Timmerov's Blog
no post today
cause today isn't a real day. go back to bed. get up again tomorrow.
garage door
i promised the beautiful and talented alisa a new garage door for christmas. that's last christmas in case you're keeping track. yes, the very same heart holding garage door is marked for destruction. anywho, nothing around here can just be easy. the previous owners built a loft in the garage. we've been storing boxes up there. it's in the way of a panel type garage door. maybe a rollup? ew no. they're ugly industrial things. i offered to paint it to look like a panel door. no banana. so the loft has to go. at least the first of three sections. the remaining two sections would be plenty big enough to hold all the boxes. so it's outta here. alisa and the boys went hiking. i wasn't really planning to rip up the garage yesterday. it just sorta happened. step 1, inspect and plan. leave the bits with electrical wires. identify the structural bits by looking at the neighbor's garages. step 2, remove the bicycles and everything that's under the soon to be ex-loft section. that's half the stuff in the garage. i don't know about you but we've got quite a bit of stuff crammed into our garage. i noticed some cars driving by slowly. i think they thought we were having a garage sale. step 3, remove the wiring for the garage door. step 4, remove the drywall ceiling. i have no idea why they thought the garage needed a drywall ceiling. i tried to position the garbage can to catch the dust as i sawed with moderate success. they added 2x4s between the 2x6s to give them something attach the drywall to. great. a couple whacks with the small sledge took care of that. step 5, remove the loft floor. i tried manually sawing from below. but that was too fatiguing. so i got out the ladder and the saber saw. the loft is inconveniently high. like it's a bit of a climbing exercise to go from the top of the ladder into the loft. yes, the tippy top of the ladder that's two steps up from the step that's clearly marked, do not stand above this step. one might question the sanity of ignoring this warning while holding a power saw. i was careful to stand in the middle section of the loft while i cut away the floor of the first section. i may not be sane, but i'm not stupid. i only had to cut some of the sections. then just brute force ripped them down. one had a nail that tore a hole in my pants. meh. didn't like those pants anyway. step 6, remove the horizontal 2x6s that used to support the floor. this part was kinda weird. one side was attached to the wall inside the wall. the other side was attached to the beam above the window. there were two pieces that almost met in the middle. it couldn't be one piece. cause it would have impeded the garage door opener. so they were attached to the 2x6s above them that are part of the garage. no matter. was actually easier to remove in two pieces. one side had to be cut. the other was just wrenched clean off the wall. it's amazing how much force you can generate with a 10' lever. step 7, remove a couple of extra boards. this was the fun part. cause there's no longer a floor. nor are there any floor supports to stand on. so i'm hanging from the rafters by one hand cutting a 1x6 with the saber saw with the other. one might also question the sanity of that maneuver. step 8, clean up. gawd what a mess. step 9, clean all the stuff and put it back back. i tossed a few things we really didn't need. the hockey gear used to be on the top two shelves. but since the loft is no longer in the way, it's all piled up on the top shelf. leaving a lot more room for all the other junk. i ran a bungee cord around one shelf to keep all the soccer balls from falling off. step 9, finish cleaning the garage. might as well. beat the rugs. and sweep out the corners. step 10, wonder where the heck everyone is. i was really expecting to get busted in the middle of this task. but it didn't happen. heh. if it wasn't for the pile of building materials in the driveway, the day's work might have gone unnoticed. which would have been kinda funny. in a sad sort of way.
correction
a while back i asserted that financial services provide no useful function. it was pointed out to me that this is hogwash. and upon further reflection, i have to admit, as much as it pains me, i was wrong. the individuals who profit from financial services, ie the 1%, get $4 every time you, the 99%, save $1. it doesn't feel like it, cause you don't actually write the check. but that's the result. at first pass this seems like a bad thing (tm). like no-brainer. so how could it possibly be a good thing (tm)? heh. i explain. suppose the 99% could save money 5x faster than they do. they'd retire at a young age. our factories would be empty of workers. they'd all be out playing golf or sucking down pina coladas on a beach somewhere. then they'd try to buy something with all their "wealth". but they wouldn't be able to. because there'd be nothing to buy. cause all the factories are empty. because... well, you get the picture. basically, our economy would come to a grinding halt if the 1% didn't sop up the 99%'s excess wealth. so the next time you see some douchebag in a beemer being a douchebag, remember, a couple of things. first, that's not his beemer. it's yours. you paid for it. take a moment to admire it. second, he's doing you a big favor. cause if it weren't for him, you wouldn't have a job, a house, a wife, kids. you owe everything you have to him. so treat him with some respect. sheehs.
