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Don Lancaster's What's New 2014 Blog

Please note that the Guru's Lair is best used with larger display systems. Especially for our many ebooks, classic .pdf files and high detail images.

January 4, 2015
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Sand Wash Prehistoric Canal has been verified as #33. Some preliminary field notes...

Observations on Acme Mapper suggested yet another canal complex in the previously unstudied Nuttall Canyon drainage area. A portion of this canal has been verified as highly likely to be both prehistoric and typical of the assemblage. And seems to presently form the western most confirmed candidate in the hanging canal study area.

The primary study area lies on State and BLM Land just off the Sand Tank road and offers exceptionally easy vehicle and foot access. State lands are south of the fence and gate; BLM to the north.

Field verification included a Sand Wash level area, followed by a classic but low hanging "climbing" portion with the usual "water flows uphill" illusion, followed by a fairly deep cut, followed by a long mesa top run. Most of which are fully typical of other canal reaches in the study area.

The long mesa top reach, though, appears highly atypical in that it is quite small, being well less than half normal size. And would appear unlikely to be able to deliver significant water a long distance.

A premise as to why no canal survey tools exist system wide might be that pilot extensions of the canals themselves served as water levels. Once a route of credible slope was statically verified, the actual major canal construction could be expanded. The size of the mesa top canal reach would seem to add credence to being a "work in progress "acting as a pilot to the intended full canal.

Further canal routing to the north is restricted by modern private home site development. Cottonwood Wash would seem to place a fairly near limit on how much more northern extent is missing.

Areas to the south have not yet been studied. The sand wash itself may be a takein point, despite its very name suggesting an inability to deliver surface water long distances. This wash is normally dry, but a historically built and large Sand Tank apparently saw some water development potential. Despite the main Sand Tank watershed being apparently limited in size and largely disconnected from mountaintop snow melt access.

There is a curious other possibility for a water source. An eastern branch of Sand Wash actually "almost" merges with perennial Nuttall Canyon stream at N 32.77695 W 109.9562. Water diversion at this point would appear to be within the bounds of prehistoric capability. The USFS presently has a gravity fed stock tank in this area that clearly verifies such a possibility. This tank project is remarkably similar to one overlaying a prehistoric canal in the Frye Mesa Falls area.

Regardless of the ultimate source of water, this canal seems to rather strongly suggest both a wetter climate and more robust stream runoff than present. The canal preservation is quite good in the initial study area.

A twelve inch Mesquite tree mid channel and highly consistent patina and caliche add further to the canal's credibility in the study area. Somewhat disconcerting is the presence of a single glazed Terra cotta drain pipe placed in the canal wall to dump any water back into Sand Wash. Possibly this state land recent construct was done to prevent further silt deposition.

Images to date can be viewed as...

sand1 East from mesa top rather small size.
sand2 West from mesa top from same location.
sand3 Near the state lands fence line border.
sand4 "water flows uphill" from "hanging" area.
sand5 Reach between hanging and deep cut.
sand6 Rather deep cut south of state land fence.

One of the implications of this canal is that the canals in the Lefthand Canyon area are no longer an outlier. And instead seem to be a fully integrated portion of the Bajada hanging canal complex. This canal also adds credibility to the historic Minor Webster Ditch system also having prehistoric origins.

More on the hanging canals here. Ongoing developments in https://www.tinaja.com/whtnu15.shtml and earlier. Field mice and research assistants welcome.

January 3, 2015
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It is a bit early to call this Canal #33 or Prehistoric Sand Wash Canal, but its Acme Mapper hints sure look intriguing. While not yet field verified, this sure looks like a water development starting in Sand Wash with an initial "hanging" portion followed by a linear on-mesa run of half a mile or so.

Alternately, this could be an extension of the known Lamb Tank canal. Such a canal would need more water than is typical of today's wash. But somebody once historically built the fairly large Sand Tank further upstream.

More interestingly, there is an east branch to Sand Wash that seems to go all the way up to Nuttall Canyon. Provided some prehistorically manageable diversion took place near N 32.77672 W 109.95655. The main Nuttall stream appears perennial at this point.

Curiously, there is an apparent USFS gravity tank development here that is remarkably similar to the one skirting Frye Mesa Falls. There is strong evidence of the latter being "steal the plans" blueprint borrowing from a prehistoric original.

If real, Canal #33 would have some strong implications involving rainfall and climate. Being westernmost known to date, it would further integrate the Lefthand Speer canals into the main regional canal system. Field mice and research assistants are most definitely welcome.

January 1, 2015
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An interactive master GIS map of Arizona land ownership can be found at http://gis.azland.gov/web apps/parcel/

December 31, 2014
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Wikipedia now seems to be offering two slightly different formats called Mobile and Desktop. Our Arizona Bajada Canals can now be found here for Mobile and here for Desktop. Additional info here.

December 30, 2014
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Uh, there seems to be a brand new and conspicuously posted gate blocking Coyote Drive, the usual access route to both the Lefthand Archaeological District and the Goat Hill Ruin.

There does seem to be an alternate workaround route to the west of Lefthand Canyon. Which may or may not also eventually end up gated and posted. Much more Gila Dayhike info here and here. I'll be talking on some of this at Discovery Park on January 24th.

December 29, 2014
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A temporary stash of the new WWVB receiver pinouts and user guide can be found here. "Official" related docs can be found here and here and here. With my ancient WWVB reprints here and here.

December 28, 2014
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So, how can you tell something seems to be a prehistoric canal, rather than a vehicle two-track, a cowpath, a game route, an old fence, an historic wagon road, a film scratch, or ATV damage? The glib answer is that you know it when you see it. And, of course, field verify it.

Some other guidelines include...

Slope will be very low and nearly constant,
  typically around two percent.

Slope will NEVER be negative!

GPS, Google Earth, and Barometric devices
  are not nearly accurate slope enough.

Required is an automatic level. Or phone ap.

Routing will be straight but not transit and
  not be in a cardinal direction.

Route may be "hung" on mesa edges,
  making slope independent of terrain.

Highly energy effcient onstruction effort.

Effort spent across rather than along route.

Routings end up extremely purposeful, going
  from reliable sources to destinations.

Acme Mapper typically vague and indistinct.

Erosion, flood, and newer construct evidence.

Omissions conspicuous by their absence.

Run over by ams, roads, fences, cemeteries

Similar routings with similar goals present.

Obvious "steal the plans" if historic reuse.

Any reuse only a portion of the entire route.

Lower center with "spoil piles"defining edges.

Uniform rock patina, caliche, and lichens.

During floral blooms, "dead flowers" markings

Routing along rather than across drainages

Projects have consistent energy efficiency.

"Counterflowing" possible into rising terrain.

Channel full of water born or aeolian fill.

December 27, 2014
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There is more hydrogen in a gallon of gasoline than there is in a gallon of liquid hydrogen. More hydrogen ludicrositieshere.

December 26, 2014
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I needed some new files of my Mt. Graham Aerial Tramway tower and carrier drawings for yesterday's PR blurb. The original PostScript code appeared in the sourcecode here and can be extracted as needed.

Instead, I cropped and reduced this file to produce this .pdf file and this one using Acrobat XI. The results are pure distilled PostScript, and thus can be arbitrarily resized or magnified with no loss of detail.

December 25, 2014
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Here's a rough draft of a tentative PR blurb for my
January Gila Hikes talk...
===================================

"Gila Valley Day Hikes" subject of Saturday's Discovery Park Talk. Local author and researcher Don Lancaster returns to the Discovery Park lecture series this Saturday January 24th in the Jupiter Room at 6:30 PM. Topics will include new info and revisions on some little known local day hikes, along with a major update ( now including many new maps and well over 400 locations ) to https://www.tinaja.com/gilahike.shtml

Potential hikes will include San Carlos Falls, Hannah Hot Springs, El Capitan Canyon, and many of the other usual suspects. And, of course, the UFO fish fillets of Taylor Canyon. You can preview portions of the talk at https://www.tinaja.com/tinsamp1.shtml or pick up more specifics at https://www.tinaja.com/glib/unusualh.pdf

Reports on the latest Gila Valley Hiking Club activities including a McEniry Tunnel trip are also expected. An original web source for the McEniry Prospectus seems to have disappeared, but a new copy is now available through https://www.tinaja.com/glib/mtso.pdf

This blatant investment scam was based on tunneling all the way through twelve miles of Mt. Graham. In which you would simply scrape the gold off the ceiling directly into your ore car. Sadly, the geology of Mt. Graham consists largely of Precambrian intrusives that are nearly totally unmineralized. It was also not quite clear how you would ventilate twelve tunnel miles using 1906 technology.

More into on the hiking club can be reached through http://www.visitgrahamcounty.com/Gila_Valley_Hiking_Club/. Discovery park is located near the corner of Discovery Park Boulevard and 20th Avenue in Safford Arizona. For more details, contact Paul Anger or Jackie Madson at(928)428-6260 or discoverypark@eac.edu

Companion Photos...   
https://www.tinaja.com/glib/tramtower.pdf
https://www.tinaja.com/canal/images/mary2.jp
https://www.tinaja.com/canal/images/bestgrid.jpg
https://www.tinaja.com/images/fishup.jpg  
https://www.tinaja.com/images/rob2.jpg
https://www.tinaja.com/images/msrr1.jpg

December 24, 2014
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Few people realize that most electronic devices run on smoke. If you let the smoke out, they do not work any more.

December 23, 2014
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There seem to still be some issues with the WWVB receiver. Pinouts are not yet obvious from the web docs. The data sheet suggests an external crystal, yet one is apparently internally provided.

Considerable programming skills and development time at present is needed to use this module. Sorely needed are reference designs, especially for the Raspberry Pi A+. Along with Beagle Bone Black, general Arduino, and something PIC related.

I'll try to get to some of these, but getting the B+ to work with my Magic Sinewaves has a higher priority. As does our prehistoric hanging canals. As does getting out from under our latest eBay potential stock haul. Which, to date is only producing something like a five percent yield and 95 percent Alvin Pile trash.

December 22, 2014
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Some recent discoveries that soon should get added to our Gila Valley Dayhikes page: There are far more CCC water spreader projects locally than most people expect. I suspect they will end up in the thousands, rather than just in the hundreds. All of which ended up totally pointless and utterly useless, of course.

We recently saw these somewhat west of O'Conner International Airport. Spread out over many square miles that are very rarely visited. Even less known are the dozens or so in the lower Merrill Wash area. Including this group of five and this separate group of five. And even more scattered around N 32.82179 W 109.97644

Some constructs a few feet north above US191 may in fact be part of the Montez Toll Road. These likely head north across the mesa on modern ranch roads on their way to Guthrie. Speaking of which, there is apparently a "hidden" fourth iron Morenci Southern Railway bridge here. These bridges are best viewed at a distance as they are likely to be highly unsafe.

December 21, 2014
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Fatcow finally came through! Both the banners and the .psl files with intact carriage returns seem to be working perfectly. As suspected, these two htaccess file magic incantations are involved...

  AddType text/plain .psl
  AddType text/plain .js 

Please report any further issues or problems.

December 20, 2014
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Some subtle stuff was involved in several of our latest eBay image photo processing: In this image, the top lighting was initially weak, so a double exposure was used with the top being imaged lighter than the front.

In this image, we have a curious study in off center single point perspective. Helped along by some symmetry adjustments. In this image, we use rotation and our Architects Perspective for a two point result. One small hole ended awkward looking, so we simply cropped it.

Sometimes leaving something very minor off or, say, interchanging the focus and intensity knob callouts on an oscilloscope can give you a major and totally subtle form of copy protection. Stenography at its best.

December 19, 2014
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We seem to be having a communication problem with Fatcow over treating our .js and .psl files as shtml .txt files. The symptoms of which are getting an error instead of banners with the .js file, and totally trashing carriage returns on the .psl files.

Apparently only some of their technicians understand the issue while others try and blame host side issues.As far as I can tell, all that is needed on their end is a pair of htaccess...

  AddType text/plain .psl
  AddType text/plain .js

Yet they seem to be giving me one or the other but not both. Apparently repaired per here.

December 18, 2014
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Just received a sample copy of the ES100 QFN new WWVB receiver module and two antennas from Everset Technology. Apparently the units do exist. I'll try to evaluate them just as soon as I get a chance.

The data sheet can be found here. Average supply current is 5 mils at 3 volts, with 22 ma peaks during processing.You will also need a host pc such as a Raspberry Pi and a 16 MHz crystal. The units are about what you would expect. A circuit board around an inch square with three smt chips on them. The dual antennas are somewhat smaller than I would expect, being only an inch and a half long.

This is an obvious item for Sparkfun. It will be interesting to see when and if this happens Older posts on Everset here and here and here. With my long ago original WWVB stories here and here.

December 17, 2014

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Prehistoric hanging canal candidate #32 appears to be well northwest of the Cluff Ponds area. This appears to be a disused modern canal whose obvious hallmarks are three concrete control structures found at N 32.82803 W 109.84607, N 32.82835 W 109.84603, and N 32.82875 W 109.84582. And two more at N 32.83039 W 109.84473 and N 32.83047 W 109.84470.

This reach could be part of the Minor Webster Ditch System, or could separately have been derived from Lower Ash Creek. While no prehistoric origins have yet been proven, there is no credible reason why they should not exist, based on canal structures and developments elsewhere in the system. Combined with the obvious exploitation of virtually every drop of Northeastern Mt. Graham stream resources.

This world class prehistoric hanging bajada canal system is getting totally out of hand, and is already well beyond the capabilities of two semi retired researchers. Field mice and associates are most definitely in order. Please email me for details.

December 16, 2014
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Made some updates and corrections to our Prehistoric Hanging Canals sampler and directory. Sourcecode for the Prehistoric Hanging Canal Engineering has had its link repaired. Added one of the Madeira Levadas to the image collection. Added the Lair Mt. Graham CNF Survey to our third party papers.

December 15, 2014
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There's a big flap in the media about shilling on eBay Since shilling is not possible on eBay I do not understand what the big deal was.

Firstoff, in the US, shilling is in no manner illegal. The Uniform Commercial Code specifically allows it when preannounced or during a distress sale. Otherwise, the draconian remedy is that the price drops back to the preshill level. Nothing more.

The reasons that shilling does not work on eBay are that its two essential elements of mark demeanor feedback and auctioneer bailout are not present. In a live auction, the shill must carefully watch the mark and know when to quit. A "winning" shill, of course, loses. Thus the auctioneer must be ever vigilant with an "I'm sorry sir, I could have sworn  you had your hand up".

Further, a 100 percent defense against misguided shilling attempts on eBay is to simply proxy bid your max ONCE very late in the auction. Actually, since you rarely have to pay your full proxy bid price, bidding something like 130 percent of your absolute max should average out pretty nearly all the time.

If the price is too high, you simply do not bid. If the price is still acceptable, then it does not matter in the least to you how the price got to that point. A third reason shill bidding does not work on eBay is that whoever is stupid enough to try it will be making enough other dumb mistakes to guarantee failure. Much more on our Auction Help library page. Your own custom auction finder can be created for you per these details.

December 14, 2014
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JavaScript seems to have more than its share of obtuse command rules and conventions. An if (n=1) {doSomething) ; does wildly different and  wildly wrong things compared to the correct syntax of if (n= =1) {doSomething) ;

The rule is that a double equals sign must be used for an equal comparison. Thus, an 1 eq {dosomething} if in PostScript becomes  if (n= =1){doSomething} ; in JavaScript.

December 13, 2014
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Never store carbide in a non-locking carabiner!

December 12, 2014
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Several readers have asked if eBay sales appear a little off. Turns out it is just that little dip between the fall slack period and the winter slump.

December 11, 2014
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Here's  yet another two point perspective image that did not turn out all that bad. The original is found here, with the eBay listing image here. Our Architects Perspective routines weren't quite up to the entire job, so the rear corners of the supports had to be manually realigned.

A reminder that some browsers cannot properly handle our .PSL files and may squash carriage returns. We are working on the problem, but meanwhile, either add your own carriage returns or email me for a clean attachment copy.

December 10, 2014
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Here are some Canal 31 details to add to our "by watershed" summaries of our hanging canals. Tentative name is the Goat Tank canal. It has not yet been field verified, but the Acme Mapper evidence is compelling and there apparently is a CNF area study available that we have not yet received.

It is presumed to source from Jacobson Creek near N 32.68467 W 109.76145, pass west of Goat Tank near  N 32.68243 W 109.75862, and continue along the southern edge of Ledford Mesa near N 32.68268 W 109.74505, N 32.68507 W 109.73921, and apparently supports a modern but possibly disused and possiblyhydro pipeline at N 32.68468 W 109.72937.

This strongly suggests that the Ledford Tank area might have been the most intensively developed of all the known prehistoric canal systems. It also apparently partially flows and still supports several cattle tanks. Eastern trending jogs in the CNF boundary seem to greatly add to their portion of the canal systems.

It is somewhat embarrassing to find such a major discovery relatively late in the hanging canal research. The only excuse I have is that I simply did not notice it. And that the previous Ledford area canals were already much more than significant. Access also appears to be somewhat difficult.

December 9, 2014
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Its been a while since we looked at Vee Machine book scanners. Mostly because this source has enormously helped my own scanning and restoration needs.

But some interesting Vee Machine developments can be newly found here, here, here, here, and here. Thanks to Richard Holbert for this update.

December 8, 2014
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Added several odd and interesting items to our eBay store. One of these is a polycarbonate lens that fits over a standard 5 mm LED and "magnifies" its image to a relatively huge 20 mm. For better people visibility, and possibly to add callouts or a message.

These lenses simply push onto a standard LED and can be further secured with superglue. The pattern is fairly narrow and includes a central artifact but possibly can be enhanced with a little work with a #8 drill.

The original supplier is believed to be Luxeon. We have a lot of these available and can offer them for ridiculously less than their usual $2.30 each normal distributor cost.

December 7, 2014
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An independent archaeological survey of the Ledford Tank and Goat Tank areas can be newly found here. I used Acrobat XI to make their document fully text searchable.

While still largely unexplored, the hanging canals in this area might end up being the densest developed portion of the entire 80+ kilometer hanging bajads canals system. More details here.

December 6, 2014
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Our original source for the McEniry Tunnel stock scam seems to have 404'ed. Its replacement showed only the drawings and not the prospectus. Luckily, I seem to have an original copy stashed in an obscure downloads folder, so I am now hosting this fascinating document here. And linking it here.

One of the Triumph Tunnel advantages was that you simply scraped the gold off the ceiling, letting it fall directly into your ore car. Um, as an engineer, I would question exactly how you would go about ventilating a twelve mile long tunnel using 1904 technology. It certainly would not be simple or cheap or cost effective.

The Gila Valley Hiking Club is planning a McEniry tour mid January. You are invited to attend.

December 5, 2014
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A reminder that JPG edge effects can be pretty much eliminated entirely by going to a slightly mottled background. At a price of an only slightly larger file size. Some ready to go mottles can be found here, along with a sampling of PostScript friendly base colors here.

Our autobackgrounder can be found here and lots of examples here. And custom work done here. Sadly, our ISP delivery does not seem to handle .PSL files well and tends to swallow carriage returns. We are still working on the problem. Meanwhile, either add your own carriage returns, or email me for a clean copy.

December 4, 2014
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As we've seen a number of times before, the usual pv panel breakthrough of the week often has a 6.99 day half life. One entry this week provides double sided bifacial panels that overlay a white reflector. With efficiencies approaching 21.5%.A second adds groves similar to those on a CD ROM to trap incoming energy better for a similar efficiency improvement.

Meanwhile, the November pv pricing figures are in and approach 45 cents  per peak panel watt, If the present price drops continue, hitting the magic 25 cents per peak panel watt required for net energy renewability and sustainability could happen in as little as eight months.

In related news, pv arrays are in the process of being newly added to the Red Horse II Cochise wind project. Combining wind and pv can use common transmission facilities and provides a better time of day coverage. Much more on energy stuff here.

December 3, 2014
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Made some further corrections and adjustments in our Gila Valley Day Hikes. Which now include full click through location maps to all but the most sensitive of areas. A presentation is tentatively planned for the Gila Valley Hiking Club January 15 meeting at the Discovery Park Ranch House.

You are invited to participate in some Hanging Canal hikes on January 17th in the McEniry Tunnel area, and I'll be giving one of my usual Discovery Park lectures on the Gila Hikes that Saturday in the Jupiter Room at 6:30. Please report any typos or additions or corrections to my website.

December 2, 2014
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Acme mapper has strongly suggested a new prehistoric canal #31 that appears to be a southern extension of the Ledford Complex. Tentative name would be the Goat Tank canal. The area appears very difficult to explore. The canal seems to support a modern pipeline as well.

Evidence suggests that the Ledford Complex may end up being the most intensively developed of all the prehistoric canals.

December 1, 2014
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A major step forward in open source documentation with Nature Magazine now offering free viewing of all papers. They have some scheme to allow viewing only, rather than downloading or printing. It is not clear how such a scheme would bypass screen grabs with that obscure PrintScreenSysRq keyboard key.

Science magazine would also be very likely to follow suit, but IEEE can be expected to drag their feet. Just as the key revolution in creating documents was to typeset first and edit last, the key to open sourcing is to publish first and peer review later.

Academia.edu is a leading open source publisher. Additional resources include Wesrch, Doaj, Questia, Stanford, Wikipedia, Plos One, Figshare, Quartzy, Mendeley, Vixra, MyScienceWork,Arxiv, and SSRN,

November 30, 2014
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Thought I'd start my end of year predictions a little earlier than usual this year...

The price of utility grade solar panels finally
dropping under twenty five cents per peak panel
watt and eventually leading to true net energy
generation, renewablility, and sustainability.

LEDs finally dropping into cost competitive
range for 100 watt incandescents and automotive
headlights. Combined with an utter and sudden
demise of CCFL fluorescents.

Marijuana rapidly becoming totally legal
everywhere and simply no longer a big deal.
Once the federal marijuana farm price support
subsidies inevitably stop, pricing should end
comparable to cotton, or possibly lower because
ginning is simpler. As with cotton, 500 pound
bales should become a standard commodity.
With partial bales considered personal use.

And, related, government projected estimates of
potential marijuana tax income ending obscenely
overvalued, possibly by five orders of magnitude.

A resurgence in traditional electronic hacking,
driven by Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Beagle Bone,
the Basic Stamp plus its derivatives, magazines
such as Circuit Cellar or Make, and such
suppliers as Sparkfun, Marlin Jones, American
Science & Surplus, and even ( should they last
a few more weeks ) Radio Shack.

Dramatic increase in popularity of hackerspaces ,
makerspaces, and fab labs.

Cold fusion" fiascoes continuing "business as
usual". And hot fusion remaining its usual
immutable constant ten years from practicality.
Both, of course, continue as engineering ratholes.

Nanostructures dramatically improving both
photovoltaics and conventional HVAC.

A total merging of telephones, cameras, nav,
books, networking, social media,  movies,
monitors, tv, and video.

Books and magazines and newspapers and
raditional network television largely 
vanishing. And, sadly, libraries unless
they dramatically repurpose themselves.

New understandings of building thermal
management, leading to significantly reduced
heating and cooling costs.

Battery and energy storage developments
continuing gradually and evolutionary. But
hydrogen remaining an outright joke due to
exergy.

The terabyte revolution being largely ignored,
moving directly instead into the petabyte
revolution.  One thumb drive to hold all movies,
or all books, or all history. With emerging
utterly disruptive IP issues.

Substantial medical breakthroughs, especially
in the cancer, diabetes and Alzheimers.

The new WWVB formats dying stillborn with
an utterly amazing lack of interest. Sorry,
but I was dead wrong on this one.

Stunning new archaeological discoveries,
combined with incredibly powerful new
research tools. But continuing problems
in publication acceptances and delays.

The stranglehold on technical research
publication finally being broken, with
open source dissemination dominant, low
access costs, easy publication, long term
access, and peer review taking place after
publication rather than before.

Major breakthroughs in understanding human
brain architecture and functionality, along
with significant new I/O capability.

Dramatic reduction in price and greatly
improved availability of non toy video drones.
And significant improvement in long term
downed drone location.

Major increases in the Goldilocks Exoplanet
count, with some unexpected and highly unusual
but still lower level lifeforms becoming
apparent elsewhere.

A student revolt against backpacks.

Craig's list finally coming to Safford.

November 29, 2014
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ACS or Assets Conversion Specialists of Tempe has newly started a series of online auctions. Mostly aerospace overstock items and such, but otherwise a large variety of interesting stuff.

The easiest way to get a nearly complete list is to search under "lot". Being new to the game, they seem to have very few bidders so far and many items close at their opening bid price. Which is $10 for the majority of the items.

As with any online bid, your best strategy is to bid 130 percent of your max, but not so late as to trip any auto extension. More auction strategy here.

November 28, 2014
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Fascinating details of an ancient Fourier Synthesis computer can be found here. And Fourier fundamentals here. Fourier, of course, plays a major role in our Magic Sinewaves, particularly in their high speed calculation.

Misunderstanding Fourier is also the root cause of many perpetual motion scams, particularly those that appear in the Church of the latter day Crackpots. For, there is no such thing as "pulsed dc". What you have instead is a dc term, an ac fundamental, and various supporting harmonics. All of which are absolutely indistinguishable from the composite.

In particular it is only the DC term that can contribute significantly to electrolysis. The ac stuff mostly just reduces efficiency and creates excess heat. More on similar concepts here and here and here.

November 27, 2014
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Oops. Many browsers cannot deal with my .PSL files. Which are called PostScript-Lancaster, but otherwise are strictly an ASCII text file. The browsers apparently choose to image them as HTML instead.

As a result, most carriage returns end up missing and everything is jammed together and first appears as gibberish. I'm not sure what the best solution is. FTP works just fine but raises extreme security issues. Renaming them as .TXT files has major hassles.

AThe apparent best two solutions are to either to add the carriage returns yourself after downloading. Or else email me and I will email return a clean copy of the .PSL code.

November 26, 2014
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A kiddies violin being out of tune revealed this bunch of free online pitch references and reminded me of the way things were, my unauthorized autobiography.

One of my earliest "fun with numbers" project was trying to find the "best" eight bit sequence to accurately synthesize the equally tempered musical scale. This is not a trivial task in that the irrational tones are spaced in frequency by the twelfth root of two, or 1.05946309436.

The only "computer" I had at the time at Goodyear Aerospace was an ancient Olivetti Programma 101, a yard square boat anchor that used huge magnetic cards. Some after hours playing around with this beast eventually revealed this 232 219 207 195 184 174 164 155 146 138 130 123 116 magic sequence. And also proved that this sequence was unique for the least error for all notes. Beating the 3 cents ( one cent is approximately 0.06% ) capability of a typical musician.

I ended up designing this early and cheap integrated circuit musician's pitch reference and published it in the September 1968 Popular Electronics. Its reprint is now in my Classic Reprints library. A year or so later, Mostek came out with their MK50240 top octave generator which had the unspeakable luxury of using this better nine bit sequence of 478 451 426 402 379 358 338 319 301 284 268 253 239.

Cheap and simple top octave generators dramatically simplified classic electronic organs, but they were quickly blown out of the water by MIDI and improved synthesizer technology. Problems included the notes being locked together rather than chorusing, severe background noise problems because all notes were present all the time, and an architecture that pretty much demanded rats nest wiring.

Much more on my fun with numbers discoveries here, with the real biggie being my Magic Sinewaves and this ultra fast calculator.

November 25, 2014
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I decided to do a major revision of our Gila Valley Day Hikes in which we have live linking to actual locations for all but the most sensitive of prehistoric, cave, and similar sites. Please report anything not working or missing, typos, or suggestions for other entries.

November 24, 2014
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One of the more minor eBay listing infuriations is finding out where you are when you switch to HTML format for an included URL link.

One workaround is to cut and paste an edited older link and then add several underline characters to the middle of the link. When you switch to HTML, the positioning of the intended new link now becomes completely obvious.More eBay insider secrets here.

November 23, 2014
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Added my DotnBar tv pattern generator to our classic reprints from the July 1967 issue of Radio Electronics.This was a very early project using RTL integrated circuits.

The battery life was an atrocity, and the horizontal frequency was off a tad, but nobody seemed to complain too much. The only available outside unit photo known to be available was this less than stellar one. I made some minor adjustments to it using the Bitmap Typewriter. Amazingly, I still seem to have a few of the original DotnBar knobs, so I ended up photo substituting them. Photo reconstruction assistance available.

November 22, 2014
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Updated and expanded our Arizona Auction Links page. Removed some dead links and added ACS. Your own custom regional auction finder can be created for you per these details. And more auction help in general can be found here and here And, of course, our own eBay sales here.

November 21, 2014
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Online auction photos tend to be small and murky and blurry. Here's a trick that sometimes can help: Right click your mouse to copy to clipboard. Then paste into Imageview32 or similar.

Then try magnifying and a click or two of sharpening. Changing brightness and contrast and gamma can also sometimes reveal all sorts of hidden stuff. More online auction help here.

November 20, 2014
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I'd like to start a definitive directory of utterly useless ( but nonetheless absolutely true ) factoids. Such as...

The Canary Islands were named after a large dog.

The eastern end of the Panama Canal is on the
 Pacific Ocean.

There are only forty six states in the US.

Reno is west of Los Angeles.

The propane fire training simulator often adds
 icicles to its fireball.

Arkansas has six states on its southern boundary.

Lake Havasu City AZ has more lighthouses than
 anywhere else.

The tallest mountain in the world is in the US.

The original Woodstock closing act was to be
 Roy Rodgers singing "Happy Trails".

New York state is north, south, east, and west
 of Norwalk, CT.

It is possible to score a one point safety in NFL
 football.

Please email me your contributions.

November 19, 2014
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Have some Madeira M'Dear? What would things look like if our prehistoric recently canal folks also had some access to concrete and iron? It turns out one possible answer can be found on the small Portuguese island of Madeira.

Where you will find lots of spectacularly similar hanging canals comparable to those of Southeastern Arizona except for the obviously improved modern technology. These are called levadas, and among more obvious uses, they are outstanding hiking trails. One guided tour can be found here.

As far as I know so far, these are the only worldwide comparable hanging canal features known. Development was almost certainly totally independent. But both based on the same fundamental engineering principle that the slope of a hanging canal can be made largely independent of the surrounding terrain. Much more here.

November 18, 2014
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Added A tour of some prehistoric hanging canal images to academia.edu. Added Newly discovered possible trinchera in Southeastern Arizona.jpg to the Wikimedia Commons. A rotated and somewhat 3D Google Earth version can also be found here.

Added our newly revised Some Gila Valley Day Hikes to Wesrch.

November 17, 2014
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Some Gila Valley Hiking Club projects that should tie in with our prehistoric hanging canals are tentatively planned for mid January.

You are certainly welcome to participate. More details as they unfold. A talk of mine on our newly revised Gila Valley Day Hikes is also scheduled for mid January in Discovery Park.

November 16, 2014
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Here's a brief summary of the process we use to restore a $10 auction computer. We may expand this into a GuruGram eventually.

0. Preferred units are Vista age with lots of USB jacks and 100 Gigs of hard drive. MUST have original CD's available! Connect pc and monitor power cords and monitor cable, add fresh batteries to mouse and keyboard ( or add new wireless units ). Place operating system CD in drive and reboot. Seek out desktop screen with working cursor and mouse and keyboard functional. Run additional factory application and driverCD's.

1. Run both Wordpad and Paint, creating shortcuts. Create a new folder and save test files to it. Save work to thumb drive. Old version of Paint is not upgradeable, so you may eventually want to substitute Paint.Net or whatever. Use the Control Panel to adjust monitor size and background.

2. Add a wireless interface such as a Netgear WNA3100. CD must be in drive before connecting. Add velcro where appropriate. Access an existing WiFi network of proper 4 or 5 amplitude and ( if needed ) passwords. Use Internet Explorer to install Google Chrome being sure to use its real site and not a malware link. Add Chrome shortcut. Test Chrome and WiFi by accessing www.tinaja.com.

3. Download and install Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and Service Pack 2 if needed. Then download and install any Windows updates. Again, be sure to use the "real" Microsoft sites rather than malware.

