Archery Purpose

My purpose in doing archery is to get a bit of exercise, occupy a bit of time, and perhaps a bit of social contact. Other people have different purposes. In the following table table are the common groups of purposes:

Purpose Groups	Types of Bows	Purpose
Hunter	Compound Traditional Crossbows	Skill development
Target	Compound Olympic style recurves Bare Bows	Competition, Skill development
Recreational	Compounds Recurves, from bare to Olympic style Traditional, -- some self built Bare Bows to scopes Crossbows Kyudo	Exercise,  skill development, Social,
Special Interest Groups	Anything, Horse bows Reenactors
Others	Member, Support of children, partners,	Coaching skill development Control of groups Family pressure to provide service

White on Black

How should the dictators' Centurions operate?

Any police force must use more force that their opposition to overcome. Dead is the most safe condition for any opposition. If anyone picks up any weapon or anything that can be used as a weapon, from a officer safety position, the best outcome is the opponent dead. If this is not supported, there will be no police force, on no active police force. Without this, no police force can operate. Corruption will be the rule.

The US is a black vs white nation now, and it is getting worse. You also have the Islam's my way or you are just an animal philosophy. The realty is that existence cannot depend on the observer. If it exists, it must appear very similar as described to all observers. That is the best evidence that all religion is just opinion and effort to standardize behavior. Be very careful if you try to do this, you may be wrong, and a government that is wrong soon will lose respect of the people, and will lead to society breakdown. This is the problem throughout the middle east, and with communism. The theory of communism is fine, but it forgets what people are, opportunistic greedy aggressive animals out to get what they can. Unless the political system allows our nature to run, we will struggle against the system.

Until it is acceptable to shoot anyone (except the centurions) on or in property on sight, there will be no privacy, no risk for trespass, and no fear of breaking and entering. Anyone resisting the Centurions are at risk of extermination. That is the way it must be. No one can legislate away that right and still expect the rule of law to work. Criminal rights have gone to far, and failure of the system will happen, unless correction in the direction is made soon. At the same time, there must be strict control on the Centurions. The first transgression, and they need to be demoted to unarmed tax collectors. 

Law enforcement can only work if we all want it and willing to cooperate with the law keepers and the centurions. We are all here to cooperate for justice, but not for citizen abuse. At the same time, the Centurions should stay out of the civil stuff, that should be a separate force of tax collectors. Essentially that is what they are being used for, and that is the start of the breakdown. The tax collectors will always be at odds with the population and never have public respect.

What should a citizen of the modern world to do?    

On traffic

A few months ago, in Ontario, a young driver was charged for stopping in on a busy road to help ducks. She did not put on her hazard lights. This has sent me the message that blocking traffic is not permitted if there is a choice. The other day I was driving south through the dinosaur controlled town of Beaumont, Alberta, just north of the dinosaur designed traffic choke. There had been a heavy snow, and the sidewalk clearing was less than ideal. An old fellow on his scooter, powered wheel chair, what ever you call those thing, had got his hung up on a bit of a man made snow pile across the sidewalk. I would have liked to stop and give him a push, but the informal no stopping policy make it not advisable. 

The police have developed a comply or we will kill you attitude. Not good. It is time for them to be curbed a bit I think.

Canadian Ferguson

With the going on in Ferguson, with the shooting of Brown and no indictment, we individuals must take a good look at the police and recognize what is going on. They are tyrants, similar to the Black and Tans, the thugs that terrorized Ireland in the early part of the last century. I recall a experiment called the Stanford Prison Experiment by the psychology department. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment  The "guards" became brutal. That is the thinking of today's police force in general, and of some of the officers of our own RCMP. Their "dirty tricks" has cost their reputation, to the point that they are feared, not respected.

The other day, one car with two officers sat blocking left turns and through traffic at a stop sign. Anyone who turned right without a full stop along side of the police car got a ticket. Never mind that they had been stopped for five minutes behind the police car, before deciding the only way to proceed was to turn right, even though they did not want to.  And then approach each car they stop with a hand on their gun. A bit nervous to be cops.As soon as they ticketed, they were back, sitting in the way. Creating a situation, with which the traffic must deal. Anyone who drove around them got chased and ticketed.For those who are old enough, Hazard County, may come to mind.

And then the speed gun cop hiding behind a island sign, and a sandwich board? Nisku. Or the dinosaur nest speed choke of Beaumont? It is the RCMP that gets the reputation, even if it is the dinosaurs of Beaumont that cause the issue.

