BeachWeb - February 2011
Well - here is (for the faint-of-heart) - some very brief text and 'some' (but not all) pictures from our Antarctic Cruise...
MORE will be forthcoming when we arrive at more reliable, repeatable, predictable internet-access....
but for now this will have to suffice - in NO particular order, and -
knowing that the March 2011 update will contain MORE text and
pictures...
Mr. Bill on the cruise-ship doing what he did most-morning(s) - ROWing
on the 'Concept II (rowing) Ergometer'
- I had one of these (EXCELLENT) rowing
machines when I lived in Hong Kong, but have since sold it... I'm
thinking of buying another - to go along with my I.C.E. (recumbent)
tricycle...
Picture(s) first, then text after the pictures - more organization later-on (probably sometime in March):
first - a couple of sunset-pictures (from Mr._Bill & Ms._May (competing sunset images))
IF, IF, IF you are at all interested in more 'specifics' about
the Cruise Ship (called the "Infinity" - then the place (though there
is some text / analysis here in this web-page) there is more in the
web-page from 2003 when we took this same ship from Vancouver to Alaska
for a week cruise)... - that web-page is HERE
then some self-serving picture(s)
and the only 'real' iceberg we saw on the trip - this one near "Elephant Island" in the
Antarctic archipelago (spelling???)
We frequently get 'accosted' (attacked) on various 'continents' to pet cats who's owners are not forthcoming with
quite enough cat-pets to keep cats happy... (PLEASE do NOT tell our cat at home, Ms. Siew Mei, she might
get jealous!!! - however, all four of these were on the same continent - South America ...
and EVERYONE asks - "Did you see an penguins?" - so - yes - we did - this guy was VERY CUTE, but
a might dirty - we thought he should take a bath (in the nearby ocean) after he'd 'cleaned-out' his new
underground burrow, after a huge rain the night-before... - However, he did NOT understand us when we
suggested a shower (in English) _ apparently he only speaks Penguinese...???
Some-text-thoughts from the trip(s) and excursions...
Inconsistencies in the Internet...
Yeah - there's NO QUESTION that Mr. Bill is WOEFULLY SPOILED TO DEATH by his Home-based 'xDSL'
connection via BellSouth.Net (well, I think it's called AT & T now a days...) - anyway - at home
I get about 1.5 megs / second download and I get over 500 K bytes a second UP-LOAD...
However, now I know how the "rest of the world" exists in / on their Internet connection,
and let me tell you what - it "AIN'T PRETTY" (at all)
First: I had a chance to use various and sundry 'wifi' connections in / around Buenos Aires
and Igazu Falls - both in Argentina, and on the Cruise Ship "Infinity" - and then in Buenos
Aires, again, then also in Rio de Janiero - and everything seemed VERY VERY VERY spotty,
(at this was 'at-best'...) - at worst the connection would 'make' and start-off a file-
transfer (or maybe even an e-mail down-load) at roughly 500-900 K bytes / second and rapidly
(with 5 seconds) to less than 10 K bytes per second and frequently (at least 50 % of
my attempts 'stalled' and both the e-mail software as well as ftp as well as parts of my
OS (Mac OS "X") would tell me 'stall' ???
Harumph
So - I am now VERY THANKFUL for my Home-based 'xDSL' from BellSouth - it is both FASTer
than sin and VERY RELIABLE, and very repeatable and well - in general - I'm MORE THANKFUL
now than EVER BEFORE, and will continue to feel the same way -
FAST, RELIABLE, REPEATABLE and PREDICTABLE
- that's xDSL from BellSouth.Net or AT&T....
Politicians, Capital Expenditures and Maintenace:
One of the things I have noticed - and maybe this is a 'worldwide'
problem but maybe not, and that is that MANY MANY countries / cities,
even politcal organizations (which I guess is most countries and
cities) - seem to have this problem...
Politicians perceive (and I guess the public tells them this, by
electing them):
There is more 'value-added' to a politician's career and/or legacy by
allocating 'scarce resources' to a 'capital project' than to the
maintenance of an existing project already built / completed.
What this means - perhaps only locally, but perhaps globally, is that
a lot of 'infrastructure' projects get built (things like subways,
roads, bridges, ports, piers, etc.) but VERY LITTLE of this stuff gets
the 'attention to detail' (Maintenance) that it needs OVER TIME and
then - therefore - the safety of the public becomes an issue...
I suspect, though, that - again - over-time some projects will get 'canned'
an some will never get maintained and that some politician's 'favourite'
project will get 'condemed' (frequently a political decision, not an
engineering one) and that said politician will claim that the old "thing"
needed to be condemed because the person and/or organization responsible
was (most probably) of the 'other' party and that said politican will,
then, be able to 'be responsible' for the next-generation of whatever 'THING'
has now been condemed...