4. Download McAfee Internet Security or an equivalent. Make sure it is working.Some packages allow use on three or more computers.

5. Accessorize Chrome as wanted. Recommended more tools extensions are No Underline and SpeedDial. Populate SpeeDial with your most likely to be used websites. I, of course, would recommend www.tinaja.com as your first entry. Our second entry on the previous rebuild needed this Spanish Translator. Our third recommendation would be eBay. Add what you want as appropriate. Set your Chrome search engine to Google. Flush any attempts at search engine piracy.

6. Download Acrobat Reader or ( preferably ) Acrobat XI and test. Be sure to use genuine Adobe downloads and not a malware site. Download Imageview32 and test. Download Filezilla and test. Be sure no personal FTP links are left in Filezills on any computer you are going to give to a third party!

7. Resolve your email options. My recommended is to use Fatcow as your website ISP along with their companion email services. Fatcow requires that I tell you I am one of their associates. Add headphones or stereo sound to the rear audio jack. Test the sound. Watch a video.

8. Once the dust settles, add a printer and a printer driver. If the printer does not include a scanner, add and test a standalone one. My recommendations are the HP OfficeJet Pro 8600 and the older HP Scanjet 3970.

Please report any missing crucial details in any of the above.

November 15, 2014
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Just found out that nearly all of the New Mexico subastas are going to be sold at auction!

Sales and shipping to New Mexico aren't quite as bad as they used to be. Yeah, there's still the language barrier and the hassles at customs. One main problem was that the New Mexico truck tires are all a different size and spacing, so everything needed reloaded at the border crossings.

Fortunately, there are now reersable truck tires that can simply be insided out at the New Mexico ports of entry. More details at your nearest New Mexico embassy.

November 14, 2014
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Made some updates and adjustments to the offsite links on our home page. Added Academia.edu as a Wesrch alternate. Saucer Smear apparently died with its webmaster. Upgraded to the new Central Arizona Grotto website

Added Search Tempest for better Craig's List access. Picked up the new Pittsburgh Streetcars web location. In regards to the latter, attempting to view all of these in one session will result in yinz guys pronouncing "beer" as "airn". Or making a mill outta a chopaam sammitch and Olde Frothingslosh Pale Stale Alein Sliberty.

Fortunately, a desert rat like me is immune. Skooze me while I redd up the website. Please report any link corrections or requests.

November 13, 2014
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Just discovered the free Netgear Genie. This one gives you real time plots of your net activity. Two obvious uses would be to make sure no one has pirated your computer. And to verify that any open WiFi links are not being hijacked by a neighbor.

November 12, 2014
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Many of our eBay guidelines can be found here.

I strongly feel that any merch you buy for eBay resale absolutely must have taken a staggering hit in value, leaving no room whatsoever for supplier pricing based on original value

Such inventory buying opportunities typically and often happen with "contents of room" and "contents of cabinet" auction lots, "poisoned lots" including worthless trash, "put it with the next one" auctioneer momentum ploys, heavy items that can allow minor valuable parts recycled, large quantity assorted lots, items requiring major triage, items needing mix and match part swapping refurb, or simply your being the only bidder that recognizes value.

Or whose seller's primary goals are to free up real estate, make room for new projects, or clear up bankruptcy issues. Or, with traditional auctions, being very late in the auction, 120 degrees in the shade except for the four inch hail, the rabid bats largely failing to drive away the rattlesnakes, and, of course, no restrooms.

I very strongly feel that you should always seek out a 30:1 Sell/Buy ratio. Anything less cuts into your other business expenses, such as labor, storage, refurb, wrong guesses, lack of eBay interest, utilities, slow sales, and, above all, the value of your time and effort. Thus, the price of your inventory should be an utterly negligible portion of your actual business costs.

Note that a 30:1 SBR is equal to a 97 percent commission, making consignment selling for others a laughingly ludicrous joke. A reasonable selling price for our types of items on eBay would be one sixth of normal distributor cost. Combine this with a 30:1 SBR leaves you with a maximum inventory buy price of a penny on the dollar. We normally seek out one half to one third of this price ceiling.

Naturally, if all of your inventory buy offers are accepted, you are paying far too much. Our usual goal is to hit a five percent acceptance rate. Which, of course, you make up for by bidding on twenty times the quantity of items you could possibly use.

November 11, 2014
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WARNING: Most popular apps may be more easily gotten from malware sites rather than the authentic "real" if you Google "Get Acrobat Reader" or "Download Chrome",  the "real" site may end up sixth or seventh on the list, with the higher ranking sites usually being malware. Such malware will typically hijack your website, grab your home page, force its own search engines on you, or otherwise take control of your computer!

The malware sites get this way by manipulating the Google popularity rules. Your obvious defense is to make absolutely sure your Acrobat Reader comes ONLY from Adobe and your Chrome Browser comes ONLY from Google. These malware substitutions more often happen with multiple search words. Thus, searching on "Chrome" will often rank the real program higher than searching with "Chrome Download". Be sure to watch these gotchas.

November 10, 2014
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Apparently You Tube now has bunches of free and mostly classic full length movies available for download. Sadly, the cross genre classic Godzilla versus the night nurses is not included. How they did the tapioca pudding scene remains under strict NDA. And the restraining order from the Tapioca Pudding Institute caused the flick to released directly to eight track.

Access to many dozens of free video download sites appears here. Of these, I find CBS and Fox interesting. Especially CSI Gila Bend. Plus the beyond ultra nerdy Twit. And the thousands of free college football games at NCAA. My own video can be found here.

November 9, 2014
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A reminder that two of our newest web page additions include a major rework of our Gila Day Hikes that now include lat lons of many non-sensitive locations.

Plus the usual reminder that Acme Mapper is incredibly useful for most any exploration. Plus our recently accepted Bajada Hanging Canals paper newly up on Wikipedia. More on the hanging canals here. Your comments on either addition welcome.

November 8, 2014
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Astounding bargains in used computers seem to be becoming available at high school, community college, and even military auctions. I just picked up a dozen Vista machines with 100 gig+ drives for $10 each. And more can be expected at this weekend's upcoming Thatcher High School auction.

So far, there was one dead mouse and a scratched monitor with a somewhat mottled, but still highly usable background. Which likely was moisture caused, because it went away after a few hours of "cooking". The usual gotcha, of course, is that the hard disks have been totally wiped. But the EAC auction provided full recovery disks. These machines are more than fast enough for home video and easily connected to a smart Vizio or whatever. School systems tend to use headphones rather than speakers, but this can be worked around with a sound cable to your tv.

One trick is to bid $10 and then fold. Doing so as early and as subtly as you can. The auctioneer will usually welcome this as a way to keep momentum. And the key to the low prices is to have only a few bidders that are only after a single machine. Supply and demand and all that.

The usual software you may want to download new would include Chrome, Acrobat Reader ( or full Acrobat ), Filezilla, Imageviewer32, and Irfranview. Curiously, old versions of Paint are not upgradeable, so you may want to add Paint.NET or something similar. Plus printer or scanner software if you need these.

If you be hosting your own website, my favorite remains Fat Cow. But they insist I tell you that I am one of their associates Another gotcha to beware of: Even legitimate freeware sites may try to hijack Chrome or force all sorts of useless downloads on you. After each download, check to see if your home page and search engine are still yours. Then check your program files for the current date and flush anything suspect that you do not want.

November 7, 2014
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Acme Mapper has proven to be enormously useful for our Hanging Canal research. Despite having "not quite" the resolution needed to actually see most portions of most canals. Aerial canal views tend to be more or less invisible anyway. A reminder that addresses and place names found in Google Maps can be entered, besides the usual lat-lon in many different formats.

I was wandering around an obscure part of Arizona with Acme, and discovered a knoll top collection of four nested triangles. Whose most likely explanation are quite old prehistoric Trincheras. On checking with a trinchera specialty archaeologist, I found that these may in fact be unknown to the scientific community

Acme's major contribution here was the ability to instantly switch between topo mapping and satellite imaging. As mentioned before, it sure would be nice to be able to selectively blend the two. As per this very crude example of Pacman, Arizona.

On further inspection, several dozen adjacent knoll tops also had what may or may not be man made structures. While only one other one has a somewhat triangular motif, when considered in context, the others do suggest possible tentative trinchera candidates.

There is not the slightest hint of any relationship with CCC water spreaders. Their viewing literally screams "very old". CCC stuff tends to be down on the flats, focused on drainages, sharply imaged, and virtually never on knoll peaks.

Why such a ( now ) arid and ( now ) desolate area would have been chosen at all remains highly enigmatic. These are located south of the Mackenzie River.Your comments welcome.

November 6, 2014
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There is a vile and despicable pile of malware crap called Astromenda. This attaches itself to many supposedly "free" downloads and hijacks your home page, your back button, and becomes your only available search engine.

It is fairly simple to remove the main Astromenda program using Add or Remove software out of the Control Panel. And fairly easy to reset your Chrome home page and home button using their Settings feature. But getting rid of the ban on all other search engines seems tricky as they may have locked out any ability to enter new engines. This insidiosity is marked by the new engine blocks turning pink when you try to use them.

Completely removing Chrome and its folder and reloading did not make the problem go away for me. It turns out there are twelve or more hidden Astromenda routines maliciously stashed in unexpected places in the windows operating system.

Details on options appear here. There is a ransom ware site called Spy Hunter that will find out if you have Astromenda for free, but charges you at least $39 for your first repair. And tries to charge you double by a misleading order box. Spy Hunter did appear to work for me, but ransom ware is ransom ware.

November 5, 2014
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Graham County wines? A fledging industry seems to have started with some fifty tons of grape harvest by Bonita Springs Vineyards. These folks are just north of the tomato factory at N 32.47433 W 109.93799.

Admittedly, this part of Graham county is very much more Willcox oriented, rather than Safford associated. Much more on interesting things to do in Graham County here.

November 4, 2014
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There's a new "A+" version of the Raspberry pi out. It is smaller, cheaper, and lower cost with improved I/O. On sale now at $20!

November 3, 2014
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The term "tipping point" seems to be newly emerging in many endeavors, such as here and here. I strongly feel we have finally at long last reached the tipping point for electric utility photovoltaics.

To date, not one single NET watt hour of pv electricity has ever been produced when taken in energy totality. And when properly treating subsidies as 7X energy liabilities rather than 1X energy assets. Also to date, pv has not been in any manner renewable nor sustainable.

But after years and years of the outrageous pricing that has traditionally made pv panels a net energy sink, we are finally and rapidly approaching the quarter a watt peak panel price needed to eventually achieve both renew ability and sustainability. This site is a good source for tracking declining pv costs. We now seem to be at 47 cents per peak utility based panel watt. And dropping at a penny per month rate.

Where does the quarter per peak panel watt needed for pv to go mainstream bonkers comes from? Ar present ten cents per kilowatt hour is a ballpark figure for electricity from traditional sources. And a one kilowatt panel on a good Arizona day should produce something like five kilowatt hours of electricity now competitively worth fifty cents. Or around $15 per month.

How much can we afford pay for such a one kilowatt pv system?. Using this amortization guide, we find that a 10 year, 10 percent investment of $1135 will cost us fifty cents per day breakeven in principle and interest. Or around $15 per month. Which is where the "buck a peak watt" holy grail figure originally came from.

But wait. There are two huge gotchas here. The first is that this figure is for total systems cost that include installation, maintenance, financing, synchronous inverters, shipping, land, net metering, and such. Typically, the peak panel watt pricing ends up one half or less of the total system costs. Thus, for buck a watt system costs, the peak panel cost would have to be around fifty cents per peak watt.

Which we finally seem to be under. The second gotcha is that fifty cents per peak panel watt is only a "paint it green" equivalence. It does not make much sense to generate traditional electricity at ten cents a watt only to use it to pay for a ten cents per watt pv panel.

For pv to become renewable and sustainable, it has to not only meet this fifty cents equivalence price, but significantly beat it. Hence, twenty five cents per peak watt would seem to be a ballpark magic number tipping point for true renew ability and sustainability to emerge.

Sadly, once the twenty five cents figure is reached, zillions of investment dollars ( and their ten cents per kilowatt hour energy equivalents ) will be thrown at pv setting back by years the actual true energy breakeven point. But such breakeven now appears a near certainty. Much more on energy topics here.

November 2, 2014
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accademia.edu seems to be a second alternative to http://www.wesrch.com/. They have 15 million people and four million papers combined with 16 million visitors per month. >I have yet to evaluate them or work with them.

November 1, 2014
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An alternate to a simple and cheap POE Power over Ethernet adapter cable can be found here. This fakes true POE by simply using unused cable wires. It is NOT compatible with true POE.

October 31, 2014
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Except for a few yet to be adjusted typos, our fully revised Gila Day Hikes is now ready to go. We are in the process of taking out all of the old typos and putting new ones in. Besides additions and updates and corrections, the big new feature is that most locations are now spelled out as Lat and Long.

Such locations are purposely NOT provided on certain caves, Indian ruin habitations, and a few other highly sensitive entries. The lat longs can be directly clicked into Acme Mapper. From there you can switch between topo, satellite, and other display formats. Such locations typically are in the usual blue and appear at the end of each listing.

The easiest way to find these is to go to our home page, and, if the brown saguaro banner is not up, keep refreshing until it appears. Then click through to reach https://www.tinaja.com/gilahike.shtml. We'll have a Discovery Park lecture on these updates in mid January. Please report any additions or corrections or anything I missed.

October 30, 2014
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A review of some of the tricks and hidden gotchas to our auto backgrounding and vignetting utility. The utility works by first scanning from the west border to find the end of the first continuous sequence of red=255 pixels. It then replaces everything found with a slightly mottled background based on a selected of 215 web friendly PostScript colors.

Mottling a background dramatically reduces JPEG edge artifacts with only a negligibly slight increase in file size. It then continues by scanning from the east border, then the south border, then the north border.

It is super important that there are no unwanted red=255 pixels in the original art. The easiest way to guarantee this is to use Imageviewer32 or a similar program to back off all reds by two clicks.

It is also super important that there are no breaks whatsoever in the outlining red=255 border. For even a one pixel break will place one or more "bulldozer tracks" in your final art. There is an optional feature that will also overwrite any internal red=255 pixels. This is handy for any "holes" in your artwork.

Undercuts can create subtle to outrageous problems in your final artwork if the area is not reachable by a vertical or horizontal line from the west, east, south, or north borders. The solution is to mark these areas as if they were internal red=256 pixels. The utility must be run from GhostScript as disk access is newly forbidden in Distiller. Update: Use /F! Here is an example of where inaccessible undercuts should be premarked. Other examples of the auto backgrounder can be found here.

October 29, 2014
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We should have bunches of unusual neat stuff up on eBay. Including circular mil connectors ( both wired and fiber optic ), SMA attenuators, genuine walk-don't-walk signs for man caves, huge crimp terminals, assorted pc boards for artist uses, premium grade miniature Teflon coax, servo pressure controllers, rare and pristine GR 1863 Megohmmeters, genuine Strobotacs, various Hubble connectors, AMX MSP Ethernet controllers, Simpson meters, and stainless steel conveyor belting.

Plus great heaping bunches of audio and video gear we have yet to test. We also have a unique collection of classic Apple IIe, IIc, and IIgs computers, boards, software that we are closing out and will sell by the lot. Buyer is responsible for pickup or shipping.

October 28, 2014
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A video on on free printed circuit board software is available here. And a new book on classic Heathkit items here. The web seems to be recovering from the Heathkit debacle of a few years back. One source of free manuals and schematics appears here. With other Heath resources here, here, here, here , and here. Plus any I may have missed here.

October 27, 2014
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Naturally, Arizona has no caves to speak of. And super secrecy is a hallmark of Arizona Caving. BUT - Mescal Crack seems about to vanish off the face of the earth. Besides, you cannot get there from here. Somewhere near N 33.87363 W 110.80808 is a very tight and narrow 95 foot + deep pit in 0recambrian Mescal Limestone. While it was somewhat visible on a previous satellite image on  Acme Mapper, it now seems to have newly disappeared entirely.

NMany hundreds of CAG man hours went into the initial search decades ago for this ultra remote cave. Over the years, the then dim bulldozer track accessing it seems to have disappeared almost entirely. Very few Apache Group Precambrian cave features are known.

A second legendary pit is also rumored to be two miles northwest more or less in which "rocks roll forever" and whose tentative name is strawberry awful. On the bright side, though, the Q Ranch is now reportedly an outstanding bed and breakfast. Other unusual locations here.

October 26, 2014
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A few years ago, I was at a lecture where they asked "What is one of the indicator species of overgrazing?" They sure got upset when I replied "Cows".

October 25, 2014
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Apparently one of the sources of docs on the McEniry tunnel is no longer available, so try this one instead. This was basically an outrageous scam in which you would simply scrape the gold off the ceiling and let it fall directly into your ore car. BTW, this spelling is clearly from the original document. There are lots of incorrect local variations around here. Similar fascinating places here.

October 24, 2014
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Here's some before and after photos that show off our Bitmap Typewriter. This offers you the highest possible resolution this side of going to subpixel techniques.

October 23, 2014
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Managed to get a start on adding more specific location info to the nonsensitive listings of our Gila Valley Dayhikes. But it appears it will take a lot more time and effort thanI first suspected. Some of the locations I presently need help in finding lat lons for include:

 Cotton Cave
 Klondyke Wall
 Yellowstone flying buttress dam
 Pima Box Arch
 Dragoon Arch
 Zeolite Mines
 Espiritu Tinajas

Please advise if you can help on any of these.

October 22, 2014
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Yet another centered one point perspective example can be found here. These can be very useful to illustrate eBay instruments. The satin finish can be a real hassle to photograph, so this one was done outside in fairly deep shade. Vertical architect's perspective correction was done with our usual tool, while the horizontal correction was minor enough to be done by chasing small samples across the screen.

The whole satin part got redone for uniformity, which needed some fairly minor lettering rework. I did not like the right side of the instrument, so I mirrored the left for best appearance. We can do this kind of work for you on a custom basis.

October 21, 2014
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Don't know if it is a recent update or not, but the find feature of Acme Mapper now seems amazingly flexible in that it can find most street addresses, place names, and pretty much anything that's also findable in Goggle Maps.

October 20, 2014
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Did I ever tell you about my secret Fire Lookout's gourmet recipe for boiled can? There's a 24 hour prep time involved since you have to use the previous night's dishwater.

October 19, 2014
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Many thanks to all of you who attended last night's Hanging Canal lecture. Despite heavy tailgating competition, we ended up with more or less of a full house. This was an interesting experiment in a "tag team lecture". Many thanks to Dr. Neely for joining me

There are many, many hanging canal projects we could use your help ( and funding! ) on. Besides being fun dayhikes, these could give you the opportunity to actually participate in real world class scientific research. One project in particular would involve some fancy ATV exploration in a difficult to reach portion of Deadman Mesa. Please contact me if you have any interest in this. Much more on the hanging canals here.

October 18, 2014
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A very short notice reminder that both Dr. Neely and myself will be talking about our prehistoric hanging canals tonight at 6:30 in the Jupiter Room of Discovery Park.

You can preview the talk here, with more on the hanging canals here. Discovery Park is located near the corner of 20th avenue and Discovery Park Boulevard in Safford, Arizona.

October 17, 2014
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Dr. Neely and I spent a very interesting morning with George Hayes, the manager of the Cluff Ponds facility of Arizona Game and Fish. A better name for what we called the Cluff Ponds canal would Be the presently inactive Smith Tank Canal. Its source is easily traced to a multi gated diversion structure on Ash Creek near N 32.81347 W 109.84917.

A new area that we are going to call the Cluff Southwest Complex centers on N 32.82521 W 109.85507 and has a collection of 1930's era diversion structures that appear to overlay more of our prehistoric hanging canals. We'll tentatively call this Canal #31 and believe it pushes the total well past sixty miles.

When combined with the previously studied Minor Webster Ditch system, there are a total of three canal areas on interest in the Cluff areas. Proving these in fact have prehistoric origins may end up enormously difficult, but such prehistoric origins would certainly be very conspicuous by their absence.

Several unrelated questions came up during our visit. As best as I know, the actual Shingle Mill was much further up the canyon than most people believe and was somewhere near the Hulda Gap Corral near 6000 feet elevation. I do not know where the end of the logging flumes were, but photos in the Pima Museum might prove useful. Much more on the Allen Dam disaster here, with more on Gila Valley dayhikes here.

October 16, 2014
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An ad in this morning's Craig's List assures us that "all reasonable offers will be excepted. Which is almost as good as the ancient eBay "Fright arrangements are to be made by the buyer".

October 15, 2014
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Freescale has just come up with a pair of solid state replacements for the vacuum tube magnetrons still used in microwave ovens in their part numbers MHT1003N ( 250 watts, 2450 MHz, 58%) and MHT1002N ( 350 watts, 915 MHz, 63% ). Units are medium gain amplifiers rather than resonant cavity devices and can apparently be run in parallel The projected cost is in the $35 range in quantity. They can be are powered from a 32vdc supply and potentially should be smaller and last a lot longer, besides offering real time feedback of oven conditions.

Development systems are available but pricey. Additional content here. With CRT monitors and tv's having recently been blown out of the water, this was the last major consumer market for vacuum tubes. Except, of course, for the retro audio epsilon minuses.

October 14, 2014
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Finding the slope of a function can be enormously useful, as the whole branch of differential calculus can tell us. Ferinstance, a zero slope indicates a local maximum, minimum, or an inflection point. And finding the slopeof the slope can tell us which is which

One crude way of finding slopes is to make a very small incremental change in the function's variable and see how much the function itself changes. But if the function can be mathematically defined and is reasonably well behaved, chances are its slope derivative is already well known.

The basic scheme is called the fundamental rule of differential calculus and goes something like this...

slope of a function = the limit as delta x goes
to zero for (( f(x) + delta(x) - (f(x)) / delta(x).

The usual example is to find the slope at a point along a parabola y = x^2. (x + deltax)^2 is x^2 + 2x*deltax + deltax^2. Subtracting x^2 and letting deltax^2 vanish and dividing by deltax leaves us with a derivative slope of 2x. Good old u^n(du).

More in our Math Stuff and Magic Sinewaves and Cubic Spline libraries.

October 13, 2014
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I've had several requests to expand and improve the actual locations of our Gila Valley Dayhikes. And will be doing most of these, except for very sensitive locations or any that I am unsure about or have not personally verified.

The new locations will mostly be in purple. You can easily cut and paste them into Acme Mapper or Google Earth. I expect the process will take a few weeks to complete. Your comments welcome. A Discovery Park lecture is planned for mid January.

October 12, 2014
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A reminder that I will be doing a Hanging Canal lecture in the Discovery Park Jupiter Room this Saturday October 18th at 6.30 PM. The lecture is free and some southwestern archaeologists are likely to also participate.

You can preview portions of the talk here. Discovery Park is located near the corner of Discovery Park Boulevard and 10th Avenue in Safford Arizona. Several tours are planned the week of October 13 to 18th, and some slots are still open if you want to join us. You can email me for details.

October 11, 2014
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It can be a good idea to include scope traces of working waveforms with any intended eBay instrument sale. To prove the instrument is more or less alive and well.

Getting quality results such as this one or this one can be tricky. The usual approach is to get one grid block looking decent and then replicating as needed over the entire screen. While maintaining uniform horizontal and vertical spacing.

One trick in dealing with sinewaves or swept sinewaves: The tops and bottoms can be done with the little known and less used Paint quadratic parabola tool, while the mid portions of the "curve" can easily be approximated with straight linesn Naturally, you do not want to alter the actual waveform in any manner that is deceptive or different from the original. Consulting services, screen designs, and seminars available

October 10, 2014
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If a premise on our Prehistoric Hanging Canals that "they" fully exploited literally every drop of available Northeastern Mt. Graham water and related springs and artesian sources is valid, and if the system can be assumed to have been complete or nearly completed, and that most historical canals in the area were "steal the plans" or "borrow the blueprints" to "dig out a n old ditch" it might be of interest to regroup the canal arrangements by watersheds. Starting from the southeast...

P RANCH CANYON - This would appear to be the far limit of possible canal development with an obvious takein point at N 32.59434 W 109.73912 and a possible secondary one in Veech Canyon. Despite many research trips and persistent local rumors, no significant results have yet been observed. There is a possible small canal reach of indeterminate age at N 32.61347 W 109.72820 and an apparent water control structure at N 32.65462 W 109.71854

LEFTHAND CANYON EAST - There are two Lefthand Canyons, with this one being the easternmost near the Metate Peak area around N 32.67358 W 109.73808. This region forms an unstudied "gap" in canal occurrences and may have in fact been devoid of perennial water sources.

JACOBSON CANYON - Forms the apparently still used Ledford Tank Complex at N 32.68618 W 109.74301 with numerous branches and steep off mesa drops. Largely still understudied due to somewhat difficult access.

MARIJILDA CANYON - A very rich and well studied area sourcing from N 32.70626 W 109.77726. Several smaller branch canals diverge from this point. The main Marijilda Ditch at N 32.71724  W 109.76735 was historically reworked and still sees use to this day, feeding Lebanon Reservoir #2 at N 32.73493 W 109.76074 A southern divergence formed the possibly older and original Henry's canal, studied from N 32.73760 W 109.74198to N 32.74566 W 109.72640. Meanwhile, the High Marijilda original canal first crosses an aqueduct at N 32.72371 W 109.76240 and then forms one of the most spectacularly hanging portions at N 32.73317 W 109.75794 and eventually feeding Lebanon Reservoir #2 at and sourcing the ( likely ) updated modern Roper Canal terminating at N 32.75569 W 109.70786. A second presumed branch from Lebanon Reservoir #2 is believed to be buried under modern agricultural development, eventually "tunneling" under the Lebanon Cemetery at N 32.76159 W 109.73320 and forming the Twin East Canal feeding the Twin Boobs ponding area at N 32.76603 W 109.73595. Separately, the Rincon Canal is believed to route down its namesake at N 32.75326 W 109.75370 servicing several domestic sites and possibly becoming the Twin West Canyon also delivering to the Twin Boobs ponding area at N 32.76603 W 109.73595.

TRANQUILITY CANAL - Believed to be unique as it is potentially artesian sourced, shorter, and routes over private inholdings. Possibly originates somewhere near N 32.75759 W 109.73297 and believed to deliver water to the Cooks Reservoir area at>N 32.77415 W 109.72812. While portions are clearly modern,  an underlying prehistoric original remains somewhat likely but unproven. At one point, the Tranquility Canal comes amazingly close to the Twin East canal, separated only by a significant cliff of only 30 feet or so of height. The two remain presumed totally unrelated.

DEADMAN CANYON - An original and significantly hanging portion is believed to have been replaced by a modern pipeline from N 32.73900 W 109.81155 to N 32.74463 W 109.80704. This canal still flows to this day, servicing several top mesa tanks. Area has evidence of "knife Edging" where canals are carefully routed across the highest possible and extremely narrow mesa tops. An apparent three way switch at N 32.76058 W 109.78133 seemed to allow selective routing to Porter Springs Tank at N 32.77033 W 109.77811, Upper Deadman Tank at N 32.75845 W 109.77030, and Lower Deadman Tank at N 32.77141 W 109.75142 Meanwhile, a potential and enigmatic southern knife edge branch remains unexplored from N 32.75403 W 109.78250 to N 32.75652 W 109.77705 and may have been a still unproven primary or secondary source for the Twin West Canal at N 32.76478 W 109.74227. Numerous braided channels or trails remain a highly enigmatic mystery at N 32.75461 W 109.78203.

SOUTH OF FREEMAN - A large area here seems conspicuous by the absence of any known canals, yet might in fact been too arid or of to complex a topography to support prehistoric interest. Largely unvisited due to more promising terrain elsewhere. Centers on N 32.77622 W 109.75398 and is difficult of access.

DISCOVERY SOUTHWEST - Area from N 32.79452 W 109.72842 to N 32.78222 W 109.73994 is rich in archaeology yet no canals are known. Includes the Clay Knolls ( aka Beer Bottle ruin ) sites and many rock alignments, mulch rings, field houses, and such. Many mulch rings were trashed by the City of Safford during a water tank construction. Possibly the densest collection of southern grids appears at N 32.78550 W 109.74270.

LONGVIEW AREA - A prehistorically rich area full of habitation sites, rock constructs, check dams with and without aprons, grids, many linear features, and mulch rings. Only a very short hint of a canal wall is known at N 32.78923 W 109.75944 without any yet supporting evidence of links to the Porter Springs or Frye Mesa areas. From N 32.77999 W 109.76410 to N 32.77999 W 109.76410

FRYE MESA COMPLEX - Perhaps the most extraordinary assemblage of all the prehistoric canals and has the most elaborate constructs. Water is believed but not yet proven to be diverted above the falls at N 32.74376 W 109.83971, across a saddle and over into Spring Canyon where it merges into a ponding area below a spring N 32.74572 W 109.84043. If not diverted, the water routes down Spring Canyon to an Allen Canal takein point at N 32.78238 W 109.83554. Allen canal continues for several miles, eventually routing under Allen Reservoir at N 32.83191 W 109.79555 continuing through an enormously huge Cuelbra Cut at N 32.83567 W 109.79799 and a carefully engineered saddle gap crossing at N 32.83313 W 109.80475, finally believed to end up in unproven fields beneath the Central Dam atn N 32.85032 W 109.8000. Meanwhile, alternate diversion is believed to route water under the Frye Mesa Falls Road extension at N 32.75101 W 109.83855, through various braided channelsN 32.76001 W 109.81462 to a ponding area at N 32.76000 W 109.81149. The higher elevation portion of this routing is partially supported by a "steal the plans" forest service pipeline. The water apparently is split two ways at the ponding area, first going to a spectacularly impressive counterflowing HS Canal. While the HS canal clearly returns water to Frye Creek at N 32.75803 W 109.81509, unproven beliefs strongly suggest it is the source for the Golf Course Canal, portions of which are currently known to route from N 32.79840 W 109.78269 to N 32.79883 W 109.7761. Also suggested is that the HS Canal might be a possibly prehistoric source for the modern Blue Ponds Canal at N 32.78088 W 109.77833 or might be a factor in the extensive Longview development near N 32.77800 W 109.76661. Several braided channels have also been noted that might be related, although they seem to be older and more primitive constructs. These were named the Riggs Complex and found at N 32.77846 W 109.78945 and hints of a possible nearby portion of Golf Course Canal remain largely unstudied and unlinked at N 32.78465 W 109.78724. Meanwhile, back at the N 32.76000 W 109.81149 ponding area, the second routing is believed to form the Robinson Canal ( Historically renamed the Robinson Ditch ) that routes over a spectacular hanging portion at N 32.77173 W 109.79672 then "climbing" to the main portion of Robinson Mesa at N 32.78467 W 109.79339 is believed to reach fields North of Daley Estates, presumably near N 32.81054 W 109.77185.

LOWER FRYE EAST - A strange construct near N 32.76705 W 109.79332 may or may not be canal related, and visual clues further north turned out to be an abandoned wagon road, complete with horseshoes. The area could link to the modern short Blue Ponds diversionary canal at N 32.78095 W 109.77841 or might serve the Longview area in some yet undiscovered manner. CCC projects are also in the area.

