Disappearing Staircase

2011-10-30T11:19:00.000-07:00

Parallax Propeller to HD44780

Bus Pirate JTAGS Amani64 CPLD

2011-09-28T14:45:00.000-07:00

The Amani64 is a CPLD shield for the popular Arduino microcontroller, opening the opportunity to learn about a new technology and to offload complex logical tasks from the Arduino. The Altera CPLD on board, however, requires a JTAG programmer. Since the shield was $25, I hated to pay another $25-$75 to program it. I did have a Bus Pirate on hand, the 'Swiss Army Knife' of digital hobbyists. An alternative firmware is available to do ersatz JTAG programming for CPLDs and FPGAs. I found no links so I had no idea that the JTAG sofware would work on the Amani64.

My computer environment is OSX 10.7 Lion with a bootcamp partition for Windows 7 on a MacBook Pro. The Bus Pirate software to update or changeout BP firmware has a Mac loader, but the free Quartus II programming environment to develop the CPLD svf file only runs on Win or Linux, as does the XSVFplayer software to load the file on the Amani64.

None of my instructions indicated whether to have the CPLD shield attached to the Arduino while programming. I powered it separately and it worked ok that way.

Process:

I developed the AmaniBlink project on Quartus II Web Edition on Windows. The Amani tutorial didn't show how to produce an output file so I had to find that option in the Altera website.
I converted the resulting SVF file to XSVF since that's required by the XSVFplayer software. The file went from 55KB to 27KB.
Although it could be done in Windows, I used OSX to install the JTAG programmer firmware on the BP. You have to change it back to get the normal BP functions afterward.
I went back to windows to run the XSVFplayer software to program the code in the CPLD. That session is enshrined below.

I hooked up the LED along with the Amani64 tutorial and guess what? It blinked!

Here's the command / response:

G:\BusPirate_v3.XSVFplayer.v1.1>BPXSVFplayer.exe -p com7 -f AmaniBlink.xsvf
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
BusPirate XSVF Player V.01
http://www.dangerousprototypes.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
File is 27513 bytes, read 27513 bytes Opening Bus Pirate on com7 at 115200bps, u
sing XSVF file AmaniBlink.xsvf
Entering XSVF Player Mode
Waiting for first data request...ok
Sending 4096 Bytes (1000)... waiting for reply...
ok
Sending 4096 Bytes (2000)... waiting for reply...
ok
Sending 4096 Bytes (3000)...ok
Sending 4096 Bytes (4000)...ok
Sending 4096 Bytes (5000)...ok
Sending 4096 Bytes (6000)...ok
Sending 2937 Bytes (6B79)...ok
End of operation reply 00
Success!
Thank you for Playing! :-)

It's a little awkward and much slower than a dedicated JTAG programmer (I suppose), but it does work.

2011-09-10T10:00:00.000-07:00

Installing simplejson module for python on OSX:

finding out it's not there:

solstice:Documents cliff52$ python

Python 2.7.2 (v2.7.2:8527427914a2, Jun 11 2011, 15:22:34)
[GCC 4.2.1 (Apple Inc. build 5666) (dot 3)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import simplejson
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "", line 1, in
ImportError: No module named simplejson
>>> exit()

On OSX, you use a utility, 'easy_install' to add python modules:

solstice:Documents cliff52$ sudo easy_install simplejson
Password:

Searching for simplejson
Reading http://pypi.python.org/simple/simplejson/
Reading http://github.com/simplejson/simplejson
Reading http://undefined.org/python/#simplejson
Best match: simplejson 2.2.1
Downloading http://pypi.python.org/packages/source/s/simplejson/simplejson-2.2.1.tar.gz#md5=070c6467462bd63306f1756b01df6d70
Processing simplejson-2.2.1.tar.gz
Running simplejson-2.2.1/setup.py -q bdist_egg --dist-dir /tmp/easy_install-Myb3pL/simplejson-2.2.1/egg-dist-tmp-Ycau9f
unable to execute llvm-gcc-4.2: No such file or directory
***************************************************************************
WARNING: The C extension could not be compiled, speedups are not enabled.
Failure information, if any, is above.
I'm retrying the build without the C extension now.
***************************************************************************
zip_safe flag not set; analyzing archive contents...
simplejson.tests.__init__: module references __file__
***************************************************************************
WARNING: The C extension could not be compiled, speedups are not enabled.
Plain-Python installation succeeded.
***************************************************************************
Adding simplejson 2.2.1 to easy-install.pth file

Installed /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/simplejson-2.2.1-py2.7.egg
Processing dependencies for simplejson
Finished processing dependencies for simplejson

that's it
:^)

Colt King Cobra

2011-09-07T05:47:00.001-07:00

Wiki the King

Found in the Herbs

2011-09-03T05:41:00.001-07:00

Caterpillar of the Black Swallowtail

2011-07-01T07:27:00.000-07:00

Perl Scripts for Bus Pirate on Windows 7

2010-04-15T05:17:00.000-07:00

Google 'ActiveState Perl', find it, and install it. I used "C:\Perl" as the location on my machine.
The actual Perl.exe is in the "c:\perl\bin" subdirectory. If you want to run perl from anywhere, you have to add this to the 'environment variable'.
Modify the environment variable by clicking on the round windows globe at the bottom left hand corner of the screen. "Right-click" on "Computer" and select "Properties" in that menu. Find 'Advanced Settings' on the window that opens. That gives yet another window. Click on the 'Advanced' tab. At the bottom of this screen (still with me?) there's a button that says 'Environment Variables'. Click it and another window opens. In the bottom window, scroll down to 'Path' - click once to highlight it and click on 'Edit'. Now, at the end of the string, add a semicolon, then "c:\perl\bin". Click 'Okay' to save your work.
Click the windows globe thing and type 'cmd' in the search window. Mine comes up in the 'c:\windows\system32' directory. I always move to another directory, so run 'cd c:\perl', for instance.
You will occasionally run into permissions issues with Windows 7. Sometimes, the fix for this is to 'Right-Click' on the 'cmd' icon and select 'Run as administrator'. You can google this first and read about the benefits and possible problems with doing this.
The BusPirate perl scripts need Win32::SerialPort to work. I couldn't find a pre-compiled module with ppm for this. Google 'Win32::SerialPort' and 'CPAN' and download it as an archive. Extract it to 'c:\perl\lib'. It will make a directory 'Win32-SerialPort' there.
If, like me, you don't have a compiler and make program installed, google 'MinGW' and find its' home. There's an install program. Mine ended up in 'c:\MinGW'. I put 'c:\mingw' and 'c:\mingw\bin' in my environment variable.
Google 'dmake' and find its' home. I downloaded the archive and extracted it to 'c:\dmake'. You can add this to the environment variable, or copy the executable and 'startup' subdirectory to some directory already in your path. I copied to 'c:\perl\bin'.
Cd to some harmless directory, say 'c:\perl', and run 'mingw' from the command line to see that it works. Also try 'dmake'. They won't do anything, but should show that your system knows where they are...
Now, cd to 'c:\perl\lib\win32-serialport' . You should be able to run 'perl makefile.pl' from there. I then ran 'dmake' from there and it appeared to install the Win32::SerialPort module. After that, I was able to run the example perl scripts here, though I had to change them from 'COM2' to 'COM4'.

BusPirate

ActiveState Perl

Win32::SerialPort

MinGW Compiler

Dmake

Smith and Wesson Model 669 9mm

2010-01-31T14:50:00.000-08:00

Think Season 3 of "Miami Vice", Fall 1986.

The 80's continued the popularity of the 70's 9mm boom, but the

April 1986 shootout in Miami had the FBI studying their options.

2009-12-30T13:16:00.001-08:00

Weather: Cold. Overcast. Sporadic breeze.
Location: Turkey Creek Rifle Range, Edgefield Co., S.C.
Had fabricated a model 1911 style pistol with ParaOrdnance frame (Canada), Exercito Brasieiro slide (Brazil), and Clark Custom Gun Works barrel (Tennessee), finally passed functional checks this morning, prompting the road trip.
The first round fed properly, fired, and ejected correctly, with the slide locking back as expected.
Second round failed to feed, catching on the lip of the barrel ramp, cutting a grin on the jacketed ball. The round chambered with some attention, fired, etc correctly.
An attempt to feed with a second round in the magazine worked, but became the first failure to eject of the morning.
The slide is catching prior to full rearward motion. Only 1/4" of extractor is revealed, but the hammer is fully cocked. Upon clearing the spent round and removing the magazine, the recalcitrant slide will return to battery with a sharp knock on the rear. This problem repeated several times.
Several rubs are visible on the starboard bow of the slide, bearing further examination.
A total of 15 rounds were fired without der Frankenpistol exploading so the trial was judged a success.
More gunsmithing to come: FTF (failure to feed round into chamber); FTE, (failure to eject fired round from chamber); Slide failing to move fully rearward after ejection!
More work required, but it shoots.

