Don Lancaster's What's New 2016 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 09, 2017
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Closed out our whtnu16.shtml blog and started a new whtnu17.shtml one.

Earlier and newer blogs remain available by clicking on "?new?" on the home page.

A reminder that we have separately extracted bajada hanging canal relevant material material to these files...

blog excerpts09.shtml
blog_excerpts10.shtml
blog_excerpts11.shtml
blog_excerpts12.shtml
blog_excerpts13.shtml
blog_excerpts14.shtml
blog_excerpts15.shtml
blog_excerpts16.shtml

January 08, 2017
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The Sand bajada hanging canal is number SEVENTY FIVE on our list of study candidates. It is extremely interesting and fairly easy to explore. But, as with previous canals, it presently is raising far more questions than it resolved.

I could use your help in the following...

Fill in the blanks between N 32.83001 W 109.92742 and N 32.83093 W 109.92610.

Visit the fork at N 32.83453 W 109.92705 to determine whether its feeder is in fact prehistoric.

Try to determine the intent and purpose of the three apparently imponderable historic interventions at N 32.82628 109.92605, at N 32.83096 W 109.93308, and at N 32.83120 W 109.92570.

Verify that the fence crossing at N 32.82135 W 109.93778 is in fact a significant Sand Canal routing.

Verify that the Acme Mapper plot at N 32.81909 W 109.94159 is in fact a significant Sand Canal routing.

Verify that the-acme Mapper plot at N 32.81307 W 109.94579 is in fact a significant Carter Canal routing.

Attempt to prove that the Sand Canal and the Carter Canal are one in the same.

See if a Carter Canal hanging portion exists at N 32.81258 W 109.94703 and is photogenic.

Determine if Gila Longfin Dace or other fish survive in and around N 32.81244 W 109.94766

January 07, 2017
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Microsizing and micropositioning can become crucial problems when printing pages full of small labels or doing other step and repeat projects.

First and foremost, always be sure to use the same printer for the same project. And always use the same printer driver and make sure that driver does not have any weird scalings active.

Add a small target to your code at what is supposed to be the 0,0 lower left corner. Possibly an adjustment such as an -0.11 inch -0.16 inch translate may be needed to convince the intended code, the label sheet, the printer, and the printer driver to all agree on exactly where 0,0 is.

Some label sources will provide you with templates that are sheets of paper with preprinted label locations on them.

Another ploy that can be very useful: Temporarily remove the four corner labels from the label sheet. Print to ordinary paper and register the modified label sheet in front of the paper. Hold the pair up to a bright light source or the sun. You then check the intended alignment of your messages.

If you want a bled color background on each label, be sure to "overscan" enough that all labels in all positions to not show any annoying white edges.

One way to verify that your h and v counts are correct is to remove a fifth label from an odd position on the left side and a sixth label from a strange position from the bottom.

January 06, 2017
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Sourcecode for a new simplified step-and-repeat label printer can be found  here. With a sample printout here.

The full Gonzo PostScript code gets towed along internally, so all you have to do is edit your file in Wordpad or wherever, and send it to Acrobat Distiller.

Here's the crucial part of the new PostScript code...

/simplifiedstepandrepeat { horstart vertstart
     translate
     numvert { save
          numhoriz { repeatproc
                             inchoriz 0 translate } repeat
                       restore 0 incvert translate
                     } repeat
                         } store

Gonzo utilities here, tutorial here, and lots of simple projects here. And intermediate stuff here.

January 05, 2017
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Here's a link to an "adequate supply" of Pittsburgh Streetcar Photos

WARNING: Attempting to view all of these in one session will result in yunz guys pronouncing "beer" as "airn". Or making a mill outta a chopaam sammitch and Olde Frothingslosh Pale Stale Ale in Sliberty.

Fortunately, in regards to this matter, a desert rat like me is immune. Skooze me while I redd up the website.

January 04, 2017
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A midget fortune teller broke out of jail.

Leaving a small medium at large.

January 03, 2017
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Here's a few of our published books and related items...

TTL COOKBOOK - Well over a million copies in print. Should be available at Amazon and technical bookstores. A very few autographed copies are still available from Guru's Lair and eBay.

MANUAL DE CIRCUITOS TTL- Status unknown. Likely very hard to find.

PACIFIC RIM TTL COOKBOOK - Not even sure anymore which Asian language it was released in. Status unknown. Likely extinct.

CMOS COOKBOOK- Approaching a million copies in print. Autographed copies available from Guru's Lair and eBay. Also should be available from Amazon

ACTIVE FILTER COOKBOOK- THE defining reference for the field. Still in print. Autographed copies available from Guru's Lair and eBay. Also should be available from Amazon.

RTL COOKBOOK - Good old number one. Currently available as a free eBook from Guru's Lair. Amazon usually has new and used copies.

TV TYPEWRITER COOKBOOK - The opening shot fired in the personal computer revolution.. Currently available as a free eBook from Guru's Lair. Amazon usually has new and used copies. The TV Typewriter story by itself here.

INCREDIBLE SECRET MONEY MACHINE- Find out how I make money. Send $6.95 to... Currently available as a free eBook from Guru's Lair. Amazon usually has new and used copies.

APPLE ASSEMBLY COOKBOOK - Currently available as Volume I and Volume II of a pair of free eBooks from Guru's Lair. A sample Restoration Demo is also available. Amazon  has new and used copies.

MICRO COOKBOOK VOLUME I - When combined with Volume II, ends up surprisingly applicable to the very latest of microcomputer fundamentals. A very few autographed copies are still available from Guru's Lair and eBay. Amazon rarely has new and used copies.

MICRO COOKBOOK VOLUME II - Currently available as a retitled Volume I and Volume II of a pair of free eBooks from Guru's Lair. A sample Restoration Demo is also available. Amazon  sometimes has new and used copies.

APPLEWRITER COOKBOOK - Insider secrets of the best Apple II word processor.  Out of print and hard to find. Your funding requested for this secondary candidate for eBook restoration. Amazon  rarely has new and used copies.

ALL ABOUT APPLEWRITER - Rare Call A.P.P.L.E book was a disassembly script that possibly could be re-excerpted from the AppleWriter Cookbook. Status unknown. Not sure I still even have a copy.

HEXADECIMAL CHRONICLES - Book and circular slide rule calculator exclusively for ultra fringe Apple II machine language programmers. Produced and typeset largely on a Diablo 630 Daisywheel! Amazon  rarely has new and used copies.

ENHANCING YOUR APPLE II VOLUME I - Collection of construction projects and programming ploys. Included the "tearing method" of program disassembly. A prime eBook candidate with your funding welcome. Amazon  very rarely has new and used copies.

ENHANCING YOUR APPLE II VOLUME II - Collection of construction projects and programming ploys. Included the "vaporlock" field sync technique. A prime eBook candidate with your funding welcome. Amazon  sometimes has new and used copies.

CHEAP VIDEO COOKBOOK- Sneaky "Gee whiz" tricks to add ultra low cost video displays to KIM-1 and similar low end microcomputer trainers. An intermediate eBook candidate with your funding welcome. Amazon  sometimes has new and used copies.

SON OF CHEAP VIDEO- Supplement to the Cheap Video Cookbook covering ultra low cost video displays. A secondary eBook candidate with your funding welcome. Amazon  sometimes has new and used copies, some at outrageous prices.

THE BIG TTL WALL CHART- Collection of IC data from the TTL Cookbook. Exceptionally rare and possibly extinct. No eBook plans at present.

THE BIG CMOS WALL CHART- Collection of IC data from the CMOS Cookbook. Exceptionally rare and possibly extinct. No eBook plans at present.

BLATANT OPPORTUNIST- Reprints from Don's Midnight Engineering columns. Once Book-on-Demand published. Now freely available online as individual columns.

BOOK-ON-DEMAND PUBLISHING- The entire concept of low end BOD  publishing largely died stillborn, owing to the utterly overwhelming advantages of web distribution. Combined with sanely priced binding systems and and trimmers never getting available online here.

CAVE CRAWLER'S GAZETTE- A three year editorial stint for the Central Arizona Grotto. Very low priority eBook plans at present.

ASK THE GURU I, II, III- Reprints from Don's Computer Shopper columns. Once Book-on-Demand published. Now freely available online as compilations here, here, and here.

HARDWARE HACKER I, II, III, IV - Reprints from Don's Hardware Hacker columns. Once Book-on-Demand published. Now freely available online as compilations here, here, here, and here.

RESOURCE BIN- A collection of "where to go to get stuff" monthly columns from Nuts & Volts magazine. Early compilations can be found found here and here with individual columns available here.

MY THESIS- One of the first ever developments of low cost analog circuits to be used for hobby electronics projects. Free copy here.

MY FIRST AND ONLY PATENT - Can be found here. Good old 3,149,561. And drove home the utter ludicrosity of the US patent system for virtually all individuals and small scale startups.

CASE AGAINST PATENTS- Once Book-on-Demand published compilation of my anti patent diatribes. Also freely available online as individual papers.

GILA VALLEY DAY HIKES- Many hundreds of highly obscure neat places to go and things  to do in and around the Gila Valley. With the main free  directory here and images of some of the more obscure candidates here.

MAGIC SINEWAVES- Newly discovered obscure math tricks that allow dramatic low harmonic suppression of digitally generated power sinewaves for pv panels, power controls, and similar apps. Find the magic calculator here and lots of support here.

PSEUDOSCIIENCE- I am very much into disproving such ludicrosities as free energy, alien abductions, much of cold fusion,antigravity, UFO's "not even wrong"labwork, perpetual motion, or outright scams. Find the main resource here and my special hell reserved for hydrogen here.

POWERPOINT EMULATIONS- I very strongly feel that Powerpoint is mesmerizingly awful, so I wrote my own PostScript emulator that completely blows it away on all counts. A tutorial here and examples here.

POSTSCRIPT SECRETS- Reprints from Don's Computer Shopper columns. Once Book-on-Demand published. Now freely available online as a compilation here.

POSTSCRIPT SHOW AND TELL- Started out as a flashcard lecture of the underappreciated wonders of the general purpose PostScript programming language. Now available as a free web resource.

POSTSCRIPT BEGINNER PROJECTS- A compendium of projects from our beginning PostScript community college programming class.

POSTSCRIPT GONZO UTILITES- Custom routines that give you exceptional Postscript-as-language typography, schematics, and great heaping bunches of related stuff. Find the code here, use guidelines here, and lots of apps here.

VARIOUS OTHER FREE RESOURCES - Being summarized here, here, and here.

INTRODUCTION TO POSTSCRIPT VIDEO- Found here.

THE WORST OF MARCIA SWAMPFELDER- Marcia tended to do my April Fools columns for a number of years in Popular Electronics and Modern Electronics. The secrets of how she did the tapioca pudding scene in the cross genre Godzilla versus the Night  Nurses film classic remains under strict NDA. A revised and updated free online copy of Marcia's finest work appears here.

And our very newest...

DON LANCASTER CLASSICS LIBRARY- A USB crammed full of some 8000+ files spread over more than 2 Gigs of tight code, along with nearly a thousand open source and fully unlocked source code documents. Classics through current. Available from Guru's Lair and eBay.

GURUGRAMS- Published versions of our ongoing projects, papers, and such have largely been replaced by the GuruGrams on our Guru's Lair website. Announcements on their availability can usually be found here and on our similar earlier and later blogs.

BAJADA HANGING CANAL FIELD NOTES - A work in progress. See the latest info and updates here.

January 02, 2017
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After some extensive archival rework, rearrangement, and improvement of our Guru's Lair website. we can now offer USB Thumb Drive copies of our Lancaster Classics Library.

This includes some 8000+ files spread over more than 2 Gigs of tight code, along with nearly a thousand open source and fully unlocked source code documents. All fully searchable in one place at one time.

Included are reprints of the TV Typewriter, the RTL Cookbook, the Incredible Secret Money Machine, much of the Hanging Bajada Canals, and, of course, The Worst of Marcia Swampfelder.

You can contact us directly or view our eBay listing to pick up a personal copy.

January 01, 2017
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Guru's Lair website access: https://www.tinaja.com

Assorted Neat Stuff:  /ansamp1.shtml
Auction Help : /ahsamp1.shtml
Blatant Opportunist :/bosamp1.shtml
Blogs and What's New: /blsamp1.shtml
Bezier Cubic Splines:/bcsamp1.shtml
Book to eBook Convert: /bebsamp1.shtml
Classic Reprints: /crsamp1.shtml
eBay Secrets: /ebsamp1.shtml
eBook Library: /ebksamp1.shtml
Energy Tutorials: /etsamp1.shtml
Gila Valley Day Hikes: /tinsamp1.shtml
GuruGrams:/ggsamp1.shtml
Hardware Hacker: /hhsamp1.shtml
Incredible Secret Money Machine: /issamp1.shtml
Latest Additions: /lbsamp1.shtml
Magic Sinewaves: /mssamp1.shtml
Marbelous Stacks of Pancakes: /mbsamp1.shtml
Math Stuff: /matsamp1.shtml
The Case Against Patents: /pasamp1.shtml
PostScript Resources:pssamp1.shtml
Powerpoint Emulation::/powpt1.shtml
Bajada Hanging Canals: /tinsamp1.shtml
Pseudoscience Bashing: /psusamp1.shtml
Recommended Books: /bksamp1.shtml
Resource Bin:/rbsamp1.shtml
Santa Claus Machines: /scsamp1.shtml
Service Pages: /spsamp1.shtml
Site Sampler: h/samplx1.shtml
Tech Musings: h/tmsamp1.shtml
Technical Library Directory: /libry01.shtml
Tinaja Questing: /tinsamp1.shtml
Video Tutorials:/ebksamp1.shtml

Main Libraries:

Abeja Shelf: /beewb01.shtml
Acrobat PDF Shelf: /acrob01.shtml
Adept Sliders ( sorry sold out ):/adeptinv.shtml
Ask the Guru Older Shelf: /glair01.shtml
Auction and Assistance Shelf: https:/auct01.shtml
Banner Advertisers Shelf: ht/advt01.shtml 
Bargains and Surplus Shelf: /barg01.shtml
Blatant Opportunist Shelf: /blat01.shtml
Book Access Shelf: /amlink01.shtml
Book on Demand Shelf: /bod01.shtml
Captain Video Shelf:/capvid01.shtml
Consultants Network: /consul01.shtml
Cubic Spline Shelf: /cubic01.shtml
Custom Auction Help:/aucres01.shtml
eBay Live Auction Shelf: h/abeja/m.html?
eBook Shelf :/ebook01.shtml
Electrical Engineering Shelf: /eeweb01.shtml
Flutterwumper Shelf: /flut01.shtml
Fonts and Images Shelf:/aafont01.shtml
Gila Valley Dayhikes Shelf: /gilahike.shtml
Guru Archive (older) Shelf: .tinaja.com/glair01.shtml
GuruGram Shelf:/gurgrm01.shtml
Golly Gee Mister Science Shelf: /golly01.shtml
Hardware Hacker Shelf: /hack01.shtml Image
PostProc Shelf: https://www.tinaja.com
Money Machine: /ismm01.shtml
Infopack Shelf:/info01.shtml
"Its a Gas" Hydrogen Shelf /h2gas01.shtml
Magic Sinewaves Shelf: /magsn01.shtml 
Magic Sinewave Older Archive: /magsna1.shtml 
Math Stuff Shelf: /math01.sht
Navicube Shelf: /navcub01.shtml
Patent Avoidance Shelf: /patnt01.shtml
Pick a Peck of PICS Shelf: /picup01.shtml 
PostScript Shelf: /post01.shtml
Pseudoscience Bashing:: /pseudo01.shtml
Resource Bin Shelf:/resbn01.shtml
Santa Claus Machines: /santa01.shtml
Synergetics Library:/synlib01.shtml
Tech Musings Shelf: h/muse01.shtm
Third Party Shelf: /third01.shtml
Tinaja Questing Shelf: /tinaja01.shtml
Webmastering Shelf:/weblib01.shtml 
Web Links ( outdated ): /webwb01.shtml
Wavelets Shelf: /wave01.shtml

December 31, 2016
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Here is the first supplement to our PostScript Font Snooper. Merge it with the internal and external existing PostScript font name lists and resend the snooper to Acrobat XI...

/FontlistbyPSname [ % not yet resolved.

/ARBERKLEY
/ARBLANCA
/ARBONNIE
/ARCARTER
/ARCENA
/ARCHRISTY
/ARDARLING
/ARDECODE
/ARDELANEY
/ARDESTINE
/ARESSENCE
/ARHERMANN
/ARJULIAN

/Ebrima-Bold

% /Fixedsys
% /Fixedsys-Regular

/Gabriola
/HPSimplified-Regular
/Impact
/JavaneseText
/LeelawadeeUI
/LucidaConsole

% /Malgun
% /Malgun-Regular
% /MalgunGothic
% /MalgunGothicRegular
% /MalgunGothicSemilight
% /MalgunGothicBold

/MicrosoftHimalaya
/MicrosoftNewTaiLue
/MicrosoftTaiLe

% /MicrosoftJhengHeiUI
% /MicrosoftJhengHei-UI
% /MicrosoftYaHei
% /MicrosoftYaHeiUI
% /MicrosoftYaHei-UI
%/NSimSun
% /NSimSun-Regular
% /SmallFont-Regular

/SourceCodePro-Regular
/SourceCodePro-Black
/SourceCodePro-Bold
/SourceCodePro-ExtraLight
/SourceCodePro-Light
/SourceCodePro-Semibold
/Sylfaen

% /System-Bold
% /Terminal
% /Terminal-Regular
% /Terminal-Bold
% /YuGothic-Light
% /YuGothicUL

/ZWAdobeF

] store

These files seem embeddable without faux font substitution.

There are obviously bunches of correct PostScript filenames not yet in the directories. Please email me with your additions and corrections.

December 30, 2016
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A .html or .shtml web browser file will often tow along bits and pieces of other files. These can easily get lost or misplaced on file relocations or distributions and cause major dropout problems.

An included file in the same directory would have no slashes in it, such as src="bluestrp.gif". An included file in the host machine but a different directory might be referenced as src= "C://stuff/morestuff/blustripe.jpg". And an included file or link elsewhere on the web would get referenced as src= "http://:www.tinaja.com".

On file relocation or distribution, it is super important to retain access to all these included src's. Otherwise, you will get dropouts and other annoyances. The usual problem is that Dreamweaver or another browser tool may reassign locations for the inclusions.

Sometimes Dreamweaver will create a new directory of file folders for all included items. It is very important to keep this directory where it can be accessed. Alternately, if just a few inclusions are involved, you can provide new copies of everything needed locally accessible.

At any rate, if you find dropout problems, search your file under "src=" and see what shows up.

A related issue: Dreamweaver tends to drop out backgrounds. It will usually tell you it has done this with a comment. Background images may be replaced by their original by File -> Page Properties --> Appearance --> Background Image --> Browse

I'll throw in a reminder here that those insidious Dreamweaver disappearances of the crucial properties panel can often be restored by a ctrl-F3.

December 29, 2016
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I've gone through our What's New Blogs back to 2009 and extracted much of the Bajada Hanging Canal stuff.

These new files should give more in the way of an ongoing timeline of discoveries and developments...

/blog_excerpts09.shtml
/blog_excerpts10.shtml
/blog_excerpts11.shtml
/blog_excerpts12.shtml
/blog_excerpts13.shtml
/blog_excerpts14.shtml
/blog_excerpts15.shtml
/blog_excerpts16.shtml

December 28, 2016
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This is getting far beyond ridiculous.

Acme Mapper is suggesting a yet unverified SEVENTY SIXTH Prehistoric Hanging Bajada Canal around N 32.81330 W 109.94637.

It appears to be a companion to the Sand Canal complex and seems to have a takein pond (!) and a hanging portion. The tentative name would be the Carter Canal. Total regional length now appears to be well beyond a world class 130 miles.

Surprisingly, there were Gila Longfin Dace fish in the area. At least before the drought. More here.

Your help with exploration is more than welcome. Opportunities for personal world class research abound.

December 27, 2016
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Thought I'd list my end of year predictions here...

The elimination of "unintended consequence" federal price supports and marijuana farm subsidies dropping prices to a near cotton parity of 59 cents per pound. With ( as cotton ) standard 500 pound commercial bales ( anything less being personal use ) and tax estimates ending up a tad high. But the latter by only by a mere three or four orders of magnitude. More here.

Surprising but marginal emerging credibility for limited forms of both Cold Fusion and Reactionless Drives.

Unlikely third world countries soon dropping the pv panel prices to the utility grade twenty five cents per peak watt demanded for true renewability and sustainability.

The total demise of coal. With idled locomotives being the measurable barometer that is spearheading the debacle.

A controversial but credible detection of extra-terrestrial  mid-level intelligence "real soon now". Perhaps a planet full of asparagus. And more "WTF" signals yet to come.

Obsolesce of CCFL lamps. Brought about by LED parity and all sorts of previously unthunk of lighting products.

Pricey solid state challenges to microwave oven magnetrons. With eventual advantages of simplicity, uniformity, economy.

Strong sales of ultra resolution smart tv's despite zero available content. Driven mostly by computer users.

A resurgence in traditional electronic hacking, driven by  Arduino, Raspberry Pi, C.H.I.P. Beagle Bone, the Basic Stamp and 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 the popularity of hackerspaces ,  makerspaces, and fab labs

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 areas of cancer and diabetes, female sexuality, dentistry, and Alzheimers.

Computers that are so cheap there is no longer any point in charging for them.

WWVB having dropped the football. Far too little way too late.

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.

December 26, 2016
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I am in the process of doing some mostly invisible revisions to our website. With the intent of making more and better third party backups and offering nearly 2 Gigs of website in thumb drive form.

Please email me if you want to get in ahead of the hoarders on one of these greatly improved and updated nav drives.

December 25, 2016
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Some recent links to our Magic Sinewave calculators seem to point to older versions. The newest and best include quantization buttons. I'm not sure I have all these fixed.

https://www.tinaja.com/msquant/retry_m/xxxx.shtml is one correct new version.

https://www.tinaja.com/magsnq1.shtml is an identical copy with a better filename. Important note: Should you copy these, an identical named .js trailer file MUST be included. And files of anytime.gif and blustrp.gif and ebaylin2.jpg SHOULD be included

December 24, 2016
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The latest PV pricing stats for November are in and once again show ongoing decreases for an all time best of 42 cents per peak pane watt minimum.

Note that somewhere around twenty five cents per peak panel watt is demanded for true net energy renewability and sustainability. The math behind this can be found here. In a related surprise move, some extremely aggressive pv project prices were just awarded in some highly unexpected third world countries.

Much more here.

December 23, 2016
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Here is the obscure code to print out the contents of a Windows 10 folder or directory...

shift - rightmouse over directory
open command window here
dir > listmyfolder.txt
load new file into wordpad.

December 22, 2016
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The Sand prehistoric Bajada hanging canal ranges from N 32.81814 W 109.94203 to N 32.83533 W 109.92265 and seems exceptionally well engineered and largely well preserved.

Except that there apparently were three very small sections of historical rebuild attempts that appear to me to be total and colossal failures. The terra cota pipes and the precast concrete headgates suggest a rather recent attempt involving appallingly bad and woefully incomplete engineering. Or possibly kids.

It is unlikely that one recent drop of modern water was ever delivered. No CCC dominant signatures seemed involved, but something like a State Lands intern project appear suggested.

There is a companion mystery whose origins remain fuzzy. A possible branch of the canal ranges from N 32.82839 W 109.93146 to a yet unexplored fork at N 32.83446 W 109.92706. It is obviously fed from a valid prehistoric canal and has perfect slope and size. Yet it is a tad too deep and totally lacks the spoil pile berms typical of most other prehistoric canals in the region.

Other consulted archaeologists remain equally baffled. Perhaps a ground survey of the fork might shed some light on the age of this route.

Then again, it might raise more questions than it answers.

December 21, 2016
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Here's a list of links to our Wesrch papers. They sort of form a "the best of" for our website...

Machine Language Programming
Classic Sampler
Restoring faded or scuffed text
TV Typewriter eBook
An "Un-Halftoning"eBook scheme
Remastering a Technical Book
Incredible Secret Money Machine
Allen Reservoir Failure Docs
RTL Cookbook Classic Reprint
IC67 metal locater classic reprint
Hanging Canal Slide Show
Remastering video for web distribution
Stability Issues in Gauss-Jordan
Gauss-Jordan Solution of nxn linear equ
Stalking the Wild Paradigm
Safford Prehistoric Hanging Canals
Recent Magic Sinewave Developments
Enhancing your eBay skills VIII
Website Link Checking Tools
Secrets of Recent Technical Innovation
Learned During a uv Lamp Debugging
Possible Book Scanning "Gutter Math"
Utilities for HTML & XHTML Validation
eBay buying secrets
eBay selling secrets
Pseudoscience Bashing Secrets
Isopod Energy Monitor
Enhancing your eBay Skills V
Build this TV Typewriter
The next big things
Elegant Simplicity
Enhancing your eBay Skills VI
Cubic Spline Minimum Point Distance
pv photovoltaic panel intro & summary
Energy Fundamentals Intro & Summary
Real Time Acrobat PDF Animation
A Solid State 3 Channel Color Organ
When to Patent
Exploring the .BMP file format
150 Gila Valley Day Hikes
Gonzo PostScript Powerpoint Emulation
Enhancing your eBay tactical skills VII
Synthesis of Digital Power Sinewaves
Graham Tram Plan and Profile
Some fifth generation Magic Sinewaves
Bezier cubic spline through 4 data points
.BMP Bitmap Circular Lettering
Expanded ultra fast magic sinewave calculator
How to trash a vehicle hydrogen electrolysis
Gila Lumber and Milling History
Bitmap perspective lettering utilities
How to bash pseudoscience
An Improved Bitmap Typewriter
Using Distiller as a PostScript Computer
Some Architect's Perspective Algorithms
Successful eBay Buying Strategies
Why Electrolysis Ain't Gonna Happen
The math behind Bezier cubic splines
Some Image Post Processing Utilities
The Case Against Patents
Some eBay Selling Strategies
A Digital Airbrushing Algorithm
Don't Get Sick!
Some More Energy Fundamentals I
How to scam a student paper
Some Inverse Graphic Transforms
Nonlinear Graphics Transforms
Three Phase Magic Sinewaves
Bitmap to Acrobat Image Converters
An unauthorized autobiography
Some pixel image interpolation algorithms
False color and rainbow improvements
Executive Guide to Magic Sinewaves
The worst of Marcia Swampfelder
Post Document Editing Tools
Method to solve electromagnetic fields
A Newbie's Intro to the Web
Gonzo PostScript Tutorial and Directory
An Ultra-fast Magic Sinewave Calculator
Some Energy Fundamentals
Secrets of Technical Innovation

Here are our co-authored Hanging Canal papers...

Prehistoric Bajada Hanging Canals of Southeast Az
A Tour of Some Prehistoric Hanging Canal Images

December 20, 2016
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I was recently asked for my views on "global warming". After many decades of careful observation here in the southwest over such things as flood and fire frequency and severity, overgrazing,  species invasion, overbuilding, water management, and drought, I firmly believe that...

Climatic and weather VARIABILITY are dramatically on the rise and will continue to become worse for the foreseeable future . Much, if not most of the increase in variability appears to me to clearly be man caused. Business as usual will no longer hack it. We better fervently HOPE that the majority of the problem is in fact man caused; Otherwise, it will  surely end up MUCH harder to fix.

Yes, the situation is enormously complex. Yes, outright mistakes will be made. Not to mention unintended consequences and hidden agendas. But, at least to me, doing nothing would be the gravest and greatest mistake of all. My own feelings are that "carbon free" is a monumentally stupid goal. "Carbon neutral" makes infinitely more sense.

More on energy related topics here and here. 

December 19, 2016
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Well, it took three weeks, but most of the fallout from a hard disk blowup has pretty much happened, whit the majority of whatever being nearly or fully recovered. Since the outcome was seriously in doubt, a four pronged approach was used during recovery...

First, a commercial restoration service was used that had the necessary expertise and tools.

Second, an underused laptop was modified to take care of immediately urgent tasks.

Third, woefully incomplete and dated backups were carefully reviewed for salvagability.

Fourth , a brand new and updated computer system was built from the ground up.

December 18, 2016
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Once again expanded and updated our Gila Valley  Dayhikes page. We are now up to 477 main entries, most of which now include GPS location links. 

Now including everything from castles to abandoned locomotives to mystery Gila River tramways. No, not this one.  Please email me with anything I missed or that needs  further updating.

December 17, 2016
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It has been a while since I mentioned my most fiendish of all my papers.

Included are a dozen sure fire "can't miss"winners for student papers of high school through graduate university levels.

And one, um, not quite winner. But which?

December 16, 2016
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Can't put one over on her. Nosiree.

Little old lady to a companion at a recent live auction: "Why, that man has been talking all morning!"

December 15, 2016
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There seems to be a major Windows 10 bug in which the print queue ends up neither working nor allowing cancellation.

To find out if this is your "won't print" problem, go to the Control Panel --> View Devices and Printers --> your usual printer --> See What's Printing. Viewable should be a blank panel or one that allows cancellation.

The exact bug and its treatment can be found here.

In other times and places, downloading a fresh printer driver can make a big difference. In the case of HP, you can go here for access.

December 14, 2016
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In general, Windows 10 seems to offer bunches of better ways to do stuff. But finding tasks for the first time can be monumentally frustrating.

Ferinstance, the greatly simplified and improved file search is now found by clicking on the task bar file folder. while an elaborate and mind bogglingly complex new cutsey poo AI feature is now where the earlier Windows-X used to be.

December 13, 2016
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Now that memory is free, I'm wondering if still using the C:/ drive is the best place for work files. Putting these files on thumb drives or other removable media makes distributing and backing them up a lot easier. As well as often being somewhat more virus and wear resistant.

And system blowups are now separate from work problems.

Yes, you still should avoid using a thumb drive for exceptionally high traffic read and write issues. But this should not be a problem for most files most of the time.

December 12, 2016
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I have been having major difficulties getting Thunderbird to access my Fatcow mail. Apparently Fatcow does not want a second pc to access supervisory status, while Thunderbird remembers stuff of yours even if the account is closed and uninstalled. Fatcow has been most helpful but we did not get anywhere on several lengthy tries.

Passwords are consistently refused.

The present workaround is to use mail server side ap from FatCow's RoundCube service and to explore the Microsoft Mail potential as a newsgroup server from News.Individual.Net. and others.

Any suggestions of what to try next?

December 11, 2016
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Configuring a computer to replace a blown up one might go something like this...