I suspect, also that this has something to do with Generational 'pride'
and that each generation has it's share of 'great' politicians to allocate
funds (scarce resources) to a given project and they are remembered for that
for 'some period of time' then their project, too, becomes the focus of some
future generation's ire and it, too, goes by the way-side?
IT WOULD SURE BE NICE if the engineers could 'rule the infrastructure' instead
of the policitians and that some, if not all, of the funding for maintenance of
what we already have would garner as much political support as the 'new' projects
many of which we do not REALLY NEED nor WANT - but the politicians, once elected,
seem to find a 'mind of their own' and move-forward with what THEY WANT which may
or may not be what the public wants...
But - Hey - I'm NOT a politician - so what do I know?
Cruise to Antarctica...
Well - back (near-to-home) now, from an 'aborted' Antarctic cruise (we never got to the most southern
point we were supposed to go to (a place called 'Paradise Bay' - which though it is not south
of the Antarctic Circle, it is close and it would have been as far south as I'd ever been,
something like 64degrees south or so... - We didn't get there because the captain, and I'm
guessing the navigator and certain other 'bridge-crew' were able to determine, from NOAA,
the Argentine equivalent and various and sundry other weather-reporting and predicting
places / organizations that the weather in Paradise Bay (Should we have gone there) would
have been something like: 50-80 knot winds, air temperature of something like 36 F,
sea-state of something like 10-20 foot swells, ceiling of something like 500 feet, visibility
of something like 100 feet, etc. etc. etc. and needless to say we would have gone there to
'see' something (like icebergs and islands and such (maybe pegnuins, whales, seals
and/or sea-lions. However with visibility near zero there would have been very very
little to see and the nature of the sea-state, temperatures, and winds would have made
handling a ship meant for warmer, calmer seas, and a crew most probablynot equipped with
clothing to go outside in those conditions (to say nothing of the passenger-base) - the
bottom-line was the captain made the decision to turn-around early (Paradise Bay was
to have been the turn-around point for this trip...
Bottom-line we crossed the 'Drake Passage' twice - this is the "Horn" that so many
sailors are afraid-of and which has claimed many many many lives (and boats and ships)
over the years...
SOOOOOOooooooooo...... we spent a bit more time in a place called Ushuaia (Not a bad
place to spend some time once you learn how to pronounce it... ("YOU SCHWAI UH")..
we spent the first day on a catamaran tour-boat - saw some sea-lions, some cormorants,
and some other sea-life... - then we ended-up at a place where we got off the catamaran,
onto a bus and then came back to the ship via the bus... - Stopped at a place called
Bahia Bay - that was pretty nice. Saw some other land-life...
The second day in "Ushuaia" we took a narrow-gauge-train-trip to / from the terminus...
This train used to move prisoners (Ushuaia got it's start as a prison farm, but soon
turned-into a thriving metropolis because of it's excellent 'hidden' / 'secure' port
area...
Later we went-by the 'Cape-Horn' - the actual rock itself that so many people fear.
that was (for a sailor like me) truly an incredible trip and something to behold to
actually see, with one's own eyes, the place that has been such a legend ever since
I first learned to sail when I was just under 10 years old...
F is for "Fake" - a movie - sort of 'free-form' documentary - hosted by Orson Welles
(remember him - perhaps from the H.G. Wells story 'War of the Worlds'
on the radio in England...). Anyway - this movie was one of the
last things done by Orson Welles, and it features a lot of footage and
commentary about Clifford Irving,
probably best known for a 'fake' autobiography of Howard Hughes (we'll
assume you know who he was). There's additional information about
Elymr de Hory - supposedly one of the greatest art forgers of all time. - AND - Then - Finally a book by Irving (a 'faker') about de Hory - (another 'faker') - well - this gives some idea why the movie is called "F is for Fake"...
anyway - the movie is good - but one has to - perhaps - know a
bit about the 'main-players' before you see the movie - AND / OR see
the movie several times - (which is easy if you get the CD or DVD...
There are a LOT of forgeries going around here, there,
every-where, but it is amazing how the forgeries of the forgeries
as well as the originals are still subject to the question:
It's
Beautiful but is it Art? and/or
Art itself is real (is it?
or is it not?)
this quote makes one think, though:
"What we professional liars hope to serve is truth.
I'm afraid the pompous word for that is "art". "
in
'Honor' of Valentine's Day - later this month - here's a picture
of the Valentine's Couple - found recently on top of the Coke-machine
in a Publix (grocery store)...