Tyrants, yes. We know from Socrates work that tyrants exist, and there is no way for an individual to deal effectively with tyrants. Ferguson is an example of open rebellion, and the coming state of our world, unless the police change there ways. But it is not only the cops that need a mental upgrade. The citizens need to respect the police, but that will not happen until the police change their attitudes and processes. First, they need to separate the traffic and minor stuff from the heavy criminal offenses, and create two separate system police systems to deal. Then the serious crime can be deal with without the hassle of petty shit and traffic.  There are many police personalities that become the tyrants of the Stanford Prison Experiment, and when they do, they should be turfed out of the force. No pension, no transition pay, just terminated.

I was not, I was, I will not be, It matters not.

     

What's in the future?

What is in the future?

The short answer... I do not know.

Well what do you want to do?

Well nothing much, I have everything I need, and I am trying to let go of desires. Desires derive or arise in the primal part of the brain. These are modified or can arise in the unconscious as well. This is where they derive the strength from. Desire for the basics are primal. The drive for food, sex, security, survival, shelter, companionship, and more and more, greed, probably arose on before we became human and make us humans today.  

It is likely those that desired more, spent every waking hour figuring out how to get more, survived better. And now that we have excess, desire is the underlying characteristic of excess that is bringing down our population, obesity wise.  That is why I am trying to give up many desires.

The Amish recognized this problem and put a solution into practice. We have no community anymore, we have specific interest groups which form a part of society and provide our social needs. There solution will not work in a industrial population as we have today.

It needs to provide a solution in the here and now, based on reason and logic or science. Religions cannot provide this. Psychology seems to be a lost cause, they have not figured out how to deal with emotions yet. The only hope is philosophy, not modern philosophy but as the ancients practiced as a philosophy for life. They knew that desires were the root of the problem, as did Buddha, and the religions.

The solution that the ancients suggested was one of displacement. Just keep on doing something. Any thing that is not part of the problem. Just do it. Pick up a cause and work on it. The none food related parts of obesity, and yet these cannot be separated from the food part, for they work together, sort of.

ButwhatdoIknoweh?         

Moral Values in Engineering

from  http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/philosophy-stirred-not-shaken/201410/declaring-moral-bankruptcy

"Moral bankruptcy: the state a person reaches when he trades away or violates too many of his core moral values and commitments. He may also lose important relationships either as a cause or consequence of his loss of moral commitments. Someone who is morally bankrupt may or may not recognize that he has reached this state. 
As someone working in moral philosophy, I argue that our deepest moral values and commitments are a crucial part of our self-identity. When a person knows his nonnegotiable moral commitments and the values he holds most dearly, he knows himself in a very important way. He knows his limits and his boundaries. He knows his motivations as well as how he tends to act in situations that require a moral response. "

The forgoing quote is what I felt engineering had become, and then there was the prostitution element. By prostitution I meaning the selling of opinions which matched the clients needs, not necessarily my true opinion. This removed all my passion for the available work. It was time to change when I realized I was morally suffering. That is when I took the step to set up my own company, to be able to choose what I would do and what I would not.

Self-identity is a big issue, but so is making a few bucks. I did not take on any prostitution type clients, however there were a number that requested a geotechnical investigation and did not use the results.  Oh well, shit happens. Most stopped being clients. There were those to who took the report and did whatever, and never called again. It is and was important to do right, regardless of what the client wanted. Clients always want more than there site can deliver. It was cheaper than the adjoining land because it was a swamp that had topsoil fill on it. You bought it without a geotechnical investigation, now you need to live with the cost of development, or sell it and chalk this all up to the cost of education. Doing a less than adequate job of development will reduce the value of the project down the line. If you want a structure that will be good only short term, perhaps you should use someone with more life before retirement. I do not have time to recover before retirement if I get sued for unprofessional conduct.  But then, what is professional? Gambling is not professional engineering, but professional gambling.

We engineers geotechnical typically know what will work, but there is a space between that and what we know will not work. Developers like to keep there cost low, and like to work in the unknown area between these two, but most are gone in two years when the problems start. The problems are for the new owners, the original owners have moved on. There are numerous problem buildings around. Lots of problem yards, parking lots and roadways which have issues. Oh well, I am retired. Most are not my designs that have issues. A few are, but none of these followed my designs. We geotechnicals do not have control over the actual construction. The owners/developers can build as they like, and not follow the plans.  Oh well, shit happens.

Radicalism

Definition Radicalism: the opinions and behavior of people who favor extreme change especially in government.

