I recently came across a good article about using BioDiesel fuel in a Golf TDI (coincidentally the car I have :). Apparently the only issue on the block going from full petroleum to B20 (20% biodiesel) is that the biodiesel will act as a cleanser, cleaning out some of the gunk in your engine. The article includes a simple link on how to change out the filter in your fuel line (which apparently should be done after a tank or two, lest it clog up).
I admit I’m intrigued to try it, hearing now it’s not a ‘conversion’ – folks seem to be switching back and forth with no need to do mechanical changes to the car. Many people say “I use BioDiesel whenever I can, but if there’s no station nearby, i can use normal petroleum diesel.”
100% Vegetable oil conversions are possible, though there are questioins about glycerin buildup. Some folks at Greasecar.com have a system where you have a second ‘vegetable oil’ tank in the car with a pre-heat system, and you can switch from the normal petroleum tank to the veggie oil tank on the fly. Neat.
Really, the next step is to find a BioDiesel station in Boston. I’m not ready to knock on the door of McDonalds and ask for a fillup.
(Special nod to the BioDiesel Blog for the original link)
Author: Dave Shevett
A wandering geek. Toys, shiny things, pursuits and distractions.
Life in the world of blogspam
In the blog world, it’s not surprising that Blog spam has become an ever increasing problem. People post links into comments on blogs, and if they stay put, they can help up the sites ranking in Google. Annoying as all git out.
Fortunately, we have tools like Jay Allen’s MT Blacklist to help us poor bloggers keep the blogs clean.
Unfortunately, MT Blacklist doesn’t have a lot of good reporting or analysis tools, so like a good doobie, I whipped one up. The short version is in the last 5 days, we’ve blocked several hundred attempted spams, and as we populate the database, more will not get past the filters. It’s email all over again.
Quote of the Day
A computer without Microsoft is like a chocolate cake without mustard
Seen on GeekoftheDay.com.
Announcing the Mosaic Commons Blog
We’ve started a blog telling the story about the building of our Cohousing Community. Our goal is to let folks follow along as we plan, organize, and finally build our new home. Today was particularly exciting as we’ve just hit a major milestone.
Check out blog.mosaic-commons.org for more details.
Oh, and for the Livejournal folks, there is a syndicated feed available.
Try out Linux on your windows machine
Want to see a Linux desktop and play with it for a while, but don’t feel like burning your own CD or downloading big messy apps? Open Source Region Stuttgart has a mechanism for starting a Linux desktop on your Windows machine just by clicking on a link. It doesn’t actually start Linux on your machine – it opens a window to a ‘virtual’ Linux desktop running remotely. On my Windows XP machine, it was zippy and useable.
Check out the article on NewsForge
Close but no banana.
It’s pretty common, on very large ‘index sites’, to do a google ad associated with whatever search term / information you’re looking for. The idea is “If they came here looking for this, they must be interested in it elsewhere”.
That’s all fine and well, but a lot of the time it just doesn’t translate. This little google ad appeared when I was searching for some information on Berlin, MA.
I wonder what aspect of the town I can purchase? “I bid $20 on that streetlight!”
Need air conditioning in your truck?
No problem! All you need is an air conditioner, a 2500watt inverter, and some monster power cable, and install it in your pickup truck.
Thanks to Hackaday.
Fascinating blog.
I must be the last person in the world to find PostSecret.
Just. Wow.
The New Deadly Sins
I think there should be a new set of ‘deadly sins‘ in the modern world. No religion or government or social structure would ever own up to these, since all are equally guilty of violating them.
My short proposed list (coupled with their appropriate Virtues)
| Ignorance | Knowledge |
| Anger | Acceptance or Thoughtfulness |
| Hypocrisy | Sincerity |
| Arrogance | Humility |
If more of the world (from politicians through the guy next door) would take their lead from the right column more often than the left, wouldn’t things be better all around?
Unclear on the concept
I’m exploring some of the weather station solutions for Linux. Folks have been doing various weather stats gathering applications for Windows based machines forever, I’m curious about doing a multiple-input monitoring system that will keep track of indoor, outdoor, and water temperature, and display them on a handy screen.
It looks like one of the more popular systems is Weather Display, which conveniently has a Linux version.
Excellent, thinks I. I’ll check it out. Oh, and on their Linux page, they have a handy Getting Started guide.
Which is a link to a Microsoft Word document.
The mind boggles.
Pointcast for Linux?
Anyone remember Pointcast? Back in the late 90’s, this tool was a ‘push’ concept that downloaded headlines, quotes, stocks, and other article details to your PC and showed them in a sort of animated presentation via a screensaver. I found it fascinating. If an article or headline showed up I was interested in, I could pause the display and ask for information on that article.
With RSS feeds being available from just about every source, it just seems natural that we should be able to re-implement Pointcast using RSS feeds for data sources. I’ve seen some tools for MacOS that do thi (but only the headlines, and not really showing ‘content’, just sort of waving pretty headlines), but nothing for Linux that would actually summarize the feeds.
So who wants to write an XScreensaver plugin for this?
Psychedelic Republicans!
The latest in the Collectible Cardgame craze!
That’s right – your world is finally complete! It’s amazing wacky fun time with all-new Psychedelic RepublicansTM trading cards! Collect them all, and gaze on in helpless, pupil-dilating wonder as your favorite C-SPAN stars morph into groovy explosions of technicolor conservatism!
Moderation disabled
We’re going to give a try to running without comment moderation for a while. So folks posting / commenting on things should be able to see their posts immediately. Let me know if anything odd crops up.
Pictures from Maine
I’d like to do some more picture-sharing, so here’s a few I took last night during one of the first ‘clear’ sunsets we’ve had in weeks. Of course, as I type this, it’s thundering and raining outside (a set of storms moving through the area), but yesterday and today were great.
The lake is Horn Pond, near Acton
All images © 2005 Dave Belfer-Shevett
Orson Scott Card – Whaddadork.
Talk about fascism from your heros. I love OSC’s Sf writings – well, most of them. But his political and social views are just so far out of my league it’s boggling.
Here, Card pretty much states that fascism is the only way to reign in the horror of free speech.
Even if the allegations about Quran desecration were completely and absolutely verified, why in the world would you publish the information during wartime? It’s not that the Media themselves regard the Quran as sacred. It’s just paper to them. And surely they would have to agree that if such actions might somehow gain the cooperation of a potential source of useful information (though that seems extremely unlikely to me), it would be infinitely preferable to physical torture.
Read the entire rant at The Ornery American.
Update – I’d also recommend reading other interesting commentary regarding Card in the Kuro5hin article. Interesting stuff.