AND
- we went to a 'Baby Shower' party recently (one of Ms._May's Tai Chi
friends) and got into a discussion, there, with someone about 'Agave' plants - sometimes known as 'Century Plants'
<= Wikipedia Link - these things only grow this
long-tall-center-stem about once every "Century" - well - we all know
that's not 'Quite' true but, nevertheless... - There are 'small'
differences between Agave and Century - you'll have to read-up on all
them... At least according to Wikipedia, the Century Plant is a
sub-species of Agave - but - well - I guess it takes a botanist to
REALLY understand all this... it IS instructive, though, to read about
it...
NOW - HERE - THIS - for those who care, and most don't:
- Mr._Bill is now a 'published author'
-
well - I've been published before, but this is a 'tiny-bit' different
... - the March (2011) issue of _QST_Magazine_ (the magazine for
Amateur_Radio people) will have an article (by me - but heavily edited by those at the _ARRL_/_QST_ headquarters) called 'Hang_Gliding_with_Ham_Radio'...
Now
don't get ALLLLLllll excited - it has very few lines and very few
pictures, (it is a very SMALL article). It is (though, I'm told)
in the March issue (which should be on news-stands soonish (by 15 Feb),
and those who are members of ARRL should get theirs in the post about
the same time (mid-February)... here's the
'certificate' they sent me small or large
This is a 'book-review' - and - MAYBE you'll read this, MAYBE you won't but I thought I would 'bring it to the attention' of my reader-viewer-base...
"Guns Germs and Steel"
- (by Jared Diamond) - EXCELLENT book about how (the last 13,000 years)
of 'human-history' has evolved, why it has evolved the way it has - why
we have domesticated some animals, not others, why some 'societies'
over-run / rule / dominate other societies, why certain technological
innovations transfer well from one place to another, why some do NOT
transfer well, etc. etc. etc.
ANYWAY - there's several opportunities to learn something new, different, interesting by reading this book...!!!
Link to "Guns, Germs and Steel" on Wikipedia
Link to "Guns, Germs and Steel" on Barnes & Noble (they just want to sell a book)
Link to "Guns, Germs and Steel" on PBS (yes there was a PBS special on this)
Link to "Guns, Germs and Steel" on Amazon ( yeah - they, TOO, just want to sell you a book)
It's
PROBABLY available at your local library - that's where I found the
copy I'm reading... it IS available as an 'eBook' but one has to pay
money for eBooks these days (at least from most vendors?)
anyway
- if you don't read it - you'll miss a LOT of (sometimes
straightforward and sometimes controversial) facts, figures and other
things about this VERY INTERESTING period of human-history and the whys
and hows of a lot of things that we sometimes take for granted...!!!
This picture from January - about a project I started on Christmas Day - well - some-things it takes a while to finish!
Ms._May's
'Shade House' for her orchids is MUCH further along - note the
stone-paver-flooring and path to the Shade House... - we'll do other
things later-on but at least it's 'working' now
Oh
- here's a picture of 'just some' of the repairs that resulted
when I attempted (on Christmas Day) to begin Ms._May's_ "Shade House".
I found that I'd post-hole-dug right into a 7-wire
plastic(water) pipe (NOT the 'code-approved' grey-plastic electrical
conduit). I guess I could have 'fried' several people / things /
etc. - if my post-hole-digging tool hadn't had wooden-handles AND IF
the electrical breaker hadn't kicked-the-circuit OFF right away...
AND
AND AND AND, Ms._May's rose-garden continues to flourish (being
nourished by her new fertilizer AND by the afternoon-sunshine because
she asked her huggly-hubby to chop-down an intervening tree (Brazilian
Pepper (an invasive species ANYWAY)) in the way of the sun...
A
view from the recent "New-Install" for the beach-camera-people I
work-for - VERY Scenic... - we got the bulk of the 'heavy' work (took 3
people) done on Thursday, 13th(January), and we'll do more later, when certain
other people / groups / organizations get their act together and finish
'their end'.
and another picture of the condo-unit (yuch) and the inlet, very scenic...
AND
- I managed (with the help of a locally-supplied man-lift) to replace a
part in the weather-system at one of our sites (and do a couple of
other 'good-things', and so that was VERY REWARDING, and did all that
before 10:00 a.m, then went for a trike-ride
other things going-on
my 11 January ride (follow-the-red-line) of about 55 something miles...
and another recent ride - I went further west on this ride (today (14th of January))...
AND
- on the cycling front I've now got almost 700 miles on my newerishist
(ETRTO 23-622 (27" in American parlance)) rear-tire / frame on my trike
- and it's WONDERFUL, the more I ride the trike with this new
configuration, the more I like it. - Faster, no doubt, rougher (it has
no suspension, now) and seems to accelerate faster though that may just
be me - because the 'numbers' don't say it should accelerate faster,
but it sure seems to...