Springfield with Simonich Gunners Grips

2009-12-27T17:40:00.000-08:00

posted by 'Automatic' on 1911forum.com

post

2009-12-26T05:57:00.000-08:00

M1911 Seecamp DA/SA conversion

1911 Project

2009-12-10T04:53:00.000-08:00

ParaOrdnance frame, marked Made in Canada, purchased from Fort Worth, TX. Internals courtesy Brownell's and one gun show. This turned out to be a Series 80 frame with room for additional firing pin safety parts, which is filled with a Classic Earthmoving metal shop frame filler - (less than a square inch of metal with two holes, took me all day). The frame also turned out to be cut for a ramped barrel, which is in the mail.

Exercito Brasileiro slide, marked "Fabrica de Itajuba-Brasil", made in Brazil, reportedly on Colt machines. Purchased from Belcamp, MD., the seller offered numerous internals to fill out the slide, and helped with the ramped barrel adventure.

Please note the unique, curious stippling on the front strap. Not visible, but interesting, is the checkered rear face of the slide. The gun show hammer is also checkered in a slightly different pitch.

The first range report is limited, based on finding the ramped barrel setup upon a failure to feed the first round. Fiddling resulted in proper chambering of one round, which, when fired, resulted in correct cycling, with the slide locking back on the empty magazine.

Yes, grip screws are on order, as is a magazine! It is appropriate that the pistol is displayed on the rubber tree wood of the kitchen table, as that is the place of it's assembly.

Ubuntu, Arduino, and the FTDI cable

2009-11-11T07:21:00.000-08:00

I'm using Ubuntu 9.10, the Karmic Koala, on a Dell Inspiron 600m laptop.

I used instructions at http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Linux/Ubuntu to install arduino-0017. The instructions at the bottom of the page are for LinuxMint, but worked for Ubuntu 9.10...

#!/bin/bash
sudo apt-get install avr-libc
cd ~/
wget http://arduino.googlecode.com/files/arduino-0017.tgz
tar xzvf arduino*.tgz
cd ~/arduino-0017
./arduino

My arduino target is the Wiseduino, detailed here:

http://timewitharduino.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-wiseduino.html

The wiseduino has no built-in FTDI USB interface, but offers a port for an FTDI cable.

You run into a problem, though - the Arduino software uses the DTR line to reset the Arduino. The FTDI cables break out the RTS line instead of DTR. I found a fix for this here:

http://blog.spitzenpfeil.org/wordpress/2009/05/02/getting-auto-reset-to-work-with-ftdi-cables-on-linuxmac/

Following the instructions, I ran into a problem. Perl in Ubuntu doesn't have the DeviceSerialPort module used in the program. You can install this with this command:

sudo apt-get install libdevice-serialport-perl

Now, my Wiseduino is merrily blinking the LED on my prototyping shield.

Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala Grub2 wrong UUID Problem

2009-11-03T07:48:00.000-08:00

I did a fresh, plain-vanilla install of Ubuntu 9.10, Karmic Koala. No dual-boot, no fiddling with defaults. The installation machine is a Dell Inspiron 600m laptop with the old hard drive replaced with a 250Gb from Best Buy.

Unfortunately, the machine wouldn't boot, with grub giving a 'device not found' error, listing the uuid of the hard drive.

I rebooted with the space-bar pressed so I'd get the grub menu. The default entry looks like this:

recordfail=1
if [ -n ${have_grubenv} ]; then save_env recordfail; fi
set quiet=1
insmod ext2
set root=(hd0,1)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 1653855e-9973-46eb-b744-306e221aab95
linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-14-generic root=UUID=1653855e-9973-46eb-b744-306e221aab95 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.31-14-generic

The uuid given matches what's in /etc/fstab and in the 'device not found' error, and what I get when I run the blkid command.

Moving into a grub command line, I could get the machine to boot with these commands:

root (hd0,1)
linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-14-generic
boot

LiveCD installs of Ubuntu 9.10 default to Grub2. Others have experienced problems - see bug 392836, for instance.
( https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/392836 )

This page on Grub2 contains much wonderful information: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2.

My personal, don't-know-what-I'm-doing-fix is to utilize the custom-command add-on function available in the "/etc/grub.d/40_custom" file, which is meant to add your personal weird alternative entries to modify the boot process. In this case, I'm adding an entry that I know works, even if I don't entirely know how I'm getting away with leaving out all the other items in the original entry.

sudo gedit /etc/grub.d/40_custom

I make it look like this (indented for clarity, only):

#!/bin/sh
exec tail -n +3 $0
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries. Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment. Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.
menuentry "Works" {
set root=(hd0,1)
linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-14-generic
}

Now run 'update-grub':

sudo update-grub

Check the results:

cat /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Now, write the results into the boot sector of the hard drive (?? I think ??)

sudo grub-install /dev/sda

Now I reboot the machine, pressing the spacebar to get the grub menu. If I pick the new last entry "Works", the machine boots. There's probably some way to make it the default - more on that later. Maybe the bug'll get fixed soon.

Comments welcome!!!

Cyclades

2009-10-26T12:40:00.001-07:00

Cyclades

by Bent DeCosta

Welcome, thief,

Invade my tomb.

Enjoy my mysteries bare.

Take any pretty things

You find

There's one, over there.

My mourners placed them

Carefully.

A comfort for a while.

I don't need them,

Anymore.

I'll trade one for a smile.

Your fingers slide

Along my slip

Mysteries profound.

Lips touch mine

Softly betray

Treasures

You've not

Found.

Visit me, again, soon,

Thief.

"...these figures have been looted from burials

to satisfy a thriving Cycladic antiquities market

since the early 20th century." en.wikipeida.org, Cyclades

---its been a while since we've published anything from Bent. This is one of our favorites...

2009-10-20T06:41:00.000-07:00

2009-10-10T16:55:00.001-07:00

Smith and Wesson Model 36

2009-10-08T15:36:00.000-07:00

Looking Through Walls via existing WiFi signals

2009-10-01T21:39:00.000-07:00

Imaging movement in a room using existing wifi signals.
Good news for privacy - it takes 34 receivers for one-meter resolution.
Bad news for privacy - the receivers are commercial, off the shelf.
AND
Do you really think development stops here?

2009-10-01T15:16:00.001-07:00

2009-09-29T05:26:00.000-07:00

Windows Perl: Play all wav files in a directory

2009-09-27T08:03:00.000-07:00

This'll do it:
________________________________________________________

#!c:\perl\bin\perl.exe

use Win32::Sound;
Win32::Sound::Volume('100%');

@files = <*.wav>;

foreach $file (@files) {

Win32::Sound::Play("$file");
Win32::Sound::Stop();
}

_____________________________________________________

MoreIncrediblePictures Slideshow

2009-09-05T17:57:00.001-07:00

Created with flickr slideshow.

2009-08-30T03:52:00.000-07:00

TI Technology Day

2009-08-14T15:42:00.000-07:00

LM3S8962 Ethernet+CAN Evaluation Kit / IAR Integrated Design Environment

LM3S6965 Ethernet Evaluation Kits

A Man (reply to Asakiyume 4 6 2009)

2009-08-10T16:23:00.000-07:00

A man, walking through a small town, realizes he's nearing the far side. He's not at the city limits, but he realizes the buildings are getting smaller and the distance between each building is larger.
He remembers that he has built houses, or that he has helped build houses. He thinks that some of those buildings were large and important, but he cannot remember why. He believes that his part of their construction may have been considerable on occasion, but the specific memories have escaped him. He is left with just the feeling. He remembers that this sense of loss had troubled him, but does no more.
He visualizes the feelings left him as small clouds, the edges indistinct, the center slowly moving in and about, chaotic enough to seem random. The clouds move in and out, combining, separating, growing, shrinking.
Lacking concrete memories, having lost the exact edges, the specific forms, he is amused at the pleasure he takes in feelings that dance in and out of his contemplation.
A dog barking ends this reverie, but he smiles. The most important things, the critical things he has done were very small. Carrying groceries without being asked, a kind word instead of a reprimand, leaving early when he could work late. Sitting another half hour instead of getting up, not a single word spoken. A single touch to someone's shoulder, feeling tension dissolve. An argument ended with a kiss. The one time he had a handkerchief and could offer it to someone else. A look, a single look. A story he told someone small. The many angry letters he wrote, then tore up without sending.
Laughing. He remembers laughing. What a nice memory. He doesn't remember at what, with whom, why, but he remembers laughter, a sharing.
Alone? No one else walks with him on this street, but he understands if he needs to stop and rest, he's welcome to sit on the steps, or use a chair on any porch. As the empty lots grow larger, he sees more plants, grass, trees, even a flower here and there. There is less refuse, more junk, the colors brighter.
The houses are old, the people who built them must be long gone. Where? His sense is that only the question is important. There may not be an answer, or at least there may not be one answer. He's not the only person who has walked this street.
Graffiti marked the walls between, but someone has carefully scrubbed it away. He is content with their company for now. He walks on.