Start with a $200 Walmart refurb special
Provide a monitor and speakers.
Upgrade to wireless mouse and keyboard.
Add a 4X power USB expander.
Remove malware and bloatware.
Add shortcuts to Control Panel and C:/
Extract Paint and Wordpad from Windows
Gain Ethernet access.
Access existing WiFi network
Install Chrome Extension no underline
Install Chrome Extension speed dial
web page, ebay, fatcow etc to Speed Dial.
Make Chrome the default browser.
Add USB Thumb Drive and Hard Drive.
Add CD drive if not present on PC.
Install print driver and verify WiFi printing.
Import important data files to Desktop via USB.
Install antivirus software.
Install scanner and VueScan X64. Test.
Add cable and verify Nikon photo linking.
Test optional camera memory chip.
Install Thunderbird and link to Fatcow ISP.
Explore Fatcow Roundcube
Install a Sigfile signature file..
Verify mail functionality.
Subscribe to News.Individual Net.
Chose newsgroups.
Install Filezilla FTP program.
Link Filezilla to Fatcow ISP
Verify WebSite functionality.
Verify ISP and webpage communication.
Install Winzip GZ file reader for ISP log stats.
Download Imageview32 Arcata.
Install GhostScript
Install Gonzo Utilities,
Install Architects Perspective
Install Gonzo Utilities,
Install Vingetting Autobackgrounder
Install Bitmap Typewriter,
Install other Postscript routines.
Test camera to postproc to ebay.
Consider Microsoft Office.
Download .PDF Acrobat reader.
Subscribe to Acrobat XI
Verify Acrobat XI Distiller
Run -F disk access.
Verify home page.
Verify YouTube and NetFlix.
Verify Dilbert and Slashdot.
Run the font snooper.
Add any missing or favorite fonts.
Download Google Earth
Add velcro where appropriate.
Start backup saves.

December 10, 2016
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We will shortly have a complete set of numeric branding irons up on eBay.

For some reason, their "9" seems to be missing. The obvious workaround is to turn the cow upside dowm and then use the "6" instead.

December 9, 2016
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THE RABBIT FARM -At one time, this San Simon resource included large artesian lakes and many giant trees, but drought and falling water tables have taken their toll. Remediation efforts  are underway, which presumably you can participate in. N 32.50135 W 109.33844

Much more Gila Hike stuff here.

December 8, 2016
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The latest versions of our PostSript fontname finder and Faux Fonts identifiers are now available for your review.

Send this .psl file to the Distiller in Acrobat XI to find the correct spellings and the Faux font shifts for your chosen machine.

Or just view this .pdf file for a sample of somebody else's results.

Or this .log file for additional info on somebody else's results.

Or your own new .log file for your specific additional info.

You can click here for a list of the correct spellings of nearly 5000 valid PostScript font names. Please report any typos and most especially any missed additions.

December 7, 2016
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Been getting some new PostScript-as-Filename anomalies on Windows 10 involving paths starting with C:\. Not sure what is happening but it might involve needing some earlier slashes owing to This Computer.

Did find an apparent workaround: If you use a D:// or higher thumb drive for involved PS filenames, the problem seems to disappear.

Working example: Clicking an image into Imageview32 and then clicking through on image information should always give you a valid full font path.

Trying to run windows-X on an installed E:/retest/indptump1.bmp works just fine, but trying the same windows-X on a properly installed C:\Users\Bee\Desktop\new_images\indptump1.bmp returns an error message. Despite very careful keying.

This seems to have nothing to do with the separate need to place a double reverse slash inside a PostScript string any time you really want to end up with a windows filename forward slash.

Any ideas?

December 6, 2016
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The "Wow" SETI signal has now been largely discredited, likely owing to a pair of then undiscovered comets that generated a large reflective gas cloud.

But we now have a brand new "WTF" signal to deal with. This involves a Kepler transit so astoundingly complex that citing intelligent design presently has not yet been ruled out.

More details here and here.

December 5, 2016
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Acrobat Distiller attempts to substitute a Faux Font into your PDF files for the overwhelming majority of available fonts. This can utterly destroy the "vibes" of fonts such as Revue or Hobo, and otherwise introduces an aura of "sameness" to the final docs.

And, unless TrueType fonts are separately converted, most of these will also be faux substituted. Typically, for every 2000 available fonts, around 1800 of them will be faux substituted and 200 might sail through unmolested.

Distiller will report to you which fonts have been substituted in its return log file. And lists can be generated by search filtering the log file in a multistep process..

But programatically finding out whether a font has been substituted for raw PostScript uses requires some sneakiness.

It turns out there is a FontDirectory that starts out empty and fills as it gets used. Each added font should have a OrigFonts subdirectory and this directory may or may not have a Boolean DistillerFauxFont entry. Curiously, this entry seems to always be true but only sometimes be present. So, use of the known operator is needed to avoid errors.

I've just completed an automatic program that both reports all your font true PostScript fontnames along with a list of those that got substituted. I hope to post it shortly. Your help in testing and extending the main 4700 font directory is needed.

December 4, 2016
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So, what software do I actually use?

I overwhelmingly prefer to do all my page layout, math studies, and related research in raw PostScript, using nothing but plain old Wordpad and sometimes helped along by plain old Paint. Raw Postscript code is sent to either the Distiller in Acrobat XI or GhostScript, being sure to include any code sent to Disiller being run from the command line with a -F trailer to allow disk access.

I am really big on image postprocessing for our eBay use and have created several custom programs that you can access at no charge These include our Architect's Perspective, the Self Vignetting Auto bakgrounder, the Bitmap Typewriter, and our Web friendly PostScript Colors.

Nikon to Windows seems be be handled automatically by the PC.

Web maint is handled largely by a Dreamweaver rental.

I use Fatcow as our ISP accessed via Chrome, Thunderbird, or Filezilla. I prefer an ancient HP scanner that is no longer Windows 10 supported, so I use VuScan X64 here. My preferred picture editor is ImageViewer/32.

December 3, 2016
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An interesting collection of pv panel pricing info can be found here. In general, utility grade panel pricing is at 46 cents per per peak panel watt and is dropping at ten percent per year or more.

For true long term renewability and sustainability a quarter per peak panel watt is needed. Thus, we are presently half way there and ridiculously closer than we ever were before.

Much more here.

December 2, 2016
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Another approach to backing up things you feel are important is to post them to independent and archival web resources.

The obvious first choice is Wikipedia, but you have to get sneaky to work around their "No original research" restriction. The key can often be major mainstream media coverage.

I've put lots of stuff up on Wesrcch and it has generated a quarter million hits to date. But this resource seems to have somewhat missed reaching critical mass just yet.

Another web resource that seems to be going gangbusters is ResearchGate. I have yet to participate here, but it is very high on my priorities. They prefer you have an .edu affiliation, but there are workarounds if you are really a legitimate independent researcher.

Much of our Bajada Hanging Canal reserach remains unique to my website, so I've given backup copies to a number of leading archaeologists for archival storage. Let me know if you would like a set of these.

I definitely would like to find additional web homes for my Magic Sinewaves and the Magic Sinewave Calculator. ResearchGate would be an obvious first choice.

And I have been negotiating with American Radio History to make many of my early tutorials and construction projects separately available.

December 1, 2016
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Some very significant developments in understanding and controlling photosynthesis appear in the latest issue of Nature.

November 30, 2016
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Managed to blow up a hard drive that set things a little back here. The key rule, of course, is that no matter how often you back things up, it is not nearly enough.

Most of it seems recoverable, but several projects have to be temporarily on hold. And much of the routine stuff around here is now awkward or tedious.

Our basic approach to backup is to use Fatcow as our web provider and local resources for our research and whatever. And to ( in theory ) exchange backups at least once a month.

Present approach is triple pronged, using a backup recovery service, a temporary laptop, and a new tower pc.

In these days of ultra cheap thumb drives, backup is no longer the hassle it once was. As I may have mentioned a time or two before, we should outright skip the terabyte revolution and move directly onto the petabyte one.

November 29, 2016
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One of the most infuriating features of Dreamweaver is that, if you so much as think about looking at it sideways, the page properties panel will vanish without a trace. This panel is essential for editing as it controls links, styles, indents, and such.

One top secret recovery method is to use Control-F3.

The latest Dreamweaver versions get rented by the month or year instead of owned outright. Free seven day samples are usually provided on request.

There apparently still is a strange bug remaining from way back when: If you copy the below date bar, one of the three dates will trash two or three characters. Not sure why this happens or who it applies to when. The bug survived moving to the cloud.

November 28, 2016
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Field verified the continuance of the Sand Canal and its possible pair of "maybe" branches. This appears to be the westernmost known prehistoric hanging bajada canal and possibly is six miles long, not counting the pair of north trending branches.

The newly verified portion is near N 32.82577 W 109.93365 and is easy to reach both by desert friendly vehicle and on foot. The route appears superbly engineered and well preserved. This portion seems "regular" rather than "hanging". The route is surprisingly obvious on Acme Mapper.

Much of the projected route is still unverified and you are welcome to help with the exploration. The projected start is somewhere around N 32.81743 W 109.94330 with some unverified bits and pieces near N 32.83024 W 109.92712

November 27, 2016
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Finding out which Distiller Fonts have been substituted can end up fairly simple.

There is a Distiller dictionary called the Font Directory. Regardless of the number of available fonts, this starts out empty and fills as fonts are actually used and optionally modified as any unpermitted fonts are substituted.

There is a Boolean flag called DistillerFauxFont in each font placed in the Font Directory. Calling currentfont /DistillerFauxFont get will return a true if a font has been substituted.

This can then be used to append a suitable comment to your font listing.

There does seem to be a curious gotcha: DistillerFauxFont seems to always (?) be true, but only sometimes is present. Thus you have to use known to avoid errors.

I'll try to post an example shortly.

November 26, 2016
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The Barbie Index is a new method of measuring math understanding and competence.

Ferinstance, an individual with a BI of 0.7 would have seventy percent of the math capabilities of a Barbie doll. 

More math stuff here.

November 25, 2016
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Meanings of "normally open" and "normally closed" are exact opposites, depending on whether you are talking electrically or pneumatically.

A normally open switch or relay contact has a gap that DOES NOT conduct electricity or signals or whatever. Until such time as its position is changed or coil power is applied.

A normally open valve DOES allow a liquid or gas flow from input to output. Until such time as its position is changed or coil power is applied.

Valves are often further complicated in that if liquid stays stuck in a pipe, nothing much happens. Thus, three way, four way, and even five way valving is more the norm. In which you either provide air or oil or else let it drain off or return somewhere else.

November 24, 2016
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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 ridiculously more valuable than a kilowatt hour of unstored hydrogen gas.

 3. There are EIS or Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy     instruments 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. and because of its low energy and low area passivated surface. Special Platinized Platinum Black normally is required for efficient devices and demands careful repeated renewing.

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 this is Beginning EE Student Blunder 001-A. Such measurement is almost always ridiculously low.

8. It is similarly trivially easy to mis measure that actual dry STP hydrogen content in any vapor. Such measurement is  almost always ridiculously high. 

9. 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.  Curiously, the Ohio trial court fraud proceedings have never been  transcribed, owing to admin costs and a near total lack of demand.

Additional details of my own appear here and here and here.  Two useful third party resources are found here and here.

November 23, 2016
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The latest PV pricing stats for October are in and once again show ongoing decreases for some sources, and now dropping somewhat to a best of 44 cents per peak panel  watt minimum.

The projected trend for the year for the best price is about nine percent down.

Note that somewhere around twenty five cents per peak panel  watt is demanded for true net energy renewability and sustainability. The math behind this can be found here.

And much more here.

November 22, 2016
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Added a classic link to our early Paleomagnetism and Archaeomagnetism paper. Not sure why this vanished somewhere along the way.

More recently, this and our Thermoluminescence paper were used as reconstruction examples for restoration of classic papers using our Gonzo Utilities.

November 21, 2016
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Added a few new natural arch entries to our Gila Valley Day Hikes. Plus a link to the Natural Arch and Bridge Society.

November 20, 2016
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Many early Hugo Gernsback publications are newly available free at https://www.americanradiohistory.com/ Of particular interest are early issues of Science and Invention

November 19, 2016
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Uh, there's still a detail or two to be worked out in creating your own display of Distiller substituted fonts.

A demo of what your results are supposed to look for can be found here. But I have yet to find several key distiller parameters.

Instead, start with this file and create a log file. Then heavily edit the part of the log file that tells you which files were not found, converting them into a list of substituted fonts. Then use this result list to create the second column display that shows which fonts have been substituted.

It turns out there are very simple flags in Distiller called /DistillerFauxFont and /FauxFontID and others that should make it trivial to flag any substituted font display, only I have not yet discovered exactly to use them.

Your suggestions welcome.

November 18, 2016
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Uploaded a new demo of our PSFontnameFinders that can give you the correct PS filenames of most of your available fonts as well as identifying which fonts have been substituted by Distiller. Useful results will have to involve your own new data.

Sourcecode can be fond here, which you will have to play around with by heavily text editing a previous .log file to extract a /FoundFonts [ /f1xname /f2xname....]  array and a similar /SubstitutedFonts1 [ /f1xname /f2xname....]  array. At present, the latter needs converted to a bogus "known searchable" dictionary by using...

/SubstitutedFonts1Dict
<< SubstitutedFonts1 { 1 } forall >> store

This new code points out several non obvious font substitution features that likely have to be dealt with. The present code searched a data base of 5765 possible valid PS fontnames, extracting 2048 of them as locally reachable and demanding that 1656 of them be multi master substituted.

Thus, over three quarters of the fonts will be MM substituted! and this would be even worse if you were not embedding TrueType fonts. Without TT embedding, almost all Distiller fonts in this example would get MM substituted!

Depending on the chosen font, MM substitution can range from trivial to really bad to mesmerizingly awful. See Hobo or Revue as midrange problem examples. And, since "no vibes" is by and of itself a major vibe, the remaining fonts to me all seem rather dumpy, alarmingly similar, and uninspiring.

Several workaround come to find. First, be sure to use the embed TT fonts option. But note that because of quadratic vs cubic spline issues and others, TT fonts are generally not as sophisticated as genuine PostScript ones.

Secondly, squeaking by with 800 or so properly embedded "real" fonts might not end up all that bad.

Thirdly, you can try using one of the online ---> .pfa conversions. Some of these may or may not work. And may or may not involve virus and IP rights issues.

Fourthly, you can try substituting free online fonts with sort of similar names. Or in related offerings.

And finally, you can actually buy a font that is fully Distiller embeddable. Just be sure that IP rights permit distiller embedding without substitution..

November 15, 2016
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Two Distiller features include the ability to embed fonts and to optionally substitute fonts in any generated PDF document. Per details here and elsewhere. Parts or all the embedded fonts get "towed along" in a somewhat longer document so that your end user does not need to personally own or access your target files.

Adobe forces font substitution on you from multiple master fonts if your target font has IP rights issues, forbidden access flags, non standard coding, odd glyphs, or whatever.

The big gotcha with this is that some fonts will substitute beautifully, while others will significantly lose their "vibes", while yet others will end up totally illegible. Revue and Hobo are two examples that get done in rather badly. Most of the substituted fonts end up looking pretty much the same and clearly lack their original distinct vibes.

You can find out which fonts have been substituted and how much damage they have done to the intended original by viewing the companion .log file generated during the fontname distilling. Alternately, you can go to Acrobat and then select File -> Properties -> Fonts.

If you really need the vibes of a particular font, make sure that it will properly embed without substitution.

November 14, 2016
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Somebody asked me about the "Smokey the Bear" font.

Apparently it originally existed only in printed documents where it could be hand copied in larger sizes.

But the Brody font is a fairly good match.

November 13, 2016
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Made some further improvements in our PostScript Exact fontname finder. Find the sourcecode ( which you send to Distiller ) here, a results sampler here, and a results log file here.

Plus an ongoing and expanding PostScript filename directory. Improvements include embedding many TrueType fonts.

Your help in testing, expanding, and improving these files is needed.

November 11, 2016
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A companion .log file gets generated any time you use our PostScript Fontname Finder. Buried in the log file is all sorts of interesting stuff, some of which may be misleading.

If you read your output file ( or this sample ) and then go to Acrobat -> File -> Properties -> Font, it is easy to reach the astounding conclusion that over 2/3 of the input fonts get converted to the Multimaster File format, nearly always forcing unwanted negligible through mild through devastating chances in the letterforms and vibes.

But this may be a misleading artifact of our "find the fontname" algorithms. Firstoff, this presumably is something remotely near an average of all fonts. Since it is easy to conclude that all major size, weight, and slantiness in any font family would all mostly need or not need MM conversion, then the number of conversion font families would ( WAG ) be only one quarter (?) of the total number of fonts involved.

Further, there are obviously more popular and lesser used fonts. Checking these would likely put the Distiller forced conversions further down. Especially when there are near identical appearing Adobe and Microsoft font versions.

You can find out what a font is supposed to look like by most any of these resources.

One reader suggested using an online ---> .PFA converter. But be sure to check the skill level of the converter to make sure the vibes are what you wanted.

Another route, of course, is to actually buy and pay for a font. Be sure to get it in writing that the font is both partially and fully embeddable in a Distiller generated document without forced format conversions or IP issues.

November 9, 2016
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Getting Distiller to embed open type fonts should be possible, given... << /CompatibilityLevel 1.6 >> setdistillerparams <</EmbedOpenType true>> setdistillerparams <</NeverEmbed [ ] >> setdistillerparams ..but it is not working. I may have missed a key detail. What am I doing wrong?

November 8, 2016
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Once again expanded and updated our Gila Valley  Dayhikes page. We are now up to 469 main entries, most of which now include GPS location links. 

Also added this link to hiking projects that can let you contribute to world class research.  Please email me with anything I missed or that needs  further updating or posting.

November 7, 2016
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Greatly expanded and improved our PostScript Fontname finder, but it still needs your help and input.

Presently, there are some 5747 entries on the Master PostScript Fontname list. While this is only a drop in the bucket, it likely includes the majority of fonts actually used. And should give you a rich field of availability.

You can generate your own list of the tricky-to-find exact PostScript filenames along with their actual embedded appearances by sending this sourcecode to Distiller.

While I mostly use Stone, Revue, Courier, and Helvetica/Arial, I was absolutely astounded to find out that I had over 2016 embeddable Postscript fonts immediately available.

Yeah, a lot of these do include font substitution as they were transfers from non-Adobe sources. But the substitutions are often quite good unless the base font has some unusual vibes. When the match is not that great, consider going to an Adobe original instead.

A reminder that your display will show the exact PostScript filename and the exact appearance ( even if substituted ) your viewers will observe.

Your help is still needed in correcting typos and layout, along with further expanding the master list. Surprisingly, the processing time remains just under a few tens of seconds. Despite finding which fonts are available by trying all of them.

Sadly, we still are not quite GhostScript compatible. Please email me with your fixes.

November 6, 2016
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It seems we have a new $4 high performance coin sized computer called the VoCore 2 Light.

With comments here.

There probably is no longer any point in charging for computers as they can now be given away as ad promotions instead.

November 5, 2016
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Uh, Oops.

I seem to have lost a historical canal in rough brush somewhere around N 32.78087 W 109.77888

This was a short canal with concrete headgates obviously used to switch between two larger somewhat modern reservoirs. I forgot to photograph and GPS it last go around.

But, once you got past the concrete parts, the rest of the canal appears to be built to prehistoric standards. And it is newly right in the projected path of the prehistoric Freeman Canal route.

And significantly east of historic pipeline fragments.

More on similar stuff here.

November 4, 2016
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Yeah, I remain fascinated by fonts. They sure have come a long way in a big hurry.

Originally, you had two cases full of lead. The upper case held the capital letters, and the lower case the small letters.

At one time, fonts were insanely expensive and each was a single size and weight and slantiness. Many "headliner" machines were available with phonograph disk-like units for the individual fonts. And Letraset and others would sell you transfer letters that promptly went stale or missed a few critical vowels.

I guess a point could be made that the TV Typewriter included the first personal computer font. One font, Single weight, single sized, and, of course, upper case only. A 6x8 dot matrix holding 5x7 characters. That could only represent a piddling 34,359,738,368 different characters.

Other earlier projects here.

November 3, 2016
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My best guess is that there are many thousands of CCC water spreaders in the area. Which, except for their make-work aspects, seemed to me to be totally worthless boondoggles that served no physical purpose whatsoever.

The latest large and dense collection I stumbled upon are somewhat south of the rarely visited and seldom explored Lamb Tank.

November 2, 2016
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I generally avoid using flash for our eBay photos because of the shading and hot spots it creates. Preferring instead to use outside diffuse light shade.

But here is a difficult instance where flash seemed essential to "punch through" for the deep internal illumination.

Quite a bid of rework was needed. As was a double exposure to brighten the strobe and get rid of speckle and hot spots.

Consulting services and training available.

November 1, 2016
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Now that our PostScript Filename Snooper is nearly complete, you may want to add an internal comment copy of the exact fonts you presently have available to our Bitmap Typewriter.

Generally, the exact font shapes in the BMT do not matter all that much due to their usual small size.

More often than not, I use an ArialRoundedMT-Bold or a Verdana-Bold with the BMT. Recently I needed a Microgamma-BoldExtended Font to fake a Casio trademark, but since only five characters were involved, I built it up by scratch.

More on the Bitmap Typewriter here. And on the PostScript Name Snooper here.

October 31, 2016
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An interesting avian collection of the usual suspects at the Reay Lane Wetlands  ( aka the Thatcher Sewer Ponds ) can be found here. A recently constructed viewing tower makes for simplified photography.

Our classiest local bird is the Great Blue Heron. 

While the Huachuchas and Chiricahuas are pretty much the top birding areas in the state, local sites of interest often include those on this list..

If you do go birding in the Huachuchas, be sure to watch out for the extremely rare white throated aerostat.

October 30, 2016
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The long awaited reopening of a local restaurant may have been marred somewhat by its new signature dish being a fried bologna sandwich.

October 29, 2016
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If you want it to, the Distiller in Acrobat will attempt to embed partial or complete fonts in your final PDF document. While this makes your delivery file somewhat longer, it guarantees that your viewer will see exactly the shapes and forms that you intended.

Even if those fonts are not available on your viewer's host device!

Not all fonts are embeddable, especially those that originally were in non-Adobe file formats. Or some fonts that may have an IP rights issue.

Any unavailable font gets substituted by Courier. Some available fonts may get substituted by a new font that tries to carefully approximates the size, weight, and slantosity.

The presence of substitutions can be found by reading the companion .log file generated during distillation.

This substitution often works quite good, as this mix of real and substituted fonts shows us. Shown are the actual formats your user will view.

Sourcecode to find your own PostScript filenames can be found here. Simply send this file to Distiller. Sorry, but the present code is not GhostScript friendly. Please email me your patches. And any corrections, or master PS Filename List additions.

But certain fonts ( such as Hobo or Revue ) will dramatically change during any substitution. Especially those that offer weird symbols rather than stock alphabets. For these, genuine Adobe PostScript fonts are a must if you feel the vibes or identities must be preserved.

Fill justification may sometimes be altered by a font substitution. But its need is largely gone with many newer web and ap formats.

October 28, 2016
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And, while we are clearing up loose ends, they just may have found Emelia Earhart. Per details here and here.

October 27, 2016
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The cause of the original SETI "Wow!" signal may have at long last been found. It turns out there were a pair of then undiscovered comets directly on the signal path that may have generated a huge hydrogen reflective path.

More details here. The culprits are now known as 266P/Christensen and P/2008 Y2 (Gibbs) .

Meanwhile, all is not lost as a bunch of new "Wow" candidates have been newly discovered. With some ongoing comments here.

October 26, 2016
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Plans are underfoot for a significant Archaeological Conference centered on Safford's Bajada Hanging Canals the weekend of December 10th through 12th.

The "usual suspects" in the way of big time archaeologists are expected to attend. You are welcome to join them.

Please email me for further details.

October 25, 2016
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Adobe recently added a CID File Format that can end up tricky to use in your own raw PostScript coding.

The format allows many more than 256 characters and is most suitable for Pacific Rim glyphs. CID use is not especially recommended if a 256 character older font can be used instead.

A CID fontname might look something like...

    /AdobeFanHeitiStd-Bold-Adobe-CNS1-0

  ... with the additional hyphenations selecting which limited portion of the total available glyphs to use.

I am not yet sure exactly how to properly code a CID font. Miscoding will let PostScript recognize the font, but substitute most characters as X boxes.

October 24, 2016
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Just added some more TrueType and other Windows fonts to our PostScript font name finder.

To use, simply send a copy of /psfontnamesnooper1.psl to Acrobat's Distiller. And it will attempt to find the exact PostScript fontnames and appearance of many ( and possibly most ) of the surprisingly high number of PS usable fonts you likely currently have available.

A sample of somebody elses' results can be found at https://www.tinaja.com/psutils/psfontnamesnooper1.pdf

The master fontname search directory can be found at https://www.tinaja.com/psFontnames.psl At present, there are nearly 4000 entries in this candidate directory.

Sorry, this is a Distiller ap that still has GhostScript issues. Your help in expanding the directory is urgently needed.

October 23, 2016
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Thought I'd start a list of eBay insider infuriations...

eBay forces an outrageously unwanted prechecked "ship foreign" box on you. ALWAYS stomp on this lousy feature!

Buyer feedback is sharply down, making getting better star ratings very difficult.

The leap from a green star to the gold shooting star always was incredibly high. Now it is largely impossible.

Repeated use of Sell Similar creates bunches of code bloat, caused mostly by force feeding of unwanted large type.

Attempting to write over large type with a smaller font does NOT remove the large type, which is near certain to return to haunt you later in annoying ways .

All a writeover does is insert a new type change command inside the oversize one.

Instead, create one or more stock templates that are free of both bloat and oversize text.

The rules on image borders are much too strict. Design related vignettes should be clearly permitted.

eBay rules on minimum orders, ( such as "minimum order four packets" ) are much too restrictive and way too awkward..

There is a Catch 22 in ratings. If you do not offer one day shipping, you are penalized. If an occasional one day shipping delay is missed, you are also personalized. A lose lose situation.

October 22, 2016
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Revised and updated our directory of local springs and tanks and related resources.

This has become more of an "aquatic resources" directory than a listing of springs and artesian sources.

It remains woefully incomplete, and I am not too sure exactly where it is headed.

October 21, 2016
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Just revised, expanded, and improved our PostScript fontname finder.

Send a copy of https://www.tinaja.com/psutils/psfontnamesnooper1.psl to Acrobat's Distiller. And it will attempt to find the exact PostScript fontnames and appearances of many ( and possibly most ) of the fonts you currently have available.

Somebody elses' results can be found at /psfontnamesnooper1.pdf

The master fontname search directory can be found at https://www.tinaja.com/psFontnames.psl At present, there are nearly 4000 entries in this candidate directory. Your help in expanding the directory is urgently needed.

The algorithm works by simply trying to use every known directory based PostScript font name and seeing which do  or do not get substituted. Amazingly, the processing time is just over ten seconds.

Sorry, but this code is presently intended for Acrobat Distiller only. GhostScript substitutes its fonts in a different and presently incompatible manner. Your help in solving GhostScript compatibility is needed.

October 20, 2016
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Managed to field check some possible branches of the Sand Tank Prehistoric Canal.

Frustratingly, the evidence is fairly weak and the best that can be said so far is that the negative evidence to date seems significantly less than compelling.

On the plus side, the candidate seems to start as a branch from a known valid canal and eventually splits at a distinct wye. It is quite long, quite linear, and has exactly the correct slope. Width is remarkably constant and consistent with known canal portions.

The sandy terrain seems very unfavorable to canal preservation and there seems to be no evidence of canal shoulders. Or, for that matter, any other rock manipulation. Also absent are any so far observable potsherds or lithics.

I still think this is a canal, but solid proof does remain ambiguous at best.

Earlier Sand Canal info here. And much more here.

October 19, 2016
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With sharply improved speeds in computers and the beginnings of the memory "Petabyte Revolution" in full swing, a mathematical stunt of "Throw another million calculations at it" now becomes eminently viable.

Or if a million calculations won't hack it, go for ten million or a hundred million. Or maybe even a great heaping bunch. No matter, since memory is now free and speed is utterly awesome. 

This concept has been the basis of many of our projects here.

One early implementation was the Fractal Fern, which used zillions of calculations to manipulate a mere 24 data points. Sourcecode is buried here.

Over and over again tireless calculations, both in PostScript and JavaScript were the key to eventually proving our Magic Sinewaves and our blinding speed Magic Sinewave Calculator.

Throwing zillions of calculations at any electromagnetic fields problem dramatically simplified the results, as shown here and here.

In fact, field solutions became so fast and simple that they even could be used in PostScript image vignetting borders. With the key tool here.

With enough calculations, bitmaps can be modified on an individual pixel by pixel basic. With our examples here, here, here, and here.

Another recent example is our Marbelous Stacks of Distorted Pancakes. Which, besides being of interest to scrapbookers, gives us a whole new method of making computer stuff look like it was NOT done on a computer. Replacing self-similarity with self-UNsimilarity.

Should you still care about code length, these utterly amazing images can be done with a mere few hundred bytes.

But the latest stunt involves finding the tricky and painful location of PostScript font names. Which you get around by throwing each and every possible PS fontname to Distiller and see which, if any, do NOT generate an error message.

Amazingly, this technique only takes ten seconds or so. With sourcecode here, an earlier demo here, and the list itself here.

October 18, 2016
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One possible route to finding PostScript font names is to take a PDF version of the file having proper font appearance, and then using Acrobat to save as Other > More options > Encapsulated PostScript or as > PostScript.

The raw PostScript file can then be plaintext viewed in Word or whoever to see how the target fonts were actually embedded.

Ferinstance, an embedded font might show up as /OIPOSL+BookAntiqua which suggests that the original PostScript fontname was /BookAntigua.

This seems to work quite well with traditional format PostScript fonts. But may not work at all on other font formats. Or on those formats where embedding is not permitted.

Acrobat's watermarking process gives a tantalizing list of presently installed font candidates. But so far, I cannot seem to access the more intriguing ones.

Please enail me with any valid PostScript font name you can find from any source that is missing from https://www.tinaja.com/psFontnames.psl

October 17, 2016
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My intent in yesterday's font filename snooper was to create a Gonzo Utilities based ap for Acrobat Distiller.

The code does not seem to work properly on the version of GhostScript that I have installed.

First, my version of GhostScript only seems to display the first of many pages.

Second, GhostScript seems to substitute fonts other than Courier, meaning that there are more results but that many of those results are totally useless in that they destroy the intended shape and "vibes" of the target font.

As near as I can tell, Distiller DOES substitute Courier as a FontName in currentfont, while GhostScript DOES NOT. A search on /Courier is the key to the present algorithm working properly.

Searching on any change rather than on "Courier" does not help GhostScript any.

Apparently, GhostScript may substitute various flavors of Helvetica to more closely match the weights and slantiness of the missing fonts.

Your attention to gaining GhostScript compatibility would be greatly appreciated. Please report your results.

October 16, 2016
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Our new PostScript font filename snooper is ready for your testing.

A demo is at     https://www.tinaja.com/psutils/psfontnamesnooper1.pdf

The sourcecode is at    https://www.tinaja.com/psutils/psfontnamesnooper1.psl

Simply send this psl file to Acrobat's Distiller and it will generate a list of all ( or at least try for nearly all ) of your Available PostScript font correct filenames, along with a display of their appearance.

The ongoing master PostScript filename directory can be found at https://www.tinaja.com/psFontnames.psl

Note that the demo will be of someone else's font availability. You have to send the .psl sourcecode to Distiller to find out the resources on your own machine.

Note also that the directory is very much a work in progress. Pasting the latest version into the sourcecode should improve the odds of finding everything. At present, the directory has nearly 3000 names, with another 1500 or so shortly to be added.

Lists of fontname hits and misses, counts, and other useful info, can be found in the output log file.