MUD SPRINGS CANAL - This main canal is the only one where its entire length can be viewed from several places, which suggests it might have been the original prototype. The original takein is believed to be in upper Ash Creek near N 32.78748 W 109, followed by a projected hanging portion that may or may not still exist owing to potential flood damage. A key feature is an exceptionally well located critical saddle crossover found at N 32.79145 W 109.85390 followed by an easily traceable but not yet completely surveyed route down past Mud Springs to N 32.80347 W 109.83937. The canal continues quite traceably northward to a seldom visited hanging portion near N 32.81632 W 109.83207 and one of the largest mid channel Mesquite trees at N 32.81917 W 109.82737. The canal continues to a well researched area near some CCC constructs and is overrun without accommodation by a SCS dam at N 32.82371 W 109.82411. There is appears to be a minor branch of the canal northward of unknown purpose. The canal continues northeasterly past a curious water level pithouse-like structure called the Troll House. No obvious evidence of charcoal is present at this site at N 32.82683 W 109.82115. This is the only known structure in direct association with most of the canal systems. Near N 32.82755 W 109.81949 the Jernigan Canal splits off to the north and is believed to cross West Layton Road at N 32.83690 W 109.81498. he canal makes the third of three large U-turn loops in a significant hanging portion at N 32.84207 W 109.81552, then heads northerly, terminating in a  French Drain like construct serving well defined end use fields in the N 32.84160 W 109.81678 area. The Jernigan habitation site is nearby. Meanwhile, the main Mud Springs Canal continues easterly just past a historic tank at N 32.82764 W 109.81896 and then can be traced to N 32.83054 W 109.81588, temporarily lost, and then retraced to a modest hanging portion and caliche colored reach at N 32.84261 W 109.81052. Near this area, the Mud Springs Canal and the Jernigan Canal are only separated by a few hundred feet horizontally and a few dozen feet vertically, despite over a mile of split construction. The main Mud Springs canal can be easily followed to N 32.84796 W 109.81104 where it suddenly vanishes without a trace. Its destination fields remain unknown at present

CLUFF PONDS CANAL- A modern but disused canal can be traced routing from Ash Creek to N 32.81874 W 109.84679 to N 32.82009 W 109.84462, once servicing a pair of ponds arranged such that the easternmost pond acted as an overflow to the westernmost one. No immediate proof of prehistoric origins have yet been found, but indirect evidence is compelling. Not the least of which being such a prehistoric origin would be highly conspicuous by its absence. There are numerous potsherds and a larger habitation site in the area, and the canal technology appears well within prehistoric capabilities. This is in midst of the largest regional riparian area and the ponds could well have served as destination fields.

SHINGLE MILL CANAL - A second disused modern canal was known as the Minor Webster Ditch and routed from N 32.79785 W 109.87270 to N 32.81087 W 109.86743, apparently sourcing from Shingle Mill canyon. Construction did include a service road and a deeper vee typical of a Gradeall, but prehistoric origins would seem quite likely, again with such a canal being highly conspicuous by its absence. And with the route being consistent with prehistoric engineering capabilities. There are numerous potsherds in the area and the modern Cluff Ponds region would seem an ideal fields destination.

LEFTHAND & GOAT HILL AREA - This second Lefthand Canyon is in the Spear Ranch region. Some highly interesting and well studied canals appear directly related to destination fields near N 32.80647 W 109.91850. These canals seem to differ from others in the study area in that they are significantly shorter, multi branch, and are clearly end use, rather than intended for longer range delivery.

LAMB TANK CANAL - A longer range delivery canal appears to have been sourced from Lefthand Canyon and routed from N 32.82133 W 109.92391 to N 32.82868 W 109.92224 and merits further study.

NUTTALL AND CARTER CANYONS - Mt Graham drainages tend to be drier and less promising to the west. These two canyons at N 32.78839 W 109.97474 could form potential logical extensions to the canal complex, although little work has been done here and no canals are yet known.

BEAR SPRINGS & BIGLER PONDS The region from N 32.85171 W 109.94775 to N 32.85009 W 109.94483 are major artesian sources unlikely to have been ignored as prehistoric water development. There are also likely destination fields in the area, although the area has been little studied as canal candidates. A spectacularly large and currently disused canal at N 32.86676 W 109.93024 appears to have been primarily a modern real estate scam.

THE UFO FISH FILETS - The highly unusual and wildly atypical construct at N 32.81509 W 109.97079 would appear to define the westernmost limit of the present canal study area. While believed of primarily CCC origin, there may be prehistoric precedents that are related to water management issues.

Ongoing maps of these areas can be found here and here. With additional content here and an image collection here. Your involvement and participation welcome.

October 9, 2014
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Picked up a bunch of walk - don't walk signs that should be ideal for man cave misapplication. We would shortly have them up on eBay. These are in quite good condition and are complete units with outer packaging, seals, and a programmable internal computer. They include a countdown timer, which have not quite figured out how to use yet.

External control is quite simple, but the timing to a flashing don't walk must be externally provided. The trailing edge of the external don't walk first flash apparently trips countdown.nbControl appears quite simple. Blue to white Common 110 vac lights the walking man. Orange to white Common 110 vac lights the orange don't walk. Stopping orange to white starts the large orange LED countdown.

Speaking of which, these might also be useful for industrial timingn aps. Programming of a number of options can be done using internal DIP switches. Most units are genuine Dialight brand. Being LEDs, these should be reliable and long life. Units are tested before shipment. More info here.

October 8, 2014
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A reminder that low density polyethylene rods can be used with an ordinary glue gun. Which is one way to quickly build up a custom connector, tack a wire to a pc board, fix a bezel, or make a small light use part.

Or tack them onto an XY table for a Santa Claus Machine. An older exploration of possibilities appears here and here.

October 7, 2014
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Here's a rerun on some more of my live auction insider secrets:

Always dress down to the point of almost
 appearing shabby .

Listen to everything; volunteer nothing.

Wear a hat or shirt or whatever that is VERY
 distinctive.

Always set your max bid to JUST ABOVE a
 currency denomination threshold and
 NEVER go over it.

If you would like to try and steal an item, get out
 in front of everybody else but not quite in the
 auctioneer's face. Their entire field of view
 should be one-quarter you.

While the item IS STILL BEING DESCRIBED,
 hold your bidder card against your chest with
 one hand and do a Churchill V for Victory with
 your other hand, against your chest. Be sure that
 ONLY the auctioneer can see you.

You are giving the auctioneer a message of "Here
 is a $2.50 floor bid if and when you care to accept
 it."

If you really, really want an item that is unlikely to
 have much competition, do the above, but
 continually rock your bidder's card back
 and forth after the first counterbid.

If you suspect the bidding will be competitive,
 WAIT till just under your max and bid ONCE
 on the second going of going going  gone.

NEVER get tired, or lazy, or in a hurry.

The spectacularly best deals usually happen very
 late in an auction.

Ideally, the temperature should be above 120
 degrees except for the four inch hail, and the
 rabid bats should not be succeeding at driving
 the rattlesnakes away.

And, needless to say, no restrooms.

Abject trash tends to poison a lot, and you can
 usually give anything you do not want to another
 bidder.

Bid on the value of what you want and ignore
 everything you will have to flush anyway.

Much more on our auction help page. Especially AUCTSCNE.PDF

October 6, 2014
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Our Prehistoric Bajada hanging canals of southwestern Arizona article has just been accepted by Wikipedia.

Wikipedia usually very strongly discourages articles involving original research. But, as a sub footnote on page 3857 of Volume XVII of the nineteenth revision of the Wikipedia Rules and Regulations tells us, a topic involving original research can be accepted so long as there is strong enough and notable enough independent major media coverage in several significant publications.

Authors also have to strongly suppress ego and very much discourage any internal self promotion as well. Many thanks to Dennis Wagner of USA Today and Joanna Althands of www.arizona.com for bailing us out on this one. Much more on our hanging canals here.

October 5, 2014
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A possible, yet still unverified, extension to the Golf Course Hanging Canal can be found here. This would preclude artesian or Robertson origins and would greatly strengthen ( but still not prove ) HS Canal sourcing.

Remaining is the mystery of the Riggs Complex braided channels somewhat further south at N 32.77846 W 109.78945. But these somehow seem cruder, older, and totally inconsistent with the Golf Course Canal architecture.

October 4, 2014
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I'm surprised that nobody has yet seen fit to provide the ability to transparently overlay both a topo map and its underlying imagery. Preferably real time adjustable. If such a feature is available, I sure do not know about it.

I ran a crude demo of the possibilities long ago with this ancient and non-adjustable Pacman Arizona demo.One aspect of the problem is getting the imagery and the topo to exactly the same scale and registration at the pixel level>. A second is to be able to transparently combine two layers.

IThe later is easily done with Acrobat, PhotoShop, GIMP, and possibly KML. Real time. Getting the layer dates identical or nearly so would also certainly be useful. Please tell me if you know of this capability.

October 3, 2014
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An interesting flyby of some local Gila Valley scenery done by a quadcopter can be found here. It turns out there can be a tremendous difference between cheaper and more expensive units. Mostly centered on gyro flight and camera stabilization, GPS interaction, flyability, flight time, and download capabilities.

Apparently no units that I know about have downed craft long term reporting. I can see spending a zillion dollars for a premium unit, only to have it permanently vanish off the edge of a mesa into heavy brush. It would be equally bad to con someone else into doing surveys for us, only to lose their unit. As I have already done with a fire pager in Shingle Mill Canyon. Your comments ( and loaner craft ) welcome.

October 2, 2014
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Thanks to the Steampunk movement, the Caver's Wrist Sundials are now commercially available and selling well. These make a much stronger personal statement than a Rolex and are pretty much as useful these days as most any other wristwatch. Long ago, the caver's wrist sundials were just about as much in demand as synthetic spent carbide. Curiously, one of the original patents appears here.

October 1, 2014
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Current thinking on the Frye Mesa Complex of our Prehistoric Hanging Canals suggests even more incredibly utter stunning engineering. Present beliefs appear reasonably credible but definitely require additional field evidence.

The thoughts go something like this: Apparently Frye Creek water was diverted above the falls somewhere near N 32.74336 W 109.83994 to cross a divide at N 32.74474 W 109.8384 and merge with the water from the spring in Spring Canyon at N 32.74572 W 109.84038 Aerial photos suggest the modern Frye Mesa Trail exactly follows this route and appears to have a totally consistent allowable topography and a steep but quite uniform slope.

After merging water sources, a simple switching apparently may have allowed routing down Spring Canyon to form the source water for the Allen Canal at N 32.78239 W 109.83558. Or alternately, may have been routed under the present Frye Canyon Road to eventually form braided channels at N 32.75997 W 109.81554 to a presumed ponding area at N 32.76003 W 109.81144 where further diversion allowed a split between the Robinson Canal at N 32.78461 W 109.79329and the counterflowing HS Canal at N 32.75804 W 109.81510.

The relationship between the HS Canal and a required source for the Golf Course Canal remains tenuous but seems the best Ockhams Razor candidate. As does any relationship with the Blue Ponds. A modern "steal the plans" pipeline adds credibility to the Frye Road projected routing above. The trail itself also suggests "borrow the blueprints" as it is easy to walk you or your horse up a filled in canal. Your participation ( and funding! ) welcome.

September 30, 2014
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Repeated averaging can be a useful way of smoothing noisy multiple data points, and eventually can approach something like a Gaussian low pass filter. Consider points a through h. Averaging the first two will give you...

  (a + b ) / 2

And averaging the average of the first three gives...

  ( a + 2b + c ) / 4

Averaging the average of the average gives...

  ( a + 3b +3c + d ) / 8

And again and again...

  ( a + 4b + 6c + 4d + e  ) / 16
  ( a + 5b + 10c + 10d + 5 e + f ) / 32

And our result seems to be approaching a Gaussian smoothing. You can repeat this as much as you want or have the patience for. Note that this works best with lots of points because the beginning and ending values will not be smoothed quite as much as the midrange ones. More on filtering here.

September 29, 2014
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Got an email asking whether two point or four point barbed wire was a better choice for speaker connections, compared to the usual gold plated and oxygen free wire.

Little known is that either type of barbed wire gives a much better soundstaging, reduced midrange granularity and better bass speed. But because they are sharp, barbed wire connections tend to raise the pitch of your music. This can be ompensated by placing a flat ribbon cable in parallel. Full details here.

September 28, 2014
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Our Scamming a Student Paper ancient Resource Bin column should still remain amazingly current and useful, once you update the main research link to Google. The key secret to a winning paper or report, of course is to make it as thick as possible. And the little known and even lesser used way to do this, of course, is to use thick paper.

I guess it is way past time to reveal a deep dark secret for this posting. Of the sixteen suggested research topics, fifteen are guaranteed to get you an A. The sixteenth is guaranteed to get you an F. But which? Why, the one that seems the most likely and the most interesting, of course. Additional fiendishisms here.

September 27, 2014
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Here's a workaround for the Raspberry >Pi GPIO 3.0 Wedge connectors breakout adapter that won't fit a standard nylon breadboard. As we found out here. Clip the easternmost ground pin pair. Clip the westernmost 3V3 pair. The wedge will now fit popular breadboards.

You have two other ground pins, either of which can be externally jumpered to a supply rail if you want to. And, if needed, a one inch jumper can be soldered to the 3V3 pins and plugged into a different supply rail.

September 26, 2014
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It has become obvious to me that our bajada hanging canal discoveries to date have clearly become utterly unique and world class prehistoric energy efficiency engineering and would appear poised to dramatically alter significant portions of what is known of southwestern archaeology.

To date most of the project research has only involved two totally unfunded and nearly retired individuals, one of whom normally lives many hundreds of miles away. Here's some of the stuff I would like to see happen...

1. Funding for larger and more formal discovery
 discovery and exploration.

2. Improved awareness among southwestern
 archaeological professionals.

3. Expanded additional publication in higher
 level quality journals and online services.

4. An ability to mentor younger participants.

5. Continued research of mystery canal portions,
 especially the counterflowing HS canal.

6. Resolution of prehistoric origins for pioneer
 and historic canal rework.

7. Threat mitigation, especially SunZia, Safford,
 and ADOT.

8. Significant new use of aerial survey devices.

9. Continuing improvement of mapping programs,
 most especially flyable KML.

10. Much greater involvement of EAC, hiking club
  and Gila Watershed Partnerships.

11. Detailed mapping of individual canals.

12. Improvement and expansion of online
  services, availability, and awareness.

13. Additional tours as appropriate.

14. Finding missing canal gaps, sources,
  and destinations.

15. Extensive video recording and many
additional photographic images.

Please dump all of your spare Draganflys in my driveway. And contact me for any involvement you can assist with.

September 25, 2014
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Awesomely outstanding. http://www.americanradiohistory.com/ is in the process of building up a superb collection of historic radio, broadcast, hobby electronics, and similar magazine reprints. Plus bunches more. Zillions of them! Most are higher quality scans that are fully searchable. Much of my early reprints are newly available here. Kilobaud is missing but separately can be found in part here. They DO have early Byte Magazines! Midnight Engineering also remains missing.

Many of my reprints are available on my website. Particularly here, Plus ebooks here and videos here. I'm in the process of adding more as time and funding and sponsorship permit. Modern Electronics remains conspicuous by its absence. I would hope it would soon get added The latest issues of Electronics Now are also not yet scanned. I suspect this may have something to do with copyright expiration.

MA separate problem I have with EN: Sometime between 1992 and 2001 ( 97? ) believed to be in an April issue was a perpetual motion "magic lamp" that spectacularly showed the problems with Beginning EE student Blunder 0001A, namely confusing average and RMS values for strange waveforms. Can you find a reprint of this? Or at least tell me which year it was? Plus the appropriate letters columns two or three month's later.

September 24, 2014
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When they marinate shrimp, how do they tie all those little strings on?

September 23, 2014
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I am usually fascinated by odd math transforms. Sometimes they can give you a totally different approach to a problem, and other times they just may be useless fun. In our Magic Sinewave Calculator, the breakthrough trig identity that ridiculously simplified and sped up calculations was...

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

Now, if you are near a solution, x will be small and sin(x) will be x - x^3/3 + ... or nearly x, while cos(x) will end up nearly 1. Which tells us our improved closest guess for small x is...

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

And since you already know cos(a) and sin(a) from your previous trial and they are constants, the above result forms a trig free linear equation! One that ridiculously simplifies and speeds up the Magic Sinewave Calculations.

A second cute transform involves cubic splines. While normally expressed as x = At^3 + Bt^2 +Ct + D, you can make this expression "cube free" by changing it to (((At) + B)t + C)t + D. And similarly for y.

Yet another transform that I just ran across, and the reason for this blog entry is that...

sqrt(a^2 + b^2) = b*sqrt(1 + a^2/b^2)

You can trivially prove this by multiplying both terms by b^2/b^2 and simplifying. I'm not too sure what good this is these days, but it apparently simplified slide rule vector calculations and made them a lot more accurate.

September 22, 2014
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We usually answer our phone with "4073", which solves the problem of using the same phone both personally and for a business. Another benefit is that this forces scamsters to loose their place in the script. And forces "hello" recognizing autodialers to befuddle themselves

Normally, you want to get rid of scamsters as quickly as possible, because they are stealing your time. And the foremost rule of a scamster is to never, never, NEVER terminate any call. But sometimes it is fun to mess with their head. Or at least run a stick over the bars. Just be sure you do not piss them off to the point where they can start a vendetta against you.

One of our favorites is when they ask you "Is this a home or a business?". To which, of course, you reply "Yes it is. Thank you for asking". >Another favorite is to say "you have the wrong number" From which they start an argument. You exactly repeat "you have the wrong number", only louder, slower and lower in pitch. From which they intensify their argument. You then follow up with "I am sorry about your hearing problem."

Another ploy is to tell them this number is on a national do not call list and they have just committed a felony. "Please stand by while I transfer you to the Hualpai County Sheriff's Office for your arraignment" Then make your fire pager beep twice. Arizona, of course, does not have a Hualpai County, but it sure sounds like they might be able to use one. Yet another ploy when they say "Hi. I am Jan from Americann Veeblefeltzer Enterprises" is to reply "I think I found your problem."

Somehow the name "Elmer" has gotten onto the scamster lists in association with our phone number. Who does not exist. If they ask to talk to Elmer, I'll usually respond that "I'd like to connect you but Elmer is doing five to ten in Fort Grant for blowing away the previous scamster -- favorite expletive here- - who tried to con him.

September 21, 2014
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How to tell an extroverted engineer: They stare at your shoes rather than their own.

September 20, 2014
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A third party SPICE analysis of a Magic Sinewave inverter suitable for smaller pv panels can be found here.

September 19, 2014
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Some of the Raspberry Pi breakout adapters listed here do NOT fit most of the more common white nylon breadboards! GPIO Extension Board V3.0 in particular. Apparently some of the other versions fit just fine. Crucial is a spacing between the + and ground leads of 0.15 inches.

Some adapters have their supply pins on 0.1 inch centers, while most of the more popular breadboards space their supply pin rows by 0.15 inches. I'm still looking to find anything that fits. Watch this detail!

September 18, 2014
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One utter time wasting activity I find incredibly entertaining and fascinating is a daily Google search of "Marijuana News". Which, on a slow day, typically produces just over 800,000 hits.

Of these, there appears to be a bare daily minimum of one or two significant new steps positively advancing to full legalization. To me, this appears to be well beyond any "tipping point" and terms like "overwhelming", "avalanche", or "torrent" might seem to reasonably soon apply.

Sometimes I look at things in a different and highly perverse manner. Which can occasionally provide odd insights, profit opportunities, or simply different ways of viewing a situation. So, What if most of the federal involvement to date was really nothing but a US Marijuana Farm Price Support Subsidy?

Clearly, their US Marijuana Farm Price Support Subsidy was and remains the only known positive result of the total marijuana federal actions to date. Chances are that prices might drop somewhat if this subsidy payout was eliminated.

Ferinstance, today's cotton price comes in at a ( really panicking my neighbors! ) 62 cents a pound. Now, harvesting and ( especially ) ginning marijuana is a lot simpler, so we might project a government subsidy free 59 cents a pound. Or about $295 per 500 pound bale. Or about 3.7 cents per ounce. Or just over a tenth of a cent per gram

This suggests to me that much of the current long term projected tax revenue just possibly might be somewhat overestimated. But possibly only by a mere five orders of magnitude. Partial 500 pound bales might end up being considered personal use.

The definitive video on all this, of course, appears here. And, curiously, its rather obscure origin here.

September 17, 2014
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Black on black" subject areas in eBay or industrial or technical photos can create a number of problems. Here's a typical subject. In general, we "shoot" for shadowless photography, because most shadows do far more harm than good. Unless they are carefully attended to.

An early problem with black-on-black subjects is that the camera auto focus will not work. Workarounds are to place the subject on some high contrast text, or to back off on the distance for more depth of field, or to use manual focus options. The original part number and build date of the cylinder was an almost illegible black on black stamping, so it was enhanced with much more viewable mid-gray lettering in Paint.

The left port was almost illegible because of low contrast, so a slightly reduced copy of the right port was substituted. In extreme cases, double, or triple, or more exposures can be used to enhance critical areas. This technique is most useful when a subject needs brightened without burning out any labels. Ditto for meter face enhancement.

Burnout and shading issues on the actual cylinder were dealt with by cutting and pasting desired areas over the problem ones. Hint: raising or lowering the pastes by a pixel or two can dramatically improve the final match.

The curved cylinder and rod ends were dark and murky due to largely unavoidable shadows and shading. There's a littlknown and seldom used quadratic shape maker in Paint ( second from the top left ) that can make perfect adjustments. Draw the true edge first in a highly contrasting color and then ( at full magnification ), retouch the individual edge pixels as needed.

Consulting and custom image postproc services available.

September 16, 2014
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There's a number of Prehistoric Hanging Canal events upcoming and planned for the Week of October 18th. You are welcome to participate in any or all of them. A rare midweek tour is planned Tuesday and Wednesday the 14th and 15th and should include both Dr. James Neely and a number of other noted Southwestern archaeologists.

A second tour is planned Saturday and Sunday the 18th and 19th and likely will cover some of the same canals, but this time with a different collection of noted Southwestern archaeologists. The Tuesday and Saturday events might be followed by an afternoon Meet and Greet at Juanitas.

And Saturday night in the 18th in the Jupiter room of Discovery Park at 6:30 , I'll be talking on a collection of hanging canal images. Other speakers may also be present, but the plans for them remain fluid. The lecture(s) are free. You can preview parts of the talk here. You can email me for more details.

September 15, 2014
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Well, since you asked... Yes, I am a card carrying member of the Guru and Swami's Union Hulapai County local #144.

September 14, 2014
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I gambled big time and lost on some locked "contents of cabinets" at a pc manufacturer's auction. Inside were hundreds of thousands of dollars of brand new but presumably now worthless aerospace circuit boards, panels, and flexible connectors. Typically smt era. The chances of finding a "real" use for these is slim to none. But, before putting them on the Alvin Pile, I do have them up on eBay at just under ten cents each.

Uses: Museum exhibits. Tech lecture show and tells. Cast-in-place table tops or bars. Video and Sci Fi props. And all sorts of artist stuff such as wall hangings or high tech sculptures. A typical board may look like this. Then again, it may not. There may be some gold, but not remotely enough to economically recover.

You presently have your choice of "mostly similar", "mostly different", or "some of each" And "boards", "panels" or" flex". Personal inspection and high grading welcome. Bunches of shipping costs can be saved by throwing these in your SUV. Locked cabinets can spectacularly pay off. After all, "they" put the lock on for a reason. Nearly all units are presently packed in poly wrap. You can email me for further details.

September 13, 2014
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Machine language compiled from an assembler is an essential route towards a Raspberry Pi app if you need something that runs as fast as possible or if ultra precise timing or highly unusual coding is essential. Two useful books to get started are Raspberry Pi for Dummies and Raspberry Pi Assembly Language.

An essential tool for hardware apps is a breakout connector. These are readily available on eBay and elsewhere on the web. I'm in the process of porting our Magic Sinewaves over to the Pi. I've found the pi's capabilities, addressing modes, and instruction set absolutely exceptional. The only tiny bit of klutziness I've found so far is that you cannot nest subroutines without going to some nonobvious extra code.

A second limitation apparently needed for extreme speed is that pipelining presents complications in exactly timing machine language instruction sequences. There is a hidden high high speed timer in the Pi that clicks along at an astonishing 256 megacounts per second at a full 32 bit resolution. This solves several PIC era magic sinewave problems in that it further reduces the real world low harmonics, greatly simplifies coding by eliminating timing"pinch points", getting rid of embedded factored specific timing loops, and  allows one file oriented identical routine to access hundreds or even thousands of combined amplitude and frequency magic sinewaves. Usual access is...

ldr r1,=84625 bl wait

If you are coming here from 6502 country, .ldr is sort of a LDA #xx load the accumulator immediate and bl is somewhat similar to a JSR subroutine jump. Except that the 6502 is swift enough to be able to nest its subroutine calls without fancy help. Amazingly, many of the fundamental concepts found in my 6502 era free Machine Language Programming Cookbooks ebooks remain in part more or less applicable to the pi.

September 12, 2014
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Some previous archaeological cloud projects for you on our hanging canals have been listed here, here, here, here, and here. Let's try a SIXTH archaeological cloud. Very much for real. This is your opportunity to potentially make some world class archaeological  prehistoric hanging canal discoveries. It might go something like this...

At your own risk and expense and following normal Upper Sonoran snake season 4WD TEAM procedures and techniques for a rather strenuous 7 hour dayhike: Using this and something like this, go between N 32.75385 W 109.78278 and N 32.75385 W 109.78278 to see if this is in fact a previously unexplored prehistoric branch portion of the Deadman Canal complex.

If so, trace and link the canal eastward to the main prehistoric hanging Deadman Canal here at N 32.75026 W 109.79621. Then attempt to find the relationship between this canal and Rincon Canyon. In particular trying to find out if this is in fact the presently unverified source of the Twin East Canal at N 32.76785 W 109.73773

Finally, there are great heaping bunches of braided somethings due north of the original exploration area. Try to determine whether these are game or cattle trails, some even more-than-usually-bizarre CCC busywork, or are in fact are an ( unlikely ) genuine stunning prehistoric agricultural development.

This area involves very strenuous hiking or very creative ATV work. Note that the usual return trip is very much uphill.Record pictures and GPS locations. And report here.

September 11, 2014
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Yet another example of one point perspective can be found here. This is an even more restrictive format we might call centered one point perspective. While its use is rare, it can really look good on a highly restricted class of images.

Extra care is required during photography to be centered and have the predominate horizontal lines as near as horizontal as possible. The image is then sent to our Architect's Perspective Utilities to make the intended vertical lines truly so.

Dominate horizontal lines are then further treated by isolating and improving a very short portion of them. They then get "chased" east and west to form a complete demarking line. Should any vertical line alignment issues remain, they also can be small area selected and chased truly north and south.

The item then can have all its red=255 pixels reduced in saturation and then get red=255 outlined for use by our auto backgrounder and vignetter. Internal and any undercut areas can be separatelyidentified. The top had some shading issues, so the left half was optimized and then flipped.

It is extremely difficult to avoid shadows and shading on the front panel, so the panel color was unified to match the middle and best tint. It is very important to improve the image as much as possible, yet still honestly portray the item condition. The item is up on eBay. Consulting services available.

September 10, 2014
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For most individuals and small scale startups, patents are virtually certain to result in a net loss of time, energy, money, and sanity. One reason for this is the outrageously wrong urban lore involving patents and patenting. A second involves the outright scams which inevitably surround "inventions" and "inventing".  A third is that the economic breakeven needed to recover patent costs is something between $12,000,000.00 and $40,000,000 in gross sales. It is ludicrously absurd to try and patent a million dollar idea.

Much more on all this in our Patent Avoidance Library. And this link collection. Key papers include...

 The Case Against Patents
 Patent Horror Stories
 When to Patent
 How to Bust a $650 Patent.

September 9, 2014
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As this search suggests, new wind farm projects are in deep trouble and are being canceled in droves. To me, it appears the main cause was some outrageous subsidies being discontinued and thus no longer available for big time ripoff scams. Some more detail here.

But other factors include (1) Machinery and equipment costs skyrocketing, compared to dramatically dropping PV panel prices; (2) Many of the selected sites having been selected politically rather than scientifically; (3) radical reductions in natural gas prices owing largely to fracking; (4) Local NIMBY issues and popular opposition; (5) Environmental concerns such as ird whacking and people noise, vibration stress, and aesthetic complaints

To me, the key issue is whether an alternate energy scheme has the potential to truly become renewable and sustainable, generating net useful energy. At present, the price goal range would appear to be near a subsidy free and "paint it green" free ten cents per kilowatt hour.

Some existing wind sites have in fact approached this value. PV appears poised to shortly approach its equivalent value of twenty five cents per peak panel watt for utility scale projects. Much more here.

September 8, 2014
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Some previous archaeological cloud projects for you on our hanging canals have been listed here, here, here, and here.

Let's try a FIFTH archaeological cloud. Very much for real. This is your opportunity to potentially make some world class archaeological prehistoric hanging canal discoveries might go something like this...

At your own risk and expense and following normal Upper Sonoran snake season 4WD TEAM procedures and techniques for a moderate but not extreme 4 hour dayhike: Using this and something like this, go to N 32.80245 W 109.78926 and see if it is in fact a portion of the Robinson Ditch. If so, trace it north and south as far as possible. With goals of linking the known upmesa portion and finding the canal's presumed destination somewhere in the Robinson Flat area.

Record pictures and GPS locations. If not, go upmesa as far as required to link the obvious main portion of the Robinson Ditch and separately proceed tracing it northward. A related project is to try and prove there is or is not an ( unlikely ) eastern branch linking or possibly forming the Golf Course Canal somewhere in the neighborhood of N 32.79851 W 109.78157.

The main canal route is clearly but questionably marked on the topo map. Note that the 4WD tracks near N 32.80554 W 109.77593 may need some shovel work. Use caution.

September 7, 2014
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We looked at some one point perspective tricks here. Newer is another example with its original here and its final here. This one can be done without using my perspective utilities. Sometimes a "minor partial repair" scheme can quickly give you highly useful results.

You first rotate the image so the center dominate line ( the top front edge ) is truly horizontal. Then you fudge the upper and lower dominate horizontal lines ( the top rear edge and the front bottom ) in Paint so they are truly horizontal. You do this by modifying and sharpening the image to background edges. Only a minor adjustment is needed for this particular image.

Then you adjust the left and right lower front edges so they are truly vertical rather than slanty trapezoidal. By one of the most astounding coincidences thatm sometimes infest this blog, this instrument just happens to be up on our eBay store.

September 6, 2014
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One of our apparent rules for eBay success involves maintaining a 30:1 or higher SBR or sell buy ratio. Per details found in various resources linked here. As we've seen many times, such high SBR's are fairly easily reached through online industrial auctions often involving contents of cabinet or contents of room lots. As offered by these and similar sources.

Your own secret supply resources can be created for you per these details. Keeping your inventory costs super low is thus crucial. A rule we try to follow is to make sure that 95% of your bids are rejected and outbid by others.

The secret insider trick to making this work, of course, is to always bid on TWENTY TIMES as much stuff as you could possibly use. A related rule in any online auction is to always bid about 130 percent of your absolute maximum ONCE very late in the auction, but NEVER so late that it trips any vile and obscene auto extensions. And, of course, to NEVER get into a pissing contest with another bidder.

September 5, 2014
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Brown's Gas seems to be once again trying to reincarnate itself. As usual through its manic fan club at the Church of the Latter Day Crackpots. Meanwhile, here is where you go for the insider secrets of How to Totally Trash an Onboard Vehicle Electrolysizer.

September 4, 2014
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Boo. Hiss. A rather impressive potential electrolysis breakthrough has been totally trashed by a "not even wrong" press release in which those lacking in engineering expertise could mistakenly conclude that all you need to solve the hydrogen car economy is a single AAA cell.

Yes, they did apparently find a way to somewhat increase the efficiency and reduce the cost of electrolysis used for chemical apps, industrial refining, and related non bulk energy uses. Per this paper.

What they don't mention is that electrolysis is inherently a low voltage process that they only made slightly lower. A useful non-demo electrolysizer would still take tens of thousands of amperes of current. Or its equivalent energy in stacked cells. Equal to your entire town's supply of AAA batteries placed in series or parallel.

One more time: There is a fundamental thermodynamic principle called exergy that absolutely guarantees that hydrogen for vehicle or other bulk energy from grid, pv, alternator ( and certainly not primary batteries ) flat out ain't gonna happen. For the simple reason that electrolysis is the process of converting very high value energy into very low value energy. And is pretty much the same as 1:1 exchanging US dollars for Mexican Pesos. Much more here.

September 3, 2014
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Magic Sinewaves are a new class of mathematical functions that allow the synthesis of digital power sinewaves with any arbitrary number of low harmonics efficiently forced to precisely zero in theory and to astonishingly low levels ( -65 decibels or better ) in practice.