What brought about this post? Well it is the death of one Canadian serviceman at the hand of an Islam idiot by vehicular homicide. He intentionally ran over the person.

Radicalism is an strongly held opinion, like most of us think it is our duty to get up in the morning and go to work. We are slaves to the dollar or to the things the dollar can buy more likely. We work so that we may live in comfort with heat, eat well, have medicine when we are less than feeling tiptop, and so that we can reproduce. We work to provide all those niceties that we have and would like to have.

Now if we decide to become minimalists, and to live that way, would we be radical? Most certainly, but benign, like the Amish. And if we continue to work each day, over a lifetime, possibly, economically comfortable. One would likely start growing some food, and take the time to meditate or do something. One would also likely stop watching TV, and videos, and think more about what we really need, not about our stimulated wants, and that restraint would destroy the economy, or change it in unthinkable ways. Real leisure time, which was talked about at the start of the computer development could be a reality, but not likely. We work so that we can have. Greed, man, Greed for power, for control, for grandeur.   It is that short path to greed for power, control, and for everlasting life that makes radicalization possible. Everlasting life is a myth, propitiated by Christianity and Islam. When we die, we become a corpse, another dead animal. The fact that we can think, have consciousness, is irrelevant to death.

If we are strongly driven by some ideology, regardless of that ideology, we could be termed a radical. We may, at times, radicalize ourselves. We change our views and go on a diet, loose a bunch or weight. We have become a radical, we hype ourselves up for a period of time to do this extreme effort, and we achieve, for a while. That is the radical state. It is much easier when there is a group, where we can all motivate off each other, the mob effect. We like to follow, to act as a small group, the social animal that we are. We feel good thinking that the group is right, the remainder of the world is out to lunch. We need to show the world the reality, to wake then from their dream like walking state. We are the awake, the remainder of the world is sleepwalking through life. Tear down the government by becoming a minimalist. Bring the economy to a halt. Do so by living in comfort but not excess. Join the Stoic community where self-control, temperance, courage, judgement are our cardinal virtues, where all members are serene and calm because we live by virtue.

So much for radicalization.

 

Protocol

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/10/12/texas-health-care-worker-ebola/17147449/

"At some point there was a breach in protocol," Frieden said. "That breach in protocol resulted in this infection."

This sounds about like the diet situation.  'We know our plan is right, and if it did not work, you did it wrong.'

There is much fixation on the belief that the protocol is right and adequate, yet there is a failure. Typical government bureaucrat.

It is like those who take responsibility for all successes, but all failures are someone else fault. The local county councilor comes to mine.

ISIL Canadian contingent

ISIL or ISIS needs to be stopped. Some of them are reported to be Canadian. These need to be stopped.

They were radicalized in Canada. How do I know? The Canadian ISIL's hopped on a plane and headed to the Middle East. OK so we pull their passport and try the survivors on return.

But they did not act alone. There are families, and others here, involved in radicalizing and raising little terrorists. Many more in numbers that the terrorists. What are we going to do about them?

The real problem is right here in Canada.

Golden Mean

Aristotle described the concept of the golden mean, as it translates. Basically it says that ever good characteristic has two opposites,and the ideal characteristic lies in the middle, hence mean value between the ends. Buddha said something similar as living the middle way.

We see the two opposites esteems in people like Howard Hughes and Mother Teresa. We see extremes in many people, and they are difficult to be around. The controller vs the uncaring. The honest and the corrupt. Having worked for both types, and some other weird characters, there is always concern for the future. There was the fellow who's business was struggling, and sold his leased cars to lease back company, and was paying two leases on the same cars. He stopped remitting payroll deductions, and medical plan deductions. He tried to pay the claims for a bit, but the economy caught up to him.

Then there was another fellow who would not repair nuclear density gauges and told us to guess at the moisture content of soils or the density. "We should know what it was anyway, close enough, but do not report anything stupid." Some of us went back to volume meters and stoves, where he realized it was cheaper to use that old equipment, and he bought up a bunch of cheep volume meters that were un-calibratible. That was the start of the fast decline of the working environment. 
 
In the linked article http://newstoa.info/article134.html they talk about dependence on others to the extreme. But there is another side, the self-sufficient to the point of failure. It causes much left undone, for I know enough to do it half-assed, but lack patience, skill, energy, motivation to do it well. It causes leads to excess self-sufficiency to the point of not needing other people much.  Such is the life of a know-it-all. Much more is of no interest to me, for I do not care. I remind myself of the classic definition of autism: difficulty communicating, socially awkward, and limited interests. So which came first?