Please report any name omissions or errors to don@tinaja.com

Ongoing PostScript info and projects here and here. And some GhostScript notes here and here, and here.

October 15, 2016
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I need your help on a project.

Here is the start of what should eventually become a master list of all known PostScript fontnames. So far, there are nearly 3000 entries.

This should make finding otherwise hard to find   names a lot simpler and straightforward, besides greatly easing your own PostScript programming.

An upcoming ( working but sort of not quite done ) program needs this to let you scan a PC for all available currently linked PostScript fonts. And show their exact appearance.

Would you please...

1. Report any typos or alphabetizing issues

2. Make sure ALL your favorite PS fonts
    are present and working.

3. Report any other PS fonts not yet listed.

4. Tell me why Batang won't correctly list.

As with most of my content, the results will be made freely available and open source.

Oh yes. See if you can find the Easter egg! This one could be a most challenging font programming project.

October 14, 2016
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"Prehistoric Bajada Hanging Canals" are the subject of Thursday November 3rd Free BLM Brown Bag Talk.

BLM welcomes back local researcher and author Don Lancaster to a lunchtime brown bag lecture on the area's prehistoric "hanging" bajada canals. Thursday November 3rd at noon in the BLM conference room at 711 14th Avenue in Safford, Arizona.

Bring your own brown bag lunch and a drink. Portions of these local spectacularly engineered world class irrigation structures were literally "hung" on the sheer edges of steep sided remnant bajada mesas. The apparently brilliant purpose of hanging seemed to be to make the canal slope independent of local terrain, and was likely done for exceptional construction energy efficiency.

To date, some 75 (!) of these canals have been newly identified and their total length now exceeds 130 miles. In the Southwest, these appear to be unique to Mount Graham, although a very few others are known worldwide.

Much more on the canals can be previewed at https://www.tinaja.com/tinsamp1.shtml

An optional guided tour of BLM's Sand Canal might take place later in the afternoon. This would be an easy hike of less than one mile in Pima's Cottonwood Wash area and accessible by most any desert friendly vehicle. Be sure to wear appropriate footwear, a hat, and bring a drink.

More details on Sand Canal appear at l/field_notes/sandcan1fn.pdf

For further help, contact Don Lancaster at (928) 428 4073 or don@tinaja.com

October 13, 2016
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The latest PV pricing stats for September are in and once again show some mild decreases for some sources, and now dropping slightly to a best of 47 cents per peak panel  watt minimum.

The projected trend for the year for the best price is only five percent down.

Note that somewhere around twenty five cents per peak panel  watt is demanded for true net energy renewability and sustainability. The math behind this can be found here.

And much more here.

October 12, 2016
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Moore's Law may be in shambles.

A new approach to transistors can be done at ONE NANOMETER! One fifth the size and one twenty firth the area of today's best.

See the report here, or MoS2 transistors with 1-nanometer gate lengths in Science vol 354 Issue 6306 7 October 2016.

October 11, 2016
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A repeat of a tip to greatly ease entering eBay live links:

Copy a short existing link to your intended location. Then enter a long string of forward slashes.

Switch to the HTML mode and find the easily recognized slashes. Paste in the new URL.

Go back to Standard and correct the description. Then erase the slashes.

October 10, 2016
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Evidence is accumulating for a ninth planet.

If real, it is huge, ridiculously far out in an instance orbit, but may be tilting and even wobbling the sun.

October 9, 2016
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The all time classic reference for WWII and later radar developments was ( and remains ) The MIT Radlab Series.

All 28 volumes of which can now be found free online here.

While much of the content now borders on quaint, Ridenour's volume one on Radar System Engineering remains valid and viable to this day.

October 8, 2016
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Many thanks to Jeff Duntemann for his recent link to our website. Jeff's own site can be found here.

Jeff recently returned to Arizona. His website is big on bleeding edge software development, science fiction, odd philosophies, and traditional hobbyist electronics.

October 7, 2016
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A reminder about our classic Energy Fundamentals and More Energy Fundamentals papers.

With bunches more on similar topics here.

October 6, 2016
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Hints about some new developments in Class D audio amplifiers can be found here. These are switchmode devices that can offer extreme efficiency. As well as dramatically reducing heatsink issues.

The latest developments seem to involve adding some spread spectrum techniques that dramatically reduce filtering needs.

I did a very early story on similar techniques long ago.

It was interesting at the time the number of vehement "this could not possibly work" hate mail the story generated.

But you could easily prove it worked simply by taking any then current switchmode power supply and twisting the voltage knob in a sinusoidal manner.

More classic reprints here.

October 5, 2016
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Thought I would summarize some of our eBay selling guidelines...

Always seek out a 30:1 or higher SBR Sell Buy Ratio.

Such high SBR's are easily achieved with "contents of shelf" and "contents" of room" online auctions.

Never pay more than 67 cents for a $20 sale.

Aim for a 28 day cashout and a 15 month total sellout.

Absolutely NO foreign sales or shipments!

The minimum profitable eBay sale is $24.73.

Consignment sales have a ludicrously low SBR.

Don't sell anything you cannot hold extended at arm's length.

Try to end up with a final sales price of one sixth of the new list price.

Spend at least an hour in your image postprep Suitable tools can be found here, here, here, here, and here.

Accept Paypal only.

A gross sale of $100 per day could approach a gross yearly $35,000.00. But only with a SBR approaching 30:1.

A full time eBay venture demands something like 800 to 1000 continuous listings.

Seek out pricing info from other eBay sellers as well as here, here, and here.

Ship via USPS priority mail when and where possible.

Sell nothing that is not in your hot little hands, properly cleaned, and well inventoried.

Absolutely NO dropshitting anyplace, anytime.

Set the first few listings somewhat high, dropping to a reasonable price later.

Very few eBay sales exceed $99.73.

Twice a year, evaluate and throw away anything abysmally nonselling.

Hire an employee only when the daily shipments consistently exceed their height.

Know exactly where each and every item is located at all times.

Store listed and unlisted items in distinct and separate areas.

Keep an accurate account of how many items remain offerable at all times.

Hand label each package well before putting the real label on to avoid mixups.

Revise your description on each relist as to remaining quantity and condition.

Do not skimp on packing materials, time, or labor.

If you have a pile of near identical items, rebuild then into fewer and better ones.

Keep most inventory plastic wrapped.

Attach internal "hurricane names" to any easily confused items. Alice, Boris, Claudia...

List items as soon as possible after they are acquired. Do not let unlisted items pile up.

Offer discounts such a "buy 2 get 3" aimed at raising the per-order bottom line.

Do not use shipping costs as a profit center.

Give a full refund on the least hint of any unhappiness. Often without return. Then be sure to block the uncustomer.

Keep fixed future expenses or any ongoing commitments at a minimum.

Bunches more here. And ongoing hints here.

October 4, 2016
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Just uploaded the missing homepage link to our "Marbelous Stacks of Distorted Pancakes" resource page.

Besides being of interest to scrapbookers, this new technique once and for all solves the problem of how stuff done on a computer can literally end up looking like it was NOT done on a computer!

Sort of the exact opposite of Fractal self-similiarity. We might call the technique "self-UNsimilarity:.

Amazingly, these patterns can be done in as few as several hundred bytes. Although nobody seems to care much about code bloat anymore.

October 3, 2016
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The next time you get an annoying phone call from someone claiming to be a "volunteer for Senator Clueless Foghorn" or whatever, try this tactic..

"YES! I think I just found your problem! Thank you!"

And then hang up.

October 2, 2016
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Just uploaded what should be the start of a master open source list of PostScript font names. These can sometimes be tricky to find, and your help in adding to the many thousands already present is sorely needed.

A PostScript font name is a space-free and punctuation-free name object starting with a forward slash. Trying to guess them from their real world names can often be tricky.

Some hints: Distiller gets its list of font directories from its Fonts subdirectories. If you have Illustrator present, fontnames can be found from internal pulldown links. If you have any PDF file that has an included and embedded font present on your machine, you can use Properties/Fonts in Acrobat to read its PS fontname.

And base names appear when you add a watermark to any PDF file. By adding the watermark and using the above properties method, you can find the needed underlying PS filename.

A complete visual directory of your available fonts is essential if you are programming in raw PostScript. Here is one for my machine with comments on it here. You could also scan the complete list and see what does not come up as a Courier Substitution on your machine. More on this eventually.

You could also use the master list as part of a ps guessing game where you pick likely fontname additions and extensions.

And, oh yeah. Almost forgot. See if you can find the Easter eggs.

Much more on PostScript here.

October 1, 2016
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Here's the latest example of what our Bitmap Typewriter can do in the way of putting PostScript fonts directly onto a bitmap at the highest normal resolution and clarity.

The original subject, while quite clean, seemed to have some sort of a varnish overlay that made flash impossible and even cloudy outdoor diffuse shade erratic enough that much of the image needed redone from scratch.

The lettering in particular picked up some mysterious white speckles that badly needed repair.

This and similar offers here.

September 30, 2016
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Several of you have asked about Bruno. Bruno is the attitude relaterization facilitator for a major eBay newsgroup. As he is very big on multitasking, he also combines this with his role of being a product durability tester for a major New Jersey baseball bat manufacturer.

Bruno also does trucking for Norfolk & Waay. Norfolk and Waay, of course, is the only reputable dropshipper for eBay  sellers. This week only, they are offering free sample pallets  ( limit five ) with free shipping. From their choice of Neiman  Marcus, Land's End, Eddie Bauer, or Bruno's Trucking.

Norfolk & Waay in a Kilgore Trout sort of focus are NOT me and NOT my website. I have no idea who their webmaster is.

The Bruno pallets may occasionally include an odd body part or two. Naturally, this is normal and expected. More details here.

September 29, 2016
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It sure would be nice to use our work-in-progress Master PostScript Fontname List to instantly tell you what fonts you have presently linked and available on your machine. Along, of course, with a sample printout.

Typically, you should be able to do a currentfont /FontName get and search on Courier to see if a substitution took place. I have some code on this but it is not quite fully debugged.

Remember that you have to run Distiller from the command line and append a /F if you need to read or write disk files.

All of which I'll temporarily leave as an exercise for the student unless you crossing palm with silver.

Please email me with any missed fonts on the list.

September 28, 2016
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Added two more long forgotten entries to our all time losers list, a vehicle miles per gallon meter and a car safety radar.

The MPG meter had trouble with speed sensing, although the short-every-third-bar stripped motor commutator was sort of cute. And the flowmeter had serious problems in those pre fuel injection days. To this day, there does not seem to be too much demand for real time MPG  reporting.

The radar was based on a reflex klystron, which, surprisingly we just offered a museum quality one of on eBay. One of the neat features of X band radar is that the Doppler shifts should exactly like you would expect them to. Problems included then outrageous prices of X band stuff and a monumental lack of consumer interest.

September 26, 2016
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The little known PostScript type operator behaves somewhat atypically, but can be really useful if a proc ( such as currentoint ) returns two or more flavors of response.

type returns a procedure such as fonttype or dicttype onto the stack as an executable proc.

The only little surprise is that fonttype or dictype has not been previously described as a language command. You have to predefine what you want the proc to do.

September 25, 2016
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The latest PV pricing stats for August are in and once again show some mild decreases for some sources, and now dropping slightly to a best of 48 cents per peak panel watt minimum.

The projected trend for the year for the best price is only three percent down.

Note that somewhere around twenty five cents per peak panel watt is demanded for true net energy renewability and sustainability.

More here.

Apparently Discovery Park has discontinued their lecture series speakers starting back in January 2016.

Mostly because of heavy new commitments in STEM and elsewhere overtaxing their staff and available time.

As a participant, it sure was fun while it lasted. Most of my talks remain available on my website. These include...

Energy Fundamentals
PV Panel Intro and Summary
eBay Secrets
Mt. Graham Aerial tramway
Gila Valley Day Hikes
Little known Gila Hikes
Prehistoric Hanging Canals
Baja Hanging Canals Lecture

And four I would have liked to have done...

Magic Sinewaves
Classic Electronic Project History
Secrets of Technical Innovation
The Wikipedia Story

September 21, 2016
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Updated and improved our PostScript Sampler web page. Updated and improved our main PostScript web page.

The latter has become somewhat hard to maintain. Some of its content is sorely dated. Start here instead.

In general, access to Gonzo and visibility of the newest info has been greatly improved.

September 20, 2016
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An interesting wind tutorial can be found here. Sadly their maps and charts do not expand properly.

September 19, 2016
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Our Lagrange Bezier curve through four points demo can be found here. With its sourcecode here.

Additional useful and interesting stuff here and here.

September 18, 2016
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I've long had a Bitmap Typewriter that lets you directly insert PostScript fonts onto a bitmap. This is especially useful for eBay image editing and similar restorations. The resolution is exceptionally high and ends up the best that can be done short of subpixel techniques. A recent example can be found here.

I have long needed an internal catalog of my available PostScript fonts. Which I have newly created here and have its Gonzo sourcecode for you here.

You can easily access the internal Fontlist and edit it to create a display of your personally available fonts.

Each array entry consists of the exact PostScript font name first and its literal string definition second.

Several minor gotchas:

First, you will need a local copy of my Gonzo PostScript Utilities which you can download here and view in Wordpad. And find a use tutorial here.

Second, you will have to modify the my_fonts1.psl code to suite your local redefined Gonzo Utility location. And will have to modify the internal Fontlist array data base to match your available resources.

Third, Ghostscript works just fine with Gonzo, but the Acrobat Distiller has purposely locked you out from reading or writing disk files.

The workaround is to always run Distiller from the command line and append a /F to the filename. This will let you read or write any disk file in any language from Acrobat's distiller. Possibly something like this  only all one line...

"C:\Program Files (x86)/Adobe/Acrobat 11.0/   Acrobat/acrodist.exe" /F run

Fourth, any fonts you do not have installed or do not have properly linked, or have mistyped the PostScript font name on will substitute Courier. We saw some tricks on finding the "real" PostScript font names here. Be sure to leave any genuine Courier fonts in your data!

Much more on PostScript here. PostScript is a totally general purpose computing language that, under extreme and narrow minded tunnel vision restrictions, might even possibly be able to dirty up otherwise clean sheets of paper.

Consulting services and bitmap remediations available.

September 17, 2016
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Finding out how many fonts you have on your computer and getting a catalog of what they look like can be trickier than it sounds. We will see one new solution tomorrow.

In general, there are two different flavors of fonts. In one stash are the Microsoft and Apple TrueType fonts that are usually found by way of your Control Panel. These are fairly easy to access, sample view, and use.

Much better are the Adobe PostScript fonts which generally offer higher quality, fancier cubic spline design, and often are easily towed along in PDF documents and such so that your viewer does not have to otherwise own or access. This lets all your viewers see exactly the document appearance you are after.

In general, PostScript fonts are buried hither and   yon in your computer, and you have to tell Acrobat Distiller, GhostScript, Illustrator, or your custom PS code where to look to find them.

For instance, in the Distiller portion of Acrobat, you will find a Font Locations in Settings that might list locations such as...

C:\Program Files (x86) Common
Files\Adobe\Fonts\

C:\Program Files\Myfonts_old\

C\windows\Fonts\

C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe
\Adobe Illustrator CSS\Support
Files\Required Fonts\

If you are writing your own custom PostScript code ( as I overwhelmingly prefer to do ), one crucial problem that crops up is finding the exact PostScript font names. These are very specialized and non obvious space free name strings that can end up enormously difficult to second guess.

In general, you can find the name of a font used that was embedded in an existing PDF document by getting into Acrobat and going to File/Properties/Fonts This should give you the exact PostScript font name. Which must get used precisely as shown.

An online master catalog and sampler of all of the PostScript font names from all suppliers sure would sure be useful. Unfortunately, the above stunt does not seem to allow cut and paste. And screen dumps are painful.

Lots of oddball "free font" tricks can be found here. And here.

September 16, 2016
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Um, a certain national news anchor may need to revise their resume somewhat. As they just confused "cannibals" and "cannabis" in describing an upcoming tasting tour.

More here and here.

September 15, 2016
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There apparently were some scanner recoding errors in our classic ASCII Encoder reprint. Which now should be corrected.

Amazingly, some retro folks are newly rebuilding these.

This design was ultra cheap and ultra original but quickly got obsoleted by MOS LSI ( such as the 2376 ) which offered far fewer parts, better rollover, and enormously simplified layout. The latter because it was a recoded QWERTY arrangement rather than binary.

There was one infuriating bug on the original in which an occasional extra slash got output. I never got around to even find the cause, as the design was quickly obsoleted.

But a modern repair with compatible technology and price would involve generating a narrower delayed keypressed output. The design of which is saved as an exercise for the serious student. Hint: Add a 4016 hex Schmitt Trigger.

Many more classic reprints here. And my TV Typewriter Cookbook here.

September 14, 2016
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Much more than you could possibly ever want to know about vacuum tube design is available in this free tutorial.

Apparently some enthusiasts are now building their own vacuum tubes. And, surprise surprise, are finding enormous problems with glass annealing and achieving high vacuums. Lots of links here.

And zillions upon zillions of vacuum tube radio schematics and construction projects can be found in this ever expanding resource.

But if you really want to pick up all the inevitable classic vacuum tube hum, noise, distortion, clipping, and nonlinearities, by far the best way to do so, of course, is with a DSP digital signal processor emulation.

Shock hazard optional.

September 13, 2016
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Yet another unproven and unchecked Bajada Hanging Canal potential site can be found here.

This in the area of a mysterious triangle shaped tank. While the slope and directionality appear favorable, suitable sources and destination fields are not strongly obvious.

Your help needed on this and other exploration projects. And other neat stuffs to do can be found here.

September 12, 2016
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The very latest Apple II system software can be newly and freely downloaded here! And commented on here.

Conspicuously absent is any USB interface.

Free eBook reprints of some original Apple II docs can be found here.

September 11, 2016
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Desktop Engineering is a new and free industrial trade journal that focuses on Santa Claus Machines and emerging CAD/CAM technologies.

September 10, 2016
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Some apparently significant improvements in solar cell efficiency can be found here.

Details seem scant, but it seems to involve a concentration scheme. Meanwhile, the plain old learning curve seems to be well on track for the quarter per peak panel watt demanded for true pv renewability and sustainability.

More energy topics here.

September 9, 2016
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The latest scam The latest scam du jour seems to be trying to arbitrage by buying on eBay and selling on Amazon while working out dropshipping so you never have to touch product.

The correct name for this activity is dropshitting, not dropshipping. And the web seems rife with "haven't got a clue" get rich quick epsilon minuses.

One more time kiddies:

NEVER sell anything that is not in your hot little hands.

NEVER sell anything on eBay that you cannot hold extended at arm's length.

NEVER buy or sell foreign!

NEVER sell anything that you cannot properly clean and at least minimalist test.

NEVER pay more than a 30:1 SBR sell buy ratio. Which means absolutely, positively not more than sixty seven cents product cost for a $20 ebay sale.

NEVER accept anything but Paypal.

The best sources I have found for 30:1 SBR's and higher are "contents of shelf" and "contents of cabinet" web online only auctions from offerings that either are a sane distance from you. Or lots that are extremely light, wildly assorted, and in huge quantities.

The second best sources are rural community college auctions. With links here and here.

Much more here.

September 8, 2016
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The majority of our prehistoric bajada hanging canal projects seem based on northeast trending Mount Graham perennial streams. Or on related stream bed springs often at the contact between Precambrian gneiss to Pleistocene bajada conglomerate..

There also appears to be use of independent springs and related artesian sources, although these would presently seem to be in a secondary minority of exploitable resources. Resources that, while somewhat meager, almost certainly would not have been ignored in prehistoric times.

Some springs, tanks, and related sources might include.

THE SPRING IN SPRING CANYON - Believed to be one of the sources of Allen, Robinson, Golf Course, Freeman, and other prehistoric canals. Postulated but unproven is a watershed crossing feeder from Frye Creek. N 32.74532 W 109.84042

FRYE CREEK WATERSHED CROSSOVER - While still unproven, this link between Frye Creek and Spring Canyon would seem the most credible way the other canal routings would make sense. Such a crossover is proven on the Mud Springs canal. N 32.74523 W 109.83911

FRYE MESA TANK - Modern forest service diversion of presumed major prehistoric canal orientation. N 32.75688 W 109.83480

FRYE RESERVOIR - Modern lake and water supply project likely prehistorically bypassed by an eastern and high mesa route because of extreme typography. N 32.75383 W 109.83400

THATCHER INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TANK - Apparently modern cattle tank with no obvious prehistoric evidence yet found. N 32.81737 W 109.79906

ARTESIA AREA - Numerous artesian wells and hot springs are in the area. One is believed to be the source for the Tranquility Canal. N 32.75906 W 109.73285

DISCOVERY PARK - Seasonal ponds may or may not include underlying prehistoric field origins. Possible links to Deadman Canal or TB West Canal. N 32.79911 W 109.72818

ROPER LAKE - Developed state park fed by modern Roper Lake Canal believed derived from prehistoric Marijilda Canal. N 32.75583 W 109.70487 DANKWORTH POND - Modern recently redeveloped recreation area site of one time artesian fish farm possibly derived from prehistoric field destinations. N 32.72018 W 109.70484

LEBANON RESERVOIR #1 - One of two destination artificial lakes terminating modern redevelopment of Marijilda prehistoric canal. Used for modern farm irrigation and USFS and BLM firefighting. N 32.73457 W 109.76110

LEBANON RESERVOIR #2 - Second of two destination artificial lakes terminating modern redevelopment of Marijilda prehistoric canal. Used for modern farm irrigation and USFS and BLM firefighting. N 32.74456 W 109.74641

UPPER DEADMAN TANK - Possible destination for Deadman East Canal or part of routing for TB West Canal. N 32.75864 W 109.77036

DEADMAN MESA TANK - Appear to be historically derived from the Deadman West Canal. Still in use to this day. N 32.75261 W 109.78997 LOWER DEADMAN TANK - Possible destination for Deadman West Canal or part of routing for unproven Discovery Park Canal. N 32.77084 W 109.75139

SHEEP TANK - Possible prehistoric field site along a larger and often flowing watershed. Evidence of CCC rework also present. N 32.77103 W 109.80287

COOK RESERVOIR - Possible destination for the Tranquility Canal. Likely historic redevelopment. N 32.77476 W 109.72774

STOWE TANK - Cattle watering impoundment along the projected route of the Robinson Canal, N 32.80674 W 109.78552

DALEY HOT ARTESIAN WELL - Recently has been developed into a private homestead. Highly likely to have seen prehistoric use. N 32.79325 W 109.76586

DALEY GOLF COURSE AREA - Numerous ponds here appear to once had likely artesian or spring courses. N 32.80202 W 109.77343

RIGGS RESERVOIR - Modern impoundment along the projected route of the prehistoric Golf Course Canal. N 32.78419 W 109.77711

NO NAME RESERVOIR - Modern impoundment along the projected route of the prehistoric Freeman Canal. N 32.78851 W 109.76835

TRIANGLE TANK - Apparent historic cattle development has yet to reveal any prehistoric precedents. A suggested hint of a canal to the south has yet to be explored. N 32.81812 W 109.77814

BLUE POND - Alternate modern destination for the prehistoric Freeman Canal. Canal has been historically modified to switch between Blue and No Name. N 32.78291 W 109.77368

OXBOW TANK - Historic cattle dirt tank does not appear to have prehistoric precedents. Topography, sources, and destinations would also appear unfavorable. N 32.81740 W 109.79902

PORTER SPRING TANK - Possibly prehistorically fed off the Deadman North Canal. Near Longview Ruin and numerous aproned checkdam resources. Also a spring. N 32.77065 W 109.77795 HAWK HOLLOW TANK - Historic cattle development is clearly mid route on the Allen prehistoric canal. Numerous CCC rework projects also present. N 32.78537 W 109.83275

REAY PONDS - Seasonal ponds behind the Thatcher Flood Control structure. Evidence of prehistoric interest seems weak at present. N 32.82464 W 109.75817

THATCHER SEWER PONDS - Modern construct is a popular birding area. Very little evidence of prehistoric interest or use to date. N 32.86681 W 109.76953

REAY TANKS - Apparently disused collection of sewage ponds. Restricted area has prehistoric fields potential. N 32.81859 W 109.76780

LOWER FRYE CCC PROJECTS - Appear to be modern cross dam constructs of prehistoric feeder to Robinson Canal, Golf Course Canal, and Freeman Canal. N 32.75783 W 109.82805

MIDDLE FRYE CCC PROJECTS - Appear to be modern cross dam constructs of prehistoric feeder to Robinson Canal, Golf Course Canal, and Freeman Canal. N 32.75167 W 109.83726

MUD SPRINGS WATERSHED CROSSOVER - Proven prehistoric major watershed management project suggests absolute mastery of hydraulic technology. A second credible crossover is suggested but not yet verified in Frye Canyon. N 32.79167 W 109.85398

MYSTERY TANK - Obviously historic mud tank seems to be using the prehistoric Mud Springs Canal as its one time exclusive water source. N 32.82768 W 109.81892

MUD SPRINGS - Developed cattle tank is likely to have had prehistoric use. The Mud Springs Canal is nearby but there is no present evidence of a link between the two. Present corrals to the south suggest underlying fields. N 32.79829 W 109.84056

GOLF #1 POND - Small and isolated artesian source seems to be unrelated to nearby Golf Course Canal. N 32.80259 W 109.78083

GOLF #2 POND - Small and isolated artesian source seems to be unrelated to nearby Golf Course Canal. N 32.79578 W 109.78575

BLUE PONDS -- These are directly on the route of the Freeman Canal and may have once been destination fields. Historic rework of short canal segments is present. N 32.78293 W 109.77373

ALLEN RESERVOIR - While possibly fed only by the prehistoric Allen Canal, presently sparse or dry artesian sources may have fed this failed but once major lake. Failure docs can be found here. N 32.83339 W 109.79372

WEBSTER HILL AREA - Possible artesian sources might have been more significant during prehistoric times. N 32.85038 W 109.78940

THATCHER FLOOD CONTROL - Behind the dam area appears to have intermittent ponds that may or may not have origins as prehistoric fields. N 32.82414 W 109.75947

THATCHER HOT WELL - Artesian source just north of Gila River was recently dynamited shut in a nudes versus prudes controversy. N 32.86678 W 109.74964 WATSON WASH HOT WELL - Artesian source just north of Gila River was also recently dynamited shut in a nudes versus prudes controversy. N 32.90231 W 109.76299

CENTRAL DAM - Only hints remain of once significant artesian pond and marsh areas. Not clear whether these are modern flood control artifacts. Area behind the dam may have been a destination field for the Allen Canal. N 32.85392 W 109.79716

CENTRAL DUMP - Seasonal ponds may be modern resulting from remediation or might in fact be candidate destination fields for the Mud Springs Canal. N 32.85597 W 109.81528

PIMA DEVELOPMENT - Housing project at site of one time artesian driven gravel pit. N 32.90629 W 109.85347

ROGERS RESEVOIR - Large Pima Are impoundment seems to be in disuse. Prehistoric potential remains unexplored. Suggestive of an underlying field. N 32.87890 W 109.84532

BROWN'S TANK - One time fish farming resource in the Cottonwood Wash area. Prehistoric use remains little studied. N 32.85695 W 109.88101

CHATFIELD POND - Apparent historic development near Pima International Airport has not yet been explored. Topography would appear somewhat unfavorable towards prehistoric sources and destination fields. N 32.84012 W 109.87688

GRANDMA TANK - Large and fairly remote cattle tank in an area of possible prehistoric fields. N 32.85313 W 109.81956 CLUFF PONDS AREA - Numerous present and historic lakes appear to be fed from Ash Creek and several artesian sources. This is the largest riparian area north of the Gila. N 32.81593 W 109.85170

SMITH PONDS - These seem to be fed from spring or artesian sources and saw historic linkage to the main Cluff Ponds area. While prehistoric use remains unproven, there is a major ruin in the immediate area. N 32.82057 W 109.84248

LAMB TANK - Historic cattle development appears to be centered on and exploited the prehistoric Lamb Canal. N 32.82440 W 109.92339

SAND TANK - Apparently a modern development with a limited watershed somewhat west of the prehistoric Sand Canal. Not clear where the water came from. Little remains today. N 32.80983 W 109.94106

BEAR SPRINGS - One time hippy commune was a large artesian source, leading to the Bigler Ponds and a major mysterious historic canal project. N 32.85204 W 109.93890

BEAR FLAT - Remote and small artesian source feeds a half mile long disused historic canal that has possible but unproven prehistoric origins. N 32.79578 W 109.78575

INDIAN HOT SPIINGS - By far the largest local assemblage of springs and artesian sources. This north of the Gila and northwest of the present study area. Heavy historic and present reuse makes study difficult. N 32.99811 W 109.8978

Many local artesian sources have either dramatically reduced their presence or have dried up entirely. Likely caused in part by drought conditions and by purposeful dropping of the water table.

It would seem reasonable to speculate that many more springs and artesian sources were present during prehistoric times. Some of these are likely to have vanished completely.

September 7, 2016
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Here is a "boilerplate" template for eBay sales that can eliminate any font bloat or force fed unwanted 14 point type.

The general idea is to edit the early paragraphs from the inside, thus tricking eBay to not mess with the code.

The template also makes it obvious where to put any particular URL link.

September 6, 2016
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Adding a vsync phaselock loop to the TV Typewriter should not be that big a deal and seems like it could be done with components and technology of the era for a dollar or two.

Its advantages would be to completely eliminate any need for a hard to find crystal frequency and to get rid of any tv set induced text drift or instability. Caused by the display slightly "slipping" the power line frequency.

The obvious choice would be the MC4046 CMOS phase loop. But even a MC4013 could be used as a phase detector.

More details in my CMOS Cookbook. Autographed copies here.

The general idea is to compare the vsync output 55 against a low pass filtered and conditioned copy of the power line.

The resultant phase detection is then used to correct a voltage controlled astable whose nominal frequency is 4561.920 kHz. Thus keeping the characters locked to any inadvertent hum modulation and instability.

Some sneakiness could be used for the power line conditioning. First, filter a large ( say 30 volts ) power line copy to a 40 Hertz or so time constant to get rid of any noise distractions. Then route this signal through a 470K resistor or so into most any protected CMOS input, purposely using the input protection diodes. This should give a fairly well conditioned CMOS compatible 60 Hz square wave.

September 5, 2016
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We have a long term goal of no unhappy eBay customers, so we will usually issue a full refund with shipping over any complaint. However minor and whose fault it was.

Often without needing a return.

But a full refund is usually the only adjustment we will ever make. And, of course, we block the bidder afterwards.

We strongly feel that a SBR sell buy ratio on eBay should always be at least 30:1. Thus a $19.95 sale should always cost you less than 59 cents in original merchandise direct costs. Such margins greatly ease any problems over refunds.

And explain why drop shipping or consignment sales simply ain't gonna happen.

Much more on eBay policy here

September 4, 2016
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One of our older Gurugrams on Converting Between PostScript Strings, Integers, Arrays, and Dictionaries can be found here.

With much more on PostScript here.

September 3, 2016
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Boat anchor ancient electronics that might prove hard to pack and ship on eBay and possibly too specialized for Craig's List ( and may have zero remaining demand ) can often be dumped at your nearest hamfest.

Hamfests were swap meets long before they had swap meets.