Our magic sinewave library can be found here, an incredibly fast and powerful calculator based on a sneaky trig identity here, and an independent third party researcher here. Present work involves translating these to the Raspberry Pi. The disadvantage, of course, is a much higher cost than using a PIC. But there are otherwise overwhelming advantages..

Amplitude and frequency setting now combined. Real world harmonics can now be even lower. One memory card can hold zillions of sinewaves. Filtering simplification through different "n" values. More of solution can now be standard hardware. Research tools can now be more readily available. Different "flavors" of magic sinewaves easily compared. Reduction of pinch points through higher delay resolution. Cleaner and more simplified coding.

The innermost secret to computing magic sinewaves is being able to quickly calculate extremely precise long time delays. Preferably to one machine cycle precision. This is well beyond any higher level language, and the Adrino sometimes plays jitter tricks for optimization in how it plays with its instruction set. But it does have a jitter free high resolution time delay that seems ideal for Magic Sinewaves. Here's what the key code for one n=10 quadrant might look like.

loop:
# quadrant one (0 through 90 degrees)
str r2,[r4] ldr r1,=96040 bl wait
str r6,[r3] ldr r1,=11658 bl wait
str r2,[r4] ldr r1,=84625 bl wait
str r2,[r3] ldr r1,=23113 bl wait
str r2,[r4] ldr r1,=73662 bl wait
str r2,[r3] ldr r1,=34160 bl wait
str r2,[r4] ldr r1,=63361 bl wait
str r2,[r3] ldr r1,=44596 bl wait
str r2,[r4] ldr r1,=53934 bl wait
str r2,[r3] ldr r1,=54215 bl wait
str r2,[r4] ldr r1,=45596 bl wait
str r2,[r3] ldr r1,=62801 bl wait
str r2,[r4] ldr r1,=38560 bl wait
str r2,[r3] ldr r1,=70106 bl wait
str r2,[r4] ldr r1,=33034 bl wait
str r2,[r3] ldr r1,=75813 bl wait
str r2,[r4] ldr r1,=29213 bl wait
str r2,[r3] ldr r1,=79518 bl wait
str r2,[r4] ldr r1,=27255 bl wait
str r2,[r3] ldr r1,=40407 bl wait
# more quadrants here

An executive guide to magic sinewaves can be found here, and the secret insider tricks to achieving three phase compatibility here. At present, magic sinewave research funding is a tad on the thin side. Your active participation would be more than welcome. Consulting and seminars available.

September 2, 2014
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Free online copies of Ruthroff's classic broadband transformer paper can be found here.

September 1, 2014
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Got a helpline call [ (928) 428-4073 ] asking how to encode special Eastern European  characters into a PostScript font. The key document is called Roman Font Re-Encoding Issues available free as Adobe Technical Note #5125. Special font characters can also be done as Glyphs if they are not already precoded.

My own PostScript stuff appears here, with my Gonzo Utilities here and here. An ancient video here. And great heaping bunches of PostScript stuff here.

One of many sneaky tricks in Gonzo is the ability to overstrike characters with the |o command. This lets you add a canyon tilde to a font where it is not normally available, or else complement a logic variable by putting a horizontal line above it.

August 31, 2014
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The seminal Richard Feynman physics lectures are now freely available online. My favorite part is where you cannot tell if a uniform magnetic field is rotating or not because there are no such things as magnetic lines

Richard Feynman was a bongo drum player. While inventing quantum mechanics, building the atomic bomb, cracking safes, solving the Challenger tragedy, teaching at Cal Tech, and playing practical jokes.

August 30, 2014
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Two standard methods to compare energy density are by volume as in watthours per liter or by weight as in wathours per kilogram. Gasoline is often a standard of comparison at 9600 watthours per liter and 13,500 watthours per kilogram. Lithium batteries only can normally provide 250 watthours per liter or 350 watthours per kilogram. Raw unstrored STP hydrogen gas theoretically offers 39,000 watthours per kilogram but only a ludicrous 2.7 watthours per liter.

But the 39,000 watthours per kilogram is utterly useless smoke and mirrors. Energy density by weight is only of interest for extraterrestrial apps and is totally worthless otherwise. Ferinstence, if a miracle liquid equal to the gasoline volumetric energy density but infinite kilogrammetric density became available and used, its effect would be to reduce a vehicle's weight by something like a spectacular "golly gee mister science" thirty pounds!

A further crucial problem is that the 39,000 watthours per kilogram is the UNCONTAINED energy density of hydrogen. When containment devices and methods are considered, the energy density by weight becomes ridiculously less than gasoline and drops dramatically as the tank or whatever is emptied. And drops bunches further when amortization is properly and fully consideredn Much more on all this here. And especially here and here

August 29, 2014
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We are in the process of revamping our inventory controls on our eBay sales. Things were getting hard to find and some items never seemed to get listed at all. And abject trash was overwhelming our storage areas. There are four elements of decent inventory control: (1) an excel data base, (2) areas with known and strictly limited contents, (3) The actual eBay listings, and (4) a "secret" code line in each listing with findability docs.

Also important is a testing program that clearly resolves the apparent condition of each offed item. And most important is being willing to throw away any stuff that for any reason does not meet your eBay standards. More here.

August 28, 2014
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Continuing our hanging canal by hanging canal list of needed further work: The Ledford Canals located between N 32.68456 W 109.76176 and N 32.69322 W 109.72125 are in a very difficult access area that normally requires extensive hiking, major 4WD, or ATV access. These clearly have been adapted for pioneer cattle tank use. And have not yet been thoroughly or completely studied.

One major goal should be seeking out additional evidence of underlying prehistoric origins. There is little to no evidence of modern concrete, rebar, or access roads and the canals origins seem totally consistent with nearby ones that appear to clearly prehistoric.

There are several significant mesa falloff areas clearly visible with their greener vegetation. These need further study as does the water use below the mesa edge. Better mapping and GPS logging are also needed. The related Metate Peak area also would seem to need further work.

August 27, 2014
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Camera auto focus may not work all that great with a black on black subject. Several things to try is to place the object on a sheet of high contrast text, to back the camera off and use a smaller composition where depth of field is less critical, or to place the object between a pair of items that are good at autofocusing. More here.

August 26 2014
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And here are the simplified steps involved in us doing a decent eBay photo:

Decide camera or scanner.
Thoroughly clean item .
Setup lighting.
Prop or support in best view.
Compose image.
Take 15 megapixel picture
Transfer to pc.
Crop somewhat oversize.
Rotate axis to true vertical
Correct architect's perspective
Back off red two clicks
Verify no unwanted true reds.
Correct worst lighting defects .
Do multiple exposures.
Corrector appropriate retouching
Outline red to zero dropouts .
Do red inside fills and undercuts.
Crop to final border
Knock out background & vignette.
Correct any punchthru glitches.
Resize to 1000 pixels wide.
Brighten and reduce gamma.
Sharpen two clicks maximum
Save as jpg
Backup to website.
Enter into ebay list.

August 25, 2014
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eBay has started a new valet selling  program that makes absolutely no sense to me and appears to me to be a guaranteed recipe for utter and total disaster. As we've seen here and elsewhere, a useful SBR sell buy ratio for long term eBay seller success is best kept above 30:1. This is equivalent to a 97 percent consignment rate. And is easily and routinely achieved through "contents of room" and "contents of cabinet" industrial online auction offerings.

The first big problem with the new service is that I find their SBR utterly ludicrous at 1.42. The second are the inherent double shipping costs. The third would be the staggering loses involved in returning unsold items to the original seller. The fourth would be the shipping delays and the relisting hassles of typically far overpriced items. The fifth would be the gross overexpectations typical of non-experienced eBay sellers.

The sixth would be "eat you alive" competition from eBay sellers routinely using sane SBR's. And the seventh would be the usual problems in dealing with the general public. There are infinitely better merchandise sources for a long term eBay seller to use.

August 24, 2014
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A reminder that there is a fundamental reason why hydrogen energy electrolysis from high value pv, grid, battery or alternator sources is absolutely GUARANTEED to flat out never gonna happen. The little known but thoroughly studied and documented reason is called exergy.

Exergy is a measure of the present economic value of an energy source. More significantly, it measures the thermodynamically reversible remaining energy recovery possible. Virtually all processes significantly reduce exergy. An unstruck match has a very high exergy, while the slightly warmer room after the match is struck has an exceptionally low exergy, thanks to Carnot's Law.

Electricity has exceptionally high exergy, while unstored hydrogen gas has exceptionally low exergy. And that is before system amortization. Electrolysis from most pv, grid, or alternator sources for bulk hydrogen energy thus unavoidably destroys exergy. Big time. It is the equivalent to 1:1 exchanging US Dollars for Mexican Pesos.

And thus nobody, but nobody could possibly be stupid enough to want to do this. Much more here.

August 23, 2014
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Google Chrome has a new free SpeedDial ap that basically gives you a bunch of selectable home pages. The first screen puts up as many thumbnails as you like.

August 22, 2014
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Many people will do anything to save the environment. Except take a science course.

August 21, 2014
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Continuing our hanging canal by hanging canal list of needed further work:Henry's Canalseems to only have been "half" studied to date, with useful coverage only from N 32.73718 W 109.74223 to N 32 44.689 W 109 43.717. This area is easily traced and includes a modest hanging portion where the canal first leaves a wash.

It is not clear whether the destination is a field at the latter above GPS address or whether it merged with a previous version of the Roper Lake Canal. The fact that there is a much more complex and more highly engineered high "bypass" via the Marijilda Roper path might suggest that Henry's Canal was an earlier version that may have had significant problems meriting a major rerouting or expansion.

The initial path from the presumed vicinity of the Marijilda Ruin to the present survey beginning has not been accurately located. There are hints of bits and pieces of canals in the area, but they seem significantly smaller, disjointed, and of apparently lower quality.

Present tasks are thus to find the "front half" of the Henry's Canal, to resolve its destination, and to determine why an alternate path seemed to be corrected. Much more here.

August 20, 2014
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A good technical review of the "new" WWVB can be found here. But interest in the potentially spectacularly improved new phase coding format seems to me to be very slow in developing.

Xtendwave apparently has ES-100 and ES-200 chips only, but these seem package less. A complete clock is also supposedly separately in the works by a different supplier. I've been unable to find further info or chip data, and things seem to be dragging.

Some links suggests big time financial problems."Old style" WWVB cards are being discontinued as well, suggesting a total lack of interest or demand. Before the new format changes, WWVB had a long history of unreliable reception. I'm wondering if cell phones largely replace the need for WWVB. My take on all this way back when can be found here.

August 19, 2014
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Current work on the Robinson Ditch hanging canal centers on the region from N 32.80197 W 109.78995 to N 32.80316 W 109.78879 per this acme mapper image. It is not yet known whether this is in fact part of the canal route. Giving the canal a pioneer topo name obviously implied historic use of some sort, but the nature of the canal is virtually identical to 30 or more prehistoric hanging canal examples. With no obvious modern upgrades.

There is also an unlikely possibility that this canal splits and heads east to become the Golf Course Canal. The southern extension of the Golf Course Canal remains a major enigmatic mystery. Similarly, the original destination of the Robinson Ditch remains unknown but seems restricted to the Robinson Flat area. Other Robinson mysteries remaining are the early routing from a presumed source as the spring in Spring Canyon. And the presumed "high route" following the HS Canal split.

A review of pioneer journals and documents might prove interesting. Field Mice Welcome. More here. With an ongoing blog right here. A mid-week tour is planned October 14th and 15th

August 18, 2014
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Here's the steps we go through to list an eBay item...

Triage, clean, test, and verify as best listee.
Photograph, postproc, and save image.
Research value, demand, and competition.
Start "sell similar" from best previous.
Pick appropriate store and eBay categories.
Add longest possible title.
Pick and expand condition. Avoid "used".
Clear old galley picture; add new one.
Add more photos only when genuinely useful.
State quantity available as lead bold.
Add selling text from general to specific.
State origin, provenience, and condition.
Provide useful third party web links
Restate exactly what is being offered.
Include any needed cautions or warnings.
Add Paypal boilerplate.
State exact and accurate shipping charges.
Provide links for more personal help.
Add "secret" code line-for ix url, etc...
Enter price and optional buy it now
Use priority mail when possible.
Verify charges to avoid unwanted selections.
Carefully proof, especially text.
Actually click on the list tab.
Create an inventory tag.
Forward to stock.
Have third party reproof

You can find listing examples here. And more help here.

August 17, 2014
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It is a lot more fun to go to auctions and to post proc pictures than it is to list stuff on eBay. As a result, we seem to have stashes as much as TEN YEARS old that have never been listed. Important new rules are...

If you touch it, deal with it completely.
Seek 28 day cashout & 5 month sellout.
If you photo it, postproc it and list it.
Avoid storing anything not listed.
Tighten inventory control dramatically.
Be able to quickly find everything.
Thoroughly test everything testable.
Sell only the best, flush the rest.
$9 lot, $70 total minimums.
Always ask "Why hasn't this been listed?
Give potential higher income items priority.
Be willing to cheaply relist for weeks.
Start with high listing, then slowly drop.
Minimize rental fees & forward obligations.
Be generous with full refunds;
Block bad buyers.
Flush problem items any reason.

August 16, 2014
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Some CCFL fluorescent sleezoids have changed the shape ( and raised the price ) of their lamps to try and convince you they really are LED's. Which raises an interesting point and an obviously missed marketing importunity: An old lightbulb in a typical ceiling fixture is more or less omnidirectional. Which means that about half of its light inefficiently goes "up" to light the ceiling.

But LED's can easily be made unidirectional or have any pattern you like. Why not make a version that shines "mostly down", without going to actual spotlights or excessively narrow patterns? The perceived room illumination should appear substantially higher for the same energy input.

August 15, 2014
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Nearly all newsgroups have either vanished completely or have become a rude and vile ( and utterly useless ) shadow of their one time greatness. With social media being the apparent culprit of their demise.

sci.energy.hydrogen is thankfully dead, with the word having finally gotten out that exergy flat out guarantees the hydrogen economy is a ludicrous joke that will be stillborn at best. Not to mention that outright scams are at long last being seen for their "gross and egregious fraud" actuality.

Sadly, alt.marketing.online.ebay has become all but useless. But I still find sci.electronics.design enormously useful. At which you can often find any answer to any question. Also remaining highly useful are comp.lang.postscript and comp.sci.rasberry.pi

August 14, 2014
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eBay auction is somewhat similar to a classic Vickrey Auction in that the final price is determined by the second highest bidder plus the current bit increment. Many online auctions will also use proxy bidding but will add a vile and despicable automatic auction extension to the mix.

Here is the auction strategy that works for us, both online or eBay: Proxy bid 125% of your absolute maximum and do so only ONCE very late in the auction. But NEVER so late as to trip an auto extension. There normally can be only one of two possible results - either you win the auction - usually for a lot less than you really are willing to pay. Or you are laughing yourself silly over that epsilon minus who just badly overpaid.

Three to five minutes before any auto extension trip time is usually optimal, as this allows for password hassles or multiple lots that close at or near the same time. The reasoning on 125% of your maximum is that almost always you will either be badly outbid or you will win or significantly less than you were willing to pay. On the average, your actual win price should be less than your intended maximum.

You can think of the extra 25% as dollar cost averaging, in which most of the buys are enough under your real maximum that they more than cover any single excess. The reasoning on NEVER tripping an extension is that it reveals your intent and starts nearly always unwinnable pissing contests. There also can be conflicts with multiple closures.

It also pays to bid in strange penny increments. Of utmost importance is recognizing the "don't go there" currency thresholds. People do not like to break a twenty, hate to break a hundred, and refuse to break a thousand.

Thus, you should alway bid ABOVE a currency threshold. Such as $21.29. Naturally, when listing or selling, you should use $19.73 instead. Much more here.

August 13, 2014
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Picked up a bunch of interesting all-the-bells-and-whistles traffic light controllers and got them up onto eBay. These include bicycle lanes, walk-don't-walk, left turns, time of day, emergency access, power backup, etc etc...

These are Legacy Econolite ASC/2S-2100 units removed from service by a larger Arizona City. They are believed functional and we guarantee them to be usable by an appropriately trained traffic engineer. Units originally sold for around $2500 each. A photo here.

There are several minor gotchas. The power is normally input by way of a very fancy "A" connector. It can also be found on J19 or on a modified power supply connector. We are also not sure of the status of the backup battery jumper. It this was in the "on" position after removal from service, the chances are the normal small lithium backup battery may need replacing.

Unit only provides "medium power" I/O. Higher level ac external drivers may be needed in typical uses. These should be eminently hackable as a general purpose automation controller, owing the the huge number of inputs and outputs.

We have ten of these. We may be able to find some more. Most include codes taped to them. Free programming manuals are available here and free service manuals here. And more help here.

August 12, 2014
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How much photo retouching is "enough"? I strongly feel that a minimum of 90 percent of your picture taking and processing time should be spent in postproc. Which has given us the finest photos on eBay bar none.

But how much is too much? Here is an original photo, its postproced version suitable for sale as a collectible, and its total rebuild suitable for normal product sale or for an ebook restoration. How much very much depends on the funding and the purpose of the postproc. A general guide for a routine eBay quantity item sale might be "about the same postproc as goes into a Time Magazine ad.

We'll first assume that you have unarguable IP intellectual property rights to the subject photos. OR that those rights are exceptionally mukry enough through age, acquisitions, and bankruptcies that you are highly unlikely to be hassled over them.

Or that the first sale doctrine lets you photograph and use obviously protected media. If the postproc is being used for an eBook rebuild, the usual criterion is "How much can you afford?" In the way of time and effort that you can put into the project for the projected financial or ego return.

If the posproc is being used for an eBay "new other" subject, the guideline should be to accurately represent the item being sold. Distortion correction, sharpening, background vignetting, lighting improvement, "cleaning" items that will also be cleaned before shipment, etc, are normally reasonably justified.

On the other hand, if the postproc is being used on a collectible, the final result should still accurately and honestly reflect the exact condition of the item being offered.

Tools for our postproc include our Architect's Distortion Corrector, our Auto Vignetting Backgrounder, and our Bitmap Typewriter, along with this older tutorial. Consulting services available.

August 11, 2014
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It sure would be nice if someone would provide a complete set of reprints to Popular Electronics, Radio Electronics, Electronics World, and even Modern Electronics.Scant bits and pieces can be found here and there.

I am in the process of restoring and uploading at least some of my reprints here. And some of the secrets of stunning precyber scan improving here. Jeff Duntemann has reprinted the Carl and Jerry series here.

And Michael Holly has some of the SWTP related stuff here. Note that there are two different Electronics Worlds. The one of interest here is a US magazine that started off as Radio and TV News and became Popular Electronics. There is also a British Electronics World magazine that used to be Wireless World. More recent reprints of Kilobaud can be found here.

August 10, 2014
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Our architect's perspective routines can also be used for one point perspective! Although the times and places where this might be wanted may be limited.

We just uploaded a humongous public utility current transformer to eBay. And as this image shows us, it ended up as a good one point candidate. Our perspective corrector normally makes corrections horizontal line by horizontal line. So, you first do a regular correction to make all vertical lines truly vertical.

Next, you rotate the partially corrected image by 90 degrees and do a new correction. Then you rotate back. One minor gotcha: If the second correction is narrower at the top, you have to use a negative value for howmuchtilt.

I'm not sure what the exactly correct term for this projection is. It may instead be dimetric or nearly so. At any rate, you have two orthogonal and full scale X and Y axes, and the Z axes diminishes somewhat diagonally into the image. Regardless, the projection is eminently suitable for this particular subject./p>

Just noticed that there are slight differences in scale between the north, south, east, and west portions of the body. This can be corrected simply by cutting and repasting the hole somewhat to the southeast.

This example also shows off our bitmap typewriter. Which gives you the highest possible resolution and sharpness this side of subpixel techniques. More here. Consulting services available.

August 9, 2014
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I was asked for my views on copyright. The present system, of course is ludicrous and has the exact opposite of the intended initial purpose. It is also clearly in the process of self destruction. Copyright should BRIEFLY provide protection and income for the INDIVIDUAL involved and nothing more. It should be primarily based on common law copyright where anything is immediately protected once it appears in tangible form. Free of fees or registration.

For the INDIVIDUAL involved, copyright should initially be for 34 months. Renewable only once and then only under exceptional circumstances. For heirs, corporations, agents, or similar sleezoids, copyright should be strictly limited to 17 months, nonrenewable under any circumstances. With MANDITORY transfer to the public domain afterward.

August 8, 2014
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A Josh Billings quote, often wrongly attributed to Mark Twain I've never known an auctioneer to lie. Unless it was absolutely convenient."

August 7, 2014
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As we have seen here and here, not one net watt of pv solar energy has ever been produced. And that net energy sustainability and renewability can be predicted some eight years after the average price of solar panels drops under twenty five cents per peak panel watt.

The time delay being at least partially being caused by zillions of new and unreturned investment dollars being thrown at an obvious new breakthrough. Amazingly, we are almost ( but not quite ) there. A few panel buys are now showing up at thirty four cents per peak panel watt, based on full container sales to utility grade projects.

Also of interest is a new thermal solar development in Gila Bend. This one gets rid of many of the "power tower problems ( like blinding pilots, scamming bureaucrats, bird roasts, trashing local weather, and creating the highest structures in the state ) and has an  enormous advantage over straight pv in that energy can be stored for up to five hours.

And thus both runs in the dark and often meets peak demand hours. Yet I feel that it is unlikely that solar pv will ultimately be able to compete with pv on long term price and scalability. More here.

August 6, 2014
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Hewlett Packard aka Agilent is now Keysite Technologies One of the worst electronic test instrument secrets of all time was that the last decent oscilloscope that HP ever built was the 130C. For years and years, to them, "trigger" was a horse.

August 5, 2014
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Despite all the "apologist" publications that think they see a future in books, I remain firmly convinced that; the sudden and complete demise of books will happen faster and more spectacularly than anyone could possibly imagine.

No, decent readers are not here yet, and yes, the ludicrosities of DRM and copyright have not yet been blown aside. But it is just a matter of time. And ebooks are already outselling dead tree ones by an ever expanding margin. The key point is that there are clearly fatal flaws in books as an info distribution method.

Flaws that are utterly and totally bypassed by electronic media distribution. Let' s start with two subtle ones and then go on to the obvious: The first is the dirty little secret of the book industry: Because of the Thor Decision, your federal government in their infinite wisdom pays publishers to shred books. In fact, more books have recently been shredded that were destroyed during the entire dark ages. Overwhelmingly so.

This happens because the IRS ruled that back inventory has to be carried at full value, rather than its scrap or remainder value. Thus, any book that drops even a little bit in current sales popularity gets destroyed and becomes terminally unavailable.

The second and not too unobvious secret is that students are pissed over dragging around backpacks. And a revolt against at least the heavier of them would seem in the offering. Going to the more obvious, books cannot be full text searched. Books lack links. Adding color and images to books is expensive, but virtually free with electronic distribution.

Many books never sell and have to be destroyed. It takes time and energy to haul books around or store them. Books can't easily be read out loud. Most books are only read once. The total energy waste and carbon footprint of books utterly and totally overwhelms that of what goes into the readers.

While some quote a "twenty books to pay for one reader's environmental impact", the average reader can eventually be expected to provide access to thousands or tens of thousands of titles. An utterly overwhelming superiority. Electronic media is instantly available 24/7. Its storage space and volume is negligible. Prep time is ridiculously shorter and simpler. Revisions, updates, and corrections are trivial.

A brick and mortar bookstore at best can stock something like 5000 different titles in modest quantities. But even the smallest and sleaziest of online suppliers today can provide millions of titles in unlimited numbers of copies. And that is before the upcoming petabyte revolution where all books can be provided all at once on a single thumb drive.

Acceptance of an eBook for publication is a certainty. As opposed to a dead tree publisher who shall remain unnamed who sat on one of my titles for over a year and then rejected it because it was "not timely". There's finally accumulating outrage over scholarly pub houses charging utterly outrageous prices for research that was paid for by your tax dollars in the first place. Open source publication is now well on the way to becoming inevitably dominant.

On the other side of the fence, Book-on-Demand publishing largely arrived stillborn. Its window has slammed shut. Owing to outrageous costs and the key problems of economical trimming and binding having never been addressed, let alone solved. Our own eBooks can be found here and our classic reprints here.

August 4, 2014
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Once again expanded and updated our Gila Valley Dayhikes;page. We are now up to 405 main entries. Please email me with anything I missed or needs further updating.

August 3, 2014
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Speaking of Apple computers, I seem to have THE definitive stash of many hundreds of Apple IIe, Apple IIc, and Apple IIGS computers, cards, drives, and such. Plus a few commodores and even a rare pre Osborne I. I'd like to clear these with a bulk sale that should represent an outstanding investment opportunity.

Most of these are retired from high school service and are fairly clean. Some appear ready to use, while others may need some restoration or parts recombinations. The only Gotcha is the sale is for the lot and you have to arrange your own shipping. These should fit a pickup or a larger SUV and there is a U-Haul literally on premises. A UPS Store type of competitor can be found here, and outstanding shipping rates can be found through U-Ship.

Estimated weight is around 900 pounds. Volume would depend on the repacking Some photos can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. I am presently working up a complete inventory and will publish it on eBay shortly. We will gladly help you with loading. You can enail me for further details.

August 2, 2014
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We are currently dramatically cutting back on our unlisted eBay items, combined with more testing and better inventory controls. One of the surprises of triaging away far too many items that got away with being unlisted for far too long was to discover a buried Osborn I computer!

A real Osborn I from the first production run! With a serial number of #230. It is still untested and not quite mint, needing a spacebar replacement, missing the vent cover, and having its keyboard base painted the wrong color. But appearing to be eminently restorable.

I'm not sure how close a readily findable Apple II spacebar will work. I suspect some equalizer rework may be needed as a bare minimum. Osborne boot code is readily available free here. You will, of course, need to translate this from your modern download browser code to a single sided single density 5-1/4 inch floppy diskette.

Much of the other Osborne software should also be readily available online Please email me if you want to get in ahead of the hoarders on this one.

August 1, 2014
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The easternmost two Cluff Ponds are rather unusual in that they clearly are at two different elevations. With the smaller eastern pond being higher than the western one which seems to act as an overflow route. Which might suggest underlying prehistoric fields.

The larger pond presently has a pool measurable from Google Earth of 3113 feet. The smaller eastern pond presently has a pool of 3123 feet. There is a separating dam between the two that has a half elevation channel cut through it, apparently around 3118 feet.

The feeder canal slopes from 3140 feet, cleanly making it a supplier from its Ash Creek source. Apparently, when the big pond fills, there is backflow through the separating dam, protecting the maximum allowable height. On a recent visit, there was just enough rain to add water to the smaller eastern dam that there was a counterflow, with water barely flowing from east to west. This would seem highly unusual.

July 31, 2014
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Proving that the second Cluff Ponds canal does or does not have prehistoric origins is ending up problematical. Canal #30 does have a well defined but abandoned historical purpose in feeding two easternmost Cluff Ponds from Ash Creek.

There is no concrete or steel involved and there is no maint road. There are many potsherds in the area, at least one major nearby ruin, and several smaller ones. The length and purpose of the canal for prehistoric uses is rather obvious, and NOT using it prehistorically would be highly conspicuous by its absence.

The area is also the "most riparian" of the known canal sites and would be the easiest to develop as well. The engineering would appear trivial compared to the other known canal routes. Parts of the canal approach a two meter depth, but the total excavation is much less than the aqueduct, the HS canal, or the Allen Canal cut below the dam.

Acme Mapper does suggest a third canal in the area which could become Canal #31 and which would tend to verify #30 also being prehistoric. However, this week's attempt at ground truth strongly suggested this is an abandoned and ungraded vehicle two track. The slope, while quite uniform, seems to barely miss being canal useful.

Approaches to resolving Cluff would be contacting knowledgeable historians and historic records for the area. And thoroughly mapping non-canal prehistoric sites and artifacts in the area.

July 30, 2014
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Just noticed that the latest solid stare drives are approaching half a terabyte. But why piss around with terabytes at all? Let's just get into the petabyte era and be done with it.

After all, there is no sane reason that ALL books cannot appear on a single petabyte thumb drive. Or All movies. Or All music. Or ALL magazines. Although a single drive for EVERYTHING might have to wait for the upcoming Exabyte era. I can see some interesting IP questions coming up over this inevitable development.

July 29, 2014
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The original to the Xylophone Duet can be found here.

July 28, 2014
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Sally, our number two dog, got her coat so heavy and so matted that we couldn't tell for sure if there was a dog in there somewhere or no. Don't know if it was a coincidence, but after a normal trimming to normal dog fur size, she seemed to develop an abject fear of thunder. It turns out that this is fairly common and that there is an "acupuncture like" cure called a ThunderShirt.

Supposedly the pressure of a jacket has an enormous caliming effect. As might bunches of extra fur. Its too early to tell for sure, but the ThunderShirt seems to be both working and cost effective.

July 27, 2014
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A reminder that there is a very easy way to get rid of .JPG edge artifacts. Simply knock out the background and replace it with a slightly mottled one. The continuing changing colors prevent the usual "ghost lines" from appearing.

Many examples appear in our eBay photos. There is an automatic background mottler in our bitmap typewriter. A collection of useful bitmap mottled backgrounds appears here. And our automatic background vignetter does the task semi-automatically. Consulting services available.

July 26, 2014
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A tutorial on the bitmap .BMP format can be found here. We have a bitmap typewriter that can give you the finest possible bitmap text resolution this side of using the subpixel techniques discussed here, here, and here. Two examples can be found here and here.

July 25, 2014
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An internal upgrade at Fatcow caused our banner rotators to not work for the last few days. Posting a directive error instead. The problem has supposedly been repaired. Please report any further issues. It turns out you have to specify the allowable downloading of any less-than-usual filetypes in an AddType text/x-server-parsed-html .htm .html .shtml .asp .psl.js format.

Fatcow is an associate of ours. To date their job ticket approach to solving problems has been consistently outstanding.

July 24, 2014
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I was surprised to see that Android cell phones have dozens of free aps that are electronic bubblelevel related. These might prove barely useful for our hanging canal work especially where canal slopes and routings need proven. Most of the schemes are based on using the internal game 3-axis accelerometer to measure the X and Y gravity acceleration intensity. The tangent gives you the tilt and ( because of quadrature ), the measured tilt is largely independent of the absolute gravity acceleration

A tutorial with the underlying math can be found here. Many interesting components can be found at Sparkfun

July 23, 2014
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Canal #30 in Cluff Ponds is proving very difficult to establish whether it does or does not have a prehistoric origin. Its last use was clearly historic, providing water from Ash Creek to one or two of two easternmost reservoirs. It seems presently derelict. There is no iron, concrete, or maint road. Nor any obvious use of heavy machinery. But a maximum depth may exceed two meters. Which would seem excessively atypical of prehistoric designs.

There is a major ruin in the area, and wide distributions of potsherds, both sparse and dense. If this was NOT a location for a prehistoric canal project, it certainly would be conspicuous by its absence. It certainly could serve as a "starter canal project" centered on the most riparian and most workable of the southern bajadas.

Perhaps a thorough survey of prehistoric but non-canal artifacts in the area could resolve the problem. There is a hint of a possible second canal not yet verified that clearly would have prehistoric potential. Besides bailing #30 out.

There is also compelling evidence that quite a few of the historic canals were based on "steal the plans". It certainly is much easier to "dig out an old ditch" than it is to engineer, design, and construct a new canal from scratch. Tours and lectures available. Funds and Draganflys welcome.

July 22, 2014
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Speaking of test gear, we do have some highly collectible or otherwise useful General Radio instruments newly up on our eBay site. The most impressive is a near mint copy of their #1863 Megohmmeter. Clones of these still sell new for $4300.00 each!

We also have a very rare, much older, used, and far cheaper #1644 Megohmmeter in a larger and older package. Either of these instruments can read to 1 TeraOhm ( ! ) and are normally used for electrical insulation safety and similar apps.

And we also have a classic Strobotac 1531A in clean used condition and apparently fully working. This one does have a minor hardware mod made to the handle. It can be used to measure the speed of moving machinery or for freeze frame and similar ultra speed photography.

