Friday, December 7, 2012
Does intelligence end with us?
Deep thoughts...
At the lower levels of biological composition, you have molecules making up the parts of a cell (mitochondria, endoplasmic reticulum, ribosomes, nucleus) which serve particular functions of the whole cell, all parts work together to help the survival of the cell. At the cellular level you see some behaviors that are *almost* intelligent. Like you can watch a paramecium use its cilia to go after food sources. They seem intelligent despite not having a brain. We would say these behaviors are by evolution, that any cells that didn't do that behavior "died" so therefore the behavior was selected.
Now, you group cells together to create organs, and the organs serve the same kind of purpose that the individual cellular parts serve. That is, the organs help the larger composition (in this case the body) to survive, and the survival of the body is beneficial to the organs and down to the cells, all of which accomplishes the processing of energy by the molecules of the cells (and you can probably take it down even further than that). Each level gets increasingly more complex. At the level of a biological organism it is complex enough that not only can it consume other biological organisms, but in some cases can even make a digital watch (a shout out to Douglas Adams :) )
What's the next level of organization? I see a few candidates. One would be that we work together to form a company, companies to form an industry, industries to form an economy, all of which sustains the individuals. Another I see would be that we work together to form a family, families to form a neighborhood, neighborhoods to form cities, and so on.
Generally speaking, (jokes aside about government intelligence or management intelligence) we see that the working together is more beneficial to all of us than working alone. We accomplish more, all for the processing of more energy and the survival of us as a whole. This is a pattern that holds throughout all of the levels.
But, I see a break in the pattern. And that break is in the self awareness. Self preservation of each group would be an automatic given. Obviously the survival of the fittest decisions play into here. The better a company is able to adapt to environment and threats to its existence, the longer it survives. Ditto with nations.
But where would we look to find a larger conscious level of thought in that whole process, one that would be self aware? Do you see any living behaviors of the economy, of the countries, of this forum, anything that suggests that there is some kind of self awareness as a pattern of the overall thought process for any group? Can we recognize that self awareness of the larger group given that our cells individually do not recognize the self awareness of us? Does it take even more extraordinary intelligence than what we possess in order to recognize a higher intelligence than us?
Friday, April 13, 2012
President Obama's tax rate
Announced today, the president's tax rate is 20.5%, which he goes on to say that he should pay more tax. He claimed income tax deductions for charitable contributions, more than 20%.
I applaud the President for donating so much income to charity.
Mr President, if you want to pay a higher tax rate, use the standard deduction instead of itemizing. You would have had to pay around $250,000 worth of tax on you $750,000 earning instead, getting you a nice 33% tax rate, or roughly the tax rate you paid in prior years.
Same with Buffett. If these guys want to pay extra to the government because they consider their earnings to be...what...ill-gotten? Not deserved? Maybe they just want to feel like they are good people by paying a 33% tax rate instead. Nobody is stopping them from paying what they consider their fair share.
I applaud the President for donating so much income to charity.
Mr President, if you want to pay a higher tax rate, use the standard deduction instead of itemizing. You would have had to pay around $250,000 worth of tax on you $750,000 earning instead, getting you a nice 33% tax rate, or roughly the tax rate you paid in prior years.
Same with Buffett. If these guys want to pay extra to the government because they consider their earnings to be...what...ill-gotten? Not deserved? Maybe they just want to feel like they are good people by paying a 33% tax rate instead. Nobody is stopping them from paying what they consider their fair share.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Garage Door / Liftmaster (Chamberlain) fix
I had a problem with my garage door opener. I would push the button and I would hear it spin, but nothing would happen. I unplugged it and took off the cover and much to my dismay I saw a bunch of shredded plastic gear.
So I'm documenting the problems I ran into and the solutions I used so others may benefit (which is not my blogs purpose at all, but since I didn't find some of this information on the web, I figured I should document it).
