Toby's Log page 105

Oil change trouble

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After running through a few tanks to see the pre-change MPG of my Saturn, I changed the oil to a synthetic high MPG formulation. I had used the same oil in my Corolla and had noticed a definite increase, and wanted to verify that this increase was indeed happening. I haven’t verified the increase yet.

Unfortunately, the oil change itself was the worst I’ve ever done. It probably took me at least three hours. I had to clean some oil spilled from my leaky oil catcher pan. The biggest time consumer, though, was the filter: It was on there ridiculously tight and the Saturn has almost no space around it. I ended up stabbing it in numerous places with a screwdriver, hurting my hand, and getting soaked in oil. A filter wrench finally did it.

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Appropriate living place service

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To help ensure people can easily move to the country best suited to them, there would be a program which all countries could choose to join. Joined countries would have buildings that citizens interested in moving away or even just seeing if there is something better could visit.

A counselor would be provided. The citizen would discuss their political, social, religious, and other wants and views, and the counselor would talk to them about the countries seeming most appropriate. The counselor would then give them guidance in how to research and choose a country as well as how the country moving procedures work.

The citizen would be given access to a computer database with political and social characteristics, news, geography, and all sorts of information about all of the participating countries, with advanced searches available.

After researching the countries, the citizen would talk to the counselor to make a final decision. If the citizen decides to go through with the move, the counselor would tell the citizen everything they need to do to proceed with the move.

The counselor would meet with a counselor from the other country to start the process toward citizenship for the citizen. This process should be an agreement between the two countries plus the citizen that would help ensure both success and safety for both the citizen and the new country. The process should be relatively quick and easy, with important records provided from the originating country so the destination country can more easily do background checks.

Some countries might only do exchanges, have number limits, or have certain stipulations on the citizens they will take, though the movement of citizens must be generally relatively free and easy.

A similar but simpler version of this service could be provided for intra-country moves, helping citizens find the best city or place within a country for them to live.

My new car

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After my car died, I went looking for a car. I had to borrow my roommate’s car many times and my dad’s car while he was on vacation. I even rode my bicycle 20+ miles to work one day, though my roommate picked me up for the trip home. It took me over a month to make my decision.

Search

I had wanted to get a small stickshift hatchback a little smaller than my Corolla that would be able to get a little better gas mileage. Unfortunately, it was hard to find a model within my price range that actually fit my requirements. I spent a lot of time looking at craigslist, cars.com, autotrader.com, and others.

I called and emailed a number of private sellers, but never ended up going to see one. They seem harder to deal with, as you have to set up a time to meet and all, and then can’t take the car unless the title place is opened or they’ve already got their title notarized. I also visited a great many lots and test drove a number of cars.

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My corolla finally died

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Due to its rust and general shape, my Corolla has looked liked it was on its way out since I bought it from my brother. Five years later, it finally went out. It could perhaps have been fixed, but I didn’t think it was worth it.

The death

On my last day of school for the Spring semester, on the way home from class (in the campus parking lot in fact), I ran over a curb (I was tired). I drove all the way home with no problems. Later that day I headed toward my parents’ house, but soon after I made a turn (Akron Cleveland onto 303) my car started sliding on the front right tire. Due to a warning that the tie-rod ends were in bad shape, I was expecting something would happen. I slid over to the side of the road (digging a deep tire mark and gathering some asphalt on my tire).

I discovered my tire at quite an angle, and found the driveshaft to be disconnected from the transmission. I called my Dad, and he headed over to take a look. I called the tow truck right after that. A cop showed up and asked me about what happened. He attempted to help me push the car over fully off the road, but it didn’t move, even when he used his car. So he decided to park behind me with his flashers so no one would hit me. My dad showed up and took a look, and determined that it probably wasn’t salvageable.

After a lot of waiting, the tow truck guy finally showed up. He drove me and my car back home. He said a lot of cars had had an axle problem that week. We dropped my car off in front of my house, where it stayed for over a month (until after I got my new car). Parking was a little difficult with it there.

The problem

I jacked it up and looked closely underneath it after several weeks. I finally determined what had happened. The frame had cracked where one of the arms connects that holds the wheel in place. The wheel twisted out a bit without its support, pulling the axle out of the transmission. The support could have been welded, but the frame was pretty rusted at that point, and a new frame piece almost would have been needed. The whole car was too rusted anyway, and I had been planning to get a new car after my issues in the winter. That car had a lot of issues in its time, though I suppose they weren’t so bad to deal with (the most difficult problems were probably the numerous busted brake lines).

Gone

She sold for $75 to a tow truck company, with extra door trim bits and haynes and chiltons guides included. She has been replaced by my new car.

