Day: January 19, 2018💾
📽️ Videos
Who is Richard Stallman? What is GNU?
"Richard Stallman (a.k.a. RMS) is considered to be the founding father of free software. He began thinking about the issue while he was working in the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT. The lab used a printer that often broke down, but because the lab workers had the source code of the printer's driver (1) at their disposal, they were able to modify the program so that the printer would send an error message to everyone's workstation every time it broke down and whoever was available would go the the printer room and fix the problem."
"One day the lab bought a new, more reliable printer from Xerox. Unfortunately, the source code of the printer driver was not included in the package, and they were unable to put in place the same kind of maintenance set-up they had used before. Richard Stallman later heard that another scientific laboratory had a copy of the source code of the Xerox driver. When he tried to obtain it, he was told that the lab had agreed to keep the source code to themseves and not to make it available to anyone else. Stallman was quite offended by this selfish attitude, and it was then that he became aware of the dangers of a proprietary system."
Why don’t electric cars have transmissions?
"Electric motors do not have the same limitations as internal combustion engines. They produce the same amount of torque at near zero as they do at high rpm. Turning slower does not use less battery power. The load is what determines how much power the car uses. Eliminating a gearbox also has the advantage of eliminating weight and gearbox losses, which makes the load smaller. And finally, doing so conforms to a long standing wisdom that engineers often forget. It called the KISS principle."
January 19, 2018 8:32 am Update
🐻Two weeks until Ground Hog Day! Come out little hog and a spring on me!🐻
🌱😎😎🌱
January 19, 2018 Morning
Good afternoon! Yeah, it’s Friday! The work day will be almost over before you know it. Two weeks to Ground Hog Day. 🐻Come out little Ground Hog, put your head above the ground, can’t you see their ain’t no shadow, on the cold, cold ground. 🎤 It’s overcast and around freezing now. ☁ There is a west-southwest breeze at 6 mph.
🌺🍀Only SIXTY days remain until the first day of calendar spring!🌷🌱
This afternoon will be cloudy, with a high of 33 degrees at 2pm.☁ Three degrees above normal. Southwest wind 6 to 13 mph. A year ago, we had cloudy skies. The high last year was 44 degrees. The record high of 62 was set in 1929. 8.5 inches of snow fell back in 1886.
The sun will set at 4:52 pm with dusk around 5:23 pm, which is one minute and 14 seconds later than yesterday.🌄 At sunset, look for partly cloudy conditions and 33 degrees. There will be a west-southwest breeze at 8 mph. Today will have 9 hours and 33 minutes of daytime, a decrease of one minute and 53 seconds over yesterday.
Tonight will be mostly cloudy, with a low of 23 degrees at 6am. ☁Nine degrees above normal. Maximum wind chill around 20 at 9pm; South wind 5 to 7 mph. In 2017, we had mostly cloudy skies. It got down to 33 degrees. The record low of -22 occurred back in 1970.
I am still undecided about my plans for the weekend, especially because it looks like is common in the winter — cloudy up north and sunny in Albany. Mild, so that would be nice, but still pretty cloudy it looks like, with the amount of clouds varying depending on where I go I guess I could go camping at a local state forest, rather then go up north, or just go skiing.⛷ I have the supplies I need for camping, although I probably would pick up a 12 pack and some cookies for desert.
I’m not sold on spending a lot of money on gas and supplies for weekend camping that might be marginal. ⛺ At this point, I am continuing to mark this, “too be decided”. 🤔Spring is only 60 days off at this point, so its’ not that far off. It much easier camping, even on a very cold day, when you don’t have to deal with snow. Snow just makes camping more difficult,☃ dragging gear back, digging out a spot for the tent, and most of all, finding a safe place to park. 🅿 And who knows how much longer winter will last. In recent years, I’ve been out camping in mid-March without snow or very little snow. The snow is deep up north, upwards of two feet, and with the warmth, under the snow is either ice or lots of slush.
If I do stay home, I will probably go skiing on Saturday and buy some clear plexiglass, a plexiglass cutter and hopefully plexiglass welding chemicals. If I can’t get the plexiglass welding glue locally, I will order online. Once I work with the 2 mm or 3 mm (1/8 inch) plexiglass, and make sure I can build fine with it, I will get smoked plexiglass from online for other projects. If I can make plexiglass boxes that look decent, then I will have many things made for project boxes. ⏱⏰ Then I build beautiful desktop novelties and signs, that flash out various countdowns and other things. I got the USB power breakout boards, which going forward will be used to power anything that is 5 VDC and under 2 amp.⚡🔌
As previously noted, there are 2 weeks until Ground Hog Day when the sun will be setting at 5:11 pm with dusk at 5:40 pm.🐻 On that day in 2017, we had snow, mostly cloudy skies and temperatures between 35 and 18 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 32 degrees. We hit a record high of 53 back in 1981.😎