So every true virtue is the golden mean between the two opposites, according to Aristotle. Here endeth the lessons.

ID a radical 101

We can say that ISIS or ISIL are a sick bunch of perverts dredging, and each of them is responsible for their own lives, and there radical religion (belief system) must be rotten to the core, or at least barbaric. The government should not let any of those sick F's back into Canada. And what about the families they came from, and those that trained them?

So how do we ID a radical?

Well we can say they have no respect for our customs, it's rules, and laws. They disregard our laws, including traffic. They have a different philosophy, but then so do I. They live their sick philosophy. Does that help? Not likely. 

ISIS ... Spot a radical.

How does one spot a radical? It takes one to know one. But not really.

A radical is someone who does not conform to the mob (culture) of origin belief system.

So what would someone growing up in a society that believes in and promotes the belief in a supernatural force know about realty? Would it not be better to inoculate the population against belief in a supernatural force and get on with life, a life with a common purpose, the betterment of all humans, not just advancement of your chosen group?

After you spot a non-believer, what are you going to do with him? Execution? Well that would be a bit extreme? Jail him for his beliefs? Retrain him? But what about philosophy? Totally radical, yet tending toward the truth... a better system that exists among the religions (belief systems based on supernatural or old book, tradition). Many of them believe, even live, the StarTreck Prime Directive - Do not interfere in other cultures, in conflicts. They can believe what ever shit turns their crank. But if they bother us, we will beat the shit out of them. Reworded for sure.    

And if you chose retrain him, retrain him to what? Take a person such as I are, (just for you english police). We know there are four stages of time: Past, present, future, and never-never. Which one are you thinking in and which are you living in? How high do you value human life - yours, and others lives? Is a belief system worth dieing over? Cato, Socrates, Seneca, Zeno and others said it was. Others learned to endure, and hold true to their knowledge system. When does a belief system become knowledge system; when the truth is known.

The obvious choice is to exclude or shun the proven radicals. Tag all those who head to conflict zones and transfer point to conflict zones. One way passage only out of the country. Exit visa required for everyone. Anyone who cannot prove there whereabouts during there absence cannot come back. This makes participation in foreign affairs without government approval a life sentence. This could be extended to the families, producing consequences on those who help raise radicals. Start a report the radical program? But how does one define a radical before they take action? Thoughts and beliefs are not enough and they can change.

Enough.

Geotechnical vs Structural

The dividing line between structural and geotechnical becomes blurred some of the time.

The structural engineers have come up with a closed form solution, that if they had a suitable "soil" value, slab on grade design would be totally numeric. This value they would like is termed a "modulus of subgrade reaction", and it was derived theoretically by creating a term for everything the structural engineers do not know about slab on grades. It is a abstract term, which is also a system dependent number.

Now it seems that they have done the same for screw piles, but even worse. They have used a typical test value result as a system parameter in cohesive soils. This will not be given by any geotechnical engineer in a report, for it is potentially dangerous if miss-used, and lowers geotechnical to technician work. In cohesionless soils, they are using typically assumed parameters for design, not measured values. They are going from measured values to classification, and estimating from those the closed form solution values. When this get into court, the screw pile guys should be held responsible.

It is time to hang my shingle in the garage, and retire. Put my sliderule on blocks. what would be the correct euphemism? Not put out to pasture, for that was what was done to old unwanted horses. They we not put in the pasture, where they would need to be feed all winter. They were put out by the cruel bastards, to starve, eat the neighbors hat, or become coyote food. Most of those who use the expression do not understand what it means.     

Solar Panel on roofs

Solar panels should be installed at fairly steep angles to be effective on roofs. In fact, in northern areas they may need to be sun tracking. 30degrees off perpendicular drops the out put to 70%. so all this increases roof snow load.

There is also an issue that these need to be cleaned frequently.

I saw one roof yesterday that hsd three rows of pannels, spaced and at raised angle. That will collect snow.

So now what is the snow load plus dead load? was 1 Kpa, but now perhaps 2.5 plus panels. Expect deflections, if not failures.

volumetric behavior of wet high plastic clay during and after freezing.

This is not a rigorous treatment of this subject, but rather an administrative overview.  

Volumetric behavior of wet high plastic clay during and after freezing is important to understand when building small surface structures which are partly supported on such conditions. When adjacent structures are attached and founded below the effect of freezing soils and moisture change, there will be differential movement that occur annually. In addition, if some of the clay is uncontrolled back fill and or fill, more variation is introduced.

