Incommunicado

I feel like I'm in some kind of cartoon. Screwy squirrel gets just out of mallot shot of my home and chews on a line that cuts my DSL and phone. I've been without the internet since Wednesday. I completely freaked out. I mean, not only was my business effectively shut down, but I had no tribe, email, porn, or TV (remember, i switched to torrents instead of cable). So, all I had was my goo-box (TV) for company... it sucked. But I'm back and getting my fix.

Less than 100 junk mails waiting. I must be livin clean.

Bio-white gas

Thu, January 4, 2007 - 2:10 AM

Okay, so I've been working with Silence to get a completely 'green' Biodeisel to provide to folks in the Fire conclave to burn on Burn Night. But in the process of learning about BioD, I theorized that something other than vegetable oil could be used as a base, making Bio-Lamp oil, Bio-kerosene, or even bio-white. After locating the shortest possibble molecules that might be used and looking at what the synthesis might result, I calculated that Ethyl Acetate would be the result of esterification of Ethanol and Acetone (the very shortest fatty acid). Well, sure enough, that's exactly how it's made. They take natural versions of ethanol and acetone and put them though the exactsame process as biodeisel to make EA. So, I ordered a bottle of it and ran it through the ringer:

test 1 - MSDS - flash point, reactivity, and product safety are all better than white gas. This is used as a food flavoring in small doses, so it should be reasonably safe for use.

test 2 - Combat fire sword, virgin wick, medium pour (about 125 ml) - Burn was whiter than white gas (which is bright yellow) for the most part, ignited immediately, was ready to go from the start, and even left trails on cool concrete (It's 58 degrees tonight). Towards end of burn, the flame got noticably orange-y. Subjective: flame temp felt noticably lower; strange smells while burning and on wick afterwards; wick noticabley cleaner than petrol burns would leave it; nail polish after smell.

test 3 - two batons, identical make, identical wicks, spun and stalled at same speeds, in sync with each other. One full soaked in white gas, the other full soaked in EA. One quick spin out. - Both lit immediately and held a strong flame. EA wick was always smaller and whiter than the white gas wick. White also burned louder than the EA. Several subjective tests showed the EA to be a "cooler" burn than the white gas. Alternately spinning and not spinning, the white gas went out first, but quickly followed by the EA wick. EA torch burned noticabley cleaner with much less soot. Afterburn picture confirms this.

Results: Ethyl acetate is a nearly complete substitute for white gas. It's made from green components making as environmentally stable as biodeisel. It burns cooler, but nearly as well as white gas with no real performace changes including 'back to the future' trails, fleshing, speed spinning, etc. The nail polish after scent is the only part that difficult to get around.

Remainder: EA is also a polar solvent. it's possible that it can suspend the elements necessary for colored flames. So, with the remaining 100ml of the bottle, I'll be testing it with the various colorants to see if it will take. Imagine a white gas burn with colored flames. :)

So, not only am I excited at finding a cool burning, cleaner version of white gas, but I'm feeling intellectually vindicated in actually applying chemical knowledge to locate the desired effect. It definitely has the feel of a "put up of shut up" moment (without the pressure of having someone actually say that). And I have come out on top. Wheeeee.. :)

Isn't it such a waste?

So, I sit here watching the Rose Bowl parade when an echo from the past rattled through my head. "So, why go through the effort and expense of building the Man, just to burn him a week later?" And that got me thinking. Rose bowl floats are built very rapidly for a single event, and have a workable lifespan of about 2 days. There's no question that some amount of artistry goes into each float.... but shall we talk about the waste?

According to the 2005 afterburn report, Burningman provided $437,937 in honoraria to artists, and the Man itself cost $136,304. Well, it's not so easy to get the numbers on the rose bowl art, but here's a couple of hints. ONE float, one small one, had over 6000 roses of a specific rare breed that cost $200 a dozen (from the KTLA newscast). That's $100,000 for that flower type alone on that float. It was also covered with another 5000 lesser roses, many carnations, and seeds. So, that ONE float most likely exceeded the entire budget for The Man. [the FTD float had 45,000 roses plus other flowers]

At almost 50 floats for the entire parade, That's $5 million in the base material cost of the float coverings, this doesn't include the recoupable costs of the float bases, nor the fuel costs, etc. That's just the flowers. Yeah, that's right TEN times the amount gifted to artists at BM. Another way to look at it comes from the offical Rose Parade site: "each float has more flowers than most florists will use in 5 years".

This also doesn't include the incredible amount of work put in by the float builders, the marching bands, the horse groomers and handlers, etc. One bowl parade could easily exceed the scope of the entire Bman event, but only last for 2.5 hours. And although it's probably the biggest and best known, keep in mind that the Rose bowl is only one of 32 bowl games held each year, many that have their own parades too.

