Roof Update: Now With Photos!

I made it up on the roof today and took a couple snaps:

It's actually starting to look like a roof!

The ridge caps are the very last part to go on.  They can only do those after all the panels are up.

If it rains now, we're gonna have lots of little leaks.  Fortunately the chances of rain are approximately zero...

White Cables...

Along the way home from checking out the fire yesterday, I got thirsty – so I stopped in a Starbucks in El Cajon to grab a cup of iced tea (they have some very good plain old iced tea, and not too expensive).  I got in line behind about four people, and right in front of me two guys in suits were having a discussion about their computers.  Both looked quite prosperous and successful, and appeared to be in their late 30s or early 40s.  I've no idea what their names are, so I'll call them Joe and Larry.  Here's my reconstruction of their conversation when it started to get interesting...

Joe: I love my Macbook!  All the noise I got with my old Thinkpad is gone!

Larry: You mean your old one had noisy fans or something?

Joe: No, the sound was noisy.  The Apple guys said it was because the audio cables were black?

Larry: Black cables? Why would that make a difference to the sound?

Joe: The Apple guys said their white cables reflected noise, while the black cables absorbed it.  All I know is that now when I play my iPod, the sound is great!  They must have been right.  White cables rule!

Larry: I'd never have thought the color would make any difference...

(at this point, I couldn't resist jumping in)

Me: You're right - cable color doesn't make any difference to their performance.  It could be the Apple cables have better shielding internally, or it could just be that the Macbook's speakers are better.

Joe: (very defensive, and immediately angry)  How do you know?  What are you, a digital engineer or something (in a sneering tone)?

Me: (sarcastically) No, but I'm a 17th level centrifugan.

Larry: Whoa! (and looking very impressed)

Joe: (suddenly interested) You guys study these things?

Me: (after a pause in which I despair for mankind's future) What do you guys do?

Joe: I'm a lawyer - corporate law; I work for [a local biotech firm].

Larry: Combustion engineering, over at [local gas turbine manufacturer].

Me: One large iced tea, please.  (and I make my escape)

You just never know what you're going to run into in El Cajon.  My iced tea was very good.  I spent the remaining half hour drive home contemplating white cables, silly corporate lawyers, and credulous combustion engineers.  And wondering if I should start the cult of centrifugans...might be some money to be made there.  Leastways, out toward El Cajon...

Depressing Video of the Day...

Here's a movie showing the unemployment rate (as reported by the government) by county, over the period starting just before the current recession up to today.  I recommend having a good dose of alcohol nearby before viewing...

Scott Adams in the WSJ...

With a very informative (and funny, of course!) piece on green houses.  Here's a teaser:

If your local building code doesn't already require a radiant barrier—a type of insulator for the roof—then look into it. I'm told that should be on the top of your list, at least for warm climates. This would be a good time to point out that nothing you learn about green building materials will be supported by relevant data that is in the proper context for your particular home. But the rest of your life is probably a mess too, so you'll get used to it fast.

But go read the whole thing.

Concatenative Language...

No, I'd never heard of a concatenative language before, either.  But I've used one (Forth) without knowing it.  I used Forth many moons ago, and though I haven't touched it for at least 25 years, I remember it as being fun, unexpectedly powerful (considering the alternative was assembly language), amazingly portable (there were Forth interpreters on every microcomputer I was working with back then, something like a dozen different instruction sets).

I just ran into a little blurb on Factor, a much more modern concatenative language.  I haven't used it, just read about it a bit.  It's stack-oriented, much like Forth is (yes, Forth is still around!).  But it's got all sorts of interesting features that Forth doesn't...

Oh, This is SO Confusing!

Google's unemployment index has done it again.  Confusalated me, that is.  What the hell does the recent jump and fall mean?  I have no idea.  The most recent unemployment numbers from the government roughly correspond with the peak of two weeks ago, but those government numbers are completely bogus, having been rather arbitrarily adjusted.  Something I would really like to see is a simple chart showing (number of people working in the U.S.) / (number of adults in the U.S.) over time – but I have been unable to locate this data.  Instead, the government apparently thinks we're all mushrooms (they keep us in the dark and feed us bullshit)...

