There are few experiences I have found more satisfying than getting an old car and fixing it up to be, well, maybe not just like new but definitely closer to new or newish than it was when I acquired it. I've done this twice. The first time, I was in high school back in the early '80s and got a 1968 VW Beetle that was mechanically sound and needed, well, just about everything else. It was the second Bug I had owned. The first one was a '72 model that looked great and had some serious mechanical problems. As part of the transition between these two, I picked up a wrecked '71 Super Beetle that offered just about everything I needed to fix both of the other cars with a bunch of parts left over. The engine went into the '72, which I sold for enough to just about break even on all three cars. Most of the interior and some of the body panels went into the '68, although the front fenders and trunk lid had to be sourced from elsewhere. I took the best of the available parts and made the most of what I had, and when I had it finished and painted, the end result wasn't half bad. It was lots of fun and I took great satisfaction in knowing I had made the car what it had become.
Flash forward some 30 years and it's become deja vu all over again. Last fall, I needed a car and was short on funds. My previous car had developed some serious mechanical issues that were beyond my financial means to repair, so it was more cost effective to buy another car, albeit a cheap one, and sell off the old one.
The solution I found was a '95 Pontiac Bonneville that was nicely equipped and in reasonably good mechanical condition, but had a few minor issues, not the least of which was that the paint was peeling off most the trunk and rear quarter panels. Still, it was reliable, affordable transportation. It kept me on the road and I knew I could fix most of the little issues it had.
In looking at another car, the seller told me of a junk yard in a neighboring town called Pull-A-Part (www.pullapart.com) that had terrific prices on used parts, but with one little catch--you have to bring your own tools and harvest the parts yourself. Whle this means extra work for the customer, sometimes in less than pleasant weather, it also has some distinct advantages. The first is you can pick and choose from the available vehicles to find the best available part for your need. The second is that in removing the part, you can educate yourself on the procedure before you do it to your own car. Better to do this on a car you can afford to mess up. Plus, it's okay to be a little brutal to these donor vehicles; they don't feel any pain.
I've had incredible luck at my local Pull-A-Part. I've found lots of things I needed form a turn signal lamp to a power antenna, as well as little upgrades like a better radio and a center console cup holder that wasn't originally included on my car.
I mentioned the paint on my Bonneville earlier because one of my summer projects has been to sand and spot paint the areas where the paint was peeling. It's not perfect, but it's definitely better than it was before I started. The worst of these areas was the trunk lid, which was missing about half its paint. I wasn't looking forward to doing all that sanding in the summer heat and I knew the end result wouldn't be all that great when I got finished.
Fortunately, on a recent trip to Pull-A-Part I harvested a power antenna from a white Bonneville with much better paint than mine. How ironic, I thought, that this car, the same color as mine, should be sitting here at the end of its useful life with such good paint. Then I took a closer look at the trunk lid and realized the swap would be pretty easy. Just take out four bolts and run some wires for the tail lights and automatic trunk release. The only catch (no pun intended) was the lock cylinder since there was no trunk key with the donor car.
After a little online research at www.pontiacbonnevilleclub.com, I learned that a lock cylinder swap really isn't that difficult—just remove a retaining clip and it falls out—so I found someone with a pickup truck and some time on his hands (this was actually the most difficult part of the entire project) and made a return trip to Pull-A-Part. It was a hellishly hot July day, but with a little blood from scraped knuckles and a whole lot of sweat, we got the new trunk lid off the donor car and swapped it over onto mine. The car now looks great with a whole lot less effort than to sand and paint it myself and a whole lot less expense than to have it painted professionally.
Having an old car and fixing it up is a singularly gratifying experience I would recommend to anyone who knows his or her way around a wrench or socket set. There is simply no better way to become one with your vehicle. And having a resource like Pull-A-Part makes it all the more cost effective.
Friday, August 5, 2011
Friday, July 8, 2011
...The Final Frontier
About an hour ago, I witnessed the end of an era as the space shuttle Atlantis cleared the launch pad for the final time. The mission, which will take the shuttle to the International Space Station on Sunday, is scheduled return to the earth on July 20, just two days shy of the forty-second anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing.*
I was five years old when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the lunar surface. In fact, the space program was the first news event I remember being aware of and interested in as a child, although I do remember being somewhat irritated when my Saturday morning cartoons were interrupted for live coverage of Alan Shepherd hitting golf balls on the moon. Nonetheless, I was a big astronaut fan. I ate Space Food Sticks, drank Tang, played with my Major Matt Mason toys, and watched Star Trek religiously, considering it a foregone conclusion that the starship Enterprise would someday be a reality.
I also remember feeling very let down when the Apollo lunar missions came to an end in 1972. Somehow Skylab and the Apollo/Soyuz "handshake in space" in the mid-1970s seemed more than a little anti-climactic after exploring the moon. It seemed to me that we should be reaching out even further to Mars and beyond instead of shackling ourselves to low earth orbit.
That future seemed to be within our grasp in the late 1970s, when the first shuttle prototype, the Enterprise, named for TV's most famous starship, rolled out of the hangar to sound of a military band playing the theme from Star Trek while several members of the show's cast looked on. Still, TV continued to stay a few steps ahead of reality.
