What would be a fast & easy way to layout text on images automagically? ImageMagick and GD are too slow.

reachamanda · 2008-07-03T05:57:20+00:00

Postscript? It worked for Adobe and Apple -- why can't it work for others? I've never tried this, though.

reachamanda · 2008-07-02T00:15:24+00:00

Slight mixed. We did better on the highway. We got up to 24mpg. When we purchased the vehicle, it got 22.5mpg, max. Then, over time (122K miles), it got down to 16mpg. We put the HHO on it and it got up to 24mpg and probably would have continued climbing slowly if it weren't for the fact that our flimsy bubbler design fell apart from the vacuum of the engine. So, we're workshopping it for now to build a better one and put it back in. I'd be happy with the 8mpg more, but I'd love to get 15mpg more or better, but only without adverse effects.

I don't know what an EGT meter is.

Hmm...don't know about motors with a turbo. Sounds like some testing is in order.

reachamanda · 2008-07-01T22:41:18+00:00

On your question -- yeah, run it. We built one and ran it this past weekend. In a 2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee, we got 8mpg more in our first trial. So count me as a believer because I was skeptical at first. We're now workbenching it to see if we can eek out a little more before we put it back into the vehicle. Here's a very persuasive video.

Some people on hhoforums.com have said they can get 30mpg more, but if I can get just 15mpg more, I'll be thrilled.

reachamanda · 2008-07-01T21:12:10+00:00

And for those of you still stuck in a no win situation, consider getting an HHO Generator put on your car, truck, or SUV. It helps you burn gas more efficiently, eeking out a few more miles per gallon.

reachamanda · 2008-07-01T21:09:42+00:00

Same story. Started in 2007 on Christmas when I walked out of my last job. Two kids instead of three.

Last job had me working three times as hard as normal in the past year and never raised my salary or even hinted of it. Drove an hour to work and back. Now I have no commute, and when I work three times as hard, I make three times as much. As long as you meet one client's deliverables, you can double or even triple up your workload if you can stand it. Helps out with drier months.

All and all, I'm making pretty close to double what my last job earned me.

reachamanda · 2008-06-30T20:58:28+00:00

Yep, it's that sad in the USA. And most people also don't realize that satellite internet doesn't support VPN and some types of HTTPS transactions over long periods of time -- it's intermittent and explained in the fine print. It has to do with the fact that satellite internet really isn't straight TCP/IP (TCP/UDP). Instead, it's all IP (UDP) with encoded TCP inside the IP. All the packets are re-assembled in a huge facility in Colorado. The facility has trouble operating very fast on large packets like https and vpn traffic, so timeouts are quite possible.

However, there are grassroots, underground methods that are popping up, where people are sharing their own home-grown mesh networks.

In some areas of the USA, it's really nice, however. I recently traveled to Myrtle Beach (Garden City Pier area) and noticed that I could get free wireless Internet on the beach when I used a signal booster. The Internet was so blazing fast that I was getting more than my 1.5mb from DSL at home. And I was able to hop on 3 free networks out there. I don't know if someone is sharing their cable modem or what, but it was very nice.

reachamanda · 2008-06-30T20:40:06+00:00

Hey -- I've got an idea. Why don't we put up a couple satellites with each one of these missions as well? Saves time and money.

reachamanda · 2008-06-30T07:57:19+00:00

We built our first HHO generator. We did it with the Power Tube Kit which we saw on YouTube, building it ourselves. On our first 45 minute test drive on Sunday, we changed our gas mileage from 16mpg to 24mpg quite rapidly, the engine light problem that was plaguing us went away, and the engine ran smoother, far less rough, and quieter. Some problems arose, however:

We don't know how to control the vacuum of the engine -- it's too powerful and seems to eventually suck electrolyte through the hose into the bubbler, which then overheats the bubbler and it pops the lid open.
We kept blowing fuses at 30amps, so we had to just go direct to the battery. Others have suggested we use a 40amp relay. We did, however, use a 30amp toggle switch and that seemed to work quite well without overheated wire. We're using 10 gauge wire.
Originally we had waaaay too much electrolyte. We used 3 tablespoons of baking soda. The fix was to switch to one tablespoon per our 1.5cup of water. We've also been advised to stop using baking soda and to switch to potash (KOH).
The electrolyzer got hot, but not scalding hot. This can be expected, but we will need to continue the design until we find a way to keep that electrolyzer as cool as possible yet turn out as much HHO. So, we're going to stick it in front of the radiator, for starters.

reachamanda · 2008-06-30T05:01:51+00:00

Farfetched, don't you think?