There are two separate issues of volume change with freezing, phase change and secondly the development of ice lenses or frost heave.  The second requires freezing front, as "frost susceptible" soil, and a source of water. High plastic clay is not normally considered as frost susceptible soil since the hydraulic conductivity is quite low; however, if organics are present, all bets are off. 

For this mental exercise we need to consider the soil as a five phase system, rather than the normal three. Solid, liquid and void, as normal, but the water is also ice, liquid and water vapor. Water increases in volume about 9% in the phase change. Water vapor moves through the soil toward the freezing front; it is drawn by substantial thermodynamic forces; the vapor freezes at the freezing front, and shows up as ice crystals. The same happens in a frost susceptible soil, except it is liquid water that moves, and forms ice lenses. This thermodynamic force draws water into the soil, increasing the saturation. This suction has very little impact on the void ratio, at this stage.  Also, in most cases, water is found with depth.

Where saturation occurs before freezing, the water turns to ice, and increases in volume by 9 %. This does not happen abruptly but rather as a rapid change, as there is a temperature gradient, and super cooled liquid water due to water-soil adhesion. Very soon, as cooling continues, the water is fully frozen. The amount of expansion can be best understood by considering the void ratio (volume of voids/volume of soil solids) and the degree of saturation (approximately volume of water/volume of voids). All the physical state properties; density, moisture content, are directly linked to void ratio and degree of saturation. In the end, wet clay expands on freezing. If a soil was 50% voids, and fully saturated, the expansion would be 4.5 %. Where the ground is laterally restrained, the only it can go is up, therefore in this case the amount of uplift would be approximately 4.5% of the depth of frost penetration. The amount of expansion is dependent on the soil, moisture, and depth of freezing, which in turn, is dependent on ground cover, amount and duration of cold, wind, building heat loss, and other factors.

Buildings are designed to stay more or less stable, while everything on the ground outside will move seasonally with the frost. This includes grade supported slabs, steps, walkways. Building supported steps typically do not move as much. The design and construction of these units does not account for these movements, when combined with settlements.

Fill and loose materials settles. It is dependent on moisture, grain to grain stress and strength. When it is wet, saturated, the settlement is time dependent, and is termed consolidation, and is characterized with the expulsion of water, greater density, lower void ratio, lower moisture content, greater strength and the like. When it is less than saturated, it compacts with the expulsion of air. It tends to stay in lumps with voids between the lumps until it gets water and then settles quickly to some degree. It is never finished until it becomes saturated and consolidates. Now for the ugly part, consolidation has pressure dependent end point; it consolidates until the strength is equal to the imposed load. It will change end points when the pressure changes. It may also dry, which increases the strength and stop consolidation. The whole process is water supply dependent, which is not predictable. Consolidation it's self is time dependent, but not the supply or removal of water.

Now that we know what consolidation is about, during freezing, water is drawn in, and some expansion occurs. Each spring, after melting, drainage may occur, and the frost moved materials can consolidate back to a new state of equilibrium. One area is not necessarily the same as the next. Ramps may be high in the center, like the center swelled, another trick of high plastic clay, when it gets water. It may be that the edges were backfilled after the retaining walls were constructed, while the center was native or well compacted clay.

Supernatural God

The handle of god has been used for a long time and has many definitions. In many religions, it is a supernatural being, which cannot exist. To the Phoenicians it was the creator of the heavens, the natural process, that they did not understand. OK, now we understand a bit, but not all, but enough to say it is all natural.

The stoics said that we had a bit of divinity in us all; that was logic, reason consciousness. Logic was the stoic god, and for some also nature and the forces of nature. They did not understand forces yet, but they did understand the unseen pushes and pulls of nature. As Zeno put it "All is controlled by the pushes and pulls of nature". 

The Greeks carved chunks of stone to represent Gods, which stood for a specific group of natural forces, or behaviors. They gave a specific group of forces a name. Somebody had to, and one more to rule over them all.

Now we modern humans should know and accept that nothing supernatural can exist. You can have concepts and live as though those concepts were real physical objects, speak of them as such, but if you do, you are just fooling yourself into an illusion or delusion. You are a sick puppy. Go hug a statue. Do it in winter, naked, just to prove how tough you are.

Gods have been used long enough to explain what you, we do not understand. Enough already.

So how does AA function. After reading DiCemente on Change, AA provides 8 of the 10 processes of change in the final three stages. It does this unknowingly, without a plan, without order, without intention. The first two stages are not present in AA, happily drinking, and getting into a bit of bother. It is not until they need or want to change that they darken the door at an AA meeting. There God is irrelevant, well not quite, it forces and attitude that is necessary for recovery.