A couple of years before the space shuttle Enterprise made its debut, another show called Space: 1999 took to the airwaves. Set on a moon that had been blasted out of earth's orbit by massive explosions at a lunar nuclear waste dump, the show depicted what seemed a very realistic view of earth's next logical step in space, a permanent colony on the moon. The Eagle spaceships on that show not only bore the name of the first lunar lander, they looked as though their design could have evolved from the Apollo LEM (Lunar Excursion Module) spacecraft. Unfortunately, that vision of the future also has yet to come to pass.
As the 1980s dawned, so did a new era for America's efforts at manned space exploration. In the spring of 1981, the space shuttle Columbia set off on its maiden voyage, lifting the nation's spirits with it. I remember watching TV coverage of the event and thinking 'I feel good about America again' as the malaise of the post-Vietnam/post-Watergate era seemed to fall away with the solid rocket boosters and external fuel tank. I regarded the concept of a reusable spacecraft as a bold first step toward that starship future. Unfortunately, the space shuttle program had a few obstacles to overcome in order to reach its full potential, including the tragic loss of the Challenger in January 1986 and Columbia in February 2003.
The first problem was that the original intention for the shuttle was to ferry people and materiel to a space station. Originally, that space station was to be Skylab, but the shuttle was also needed to give Skylab the occasional boost to a higher orbit. Unfortunately, the shuttle's development took longer than expected and Skylab's orbit continued to decay until it crashed back to earth in 1979, two years before Columbia left the launch pad for the first time. By the time the shuttle program got under way in earnest, it was without a destination and instead served as both shuttle and station for orbital experiments. It would not be until the mid-1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, that the shuttle began fulfilling its original mission by making regular visits to Russia's Mir space station and then serving as a heavy lift vehicle for sections of the International Space Station.
In the spring of 1996, I was fortunate enough to witness one of those launches, STS-76, when Atlantis took off to Rendezvous with Mir. The husband of a cousin of my mother's was on the shuttle crew, so my parents and I were included on the guest list and got to watch the pre-dawn launch from the bleachers across the river from the launch pad. The flames from the shuttle's main engines and solid rocket boosters lit up the still dark sky in a spectacular manner. There are no words to adequately describe the experience of seeing a shuttle launch up close and personal. Unless you have experienced the deep roar and felt the vibration of those engines as the shuttle takes to the sky for yourself, you cannot fully comprehend the true extent of its power and majesty.
Seeing Atlantis leave the pad again today, albeit on a 19-inch computer display, brought back memories of that launch and of watching Apollo launches on TV as a child. It was a bittersweet moment as the event was set against the backdrop of NASA's uncertain future.
The International Space Station's mission continues, although it will now be serviced exclusively by Soyuz capsules for the foreseeable future. NASA is reportedly developing a new five-person crew capsule to take astronauts to the space station Apollo style. Supposedly, it may also be the basis of a spacecraft that one day may head to Mars.
It seems ironic to me that the path to the future in space may be marked by a return to our past. Until the eventual end of the shuttle program was announced in 2003, I had always assumed the shuttle would be replaced by a newer, more sophisticated space plane. In retiring the space shuttle, we are also giving up a major technological capability, just as happened when the Apollo lunar missions came to an end and the Concorde supersonic airliner made its final landing. It may make a certain fiscal sense, but that doesn't mean it feels right.
I have to hold onto the hope that humanity's best days in space are still ahead of us. It just remains to be seen whether it's NASA, Russia, or an entrepreneur like Richard Branson who gets us there.
As this chapter in space exploration comes to a close, let us pause to remember the crews of Apollo I and the space shuttles Challenger and Columbia, whose sacrifices have paved our way to the Final Frontier.
*My memory was faulty here. Apollo 11 landed on the moon July 20, 1969, so Atlantis was actually scheduled to return to earth on the anniversary. It would have been a nice bit of symmetry, had it happened as planned; however, the shuttle's final mission was extended by a day. Either way, it was a helluva ride!
I was five years old when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the lunar surface. In fact, the space program was the first news event I remember being aware of and interested in as a child, although I do remember being somewhat irritated when my Saturday morning cartoons were interrupted for live coverage of Alan Shepherd hitting golf balls on the moon. Nonetheless, I was a big astronaut fan. I ate Space Food Sticks, drank Tang, played with my Major Matt Mason toys, and watched Star Trek religiously, considering it a foregone conclusion that the starship Enterprise would someday be a reality.
I also remember feeling very let down when the Apollo lunar missions came to an end in 1972. Somehow Skylab and the Apollo/Soyuz "handshake in space" in the mid-1970s seemed more than a little anti-climactic after exploring the moon. It seemed to me that we should be reaching out even further to Mars and beyond instead of shackling ourselves to low earth orbit.
That future seemed to be within our grasp in the late 1970s, when the first shuttle prototype, the Enterprise, named for TV's most famous starship, rolled out of the hangar to sound of a military band playing the theme from Star Trek while several members of the show's cast looked on. Still, TV continued to stay a few steps ahead of reality.