A directory of Arizona hamfests appears here. And some national info here.

You can usually spot a boat anchor enthusiast by their exceptionally long arms.

Best times are usually very early ( for incredible bargains ) or very late ( for "don't you dare bring that trash back again." ).

The classic boat anchor support site ( with scads of manuals and such ) appears here.

September 2, 2016
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Org. Don't know if these are a bug or a feature, but a pair of eBay infuriations seems to be the cause of HTML code bloat and excessive unwanted 14 point text lines.

Firstoff, eBay very often will force feed an initial "use 14 point type" on you by bracketing your HTML code with...

<font rwr="1" size="4"
style="font-family:Arial">
      ----- your code ------
</font>

Changing this to size=3 forces 12 point instead. But more often than not, any reuse of the code will ADD a new 14 point demand on top and around the previous ones!

Thus repeated reuse of "sell similar" may generate great heaping piles of unused font bloat. And occasional maddening oversize lines or line fragments.

Use of templates does not help much because their 4000 character limits and 12 menu maximum are both waaay too low.

Finally, switching to advanced HTML can create more problems than it solves, because if you attempt to change a 14 point line to a 12 point one, it leaves the 14 point font definition intact and writes a new 12 point one inside it.

Further adding to the bloat and leaving 14 point definitions where they are likely to return to haunt you.

My solution is to write and save plain Jane HTML with wordpad and repaste it as soon as bloat becomes excessive.

Note a detail that might haunt you elsewhere: HTML allows <br> but XHTML demands <br />

September 1, 2016
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"Such thinking comes from long hours in the outhouse alone"

It also seems to me that even more excessive hype is coming down over making the Gila Valley an  "Inland Port".

Uh, "they" might have wanted to look at a map or at least payed attention to grade school geography classes for the Greater Bonita Eden Sanchez metropolitan area .

Let's see. There is absolutely zilch, zero, nada, commercially viable truck, train, or pipeline routes out of the valley to the Southwest, the West, the North, the Northeast, and the East. And the route to the Northwest is fraught with political peril. Sovereign nation and all.

The only local train ( er, one of two actually ) is a single track spur that goes pretty much nowhere over dead end right of way unsuitable for higher speeds, new multiple high profile customers, or heavier traffic .

And by simple topographic considerations, such routings would seem to be unlikely to develop sometime soon. Maybe right after the Ayatollahs Bar Mitzvah.

At first glance, Willcox would seem to be a lot better positioned along an existing high traffic train and truck corridor that clearly misses the Gila valley to the south by 45 miles.

But, if a new Southwestern Arizona Inland Port were to be considered at all, the clear winner would be Benson. Which is already on a major corridor, has two train routes, one of which is major and national, a clean shot at Mexico, and a very viable overdue potential new thruway route to the northwest.

More geographic fantasies here.

August 31, 2016
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In what to me seems as excessive hype, much noise is being made over transparent pv solar panels. Whose goal is to recover the infrared and ultraviolet energy.

Around one half the total incoming solar energy is non visual. Thus, you have to take a major hit from the get go.

Sea level desert maximum levels are about 527 watts per square meter for infrared and only 32 for ultraviolet.

Yes, conventional silicon pv has even more restrictive energy recovery fractions in that energy below a threshold frequency is ignored and any "loose change" above the critical frequency is blown as heat.

Good old e=h*nu. Plink. Plunk. Planck.

Amortization is the other biggie. At 500 watts per square meter and ten cents per kilowatt hour and five useful equivalent hours per day, each square meter of effective area generates at most a quarter of a dollar per day. Which at ten years and ten percent allows a total installed and maintained cost per meter of only $568.

Um, that would be at 100 percent efficient conversion. At ten percent, that drops to a meager $56.80

And that is only for "paint it green" breakeven that is in no manner whatsoever renewable nor sustainable.

Another crucial factor is geometry. For maximum energy recovery, you must be directly pointed at the sun, rather than off at some angle in a cloudy location. While covering windows with pv sensors works in theory, most windows are pointing in the wrong direction and thus can only recover a tiny ( and often negligible ) fraction.

There is however, great potential in making otherwise optimized pv panels transparent so they can use "bottom entry" reflective light. But this is a totally different ball game. And only buys you a few percent.

Much more here.

August 30, 2016
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Another oops: The original TV Typewriter was intended for use with analog NTSC ( Never the same color ) display devices.

All tv sets sold after June 12, 2009 use a wildly different digital standard and may not be able to present a viewable VHF RF derived TVT signal.

The obvious workaround for TVT replicators is to find and use a very old analog television as a display device. Some more intelligent computer monitors may still work, as may some versions of certain new tv's.

Alternately, you can switch to the already present TVT direct video output instead of a Channel RF one. While unlikely these days, make sure you do not run afoul of any hot chassis issues!

Meanwhile, good lists of possible TVT crystal sources can be found here and here. There are far fewer remaining sources of cheap custom frequency crystals. Most notably, good old JAN Crystals is no longer in the crystal customizing business.

Also, for ancient history folks, there should be scads of FT243 crystals still available on dusty shelves. These can be taken apart and either reduced slightly in size by polishing to raise their frequencies or literally scribbled on with a pencil to lower them. More on this insanity here.

Crystals can also usually be "pulled" by as much as one tenth of a percent in frequency by changing their load capacitance. Reliable starting may become a problem if you try to go too far.

A better approach these days might be to use a CD4046B or similar VCO, and phase locking the TVT vertical sync to the power line. This should completely eliminate any display weaving or stability problems. And not need any crystal at all!

Please keep emailing me with your TVT replication solutions.

August 29, 2016
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Links inside any eBay listing can be tricky. They are allowed only if they specifically add content or info to the exact item being offered.

The format of a link is

   Intro gohere text
   <a href="linkedsiteurl">
   <b>linkedsitename</b> </a>

              ... and it is entered from the HTML side.

All should be on a single line. One trick to find where to place a link in a bloated or long listing is to copy a short older link in the intended location, followed by a temporary string of forward slashes ///////////. Select HTML mode and the link should leap out at you.

Then edit the link and remove the slashes. Be sure to test for a working link result. For a confused viewer is a gone one.

August 28, 2016
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Some TV Typewriter replicators seem to be having trouble getting suitable crystals.

At one time, it was simple and cheap to order any custom crystal frequency. Driven mostly by ham radio and the need for industrial oddball custom frequencies.

Note that any deviation whatsoever from a reference frequency of 4561.920 kilohertz will cause unacceptable and annoying scrolling hum bars in the display of older cheap tv sets.

Also note that there was a typo in one point in the docs, but the correct above frequency is listed elsewhere.

Sources to try today include Crystek, Statek, and ICM.

Please email me if you find a reliable source.

August 27, 2016
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If HTML font issues get into your eBay listings, using "sell similar" may continue them forever.

I was having severe problems with forced and unfixable 14 point font sizes, along with extreme code bloat.

You can check for code bloat simply by viewing the listing as HTML

It would appear to pay to relist new items completely from scratch every now and then, rather than encouraging and perpetuating "sell similar" problems.

Note that bad or bloated code can only be removed from the HTML side and not the Standard side.

Creating and using one or more templates can greatly ease unwanted font issues.

August 26, 2016
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I've been long fascinated by the law of the unintended consequences.

Much more here.

Apparently a Rand Study only sees a piddling 90 percent price drop. My prediction instead is 99.8%.

August 25, 2016
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We seem to have a brand new discovery in the WOW Signal SETI category.

Chances are it may follow the original into oblivion.

Discovered here and talked about here.

August 24, 2016
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The latest PV pricing stats for July are in and once again show some substantial decreases for the more pricey sources. But remain stuck at 49 cents per peak panel watt minimum.

The projected trend for the year for one of the more expensive countries is around seventeen percent down.

But the best price remains flat at double the twenty five cents per peak panel watt demanded for true net energy renewability and sustainability.

More here.

August 23, 2016
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Let me be sure I've got this straight on the upcoming drone delivery services...

What happens bad if you throw the pizza away and then keep the drone?

August 22, 2016
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Here's the algorithm behind our self-vignetting auto backgrounder...

Starting at the west border, go east and replace the background until the first sequence of one or more continuous red=255 pixels. Include the continuous red=255's in your replacement.

Starting at the east border, go west and replace the background until the first sequence of one or more continuous red=255 pixels. Include the continuous red=255's in your replacement.

Starting at the north border, go south and replace the background until the first sequence of one or more continuous red=255 pixels. Include the continuous red=255's in your replacement.

Starting at the south border, go north and replace the background until the first sequence of one or more continuous red=255 pixels. Include the continuous red=255's in your replacement.

Scan the entire bitmap and replace any remaining red=255 pixels with the intended background. This step deals with undercuts and intentional punchthroughs.

 If background mottling is set, randomly jitter the rgb colors to the degree selected. If edge auto vignetting is selected, solve the actual and hairy full electromagnetic fields problem and darken the mottled background accordingly. Secrets of solving fields problems are found here.

For this algorithm to work without punchthru or bulldozer tracks or other rude surprises, the following details MUST be strictly attended to...

There must be ZERO red=255 pixels remaining in the original artwork. This is easiest dealt with by backing off two red clicks in Imageview 32.

An outline containing ONLY red=255 pixels must COMPLETELY and EXACTLY surround the artwork of the object to be kept. Blue or Green pixel values are ignored, and 255-0-255 purple is often a good choice.

Undercuts not reachable by the above algorithms must have ALL of their pixels replaced with a red=255 value. Intentional punchthroughs ( such as a mounting hole ) must similarly have ALL pixels replaced by pixels whose red value is 255.

It is extremely important that the source and object filenames are uniquely different.

Bleeds are not permitted. red=255 borders must be continuous and are best placed further "inside" than three or four edge pixels.

Acrobat forbids disk reads and writes unless a /F is added to being run on the command line. Alternately, GhostScript can be used.

Anything ( such as scaling or format changes ) that would in any manner change any red=255 values is not permitted between the time the marking reds are generated and used.

Subject must be cropped to the intended vignette size before running the algorithm.

Seminars, consulting services, and custom work available.

August 21, 2016
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A reminder on how to view your available fonts in Distiller.

August 20, 2016
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Here's a step-by-step breakdown on how to make a decent eBay photo. Such as for this item...

1. Shoot the item outdoors in diffuse shade using
    a tripod mounted 16 megapixel Nikon or
    equivalent camera, preferably with a shutter
    release.

2. Transfer the image as a bitmap to a suitable PC.

3. Rotate the image using Imageview32 or equal
    to get a near center vertically dominate line
    to be truly vertical.

4. Do a somewhat oversize crop.

5. Make as many exposures as are needed to
    eliminate any excessively murky or burned
    areas. Do this by adjusting brightness,
    contrast, and gamma, again with Imageview32.

6. Use Paint to paste the various images on
    top of each others. Then deal with any edge
    effects that the various exposures demand
    attention to.

7. Correct to most, and preferably all of the
    Architect's Distortion using this routine to
    make all intended vertical lines truly so.
    Note that Distiller demands a /F before
    being command line run if disk reads and
    writes are to be allowed. Alternately,
    GhostScript can be used.

8. Crop somewhat tighter, but not to final.
    IMPORTANT: Back off on the red color
    by two clicks! This is essential to prevent
    unintended background punch thru in a
    a later step.

9. Get into Paint and define a 255 0 255
    purple you will use to mark edges to
    be knocked out to. The red 255 is most
    essential, but the blue and green can
    be arbitrary. Purple works very well.

10. Start a purple outline that is truly
      vertical when and where possible
      It is of utmost importance to have
      the outline complete without so
      much as one pixel of dropout!

11. Chase the "good" parts of edges or
      lines along and over any problem areas.

12. Make any holes and such where the
      background is to intentionally punch
      thru purple. Also deal similarly with
      any undercuts that cannot be reached
      in cardinal directions from the edges.

13. Note that the quadratic Paint option
      ( second from the left ) is exceptionally
      useful to round edges and create very
      attractive transitions.

14. Deal with any burns or murky areas,
      simplifying imagery where possible.

15. Retouch heavily, but never to the point
      of misleading the condition of any
      collectible. Use a Newsweek Ad as
      a guide to how much retouch is acceptable.

16. If needed, use the Bitmap Typewriter
      to correct any lettering legibility
      problems. In less severe cases,
      trim the background to the exact
      lettering shaped. For slanty lettering,
      distort the lettering so it is rectangular,
      fix it with the Bitmap Typewriter, and
      then distort it back. Some size adjustment
      may be needed with this tedious process.

17. Verify that all vertical line are truly so
      and that there are ZERO non purple
      pixels along any edges, undercuts, or
      intentional punchthroughs.

18. Crop the image to the intended exact
      vignetting size. Pick a suitable Web
      Friendly Postscript Color. Make sure
      your size significantly exceeds eBay's
      500 pixel minimum in at least one direction.

19. Run the Self-Vignetting Auto Backgrounder.
      Note that Distiller demands a /F before
      being command line run if disk reads and
      writes are to be allowed. Alternately,
      GhostScript can be used. As before, make
     sure input and output names are different.

20. Fix any bulldozer tracks or dropouts caused
      by missed purple pixels. Verify that your
      chosen background color is acceptable.

21. Get back into Imageview32 and resize to a
      suitable value, often 1000 pixels horizontally.
      Adjust brightness, contrast, and gamma as
      needed. Experiment with two clicks of
      sharpening, but watch for any sugar.

22. Save as a JPG file to a new filename and
      transfer a backup copy to your website.  

Seminars, consulting services, and custom work available.

August 19, 2016
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One good way to increase the perceived value of most any eBay item is to add some needed but unexpected accessories.

Ferinstance, Chinese knockoff thermocouples are super cheap these days ( assuming you factor in the long delivery time ) and make a dandy value added for a temperature controller. These also make sure your buyer uses the right flavor of thermocouple needed by the controller.

Sockets that exactly fit a relay being sold should also be welcome. Especially the DIN style octal or 11 pin "octal" ones.

A cheap line cord can greatly easy the testing of most any relay or similar control device.

A fancy RLC instrument might offer a 4 point BNC input. By offering four BNC to banana adapters and some wires and a pair of alligator clips, end user measurements can be greatly simplified.

But best of all is to provide a link to an accurate data sheet for the items being offered.

August 18, 2016
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Some recommendations for assertiveness are...

  1. The best way to get something to happen
  is to ask for it.  "Please" is a power word.

 2. The best way to stop something from
  happening is to just say no.

 3. The best way to defuse an awkward
   situation is to tell them how you feel.

 4. Exactly repeating yourself a second
   or third time can be devastatingly
   effective.

 5. Should things prove obtuse after three
   attempts, use ridicule: "I'm sorry about
   your hearing problem".

The best way to tell if your assertiveness is adequate is if you have just been  arrested for aggravated assault.

August 17, 2016
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Here's some of our latest secret insider eBay selling info...

FLUSH INTERNATIONAL - eBay will continually force their international automarketing on you. ALWAYS uncheck this utterly worthless box!

AVOID CODE BLOAT - eBay tends to add unneeded fonts everywhere, so recode from scratch every now and then instead of using "sell similar" too many times in a row.

THE SLASH TRICK - Finding where to add a url is tricky, especially in a highly bloated listing. So, temporarily add a bunch of forward slashes just past where the url is supposed to go, and the position will leap out at you.

HURRICANE INVENTORY - If you have a bunch of almost identical items that can be easily mixed up, put some internal "hurricane" names on them to keep them separate. "Alice", "Bruce", and so on.

SECRET CODE LINE - Put a very fine print listing as the last line in which you code the location of the item, the internal picture url's, a succinct description, and anything else that aids the hired help.

WATCH FONT SIZES - Make sure the present font is always the one you really want. eBay tends to force feed bloated and oversize 14 points on you.

PROVIDE DATA LINKS - Always provide a way for the bidder to reach the original data from the real manufacturer.

GET CREATIVE OVER URL's - eBay will not let you link a url that does not have specific info on your offer. See if you can figure out our present workaraound.

GET CREATIVE OVER OFFCOLOR - Or anything politically incorrect that is likely to get flagged . Such as in "Kiss your onager goodbye" in describing a nuclear Holocaust slide rule .

RESEARCH ORIGINAL PRICING -- Two highly useful sources are found here and here. Also here.

Much more here.

August 16, 2016
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As we have seen, "contents of cabinet" and especially "contents of room" auction lots can be exceptional bargains.

But it is super important that you view the lots and know exactly what the room or cabinet purpose was. 

Ferinstance, a maintenance stores should have all new or nearly new stuff, while a "fix it someday" stash might  only hold abject trash. 

And hour fourteen of a three hour auction can yield exceptional bargains if the auctioneer gets further behind. Especially if it is 120 degrees in the shade and no shade except for the four inch hail. And the rabid bats are not having much luck driving the scorpions away. Plus, of course, no restrooms. 

A "bankruptcy" or "forced sale" might have bunches  of nice stuff in the stash, while an "excess inventory to ongoing options" routine sale likely only has worthless and obsolete and broken useless leftovers. 

The nature of the business also tells you a lot. Electronic components from a failed porno coin-op loop shop are less likely  to be mil spec quality than from a belly up aerospace custom supplier.

Your risk goes sharply up if you are unable to physically preview the auction. So much so, that it may not be worth the risk unless the price is exceptionally low. Even then, you have to ask why the price is low if others had the ability to preview.

Much more on our auction help library page.

August 15, 2016
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In a stunning genetics breakthrough, they have discovered that socks are the larval form of the coat hanger. A dark closet is apparently required for metamorphosis. More on similar topics here.

August 14, 2016
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It is interesting to review how much technical writing has changed in the last few decades. The key rule these days is to think like a cartoonist. Frugal. Compact. Succinct.

Naturally, nobody pays for writing any more. The  real world return for tech writing has dropped by an unconscionable factor of TWENTY or more. Despite ridiculously improved quality and presentation.

Writing is also insanely more competitive than it once was. Instead of half a dozen other authors in a magazine, you have half a million or more on the web. 

A norm for a seventies story might have been 3000 words and five figures. These days, nobody will sit still for such a morass of detail. A thousand words is seriously pushing it. 

"Bite Size" short paragraphs dominate. Each separated by  once excessive leading. Fill justification is long gone. Hanging punctuation generates a blank stare.  Bolding and color changes have replaced underlining and italics. And fonts are no longer a big deal. They are just "there". 

Some became better. Full color is the norm with zero cost  penalty. There are fewer size restrictions and any figures can be placed exactly where you want them rather than forward or back referencing.

Most significantly, the author now can be in total control of what goes where on the page. A practice utterly unthinkable back in the days of hot lead. Proofs? Sorry, but the deadline was too close.

Vertical scrolling is trivial, but horizontal scrolling or  multiple columns have become extremely annoying. 

Stories can now be the size that need to be. Instead of heavily edited to fit columns of editorial space.  Magnification is trivial. Both for additional figure detail or for handicapped accessibility. 

There are far fewer deadlines and those that remain are more flexible. Full text searching is a given. Links, of course, are a must. Both to more detail and more fundamental tutorials. 

The two styles are easily compared. With "old way" methods here and here. And "new way" layout schemes here and here. 

August 13, 2016
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A reminder that MIT has course materials freely available either online or as downloads for hundreds of their offerings. As do many other major institutions. There's no credit nor any instructor contact, but pretty near everything else is there.

One slight gotcha on your first downloads. All the first pages are nondescript and suggest a near empty file. Simply go to page two or scroll down to get to useful content.

August 12, 2016
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A new and nearby Earth Like exoplanet has just been discovered here.

Only slightly over four light years away.

More exoplanet resources here and here.

August 11, 2016
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Many years ago, a certain New York editor who had never been off the block at Lawn Guiland visited a Texas ranch.

He was amazed at how greasy the sheep were and asked why they greased their sheep. The ranch hands had a big laugh over this and tried to explain lanolin.

Then they moseyed up the draw to  the cow oiler.

August 10, 2016
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A useful rule at live auctions: Always stay three to five lots ahead of the auctioneer! 

This lets you be in the auctioneers face on any lot you want to bid on. You also "beat the crowd" to the best location to get your bid recognized.

Force them to come to you. 

This also says you should not pay much immediate attention to a won lot. Celebrating or making a side sale or worrying about security may trick you into forgetting completely a better upcoming lot buy.

More on auctions in general here. And your own regional custom auction finder can be built for you per the details here.

August 9, 2016
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A slowdown in your comm speeds over time can usually be traced to Ethernet Tokens that are either corroded or grime covered.

The usual treatment is to use Brasso. But a better long term solution is to gold plate the tokens and then flash overplate them with a few microinches of rhodium.

August 8, 2016
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Once again expanded and updated our Gila Valley  Dayhikes page. We are now up to 465 main entries, most of which now include GPS location links. 

Also added this link to hiking projects that can let you contribute to world class research.  Please email me with anything I missed or that needs  further updating.

August 7, 2016
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After decades of neglect, Eastern Arizona College is sort of backing back into offering electronics technology.

There days by way of some funding for some Fab Lab courses. Both as an AMT110 classroom and as AMT211 and related labs.

Present focus does seem very heavily on AutoCad. My own preference, of course, is to use the infinitely superior raw PostScript instead. I'd hope they would also pick up on such things as Santa Claus Machines and Raspberry Pi's as well.

They apparently reserve the right to charge extra if you excessively profit from the course.

August 6, 2016
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Org. Got yet another email from someone about to revolutionize electrolysis and would I please recommend a highly qualified yet low cost electrochemist within six  blocks of Holt County, Nebraska.

One more time: There is a profound and fundamental first principle of thermodynamics called "exergy" that absolutely and positively GUARANTEES that electrolysis from high value sources such as grid, pv, wind, or alternator flat out ain't gonna happen.

The process would be exactly the same as 1:1 exchanging US dollars for Mexican Pesos. There ALWAYS will be more intelligent things to do with the electricity than immediately and irrevocably destroying most of its value.

Just for kicks, try finding an electrolysizer manufacturer sometime. Even if you find one, they certainly will not tell you how much their products cost, and absolutely will not sell one to an individual because of safety and liability issues. The reason being that exergy limits such devices to highly unique, specialized, and obscure industrial uses.

Virtually all bulk hydrogen gas is produced from hydrocarbons. The amount produced by electrolysis is utterly negligible and limited to exceptionally specific needs where system efficiency and costs are not major design factors. 

Exergy is a measure of the present quality and value of an energy source. You measure exergy by converting that  source to another form, converting it back, and seeing how much you have left. Resistance room heat is a classic  example of horribly wasted exergy. 

Electricity is about the highest exergy stuff available. Unstored hydrogen gas has exceptionally low exergy. Electrolysis is the process of converting many high value kilowatt hours of energy into fewer very low value kilowatt hours of energy. 

And, thus, is normally and monumentally stupid. 

As such, electrolysis clearly will forever remain totally incompatible with efficient and sensible alternate energy solutions. 

And that is before abysmal system efficiencies, amortization, or stupidities ( such as stainless steel electrodes with its hydrogen overvoltage of iron ). "Real" electrolysizers demand platinized platinum electrodes that are regularly renewed.

Does exergy mean that solar to hydrogen via Faraday's Law  is never gonna happen? Not at all. But it does GUARANTEE that conventional high value electricity will definitely NOT be  a mid process energy state.

Once again, our bottom line summary:

 If you do not understand exergy, you should
 not be pissing around with electrolysis.

 If you do understand exergy, you will not
 not be pissing around with electrolysis.

Either way, the outcome is not the least in doubt. More can be found here,here, and here.

August 5, 2016
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Shocking.

I just found out that many of the New Mexico subastas are going to be sold at auction!

Even worse, "slippery slope" issues may also endanger  a large number of the licitacions and even the almonedas. 

Thankfully, eBay sales and shipping to New Mexico aren't  quite as bad as they used to be. Yeah, there is still the  language barrier and the hassles at customs.

One main problem was that of all the New Mexico truck  tires are all a different size and spacing, so everything  needed  reloaded at the border crossings.

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

August 4, 2016
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Two "sort of no longer there" Arizona semi ghost towns are Nothing and Nowhere.

These are about sixty miles apart by way of easy and excellent lightly traveled fully paved mid-elevation roads.

Which raises the obvious possibility of a Nothing to Nowhere bicycle tour.

More off the wall stuff to do here.

August 3, 2016
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A curious fact: Any perpetual motion machine that includes a 555 timer electrocity is bogus and nonfunctional. No exceptions to this rule have ever been found.

Which saves you bunches of time discrediting a perpetual motion machine, for if a 555 timer is present, there is absolutely no point in continuing. Guaranteed.

After reviewing a bunch of recent candidates, the usual  problem is that narrow pulses are exceptionally difficult to properly measure. I've dealt with this here, here, and here.

The key gotcha is that any spike or narrow pulse has an exceptionally high ratio of rms to average value. And  even though correctly measuring rms instruments have finally become readily available, the overwhelming majority of lay members of the Church of the More Recent Crackpots continue to mislead themselves by still using average reading instruments.

Even if you have a "real" rms meter, there's a  secondary gotcha called the crest factor that still will nail you to the wall. Multiply two big numbers together and they become a huge number. Waaay beyond anything analog can deal with.  Exceed the crest factor and the instrument will still read deceptively low.

A fascinating supply of totally worthless overunity devices can be found here on a continuous basis.

More on pseudoscience bashing here.

August 2, 2016
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A new map of the newly expanded Safford and Thatcher Urban multi use trails can be found here.

Parts of it may be in error or at least awkward to use, especially along US 70. Present length is around twenty miles. Pima extensions and 8th street portions have yet to be built. More stuff to do here, here, and here.

August 1, 2016
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We picked up a bunch of classic aerospace piezo accelerometers and are now offering them on eBay. We do not have the proper tools to fully check these, so they are guaranteed but you test.

The Endevco 222D Piezo units have a special M3 subminiature connector that connects to a provided matching low loss cable that in turn ends up with a "10-32" style connection.

Fancy interface techniques are needed to bias, charge condition, resonance handle, and low frequency ac filter these units. A very useful free tutorial of what is involved can be found here,

It seems a preliminary check on at least some of the units can be done by connecting them to an oscilloscope without bias and then mildly "thumbnail shocking" them. The scope display should moderately jump around if the unit is likely to work when properly connected.

These classic vintage transducers are normally outrageously expensive. A company called Bracke seems to have the 10-32 connectors for around $13 each.

The transducers are often mounted with white beeswax. We include some from our local health food nut store.

July 31, 2016
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One of the most confusing things about the .BMP Image Format is its sometime need for padding bytes.

The rule is that each new pixel row must start on an EVEN 32-bit boundary. Since three does not divide by four all that well, the end of each row will need 0, 1, 2, or 3 padding bytes added.

Here is one method using table lookup...

/padding xpixels 4 mod
[ 0 3 2 1 ] exch get store 

And another using base 4 arithmetic...

 /padding xpixels 4 mod
4 sub abs 4 mod store 

Much more detail here.

July 30, 2016
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Turns out the Lopez Canal appears to be a bulldozer track instead.

While very few Acme Mapper hanging canal leads fail to become useful, the very few losers to date include...

Lopez Lead
Jacobson Lead
Ringcone Lead
Lower Mud Lead

And this just barely needing further research....

Discovery Park Canal

Much more here.

July 29, 2016
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Some significant improvements in Lithium Ion battery technology are presented here.

The claim of a much higher energy density seems much too good to be true. However; incremental improvements can certainly and reasonably be expected.

July 28, 2016
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The original CK722 Germanium Transistor project book is now available for free web download.

The neat thing about the CK722 was that its leakage was so mesmerizingly awful that you did not have to bias it. Just capacitor couple an input or some feedback into the base.

As a result, it usually did not matter in the least how you connected it or biased it. Generally, no matter what you tried, it sort of did something.

Sort of. More or less. Kinda.

July 27, 2016
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I guess you cannot exactly call it a spectacular engineering failure, but all is currently not well with the new Blue River Fish Barrier.

It seems that their companion "anti scour structure" just exceeded their wildest expectations. But only by something around five orders of magnitude.

The Allen Dam failure here. And related similar stuff here. But my favorite two disasters here and here.

July 26, 2016
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Some of the many advantages of magnetic tomcats include:

(a) They will point north if you pick them up by the tail

(b) They store easily overnight on the side of your refrigerator;

(c) Herding cats is a lot easier if they are all oriented in the same direction.

And, of course...

(d) You can levitate them by using an appropriately powered electric blanket.

More on totally unrelated topics in MARCIA.PDF.

July 25, 2016
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Local EMT lore has it that a South Phoenix free clinic was having all sorts of problems with prescription pads getting stolen.

Sure enough, a pharmacy called later wanting to verify that they had prescribed a "gallon of more fine".

July 24, 2016
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Well, maybe just the punch lines...

"The koala tea of Mercy is not strained".
"The thong has ended, but the malady lingers on".
"Pardon me Roy, is that the cat that chewed your
 new shoes?"
"Its a Hickory Daiquiri, Doc."
"Rudolph the Red knows rain, dear".
"Poncho Villa" is an emergency rain shelter for NM
 hikers.
"It's a knick knack, Patti Whack. Give the frog a
 loan".
"Its the only trick I know, Sis."
"People in grass houses shouldn't stow thrones"
"Couldn't hit the barn side of a broad"
Geologists recognize sedentary, metaphoric, and
 ingeneous rocks.
"Old MacDonald Farm computer interface is now
 an EIE I/O".
"Tarzan stripes forever"
A furry with a syringe on top. ...
Handle so long no insect can "Fly above Cayuga's
 swatter"
"The vet had to charge for the cat scan and the lab
 tests"
"Crossing a state lion with a gull for immortal
 porpoises"
"Opporknockity tunes but once."

Plus, of course...

"The squaw on the hippopotamus hide equals the
 sum of the squaws on the other two hides."

July 23, 2016
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Just noticed that there was a fundamental design error in our Decimal Counting Modules. It is not clear why the units worked at all. But tens of thousands were shipped without complaint, and ongoing design revisions apparently eliminated the problem.

The even bus transistor Q2 never receives zero base current needed for turnoff! Worse yet, there are times when the substrate ends up forward biased in IC4.

Apparently the balancing resistors ended up doing more than just reducing the sneak path problem.

The workaround is to add one resistor or two series base diodes. Or else use a NPN transistor inverter rather than a RTL one.

Don't want to rush these things. Sorry about that.

July 22, 2016
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Among those of us that were there at the time, it was absolutely and unquestionably clear that "something" was happening. We did not have the faintest clue what that something was, and we referred to it simply as "IT".In which it did not matter in the least "what good" something was or whether it had any use whatsoever or was ultimately capable of being profitable.

"Stuff" was now possible that never could be done before. To be followed shortly by infinitely better stuff.

The tasks simply had to be done. And the very best of today absolutely had to be done in by a better tomorrow.

July 21, 2016
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One of the things I still do not understand to this day is the vehemence which the concept of putting letters onto a tv set was attacked. Many, many individuals in many different fields clearly wanted the concept to fail.

At the time, nobody said anything bad about someone who wanted to piss around with toy trains, while everybody and his brother clearly ridiculed the dual concepts of computing for the sake of computing and putting text on video displays.

The first clue that "they" were dead wrong were the walk in orders for the TVT docs. Until that time, Radio Electronics never had a walk in order and did not have the faintest clue what one was.