Control Freaks = Religion

There are two groups of people control freaks, one that want to control people, and the second who want to control people's thinking. The second group, those who want to control people's thinking are the most hideous of the two. Religions tell people what to think, these are the most hideous.

A good example of this is at   http://www.ncregister.com/blog/pat-archbold/the-loyal-opposition   ( I will not give this person a link, you need to cut and paste if you wish to see it) where this individual thinks gay is sin, so what is sin if not mind and behavior control. These "author long dead" rules do not fit into a modern "do unto others as you would they do unto you" world. Big deal, so some few percent of the population do not reproduce and seek physical sensory pleasure in places which I would not go. What business is that of mine? But this individual seeks to push his concepts of right and wrong on others?

The churches are another fine example of do as I say, not do as I do, but are they right in their values?
It is not for me to say, but for each person to make up his own mind.

Enough.

Religion = Control freaks

Are these two works synonymous; religion and control freak? Well not quite, but they have a lot in common.

Religion has, as an essential part of it a desire to control other people, to force them to "believe as I do". This is not right; it violates the do unto others as I would they do unto me concept. It is wrong to force belief of something on others. It violates human freedom, human equality, and will cause alienation once the concept slave recognizes the situation. It leads to shunning of ancestors, and separation of  families. This is really apparent when the religion is not rational, as most religions. There are a few that are logical, or partly so; Buddhism, Stoicism, Unitarianism - sort of. Stoicism is the most logical that I have encountered yet. Live in accordance with Nature as a place to start, and builds on that, one concept at a time, with reasoned beliefs, values, principals, leading to attitudes and behaviors. At any concept our personal judgement must be relied upon, and it is our choice, our life, and our beliefs that control our development, not some rules of a long dead control freak.

Mohammad was a general and he needed people who would follow into battle without question. He developed a belief system that developed such young war ready minds.  The Jews were of a similar bent. Now we have the middle east conflict, with two stone age religion control freak philosophies at the root and as the root cause of these peoples. They deserve each other. Christianity grew under these conflicts, and was the religion of women and slaves in a mixed group. The Stoics and other logic based belief systems developed in Greek and Roman culture during times of conflict, and became the foundation for secular ethical behavior of today.

In any group, today we know the numbers, over half of a standard deviation of psychopaths and sociopaths in society, many of them who have been very successful in business. It is the "do it, damn the feelings" attitude that allows success without feeling, without conscience, without concern for those they trample. We Canadians are a nation under the control of a bunch of  psychopaths and sociopaths. Most countries are. Oh well, shit happens.

The desire for power over people, the desire for control of the money, is the root of politics today. People without virtue, rigorous honesty, and reason run and ruin countries. It takes a sales job to get elected, first sell to the wealthy to get the money to campaign, then sell a conflicting story to the people to get elected. It is a conflict, cognitive dissonance, from the start. We do not even have a word for the desire for power, for control of people. The desire for money is greed, and some will say it is another form of greed, but it is control freakisum.

But what do I know, being a free thinker?

No Patience

I have no patience for fiddly farty crap. I recently realized that what little patience I did have has become much smaller. Age you say, perhaps, but it may be evolutions scanter in characteristics.  I was watching a young fellow make finger slings for recurve archers. It was like watching something in slow motion, but quite precise motion. I could not stand it.

This is why I could never be a good Olympic style archer. It is just so fiddly to go that next step and requires an body that does not shake. I act like I am in a hurry all the time, (adrenaline ?) that is either my nature or the way I was trained in my youth more likely.  I was always under pressure to do more. OH well, it is almost over anyway, being 2/3 to 3/4 or more of the natural cycle. All is left is the decline. That is the reality.

furture reading

http://www.quesnelriverarchers.com/historyofarchery.htm

What makes people so aggessive?

What makes people in traffic so aggressive? Bunch of maniacs. Bumper to bumper at 120 K on Nisku Road on Saturday. Why?

Are people so hyped up to get somewhere that they do not understand the risk. Prudent driving says 2 seconds between vehicles. Yes that limits traffic to 1800 v/hr, but safe. Speed limits and the 2 second rule are the dividing line between aggressive and defensive driving. Which are you?  

June 22/2014 Beleifs

Nobody has the right to force their beliefs on others.  (note that you fricking moors)  We may lay out our beliefs for others to pick up,   if they choose, but it is not human to force others to believe something that is not logical. Having said that, I must also recognize that in saying that, forms a violation of that very rule.