A couple of years before the space shuttle Enterprise made its debut, another show called Space: 1999 took to the airwaves. Set on a moon that had been blasted out of earth's orbit by massive explosions at a lunar nuclear waste dump, the show depicted what seemed a very realistic view of earth's next logical step in space, a permanent colony on the moon. The Eagle spaceships on that show not only bore the name of the first lunar lander, they looked as though their design could have evolved from the Apollo LEM (Lunar Excursion Module) spacecraft. Unfortunately, that vision of the future also has yet to come to pass.
As the 1980s dawned, so did a new era for America's efforts at manned space exploration. In the spring of 1981, the space shuttle Columbia set off on its maiden voyage, lifting the nation's spirits with it. I remember watching TV coverage of the event and thinking 'I feel good about America again' as the malaise of the post-Vietnam/post-Watergate era seemed to fall away with the solid rocket boosters and external fuel tank. I regarded the concept of a reusable spacecraft as a bold first step toward that starship future. Unfortunately, the space shuttle program had a few obstacles to overcome in order to reach its full potential, including the tragic loss of the Challenger in January 1986 and Columbia in February 2003.
The first problem was that the original intention for the shuttle was to ferry people and materiel to a space station. Originally, that space station was to be Skylab, but the shuttle was also needed to give Skylab the occasional boost to a higher orbit. Unfortunately, the shuttle's development took longer than expected and Skylab's orbit continued to decay until it crashed back to earth in 1979, two years before Columbia left the launch pad for the first time. By the time the shuttle program got under way in earnest, it was without a destination and instead served as both shuttle and station for orbital experiments. It would not be until the mid-1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, that the shuttle began fulfilling its original mission by making regular visits to Russia's Mir space station and then serving as a heavy lift vehicle for sections of the International Space Station.
In the spring of 1996, I was fortunate enough to witness one of those launches, STS-76, when Atlantis took off to Rendezvous with Mir. The husband of a cousin of my mother's was on the shuttle crew, so my parents and I were included on the guest list and got to watch the pre-dawn launch from the bleachers across the river from the launch pad. The flames from the shuttle's main engines and solid rocket boosters lit up the still dark sky in a spectacular manner. There are no words to adequately describe the experience of seeing a shuttle launch up close and personal. Unless you have experienced the deep roar and felt the vibration of those engines as the shuttle takes to the sky for yourself, you cannot fully comprehend the true extent of its power and majesty.
Seeing Atlantis leave the pad again today, albeit on a 19-inch computer display, brought back memories of that launch and of watching Apollo launches on TV as a child. It was a bittersweet moment as the event was set against the backdrop of NASA's uncertain future.
The International Space Station's mission continues, although it will now be serviced exclusively by Soyuz capsules for the foreseeable future. NASA is reportedly developing a new five-person crew capsule to take astronauts to the space station Apollo style. Supposedly, it may also be the basis of a spacecraft that one day may head to Mars.
It seems ironic to me that the path to the future in space may be marked by a return to our past. Until the eventual end of the shuttle program was announced in 2003, I had always assumed the shuttle would be replaced by a newer, more sophisticated space plane. In retiring the space shuttle, we are also giving up a major technological capability, just as happened when the Apollo lunar missions came to an end and the Concorde supersonic airliner made its final landing. It may make a certain fiscal sense, but that doesn't mean it feels right.
I have to hold onto the hope that humanity's best days in space are still ahead of us. It just remains to be seen whether it's NASA, Russia, or an entrepreneur like Richard Branson who gets us there.
As this chapter in space exploration comes to a close, let us pause to remember the crews of Apollo I and the space shuttles Challenger and Columbia, whose sacrifices have paved our way to the Final Frontier.
*My memory was faulty here. Apollo 11 landed on the moon July 20, 1969, so Atlantis was actually scheduled to return to earth on the anniversary. It would have been a nice bit of symmetry, had it happened as planned; however, the shuttle's final mission was extended by a day. Either way, it was a helluva ride!
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
It's All Done with Magnets
For the past year or so, I've been using a Sonicare electric toothbrush. It's an amazing bit of technological kit that blasts plaque away with a brush head that vibrates at ultrasonic frequencies. I had used inexpensive battery toothbrushes for several years prior to acquiring the Sonicare, and I was fascinated to note several significant differences between it and its less expensive counterparts.
The first major difference is the lack of a motor. The other battery toothbrushes I have used have all had a small electric motor, which drives the the head with a simple mechanism that either causes the bristles to oscillate back and forth or spin around.
The Sonicare also oscillates, but there is no motor. The only physical connection between head and handle is the threaded collar that keeps the head in place. Instead of driving the head with the spinning shaft of a motor, this toothbrush uses an electromagnet that reverses polarity several thousand times a second, causing the head to vibrate several thousand times a second. Unlike traditional battery toothbrushes, which will run without a head attached, the Sonicare will not. Its head completes the mechanism.
A secondary advantage to this design is it allows the handle to be a completely sealed unit, ideal for operating in a wet environment like a bathroom--or a mouth. This sealed design continues at the bottom of the handle, where there are no electrical contacts despite the fact that the handle contains rechargeable batteries. Here again, magnetism comes into play as the batteries are charged by a process called magnetic induction. It's not the most efficient design, as it takes almost 24 hours to give the batteries a full charge, but it does facilitate a design where there are no metal contacts to allow leakage or oxidation.
