text:
by Jay Parr
I am a devout agnostic. No, that is not an oxymoron.
After considerable searching, study, and introspection—and, having been raised in the Protestant Christian tradition, no small amount of internal conflict—I have come to rest in the belief that any entity we might reasonably call God would be so alien to our limited human perceptions as to be utterly, and irreconcilably, beyond human comprehension.
Gah. So convoluted. Even after something like a dozen revisions.
Let me try to strip that down. To wit: Humankind cannot understand God. We cannot remotely define God. We wouldn't know God if it/he/she/they slapped us square in the face. In the end, we cannot say with any certainty that anything we might reasonably call God actually exists. Nor can we say with any certainty that something we might reasonably call God does not exist.
To horribly misquote some theologian (or philosopher?) I seem to remember encountering somewhere along the way, humankind can no more understand God than a grasshopper can understand number theory.
I mean, we can't even wrap our puny little heads around the immensity of the known physical realm (or Creation, if you prefer) without creating incredibly simplistic, and only vaguely representative models.
Let's look at some of the things we do know. With only a handful of notable exceptions the entirety of human history has happened on, or very near to, the fragile skin of a tiny drop of semi-molten slag just under 8,000 miles across. That's just under 25,000 miles around, or a little more than two weeks' driving at 70 mph, if you went non-stop without stopping for meals or potty breaks.
Even that tiny drop of slag can feel pretty vast to our little human perceptions, as anyone can tell you who has been on a highway in the American West and looked out at that little N-scale model train over there and realized that, no, it's actually a full-sized freight train, with engines sixteen feet tall and seventy feet long and as heavy as five loaded-down tractor-trailers. And even though you can plainly see the entire length of that little train, it's actually over a mile long, and creeping along at seventy-five miles per hour. Oh, and that mountain range just over there in the background? Yeah, it's three hours away.
If we can't comprehend the majesty of our own landscape, on this thin skin on this tiny droplet of molten slag we call home, how can we imagine the distance even to our own moon?
If you look at this image, in which the moon is depicted as a single pixel, it is 110 pixels to the earth (which itself is only three pixels wide, partially occupying nine pixels). At this scale it would be about eighty-five times the width of that image before you got to the Sun. If you're bored, click on the image and it will take you to what the author only-half-jokingly calls "a tediously accurate scale model of the solar system," where you can scroll through endless screens of nothing as you make your way from the Sun to Pluto.
Beyond the Moon, we're best off talking about distances in terms of the speed of light—as in, how long it takes a ray of light to travel there, cruising along at about 186,000 miles per second, or 670 million miles per hour.
On the scale of our drop of molten—er, Earth—light travels pretty fast. A beam of light can travel around to the opposite side of the Earth in about a fifteenth of a second. That's why we can call that toll-free customer-service number and suddenly find ourselves talking to some poor soul who's working through the night somewhere in Indonesia—which, for the record, is about as close as you can get to the exact opposite point on the planet without hiring a more expensive employee down in Perth.
That capacity for real-time communication just starts to break down when you get to the Moon. At that distance a beam of light, or a radio transmission, takes a little more than a second (about 1.28 seconds, to be more accurate). So the net result is about a two-and-a-half-second lag round-trip. Enough to be noticeable, but it has rarely been a problem, as—in all of human history—only two dozen people have ever been that far away from the Earth (all of them white American men, by the way), and no one has been any further. By the way, that image of the Earthrise up there? That was taken with a very long lens, and then I cropped the image even more for this post, so it looks a lot closer than it really is.
Beyond the Moon, the distances get noticeable even at the speed of light, as the Sun is about four hundred times further away than the Moon. Going back up to that scale model in which the Earth is three pixels wide, if the Earth and Moon are about an inch and a half apart on your typical computer screen, the Sun would be about the size of a softball and fifty feet away (so for a handy visual, the Sun is a softball at the front of a semi trailer and the Earth is a grain of sand back by the doors). Traveling at 186,000 miles per second, light from the Sun makes the 93-million-mile trip to Earth in about eight minutes and twenty seconds.