American Idol

2009-03-31T18:11:00.000-07:00

1. Paula quotes Arlene Croce, ballet critic for The New Yorker, "True genius doesn't fulfill expectations, it shatters them". Croce was writing in 1974 about her first look at a new dancer, Mikhail Baryshnikov.
2. American Idol truly brings out the best from the good ones, doesn't it? The weeks go on, the great performers open the distance between them and the others.
Today
1. Drove to Aiken for a drug test. At least I didn't have to study.
2. Did the Greeneway in North Augusta with my cycle partner.
3. Got the Peter Anderson one-wire controller talking with the DS2760 from the failed Li-Ion battery in the old Ipaq. Now, to make the Arduino do it. Decimal to Binary to Two's Complement to whatever. Much fun to come.
4. Cloudy, lazy afternoon was NOT wasted. I got minute steak for supper.
5. Lie To Me previews. I love that show.

A Day

2009-03-30T19:02:00.000-07:00

1. Organic O's for breakfast. There's nothing else in the house.
2. Work on getting Arduino to read an iButton using Peter Anderson's One Wire Controller. No joy, but fun trying...:^)
3. Micro-lab-time is interrupted by a near-flat tire on the Honda. Pumped it up, listened, finding a faint hiss. Shining up at me is the nail poking out of the tread.
4. Combined tire fix and one-hour bike ride from Washington Road to Canal Pavilion and back.
5. Twenty minutes to shower, change, run to Dr. office. Shoulder hurting 3 weeks from cycle spill finally got my attention.
6. GP pokes, sends me to X-Ray, schedules Ortho appointment. Uh-oh.
7. Visit Mom, take her to bank, then she waits in the car while I run into grocery for her. Mom and thirteen-year-old daughter stare at me when I buy white nail polish. They totally checked out my manicure.
8. Home by 3:30 to warm-up pizza for late lunch.
9. Remove Arduino and use FTDI circuit direct to Anderson controller. Manually entering commands yields proper serial number from the iButton. Critical breakthru - huzzah!
10. Wife and I begin catching up on three weeks of DVR, then watch tonight's Big-Bang and How-I-Met-Your-Mother.
11. Post. What a nice day.

Perl Web Server

2009-03-23T05:04:00.000-07:00

Need a quick web server for some obscure reason? Here ya go...
Littleman at Webmasterworld comes to the rescue.
I changed the shazam line for Windows Perl
__________________________________________

#!c:\perl\bin\perl.exe

use strict;
use IO::Socket;

sub Wait {
wait;#wait needed to keep pids from building up
}

$SIG{CHLD} = \&Wait;

my $server = IO::Socket::INET->new(LocalPort => 6800,
Type => SOCK_STREAM,
Reuse => 1,
Listen => 10) or die "$@\n";
my $client ;

while ( $client = $server->accept())
{

next if my $pid = fork;
die "fork - $!\n" unless defined $pid;

##Grab the handoff from client if you want
# my $client_info;
#
# while(<$client>)
# {
# last if /^\r\n$/;
# $client_info .= $_;
# }
###Hold client info for something useful
##$client_stuff;

select $client;
$¦ = 1;
print $client "HTTP/1.0 200 OK\r\n";
print $client "Content-type: text/html\r\n\r\n";

print $client '

Hello World(!), from a perl web server

';

close($client);
exit( fork );
}
continue
{
close($client); #kills hangs
kill CHLD => -$$;
}

____________________________________________________________________________
Enjoy.

In a thoughtful mode

2009-02-18T15:55:00.001-08:00

“The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired.”
-Stephen Hawking

Things

2009-02-08T09:16:00.001-08:00

I'm fearful, now, of the things I own, the things for which I'm responsible. Among that which passes for wisdom as you age, you realize you spent much of your time and what money you came across in the accumulation of things. You understand the Bible when it speaks of such things as vanity, wisps of fog that vanish at the end. We all have some sense of an afterlife, senses that vary considerably, but what we do know, in the end, it's just you in that hole.
Someone else ends up having to deal with all those things. That dead body in that hole, what it knows is, if they were wise, those left living, they'd run screaming away from those things. What it knows is, cover yourself out of a sense of modesty, preferably with something someone gave you for free. What your hand falls on that day, eat to maintain life. Sip from what streams you find in your wanderings. Enjoy nature and the stars at night, the music of the birds, the beauty of the earth. When you do encounter some thing that might be useful, feel free to use it, but when you're done, leave it where it lay.
Leave it where it lay.

Seven Souls by William S. Burroughs

2009-02-01T09:10:00.000-08:00

SEVEN SOULS

The ancient Egyptians postulated seven souls,
Top soul, and the first to leave at the moment of death, is Ren, the Secret Name. This corresponds to my Director, He directs the film of your life from conception to death. The Secret Name is the title of your film. When you die, that's where Ren came in.
Second soul, and second one off the sinking ship, is Sekem: Energy, Power, Light The Director gives the orders, Sekem presses the right buttons.
Number three is Khu, the Guardian Angel. He, she, or it is third man out . . . depicted as flying away across a full moon, a bird with luminous wings and head of light. Sort of thing you might see on a screen in an Indian restaurant in Panama. The Khu is responsible for the subject and can be injured in his defense- but not permanently, since the first three souls are eternal. They go beck to Heaven for another vessel.
The four remaining souls must take their chances with the subject in the Land of the Dead. Number four is Ba, the heart, often treacherous. This is a hawk's body with your face on it, shrunk down to the size of a fist. Many a hero has been brought down, like Samson, by a perfidious Ba.
Number five is Ka, the Double, most closely associated with the subject. The Ka, which usually reaches adolescence at the time of bodily death, is the only reliable guide through the Land of the Dead to the western Lands.
Number six is Khaibit, the Shadow, Memory, your whole past conditioning from this and other lives.
Number seven is Sekhu, the Remains. I first encountered this concept in Norman Mailer's, Ancient Evenings, and saw that it corresponded precisely with my own mythology, developed over a period of many years, since birth in fact. Ren, the Director, the Secret Name, is your life story, your destiny-in one word or one sentence, what was your life about? Nixon: Watergate. Billy the Kid: Quien es? And what is the Ren of the Director? Actors frantically packing in thousands of furnished rooms and theatrical hotels: "Don't bother with all that junk, John. The Director is on stage! And you know what that means in show biz: every man for himself." Sekem corresponds to my Technician: Lights. Action. Camera. ' "Look, boss, we don't got enough Sek to fry an elderly woman in a fleabag hotel fire. And you want a hurricane?" "Well, Joe, we'll just have to start faking it" "Fucking moguls don't even know what buttons to push or what happens when you push them. Sure; start faking it and leave the details to Joe." Look, from a real disaster you get a pig of Sek: sacrifice, tears, heartbreak, heroism and violent death. Always remember, one case of VD yields more Sek than a cancer ward. And you get the lowest acts of which humans are capable-remember the Italian steward who put on women's clothes and so filched a seat in a lifeboat? "A cur in human shape, certainly he was born and saved to set a new standard by which to judge infamy and shame." With a Sek surplus you can underwrite the next one, but if the first one's a fake you can't underwrite a shithouse. Sekem is second man out: 'No power left in this set" He drinks a bicarbonate of soda and disappears in a belch. Lots of people don't have a Khu these days. No Khu would work for them. Mafioso Don: "Get offa me, Khu crumb! Worka for a living!" Ba, the Heart: that's sex. Always treacherous. Suck all the Sek out of a man. Many Bas, have poison juices. The Ka is about the only soul a man can trust. If you don't make it, he don't make it. But it is very difficult to contact your real Ka. Sekhu is the physical body, and the planet is mostly populated with walking Sekhus, just enough Sek to keep them moving. The Venusian invasion is a takeover of the souls. Ren is degraded by Hollywood down to John Wayne levels. Sekem works for the Company. The Khus are all transparent fakes. The Bas is rotten with AIDS. The Ka is paralyzed. Khaibit sits on yon like a nagging wife. Sekhu is poisoned with radiation and contaminants and cancer. There is intrigue among the souls, and treachery. No worse fate can befall a man than to be surrounded by traitor souls. And what about Mr. Eight-Ball, who has these souls? They don't exist without him, and he gets the dirty end of every stick. Eights of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your dirty rotten vampires: A hundred years ago there were rat-killing .dogs known as "Fancies." A man bet on his "Fancy," how many rata he would kill. The rats were confined in a circular arena too high for a rat to jump over. But they formed pyramids, so that the top rats could escape. Sekhu is bottom rat in the pyramid. Like the vital bottom integer in a serial, when that goes, the whole serial universe gone up in smoke. It never existed. Angelic boys who walk on water, sweet inhuman voices from a distant star. The Khu, sweet -bird of night, with luminous wings and a head of light, flies across the full moon . . . a born-again redneck raise's his shotgun. . . . "Stinkin' Khu!" The Egyptians recognized many degrees of immortality. The Ren and the Sekem and the Khu are relatively immortal, but still subject to injury. The other souls who survive physical death are much more precariously situated. Can any soul survive the searing fireball of an atomic blast? If humans and animal souls are seen as electromagnetic force fields, such fields could be totally disrupted by a nuclear explosion. The mummy's 'nightmare: disintegration of souls, and this is precisely the ultrasecret and supersensitive function of the atom bomb: a Soul Killer, to alleviate an escalating soul glut.