July 21, 2014
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Buying and selling old test instruments can be fraught with peril. Especially on eBay where the acquisition and resale shipping charges can eat you alive. Yes, opportunities abound for certain items of certain ages, but random instruments are likely to end up short. Many instruments are now called Boat Anchors judging by their extreme weight and their use inconvenience. Ham radio operators who are the fans of boat anchors sold at hamfests can usually be spotted by their extremely long arms.

A good source for BA info can be found here. Most manuals are now available free on the web, with originals typically going for $25 and CD ripoff collections selling for as low as $5 each. Many years ago, both HP ( Agilent ) and Tektronix purposely placed nearly all of their legacy docs in the public domain. An incredible stupidity involving Heathkit has caused some problems, but web docs are rapidly now re-emerging. Such as here, or here.

Yeah, some things have extreme value. Such as certain HP and Tek gear, early computer collectibles, classic General Radio and Shallcross gear, and even Western Electric ancient electronic components. There's little demand for integrated circuits that are pre flash. Or chips of smaller memory capacity. Unless you have MIL Spec originals in original sealed packaging. These can be outrageously profitable even justifying their usually slow sales rate.

But some items have no value whatsoever. Ferinstance: CRT monitors except for legacy collectibles. Analog TV Test equipment such as waveform monitors or vectorscopes. Chart recorders or pen plotters with their supply and maint hassles. Older unstuffed circuit boards are largely useless, even if you have the schematics for them. But the parts that go into thru-hole boards can be very good sellers indeed. Trying to salvage gold off the boards is almost always dangerous, poisonous, and nonprofitable.

Pre ROHS stuff is not supposed to be used in new production, especially anything involving lead or mercury. Sometimes stripping and rebuilding can recover hidden value. I bid on a whole trailer full of "burned out" traffic light controllers. Turns our that almost all of them had overheated input caps and the solid state relays were perfectly good $10 eBay sellers.

Surprisingly, some Tektronix gear has zero demand. This includes most any oscilloscope based on a storage tube or scan converter. Also, most of their Doghouse scopes, with the 545 and 585 just barely holding their own. 7000 series is a joke, and 5000 series is not even funny. Tek also had a bunch of Fourier Analyzers based on Windows 3.0 or worse. These typically have glacial and impossible to find software combined with memory best described as mesmerizingly awful.

Wet "slopping in the slush" darkroom stuff also has zero interest, unless old enough to be collectible or lenses salvageable for new uses. Interest in most anything Polaroid is pretty much zilch. Nobody uses fiber optics for anything local anymore. Spectrum analyzers sell well IF they are newer ones thatuse Fast Fourier Transforms for a dramatic speedup. For some uses, sound cards can be substituted for a "real" FFT machine. As can a VHF tuner.

Demand for oscilloscopes has dropped dramatically, first because of much lighter hobby use and second because of PC based USB units that are often muchcheaper and better. Most vintage analog power supplies have gotten blown out of the saddle by switchmode units that are ridiculously smaller and lighter. And old network gear is klunky and incompatible and way too slow. We've had replacement phonograph needles listed for years with zero interest.

AC instruments that predated sane priced rms techniques. Wall wart anythings are reaching end of life, standardizing on cheap and better USB 5 volt 1 amp switchmode supplies. Second tier "ham" test equipment such as Eico, Olsen, B&K, Radio Shack and the rest of the gang has become relatively worthless. Except for occasional rare mint Heathkits. More on related stuff here and here.

July 20, 2014
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I was surprised to see that the flux inside rolls of solder has a shelf life. Per these details. The solder rolls we are selling on eBay should still remain useful, but we have no idea how old they actually are. They were current use aerospace surplus and we have held them around a year or so. We will definitely guarantee them useful.

July 19, 2014
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We still get emails over accepting checks and VISA/MC.We had accepted VISA/MC for many years. But since nearly all of our sales are now Paypal, the minimum monthly charge on VISA/MC clearly makes them noncompetitive.

As to checks, all they do is convert an instant and hassle free transaction into one that may or may not take place some place in the dark distant future. We have gotten to the point where we feel that the overwhelming majority of users of checks are felons, flakes, and troublemakers.

To the point where you clearly label yourself one if you even have to ask. Additional eBay secrets here and auction secrets here.

July 18, 2014
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I started working on my Kilobaud Reprints. You'll find Clocked Logic III ( A CMOS Cookbook reprint ) here. Some of these may not be the quality I am aiming for. We have some spectacular restoration techniques for Linotype era technical stuff, but there has to be enough interest to justify the time required to generate any .psl sourcecode.

July 17, 2014
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Plans are underfoot for a rare midweek October 14th and 15th tour of the Bajada Hanging Canals. Possibly combined with an October 19th Saturday Night Discovery Park Lecture. Or, alternatively, Branding Iron ribs night. Dr. James Neely and several other archaeological heaviesn are expected to participate. email me if you have any interest in attending.

July 16, 2014
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WhatTheFont is an apparently new way to auto identify fonts from an input .BMP or .JPG sample. Input is best 100 pixels high with horizontal non-touching characters. PDF samples are not accepted, but you can use Acrobat XI to convert sampled text to .JPG or .BMP formats.

Non obvious is that this can give you a list of stock fonts that approximate any given ClearScan glyph collection. Replacing ClearScan with an ordinary font can have all sorts of size and retexting advantages. Or even for simplified searching or changing colors or modifying backgrounds.

July 15, 2014
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Just added a classic General Radio Strobotac to our eBay offerings. Per this image. This is a legendarily superb vacuum tube era instrument that can be used to measure the speed of moving machinery or to freeze frame ultra high speed photography and similar special effects.

Unit is in fairly clean used condition with reasonable brightness apparently remaining in the lamp. A minor workaround has been made to the cover hardware New clones sell for $5180.00

July 14, 2014
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A Raspberry PI Model B+ is newly available per this video. Same price, more ports, lower power consumption, smaller memory cards, and several other mostly minor improvements.

July 13, 2014
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We are in the process of adding a bunch of premium grade classic panel meters to our eBay offerings. Some of these have panel markings ( or even blank panels ) that are different from their underlying ratings, so the question comes up how do you tell an ac meter from a dc one and what are its ratings?

Unless super premium and ultra expensive, a classic analog meter is unlikely to be more sensitive than 100 microamperes. You can check one of these with a D cell and a series 150K resistor. Just in case, though, hit it initially with the briefest of contacts. To tell an ac meter from a dc meter, reverse the polarity. If the reading still goes upscale, you have an ac meter. If the reading reverses, you have a dc meter.

Note that ac meters are normally calibrated some 11 percent high. Owing to the difference between a rms and an average ac sinewave. Ammeters with an internal shunt require a different technique. First "sneak up" on the current with 15K, 1.5K,150 Ohm and 15 Ohm resistors to make absolutely sure an external shunt is not involved.

Once you are sure it really is a high current ammeter, go to a regulated and current limited power supply and try suitable preset current limits of one, two, or more amperes. Once again, an ac meter reads upscle with either dc polarity.

July 12, 2014
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Added our classic Winning the Micro Game Kilobaud reprint to our classic reprints stash. There were also some cartoonish showcards that went with this when lecturing. Done by a real artist. I'm not sure if these can still be found.

A major stash of Kilobaud magazine full reprints can be found here. I'll try to excerpt and text recognize more of my stuff from here as time permits.

July 11, 2014
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The reason for the shuffling interest was an innocent but infuriatingly obsessive question during a TFD address drill. Each fireman would write their address on a card and the cards would be shuffled for the "you are the dispatcher - provide hydrants and routing" drill. Shuffling very often would leave at least one fireman with their own card, requiring adjustment. Somebody asked What are the odds of getting at least one self return?"

This depends on the total number of cards. For 20 cards, the odds of everybody getting their own card back is one in 2^20th or one in 1,048,576. AKA "Taint likely McGee".

The odds of a self-hit will change with each shuffle, but run the math and you will find zero self-hits around 45% of the time, one self-hit around 25% of the time, two self-hits 15% of the time and far less likely multiple hits.

The results seem reminiscent of a Raleigh Distribution and may in fact be somehow related. The code ( along with a tow-along set of Gonzo Utilities ) can be found here Consulting services available.

July 10, 2014
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A possible Visual Basic shuffler that we use in our Banner Rotator is...

function Shuffle () { Pattern =
[ 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14, ]; index=0 ;
for (TopCard=(Pattern.length - 1);TopCard>0;
TopCard-=1) {SwapCard = Math.floor
(Math.random()*(TopCard + 1)) ; holdem =
Pattern[TopCard] Pattern [TopCard] = Pattern
[SwapCard] ; Pattern [SwapCard] = holdem ;}
;} ;} Shuffle ( );

And one possible Postscript shuffler might be....

/numelements 20 store % the number of elements
/numarray mark 0 1 numelements 1 sub {} for
] store /swap { numarray length 1 sub -1 1
{/toppos exch store /topval numarray toppos
get store /swappos toppos 1 add random store
/swapval numarray swappos get store numarray
toppos swapval put numarray swappos topval
put} for } store

This needs my Gonzo utilities. Which can be run by Ghostscript but need towed along internally with Distiller. Or you can simply copy Gonzo's randomcommand...

/random {rand 65536 div 32768 div mul cvi}
def % as in -- 6 random --

A JavaScript shuffler might look like this.

function Shuffle () {Pattern =
[ 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15 ] ;
index=0 ; for (TopCard=(Pattern.length - 1);
TopCard>0;TopCard-=1) SwapCard =
Math.floor(Math.random()*(TopCard + 1));
holdem = Pattern[TopCard]; Pattern
[TopCard] = Pattern [SwapCard]; Pattern
[SwapCard] = holdem; cument.write
(TopCard, " ", SwapCard, ". ") ; }; } ;

More Banner Info here.

July 9, 2014
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One of my favorite examples of mathematical subtlety is the error in the "obvious" card shuffling algorithm. Why, to shuffle "n" cards, you simply random interchange each card with itself or another one in the deck. Right? Wrong!

This stunt will end up "fairly close" for a full deck of 52 cards. But it introduces severe errors for, say, eight banner rotations. Here's why: Consider the worst case of a three card deck. There can be only six possible outcomes. But there are twenty seven intermediate results. 6 does not divide into 27 very well, so you will have 3 possible outcomes that happen 4 times each and 3 possible outcomes that happen 5 times each!

The correct ( and actually faster and easier ) algorithm is to  replace any card with a random choice of itself or any other card that is LOWER in the deck. More here.

July 8, 2014
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Canal #29 of our prehistoric hanging canals is proving extremely difficult to trace. It starts out vague near the southwesternmost Golf Course duck pond and then assumes an obvious and well defined hanging portion, only to vanish into a was One possible source might be a pair of still active artesian ponds. But there is no evidence of the northern pond seeing prehistoric use, and a possible Acme Mapper link became a dirt bike track on field verification.

Other canals have shown "U" turns where a wash was crossed, but no evidence of this one making a western turn to become part of the Robinson Canal system has been located. Nothing has yet been found south of the wash entry. Hints of braided canals can be found a mile further south in the Riggs Complex, but these seem inconsistent with the engineering on the Golf Course Canal. They also seem somewhat smaller and more primitive.

The "Ockhams Razor" explanation remains sourcing from the HS Canal counterflowing off lower Frye Mesa. If true, this would be one of the most spectacular of prehistoric canal reaches at seven miles length. Field mice welcome. The latest hanging canal paper here. Some photos appear here.

July 7, 2014
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Also vanished with nary a trace is the Ghost Town of Gripe Arizona. A one time population thre gas station that also hosted the original old hiway 70 ag inspection station. The place name remains on the topo maps and a fragment of the original concrete still exists just west of San Jose.

July 6, 2014
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Once again expanded and updated our Gila Valley Dayhikes page. We are now up to 401 main entries. Please  email me with anything I missed or needs further updating.

July 5, 2014
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My unauthorized autobiography can be found here.

July 4, 2014
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My Gonzo Utilities can apparently also be used in a trace mode. During an ebook restoration or remastering, this can give extremely small file sizes, ultra high quality, clean backgrounds, straight lines, and superb typography. Especially for such things as line art or schematics.

The technique, though, is somewhat time intensive, has a steep learning curve, and is not WYSIWYG. To start, get an Acrobat XI version of the original scanned bitmap and then save it in raw PostScript. Comment out the entire end binary section, make some white space, and add an initgraphics, more white space, a showpage, and an % EOF.

Put a copy of my gonzo utilities in the first white space, followed by a scaled setgrid and showgrid. Sadly, Acrobat no longer lets you read or write disk files, so you have to tow the whole routine along inside. You can now trace over anything you like, automatically eliminating anything bent, discolored or speckled or whatever.

Temporarily making purple=black can keep track of old versus new. When you are finished, you can either copy only the new stuff and send it to Distiller, or else add a new showpage to split out old versus new. Then throw away the original part.

Again, the results can be absolutely superb and ridiculously short in size. Another remastering secret here. Consulting services available.

July 3, 2014
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An intriguing demo of envelope distortion that uses an Adobe Flash related SWF file can be found here. We looked at the fundamentals of nonlinear graphic transformations here. And great heaping bunches of text transformation stunts here and here. And a rather complete library of secret insider cubic spline info here.

July 2, 2014
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Absence of proof is not the same as proof of absence. Now treating the Cluff Ponds Canal as Canal Number 30 of interest even through it lacks definitive prehistoric evidence at the present time. There is a large habitation sight in the vicinity of the canal and rather potsherd distribution nearby.

Although the canal presently appears rather large, there is no apparently concrete or iron or any maintenance road. The canal also directly routes from Ask Creek over an obvious path that would seem to be conspicuously unlikely not to be a favorable prehistoric canal route.

There is also compelling evidence that most of the historic southern canals do have strong evidence of prehistoric prehistoric ag routes. Another Minor Webster historic canal is nearby to the west and the Cluff Ranch area would seem to be the largest riparian area south of the Gila Valley properly. And thus highly unlikely to be ignored as a prehistoric ag sight.

July 1, 2014
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With extreme care cabinets can end up outrageous bargains during a technical auction. But be absolutely certain they contain known high resellable value technical materials. Cabinets that are empty or contain office supplies or cleaning or safety items or are only partially full or that have damaged latches are probably not worth bidding on.

Just having high value contents may not hack it. Integrated circuits might be quite valuable, while printed circuit boards might prove totally useless and utterly unsellable. Clearly labeled components that are combinable into optimal lots are obviously to be preferred. Especially if they are still in original manufacturers or distributors packaging.

A missing key can dramatically suppress the number and values of compatible bids. And many locksmiths are quite low in cost for delivered to their home base items. Old technical manuals are almost totally worthless unless they belong to a very few companies such as Tektronix, Hewlett Packard ( Agilent ), or General Radio.

A locked cabinet often suggests high value contents. A locked cabinet that has a missing key can be a highly useful gamble. Provided the adjacent area is heavy with high tech inventory. And providing the cabinet contents is heavy enough to suggest a nearly full stash.

Although empty cabinets are worth up to $750 new, it is difficult to sell second hand on Craig's List for $45 maximum. And are totally unmarketable on eBay.

June 30, 2014
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A sick person checks in with the witch doctor in darkest Africa. Who takes a rawhide strip and boils it in all sorts of vile concoctions. And tells them to eat two inches of it a day till it is gone.

Person comes back in a week and reports they ate it all and they are feeling much, much better. But still are not quite cured. "I guess the thong has ended, but the malady lingers on".

June 29, 2014
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Sadly, the WESRCH website has removed many of our papers. Find them here instead.

June 28, 2014
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I'm wondering if the real underlying cause of all of the perpetual motion ludicrosities of the past few years is a total failure to understand Fourier Series. Just about all of the scams and stupidities in one way or another involved "pulsed dc".

The only tiny problem with this is that here is no such thing as pulsed dc! You instead have a waveform with various ac and dc terms. More often than not, each term can be separately considered and evaluated.

Ferinstance, only the dc term in a pulsed waveform ( or ac terms that rectify to a dc component ) plays any role whatsoever in electrolysis. As guaranteed by Faraday's Law. Any low duty cycle waveform is exceptionally easy to mis-measure, owing to its strong difference between its average and rms values. Invariably, the wrong measurement will be low. Often wildly so. More here and here.

June 27, 2014
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Two useful tools for eBay image prep and other postproc are the open lasso and the octant remap. Replacing the background on any sloped line or curve can be painful. Instead, use the lasso to grab a portion of the new background, being careful that its "open" slope between its start and end nearly matches the slope you are trying to match.

If you are working on edging something circular, get a 45 degree portion of it exactly the way you want. Then flip and rotate to build the full circle. This should be nearly eight times faster than rebuilding the entire circular outline. If you are careful with your flip and rotate sequence, each new paste will exactly match the mirror edge of the previous one. Our eBay listings can be found here.

June 26, 2014
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Shocking. Nearly fifty percent of all North Dakota school children are below average!

June 25, 2014
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A new hanging canal engineering paper can be found here. With its post-Distilling JavaScript here and its sourcecode here. More on the hanging canals here.

June 24, 2014
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We have added a bunch more legacy Apple II and IIgs disk drives to our eBay stash of rare Apple collectibles. We have also added an extremely rare Osborne I computer. We believe it to be functional but have not yet tested it.

We also found a possible local pack and ship resource for you with CMI. But U-Ship is likely to be a lot cheaper. We can also deliver the entire lot within 160 miles ( Phoenix and Tucson areas ) for $150 at our convenience. More details on our eBay site or here.

June 23, 2014
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Thanks to some new developments, selling and shipping eBay items to New Mexico has eased somewhat. Yeah, there still is the language barrier and all the hassles at customs. But at one time, everything needed reloaded at the border crossings because of the different sizes and spacings of the truck tires. Fortunately, reversible truck tires are newly available that can simply be insided out at the border crossings.

Much more here and here.

June 22, 2014
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The Cluff Ranch area is one of the "most riparian" regions south of the Gila River and thus would seem to be a very good candidate for prehistoric canals. There are also major habitation sites present, along with areas rich to very rich in potsherds.

A modern canal has been located here. It seems rather large for a prehistoric origin and is presently in disuse. There does not seem to be any concrete, iron, or an access road. The source would appear to be Ash Creek and the destination one or possibly two disused lakes literally adjacent to a prehistoric habitation site

Whether or not this canal can be shown to have prehistoric origins remains to be seen. This canal would appear to be a rather favorable candidate. We will tentatively assign it as Canal #30. The historic Minor Webster Ditch is also in the area and also would appear to be a candidate for prehistoric origins. It also has associated potsherd areas. Extensive modern use and reuse would seem to make evaluation difficult at best.

June 21, 2014
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Absolutely nobody, archaeologist or not, who actually has visited our prehistoric hanging canals has not been absolutely convinced that these are totally genuine. Sadly, there have been some skeptics at a distance that apparently refuse to believe that this is a world class discovery that significantly and profoundly impacts all of southwestern archaeology.

Part of the reason is that the Gila Valley has forever been wrongly perceived as some sort of a backwater rather than a major prehistoric agricultural center. A second factor might be ethnocentricity in which the prehistoric peoples are not given remotely enough credit for the utterly and profoundly spectacular engineering and energy awareness they clearly and unquestionably have exhibited.

The key point is this: Unlike any other construct, a canal simply MUST rigorously follow a constant precise slope in the two percent range range over long distances. Unwaveringly with zero exceptions. No other construct such as a trail or a cow path or a wash, a game path, or a bike route or a 4WD track or a wagon road, or random typography, or whatever EVER comes even remotely close.

The outcome is thus not the least in doubt. Especially with another FIFTY MILES of these in the immediate neighborhood that appear astonishingly consistent and identical. A new tour of some of the canals is found here.

June 20, 2014
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Acrobat bookmarks can alternately be entered using the PDFMark technique. Like so...

[ /Title (Intro) /Page 0 /View
 [ /XYZ 0 -40 0 ] /OUT pdfmark

/Title (Scope) /Page 0 /View
 [ /XYZ 0 -350 0 ]/OUT pdfmark

[ /Title (Hangreason) /Page 0 /View
 [ /XYZ 0 -400 0 ] /OUT pdfmark

June 19, 2014
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And here's a three button JavaScript nav generator...

var inch = 72; var colLtGray = ["RGB", 0.7
, 0.7, 0.7 ]; try {nLastPage = this.numPages - 1;
for (var p = 0; p < this.numPages; p++)
{var x = 0.5; if (p > 0){AddButton(p,x,0 .5,
0.25,0.25,"PrevPage","<","Previous Page",
"this.pageNum--;"); x += 0.3;} if (p != 0)
{AddButton(p,x,0.5,0.25,0.25,"StartPage",
"1", "Go To First Page","this.page
Num=0;"); x += 0.3;}if (p < nLastPage)
{AddButton(p,x,0.5,0.25,0.25, "NextPage",
">","Next Page","this.pageNum++;");
x += 0.3;}}catch (e){app.alert(e);
function AddButton(nPageNum, x, y,
width, height, strText, strCaption, strT
oolTip, strAction){var aRect = this.
getPageBox( { nPage: nPageNum} );
aRect[0] += x * inch; aRect[1] -=
y * inch; aRect[2] = aRect[0] + width
* inch; aRect[3] = aRect[1] - height
* inch; var f = this.addField(strText,
"button", nPageNum, aRect);
f.setAction("MouseUp",strAction);
f.userName = strToolTip; f.delay =
true; f.borderStyle = border.s;
f.highlight = "push";f.textSize = 0;
f.textColor = colLtGray;f.stroke
Color = colLtGray; f.fillColor =
color.white; //f.textFont =
font.ZapfD; f.buttonSetCaption
(strCaption); f.delay = false;}

Click on PDF file, enter Ctrl-J, copy and highlight above, numeric Enter key. Actual code can be found here.

June 18, 2014
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The original to the Xylophone Duet can be found here.

June 17, 2014
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There seems to be a lot of outrageously expensive and not event wrong info out there on successful eBay sales. Here is a summary of what works for us...

Sell unique products not available elsewhere.
Maximize your personal value added.
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!
Don't list anything you can'tt hold.
Use both a scanner and 5 megapixel camera.
Spend at TWO HOURS in image postproc.
NO dropshipping, pallets, or consignments.
Limit terms to TEN words maximum.
Clearly state revenue neutral shipping.

Of these, I feel the two most important rules are to always seek out a 30:1 or higher SBR sell buy ratio. And to always spend at least 90 percent of your image processing time postproc. Much more here.

June 16, 2014
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A perplexing but reasonable question is why the hanging canals seem to be unique to Mount Graham and possibly no where else in the world. It turns out that Mount Graham has the highest elevation difference between its top and bottom of any Basin and Range mountain, or, for that matter, of any Arizona mountain.

Thus, it would tend to have more snowpack and a larger number of north trending perennial streams. It would also tend to have more and larger bajadas. It is quite possible that there is no place anywhere else in the world that could support such an elaborate bajada hanging canal system.

June 15, 2014
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It also was not obvious how to do an ntilde in the Stone font. My Gonzo Utilities give a sledgehammer solution by using its overstrike feature...

/overstrikechar (~) store
/overstrikeht 0.43 store
 ( ... pinalin|oo ... )

Examples of the modified opening quote and the ntilde cure can be found here. The overstrike value shown is for a 10X grid.

June 14, 2014
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Typewriters used a single key for both opening and closing quotes, while "real" typography normally uses a pair of balanced characters. In general, "real" typography looks a lot better, especially with headers and other larger sizes.

Many PostScript fonts use octal \252 as an opening double quote and octal \254 for the close. Curiously, the Stone font seems to have "unbalanced" quotes. The opening one leans to the right with a heavy bottom. The closing one also leans to the right with a heavy top. This may have been done on purpose as a design element, or may simply be a mistake.

One workaround I use for what I think are a better set of quotes is to print the opening quote backwards. Ferinstance in my Gonzo utilities...

/font0 /StoneSansBold 1.6 gonzofont
/font1 /StoneSansBold [-1.6 0 0 1.6 0 0 ]
 gonzofont
(... Bajada |j|j |1\252|0 |kHanging
 Canals\272 of...

June 13, 2014
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A javaScript spell checker can befound here.

June 12, 2014
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There's all sorts of interesting stuff you wan do when you use javascript on top of Acrobat.

June 11, 2014
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Traditional LCL shippers insist on hassling you over freight classifications, while many of the newer U-Ship trucking services simply charge by the pound.

A freight classification is a density measurement based on the theory that a less dense item takes up more space. The numbers go from 50 to 500. With Class 50 being clean freight on standard shrink wrapped pallets, Class 55 being bricks or cement, Class 92.5 being computers and monitors, up to class 500 which is either very low density or very high value.

One summary here.

June 10, 2014
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The new Golf Course Prehistoric Hanging Canal seems to be stuck where its sourcing ends in a wash here. This being a partial eastern branch of the Robinson Canal has failed to reveal the slightest hint after searching some 4WD tracks.

The "obvious" connection between the HS Canal and the Golf Course Canal simply has too much unexplored terrain between themselves to date. Although the terrain is favorable. > possibility that would seem somewhat less credible at first glance is that the Canal may in fact start in the wash. There is a seldom visited and just-barely-still-there artesian pond here. IF the flow rates were much higher then than now,

They might possibly form a credible source for Golf Course Water. There already is fairly strong evidence that the Spring in Spring Canyon was used for three or more canals, besides being routed back INTO Frye Creek. Which suggests that things were a lot wetter then than now.

The Golf Course to Wash apparent termination also does look remarkably similar to the Allen Canal takein point. There is a second little known and weak artesian pond somewhat to the northwest, but no apparent prehistoric interest has been noted here to date. All of this remains unproven and highly speculative.

June 9, 2014
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Gotcha. It turns out that JavaScript over Acrobat is far simpler and easy to use than I first thought. And that their "watermarking" process is far more powerful and flexible than the name implies.

Javascript is available on the "Pro" versions of Acrobat. You activate it with a Control-J and feed it a textfile that you cut and pasted from somewhere else. You then highlight the proc of interest and click on the Enter key on the keypad.

June 8, 2014
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GuruGram #124 is newly uploaded and titled A Tour of Some Prehistoric Hanging Canal Images.

Partial sourcecode can be found here. At present images need manually post inserted after Distilling. An automated Acrobat JavaScript image inserter is in development. The GuguGram library itself is still in need of updating. Some of the "missing" files can be found here.

June 7, 2014
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I still don't have an automated post-Distiller replacement for my /autoimageandlink1 image insertion routine, but it is becoming apparent that the JavaScript in Acrobat XI can do the job. The key command is apparently addWatermarkFromFile and is supported by over a dozen fine tuning commands.

The immediate need is for our new Hanging Canal Image Tour paper. So far, I don't have all the details quite worked out. More on Acrobat JavaScript apps here.

June 6, 2014
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Two useful satellite navigation publications are GPS World and InsideGNSS.

June 5, 2014
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So, where does the pv Holy Grail number of a dollar a watt pv system cost come from? What does it imply? Assume you have a 1 KW peak panel and that things attract attention at ten cents per kilowatt hour. A typical panel might ( on a good Arizona day ) be able to produce five kilowatt hours worth fifty cents.

Or fifteen dollars per month gross. If we go to an amortization schedule and assume something in the neighborhood of ten years of financing at eight percent interest, we see that we can amortize $1569 worth of investment at $15 per month. Subtract out some labor and maint, and that leaves us somewhere around the dollar per peak watt Holy Grail figure.

But that is the total system cost. The pv panel cost will typically be half the total, so fifty cents per peak panel watt is the real Holy Grail goal. But the kicker is this: A dollar per peak watt does not give pv solar any advantage whatsoever. All it does is paint traditional energy sources green. For no net energy gain and not being in any manner renewable nor sustainable.

A reasonable incentive to start approaching true net pv energy might be fifty cents per peak system watt and an equivalent twenty five cents per peak panel watt. Amazingly, we seem to be fast approaching that point, with some figures now in the forty five to sixty five cents per peak panel watt for utility grade panels and quantities.

While hitting a quarter per peak watt will start on the path towards net energy sustainability and renewability, it will take at least several years after that price point to start to show anything but a net overall energy loss from pv panels.

The usual mistake people make in claiming pv energy breakeven is to treat a subsidy as a 1:1 asset rather than the 5:1 to 7:1  liability when its true costs are fully considered. Another obvious mistake is believing that any pv system installed today will last more than three years when anticipated new developments and breakthroughs come on line. Sort of similar to what happened to cathode ray tube tv sets and monitors. Additional analysis here.

June 4, 2014
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We are cutting back on our rental storage units used with our eBay sales. As a result, we are closing out one of the largest remaining stashes of highly collectible Apple IIe, IIc, and IIgs computers, drives, and cards.

Local pickup only. But we will gladly assist in loading. There is also a U-Haul site on premises, and U-Shipwill gladly help you with solving shipping issues. Best guess is somewhere under a thousand pounds that hould fit a larger pickup or SUV.

June 3, 2014
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Acme Mapper has expanded its local resolution to ten meters. Or their z=20 resolution. Some of the hanging canal images are back the way they were a year or so ago. But, frustratingly, most images in most places are not quite good enough.

June 2, 2014
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Expanded our Hanging Canal directory to include some additional images and logging excerpts from our ongoing whatnu columns.

June 1, 2014
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The discovery of the major "new" Golf Course canal was totally unexpected, in that virtually every drop of Mount Graham water had been believed to have been "used up" and totally accounted for.

Yet, several water sources are known to have seen multiple uses, such as the spring in Spring Canyon possibly serving Allen, Robinson, Golf Course, and even others. Or the multiple branches in Ledford or Deadman. Or Mud Springs splitting into the Jernigan Branch. Or the recombination of Twin East and Twin West into the Twin Boobs ponding area.

So, an absurd, yet somehow totally reasonable question might seem to be "How many unknown canals are there yet to be discovered?"Here are some candidate study areas grossly under researched to date...

CLUFF PONDS - Developments in the Cluff ponds area almost certainly "stole the plans" from prehistoric originals, with Ash Creek obviously playing a major role. And Shingle Mill secondarily via the understudied historic Minor Ditch.

LONGVIEW AREA - Topography is eminently favorable and there are an astonishing number of rock alignments, dams, and structures in the area between Longview, the CCC Alberto's Signature, and the recently trashed Daley Hot Well.

SOUTH DEADMAN - An entire southern branch of the Deadman canal remains totally unexplored that may or may not be involved with the Twin West canal.

NORTH DEADMAN - There are huge areas with tantalizing hints of possible canals west of Lower Deadman tank that remain totally unexplored. Complex terrain dominates.

LEDFORD - Hard to reach with many branches, some possibly used to this day. Underlying prehistoric originals yet to be clarified.

PRANCH - Persisted rumors of prehistoric canals unverified with only tantalizing traces of undated structures present. Likely might be the southeasternrnmost limit of canal development.

RINCON - A direct route from Marijilda to Twin West has yet to be properly identified, yet is certainly topographically favorable.

FRYE CREEK - Both the upper and lower portions remain enigmatic mysteries, especially with the HK canal delivering water back INTO Frye Creek Upper terrain would be excruciatingly challenging.

A credible prediction might be something like 35 or so significant canal fragments eventually resolving into nineteen or so combined systems with a total length possibly just under sixty miles. And apparently totally and uniquely world class.

May 31, 2014
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The latest scam to totally trash your computer goes something like this: You decide to download a major ap from a known major supplier. They first ask you to approve their user agreement. So far, so good. They next ask you if you want some fairly benign but useless ap to go with it. Probably still ok.

They they ( in a carefully weasel worded manner ) ask you if you also want a third party total piece of shit program to totally trash your web experience. This gets repeated three or more times, with progressively more stunningly bad pieces of useless and annoying malware.

Your obvious defense is first to CAREFULLY READ EVERYTHING and ONLY APPROVE THE FIRST USER AGREEMENT SCREEN. Should you get stuck with some of this abject crap trashing your browsing experiences, here are some things that may ease the less aggressive malware suspects.

First, go to your computer C: then go to the Control Panel, and select add or remove software. Remove any and all programs from the last day or two unless you know EXACTLY what they are and that you really and genuinely want them.