Even with all that empty space, our three pixels against the fifty feet to the Sun, we're still right next door. The same sunlight that reaches us in eight minutes takes four hours and ten minutes to reach Neptune, the outermost planet of our solar system since poor Pluto got demoted. If you're still looking at that scale model, where we're three pixels wide and the sun is a softball fifty feet away, that puts Neptune about a quarter of a mile away and the size of a small bead. And that's still within our home solar system. Well within our solar system if you include all the smaller dwarf planets, asteroids, and rubble of the Kuiper Belt (including Pluto, which we now call a dwarf planet).
To get to our next stellar neighbor at this scale, we start out at Ocean Isle Beach, find the grain of sand that is Earth (and the grain of very fine sand an inch and a half away that is the Moon), drop that softball fifty feet away to represent the Sun, lay out a few more grains of sand and a few little beads between the Atlantic Ocean and the first dune to represent the rest of the major bodies in our solar system, and then we drive all the way across the United States, the entire length of I-40 and beyond, jogging down the I-15 ("the" because we're on the west coast now) to pick up the I-10 through Los Angeles and over to the Pacific Ocean at Santa Monica, where we walk out to the end of the Santa Monica Pier and set down a golf ball to represent Proxima Centauri. And that's just the star that's right next door.
See what I'm getting at?
What's even more mind-bending than the vast distances and vast emptiness of outer space, is that our universe is every bit as vast at the opposite end of the size spectrum. The screen you're reading this on, the hand you're scrolling with—even something as dense as a solid ingot of gold bullion—is something like 99.999999999% empty space (and that's a conservative estimate). Take a glance at this comparison of our solar system against a gold atom, if both the Sun and the gold nucleus had a radius of one foot. You'll see that the outermost electron in the gold atom would be more than twice the distance of Pluto.
And even though that nucleus looks kind of like a mulberry in this illustration, we now know that those protons and neutrons are, once again, something on the order of being their own solar systems compared to the quarks that constitute them. There's enough wiggle room in there that at the density of a neutron star, our entire planet would be condensed to the size of a child's marble. And for all we know, those quarks are made up of still tinier particles. We're not even sure if they're actually anything we would call solid matter or if they're just some kind of highly-organized energy waves. In experiments, they kind of act like both.
This is not mysticism, folks. This is just physics.
The crux of all this is that, with our limited perception and our limited ability to comprehend vast scales, the universe is both orders of magnitude larger and orders of magnitude smaller than we can even begin to wrap our minds around. We live our lives at a very fixed scale, unable to even think about that which is much larger or much smaller than miles, feet, or fractions of an inch (say, within six or seven zeroes).
Those same limitations of scale apply in a very literal sense when we start talking about our perception of such things as the electromagnetic spectrum and the acoustic spectrum. Here's an old chart of the electromagnetic spectrum from back in the mid-'40s. You can click on the image to expand it in a new tab.
If you look at about the two-thirds point on that spectrum you can see the narrow band that is visible light. We can see wavelengths from about 750 nanometers (400 terahertz) at the red end, to 380 nm (800 THz) at the blue end. In other words, the longest wavelength we can see is right at twice the length, or half the frequency, of the shortest wavelength we can see. If our hearing were so limited, we would only be able to hear one octave. Literally. One single octave.
We can feel some of the longer wavelengths as radiant heat, and some of the shorter wavelengths (or their aftereffects) as sunburn, but even all that is only three or four orders of magnitude—two or three zeroes—and if you look at that chart, you'll see that it's a logarithmic scale that spans twenty-seven orders of magnitude.
If we could see the longer wavelengths our car engines would glow and our brake rotors would glow and our bodies would glow, and trees and plants would glow blazing white in the sunlight. A little longer and all the radio towers would be bright lights from top to bottom, and the cell phone towers would have bright bars like fluorescent tubes at the tops of them, and there would be laser-bright satellites in the sky, and our cell phones would flicker and glow, and our computers, and our remotes, and our wireless ear buds, and all the ubiquitous little radios that are in almost everything anymore. It would look like some kind of surreal Christmas.
If we could see shorter wavelengths our clothing would be transparent, and our bodies would be translucent, and the night sky would look totally different. Shorter still and we could see bright quasi-stellar objects straight through the Earth. It would all be very disorienting.