Ok, I found it was much easier to work with everything by taking off the entire bottom portion of the garage door opener. This was the part I needed to order: http://www.amazon.com/Chamberlain-LiftMaster-Craftsman-41C4220A-Sprocket/dp/B00023RTD6 I actually thought I only needed just the plastic gear and attempted to remove it before I found out you had to have a special tool to remove the pins to slide off the gear. And I'm glad I did end up buying this kit, because on closer inspection the worm gear also needed to be replaced. I ended up using all of the parts, minus two parts that were for slightly different openers. There's plenty of sites that discuss that replacement process already. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1347192/lifter/liftmaster_repair.html was the one I found. I didn't want to take the opener that far apart, and ultimately did not but got pretty close. It ends up being easier than you think, so just do it. I left the motor in place, as well as the front side where the light is. But the other parts come off easy, so just remove them and two screws on the bottom front to completely detach it.
I would probably have avoided a lot of pain by following those instructions on the other websites closely. But after wedging off the bushing, replacing the worm gear, tapping on the new bushing, putting everything back together I followed the last part of the instructions in the manual you get with the kit that said to have the door closed. Well, that was a big mistake.
Its better to remove the pin from the trolley and have it completely separated from the garage door. And another thing is that you should check and install the safety bolts in the rail if they aren't there already. My home builder apparently decided those weren't critical. So while I was playing around with it trying to get it working, I nearly broke the T rail. I was very fortunate there wasn't a big accident, but I ended up having to remount the T rail as it literally stripped the bolts out of the board it was mounted to. Fortunately, my home builder ALSO didn't put all the bolts in when bolting it to the wall, so I had a few other holes I could use to remount the T rail.
Anyway, onto the other problem I ran into. I would click to open the garage door, it would send the trolley down about 5 inches, bring it back up 5 inches, and stop for no apparently reason. There was a little green led light in the back of the unit that flashed 5 times. Doing searches, I found other people who had run into this and no solutions. Suggestions were that the RPM unit needed replacing. I found that hard to believe, and on the FixYa site it was even mentioned by one of the people that after replacing it twice it still didn't work. The manual I found online also indicated that it could be a faulty RPM sensor or a bad logic board.
Well, the problem was actually caused by the way I had reassembled the parts on the main motor shaft. When you slide on the bushing and all of the other pieces, push them down tight. It shouldn't move back and forth much more than maybe 1/16". The little black cap on the end passes through the RPM sensor. http://www.amazon.com/Liftmaster-41C4398A-RPM-Sensor-Assembly/dp/B000JGLXDI take a close look at it. On the circuit part that it passes through there is a little eye and corresponding light on the opposite side. If the cap isn't on far enough, the sensor will not see the cap and therefore will not think that there is any rotation happening at all. That's what was causing it for me.
Also, take a close look at the bottom where there's three plastic screws (limiter adjustments). The middle one slides back and forth as the motor moves the trolley. When the metal contact on the left or right side of it makes contact with the metal contact on one of the two other plastic screws, then it will stop moving. I had moved these out of the way of the middle part that slides to make sure that they weren't causing the problem. When they are in the way, it will actually stop the unit from going further in that direction -- they do not cause it to reverse.
What I did was moved the slider in the middle screw to the middle of it. I adjusted the other two so that it didn't have far that it could travel before coming into contact with them. Then I carefully plugged in the unit and avoided touching any of the electronics and capacitors and watched what happened as I ran the garage door opener. I saw the way the limiter worked and that made it much easier to understand how I needed to adjust it.
Anyway, if you're reading this, you probably have run into the same situation, so good luck.
So I'm documenting the problems I ran into and the solutions I used so others may benefit (which is not my blogs purpose at all, but since I didn't find some of this information on the web, I figured I should document it).
Ok, I found it was much easier to work with everything by taking off the entire bottom portion of the garage door opener. This was the part I needed to order: http://www.amazon.com/Chamberlain-LiftMaster-Craftsman-41C4220A-Sprocket/dp/B00023RTD6 I actually thought I only needed just the plastic gear and attempted to remove it before I found out you had to have a special tool to remove the pins to slide off the gear. And I'm glad I did end up buying this kit, because on closer inspection the worm gear also needed to be replaced. I ended up using all of the parts, minus two parts that were for slightly different openers. There's plenty of sites that discuss that replacement process already. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1347192/lifter/liftmaster_repair.html was the one I found. I didn't want to take the opener that far apart, and ultimately did not but got pretty close. It ends up being easier than you think, so just do it. I left the motor in place, as well as the front side where the light is. But the other parts come off easy, so just remove them and two screws on the bottom front to completely detach it.