Next, if you are in Chrome, right click on the right three stripe icon and select Settings. Under Open a Specific Set of Pages, make sure your home page ( or some other desired location or menu ) is the only one listed, and delete all others.

Under Appearance, select Home Button and Change to only where you want to go. Finally, on booting Chrome, delete any Speed Dial location you never heard of or do not want to go to. And replace them with useful locations of interest. These stunts should get rid of the more benign of the Malware tricksters. For others, try Goggling for help or using live help on your anti malware software

May 30, 2014
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Some of our eBay sales involve small pouch style plastic baggies. Getting these to look good can involve a near white outline, as shown here or here.

The problem with doing such outlines the old way needs way too much time and effort. Instead, a sneaky double outline trick using our autobackgrounding vignetter can prove of value.

First, trace the outline to red=255 ( I often prefer the magenta of red=255 blue=255 ) but do so to five pixels wide and carefully do the outline one pixel wider of your intended final.

hen do your intended-to-stay near white outline three pixels wide and one pixel inside the magenta knockout trace. Sneaky, huh?

May 29, 2014
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We now have something like ninety reprints up on "http://www.wesrch.com/">Wesrch with a total number of visitors well above 200,000. The latest confirmed Dr. Neely Hanging Canal paper has already seen some 1160 visitors.

May 28, 2014
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I still continue to be amazed over the vehemence over which early personal hobby computers were attacked by all sides of society. Or the monumental ridicule that piled up against anyone who could possibly be stupid enough to want to put text on a tv set.

Well, there were a very few of us that realized that something big and fundamentally different and profound was coming down. We did not have the faintest clue what it was or where it possibly could be headed, but there was no doubt in our minds that it was big and it was real.

For want of a better term, it was known simply as "it". "It" was hard to exactly quantify, but one of its quintessential defining moments that it had arrived had to be when the Castle Wolfenstein guard opened a door to try and find me.

May 27, 2014
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Analog Devices has just come up with some new software based radio chips that seem very impressive.

May 26, 2014
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A little bit of high speed air can sometimes drag along a bunch of lower speed air making for an air movement amplifier. The fire service largely switched to positive pressure ventilation a few decades back. In which a large fan was placed a dozen feet in front of a door to enormously magnify the amount of ventilation air delivered.

Positive pressure can also go arbitrarily high, while there are definite weak limits to how much a vacuum can suck. The Dyson folks have just applied the same principle to a brand new form of "bladeless" room fan. A little high speed air injected into the shroud tows along bunches of room air for greatly improved efficiency and potentially lower noise.

Some very cute engineering, but still outrageously overpriced. More details here.

May 25, 2014
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Multiple exposures can greatly improve image postproc as seen in this example. The original seemed to have more or less proper exposure for the meter face and the label, but was otherwise waay too dark for the body.

the meter and the label were cropped out and then the image was significantly lightened for the main body. Lettering on the label was manually enhanced, and the sensitivity knob brightness was converted to a darker color to eliminate its apparent burn. For a total of five composite exposures.

May 24, 2014
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Image post proc can be as important for scanned pictures as it is for digitally photographed ones. Here are before and after images that show how to correct a bad lighting burn. It is important to use the highest possible scan resolution for this "fine grain" a retouching. A 600 DPI bitmapis recommended.

The process is complicated by many of the pins pointing in slightly different directions. First, a single thin blue line is placed as a guide along the rear end of the connector plastic block. This guide gets progressively removed during further processing.

The leftmost pin was then retouched so it consisted of a bright top, a bright bottom, and three wide lines of varying shades of brown. Then only the very top and the very bottom of the pin ( and its adjacent new background ) was copied over the  bad but still identifiable other pin locations. New three wide lines of varying shades of brown were then used to connect the pin tops and bottoms in appropriate directions.

The angle of each front pin ended up "close enough" that it could be copied and substituted for the next middle pin. In general, the front and center pin rows ended up complete, with only partial back row pins hinted at.

Any remaining burn areas then got replaced by the background or connector plastic colors. The spacers got moved to improve their description. One spacer was better than the other, so it got flipped and substituted as shown. Projects and consulting available.

May 23, 2014
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Our neighbors down the street stopped producing and selling Cowboy Jerky. And switched to beef.

May 22, 2014
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As we've seen, Adobe has locked out any and all disk access to Distiller, creating enormous problems for much of my earlier PostScript routines. Update: Disk file access available via Distiller //acrodist /F.

I long had an automatic programmable image inserter with my /autoimageandlink1 and similar routines that no longer are acceptable because they require a disk file read. Instead, images must now be inserted after the distillation to Acrobat PDF is complete. This can be done manually with the insert image or add watermark commands. Image insertion appears to be faster and simpler, while watermarking can be more precise and more consistent where several images are to be exactly positioned.

It appears there is an automated method using JavaScript's AddWatermarkFromFil command. I'm still trying to work out the exact details

May 21, 2014
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Lowball offers sometimes can work well if the seller justs wants to get rid of their inventory or does not realize its value, or has no other buyers. he trick is to set your price point so that only five percenof your offers are accepted. And then, of course, you bid or offer on twenty times more than you could possibly use.

Just ignore any rude insults. Slightly raise your offer if need be, then walk away on nonresponse. More similar stunts here.

May 20, 2014
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Continuing our hanging canal by hanging canal list of needed further work...

The Frye Creek area seems to have the most significant constructs, the greatest remaining mysteries, and the sole highly unusual aspect of putting water back INTO a stream rather than extracting it.

The terrain above the present dam appears exceedingly hostile towards prehistoric canal construction. Visits to date have failed to find any sign of use. Nonetheless, as this seems to be the only mountain stream not high tapped, additional work is clearly needed.

The present HS Canal spectacularly counterflow routes Frye Mesa water ( apparently derived from the spring in Spring Canyon ) BACK down into Frye Creek proper.

This appears to be the largest and longest known construct in the entire prehistoric canal system. It remains quite simply, beyond beyond. The reason for this highly unusual feat remains ambiguous and obviously demands further study. While the Golf Course Canal is a reasonably credible destination for this combined water supply, actual evidence ( beyond Ockham's Razor ) remains sorely lacking.

Also needing study is the apparently more modern canal stub between the Blue Ponds, and the enigmatic braided channels in the middle Riggs Canyon area. This region appears to be the "crown jewels" of the entire prehistoric canal system and thus deserves major further directed research. Field mice welcome.

May 19, 2014
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A major distributor appear to be worst offender 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 have ever used one.

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

May 18, 2014
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The Alabama grits harvest seems to be near its peak. Despite the drought, it appears to be a vintage year. The preferred commercial grits tree is often gritus arborus (domesticus). Seeds and cuttings are normally tightly controlled by the Grits Cooperative, and is somewhat similar to hops distribution.

These are often perennial, but some  growers in San Diego and Hawaii can get multiple years of crops by covering them or bringing them inside whenever frost threatens. As to the ongoing Alabama grits harvest, the illegal aliens are apparently being used for flavor only.

May 17, 2014
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Here's a summary of our current  hanging canal by hanging canal list access entries of needed further work...

Fye Creek Area
Golf Course Canal
Roper Canal
Tranquility Canal
Twin East Canal
Blue Ponds Canal
Twin Boobs Ponding
Deadman Canal
Riggs Complex
Allen Canal
Robinson Canal
Frye Mesa Canal
Shingle Mill Canal
Jernigan Canal
Mud Springs Canal
Intro Frye Mesa Canal

There's still a few to go, including Henry's, High Marijilda, Lefthand, Lamb Tank, Aqueduct, and Ledford. Plus such second tier candidates as P Ranch, Bandelier, Rincon, Jernigan Branch, UFO Fish Filers, various field destinations, and Longview.

The exact count is somewhat fuzzy, as many predicted canals are in several disconnected pieces. Mud Springs has 4 gaps, Allen has 4. Robinson has a totally unexplored southern branch. Golf Course has at least 4 major discontinuities. Jernigan has 2. Upper Frye Creek remains unresolved, as does the necessary link between Spring Canyon and Frye Mesa.

No matter the exact count, there is clearly somewhere between a hoard and a passel of these unique world class hanging canals. Field mice welcome

May 16, 2014
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While not obvious, you can apparently cascade or daisy chain routers. Even wireless ones.

This might have advantages in temporarily making open wireless available for guests. Or for a remote computer with an older operating system that has problems with the newest wireless modem passwords. This stunt may also be useful if you need more than four wired Ethernet destinations as well.

The spread spectrum nature of the usual wireless network should prevent interference, unless they are exceptionally close to each other. Power could be disconnected on the second unit any time you want to disable open access. The second unit may end up somewhat slower, so all of the prime stuff should remain on the main or top router.

May 15, 2014
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Here's a summary of the essential steps we use in getting an item onto eBay. It is super important to complete what gets started. Otherwise, nothing comes out the other end of the pipe...

TRIAGE - Inventory is sorted for suitability. Junk gets flushed to the Alvin Pile. Minimum values established ( typically $9 per lot and $70 possible total return minimum ). Items must be holdable at arm's length and economically shippable. Minimum SBR goal is 30:1.

RESEARCH - Competitive values are determined. Usually via eBay itself, OEM's Trade, PLC Center,McMaster-Carr, Google, the "usual suspects" electronic distributors ( Mouser, Digikey, Newark, Jameco, Allied, etc., and any similar big time competitors. Linkable resource sites are then located for data sheets or user manuals that can be included in the offer.Our usual goal is to open at one sixth of new dealer list price.

CLEAN & TEST - Enough preliminary cleaning and testing gets done to verify that the item works and represents genuine value to a buyer. It is then temporarily bagged and repackaged to prevent dust and any possible new damage.

PHOTOGRAPHY - Done in a special area, usually batch processed in groups of five or more. About one quarter get done with a scanner, the rest with a Nikon CoolPix. Examples here.

IMAGE POSTPROC - Done with extreme attention to detail, using Imageviewer32, Irfanview, and my postproc tools that include Perspective Correction, the Bitmap Typewriter, and the Self Vignetting Autobackgrounder. Backup image copies are then saved on and offline.

RECORD KEEPING - Master inventory lists of what got stashed where, quantities, and bid histories are essential. Not being able to find what you sold or how many are left are disasters waiting to happen.

May 14, 2014
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Added an image directory and links to our Hanging Canal Resource page.

May 13, 2014
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Photographing kits in acrylic snap cases can end up rather daunting, such as this example.

In this case, a one point perspective was used both to simplify the rework and produce an attractive viewing angle. Several exposures were made ( vial Imageview32 postproc ) to separately optimize the case, the contents, and the docs.

A small portion of the case with reasonable characteristics was located and "chased" both horizontally and vertically to form a new case that was mostly artificial artwork. Several stages of lightening and experimenting to get the most credible "uncolor" were then made.

An artificial "edge" was added to the docs to improve their resolution from the case itself. Consulting and image production services available.

May 12, 2014
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I very much remain overly enameled with the genera purpose PostScript computing language, and continue using it for all sorts of unexpectedly neat stuff. As we have seen, Adobe has recently banned all use of disk file reads and writes from Acrobat Distiller. Update: use //acrodist /F from Distiller.

On the other hand, their new Acrobat XI has some compelling new features. Including greatly improved scanning and OCR, and vastly improved editing.

Plus my favorite of the unexpected ability to use their obscure watermarking feature as a superb way to add post processed JPEG images. At present, the stuff that best needs PDF outputs goes to Distiller, with my Gonzo Utilities being towed along in their entirety, rather than conveniently using the no longer allowed run command.

Stuff that demands disk access instead gets used with Ghostscript. Such as my Bitmap Typewriter, Architects Perspective Utilities, or self-vignetting auto backgrounder. And we just saw a PostScript math example here with more details here.

May 11, 2014
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Our Architects Correction routines can also be used horizontally as well as vertically. Per this example. The trick is to rotate your image by 90 degrees with Paint or Imageviewer32, make your corrections, and then rotate it back.

The example shows an unusual perspective orientation that may be useful for longer horizontal objects. The vertical vanishing point is below the object, while the horizontal vanishing point is above the object. And both are more or less centered. The secret behind this effect is to photograph at an angle. Then rotate horizontally before starting the perspective correction.

Note that positive values for /howmuchtilt will make the top of the image smaller, while negative values will make the top of the image larger. Positive values are much more commonly needed as the top of the object is often closer to the camera. Additional photo examples here. Consulting, workshop, and creation services available.

May 10, 2014
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I'm wondering if the spring in Spring Canyon was not a much more significant resource in prehistoric times than it is today. Presently, it just produces enough water for a stock tank and is very rarely wet as far as the downstream Allen Canal takein.

Yet, it appears this was the source for three major canals: Allen, Robinson, and Golf Course. At the same time, nearby Frye Creek seems to have been totally ignored as a resource. At the very least, there seems to have been no present observable Frye Creek use to date.

May 9, 2014
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It sure is frustrating to try and separate hard facts from rank speculation in our hanging canal research.

There is no doubt that the Golf Course #29 canal exists, and that it was one of the longer, more highly engineered,and more major  constructs. But only a few short possible pieces have been  found and acceptably researched. Whether these properly connect into a unified whole have yet to be resolved.

Speculation at present goes something like this: The canal appears to have been nearly seven miles long, probably originating from the spring in spring canyon at N 32.73863 W 109.85193 and probably routing to prehistoric fields at or near the southwesternmost duck pond of the golf course at N 32.79915 W 109.77314.

Included are hanging portions, highly impressive constructs, larger and longer cuts, and significant old mesquite trees mid channel. The engineering is clearly beyond beyond. The canal is believed to share some braided channels near N 32.75964 W 109.81627 with the Robinson Canal, and then going its separate way from a distribution pond near N 32.75999 W 109.81146.

The spectacular HS canal that works its way sharply down into Frye Creek is presumed ( but unproven ) to be an essential portion of the Golf Course Canal #29. There are some additional braided channels that do lie on a topographically credible route near N 32.77801 W 109.78825 but may or may not be a portion of the Golf Course Canal.

"Real" and verified canal routing picks up streamside north of N 32.79839 W 109.78250. Per this map. Field mice are needed for additional research of these unique world class constructs. Should you have any Draganflys, please drop them off in my driveway.

May 8, 2014
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Did a "level two" classic rebuild of my Introduction to Electronic Music PE story. You'll find the story here and the new sourcecode here.

May 7, 2014
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Two new photos of our #29 Golf Course Prehistoric Hanging Canal can be newly found here and here.

May 6, 2014
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Looked further at the Cubic Spline Approximation to a Circle problem. The current demo appears here with its sourcecode here. The magic tension for the best unity circle quadrant fit remains 0.55191502449, which produces a peak error in a unit radius circle of 0.0001960. Or two-tenths  of a mil per unit radius.

As before, the large quadrant shows that the errors are largely negligible for most graphics uses. Which you can note by extreme magnification showing no misalignment. Further dramatic error reduction MAY be possible if you have a rendering engine that allows trig function alterations.

The blue curve now shows a frequency = 6 , zero phase sinewave of 0.0001960 amplitude correction being added. This dramatically reduces the average error amplitude and energy, but leaves the peak error about 0.20 of previous. An important feature of this correction is that there are zero errors at 0, 45, and 90 degrees.

Another alternative is to start with a slightly higher frequency sinewave correction of amplitude 0.0001960 six times 1.055 with a corrected initial phase angle of (1.055 - 1) * 3/4 * 360 = 13.5 degrees. This is not shown in the plot, but it usefully further reduces the errors. But does so at a price of nonzero errors at 0 and 90 degrees.

The 6 * 1.055 sinewave can be further adjusted with a second harmonic cosine >of 0.0255 * 0.0001960 and a dc term of 0.025 * 0.0001960. This leaves you with the dramatically reduced black line of the plot. Over the range of 2 to 88 degrees, there is well over a 40:1 error reduction and a 1600:1 error energy reduction.

Sadly, there are now significant errors below 2 degrees and above 88 degrees These can be ignored simply by only doing corrections from 2 to 88 degrees. The adjusted sinewave + 2X cosine + dc method would also otherwise leave you with significant 0 and 90 degree errors.

Not sure how practical all this is or where ( if anywhere ) it can be used, but it sure is fun to play with compellingly obsessive math problems. More details on the exact code appear here. Consulting services available.

May 3, 2014
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One of the dilemmas of restoring legacy Linotype era stories is getting the artwork to look decent. Especially for things like electronic schematics. I've long had a time intensive and super premium method of drawing schematics in my Gonzo Utilities. These offer the finest schematic quality bar none, but are tedious and often will not be cost effective.

Instead, tracing to Paint can be an effective solution. Such as in this example. It can be interesting to trace to a new color background, as this makes what needs fixed rather obvious. Once a few glyphs are defined, the rest of the restoration can fall in place rather quickly. And the quality seems more than adequate for web eBook distribution.

My Bitmap Typewriter has proven exceptionally useful in restoring Paint traced lettering. Once again, per this example. The JPEG images can be reinserted into the PDF file by using Acrobat XI's watermarking feature. Consulting services available.

May 2, 2014
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The "Transparent Selection" feature of Paint can be extremely useful for eBay photography, especially when lightening or darkening small portions of an image. But there are times when it frustratingly seems to fail to work.

The secret is this: The background color of the image is not necessarily the transparently color. Instead, it is the Current Color #2 that is the one that will provide transparency.

Note also that colors will change when you change from bitmap to JPG formats. One safe way to maximize the true whites for transparency is to raise the brightness a few clicks with ImageViewer/32. Similarly, one way to prevent red=255 punchthrus in our self vignetting autobackgrounder is to back off the red by a click or two.

May 1, 2014
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For years, I've been creating what, for a better name, we might call Lancasterisms. These are intentional but apparent topographical errors intended to reveal a higher or greater truth.

Such as a groundswill of popular demand. Or what those French Veterinarians call a "four paw". Or being overly enameled on some idea. Or ending up a few bricks shy of a full deck. Frosting the lily or gilding the cake. Or not being able to hit the barn side of a broad. Or the mythinterpretiation of something.

Or sources close to an associate of the barber of a usually reliable spokesperson. New uses for Chebycheff Polynomials would take the Cheby to the Leby. Many of the web perpetual motion schemes those electrolysis fantasies seem to involve electrocity.

All in one swell foop. Provided there's no oint in the flyment An unauthorized autobiography. A jerk of all trades. The local hysterical society. A fragrant volition. The word "gullible" is not in any major dictionary or spell checker. Letting the cows come home to roost. So long as they are elected by acrimination. That little dip between the winter slump and the spring slack period. Sort of the qualm before the scorn. Geranium transistors.

Plays a mean eclectic guitar. Pioneers new methods of animal husbandry. Speaks Esperanto like a native. Bruno's attitude relateralization facillitation. Or the long lost oriental martial art of Tai Wun Oun. Will be persecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Thus reaching a new millstone.

Geologists, of course, classify rocks as sedentary, ingeneous, or metaphoric. And New Mexico hikers might call an emergency rain shelter a Poncho Villa. The illegal aliens in the Alabama Grits Harvest, will, of course, be used for flavor only.  Right after the Ayatollahs Bar Mitzvah.

I'll give you just three hours and fifty one minutes to STOP THAT!". Norfolk & Waay is the leading eBay supplier of drop ship items. Separating the useful adjuncts for porcine whole body cleanliness from the total hogwash.

These are somehow related to the Yogi Berra's of others, such as "Nobody goes there because it is too crowded", "Deja Vu all over again", or "Let's keep the Status Quo right where it is. Or "When ou come to a fork in the road, take it".

Or Ed Abbey's classic "Androgynous Ammonia". Which might even involve an engendered species. I have a hollow feeling I've lost some of the better ones of these somewhere along the way. As you go through some of my olderbooks and stories, please report any that may be missing in action. Because Opporknockity tunes but once.

April 30, 2014
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Just reworked our eBay photography setup. I bought a light tent assembly and accessories, but decided that the light tent part was too cumbersome and too big to conveniently use. The new mini-tripod light stands, though, have proven themselves most useful.

An unused desk and the space around it has been now dedicated to photography only. And the photos themselves have been newly done in larger quantities. A single outlet strip now controls all of the lights at once. Which typically are the pair of mini-tripods, and two fluorescent strips for front lighting.

As before, I strongly feel that extensive image post processing is now the key to outstanding photos. At least 95 percent of your photography time and effort should be spent in postproc. Postproc starts with PC uploads. I'm back to direct USB access as the Eyefi delays and confusion and lack of control became maddeningly infuriating.

Our key postproc tools include Imageview32, IrfanView, and my custom Gonzo PostScript tools of Perspective Correction, Self-Vignetting Auto Backgrounder, and the Bitmap Typewriter. Almost all postproc is done in the Bitmap Format.

Image proc starts with a gross cropping and rotational alignment in ImageView32. Perspective correction is then done to get all intended lines truly vertical to one pixel resolution. The reds are then slightly backed off to eliminate any red=255's that would confuse the backgrounder.

The image is then carefully outlined with a red=255 color and any needed lighting or focus corrections are made. Multiple exposures are sometimes used to bring out poorly lit areas, to realign cables or connectors, or to make any labels less garish.

Lettering is sometimes retouched, but a little of this goes a very long way. Sometimes simply improving the lettering outline edges ( such as rounding the corners of an "O" ) can prove most useful. Other times the Bitmap Typewriter can be extremely useful for "straight on" typography.

The improved photo is than properly cropped and sent to the auto backgrounder with or without vignetting. Note that a slightly mottled background dramatically reduces JPEG artifacts with only a slight increase in file size.

All of this is typically done at 3 to 6 times scale. For final postproc, the size is reduced to a 650 to 850 pixels wide for eBay use. Brightness is usually increased and Gamma usually decreased for best online appearance. Then very small sharpening of one or two clicks maximum is often made. Followed up by a final conversion to JPEG for actual web use.

Many examples of our photos appear here. Consulting services available.

April 29, 2014
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The fifth visit to the "new" Golf Course hanging canal created, as usual, more issues than it resolved. An attempt was made to follow the Jeep Trails over which a canal crossing would have been needed to link with the more western Robinson Canal. No such link was found yet. Only a single highly unlikely wash candidate. Similarly, the northernmost artesian pond does not appear to be a factor as well.

This indirectly strengthens the case for a HS Canal routing down Riggs Canyon wash. But a huge gap remains in the middle and other mid route evidence shows only braided channels and not the expected canal constructs.

Nonetheless, the HS Canal obviously needs a major and definite purpose. And the Golf Course Canal obviously needs a major source. By Ockham's Razor, any other explanation would seem unnecessarily complex. And the terrain is topographically favorable. But there is not yet one shred of evidence of a link.

April 28, 2014
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Farm sibling explaining why he kept feeding raw pork to city slickers: "Its the only trick I know, Sis.".

April 27, 2014
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A reminder that there is a hidden quadratic Bezier drawing tool in Paint as the second glyph in the patterns box. >This is especially useful for rounding corners or smoothing graceful curves.

One tip: Be sure to purposely exit after each drawn curve. Otherwise, an infuriating and wildly wrong curve will result on your next mouse click. If you need two curves in a row, draw a curve, mouse to straight line, go back to curve, and draw the second one.

April 26, 2014
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Math problems sure can become compelling and obsessive. It turns out that the four Bezier Cubic Spline circle approximation can be significantly improved with one or more modest compensations.

We first looked at the problem here and here. A third party take can be found here. All of which led to the optimum four Bezier segment approximation that had a magic tension number of 0.55191502449 which produces a peak error in a unit radius circle of 0.0001960. Or two-tenths of a mil per unit radius.

Digital sourcecode for further exploration appears here, and a preliminary improvement plot here. The plot is in two different scales. The wide black quadrant is from a "real" unit radius circle and its thin red overlay is the best previous four spline approximation. We see that the normal approximation is "good enough" for most any sane graphics use.

The calculated "mathematically correct" magic number of 0.551784 results in all radially positive errors. So, as previously noted, use of 0.55191502449 gives balanced errors and a 24 percent improvement. The resultant error is shown in red to a peak amplitude of just under. This looks rather similar to a green frequency=6 sinewave of amplitude 0.0001960. Using such a sinewave as a compensator and subtracting the two produces the blue error code.

At present the error peak is five times better, and the total error "energy" is significantly less. But it does require a rendering engine that has the ability to add a small math function correction. Even this can be further improved, possibly by as much as a factor of 2.6667. Depending on what your definition of "best" is. Three obvious choices are to equalize the positive and negative error peaks, to minimize rms error "energy", or to seek out zero average error amplitude.

To really get fancy and produce astonishing results, we can use a custom three element trigonometric series for compensation. First, a that is slightly higher in frequency by 1.055 and a phase angle of -15 with the same magic amplitude correction of 0.0001960. Second, a minor dc term of .025 of magic. And third a second harmonic cosine of .0255 of magic and -30 phase. Or thereabouts.

The dramatic results appear as the black line plot. Yes, the "ears" on the plot are worse than before, but you can simply make the correction only between 2 degrees and 88 degrees. Details of this spectacular correction are in the sourcecode. Such an adjustment should now allow precision machining or even near optic applications with an adjusted four spline CAD approximation.

The sourcecode runs either in GhostScript or Distiller, but a full copy of Gonzo had to be included to get around the recent Distiller ban on reading and writing disk files. Similar stuff in our Cubic Spline Library. Consulting services available.

April 25, 2014
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There seem to be two different methods of dealing with fonts in Acrobat XI, using the Distille, and using Watermarks. Text Watermarks apparently give you more font options as they can now embed with several additional font flavors.

You can view your available Distiller fonts by going to Settings -> Edit Settings ->Fonts and Never Embed list. This list also gives you the correct font name spelling to be used in any PostScript routine. Any fonts not on the list can be added to a new file using Settings - > Font Locations.

The additional Watermark fonts can be viewed in Acrobat proper under Tools -> Watermark -> Text. To find the proper PostScript name, go to File -> Properties -> Fonts. But the proper PostScript name is unlikely to do you much good as Distiller will not embed any font not on its own list, instead substituting a multi master font.

Between Windows, Adobe, and your own uploads, there usually will be a surprising number of fonts available for Acrobat. I now seem to have about 175 Distiller Embeddable fonts and nearly 250 Watermark Textable ones immediately available.

Sadly, my favorite Stone fonts need to be custom uploaded. And, surprisingly, Helvetica is no longer available. With Ariel being its nearly identical substitution. Apparently any older PostScript files using Helvetica will get multiple master substituted. Or, you can newly upload your own Helvetica font versions.

April 24, 2014
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Starting some preliminary field notes for Canal #29 tentatively called the Golf Course Canal.... This appears to have the potential of a seven mile long prehistoric hanging canal, possibly starting at the spring in Spring Canyon and now becoming untraceable near the southwesternmost duck pond of the golf course. Early routing down Frye Mesa is presumed, then following elsewhere studied routings the HS Canal or the Robinson Canal.

The Golf Course canal has the potential of becoming one of the largest, longest, best engineered, and most significant in the survey area. Only a little over a quarter of a mile has been explored in four trips to date during April of 2014. Even this reach is a mix of well defined and well engineered portions, vague but potentially acceptable routing, and reaches that apparently have completely vanished possibly due to sheet flooding.

The canal appears to be larger than typical, and often measures two meters wide by one deep. Significant hanging portions have been located where the canal exits a wash. Significant deep cuts have also been noted. Prehistoric age has been strongly suggested by several ancient mesquite trees mid channel.

The canal appears totally typical and contemporaneous of known others in the bajada. There is no apparent evidence of historic rework or reuse. It is not yet clear whether the possible routing is a portion of the Robinson Canal, or goes straight down Riggs Canyon. Artesian ponds or a Blue Ponds sourcing still appear barely possible but unlikely.

A preliminary map of the surveyed portion appears here. A summary of key locations to date follows. N32.79950 W109.78052. The southern extensionn of the canal vanishes at grade into Riggs Canyon wash. There is no obvious continuation up the wash as of yet.

180 degree stream crossings  are known elsewhere near N 32.84239 W 109.81459 and N 32.76296 W 109.73421. Due to adjacent topography, this would appear to be the southernmost possible limit of a Robinson Canal routing. Obvious next visits should do larger radius transects of Riggs Canyon wash and the possible more western Robinson route to try pick up evidence of the obviously needed canal continuance at N32.79950 W109.78052.

This is above and east of the Riggs Canyon wash. There are several large Mesquite trees mid channel. The canal in this area seems exceptionally well preserved and easily traced. To the north, the canyon begins a hanging "climb" out of the wash to the bajada proper.

The well defined canal crosses a 4WD track, making for one of the easiest access points of all the known canals at N32.79950 W109.778052. The canal becomes difficult to trace east of this point. There are two very significant deep and obvious cuts in this area. Other nearby reaches to the east are either vague or apparently missing entirely.

Only the faintest hint of a possible canal exists where it vanishes under modern urban rework. This hint is supported by extrapolation of the more credible earlier canal routings. A housing development has been proposed in the immediate area that also would impact the already trashed Golf Course Ruin.

April 23, 2014
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Several of the more infuriating features of Windows 8.0 or 8.1 can be greatly eased with some little known keystrokes. Windows-C brings up the right charms menu without having to mouse around. And Windows-X brings up a lower left menu that includes such stuff as the control panel and shutdown options.

Apparently the 8.1 upgrade purposely hides the Pictures and other Libraries. This can be a major problem when uploading from a digital camera. The cure is to Open File Explorer and View. Then Folder Options to the right. Then General and check the Show Libraries box at the bottom.

The only little problem I had is that there was no show libraries box at the bottom. Re-updating to Windows 8.1 fixed this for me. I'm not sure if this is a common problem or just an oddball glitch.

April 22, 2014
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Another of the improvements in Acrobat XI: The page clipper is now much easier to use. But it is sort of hard to find if you are expecting it to work the old way. Go to Tools > Pages > Crop.

April 21, 2014
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One of our recurring themes around here is bashing pseudoscience. Several other web takes appear here, here, here, and here.

Key issues are that a valid scientific theory requires falsifiability, that extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence, and that verifications of such claims are the onus of the proponents, rather than demanding disproof from others.

Others use this summary...

1. The use of psychobabble – words that sound
 scientific and professional but are used
 incorrectly or in a misleading manner.

2. A substantial reliance on anecdotal evidence.

3. Extraordinary claims in the absence of
 extraordinary evidence.

4. Claims which cannot be proven false.

5. Claims that counter established scientific
 fact.

6. Absence of adequate peer review.

7. Claims that are repeated despite being
 refuted.

My first perpetual motion machine appeared here. And originally here.

April 20, 2014
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Just had an individual tell me how important their eBay shilling was and all the benefits it was bringing him. Chances are that, besides this really dumb mistake, they are doing enough other stupidities to guarantee their utter failure.

Very simply, shilling does not work on eBay. An absolute defense is to bid your proxy maximum once very near the end of the auction. Shilling actually costs you bidders, because a knowledgeable bidder may be disinclined to bid if there seems to be too much bidding activity or the near-auction-end price is already too high.

And, of course, a shill "winner" ---> loses! Much more on eBay here.

April 19, 2014
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We looked at Bezier Curve Approximations to a Circle or Ellipse here, and saw some refined math here.A third party site that gives additional insight can be found here.

The site indirectly suggests a further possibility. Their optimal four segment Bezier magic value is c = 0.55191502449 along with a maximum error deviation of 0.0002.

Looking at their error plot suggests a sneaky "outside the box" math stunt. The error appears to be a nearly ( but not quite ) perfect sinewave. Adding a frequency = 6, phase = 180 and amplitude = 0.0002 sinewave should be able to eliminate nearly all of the remaining error.

It might be interesting to plot the residual error. 64 bit math would likely be needed. And the places where the correction makes sense may be sorely limited.

April 18, 2014
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Once again expanded and updated our Gila Valley Dayhikes page. We are now up to 399 main entries. Please email me with anything I missed or needs further updating.

April 17, 2014
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Continuing our hanging canal by hanging canal list of needed further work...

This might be premature for the Golf Course canal in that it only was recently discovered. Only the piece from N32.79950 W109.78052 to N 32.79880 W 109.77610 has been located and portions of it have been severely damaged by sheet flooding.

