.com/gilahike.shtml >

%%%%%%%%%%%%

(|c|h
The |jAllen |jCanal
|d
The Allen canal sources from Spring Canyon and presumably delivered
water to fields under the present Layton flood control dam. It is
potentially 9.6 kilometers or 6 miles long and has an average slope of
4.1 percent. However, this  surprisingly high figure includes a
significant drop over a mesa edge. Most Allen slopes are comparable to
the other hanging canals in the series. Portions have been convered by
modern cattle tanks and failed flood control dams. There is a rather
spectacular "Culebra Cut" that is far and away the deepest and longest
known excavation in the entire hanging canal series, approximating some
two meters deep, three meters wide, and over a hunderd meters long.
There are also more modest hanging portions and less deep cuts
apparently used to maintain grade largely independently of terrain.
|h
Almost all of the known portions of this canal lie on Arizona State
lands. Access is generally difficult and largely limited to foot or
small recreational vehicles.
|h
This canal has apparently been historically modified to create the
seemingly misnamed Hawk Hollow cattle tank and has also seen CCC style
water spreader construction features. Two segments of the canal remain
unexplored and its ultimate destination remains presumed but unknown.
Evidence of anquitity includes the spectacularly failed SCS Allen Dam
running roughshod over the canal without any apparent accomodation
whatsoever. There are also numerous mature barrel cacti midchannel on
the mesa. Plus the fill and spoil areas show highly consistent patina,
desert varnish, lichens, and caliche.
|h
The canal Spring Canyoun takein point is rather obvious at < N 32
46.943' W 109 50.130' > . Erosion has rendered its present use
nonfunctional. This takein point seems to correspond to a modern
seasonal stream flow limit and is near the expectecd contact between the
Precambrian Mountain Schist and the Holocene Valley Floor fill. While
the canal has obviously been diverted to meet historic needs, the
reaches themselves appear to be largely devoid of any evidence of modern
tool use.
|h
This image near the takein shows the typical size and construction
characteristic of most portions of most of the hanging canals. The image
also exhibits a rather strong "water flows uphill" illusion\274

< < https://www.tinaja.com/images/allen0.jpg >

|h
The Hawk Hollow tank ( which is really in the Central Wash branch of
Spring Canyon ) represents a modern adaption with obvious tool use and
European style precision coursed masonry construction in its overflow
channel. At present, the area south of the tank remains unexplored but
is expected to yield no surprises. Similarly, the area north of the tank
remains unexplored. Satellite imagry in this area reveals numerous CCC
water spreader projects. Rock cobbles in this area are generally larger
and less uniform, leading to apparently cruder canal construction. There
is also a modest hanging portion where the canal "climbs" out of a wash.
The canal tracing can be resumed further North where a rather long but
fairly shallow cut was made to retain grade.
|h

From here northward, the canal is usually quite easily followed.

Especially near < N 32 48.652' W 109 48.717' > Typical size might be a
meter wide by 20 CM deep. There are numerous mature Barrel Cacti mid
channel, suggesting a total lack of recent use beyond the Hawk Hollow
tank. None of the mesa reach seems to show the slightest evidence of
modern tool rework.
|h
Only scant hints of possible canal routes have been found between the
mesa edge at < N 32 49.732' W 109 48.094' > and the Allen Resorvoir at <
N 32 50.022' W 109 47.702' > to date. Leaving a definite gap yet to be
resolved. The Allen reservoir clearly ran over the canal route without
regard to any use or accomodation whatsoever. Giving yet another example
supporting the prototype canal being prehistoric. This reservoir was
built by the Soil Conservation Service in the 1930's and its overflow
was possibly intentionally blocked in the 1950's. Which resulted in its
specatcular failure two decades later.
|h
The watershed of the Allen Reservoir is quite small and significantly
lacking in mountain runoff, major springs or artesian sources. It is
possible that the Allen Canal itself served as an early primary or
auxiliary water supply source. However, the midchannel Barrel Cacti
would seem to pose contrary evidence. There are anecdotal claims <
https://www.tinaja.com/glib/allendam.pdf > that the resrvoir once
supported water ski recreation.
|h
The canal is easily traced below the dam, leading to this moderately
hanging image just above the Culebra Cut at < N 32 50.133' W 109 47.870'