I would probably have avoided a lot of pain by following those instructions on the other websites closely. But after wedging off the bushing, replacing the worm gear, tapping on the new bushing, putting everything back together I followed the last part of the instructions in the manual you get with the kit that said to have the door closed. Well, that was a big mistake.
Its better to remove the pin from the trolley and have it completely separated from the garage door. And another thing is that you should check and install the safety bolts in the rail if they aren't there already. My home builder apparently decided those weren't critical. So while I was playing around with it trying to get it working, I nearly broke the T rail. I was very fortunate there wasn't a big accident, but I ended up having to remount the T rail as it literally stripped the bolts out of the board it was mounted to. Fortunately, my home builder ALSO didn't put all the bolts in when bolting it to the wall, so I had a few other holes I could use to remount the T rail.
Anyway, onto the other problem I ran into. I would click to open the garage door, it would send the trolley down about 5 inches, bring it back up 5 inches, and stop for no apparently reason. There was a little green led light in the back of the unit that flashed 5 times. Doing searches, I found other people who had run into this and no solutions. Suggestions were that the RPM unit needed replacing. I found that hard to believe, and on the FixYa site it was even mentioned by one of the people that after replacing it twice it still didn't work. The manual I found online also indicated that it could be a faulty RPM sensor or a bad logic board.
Well, the problem was actually caused by the way I had reassembled the parts on the main motor shaft. When you slide on the bushing and all of the other pieces, push them down tight. It shouldn't move back and forth much more than maybe 1/16". The little black cap on the end passes through the RPM sensor. http://www.amazon.com/Liftmaster-41C4398A-RPM-Sensor-Assembly/dp/B000JGLXDI take a close look at it. On the circuit part that it passes through there is a little eye and corresponding light on the opposite side. If the cap isn't on far enough, the sensor will not see the cap and therefore will not think that there is any rotation happening at all. That's what was causing it for me.
Also, take a close look at the bottom where there's three plastic screws (limiter adjustments). The middle one slides back and forth as the motor moves the trolley. When the metal contact on the left or right side of it makes contact with the metal contact on one of the two other plastic screws, then it will stop moving. I had moved these out of the way of the middle part that slides to make sure that they weren't causing the problem. When they are in the way, it will actually stop the unit from going further in that direction -- they do not cause it to reverse.
What I did was moved the slider in the middle screw to the middle of it. I adjusted the other two so that it didn't have far that it could travel before coming into contact with them. Then I carefully plugged in the unit and avoided touching any of the electronics and capacitors and watched what happened as I ran the garage door opener. I saw the way the limiter worked and that made it much easier to understand how I needed to adjust it.
Anyway, if you're reading this, you probably have run into the same situation, so good luck.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Govt corruption
Haven't published any posts lately. I've written many, but more and more of them are ending up like this one. So I thought I'd post it anyway.
We need to make our elected officials more responsible to the PEOPLE they represent. This will not happen as long as money buys influence in government. I think this is a common message that both the OWS and TEA could unite on. Both believe government is corrupt. There is a difference in belief as to where the blame lies, but both believe that we have a problem with the officials not representing We The People anymore.
My Proposal:
We need an amendment to the constitution that limits the amount of money an elected official can spend to get elected. The amount would be limited based upon the number of people that elected representative would represent.
So let's say that limit is set at $2 per person. Candidates vying for President would be allowed to raise as much as $2 * 300,000,000 people so a maximum of $600M could be raised and spent on the campaign for that person to get their message out to the people. Congressional representatives would be able to spend $2 * 900,000 = $1.8M. These are just examples.
It's a fair sum. It certainly isn't the amount being raised in Presidential races nowadays. But it will cause the candidate to Budget and Spend Wisely, two qualities I think we really want our elected leaders to have.
