atomic_fungus (atomic_fungus) wrote,
atomic_fungus
atomic_fungus

#2180: It shipped! It shipped!

My Aluratek Libre eReader Pro is FINALLY! on its way to me!

Even better, it's been shipped via FedEx. UPS is plenty fast but as I recall FedEx is faster. (I'm glad the free shipping wasn't via USPS, which has set the standard for slow and inefficient since 1776.)

So I'm eyeing the 4GB SD card sitting on my desk, thinking about what I should start putting on it. Manga! My stories! Music! (It's got a built-in MP3 player....)

I'm going to put the PDFs of the Fungus on there, too.

I'm going to need a bigger boat. (OK, SD card. I'll just get another 4 GB one.)

* * *

Alan Caruba borrows an example which demonstrates why California is broke. It ended exactly the way I expected it to. But it's still funny.

* * *

41 years ago today men landed on the Moon for the first time.

We went to the moon for a cumulative total of a few days, did a few neat things in Low Earth Orbit...and then gave up manned space exploration for the rest of the 1970s.

The last Saturn V was turned into a lawn ornament. *sigh*

I was two years old when Apollo 11 hit dirt on the Moon. I have a recollection from my childhood of my Dad saying, "Ed, look at the TV! There are men on the Moon!" But I don't know which landing it was and it might have been 1970 or 1971...or 1969. I looked because Dad told me to look, not because I was old enough to understand WTF was going on or why it was significant. I saw a blurry image which did not make much sense to me, in which very little action was taking place; and I rapidly lost interest in it. Such is the way of a kid whose years of life can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

* * *

The other day I was thinking about the Escort and its mechanicals, and I had a silly thought:

If I were to unplug the fuel injectors, I could mount the MGB's carb in place of the car's throttle body. I'd have to get a fuel pressure regulator and tap into the fuel rail (probably at the schrader valve) because that car's fuel pump puts out about 40 PSI; 2 PSI is sufficient for a carb. (Too much pressure and you overwhelm the float valve, which leads to flooding the engine with gasoline--literally.)

The biggest problem I see: I'm not sure how the engine computer uses data from the throttle position sensor to alter the ignition timing, or even if it does. If throttle position is taken into account when computing spark timing, the lack of a TPS signal means the computer won't know what to do and performance will suffer. I'd have to find a way to get a TPS mounted to the carb.

The MGB carb is built for an engine about the size of the one in the Escort. The Escort's computer would still run the ignition system, though the "CHECK ENGINE" light would be on because the air/fuel mix wouldn't change in response to the computer's instructions, among other things.

Of course the carb's mounting flange won't match the intake manifold; I'd have to make an adaptor. But that's some aluminum plate, about half an hour with various power tools, and a couple of taps.

It'd be interesting and amusing to try it--just to do it--if I had any reasonable confidence in my ability to fabricate a way to mount the TPS. I don't want to modify the carb, not even slightly, as the "equivalent part" replacement for it costs around $700. ("Parts priced in 'ass rape' territory" and "little British car" are pretty much synonymous.) You can't get the OEM carb any longer unless you find someone who's got a late MGB and is scrapping his intake system in favor of something that makes sense.

Ultimately I probably won't try this. The idiocy of strapping a Zenith-Stromberg 175CD carb to a formerly fuel-injected engine is what appeals to me: "Hey, look at this! It's really stupid but it works!" But it's a fun thing to think about.

* * *

Weird Al Yankovic wrote a song called "Dare To Be Stupid". I never really thought about it before, but when I was younger I did exactly that: I'd do nonsensical things solely because they amused me, and I didn't care if anyone else understood or thought I was crazy.

Somehow I lost that. I want it back.

Maybe I should go ahead and get the Escort vinyl wrapped with pictures of hot anime babes....

* * *

Remember when 180k 5.25" floppies cost $5? Now--28 years later--a 100 GB Blu-Ray writable disk costs $55.

Let's see: for 11x the cost, you get 555,555.6x the storage. It's still not big enough to back up today's multi-terabyte drives, though it's better than using DVDs. (Or will be when the price comes down. If it ever does.)

* * *

WHY, THOSE FILTHY BASTARD RICH PEOPLE, TRYING TO BE CAREFUL WITH THEIR MONEY! HOW DARE THEY ENDANGER THE ECONOMIC RECOVERY WHEN OBAMA IS TRYING SO HARD????????//

The article doesn't actually take that tone, though, which is kind of surprising. The news media certainly love to blame the rich for all the ills of society.

* * *

Wednesday's dinner is going to be goulash made with home-grown green peppers. I picked three peppers off the plant Monday morning, and they're each a bit smaller than a handful. There's one more which was close to being ready for picking, and with the very hot and humid weather we've had I wouldn't be terribly surprised if it was ready now.

Dinner is in fifteen hours or so. *drool*
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