see http://www.lucaspickford.com/burrmoreroutines.htm#souls

Turn a Crotch Bowl - wikiHow

2009-01-26T13:10:00.000-08:00

Turn a Crotch Bowl - wikiHow

How to Turn a Crotch Bowl

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Often considered worthless, even for use for firewood, gnarly wood from crotches, or forks in tree trunks, has an interesting and unique grain. Even though the stumps of hardwood trees like Maple and Cherry are sought after for turning burl veneers, the crotches of these same trees do not yield enough material to be useful. Turning a bowl on a wood lathe with this unique wood, however, can be a worthwhile, if challenging, project.
These instructions assume you are familiar and competent with your wood lathe; they are not appropriate for a rank beginner.

Steps

Select a source for your crotch cut. A crotch, as noted in the introduction, is a fork where a tree trunk either branches in two, or a large limb forks from the main trunk. For this article, a large red oak felled by Hurricane Opal in the year 1994, and another which died from unknown causes were cut on a Florida panhandle farm.
Cut the tree down with a chainsaw. In previous times, a two man handsaw, known in the south as a Gator Tail was used for this task, but they involve a lot of work. If you are fortunate, you may find access to a woodlot where storm felled, land clearing operations, or other causes have felled a suitable tree for you.
Cut a section of trunk where a crotch occurs, or a fork in two large branches, above and below the fork. Make sure you allow enough wood so that when it is trimmed and shaped, it will be large enough for your bowl.
Stand the section of wood upright, and using a chainsaw again, rip, or split it from top to bottom to create a flat slab. Move over, and make another cut parallel to the first, so that you have formed an actual slab of wood from the section you began with. Be sure to allow enough thickness for the depth of your finished bowl, plus an inch or two for anchoring the slab to your lathe headstock.
Round the slab by making tangent cuts around the circumference of your planned circular bowl shape. Be very careful making these cuts if you use a chainsaw for this step, holding it securely while cutting. A better choice would be to use a bandsaw with a wood cutting blade.
Allow the wood blank or turning stock to dry. For green hardwood 3-4 inches thick, this may take months, or even years, depending on the moisture content and density of the wood. Black walnut, for example, can take a year for each inch of thickness to season in a climate-stable environment, and trying to speed the process will cause a valuable piece of wood to split, warp, and check.
Mount your turning stock on the faceplate adapter. This is done by positioning the headstock faceplate on the wood, centering it, and driving wood screws of sufficient length and size to hold the piece while turning. The stock in the photo weighed about 8 pounds at the beginning, and three 1 1/4 inch number 14 wood screws were used to attach it. Because the beginning stock is not true (perfectly cylindrical), it tends to be very badly out of balance, so care should be taken to fasten securely.
Mount the faceplate on the lathe headstock, being sure to tighten it securely, for the reason discussed in the previous step. Once it is secured, you can free spin the piece by hand to make sure there is no excessive wobble, and it clears all machine parts.
Swing the lathe's tool rest near the edge of your stock. Allow room for clearance when you begin turning, but keeping it as close as possible will assure a good, solid rest for your turning knives. Make sure all adjusting bolts are tight, to prevent the tool rest from sliding into the workpiece while you are turning.
Free spin the workpiece one more time, again, making sure all fittings and connections between the lathe headstock and the face plate are turning true and secure, and all tool rest locking devices are tight.
Turn on your lathe, beginning at its lowest speed setting, and begin truing the stock. This first step can be done with your choice of lathe knives, here, the author uses a shaping knife and a gouge, since the oak is seasoned, knotty wood.
Turn the stock to a true cylinder, using a speed of between 450-700 RPMs on the headstock. If excessive vibration occurs, run the lathe at its slowest setting until the stock becomes balanced. Often, the density of the stock will vary from one side of the round to the other even after it is turned to a true cylinder, due to differences in the density of the wood. An example would be a piece that is sectioned so that one side is heartwood, the other, sapwood, which is significantly lighter than the heartwood.
After turning a true cylinder, or at least turning the piece round, since truing isn't necessary for a bowl which will eventually be tapered anyway, move your tool rest to the face of your stock. If you slabbed your stock with a chainsaw cutting freehand, the stock will not be flat, or perpendicular to the centerline, so you will need to face it before beginning to cut your concave, or the inside of your bowl.
Using a curved scraping knife, and starting at the center, turn the face working outward, taking a sixteenth to an eighth of an inch per pass. When the knife is continually in contact with the face during a revolution, the area you are turning is flat.
Realign the tool rest so that it is as close as you are comfortable with to the face of the workpiece, and begin to cut the concave, or inwardly curved surface of your bowl. To make removing the tough, gnarly grained wood easier, you can always use a vee gouge or even a parting knife to score the grain before cutting the bulk material with a rounded chisel.
Cut the concave inner surface of the bowl to the rough shape you desire. Remember that you have wood screws in the base that attach the workpiece to the headstock, so leave an inch or so of solid wood between your turning knife and the metal screws.
- Note that you can reposition the tool rest parallel to the forming concave cut to maintain good support of your knife. When the knife is allowed to overhang the rest more than an inch or so, it requires greater strength to make the cut, and more force is applied the the blade of the knife. This is simply a matter of leverage working against you.
- Keep the knife sharp as you cut. High quality German or Japanese knives will remove a lot of wood before becoming dull, but even the best knife will lose its edge eventually, causing fatigue for the turner, and undue stress on the lathe.
After making the rough concave cut to the approximate depth and shape you are looking for, stop the lathe and inspect the grain of the wood. You may find rotten pockets, splits, or other unforeseen conditions that could cause you to rethink your project. If you are satisfied the grain and wood condition is suitable, you can now begin a finished cut with a rounded chisel. If the wood is sufficiently balanced to allow it, increase your lathe's turning speed to obtain a smoother cut.
Use a parting knife to remove the center, or corelike middle of the bowl if you have cut around it. In grainy, tough woods, the center can actually be left until the adjacent wood is removed, and then cut flush at the bottom of the bowl. Take a moment to reinspect the grain and soundness of the inside of your bowl, and make additional shaping cuts if desire.
Relocate the tool rest to the outside circumference of the stock. Keep it as close as you are comfortable with to the side of the bowl, and begin to taper with a shaping knife. Cutting grooves with a vee gouge again will make removal of the wood quicker, and cause less strain on the lathe motor. Keep the tool rest positioned roughly parallel with the outside circumference of the bowl as you taper it. For a large, tall bowl, you can easily find the rest several inches from the surface you are cutting if you fail to do so. Repositioning the rest may take a little more time and effort, but the results are worth it.
Remember to take a moment to inspect the wood as you turn it, looking for rotten pockets, splintering grain, and other conditions that will affect your finished product. Keep in mind you are continuously exposing new wood as you turn, so there is no way to predict what you will find.
Use a finishing, or surfacing knife to clean up the sides of your bowl once you have turned it down to your desired shape. Using a fairly high RPM turning speed, and a very light touch with a sharp tool will give a good, smooth finished cut.
Stop the lathe and make a final inspection of the turned bowl. Now is the time to consider any additional cutting or shaping you want to do. When you are sure of the bowl's surface, curves, and dimensions, you can use sandpaper to smooth out the wood. Turn the lathe back on, and beginning with a fairly coarse grit, somewhere around 80-100, and sand the inside and outside surfaces by holding the paper against the wood as it turns. As you achieve the desired result with the coarser grit, move on to a finer grit, between 120-150 grit, or medium. Finally, finish sanding with a 200-240 grit paper, stopping the lathe occasionally to check the finish you are achieving.
Part the bowl from the base of your stock. You can use a parting knife for this step, or at least begin a groove where you intend to part it. For a wide-based bowl, you may find that the parting knife begins to bind after you have cut into the base an inch or so deep. To speed the parting process, stop the lathe, and finish the cut with a handsaw.