As amazing as this design is, the batteries, two non-replaceable AA size nickle-cadmium (Ni-Cad) cells, are definitely its weak point. I was genuinely surprised the manufacturer, Phillips, opted for lower quality Ni-Cad cells when superior nickel metal hydride (NiMH) cells would have added, at most, a few pennies to the cost of the toothbrush.
The problem with Ni-Cad cells is twofold: They generally have a faster discharge rate than NiMH cells and they develop a 'memory' pattern in which they have a very short operational life between charges if they are charged at frequent intervals without being fully discharged first. To get the best life out of Ni-Cad batteries, they need to have deep cycle charges, which can be achieved by charging the batteries only when they are fully depleted. Fortunately, the Sonicare toothbrush is engineered to maximize battery life by alerting the user when when the batteries need charging by giving a beep and flashing an LED under the power button. While the instructions mention the low battery indicator feature, they don't state specifically that the battery should only be charged when this feature calls for a charge. On average, I have to charge my toothbrush about twice a month.
This is somewhat problematic given that many users will doubtless keep the toothbrush in its charging stand between uses. Over time, this can lead to premature battery failure, which spells the end of the toothbrush's operational life since the sealed handle can't be opened without destroying it.
I believe that NiMH batteries would be more suitable for this application because they hold a charge longer and have much less of a memory effect. I proved the superiority of NiMH batteries to myself a few years ago when the Ni-Cad batteries in my Remington electric razor died on me. Because the outer casing was held together with screws, I took it apart to find conventional AA-sized Ni-Cad batteries with solder tabs inside.
After searching around the Internet, I found a source for the batteries and saw they had both Ni-Cad and NiMH batteries available at virtually the same cost. I opted for the NiMH batteries, soldering them with a minimum of fuss. In the process, I extended the life of the device at about a tenth the cost of replacing it. My replacement batteries outperformed the originals in every way. Not only do they hold a charge longer, but six years later, they are still going strong, whereas the originals only lasted about five years.
Given what I know about these batteries, it boggles my mind that Phillips would choose an inferior battery for an otherwise highly advanced toothbrush. The only rationale that comes to my mind is one of built-in obsolescence in that it's not always in the manufacturer's best interest to let the consumer have too much of a good thing.
Update: 10 December 2011
I was in Target yesterday and saw a new entry level Sonicare model. This one uses conventional AA batteries and sells for the relative bargain price of $20, less than half the price of my Sonicare Essence. Because the batteries are replaceable, you can use either alkalines or rechargeables and you don't have to throw the handle away when the batteries wear out. If I were in the market for a Sonicare today, this model would be on the top of my list, along with some rechargeable NiMH batteries. The brush heads are still frightfully expensive, but at least one would potentially get a longer service life out of the handle.
The first major difference is the lack of a motor. The other battery toothbrushes I have used have all had a small electric motor, which drives the the head with a simple mechanism that either causes the bristles to oscillate back and forth or spin around.
The Sonicare also oscillates, but there is no motor. The only physical connection between head and handle is the threaded collar that keeps the head in place. Instead of driving the head with the spinning shaft of a motor, this toothbrush uses an electromagnet that reverses polarity several thousand times a second, causing the head to vibrate several thousand times a second. Unlike traditional battery toothbrushes, which will run without a head attached, the Sonicare will not. Its head completes the mechanism.
A secondary advantage to this design is it allows the handle to be a completely sealed unit, ideal for operating in a wet environment like a bathroom--or a mouth. This sealed design continues at the bottom of the handle, where there are no electrical contacts despite the fact that the handle contains rechargeable batteries. Here again, magnetism comes into play as the batteries are charged by a process called magnetic induction. It's not the most efficient design, as it takes almost 24 hours to give the batteries a full charge, but it does facilitate a design where there are no metal contacts to allow leakage or oxidation.
As amazing as this design is, the batteries, two non-replaceable AA size nickle-cadmium (Ni-Cad) cells, are definitely its weak point. I was genuinely surprised the manufacturer, Phillips, opted for lower quality Ni-Cad cells when superior nickel metal hydride (NiMH) cells would have added, at most, a few pennies to the cost of the toothbrush.
The problem with Ni-Cad cells is twofold: They generally have a faster discharge rate than NiMH cells and they develop a 'memory' pattern in which they have a very short operational life between charges if they are charged at frequent intervals without being fully discharged first. To get the best life out of Ni-Cad batteries, they need to have deep cycle charges, which can be achieved by charging the batteries only when they are fully depleted. Fortunately, the Sonicare toothbrush is engineered to maximize battery life by alerting the user when when the batteries need charging by giving a beep and flashing an LED under the power button. While the instructions mention the low battery indicator feature, they don't state specifically that the battery should only be charged when this feature calls for a charge. On average, I have to charge my toothbrush about twice a month.
This is somewhat problematic given that many users will doubtless keep the toothbrush in its charging stand between uses. Over time, this can lead to premature battery failure, which spells the end of the toothbrush's operational life since the sealed handle can't be opened without destroying it.
I believe that NiMH batteries would be more suitable for this application because they hold a charge longer and have much less of a memory effect. I proved the superiority of NiMH batteries to myself a few years ago when the Ni-Cad batteries in my Remington electric razor died on me. Because the outer casing was held together with screws, I took it apart to find conventional AA-sized Ni-Cad batteries with solder tabs inside.