A real hair cut

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After at least three years of letting my hair grow out, I’ve cut it. It was down to my shoulders, but now it’s probably three inches at its longest point, much shorter on the back and sides. I wanted it to be a little longer than it is, and will have to let it grow out to get where I want it.

I started by cutting it myself, and got it just about to where I wanted it in general appearance. Unfortunately it was a bit uneven. After much effort, my roommate convinced me to get it cut professionally the rest of the way. $13 for just the last bit of a haircut. Oh well, it certainly got cleaned up. The girl there quickly recognized it as a home cut, and did her best to preserve the look I was going for. Unfortunately, she cut a bit much off in the back and on the sides, especially around the ears.

It’s sometimes strange having the short hair, but sometimes I don’t even notice it. When I put on a hat or lean back in a chair, I often attempt to take into account my pony tail, but it’s not there. Unfortunately, without the pony tail, my bangs now frequently end up in my eyes. My hair is quite unruly and won’t stay combed back. It poofs up, especially at the top back, very easily. I’m going to need to find a solution for the eye issue, perhaps I’ll be forced to use some gel or something on occasion. At least my hair doesn’t get caught in things, blow in my face with the wind, or end up in my mouth when I’m eating.

My beard and my hair change

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I’ve done something I once vowed never to do: I shaved my beard. I had intended to keep my beard uncut for life. This was made all the easier by the fact that it never grew particularly long. I wanted to have the softness of a never cut beard and the low maintenance. My mustache has shown that the sometimes disputed notion about shaving making hair grow faster and thicker is true, at least for me, especially the faster part. I don’t want to need to shave my beard as well all the time.

But all of this has seemed to matter less and less along with so many other things as I age. It’s harder to care. I’ve been told by some, especially my roommate Dwight, that my unkempt appearance might contribute to my loneliness. Though I’ve been more kempt in the past with similar results, I feel the simple but always present change may help to bring about change elsewhere in my life.

I’ve also cut my hair (slightly) for the first time in years. Several years ago I gave myself a mohawk (a faux-hawk really). After that, I’ve let it grow out long. I never was able to have long hair as a child, and I wanted to try it out. I’ve liked it to some extent. I sometimes feel it looks fairly good that way, though other times I feel it looks too unkempt and poofy. It perhaps illustrates visually to some extent my internal state. Without it I am somewhat visually bland.

Of course, it can be a pain as well. It always gets stuck in things, such as my car window upon closing or between my back and my seat back. In the wind it never ceases to get in my eyes. And in spite of the lack of cutting as well as my infrequent combings, it requires more maintenance.

Anyway, I cut a few inches off to make it a little less unkempt looking and less likely to get caught in things. I did the ponytail cut, where I put my hair in a ponytail and then cut the end off. It has created a somewhat inverted curve shape, with the outsides longer than the middle. I’m not sure If I’ll try to straighten this or not: It works well for the ponytail, which is pretty much the only way I wear it.

Shyness & Love

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I’ve found somewhat of a renewed hope in my life, at a time when things were seeming especially dismal. By chance, while looking through books at the library after a class, I found a book that seems to, in its opening, describe my most pressing affliction to a T. The book, titled Shyness & Love, describes a group of males who go through their lives strongly desiring emotional and sexual contact but unable to attain even a small bit of it due to an oppressively powerful shyness. Not only do these males fail to garner the spouse and kids so commonly considered a wonderful part of life, but their lack of social skills affects them negatively in the workplace and in their entire life in general. Happiness seems unattainable to them, and by the time they reach middle age, they’ve lost virtually all hope and have become very pessimistic and angry in general.

This dismal road seems to be the one I walk down at the moment. I don’t like the prospects. This book gives me hope that I might be able to escape. That my most dire problem has both been studied and has possibly a sizable population (the author estimates a little over 1% of Usonians) sharing in it gives me promise and makes me feel so much less alone. I intend to read as much of it as I can in the next few weeks, even as my schoolwork has been taking a large portion of my time.

Unfortunately, descriptors of love shyness on wikipedia suggest that I show many more differences from the affliction than the intro of the book suggested. Unlike the men in the book, I didn’t have abusive parents, though perhaps emotionally distant, and I like Rock and Roll music. In addition, reviews on amazon suggest that the book has its problems, including some lack of credibility and, fairly importantly, a general lack of real, usable solutions. The book is out of print, and the author and others have not seemed to have expanded upon the concept since the book was written in 1987.