Tips

Be realistic when looking at potential wood for a project like this. You will invest a good bit of time selecting and preparing the turning stock, and there is no way to guarantee the piece will yield a good finished product.
Use dry, seasoned wood if possible to prevent shrinkage which can result in splitting, warping, and checking.
Keep your knives sharp, this gives better results with less wear and tear on your lathe.
Take your time, stopping to clean the lathe bench as you work. More of your workpiece will end up as chips on the bench than in the finished bowl.
Learn basic wood lathe operation before beginning this project. This should include reading your lathe operator's manual.

Warnings

Wear eye protection when turning wood on a lathe.
Keep hands and fingers clear of the space between the workpiece and the tool rest.
Make sure the workpiece is securely attached to the head stock of the lathe. These pieces can weigh 10 pounds or more, and will be traveling at up to 1000 RPM.
Use appropriate safety equipment when operating the saws.

Things You'll Need

Wood
Saw for rough shaping the stock
Lathe and knives (chisels)
Sandpaper
Safety equipment

Related wikiHows

Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Turn a Crotch Bowl. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

Mon, Jan 26, 2009 - 11.50 mi [Cycling]

2009-01-26T11:02:00.001-08:00

Mon, Jan 26, 2009 - 11.50 mi [Cycling]
11.50 mi in 01:00:00 hours at 11.50 mi/h on Specialized Hardrock. [Cycling] Mist turning to Drizzle. Cold. More uphill on outbound leg. Columbia County Rd NOT worth it, Lewiston Church is a good place to park, otherwise.
Posted from My Cycling Log

Lewiston2EucheeCreekLibrary

Share your bike routes @ Bikely.com

2009-01-22T06:03:00.000-08:00

On PC-1 for Classic Earthmoving, my task was to setup wireless networking for a client. The environment was a CISCO Linksys WRT160N router and a Westell 6100 DSL Modem .
I had all sorts of documentation, quickstarts, do-it-all setup CDs, etc, but the router and modem wouldn't connect. All those "let us do it" CDs just confuse the issue, don't they? Plus they encourage the customer to do it themselves, so you walk into a half-working setup. YAAAAHHHH.
The wireless worked fine and I could get to the router webpage both wired and wirelessly. It didn't see the modem. All lights on the modem displayed nominally.
A call to Bellsouth got "Once you've successfully connected the modem to your computer, we're done. We don't support routers." Okay...the lady did talk me through surfing to the modem webpage (192.168.1.254), then how to setup PPPoE mode and Bridge mode, but she acted like she really wasn't supposed to do that.)
Anyway, it didn't work. No joy.
So, I packed it in and did some research. The net is full of people griping about this modem and router combination, lots of taking it back and getting another one, etc...Many messages said update the firmware before you do anything. Some people altered their networking to accommodate PPPoE. In any case, on the return call, I had several tricks ready.
The first one worked. Both the modem and the router are giving out 192.168.1.xxx addresses. You can bet that was the problem. I changed the router to give out 192.168.10.xxx, reset everything and it worked like a charm. For the record, the modem is plain vanilla in it's setup. No bridging.

Fun with Arduino - Display Analog Values on Serial LCD

2009-01-11T15:42:00.001-08:00

// * ------------
// * Control a Serial LCD Display
// * Rewritten for Scott Edwards Serial Backpack 1 8 2008 CCM.
// * Arduino serial output >> 7404 Inverter >> Serial Backpack
// * Original Copyleft 2006 by djmatic
// * ------------
// Declare your program variables here
// Arduino and LCD setup

int ledPin = (13);
int potPin2 = (2);
int potPin3 = (3);
int potPin4 = (4);

void setup() {
beginSerial(9600);
pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT); // sets the digital pin 13 as output
}

// MAIN CODE

void loop() {
int val2 = analogRead (potPin2);
int mv2 = map(val2, 0, 1023, 0, 5000);
int val3 = analogRead (potPin3);
int mv3 = map(val3, 0, 1023, 0, 5000);
int val4 = analogRead (potPin4);
int mv4 = map(val4, 0, 1023, 0, 5000);

digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH); // sets the LED on
delay(1000); // waits for a second

clearLCD();
delay (1000);

Serial.print("Analog mv 2 3 4");
delay (1000);

cursorSet(193);
Serial.print(mv2,DEC);
delay (200);

cursorSet(198);
Serial.print(mv3,DEC);
delay (200);

cursorSet(203);
Serial.print(mv4,DEC);
delay (200);

digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW); // sets the LED on
delay(1000); // waits for a second
}

// LCD FUNCTIONS-- keep the ones you need.

// clear the LCD
void clearLCD() {
Serial.print(254,BYTE);
Serial.print(1, BYTE);
delay(2);
}

// start a new line
void cursorLine2() {
Serial.print(254,BYTE);
Serial.print(192, BYTE);
delay(2);
}

// move the cursor to the home position
void cursorHome() {
Serial.print(254, BYTE);
Serial.print(128, BYTE);
delay(2);
}

// move the cursor to a specific place e.g. cursorSet(address)
// Line 1 starts at 128, goes to 144; Line 2 starts at 192, goes to 208
void cursorSet(int addr) {
Serial.print(254, BYTE);
Serial.print(addr, BYTE);
delay(2);
}

Do Not Stand at my Grave and Weep

2009-01-02T16:51:00.000-08:00

by Mary Elizabeth Frye (1905-2004)

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the starshine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there. I do not die.

2008-12-29T08:10:00.001-08:00

1.
Holiday Party
Infant, children, elders, smiles.
Memories are born.

Solstice window

2008-12-22T06:08:00.001-08:00

Solstice Window

1
Violet slumbers.
Camellia promises spring.
Icy wind blown snow.

2
Cat watching, snow falls.
Tail warm, nose cold, turns away.
Joins us on the bed.

3
Kiss under covers.
Lips find their partner. Warmth found,
Winter borne with you.

excerpt: Fleurs du Mal

2008-12-22T04:06:00.000-08:00

Tristesses de la lune

Ce soir, la lune rêve avec plus de paresse;
Ainsi qu'une beauté, sur de nombreux coussins,
Qui d'une main distraite et légère caresse
Avant de s'endormir le contour de ses seins,

Sur le dos satiné des molles avalanches,
Mourante, elle se livre aux longues pâmoisons,
Et promène ses yeux sur les visions blanches
Qui montent dans l'azur comme des floraisons.

Quand parfois sur ce globe, en sa langueur oisive,
Elle laisse filer une larme furtive,
Un poète pieux, ennemi du sommeil,

Dans le creux de sa main prend cette larme pâle,
Aux reflets irisés comme un fragment d'opale,
Et la met dans son coeur loin des yeux du soleil.

— Charles Baudelaire

New SpringWidget

2008-12-22T02:50:00.001-08:00

Get this widget!