After searching around the Internet, I found a source for the batteries and saw they had both Ni-Cad and NiMH batteries available at virtually the same cost. I opted for the NiMH batteries, soldering them with a minimum of fuss. In the process, I extended the life of the device at about a tenth the cost of replacing it. My replacement batteries outperformed the originals in every way. Not only do they hold a charge longer, but six years later, they are still going strong, whereas the originals only lasted about five years.
Given what I know about these batteries, it boggles my mind that Phillips would choose an inferior battery for an otherwise highly advanced toothbrush. The only rationale that comes to my mind is one of built-in obsolescence in that it's not always in the manufacturer's best interest to let the consumer have too much of a good thing.
Update: 10 December 2011
I was in Target yesterday and saw a new entry level Sonicare model. This one uses conventional AA batteries and sells for the relative bargain price of $20, less than half the price of my Sonicare Essence. Because the batteries are replaceable, you can use either alkalines or rechargeables and you don't have to throw the handle away when the batteries wear out. If I were in the market for a Sonicare today, this model would be on the top of my list, along with some rechargeable NiMH batteries. The brush heads are still frightfully expensive, but at least one would potentially get a longer service life out of the handle.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Is TV's Earl working the Twelve Steps?
I've been re-watching one of my favorite sitcoms, My Name is Earl, lately and I've made an interesting observation. It appears the show's protagonist. Earl J. Hickey, a reformed petty thief, drunkard and general ne'er do well, is working his own version of the Twelve Steps, popularized by Alcoholics Anonymous and a host of other recovery groups.
The premise of the series is that Earl is trying to improve his lot in life by making a list of all his past transgressions and making amends for them with the help his not-so-bright brother Randy and a healthy dose of redneck humor.
The first clue that the Twelve Steps might be at the heart of this show's premise can be found in the title. It is customary in Twelve Step recovery groups for members to introduce themselves by first name (e.g., My name is ______ and I'm an alcoholic/addict/gambler/codependent/etc.) but the parallels run much deeper than that. Let's see how Earl's (mis)adventures with his list mesh with the Twelve Steps:
1. Came to the realization we were powerless over alcohol (or some other addiction), that our lives had become unmanageable.
In the pilot episode, Earl comes to a similar conclusion while laying in a hospital bed after being hit by a car only seconds after scratching off a $100,000 lottery ticket, paid for with funds acquired by picking someone's pocket in the men's room. He begins to put the pieces together and realizes his problems just might be his fault
2. Came to believe a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Earl has a similar epiphany while watching an interview show on TV. The host of the show, Carson Daly, mentions his belief in Karma--that if you do good things, good things will happen to you and if you do bad things, bad things will happen to you. Earl buys into this philosophy on the spot and decides if he doesn't change his life, Karma will eventually kill him.
3. Gave our will and our lives over to God as we understood him.
Earl indeed hands his will and his life over to his higher power, which he calls Karma, and dedicates himself full time to righting his past wrongs.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to ourselves, to God, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Became entirely ready to have God remove these shortcomings
7. Humbly asked God to remove these defects of character.
Earl appears to work steps 4, 5, 6, and 7 in rapid succession during the first episode.
8. Made a list of all people we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them
Earl's list is the very crux of the show's premise.
9. Made amends to such persons, except when to do so would injure them or others.
In each episode, Earl makes amends for one or more of his past transgressions, learning an important life lesson in the process.
10. Continued to take inventory and when were wrong, promptly admitted it.
Like most people in recovery, Earl has the occasional slip, but when this happens, he makes a concerted effort to avoid adding to his karmic debt by making immediate additions to his list and addressing them before the ink is completely dry.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to achieve a closer contact with our higher power, asking only for a better understanding of his will for us and the power to carry that out.
Earl invests significant time and energy trying to determine what Karma wants him to do next. He is open to all manner of signs and portents and when the appropriate path becomes apparent, he proceeds without hesitation.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we sought to bring the message of Alcoholics Anonymous (or some other 12-step recovery fellowship) to those who still suffer and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Hilarious as this show is, it quickly becomes obvious to the viewer that Earl's experience is transformative on a spiritual level. He becomes aware of and in tune with his higher power--Karma. While Earl is not shy about explaining his list and his mission to others, he isn't evangelical in his approach. To his credit, he lets others draw their own conclusions about whether it will work for them. In this respect, Earl is clearly following the 11th Tradition of AA, which espouses attraction over promotion. As for the last part, Earl consistently uses his belief in Karma to guide his daily actions. He frequently checks his baser impulses and then acts based on what he believes Karma would have him do.
I have no idea whether the show's creator, Greg Garica, is a member of a Twelve-Step fellowship or whether he consciously modeled Earl's quirky life journey on Twelve Step recovery, but the parallels are too obvious to ignore. Although Earl doesn't attend weekly meetings, pick up chips to mark milestones in his recovery, or sponsor new members, he arguably is working his own, unique, quirky, and hilariously entertaining version of the Twelve Steps. In the process, he is achieving his goal of living a better life. The moral to this story is that the Twelve Steps are for all of us, regardless of the nature of our character defects. Their wisdom is simple, and if applied honestly, they simply work.
