Yesterday jogged all around town, out past Lagunitas and over to the OSH shopping center, where in the Asian market I bought a nice pair of cooking chopsticks, and a smaller pair which I cut down to fit my pocket. Saw an ultralight aircraft, basically a hang glider with wheels and a gas-powered fan, pass over while walking home along Petaluma Blvd. North. Then not too long after that, a large V of Canadian geese passed overhead. All in all, a lovely sunny day, after almost a week of rain. Want to go out today too, but have some ideas on the cooker and want to share them.
Here's an idea for a faucet that doesn't require any tools to fix, and only has one replaceable part which should last for tens of years. The sketch is pretty rough, and has at least one mistake, that being the outer collar of the insert should only stick out in one place, not all the way around as shown. An improvement would be to have a button in the middle of the handle to retract some type of clamping mechanism that otherwise holds it in place.
E-ink is a very neat idea, and I'm envisioning devices that use it to provide very low-energy devices that can be used with a stylus as a sketchpad; charged via solar or a magnetic ball that charges by the owner's movement, sliding back and forth within a built-in coil. Things can be drawn or written down any time, then uploaded to a computer later.
I want to make a sketchblog, where I can post my crude drawings for inventions and get feedback from people. But got to get off my duff and get OpenID implemented at unternet.net first.
A good harness with D-rings all around can be used for many purposes: climbing trees, riding ziplines, flying hang gliders or paragliders, carrying water and tools... but the really good ones cost from $300 to over $1000. I'm thinking about getting some strong webbing and Velcro, prototyping using strips of Velcro'd webbing until I get a good design, then sewing or otherwise fastening permanently the overlaps. Should cost a lot less, and be just as strong.
Petaluma has a very low rate for permanent mooring, $5.20 or so per foot per month. So someone could live in a 20-foot boat at the turning basin for a little over $100 a month. You don't get electricity at that rate, but you could use solar. Two people are already taking advantage of this, and it's a wonder more don't; old boats can be had pretty cheaply.
Speaking of the turning basin, it seems to be well known among the yachting class that they have it to themselves on holidays, as the harbormaster is off duty and doesn't unlock the gate to the dock, which is normally open daytime for public access. Another example of usurpation of the commons by the rich. The gate code is currently 8462, so until they change it you can let yourself in.
Downtown Petaluma has small trees that drop numerous sweet-smelling pink berries during the winter storms. Anybody know what they are? They might make a nice fruit wine.
Just bought some Herb Alpert and TJB at iomoio.com. Been missing those guys, it's been close to 40 years since I listened to them regularly. access.
last updated 2011-01-04 16:22:17. served from tektonic.jcomeau.com