< https://www.tinaja.com/images/allen1.jpg > hanging portion just
above Culebra Cut

The white channel color is likely based on caliche related dissolved
solids. The few washouts in this area seem amazingly minor.
|h
The Culebra Cut at < N 32 50.133' W 109 47.870' > represents an amazing
commitment of manual labor and transport resources. No other hanging
canal artifact approaches its scope. In retrospect, the Culebra Cut
seems to be much larger than the rest of the Allen system and of an
architecture significantly different from the higher mesa canal areas.
Reasons for this discrepancy are not entirely clear. But there seems to
be no evidence whatsoever of any modern use of this canal reach.
|h
The canal continues westward beyond Culebra and remains fairly easily
traced. There is a rather complex double "S" where the canal crosses the
double tracked north south fence. The canal suddenly loops northward
when it crosses Central Wash near < N 32 50.133' W 109 47.870' > . Just
north of here, the previously obvious canal track vanishes entirely.
Possibly caused by sheet flooding or major wash rework.
|h
While the Mud Springs canal is a reasonable distance further west, the
presence of minor hillocks and a somewhat rolling terrain largely seems
to preclude any connection. Instead, the canal is presumed to continue
northward. With a logical but unverified termination in fields presently
under the modern Layton Flood Control Dam.

Present work that needs done on the Allen Canal...

    \267 Explore and map the missing segments, especially mesa to dam
    \267 Resolve the destination and terminal use disappearance.
    \267 Carefully survey the Culebra Cut.
    \267 Study the CCC water spreader interactions.
    \267 Resolve the Allen Reservoir water sources.
    \267 Further research the Allen Dam Disaster

( to be continued... )

Online auctions often will combine shelves or cabinets or
rooms with their contents. These can often be outstanding
bargains. But you may not want or need the shelves or
cabinets and dealing with them can lead to excess shipping
costs and labor.

These can often be given to other bidders. Simple abandonment
may involve outrageous charges buried in the terms and conditions.
as always, read and understand before you sign any auction contract.

Another interesting alternative is an outfit called Habitat For Humanity.

These folks build low cost housing and have outlets where donated
building materials are sold in their ReStores, usually at bargain prices.
Clean empty auction shelves and cabinets certainly would qualify.
And there often is free pickup.

Even better, their outlets tend to be near many industrial auction sites.

More insider auction stuff here and more eBay secrets here.

Two components to bet on are the Arduino and Raspberry Pi.

The former is a $35 super dooper embedded controller
that's even available from Radio Shack.

The latter a complete PC in a miniature package for as
little as $25. More details here.

There is more hydrogen in a gallon of gasoline than there
is in a gallon of liquid hydrogen.

Additional hydrogen economy ludicrosities here.
Some energy fundamentals here.

And a genuine energy efficieny breakthrough here.
And its calculator appears here.

Continuing the rough drafts of the updates to the prehistoric hanging canals...

%%%%%%%  SHINGLE MILL CANAL %%%%%%%%%%%

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%%%%%%%%%%%%

% Shingle Mill map  some of these GPS locations may be approximations.
% some locations are from < http://mapper.acme.com > . Others are
% field measurements using a Garmin eTrex 30.

%  N 32 47.327' W 109 53.401' Projected but unverified takein point.
%  N 32 47.869' W 109 52.384' Southern limit of obvious historic canal
%  N 32 48.100' W 109 52.227' Northern limit of present field verification
%  N 32 48.769' W 109 51.988' Projected field use or delivery area.

http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=32.80163,-109.86985&z=15&t=S
&marker0=32.78879%2C-109.89002%2C9.9%20km%20N%20of%20Mount%20Graham%20AZ
&marker1=32.79781%2C-109.87307%2C10.7%20km%20N%20of%20Mount%20Graham%20AZ
&marker2=32.80167%2C-109.87045%2C11.1%20km%20N%20of%20Mount%20Graham%20AZ
&marker3=32.81281%2C-109.86646%2C10.0%20km%20SxSW%20of%20Pima%20AZ

