Recycled Electrons - Blog of Keith Horowitz

I'd like to say I've made the big time - big enough to get comment spam. But in this case, I think it is just a spam-bot, and it is hitting blogger's blogspot users randomly. The good news is that there is a new option to make commenters fill in a picture box to block bot-based comment spam. My appologis to ligitimate commentors that you have to take this extra step. I got hit a few times before this, but it was pretty small stuff. Not that yesterday's hit was that big. Just 7 comments. But all to the same entry. And at first glimpse they even look like ligitimate comments. Things like 'nice blog', etc. But the links definately look spam oriented. And all the entries were from 'anonymous'. And when I checked my site counter for the IP range, there were no visitors from that time. That says to me a bot that wasn't loading the image content.

Playing with the kids on Friday evening. Running around the house. Managed to bash my right pinky toe. Boy did that hurt. Still a little swollen today - and achy. I've got my foot up, watching Johnny Mnemonic. Made it harder to Geocache over the weekend. But we did anyhow. Went around shopping at the outlets in Castle Rock. Huge number of grasshoppers in Castle Rock area. Geocaches seemed pretty sparse - but it was a neat find. I've started using Google's Earth program even more. It crashed on me once, but luckily I saved most of my locations to files. Looked at the file format that Google saves in - it turned out to be a zip, with an XML file - cool. That has the potential to allow saving coordinates for easy download - perhaps an enhancement on geocaching.com - I hope!

Pic: Pink Clouds at Sunrise As I got to work about 6am, I noticed the pick on the clouds from sunrise behind me. I decided I could be a couple of minutes late to take some pictures.

Photo Friday - One Plane taking off - just one in the sky - for Photo Friday Theme One

Continuing my thoughts on the Space Shuttle... I understand there is a lot of concern and pressure to getting the shuttle flying again, and often. Because it needs to be involved in a large number of missions to assemble the international Space Station. The reasoning is that the shuttle is the only launch platform that can take the pieces up to the station, and they want to get the station finished before the shuttle is scheduled to be retired in 2010. which makes me ask 2 questions: is it just the size, or is it because you need astronauts with the robot arm to assemble the parts? The space station already has an arm, and astronauts. Based on size, I would think there must be other ways to get the pieces up there. Some had been previously sent on Russian rockets. But even if the pieces are too big for Russian rockets, or any other rockets around, it seems to me that there is another choice... create a simple rocket based on the shuttle. No crew area. No wings. Just a payload bay,...

We hiked up from Blodget Open space this past weekend. This time we looked up a Geocache in the area before we went. We found it with only a few minutes of searching. The GPS started us about 15 feet to the South. It was a very nice cache. It would seem that this person works for or is somehow closely associated with a local outdoor-activity-store [ERV]. In it, we unexpectedly found a travelbug! Geocaching - Travel Bugs - Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) A travel bug is a 'treasure' with a special dog tag to let you track the item. And the item goes from cache to cache. Some have a destination. Some are just wandering, perhaps with some other theme, such as the one we found. We have to make sure to put it in another cache in the next few days. Cool stuff!

20050807 - Hiking Pikes Peak - Is it time to start hiking? 20050807 - Hiking Pikes Peak - Sunglow through the substation 20050807 - Hiking Pikes Peak - Going up Barr Trail 20050807 - Hiking Pikes Peak - Sunrise on the trail 20050807 - Hiking Pikes Peak - Ridgeline Against the Sky 20050807 - Hiking Pikes Peak - View of the Mountain 20050807 - Hiking Pikes Peak - It sure looks far away! 20050807 - Hiking Pikes Peak - The Packs Taking a Break Too! 20050807 - Hiking Pikes Peak - Leaving Barr Camp 20050807 - Hiking Pikes Peak - Looking down on the A-Frame 20050807 - Hiking Pikes Peak - View from the A-Frame 20050807 - Hiking Pikes Peak - Near the Tree-line 20050807 - Hiking Pikes Peak - 3 Linear Miles to go 20050807 - Hiking Pikes Peak - Looking Up 20050807 - Hiking Pikes Peak - View of Colorado Springs 20050807 - Hiking Pikes Peak - Edge of the Summit House 20050807 - Hiking Pikes Peak - Tip of the Summet House - and People on the Edge 20050807 - Hiking Pikes Peak - Not far to go! 20050807...