Other current portions are vague or nondescript, but there are obvious major cuts and out-of-the-wash hanging reaches that are  quite well defined and exceptionally engineered. And obviously consistent  with other prehistoric regional canal examples. The canal seems somewhat wider and deeper than many of the other nearby examples.

There is a possibility of this becoming one of the longest and highly significant canals, perhaps of seven miles length. A possible source would presently seem to be the spring in Spring Canyon, down Frye Mesa and becoming a portion of the HS Canal or branch of the Robinson Canal.

At present unproven candidate routings would be a sudden eastern turn of the Robinson Canal over a somewhat credible topographic route, a direct and unknown route down Riggs canyon, a rerouting of the Blue Ponds, or two very small artesian pond sources. The obvious next order of research is to find which, if any, of these is the most credible source.

The destination end of the Golf Course canal vanishes under a planned housing development just west of the southwesternern most duck pond and has been totally trashed. A highly damaged Golf Course ruin is also in the vicinity. This would pear to be one of the closest examples of a canal and a companion major ruin.

The somewhat larger size of the Golf Course canal suggests a major field area underlying the golf course itself, the Daley Estates development, or the Robinson Flat area. A "steal the plans" case can be made for the golf course creation.

The intermittent nature of the rediscovered portion suggests that further tracing the golf course canal to its origin may prove difficult or tricky. Obvious next tasks are to map, plot, and videotape as much of the remaining portions of the route as is feasible. More on the hanging canals here and here.

April 16, 2014
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A collection of free public domain book reprint resources can be found here.

April 15, 2014
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The most earthlike exoplanet yet has been discovered here. You can keep track of the running total here. And a more extensive directory here.

April 14, 2014
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Plans are underfoot for an organizational meeting for a possible Gila Valley Hiking Club tonight at 6.00 PM at the Discovery Park Circle D Ranch house. More on Gila Hikes here.

April 13, 2014
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Chance favors the prepared mind. Or so said Louis Pasteur.

Managed to refind a TWENTY NINTH (!) major local prehistoric hanging canal in a totally unexpected place near N32.79950 W109.78052 and N32.79980 W109.77983

As usual, the find creates more questions than it resolves. Possible source is the spring in Spring Canyon via Frye Mesa, but it is not at all yet clear whether this is part of the Robinson Canal or a yet undiscovered routing of the HS Canal straight down Riggs Canyon. The canal appears to be headed for the heart of downtown Daley Estates. If continuous, it might end up one of the longest of the known canals.

Only a short segment was found so far, and only portions of it are spectacularly unambiguous. The engineering on a "climb" out of a wash is particularly impressive, as are the two meter wide and one meter deep channel cuts. Total local prehistoric hanging canal lengths now seem to be approaching SIXTY MILES!

A summary here and additional resources here. Field mice welcome. Drop off any excess Draganflys you might have available at 3860 West First Street. Chances are we can find a new home for them.

April 12, 2014
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It's been a long time since we looked at the number of available PDFMark operators. You can snoop into the latest Acrobat XI Distiller version using...

%!ps 1183615869 internaldict begin
pdfmarkInternalDict { length == }
superexec pdfmarkInternalDict { { (\r)
print exch == ==} forall } superexec %EOF

Which reveals four newer operators of /EMBED, /JDF, /Metadata, and /SetTransparency

These have all been detailed in the latest update to the PDFMark Reference. The /JDF is apparently no longer in use.

April 11, 2014
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Power LED's may slowly be crossing their own threshold effect. Home Depot pricing of larger incandescent replacements have been dropping from "outrageous" into "very high".And continuing trends should shortly get pricing reasonable.

Bunches of interesting new LED Modules are newly available from Cree. A typical unit might be their CXA1507 that has nine or so series connected individual LEDs for an input of 300 ma and 37 volts. Present cost is around $8 per unit

Some LED luminous efficiencies can reach 100 Lumens per watt or eight or so times better than incandescent. With lab units approaching 200 Lumens per Watt out of a possible 250 for a full spectrum white.

April 10, 2014
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Just started exploring Acrobat XI. This has the long, long overdue feature of allowing genuinely useful document editing, largely without needing the original source code.

Acrobat editing was much more of a problem than would seem at first glance, because adjacent text may not be remotely near each other in a PDF document. And some documents worked in characters, others in words, others in lines, and yet others in paragraphs. The problems can further compound when fill justifying is used.

There also were unresolved issues in font IP rights, especially when no fonts or only a few font characters were included in the PDF file. It also seems that the educational discount qualification process has been dramatically simplified.

Update: Diskfile reading or writing is nowrestricted to a Distiller //acrodist /F command.

April 9, 2014
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There's at least one more construction project that seems to have vanished without a trace. This was a darkroom photo timer that had the unusual ( for then ) property of working in logarithmic stops rather than discrete seconds.

When doing enlarger printing, it was far more intuitive to go "half a stop lighter" or whatever than to try to relate to the baseline seconds. As I recall, the unit was all digital, line reference based, and used RTL counters.

Not sure of the title. Likely had a co-author of Leon Schoenfield, and likely was in Radio Electronics sometime around 1967 or so. The project was kinda specialized and it was hard to explain its big advantage to a very limited photo "slopping in the slush" market.

Update: Now can be found here.

April 8, 2014
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For most individuals and small scale startups most of the time, any involvement whatsoever with the patent system is virtually certain to end up a net loss of time, energy, money, and sanity. Find out why in our Case Against Patents classic reprint, our When to Patent tutorial, and our other patent resources.

April 7, 2014
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The "water powered car" continues to run rampant on the web. Overpriced kits are now available that let you conclusively prove the bogosity to yourself beyond a shadow of a doubt. Here's a summary of why the concept is not even wrong...

1. What part of "Gross and Egregious Fraud" 
 don't you understand?

2. A fundamental thermodynamic principle
 called exergy absolutely GUARANTEES 
 that hydrogen produced from high value
 grid, pv, or alternator electricity flat out
 ain't gonna happen. For the simple reason
 that a kilowatt hour of electricity is more
 valuable than a kilowatt hour of unstored
 hydrogen gas. 

3. Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy
 instruments are readily available. These "run
 the experiment" many millions of times daily
 with uniformly negative results.

4. The resonant frequency of water is ONE
 MILLION TIMES higher than proponents
 claim, applies only to water vapor, and is
 not in any manner overunity.

5. Stainless steel is wildly inappropriate
 for hydrogen production devices because
 of the hydrogen overpotential of iron.
 Platinized Platinum Black normally is used.

6. Because of Faraday's Law, only the Fourier
 Series direct current term of any complex pulse
 waveform can contribute to electrolysis. High
 frequency ac components primarily create
 bunches of waste heat and inefficiency.

7. It is trivially easy to mis-measure the energy
 in pulse waveforms. So much so that the
 hydrogen content in a vapor.measurement
 is almost always ridiculously high.

8. Surprisingly, electrolysis can in fact be up to
 one sixth endothermic and can produce "runs
 cool" effects. But such operation only can
 happen at very low and unamortizable 
 production rates.

9. Curiously, the Ohio trial court fraud
 proceedings have never been transcribed,
 owing to admin costs and lack of demand.

Additional details of my own appear here and here and here. Two useful third party resources are found here and here.

April 6, 2014
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Popular Science has just made online reprints of all of their earlier magazines freely available on the web. My only involvement with them can be found here It seems one of their editors converted what should have been an innovative construction project into one that made no sense and did not work.

Back in the good old "slopping in the slush" days, black and white studio photography needed special photoflood lamps that were both outrageously hot and ridiculously short lived. To make matters worse, the Smith-Victor stands normally used with them had notoriously underrated switches that would horribly arc and even cause fires.

So, I did a "double dimmer" in a box for my photo finisher. This gave you one line cord and properly rated switches. Better yet, you could dimly light the bulbs during your ground glass compositions avoiding heat and lengthening life. You also gained a new tool for B/W light balancing.

Popular science in their infinite wisdom repurposed this as a dual power tool control without even mentioning its photo studio purposes. Besides being a really dumb idea, the dimmer circuit made the power tools totally gutless. A different circuit that used EMF feedback was needed for the tools to work properly at low speeds.

April 5, 2014
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Many of our claccis reprints can be found here.

Conspicuously missing from the above list are the Ask the Guru and PostScript Secrets columns from Computer Shopper, my Hardware Hacker and Tech Musings columns from Radio Electronics and Modern Electronics, and the Blatant Opportunist columns from Midnight Engineering.

Plus a bunch of msotly book chapter excerpts in Byte and Kilobaud. Plus plus a few stories in PC Techniques and Circuit Cellar. Even two stories in Whole Earth Review. And a few dozen entries in Goodyear's internal AEEM, and three years of editing the Cave Crawler's Gazette.

Other magazines in which I sometimes appeared included Electronics, Electronic Design, Modern Electronics, and in occasional "second tier" hobby electronics magazines. The exact total score remains somewhat murky, but should be on the far side of 2000 published technical papers.

My latest paper ( another rare co-authored ) appears here. Please add what you can to the above list. Further reprints and restorations depend highly on your sponsorships

April 3, 2014
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There's several important details to pay attention to if you want our automatic backgrounder and vignetter to work properly for you every time.

The code works by using red=255 as markers. Mottled background is substituted up to the end of the first burst of red=255 continuous markers. First from west to east, then east to west, then south to north, and finally north to south. Then, optionally, any internal red=255 markers also get substituted.

A mottled background is normally suggested as this dramatically reduces your final JPEG artifacts with only a minor increase in image size. Only one plane is tested for red=255. Thus any color that has full red will work just fine. It is super important to eliminate any and all red=255's that are unwanted before you start outlining. This is easily done in ImageView32 by backing off any preexisting reds by one or two clicks.

Be sure to note that "pure white" includes a red=255 in its pixel plane. It is also important to stay in bitmap format between the time you outline and the time you do the auto backgrounding. Inadvertently dropping into JPEG is likely to trash all of your painfully entered outline red=255's into lower values which will get ignored.

Your outline must be continuous. Even a one pixel break will give you "bulldozer tracks" through the final. Any undercuts must be treated as "internal" markers and must be solidly filled with full red. The key test is "can you reach your outline from at least one NSEW edge of the image?"

Bleeds are not allowed. There MUST be a border everywhere, even if it is only within two or three pixels from an edge. It is also important to use a different destination filename. Consulting and image prep assistance available.

April 2, 2014
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One of my classic construction projects seems to have vanished without a trace. I need your help in finding it for classics restoration. It was called the Dot N Bar and was a color television dot and bar and color burst generator. It had to date from somewhere around 1969. It was one of the typical zero box devices with an offered Metalphoto dialplate.

It probably used a dozen ics, which likely included the RTL MC790P dual flip flops. It was powered by three internal D cells. The sneaky trick used to get the color bars was to run the 3.57545 MHz burst exactly one horizontal frequency low at 3.56381 MHz. This way, the burst would "slip" exactly 360 degrees per horizontal line, generating all the colors "free". Gating these would create the illusion of individual discrete colors.

I thought it appeared in Radio Electronics, but I cannot find it. At times, the magazines did not want it to look like they only had one author, so such names as Frank Gross, Ralph Genter, Leon Schoenfield, and, of course, Marcia Swampfelder were sometimes used as nom de plumes.

Rarely some of my stuff would appear elsewhere, such as in Electronics, Modern Electronics, or even Popular Science. I am mystified exactly why this project seems to have vanished without a trace. I could use your help in pinning this one down. Actually, there was a slight technical error in the design that may have somewhat affected what should have been optimal tv convergence. These days, of course, all of color tv is digital and sets no longer need for any convergence servicing at all.

Update: Now found in our classic reprints here, and few of the early books here. Further additions can be had with your sponsorship.

April 1, 2014
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Very few people are aware of the fact that the word "gullible" does not appear in any major dictionary or spell checker. Not one. Anyplace ever.

March 31, 2014
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Amazingly, the COSMAC microprocessor is alive and well with newly released kits and products. The point and purpose remains murky, given the Raspberry Pi and its Beagle Bone and Arduino alternatives.

AI've always felt this one to have such a bizarre architecture that it well deserved to die a quiet death. More 1802 stuff here. Instead, let's do a KIM-1 in a tiny box. Or, better yet, a full Apple IIe emulation.

March 30, 2014
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Another use for the adapters needed to test pressure sensors and transducers:They make dandy "plug gauge to be sure that the threads on most anything you are listing on eBay are really what you claim they are. A summary of NPT threads here. BTW, conduit and NPT threads are pretty much interchangeable for electrical uses. So long as they do not have to be truly watertight.

March 29, 2014
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Throe's what I like to call a "threshold effect" in any technical innovation. Before the threshold is crossed, any solutions are klutzy and expensive. After crossing, they are cheap and effective.

Sometimes the crossing represents a technical breakthrough. Other times it can be simply production volumes or just learning curve types of stuff. Knowing when and how the thresholds are crossed can be crucial to product development.

The classic example was the helical video recording that led to VHS and Betamax. Present examples include LCD monitors completely blowing away heavy and bulky vacuum tube ones. LED's as standard lighting are now halfway through their threshold, with still high but rapidly dropping prices.

The Raspberry Pi and its Beagle Bone and Arduino relatives have obviously reached critical thresholds.

The next threshold effects we can expect is utility grade pv solar finally hitting the twenty five cents per peak panel watt demanded for true renewability and sustainability. More on this here.

Uncrossed ( as of yet ) thresholds include a needed breakthrough in HVAC efficiency, total customer awareness and control of their power consumption, and reasonable solid state cooling devices.

March 28, 2014
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... and review these ancient eBay selling mistakes...

Not recognizing that Bay sales are a profession
 demanding EXTREME time commitment,
 attention to detail, and very high personal
 value added.

Trying to work on too low a profit margin.
 ALWAYS seek out a 30:1 or higher sell
 to buy ratio.

Not having the faintest clue what your true
 costs are. If you are not including your
 pro-rated water bill and similar obscure
 items, your cost accounting is probably
 inadequate.

Not recognizing that the minimum profitable
 eBay sale is somewhere around $19.63.

Not offer unique products that can not be
 found elsewhere.

Failing to keep proper tax records.

Exceeding a 21 day cashou or a 15 month
 hang time. While avoiding the profit loss
 of too fast" sales.

Not realizing that ebay profits happen during
 BUYING and not during selling.

Not buying only except under EXTREME
 distress situations. If more than 5% of
 your buy offers are accepted, you are
 paying way too much.

Failing to promptly provide tracking info
 to buyer. Naturally, youNEVER ship
 without tracking. But it usually pays
 to self-insure.

Not keeping your item descriptions complete,
 accurate, and somewhat understated.

Not offering refunds for ANY reason. And
 acomping full costs on any return, usually
 aWITHOUT a return. Your 30:1 SBR should
 aprotect you against significant losses.

Listing anything you cannot hold extended at
 arm's length.

Not having proper inventory controls in place.

Not having daily shipping, a trade name
 registration, and a state tax stamp.

Using arcane terms and conditions that
 exceed ten words absolute maximum.

Failing to promptly answer all email and to
 correct all problems quickly.

Not using both a camera AND a scanner
 when and where appropriate.

Failing to keep shipping charges strictly
 revenue neutral.

Not spending nearly enough time image
 post processing. At least 90 percent of
 you photo effort should go here.

Selling foreign.

Listing any item at an opening price less
 than you are willing to sell it for.

Withdrawing an on-the-block offer in
 violation of Uniform Commercial Code.

Selling any item violating VERO rights.

Selling in known problem categories.

Stealing images and copy from other sellers.

Accepting anything but  Paypal.

Not offering inspection privileges. Not
 promptly offering refunds. When
 appropriate, including buyer costs
 and without return.

Falling for account-stealing emails.

Posting feedback before the customer
 evaluates item.

Being rude or confrontational in seller
 email contacts.

Using dropshippers, palletized bargains,
 consignment sales, or selling for friends.

Much more eBay stuff here.

March 27, 2014
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Thought we might once again review these ancient eBay buying rules...

Failing to proxy bid their max ONCE very
 in the auction, and doing so in oddball
 penny amountss set just above a currency
 denomination threshold.

Failing to realize that an awarded bid is an
 enforcable contract under the Uniform
 Commercial Code.

Not knowing the TOTAL transaction cost of
 the bid   price, the shipping costs, and any
 special charges.

Failing to acknowledge that it costs money to ship
 stuff, and that the carrier charges are typically
 only a tiny fractionof true total shipping costs.

Not fully reading the offer or mistakenly seeing
 what is not there.

Failing to contact the sellerover ANY question.

Not paying promptly and in the expected manner.

Withdrawing a bid for frivolous reasons.

Buying foreign.

"To good to be true" offers are.

 Paying with anything except Paypal

Failing to research value elsewhere. eBay
 is seldom the only or the best buy.

Shipping heavy stuff long distances is
 practically NEVER cost effective.

Falling for accoun phishing emails.

Getting into pissing contests with other
 bidders.

Failing to preview the seller's feedback.
 Anything less than 98 percent is suspect.

Nickel and dimeing the seller over any
 trivial charges.

Being rude or confrontational in seller email
 contacts.

Negging before resolving any seller conflict.

Much more eBay stuff here.

March 26, 2014
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Much of our PostScript Fractal Fern secret insider info can be found in these files...

 psinscrt.pdf
 fern2img.pdf
 fern2img.psl
 fernx1.pdf
 fernx1.psl
 gonzotut.pdf

The code on these is amazingly simple and compact. Some updates may be needed. If you need file access these days, you have to use GhostScript. And a full copy of Gonzo is best towed along internally. Consulting services available. Update: Use //Acrodist /F for disk access.

March 25, 2014
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When doing eBay images or eBook magazine or book capture, it pays to scan or photograph at the highest possible resolution. And keep things in bitmap format for as long as feasible.

Ferinstance, halftones are a black ink approximation to a gray scale and generally go murky at low scan resolutions. But if you do a high scan resolution and then resize using the fancy algorithms in ImageViewer32 or IrfanView, the halftones get magically converted into full gray scale.

Per this example. High resolution scans also let you do all sorts of fancy image postprocessing tricks. Such as architect's distortion correction or anti-keystoning using this routine. Or automatic backgrounding and vingnetting with this one. Or cleaning up small lettering with the Bitmap Typewriter. Or even Dodging and Burning. Consulting, lecture, and production services available.

March 24, 2014
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A reminder that Coursera has hundreds of free and top rate college and university online courses available. Some with credit arrangements. Presently 630 courses from 80 major universities.

March 23, 2014
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I noticed that the Arizona State Auctioneer's Association just folded, and that their projected Southwestern States Auctioneer Association has yet to see the light of day. And that the National Auctioneers Association has not been able to find a pig in a dishpan lately.

Which raises the greater question: Are auctioneers now an endangered species? Online auctions seem to be running away with all the marbles and clearly require skill sets vastly different than those provided by a traditional auctioneer.

Hallmarks of a successful auctioneer included their spiel, their charisma, and their venues. Along with their traditional scams of fast hammers, phantom bidding, bid pulling, slow pay, and shilling. None of these skills or scams are even remotely needed or relevant in any online only setup.

March 22, 2014
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Continuing our hanging canal by hanging canal list of needed further work... The Roper Canal seems to have been a major water source for Roper Lake, extending from N 32.74574 W 109.74199 to N 32.75588 W 109.70752. While modern, it obviously derived its water from a prehistoric Marijilda original. Strangely, the canal does not presently seem to be properly maintained.

Despite its rather obviousness, proof of a prehistoric original remains lacking. As does its relationship with the Richardson Orchard habitation site and related nearby water management structures of various ages. Or establishing whether prehistoric fields underlay Roper Lake itself. This premise seems rather likely.

DThe route is certainly highly topographically favorable. Henry's Canal may or may not merge with the Roper Canal somewhere near N 32.75459 W 109.71178. A case can be made that Henry's Canal was older and preceeded the "high" Marijilda route. It might have had problems in that the construction effort of the "high" Marijilda was obviously much more difficult and far less obvoius.

These issues require further study. The Henry's elevation is somewhat higher and it may have stopped short at a field presumably undrlying a present tank. It is also likely that the modern Roper Canal route deviated from its presumed prehistoric routing along the highway stretch near N 32.74992 W 109.71608. This obviously linear realignment for 191 construction also merits study.

March 21, 2014
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There's a bunch of interest in building machines to scan magazines and books, ranging from el cheapo units built out of cardboard boxes to fully automated units. Some of which cost over $100,000.00. A central homebrew clearing house can be found here. My own personal "me too" Vee Machine appears in this image. It was rebuilt from a toner recharging machine.

March 20, 2014
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A reminder that we have bunches of hard to find resources on Bezier Curves and Cubic Splines, both with and without PostScript. Some of the more important earlier papers are...

The Math Behind Cubic Splines
Using Cubic Splines
Cubic Spline through Four Points
Cubic Spline Length and Subdivision
Spline through four points.
Cubic Spline Minimum Point Distance,
Cubic Spline Circle and Ellipse Approx.
Pixel Interpolation Algorithms
Length of a Bezier Curve
Image Post Processing Tools
Main Cubic Spline Librar
Image PostProcessing

March 19, 2014
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Amazingly, there are over a dozen "steal the plans" videos of the turbo encabulator and the retro encabulator.The original still blows most of these away, though. Similar stuff here.

March 18, 2014
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There's been several recent inquiries over whether any hanging canal survey instruments have ever been located. The short answer is "no". But a foremost research rule is that absence of evidence is NOT evidence of absence.

My present thinking is that the canals were engineered by using very small extensions of them as static water levels. A small ditch might have been dug and just barely filled with water. Noting the entry water level for a just barely end overflow. The slope then could be adjusted as needed. And then dug full size. Much more on the canals here.

March 17, 2014
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Here's a summary of our two level precyber restoration of Linotype era magazine articles and such... First, make sure you have the rights to the story or that the rights are murky enough that nobody will hassle you. While the details that follow can be done with an ordinary scanner on an ordinary magazine, you will be far better off scanning individual sheets or using some sort of Vee Machine.

Scan at the highest possible resolution and send the scans to Adobe Acrobat 9 or higher. Then do an OCR using the hidden Clearscan option. Precropping to selected text areas may be needed for best results. Each page will now consist of three areas, all of which can be treated differently.

First is columar or bulk text which you can send to the microjustify routines in my Gonzo Utilities. Doing so gives you original source code to work with, full serchibility, and ordinary low storage fonts. Editing is much easier than otherwise trying to deal with unconverted OCR candidates.

The second area will be stuff that is best dealt with in raw PostScript. Such as rules and lines. Or adding tinted olor underlays. One or more image areas might remain. Treat each are as a separate project. One simple method is to make the image as big as possible and then do a screen dump.

Move the dump into ImageViewer32 tightly crop to subject, and adjust the sharpness and contrast as best you can. Then get into Paint and work on such stuff as gutter darkening, distortion, and other problem areas.Muddy halftones can sometimes be dealt with by a lightening followed by these tricks. Extensive Paint reworking and knocking out backgrounds and adding background color can make a dramatic difference.

If you scan an original halftone at extreme resolution, reducing it in ImageViewer32 will convert the halftone to a continuous gray scale. Instead of a black inkhalftone approximation to an image, we  now have a full gray image approximation to a halftone!

Now, Distill your Gonzo PostScript text. You should end up with the raw PostScript stuff present, but large white holes everywhere your edited and improved images should go. Now for the sneaky part. Get back into full Acrobat and use the Watermark (!) feature to insert and scale and position your improved images.

Consulting and conversion services available

March 16, 2014
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A preview of our precyber Linotype era Superclock III can be found here. Newly remastered using ou top secret ual level web restoration techniques. Done by starting with Acrobat's Cleartype and overlaying my Gonzo Utilities. Still a few minor typos and such.

Full text searchibility, full editability, total source code availability, new color, potentially small file sizes (but figure dependent), ability to use ordinary scanners and deal with guttering, ordinary standard fonts with zero OCR missed candidates. With minimal rekeying and redrawing. But still rather labor intensive. And with a steep learning curve.

More at https://www.tinaja.com Additional ebooks and classic reprints at https://www.tinaja.com/crsamp1.shtml and at https://www.tinaja.com/ebksamp1.shtml We actually worked with NBS on this project. Who at the time were developing an ill fated television vertical interval time base.  The networks eventually flushed it in favor of closed captioning and their own diagnostics.

I also wanted to use this for an always accurate WWVB clock, only to discover that WWVB reception relibility was less than negligible. Mesmerizingly awful, even. A power increase did not help much, and their new super modulation seems to have all the development chips currently stuck in the pipe.

I thought that using a ROM for automatic pushbutton timezone conversion was a really big deal, but the customers voted with their feet. To this day, few people fully appreciate the significance of a NIST traceable, self resetting, always accurate clock.

March 15, 2014
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An additional 715 new exoplanets has just been announced from this source. You can keep track of the running total here. And a more extensive directory here. It is looking more and more like several factors in the Drake Equation had been severely underestimated.

March 14, 2014
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Free web sources of Heathkit schematics and manuals can be found here and here. Other sources seem to be newly re-emerging.

March 13, 2014
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As we have seen here, not one net watthour of pv solar energy has EVER been produced, and systems to date are NOT in any manner renewable nor sustainable. Net renewablity and sustainablity can be expected a few years after the panel prices drop below twenty five cents per peak panel watt.

Present utility scale pricing is approaching sixty cents per peak panel watt, which is amazingly and stunningly lower than historic values. It seems finally reasonable to predict that the present pricing trends MAY approach renewability and sustainability, possibly within two years. But meanwhile, the Pacific Rim has run away with all the marbles. Of the eighteen major US pv firms, fourteen are now bankrupt, sold at auction, or otherwise out of the business.

While two more are now foreign owned. An analysis here. >A useful free trade journal can be found here, an online resource here, and more energy fundamental tutorials here.

March 12, 2014
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A directory of commercial archaeological salvage and service houses can be found here.

March 11, 2014
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Free noncommercial use of 35 million web images has just been announced by Getty Images. At a price of newly added DRM.

March 10, 2014
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Details on an up coming free online Linux course program can be found here. Minewhile, Details on a new and free Linux video editor can be found here.

March 9, 2014
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An interesting free shipping calculator can be found here. The bottom line is that LCL freight normally goes for sixty cents per ton mile. And that commercial house movers charge more like four dollars per ton mile.

That sixty cents is shipping only. Even the most marginal prep ( such as shrink wrapping to a skid ) may involve surcharges. Interestingly, U-Haul also charges sixty cents per mile. Or about the same for a longer distance one ton load.

Useful shipping sources include Uship, myFreight Freight Center, or Freight Pro. If prep is a factor, try Craters and Freighters, the somewhat pricey UPS Stores, or some of the more independent U-Ship  bidders.

March 8, 2014
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Amazingly, the Acrobat search feature is smart enough to work its way around hyphens. And give you both pieces on a hyphened search hit. Which gets tricky in a hurry, because the next line in a PDF file may be file positioned nowhere near the previous one. I suspect it grabs the "easy" hyphens and ignores the rest of them.

I am very much anti-hyphen. There is no point whatsoever any more for narrow fill justified columns. Instead, use wide left justified ones with half ledding between paragraphs. And reword your text slightly on any jarringly short lines. And make the paragraphs much shorter than they used to be. Attention and interest span and all. Many examples here.

March 7, 2014
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Oriental scam of the week: There is no lobster in lobster sauce. It is mostly egg, cornstarch, and pork. And when it comes to Italian food, you cannot be both anti pasto and pro volone.

March 6, 2014
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Our Bezier circle approximation was done using PostScript that only has 32 bit math internally and six decimal places externally reported. One reader demanded more accuracy and came up with two possible "best" four Bezier circle approximations 0.000230 higher or 0.000186 higher than our "BEST" value of 0.551784. Depending on what is meant by "best".

These errors are well less than one pixel at sane sizes and resolutions. Nonetheless, they could become crucial for precision machining or optical needs. Especially with higher approximations. There have been times and places where 32 bit math were in fact limiting. I had to go to the 64 bit math of JavaScript for our Magic Sinewave Calculator development.

March 5, 2014
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Our pressure transducer tester now seems to be working. It turned out to be quite simple. All that was needed was a tire pump with a gauge, a Schrader to 1/4 NPT adaptor, a Schrader to 1/8 NPT adaptor, and a 1/4 NPT female to 1/2 NPT male coupler.

Sadly, several of the transducers we tested were not fully funcional. These may have been dummies or problem units used to develop mechanical models of some external surge protection modules.

March 4, 2014
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Fatcow apparently demands that we disclose we are an associate of them anytime we say something nice about them. Income from this revenue stream is largely negligible.

March 3, 2014
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Found an alternate route to the disused but modern blue ponds canal at N 32.78096 W 109.77844 on the west side of the fence near the top of the dam wall at N 32.78242 W 109.77505 Then go a quarter of a mile south through the East-West fence.

With the "improved" Acme Mapper the canal is far less obvious than it used to be as is now shown here. The modern purpose of the canal was apparently to switch watern between the northern and southern blue ponds.

While most of The known parts of this short canal have a prehistoric look about them, the actual switching took place at a concrete headgate, Just about all other recent hanging canal uses clearly stole the plans from prehistoric originals. The lack of a maintenence road suggests a copy of an older route.

WThere are a very few potsherds and flakes in the area, but enough to suggest a wide variety of late classic quality tradeware. The big question is whether the blue ponds were in fact prehistoric fields and whether a spectacular canal existed between here and the HS Canal at 32.75883 W 109.81388. Clearly, the world class HS canal needed a major purpose well beyond minor Frye Creek fields.

But all remains highly speculative at present. Perhaps the answer lies here. Field mice welcome. More on the canals here.

March 2, 2014
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At one time, astronomical photos were incredibly difficult, time consuming, and expensive to make. These daya, of course, most any dedicated amateur can easily create mind-blowing images. Conveniently and cheaply.

There's now an Astronomy Legacy Project aimed at scanning and preserving many of these early lovingly crafted photos.

March 1, 2014
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Continuing our hanging canal by hanging canal list of needed further work: The Tranquility Canal seems atypical in that its known portions are only 6000 feet long, is apparently artesian sourced, and includes numerous private smaller landowners. It is thus now an "urban" canal.

The canal is presently believed to route from an artesian source near N 32.75992 W 109.73299 to the Cook Reservoir near N 32.77476 W 109.72775. One good viewing point is the Anne's Ranch Road at N 32.76469 W 109.72950. Use is abandoned, possibly because of declining artesian availability. Additional proof seems required for a prehistoric origin.

Half of the canal "lools like" a prehistoric original and at least one landowner (Schmoller) refers to it as "the old indian canal". The other half of the canal has been lined with puddled very high aggregate concrete that seems quite similar to the early historic Marijilda canal "steal the plans" rework.

Half of the canal includes a maintenence track; the other half does not. There is one point where two parallel canals may exist, one concrete lined, and one not. The artesian source and Cook's destinations also need verified.

There are numerous abandoned historic "plumbing" artifacts near the presumed source. But a more southern Marijilda origin through highly disturbed modern ag fields cannot be ruled out. Although this canal comes amazingly close to the Twin East Canal, a significant vertical cliff separates the two. They are presumed unrelated.

February 28, 2014
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A stunning breakthrough worthy of Marcia Swampfelder can be found here. And here. With its history here. And here.

Meanwhile, the insider secrets of how Marcia created the tapioca pudding scene in the film noir cross-genre classic Godzilla versus the Night Nurses remain under strict NDA.

Because of the court order of protection and the restraining orders issued by the Tapioca Pudding Institute, Marcia's film never reached the theaters,  going  instead directly to release on eight track.

February 27, 2014
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Once again expanded and updated our Gila Valley Dayhikes page. We are now up to 395 main entries. Please  email me with anything I missed or needs further updating.

February 26, 2014
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A tip that can easing finding the "good stuff" in any major online auction: Search on the word "Contents" . Much more auction help here.

February 25, 2014
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A superb collection of early antique radio schematics can be found here.

February 24, 2014
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Bizarre. All of a sudden, any and all access to my own tinaja website, FTP, and email ALL got blocked and 404'd. But only by our own computers! Fatcow swore up and down that everything was just fine on their end. Bringing in a third party laptop quickly found out that the wireless router (!) was the culprit. In that direct cable modem access worked just fine.