While the spotlight eventually had to be shared with the Mark 8 and the Altair, and later the Apple I, the TVT when first published was by far the most popular hobby electronic construction project of all time.

And is considered by some to be the opening shot fired in the personal computer revolution.

July 20, 2016
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There seems to be some interest in recreating authentic original TV Typewriters, with some circuit boards possibly available from this source.

Amazingly, typos in the docs are still arriving. The correct crystal frequency is 4561.920 kHz.

The integrated circuit technology at the time was incredibly primitive and the design ended up far beyond bleeding edge.

The only economical memory chips at the time were bucket brigade shift registers that approached the demanded penny per bit surplus in their "huge" 512 bit packages.

Among their other bad features were the horrendously high supply voltage that was hard to drive and interface; being unaddressable meaning that you had to wait forever for your bit to come around in its queue before you could use it; and only guaranteeing one tenth the needed minimum dropout time required by vertical retrace.

Memory mapped I/O that drew no distinction between graphics and alphanumerics was still years away as, among other teething problems, it needed a minimum of at least ten times the memory storage.

You want a font? You got one. Fixed size and upper case only, of course.

July 19, 2016
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This dollar each Fairchild FL77944 chip should utterly and stunningly revolutionize LED dimming. But outside of that, it has the potential ( when wildly abused ) to single handedly create the groundswill of popular demand required to revive a color organ renaissance.

The chip requires very few external parts and uses an incredibly complex algorithm that selectively switches LED's in or out depending on the instantaneous amplitude of the ac waveform.

Advantages for rev 756.1 Color Organs are minimal RFI, low parts count, and extreme linearity. You do have to carefully match the chip to the exact high number of LED's in use and do have to provide input ground isolation with a suitable optocoupler from a filtered pwm analog source.

A history of color organs can be found here. With good old number one here.

July 18, 2016
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Here's yet another eBay photo that did not turn out all that bad. Its problems included transparency and high contrast.

The perspective correction was done manually instead of using our usual Architect's Perspective routines. A double exposure was done to very much brighten the black parts.

The thickness portions of the plastic parts was redone to eliminate distracting glare and erratic lighting. And a rare white vignetting background was used to give credibility of what should be partially seen through the transparent parts.

Consulting services and seminars available.

July 17, 2016
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The latest PV pricing stats for June are in and show some substantial decreases for the more pricey sources. But  remain stuck at 49 cents per peak panel watt minimum.

The trend for the year for the more expensive countries is around twelve percent down.

This is slightly under twice the price needed for ultimate renewability and sustainability. More here.

July 16, 2016
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Speaking of bloat, I am sometimes asked about our present listing of potentially 75 Bajada Hanging Canals of possibly 130 miles total length.

There is not the slightest doubt that there is both an "adequate supply" and a "great heaping bunch" of these stunning world class discoveries.

The count does include something like ten percent of losers that did not work out. Such as cattle or ATV trails that fell apart after attempts at field verification. With the intent of not rediscovering the same problem more than once.

There are also canals with missing segments whose ends might end up with temporarily different names. Ferinstance, the Frye Mesa Canal is also the HS Canal and more than likely the Riggs Braids and the Golf Course Canal.

But I strongly feel that the present listing is an accurate representation of the present canal discoveries. The field verified total length estimates are always left most conservative.

Presently, we only have a dozen or so verified field notes. But our main present goal is to precisely document all 75 listings in one manner or another.

July 15, 2016
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On eBay, if you continually and repeatedly reuse the "Sell Similar" feature, you may ed up with bunches of code bloat, mostly involving all sorts of unused font statements. And also possibly making unexpected font choices ending up in exactly the wrong places.

It seems to me to be a good idea to "reset to zero" and purposely hand code a new listing every now and then. Another trick that may help sometime is to copy the listing to Wordpad and newly repaste it into your intended new listing.

July 14, 2016
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Local lore has it that the spring thaw is possibly just around the corner, with the worst of the ice is out of the Gila River. All of which has somewhat dampened enthusiasm for afternoon Bajada Hanging Canal explorations.

New to be checked is the possible Lopez canal #75. So far it only exists on Acme Mapper. It has a source and destination and is straight enough and long enough with just the right amount of highly consistent slope.

On the other hand, it is somewhat north of the other canals, does not look quite right, and likely will be tricky to prove its prehistoric origins.

Also in the seldom visited area are mysterious and little explored ponds that might include duck habitat. I'll try to add these to our Gila Valley Dayhikes after they can be verified.

July 13, 2016
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A typical service manual for a newer HDTV intelligent television can be found online..

The all digital systems are totally unrelated in any manner to classic analog tv.

Speaking of which, most schematics for most classic electronics can be newly found here.

If you are really into this sort of stuff, you will know what the filament tap on a 35Z5 was intended for.

July 12, 2016
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But the secret big picture that is supposed to be learned from sneak paths is that your first attempt at any product development WILL be wrong and WILL have to involve major rework.

The rule is that the first 90 percent of any project takes up 90 percent of the available time. So does the last 10 percent.

Some dated but still potentially useful comments on product development in general in our Blatant Opportunist library.

July 11, 2016
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One of the things they forgot to tell you about in Electrical Engineering school were sneak paths. Which became a very rude surprise in my early development of our decimal counting units.

Suppose you have a 5 x 2 array of light bulbs and you power one row and ground one column. How many bulbs will light?

The answer with some hindsight: All of them! One to full brightness, a companion to annoying brightness, and the remaining eight rather dim.

The full bright is what you'd expect. Say it is bulb 0. Bulbs 2 and 3 are in series. 4 and 5 are in series. 6 and 7 are in series. 8 and 9 are in series. And all four of these groups are in parallel with each other. With ONE HALF the resistance of a single lamp!

All of which taken together end up in series with bulb #1. Thus bulb 0 lights full, bulb 1 almost full, and all of the others end up barely dim. With the perceived results related to bulb nonlinearities.

There was an obsessive goal of ten dollars per decade, so the crude and ugly early fix was to add a pair of 33 Ohm balancing resistors. These ended up making all unwanted lamps more or less uniformly dim at a cost of heat and increased power dissipation.

The rule is this: Any time you have a row and column array, you have to provide non linear elements at each crossing to minimize or eliminate sneak paths.

Eventually we ended up using NPN transistors behaving as paired diodes for a sneak free and lower power solution.

Related sneak path problems can be found in the "n key rollover" problem of a keyboard. In which three pressed keys can create a fourth virtual closure. Sneak paths can become downright deadly in higher voltage applications.

We never were able to get under $12 per decade with incandescent lamps. But we did use a sneaky meter trick ( stolen from Hewlett Packard ) to actually hit a $10 per decade solution.

The rest is history.

July 10, 2016
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Our latest addition to our Gila Valley Dayhikes page gives some fascinating hints on the Bob Brow Saloon Safe. AKA the Seymour gold.

Which is one of the very few Arizona Lost Treasure stories that seems to have enough credibility to still be reasonably recoverable. And perhaps worth some effort.

The safe most likely headed straight down, helped along by the 1890 Walnut Grove Dam Disaster. Which was somewhat comparable to the Johnstown PA Flood in the same time era. But did not receive nearly the press. Nonetheless, this was the worst Arizona disaster until two planes crashed in the 1950's. Mexicans and Indians, of course, were not counted in the fatalities, so the reports ended up way low.

A favorite part of the story was that the town drunk was sent out to spread the alarm, but decided that a good stiff drink was first in order.

July 9, 2016
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What if you have a bunch of "not quite" identical units you want to sell on eBay? Perhaps differing in condition, their accessories, or subtle features. How do you prevent shipping mixups?

One simple solution is to attach "Hurricane Names" to each unit on small stickers. Alice, Barbara, Claudia, etc.. Also list these names into your inventory controls ( You DO have these, of course ), and code them into the individual listings themselves.

July 8, 2016
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Assume you are an intern working on a SETI program at a somewhat advanced civilization on Iota Rectuli IV.

Strong evidence of rocky planets have recently been discovered nearby in a minor arm of your own second rate galaxy sometimes called the "Milky Way". A mere sixty light years or so away.

Amazingly, one of these planets suddenly and recently became a "radio star" with substantial output at the VHF frequency range. Your recent careful analysis has shown detailed comb structure with strong harmonics related to both 60 Hertz and 15.750 kilohertz.

Between the latest of advanced signal processing algorithms and some exceptionally rare viewing conditions, out pops a perfectly lucid and clear ten second video clip of ROLLER DERBY!

As the sum total of everything known about human civilization. We can assume that "Captain Video" and "Kukla, Fran, and Ollie" are yet to be discovered.

What report, if any, would you submit to your supervisor?

July 7, 2016
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A reminder that we have a huge pile of premium grade VFD motor drives up on eBay at astonishingly low prices. Many major brands to hundreds of horsepower. These appear to be unused. But we will only fully guarantee them to be reasonably serviced.

The larger units have two gotchas: First, we have no way to test them, so these are strictly you test. Second, owing to a palace revolt still in process, there is no way that we will pack these hundred pound plus beasties.

So, our nearest pack and ship service is four miles away and you will have to work directly with them or a competitor . Or use one of the uShip alternatives from 85552.

Or do a local pickup only. The units easily fit a small pickup or medium SUV. A Uhaul site is nearby.

July 6, 2016
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Yeah, but what about way back when?

My bio can be found here, with a historic third party version here. And an unauthorized autobiography here. There were mostly books, construction projects, tutorials, and columns. The biggie project being the TV Typewriter, which others have called the opening shot fired in the personal computer revolution. But the decimal counting units were much more of a cash cow.

Online versions of some of the books can be found here, with autographed copies of others still available on our eBay site.

The worst of Marcia Swampfelder can still be found here.

Reprints of most of the projects can be found here, some of the books here, and many of the columns here. And videos here. And the patent here. And reasons to NEVER patent anything here. And a thesis here.

July 5, 2016
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Yeah, but what have I been up to lately? Here's a summary of some current projects...

PREHISTORIC HANGING CANALS - Now up to 75 of these stunning world class constructs with a total length well over a world class 130 miles. Now definitely in need of extensive help.

MAGIC SINEWAVES - Obtuse math discoveries have led to digital sinewave generators with astonishing low distortion and impressively high efficiency.

MABELOSITY - Sneaky way of faking book cover marbleizing techniques can lead to profound "Does not look like it was done on a computer" effects. All done with a pile of distorted pancakes.

BEZIER CUBIC SPLINES - Sophisticated solutions to high quality graphics. Latest studies also involve Lagrange Polynomials.

GILA HIKE DIRECTORY - Many hundreds of largely unknown dayhike projects. Including some very obscure ones.

THE USUAL SUSPECTS - Plus continuing research and ongoing interests in PostScript, Patent Avoidance, Pseudoscience Bashing, Marcia Swampfelder, eBooks, Classic Reprints, firefighting, pv solar breakeven tracking, GuruGrams, auctioneering, our blog, the ISMM, energy, the hydrogen debacle, videos, tech innovation, and, of course, eBay.

July 4, 2016
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Once again, we definitely and desperately need your help on various canal projects. Especially if you are the type of hiker that brings along your own catclaw, just in case there is not enough along the route. The word "trail", of course, is not in your vocabulary.

Cash in small bills would also be nice, among with any extra drones you might want to discard in my driveway.

Speaking of which, funding and completing an aerial survey of all 130 miles of the 75 bajada hanging canals would certainly be welcome.

July 3, 2016
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A reminder to always lie like a rug on those "surveys" that prevent you from accessing newspaper stories or similar publications. Be sure to tell them the EXACT OPPOSITE of what they supposedly want to hear. The goal being to make their mesmerizingly awful results totally useless.

Always answer "Pepsi" as your favorite brand of  smoke detector.

And "ketchup" any time you need to fill in the blanks.

July 2, 2016
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The latest eBay infuriosity is that they will repeatedly and continuously try to force feed you their international shipping service. You have to unclick it each and every time.

 At least for us, foreign sales make no sense whatsoever.

If you are good at domestic sales, you do not need them. If you are failing at domestic sales, they will not help you in the least.

To us, the bottom line is that foreign sales simply are not worth the problems they demand...

~  Foreign sales invite ripoffs and scams.
~  Shipping costs are higher.
~  Fulfillment takes much longer.
~  Closure takes ridiculously longer.
~  Delivery times are a joke
~  Theft is endemic.
~  Stiff fees for currency conversions.
~  Our suppliers contractually forbid such sales.
~  Shipping damage is more likely
~  Honoring guarantees is cost prohibitive.
~  Keytowing to bureaucracy NEVER pays.
~  Communications barriers create problems
~  Lying on green slips is an international crime.

And most of all...

~  Certain countries ( most especially Canada )
  are CERTAIN to cause you grief.

July 1a, 2016
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Google Maps and Google Earth ( And including Acme Mapper ) have just announced a very major upgrade to their available satellite data with much higher resolution.

The only tiny detail buried in the fine print is that most of the high zoom, high resolution settings derive their data elsewhere than satellites.

Thus, recent high zoom viewing has not gotten any better.

July 1, 2016
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The missing "Golf Course Road Gap" in the Gila Valley's multi purpose trail system has just been completed.

The route now extends from North of Discovery Park to Daley Estates to EAC. Per this map.

More Gila Valley things to do here.  And here.

June 30, 2016
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One of the projects that has fallen by the wayside from way back in our PostScript Desktop Publishing class was a resume that answered the question...

"what if ONE single individual was responsible for each and EVERY major industrial disaster over the past few decades?"

This would be an obvious candidate for an onion satire. Couched in words like "proven ability to provide a commanding media presence", a deeper investigation into his employment history would include being an ethics officer for Enron, honcho of the FEMA rapid intervention team, did tanker safety training for Exxon, fire prevention for Yellowstone Park, system monitoring supervisor for Chernobyl, was a Union Carbide tank inspector in India, ad director for New Coke, etc... Possibly even starting out as an Edsel intern trainee.

What would your input be for several employers of his and the related job titles? email me.

June 29, 2016
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It is the greasy whistle that gets squeaked.

June 28, 2016
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There seems to be quite a bit of confusion over exactly what either regular or super capacitors can do in the way of energy storage for vehicles and such.

The bottom lines are (1) while the power density of the latest capacitor developments are becoming impressive, their energy density remains uselessly bad. And (2) A capacitor behaves wildly different than a battery when it comes to charging or discharging of its internal energy.

A pure capacitor obeys the law i = c (dv/dt) or its  integration of v = (1/c) integral i (dt). Capacitors MUST be strictly current driven. 

Attempting to instantaneously apply a voltage to a capacitor will cause an infinite or near infinite current and a possible explosion.

All a capacitor knows about is whether there is an incoming or an outgoing current that will alter its internal charge state. Terminal voltage is the result of the current integrated charge state.

The energy storage of a capacitor is given by w = (1/2) Cv^2. Thus the stored energy of a capacitor goes up with the square of its terminal voltage. The stored energy is measured in Joules where a Joule is one watt second.

There are 3,600,000 Joules in a kilowatt hour. Meaning that today's capacitors cannot remotely approach the energy demands of long distance personal vehicle use. But they certainly are of  interest for a few seconds of passing power or regenerative braking storage.

Another misconception is that capacitors and  batteries are in some manner similar. Most batteries maintain a pretty much constant voltage as electrochemical conversions take place during charging and discharging.

Plain and simply, capacitors do not regulate worth a damn.

With capacitors, instead of a constant terminal voltage, the stored charge is proportional to the square of the terminal voltage. Or the voltage goes up as the square root of the stored charge.

A full or an empty capacitor will thus have wildly different terminal voltages.

Any attempt to charge a capacitor from a resistive  source or an ordinary generator will result in one half or more of the energy being lost inside the generator's internal resistance.

Efficient charging and discharging of capacitors requires a switchmode scheme where voltage is transformed to an inductor's current and the inductor's current is then repeatedly sent to the capacitor. One name for such a circuit is a transimpedance converter.

Transimpedance converters must obviously work over a very wide voltage range. A 2:1 range converter can only use 75% of the possible stored charge. A 3:1 might  approach 89% of stored charge. And that would be for ONE optimal input or output level. Any real world use would call for dramatically wider control ranges.

Any capacitor (and especially a supercap) has a definite maximum terminal voltage that must never be exceeded. Traditionally, good engineering practice leaves at least a 50% margin between normal system voltages and the allowable maximum.

June 27, 2016
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( Please read yesterday's entry first )

Continuing our Gauss-Jordan tutorial, but this time the Jordan part. When we last left off, we had a ( relabeled ) array of...         

[  1    c01  c02  c03  c04  j05 ]     
[  0     1    c12  c13  c14  j15 ]     
[  0     0      1   c23   c24  j25 ]     
[  0     0      0     1    c34   j35 ]     
[  0     0      0     0      1      z   ]

where cxx is the row and column coefficient for the left side equation terms, and jxx is the similar row and column coefficient for the right side equation term.

The usual way to solve this is by back substitution. Start off with y = j35 - z*c34 and so on. And then work your way up a row at a time, making more complex calculations until you have v through z all solved.

The Jordan approach starts off the same way, but it works one column at a time, greatly simplifying computer programming. Especially if more than one n x n equation set is to be accommodated.

The rule is that any constant can be subtracted from one term in the left side of the equation if the same constant is subtracted from the right side of the equation.

Subtract z*c34 from row 4...

[  1   c01 c02 c03 c04 k05 ]     
[  0    1   c12 c13 c14 k15 ]     
[  0     0    1   c23 c24 k25 ]     
[  0    0     0     1     0     y   ]     
[  0     0    0     0     1     z    ]

So far, no as the usual back substitution.

We now can observe y by inspection The difference with Jordan is to continue with columns instead of rows. Modify the rows by subtracting z*c24, z*c14, and z*c04 to get...

[  1   c01 c02 c03   0 m05 ]     
[  0    1   c12 c13   0  m15 ]     
[  0     0    1   c23   0  m25 ]     
[  0    0     0     1     0     y   ]     
[  0     0    0     0     1     z    ]

Next, modify column three by subtracting y*c23, y*c13, and y*c03. And then column two by subtracting x*c12 and x*c02. And finally column one by subtracting w*c01 to get...

[  1     0   0     0     0    v   ]     
[  0    1    0     0     0    w   ]     
[  0     0    1     0     0    x   ]     
[  0    0     0     1     0    y   ]     
[  0     0    0     0     1     z   ]

Your values v through z are now instantly readable by inspection!

Once again, the Jordan method takes just as many calculations as back substitution, but it greatly simplifies computation in that loops do not have any multiple calculations or complicated cross-coefficients in them.

June 26, 2016
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Finally figured out what the "Jordan" part of Gauss Jordan elimination is all about. Turns out that while there are just as many calculations that are just as complex as plain old back substitution, those calcs lend themselves to much simpler and more easily automated computer loops.

Consider five linear equations in five unknowns...

A0*v + B0*w + C0*x + D0*y + E0*z = K0
A1*v + B1*w + C1*x + D1*y + E1*z = K1
A2*v + B2*w + C2*x + D2*y + E2*z = K2
A3*v + B3*w + C3*x + D3*y + E3*z = K3
A4*v + B4*w + C4*x + D4*y + E4*z = K4

While all sorts of solution methods exist, we seek one that is computationally efficient. If we dink around with some manipulations ahead of time, we can eventually end up with a solution that will be obvious by inspection!

Arrange the coefficients into a group of arrays...

[A0 B0  C0 D0 E0 K0 ]
[ A1 B1 C1 D1 E1 K1 ]
[ A2 B2 C2 D2 E2 K2 ]
[ A3 B3 C3 D3 E3 K3 ]
[ A4 B4 C4 D4 E4 K4 ]

The rules for our "Gauss" part of rearrangement are that any row can be scaled by any constant term by term without changing the results. And that any row can be subtracted from any other row term by term and substituted. Again without changing the results.

In interests of sanity, let "~" be any coefficient that resulted from previous manipulation.

[ 1 ~  ~  ~  ~ ~  ]
[ A1 B1 C1 D1 E1 K1 ]
[ A2 B2 C2 D2 E2 K2 ]
[ A3 B3 C3 D3 E3 K3 ]
[ A4 B4 C4 D4 E4 K4 ]

Scale the top row by A1 and subtract it from the next row down and replacing...

[ 1 ~  ~  ~  ~ ~  ]
[ 0 ~  ~  ~  ~ ~  ]
[ A2 B2 C2 D2 E2 K2 ]
[ A3 B3 C3 D3 E3 K3 ]
[ A4 B4 C4 D4 E4 K4 ]

Similarly, scale the top row by A2 subtract it from the middle row. Then scale by A3 for row 3 and A4 for row4...

[ 1 ~  ~  ~  ~ ~  ]
[ 0 ~  ~  ~  ~ ~  ]
[ 0 ~  ~  ~  ~ ~  ]
[ 0 ~  ~  ~  ~ ~  ]
[ 0 ~  ~  ~  ~ ~  ]

Now, scale the second row down by its first nonzero coefficient...

[ 1 ~  ~  ~  ~ ~  ]
[ 0 1  ~  ~  ~ ~  ]
[ 0 ~  ~  ~  ~ ~  ]
[ 0 ~  ~  ~  ~ ~  ]
[ 0 ~  ~  ~  ~ ~  ]

Next, force zeros in the second column the same we did with the first, but using the second row for subtraction and substitution...

[ 1 ~  ~  ~  ~ ~  ]
[ 0 1  ~  ~  ~ ~  ]
[ 0 0  ~  ~  ~ ~  ]
[ 0 0  ~  ~  ~ ~  ]
[ 0 0  ~  ~  ~ ~  ]

Keep working your way through the array, this time scaling the third row down by its first nonzero term and then using scaled subtractions to zero out everything below in the same column.

Eventually, you should end up with...

[ 1 ~  ~  ~  ~ ~  ]
[ 0 1  ~  ~  ~ ~  ]
[ 0 0  1  ~  ~ ~  ]
[ 0 0  0  1  ~ ~  ]
[ 0 0  0  0  1 ~  ]

This completes the Gauss part of the process. The lower right squiggle will be z by inspection!

From here, we can use back substitution or the Jordan scheme. More on Jordan tomorrow.

June 25, 2016
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Once again expanded and updated our Gila Valley Dayhikes page. We are now up to 456 main entries, most of which now include GPS location links. 

Also added this link to hiking projects that can let you contribute to world class research. Please email me with anything I missed or that needs  further updating.

June 24, 2016
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It's been a long time since we last looked at the Magnetocoloric Effect. Turns out this amazing technology now has at least one commercial room temperature vendor and might finally be about to turn the corner on economic viability.

Some metals, and most especially Gadolinium will get warm in a magnetic field and then release this heat when the field is removed. Letting you move heat from point A to Point B. Such as in an air conditioner or a refrigerator.

The theoretical limits of the technology are potentially much more efficient than conventional vapor compression and expansion, and Global Warming issues seem far lower.

Since HVAC is obviously due for some major and significant energy breakthroughs, this may be a game changer.

June 23, 2016
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Just added a whole pile of Allen Bradley ( now Eaton or Rockwell ) motor controls to our eBay site. Sizes include NEMA 2, 3,  and 4.

We also have three huge vector drive three speed motor controls at a tiny fraction of their near 10K list prices. There are several gotchas: While we believe these are "near new" and fully functional, we have not tested them and will only guarantee them to be capable of becoming fully serviceable and as described.

Also, these beasts are both delicate and heavy, and we just do not want to get into packaging them for reliable shipment. Thus they are offered local pickup only. FOB 85552,

There is a pretty good pack and ship place down the street, and uShip should offer several options as well.

IF you are a vector drive technical specialist, this should be an outstandingly good deal.

June 22, 2016
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I still cannot seem to find any historical references to the shingle mill in Shingle Mill canyon. It turns out these mills are usually rather small, consisting mainly of a three foot diameter unprotected circular saw blade.

Some fascinating videos of these have been made by steam tractor restoration enthusiasts.

Shingle Mill Canyon does not have a bottom as it morphs into Merrill Wash. The best lead I've found would put the mill halfway up in the Hulda Gap area. But there might not be enough water here for the presumed steam engine. And delivery to Pima would be awkward at best.

Cedar shingles can also be made by using a hand maul and splitter. But the usual precuts would not seem at all compatible with the Lumber Tramway.

Can you find some references here?

More on similar topics here.

June 21, 2016
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Order mixups are a bad scene all the way around. It pays to set up all sorts of double checking by at least two people to avoid problems. Your 30:1 Buy/Sell Ratio does give you a first order of defense against an occasional mixup.

Writing the full customer name on the box where the label will eventually go is a good idea. We just had a mixup involving two orders whose first name both were "Carl".

Placing a copy of the sender and intended address inside the box on pricier items is also a very good idea.

Trying to get items back or exchanging them is usually bad news. IF one of the two recipients has not yet received their half of the mixup, you sometimes can ask them to refuse their delivery.

If you send something to the wrong person, they are in every manner entitled to treat the item as a gift. And are under no obligation whatsoever to do anything that in any manner would correct the problem. Especially on their own cost or initiative.

If the items are fairly inexpensive and you have lots in stock, comping a new shipment makes by far the most sense. If you are out of stock, a  prompt refund of all costs is a very good idea.

Chances are the customer will be back when they get to keep some unordered free stuff.

Telling both customers the email address only of the other might get they to exchange parcels after your total refund. But be sure you are out of the loop. Because neither is under any obligation whatsoever to take any action or trust the other.

Even on a costly item, issuing an immediate refund to the real buyer and prepaying return shipping to the wrong one is a very good idea. With, of course, the fastest possible emails that explain what is coming down.

Should you actually get the item back, and should it pass a very careful inspection, you can always try re offering it to the original buyer. Whoever sent the thing back to you deserves something extra, such as a ten dollar gift certificate.

But only on receipt, of course.

Above all, find out why the mistake was made and take steps to correct similar future problems.

More on similar topics in our Auction Help page.

June 20, 2016
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At least one eBay seller is completely honest when they stated " Buyer is responsible for all fright arrangements".

Which should become a classic right up there with the long ago offered swash stickers.

June 19, 2016
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New ideas are just like pancakes or children.

You should always throw the first one away.

June 18, 2016
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Overheard some alternate energy enthusiasts who were lavishly praising Sterling engines as the ultimate solution to low delta-t energy recovery.

It quickly became obvious that they did not have the faintest clue of the underlying thermodynamics or economics.

To date, the Sterling engine has been one of the largest and most monumental engineering ratholes of all times. Here is why...

Carnot Matters -- There is a fundamental and  unavoidable law of thermodynamics that says  the best possible efficiency of any heat engine  is proportional to the absolute temperature  delta fraction. Thus your best possible efficiency  a 20 degree rise at 70 degree F room temperature   would be 20/(459+70) = 3.8 percent. And no  real world system can be even this good.

Efficiency Matters --As efficiency goes down, the size and complexity of the energy recovery device will disproportionately increase in a  hyperbolic or worse manner for a given set of recovery values. Which is why absolutely free pv solar panels of less than six percent efficiency are totally commercially useless. 

Amortization Matters -- If your energy recovery device is producing an average of two cents worth of electricity per day and your total cost of ownership is three cents per day, you have a gasoline destroying net energy sink. The longer you run it, the more gasoline you destroy.

Gotchas Matter -- A Sterling engine needs a special part called a regenerator. Regenerators have to be long and thin and short and fat. They also have to be very good conductors of heat and outstanding insulators. Extreme engineering compromise is needed and nobody has come up with a good regeneration solution to date. Much more in our Energy Fundamentals tutorial.

June 17, 2016
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It is interesting to rearrange our Bajada Hanging Canals by watershed. Which suggests several conclusions...

FIRST- virtually every drop of northeastern Mount Graham water was apparently fully exploited. Helped along by an artesian source or two. And by an aqueduct, stunning watershed crossings, huge cuts, and counterflow techniques.

SECOND - the project appears to be complete, with no obvious water sources remaining unused or unexploited.

THIRD - Everything seems "perfect" with no obvious mistakes, errors, or work in progress. Nothing apparent seems to have interfered with the project during its creation.

FOURTH - The takeins all appear to be perfectly situated where the perennial water would disappear today at the junction of the mountain's gneiss and the valley's bajadas. Suggesting climatic factors similar or slightly wetter than today.

FIFTH - Almost without exception, the routes all followed the highest possible routings, carefully traversing "pinch points" that clearly defined the only possible routes.

SIXTH - Illusions of "water flows uphill" are found in many places. Indicating an absolute mastery of maintaining consistent and optimal canal slopes.

SEVENTH- When appropriate, the canals are all purposely "hung" on the edges of gently sloping but steep sided remnant bajada mesas. Two credible reasons are that a hung canal can have a slope largely independent of its terrain and that most hung construction effort can be made across, rather than along the canal route. Both of which suggest extreme attention to construction energy efficiency.

EIGHTH - The engineering involved appears to be many orders of magnitude beyond normal riverine canals such as those of Phoenix area Hohokam.

NINTH - Bajada hanging canals appear very rare elsewhere. While there are prehistoric pre-Aztec and historic Canary Island Levada examples, temporal instances in the American Southwest of comparable complexity and sophisticated engineering presently appear to be largely unknown. Which suggest that the Mt. Graham technology may have uniquely evolved in place.

TENTH - Mount Graham is the highest mountain in Arizona when measured from its Basin and Range base. Its collection of numerous reliable northeast trending and bajada terminating streams grouped together appears to be unique to the Southwest, and possibly to the world.

ELEVENTH - Whatever caused the canals to cease to function almost certainly must clearly have been cataclysmic and catastrophic.

TWELFTH - Given the riverine Gila River canals, strong population pressure or other compelling factors must have contributed to the need for the major time and effort that went into the hanging bajada canal program.

THIRTEENTH - 250 man years might appear to be a baseline for the time involved. This estimate can be based on a modern person using prehistoric tools being able to build something like one foot per hour.

FOURTEENTH - These findings provide evidence in the form of agricultural intensification and settlement that points to a socio-political organization based on the collaboration and collective action of small corporate groups rather than a more complex social stratification and socio-political structure

FIFTEENTH - No survey instruments are known to survive, strongly suggesting the possibility of miniature preliminary routings being used as static water levels. Many of the canal routes are visible from elevated points on the mountain, indicating possible "aerial photography" techniques.

SIXTEENTH - Present "score" is 75 study areas of interest for at least 135 miles of total reach. Significant lengths go three to eight miles.

SEVENTEENTH - Also woefully understudied in the area are totally separate riverine canals, extensive world class grids and fields, pueblo and fieldhouse sites, aproned checkdams, and mulch rings.

Here are the studied watersheds from southeast to northwest...

Stockton -    Stockton Canal?

Veech -        Veech Canal

Jacobson -    Goat Canal
                     Ledford Canal

Jennings -    Jennings Canal

Marijilda -    Marijilda Fields
                    Marijilda Canal
                    Marijilda Aqueduct
                    Lebanon High Canal
                    Henry Canal Branches?
                    Henry's Canal
                    Sixpack Canal  
                    Roper Lake Canal
                    Rincon Canal?  
                    TB East Canal  
                    TB West Canal  
                    TB Ponding Area

Tranquility-  Tranquility Canal

Deadman -    Main Deadman Canal  
                     Deadman East Canal
                     Mystery Feeder Canal  
                     Discovery Park Canal?