Spock said it. "It is not necessary that you believe as I do. " ...  "  but your are a fool if you do not believe in logic."

That is the trouble with most religions, they force non-rational beliefs on there members. Beliefs are powerful things. They protect us from bad behavior of ourselves, keep us from consuming poisons, and keep us fat. Yes, our beliefs can have negative impacts. Some beliefs need to be changed, cleaned from our memories, the habits they fostered removed, and the beliefs made logical or abandoned.

AA moves the choice of drink or not drink from willpower choice region of the brain to the belief section... the only logical decision possible is to not drink alcohol, therefore not a choice once you believe...

So if we recognize that wheat and sugar are not suitable for food, the choice is removed. End of story.  Well it should be.

June 21 for today

In our own power are choice and all actions dependent on choice. (Epictetus) Nothing else is within  our power.

We have the power of  assent to an idea, a proposition, a value, a belief. To be self directed, we must only assent to virtuous ideals, and practice stewardship of our bodies.

Des Tutu Ca Ca el toro

Desmond Tutu blasts oil sands in Fort McMurray; PC candidates respond

 

Des Tutu can put his opinions where the sun don't shine.

Road costruction

Road construction, engineered roads conducted for the development of lands typical procedure is as follows:

-A plan, layout of the proposed road and any other work is created, and a development permit is obtained along with requirements the county may have.
-The plan shows the road location, vertical existing elevations, proposed grades.
-A geotechnical investigation is conducted to determine what soils exist, and what work is required to design and build a road.
-The detailed design is completed, specifications created detailing construction requirements, quality of the work, and similar items.
-A contract is created, lump sum, hourly force account, whatever...

Road construction usually consists of:
-Clearing the land and borrow areas as required in the design.
-Stripping of topsoils
-placing of the fill in lifts, compacting. To produce quality roadways, this can not be conducted in winter.

Oilfield road construction has no concern for quality, It is just about moving dirt, and in the spring, pull equipment through if required. Any thing goes. (Two old boys, yup, yup, wes' gona build us a road.)



 

Ethanol

In my newer Honda CRV, I noticed a large difference between the mileage depending on where I bought fuel. 1 liter per 100 km difference. Turns out it is the difference between real gasoline and ethanol blend. The chemistry is right, the power is just not in ethanol. Ethanol fuel is costing me $1.15 more per 100 km. It also uses slightly less oxygen, and puts out co2 and more nitrogen combined produces as it burn hotter, but with less expansion. So much for economy, and the green movement, sustainability, and the government bull shit.

Freezing soil movements

As soil freezes, the moisture changes from water to ice, it expands by 9.08 percent. Water density goes from essentially 1.0 to 0.9167 gm/cc on the old metric system notation, gm/ml now. When a saturated soil freezes, the free water expands. The attached plastic water depends on the temperature drop whether it freezes or not. If we have a silty sand at 30 percent moisture saturated. Gs=2.65, 1 cubic metre is composed of 1476 kg solids, 443 kg of water. If the free water was 25% (25/30) of the total water 369 liters, that new volume after freezing is 402.7 liters, or expansion of 33.7 liters. Since the only way soil can expand is upwards, that is 0.0337 of the depth of freezing from phase change only.

As freezing is occurring, water is drawn to the freezing front by thermodynamic forces. This can produce ice lensing, in addition to phase change. The amount of heave can be considerable, 150 to 300 mm in a season is not uncommon, I have often seen 100 in addition to phase change. For these to happen, all you need is a frost susceptible soil, a lower source of water, and a freezing front. These often show up around water line leaks and frequently cause water line failures as these start to mellow in spring, driving the frost front down further.

When a trench is insulated and drained, through a wet sandy silt deposit, you are designing in a seasonal settlement over the trench, in addition to any line settlement.

How many people with ADHD does it take to change a lite bulb?
           Look, ... there goes a rabbit. 

Long term vs residual

Long term soil strength for slope analysis is akin to residual strength that we see with direct shear tests. Beyond a specific shear displacement, the shear strength drops to some residual value and remains at that level. This reduced level has a phi angle, as can be seen in the unit force vs unit perpendicular loading across the shear surface. Note that there is no such thing as shear strain, there is no distance to use for nominalization.

Slope failures start the rupture surface at the bottom toe, and the shear strength of the soil drops to residual once the displacement is adequate. The individual slices of simple shear analysis assumes that there is uniform distribution of the shear stress along the circle of analysis, which is oversimplification. The rupture surface starts at the toe, and later at the scarp, and proceed to where the dramatic happens. This may take years or days.

