Interesting bike site

Found an interesting bike site sakuholma's photostream with many home built bikes and rough plans.  There were some interesting construction jigs like these:

 

There were also many bike designs including a fair number of wood bikes.  I found this one particularly interesting:
 



The use of stressed plywood skin to build a monocoque shell is an interesting idea.  It looks like a wood version of a flevo bike.


This one was also rather novel:
 
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And here's yet another:

And a final one:

 

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While looking around I also found an interesting site for a wood shell velo.

Great bread recepie

Found a great bread recipe here.  It turned out very good though I changed it a bit with over much yeast and not enough salt.  Still the results were the best so far.

Ciabatta loaf - Over wide.  I should have made two loafs.

Good crust and texture.

Outstanding texture!

After we eat the bread I've on hand I'll make another loaf following the recipe precisely and making two loafs.

Bike ride around the neighborhood with BB

BB and I took another short bike ride yesterday around the neighborhood while we waited for the bread to rise. Bread turned out OK, one of the best so far, but still not what I'm looking for.

Video of yesterday's bike ride

It took a bit of mucking about but I was able to do something with the video clips from yesterday's bike ride.  Here's the result.  Not ready for prime time!  But, hey, I just messing about and learning as I go.

It's rather over long owing to a poor choice of parameters.  I'll try again with 5 second clips and 25 second intervals to see how that works.  Overall though I think I like the video clips better than the stills.

Another great NE day

Great NE Saturday!

BB and I ran errands this AM.  Found some nice PEI mussels for dinner.

Got home and had a bit of lunch and read on the deck in the sun/shade.  Outstanding.

I worked a bit on repairing the knob for the whole house fan.  It split and wouldn't turn the somewhat stiff timer spring.  It's the sort of problem that's rather frustrating as the knob is clearly inadequately designed.  I'm surprised that it ever worked.  It's a 240v 24hr timer and a bit difficult to replace so I decided to have a go at repairing the knob with some epoxy and metal shims.  We'll see.

BB and I went for a bike ride around the area.  Did about 5 miles or so.  I tried to make a time lapse video but it didn't work well so I'll go back to time lapse stills.

The ride itself was really pleasant and we'll try to get out tomorrow for another.  Perhaps do the Assabet loop.

I did a bit of yard cleanup yesterday.  It looks much better.  With the neighbor's trees thinned I may have a shot at grass so I'm going to seed, etc. and see what happens.

Outing to Scituate - Great day.

BB and I drove to Scituate for the day.  Had lunch on the deck at the Mill Wharf restaurant.  It was a bit windy but still nice enough.  Had an interesting waiter, a retired policeman from Alaska.  Good fun.  Stopped in at the Roman Table to buy some olive oil and vinegar.  It's the only place we've found where you can buy real balsamic vinegar!  It's expensive but what a treat.  Their olive oils are also outstanding.

On the way back we noticed a bike path along the road.  It's not on Google but I'll try to add it.

Tomorrow is a yard work and pay bills day.

Flevo bike green machine

Happened on this youtube video of the Flevo Green Machine.  It's an interesting concept.

The drivetrain is enclosed.  That's a positive.  They use 20" wheels so the seat height is good.  Gearing is via a 14 speed internal rear hub.  The bike also has full suspension.  Here are the gear ratios:

I think it might be possible to duplicate this design in carbon over foam with derailleur gearing using a free hub as the rear suspension pivot and a conventional 7 speed rear cluster.  The rear chair assembly would be exposed but otherwise things should be similar.

Related articles

• Electronicaly switchable chainless drivetrain developed for Alpha Bike concept (gizmag.com)
• Green Machine Bike Is A Big Wheel For Grownups (wired.com)

Helping MM move into their new house

BB and I went down to RI to help MM move into their new house.  The changes they made look great and they seem very excited about it all.  There's still a LOT of work to do on the house and they will now to have to live in a construction zone but another few months should see it done.

Had a good visit and great time.

Plan for tomorrow is to clean up the house, particularly the Mike zone down stairs, and go for a bike ride.