The premise of the series is that Earl is trying to improve his lot in life by making a list of all his past transgressions and making amends for them with the help his not-so-bright brother Randy and a healthy dose of redneck humor.
The first clue that the Twelve Steps might be at the heart of this show's premise can be found in the title. It is customary in Twelve Step recovery groups for members to introduce themselves by first name (e.g., My name is ______ and I'm an alcoholic/addict/gambler/codependent/etc.) but the parallels run much deeper than that. Let's see how Earl's (mis)adventures with his list mesh with the Twelve Steps:
1. Came to the realization we were powerless over alcohol (or some other addiction), that our lives had become unmanageable.
In the pilot episode, Earl comes to a similar conclusion while laying in a hospital bed after being hit by a car only seconds after scratching off a $100,000 lottery ticket, paid for with funds acquired by picking someone's pocket in the men's room. He begins to put the pieces together and realizes his problems just might be his fault
2. Came to believe a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Earl has a similar epiphany while watching an interview show on TV. The host of the show, Carson Daly, mentions his belief in Karma--that if you do good things, good things will happen to you and if you do bad things, bad things will happen to you. Earl buys into this philosophy on the spot and decides if he doesn't change his life, Karma will eventually kill him.
3. Gave our will and our lives over to God as we understood him.
Earl indeed hands his will and his life over to his higher power, which he calls Karma, and dedicates himself full time to righting his past wrongs.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to ourselves, to God, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Became entirely ready to have God remove these shortcomings
7. Humbly asked God to remove these defects of character.
Earl appears to work steps 4, 5, 6, and 7 in rapid succession during the first episode.
8. Made a list of all people we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them
Earl's list is the very crux of the show's premise.
9. Made amends to such persons, except when to do so would injure them or others.
In each episode, Earl makes amends for one or more of his past transgressions, learning an important life lesson in the process.
10. Continued to take inventory and when were wrong, promptly admitted it.
Like most people in recovery, Earl has the occasional slip, but when this happens, he makes a concerted effort to avoid adding to his karmic debt by making immediate additions to his list and addressing them before the ink is completely dry.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to achieve a closer contact with our higher power, asking only for a better understanding of his will for us and the power to carry that out.
Earl invests significant time and energy trying to determine what Karma wants him to do next. He is open to all manner of signs and portents and when the appropriate path becomes apparent, he proceeds without hesitation.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we sought to bring the message of Alcoholics Anonymous (or some other 12-step recovery fellowship) to those who still suffer and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Hilarious as this show is, it quickly becomes obvious to the viewer that Earl's experience is transformative on a spiritual level. He becomes aware of and in tune with his higher power--Karma. While Earl is not shy about explaining his list and his mission to others, he isn't evangelical in his approach. To his credit, he lets others draw their own conclusions about whether it will work for them. In this respect, Earl is clearly following the 11th Tradition of AA, which espouses attraction over promotion. As for the last part, Earl consistently uses his belief in Karma to guide his daily actions. He frequently checks his baser impulses and then acts based on what he believes Karma would have him do.
I have no idea whether the show's creator, Greg Garica, is a member of a Twelve-Step fellowship or whether he consciously modeled Earl's quirky life journey on Twelve Step recovery, but the parallels are too obvious to ignore. Although Earl doesn't attend weekly meetings, pick up chips to mark milestones in his recovery, or sponsor new members, he arguably is working his own, unique, quirky, and hilariously entertaining version of the Twelve Steps. In the process, he is achieving his goal of living a better life. The moral to this story is that the Twelve Steps are for all of us, regardless of the nature of our character defects. Their wisdom is simple, and if applied honestly, they simply work.
Friday, February 25, 2011
LibreOffice--Meet the New Office, Same as the Old Office?
I've recently made the jump from OpenOffice.org to LibreOffice. Okay, it's not much of a jump. At this point, it's essentially the same software with a different name. What's important is what's to come in the future.
For those who don't know, LibreOffice was launched last fall when a group of leading OpenOffice.org developers, dissatisfied with Oracle's management of the open source productivity package, decided to jump ship and form their own fork of the software under the banner of The Document Foundation (TDF). Almost immediately, they released a "beta" of LibreOffice, which was little more than a re-branded version of OpenOffice. Likewise, they released a stable version (3.3) at almost the same time OOo 3.3 came out. The beta and initial 3.3 version of LibreOffice even used the same icons as OOo. Version 3.3.1, which came out a week after 3.3.0, had a few stability enhancements and a new set of icons.
So what's the difference? Why would one want to switch from OOo to LibreOffice? To the end user, the differences are indeed subtle and some of them will likely become more apparent as time goes on. LibreOffice developers claim to be cleaning up the source code to remove bits that are no longer needed and are incorporating other third party enhancements, including those found in Novell's Go.oo fork.
The main difference, however, is political. LibreOffice touts its independence from corporate interests as a formula for greater flexibility in determining the priorities and direction for development of the software. This promise has led several key players, including Canonical, the parent company of Ubuntu Linux, to replace OpenOffice with LibreOffice in upcoming versions of its distribution. The degree to which LibreOffice has been embraced can be seen in a recent campaign to raise 50,000 Euros to allow TDF to incorporate as a legal entity in Germany. The campaign was expected to take a month to reach its goal, but they surpassed it in eight days and contributions, many from end users, are still coming in.