% There are no Shingle Mill photos at present

%%%%%%%%%%%%

(|c|h
The |jShingle |jMill |jCanal
|d
If the premise that virtually every drop of Northeastern Mount Graham
stream water was totally exploited by the hanging canal systems is valid,
then a prehistoric canal rather likely existed in the Shingle Mill Canyon
or Merrill Wash area. And might otherwise be conspicuous by its absence.
There is in fact a rather obvious abandoned historic canal called the
Minor Webster Ditch System present. Although of a somewhat deeper
vee construction, having evidence of modern tool use, and having an
atypical access road, a reasonable case can be made for adaption from
a prehistoric prototype. Total length would be approximately 3.2 kilometers
or 2.0 miles. While presently largely unexplored, the canal could reasonably
be expected to deliver water from the Shingle Mill and Merrill Wash
transition area to fields near the present Cluff Ranch headquarters of
Arizona Game and Fish. Approximately one-half of the historic canal is
quite obvious and easily traced and followed from the satellite images.
|h
No hints of a canal, historic or prehistoric, have yet been found south and
west of the Mceniry Road crossing at < N 32 47.869' W 109 52.384' >.
There are, however, numerous CCC diversion structures in the immediate
area. This area is a floodplain and a case can be made for major and
possible distruptive flooding over time. A reasonable input point might
be at the transition between Shingle Mill Canyon and Merrill Wash,
perhaps at <N 32 47.327' W 109 53.401'>.
|h
The historic canal becomes rather obvious just east of the Mceniry Road
at <N 32 47.869' W 109 52.384'> and is easily traced northward. Present
exploration ended near < N 32 47.869' W 109 52.384' >, with the canal
continuing to be readily extended northward. A modest hanging portion
of the canal can be reasonably expected further north, but has not yet
been field verified. The projected end use area was likely around
< N 32 48.769' W 109 51.988' >. Terrain in this area has been
extensively and repeatedly modified by farming activities and
more recent AGF projects.
|h
Many thanks to historian George Hayes of Arizona Game and
Fish for his highly useful research input to this topic.

Present work that needs done on the Shingle Mill Canal...

   \267 Explore the remainder of the historic canal route.
   \267 Attempt to prove or disprove its prehistoric origins.
   \267 Try to find any canal evidence northwest of the Mceniry Road
   \267 Continue researching historians and create or locate historic documents.
   \267 Establish a more definite water takein source.
   \267 Separate CCC and historic constructions.
   \267 Determine more precise end use areas.

( to be continued... )

) cl

Duh. Always check the obvious.

Had a wireless IR mouse start acting very erratically, especially
on left to right motions. Changing batteries, rebooting, and
trying other software were no help at all.

But one puff of air by blowing on the sensor worked wonders.

Continuing the rough drafts of the updates to the prehistoric hanging canals...

%%%%%%%%%  ROBINSON CANAL %%%%%%%%%%%

% Jul 15 2012

/shiftin {/xposhold xpos store /xpos xpos 4 add store /txtwide txtwide 20 sub store} store
/shiftout {/xpos xposhold store /txtwide txtwide 20 add store} store

startnewpage

%%%%%%%%%%%%

% Robinson Canal map  some of these GPS locations may be approximations.
% some locations are from < http://mapper.acme.com > . Others are
% field measurements using a Garmin eTrex 30.

Map:
http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=32.78655,-109.78346&z=14&t=S
&marker0=32.75642%2C-109.81946%2C7.8%20km%20NE%20of%20Mount%20Graham%20AZ
&marker1=32.76660%2C-109.79865%2C7.9%20km%20W%20of%20Cactus%20Flat%20AZ
&marker2=32.77324%2C-109.79642%2C7.8%20km%20WxNW%20of%20Cactus%20Flat%20AZ
&marker3=32.77959%2C-109.79603%2C7.9%20km%20WxNW%20of%20Cactus%20Flat%20AZ
&marker4=32.78828%2C-109.79157%2C7.4%20km%20SxSW%20of%20Thatcher%20AZ
&marker5=32.80582%2C-109.78590%2C5.5%20km%20SxSW%20of%20Thatcher%20AZ
&marker6=32.80928%2C-109.77758%2C4.8%20km%20SxSW%20of%20Thatcher%20AZ

