There are two ways to explain mistakes: the person did what they did because of the situation, or, because of who they are. We use the former explanation with ourselves — “I forgot her birthday because I have so much on my mind right now.” We tend to use the second explanation on others — “She forgot my birthday because she’s so self-centered.”
~ Brett McKay from, Personal Responsibility 102: The Importance of Owning Up to Your Mistakes and How to Do It
Elsewhere, this is 4uaoho4. — slipbox
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So our washing machine quit this weekend (while I was away.)
“No user servicable parts inside.”
Not this user! Tools, snip, yank. A-HAH! The commutator brushes are worn out.
This is what my dad used to spend a lot of time on… changing commutator brushes on elevators; The thing in the picture with the “39B” on it, on the end of a braided wire with a spring to push it against the commutator… It’s a block of carbon (called a “brush”) and it should be about an inch long. :*) As the motor spins, it wears down. Eventually, the length of the cable limits it moving down against commutator, no electrical contact, no motor movement. The other brush, (motor has two brushes,) was still long enough to touch.
Physics/electrical geeks: Ask me about commutator brushes some time. :^D
Internet, click click click, order via drop-ship P1, parts for tomorrow. Washing machine back in business for wednesday.
Boo-YA!
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[T]he world’s poor people are starving and dying for lack of cheap energy today. Driving the price of energy up and denying loans for coal-fired power plants is depriving the poor of cheap energy today, on the basis that it may help their grandchildren in fifty years. That is criminal madness. The result of any policy that increases energy prices is more pain and suffering. Rich people living in industrialized nations should be ashamed of proposing such an inhumane way to fight the dangers of CO2, regardless of whether those dangers are imaginary or real.
~ Willis Eschenbach from, Double the Burn Rate, Scotty! – Watts Up With That?
Elsewhere, this is 4uwado1. — slipbox
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For to practise parkour is to seek fear on a daily basis, to confront it head-on, to face it naked and alone. In parkour, you are stripped to your essence. There is no equipment to rely on, no safety harnesses or padding to protect you, no teammate to take the brunt when you are tired. It’s you, and you alone. The only things that prevent you getting hurt or injured are your skills, your judgement, your ability – no one else’s.
~ Dan Edwardes from, Moving Through Fear – Dan Edwardes
Elsewhere, this is 4udamo2. — slipbox
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Two leading fuel cell manufacturers, Massachusetts-based Nuvera and Albany, N.Y.-based Plug Power Inc., will each receive $650,000 from DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. The companies will provide matching funds and labor of their own. A PNNL team led by Brooks will oversee and evaluate the two-year program.
Industry officials estimate that approximately 300,000 refrigerated trucks with auxiliary power units are on the road in the United States. By replacing the small diesel engines with the more efficient fuel cell, users will see fuel savings of approximately 10 gallons a day per unit, in addition to reduced emission of pollutants and significantly quieter operation.
~ Phys.org from, Refrigerated trucks to keep their cool thanks to fuel cell technology
Elsewhere, this is 4upyne11. — slipbox
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algorithm – Extracting periodicities from message arrival timestamps – Stack Overflow
StackOverflow question of mine, any math or programming peeps have any ideas?
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The reason it’s hard to get to orbit isn’t that space is high up. It’s hard to get to orbit because you have to go so fast.
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The speed you need to stay in orbit is about 8 kilometers per second. Only a fraction of a rocket’s energy is used to lift up out of the atmosphere; the vast majority of it is used to gain orbital (sideways) speed.
~ Randall Munroe from, Orbital Speed
Elsewhere, this is 4uxoaa4. — slipbox
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Parkour is about taking the road less travelled by, and choosing the harder path every time. It’s about understanding that excellence does not arise from simply doing what is convenient or what pays well or what advances your personal career. The Olympic Games are sponsored by Coca-Cola and McDonalds. That’s not right.
Have principles. Stick to them. Because if you don’t stand for something you’ll fall for anything.
~ Dan Edwards from, The Business of Parkour: A Question of Principle (or How to Resist the Red-Bullion) – Dan Edwardes
Elsewhere, this is 4udaau1. — slipbox
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http://astronomy.stackexchange.com/
The Astronomy Stack Exchange site has just graduated into private beta! You need an invitation to participate in private beta. If anyone would like an invitation, please contact me, I’ll need your email address to send you an invite.
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“In the field of observation,” legendary disease prevention pioneer Louis Pasteur famously proclaimed in 1854, “chance favors only the prepared mind.” “Knowledge comes form noticing resemblances and recurrences in the events that happen around us,” neuroscience godfather Wilfred Trotter asserted. That keen observation is what transmutes information into knowledge is indisputable — look no further than Sherlock Holmes and his exquisite mindfulness for a proof — but how, exactly, does one cultivate that critical faculty?
~ Maria Papova from, The Art of Observation and Why Genius Lies in the Selection of What Is Worth Observing – The Marginalian
Elsewhere, this is 4ubaie6. — slipbox
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