Hoag's Object...

Gorgeous, isn't it (click to enlarge)?  Via APOD, of course...

Roof Update: It's All Good...

No photos today, but Friday and yesterday Chris and the boys were here and working hard.  The result: about a third of our roof is now covered with bright red metal!  Five of the twelve dormer vents are installed, and over half the “penetrations” (exhaust vents, antennae, etc.) are done.  They're making great progress!

Saturday afternoon, driving home from the fire scouting trip I blogged about below, I noted that our bright red roof is very visible from a mile or so away as you drive toward our house.  It looks quite nice, constrasting with the green trees around it.  When I fly out of San Diego (as I am in mid-September, on a trip to England), it should be very easy to pick out our house – there are no other red roofs for miles around...

Fire in Lakeside...

We had a bit of a scare yesterday.  First Debbie spotted a plume to our northwest that looked like smoke (sometimes it's hard to distinguish between clouds and smoke; the color can be quite similar).  Shortly after that our Internet connection went down (it works by a radio link to Alpine, 18 miles to our north).  I called our Internet provider, and he wasn't sure what the cause was, but his three valley networks centered on Alpine were all down.  He'd heard that the fire was in the Harbison Canyon or Crest area – and that was very worrying to us, as those communities are actually quite close to us, in precisely the direction that smoke was coming from.  The news outlets (as usual) were useless, so I jumped into my truck to go take a look.

As I drove up Skyline Truck Trail, just before topping the hill that leads down to the town of Jamul, I got a view of Cajon Mountain in the distance. It was clearly burning, with smoke trails originating at various points on its south face (the side toward me).  This was a bit of a relief to me, as Cajon Mountain is much further away from us than Crest and Harbison Canyon.  Also comforting were the first news reports, which started coming in right around the same time.  They placed the fire in the area of El Monte Road, just south of Cajon Mountain.

I drove on through Harbison Canyon (no sign of fire there!) and up to Interstate 8.  Then I drove west on 8, grabbing the two photos with my cell phone and scoping out where the fire was.  I could see aircraft on the fire, and engine companies on the ground (news reports said over 20 companies were on the job), so it looked like the fire response was terrific.  This is so, so good for us to see after the debacle we lived through in 2007.  The map at right (also online) is my rough eyeball estimate of the fire's location.  I could be off by the proverbial country mile, so don't take it as anything other than an estimate, please. 

By this morning's early light we can see no smoke coming from Cajon Mountain.  There are no updates to the news reports from yesterday, which variously claim that between 2,000 and 3,000 acres burned.  Some people (including two climbers) were rescued by helicopter, but so far as I can tell nobody was hurt and no structures were damaged. 

One thing that's a little disconcerting for us chaparralies: Cajon Mountain completely burned over in 2007.  Here we are, just under three years later, and there's already enough fuel there to sustain another wildfire.  Sheesh!

The Roof: It's Going Well!

Chris and his boys were working hard all day yesterday, and there's much progress to report.  The west end of our house (one of the narrow sides) is complete, and they're now working eastward on both the north and the south (long) sides.  By eyeball I'd say they've now “skinned” about 15% of the total roof area.  Included in this are several items that required extra work: two dormer vents, our satellite TV antenna, and the exhaust for our house heater.  Most of the rest of the roof is not so crowded with items like this, so those areas shouldn't take quite so long.

It's been interesting for me to see exactly how this work is done.  A surprising amount of hand-crafting on the spot is required.  The roofers frequently cut and form small pieces of heavy-gauge sheet metal to create custom fasteners, connectors, and adapters for all sorts of things they run into.  In this respect it reminds me of what typically happens when carpenters and framers go to work on a house – they start with standard raw materials (2 x 4s, 2 x 6s, etc.) and cut and form them to make a house.  The roofers start with formed panels and unformed sheets of the Kynar-coated steel roofing, and cut and form them to make a roof.  It's most definitely not like putting Legos together...

