Blackcap Blog

Published at 07:08 on 21 January 2015

Random stuff, because I’m still very much alive despite not posting much here recently:

Charlie Hebdo. Yes, their cartoons do have a well-established history of being crude and insensitive. That’s absolutely no justification for the violence (though it does help explain it; justification and explanation are two different things). There is no right to not be offended. What probably sucks more than the loss of life, however, is that France does not seem to be taking the same moral high road Norway took after their recent terrorist attack. There’s way too much talk of “war” happening in France. Neither Al Qaeda nor terrorism is a country with a defined land mass (the first is a non-state actor, the second is a tactic), therefore it is is pointless to wage war on either. I’ve discussed this latter point before, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

Construction at home. It’s was a week of not really having my home to myself, because I’m having the carpet replaced with hardwood flooring. And it looks like this disruption is going to last longer than expected, because the adhesive used to attach the stair tread really stinks, so I’m now coping with that issue for at least a week after the work ends.

Durian. Speaking of strong smells, I did finally have time to treat myself to a durian smoothie in celebration of moving and defeating the bedbugs. It was every bit as satisfying as I remembered, and now that the experience is fresher in my mind the addictive urge resurfaced. I actually tasted an almond aspect to it this time, which I believe is a first. One of the joys of durian is that it never tastes quite the same twice.

Sometimes, it’s best not to even try. That’s a statement that will make every motivational speaker cringe, but it’s true. One’s plans must be at least somewhat realistic. Consider the fate of the Kalakala. This historic vessel was “saved” from its fate of housing a fish-processing plant in Alaska by being towed back to its old home to await historic restoration. Alas, that latter part of the plan was very expensive, and funds to perform it never materialized. The vessel ended up bleeding its owners white in moorage fees year after year. Its current owner has decided to end the financial bloodbath and recoup at least some of his losses by scrapping it. If it had been left in Alaska, it would either still be a fish processing plant, or be sitting there abandoned (because in a rural area the moorage would be cheap or free and the cost to tow it south for scrapping would exceed the scrap value). It would, in other words, be waiting indefinitely for the right restorer to show up.

Sometimes, one has to try harder. Realism again. It’s a fact of life that some misfortunes, like bedbug infestation, are extremely difficult and expensive to manage. The “experts” will tend to lie to you about the effort and expense required in an attempt to manage the shock value. Absent being one of the lucky few who resolves the problem with minimum effort, the effect of the lies is to draw out the process, because instead of making the full effort needed, weeks and then months get wasted on half-efforts. It’s a lesson I learned the hard way battling scabies, and one I put to use again last year on bedbugs. I hit them harder than the experts recommended, and planned for the initial treatments to fail (which they did). I took stronger precautions than recommended to prevent infesting my new place. I might still be battling them if I hadn’t followed that strategy.

Published at 18:50 on 3 January 2015

Back when I first moved to Bainbridge Island, I made a post about my experiences with cooking on an induction stove. The alternative was the electric stove my new apartment came with. The latter was not only an electric stove, but the very worst sort of electric stove, a flat-top electric stove.

Take all the lack of responsiveness of a coil stove, then add to it a fragile glass top that’s easily fractured by dropped pots, won’t work properly with anything other than an absolutely flat-bottomed pot, shows every last speck of grime in great detail, and which is virtually impossible to keep grime-free, and you have the flat-top electric stove. The appliance industry’s answer to the question: how can we make electric stoves suck even more than they already did, yet charge more for them?

But I digress. There was an escape from the fate of having to cook on that thing, and it had the form of an induction cooktop which plugged into a normal wall outlet. Naturally, I ordered one. And I was glad I did.

But, unlike the majority who give induction a try, it still left me wishing I had a gas stove again.

First, there’s the obvious matter of only flat-bottomed magnetic pots working. I like to cook with a wok, and that’s basically a non-option on induction. Sure, there’s a few expensive induction stoves that have a recessed burner capable of accepting a wok, but they’re both few and expensive and the few reviews I’ve found of them generally indicate that woks work far better with gas.

Finding replacements for my non-magnetic pans was an exercise in frustration. I would go to the store and see something I liked, but it wasn’t magnetic. I’d see something magnetic, but it wasn’t to my liking. I’d see something to my liking that was magnetic, but it was the most expensive pot in its class and something I’d use only infrequently (so the cost would be hard to justify). Finally I’d find something that seemed suitable, only to discover it’s only available as part of a larger set (which needlessly duplicates things I already have) and not individually.