Baby Perl Script, or, Fun with the Dow Jones

2008-12-08T15:36:00.000-08:00

#This is fun!
#!/c:\perl\bin\perl.exe
# import module
use Finance::Quote;
# create object
my $q = Finance::Quote->new();
#get a time stamp
my $time = localtime time;
#open a file for appending the latest info
open(DowJones,">>DJIA.txt");
# retrieve stock quote
my %data = $q->fetch('nyse', '^DJI');
# add current DJIA into file
print DowJones "At $time, the current DJIA is " . $data{'^DJI', 'price'};
# okay, I know this is the hard way :^)
print DowJones "\n";
close DowJones;

A Map

2008-12-05T15:46:00.001-08:00

Canal locks to greenway & back
Find more Bike Rides in Evans, Georgia

Mon, Dec 1, 2008 - 11.00 mi [Cycling]

2008-12-04T05:41:00.001-08:00

Mon, Dec 1, 2008 - 11.00 mi [Cycling]
11.00 mi in 01:00:00 hours at 11.00 mi/h. [Cycling] N BelAir, Omni, ETL, Washington Rd to Outspokin. Old Evans, Loews, N. BelAir. Traffic heavy.

discussed road techniques at bike shop!

demo'd a used Tadpole recumbent.

Great day
Posted from My Cycling Log

Reference

2008-11-28T06:32:00.000-08:00

How face and body shape vary by sex

If Not Her Love

2008-11-19T06:52:00.001-08:00

If not her love, she lives eternal,
The one who haunts my dreams.
I crave her lips
And fear her kiss
That takes what soul
I've left.

Blind yourself, lest you be caught
By beauty I now know.
More like her prey
Than lover's grasp
Life's last drop has Flow'd.

- B. DeCosta, April, 2008

The Highwayman by Jimmy Webb

2008-11-02T15:43:00.000-08:00

I was a highwayman. Along the coach roads I did ride
With sword and pistol by my side
Many a young maid lost her baubles to my trade
Many a soldier shed his lifeblood on my blade
The bastards hung me in the spring of twenty-five
But I am still alive.

I was a sailor. I was born upon the tide
And with the sea I did abide.
I sailed a schooner round the Horn to Mexico
I went aloft and furled the mainsail in a blow
And when the yards broke off they said that I got killed
But I am living still.

I was a dam builder across the river deep and wide
Where steel and water did collide
A place called Boulder on the wild Colorado
I slipped and fell into the wet concrete below
They buried me in that great tomb that knows no sound
But I am still around..I'll always be around..and around and around and
around and around

I fly a starship across the Universe divide
And when I reach the other side
I'll find a place to rest my spirit if I can
Perhaps I may become a highwayman again
Or I may simply be a single drop of rain
But I will remain
And I'll be back again, and again and again and again and again..

World without Tears by Lucinda Williams

2008-10-31T12:14:00.001-07:00

If we lived in a world withought tears
How would bruises find
The face to lie upon
How would scars find skin
To etch themselves into
How would broken find the bones

If we lived in a world without tears
How would heartbeats
Know when to stop
How owuld blood know
Which body to flow outside of
How would bullets find the guns

If we lived in a wold without tears
How would misery know
Which back door to walk through
How would trouble know
Which mind to live inside of
How would sorrow find a home

If we lived in a world without tears
How would bruises find
The face to lie upon
How would scars find skin
To etch themselves into
How would broken find the bones

If we lived in a world without tears
How would bruises find
The face to lie upon
How would scars find skin
To etch themselves into
How would broken find the bones

How would broken find the bones
How would broken find the bones

"The Relic" by John Donne

2008-10-30T17:22:00.000-07:00

When my grave is broken up again
Some second guest to entertain
(For graves have learned that woman-head
To be to more than one a bed),
And he that digs it, spies
A bracelet of bright hair about the bone,
Will he not let'us alone,
And think that there a loving couple lies,
Who thought that this device might be some way
To make their souls, at the last busy day,
Meet at this grave, and make a little stay?
If this fall in a time, or land,
Where mis-devotion doth command,
Then he that digs us up, will bring
Us to the Bishop and the King,

To make us relics; then
Thou shalt be'a Mary Magdalen, and I
A something else thereby;
All women shall adore us, and some men;
And since at such time, miracles are sought,
I would have that age by this paper taught
What miracles we harmless lovers wrought.

First, we loved well and faithfully,
Yet knew not what we loved, nor why,
Difference of sex no more we knew,
Than our guardian angels do;
Coming and going, we
Perchance might kiss, but not between those meals;
Our hands ne'er touched the seals,
Which nature, injured by late law, sets free:
These miracles we did; but now, alas,
All measure and all language I should pass,
Should I tell what a miracle she was.

Lovecraft in Brooklyn by The Mountain Goats

2008-09-22T06:22:00.000-07:00

Gonna be too hot to breath today
But everybody is out here on the streets
Somebody has opened up the fire hydrant
Cold water rushing out in sheets

Some kid in a Marcus Allen jersey
Asks me for a cigarette
Companionship is where you find it
So I take what I can get

Lovecraft on the Car Length fun house mirrors
Lovecraft in Brooklyn

Well the sun goes down
The armies of the voiceless
Several Hundred-thousand strong
Come without their bandages
Their voices raised in songs
When the street lights sputter out
They make this awful sizzling sound

I cast my gaze towards the pavement
Too many blood stains on the ground
Rhode Island drops into the Ocean
No place to call home anymore
Lovecraft in Brooklyn

Head outside most everyday to try to keep the wolves away
In every set of self if copenation come

woke up afraid of my own shadow
Like, Genuinely afraid
headed for the pawnshop
To buy myself a switchblade
Someday somethings coming
From way out beyond the stars
To kill us while we stand here
It will store our brains in mason jar
And then the girl behind the counter asks "How do you feel today?" and I say "I feel like Lovecraft in Brooklyn!"

Yeah!
[ Lovecraft In Brooklyn Lyrics on http://www.lyricsmania.com/

Dover Beach by Mathew Arnold (1867)

2008-09-15T15:07:00.000-07:00

The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Agaean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Because this must be written down somewhere...

2008-07-29T17:15:00.000-07:00

I leapt across three or four beds into your arms
Where I had hidden myself somewhere in your charm
Our golden handshake has been smashed into this shape.
It's taken magic to a primitive new place
Watch 'em run, although it's the minimum, heroic

We hunched together in one chair out on the deck
In snow that froze and fell down on the modern set
It looked as if I picked your name out of a hat
Next thing you know you are asleep in someone’s lap
Watch 'em run, although it's the minimum, heroic

We quit the room Quit so our thoughts could rest
Rest them, I'll never move?
That's when we grab a hold Of whatever it is we fell into
Lousy with your content
With what the majestic cannot find In business of your lives
The perception, it is wrong, mile after mile
The phantom taste drinking wine from your heels
We have arrived too late to play the bleeding heart show

The New Pornographers, The Bleeding Heart Show

2008-07-29T03:51:00.000-07:00

from Poems, partly of rural live, in national English by William Barnes

A Winter Night.

It was a chilly winter's night;
And frost was glitt'ring on the ground,
And evening stars were twinkling bright;
And from the gloomy plain around
Came no sound,
But where, within the wood-girt tow'r,
The churchbell slowly struck the hour;

As if that all of human birth
Had risen to the final day,
And soaring from the wornout earth
Were called in hurry and dismay,
Far away;
And I alone of all mankind
Were left in loneliness behind.

...as presented in Google Books

After watching, "The Signal"

2008-07-26T19:22:00.000-07:00

Still Wondering (Some Questions)

Who I am.
Am I who I am or just who other people think I am?
Am I something permanent or do I (get to) invent something new, every day?
Do other people worry about these things, or just me?
Should it really matter?
If I don't do anything, I'm just who I am.
Okay.
I can live with that.
For now.

headless: Nate Frizzell - Sketch Theater (Mountain Goats/Aesop Rock remix of "Lovecraft In Brooklyn")

2008-07-08T19:22:00.000-07:00

headless: Nate Frizzell - Sketch Theater (Mountain Goats/Aesop Rock remix of "Lovecraft In Brooklyn")

SE Amateur Radio Nets

2008-07-07T19:23:00.000-07:00

Albany Amateur Radio Club list
Birmingham Amateur Radio Club list
Metro Atlanta Radio Club list
North Augusta - Belvedere SC Radio Club
Columbia County Ga ARC
South Carolina SSB Net

William Butler Yeats, Gyres and Geometry

2008-07-01T19:56:00.000-07:00

William Butler Yeats, Gyres and Geometry

Comments?