USGS Topo Name:        Thatcher, AZ 7.5'
Canal Length:          8 kilometers or 5 miles depending on yet undertermined takein and delivery points.
Canal Slope:           3.8 percent includes mesa dropoff
Nominal Size:          1 meter wide 30 cm deep
Land Ownership:        Arizona State Lands
Access:                Difficult: Mostly foot only via dim cattle trail
Field Verified:        60 percent
Study Confidence:      Very High but Frye Mesa origins and use areas still need resolved

Locations of interest:

                       N 32 45.385' W 109 49.168'  Temporary Frye takein marker
                       N 32 45.996' W 109 47.919'  Beginning of hanging portion & initial survey
                       N 32 46.394' W 109 47.785'  Significant hanging; dead parasitic trees
                       N 32 46.775' W 109 47.762'  Level mesa top reach
                       N 32 47.297' W 109 47.494'  Catastrophic unrepaired sluffing failure
                       N 32 48.349' W 109 47.154'  Crossing of Frye to Daily track
                       N 32 48.557' W 109 46.655'  Possible destination field

Significant Features:   Long high hanging portion; strong "water flows uphill" illusion
                       mesa slumping; historic rebuilding and use; parasitic vegetation
                       possibly the longest hanging canal.
Images:
                       < https://www.tinaja.com/images/rob1.jpg >  main mesa hanging portion
                       < https://www.tinaja.com/images/rob2.jpg >  "climbing" portion with parasitic trees
                       < https://www.tinaja.com/images/rob3.jpg >  typical mesa top reach

Date of this update    July 17, 2012

Present work that needs done on the Robinson Canal...

                       \267 Survey and map the entire canal.
                       \267 Resolve the Frye Mesa takein point and initial distribution.
                       \267 Seek additional evidence of prehistoric origins.
                       \267 Determine the delivery use area.
                       \267 Seek out and study any historical records.
                       \267 Clarify the Frye/Robinson/Riggs relationships.

(|c|h
The |jRobinson |jCanal
|d
The Robinson canal is presumed to be a historic rebuild and reuse of a prehistoric
original. The route is well marked on the topo maps and believed to originate in
Frye Creek near Frye Mesa Reservoir and originally deliver water to fields possibly
in the Robinson Flat area. Partial modern use apparently delivered water to the
Thorpe and Stowe stock tanks. Long dead but still extant remnants of parasitic
trees suggest fairly late continued use.
|h
The "earlier" section of the Robinson Canal was treated separately, owing to
ongoing and complex Frye Mesa source research. Difficult access is largely by
foot only via an obscure cattle trail that passes several CCC constructs. Just
north of the Spring Canyon branch at < N 32 45.996' W 109 47.919' >, the
canal enters a significant hanging portion with a very strong "water flows uphill"
illusion\274

           < https://www.tinaja.com/images/rob1.jpg >

The canal appearance in the < N 32 46.394' W 109 47.785'> area is fairly
represented of similar canals in their higher hung areas\274

           < https://www.tinaja.com/images/rob2.jpg >

Once on the mesa top, appearance seems typical and as expected\274

          < https://www.tinaja.com/images/rob3.jpg >

As in the other presumed rebuilds, there seems to be no obvious evidence
of modern tool use along the main delivery reaches of this canal. Thus
supporting a "stole the plans and dug out an old ditch" premise.
A catastrophic and apparently never repaired "sluffing off" failure
occured at the mesa edge near < N 32 47.297' W 109 47.494' >
|h
Once north of and off the mesa, more recent cattle ranch related
construction makes tracing the canal difficult. Many thanks to
Henry Schneiker and Phyllis farenga for their survey and ground truth assistance.

( to be continued... )

) cl

We pride ourselves in having by far the best eBay photos
anytime ever. Bar none. Some examples appear here, here,
here, and here.

We achieve this by spending lots of time in image postproc.
And by using  Architect's Perspective when and where appropriate.
And by defining edges to one pixel precision. And by using our
automatic background mottler.

The primary tools we use are Imageview32, Paint, and our
free tilt repair and background mottler ( and occasionally our
bitmap typewriter ) software.

More details here. Custom training here.

Got an email asking if Walsh Functions could not be used
for my Magic Sinewaves. The short answer is "not really"

Despite being an interesting and potentially useful digital math
construct, Walsh Functions never really got off the ground.
At one long gone time, they were the great white hope
for electronic music timbre generation.