Instead of knobs, the induction cooktop had touch controls. Like all touch controls, they were finicky and often did not register a touch or erroneously registered one twice. It’s far simpler and quicker to use a knob instead of having to do minor battle with a poor human:machine interface each time I adjust a stove setting.

Its surface was shiny, so it showed every last spill and fingerprint, thus demanding frequent cleaning. It wasn’t nearly as bad as a flat-top electric stove which both has this drawback and bakes the grime on, thus making it impossible to remove, but it was still annoying. It begged for cleaning much more than any gas stove I’ve used.

When I performed those frequent cleanings, the touch controls would get triggered by my wiping and the stove would be beeping like crazy and flashing error messages because there were no pots on it. Harmless, I know, and easily remedied by turning it off afterwards, but needlessly annoying. A gas stove doesn’t needlessly beep at me when I clean it.

It had a mind of its own (and a very bossy one at that). That missing-pot detection ability I just mentioned means you can’t do things like lift a pan to distribute oil or melted margarine on it. At least, you can’t without the stove first scolding you for your transgression with beeps and flashing lights and then (a few seconds later) punishing you for it by shutting the burner off. Then I would have to fight with the finicky touch controls to get it back as it was.

I didn’t want a finicky techno-toy that tries to boss me around. I wanted something simple that works with any pot made and which does what I want. That’s gas, and that’s what I had installed in my new kitchen when I bought a home last fall.

Apparently that makes me the minority. From what I’ve been able to gather by looking around the Internet, most who are used to cooking with gas who try induction like it and never go back to gas.

I find that puzzling (given my experiences), but then again, I often find it puzzling about how so many people buy and use high-tech gadgets without going through a process of evaluating how said gadget will actually improve their lives. For many, the snob appeal of being able to show others how they can afford all the latest gadgets apparently has significant value in and of itself.

That’s not the whole story here, of course. For example, most people in the USA never use a wok, so the fact that induction works poorly at best with a wok is a non-issue for them. But I rather suspect it’s a big part of the story.

Published at 20:09 on 21 December 2014

How dare they!

That’s basically what comes to mind when gripes like this catch my attention.

And before anyone complains: No, I am not celebrating anyone’s death. I am merely pointing out that well-established historical patterns have expected consequences. It may be politically incorrect to say so in Establishment circles, but that doesn’t make it any less of a fact.

Published at 08:23 on 12 December 2014

That’s long been my estimate (even before I made that linked post) of how much the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement boondoggle is going to end up costing. And it’s an open question as to whether or not there will be a usable tunnel after pouring all that money down that rat hole.

The latest in the saga of foibles is that the access tunnel is that the access pit they are digging to repair the damaged tunnel boring machine is causing a whole neighborhood to start subsidng. That’s going to be a healthy chunk of change just to compensate all the affected property owners right there.

Remember, this is a unique and never-before-attempted project. Nobody has ever used a tunnel boring machine this large. Nobody has ever dug a tunnel this deeply through saturated soil. So nobody really knows how difficult it actually will be.

Anyone who said it would cost $1 billion, tops, was either a liar or a rank idiot. Or both.

Published at 10:21 on 10 December 2014

When that good price comes from a big, nationwide retailer like Sears or Home Depot, and it’s a gas appliance that you want to run on propane, that’s when.

You see, virtually no gas home appliance comes straight from the factory equipped to run on propane. A few do, but they’re very few. Most all are designed to run on natural gas, because that’s what the majority of customers use. But the difference between the two fuels is actually very minor, making it theoretically easy to convert from one to the other. And since it increases their market size, manufacturers inevitably make it easy to do said conversion. But, it’s still a conversion that has to be done. You can’t just hook the appliance up and have it operate properly.

I shopped at Sears for my stove. They had good prices, and Kenmore is actually a very highly-rated brand. Then I mentioned the p-word (propane) and the person on the phone giving me price quotes stammered and did a double-take. He said he’d have to get back to me. When he did, the cost was around $250. Goodbye to any price advantage for buying a stove from Sears as opposed to my local mom-and-pop store.

I tried Home Depot. The result was even worse. They simply didn’t do propane at all. Their “free installation” was for natural gas customers only. I’d have to pay a third-party service technician (probably from my local mom-and-pop appliance store) to convert and install it. Say goodbye to any Home Depot price advantage.

Meanwhile, the local mom-and-pop store is on an island with no natural gas service. So virtually every gas appliance they sell ends up being converted for propane use. It’s just part of their standard procedure. They tack on a fee for it, but it’s nominal by comparison.

