Build your own photonic fence to zap mosquitoes midflight

if only my current project list wasn't going to tie me up for the next 30 years...

Here's a nice graph on how that whole stimulus thing is going. You know, the one that got rammed down our throats so fast that our congresscritters had only an hour or so to read the thousands of pages in it.


read more here
In much better news, the inlaws left for home today after a week's visit.

(j/k D&D, you're always welcome in Dayton)

Should you find yourself suffering in a situation not unlike plague #3, there are various methods available for gnat termination.

Some would suggest quality time with a flyswat. I ruled this method to be too slow.

Others say to use a vacuum with a hose (think shopvac), sucking them up mid-flight. While this method takes solves both the termination and disposal goals, I ruled it to be too boring given other tools I had at hand.

Preferred method - "Let my people go" (depending on time/location). Failing that, a Wagner 905 Power Steamer of course. What could be satisfying than blasting invaders out of your own private sky with a fog of scalding hot steam?

Not so much the math/hard science stuff, but especially history & social studies (let's not even mention US Government).

I've been on a Great Depression kick lately, Bob Murphy's "The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Great Depression" is the latest addition to my reading list (which continues to get longer rather than shorter).

From Murphy's teaser article "The Fake History of the Depression" :

"Contrary to what you have heard and read over the last year, Hoover behaved as a textbook Keynesian after the stock-market crash. He immediately cut income tax rates by one percentage point (applicable to the 1929 tax year) and began ratcheting up federal spending, increasing it 42 percent from fiscal year (FY) 1930 to FY 1932. But to truly appreciate Hoover's Keynesian bona fides, we must realize that this enormous jump in spending occurred amidst a collapse in tax receipts, due both to the decline in economic activity as well as the price deflation of the early 1930s."

So much for laissez-faire hands-off Hoover. Thanks AP American History.

It's taken me 5 years, 2 cars, and 150,000 miles to realize that the steering columns of our cars adjust in/out as well as up/down.

For the record: 2001 VW Jetta, 2001 VW Passat, I give the VW engineers involved 0 points for designing a not-very-discoverable feature, I haven't been able to think of a better way they could've designed it it--yet, discovered this while prying the airbag out of the Passat's steering wheel (was working on replacing the turn signal switch), my Jeep's column adjusts using the proper and traditional method--wrench and hammer.

Oh, hi everybody.