As time goes on, it will be interesting to see where TDF takes LibreOffice. It is entirely possible that it will completely break off from OOo as IBM did when it forked OOo 1.x to create Lotus Symphony, which now develops independently of OOo.
They say competition can be good for innovation, and hopefully this is the case with OOo and LibreOffice.
For those who don't know, LibreOffice was launched last fall when a group of leading OpenOffice.org developers, dissatisfied with Oracle's management of the open source productivity package, decided to jump ship and form their own fork of the software under the banner of The Document Foundation (TDF). Almost immediately, they released a "beta" of LibreOffice, which was little more than a re-branded version of OpenOffice. Likewise, they released a stable version (3.3) at almost the same time OOo 3.3 came out. The beta and initial 3.3 version of LibreOffice even used the same icons as OOo. Version 3.3.1, which came out a week after 3.3.0, had a few stability enhancements and a new set of icons.
So what's the difference? Why would one want to switch from OOo to LibreOffice? To the end user, the differences are indeed subtle and some of them will likely become more apparent as time goes on. LibreOffice developers claim to be cleaning up the source code to remove bits that are no longer needed and are incorporating other third party enhancements, including those found in Novell's Go.oo fork.
The main difference, however, is political. LibreOffice touts its independence from corporate interests as a formula for greater flexibility in determining the priorities and direction for development of the software. This promise has led several key players, including Canonical, the parent company of Ubuntu Linux, to replace OpenOffice with LibreOffice in upcoming versions of its distribution. The degree to which LibreOffice has been embraced can be seen in a recent campaign to raise 50,000 Euros to allow TDF to incorporate as a legal entity in Germany. The campaign was expected to take a month to reach its goal, but they surpassed it in eight days and contributions, many from end users, are still coming in.
As time goes on, it will be interesting to see where TDF takes LibreOffice. It is entirely possible that it will completely break off from OOo as IBM did when it forked OOo 1.x to create Lotus Symphony, which now develops independently of OOo.
They say competition can be good for innovation, and hopefully this is the case with OOo and LibreOffice.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
iPod in an older car?
When it comes to technology, I'm a bit of a late adopter. But once I adopt, I jump in with both feet. I just acquired an iPod last summer, a used one at that. Now that I have it, I want to get the most and best possible use out of it, including in the car.
While auxiliary inputs for devices such as iPods are a common feature of today's OEM and aftermarket car radios, my car and its OEM radio were manufactured several years before iPods even existed. In fact, it has a cassette player. My first thought was to dig out a cassette adapter I used to use with a portable CD player, but the noise from the cassette mechanism was almost loud enough to drown out the abysmal sound quality.
Fortunately, there is a better way. I have now installed a wired FM modulator that feeds the iPod audio directly from the headphone jack to the FM antenna. The sound quality is great and the installation was a snap, as long as you're comfortable removing and re-installing your radio to get to the antenna lead. It's not as bad as it sounds--really.
In addition to the modulator itself, you will need a few other parts. If your car uses a standard plug for the antenna, you will need an antenna patch cable to run between the modulator and the radio. If not, you will need a pair of adapter cables. I needed the latter with my car. I connected the male antenna plug into the female end of one adapter, then plugged that into the modulator. The other adapter went between the modulator and the radio. Don't worry, you can't mess this up, since the adapters will only work one way.
Once you've made made the antenna connection, you need to connect to some power. Splice the red wire into the power lead for the radio. You may need to find a wiring diagram online to know which wire to use. Note: some radios have two power leads, one of which is switched through the ignition while the other is constant to maintain the time on the clock. In my car, the switched wire is red and the constant one is yellow. Others may or may not be the same. I'd recommend using the switched one so the device will shut off when you shut the car off, and thus not drain the battery.
I also added a manual shutoff switch so the modulator would not interfere with FM radio reception when I'm not listening to the iPod. I connected the red power wire from the modulator to the switch, then ran another wire from the switch to the power source. The most challenging part was choosing a switch that blended in with the dashboard and deciding where to mount the switch. I finally went with a small, round push-button switch. Once I drilled a hole and installed it, the switch looked like it had always been there.
The black wire is the ground. It just needs to be connected to something metal to complete the circuit. When I re-installed my radio, I just secured the ground wire under one of the mounting screws.
The final wire to connect is an audio cable with a male headphone plug on one end and two male RCA plugs on the other. The RCA plugs connect to the modulator, then you must decide how to route the wire for easy access before you button things up.
The modulator I chose, an Eiger Audio EV-F120, has a digital tuner with which to choose the frequency on which the device transmits. Two buttons allow the user to adjust the frequency up or down. Some other devices use dip switches to select a frequency. Interference from broadcast stations isn't a problem because the device overrides broadcast radio reception when active, thus the need for a manual power switch.
To play the iPod through the radio, connect the iPod to the audio cable, turn the modulator on, and tune the radio to the same frequency as the FM modulator. Now you're ready to go rockin' down the highway!
So what did all this cost? The answer is, surprising little. Modulators cost between $10 and $30. I got mine on the lower end of that spectrum. At the upper end of the price spectrum, Scoche offers a nice unit that includes a power switch and an audio cable that terminate on a surface mount panel that attaches with double-faced tape. The antenna adapters cost around $10 or $15. A power switch can be had for $2 or $3.