2008-07-01T10:02:00.000-07:00

Trends
1. The Asian economy, itself dominated by China, dominates the world marketplace. The United States slips into second place, accepting compromise after compromise.
2. America's middle class thins as more and more slip into lower class lives, driving the previous residents outside primary markets and economy. Seeking to maintain their grasp on what little wealth and power Asia permits them, the wealthy and political classes define more and more aspects of lower class life as criminal. Law enforcement public and private is the largest growth industry in the West.
3. Middle Eastern oil-based powers see alternate energy sources and dwindling oil supplies reducing their influence on world affairs and grow desperate. While some respond with increasing support of terrorism, others fight terrorism in support of Islamic religious values.
4. Water and Food overtake Oil as instigators of war. Robots, joined by members of the poorest classes, fight these wars, increasingly for mega-corporations rather than governments.
5. Technological innovations and public demand for unlimited access to data and knowledge and for security eliminate personal privacy.

Yes, I know William Gibson wrote much of this down in the 1980s.

Lucinda by Tom Waits (lyrics)

2008-07-01T06:04:00.000-07:00

Well they call me William the Pleaser
I sold opium, fireworks and lead
Now I'm telling my troubles to strangers
When the shadows get long I be dead

Now her hair was as black as a bucket of tar
Her skin as white as a cuttlefish bone
I left Texas to follow Lucinda
Now I'll never see heaven or home

I meet her when Charlotte slivers in moonlight
A sly grin and a bow full of stars
I got a kid who captures a firefly
And leaves it over there to die at the shore

As I kick at the clowns at my hanging
As I swing out all over the crowds
I will search every face for Lucinda
And she'll go off with me down the hill

I tought I'd broke loose of Lucinda
Rain returned and so did the wind
I cast this burden on the God's that's within me
Now he'll miss (?!) the world and go free

The devil danced inside empty pockets
But she didn't want money or pearls
Boy that wasn't enought for Lucinda
She wasn't that kind of girl

Now I've fallen from grace for Lucinda
Who'd ever tought that Hell would be so cold?
I did well for an old tin can sailor
But she want it the bell in my soul

I spoken to God on the mountain
And I've swam in the irish sea
I've ate fire and drank from the Gange
I've played bell for mercy for me

I tought I'd broke loose of Lucinda
Rain returned and so did the wind
I was standing outside the white house
And there I was afraid to go in

I heard someone pull the trigger
Her breast heaved in the moonlight (??) again
There was a smear of gold in the window
And then I was the (???) of her sin

They call me William the Pleaser
I sold opium, fireworks and lead
Now I'm telling my troubles to strangers
When the shadows get long I be dead

Now her hair was as black as a bucket of tar
Her skin as white as a cuttlefish bone
I left Texas to follow Lucinda
I know I'll never see heaven or home
No I'll never see heaven or home
No I'll never never see heaven or home

Six Poems Censored from the first edition of Les Fleurs du Mal

2008-06-17T17:32:00.000-07:00

Poems Censored from the First Edition of Fleurs Du Mal by Charles Baudelaire

Metamorphoses of a Vampire

Meanwhile the woman, writhing like a snake
On fiery coals, kneaded her breasts to make
Them hug their steely corset; and she said,
Her lips redder than strawberries are red:

"Behold, my mouth is moist, and on my deep
Couch I can lull grim Conscience fast asleep,
I dry all tears on my triumphant breasts,
Where old men laugh like boys at boyish jests.
For him who sees me naked, I comprise
All moons and suns and stars and clouds and skies!
I am so skilled, fond scholar, in love's charms
That when I hug you in my ruthless arms,
Or, shy and lustful, frail and forceful, when
I yield taut nipples to the teeth of men,
My bosom's pillows, palpitant, would doom
Angels to ruin for coveting my womb..."

When she had sucked my marrow dry, I turned,
Languid, to give her back the kiss she earned,
Only to view, I fond and amorous,
A viscid wineskin, nidorous with pus...

Frozen with fear, I shut my eyelids tight,
Then, opening them against the garish light,
I saw no solid puppet by my side
Whose lusts my blood, drained dry, had satisfied,
But a debris of quavering bone on bone,
Moaning as only weathervanes can moan,
And creaking as a rusty signpost might
Lashed by the furies of a winter night.

— Jacques LeClercq, Flowers of Evil (Mt Vernon, NY: Peter Pauper Press, 1958)

The Jewels

My darling was naked, and knowing my heart well,
She was wearing only her sonorous jewels,
Whose opulent display made her look triumphant
Like Moorish concubines on their fortunate days.

When it dances and flings its lively, mocking sound,
This radiant world of metal and of gems
Transports me with delight; I passionately love
All things in which sound is mingled with light.

She had lain down; and let herself be loved
From the top of the couch she smiled contentedly
Upon my love, deep and gentle as the sea,
Which rose toward her as toward a cliff.

Her eyes fixed upon me, like a tamed tigress,
With a vague, dreamy air she was trying poses,
And by blending candor with lechery,
Her metamorphoses took on a novel charm;

And her arm and her leg, and her thigh and her loins,
Shiny as oil, sinuous as a swan,
Passed in front of my eyes, clear-sighted and serene;
And her belly, her breasts, grapes of my vine,

Advanced, more cajoling than angels of evil,
To trouble the quiet that had possessed my soul,
To dislodge her from the crag of crystal,
Where calm and alone she had taken her seat.

I thought I saw blended in a novel design
Antiope's haunches and the breast of a boy,
Her waist set off so well the fullness of her hips.
On that tawny brown skin the rouge stood out superb!

— And when at last the lamp allowed itself to die,
Since the fire alone lighted the room,
Each time that it uttered a flaming sigh,
It drenched with blood that amber colored skin!

— William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)

Lethe

Come, lie upon my breast, cruel, insensitive soul,
Adored tigress, monster with the indolent air;
I want to plunge trembling fingers for a long time
In the thickness of your heavy mane,

To bury my head, full of pain
In your skirts redolent of your perfume,
To inhale, as from a withered flower,
The moldy sweetness of my defunct love.

I wish to sleep! to sleep rather than live!
In a slumber doubtful as death,
I shall remorselessly cover with my kisses
Your lovely body polished like copper.

To bury my subdued sobbing
Nothing equals the abyss of your bed,
Potent oblivion dwells upon your lips
And Lethe flows in your kisses.

My fate, hereafter my delight,
I'll obey like one predestined;
Docile martyr, innocent man condemned,
Whose fervor aggravates the punishment.

I shall suck, to drown my rancor,
Nepenthe and the good hemlock
From the charming tips of those pointed breasts
That have never guarded a heart.

— William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)

A Girl Too Gay

Oh, you are lovely! Every heart
Surrenders to your sorceries;
And laughter, like a playful breeze,
Is always blowing your lips apart.

Your health is radiant, infinite,
Superb: When you go down the street
Each mournful passerby you meet
Is dazzled by the blaze of it!

Your startling dresses, overwrought
With rainbow hues and sequined showers,
Bring to a poet's mind the thought
Of a ballet of drunken flowers.

They are the very symbol of
Your gay and crudely colored soul,
As stripèd as a barber's pole,
Exuberant thing I hate and love!

Sometimes when wandering, full of gloom,
In a bright garden, I have felt
Horror for all I touched and smelt:
The world outrageously in bloom,

The blinding yellow sun, the spring's
Raw verdure so rebuked my woes
That I have punished upon a rose
The insolence of flowering things.

Likewise, some evening, I would creep,
When midnight sounds, and everywhere
The sighing of lovers fills the air,
To the hushed alcove where you sleep,

And waken you by violent storm,
And beat you coldly till you swooned,
And carve upon your perfect form,
With care, a deep seductive wound —

And (joy delirious and complete!)
Through those bright novel lips, through this
Gaudy and virgin orifice,
Infuse you with my venom, sweet.

— George Dillon, Flowers of Evil (NY: Harper and Brothers, 1936)

Lesbos

Mother of Grecian joys and Latin games,
Lesbos, where kisses, languishing or gay,
As melons cool, or warm as solar flames,
Adorn alike the glorious night and day:
Mother of Grecian joys and Latin games,

Lesbos of kisses reckless as cascades
That hurl themselves to bottomless abysses,
Stormy and secret, myriad-swarming kisses,
That cluck and sob and gurgle in the shades.
Lesbos of kisses reckless as cascades!

