Well, I finally have gotten around to building the winter snow bike. Unfortunently, it is about a week late. We had a good snow last Sunday and I have been riding the bus all week. I guess I needed a week off or something to get my ass in gear. Probably the latter.

Anyway, the bike will be a single speed, which will make it my first single speed since, like, elementary school.

The frame was giving to me by a friend of mine, a Bridgestone MB-1 COMP with Ritchey Logic Prestige tubes. It came with the fork, stem and handle bars. Plus, he came up with crank bolts that the local bike store didn't have. Thanks John.

I am having wheels made with Surly hubs and Mavic X221 rims. They will be finished with Nokian Mount & Ground studded tires.

The brakes, pedals, seat stem, seat are Performance "Team" brand. Cheap but decent quality.

What else is there? The bottom bracket was one the local Performance store found that fit and the crank, an old part from my Specialized Sirrus, with a 36 tooth chainring and a CyclocrossWorld chainring guard.

The freewheel will be a 17 tooth Shimano BMX from Harris Cyclery.

Now I just have to finish it! :)

Check out this site. Quite a few interesting essays to read.

The Mathematics of Responsibility
by Ran Prieur
February 7, 2002

It's frustrating to be stuck in a world where I actually have to point this out, but what we call "responsibility" is not distributed by breaking up "full responsibility" and dividing it into parts. If you add up everyone's responsibility for something, it doesn't equal 100% -- it equals a billion percent if it has to, because any number of entities can be fully responsible for the same thing. Another way to say it is that our responsibilities can and do overlap. Another way to say it is that nobody's responsibility for anything excuses anybody else.

For example, Hitler is fully responsible for every particular murder in the Holocaust. But so is the actual person who did the murder, and every person in the chain of command, and the fanatically repressive Prussian culture, and maybe the victim, if there was a chance to see the murder coming and fight or flee.

I just pushed a hot button, but it's hot only because of our idea of "blame," which is a lie. I don't "blame" anyone for anything, because I understand that blame is stuck responsibility -- falsely packing it all in one place to block it from being traced where you don't want it traced.

For example, if a woman gets drunk and passes out at a frat party, and she gets raped, and I excuse the rapist by saying the woman should have known better, then I am stupidly blaming the victim. But if I hold the rapist fully responsible, and also hold the society that trained the rapist fully responsible, and also notice that the victim took a huge risk and had the power to choose otherwise, then I'm not blaming anyone -- I'm being honest and paying attention.

This gets even trickier when someone is punished for doing something good. The Raise The Fist website was recently shut down in a violent police raid. Some people (who are being ripped off if they're not on the authorities' payroll) made slippery suggestions that the author of the site should have known the police would come after him, and therefore that he was somehow at fault.

"He should have known! Jesus should have known he'd be crucified! Gandhi should have known he'd get people beaten and killed. Nelson Mandela and Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel should have known their activities would get them locked up. Idiots! When people threaten violence you should do whatever they say, or you deserve what you get!"

Read the rest of this essay.

Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller - 12/04/2004

So, out of curiosity I checked out the 20 questions against a computer site, 20q.net, to see how smart it really was. Shockingly, it figured out my first three items; a water bottle, a coin and a watch. Now, I figured quite a few people have thought of these before, so for my fourth one I thought long and hard and was finally able to beat it, a 35mm film cannister. Go give it a try.

Anticipation is growing as I am almost finished with the winter commuting bike. I am just waiting for the BMX freewheel to arrive and the build will be complete. At best estimates, UPS is predicting a Tuesday delivery and then it is dialing everything in time. In the mean time, it's time to go through the sticker collection and color up the frame a bit.

I have had to do a few tweaks as the frame is a tad large for me. The seat post is turned around 180 degrees from normal. I had to do this so I was not sitting to far back. I also ended up replacing the quill stem with a threadless stem adapter and stem from Performance. This dropped the length from 130mm to 100mm. I am going to try that out for a while and see how it feels. If I have to I can change to their 85mm stem.

I can't wait to take this little project out for a spin and see how it rides.

I believe that what you sing to the clouds,
will rain upon you when your sun has gone away,
and I believe that what you dream to the moon,
will manifest before you rest another day.

So stay strong, and sleep long, and when you need to
let the morning take you out on to today,
and when you find you're at the end of the road,
just lift your head up, spread your wings and fly away!

When your lost and alone, that's when a rainbow comes.
When your lost and alone, that's when a rainbow comes for you.

- Michael Franti and Spearhead

Santa makes his return ;)

I am receiving a large amount of hits for this image from Google Image. There are quite a few people looking up Bah Humbug on Google Images this season!

