Nothing says quality...
jdev...@gate.net
economies of scale make wanton waste of material more attractive
than setting up a casting operation. But just the same, many low
volume producers proudly advertise the fact that their products were
cut from a single piece of metal.
Anyway, while trying to get a 1975 John Deere JDX4 snowmobile
back to life, I was faced with an unexpected problem that lead me to
appreciate a similar fabrication technique. The problem is that I have
a soft spot for tiny, furry, defenseless creatures, in particular a brood
of field mice that has taken up residence in the machines glove box.
I've seen small birdhouses adapted for mice, but wasn't into all the
hassle or fragility inherent in the typical piece-built birdhouse, I wanted
something more robust, and cheaper. I have some pine logs, cut to
firewood length (for use in campfires) lying about, so I grabbed one
about 9" in diameter, and with my bandsaw, sliced it into three layers
with each layer about 3 inches thick. Then I sliced the center layer
in half perpendicular to the first cuts, then cut out three blocks from
each half, leaving two dividers, about 3/8" thick that line up from
half to half and an inch or so at each end. I coped out a couple chunks
from the dividers so the mice will be able to get from chamber to chamber.
I'm gluing the two halves to the bottom slice now, and will drill an entry
hole into the center chamber once the glue is set. The cool thing is that
since it's round, I can hold it all together firmly and securely by simply
looping several pieces of baling wire around it and twisting them tight.
Where's the hack? Is it 'billet manufacturing with wood'? Is it 'taking
advantage of the magical properties of circular sections'? Is it in taking
liberties with the actual construction details to make the description more
understandable? Does it matter? If a tree falls in the forest can you still
ping it? Do you walk to school or carry a lunch?
G'night All,
Jim DeVries
Eli the Bearded
> Where's the hack? Is it 'billet manufacturing with wood'? Is it 'taking
> advantage of the magical properties of circular sections'? Is it in taking
> liberties with the actual construction details to make the description more
> understandable? Does it matter?
I can't understand why you'dgo to that much trouble for some wild
pests. Evict them and set them free, if you can't stomach killing
them, okay. Build them a new house? Why?
ObHack:
I made myself some new toys, after realizing I grep the text database of
Unicode characters a lot. All of these make finding, and then cutting and
pasting of highbit text easier.
http://www.panix.com/~eli/unicode/
Elijah
------
all of the result pages are composed in seven bit ASCII
Jim DeVries
>I can't understand why you'd go to that much trouble for some wild
>pests. Evict them and set them free, if you can't stomach killing
>them, okay. Build them a new house? Why?
Well I can't compose an answer, but Bobby Burns did back in 1785.
To A Mouse
(Upon turning her up in her nest, with the plow)
Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim'rous beastie,
O, what panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murd'ring pattle!
I'm truly sorry Man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle,
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An' fellow-mortal!
I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen-icker in a thrave 'S a sma' request:
I'll get a blessin wi' the lave,
An' never miss't!
Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
It's silly wa's the win's are strewin!
An' naething, now, to big a new ane,
O' foggage green!
An' bleak December's winds ensuin,
Baith snell an' keen!
Thou saw the fields laid bare an' wast,
An' weary Winter comin fast,
An' cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro' thy cell.
That wee-bit heap o' leaves an' stibble,
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble,
But house or hald.
To thole the Winter's sleety dribble,
An' cranreuch cauld!
But Mousie, thou are no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men,
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!
Still, thou art blest, compar'd wi' me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But Och! I backward cast my e'e,
On prospects drear!
An' forward, tho' I canna see,
I guess an' fear!
Eli the Bearded
> Eli the Bearded put fingers to keypad and did express:
>> I can't understand why you'd go to that much trouble for some wild
>> pests. Evict them and set them free, if you can't stomach killing
>> them, okay. Build them a new house? Why?
> Well I can't compose an answer, but Bobby Burns did back in 1785.
I don't think I've read this poem before. It makes me wonder if it was
the inspiration for the book _Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH_, which
initially focuses on Mrs Frisby's need to move house to avoid the plow.
I think Burns' is sympathetic to the disruption of the rodent's lives,
but I don't think he is advocating building replacement shelters. Back
to "Evict them and set them free"...
ObHack:
More of a mental challenge game than a serious methodology, but
yesterday I wrote a perl script to generate perl regular expressions
that solve single word anagram games, if provided with a suitable
dictionary of words. If you've seen the "JUMBLE" puzzle in a newspaper
(typically near the crossword) than you know the sort of application.
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
# Generate a regular expression to solve JUMBLE style anagrams:
# one "word" anagramed into one word.
# 28 Apr 2009
my $word = lc(shift);
if($word !~ /^[a-z]+$/i) { die "$0: usage error\n"; }
my $dict = "/usr/share/dict/words";
my %let;
my $l;
for $l (split(/ */, $word)) {
if(exists($let{$l})) {
$let{$l} =~ s/.$/${l}\[^$l]*\$/;
} else {
$let{$l} = "^[^$l]*$l\[^$l]*\$";
}
}
my $lets = join('', keys(%let));
my $dupes = join(')(?=.*', values(%let));
my $re1 = qr/^[$lets]+$/i;
my $re2 = qr/(?=$dupes)$re1/i;
if(!open(DICT, "< $dict")) {
print "perl -wne 'print if/$re2/' $dict\n";
} else {
$word .= "\n";
my $size = length($word);
while(<DICT>) {
if(length($_) == $size) {
print if /$re2/;
}
}
}
__END__
:r! perl -x % retsina
asterin
restain
stainer
starnie
stearin
Elijah
------
"retsina", besides being good with Greek food, is in the alt.anagrams FAQ