While auxiliary inputs for devices such as iPods are a common feature of today's OEM and aftermarket car radios, my car and its OEM radio were manufactured several years before iPods even existed. In fact, it has a cassette player. My first thought was to dig out a cassette adapter I used to use with a portable CD player, but the noise from the cassette mechanism was almost loud enough to drown out the abysmal sound quality.
Fortunately, there is a better way. I have now installed a wired FM modulator that feeds the iPod audio directly from the headphone jack to the FM antenna. The sound quality is great and the installation was a snap, as long as you're comfortable removing and re-installing your radio to get to the antenna lead. It's not as bad as it sounds--really.
In addition to the modulator itself, you will need a few other parts. If your car uses a standard plug for the antenna, you will need an antenna patch cable to run between the modulator and the radio. If not, you will need a pair of adapter cables. I needed the latter with my car. I connected the male antenna plug into the female end of one adapter, then plugged that into the modulator. The other adapter went between the modulator and the radio. Don't worry, you can't mess this up, since the adapters will only work one way.
Once you've made made the antenna connection, you need to connect to some power. Splice the red wire into the power lead for the radio. You may need to find a wiring diagram online to know which wire to use. Note: some radios have two power leads, one of which is switched through the ignition while the other is constant to maintain the time on the clock. In my car, the switched wire is red and the constant one is yellow. Others may or may not be the same. I'd recommend using the switched one so the device will shut off when you shut the car off, and thus not drain the battery.
I also added a manual shutoff switch so the modulator would not interfere with FM radio reception when I'm not listening to the iPod. I connected the red power wire from the modulator to the switch, then ran another wire from the switch to the power source. The most challenging part was choosing a switch that blended in with the dashboard and deciding where to mount the switch. I finally went with a small, round push-button switch. Once I drilled a hole and installed it, the switch looked like it had always been there.
The black wire is the ground. It just needs to be connected to something metal to complete the circuit. When I re-installed my radio, I just secured the ground wire under one of the mounting screws.
The final wire to connect is an audio cable with a male headphone plug on one end and two male RCA plugs on the other. The RCA plugs connect to the modulator, then you must decide how to route the wire for easy access before you button things up.
The modulator I chose, an Eiger Audio EV-F120, has a digital tuner with which to choose the frequency on which the device transmits. Two buttons allow the user to adjust the frequency up or down. Some other devices use dip switches to select a frequency. Interference from broadcast stations isn't a problem because the device overrides broadcast radio reception when active, thus the need for a manual power switch.
To play the iPod through the radio, connect the iPod to the audio cable, turn the modulator on, and tune the radio to the same frequency as the FM modulator. Now you're ready to go rockin' down the highway!
So what did all this cost? The answer is, surprising little. Modulators cost between $10 and $30. I got mine on the lower end of that spectrum. At the upper end of the price spectrum, Scoche offers a nice unit that includes a power switch and an audio cable that terminate on a surface mount panel that attaches with double-faced tape. The antenna adapters cost around $10 or $15. A power switch can be had for $2 or $3.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Welcome back to '80s
Anyone who was alive and in front of a TV set between the later half of 1986 and the end of the Reagan era, could not possibly have avoided seeing this apparently computer-generated talking head. The funny thing is it wasn't computer generated at all. It was actor Matt Frewer under several pounds of latex. And anybody who saw Max Headroom back in the day knows he was bigger than just a 14-episode TV show. He was a pop culture phenomenon, sticking his head in everywhere from MTV music videos to commercials for that most hated of '80s icons, New Coke. He even inspired Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau to give President Reagan the Headroom treatment in the form of a video generated character called "Ron Headrest". Oddly enough, life eventually imitated art when then-former President Reagan gave videotaped testimony before Congress on the Iran-Contra scandal. By the beginning of the '90s, both Reagan and Max Headroom had largely faded away as the digital and political landscapes continued to evolve in odd and unexpected ways, some of which mirrored the TV show.
Viewing the series in its entirety over the course of a week was at once nostalgic and chilling. Its razor-sharp social commentary hasn't lost one bit of its bite. If anything, some aspects are even more relevant today. That said, it's kind of odd to see just how analog everything was back then. Set "20 Minutes into the Future," It's post-industrial, look, evoking equal parts Blade Runner, Brazil, and early MTV, is a product of its time. The production values are very '80s, and to Warner Home Video's credit, they opted to keep the original 4:3 screen aspect ratio, rather than re-cut things to fit our newer "landscape" TV screens. At the same time, it's uncanny how predictive the show could be.
During Max's heyday, I remember being annoyed by his frequent trademark stutters, ostensibly caused by his image sucking up more computer resources than were available at the time. Who could have predicted that broadcast digital TV would look just like that 23 years later! Actually, broadcast digital looks a hell of a lot worse. After watching several episodes on DVD, I was surprised by how little I even noticed his stutters.
After watching all fourteen episodes, including one that ABC failed to air in its initial network run, but later made its debut on the Sci-Fi Channel, I was left with only one question: was it low ratings that killed Max Headroom, or did he step on too many toes as he exposed network television for what it was?
All I can say is Max, I'm glad to have you back, even if it is just for a 14-episode nostalgia trip.
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