Rapture report: world didn't end but Iceland has issues

Rapture day came and went and my plan worked perfectly.  Excellent wine.  Excellent wife.  Good time had by all during a rather nice rehearsal.

Of course Mr Camping must be a bit put off.  Interestingly, their web site is still up and showing 0,0.  What does one do under such circumstances?  Just say "my bad" and let it go or what.  Still things worked well for BB and I.

In related news, well sort of related, one of those pesky Iceland Volcanoes, you know the most active one on planet, is acting up again and there was a rather small earthquake along that always troublesome San Andreas fault where several thousand earthquakes occur each year.  I'm fairly sure it's not the rapture thing running a bit late but I'm going to keep track just in case.  Fortunately I've another very nice bottle of red wine on hand so we're ready on the off chance that Camping missed by a day.

In completely unrelated news it's gone cool again.  I want a "do over" on spring after all the cold rain and generally unpleasant weather we've had for the last couple of months.  It's a bit whiny I know but common now it's been going on for months!

BBs off with Mike today installing him at URI for the summer session so we are now officially sans children in the house.  I don't think things will change much since Mike's not here much anyway with school, work, etc.  Still it's a milestone of sorts.

Related articles

• Iceland's Most Active Volcano Begins Erupting (foxnews.com)
• 3.6 magnitude earthquake hits near Oakland (latimesblogs.latimes.com)
• Prophecy of Rapture and doom fizzles, and life in Boston goes on (boston.com)

Bike ride to library

BB and I went for a bike ride to the library.  Used a new camera mount.  Works better.  Shot at 1 frame every 30 seconds.  Much to long.  Every 10 seconds is better.

Be prepared

The Rapture: judgment day imminent … if US engineer has calculated right | World news | The Guardian: "The Rapture: judgment day imminent … if US engineer has calculated right
Thousands say goodbye to family and friends ahead of 6pm Saturday deadline, after which 'saved' will rise up"

Image via WikipediaI was a boy scout when I was young. You know the whole "be prepared" thing.  Of course, a lot of water has gone under the bridge since then.  Then, too, the whole end of the world judgement day thing is a bit difficult to prepare for.  Do you say goodbye to loved ones then stick your head between your legs ... well you know the rest.  Or what?  So what to do?

Been thinking about it.  Not much but hey, it's Friday and rainy outside. Got to do something now that I'm retired.  So here's my plan.

First, open that very nice bottle of red wine BB and I have been saving for that special time.  What could be more special than the 'rapture' after all.

Second, take a couple of glasses and go back into the master bedroom.  

Third, get naked.  I can't imagine that one should dress for the rapture in anything other than the suite god gave you.

Fourth, get into bed under the covers.  It's warm and comfortable and generally rather nice.

Fifth, enjoy the wine.  If I remember my new testament reasonably, Christ was OK with wine even going so far as turning water to wine.  If it's good enough for C it's good enough for me.

Sixth, while naked and just slightly tight enjoy the great gift god gave men and women to share together.  That's in the bible as well, if memory serves, something about multiplying and the earth.  

Now there are two possible outcomes here.  One is that the 'rapture' is real in which case I'm reasonably OK with preparations since I'm dressed as god made me and engaged ... well you know.  The other is that this wacko is wrong again as he was back in '92 or '94 or both.  In this rather more likely outcome I've shared a nice bottle of wine with someone I love.  No harm, no foul, and we can all go on with life reassured that we've  rehearsed a well conceived plan for the end of days or whatever other terminal disaster might occur. 

One final thought.  Could we get this guy to schedule the rapture a bit more often then declare it a special floating holiday?  Sort of like a combined April Fools, Christmas, and New Years all together during the spring or summer.  Sounds like a fair idea to me.

Related articles

• Atheists offer to care for Christians' pets after rapture (rt.com)
• Judgment Day: Atheists plan 'rapture' party - BBC News (news.google.com)

Good coffee news!

Image via Wikipedia

Could coffee lower men's risk for prostate cancer?

