Way. Too. Hot.

Maybe it's me, I thought. Am I ill? Do I even have any more water in my body to sweat out? Apparently it was not just me. Minutes ago I checked weather.com and found that the heat index (temperature + an addition due to humidity) is over 100 degrees. Staring at the web page in dismay, I noticed something else: "Severe Weather Alerts for Cleveland, OH: Flash Flood Warning, Heat Advisory". Clicking on 'Heat Advisory', I learned that I should make an attempt to stay in an air conditioned environment as much as possible. GAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRR!!! I could tell that much for myself! Too bad it's not an option, unless I want to spend the night at work. Ah well, I'll just sweat it out.

The 300 Club

Ah, the South Pole. That's where I don't get to go this coming January. However, a grad student in the same lab as me (one of the guys who can tell me what to do) does have that amazing opportunity, and also the opportunity to join one of the most exclusive clubs on the planet: the 300 club.

Imagine this if you will: you are sitting in a sauna for hours on end, with the temperature gradually rising to 200 degrees Fahrenheit. Somebody can't take the heat and leaves the sauna. When your temperature is high enough you go outside. Outside outside, at the South Pole. Please forgive my redundancy. Please forgive my apology(ies) in the middle of a blog. Outside, wearing nothing but boots, at the South Pole. Outside, wearing nothing but boots at the South Pole, where the temperature is -100 degrees Fahrenheit. Forgive the italics.

I wanna try!! :,-(

For Your Reading Enjoyment

Just minutes ago, (fifteen maximum), I sent an e-mail to my twin brother Jason. Interestingly, in the body of this e-mail at no time do I mention what the topic is. (I hope) he will have no trouble understanding what I am talking about, but the topic of discussion is quite far out there. Any third party readers could quite possible be left entirely baffled. So, just for fun, here it is!

I just sent these people a request for a price quote on a single 52 or 54” wheel with no spokes. On further thought, I’m thinking perhaps that won’t be what I want from them. See the attachment for what I’m thinking: two rims connected by spokes, with whatever seat/peddle/gear system you’re designing on the inside. The reasoning is (a) to try and take advantage of wheel mechanics, and (b) to give more than ¼” at ground level to rig together the wheel and the parts that use the wheel. Raising the seat in this way truly has more advantages than disadvantages. The advantages and dis- of purchasing the wheel are as follows:

DISADVANTAGE: Oh My God this will not be cheap. If you look at the prices for the bikes on their website, the minimum is about $1600. Only asking for the wheel won’t make it so much cheaper… considering these are the only people in the United States who make wheels of this size. The price goes up to have two wheels one inside the other, and of course double it so we have one each.

ADVANTAGE: There’s no other way to get a wheel of this size -- seriously. Cut it out of block aluminum? It wouldn’t work – a 5’ x 5’ x 1” block of aluminum (ignoring for the moment that it’s not buyable in that size) is several thousand dollars worth of aluminum. How about hardwood (ignoring the fact that even if a tree were to grow to a sufficient diameter the boards would not be cut to those dimensions)? Well, let’s not ignore that fact, it’s not doable… Make it in pieces and connect at joints? I considered it; I even looked up the aluminum (and wood) that might be used, but it would be too flimsy. Besides, that rubber tubing was valued at about $4/ft, which would be $60 just for our “tire”.

Of course, this is just the expensive (as opposed to work-intensive) part of the job. To make a seat actually sit in this thing the inner wheel would have to have grooves either cut to spec or spec-ed around. For example, if there happened to be a significant groove all the way around the inside of the inner wheel, it could be a guide for rollerblade wheels attached to the underside of the seat. Three rollerblade wheels in a row (adjusted to follow the proper radius) could in fact define the plane of the wheel and reduce tipping to either side. Using a commercial wheel removes my option of tines on the inside of the wheel, but so long as the gear is on the inside of the wheel it will turn the proper direction. To create tines we could simply drill holes in a bolt circle around the circumference of the wheel, and put stainless steel pins in (threaded perhaps, with a nut on either side). Rather than a plastic shield all the way around to cover these, we could just use rubber or plastic nuts with one side either closed or filled with Lok-Tite.

To increase support and not let the seat/peddle structure shake, perhaps use a gear on each side, with a chain to each one. See attachment.

Perhaps you could devise some way to use pultrusion dieing or filament winding to your advantage? Remember, the larger parts either have to be commercially available or simple to make from cheap materials (or something Dad could put to the cause).

And there you have it! If you understood, congratulations! Feel free to comment with what you think I'm talking about; use links where you can to help others out.

That's All I Remember

So I had this dream, someone picked up my soap and asked if it was clean.

I suppose the rest of the dream wasn't quite so memorable, considering I don't even remember when I had this dream; but it's a vivid memory (and in color).

This isn't the first strange dream that had that effect on me though; just a month ago plus some days -- before my roommates moved in to the suite-style dorms I'm in for the summer -- I had a dream where someone slammed a bedroom door, then as he walked by my room he said "hey". I was baffled because I had never seen anybody about, my stuff was the only stuff in the bathroom, I had never heard the toilet flush or the shower going, at no time was there any talking, on the phone or in person, and most importantly nobody had dragged boxes and bags filled with clothes and books and paraphernalia through the halls to move in. The only explaination I can offer (to myself of course, likely nobody else need an explaination for me being crazy) is that I had a dream involving someone in the hallway, and when some other event from the dream actually occured it caused me to remember that random part. Of course, that's all conjecture.