Of course, the ability to perceive such a range of wavelengths would require different organs, once you got beyond the near-ultraviolet that some insects can see and the near-infrared that some snakes can see. And in the end, one might argue that our limited perception of the electromagnetic spectrum is just exactly what we've needed to survive this far.
I was going to do the same thing with the vastness of acoustic spectrum against the limitations of human hearing here, but I won't get into it because acoustics is basically just a subset of fluid dynamics. What we hear as sound is things moving—pressure waves against our eardrums, to be precise—but similar theories can be applied from the gravitational interaction of galaxy clusters (on a time scale of eons) to the motion of molecules bumping into one another (on the order of microseconds), and you start getting into math that looks like this…
…and I'm an English major with a graduate degree in creative writing. That image could just as easily be a hoax, and I would be none the wiser. So let's just leave it at this: There's a whole lot we can't hear, either.
We also know for a fact that time is not quite as linear as we would like to think. Einstein first theorized that space and time were related, and that movement through space would affect movement through time (though gravity also plays in there, just to complicate matters). We do just begin to see it on a practical level with our orbiting spacecraft. It's not very big—the International Space Station will observe a differential of about one second over its decades-long lifespan—but our navigational satellites do have to adjust for it so your GPS doesn't drive you to the wrong Starbucks.
Physicists theorize that time does much stranger things on the scale of the universe, and in some of the bizarre conditions that can be found. Time almost breaks down completely in a black hole, for instance. Stephen Hawking has posited (and other theoretical astrophysicists agree) that even if the expanding universe were to reverse course and start contracting, which has not been ruled out as a possibility, it would still be an expanding universe because at that point time would have also reversed itself. Or something like that; this is probably a hugely oversimplified layman's reading of it. But still, to jump over to popular culture, specifically a television series floating somewhere between science fiction and fantasy, the Tenth Doctor probably said it best:
So far we've been talking about physical facts. When we get into how our brains process those facts, things become even more uncertain. We do know that of the information transmitted to our brains via the optic and auditory nerves, the vast majority of it is summarily thrown out without getting any cognitive attention at all. What our brains do process is, from the very beginning, distorted by filters and prejudices that we usually don't even notice. It's called conceptually-driven processing, and it has been a fundamental concept in both cognitive psychology and consumer-marketing research for decades (why yes, you should be afraid). Our perceptual set can heavily influence how we interpret what we see—and even what information we throw away to support our assumptions. I'm reminded of that old selective-attention test from a few years back:
There are other fun videos by the same folks on The Invisible Gorilla, but this is a pretty in-your-face example of how we can tune out things that our prejudices have deemed irrelevant, even if it's a costume gorilla beating its chest right in the middle of the scene. As it turns out, we can only process a limited amount of sensory information in a given time (a small percentage of what's coming in), so the very first thing our brains do is throw out most of it, before filling in the gaps with our own assumptions about how things should be.
As full of holes as our perception is, our memory process is even worse. We know that memory goes through several phases, from the most ephemeral, sensory memory, which is on the order of fractions of a second, to active memory, on the order of tens of seconds, to various iterations of long-term memory. At each stage, only a tiny portion of the information is selected and passed on to the next. And once something makes it through all those rounds of selection to make it into long-term memory, there is evidence in cognitive neuroscience that in order to retrieve those memories, we have to destroy them first. That's right; the act of recalling a long-term memory back into active memory physically destroys it. That means that when you think about that dim memory from way back in your childhood (I'm lying on the living-room rug leafing through a volume of our off-brand encyclopedia while my mother works in the kitchen), you're actually remembering the last time you remembered it. Because the last time you remembered it, you obliterated that memory in the process, and had to remember it all over again.
I've heard it said that if scientists ran the criminal-justice system, eyewitness testimony would be inadmissible in court. Given the things we know about perception and memory (especially in traumatic situations), that might not be such a bad idea.
So far I have avoided the topic of religion itself. I'm about to change course, and I know that this is where I might write something that offends someone. So I want to start out with the disclaimer that what I'm writing here is only my opinion—only my experience—and I recognize that everyone's religious journey is individual, unique, and deeply personal. I'm not here to convert anyone, and I'm not here to pooh-pooh anyone's religious convictions. Neither am I here to be converted. I respect your right to believe what you believe and to practice your religion as you see fit…provided you respect my right to do the same. Having stated that…
Most of the world's older religions started out as oral traditions. Long before being written down they had been handed down in storytelling, generation after generation after generation, mutating along the way, until what ends up inscribed in the sacred texts might be completely unrecognizable to the scribes' great-great-grandparents. Written traditions are somewhat more stable, but until the advent of typography, every copy was still transcribed by hand, and subject to the interpretations, misinterpretations, and agendas of the scribes doing the copying.