I like coffee!  I really really like coffee!  Some while back there were some news items linking coffee consumption and an increased risk of prostate cancer.  Bummer, big time.  Imagine my elation with the latest news!  It's good for you!  Oh happy days, happy happy days!

Now if I could just find a health justification for wine, scotch, bourbon, sex, and general debauchery life would be truly good.

Related articles

• Coffee may reduce risk of lethal prostate cancer in men (medicalxpress.com)
• More Cups of Java a Day Keeps Deadly Cancers Away? (abcnews.go.com)
• Link Between Obesity And Higher Risk Of Prostate Cancer Progression (medicalnewstoday.com)

Google Map Maker adventure

Google Map Maker
GPS Visualizer

I've been playing with Google Map Maker fixing some map errors I've encountered while hiking/biking. It's interesting that Google goes to its base as a way to verify ground truth. I've corrected a couple of roads that are now only open to bikes or walking.

Interestingly the Google reviewers quickly responded to my changes and some are already approved.  Here's my first contribution currently available from Google Maps.

My first contribution to Google Maps The green line is a new bike route courtesy of RJB

From 2011-05-17 Google Maps

One of the things I did was to offer a new bike trail that runs along the Assabett river.  I'd tried to get the the Rails to Trails folks to include it in their maps without luck.  A bit strange that as it is in their planned routes!  At any event I offered it to Google Maps and quickly got some feedback that part of the route is in the river.  Since you can't effectively ride a bike in a river clearly something is bogus.  Fortunately I have a saved GPS track of the trail so there is some sort of ground truth there.  I was able to lay this on Google Maps with GPS Visualizer.  Here's what it looks like:

GPS Visualizer GPS track overlay on Google Maps

You can also get an elevation profile that looks something like this:

GPS Visualizer elevation profile

I remember the 105.9m hill VERY well.

At any event the tool is interesting and useful.

I've sent a note to the Google reviewer offering the GPS track.  Haven't heard back yet though.

Cape Cod trip 2011 05 - Repost

Blogger ate the original post during their recent problems.  Repost!

BB and I went to the cape to do a bit of biking.  Sadly, large offshore storm brought heavy rain, 40+ MPH winds, and temps in the 40s.  We did a bit of touring then decided to punt and try again in a few weeks.  Here's a bit of video of the affair.

Raspberry Pi Foundation - Very Cool

Raspberry Pi Foundation

Coolest computer I've seen recently.  Hard to imagine that the first computer I worked on was the size of a large room, didn't have even close to this much storage, didn't have a disk, and had only teletype output!

Cape Cod trip 2011 05

BB and I went down to the Cape for a bit of bike riding.  Timing is sometimes everything and ours was very poor.  Big offshore storm brought 40mph wind, heavy rain, and temps in the 40s.  We did a bit of touring but decided to punt and returned home.  We'll try again later.

Short bike ride today with BB

Went for a short bike ride with BB around the neighborhood.  Here's the route:

And here's the video.  Video is better I think.  The mount is almost secure with a bit of foam to keep it from loosening.  Need to work on camera stabilization and vertical.  Shot at 1 frame every 10 seconds.  Seems about right.

Getting from google maps to a gps file for Delorme

Google maps is really handy for finding bike routes.  But, how do you get from the Google Maps display to your GPS device?  For reasons that escape me, Google Maps do not export a GPS/GPX file.  But, you can do it with a bit of effort.  To do so use the handy app at elsewhere.org.

The directions are good and work for me.  I use the full version of the output since it gives a much better track to follow.  With my Delorme PN-40 I bring up Topo USA then import the GPS file as a draw object.  From there it's easy to export to the PN-40 and then follow the track as wanted.

1. First make your route.  This was done with bike routes set on.
   
   
   
   
2. Then GMAPtoGPX it.  You'll get a display that looks like this after you select Full. 
   
3. Copy the code to the clipboard and paste into notepad or some other application that allows you to save the file as a GPS file.
   
   
4. Then within Topo import the saved file as a draw object.
   
   
   
5. Now you'll have a draw object within Topo that you can save to your Delorme device.

That's all there is to it.

