Recent Comments

1. 4 days ago on Frazz

   Agreed. Frazz has obviously never spent a summer in Florida, with its sweltering heat, humidity, and hurricanes.

2. 7 days ago on Frazz

   I apologize for not being more precise in my recommendation: the problem is not in city traffic, it occurs on exurban secondary roads.

   rasputin, zbicyclist, and cervelo seem to assume urban traffic, where vehicular speed limits are in the 25-35mph range. I live in the exurbs where the un-posted speed limit is 55, and our hilly, winding, wooded, soft-shouldered secondary roads are quite popular with local running and biking groups. Limited sight-lines, winding roads, commuter traffic (even on weekends) and trucks, make a half-mile long biking group, doing less than half the speed limit, a tragedy awaiting. At the least, cyclists riding facing the vehicular traffic gives both groups advance notice of a problem.

   And no, cervelo, it is not obvious that I’m not a cyclist. On my bike, I practice what I preach after being grazed from behind by a pickup’s side mirror. I stand by my assertion that cyclists should ride facing traffic on secondary roads.

3. 8 days ago on Frazz

   Hear, hear! Also, change the state traffic laws to require runners and bicyclists to ride facing vehicular traffic, like pedestrians (are supposed to) do. The delta-V between motorized vehicles and human-powered traffic is much too large to depend on clip-on mirrors and AAA battery powered lights.

4. 9 days ago on Frazz

   Caulfield needs to study mathematical precision. There is a reason that train timetable don’t list times to the second.

5. 12 days ago on Frazz

   Between fifteen minutes and four hours, depending on which family members will be attending …

6. 13 days ago on Frazz

   First off, every kid has had some sort of train toy, and trains are well-represented in children’s books, cartoons, and videos, so I reject Caulfield’s premise. It’s not necessary to have ridden a train to understand a math example. Their value is in the constraints they operate under: fixed routes, fixed speeds, and thus relatively deterministic answers to math word-problems.

   My first train set plugged into the wall, had a small variac to control the engine’s speed, and a gazillion 3-rail segments in various shapes and conditions because they were handed down from my uncle. I graduated to the more authentic HO-scale once I had the dexterity to manipulate all those tiny fiddly-bits, and fabricated a 4′×5′ permanent layout platform for three systems running on different transformers. My grandmother donated my uncle’s massive Erector Set to me after he left for college, so my layout had quite a few working structures and gizmos. I was an adult before I ever rode on a train, but I knew all about switches, sidings, signals, and a fair amount about electricity by the time I was ten. But interest in all that came to a screeching halt shortly after that same uncle came home from college with his Piper Cub …

7. 14 days ago on Frazz

   … but you should beware “for whom” …

8. 14 days ago on Frazz

   And “Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.”

9. 15 days ago on Frazz

   True, and you can build a dome-shaped structure in just about any (non-desert) climate. Just bend two or more saplings to the ground such that they cross, then throw animal hides, bushy branches, globs of peat, whatever you have handy, onto the structure. If you are nomadic, it doesn’t take that much time to erect, and you can abandon in a day or two. Or if you have access to water, make it semi-permanent with globs of mud. Plus, a dome will endure higher winds than other structures.

10. 19 days ago on Non Sequitur

    One doesn’t find inspiration; it finds you when you are least expecting or able to do anything about it. Therefore, the way to summon it is the same as learning to fly, as described by the inimitable flight instructor, Douglas Adams in THHGTTG: “The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.” The full technique can be found on the “extremelysmart” commercial domain under “humor/howtofly”, as a PHP file.