Frye Creek - Frye Watershed Diversion
                     Lower Frye Mesa Complex
                     Robinson Canal  
                     HS Canal  
                     Riggs Complex
                     Golf Course Canal
                     Blue Ponds Canal
                     Freeman Canal  
                      Longview Canal?

Spring Can -   Allen Canal  
                      Culebra Cut
                      Upper Frye Mesa Complex

Ash Creek -   Mud Sprigs Watershed Crossing
                      Mud Springs Canal
                      Troll House
                      Jernigan Canal
                      Smith Canal
                      Cluff SW1 Canal?
                      Cluff NW1 Canal
                      Cluff NW2 Canal  
                      Cluff Diversion

Shingle Mill  -  Minor Webster Canal
                        Tugood Canal

Lefthand     -    Spear Ranch?
                        Main Lefthand Canal
                        Lefthand Feeder Canals
                        Lefthand West
                         Lamb Tank

Bear Springs -  Bear Springs Canal
                        Bigler Canal
                        Bear Flat Canal

Nuttall          -  Watershed Crossing?

Carter           -  Carter Canal
                        Nuttall Canal
                        Sand Canal

Taylor           -  Taylor Canal
                         UFO Fish Fillets?

Tripp Canyon  - Tripp Canal

More info here and here.                   

June 16, 2016
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The latest PV pricing stats for May are in and show some substantial decreases for the more pricey sources. But remain stuck at 49 cents per peak panel watt minimum.

This is slightly under twice the price needed for ultimate renewability and sustainability. More here.

June 15, 2016
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There is more hydrogen in a gallon of gasoline than there is in a gallon of liquid hydrogen.

Similar factoids at https://www.tinaja.com/h2gas01.shtml

But the ultimate factoid anyplace ever is probably that the Canary Islands were named after a large dog.

June 14, 2016
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I'll be doing  talk on the Mount Graham Aerial Lumber Tramway at the Thursday June 16th meeting of the Gila Valley Hiking Club at 6 PM in the BLM/CNF meeting room at 14th Street and 8th Avenue in Safford.

The meeting notice...

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

Local author and researcher Don Lancaster will give a short talk on the Mount Graham aerial lumber tramway.

A replica of the original history of the tram can be found as part of https://www.tinaja.com/glib/tramshow.pdf. Fascinating engineering aspects of the tram are found in https://www.tinaja.com/glib/gramtram.pdf while a rare photo collection can be viewed in the Pima Museum whose website is http://easternarizonamuseum.com/

Additional local hike related topics can be found at Don's https://www.tinaja.com/gilahike.shtml and https://www.tinaja.com/tinsamp1.shtml and https://www.tinaja.com/glib/unusualh.pdf .

June 13, 2016
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Google Earth has a seldom appreciated history feature in which you can purposely look at older satellite imagery. You can click on Edit View History for access. Then swipe in the upper left corner of the image.

While the general quality and resolution improves with newness, certain older mappings can sometimes be very useful. Ferinstance, the new canal discovery at N 32.82996 W 109.92808 looks best with the 2011 imagery!

The canal footprints change with season and time of day, so it pays to check all the way back on any search. Three years ago, we had a bloom that uniquely filled the fine grained canals with dead flowers. For a glorious few weeks, previously unknown canals became glaringly obvious.

June 12, 2016
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A new hundred feet of bajada hanging canal has been field verified at N 32.82996 W 109.92808.

It is small but obvious and seems single walled. There are some Mesquites midstream. No obvious potsherds in the area.

Three photos can be found here, here, and here.

This, along with Acme Mapper suggests that the Sand Canal may start with a combined Nuttall and Carter Canyon flow at N 32.81895 W 109.94256

There are hints of a second and third branch at N 32.83441 W 109.92705.

June 11, 2016
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As we have seen, there is a very simple and easy math way to draw a cubic spline through four points that involves a beastie called a Lagrange Polynomial.

Simply create the polynomial and then convert it into a Bezier Cubic Spline. Such as this PostScript Routine for this plot.

Although I don't have any immediate proof, I also suspect that the Lagrange fit gives the "shortest" and "smoothest" as well.

I am most surprised this sneaky trick is not better known. Although these papers seem to dance around the issue.

The nasty habit of Lagrange growing useless "ears" does not set in till well above a cubic, so this seems to not be a factor.

One restriction is that this super easy and super sneaky method does not preserve initial slope. But as we have seen earlier, an infinite number of different cubic splines of different entry slopes can be created through four points.

Which suggests modifying Lagrange by some sort of complicated multiple approximation converging routine that both matches the initial slope and preserves going through four points.

I'll save this as an exercise for the student. Unless you want to go into a "Crossing palm with silver' mode.

June 10, 2016
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Acme Mapper also hints there is a second or even a third branch of the Sand Canal...

http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=32.83377,-109.92638
&z=16 &t=H&marker0=32.83441%2C-109.92705%2C9.2%20km%20S%20of %20Graham%20County%20AZ&marker
1=32.83487%2C-109.92639 %2C9.2
%20km%20S%20of%20Graham
%20County%20AZ&marker2=32.83495
%2C-109.92671%2C9.1%20km%20S%20o
f%20Graham%20County
%20AZ&marker3=32.83518%2C-109.92549
%2C9.1%20km%20S %20of%20Graham
%20County%20AZ&marker4=32.83303
%2C-109.92810%2C9.4%20km%20S%20of
%20Graham%20County
%20AZ&marker5=32.83024%2C-109.93014
%2C9.7%20km%20S%20of%20Graham
%20County%20AZ&marker6=32.82903

This would seem similar to the Jernigan Canal splitting off the Mud Springs Canal.

Again, not yet field verified. But our ratio of hints to eventual solid ground evidence remains well above ninety percent.

June 9, 2016
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The "anvil test" for camp coffee...

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

June 8, 2016
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The latest imagery on Acme Mapper strongly suggests that the Sand Canal has a takein source surprisingly far to the west in Carter Canyon using Nuttall Canyon water...

http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=32.83162,-109.93094
&z=15 &t=H&marker0=32.83245%2C-109.92408
%2C9.4%20km%20S %20of%20Graham
%20County%20AZ&marker1=32.82771
%2C-109.93197%2C10.0%20km%20S
%20of%20Graham%20County
%20AZ&marker2=32.82368%2C-109.93555
%2C10.5%20km%20S%20of %20Graham
%20County%20AZ&marker3=32.81901
%2C-109.94166%2C11.1%20km%20SxSW
%20of%20Graham%20County
%20AZ&marker4=32.82993%2C-109.92821
%2C9.7%20km%20S %20of%20Graham
%20County%20AZ&marker5=32.82125
%2C-109.93777 %2C10.8%20km%20S
%20of%20Graham%20County
%20AZ&marker6=32.82544
%2C-109.93389%2C10.3%20km%20S
%20of%20Graham%20County
%20AZ&marker7=32.83508
%2C-109.92273%2C9.1%20km
%20S %20of%20Graham%20County%20AZ

Much of this still needs field verified. Some implications of this find include that unproven but postulated Nuttall Watershed Crossing may not be needed at all and that the UFO Fish Fillets are now close enough to the canal complex that they should be included in their study.

More hanging canal stuff here.

June 7, 2016
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A simple test in Google Earth can greatly strengthen or weaken a long linear feature being or not being a prehistoric hanging canal.

Check the altitude along several points and see if you have a uniform and consistent dropping slope in the neighborhood of one percent.

Sudden drops or uphill portions, of course, are not permitted. Unless they are latter day damage artifacts.

BTW, GPS altitude measurement is exceptionally inaccurate. Better grade GPS receivers instead use a much higher resolution barometric pressure sensing instead. One typical instrument is the Garmin Etrex 30 or newer.

Barometric pressure, of course, is weather sensitive. One workaround is to measure an exactly known nearby altitude and then differentially correct.

Another sneaky trick is to find your local history of barometric pressure versus time. Here in Safford, we seem to consistently have a flat daily high at 8 to 9 am and a flat daily low at 4 to 5 pm.

Making your measurements at either time should help minimize weather effects.

Sometimes a level ap on a smartphone can also be useful for differential level measurements.

June 6, 2016
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A reminder that the insanely powerful ability of PostScript to read and write any disk file in any language has been default disabled in recent versions of Acrobat Distiller.

This incredible ability is super useful for modifying bitmaps, as is done in our Bitmap Typewriter, our Architects Perspective, and our Self Vignetting Autobackgrounder.

Its abuse potential is also totally off the wall.

It also lets you simply run our Gonzo Utilities with only a few bytes of code, rather than needing to tow the whole program along each time or having to excerpt crucial code.

At any rate, the seldom and poorly documented solution to restoring Distiller file reads and writes is to run Distiller in Windows from the command line using...

"C:\Program Files (x86)/Adobe/Acrobat 11.0/
Acrobat/acrodist.exe" /F /R run

 ...without the carriage return and with the /F trailer. Modified, of course, for your particular file locations.

June 5, 2016
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The following bajada hikes could greatly assist world class research on the hanging canals. Typical total and return lengths are one to three miles, often in very difficult or brushy terrain. Needed are field verification, photos, and GPS coordinates...

DEADMAN EAST - Evaluate the Acme Mapper suggestion of a canal between N 32.75284 W 109.78537 and N 32.75679 W 109.77612. Find link to main Deadman west canal. Find out how water gets off the mesa. Find destination. Save energy for the steep return trip.

VEECH CANYON- Flag a feasible route through heavy brush from N 32.65007 W 109.73410 to N 32.64348 W 109.74235 Evaluate presumed canal further south to N 32.64252 W 109.74288. Optionally determine if linear features around N 32.64276 W 109.74087 are natural or man made.

MUD SPRINGS - Working north from the fence at N 32.79167 W 109.85383, and following the canal, try to find the missing portions as you approach resumption at N 32.80451 W 109.83872. A SUV shuttle eases the return.

FRYE WATERSHED DIVERSION - Try to prove or disprove that Frye Mesa water was routed into a watershed crossing (!) canal from N 32.74422 W 109.83930 to N 32.74472 W 109.83843 to N 32.74555 W 109.84016.

FRYE PINCH POINT - Try to verify a hanging canal portion from the pinch point at N 32.74747 W 109.83897 to N 32.75114 W 109.83728 or N 32.75128 W 109.83736

ASH CREEK SOURCE - Starting under the fence at N 32.79167 W 109.85383 try to find the takein somewhere near N 32.78767 W 109.85468 Tropical Storm Octave may have obliterated any trace of this obviously used routing.

MINOR WEBSTER - Starting north from N 32.79790 W 109.87270 and following the canal, determine where and why it changes from historic to prehistoric construct architecture. Follow further north to try and determine destination. Avoid getting close to private property.

TUGOOD SOUTH - Starting with the canal at N 32.81338 W 109.86993, trace it south to try and find a takein between Shingle Mill Canyon and Merrill Wash, possibly around N 32.79074 W 109.88925. Canal Portions are under the road, and others may have been obliterated by tropical storm Octave.

TUGOOD NORTH - Starting with the canal at N 32.79074 W 109.88925, trace it north to see where it goes. Try to find its field destination. Avoid any private residences.

FREEMAN MID SECTION - Starting at N 32.78744 W 109.76588, trace the canal North to where it likely disappears at N 32.78988 W 109.76252 and resumes at N 32.79066 W 109.76163.

ALL LEDFORD & GOAT- Centering on N 32.68640 W 109.74308 , survey photograph the extensive hanging canals. An ATV might be useful, as might a drone. Many trips will be needed.

MISSING MUD SPRINGS - Find out how the Mud Springs Canal gets from N 32.83062 W 109.81560 to N 32.83878 W 109.81128.

MID GOLF COURSE - Attempt to prove that the Golf Course Canal routes from N 32.79832 W 109.78278 to N 32.78187 W 109.78707 Otherwise find an alternate mid routing.

ALLEN DESTINATION - Find out where the Allen Canal goes north of the slight saddle at N 32.83347 W 109.80302 You might have to start at the more obvious Culebra Cut at N 32.83567 W 109.79810.

MUD SPRINGS DESTINATION - Find out where the Mud Springs Canal goes north of N 32.84797 W 109.81104.

ALLEN MESA FAL- Find out how the Allen Canal gets from N 32.81187 W 109.81131 to N 32.83398 W 109.79544

NUTTALL WATERSHED CROSSING - Determine if a prehistoric watershed crossing is physically possible at N 32.77780 W 109.95534 Seek out evidence that it did or did not occur. Latest evidence has made the need for this crossover somewhat less likely. But it still needs checked.

HENRY'S EXTENSIONS -- In and around N 32.73702 W 109.74305 need  explored and documented. It is not yet clear whether Henry's Canal starts at N 32.73709 W 109.74241 or if it has a still Marijilda feeder.

LAMB TANK CANALS - Rumored canals in this area have yet to be verified and documented. In and around N 32.82184 W 109.92386

SAND TANK BRANCHES - Explore one or more possible canals in the area of N 32.83082 W 109.92993 and N 32.83455 W 109.92705.

JERNIGAN GAPS - Find the missing canal portions from
N 32.83182 W 109.81814 to N 32.83662 W 109.81509
and N 32.84139 W 109.81261 to N 32.84201 W 109.81443

STOCKTON PASS WASH - Seek out evidence of prehistoric canals, especially near to N 32.61789 W 109.72822 and N 32.61979 W 109.72836 Note that these only show up on high magnification.

Please send results to don@tinaja.com or (928) 428-4073.

June 4, 2016
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The way to tell an extroverted engineer: They stare at your shoes, rather than their own.

June 3, 2016
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The fencepost problem strikes again. It takes ELEVEN fenceposts spaced by TEN feet to cover a hundred feet!

If they are uniformly internally spaced, data storage in a  Magic Sinewave may not be optimal. Instead, a "log" approach where each value is some percentage of its neighbor might be more effective.

Ferinstance, 40 log spaced amplitudes and 40 log spaced frequencies might end up just as good as 100 linear of  each. But only need 0.16 times the storage Besides producing more uniform changes for system stability.

Note that 10^(1/39) is 1.06081836  and that 100^(1/39) is 1.12533558. Note also that these are nominally six and twelve percent changes. 

Thirty nine trips plus your starting point is forty.  With these sequences generated on repeat exponentiation for a 10:1 and 100:1 range... 

1.00000 1.06082 1.12534 1.19378 1.26638
1.34340 1.42510 1.51177 1.60372 1.70125
1.80472 1.91448 2.03092 2.15443 2.28546
2.42446 2.57191 2.72833 2.89426 3.07029
3.25702 3.45511 3.66524 3.88815 4.12462
4.37547 4.64158 4.92388 5.22334 5.54101
5.87801 6.23551 6.61473 7.01703 7.44379
7.89651 8.37676 8.88622 9.42667 10.0000

1.00000 1.12534 1.26638 1.42511 1.60372
1.80472 2.03092 2.28546 2.57191 2.89427
3.25702 3.66524 4.12463 4.64159 5.22334
5.87802 6.61474 7.44381 8.37677 9.42668
10.6082 11.9378 13.4341 15.1177 17.0125
19.1448 21.5443 24.2446 27.2833 30.7029
34.5511 38.8815 43.7548 49.2388 55.4102
62.3551 70.1704 78.9652 88.8624 100.000

Consulting services available.

June 2, 2016
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My earliest exposure to anything remotely resembling a computer was a useless IBM beastie and some analog  non-starters at otherwise superb Lafayette. 

Followed by some BASIC timesharing.

But I guess my first foray into original and hands-on programming took place on an Olivetti Programma 101.

Followed later by an Interdata 1 with a whopping 2K of system RAM. And of course, the quantum leap in going to the personal and incomparably stupendous KIM-1. 

The first Olivetti project was a simple mortgage calculator. At that time, nobody knew the deep dark secret that by tripling or quintupling up on utterly small early principal  payments, you could ridiculously shorten the loan time and the amount of total interest paid.

The second project directly led to our Musician's Pitch  Reference. in PE. The question to be asked was "What is  the best possible 8-bit sequence to synthesize an equally tempered top octave music scale?

The subtle and non trivial answer was 116-123-130-138- 146-155-164-174-184-195-207-219-232.

Equally tempered musical notes are separated by the highly irrational factor of 1.05946309 in frequency. Known to its many friends as the twelfth root of two.  AKA six percent if you ignore sour notes.

At the time, I thought I was doing unique and original research. But MOS Technology had to be working on something similar leading up to their MK50240. Which had the unspeakable luxury of using a 239-253-269... nine bit sequence instead.

And the JAES paper apparently appeared much later.

Modern synthesizers use a separate generator for each polyphonic note. The top-octave-and-divider scheme  used for electronic organs incurably lacked a richness of locked together octave phasing and presented background noise and crosstalk problems with all of the unkeyed notes. Besides needing a keyer for each possible note.

  More here and here (see page 50.2).

June 1, 2016
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Some lessons learned during our initial drone debacle:

We are now into third generation drones whose sophisticated capabilities might end up totally unsuitable for your goals.

Used was a specialized ag drone intended to map a rectangular field over a preprogrammed GPS set of parallel routes. This eliminated any high bandwidth data link and did not need any heavy gimbles as the images were always pointed straight down.

Both of which made for reduced weight and bird complexity and consequential longer flight times.

There was no known HDTV real time link to the ground as the repeat images were simply recorded to the internal camera memory. And then ground processed later with an incredibly sophisticated stitching algorithm.

Thus "follow the canal" with real time flight path adjustments was simply not possible. We also made the mistake of starting from the unknown end of the survey area where the canal was not at all  obvious. And failed to show up on the stitched route maps.

It was also not clear how to extract the data associated with each image. Needed were lat, lon, altitude, time, and orientation. Somehow this data was extracted by the elaborate stitching signal processing.

We'll note in passing that there are several methods of directly annotating a .jpg file.

Drone projects beyond 2000 feet may prove a problem, as may losing the drone as it vanishes off the edge of a mesa. Any wind at all can also trash preprogrammed flights, so early morning is a must.

Bottom line: You must know your drone capabilities. As must the drone operators. And your flight goals should certainly be far in bounds for the resources at hand .

May 31, 2016
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Here is a Gonzo PostScript program of using the Lagrange Method to draw a cubic spline through four points.

The actual demo appears here. This method is extremely simple and fast and gives both the "shortest" and "best" route to four point Bezier curve fitting. But does not preserve any previous exit angle slope.

More here and here.

May 30, 2016
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"Truth is stranger than fiction" gets even more bizarre  when you wander into Western New Mexico. 

The Brushy Mountain Radar Station is South of Mule Creek at the end of a secret mountain laboratory road whose access is easily controlled. It likely started life as a  cold war facility and presumably still sees use for drug interdiction activity.

Little known is that it includes oversize kitchen and dormitory facilities. It was supposedly used as a remote retreat by both the Kennedy and Johnson presidential administrations. Since then it occasionally has seen such nefarious uses as BLM team building exercises.

BUT and IF you needed to stash some super secret stuff ( such as, say, some extraterrestrial aliens ), the facility is virtually ready to go.

Even stranger is nearby Terror town, once known as Playas.  This began as a company town for a long defunct smelter and was bought by a New Mexico school and funded by the Department of Homeland Security for a training facility for counterterrorism and urban hostage situations. 

More here, here, and here.

May 29, 2016
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A guided tour video inside a giant wind turbine can be found here.

More wind stuff here. More on energy here. More neat places to explore here.

May 28, 2016
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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 ridiculously more valuable than a kilowatt hour of unstored hydrogen gas. 

3. There are EIS or Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy     instruments 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. and because of its low energy and low area passivated surface. Special Platinized Platinum Black normally is required for efficient devices and demands careful repeated renewing.

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 mismeasure the energy in pulse waveforms. So much so that this is Beginning EE Student Blunder 001-A. Such measurement is almost always ridiculously low.

8. It is similarly trivially easy to mismeasure that actual dry STP hydrogen content in any vapor. Such measurement is almost always ridiculously high. 

9. 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.  Curiously, the Ohio trial court fraud proceedings have never been  transcribed, owing to admin costs and a near total lack of demand.

Additional details of my own appear here and here and here.  Two useful third party resources are found here and here.

May 27, 2016
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Managed to get some hanging canal drone flights, but they did not produce much yet in the way of useful results.

A pair of stitched flyby images can be found here and here.

Used was a specialized ag drone. It apparently had no way to return real time video to the base so that "follow the canal" flight path and altitude modifications could be made.

It was also not clear how to retrieve the crucial annotation on each photo, although their composite stitching algorithm did seem superb for its intended purpose.

Thanks to Jeremy Green and Garrett Evans of Eastern Arizona Ag for their assistance on this project.

May 26, 2016
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Once again expanded and updated our Gila Valley  Dayhikes page. We are now up to 453 main entries, most of which now include GPS location links. 

Along with a dozen or so locations that you likely will not want to visit. Owing to their "Next of Kin will be shot" potential. Please email me with anything I missed or that needs  further updating.

May 25, 2016
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Dr. Neely and I also revisited the potential Discovery Park Canal and concluded that the route is just barely credible.

A potential source might be the still unverified but potentially spectacular Deadman East canal, while fields underlying the present Discovery Park ponds might be a credible destination.

Your participation welcome.

May 24, 2016
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Munchies.

More here, here, and ( historic origin ) here.

May 23, 2016
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Dr. Neely and I tried to reach the still unverified prehistoric Veech Hanging Canal.

Starting with a dirt track off a 4WD trace, we managed to cover one mile of the 1.3 mile distance in bad brush, only to be turned around by unbearably gruesome brush.

The route would also appear too long for most drones.

But flagging the downhill return trip might simplify things bunches.

Please email me if you are a super gonzo hiker.

And are interested in visiting a part of Arizona that the casual tourist often bypasses.

May 22, 2016
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Many thanks to all of the archaeological and related professionals who attended our recent hanging canal guided tours.

We have just scheduled some drone flights. But it turns out that "follow the canal" is not in most drone vocabularies. The local drone service is ag oriented and only can capture preprogrammed GPS flight paths that have to be camera downloaded after flight.

May 21, 2016
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The Southern Arizona satellite imagery used by Google Earth and Acme Mapper has apparently just been updated.

One consequence of which is that the Red Horse windmills are now obvious. The companion pv stuff has yet to appear.

These are the tallest structures in all of Southern Arizona. While TFD has the biggest, baddest, meanest 85 foot aerial tower bucket in the area, we could only reach one sixth of the way up their 450 foot height !

Reminders that these are sort of visible from I-10, somewhat north of the back road from Willcox to Cascabel off the Hooker Hot Springs Road, and that guided tours should be available from Mallory Safety Management Services' Aubyn Avery at  (205) 919-7936.

Other things to do in the area would include Muleshoe Ranch, Triangle T, and Amerind Foundation.

More neat stuff to do here and here.

May 20, 2016
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The latest Mars selfie can be found here.

May 19, 2016
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Our earlier entries have shown how to use a Lagrange polynomial as a sneaky way to draw a cubic spline through four points. Done in a single pass using very minimal math.

The odds are very good that this curve will also be the smoothest and shortest possible as well.

There may be one minor gotcha: Adjacent splines may not have joint slope continuity. As this older tutorial shows us, there are an infinite number of cubic splines that can be drawn through four points.

Thus an "almost" Lagrange solution often may be possible that both exactly fits the four points and provides initial joint slope continuity.

The fit should often be possible, but may not if the joint slope discontinuity is too violent.

Which I will presently save as an exercise for the student. Chances are an iterative solution involving hairy math may be needed. Hint: The one thirds will become new numbers.

May 18, 2016
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... and here is the same thing as a PostScript routine...

% given stack (x0,y0) (x1,y1) (x2,y2) (x3,y3),
% draw the shortest Bezier cubic spline...

/Bez4ptsviaLagrange {

/y3 exch store /x3 exch store /y2 exch store
/x2 exch store /y1 exch store /y1 exch store
/y0 exch store /x0 exch store

% Finding the Lagrange Polynomial...

/y0d0 y0 x0 x1 sub x0 x2 sub mul x0 x3 sub
mul div def /y1d1 y1 x1 x0 sub x1 x2 sub mul
x1 x3 sub mul div def /y2d2 y2 x2 x0 sub x2
x1 sub mul x2 x3 sub mul div def /y3d3 y3 x3
x0 sub x3 x1 sub mul x3 x2 sub mul div def

/a3 y0d0 y1d1 add y2d2 add y3d3 add def

/a2 y0d0 x1 x2 add x3 add mul neg y1d1 x0
x2 add x3 add mul sub y2d2 x0 x1 add x3 add
mul sub y3d3 x0 x1 add x2 add mul sub def

/a1 y0d0 x1 x2 mul x1 x3 mul add x2 x3 mul
add mul y1d1 x0 x2 mul x0 x3 mul add x2 x3
mul add mul add y2d2 x0 x1 mul x0 x3 mul
add x1 x3 mul add mul add y3d3 x0 x1 mul x0
x2 mul add x1 x2 mul add mul add def

/a0 y0d0 x1 x2 mul x3 mul mul neg y1d1 x0
x2 mul x3 mul mul sub y2d2 x0 x1 mul x3 mul
mul sub y3d3 x0 x1 mul x2 mul mul sub def

% L(x) = a3 * x^3 + a2 * x^2 + a1 * x + a0
% L is called with x on stack, returns x and
% y = L(x) on stack %

/L { dup dup dup mul mul a3 mul 1 index dup mul
a2 mul add 1 index a1 mul add a0 add } store

% Converting Lagrange Poly to a cubic spline...

/L' {/xx exch store % find slope of x on stack xx
dup mul a3 mul 3 mul xx a2 mul 2 mul add a1 add}
store /cx1 {x0 x3 x0 sub 1 3 div mul add } store

/cx2 {x3 x3 x0 sub 1 3 div mul sub } store
/m1 {x0 L' } store /b1 {y0 x0 ml mul sub } store
/m2 {x3 L' } store /b2 {y3 m2 x3 mul sub } store
/cy1 {mu cx1 mul b1 add} store
/cy2 {m2 cx2 mul b2 add } store

% Creating or appending the curve
x0 y0 moveto % or use currentpoint
cx1 xy1 cx2 cy2 x3 y3 curveto} store

A copy of the above here. More on cubic splines here.

May 17, 2016
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Here is a language independent algorithm for the Lagrange solution to the Bezier curve cubic spline through four points problem...

given points (x0,y0) (x1,y1) (x2,y2) (x3,y3)
where x0 < x1 < x2 < x3 equations for
computing Lagrange polynomial function L(x):

y0d0 = y0 / ((x0 - x1) * (x0 - x2) * (x0 - x3))
y1d1 = y1 / ((x1 - x0) * (x1 - x2) * (x1 - x3))
y2d2 = y2 / ((x2 - x0) * (x2 - x1) * (x2 - x3))
y3d3 = y3 / ((x3 - x0) * (x3 - x1) * (x3 - x2))

a3 = y0d0 + y1d1 + y2d2 + y3d3
a2 = - y0d0*(x1+x2+x3) - y1d1*(x0+x2+x3) -
    y2d2*(x0+x1+x3) - y3d3*(x0+x1+x2)
a1 = y0d0*(x1*x2+x1*x3+x2*x3) + y1d1*
    (x0*x2+x0*x3+x2*x3) + y2d2*
    (x0*x1+x0*x3+x1*x3) + y3d3*
    (x0*x1+x0*x2+x1*x2)
a0 = - y0d0*(x1*x2*x3) - y1d1*(x0*x2*x3) -
     y2d2*(x0*x1*x3) - y3d3*(x0*x1*x2)

L(x) = (a3 * x^3) + (a2 * x^2) + (a1 * x) + a0

equations for computing Bezier control points:

L'(x) = (3 * a3 * x^2) + (2 * a2 * x) + a1
cx1 = x0 + (1/3 * (x3 - x0)) cx2 = x3 - (1/3 *
     (x3 – x0))
m1 = L'(x0) b1 = y0 - (m1 * x0) cy1 = (m1 *
      cx1) + b1
m2 = L'(x3) b2 = y3 - (m2 * x3) cy2 = (m2 *
    cx2) + b2 (x0,y0) (cx1,cy1) (cx2,cy2)
    (x3,y3)

This solution is believed to offer very simple math and its believed "optimum" solution is thought to also be the shortest or "most efficient" curve length solution. But does not normally maintain slope continuity with adjacent splines.

Above algorithm copies are available here. Many thanks to Robert Ackermann for his valuable input on this.

May 16, 2016
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Here are a dozen plots that sort of suggest that the Lagrange Method of drawing a cubic spline through four points is a valid and useful concept.

While certainly not proof, no reasonable doubt remains.

Many thanks to Robert Ackrman for his valuable input on this.

May 15, 2016
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A website listing the relative abundance of chemical elements can be found here.

The top dozen earth elements are...

Oxygen          46%
Silicon            27%
Aluminum      8.1%   
Iron               6.3%
Calcium         5.0%     
Magnesium    2.9%       
Sodium          2.3%     
Potassium       1.5%     
Titanium         0.66%     
Carbon           0.18%
Hydrogen        0.15%
Manganese      0.12%

One surprise is Lithium which is waay under what I expected, and even got nosed out by Gallium.

More elemental details here.

May 14, 2016
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Some modernization and updates to the Drake Equation that predicts extraterrestrial intelligence can be found here.

Latest data suggests that one in five stars have planets in the habitable zone.

In general, the odds are now sharply higher. But one serious problem remains in that the planet-moon arrangement that seems to be needed for reasonable climatic stability seems likely to be quite rare indeed.

May 13, 2016
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April pv prices are drifting somewhat downward but remain just under double the subsidy free quarter a peak panel watt required for genuine long term renewability and sustainability.

Note that the link prices are in Euros, convertible here and presently 1 Euro = 1.128 US Dollars.

True net energy breakeven can reasonably be expected eight years or so after the magic quarter per peak panel watt is hit. Naturally, actually hitting this value will further set back  breakeven owing to the zillions of investment ( energy = dollars ) being thrown at an obvious sure bet.

More here.

May 12, 2016
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Picked up a huge pile of outrageously heavy and outrageously expensive high current vector motor solid state speed controllers.

Apparently unused and fully functional. Guaranteed usable.

If you are looking for some outstanding bargains on these, can test them yourself, and can arrange your own loading and shipping, ( FOB Thatcher, AZ ) please email me.

We seen to have a palace revolt over us shipping anything that cannot
be held extended at arm's length.

We also can deliver at our convenience to certain Tucson or Phoenix addresses for a flat $125 fee.

May 11, 2016
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I seem to have gotten myself buried in eBay inventory that is likely not only unsellable but even unlistable. So, I guess an inventory reboot is long past due.  Throwing away half of everything.

Here's some guidelines on whether something should be kept or not...

• Lottable at $9 or more.
• Expected return greater than $70.
• Near current production OR collectible.
• Price findable here, here, or here.
• Item sell rate to clear within 15 months.
• Free data available online.
• Clean or group refurbable.
• Can hold item at arm's length.
• Preferably priority mail shippable.
• Modest but definite sales elsewhere.
• Reasonably testable.
• Is it "pretty"?
• Storage needs not excessive.
• Unique items consistent with real demand.
• SBR near 30:1 maintainable.
• Properly located and inventory controlled.
• One sixth cost new price feasible.
• No bad vibes - feel good about item.
• Not particularly fragile or user abusable.
• Buyer incompetence unlikely.

So, I should have bunches of free stuff available for the next few weeks. Whose only rule would be "take one, take all". email me for details.