The biggest problem is that anybody can go out and spend money to promote a candidate. That's a huge issue. If you say people can't do that, then you are violating their first amendment rights. It doesn't matter whether that person is in the 99% or the 1%. Everybody has that right to express their support and try to get others to agree with them. So how do you account for the money behind that? You can't. And that's where the problem comes from.
If I write a letter to my local newspaper expressing support for a politician, then why couldn't some corporation buy a full page advertisement doing the same thing? You could try to limit it from TV and Media print, but what about the web, and blogs, and forums, and tweets, and facebook pages and so on! You simply cannot prohibit people and/or corporations from getting the word out.
And that's where my idea lies dead in the water. I don't know how to close that loophole, or at least prevent it from being abused as a secret form of donating to somebody's campaign. I don't have a solution to tackle that part of the problem yet.
We need to make our elected officials more responsible to the PEOPLE they represent. This will not happen as long as money buys influence in government. I think this is a common message that both the OWS and TEA could unite on. Both believe government is corrupt. There is a difference in belief as to where the blame lies, but both believe that we have a problem with the officials not representing We The People anymore.
My Proposal:
We need an amendment to the constitution that limits the amount of money an elected official can spend to get elected. The amount would be limited based upon the number of people that elected representative would represent.
So let's say that limit is set at $2 per person. Candidates vying for President would be allowed to raise as much as $2 * 300,000,000 people so a maximum of $600M could be raised and spent on the campaign for that person to get their message out to the people. Congressional representatives would be able to spend $2 * 900,000 = $1.8M. These are just examples.
It's a fair sum. It certainly isn't the amount being raised in Presidential races nowadays. But it will cause the candidate to Budget and Spend Wisely, two qualities I think we really want our elected leaders to have.
The biggest problem is that anybody can go out and spend money to promote a candidate. That's a huge issue. If you say people can't do that, then you are violating their first amendment rights. It doesn't matter whether that person is in the 99% or the 1%. Everybody has that right to express their support and try to get others to agree with them. So how do you account for the money behind that? You can't. And that's where the problem comes from.
If I write a letter to my local newspaper expressing support for a politician, then why couldn't some corporation buy a full page advertisement doing the same thing? You could try to limit it from TV and Media print, but what about the web, and blogs, and forums, and tweets, and facebook pages and so on! You simply cannot prohibit people and/or corporations from getting the word out.
And that's where my idea lies dead in the water. I don't know how to close that loophole, or at least prevent it from being abused as a secret form of donating to somebody's campaign. I don't have a solution to tackle that part of the problem yet.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Netflix again
Everybody pissed at netflix.
Ok, exec made a stupid comment. I think he must have been talking about his lattes, cause I sure don't drink them. And I'm sure he'll be getting less lattes with the number of people leaving the subscription service -- at least they are saying they are leaving it. Don't know how many I believe really are.
A while ago I did the math. I was on the 3 DVDs out at a time plan. Timed it so that we received a new DVD each day, sending back one each day and one in transit. It came to about 24 DVDs a month (don't get them on Sundays or Holidays).
24 * .44 (postage one way) = 10.56. And then they pay the return postage, which is another 10.56. And yes, it is first class postage each way (USPS was complaining about the added cost of processing the Netflix mailers and Netflix's response was that they were paying for first class postage). So 21.12 just in postage alone, and I was only paying $21 a month to Netflix. And then I get all the streaming....streaming I never asked for in the first place, they just started offering one day automatically with my plan. So that was basically a free add-on, which my kids have enjoyed immensely (no less then 3 to 4 movies/shows a day streamed during the summer).
I had been paying for 4 to 6 DVD rentals a week at blockbusters every other week (4 kids, 2 adults, everybody has to have their own), and that was coming to $40 / mo in DVD entertainment...way more than $24, the new cost of streaming + 3 DVDs out at a time. And for that $40, I got half the number of DVDs and NO streaming other than youtube.
Still seems like a deal to me.
I'm on streaming only for a small period of time, see if it meets the demand well enough. I was happy to see some stuff on streaming I'd been waiting for (such as Star Trek) and if we want to see something new, there's always blockbuster...or redbox. Not that I've been all that impressed with hollywood offerings for a while now.