Cape Bike Rides

BB and I are planning a trip to the Cape to do a bit of biking along the Cape Cod Rail Trail

One route goes out to the park at Ocean View Dr.  About 5.4 miles one way.

It's actually possible to go all the way to P Town.  That's about 30 miles.  A bit far for BB and I.  There's a shorter route just down the Rail Trail.

There are also some options going south.

We'll work out the details when we're there.

Introducing Poolball, America’s Next Great Barroom Sport | Playbook

Introducing Poolball, America’s Next Great Barroom Sport | Playbook

Where can I play?

Bike ride to library

We're having a great spring day so BB & I decided to bike over to the library and drop some books off.  Here's the route and a video slide show of the trip.

As you can tell, I'm still getting the hang of using the time lapse feature on the camera.  This video was done from photos taken every 2 seconds then made into a slide show with goggle picasa.  It is a bit better than my first effort I think but still needs some work.

I'm still having some issues with the camera mount.  The shoe is coming unscrewed!  I've put a bit of rubber material between the plastic shoe and camera.  Hopefully that will create enough friction that it will stay screwed in properly.  I also need to do something about the mount since it is steering sensitive.  Finally, I went through a fresh set of AA batteries doing this!  Some sort of external power supply is clearly wanted.

John and Marie over for dinner

Our neighbors and good friends John and Marie were over for dinner last night.  We'd hoped to eat out on the deck but not withstanding a couple of days of teasingly nice weather it's gone a bit cool again.  Still, I cleaned up the grill and grilled leg of lamb, and eggplant.  Rather than grill the leg of lamb whole I went ahead and butterflied it.  We also tried an interesting noodle salad and a wonderful sweet kale dish.  Great meal!

Rome Lab's supercomputer is made up of 1,700 off-the-shelf PlayStation 3 gaming consoles | syracuse.com

Rome Lab's supercomputer is made up of 1,700 off-the-shelf PlayStation 3 gaming consoles | syracuse.com Sometimes technology is remarkable at several levels. Many years ago I worked at the labs in Rome. This is interesting and amusing at the same time.

Bike ride with BB.

BB and I took a short bike ride today.  Here's a time lapse of the adventure.

Here's the route with elevations and speeds:

It's clear that I'll need to do a bit more experimentation with the time lapse parameters.  I'm inclined to shoot at one frame per second or perhaps a bit faster.

Pan-Seared Sea Scallops

How To Make Pan-Seared Sea Scallops: Step-By-Step Tutorial With Photos

The grocer had scallops on sale yesterday.  So tonight it's pan-seared scallops and salad.  They are rather easy to make just don't shake the pan.

Herb-Crusted Chuck Roast, chocolate, and a rainy day

I'm not a great fan of chuck roast but this one (Herb-Crusted Chuck Roast Recipe - Allrecipes.com) is really good.  There's a new Target near us.  While I'm no great fan of big box stores, this one has a grocery of a sort and some great prices on Angus Chuck Roast.  It turned out outstanding.  Made some herb new potatoes and zucchini as well and then French vanilla ice cream with home made pecan chocolate sauce for desert.


Beyond good food, today is cool, low 30s and rainy.  Good day to run errands then stay indoors and read.

Deck day, time lapse video, Art and keyboard

Up early this AM.  I was a bit concerned that BB was well recovered from yesterday's tests.  She is.

Plan for the day is to work a bit on the deck furniture.  Understand that we have a LOT of deck furniture so getting it all out of storage and setup is a challenge.  Also I'll need to put up the screen room on the deck.  Here's what it looked like:



This is my first attempt at a time lapse video using an old Canon A530 enhanced with CHDK to take a photo every 15 seconds.  In hindsight I should probably have had the interval set rather shorter.  Still it's a bit of fun.

You might note that pugs are very good at being still.

Had a good conversation with Art last night concerning keyboard and music generally.  I've decided to track Craigs list for a bit before doing anything.  One of the things Art suggested was that I spend some time on the web studying music theory.  Really sensible suggestion.  So I'll spend some time today doing just that.  Wikipedia seems like a fairly sensible place to start.