This month we continued building the group's common-themed robot. A square base, the DARC-Board, 2 modified hobby-servo motors with wheels, and an unmodified hobby-servo motor for ball capture. I had finished building the 3 sensors at home with some help from my 12yo! We wound up adding a fourth sensor while I was at the meeting. I also started on the LED to Cds cell capture sensor. I should be able to finish that up at home before the next meeting. As you can see from the picture, I was being a bit anal about routing my wires. :) Select the picture to go to my robot blog to view all the posted pictures, and to be able to see larger views of the pictures.

I was reading about this last week - where they will not fly the shuttle again until they can stop the foam falling off the external fuel tank. I was thinking maybe they could put some sort of metal shielding over the most sensitive areas. Which may not be such a bad idea anyhow. But then I was thinking about the external fuel tank and why they put on the foam. They put on the foam to help insulate the ultra cold of the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen from the outside. This helps reduce the icing on the outside. Then the solution hit me. What common household item is known for keeping hot-things-hot and cold-things-cold? A thermos. Where is the insulation on a thermos? On the inside of the shell. So what is obvious solution for the space shuttle? PUT THE FOAM ON THE INSIDE! Okay - I have to imagine that some other rocket scientists have thought of this already. Why wouldn't they have already gone with this idea? Probably because it would mean enlarging the tank a little...

I must say I think it is dumb to change daylight savings time. It is an idea with limited value in the first place. And they stuck it in the middle of an energy bill. They will keep daylight savings time an extra 3 weeks in the spring and a week in the fall. Just what we need - more craziness. And the idea is to save energy. Lets look at what is really going on here. They are playing games with the clocks to try to get businesses to change when they do business. Change when lights need to go on. When people have to drive. In theory, it will save energy because they should be a slight reduction of power aligning work to stay within daylight hours. To that end, they are going to force us to adjust our clock. Creating all sorts of odd conditions - 2 1:00AMs in the fall - and no 2:00AM in the spring. People loosing an hour of sleep in the spring. And how many times have you - or someone you know - been thrown off by the time change. Showing up an hour early - or worse - an hour lat...

Pikes Peak Hike I made it! The altitude really got to me. The 6-7 hour hike took me 10.5 hours. But I did it!

Keith's Pictures: 2005-08-06 20050703 Hiking Barr Trail - Trailhead 20050703 Hiking Barr Trail - Trail & Railings 20050703 Hiking Barr Trail - Cog, Power & Parking 20050703 Hiking Barr Trail - Cog depot 20050703 Hiking Barr Trail - Heading up 20050703 Hiking Barr Trail - Trail up 20050703 Hiking Barr Trail - View out 20050703 Hiking Barr Trail - Purple Wildflower 20050703 Hiking Barr Trail - Pack dog 20050703 Hiking Barr Trail - Sign: Peak 12mi 20050703 Hiking Barr Trail - Sun on Garden of the Gods 20050703 Hiking Barr Trail - A little peak through the trees 20050703 Hiking Barr Trail - View down 20050703 Hiking Barr Trail - Cliff Dwellings & Beyoung 20050703 Hiking Barr Trail - Manatou Cliff Dwellings and beyound 20050703 Hiking Barr Trail - Railings, Rcoks & Trees 20050703 Hiking Barr Trail - Clouds over Colorado Springs 20050703 Hiking Barr Trail - Self portrait - Sitting 20050703 Hiking Barr Trail - Tree along fence 20050703 Hiking Barr Trail - Wildflowers Purpl...