Somehow the router apparently got into a parental blocking mode. It is not at all clear how or why this was tripped, This was an ancient Linksys unit that had known engineering heat management problems. The initial vent holes were too small and it was super easy to stack units or put printer output pages on them. But I usually kept modem and router separately on a clean slant to improve circulation.

Cable One could conceivably have had some parental software go horribly wrong or there could have been some strange router or computer or antiviral specific malware or viri hit. At any rate, the problem vanished after twenty hours.

Many Linksys routers have a dual type reset button. Briefly pressing it does a reset, while holding it down for over ten seconds restores the original factory defaults. I since decided to upgrade to a modern combined modem and router. But what happened so far pretty much defies rational explanation. Linksys manuals can be found here.

February 23, 2014
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Here's a list of the wayward GuruGrams...

123 Prehistoric Bajada Canals of Southeastern AZ
122 Glyphs Hanging Canal Summary
121 Little Known Gila Valley Dayhikes
120 Apple Assembly Cookbook I and II
119 Web Friendly PS Colors
118 Some "Fat Tail Arrow" Utilities
117 Level II Precyber eBook Conversions
116 Restoring Faded or Scuffed Text
115 An "unhalftoning" scheme for eBooks
114 Remastering a Technical Book
113 Allen Reservoir Failure Analysis Docs
112 Prehistoric Hanging Canals Slide Show
111 My Metal Locator Thesis
110 Remastering Video for Web Distribution
109 Gauss-Jordan Stability Issues

February 22, 2014
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I've gotten woefully far behind in updating our GuruGram library page. I'll try to pick up the dozen or so missing entries as soon as I can.

GuruGram #123 is titled PreHistoric Bajada "Hanging Canals" of Southeastern Arizona and is our latest summary article on these absolutely stunning ongoing world class discoveries. Sourcecode can be found here.

We are now up to twenty eight canals or canal fragments for a total distance approaching SIXTY MILES! Additional details can be found here, and ongoing developments here. Yes, field mice are definitely welcome.

February 21, 2014
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Got some recent questions over Tesla Turbines. Since these demand shear forces in lossy fluid media, they are inherently thermodynamically irreversible and thus inherently lossy and unavoidably woefully inefficient.

The turbines are useful for pumping frozen chickens, live fish, or sewage. But usually fail in any ap that demands reasonable efficiency.

Tesla, of course, remains the patron saint of the Church of the Latter Day Crackpots. 99 percent of the mythology of Tesla Turbines could be eliminated simply by renaming them shit pumps. For which they are eminently suitable

February 20, 2014
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There seems to be a known bug that affects certain versions of Acrobat readers. The bug apparently converts hyphens to em dashes. Which, of course, totally trashes any attempt to link a URL whose name includes dashes.

The bug seems to apply only to Acrobat readers and not to full versions of Acrobat. Workarounds include hand entering the url or using full Acrobat for viewing. I apparently found a workaround that fixed one problem url, but was unable to duplicate it on a second.

I suspect the problem will go away with upcoming reader revisions. Meanwhile, NEVER use dashes or percent signs or anything else weird in your own url's!

February 19, 2014
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Yet another reminder that I have a newly revised free talk on our Little Known Gila Valley Dayhikes coming up at Discovery Park on Saturday February 22nd at 6:30 in the Jupiter Room.

You can preview the talk here and pick up other Gila Hike info here. The latest and newest hike appears here. See you there.

February 17, 2014
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Recent developments in online auctions seem to have made them much more of an efficient market. Meaning that the days of being the only bidder at an auction with no restrooms, 120 in the shade, scorpions, and four inch hail may now be long gone.

an online auction, much less time, cost, and effort is required, so they tend to attract bunches more bidders from a much larger area. Online auctions tend to close at a two per minute rate, which is ridiculously faster than a classic auction. Especially considering travel time. Cost of participation is pretty much negligible.

You also usually know exactly when lots of interest will close, so you do not have to continuously monitor all lots and are thus free to multitask or work on other projects.

Opportunities for posion lots and contents of room or contents of cabinet seem to be more limited. Online auctions tend to have much higher opening prices, and buyer's premiums that can approach 25 percent if sales tax is a factor. Shipping has gotten ridiculously easier and somewhat lower in cost through websites such as Uship, myFreight, Freight Center, or Freight Pro.

Your defenses: Follow more auctions, pay more careful attention, and bid more aggressively. Typically, you should bid your proxy maximum once and only once six minutes before the auction lot closes. Assuming a five minute auto-extension that you should avoid at all costs. More auction help here.

February 16, 2014
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A new web ranking service is available here. Rankings are based, among other factors, on incoming link popularity. Our own tinaja.com has rocketed into 404,116th place. While this sounds awful, this lies near the top 0.4 percent of all web sites.

February 15, 2014
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www.elance.com is a web based clearing house for programmers, writers, and designers. They apparently have generated almost one billion dollars of work to date. Registration and posting are free. There is an 8.75 percent fee at the time any work is approved.

February 14, 2014
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A long popular analog industrial interface has been the 4 to 20 ma current loop. These have advantages of a two wire interface and the ability to largely ignore the resistance of long connecting lines. In typical use, the sensor or whatever draws four milliamperes and then 0 to 16 milliampers of sensed value gets added to the current draw.

A Current loops have been brought into the digital age by adding what is known as the Hart Format. In which plain old Bell 202 tones are superimposed on the loop. The Hart format allows fancy control and higher resolutions to be applied to the traditional 4-20 ma analog systems. A good summary of the Hart Interface appears here.

February 13, 2014
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Back to the drawing board. Most typical air cylinders have a significant amount of seal blowby. Which means that only a few psi at best can be generated by our propsed scheme of using an air cylinder as a test pump to check pressure transducers.

Instead, you can get Schrader to NPT adaptors that let you use an ordinary bicycle pump to get higher and more stable test pressures. Its not yet clear whether a small accumulator will be needed for added stability. Stay tuned.

February 12, 2014
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A useful hacker oriented but otherwise rather bizarre video network can be found at Twit.

February 11, 2014
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A new spherical solar collector scheme seems to be making the rounds, including this site. I see what to me appear to be several major numbers that don't add up and likely guarantee a flat out "ain't gonna happen" result.

Firstoff, utility parity is presently at a dollar per peak system watt which translates roughly to fifty cents per peak panel watt. But that is just a "paint it green" number with zero advantage to pv solar. Instead, for pv solar to become a genuine and viable renewable and sustainable net energy resource requires panel pricing is around twenty five cents per peak panel watt.

Amazingly, this figure is rapidly being approached by traditional technologies. Compared to a square properly aligned panel, a sphere at best can only gather pi/4 of the cross section energy. Since it is unlikely that the spherical performance near its boundaries is all that great, perhaps something like 60% of a flat panel response can ever make it to the tracking pv collector portion.

For a one meter sphere at the best time on the best Arizona afternoon, the incoming 1000 watts per square meter thus gets reduced to something like 600 available watts to the pv array. A concentrating pv system is unlikely to exceed fifteen percent efficiency at the output of its synchronous inverter, so a total gathering ability would appear to be around 90 watts per one meter spherical collector.

90 watts at twenty five cents per peak watt could thus have a total panel cost of no more than $22.50 per spherical collector. This, of course, includes amortization, installation, maintenance, and shipping. Further analysis here.

February 10, 2014
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A summary of NPT national pipe thread sizes can be found here. In general, the size of the pipe is much larger than its rating because the rating is based on an unrestricted internal flow. Ferinstance, a 1/4 inch NPT pipe is around half an inch in outside diameter.

February 9, 2014
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Expanded and revised our video access menu. Every effort has been made to make sure all entries are current and scam free. Please report any omissions or problems.

February 8, 2014
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I need a way to test our many pressure sensors for gross functionality. The present scheme is to use a fairly large air cylinder. Moving the piston from its center position should give a fairly wide range of test pressures. And vacuuums.

And Home Depot faucet water hoses and adaptors should complete the interface. Such as this one. Plastic ones are much cheaper, but harder to find. Aquarium supply outfits sometimes have them. Or, to use a hose, perhaps here. But a hose has extra volume, limiting the pressure change range.

To get really fancy, use a male to swivel female hose followed buy a male nipple. This would install and remove a lot easier. Stay tuned for more details.

February 7, 2014
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Continuing our hanging canal by hanging canal list of needed further work ...

The Twin East canal in theory is one of two feeders to the Twin Boobs ponding area. Except for a small segment, it is reasonably well defined from N 32.76067 W 109.73501 to N 32.76273 W 109.73255 to N 32.76343 W 109.73371 to N 32.76471 W 109.73412

At present, the theory of Twin East being a Twin Boobs feeder hinges on a single carefully made slope determination. Additional supporting measurements are clearly needed to resolve this crucial issue. Such measurements are beyond GPS or barometry and demand an automatic level or a similar survey quality instrument.

The source of Twin East has yet to be determined. It is assumed to be in the Lebanon Reservoir area by way of highly historically disturbed ag areas. And most likely fed from the high portion of the Marijilda Canal. The Twin East literally runs under the service buildings of the Lebanon Cemetery. It might be of interest to contact suitable historians to resolve when the buildings were completed and if any knowledge of the canal system existed at the time.

There is a "dim" portion of the Twin East near N 32.76361 W 109.73227. Numerous enigmatic rock constructs of indeterminate purpose and age can be found in this area and have yet to be explained. It is not clear whether these are prehistoric, historic, or "steal the plans". Should Twin East in fact be verified as a Twin Boobs feeder, determination needs made as to whether Twin East and Twin West are sequential or contemporaneous.

February 6, 2014
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The neighborhood dogs had been conducting continuous barkathons with Digiri and Sally, and no amount of scolding seemed to help. And previous experience with ultrasonic squawkers had been disappointing to say the least.

Not so with the Petsave Outdoor Ultrasonic Bark Control. Neither dog has so much as woofed once since its installatio In fact, the performance was almost cartoon like.

Saying "Woof" to it caused Sally to appear to levitate some four inches in the air, and continued to float there for the full second's worth of ultrasonic blast. There was not the least doubt it got her attention. And neiter dog has spoken since. Not once.

February 5, 2014
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Had several recent inquities about Bruno. Bruno is the attitude relateralization facillitator for the AMOE alt.marketing.online.ebay newsgroup. Since Bruno is big on multitasking, he often combines his activities with being a product durability tester for a major New Jersey baseball bat firm. Bruno also does trucking for Norfolk & Waay.

Who this week only have free full pallet sample lots products from their choice of Sharper Image, Land's End, Tiffanies, Bruno's Transport, or Macys. The pallets may occasionally contain minor body parts.

February 4, 2014
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A newly digitized free version of an outstanding historical map atlas can be found here.

February 3, 2014
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Continuing our hanging canal by hanging canal list of needed further work ... The Blue Ponds Canal is the subject of rank speculation and may not exist at all. Yet there are tantalizing clues that a major prehistoric hanging canal existed from N 32.75825 W 109.81487 to N 32.76728 W 109.79310 to N 32.78095 W 109.77841.

The route is topographically and slope favorable, and the lack of a prehistoric canal along this route would be conspicuous by its absence. Further, there is strong evidence of historic "steal the plans" system wide. Such a "borrow the blueprints" would be a major and obvious choice in the Blue Ponds area.

The ponds themselves could have been based on underlying prehistoric delivery fields. The Counterflowing HS Canal at N 32.75825 W 109.81487 is one of the most spectacular crown jewels of the hanging canal system. An ultimate destination of the Blue Ponds could justify its construction effort. Which is clearly well beyond any simple routing to Frye Creek fields.

Further study at N 32.76728 W 109.79310 could establish whether there really is a hanging canal route here, or just a historic wagon road. The presence of horseshoes in areas further North strengthens the wagon road evidence for some Acme Mapper hints at N 32.77079 W 109.78887. As elsewhere, the latest aerial evidence falls short of what was previously available.

There is a short but disused modern canal at N 32.78095 W 109.77841. A concrete headgate would seem to have the obvious purpose of routing canal water between the southern and northern Blue Ponds. The known extension of this canal would appear remarkably similar to prehistoric styles, albeit with a slightly deeper Vee construction.

Once again, the presence of the Blue Ponds canal remains unproven, but certainly merits further careful and externsive study.

February 2, 2014
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Once again expanded and updated our Gila Valley Dayhikes page. Please  email me with anything I missed or needs further updating.

A second reminder that I tentatively have a newly revised talk on our Gila Valley Dayhikes coming up at Discovery Park on Saturday February 22nd at 6:30 in the Jupiter Room. You can preview the talk here and pick up other Gila Hike info here. The latest and newest hike appears here.

February 1, 2014
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Very few things are more frustrating during repair, refurb, or salvage than a dinged up Phillips screwhead that refuses to break loose. It turns out there is a low cost and very little known beastie called an impact screwdrive. This is a set of changeable bits that you beat upon with a hammer. For the usual #6 or #8 screws, as little as one light hammer tap will usually be all that is needed.

Extra pounding might be needed for larger screw sizes or when sealants or rust are a factor.

January 31, 2014
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Continuing our hanging canal by hanging canal list of needed further work ...

The Twin West canal is presumed to be the western feeder to the Twin Boobs ponding area. It is quite distinct and easily traced from N 32.76164 W 109.74408 to N 32.76812 W 109.73897. It has a well defined hanging portion and an "S" transcect to maintain grade.

The slope and grade, while obvious, needs reverified to establish that the ponding area is in fact a destination. The relationship between the Twin West and several nearby habitation sites needs further study. The source for the Twin West remains unknown, with Rincon Canyon or Deadman Mesa being likely candidates.

While Rincon would seem the most likely, the still unexplored Deadman reach from N 32.75365 W 109.78371 to N 32.75789 W 109.77352 would clearly need its destination further resolved.

Rincon canyon would appear to be presently impassible for through traffic by ordinry vehicles. Determination of whether Twin West and Twin East are sequential contemporaneous also remains to be resolved.

January 30, 2014
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In answer to an ever diminishing number of requests, here is the background on my Hexadecimal Chronicles. Which now seem to be for sale at $1000 each on Amazon.

As an Apple IIe programmer, I had a continuous need to convert signed decimal to 16 bit hexadecimal and back again. So I printed out an entire table of all possible values for my own internal use. Could a limited interest book be profitable if its production costs were low enough? The Hexadecimal Chronicles was one of the first books ever to be alternately typeset. Almost all of the typesetting was done on my Diablo 630 Daisywheel with a superb Titan 10 all metal wheel.

Since the table values were all Apple IIe generated, the possibility of a typo or other error was low enough to minimize proofing. The book was more or less of a failure, but I still personally use it to this day. It remains at the very bottom of my list of my titles to be converted to eBooks. Speaking of which, many of our eBooks can be found here.

January 29, 2014
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Continuing our hanging canal by hanging canal list of needed further work...

One present theory is that the Twin Boobs area at N 32.76570 W 109.73601 is an end use ponding area serviced by two hanging canals, the Tzin East and Twin West. Such a construct would be highly unusual to say the least. And possibly world class unique.

This area is largely single walled and has end use field artifacts in association such as grids, mulch rings, linear rock structures, and field houses. It has a much stronger and highly unique aerial image footprint compared to any other portion of the hanging canal system.

There are apparently multiple paths through the distribution system. At present, the ponding area theory hinges on a single but careful canalslope measurement. Many additional measurements should be made to verify the highly unusual dual canal feeding. The slope measurements have to be done with an automatic level or comparable survey instruments; they seem to demand precision far beyond that of GPS or barometric altimetry.

Should this in fact be an end use area, careful mapping of artifacts in detail is in order. As is determining whether the dual feeder canal use was sequential or contemporaneous. As will be noted separately, the Twin East and Twin West canals are quite well defined near the Twin Boobs area, but their ultimate sources still need resolved. Candidates include Marijilda, Rincon, and Deadman.

January 28, 2014
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A secret stash of several zillion college football games can be found here.

January 27, 2014
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So, how do you photograph something that is totally invisible?

January 26, 2014
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Our "needing further work" updates to the hanging canals listed to date can be found here...

HS Canal to Blue Ponds
Robinson Closure
Mud Springs Closure
Mud Springs Source

There are dozens more projects; email me for details.

January 25, 2014
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A reminder that we have several MILES of transparent polyester sheet in dozens of rolls of varying lengths and sizes. I've been meaning to build up a rewinder but it seems to be taking forever. email me if you have any interest in this superb material at one sixth or less of its normal price.

January 24, 2014
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Continuing our hanging canal by hanging canal list of needed further work: The Deadman Canal is among the most spectacular and the most difficult to visit. It is the only known canal that still flows to this day in its original channel. And thus is an excellent candidate for restoration and preservation.

It also spectacularly follows the highest possible points on its mesa  bajada routes. While the source seems obvious at N 32.73721 W 109.81321 proof remains lacking of a significant hanging portion underlying the modern pipeline.

An entire second branch of Deadman remains totally unexplored between N 32.75129 W 109.79223  and N 32.75681 W 109.77611 Its destination remains unknown, but it could be a likely canadidate for a source for the Twin West canal. Significant drops in elevation would be involved.

As with the other canals, the latest revisions in Acme mapper considerably degrades the image legibility. There is a possible three way switch along the northern branch of Deadman at N 32.76066 W 109.78106. The choice of this location ( the canal is two feet wide on a four foot wide mesa ) would be highly unlikely if it was just a coincidence; otherwise it represents utterly astonishing engineering.

The destination of the northern branch is presumed somewhere near the Lower Deadman tank, but remains totally unproven. There are hints of unexplored possible water management structures near N 32.77204 W 109.75560. Any relationship between Deadman and Longvue remains unverified.

January 23, 2014
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I tentatively have a newly revised talk on our Gila Valley Dayhikes coming up at Discovery Park on Saturday February 22nd at 6:30 in the Jupiter Room. You can preview the talk here and pick up other Gila Hike info here. The latest and newest hike appears here.

January 22, 2014
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Communications through the Arizona Regional Association group of cavers has not been all that great lately, with its president having moved out of state and web maint sorely lacking.

At any rate, the ARA winter regional is this Saturday January 25th on the U/A campus. ARA attendnce is open to anyone with an interest in Arizona Caving.

January 21, 2014
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Uh, we seem to have a new supernova that should be up to maximum brightness in a week or so. It might even end up visible to the naked eye. PSN J09554214+6940260. is in nearby M82.

January 20, 2014
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I've long been fascinated by waterknives and waterjets. Some recent low cost developments can be found here and here. My favorite waterknife photo from long ago consisted of a four inch steel slab with a gooey chocolate cake on it. The waterknife was cleanly slicing all the way through both.

Waterjets are basically a 70,000 psi water stream formed by a fairly simple hydraulic over air cylinder and an XY or radial positioning system. Abrasives may or may not be injected into the stream.

t's reasonable to expect low end water knives comparable to Santa Claus machines. But whether safety will ever let them become home pizza slizcrs remains to be seen.

January 19, 2014
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Here's an updated list of local Craig's List alternatives...

Auctions for Graham County
Buy, Sell & Trade in Safford AZ
Duncan AZ Buy Sell Trade
Valley Giveaways
Gila Valey Auto, RV, and Parts
Graham County Web Sales
Greenlee and Grahm County Garage sale
Greenlee County Gifts and Goodies 
Guys only
Gila Valley Trades and Sales
New to You
Used Furniture
Safford Thatcher Pima Buy, Sell
Safford's Treasures

Local web based ( non-Facebook ) alternatives seem to have folded. Please report any exceptions. A reminder that you can request a local Craig's List here. Be sure to use Saffort/Thatcher/Pima in your request. And a second reminder that an independent and highly useful search engine for the real Craig's lists is available here.

Our own auction help pages are found here. With local auctioneers here. And your own custom auction finder here.

January 18, 2014
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We've long had some timing utilities built into our Gonzo PostScript routines. The two key procs are...

/stopwatchon {resettimer starttimer} store
/stopwatchoff {stoptimer reporttimer} store

Assisted by these...

resettimer {/mytime 0 def} store
/starttimer {usertime /mytimenow exch
 store} store
/stoptimer {usertime mytimenow sub
 /mytime exch mytime add store}store
/reporttimer {mytime 1000 div
 (\nElapsed time: ) print 20 string cvs
 print ( seconds.\n) print flush} store

Should the times end up too short, the timed routine can be rerun hunreds or thousands of times using 1000 {...}repeat

January 17, 2014
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Unless they immediately and dramatically repurpose themselves, most public libraries are likely doomed to imminent failure. There simply is no purpose nor any longer any need for a control freak to restrict and meter out highly limited perceived scarce materials during limited hours. And certainly no need for those materials to ever be returned.

And books in themselves are doomed by the upcoming next generation of eBook and similar readers. When it will become utterly apparent how mesmerizingly awful books have been compared to what their substitutes will soon be capable of becoming.

Sadly, a local community is considering building a brand new public library in the "business as usual" model that is virtually certain to spectacularly fail. Instead, I very strongly feel that the same dollars and the same buildings could create a Technical Resource Center that would very much more meet projected future leading edge community needs. Some obvious things to consider including would be...

Public WiFi Access Hackerspace.
Walk-in video and audio editing.
Open Camera community television.
Science fairs and student competitions.
Sign language and handicapped support.
Multi-level fab lab
Energy and conservation awareness.
Self-help psyc support groups.
Alternate wellness medical assistance
Popular Science and Regional lectures.
Kiddy storytimes.

What else can you think of adding?

January 16, 2014
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Apparently quite a few Arizona doctors have elected NOT to participate in the state's medical marijuana program and NOT get themselves involved in any manner. Such decisions are often based on a practice wide policy of all member doctors and PA's in a group. No exceptions.

Apparent reasons include the distrust of the federalies stance. Creating perceived risk to reward ratios that are seen as unacceptable.

January 15, 2014
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The key parts of our new Dodge and Burn routine are amazingly fast and simple. This routine scans all of the green pixels in the mask to find any 255 hits...

actualdatastart 1 add 3 totalfilelength
{maskfile exch setfileposition maskfile
read pop 255 eq {foundgreen }if } for}
bind store

And this modifies any pixels identified by the foundgreen hit...

/foundgreen { writefile maskfile fileposition
1 sub setfileposition 3 {writefile read pop
256 div} repeat setrgbcolor currenthsbcolor
255 mul dup cvi currentgamma exch get
add 255 div sethsbcolor currentrgbcolor
writefile maskfile fileposition 1 sub
setfileposition writefile exch 255 mul cvi
write writefile exch 255 mul cvi write
writefile exch 255 mul cvi write

January 14, 2014
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We are in the process of dramatically cutting back on our eBay inventory per the guidelines we looked at here.

It seems we have zillions of different sized small black plastic cases and boxes that we would gladly part with for a nickel to a dime each, cash and carry. We also have tons of free stuff worth thousands of dollars on a "take one, take all" basis. Please email me if you have any interest in these superb Polycase products.

January 13, 2014
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We pride ourselves in having the finest eBay photos, bar none. Mostly based on spending most of the image time in postprep. I thought I might once again summarize how we get from a raw photo like this one to a final image like this one.

The camera involved is a Nikon Coolpix 5000, helped along by a remavable tripod shoe and an Eye Fi wireless uploader. Key software includes Imageview32, IrfanView, Paint, and our own custom Architects Perspective, Bitmap Typewriter, Auto Backgrounder and Vignetter, Web Friendly PostScript Colors, and our new Dodge and Burn utility.

Five different CCFL diffuse light sources are used. Left key, right key, backlight, and two top lights. A tripod, of course, is a must. The subject should be carefully cleaned, especially any dusty or discolored areas. All work is done in bitmap format until the very last jpeg save.

Once photographed and uploaded. the subject is rotated to make a predominately vertical exactly so. It is then cropped somewhat oversize. Resolutions are kept much higher than eventually needed so the fancy image procs will not degrade the final results. On suitable subjects, an architect's perspective gets done that makes all vertical lines truely vertical.

Reds are then backed off enough to guarantee no red=255 pixels and an unbroken red outlie is carefully created. Once again making the verticals and horizontals accurate to one pixel accuracy. Any glare or nonuniform lighting can be corrected at this time. It is important to accurately represent the subject after any internal image modifications.

At this point, any needed dodges or burns or double or triple exposures are made to eliminate most or not all shadows and to enhance such things as meter faces or areas lacking depth of field. After cropping to desired image size, the auto background and optional vignetter is then fired up to knock out everything that was not actual subject.

A final pass through Imageview32 does such things as improve brightness and gama, resize to 850 pixels, very slightly sharpen, and save to JPEG format. More on image postprep here. Seminars and custom photo work available.

January 12, 2014
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Just read a fortune cookie: Help! I am trapped and being held prisoner in a Fortune Cookie factory.

January 11, 2014
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A reminder that our auto backgrounding and vignetting program will only work properly if (A) There are no previous red=255 pixels present, (B) The outline and fill areas do in fact consist of red=255 pixels, and (C) the outline is completely closed with zero breaks.

The easiest way to be sure there are no previous red=255 pixels is to use Imageview32 or whtever to back off two red notches on the color balance. During the process of outlining, it is super important not to change the size of the image. Although 1:1 cropping is ok. It is similarly important to stay in bitmap format.

Stripes in your result usually mean you have "holes" in your outline. Missed background vignette areas usually means you have extra white or red in the portions to be underlain. A blank vignette usually means you have somehow changed the size of your image or otherwise trashed intentional red=255 values.

Spackle" breakthroughs usually means you have some white pixels left in your original that the optional backgrounder will punch through.

January 10, 2014
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The new Dodge and Burn routines seem to be working quite well. You can find the source code here, the test file here, the mask file here, and the results here.

Uh, you will have to rework the mask file by converting it back into a bitmap and making sure all the green=255's are in fact green=255's. This to save a 20 meg download.

To use the source code, rework it in an editor and send it to GhostScript. Parts of Gonzo are built in, so no special Gonzo download is needed. A reminder that Adobe has recently forbid use of file access in Distiller, so the GhostScript route has to be chosen instead. Update: Use //acrodist/F inestead.

The results are amazingly good. Speed is adequate at 1.4 seconds for a 20 meg bitmap and a 40K pixel patch. The code is quite short and clean. This new routine opens all sorts of new pixel processing oppotrunities. Please let me know what you want it to do.

January 9, 2014
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More details on the new Blue River Fish Barrier can be found here. With the best construction story here, the best photo here, and the most details on the extensive modeling that went on here.

There is an apparent possible ATV route via Sunflower Mesa and Dix Mesa, but it apparently was not used during construction. Whether this route is passible or runs afoul of wilterness closures or whatever remains unknown.

Otherwise, the obvious route is via the Martenez Ranch on the San Francisco. Note that the Martenez Road is extremely steep and DEMANDS 4WD with Granny.

January 8, 2014
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Dodging and burning a RGB ( or BGR ) file can get tricky in a hurry, because changing only the color values will shift the color itself. Instead, some sort of RGB to HSB and back again conversion is needed. Some of the rather painful algorithms apper here. Instead, we will simply borrow the PostScript color space machinery....

R G  B   setrgbolor currenthsbcolor
( dodge or burn only as needed. )
sethsbcolor currentrgbcolor

One minor gotcha: the RGB Bitmap uses integers from 0-255 while PostScript uses reals from 0.0 to 1.0 Curiously, a HSB conversion from RGB or BGR ( or, for that matter, GRB, GBR, RGB or BRG ) all will all give you the same brightness! Thus any games with 3 -1 roll and 3 1 roll appear to be unneeded.

January 7, 2014
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Expanded and updated our Gila Valley Dayhikes page. Some of the lesser known destinations appear here. Please  email me with anything I missed or needs further updating.

January 6, 2014
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A reminder that we have several MILES of transparent polyester sheet in dozens of rolls of varying lengths and sizes. I've been meaning to build up a rewinder but it seems to be taking forever.

email me if you have any interest in this superb material at one sixth or less of its normal price.

January 4, 2014
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I've still got a pair of genuine Eastman 1908 commercial 35 mm movie projectors for sale that I would like to clear out. Their provenance was the original Cliffton, AZ movie theater. They are presently disassembled and can be shippid in multiple UPS boxes.They are eminently restorable and fairly complete. Please email me if you have any interest in these extremely rare collectibles.

January 3, 2014
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     ( Property has been sold )

January 2, 2014
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     ( Property has been sold )

January 1, 2014
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Closed out the 2013 Archive and started this 2014 one. This is 2023 phone friendly update. A copy of the original is still here.

December 31, 2013
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One of the handier "rules of thumb" that sometimes apply some of the time and can be enormously useful is this: Very often, one percent of what happens nationally happens in Arizona. And one percent of what happens in Arizona happens in the Gila Valley.

Thus, roughly, there are 300 million people in the US, 3 million in AZ, and 30,000 locally. While not super accurate, this rule can quickly give you a rough estimate of an amazing variety of events or tasks.Where you otherwise may not have the faintest clue as to scale.

Naturally, the "rule" does not apply to anything with a regional bias. I suspect Thatcher has more cotton module fires than Bangor, Maine does. And that walrus attacks may be rare in Nebraska.

My favorite rule of thumb applies to any Hazmat situation: Hold your thumb up at arm's length and close one eye. If you can still see the scene, you are too close.

December 30, 2013
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A minor tip: Sometimes misstating your zip code can reduce some hassles for you. The National Auctioneers Association seems to have a one hundred mile limit on their searches. Which cannot reach Phoenix and Tucson from Thatcher. But it can from Globe.

The independent Search Tempest is a great way to survey Craig's List. But you have to scroll through a bunch of junk if you really want two specific areas. Ferinstance, to get Phoenix and Tucson without the junk, use the Casa Grande zipcode of 85130.

The local Radio Shacks have limited ineventory, so changing your zip code can also find something urgently needed. Same goes for inventory at Wal Mart or Home Depot.

December 29 2013
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An interesting collection of free Souothwestern Archaeology videos can be found here.

December 28, 2013
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     "Golly Gee Mister Science."

December 27, 2013
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Few people realize how primitive the hardware options were at the time the TV Typewriter was first designed. Microprocessors were theoretical beasts that were outragelously expensive and undeliverable with key peripheral chips not even on the drawing board.

Magnetic core memory had just dropped to a nickel a bit, and there were only rumors that solid state memory might be able to compete in the dark distant future. A controversial quantum leap in baud rates from 110 to 150 had just been announced.

The only dynamic RAM was the 1103 that drove a whole generation of engineers insane with its 20 nanosecond wide temperature dependent timing window. Static RAM was outragesly expensive and pretty much limited to 64 bits or less per package.

Which left me with bucket brigade shift registers as the only viable route to an on-screen tv text display. These were cheap enough and fast enough at 1 microsecond, and big enough at 525 bits, but you had to continuously refresh them.

These were not in any manner random access, as you had to wait for the bit you were after to come out the end of the pipe. Their dropout specs did not permit the several milliseconds needed for vertical retrace, but fortunately, most all of the tested chips managed to just barely coast through. We needed seven milliseconds of delay and they only would guarantee two.

The high supply voltages and high clock driver capacitance also made these unit painful to use or interface. Also unappreciated today was the utter hostility and ridicule heaped on why anyone could possibly want to put words and letters on a tv set. "They" just did not get it.

December 26, 2013
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Two Texans bragging about how big their lands were... "Why, my spread is so big, I could drive all morning and not get half way across it. "

"Yeah? I had a truck like that once."

December 25, 2013
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Thought I'd start a list of possibly upcoming predictions...

PV panels hitting the 25 cents per panel watt.
A quantum leap in Goldilocks exoplanets
Sane pricing of 100 watt LED lamps.
Extensive use of improved WWVB.
wireless power transmission improvements.
USB power supplies replacing wall warts.
Corn ethanol fuel recognized as worthless.
Greatly improved GPS/GLONAS resolution.
Sane net metering resolution.
New breakthroughs in HVAC efficicncy.
Total legalization of marijuana, everywhere.
Demise of books much faster than expected.
Newsgroups failing from eyeball siphoning

I'll try to add more items to this list. Your comments welcome. Earlier Material can be found here.

      Uh, that's all folks. To continue, please...

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