Not just another Thursday

Today started a bit early.  BB had an appointment for some tests.  You know the ones where you need to bring along someone to drive you home.  Not a big issue but it did mean driving during the mourning commute.  I must admit that I felt rather smug while driving in heavy traffic in the knowledge that virtually everyone around me had to face it every work day while I didn't.  Being retired does have its advantages.

Unfortunately, when we got home Cindy, one of our pugs, had been rather ill and I spent over an hour cleaning up the floors and rugs.  Hopefully she's OK.

One of the things I've been interested in now that I'm retired is learning to play the piano/keyboards.  At one time I had a Casio keyboard but it's vanished, perhaps destroyed in the fire.  So I've been looking on Craigs list.  There are lots to choose from and all sorts of prices.  Since I don't know anything about such things I'm going to involve my brother and try to take advantage of his experience.

Dreary day

Another rather dreary day.  Oh well, good day to do inside things.

Spent some time messing with CHDK to get a handle on setting up time lapse videos.  I'm a bit concerned about battery life.  A bit of checking found some links for external battery packs.  Surprisingly, there isn't a commercial one!  I also found an interesting video on using Picasa to make the video.  I'm a fan of Picasa and a bit of experimentation suggests that it will work well.  The final piece is to work out how to set parameters when taking the photos.  Todo list:

• external battery pack for camera
• good set of rechargeable batteries
• work out parameters
• mount for bike/self

Used CHDK and v_intvl and Picasa no make a test video time lapse video.  Interesting but unfortunately you have to click through to actually see the video.

From 2011-04-20

It's a bit like a time lapse video made from still photos but instead made from a set of short videos.  Hopefully this will resolve some of the blurring I've encountered when making time lapse from stills.

Put the video on youtube which does allow embeding:

Computer mystery

While the Toshiba seems fine I got a curious email:

What's curious about this is that I've not had any issues there!  Time to run a very through security scan.

Toshiba lives

Happily my Toshiba now seems to live.  After getting the HP working reasonably again I did a bit of research on the problem.  Great thing about the Internet is that it's full of suggestions.  Now, admittedly many are not so sensible but one mentioned really powering down by taking the battery out.  Duh!  This is something I know, really I do.  So I pulled the batter and left the machine sit for a bit so the electronics would good and truly reset.  Put it back in.  Powered up and bingo got a sensible Windows restart screen.  I'm not sure what happened but all seems well now.

Interesting day

Good news, after yesterdays bike ride my weight is down a bit.  Sadly, my pelvis is a bit saddle sore.  Not so good but tolerable.

It's a rather grey and rainy day so I'll not be out geocaching or riding.  Good day to mess with inside things.

After messing with the Canon camera things took a sour turn.  My Toshiba laptop seems to have died!  I think it may be a display related issue.  So faced with the need I've been working to get my old HP machine working properly again.  PCs seem to always need some amount of updating so it will take a bit of effort.  Meanwhile, I'm going to try to boot the Toshiba from a CD to see if it might be a software issue.

Hack PowerShot With CHDK

Hack Your PowerShot With CHDK

One of the things I've been wanting to do for a while is to make videos of my geocaching and biking adventures. I don't want to make a big deal out of taking and creating videos so what I thought I'd try making a time lapse video.

Now there are a number of ways to do this but most involve some amount of equipment or software.  That's not an especially attractive option.

I've got an old Canon A530 that I've been happy with and is small enough to use while riding or walking.  Unfortunately, there is no time lapse feature built in.  Enter CHDK!  It provides a set of additional software that runs on the camera and provides a remarkable collection of advanced features normally only available on much more expensive cameras.

After a bit of research, fuss, and bother I've got it installed on one of the camera's memory cards and have tried it out.  It works, rather well actually.  It's now possible to take a series of photos evenly spaced over time automatically.

What remains is to turn these photos into a reasonable video.  I've experimented with a couple of free Microsoft programs on my laptop and they seem to work well enough.  So it seems I'm ready to actually try it.