Acts of translation are even worse. Translation is, by its very nature, an act of deciding what to privilege and what to sacrifice in the source text. I have experienced that process first-hand in my attempts to translate 14th-century English into 21st-century English. Same language, only 600 years later.
Every word is a decision: Do I try to preserve a particular nuance at the expense of the poetic meter of the phrase? Do I use two hundred words to convey the meaning that is packed into these twenty words? How do I explain this cultural reference that is meaningless to us, but would have been as familiar to the intended audience as we woulds find a Seinfeld reference? Can I go back to my translation ten years after the fact and change that word that seemed perfect at the time but that has since proven a nagging source of misinterpretation? Especially in the translation of sacred texts, where people will hang upon the interpretation of a single word, forgetting entirely that it's just some translator's best approximation. Wars have been fought over such things.
The Muslim world might have the best idea here, encouraging its faithful to learn and study their scriptures in Arabic rather than rely on hundreds of conflicting translations in different languages. Added bonus: You get a common language everyone can use.
But the thing is, even without the vagaries of translation, human language is—at best—a horribly imprecise tool. One person starts out with an idea in mind. That person approximates that idea as closely as they can manage, using the clumsy symbols that make up any given language—usually composing on the fly—and transmits that language to its intended recipient through some method, be it speech or writing or gestural sign language. The recipient listens to that sequence of sounds, or looks at that sequence of marks or gestures, and interprets them back into a series of symbolic ideas, assembling those ideas back together with the help of sundry contextual clues to approximate—hopefully—something resembling what the speaker had in mind.
It's all fantastically imprecise—wristwatch repair with a sledgehammer—and when you add in the limitations of the listener's perceptual set it's obvious how a rhinoceros becomes a unicorn. I say "tree," thinking of the huge oak in my neighbor's back yard, but one reader pictures a spruce, another a dogwood, another a magnolia. My daughter points to the rosemary tree in our dining room, decorated with tinsel for the holidays. The mathematician who works in logic all day imagines data nodes arranged in a branching series of nonrecursive decisions. The genealogist sees a family history.
Humans are also infamously prone to hyperbole. Just ask your second cousin about that bass he had halfway in the boat last summer before it wriggled off the hook. They're called fish stories for a reason. As an armchair scholar of medieval English literature, I can tell you that a lot of texts presented as history, with a straight face, bear reading with a healthy dose of skepticism. According to the 12th-century History of the Kings of Britain, that nation was founded when some guy named Brutus, who gets his authority by being the grandson of Aeneas (yeah, the one from Greek mythology), sailed up the Thames, defeated the handful of giants who were the sole inhabitants of the whole island, named the island after himself (i.e., Britain), and established the capital city he called New Troy, which would later be renamed London. Sounds legit.
In the beginning of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Gawain beheads the huge green man who has challenged him to a one-blow-for-one-blow duel, right there in front of the whole Arthurian court, but the man picks up his head, laughs at Gawain, hops back on his horse, and rides off. Granted, Gawain is presented as allegory rather than fact, but Beowulf is presented as fact, and he battles a monster underwater for hours, then kills a dragon when he's in his seventies.
Heck, go back to ancient Greek literature and the humans and the gods routinely get into each other's business, helping each other out, meddling in each other's affairs, deceiving and coercing each other into to do things, getting caught up in petty jealousies, and launching wars out of spite or for personal gain. Sound familiar?
As for creation stories, there are almost as many of those as there are human civilizations. We have an entire three-credit course focused on creation stories, and even that only has space to address a small sampling of them.
Likewise, there are almost as many major religious texts as there are major civilizations. The Abrahamic traditions have their Bible and their Torah and their Qur'an and Hadith, and their various apocryphal texts, all of which are deemed sacrosanct and infallible by at least a portion of their adherents. The Buddhists have their Sutras. The Hindus have their Vedas, Upanishads, and Bhagavad Gita. The Shinto have their Kojiki. The Taoists have their Tao Te Ching. Dozens of other major world religions have their own texts, read and regarded as sacred by millions. The countless folk religions around the world have their countless oral traditions, some of which have been recorded and some of which have not.