Lesbos where Phrynes each to each are plighted,
Where never yet unanswered went a sigh,
Where Paphos with a rival is requited,
And Venus with a Sappho has to vie!
Lesbos where Phrynes each to each are plighted,

Lesbos, the land of warm and languid night,
Where gazing in their mirrors as they dress
The cave-eyed girls, in barren, vain delight,
The fruits of their nubility caress.
Lesbos, the land of warm and languid night,

Let Plato frown austerely all the while.
Your pardon's from excess of kisses won,
Queen of sweet empire, rare and noble isle —
And from refinements which are never done.
Let Plato frown austerely all the while.

From martyrdom your pardon you beguile,
Inflicted without stint on hearts that soar
Far, far away, drawn by some radiant smile
Seen vaguely on a strange celestial shore.
From martyrdom your pardon you beguile.

Lesbos, what God to judge you would make bold,
Or damn your brows so pale and sadly grave,
Not having weighed upon the scales of gold
The floods of tears you've poured into the wave.
Lesbos which God to judge you would make bold?

For us, what mean the statutes of the just?
Pride of the isles, whose hearts sublimely swell,
Your faith as any other is august
And Love can laugh alike at Heaven and Hell.
For us, what mean the statues of the just?

For Lesbos chose me of all men on earth
To sing the secrets of her virgin flowers,
Taught as a child the sacred rites of mirth
And mysteries of sorrow which are ours.
So Lesbos chose me of all men on earth.

Since then I watch on the Leucadian height.
Like a lone sentry with a piercing view
Who sees the vessels ere they heave in sight
With forms that faintly tremble in the blue.
Since then I watch on the Leucadian height

To find out if the sea's heart still is hardened
And from the sobs that drench the rock with spray
If it will bring back Sappho, who has pardoned,
The corpse of the adored, who went away
To find out that the sea its heart has hardened;

Of the male Sappho, lover, queen of singers,
More beautiful than Venus by her woes.
The blue eye cannot match the black, where lingers
The shady circle that her grief bestows
On the male Sappho, lover, queen of singers —

Fairer than Venus towering on the world
And pouring down serenity like water
In the blond radiance of her tresses curled
To daze the very Ocean with her daughter,
Fairer than Venus towering on the world —

Of Sappho, whom her blasphemy requited
The day she quit the rite and scorned the cult,
And gave her lovely body to be slighted
By a rough brute, whose scorn was the result
For Sappho, whom the blasphemy requited.

And since that time has Lesbos lived lamenting
In spite of all the honours of mankind,
And lives upon the storm-howl unrelenting
Of its bleak shores, the sport of wave and wind:
For since that time has Lesbos lived lamenting.

— Roy Campbell, Poems of Baudelaire (New York: Pantheon Books, 1952)

Damned Women

Delphine and Hippolyta

In the pallid light of languishing lamps,
In deep cushions redolent of perfume,
Hippolyta dreamed of the potent caresses
That drew aside the veil of her young innocence.

She was seeking, with an eye disturbed by the storm,
The already distant skies of her naiveté,
Like a voyager who turns to look back
Toward the blue horizons passed early in the day.

The listless tears from her lacklustrous eyes,
The beaten, bewildered look, the dulled delight,
Her defeated arms thrown wide like futile weapons,
All served, all adorned her fragile beauty.

Lying at her feet, calm and filled with joy,
Delphine gazed at her hungrily, with burning eyes,
Like a strong animal watching a prey
Which it has already marked with its teeth.

The strong beauty kneeling before the frail beauty,
Superb, she savored voluptuously
The wine of her triumph and stretched out toward the girl
As if to reap her reward of sweet thankfulness.

She was seeking in the eyes of her pale victim
The silent canticle that pleasure sings
And that gratitude, sublime and infinite,
Which the eyes give forth like a long drawn sigh.

"Hippolyta, sweet, what do you think of our love?
Do you understand now that you need not offer
The sacred burnt-offering of your first roses
To a violent breath which could make them wither?

My kisses are as light as the touch of May flies
That caress in the evening the great limpid lakes,
But those of your lover will dig furrows
As a wagon does, or a tearing ploughshare;

They will pass over you like heavy teams
Of horses or oxen, with cruel iron-shod hooves...
Hippolyta, sister! please turn your face to me,
You, my heart and soul, my all, half of my own self,

Turn toward me your eyes brimming with azure and stars!
For one of those bewitching looks, O divine balm,
I will lift the veil of the more subtle pleasures
And lull you to sleep in an endless dream!"

Hippolyta then raised her youthful head:
"I am not ungrateful and I do not repent,
Delphine darling; I feel restless and ill,
As I do after a rich midnight feast.

I feel heavy terrors pouncing on me
And black battalions of scattered phantoms
Who wish to lead me onto shifting roads
That a bloody horizon shuts in on all sides.

Is there something strange in what we have done?
Explain if you can my confusion and my fright:
I shudder with fear when you say: 'My angel!'
And yet I feel my mouth moving toward you.

Do not look at me that way, you, my dearest thought:
The sister of my choice whom I'd love forever
Even if you were an ambush prepared for me
And the beginning of my perdition."

Delphine, shaking her tragic mane and stamping her foot
As if she were stamping on the iron Tripod,
Her eyes fatal, replied in a despotic voice:
"Who dares to speak of hell in the presence of love?

May he be cursed forever, that idle dreamer,
The first one who in his stupidity
Entranced by a sterile, insoluble problem,
Wished to mix honesty with what belongs to love!

He who would unite in a mystic harmony
Coolness with warmth and the night with the day
Will never warm his palsied flesh
With that red sun whose name is love!

Go if you wish and find a stupid sweetheart, run
To offer your virgin heart to his cruel kisses;
Full of remorse and horror, and livid,
You will bring back to me your stigmatized breasts...

Woman here below can serve only one master!"
But the girl pouring out the vast grief in her heart,
Suddenly cried: "I feel opening within me
A yawning abyss; that abyss is my heart!

Burning like a volcano and deep as the void!
Nothing will satiate that wailing monster
Nor cool the thirst of the Eumenides
Who with torch in hand burn his very blood.

Let our drawn curtains separate us from the world
And let lassitude bring to us repose!
I want to bury my head in your deep bosom
And find in your breast the cool of the tomb!"

— Go down, go down, lamentable victims,
Go down the pathway to eternal hell!
Plunge to the bottom of the abyss where all crime
Whipped by a wind that comes not from heaven,

Boil pell-mell with the sound of a tempest.
Mad shades, run to the goal of your desires;
You will never be able to sate your passion
And your punishment will be born of your pleasures.

Never will a cool ray light your caverns;
Through the chinks in the walls feverish miasmas
Filter through, burst into flame like lanterns
And permeate your bodies with frightful odors.

The bleak sterility of your pleasures
Increases your thirst and makes your skin taut
And the raging wind of carnal desire
Makes your flesh snap like an old flag.

Damned, wandering, far from living people,
Roam like the wolves across the desert waste;
Fulfill your destinies, dissolute souls,
And flee the infinite you carry in your hearts!

— William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)

Texts from FleursduMal.Org

Meade 505 connector

2008-05-12T07:20:00.000-07:00

..."a still small voice."

2008-05-12T01:02:00.000-07:00

1 Kings 19
Peter Hawkings on "A Still, Small Voice"
A homily on the still, small voice
Denver Cheddie on the still small voice

A Fortnight Upon the Great Wall

2008-05-09T17:49:00.000-07:00

I dream your face,
Upon your pillow.
Breathe softly
On the bed.
If caution calls
From slumber's peace
I will go,
Instead

Your lovely hair
Floats softly round,
My thoughts
will linger there.
Angels dance
All Round About.
I saw one,
Over There.

Close, eyes
Preclude
Your Dreams
Are Safe,
Minutes Past
Are Gone.
Troubles settle,
Peace obtains.
Satisfied,
for long.

My dream
Against
Your fears
Withdraw
Wake not
Before the
Dawn.

Return of Disappearing Staircase

2008-04-30T15:21:00.000-07:00

Mark Z Danielewski's House of Leaves concerns a house with a mysterious addition which includes a stairway downward to, well, read the book. Most unusual and frightening.

The closest I've come is houses with disappearing staircases to access the attic. You know they're up there, but you can't see them. Attics are pretty mysterious, too. (Read Daughter of Hounds by Caitlin R. Kiernan.)

I needed a place to hide my poetry, so here it is.