Desktop Images

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I commuted on the "Winter Bike", taking it out on it's shakedown rides. It is not a bad ride, but there are some issues.

The first and biggest problem, the chain comes off the sprocket and chainring after medium to big bumps (check out the laxness of the chain in the photo). Because the frame has vertical dropouts, I can not get the chain tight enough. I have ordered a Surly 1x1 Singleator. It is a rather spendy fix, but the only one short of getting a new frame.

Second, the frame is a tad large. I am going to have to purchase a shorter stem. The 100mm one is just a little to long. The measurement of my Sirrus from seat tip to the end of the stem is 20 1\8", the winter bike is 20 7\8". Now I realize that is just a mear 3\4 of an inch, but it stretches me out just a tad to much. I can't really use the bar ends and it is uncomfortable to slide back on the saddle when climbing hills.

I will hang with just getting the Singleator for now. Maybe in the near future I will replace the stem. Then, maybe, someday I will pick up a singlespeed frame. I figure, hey, I have almost every part I need now. Hmmm, a Surly 1x1 would be nice.

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By the way, I have revamped the cycling pages. A few new things have arrived.

Lance Armstrong will wait until May before deciding whether to race in next year's Tour de France. The six-time Tour champion has already confirmed he only intends to compete for another two years but has not yet fixed his plans for 2005.

Armstrong has been criticised for concentrating on the Tour de France too much in the past and has spoken about broadening his horizons.

One option is for the American to race a full programme of European classics.

And although the 33-year-old intends to contest the Tour again, he has not said when that will be.

Armstrong has just completed a training camp in his hometown of Austin with his team.

"I feel better than I have at other December camps," Armstrong said.

"I've got a clear head. I'm chilled out. I'm relaxed."

- BBC Cycling

Received this note in an e-mail today and just had to pass it on!

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If anyone's been bad, it's been little Georgie Walker Bush, and no one we know deserves a lump of coal in his stocking more than Georgie (and of course, Dick, Condi, Donald, and anyone else you care to add to the list).

We know there's only a short time before Xmas, so get on it! If you don't have access to a coal mine anywhere, you can send part of a charcoal briquette - just make sure it's NOT NOT NOT one of the "self lighting" kinds that's embedded with starter fluid. That would most likely be a felony to send through the mail.

And to make it doubly sweet, put your local Republican representative or senator's name and address as the return address. Write whatever you want inside or outside about why George deserves a lump of coal in his stocking.

DUBYA'S ADDRESSES

George W. Bush
43 Prairie Chapel Ranch
Crawford TX 76638

OR

George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington DC 20500

For your district representative's or state senator's address to put as the return address, go to:

http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW_by_USA_Map.shtml

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

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The full article can be found at http://www.democracymeansyou.com/articles/article.php?ID=248

I added a little section with what old homepages I have. The first couple are from my old domain of www.pcsworldof.com and then the transition to www.larsonsworld.com and adding the blog.

It is probably boring, but I find them kind of interesting.

Old Homepages

I found this commentary rather insightful and interesting. I hope you find it likewise.

The sum of American fears - By Joel Agee.

I told a friend I'd be writing an essay about fear. He cautioned me: "Don't say that our fears are groundless." He had heard me express the widespread opinion that in allowing ourselves to be governed by fear, we may be forfeiting our freedom

Of course our fears aren't groundless. Who would deny the threat of nuclear and biological war on our shores? And militant factions within three major religions seem intent on fulfilling prophecy of a final war between good and evil, certain that they and not their enemies are the children of light. What greater danger can be imagined?

But just for that reason it seems to me necessary to live without fear - to the extent that we're able. This doesn't mean we shouldn't protect ourselves from real dangers. It means we must be vigilant against the counsels of fear.

What impressed me most forcefully in the pictures from Abu Ghraib was how fear was employed as an instrument of torture. Humiliation, too - but those photographs were meant to terrify, because they could be used to shame the victims in their communities.

Why has the discussion of these outrages very nearly vanished from public discourse? Does our silence bespeak a tacit consent to their continuation? If so, what would be our motive? I believe it is fear - fear of an elusive, treacherous enemy, but also fear of seeing the depths to which we may go for the sake of an equally elusive security.

I spent my formative years behind the Iron Curtain. It is commonplace to say the people there were deprived of their freedom. This is true, but it's a truth that was not evident to many of those people. If you live in a stooped position long enough you can mistake it for an upright stance.

Read the rest of this commentary here: http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1221/p09s01-coop.html

Diet for a Dead Planet: How the Food Industry is Killing Us - By Christopher D. Cook. New Press. $24.95

After reading this review don't you just want to go out, read the book and then go shopping.