Likewise, there are any number of religions that have arisen out of personality cults, sometimes following spiritual leaders of good faith, sometimes following con artists and charlatans. Sometimes those cults implode early. Sometimes they endure. Sometimes they become major world religions.
At certain levels of civilization, it is useful to have explanations for the unexplainable, symbolic interpretations of the natural world, narratives of origin and identity—even absolute codes of conduct. Religious traditions provide their adherents with comfort, moral guidance, a sense of belonging, and the foundations of strong communities.
However, religion has also been abused throughout much of recorded history, to justify keeping the wealthy and powerful in positions of wealth and power, to justify keeping major segments of society in positions of abject oppression, to justify vast wars, profitable to the most powerful and the least at risk, at the expense of the lives and livelihoods of countless less-powerful innocents.
A lot of good has been done in the name of religion. So has a lot of evil. And before we start talking about Islamist violence, let us remember that millions have been slaughtered in the name of Christianity. Almost every religion has caused bloodshed in its history, and every major religion has caused major bloodshed at some point in its history. Even the Buddhists. And there's almost always some element of we're-right-and-you're-wrong very close to the center of that bloodshed.
But what if we're all wrong?
If we can't begin to comprehend the vastness of the universe or the emptiness of what we consider solid, if we can only sense a tiny portion of what is going on around us (and through us), and if we don't even know for sure what we have actually seen with our own eyes or heard with our own ears, how can we even pretend to have any handle on an intelligence that might have designed all this? How can we even pretend to comprehend an intelligence that might even be all of this? I mean seriously, is there any way for us to empirically rule out the possibility that our entire known universe is part of some greater intelligence too vast for us to begin to comprehend? That in effect we are, and our entire reality is, a minuscule part of God itself?
In short, the more convinced you are that you understand the true nature of anything we might reasonably call God, the more convinced I am that you are probably mistaken.
I'm reminded of the bumper sticker I've seen: "If you're living like there's no God, you'd better be right!" (usually with too many exclamation points). And the debate I had with a street evangelist in which he tried to convince me that it was safer to believe in Jesus if there is no Christian God, than to be a non-believer if he does exist. Nothing like the threat of hell to bring 'em to Jesus. But to me, that kind of thinking is somewhere between a con job and extortion. You're either asking me to believe you because you're telling me bad things will happen to me if I don't believe you, which is circular logic, or you're threatening me. Either way, I'm not buying. I don't believe my immortal soul will be either rewarded or punished in the afterlife, because when it comes right down to it, even if something we might reasonably call God does exist, I still don't think we will experience anything we would recognize as an afterlife. Or that we possess anything we would recognize as an immortal soul.
To answer the incredulous question of a shocked high-school classmate, yes, I do believe that when we die, we more or less just wink out of existence. And no, I'm not particularly worried about that. I don't think any of us is aware of it when it happens.
But if there's no recognizable afterlife, no Heaven or Hell, no divine judgment, what's to keep us from abandoning all morality and doing as we please—killing, raping, looting, destroying property and lives with impunity, without fear of divine retribution? Well, if there is no afterlife, if, upon our deaths, we cease to exist as an individual, a consciousness, an immortal soul, or anything we would recognize as an entity—which, as I have established here, I believe is likely the case—then it logically follows that this life, this flicker of a few years between the development of consciousness in the womb and the disintegration of that consciousness at death, well, to put it bluntly, this is all we get. This life, and then we're gone. There is no better life beyond. You can call it nihilism, but I think it's quite the opposite.
Because if this one life here on Earth is all we get, ever, that means each life is unique, and finite, and precious, and irreplaceable, and in a very real sense, sacred. Belief in an idealized afterlife can be used—twisted, rather—to justify the killing of innocents. Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out. The implication being that if the slaughtered were in fact good people, they're now in a better place. But if there is no afterlife, no divine judgment, no eternal reward or punishment, then the slaughtered innocent are nothing more than that: Slaughtered. Wiped out. Obliterated. Robbed of their one chance at this beautiful, awesome, awful, and by turns astounding and terrifying experience we call life.