Neither national retailer ended up being definitively more expensive, actually. It merely became a wash, price-wise. But why deal with someone out-of-town when I can deal with someone local? And why raise the spectre possible finger-pointing (“It wasn’t us! We sold you a good range! Your installer broke it!” “It wasn’t me! They sold you a defective range!”)?

It’s sort of a surprise, really. There’s lots of people in the same boat I am where I live. I’d not be surprised if a Seattle store had no idea of how to deal with a customer who used propane, but it’s a complete surprise to see such an attitude in Poulsbo.

Oh well, their loss.

Published at 15:03 on 8 December 2014

In addition to being morally reprehensible, torture actually makes the USA less, not more, secure.

Published at 10:21 on 8 December 2014

It finally (after multiple delays) got installed this morning:

(more…)

Published at 20:53 on 29 November 2014

It happened this morning. Normally that would be the big weather deal of the day, but not this time. As often happens here, the snow was facilitated by arctic outflow winds coming from the BC interior via the Fraser River Canyon.

A little after 8:30 AM, the outflow winds really kicked into high gear, going from strong and gusty to gale-force. The power went out shortly thereafter, and stayed out for the rest of the morning. Thankfully, my old place (where I was packing at the time) was well-insulated enough that it didn’t get excessively chilly inside very fast, despite the winds and frigid temperatures outside.

When it did start getting uncomfortable, I decided to run an errand to Poulsbo, where I then ate lunch. By the time I got back two hours later, the power was back on.

The wind was noticeably less severe in Poulsbo. Apparently it was a localized phenomenon restricted to areas close to Puget Sound, which was acting as a path of least resistance for the arctic outflow. The National Weather Service apparently didn’t see it coming, as no advisories or warnings for high winds were issued for this area.

What surprised me is how some people didn’t see the snow coming. Even if they hadn’t been listening to the weather forecasts, yesterday Mother Nature was shouting her own warnings. It was a day of pelting cold rain that got colder hour by hour. It was, to me anyhow, a classic “this rain will change to snow” type storm.

Maybe there were wind warning signs, too, signs I missed because I haven’t lived on Bainbridge Island for that long. I will say that we do really tend to get the winds here; the water gives them ample opportunity to rev up speed before they hit the island. Maybe in a few years I’ll learn some sort of sign that an arctic outflow wind is going to end up strong and damaging, like the more typical southerly storm winds can be.

Sorry, no pictures yet. My cameras are now packed.

Published at 10:38 on 25 November 2014

I think not. Cops who kill are almost always exonerated.

I cannot offhand readily think of any counterexamples to the above fact. I’m sure they exist, but they are rare. Very rare.

Unfortunately, rioting tends to be very little deterrent to such things happening. In fact, it’s a common outcome, yet the killing persists, decade after decade.

Again, this is not a surprise. Rioting is not rebellion. It is unfocused, unplanned, rage. It typically takes the form of the downtrodden destroying their own neighborhoods.

If the reaction took the form of more organized actions, and groups like the Black Panthers of old formed and persisted as part of the reaction, then one might expect the Establishment to take such things seriously, because the reaction to them is posing a more serious risk to that same Establishment.

But already pretty tatty neighborhoods becoming even more rundown (as a result of rioting-induced damage) is of little or no threat to the Establishment. So don’t expect things to change until the rage matures into a more focused effort to challenge the overall system as a whole.

Published at 10:25 on 19 November 2014

If it wasn’t the case that:

1. Most people react adversely to their bites, and
2. They breed like crazy

Then bed bugs would be more of a “meh” thing. I’d probably crush them when I found them but I wouldn’t turn my life upside down waging war on them.

Most people are really squicked by the concept of parasites, but they’re no big deal if all one gets is a very light, asymptomatic infestation. The majority of people, even in the wealthiest nations, harbor demodex mites on their bodies and don’t even know it.

Unfortunately, most people do react adversely to bed bug bites, and even for those of use who don’t, we don’t want guests or neighbors to suffer or for our homes to end up like this (which they will if the bugs are allowed to breed unhindered).

So, it’s war.

Which for me is moving on to the “move, and have the moving van fumigated between here and there” phase.

I’d like to be a little more certain of how well the bugs have been knocked down by the two existing treatments my apartment has had before I move, but then again, said uncertainty is precisely the reason I’m having the moving van fumigated in the first place.