pucks
a long time ago i was a young man with no cares in the world. i could play hockey on my back patio all day if i wanted to. sigh. so anywho. i wasn't very good. hence the practice. some shots would go over around or through the net. fewer still would go over the backyard fence into the neighbor's yard. most were found. some were lost forever. some were disintegrated by the lawn mower. the neighbor was old then. she's no longer there. the new neighbors didn't like their new (old?) shed. so they removed it. the other day the boys and i were trying to get the cats into the house so we could leave for a short vacation. and there, pressed into the mud where the shed used to be, were two hockey pucks. we picked them up. washed them off. and put them in the box with all the other hockey pucks. that might be used again some day. some day. sigh.
consensus
so 97% of climatologists believe in agw. so what does that mean exactly? it means they agree with the following three statements: 1) the world has been getting warmer for at least the past 150 years. 2) human activities account for a significant* part of that warming. and 3) co2 in the atmosphere warms the earth via the greenhouse effect. as near as i can tell, significant is sorta loosely defined. it could be anywhere from 2% to 200%. heh. how the heck could it be 200%? that's absurd. heh. not really. some models predict the earth should be cooling at the rate it's heating. so something has negated the cooling. and on top of that, done the heating. anywho. the ipcc model has several additional parts. 4) there's a positive feedback amplification factor of 3-5. ie a little heating causes more heating causes more etc. there's an implied 4a) that 4) will go on for a significant period of time. and 5) warming is bad for humans. buy-in for 1) is nearly 100% among people who actually study this topic. cause it's supported by data. lots and lots of data. the buy-in rate generally drops as you progress. re 2), it's abundantly clear that humans are changing the environment. and that changing the environment can change the weather. and hence the climate. ergo, it's nearly certain humans are at least in part responsible for changes to the climate. caveat: unfortunately, there's no control for this experiment. maybe you religious types could get god to create a sister earth on the other side of the sun where people don't burn fossil fuels. anywho 3) absolutely. again backed up by data. 4) and 4a), earth's climate has been pretty stable for millions of years. if the forcing was really 3-5 over large temperature ranges, one would expect the earth's temperatures to vary a lot more than they do. so either the forcing is less. a lot less. or it depends on other transient factors that happen to be converging right now. the forcing may depend indirectly on temperature. ie when it gets hot, plants die, and the earth stops warming. and then the forcing turns around like a swinging pendulum. ie a little cooling begets more cooling. and BOOM! ice age. and 5) fooey! humans are the most adaptable creatures ever to walk the earth. rapid change is bad for most creatures. they'll die. the remainder will flourish without the competition and/or predators. for people, change is a double edged sword. it means a bunch of stuff we've invested, whether financially or emotionally, will go away. making us sad. change also means that opportunity will be knocking 'til its knuckles are sore and bleeding. me the hippie would like to not change the world on the scale that we are. its beauty is diminished by the things that people do. me the pragmatist is one voice against a consensus of billions.
aspirception
aspirin as contraception. huh. i bet it would work really well. the female holds an aspirin tablet between her knees. even if she's completely cooperative with the male, it seems really unlikely that they could perform the act necessary for conception to occur without displacing the aspirin tablet. unless she's some sort of contortionist. or they're willing to break her leg and/or hip bones. or they use some sort of device. like a turkey baster. seems like its efficacy would be more along the lines of conjugation prevention (contra-conjugation? contrajugation? catragation?) instead of contraception. kinda like a chastity belt. hrm. i feel inspiration coming on. i'm gonna market a whole line of "contraceptives" based on the idea that if the lady keeps her knees together she won't catch preggers. oh man. i'm gonna be so rich.