None-the-less, I hope the reading will help me understand myself and my problem better, making me better equipped to handle the problem. I feel more confident that useful information and help might be out there somewhere. I will make in effort to use my brain to escape my trouble, to get past the pain and anxiety provided by social situations so that I might enter into the world in which everyone else lives, finally. Happiness may be achievable.

hosts file to access local servers

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Ever since I had to change to a Speedstream router instead of my old 2wire (constant and still somewhat present connectivity difficulties), I had been unable to login in to my WordPress install locally. This was because the Speedstream redirected traffic calling the external URL or IP from inside to itself rather than forwarding the request to the server, and because WordPress requires a single fixed URL reference in its database that it automatically redirects to.

I worked hard trying to get the router itself to not do this, but instead the problem was fixable on my computer itself: the hosts file, as I found on this post. You simply edit the hosts file:
$ sudo vi /etc/hosts
and then place an entry like “accessURL externalURL” for another machine, ie:
tobysServer.local cosmicosmo.ath.cx
or modify a localhost line for a local machine (haven’t tried this yet):
127.0.0.1 localhost
becomes:
127.0.0.1 localhost cosmicosmo.ath.cx
Or possibly you could just do as for another machine and access by the LAN address rather than localhost (haven’t tried this either, just speculation).

This was very quick and easy to do and works like a charm. I haven’t seen what happens if my WAN network access goes down with this method: I imagine it would cause problems accessing any part of the site.

One problem I’ve already found with WordPress and this method is that many links don’t work because they contain the full URL. Examples include the Preview button and the all post links. You must copy the link and past it, replacing the hostname bit. But all the admin links work, at least the ones I’ve tried. Tag autocompletion doesn’t seem to be working either, but I’m not sure if that is a browser compatibility problem with this new 2.7 version or a plugin (simple tags) conflict.

Education done like work flex-time

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*** reasons
scheduling classs around work, home, and other parts of life can be very difficult
especially when a rigid schedule week after week is required and
required classes frequently have few available scheduling options
long, fixed terms mean students must plan in advance and be scheduled for months

*** possible implementation characteristics
* semesters
no more fixed semesters or similar fixed periods
students attend lectures, office hours, etc. whenever they want
each lecture, etc is offered at one of many pre-scheduled times
students can pick and choose which time they want to go
times and frequency chosen based on previous demand
student must attend a certain set of lectures, plus perhaps some from an optional collection
can take as long as they want to complete a course
take tests/evaluations/projects when they feel they are ready
tests given in a testing center where they can be taken any time
monitored, students from many classes take tests at once
much harder than current tests to give flexibility in determining competency
getting 50% of the questions right probably good target normal grade
one on one type evaluations scheduled with prof for most convenient time
at least as important as tests
profs spend time with student determining their capabilities
projects are like homework, but larger and with a more defined purpose
projects last a certain duration, must be finished by a due date
some longer and bigger, some short and small
groups projects will require students signing up, running once a quota is reached
competencies rather than grades
not fixed
students can keep going until they achieve desired/required level of competency
profs decide competency based on tests, projects, evaluations, time spent with in class and office-hours
many profs involved, whole department perhaps
no homework per se normally
in class, supervised work only most of the time
perhaps some courses will have some continuity between some lectures with coursework given between
required to be taken in a certain order
should be rare
projects will be the majority of work done outside of class
Office-hours/tutoring
Some students obtain and undertand information in certain classes very easily while other students need a lot of help.
Part of profs time will be spent in an office hours / tutoring like teaching methodology where students are encouraged to seek assistance from the profs
in a larger capacity setting than an office.
An entire class should be able to show up and be handled in this setting.
Possible student activities would be private study with occasional questions to prof or longer discussions with prof about certain points.

Presidential Advertising and Funding

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The advertisements on the TV and radio and the costs associated are crazy and huge, and one item that helps prevent smaller parties from entering the political game. The money for these adverts coming primarily from donations, these donations sources have become a large point of contention.

I suggest that we eliminate all advertising by campaigners in these traditional advertising mediums. All other forums of communications that are currently used would then be expanded in power. Speeches and appearances, campaigners, candidate websites, and the debates should all be given more power.

The debates in particular need to be improved to allow more even representation of competing candidates and their ideas. Each candidate should be timed during the debate for how much they’ve said. This includes words spoken during or interrupting others’ speech. At the end, during their final statements, the other candidates should be given the time to even out their total speaking time. And the presidential debates should always include at least one third party candidate, the most popular probably. This will bring in an additional voice to attempt to break up the polarization in the discussion between only two voices.

Both the costs of campaigning and the needs to receive all that money through donations must be reduced significantly. All that money could potentially be used for better purposes.

Other mediums should be better at providing information than the more stagnant campaign adverts on TV and radio.

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