Likewise, if this one life is all we get and someone is deliberately maimed—whether physically or emotionally, with human atrocities inflicted upon them or those they love—they don't get some blissful afterlife to compensate for it. They spend the rest of their existence missing that hand, or having been raped, or knowing that their parents or siblings or children were killed because they happened to have been born in a certain place, or raised with a certain set of religious traditions, or have a certain color of skin or speak a certain language.
In other words, if this one life is all we get? We had damned well better use it wisely. Because we only get this one chance to sow as much beauty, as much joy, as much nurturing, and peace, and friendliness, and harmony as possible. We only get this one chance to embrace the new ideas and the new experiences. We only get this one chance to welcome the stranger, and to see the world through their eyes, if only for a moment. We only get this one chance to feed that hungry person, or to give our old coat to that person who is cold, or to offer compassion and solace and aid to that person who has seen their home, family, livelihood, and community destroyed by some impersonal natural disaster or some human evil such as war.
If I'm living like there's no (recognizable) God, I'd better be doing all I can manage to make this world a more beautiful place, a happier place, a more peaceful place, a better place. For everyone.
As for a God who would see someone living like that, or at least giving it their best shot, and then condemn them to eternal damnation because they failed to do something like accept Jesus Christ as their personal lord and savior? I'm sorry, but I cannot believe in a God like that. I might go so far as to say I flat-out refuse to believe in a God like that. I won't go so far as to say that no God exists, because as I have said, I believe that we literally have no way of knowing, but I'm pretty sure any God that does exist isn't that small-minded.
So anyway, happy holidays.
This is an examination of my own considered beliefs, and nothing more. I won't try to convert you. I will thank you to extend me the same courtesy. You believe what you believe and I believe what I believe, and in all likelihood there is some point at which each of us believes the other is wrong. And that's okay. If after reading this you find yourself compelled to pray for my salvation, I won't be offended.
If you celebrate Christmas, I wish you a merry Christmas. If you celebrate the Solstice, I wish you a blessed Solstice. If you celebrate Hanukkah, I wish you (belatedly) a happy Hanukkah. If you celebrate Milad un Nabi, I wish you Eid Mubarak. If some sense of tradition and no small amount of marketing has led you to celebrate the celebratory season beyond any sense of religious conviction, you seem to be in good company. If you celebrate some parody of a holiday such as Giftmas, I wish you the love of family and friends, and some cool stuff to unwrap. If you celebrate Festivus, I wish you a productive airing of grievances. If you're Dudeist, I abide. If you're Pastafarian, I wish you noodly appendage and all that. If you don't celebrate anything? We're cool.
And if you're still offended because I don't happen to believe exactly the same thing you believe? Seriously? You need to get over it.


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Quote of the Day
I remeber hearing this while watching the episode. I laughed so hard!
EEEwwww.... That sounds so gross. Then looking at Mo'nique pose like that is just nasty!!!!!!!!!
hee hee That's nasty!
LMAO. Monique, u go girl, should have put yo foot in her ass. N E 1 need a head check? call Mo'
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
Injection Molding Shop
|Zone Information
|Zone Name
|Injection Molding Shop
|Zone Slogan
|"Beyond 3D Printing"
|Zone Coordinator(s)
|Thad Johnson
|Zone Slack
|Zone E-mail
|Zone Color
|Paypal Button
- Thanks to Michael F. from the Lansing Makers Network for alerting i3 Detroit to the availability of these machines.
- Thanks to Jim K., Roger S., Nate W., Brian W., for hauling these unwieldy, messy, heavy machines from an unlit pole-barn in Ionia to our space under a tight deadline.
- Verify safety gate is functional
- Always shut down the air/hydraulics prior to reaching into a mold
- Take your time. Accidents happen because someone is in too big of a hurry.
Table of Equipment
|AllRounder 150
|Arburg C4b
- Injection Molding Shop Consumables
- Mold Release
- Resin - http://www.midwestresins.com
- Clamps
- Nozzles
ToDo List Notes
The intention of these ToDo lists is to maintain current answers to several different questions:
- What do we need to do to make these machines a practical tool for our members?