Every Walsh sinewave generator I've seen demands a
weighted analog combination during synthesis. This
clearly is a big time no-no for efficient power electronics.

In general, each and every math approach to anything
has one task it is particularly good at. In low pass filters,
you can do no better than Butterworth if the smoothest
pass band is your goal. Because Butterworth fundamentally
defines and demands the meaning of "smoothest passband".

Similarly, for flattest time delay, you use Bessel. For no
stopband ripple, Chebycheff. And the best you can possibly
do with both passband and stopband ripple, Elliptic. The
latter guaranteed to give you the fastest passband to
stopband falloff. By definition.

More on all this in my Active Filter Cookbook.

Similarly, my magic sinewaves define and demand
the maximum possible number of zeroed sequential low
harmonics for the minimum possible number of pulse edges.

In the same context of other functions being optimal
for other specific tasks, nothing better than Magic
Sineaves is possible for this narrowly and specifically
defined task of max zero harmonics for min pulse edges..

Our Magic Sinewave Calculator appears here.
With a newer and still buggy version here.

How many mathematicians does it take to change a light bulb?

Only one. Who hands the bulb to six Califorinans. Thus
reducing the problem to a previously solved riddle.

A visitor to our website asked how to create a 0-100 random
number generator.

If the system is large enough to have any sort of language
associated with it, chances are there is a random command of
some sort. Such as the PostScript rand command, the random
command in my Gonzo utilities, or JavaScript's Math.random();

These days, a traditional hardware solution might not make too much
sense. Being better replaced by a PIC, the Basic Stamp, or the
Arduino from Radio Shack. Or pure software in the host.

You might have a choice of "real" random or "pseudorandom".

Ferinstance, you could run a high frequency clock through a pushbutton
to cause numerous overflows on a modulo 100 counter. Such
as this "modulo 36" older example. For best operation, the
pushbutton should be fully debounced.

If you do not want to press the button each and every time, the
chances are something else in the system ( such as a keyboard
or display scanner ) can advance a register to continuously
create new random seeds. A classic early example were the
RNDH and RNDL page zero slots on the Apple II.

Or, you might take a long shift register and exclusive-OR
two or four stages to create a long pseudorandom sequence.
But note that a pseurandom sequence will generate the
same sequence over and over again unless you reseed it.

Per this tutorial or this tap listing.

More on pseudorandom sequences in my CMOS Cookbook or
TTL Cookbook.

One of the favorite four paws of our local paper is to
inadvertently relate pictures with headlines. Such as
placing "Meth Dealer Gets 10 Years" next to a photo
of the president emeritus of the garden club.

In the latest incantation "Uncaught UDA's still at large" got
combined with an image of a high school honor society.

There's something happening here. There seems to be
a new resurgance of "Homebrew computer clubs".

They seem to go by the name of Hackerspaces.

Only this time they include such rentable goodies as
CAD/CAM machines, 3-D printers, laser cutters
and similar leading edge hi tech goodies. Combined with
public welcome seminars, open source software, and
ways to profit from your products.

A list of hackerspaces in your area can be found here.

A reasonable guess for the "next breakthrough thing"
might be air conditioners. The SEER ratings these days
are mandiated to be 13, with new units having SEER's as
high as 22 or so.

The only tiny gotcha is that the industry seems to have
internalized their gains. The incremental cost of going
to a more efficient unit often may not amortize.
Probably because of ripping off subsidies.

But as this site tells us, theoretical SEER's can be
as high as 122 for normal areas and 46 for desert
areas. Thus the potential for improvement can be
nearly a staggering 10:1.

Four key factors got the efficiency to where we
are today: The scroll compressor, new refrigerants,
variable speed air handlers, and intelligent thermostats.

Immediate new gains can be made by going to
inverter compressor controls where the compressor
needs can be real time load adjusted.

Solid state or Peltier Devices are very unlikely to
have any close in breakthroughs, as they hit the
wall decades ago with their horrible efficiency.
A COP of 0.2 is hard to realize.

As shown here, a key Peltier problem is that a
unit might offer a 15 degree drop but have a
30 degree heatsink RISE above ambient.

For a net cooling loss. Thus, these devices seem to
me to be forever limited to such low power uses
as microscope slide chillers or thermoelectric
chip coolers. They are clearly worthless as beer
coolers. And totally unlikely to handle anything larger.