More eBay tips and techniques here.

May 10, 2016
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Always remember that you have no friends at an  auction!

 Least of all the auctioneer. Listen to  everything, volunteer nothing. Be invisible till it  is time to be in the auctioneer's face.

Dress down to the point of being shabby, but always  wear one very distinct hat or other piece of clothing. 

If more than five percent of your bids win, you are  bidding far too high. Always stop bidding if anyone is bidding against you and you even remotely approach  fair value.

Always stay for the end of the auction. In some cases,  utterly spectacular bargains will result. Especially if the  area has to be cleared for a new tenant or whatever.

Sometimes you can also make really great deals on unbid  or unsold items after the auction or during quiet times.

Don't sweat bidding on tons of garbage to get one or two  items. You can usually find someone to take (or even pay  for) the dregs after the auction. And abandoning stuff often  is not that big a deal.

Stay alert through numerous sitdown and meditation breaks,  sensible food and drink, mild painkillers, and frequent  restroom use.

Much more on our Auction Help page.

May 9, 2016
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Can't put one over on her. Nosiree.

Little old lady to a companion at a recent live auction: "Why, that man has been talking all morning!"

May 8, 2016
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One of the foremost rules of eBay sales is to finish what you start.  It is trivially easy to, say, do a bunch of batch processed image photography or postprep only to have the work pile up unlisted and unfinished for weeks or even months.

There is no possibility of any cash return until  after each item is listed.

A good rule is "If you touch it, deal with it." All the way through listing.

More eBay tips and techniques here.

May 7, 2016
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What were my worst construction projects of all time? After all, something had to end up on the bottom of the pile...

A thermoelectric ice cube maker where the heatsink rise vastly exceeded the module  delta T.

A science fair proximity project where the sensitivity was appallingly bad because of a lack of understanding vacuum tube biasing.

A pneumatic key presser for an IBM Selectric typewriter that never quite got the 1 in 64  pneumatic decoder properly worked out.

An X band car safety radar that involved then outrageous reflex klystrons and a monumental lack of end user interest.

An ultra cheap color organ using nothing but three power photoresistors and three light bulbs but had an alarming tendency to self  destruct.

A vehicle real time miles per gallon display that in pre fuel injection times had serious flowmeter issues. Plus, again, a lack of end user interest.

An attempt to get plotters to draw integrated circuit packages by merging Applewriter's WPL  with Hewlett Packard's HPGL. Leaving a vanishing  and fast closing market.

A computer cassette interface that, while it  seemed to work properly, did not have nearly the error rate studies and improvements that clearly were necessary. Made instantly obsolete by plummeting floppy drive prices.

An Apple IIe graphics accelerator that attempted to complexly table lookup HIRES graphics addresses  for only a minor possible speedup.

Attempts at WWVB receivers that never could quite get acceptable noise performance and error  rates.

An advertising "Reddy Readout" based on a  winning college exhibit that was impossibly  difficult to hardwire program and only offered  a twelve character message.

Some more credible projects can be found here.

May 6, 2016
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Few practical thermoelectric devices exist today. First because of the Carnot Limit that tells us you can do no better than the ratio of the absolute temperature difference. And second because of thermal impedance effects in which there is an unavoidable delta-T between the hot side source and the device and a second delta-T between the device and its ambient heat sink.

It is trivially easy to have the delta-t between the device and ambient grossly exceed the net cooling of the the module itself. Thus heating instead of cooling.

More on why thermoelectric cooling has not happened much to date ( and is unlikely to anytime soon ) appears here.

May 5, 2016
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I've long been unhappy with my Bezier Curve through four points paper in that it was a somewhat sloppy approximation and involved some rather fancy math.

Several of us have been exploring some alternatives that I will shortly be describing here that gives an exact "best" solution in one pass with nothing but high school math.

The math seems new, but it was previously hinted at here. At the least the subject seems understudied and underreported.

The algorithm now looks like this...

To draw the "best" Bezier cubic spline through four points...   

1. Find the Lagrange Cubic Polynomial that exactly fits the four points.   

2. Find the polynomial slopes at the initial and final points.   

3. Calculate one third the x distance between the initial and final points.

4. Set the initial and final Bezier points to the first and last data points.

5. Set the entry Bezier x influence point to one third the distance from the initial and final data points.

6. Set the entry Bezier y influence point to the initial y point plus the initial slope times one third the distance from the initial and final data points.

7. Set the exit Bezier x influence point to two thirds the distance from the initial and final data points.    

8. Set the exit Bezier y influence point to the final y point minus the final slope times one third the distance from the initial and final data points.    

9. Implement the Bezier cubic spline.

I'm still unsure where the "thirds" come from. They seem far too simple, but appear to elegantly do the job.

PostScript specific details and examples to follow.

May 3, 2016
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Just realized I had not mentioned my Elegant Simplicity paper for a while.

May 2, 2016
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Separately, we are seeking out professional drone operators for limited funding present canal mapping, and possibly full blown and well funded long term mapping of over a hundred miles(!) of still unexplored prehistoric hanging canal routes.

A minimum drone capability of receiving a dozen waypoints, HiDef GPS tagged recording to email or thumb drives, and auto return would be required.

Please email me if you have any interest in this.

May 1, 2016
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There will be some guided tours of our bajada hanging canals on May 11, 12, and possibly the 13th, attended by a bunch of name brand professional archaeologists.

A limited number of others are invited to attend on these rare, unique, and no charge tours. You can email me for details.

April 30, 2016
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Added a new sampler page for our Marbelous Stacks of distorted pancakes.

This should shortly be linked with the rest of the gang on our home page.

April 29, 2016
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Somewhere between one and three close in and potentially habitable exoplanets have been newly discovered here with some comments here.

More exoplanet resources here and here.

April 28, 2016
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Haven't mentioned our Con Tests paper for a long while.

April 27, 2016
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Transferring binary images over the web can get very tricky as certain characters ( especially 00, 0A, 0D ) might be reserved along with others.

The PostScript use of Hex ASCII is one workaround, but doubles the needed characters.

PostScript also offered a little known ASCII85 alternative in which four binary bytes were coded as the first 85 ASCII characters. This let you transfer unrestricted binary code with only a 5/4 character penalty.

Unfortunately, the web makes extensive use of opening and closing carats, which pretty much trashes any present or future use of ASCII85.

April 26, 2016
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We looked at several generations of drawing a Cubic Spline through four points, the latest of which was here.

Since there are an infinite number of possible curves, a crude but easy approximation was used that involved apportionment.

The question remains what the "best" four point cubic spline is.

It turns out there is a ( seemingly ) wildly different math curve called a Cubic Lagrange Polynomial that exactly fits four data points using nothing but simple high school math.

In general, Lagrange is somewhat in disfavor in that high "n" solutions tend to have enormous "ears". But this is no a problem when fitting four points with a cubic.

An associate with a superb web site sent me this plot and this plot that strongly suggests that one particular cubic spline is in fact identical to the Lagrange Curve.

The curves only verify for one resolution of one data point set. But several web sites with unbearably heavy math verify that the two curves can be identical. And a subset of a cubic should still usually be a cubic. So the solution should be highly likely.

This should be the "best" fit and the shortest as well.

The math relating the two should not be all that bad and might start by equating end points, end slopes, and end slope changes. I suspect it may end up as a simple two linear equations in two unknowns class problem.

More to follow when and if this can be worked out.

April 25, 2016
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Did I ever tell you my top secret fire lookout's gourmet recipe for boiled can?

The trick is the 24 hour prep time, as you boil it in last night's dishwater.

Since the label usually falls off, the original can contents do not matter in the least.

April 24, 2016
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And here is a new collection of marbelous synthesis examples.

Once again, what we've got is a stunning method to fake marbleizing effects using a pile of distorted pancakes. Optionally using an amazingly few coding bytes.

The really big deal here is that this appears to be a new method to generate computer effects that do not look at all like they were done on a computer.

More variants here.. Your input welcome.

April 23, 2016
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The excessive bloat eases off!

Here's Stoner1 in 279 binary bytes...

%!ps <3330 3620 3339 3692 ad2e 3892 3892
8b2e  3220 3020 3020 2e39 202e 3420 3020
3020  2e32 202e 3520 2e32 2030 2030 202e
3320  2e34 202e 3320 3120 2e38 202e 362f
647b  923e 3392 5892 a992 002e 3992 3e65
7870  926c 9201 7d64 6566 2f73 7b31 9258
3292  6c73 696e 926c 3320 3292 8792 0192
3e7d  6465 662f 467b 2d31 3837 2032 3520
3138  387b 2d36 3020 647d 9248 3435 2073
5b2d  3633 2031 3338 5d7b 3630 2064 7d92
492d  3930 2073 202d 3132 9201 5b2d 3136
3320  3338 2032 3338 5d7b 3630 2064 7d92
4934  3520 737d 6465 6620 3330 3020 2d34
2032  7b92 3830 2046 926b 3020 2e30 3220
3336  307b 3292 1932 9219 636f 7392 6c33
2031  9287 7369 6e92 6c46 9263 9275 7d66
6f72  9275 3392 1992 9d31 3820 3392 8792
1692  427d 666f 7292 a1> cvx exec % EOF

For web compatibility, I've shown this in a somewhat larger but web and comm friendly Hex ASCII format.

More here.

April 22, 2016
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Some free sources of many scientific papers can be found at http://sci-hub.cc/ with use details here and a lively analysis here.

Somewhat similar alternatives can be found here and here.

April 21, 2016
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My PostScript video can be found here.

No, it has not yet gone viral. Sniffle, maybe.

April 20, 2016
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No, I am not making this up.

The Lawrence Welk version of One Toke Over the Line can be linked here.

Much more ( 100 million entries per day! ) here, a detailed analysis  here, and the curious origin of the analysis here.

April 19, 2016
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Here is a rare Heathkit IB-28 that we just put up on eBay. As usual, the photo processing turned out not half bad.

The pix started with outdoor photography in light shade. The image was then rotated to vertically align the front edge. A second exposure was then made with Imageview32 to improve the meter contrast and the two images blended and merged with Paint.

The architects perspective was then corrected using this routine, followed by backing off the reds by one notch to make sure there were no inadvertent red=255 pixels remaining.

Since this offering was highly collectible, very little internal image postproc was done. Except for minor hot spot or glare or other lighting correction.

Paint was then used to outline with a purple that included red=255. While no undercuts or internal fills were involved here, both often may need dealt with.

The image crop was adjusted for an acceptable final appearance. A new background was then dropped in using our self- vignetting autobackgrounder. From this choice of web friendly PostScript colors.

Final appearance was adjusted by cropping to 1000 pixels, improving sharpness and image factors, and finally saved in the .JPG image format.

April 18, 2016
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There's somewhat of an alternate to Cubic Splines that are called Lagrange Polynomials that can end up both interesting and useful sometimes.

What these do is draw a somewhat smooth curve precisely through N data points. And does so using the lowest possible order polynomial. Using only simple high school math.

Ferinstance, only a cubic polynomial is needed to draw a smooth curve through four data pints. A somewhat comparable cubic spline solution can be found here.

There are several gotchas. While the polynomial does in fact go through the four data points, it sometimes may deviate wildly from what is expected between the data points. This can become unacceptable in the case of lots of many equally spaced points near the two end points.

Also, some functions must be limited between 0 and 1. Such as image gamma or brightness or contrast. Solutions to the Lagrange polynomials may briefly exceed 1 or actually go slightly negative.

April 17, 2016
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Yorg.

eBay, in their infinite wisdom chose to deemphasize an old CGI link. Which trashed hundreds of different locations on my website. And it is going to take me a very long time to fix.

It is super important to NEVER change any link that may have hundreds, or even thousands, of third party sites that are referencing your site. If a link target becomes obsolete, it should be replaced with a referral that preserves the original intent.

It is also a really good idea to use includes when and where possible via .shtml files. That way, you may only have to correct a problem once ( in your "subroutine" file ) rather that having to repeat yourself hundreds or thousands of times. But that would not have helped much here.

Your Fatcow or other stats can give you a priority list of the sites that should be changed first. This is going to take a long time to fix.

April 16, 2016
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Coverage on our PostScript fractal ferns can be found here, here, here, and here.

This is yet another example of stunningly compact PS code.

April 15, 2016
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March pv prices are drifting somewhat downward but remain up by two percent for the year and remain just over double the subsidy free quarter a peak panel watt required for genuine long term renewability and sustainability.

True energy breakeven can reason ably be expected eight years or so after the magic quarter per peak panel watt is hit. Naturally, actually hitting this value will further set back breakeven owing to the zillions of investment ( energy = dollars ) being thrown at an obvious sure bet.

More here.

April 14, 2016
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Sometimes minor infuriations can tarnish an otherwise great program.

Example #1- If you try and copy a lat lon out of Acme Mapper into email or Dreamweaver, an annoying color background may result. The workaround is to copy the lat lon into Wordpad and then copy Wordpad into your destination.

Example #2- For some reason, my copy of Dreamweaver does not include a spell checker. Simply start to email yourself a copy of the problem text and most spelling errors ( plus a bunch of non errors ) should pop right up.

And Sneaky Ploy #3 - If you are not sure of a spelling, simply search for it in Google. Most of the time, it will suggest the correct spelling.

April 13, 2016
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One of the major secrets that banks don't want you to know about: Mortgages pay off the interest first and the principle last.

As a result, the amount of principle paid on the earliest payments is largely negligible. Thus, it may not be that big a deal to increase your early payments by five principle amounts.

And doing so reduces your thirty year mortgage to as little as a six year mortgage.   The only downside to this top secret ploy is that you might get trapped in the middle if you do not follow through and actually pay off the loan. And there may be prepayment penalties, so always check.

Ferinstance, a $100,000 30 year 5 percent loan, nearly half the money goes for interest. And SEVENTY SEVEN PERCENT of your first month payment goes for interest.

You can follow the math easily using this or similar sites.

April 12, 2016
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There appears to be emerging new interest on several fronts by Coronado National Forest over our bajada prehistoric hanging canals. A reasonable question is to ask how many of the 70 canals and 100+ miles of route are on home turf?

The bottom line is that the majority of the canal routings are on state land, with some others on BLM or private lands. The overwhelming majority of the upstream canal water sources lie nearly totally under CNF lands. With a very few artesian exceptions.

Here are some potential in-bounds CNF study areas...

The Veech Canal is the southernmost known example at N 32.64255 W 109.74288 is mid sized. The preservation appears to be exceptional but the canal remains woefully understudied.

A complex group of canals derived from John's Dam and in the are of Ledford Tank lies primarily on CNF lands around and also remains understudied. These are in and around N 32.68226 W 109.74660

There are verified spectacularly engineered watershed crossing (!) canals in the system. One crucially unproven one lies wholly with CNF at N 32.74500 W 109.83889  Whose very existence appears to be demanded to rationalize the entire Frye Mesa delivery complex.

Another watershed crossing appears possible under a CNF water project at N 32.77788 W 109.95537 and needs further study. Without this, Sand Canal sourcing appears very weak.

Another "borrow the blueprints" modern CNF water project seems to overlay a crucial portion of the Frye Mesa Complex at N 32.74774 W 109.83898. Of particular concern is a pinch point and a short hanging portion.

Mud Springs and Jernigan Canals share a common takein at the CNF boundary at N 32.78755 W 109.8546 Extensive Octave Storm flood damage may have obliterated much of the routing but needs careful further study.

Marijilda canyon has numerous sites, short range delivery channels and a main still flowing historically refurbed prehistoric canal. Area is around N 32.70691 W 109.77675.

Braided delivery channels on lower Frye Mesa form the crucial source for the HS Canal and the Robinson Canal and definitely need major further study. Includes a pinch point and major CCC rework in and around N 32.75752 W 109.82602

The Deadman Canal takein has been buried under a historic pipeline at N 32.74193 W 109.80928 It needs further study to prove its exact route.

April 11, 2016
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There is an alternate to pv panels that potentially offers much higher efficiency and much lower costs. Simply use an antenna followed by a diode. This completely bypasses any efficiency robbing work function issues, and potential efficiencies might eventually approach 80 percent.

The antenna part takes MEMS but it has been pretty much verified from way back in the days of Alvin Marks and Lumeloid. And significant new portions of the antenna part can now be found here. The antennas do, of course, have to be rather small, typically around a quarter wavelength of light.

The antennas receive solar energy and deliver a ( very ) high frequency electrical sinewave. The presently unsolved dilemma is how to convert that high frequency sinewave into a useful energy waveform with a high dc term.

More on energy stuff here.

April 10, 2016
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An extension to the Freeman Canal has newly been discovered from N 32.78961 W 109.76281 to N 32.78961 W 109.76281. The constructs are both well preserved and as expected prehistoric architecture.

The new routing clarifies some of the awkwardness of earlier Freeman discoveries. It also suggests a possible record length of as much as eight miles. Also suggested is the possibility of a prehistoric origin to the historic Blue Ponds Canal.

A photo here. And more here and here.

April 9, 2016
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Once again expanded and updated our Gila Valley  Dayhikes page. We are now up to 450 main entries, most of which now include GPS location links.

Please email me with anything I missed or that needs  further updating.

April 8, 2016
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A simplified explanation of the marbelosity algorithms can be found here, here, and here.

It turns out that the process does not involve marbleizing at all.

Instead, you can think of this as a pile of centered and progressively diminishing pancakes. Each pancake is created by starting with a Minsky Circle and then distorting or transforming each circle edge as influenced by linear or circular tines. Tines that "stir the paint"

The further away the tine, the less its transformative effect.

Each circle thus has a raggedy outline but a continuous fill. Perfect edge alignment takes place with each smaller overlay.

The key mind boggelers here are the potential extreme code compactness. . And its literally revolutionary UNsimilarity that offers the potential for "not looking like it was done on a computer.

Kiddies, this is ultra profound. And beyond beyond.

April 7, 2016
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A rather large collection of mulch rings can be found at N 32.78810 W 109.76640 with a typical photo here. Mulch rings are prehistoric circular  arrangements of single height rocks typically three feet or so in diameter and a dozen feet or so apart.

A single plant is usually believed centered, often an Agave. Rainfall runs under the rocks and thus evaporates a lot more slowly.

While only a few to a dozen rings are often present, this site is quite extensive, perhaps many dozens or even a yet uncounted hundred. Definitely an "adequate supply".

Although often older, these do seem to have sparse potsherds in association, suggesting a late classic era. This appears to be the largest known collection to date.

The possibly unrelated Freeman bajada hanging canal is also close nearby.

Others refer to these as "cairns". But I strongly feel that the term is very misleading as they are invariably only a single rock thick or high .

April 4, 2016
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One of our recurring themes around here is bashing pseudoscience.

Topics have included water powered cars ( an outright scam ), pv panels( all still remain gasoline-destroying net energy sinks ), Tesla Turbines ( that demand inefficiency to work at all ), on-board vehicle hydrogen ( a dynamic brake in disguise ), the magic lamp ( incompetent rms measurements run amok ), electrolysis ( guaranteed useless by exergy ), corn ethanol( a worthless twelve billion dollar vote buying scam ), and Brown's Gas( bad labwork mixed with unusual but expected results ), among many others.

There are, of course, other sides to these issues.

Often hosted by few-chips-shy-of-a-full-board types who may be extreme litigants, paranoid, nasty trick troublemakers, investors in denial,just plain stupidly clueless, or worse. While others may directly confront these types, I go out of my way to stay "two levels" away from them.

By never directly confronting any of them, never mounting an ad hominem attack, and always trying to present factual and unarguable fundamental physical law info. That can be independently verified.

Otherwise, you may become what you are attacking. "They", of course, will never be convinced. The message should be aimed as education for others who might get sucked into their ludicrosities.

April 3, 2016
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Question: Would not any attempt at restricting traditional South-of-the-border cash payments simply cause everybody who is not already using Bitcoin to immediately switch? Thus immediately rendering any new legislation laughably useless and monumentally stupid?

Besides creating the exact opposite of its intended effect.

Such thinking seems to me to only be caused by long hours in the outhouse alone.

April 2, 2016
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Some other prehistoric bajada hanging canal drone projects come to mind...

Finding the Ash Creek takein at
N 32.78794 W 109.85488

Resolving the Frye falls pinch point at
N 32.74723 W 109.83900

Verifying the Frye Creek diversion at
N 32.74355 W 109.83951

Extending the Golf Course canal at
N 32.79929 W 109.78085

Exploring Robinson canal start at
N 32.75981 W 109.80800

Mapping and verifying Veech canal at
N 32.64272 W 109.74282

Verifying the East Deadman canal at
N 32.75459 W 109.78137

Tracing the possible Discovery canal at
N 32.79460 W 109.72933

  .... plus great heaping bunches more once reasonable cost, experience, and access of drones can be made a standard exploration tool in the Gila Valley.

April 1, 2016
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Few people realize that the word "gullible" does not appear in any major dictionary or spell checker.

March 31, 2016
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Our prehistoric hanging canal studies obviously demand the use of drones. But I have been hesitant to run out and buy a $25,000 system, only to have it promptly vanish forever off the edge of a mesa.

As far as I can tell, there are all sorts of utterly amazing drone features, but a thirty day downed craft beacon does not seem to yet be one of them.

Turns out that Jeremy Green of Eastern Arizona Ag Services is newly offering bunches of cotton farmer oriented drone services, some of which might be adaptable to our prehistoric canal work.

Here is the projected first flight path, aimed at checking drone potential and finding a missing piece of the Mud Springs Canal...

http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=32.79913,-109.84553
&z=15&t=H&marker0=32.80170%2C-109.84261
%2C9.5%20km%20SW%20of%20Thatcher
%20AZ&marker1=32.79893%2C-109.84647
%2C9.9%20km%20SW%20of%20Thatcher
%20AZ&marker2=32.80310%2C-109.83943
%2C9.1%20km%20SW%20of%20Thatcher
%20AZ&marker3=32.79156%2C-109.85391
%2C10.1%20km%20N%20of
%20Mount%20Graham%20AZ
&marker4=32.79686%2C-109.85008
%2C10.3%20km%20SW%20of
%20Thatcher%20AZ&marker5=32.80447
%2C-109.83874%2C9.0%20km%20WxSW
%20of%20Thatcher%20AZ

Meanwhile, if you happen to have a few spare orphan drones, please dump them in my driveway and I'll find some nice homes for them.

March 30, 2016
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The apparently valid and legit Japan Nuke Frozen Wall story might have been more believable if it had not been released on April Fools Day.

But it still begs the question "Who writes their material?"

They might not need to keep their day job.

March 29, 2016
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In these days of terabytes and petabytes, writing compact code has largely become a lost ( and largely pointless ) art.

Nonetheless, PostScript continues to allow incredibly small routines for generating marbelous art.

Here, here, here, and here is a rendition writing an impressive stoner marbelosity in a mere 470 bytes!

This does take secret insider stuff including binary encoding and totally trashes legibility. The question remains: Can you do am impressive PostScript marbelosity in less than 200 bytes?

March 28, 2016
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In several ways, the marbelosity stuff would appear to be the exact opposite of fractal art.

A fractal is a grouping of self-similar objects, often of different scales. A marbelosity is a grouping of self UNsimiliar objects, often of the same scale.

Very often, stuff done on a computer looks like it was done on a computer. Instead, marbelosity introduces unexpected variance and potentially allows a whole new class of "not quite symmetric" algorithmic constructs.

March 27, 2016
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Wasting a whole 800 bytes on a PostScript marbelous plot seems excessively bloated. It turns out there are "secret" Postscript compaction stunts that include binary token encoding and binary object sequences as found in the PostScript Reference Manual.

Can you code an impressive marbelosity in less than two hundred bytes?

March 26, 2016
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Absolutely and unquestionably marbelous.

Here's a summary of some of the key correspondence over the PostScript marbleizing stuff from the past few weeks...

marble1.eml  marble2.eml  marble2.psl
marble2.png  marble3.eml  marble3.psl
marble3.png  marble4.eml  marble4.png
marble5.eml  marble5.psl   marble5.png
marble6.eml  marble6.psl  marble6.png
marble7.eml  marble7.psl  marble7.png
marble8.eml  marble8.psl  marble8.png
marble8.eml  marble8.psl  marble8.png
marble9.eml  marble10.eml  marble10.png
marble11.psl  marble11.eml  marble12.eml
marble12.psl  marble12.png  marble13.eml
marble13.txt  marble13.psl  marble13.png

minimum bytes stoner1
marbelous synthesis variations1

Nonlinear Graphic Transforms
Wikipedia Paper marbleizing
Marbleizing Mathematics Tutorial

Basically what you have is an incredibly powerful artwork generator of particular interest to scrapbook folks that uses astonishingly short PostScript code sequences to generate huge areas of "not quite" symmetrical patterns that appear distinctly non-computer and incredibly complex.

While intended to mimic classic book cover marbleizing, they have far greater potential for anywhere you want a computer to do something that does not look like it was done on a computer.

To use, just send any .psl textfiles to GhostScript or Acrobat Distiller. Note that .eml files need copied to an email server for viewing.

March 25, 2016
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While hard to understand and tricky to use, the heap sort is usually ridiculously faster than most other sorts. Per the tutorial here and working code here.

Meanwhile, two variations on the good old bubble sort can be found here.

March 24, 2016
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A tutorial on the Bitmap Data Format can be found here.

And three use examples are our Architect's Perspective routine, our Vignetting Auto-Backgrounder, and our Bitmap Typewriter.

March 23, 2016
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Ah, the law of the unintended consequence.

A case can be made that the ONLY positive benefit of years of federal, state, and local mj lawmaking has been stunning mj farm subsidies and price supports. Price supports outrageously higher than any other ag commodity anytime ever.

Since these subsidies are obviously about to be eliminated completely, it is reasonable to ask what a mj baseline price might be in the absence of outrageous federal supports.

Cotton is sort of a comparable crop except that its ginning is somewhat more involved. With cotton now at 62 cents a pound, the unsupported mj pricing can reasonably be expected to come in somewhere around 59 cents a pound.

And reasonably could be standardized at a similar industrial 500 pound bale. With anything less personal use.

Several side effects could reasonably be expected. The banking issues would largely vanish, and any mj crime could reasonably be expected to end up largely comparable in size to, say, the heinous problems with cotton theft issues. Black market mj could likewise be expected to end up somewhat smaller than the cotton black market.

One other likely side effect: state and local tax income projections could end up somewhat shy of expectations. But perhaps only by five  or six orders of magnitude.

Much more ( 100 million entries per day! ) here, a detailed analysis here, and the curious origin of the analysis here.

March 22, 2016
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The latest Jim Neely paper can be found here. It is more on Iran archaeology than on the Safford basin. One incredible find is a prehistoric hydraulic grist mill.

March 21, 2016
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Some useful directories to Netflix streaming video availability can be found here.

Of these, I particularly like Metacritic and Instawatcher.

March 20, 2016
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Plans might be underfoot for a major institution doing a long term archaeological field camp in the Gila Valley.

Much as I feel that our bajada hanging canals represent spectacular and woefully understudied mind boggling world class engineering, there would seem to me to be at least seven competing issues a Safford field school should reasonably address...

1. Bajada Hanging Canals
2. The Grids
3. Riverine Canals
4. Aproned Check Dams
5. Mulch Rings
6. Ho Hum Usual Suspects ruins
7. Training Aspects.

An argument could be made that the riverine canals are virtually historisized or totally buried under fields. But they clearly retain strong significance and their study would be rather conspicuous by its absence.

March 19, 2016
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Another new local food truck is Nana's Kitchenette, newly found at the most spectacular Golf Course in the entire Bonita-Eden-Sanchez Metropolitan Area. Open Sundays and most weekdays, but closed Mondays.

A wide choice of somewhat pricey burgers are upscale but not quite gourmet. Breakfast stuff, too.

March 18, 2016
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If you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the precipitate.

March 17, 2016
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A major breakthrough in mass teleportation can be found here.

March 16, 2016
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February pv prices remain nearly flat at double the 25 cents  peak panel watt price demanded for eventual net energy  renewability or sustainability.

More on similar topics here.

March 15, 2016
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Received an email from an individual wanting to liquidate a large Barbie Doll collection. They were surprised that not one local auction house so much as returned their calls.

 In general, most individuals tend to grossly overvalue common collectibles.

 Just because they spent a lifetime acquiring them and spent zillions of dollars on them.

A quick check on eBay shows nearly 10,000 Barbie listings. The overwhelming majority of these are no sales at 99 cents or $9.90. But there are a very few spectacular sales of multi thousands of dollars for very rare or highly unique items. Some of these may be bogus, be money laundering, or fail to close.

The Klaus Barbies are particularly in demand because of their extreme rarity.

Some guidelines...     

SPLIT IT UP -- Almost certainly, a much higher total return will be gotten by selling individual items.

METER IT OUT -- Spreading the sales of the individual items over a one year period is also likely to maximize your return.    

DO IT YOURSELF -- The higher your personal value added, the greater the likelihood of a higher total net return.    

KNOW YOUR VALUES -- Thorough research  of present market values are an absolute must.   

USE THE BIGGIES -- Obvious "top dog" choices for selling most anything these days are eBay for smaller items of national interest and Craig's List for larger and heavier local ones. But do not overlook specialized enthusiast resources

 ASSISTANCE COSTS MONEY -- Auctioneers    and consignment sellers demand a return on their time and risk. Figure twenty percent for an auction, fifty percent for consignment, and less than a penny on the dollar on outright instant buyouts.

 HAVE REASONABLE EXPECTATIONS -- It can be extremely difficult to return one cent on the dollar on common low end collectibles. Especially wildly overrated items such as anything from the Franklin Mint.

An eBay selling tutorial appears here. With additional auction support here, and your own custom regional auction finders here.

March 14, 2016
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One of the things an auctioneer hates to talk about and rarely mentions goes by the historic name of rights of abandonment.

Specifically, can you bid on something at an auction, take home one or two of the goodies and simply walk away from great heaping piles of poisoned dregs?

There's no universal and clear cut answer to this question. But here are some factors to consider...

GIVEAWAYS - Chances are there will be others bidding who have already won    enormous lots and you can simply give your unwanted items to them. AFTER, of course a VERY careful triage.

LEFTOVERS - Auctioneers often haul   anything of even questionable value that   remains home for their monthly barn sales.

 BIG CLEANUP ANYWAY - Some sites will   require major cleanup for a new leasee. If   your trash is only a minor fraction, it may go  unnoticed.

  UN-HIGHGRADING - Sometimes the worst   of the worst of your items can mysteriously end up on adjacent pallets. But only AFTER the auction is over.  

WATCH YOUR TERMS - Auctions where "winner must take all" terms are specifically stated can be bad news. Especially if anything is in writing.

 WHICH AUCTIONEER? -- Pissing off a fly-in auctioneer you probably will never see again is not nearly as bad a scene as causing problems for a regular you depend on for repeat income.

WATCH THOSE DUMPSTERS! -- They are private property and may be clearly marked that you cannot use them. But you might get away with a small fraction of a load spread once over several non-obvious locations.

KNOW WHERE THE DUMP IS -- Tipping charges on dumps and landfills can be as low as $8 per load or so. Know where these services are and their hours.

PAY OFF THE HELP -- Chances are there are some minimum wage workers for the auctioneer or the site whom $20 and "make it go away" will work miracles.