valentine's day
was a huge success. literally. the boys helped me make a giant heart. to stick on the outside of the garage door and surprise the beautiful and talented alisa when she took the boys to school. at least, that was the plan. the weather threw the first monkey wrench into the soup. it threatened to rain. it just poured on the 13th with no sign of stopping for 40 days and 40 nights. 40 nychthemerons for the vocabularians in the audience. anywho, the weatherman promised it would not rain valentine's day morning. so that's good right? yeah, they also predicted a light drizzle, not a downpour. sheehs. so anywho. the beautiful and talented alisa tossed the second monkey wrench into the system. she took some anti-allergy medication the night before and needed to sleep in. so school duties fell to me. she didn't really sleep in all that long. it just felt like a long time when i had a secret to keep. and knowing that the neighbors were all enjoying this wacky expression of love for her. and she wasn't. fortunately, she wanted to go to the gym. i watched from the window as she backed out of the garage. i wondered if she was going to close it. she did. i wondered if she was going to notice. but only briefly. cause she did. and the smile that landed on her face was priceless. the heart stayed there all day. and all night. we took pictures. so it'll probably make it into next year's calendar.
suicide
so this morning i was removing the soccer ball ice pack from the freezer for g's lunch when the parmesan container leaped from its place on the shelf to the bottom ledge where it was neatly decapitated by the oj shelf on the door. i saw it jump when it was too late to stop the freezer door from closing. the frozen plastic crunch was clearly audible. my sleepy brain was awake enough to realize what had happened. but not awake enough to fully think through what was going to happen next. as i opened the freezer door to survey the damage, the parmesan container dumped its load all over the recessed refrigerator door handle, and into every nook and cranny in the door, all over the lowest ledge in the fridge, and all over the floor. parmesan is cheese. frozen parmesan isn't very hard to clean up. being more like powder than sticky gooey messy cheese. unfortunately, it didn't stay frozen. and became a sticky gooey mess of cheese all over the floor. which needed to be cleaned up. good thing we weren't running behind schedule this morning. or we'd've been late for school. stupid selfish suicider. only thinking of themselves. and never thinking of the affect their success might have on others. who simply wanted to eat them.
if3
last post on inertial reference frames. i promise. there's one more case where we naturally choose the reference frame. and that's the case when bob's on a space ship orbiting the earth. we always use the inertial reference frame. and say there are no forces acting on bob. but wait! bob is still affected by gravity. heh. now you're switching to a non-inertial rotating reference frame with gravity. bleh. so now the force diagram has weight pointing down and the centrifugal force pointing up. for every object floating around the spaceship. which horribly clutters the math. and it isn't any more "right" or "wrong" than the inertial frame. which is significantly simpler. and hence, much more useful. which is why bob-on-the-desk and bob-in-spaceship can both be in equilibrium when bob-in-spaceship is floating around the room and bob-on-desk isn't. much to bob-on-desk's disappoint.
irf
a couple posts previous was about inertial reference frames. in the case of bob swinging around the toilet, it doesn't really matter if we choose an inertial reference frame or a rotating non-inertial reference frame. let's consider a case where the choice of reference frame does make a difference. bob is sitting on a desk. we automatically draw the force diagram with bob's weight pointing down and an equal but opposite normal force from the desk pointing up. bob's in equilibrium. this is what you'll find in every classroom everywhere in the world throughout time and space. the reference frame of the classroom is so natural and so ubiquitous that no one ever points out that we've made this assumption. and no one ever points out that the classroom reference frame is non-inertial. in the inertial reference frame, the weight (=mg) term moves from the forces side to the acceleration side. mathematically it's equivalent. just like it was when bob was revolving around the toilet. however, it leads to some fractious statements. like bob is not at equilibrium. what!?!? and weight is a fictitious force. wtf?!?! blaspheme! heh. true though. if you're going to say that centrifugal forces are fictitious, then i'm going to say, with equal validity, that weight is also fictitious. it's a matter of choice of reference frame. heck of a way to lose weight. i should market it. i'm gonna be so rich.