On the electronics front - I'm
'convinced' (maybe erroneously so) that a couple of the wind-direction
and wind-speed sensor-clusters that I've taken-out of various and
sundry places are still good (and my new Fluke
ScopeMeter (105B) tells me I'm correct; the electronics part(s)
still work just fine (the rest of this thing was mounted in another
place and the battery-leaked all over the printed circuit board and
that was the end of that...?!?!!?
ANYWAY _ I was studying / reading / researching the PIC micro-controller (the one used by many Amateur Radio people) ( Wikipedia Link / Manufacturer's web-site ) and then someone suggested I look at something called the "BASIC stamp" ( Wikipedia link / manufacturer's web-site ) (so-named because it's programmed in a BASIC (programming language) variant called 'PBASIC'...
ANYWAY
- I've been researching web-sites and such - and reading / researching
/ reading / researching - and hope to make a decision soonish...!!!
AND - my Windows (XP / SP3) DNS finally 'came-back-to-life' so I have a fully-functional Windows XP computer again (WOW!!!!!) (even though it is six or seven years old (I'd toyed with the idea of purchasing a new Toshiba Satellite (D650 series) laptop (to replace my aging Toshiba Laptop) - but - well - decided against it for now...
I also have created a 9 gigabyte partition on it's hard-disk and installed " Ubuntu " , one of the better Linux
distributions... So - I'm re-learning Linux - and it is FUN and
ReWARDING! and wow has it changed (for the BETTER) since I used it a
LOT about 15 years ago...
We
helped-out (Ms._May is a _judge_ and I'm a " B.I.M.B.O. ") at the "Orange Bowl International Youth Regatta (2010)"
in
Miami (well, actually 'Coconut Grove') from late the afternoon of
the 26th through the 30th... ( of December, 2010) - just a
"Few" (something like 660 sailors, something
like 500 boats, something like darned near NO WIND - but - well - we'll
let the pictures tell the stor(ies))
And "Mr. Bumper" - a cat we met late on the afternoon of the 26th when
we went for a walk around Coconut Grove before our meeting(s)...
The
week before Christmas, we ATTEMPTED to stay warm when the
temperature was below freezing fore three nights in a row, needless to
say the yard now has some significant 'brown-spots' as a result of this
freezing weather... I suspect that Mangoes, next year, may be in
short supply...
A couple of "Thought Provoking Questions":
=================================
God & the Genome Project:
Here's a 'got me thinking' question for you:
IF (big BIG IF) - there were some way to retrieve a 'valid' DNA sample from Jesus
(and/or the 'philosophical leader' of any other religion)
and IF (another BIG IF) that 'leader' was 'perceived' (or 'known') to be able to heal by 'the laying on of hands'
and IF (yet one more BIG IF) the DNA could be 'replicated'
could,
then, another human being be 'cloned' or somehow 'developed' with the
DNA of the 'healer' to - then - heal other people?
(and, note here,
though, that the 'healer' can heal OTHERs, not him/her/itself!)
AND
- if the answers to all these IFs were really YES - then could / would
some company (or government (or whatever)) be able, then, to basically
make redundant all these drugs and drug-companies that we have today
and what would that all do to all the 'world's economies'?
(this 'thought provoking question' was the subject (and a lot more things are in the book))
"The Miracle Strain" by: Michael Cordy (1997) (ISBN: 0688155081)
And the 'Dan Brown' book 'The Lost Symbol'
might also have some of this sort of thing (what would happen if God
could be re-created? - though the Dan Brown book has a LOT to
say about the Masonic Brotherhood, it also talks about DNA being
replicated in places?
AND _ now - if that's not enough thought provoking for you - try this one:
A computing question:
Let's
'assume' that 90% of those of us in 'developed' societies, who
use e-mail, know what hackers and spammers and phishers are.
WHAT IF _ we could (somehow (carrot and/or stick)) convince all those
'nefarious types' to use their skills for GOOD (for BETTERing the
people, computers, societies) instead of for spamming, phishing,
trojans, viruses, etc. etc. etc. etc. - what would the
(computering / e-mailing) world 'look like'?
AND: HOW would we
get those nefarious types to do that? - (what type(s) of carrots and
sticks would we use as a society to inflict this change?
This
'Thought Provoking Question" came (in SMALL PART) from the above
mentioned book, but the book did NOT dwell on the "Thought Provoking
Question" - I developed it on my own, while reading the book...
Archived BeachWeb monthly (and other) site(s): Click here for a list of the archived months
updated: 09:34 a.m. on Friday, 18 March, 2011; by: Mr._Bill on the 'Apple Macintosh
Mac Book Air' - revID: 1i