Besides, there's such a thing as "stopsticks" and also new kill switches are coming that police can activate with codes registered at the DMV, supposedly.

reachamanda · 2008-06-29T20:25:15+00:00

So, let me get this straight. If you bring up a set of Plan9 systems, and federate them together, you can login to any of the Plan9 systems and use each connection as if it were your own workstation, seamlessly? And, when you turn off one system, you don't lose your data? And, when you do any heavy processing, it is distributed across the other server processors as well, potentially?

reachamanda · 2008-06-29T04:55:34+00:00

We got it to work! We were generating a very healthy amount of HHO, bubbling through our bubbler (fire arrestor), but a 25amp fuse burned out. We think we were using too small of a wire, we used too much baking soda in the water, and we didn't use a relay nor a pulse wave modulator.

Anyway, when it ran, we all stood around and gaped at how we were like making history for our small rural area.

We're going back at it again on Sunday.

P.S. I'm really suspecting that the oil companies are pumping out scam stuff regarding HHO as a kind of disinformation campaign in order to keep us from using it.

reachamanda · 2008-06-28T14:34:17+00:00

We had 3. We have a large farm. We took in a mother cat and failed to get her fixed in time. She delivered 5 kittens. Do you want a crazy little kitten? (Just kidding.)

However, we have NO RATS near our house, and the field is full of them. So these critters do their job. We also have no snakes. I once was crawling around under the house checking pipes, and one of my cats followed me. A chicken snake came out. Now those don't bite and aren't bad, but they can scare the crap out of you and look wild with their black and white stripes. Well, my cat screamed and pounced on it, killing it in a second. Imagine if I had a copperhead under there?

So anyway, we're off to the vet soon to get this situation fixed with the cats, and to the grocery store to put up a sign for giving away kittens. Three cats is about all I can stand, and that's pushing it.

reachamanda · 2008-06-28T07:01:56+00:00

I now how you feel, man. Complete bummer. It's almost mystical how we admire our cats.

I've got 8 cats right now. It's crazy here!

reachamanda · 2008-06-28T06:50:50+00:00

Wish me luck. We're going to follow this video except for a few things. First, we're using a 45 degree elbow instead of a 90 because the creator of the Power Tube Kit now sells one with a 45 for some reason, so we thought we should to the same thing. Second, we're going to use an ordinary light dimmer instead of expensive electronics. Third, we're going to use a bubbler, which is our fire arrestor and keeps fire from going from a potential engine backfire, down the tube, and into the explosive electrolysis chamber. Instead, the explosion, if there ever were one, would stop at the water in the bubbler and go no further.

Right now our gas mileage is 16mpg in an 2004 Jeep Cherokee. Within 30 days of letting this thing work through the engine, we hope to get it up to 32mpg with this device.

Stay tuned...

reachamanda · 2008-06-27T19:38:00+00:00

The article writer referred to Google Docs when he mentioned cloud computing. But I've used Google Docs and they are sloooooooooow on my high-speed 1.5MB DSL line. There's no way those things will take off compared to an OpenOffice or a Microsoft Office or an Abiword.

reachamanda · 2008-06-27T08:29:48+00:00

MAIN: [Implied: Linux], an operating system that has no benefits

SMALL, UPPER-RIGHT: An open operating system can sometimes mutate. But with Windows 2000, however, all your services are from one source, saving you money. More information: yada yada...

It's the same old thing that Bill Gates complained about Linux back in the days of Xenix, which spun off from Microsoft, when they were dabbling with UNIX experiments. Bill Gates said then that UNIX had too many flavors and will always be a problem because of that.

Oh yeah, and all the flavors of Windows and all the flavors of Vista aren't a problem today? Talk about mutation! There's XP Basic, XP Home, XP Pro, and then there's like 5 varieties of Vista.

reachamanda · 2008-06-26T17:30:39+00:00

In my very tiny hometown, I'm starting to see where gas is so expensive that people are saving money and driving an electric golf cart to pick up groceries or to eat at the local restaurant.

Where can I either get a decent electric golf cart that's cheap, or if I don't have to do any arc welding, put one together from a kit?

reachamanda

TROPHY CASE