Ants Climb A Tree

Mrs. Chiang's Szechwan Cookbook : Ants Climb A Tree

Mine looks like this but I forgot to actually take a photo

Wonderful dinner last night.  This is one of our favorites.  There are many many recipes but this is the one I use, sort of.

The dish tends to be rather salty because of all the soy sauce.  So I replace the 1/4 cup of soy and all the water with chicken stock.  It's still a bit salty but delicious.

I've also experimented with replacing the hot pepper paste with hot bean paste.  Again a bit of adjustment to the quantities is necessary as they can both be very salty.  I control the heat with a bit of hot pepper oil or sauce.

Finally, I adjust the noodle to meat quantities since we like a bit more meat than the recipe calls for.  I find about 6 oz of noodles per pound of port about right.

Leftovers for lunch today.  Yum.

Bike ride with BB

BB and I took a bike ride over the the Assabet.  Great day for the ride.  Here's the profile and a photo of herself.  I noticed that we're both riding a bit faster than last year on average.  We also seem to have a higher top speed.  Perhaps it's time to try touring with a group.

Sometimes you just got to love the news.

YouTube - Chinese Students Do Michael Jackson Dance

Where was this when I was in school?

Bright spring day

Beautiful spring day and a holiday to boot! Lets hear it for MA Patriots day and the Boston Marathon so BB and I get an extra long weekend!

I think it's finally safe to put out the deck furniture. We'll probably go for a bike ride and checkout what's happening over at the Assabet wildlife reserve.

Tornadoes v. cold: is this a choice?

I'm glad I'm not in the south where they are having very dangerous weather, but really 20° and possibility of snow!  Enough already it's flipping spring!!

Canceled plans to go for a longer bike ride.  It's to blinking cold.  Instead it's a good day to read in front of the fire and tend to some inside chores.  Also need to send tax return off.

Facebook page for Common Sense

Created a Facebook page for Richard's Common Sense here.  Not entirely sure how it should/will work but worth a bit of effort.

Also created a new gmail account richardscommonsense@gmail.com and associated Facebook account.

Friday plan

Today's a bit of an odd Friday.

I've spent some time this mourning trying to connect my Facebook account and my two blogs.  The Facebook published technique didn't work with an error that said Facebook couldn't find the RSS feed.  Never mind the feed verifies OK.  So I'm going try using RSS Graffiti.  It should allow me to flow both my blogs into my Facebook account.  We'll see.

I need to do some paperwork today as well.  That's the plan for after lunch.

I've also got to make a bank run.

All in all a fairly quiet day.

Dinner last night

Had some very nice Haddock last night.

Haddock baked (20 min at 350) in 1/4 cup white wine with mushrooms, scallions, and seasoned with dill.  Quinoa with portabella and pecans.  Brussel sprouts sauteed with onion, chicken stock, worcestershire sauce and Tabasco.  Outstanding!

Great day for a bike ride

BB and I went for our first bike ride of the year today.  We only did about 3 or 4 miles or so but had a very pleasant ride in 50F and clear skies.

The bikes are in generally good shape though I've got some sort of catch in my crank.  I'll have to take a look and see what's up.  Also the rear break could have a good deal more authority.  Otherwise things are good.

The return of Spring has BB and I thinking about possibly taking a trip in early May to the Cape for a bike ride.  There is a 22 mile rail to trail path.  I'll see if I can find a B&B about mid way so we can ride one half one day and the other the next.  Should be fun.

Just another Friday

It's been an interesting couple of days with some good and some not so good.

I got an email from Deb Williams letting me and other friends know that Bill Bradway had died.  Bill and I worked together at Meridian and Financial Insights.  He was a good man and very well regarded.  He'll be missed.

There is something about a colleagues death that gives me pause about my own mortality, particularly when it's someone who was a contemporary.

Mark stayed with us last night as he had an early mourning meeting in Hudson NH.  We had a nice if somewhat brief visit.  Their new house is coming along and they hope to be in by mid May.

We are down to two cars just now as Mike's is in the shop.  It's a bit inconvenient but we'll doubtless survive.

April fools in NE

Spring was rather late this year.  Here's what April 1 looked like.