Now, it's true a parade opens up a lot of emotions and wonder for the spectators, but I've seen some pretty earth shaking things at burningman too, and I know many people are much more deeply affected by the Bman event than any parade. So, from a strictly cost benefit analysis point of view, I'm thinking the Bman event is definitely the best bang for the buck. Suddenly, I'm feeling pretty good about burning the man each year (not that it really ever bothered me before). And I think the next time I hear some hippy whining about the waste of Bman, I'll cram a dozen roses up their ass and tie them to an art car...

What i want for Xmas

Now, I'm not a big fan of Christmas, not since I resigned into atheism. But I like the idea of Yule or Saturnalia, or even Xmas.
This time of year was originally a celebration of survival. Yule is about the Holly king triumphant over the old oak king and the march of time. Holly is the revered plant here because it stays green throught the year. Heck, that's where the pine tree thing came from.

The Saturnalia was less about survival, but rather about a really good party, it was so popular that the celebrated day of the Christ's birth was moved to this time of the year. Most likely, the bible was hinting at the nativity happening in June, but there really is little proof. It was when the christians tried stuffing Jesus into this time of year that things got weird. they messed it up so bad that Christmas was officially cancelled... twice. It took a whole new country and a pretty baron calendar to get the ball rolling. The new US needed holidays and what better way to snub the red coats than to re-institute a celebration that they had cancelled.

Xmas, as we celebrate it today, has only been around for about 100 years. And much of the timmings have only been around 50 years. It is not a religeous holiday, it's secular, national, and all ours.

So, what I want for Xmas? Xmas. Not Christ-mass, Not Yule, not the Saturnalia, not Hanukkah, or any of these other religious holidays. i want a time of the year when people can be decent, and good, and giving to each other BECAUSE they feel like being decent, and good and giving to each other. Not because of obligations, or some dusty book, but ... just because.

but you probably didn't read this to hear my philosophy, you want a list, so here's my annual list, with a wide variety depending on your capability and desire:
- I'd like the troups out of Iraq, and back home by the 25th.
- I'd like the world to stop hating me because of my president.
- I'd like my new website to work as advertised, and not require clumsy work-arounds.
- I'd like a bank that takes money from me without calling it a "courtesy."
- I'm so jonesin for a video iPod... :)
- I'd like everyone who reads this to get up and go hug someone... right now... just because... I'll wait.
- I'd like my old Apple II Extended keyboard to work with my new mac.
- I'd like more fire people to read, and really try to follow the NAFAA guidelines.
- Okay, you're back, good, now I could use a hug too...
- I'd like to give my mother a red-headed grandchild before she dies.
- As long as we're at that one, I'd like a kid before I die... :P
- I'd like to finally put this sword in a sheath (long story, ask sometime)
- I'd like a good deal on a deisel car (I want to convert it to triple fuel)
- but most of all, I'd like a muse for my fire performance.

Three stages

There are three definable stages to every human endevour:
1) getting there
2) remembering Why you're there
3) wanting to be there once you've arrived.

My appologies

When that Bear on the TV told me that only *I* could prevent forest fires, I had no idea that he was so serious. The recent wildfires are a resulft of me getting super busy at work and having no time for forestry work. Sorry.

Hey, at least you know I won't be slacking off, playing video games.... apparantly I'll have to invent the next one before I can play it... :)

Goodbye TV.....

Well, at least goodbye cable. I pay a bunch of money for a high-speed internet connection so that I can have Internet Phone service (all North American and some other major cities free). And now I use it to get what I want out of cable... without the stupid commercials, and I get to keep a copy without playing with the VHS.

How, you might ask? Bit torrent. That's how. I downloaded a couple of different applications, chose the best for me (Tomato torrent seemd to be the best choice. Then go to a "portal" to find available downloads, like this one and you're golden.

I discovered all of this in my frustration at only ever seeing half of the Malcolm in the middle burningman episode, then missing it on re-run. I started searching around for a copy and came across a portal. The cool thing about Torrenting is that 1) it's all done in the background, so you don't need to worry about it meesing with your mail and 2) it works on a b-tree distribution schema. Whenever you download, you automatically start uploading the same file to anyone else that needs the parts you have. the Trackers give preference to uploaders, so if you're uploading more than you download, the trackers will bump you up in priority for faster dowloads. It's terribly cool.

It takes about 6 hours for new shows to pop up in the trackers, which isn't bad for recording, editing, re-encoding, and uploading to a server. I get the Daily show and colbert report by the next afternoon and I don't have to pay $60 a month for the priviledge.

Now, i know what you're gonna say... Hey, what will the cable companies do if everyone drops off and starts downloading? i'll tell you what they'll do, they'll start "competing" against this new media and start offering smaller packages with no waste shows. The FCC mandates that small cable packages (pretty much broadcast only) MUST be offered and at a set fee (no more than $20 a month), but I donn't know ANYONE who gets away with that little. We face a monopoly. Time to start throwing raindrops at the mountian....

Go, look for your favorite shows now. you don't need to replace your cable, maybe you just want something that isn't in rotation....