Instead, I would expect new breakthroughs to be
made by dropping costs of variable speed drives
and by dramatic reductions in thermal impedance,
boundary layer reductions, frost management, and
heatsink efficiency.

The latter similiar to yesterday's Blog announcement
or by way of similar MEMS techniques.

Along with fundamental changes in how HVAC units
are distributed and installed and sold.

How fast is a river flowing at the shoreline? ZERO. Because
you cannot have a velicity discontinuity in most physical systems.

This is called the boundary layer problem and is it ever. IF the
boundary layer thickness can be dramatically reduced, all sorts of
efficiency improvements becomes possible in HVAC and cooling
or heating systems.

Despite its obvious overhype, this development would seem to be
a major new development in improving the efficiency of heatsinks.

It is likely that similiar "thin the boundary layer" reductions using
MEMS Techniques might dramatically improve HVAC efficiency

And possibly soon.

Farm sibling explaining why he kept feeding raw pork
to city slickers: "Its the only trick I know, Sis."

Yet another new 3-D printer can be found here.

As usual, the machine cost is not that great but the supplies
are outrageous. This one also seems to have a small max
size combined with poor resolution.

Similar resources in our Santa Claud Machine library.

Got an email from an individual trying to research a font
supposedly called Helvetica Block.

My best guess was that this was a typo on Helvetica Black,
a popular and common Adobe font.

Some block fonts can be found here and here. While useful
resources to pin down most any font are here, here, and here.

Note also that Acrobat X can capture most any font from
most any source. And that Adobe's multiple master fonts
can do a fair to middlin jub of approximating most any
reasonably font.

A new scheme to wildly expand the channel capacity
beyond previous bandwidth limits appears here.

Time will tell if this is a legitimate breakthrough. There
are definite "Looks like a duck, quacks like a duck"
warning signs here, though.

More on bashing pseudoscience here and here.

Three wildly different websites that seem worth a visit:

http://highestbridges.com/
http://www.engineeringtv.com/
http://maker-works.com/

The number of upcoming industrial auctions seems to
have just gone bonkers. Especially since mid summer
is normally an auction quiet time.

Auction HQ is a new index and directory service that
certainly seems worth a visit.

A tiny sample of the zillions of new pv solar bankruptcies
and auctions can be newly found online.

More auction info can be found here, with some regional
directories here. Your own custom regional auction finder
can be created for you per these details.

It does not look good if an auctioneer has stuff left at the
end of an auction. Frequently, you can literally steal the
dregs after auction close by making an obscenely lowball
offer. Especially on bankruptcy distress "clear the site"
sales.

I just snarfed five electronic assemblies that sell new for
$3500 each for five dollars apeice. And have made
similar grabs in the past. This was part of a "poisioned
lot" that everybody else ran away from.

Unless specifically and contractually excluded, you usually
will retain a "right of abandonment" at most auctions.
More often than not, anything you cannot use will end
up lost and unnoticed in the final site cleanup.

AKA "take the money and run".

Try to keep a straight face when you make the offer.
And, of course, avoid pissing off an auctioneer that you
will need at a future date.

More auction tips here.

Yesterday's second Solyndra auction ended up with
everything outrageously overpriced. Most likely
because of the associated "your tax dollars at work"
scandal.

But the Rogers auction held at the same time saw many
bargains abounding.

I noted three interesting quirks in some of the latest online
only auctions.

Sometimes for a brief instance, the online bidders may be
given the opportunity to open bid at one-half the minimum
price. This is somewhat similar to waving your hand across
your chest at a live auction to get the bidding started with
a lowball offer.

And - disconcertingly - It seems that several online only
auctions are revealing your proxy prices above $100.

This shows up as a next required bid sometimes being
well above the expected next increment.

Which means your competing bidder no longer has to keep
trying to beat your proxy, since they know ahead of time
what is needed. On the other hand, the higher next required
bid may scare away potential bidders.

It seems to me that revealing proxies overall will reduce
seller income but increase bidder convenience.

Also, any opening prices that are too high to interest bidders
are often cut in half as the closing deadline approaches.

Benefitting from these quirks requires extreme attention to detail.

More on auction stuff in general here.