50k
by my count, the beautiful and talented alisa has done 50,000 situps since the beginning of the year. so. how are you doing with your new year's resolution?
forces
apparently arm chair physicists argue over whether or not the centrifugal force is real or fictional. fooey. it is and it isn't. it depends on what reference frame you choose. i explain. tie bob to a string. and swing him around in a circle. the centrifugal force is directed away from the center. it's center fleeing. which is a nice mnemonic cause fleeing and fugal alliterate nicely. the centripetal force is directed towards the center. traditionally, it's center seeking. which pseudo rhymes with fleeing. i'm not very traditional so i tend to think of it as center peeing. which is a superior mnemonic cause peeing and petal alliterate nicely. and peeing and fleeing are true rhymes. bonusly, one pees towards the center of the toilet. one does not pee away from the toilet. at least, not in my house. so anywho, bob is revolving around the toilet. in the inertial reference frame, bob is accelerating towards the toilet. the center peeing force is provided by the tension in the string. the sum of the forces equals mass times acceleration. specifically mass * angular velocity squared * distance to toilet. and everything is good. standard first year high school physics. the other way to look at things is to use a non-inertial rotating reference frame. in this case, bob is stationary relative to the reference frame. bob is in equilibrium. therefore the sum of the force vectors must be zero. therefore, the center fleeing force is equal but opposite to the center peeing force. specifically it is mass * angular velocity squared * distance to toilet. which should sound awful familiar. in fact, the only difference between the inertial and rotating reference frames is the side of the equation this term lives on. call it a force and put in on the sum of the forces side. call it an acceleration and put it on the acceleration side. it really doesn't matter. at least not math-wise. definition-wise surely. is bob at equilibrium? ie are the sum of the forces zero? heh. trick question. yes (in the rotating non-inertial reference frame) and no (in the intertial reference frame).
here here
this is an appeal to restore the republican party to a conservative party instead of a radical party. it'd likely get my vote.
archetype
this is a movie i'd like to see.
taxes
we really need to close some loopholes.
this is a pretty readable account of what i've been trying to say for a long time. yes, rich folks pay taxes on their income. but who cares? the game then becomes, don't have any income. ta da! no income. no taxes. then with the inheritance tax thing, rich kids cash out on daddy's fortune. and never pay a frikken dime. not 14%. zero.
yay!
we're building nuclear power plants again. yay! one could say this is good news and bad news. though i'd say it's good news and not-as-good-as-it-could-be news. the "bad" news is they're not breeder style reactors. ie they utilize only a tiny fraction of the energy available in the fuel. which means they make a lot more radioactive waste than the theoretical minimum. and like the older models, this stuff is stored locally until it cools down enough it can be transported to a long term facility for low(er) level waste. on the other hand. there's lots to cheer. this design is much safer than previous. ie airplanes can crash into it. the power can go out. it can be flooded. humans (think homer simpson) can do all sorts of stupid stuff to it. and it won't fukushima. so yeah. this is a good start. a really itty bitty start. but the journey to 1000 gigawatt nuclear power plants begins with this first tiny step. so pop the champagne. let's celebrate.
anti-choice
last post i used the term anti-choice. isn't that the same as anti-abortion? well, no. not quite. a human fetus is a human being. it can't really be anything else. and terminating a pregnancy ends that human being's life. one can't really dress up that fact any other way. think lipstick on a pig. if a fetus could survive outside of a womb, it would have a right to life. but since it can't. it doesn't. at least, that's how i justify murder. course only the owner of the womb has the right to evict the person inside it. i can't force you to have an abortion. and you can't keep me from having one. of course not. i'm male. if there was a human life parasitically living inside my body, i really don't think you'd have any problem with me removing it. even if it's destroyed in the process. and if you do, i'll laugh at you. cause i'm male. and i do whatever the hell i want with my body. don't believe me? google what life is like for retired football players. it's only archaic thinking that let's us think we can tell non-males what they can and cannot do with their bodies.