Flows, where excessively wet materials, loess, or liquafication occur, may happen seemingly instantly, with no warning. The hill is sitting there, and then it fails. Slopes and life around loess and liquifying soils is dangerous. As is life over carst formations, liquid mining (Fort Saskatchewan), and old coal mine workings. Ever geotechnical investigation should check these parameters.

All silts should be checked for loess condition. The first simple test is a "rolled down from natural moisture" plastic limit is conducted, and the results compared to a dried then plastic limit. Even a small difference is in question. Sensitivity is the second sign. Often in drilling, the material is observed as wet and soft, yet cone penetration shows a firm of hard condition. The data does not match, sensitivity is high, now what?          

Risk Bumpers

We engineers, from time to time, make a recommendation to do something, not to do something, to wait a period of time before building, or whatever.

Along come the owner, contractor, general engineer, and in the words of Dino, "you geotechnials are too conservative" and try to ignore our recommendations. I no longer care if you do not follow my recommendations. You may receiver a letter like this;

Our recommendations are not binding on you. If you wish to assume greater risk of movement, which is in fact the total risk, you may do so.

Engineered fill suffers from movement from a number of sources:
- time dependent elastic and plastic movements, compaction and consolidation of the underlying soils,
- stress changes and moisture changes in the engineered fill
- swelling or shrinkage brought about by changes in the water table changes due to a new moisture regime

If anyone thinks they can estimate these for the first year, which are the large portions of movements, just have at it and accept the risk.  Anyone who is risk adverse will wait the first year, which will account for something like 50% of the movements.

In summary, you can do as you like, but all movements are your problem.

Service, Robert

But I reflect - what does it matter?
On the brain of scholar, sot and swine;
(on his replete and arid mine)
with equal zest the worm doth dine.

Seneca

We are born unequal, we die equal. 

.... (but don't let the modern human rights activists or modern culture and government in on that fact)

We are all returned, the question is, in which order?

(Demetrius quoted by Seneca) The utterances of the unenlightened are as noises emanating from the belly. It does not mater whether they come from above or lower.

Seneca

Life we receive is not short but we make it so. We are not ill provided but use what we have wastefully.

Enough

Just add a few wolves

Video Of The Day http://biggeekdad.com/2014/02/yellowstone-wolves/

Multi-Chem / Halliburton

Wednesday evening, we were at the public information meeting for  Multi-Chem / Halliburton - Nisku Blend Facility.

After thinking about the presentation, the attitude of Multi-Chem / Halliburton is similar to that of Monsanto. Your life quality is not my concern. Anything that leaves our plant will meet Environment regulations. We will generally meet that, and anything less that that is not our concern. You adjacent land owners are just not our concern.

Much of the regulations can be meet by blowing more air through the monitor. Dilution with clean air. All else is not Multi-Chem / Halliburton concern.

There attitude seems to be "we have complied with the regulations, it is not our concern. " or "If anything go's wrong, whatever fault was committed is not our concern, we are not responsible" This may clear their legal responsible, but what about moral responsibility?   

Putting a chemical plant within a populated area is just not moral, even if it is legal. 

More mis picks

 Blue eyed grass

 butterfly on thistle, Brasseau dam

 Frosty Mountain Ash

Wood Pecker. The big pecker wood kept moving, and would not hold his head still.

 Flower,

 One of the lily family, wild, high country of BC.

 Crab apple, from front driveway, flowers last about 1 day.

N. Saskatchewan, at Devon. Forty years ago, I harvested Gold eye trout from this very spot, and fried they just to the left of here. Onions, butter, cast iron pan, over wood fire. The concrete bridge was not there then, only that old truss thing, one step up from a Bailey. 

Misc Pics

 Lupines Near Wells Gray PP, BC

 Helmcken Falls, Wells Gray

 Crocus, Nisku Pirarie, just over my back fence

 Balies Chute, Wells Gray

Tributary to Athabasca River near Athabasca, Ab

 Peace River at the Confluence of the Smokey River

Fairy across Peace River On Shaftsbury Trail SH740

Assorted Pics

Small belled Pile sign post. This is the positive of the space left by a belling tool in high plastic clay.

This pic needs a turkey vulture in the tree. Rocky Mountian House, N Sask. valley, storm coming.

House cleaning is never done.

Rebar from 1906-1907, and other junk of demo.

In my back yard summer 2012

and 2013