There's a Lot of Energy...

...in a bullet:

Some People...

...are very, very serious about their yo-yos:

Everything Old is New Again...

A new computer chip implements Bayesian logic with analog circuits, but still has a conventional digital computer “surrounding” the Bayesian logic components.  In other words, it's a digital computer with an analog computer “accelerator” built right into it.  The claim is that it reduces circuit power and complexity to achieve any given computational performance.

About a million years ago, when I first started learning about computers, I played with some electronic analog computers in the lab.  These were implemented with (primitive) operational amplifiers and simple electronic circuitry.  Later, when I was stationed on a ship, I was called in a few times to help troubleshoot an actual, production analog computer: the guidance computer for the Terrier anti-air missile system.  This beast of a computer was electro-mechanical: it used synchros, gears, cams, etc. to do some very complex computations in real time.

These old analog computers were cantankerous and prone to unobvious calculation errors.  We thought of digital computers as better in every respect.

So it feels kind of weird to see them being proclaimed as the next great thing!

Raising Hell...

Well, raising a WWII Helldiver, actually – today, from Otay Lake.  It was ditched there in 1945, and it's believed to be the only one in existence...

Beautiful, Geeky Video...

This is really cool – a space shuttle launch (complete with audio) from the perspective of one of the solid fuel boosters strapped to the sides of the fuel tank.  The first couple minutes of this there isn't much happening, as the camera is staring at the fuel tank – but the sound tells you what's going on, and you can see changes to the tank's surface (water and ice) as the shuttle rises.  Then the boosters break away and the real show begins.  Enjoy!

The Roof Project: Panels and Roof - Oh My!

Chris and his boys were here bright and early this morning, guiding the delivery of our roofing panels.  The truck they came on was a 45' tractor-trailer, and it couldn't make it around the corners and up the hills to our house.  The driver parked over a quarter mile away, and hauled five bundles of metal panels up, one at a time, with a three-wheeled (and amazingly maneuverable) forklift.  All arrived without incident.  Whew!

Then the roofers went right to work.  By the time they knocked off work tonight, they had finished more than half of one end of our house, including one of the dormer vents and our gas furnace vent.  It looks great!

Today was one of the hottest days we've had this summer – it hit 96°F, with the humidity as high as 28% (it got drier as the day progressed).  Chris and his two boys were just covered in sweat, from working on a hot roof in direct sunlight all day.  I know I wouldn't survive something like that – yikes!

Here are a few more snaps of the work they did during the day today...

Warning Labels...

Oh, yes.  If only the lamestream media really did use these warning labels...

Makes me wonder how hard it would be to do something like this automatically on the web.  For instance, one could imagine a plugin for Firefox that looked on the web to see if there were blog posts related to a news story you were reading, and warn you if the content were disputed.  Or something that tried to find Snopes articles related to what you were reading about.  Hmmm...

When Soldiers Come Home...

Get the kleenex before clicking on “play”...

The Roof Project: We've Got Dormers!

Chris (our roofing contractor) and the boys came by yesterday and started mounting the dormer vents.  They were worried about the rain, and we thought they'd decided not to put them up – but when I came home from work, there were 7 (of 12) dormer vents, installed!

Progress...

The Pope and Nancy Pelosi...

Not what you're thinking.  Put your morning beverage down before reading further.  Via my mom:

The Pope and Nancy Pelosi are on the same stage in Yankee Stadium in front of a huge crowd.

The Pope leans towards Mrs. Pelosi and said, "Do you know that with one little wave of my hand I can make every person in this crowd go wild with joy? This joy will not be a momentary display, but will go deep into their hearts and they'll forever speak of this day and rejoice!"

Pelosi replied, "I seriously doubt that with one little wave of your hand? Show me!"

So the Pope backhanded the bitch...

...and the crowd went wild!

Tell me the truth: wouldn't you pay good money to see this? And wouldn't you forever speak of that day and rejoice?