Bilge Pump

I made a bilge pump today, it was based on this design.



Parts:

• 3 : 1 inch 10-24 machine bolts w/nuts (you only need one nut)
• 1 : 24 inch dowel 1/2 inch diameter
• 1 : 24 inch pvc pipe 1 inch diamter
• 1 : PVC L connector
• 1 : PVC End cap
• 1 : cupboard pull
• 2 : 1 inch squares of duct tape
• 1 : 1 inch disk of plastic (I am temporarily using balsa, might use the plywood from the boat)

It should cost you around $10 at home depot. I used a tap on the holes where the bolts were threaded, I don't know if that is absolutely necessary. The duct tape was folded on itself and then cut into a circle. I used the outer diameter of the pipe as the size, the plastic or wooden disk is the inner diameter. I pushed the pipe on anything that needed to be a circle so that I could cut it accurately.



The pump works great (tested in the sink) and really gets the water moving. On the handle I had to drill the hole all of the way through, and then use a 1/2 inch bit to only drill down about half way. Normally a cupboard pull is held from the other side.

For all you haters out there, now at least I won't sink if the boat leaks :-p.

Superbowl Pool

I edited the superbowl pool file from last year. It is available as a pdf or ods (so you can edit it).

Here is what it looks like: (without the Page 1 water mark...)

MLK Day and firearms

Last weekend I spent MLK day on a snowboarding trip. We snowboarded on Monday, I got to the level of being able to go down a slope without falling (only did it once, and I think that was mid day...) . The other days were spent either driving or shooting. No pics of the snow boarding, Denisse didn't take the picture when I was actually standing on the board and moving downhill.

On the first half of the first day we went to a local farm and just walked around and had fun on the land. John brought a flintlock rifle for everyone to try out, so I made an animated gif from some of the pictures. Click the picture of me to see the gif if it is not moving.

I think everyone there had a chance to fire it once, and then we messed around with a lever action .22LR. I even got a shot of Sara shooting the .22LR.



In the afternoon we shot some .45-70 out of a Remington rolling block type action(really neat and very simple. I like it alot... ) and a lever action. Targets were about 100 yards away. I was shooting slightly high and to the right. I may have been 'heeling' and anticipating the recoil. .45-70 is quite a bit more than I am used to shooting. It was also fairly cold outside, much colder than I am used to. I'll have to see if it was me or the rifle. After that we fired Mauser action 9mmx57mm and 9.3mmx57mm at targets about 400 yards away. We found a metal plate to plink at out at 400 yards and a beer bottle sitting on a rock. I thought I had seen the plate, but it turns out I was shooting at a circular shadow (with a golden leaf slightly off center that looked like copper splatter), and the real plate was about 12 feet to the right. Too bad, I doubt I will get a chance to shoot on a 400 yard range anytime soon. John barely missed the beer bottle, from running down range and checking it out, I estimate he was about .5-1 inch low and shattered the top of the rock that was holding it.

The last day I fired my own arms, some 1911 with the new ammo I bought and the first test of the Mossberg. I am extremely satisfied with the Mossberg 500 purchase, it was a joy to shoot and looked like it didn't need any sights adjustment.

Here is the mean cat,


Denisse scooping something,


The dogs and I think, Denisse,


Some cows,


More cows,


Bella,

Too many pictures, I know. I should just make a gallery for the rest of them. I'll add some videos in a future post.

Expandable Tree

For my special topics last semester I wrote about some ways to visualize architecture metrics (or any values in a hierarchical manner).

I haven't seen the expandable tree visualization before, so I wanted to document it on the interwebs before someone else does it. (Although, they probably already have)

It is basically a expandable tree widget with some added features. The different levels of the hierarchy are colored different colors to ease readability. You can get an overall view from the bars, which show the percentage of the total. The actual values are shown to the left of the system. You can drill down into the subsystems to see more information or keep a top level view.

P.S. Those numbers are completely made up and partially silly.

Bad Breath and Life

I have been meaning to blog about this, but I don't want to forget so this is going to be a short version.

Calorie restriction is known to increase lifespan. I have a theory that I want to test out about it. They still do not know the mechanism for why it works. Then I was thinking, what happens when you do CR? You get halitosis. This leads to the production of hydrogen sulfide. Now, combine that with the concept that mice given hydrogen sulfide also live longer.

∴

Hypothesis: Part of the mechanism that causes CR to work involves hydrogen sulfide created in halitosis.

Is bad breath the secret to long life?

Snow in Atlanta

Pics to follow. But, www.fark.com said it best....

Best News in a long time...

Births Way UP

Births in the United States are up. This is important because we need to be able to replace our own population and pay for all of the social security and medicare. We just can't compete with China or India with our low birth rates and small population. I would like to see more smart people having babies! Get to it, married couples!