TAKE ALL YOU CAN -- If there is room in your truck or trailer or whatever, fill it as full as you can. Unexpected value can sometimes be found in even   the worst of dregs.   

WATCH LOT MARKINGS - If the lots are not clearly and plainly marked, it can be difficult later on to find out who abandoned what.

CONSIDER STORAGE RENTALS -- Storage units can cost as little as $50 pre month and may give you the opportunity to more carefully review any dregs. Or use multiple trips in smaller vehicles.

BUY THE DREGS -- Sometimes you can turn this all around and buy what others have abandoned for a pittance. IF you know what you are doing, IF you have the truck or trailer room, and IF you have the time and help to profit from same.   

Much more on our Auction Help library page.

March 13, 2016
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One of the realities of small scale product development is that, any time you have reached a given level, "they" will loudly moan that you haven't done "x". Get up to "x" and they will then demand "y". In a never ending upward spiral.

Good theory? Where's the development tools? Good tools, where's the chips? Good chips, where's the baseline hardware demos? Good demos, where's the pre-production prototypes? Good firmware, where is the proven market and sales? And on and on...

No matter how far along the idea mortality curve you are, the bitchers and moaners will continue to bitch and moan. And scams, ripoffs, and obvious violators of fundamental physical laws will get more attention and better funding.

Meanwhile, of course, your own ideas get stolen. Four defenses:

IGNORE "THEM" -- Because "they" are not going to buy from you anyway. And only rarely, if ever, will they identify a real issue. Chances are "they" never tried developing anything themselves and do not have the faintest clue over the realities involved.  

SELL RISK REDUCTION -- "Invention" and  "inventing" are rife with peril. But genuinely being able to dramatically reduce a firm's time to market and NRE expenses are another matter entirely. Some guidelines appear here.  

YOUR TRACK RECORD SPEAKS FOR ITSELF. If you have had winners in the past, others will surely follow. Some better. Some worse. But never give up. The winners will pay for those that m&Iss ever seeing the light of day.  

THE JOURNEY IS THE REWARD. It does not matter in the least if you are developing an amplifier with nothing to amplify. If you want to do  it, go for it. Nothing else matters.

March 12, 2016
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A tutorial on Fundamental Factors Driving Recent Technical Innovation appears here.

March 11, 2016
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The Frye Mesa Complex would appear to be the "crown jewels" of our bajada hanging canal systems. These appear to combine solidly verified constructs with what remains as rank speculation.

Portions also appear to demand exceptional engineering and project management as well. which still remain unverified and unproven.

Elsewhere in the system, virtually every drop of northeastern Mount Graham water has apparently been fully exploited. While no Frye Creek intake has yet been verified, the absence of any such use would appear to have been highly unlikely or unintuitive.

Instead, a "watershed crossing" diversion of Frye Creek water above the falls is postulated that routed all the creek water northward in the area of the spring in spring canyon, possibly following the topographically favorable present trail routing from N 32.74403 W 109.83944 to N 32.74553 W 109.83939.

We note in passing that there is a superbly situated Mud Springs watershed crossover precisely and optimally located at N 32.79162 W 109.85395. And that an unproven candidate watershed crossover located at N 32.77850 W 109.9567 likely might resolve some supply problems for the Sand Canal via a Nuttall Canyon crossover..

The combined Frye Creek and Spring waters were then either diverted down Spring canyon raw drainage to form the Allen Canal takein at N 32.78241 W 109.83555 or routed directly down Frye Mesa to eventually serve as many as five additional canals.

A small dam remains at the projected  combination point and still serves as a source for a Forest Service water project that appears to be a "steal the plans" variation on a prehistoric original.

There is a "pinch point" at N 32.74741 W 109.83897 that appears to clearly define the only possible down mesa canal route. From here, the canal is believed to enter a significant hanging portion to the highest allowable mesa routing at N 32.75095 W 109.83749. Evidence of this crucial segment remains weak.

There appears to be CCC rework in this area in the form of cross channel checkdams. These do seem to be remarkably consistent with similar constructs further downstream. There is a second "knife edge" pinch point at N 32.75747 W 109.82554 where an extremely narrow mesa portion also defines what appears to be the only permissible constant downward slope route.

There seem to be a mix of braided, alternate, and revised channels along this route, some of which seem to include apparent CCC rework. The apparent destination is a small switchable ponding area at N 32.76012 W 109.81131 At this point a choice can apparently be made to continuing eastwardly to form the Robinson Ditch or spectacularly southwesterly to form the counterflowing HS Canal.

The HS Canal appears to be by far the most significant construct in the entire bajada hanging canal system, and there is not the slightest doubt that its intent was to continue careful delivery to further downstream water projects. While such canals have not yet been positively linked, they are presently thought to include the Golf Course canal, the Freeman Canal, constructs in the Riggs Mesa area, the and reworked modern Blue Ponds Canal.

March 10, 2016
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And here and here and here and here are some very welcome third party comments on the PostScript marbeling stuff we have been looking at.

Basically what happens here is we have a concentric pile of progressively smaller pancakes. What started out as a filled circle gets nonlinearity "bent" to do all the hippy dippy stuff.

Once this stuff is fully understood ( original tutorial here ), there are zillions of new possibilities for ultra compact and stunningly detailed artwork options.

March 9, 2016
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Here's an older classic review on PostScript linear and nonlinear transforms. The transform operator details can also be found here.

March 8, 2016
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Netscape over smart Vizio chokes on three yellow WiFi bars, but works just fine with four green ones. We had been having some time of day issues that still are not quite resolved.

Potential causes are neighboring interference, absorption from the water in human bodies, extreme position sensitivity where even an inch or two can make a major difference, critical antenna alignment, possible window films, or simply trying to communicate too far with WiFi.

Present thinking is that a WiFi range extender should fix things, but we are having trouble getting it properly set up.

March 7, 2016
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The Supremes just went platinum!

Per details here and here and here. See no evil. Hear no evil.

Am I the only one who noted there are no useful roads between Colorado and Oklahoma?

March 6, 2016
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Befuddlement 101. I am having trouble understanding this theory that produces this image using this PostScript Code. It remains astonishingly brilliant and seems to have the potential ( assuming anyone still cares ) of being rewritten in an amazingly few bytes of code.

All we really have is a centered pile of progressively smaller Raggedy Anne bordered pancakes here. Each pancake starts off as a plain old circular disk. Done with the in-itself brilliant Minsky Circle technique, with plain old trig, or possibly even with the PostScript arcto operator.

The outside defining path of each "circle" is then transformed using a magic hippy dippy THC transform, which I presently do not have the faintest clue how it works. "The weather forecast for tonight is mostly dark."

We have perfect edge alignment since each circle is simply filled on top of its underlying larger one. And, as usual with PostScript, procs get sharper with increasing size.

Can you help me understand the HDTHC transform? Can you rewrite the code in, say 879 bytes?

March 5, 2016
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There's a newer USB style oscilloscope called the SainSmart DDS120 that seems to have an interesting mix of properties that include 20 MHz and $60 with a pair of probes.

One major gotcha: Because of USB power, you are limited to 5 volts max with a 1X probe or 50 volts max with a 10X probe.

I've got one on order and will comment on how it turns out.

March 4, 2016
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Apparently drone rental services are becoming readily available and seem to be of particular interest to our local farmers. One such service is available through Jeremy Green of the Eastern Arizona AG Center. Otherwise reached by (928) 322-6629 . Typical farm survey prices are around $4 per acre.

Naturally, our Prehistoric Bajada Hanging Canals could not care less about acres. With a canal, it is all about feet and hours and travel time. We also do not need much in the way of image post processing and should be able to do much of this to meet our own special needs by ourself.

Despite rapidly dropping drone prices, I've been very reluctant to buy one, because I could see one just barely vanishing forever off the edge of a mesa. And despite spectacular new nav and stability options, I've yet to see a drone that includes a month long downed craft alarm.

March 3, 2016
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Understanding something called a Minsky Circle is the key to starting to understand our recent stoner PostScript art. Surprisingly, this is just a simple, brilliant, and disgustingly elegant way to approximate a circle or an ellipse in integer XY space.

One of the most fundamental ways of generating anything is to make an analog or digital equation model of the underlying differential equations involved. An integral is simply the accumulated area under a curve. The integral of a cosine wave is a sinewave . The integral of a sinewave is minus a cosine wave.

Close the loop and bingo.

The inane way I remember who gets flipped is to "Design Positive". AKA the derivative of a sinewave is plus the cosine wave. If in doubt, make a simple integral sketch.

For an analog sinewave, you simply integrate twice and then invert. And XY plotting a sinewave against its companion cosine should produce a circle. For an ellipse, just change the X or Y scale.

For analog apps, there is one additional crucial but tiny detail. You have to stabilize each integration to an overall unity gain. HP solved the "make a clean sinewave" problem long ago by throwing a nonlinear incandescent light bulb into the loop for some stable negative feedback.

The Minsky Circle does the same thing digitally in integer XY space. And automatically handles the amplitude stabilization problem for us. Going "once around" leaves you exactly back where you started.

The Minsky algorithm is simply...

while ( true )   
{ x += d * y      
y -= d * x     }

...And just whip it once around.

March 2, 2016
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I attended a recent seminar on overgrazing.

When they asked the audience what the indicator species  for overgrazing were, they got rather upset with my answer of "cows".

March 1, 2016
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Apparently a brand new British publication chose to name themselves Radio-Electronics. These folks have nothing whatsoever to do with the rich history of classic Gernsback publications having similar or related names.

Meanwhile, much of the entire hardware hacking history of the classic constructor pubs can be freely downloaded. Along with many of my own tutorials and construction projects here.

February 29, 2016
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Way back when, I had this thoughts on refurb project that was supposed to be an ongoing feature, but it kinda fell by the wayside.

Some of the original notes bear repeating though...

Make a determination as quickly as possible whether an item can be sold as is, as is with minor cleanup, needs minor repair, needs major rework, sellable as is, sellable for parts, mixed and matched with others in the group, stripped for parts, held for parts, or flushed outright.

A dozen projects needing minor rework (tighten the screws, replace knobs, improve cosmetics) can be done in the time it takes to doing anything major to one item. And much more certainly.

Always ask "What am I getting into?" Have your hired help do the routine stuff such as any initial cleanup and final out-the-door appearance upgrading.

Spend your own time where it will do the most good; but delegate otherwise. eBay can often be used as a lending library to get the repair and service manual for any higher ticket item that has a high probability of repair. Always try to have full tech info before attempting anything major in the way of repairs.

Often the manual can be resold at a profit or as item added value. It is super important to keep your refurb area clear! Ideally, a project should be handled only once. If absolutely necessary while waiting for parts, the item can be placed in a tote and tagged with any required further action.

Any item kept for ten weeks without completing refurb will most likely never be finished. Continually review all of these projects for downgrading and elimination. The earlier you flush an unsellable product and the less time you spend with it, the lower your losses in dealing with it.

There is no point in trying to compete with instrument repair and calibration houses. Normally, the unit should be brought up to "clean used - appears fully functional - guaranteed to be serviceable" condition.

Warranty repairs or trying to meet original specs are another game entirely. One that takes all sorts of special gear, NIST traceability, factory authorization, and expertise. In exchange for lower prices, the buyer is expected to assume more risk.

While it pays to keep an inventory of crucial items for some popular gear (such as common hardware and HP or Tektronix knobs), stashing tons and tons of random replacement parts makes no sense to me whatsoever.

If you do not like the vibes at any time or point during refurb, flush or downgrade the project. Never sell anything you feel bad about in any manner.

The  final key test is "Would you be proud to keep this  as a personal tool or instrument?"

Some of the simplest tools will often end up the most useful. Hex Allen wrenches, Vise Grips, and live power field tracers for sure. Potent cleaners and goop removers. Fresh adhesives that include silicon rubber (use most), epoxy, and superglue. Sources of repair and replacement items include a hardware store or two, Small Parts, W.W.Grainger, and McMaster-Carr. Plus, of course, such electronic houses as Digi-Key, Mouser, or as last resorts, Allied or Newark. Do not attempt any repair or refurb without having the bare minimum test m equipment needed to properly deal with it.

A modern oscilloscope (or its pc equivalent) is essential for just about any technical work. Be sure to research item demand before you even think about beginning refurb. Useful tools include present and past eBay sales, Google, Thomas Register, the Wayback Machine, or the fine sci.electronics.design design and sci.electronics.repair newsgroups .

It is often possible to take a dozen broken identical items and end up with ten good ones by mixing and matching parts. This often will end up your most economical refurb and upgrading route. It is infinitely better to compete three of four refurb items than to have dozens of them piling up unfinished.

Do not start any new projects before you eliminate some of the older ones.

Second tier brands are probably not worth pissing over. HP (Agilent) and Tektronix test items are a lot more sellable than everything else put together. But HP Oscilloscopes are totally worthless, their last useful one being the 130C.

February 28, 2016
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Home energy monitors sure seem to be slow in developing. One concept I looked at long ago was the Isopod, which I never got around to further developing.

The key issues seem to be load sensing and telling which load is active when. And performing these tasks without raising needing an electrician, expensive custom installations, or serious safety or tampering issues.

For various reasons, cities and municipalities do not seem to want to give a homeowner reasonable access to their smart meters. Black and Decker does have a home energy monitor that works with traditional meters, but it is tricky to get their "wheel watcher" to be consistently reliable. This scheme also measures total power, rather than which load is costing you how much wen. .

A new outfit called Sense offers some semi-smart monitoring based on changes in power consumption sometimes being traceable to one particular load. For instance, the watts being drawn by an electric water heater should be fairly well defined and consistent. But it is not at all clear how the system can tell nearly identical power loads, or loads that are time variant.

I still feel the Isopod concept should be viable in which one wire to each individual load can be accessed and snapped around. These days with instant supercomputers and WiFi all over hell and gone, it should be no big deal to tag and uniquely identify each and every major electrical load.

Several smartphone sensing aps are newly available. Meanwhile, check with your utility every six months or so to see if they newly offer customer meter reading on demand services. More on energy fundamentals here.

February 27, 2016
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The "next big thing" seems likely to be solid state microwave ovens. NXP Semiconductor has come out with a MHT1003N transistor rated 250 watts, 2450 MHz, and $14.

This potentially blows away magnetrons, but learning curve issues remain, along with ultra cheap magneton economics. The new transistors are also more efficient and deal with partial loadings and high VSWR situations much better.

At present, magnetron power remains substantially higher, but there are definite advantages to using multiple transistors for better cavity coupling. Efficiency and lifetime is also better.

It is thus reasonable to expect a "pricey and wimpy" product phase for a while.

February 26, 2016
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"Marbleizing" or "Stoner" images written in the PostScript language can end up amazingly simple yet enormously complex. But work in highly unusual, unexpected, and non-obvious ways. Here's some highly preliminary "adjustments" and comments I have made to some third party source code  that hints at some of the amazing possibilities.

One pdf file is called stoner1x.pdf Its sourcecode is found as stoner1x.psl A second pdf file is called tatum1.pdf Its sourcecode is found as tatum1.psl

they are based on an elegant and ancient construct called a Minsky Circle. With more details here. Although the images suggest marbelling, what you really have is a progressive and overlain series of transformed filled circles sharing common centers that are piled one on top of each other. Thus, the actual image in places is many filled circles deep.

Yeah, the math is obtuse and nonobvious. I'll try to post more details as I further understand them. Meanwhile, the gory details can be saved as an exercise for the student.

Also yeah, my psl code on this is, of course, excessively bloated gobbling away an insane seven kilobytes. Can you rewrite cleaner code in, say, 689 bytes total?

February 25, 2016
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Updated our Classic Reprints web page.

February 24, 2016
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I have long been fascinated by marbling, which is a technique that places exotic patterns on the insides of classic book covers.

Apparently, paper was placed at the bottom of a pan of water and various colored oil based inks were floated on top. The paper then got lifted, depositing the oils in exotic patterns.

Which, of course, screams  "Do it in PostScript". A third party paper on all this can be found here. While the math at first glance is rather obtuse, the final code is not all that complex or long.

Here's a sample.

February 23, 2016
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A reminder that we still have a very few autographed copies remaining of my Micro Cookbook Volume I. And that it is also available as a free eBook here.

Volume II has gotten hard to find, but we have split it into a retitled pair of free eBooks here and here. Plus a sampler of what can be done with a Level II Restoration that you can fine here.

February 22, 2016
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The latest Google Earth imagery is not always "better" and the updates may be limited and not where you would like to see them. But, in general, newer is often improved.

Here are some examples of new or improved hanging canal discoveries with the latest updates...

Upper Robinson Ditch Lower Deadman Mesa Upper Frye Mesa Upper Deadman Tank area

Two of these are newly discovered hanging canals numbers #69 and #70! For a total distance of at least one hundred miles! As we've just seen, purposely trying any and all historical imagery can sometimes greatly improve viewing.

February 21, 2016
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There seem to be some dramatic improvements in Google Earth lately.

As we recently saw, Earthpoint has a drop in ap that lets you add topo map contours and callouts to Google Earth and does so as an adjustable transparency "flyby" mode. Among the other neat tricks, you can now work "backwards" and find the lat-lon and elevation for a topo map location.

You can also use topo callouts to find out exactly where the imagery you are looking at is located. The ap is free and you simply click it into your Google Earth copy. There are some limits to how much tilt is allowed, but the performance is otherwise remarkable.

Apparently the satellite imagery is being continuously improved, and you can now read the exact date of sensing at the lower right. Even better yet, you can apparently purposely use out of date imagery!

Which can give you a history of what happened when. Or in the case of our bajada hanging canals, certain previous flybys might have more or less grass or a different time of day, or different contrast or whatever and thus make a dramatic difference in canal observation.

One fun thing to do: Go to N 33.21442 W 109.19613 and view the entire history of the Blue River Fish Barrier fiasco.

February 20, 2016
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One of the Magic Sinewave tricks I started long ago but never got around to finishing: There are pairs of possible "regular" magic sinewaves whose lower unwanted harmonics are identical in magnitude but opposite in sign.

If you could somehow "alternate" these waveshapes to achieve some sort of cancellation , the size and the frequency of the first unwanted harmonics could be dramatically improved.

But the obvious stunt of simply alternating half cycles introduces cosine terms that largely eliminate any net gains.

Can something more sneaky be done for further dramatic improvement of magic sinewave capabilities?

February 19, 2016
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Magic Sinewaves involve some recently discovered unique math sequences that allow the synthesis of high power digital sinewaves that both maximize efficiency and minimize the presence of low harmonics.

I've just updated and improved some links on these. Some of the more important upgrades include...

Magic Sinewave Calculator Quantizer Update
Recent Developments in Magic Sinewaves 
Introduction to Magic Sinewaves

Magic Sinewaves Quick Access Page
Magic Sinewaves Main Library

Lectures and consulting services available.

February 18, 2016
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The Mexican Sushi truck has moved from JoBi's to Big O. But JoBi's still sells Eegees.

Besides a more obviously high traffic location, this makes sense as in its transition from a bank to a tire store, the building went through a superb sammich shop phase.

February 17, 2016
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At the ARA paper regional, several members were praising a product called Elephant Snot as a super effective graffiti remover.

February 16, 2016
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Many years ago, I published an image of Pacman, AZ that hinted at the potential for selectively combining topo maps with aerial imagery.

While it has taken a lot longer than I expected, flyable and transparency adjustable topo overlays are now available for Google Earth.

This US only service is available as a plug in ap for Google Earth by Earthpoint. Simply click on their "View on Google Earth" block. This service is free with no registration needed.

There is a slider just above Layers that lets you set the topo contour transparency. While amazingly useful, there are limits to the amount of pseudo 3D tilt available. There are also minor discrepancies between the USGS contour values and those of Google imagery.

Here is a .JPG saved example showing the key crossover point on the Mud Springs canal. Of crucial interest is the saddle at the section boundary.

More on the prehistoric bajada hanging canals here.

February 15, 2016
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Yesterday's spectacular image raises the profound question: How could such a canal be engineered and surveyed using prehistoric 1275 CE era stone age technology?

What follows is highly speculative. If not what really happened, it suggests that similar techniques would appear to be largely within reasonable bounds for the technology at hand.

Firstoff, an aerial photo similar to the pix would certainly ease the initial design. The related Mud Springs Canal has several places where nearly its entire length can be viewed. Which suggest it may have been one of the earlier pilot canal projects.

Similarly, Deadman Peak is just west of the study mesa. Numerous rises and high spots exist which can provide a similar unobstructed "aerial" view of the complete mesa, and some of these are as close as one mile. And at appropriate elevations.

It would seem not too much of a stretch to believe that "they" were aware of the fact that static water was level. This belief would seem mandatory for effective canal slope management. on such a spectacular scale.

Small pilot versions of a canal route could be static filled with water and then route adjusted to produce a desired slope for the final design.

Accurate vertical references would seem possible with a plumb bob, and these could be combined with an equilateral triangle to also give a horizontal reference. Whether such techniques would be accurate enough or actually used remain to be proven.

The entire canal system seems to have consistent attempts to select as high a route as possible while maintaining an acceptable, consistent, and constant slope. Which led to key terrain "pinch points" where the only feasible canal route is exactly determined.

A very significant example of this appears on the Mud Springs canal at N 32.79164 W 109.85373. Where there appears to be one and only one feasible location for a watershed crossing between the Ash Creek drainage and the Mud Springs drainage.

Similarly, there appears to be one and only one possible pinch point on this reach of the Lebanon Canal consistent with highest possible routing at N 32.73805 W 109.75140. And this one exact point would appear to define the only feasible canal route.

Thus, given a source and a destination and a few terrain pinch points, most canal possible routes would appear to be fairly exactly predefined.

February 14, 2016
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A new approach to showing bajada hanging canal images can be found here. It is kinda intermediary in that it is .JPG rather than full flyable KML

This is one of the most spectacular reaches of the known 67 (!) bajada canals of over 100 miles total. Its "hanging" portion is over two hundred feet above its related drainage!

"Up", of course is to the right and "Down" to the left!

The process starts with Google Earth, which is first magnified till it is somewhat fake 3D but not yet fully flattened out. The image is then rotated for an optimal landform presentation and saved as a .JPG image.

The image is then moved to Imageview32 or a similar .jpg editor where it gets cropped, brightened, gamma improved, and sharpened.

Next, the image is loaded into Paint and repetitive blue dots are placed along your best approximation to the canal route. Acme Mapper can possibly assist in getting the best possible known GPS locations onto its version of the image.

The quadratic line drawing shape ( top row, second from left ) is then selected to create a smooth path, mousing around to "bend" stuff where and when needed.

Note that the best orienting is often "landform optimal" rather than "cardinal" Image titles can include notes such as "viewed to the southeast".

February 13, 2016
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The Alabama grits harvest seems to be nearing  its peak. It appears to be a vintage year.

The preferred commercial grits tree is often gritus  arborus (domesticus redneckus).

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.

More details here. And here.

February 12, 2016
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From Josh Billings, but often wrongly attributed to Mark Twain...

 "I never knew an auctioneer to lie.
 Unless it was absolutely convenient"

Much more on auction stuff here, Arizona Specifics here, and our own eBay auctions here.

February 11, 2016
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More than you could possibly ever want to know about penny auctions appears here. And our own analysis here.

The bottom line, of course, are that these are a tax on the monumentally stupid. And proving once again that rectocranial inversion can be both chronic and acute at the same time.

February 10, 2016
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Electronics inside a hot tub seems to have only an eight to ten year half life, owing mostly to internals not being properly designed to survive a high humidity environment forever.

Combined with constant improvements by a very fragmented and unstable industry.

While attempting a spa repair yourself or using a random plumber is fraught with peril, both SpaGuts.com and SpaDepot.com seem to offer both expertise and reasonably priced replacement parts.

As I mentioned a time or two way back, adding an external knob type variable time delay controller can very much ease your heating costs. Also, should you still have an ancient split system with outside heater and pump and controller, think about adding a one way valve on the high side to prevent overnight thermosiphoning and unneeded cooling.

Also, a proper cover is a must! These degrade considerably and get ridiculously heavy if they pick up internal water. Sometimes they can be dried out by opening them and heating in the sun.

What I would like to see is a very sophisticated controller that remembers how long it took to bring things up to temperature yesterday, with a yearly distribution and local outside temperature measurement. This could dramatically improve tub heating economics, possibly as much as 2:1.

Knowing the degrees-per-hour slope given the outside temperature and the water temperature should greatly easy the calculations.

February 9, 2016
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The December and January pc panel pricing can newly be found here. And once again, it is mostly in the wrong direction.

We are presently around twice the quarter per peak watt panel price needed to eventually achieve net renewability and sustainability.

More on energy concepts here.

February 8, 2016
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"... and there's absolutely nothing that could possibly go wrong".

"Go wrong ... Go wrong ... Go wrong  ...   :

The recently constructed Blue River Fish Barrier seems to have just covered itself with mud. Helped along with its "anti scour" structure to the east.

Possibly the "anti scour structure" has very much exceeded its most wildest expectations. Somehow, this does not look quite right to me. This makes for a very interesting hike, except that you cannot get there from here. Especially if you are a fish.

More interesting hikes here.

February 7, 2016
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Thuzzy finking strikes again.

One more time: Not one net watthour of pv generated electricity has EVER been produced. But we are finally getting real close to being truly renewable and sustainable. Which reasonably can be expected to take place eight years after the fully burdened, subsidy free cost drops under twenty five cents per peak panel watt.

A major car company apparently built a pole-style pv array that supposedly generates 30 kWh per year. Firstoff, pole style pv is inherently about 30 percent less efficient than a properly aimed fixed array and about 50 percent less efficient than a tracking array. AKA an unaffordable luxury.

The 30 kWh has not happened yet, and likely will be lower due to cloudy days, panel aging, and dust maintenance. Even taking this at face value, the net income would be $3000 at a dime per kilowatt hour.

Per this amortization schedule, you can finance a $23,205 project at ten percent for ten years. If the project cost this much, it would be in no manner renewable nor sustainable, but a "paint it green" stunt. Any higher cost would indicate a gasoline destroying net energy sink.

I suspect their project cost MUCH more than this.

The usual suspect in bogus pv economic analysis is treating any subsidy as a 1X asset rather than a 5X to 7X "all initial energy costs considered" liability. Additional energy stuff here.

February 6, 2016
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Once again expanded and updated our Gila Valley  Dayhikes page. We are now up to 447 main entries, most of which now include GPS location links.

Please email me with anything I missed or needs further updating.

February 5, 2016
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This photo had all sorts of glare and depth of field and lettering contrast problems. But with extra effort it did not turn out half bad for eBay use..

The main image was done as a photo outdoors in diffused shade. Minor architects distortion was corrected manually, rather than using our routines.

The contents were separately scanned and merged as the middle image, while the plastic cover was completely faked as new art. Semi-legible text was redone with our Bitmap Typewriter. And finally, the superb background was done with our auto-vignetting routine.

Which, by the way, uses an absolutely real full electronic fields solution routine.

Lectures, training, and custom consulting available.

February 4, 2016
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One piece of classic cave humor from the UAAC Songbook era was the Lost Wax Cave Mapping Technique. In which a cave to be mapped was filled with molten paraffin and then...

Amazingly, it turns out that Bob Buecher's latest paper at the ARA has made a variation on the Lost Wax method eminently practical. In which a small and cheap LIDAR unit, some steppers, and a pc can now simply and easily scan an entire cave to ridiculous resolution.

Ferinstance, as a fund raising activity, this means that the ARA can now offer full size 1:1 replicas of Onyx Cave to anyone that wants one. With supplemental bonuses of total vandalism remediation. And "inverse" Santa Claus Machine miniature solid versions for collectors.

Yeah, there's a minor shipping problem or two to be worked out, so most clone replicas would have to be presently created on site. But the project is clearly now totally feasible.

This seems to be the most stunning technical speleo breakthrough since synthetic spent carbide or the caver's wrist sundial.

February 3, 2016
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A reminder that this Xylophone Duet is eminently watchable, while its curious original can be found here.

And that a "must review" related web resource usually has around one hundred million daily changing entries.

February 2, 2016
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A rich collection of thousands of free "old timey" radio programs can be found here.

And, as we've mentioned a time or two before, an incredible collection of historic radio and tv magazines ( technical and otherwise ) and related materials can be found here.

February 1, 2016
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An extremely interesting early record of the Gila Valley can be found here that includes historic canal info.

It has also been excerpted in a new, but hard to find book. EAC Library also has this

There were two "flavors" of prehistoric canals in the valley, the "regular" riverine ones, and our hanging bajada ones. Now up to 65 study items approaching 100 miles or more of length.

The riverine ones were pretty much the same as those in Phoenix and elsewhere, while the bajadas represented world class mind-boggling engineering.

January 31, 2016
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Local WiFi can easily end up with hot spots and dead ones. Especially around metal shelves or even some forms of window tinting. The guards on fan blades can be especially a problem.

Moving a newer smart tv backwards by four inches here was enough to force constant reloads. The trick is to check your menu reception stats to make sure you have at least four bars out of five worth of signal strength.

Similarly, WiFi sources should never be allowed within a few feet or each other unless they clearly do not interfere or overload each other.

The same goes for scanners and pagers. These should also be kept four or more feet apart. Since these do not intentionally transmit, the problem is more subtle and involves internal local oscillators and cords that happen to resonate.

January 30, 2016
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Doing something stupid once is just plain dumb.

But doing it often is a philosophy.

January 29, 2016
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http://www.dumb.com says it all.

January 28, 2016
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We live in a small remote rural western town. That has probably the last remaining post office whose employees are polite and give a shit. As a result, our priority mail packages get through amazingly fast. And we are often praised for exceptional delivery times on eBay feedback.

On the other hand, the FAA designation for the Safford airport seems appropriate as "SAD" while Thatcher International is limited to nightly DC3 return flights to Columbia. Thus, attempting to "speed up" our shipping will likely delay things by two weeks or more.

Besides being grossly inconvenient to us. Not to mention outrageously expensive.

January 27, 2016
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A local doctor's office has placed two classic ancient business typewriters in their waiting room for kids to play with.

It seemed notable that a fifth and sixth grader sat down with these having apparently never seen a typewriter before. And promptly began typing at 120 words a minute.

January 26, 2016
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A reminder to always lie like a rug on those "surveys" that prevent you from accessing newspaper stories or similar publications. Be sure to tell them the EXACT OPPOSITE of what they supposedly want to hear. The goal being to make their mesmerizingly awful results totally useless.

Always answer "Pepsi" as your favorite brand of smoke detector.

January 25, 2016
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Pico De Gallo - A very small parrot.

January 24, 2016
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The winter cave technical regional of the ARA will be held Saturday January 30th at Kartchner Caverns  starting at 8:30 AM with lunches and dinners planned. Free park admission and free Sunday cave tours.

January 23, 2016
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We seem to be slowly picking up new bits and pieces of the Freeman Canal. The latest find is a miniature "local use" canal derived off an apparent ponding area from N 32.80067 W 109.75068 to N 32.80088 W 109.75092 with a photo here.

A hanging portion of the main Freeman Canal has been found from N 32.79395 W 109.75777 to N 32.79453 W 109.75718, while Acme Mapper is suggesting a major missing portion from N 32.79789 W 109.75457 to N 32.79958 W 109.75383.

Much more here. Your participation welcome.

January 22, 2016
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