I laugh at the complaints of the streaming movies getting bogged down and going slow and what not making the streaming not worth it. It isn't Netflix's fault. My connection is great. It is the ISP. When we were on comcast, 2 at a time were not a problem. Now we have to share nicely because our DSL is much slower. But for those using wireless -- yeah, your ISP throttles you big time, it ain't netflix doing it! LOL
Ok, exec made a stupid comment. I think he must have been talking about his lattes, cause I sure don't drink them. And I'm sure he'll be getting less lattes with the number of people leaving the subscription service -- at least they are saying they are leaving it. Don't know how many I believe really are.
A while ago I did the math. I was on the 3 DVDs out at a time plan. Timed it so that we received a new DVD each day, sending back one each day and one in transit. It came to about 24 DVDs a month (don't get them on Sundays or Holidays).
24 * .44 (postage one way) = 10.56. And then they pay the return postage, which is another 10.56. And yes, it is first class postage each way (USPS was complaining about the added cost of processing the Netflix mailers and Netflix's response was that they were paying for first class postage). So 21.12 just in postage alone, and I was only paying $21 a month to Netflix. And then I get all the streaming....streaming I never asked for in the first place, they just started offering one day automatically with my plan. So that was basically a free add-on, which my kids have enjoyed immensely (no less then 3 to 4 movies/shows a day streamed during the summer).
I had been paying for 4 to 6 DVD rentals a week at blockbusters every other week (4 kids, 2 adults, everybody has to have their own), and that was coming to $40 / mo in DVD entertainment...way more than $24, the new cost of streaming + 3 DVDs out at a time. And for that $40, I got half the number of DVDs and NO streaming other than youtube.
Still seems like a deal to me.
I'm on streaming only for a small period of time, see if it meets the demand well enough. I was happy to see some stuff on streaming I'd been waiting for (such as Star Trek) and if we want to see something new, there's always blockbuster...or redbox. Not that I've been all that impressed with hollywood offerings for a while now.
I laugh at the complaints of the streaming movies getting bogged down and going slow and what not making the streaming not worth it. It isn't Netflix's fault. My connection is great. It is the ISP. When we were on comcast, 2 at a time were not a problem. Now we have to share nicely because our DSL is much slower. But for those using wireless -- yeah, your ISP throttles you big time, it ain't netflix doing it! LOL
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Internet provider games
My broadband providers have been...interesting. My first attempt was to use Qwest. I got it all signed up, but cancelled after I found out that they were going to charge me extra for the DSL modem rental, unless I purchased one, which would also be extra. So looking at my options, I figured out that it was less expensive to go with Earthlink for one year. They'd give me the DSL modem, and a year at a discounted rate for the first 3 months and a bumped up rate thereafter ended up being cheaper than paying qwest for the same service at a lower price but then tacking on the modem. I figured I could then switch to Qwest after a year, when it became cheaper to be with qwest and have no modem rental fee.
After 1 year, comcast ended up having the best deal available. So I switched over to Comcast. Again, figuring that after a year I'd switch back to Qwest when the Comcast deal ran out. After a year, the Comcast deal ran out, but they gave me an even better offer. So I stayed another year. And this happened a third time. Each time when I called to cancel my service with Comcast, they then gave me a good or better deal to keep me on. Well, this year that ended. No matter who I talked to, they were just unwilling to give me a good deal. That's their game. They try to work you into their regular, really bad deals when the good deals expire. They gave me two deals. 1) Pay $18 more for the next 6 months to get the same level of service I have been getting, at which point then it bumps up another $8 for the remaining 6 months of the contract. 2) Pay only $8 more for substantially lower service than I currently get (much slower line). I just could not get them to realize that having $0 from me is considerably less than keeping me at my current rate, which isn't exactly cheap to begin with. But I'm not going to pay $46 for a 1.5 MB line. Just no way.
So I checked out the wireless providers in my area. Nobody had anything better than 1.5 MB and all of them were loaded with complaints on the forums. Obviously wireless isn't going to work for me. Kudos to Clear for admitting to me up front that I would probably not be happy with their service because I was right on the border of their "best" vs. "good" reception. At least they were honest about it. The other thing that bothered me was the huge upfront costs for the equipment and/or installation and/or activation.