incompatible 2
here's another political incompatibility: traditional family values and anti-choice. i'm all for traditional families. having grown up in a single parent family i can say from direct experience, they kinda suck. let's suppose you take away a woman's right to control what goes on inside her body. she's young. and her boyfriend is a jerk. kinda by definition. cause he knocked her up before marrying her. so now they have an unpleasant choice. enter an unpleasant marriage and try to make it work. or not. most likely, the former will lead to a divorce. either way, the idea of traditional family values takes a hit.
incompatible
the education system is failing to teach people essential skills. like critical thinking. specifically the ability to recognize that two ideas are fundamentally incompatible. for example: tax cuts for the wealthy and smaller government. i explain. tax cuts for the rich derives directly from supply side economics. the basic idea is cutting taxes in general, and cutting taxes on the people who make the most money, boosts the economy. which increases the tax base. which increases the government's tax revenue more than the lower tax rate reduces it. so far so good. familiar territory. but wait. more revenue means more government. which is in direct opposition to that whole smaller government government idea. if you followed that, thank your parents and your teachers who taught you critical thinking. cause critical thinking is - well, critical - to the american way of life.
super pacs
i don't like super pacs. i think citizens united was one of the stupidest rulings ever. course if i was running for president, i'd be very sure to have a few dozen super pacs lined up on my side. why? consider football. i care about my players. and i really don't want them using steroids. however, if the other teams are artificially buff, then yeah, i have to make some beasties too. same with super pacs. if my voice is in danger of being drowned out and not heard because of your super pac, then i'm going to need a super pac too. and we all lose.
mittaxes
i think romney's playing the tax card all wrong. he should point at his own low tax rate and say, this is why we need to reform taxes. cause someone like me should be paying more than 14%. cause someone like you is paying 11% federal income tax plus 15% social security and medicare taxes. fair? vote for me and we'll fix it.
"good" boy
i really didn't want to take out the trash on account of my knee being old and cantankerous. b volunteered to. what a great kid. except... we got up the next morning and discovered the trash was strewn all over the front lawn. aw man. someone was in so much trouble. here we thought he did something nice. and in reality he just made more work for g and me. sigh. heh. okay. what really happened is he set the trash in the street with the wheels tight up against the curb. so it was leaning backwards slightly. it was kinda windy last night. we live on an outside corner. so he just happened to place the garbage can so it was perfectly lined up with the wind. no other trash can in either direction blew over. just ours. it was also only barely half full. so it was especially light. and super easy to tip over. three strikes and trash out! heh. fortunately, they had the foresight to set up the hockey/soccer net directly downwind from the garbage can. most of the trash ended up in the net instead of strewn about in the rose bushes. the thorny rose bushes. that scratch the hands that take their trash.
ddo
i haven't played in forever. so i decided to log in and see what's new. heh. probably lots. but not much below level 10. ah well. too busy at work to play anywho. okay so just to remind myself. when there's a new ddo update, run the client as administrator at least once. cause it'll want to do something stupid. like install a really old version of the microsoft c runtime libraries. wee.
san torum
a few posts previous was about how "christians" differ from christ. here's an example. rick santorum is the newly canonized saint of rapists. i explain. one of the statements he made this political season is that a preggers rape victim should find a way to enjoy god's blessing. yes that's right. "god's blessing" is now a euphemism for rape. which i find just horrifying. and given some of the thoughts that show up in my head, well, you get the idea. every rapist in the country is like boo-yah! we're talking serious base loyalty here. though it's a sorta poison base for everyone else. imagine a president santorum. lawyers would argue their clients are just the messenger for god's blessing. and therefore, not at all culpable for their actions. fortunately, i don't think san torum will be president. i don't think he actually believes that either. i'd bet he'd change his tune real fast if his female family members received god's blessing.