Boy, I do!

Can't wait till the "natural" foods just become another offering in the "corporate cornucopia."

- Mr. Green with funky thing on head

Why oh why must they put these silly things on my head and take my picture?

What, do they think this is cute or something?

Silly Humans!

By the way, where's my dinner?

I must say I found this rather interesing. Ever forward we go.

NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer has spotted what appear to be massive "baby" galaxies in our corner of the universe. Previously, astronomers thought the universe's birth rate had dramatically declined and only small galaxies were forming.

"We knew there were really massive young galaxies eons ago, but we thought they had all matured into older ones more like our Milky Way. If these galaxies are indeed newly formed, then this implies parts of the universe are still hotbeds of galaxy birth," said Dr. Chris Martin. He is principal investigator for the Galaxy Evolution Explorer at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif., and co-author of the study.

Martin and colleagues, led by Dr. Tim Heckman of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md., unearthed three-dozen bright, compact galaxies that greatly resemble the youthful galaxies of more than 10 billions years ago. These new galaxies are relatively close to us, ranging from two to four billion light-years away. They may be as young as 100 million to one billion years old. The Milky Way is approximately 10 billion years old.

The recent discovery suggests our aging universe is still alive with youth. It also offers astronomers their first, close-up glimpse at what our galaxy probably looked like when it was in its infancy.

"Now we can study the ancestors to galaxies much like our Milky Way in much more detail than ever before," Heckman said. "It's like finding a living fossil in your own backyard. We thought this type of galaxy had gone extinct, but in fact newborn galaxies are alive and well in the universe," he added.

The new discoveries are of a type called ultraviolet luminous galaxies. They were discovered after the Galaxy Evolution Explorer scanned a large portion of the sky with its highly sensitive ultraviolet light detectors. Since young stars pack most of their light into ultraviolet wavelengths, young galaxies appear to the spacecraft like diamonds in a field of stones. Astronomers mined for these rare gems before, but missed them because they weren't able to examine a large enough slice of the sky.

"The Galaxy Evolution Explorer surveyed thousands of galaxies before finding these few dozen ultraviolet-bright ones," said Dr. Michael Rich, a co-author of the study from the University of California, Los Angeles.

The newfound galaxies are about 10 times as bright in ultraviolet wavelengths as the Milky Way. This indicates they are teeming with violent star-forming regions and exploding supernova, which are characteristics of youth.

When our universe was young, massive galaxies were regularly bursting into existence. Over time, the universe bore fewer and fewer galactic progeny, and its newborn galaxies grew up into ones that look like our own. Until now, astronomers thought they had seen the last of these giant babies.

The results will be published in an upcoming special issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters, along with several other papers describing new results from the Galaxy Evolution Explorer.

The Galaxy Evolution Explorer was launched on April 28, 2003. Its mission is to study the shape, brightness, size and distance of galaxies across 10 billion years of cosmic history. The Explorer's 50-centimeter-diameter (19.7-inch) telescope sweeps the skies in search of ultraviolet-light sources.

Caltech leads the Galaxy Evolution Explorer mission and is responsible for science operations and data analysis. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the mission and built the science instrument. The mission was developed under NASA's Explorers Program managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. South Korea and France are the international partners in the mission.

NASA News Release: 2004-294 - December 21, 2004

For images and information about the Galaxy Evolution Explorer on the Internet, visit http://www.nasa.gov/centers/jpl/missions/galex.html.
For information about NASA and agency programs on the Internet, visit http://www.nasa.gov.

Even though the training in ethics takes many forms, the ethics of abandoning the ten non-virtues is their basis. Of the ten non-virtues, three pertain to bodily actions, four to verbal actions, and three to mental actions.

The three mental non-virtues are:

    Covetousness: thinking, "May this become mine," desiring something that belongs to another.

    Harmful intent: wishing to injure others, be it great or small injury.

    Wrong view: viewing some existent thing, such as rebirth, cause and effect, or the Three Jewels*, as non-existent.

The opposite of these three non-virtues are the ten virtues, and engaging in them is called the practice of ethics.

*The core of Buddhism: Buddha, his doctrine (Dharma), and the Spiritual Community.

- Paul Conrad - 12/30/2004

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I was born not quite a month before JKF was assassinated.

This was many years before my consciousness of the world, and then, another many more before I really cared.

Yet, for some reason I can not explain, I feel a stronger belief in JFK than GWB.

Some will say that is right, some will say that is wrong.

I do not know.

All I know, whether I am right or wrong, the voicing of my opinion makes me patriotic.