So I went to qwest, figuring I'd sign up for DSL. Only, now they were telling me that I don't have DSL in my area. Odd, since they used to provide it. So I went to earthlink and ... presto, I have DSL again for average of about $33 a month until next year...in my area...provided by qwest. I don't get how Qwest can tell me that I don't have DSL service but then send me a welcome packet and provide it. They still don't think I have DSL in my area, even though my account clearly shows that I have it through them. Don't know what their game is. Maybe they are still upset at me for cancelling the day I signed up, several years ago.
After 1 year, comcast ended up having the best deal available. So I switched over to Comcast. Again, figuring that after a year I'd switch back to Qwest when the Comcast deal ran out. After a year, the Comcast deal ran out, but they gave me an even better offer. So I stayed another year. And this happened a third time. Each time when I called to cancel my service with Comcast, they then gave me a good or better deal to keep me on. Well, this year that ended. No matter who I talked to, they were just unwilling to give me a good deal. That's their game. They try to work you into their regular, really bad deals when the good deals expire. They gave me two deals. 1) Pay $18 more for the next 6 months to get the same level of service I have been getting, at which point then it bumps up another $8 for the remaining 6 months of the contract. 2) Pay only $8 more for substantially lower service than I currently get (much slower line). I just could not get them to realize that having $0 from me is considerably less than keeping me at my current rate, which isn't exactly cheap to begin with. But I'm not going to pay $46 for a 1.5 MB line. Just no way.
So I checked out the wireless providers in my area. Nobody had anything better than 1.5 MB and all of them were loaded with complaints on the forums. Obviously wireless isn't going to work for me. Kudos to Clear for admitting to me up front that I would probably not be happy with their service because I was right on the border of their "best" vs. "good" reception. At least they were honest about it. The other thing that bothered me was the huge upfront costs for the equipment and/or installation and/or activation.
So I went to qwest, figuring I'd sign up for DSL. Only, now they were telling me that I don't have DSL in my area. Odd, since they used to provide it. So I went to earthlink and ... presto, I have DSL again for average of about $33 a month until next year...in my area...provided by qwest. I don't get how Qwest can tell me that I don't have DSL service but then send me a welcome packet and provide it. They still don't think I have DSL in my area, even though my account clearly shows that I have it through them. Don't know what their game is. Maybe they are still upset at me for cancelling the day I signed up, several years ago.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Explanation of the dead birds
Surely you've seen this, birds dropping out of the sky in Louisiana, Arkansas, Italy, and Kentucky. Now the move is on to link stories. Tampa recently had to change the signage of their airport due to the magnetic poles, which have been constantly shifting for a while.
mysterious bird deaths
My wife suggested that it was due to pollution. I think the some people are forgetting a very basic fact about these mysterious deaths: Caused by BLUNT FORCE TRAUMA. Do the moving magnetic poles prevent the birds from seeing things and therefore they run into them? Anyway, it's my turn to link stories.
Nobody thought this was about China!
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-china-military-20110107,0,3324067.story
So, that's it. China has been secretly flying over the US and Italy undetected and the poor birds just can't see those stealth planes and fly right into them!
LOL, ok, I'm being facetious. Obviously the birds are not blind, yet why would my explanation be any less convincing than "the magnetic poles are moving" which they've done for as long as we've had them.
mysterious bird deaths
My wife suggested that it was due to pollution. I think the some people are forgetting a very basic fact about these mysterious deaths: Caused by BLUNT FORCE TRAUMA. Do the moving magnetic poles prevent the birds from seeing things and therefore they run into them? Anyway, it's my turn to link stories.
Nobody thought this was about China!
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-china-military-20110107,0,3324067.story
So, that's it. China has been secretly flying over the US and Italy undetected and the poor birds just can't see those stealth planes and fly right into them!
LOL, ok, I'm being facetious. Obviously the birds are not blind, yet why would my explanation be any less convincing than "the magnetic poles are moving" which they've done for as long as we've had them.
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