back up 2
following up on yesterday's post. but wait! you neglected interest. heh. okay. so i redid the numbers with interest rates ranging from 0% to 10%. that'd be above and beyond inflation. everyone knows that interest is just a way of transferring money from the young guy to the old guy. but heh. let's follow the numbers anyway. oddly, interest rates help both the young guy and the old guy. raising interest rates reduces the amount one needs to save. workers need to save between 2% and 20%. when they retire they have between 6x and 9x their salary. the average savings over their lifetime is between 2x and 4.3x their salary. which means the calculated need for savings is at lowest $30t and most reasonably $45t. which matches the tangible net worth of the us. excluding financial services. so not only does yesterday's result stand, the financial services bubble is much much much larger than even i expected. it's entirely bubble. with no real value whatsoever. which will come as a tremendous shock if and when it bursts. imagine some 80% of the nation's perceived wealth vanishing with the sweep of an accounting pen. kinda scary, isn't it?
back up
so the other day i asserted that we have way more financial services than we need. seems obvious to me. but i've made a pretty good living doing things that everyone knows are impossible. so let me back up that assertion. which is a delightfully ambiguous phrase. it could mean i intend to prove it. or retract it. truth is. i haven't done the research yet. so we'll find out which i meant in a few moments. hee. okay. i'm going to shamelessly swipe a model of wealth accumulation proposed by a buddy of mine. the young man enters the workspace broke. the old man pays the young man from his savings. the young man saves his money. the old man spends his last nickel and dies. the young man becomes the new old man. and a new young man shows up, broke. and the cycle repeats itself. okay let's refine this. a man is born. gets a job at 20. has a kid. retires at 60. dies at 70. so at any given time there are 2 kids, 4 workers, and 1 retiree. the 4 workers do enough work to support 7 people. i calculate the worker will need to save more than 20% of their salary for 40 years in order to spend 80% of their salary for 10 years. their average savings is 4.3 times their salary. okay. the collective salary of everyone in the us is pretty much the gdp ie $15t. so our back of the envelope calculation of the collective savings, ie the net worth, of everyone in the us should be $65t. it's more like $45t. so we should have about $20t of financial services. which is a whole lot less than the $200t or so we actually have. heh. or rather, believe that we have. there! statement backed up.
christians
i read an article about a study on how like christ christians think they are. my take away was that christians don't really give a shit what christ would do. they just want to call themselves christians without actually walking the walk. as it were. which is really too bad. makes me kinda wish the great man were alive today. that would put an end to a whole lot of the bullshit that's being done in his name. course he's dead and gone. and isn't coming back. despite what people say they believe. which they don't really. or they wouldn't act the way they do.
blanket garter
the comforters on our bed tend to slide towards the feet during the night. one often has to reach down and pull them back up. sometimes more than once. so anywho, this morning i woke up with a brilliant idea. blanket garters. lacy things that attach to the headboards and have straps that attach to the blanket as if it were a pair of stockings. pretty cool huh? i'm gonna so rich.
jesus
we're getting new neighbors. the wonderful nice old lady who lived next door had a stroke. she's not coming back. her adult children collected the things they wanted to keep. which included a statue of jesus from the back yard. one of the daughters brought a female friend to help her move it. it's not particularly large. but it was more than they could handle. they asked the beautiful and talented alisa if they could borrow our wheelbarrow. sure! then she discovered what they wanted to do and called me. the brute. ruhh. jesus was just short of a meter tall. and weighed some 70 kilos. the hens were gabbling advice about how to get the job done. i just hefted jesus into the wheelbarrow. no problem. at least not until i failed to see the paving stone that stopped the wheelbarrow. but not jesus. jesus! i yelled. which was quite possibly the first time i've ever said such a thing in a non-blasphemous fashion. anywho. some more hands arrived. and we saved jesus. the irony of which still tickles my funny bone. and probably will continue to do so until i meet him. anywho. they wanted jesus in the back seat of their car. so i tossed him in. i have no idea how they planned to get him back out again. ah well. god will provide. i have teh faithzors.
