Judebert.com

Poisonous Politics

2010-08-31T13:37:37Z

For years, I've been subscribing to multiple political party mailing lists. I've read and saved every one, sorting them into folders based on their content. So far I've really only needed three: fundraising, fallacies, and namecalling. I thought they would keep me informed and help me pick candidates during the primaries and elections.

I believe that we desperately need politicians who know how to compromise. We're getting nowhere with demagogues who follow a straight party line and refuse to bend under any circumstances. The common practice of vilifying and denigrating any person or position that varies at all from the party's is only making things worse.

We've lost the ability to think and to debate in politics.

The vast majority of political missives I receive from the Democrats and Libertarians go to the "fundraising" folder. A few of the Democrats' go in "fallacies". The Republican mails always wind up in "namecalling", with a few in "fallacies". I'm not any better informed about candidates or issues; I only know who's yelling about what.

It's all poison. I'm unsubscribing. The NRCC won't let me; pparently I'll have to mark them as spam.

Phone Follies

2010-08-17T10:45:19Z

I went swimming in a nearby river with my middle daughter, and I brought along my trusty Treo in case of emergencies. Of course, it's not waterproof, so I double-bagged it in Ziplocs.

Turns out they're not waterproof. I took it apart, dried it out, and used it for two days, when it stopped working altogether.

My wife upgraded me to a Samsung Galaxy S. On our AT&T network, it's called a Captivate. Very nice phone! But no keyboard. So I exchanged it for a Motorola Backflip, saving $155 in the bargain.

Biggest mistake ever.

Continue reading "Phone Follies"

Judebert's EV Conversion Diary: Roadworthy Birthday

2010-07-04T10:26:00Z

I've been lazy long enough. Today is Silent E's birthday; time to replace that wire and get her back on the road!

This is a very simple operation. Remove the old wire, cut a new wire to length, attach new terminal clamps, and put on the finished wire. Why have I been putting it off so long?

The wire in question was getting so hot it melted its plastic terminal covers. Rather than fixing the problem, I removed the terminal covers. Eventually it got so hot it literally melted the terminal clamps. That's right. Drops of solidified lead on my battery tops. Yikes. They must have made a conduction path somewhere, because the terminals started sparking under load. That's when I stopped driving.

The operation went pretty smoothly, except for one disturbing problem: There's a ground somewhere. Even with the main power switch off, putting the wire back on caused sparks. I washed the tops of the batteries with a baking soda solution, as best as I could. (One of my regulators got wet; I hope I didn't break it.)

Including a dead-end wire that was too short, forgetting to turn off the main power switch, and spraying the nearby wasps (not in my car, thank RNG), the whole thing took me an hour. I used only the tools in my emergency kit, just to be sure I could replace a wire in an emergency.

Happy Birthday, Silent E! Tuesday, it's back to work!

Gettin' Her Geek On

2010-06-22T10:10:32Z

I must be doing something right: my eldest daughter went to a sleepover at a friend's house. They wanted to play Sims 3, but the computer wasn't working.

We had discussed this earlier, so she new it didn't have the appropriate drivers. She and her friend took the computer apart to figure out what model of motherboard they were dealing with, then put it back together, downloaded the appropriate drivers, and got everything running.

Alright, it took them 3 hours. But that's not bad for a first time. And they treated a difficult problem with perseverance and initiative.

Alpha Geek approves. Well done, Grasshopper!

Still Kicking

2010-05-24T18:09:41Z

I'm still here. Just nothing interesting to report. It's been hectic, in a family-personal kind of way. The car still works, nothing new or interesting on that front. The family is still together, the job is still paying. Exercise wasn't going as well as I'd like, but I'm improving.

Further news as events unfold.

Judebert's EV Conversion Diary: Sparks

2010-06-08T21:21:43Z

I've been living with a hot wire for a while now. (No, not my wife. ) Fixing it is just a matter of replacing the wire, but I've been putting it off. A few days ago, on the way home from work, I could actually hear it sparking.

It's not the first time it's done that, but this time it was really loud and sustained. I saw the voltage go down at the same time; it must really have been pulling some current out of the other batteries.

The odd thing is... this means there's a path to ground somewhere. Luckily, it didn't short out the 12V system, or even blow any fuses. That means the short is probably among the batteries themselves. I'm betting it's splattered lead and/or dust.

In any case, I'm not moving the car until I replace the wire. With everything else going on, that could take a while.

I really need a vacation.

Judebert's EV Conversion Diary: RubeRally

2010-03-21T00:02:00Z

People just love Silent E

Thanks to my good friend Clark, today I attended the RubeLab RubeRally alternative fuel vehicle rally. Rather like a scavenger hunt, really. Silent E took second place! Well, the first place car ran on CNG -- a fossil fuel -- so I contend it should've been disqualified, but hey...

I also pushed my car beyond its limits, saw some other neat vehicles, and enjoyed hanging out with my brother. Read on for details and more pictures.

Continue reading "Judebert's EV Conversion Diary: RubeRally"