- How can I help with the injection molding project?
- Is the project making good use of the shop space it occupies?
- Is it making progress or is it stuck?
- Does it have the specific resources/expertise it needs?
- Does it have a practical roadmap to reach success? Refer to Dustins flow chart! Currently attached to side of BigBurg (Arburg 150)
What am I promising to do if I put my name in a "Champion" box?
- Keep track of the status of that ToDo item
- Help coordinate work on that ToDo item to avoid duplication of effort
- Do as much (or as little) actual work on that item as your expertise and time allow.
- Most importantly, if it stops being fun, make noise! Fail loudly! If you're not seeing the progress you want to see on your ToDo item, let people know, ask for ideas and help.
Injection Molding Shop Infrastructure ToDo List
|Moved to east shop wall between kiln and paint storage
|assemble pallet rack along east wall, will require grinding,
possible bolts or welding to attach rails
|Resin storage:
|Some resin is in bins, some in paper bags, some in jugs. Regular bins OK for our old resin stock. Acquire more airtight bins/containers/barrels when new resin is purchased.
|Resin management:
|Labels and database for what resin and quantity we have.
Make a consumable log with weights on wiki.
|Nate W - Labels on bin
|Exhaust system
|Note that what may appear to be a vent pipe with a red funnel is actually a chute for parts to fall down.
|Cooling water supply
|Acquired radiator chiller from TIG project. Inspect, assemble, make work.
|Compressed air supply for the smaller machine
|Extend a line into the molding shop, tap into overhead lines - Currently a drop is attached to the Torqcut nearby. Could repurpose drop when machine leaves.
|Electrical power
|Overhead drop to wall, 240V 18A 3PH rating on large hydraulic pump motor, heater power 220v 16A (8A/ea heater band).
Smaller machine is 110V.
|Ted or Nate W.?
|Hydraulic fluid spill management for the larger machine
|Sheet metal pan under the machine (proposed), automotive oil pan until constructed.
|Wheels/casters for easy relocation of machines
|Small machine needs heavy duty and lockable wheels/casters/skid plates. - Casters acquired, attachment plates need welded onto machine.
The big machine has rubber feet for a reason, user death imminent!
Injection Molding Shop Support ToDo List
|Arburg Documentation
|Arburg C4b manual (photocopy) is stacked on top of the machine.
|Roger S.
|Safety: Oil, resin, people near hot surfaces. Fluids under high pressure. Rapidly closing molds.
|Mold Design
|CAE (software tool chain?)
Copy existing mold design (where to find examples?)
|Mold Fabrication
|Tool steel appears to be impractical for our shop.
Forged/rolled Al plate (specialized mold alloy) proposed. Alumold 500 is available from Alro. Expect to get many hundreds of shots with a conservatively-designed mold made from the right aluminum stock.
|Process Control
|Temperature (two zones), pressure, cycle time, etc.
|Reading List
|Project plans/status/info on i3 Detroit wiki
|First injection molding wiki page (this page) has been started
|Dave S.
Arburg ALLROUNDER 150 ToDo List
|Degrease more
|Grab a bucket of warm/hot water, put some purple power in it, wipe grease off machine.
Don't get water in the oil reservoir
|Grease machine
|Find grease nipples and make sure they are lubed
|Move to new home
|Located between kiln and tool crib on east wall
|Connect the 2 220v lines to the bus bar, rewire from control box to motor.
Ted wants to run a pendulum drop, this would be ok if a 110v outlet is also on this drop for the CB4 Temp wired to disconnect on wall. Not ideal as this circuit also feeds the plasma table and kiln zone. Circuit will be overloaded if any 2 of these 3 machines are running at the same time. Talk to Nathan W. for details on future corrections.
|Replace key switch
|Key cylinders removed, replace with new switch in future. Pliers work for now.
|Figure out fuses for thermal controls
|(they appear to be missing)<- This was spare fuse holders.
|Reservoir and pump, possible 5gal bucket. Acquired radiator chiller from TIG project.
|Hydraulic fluid
|lost a bit in transit - should be ok at level to test, will need more soon 5-8gal aprox.
|Lower barrel to horizontal position
|This can be left in current state for time being, we don't have a mold to run, can be tested without.
|Nathan W.
Will need help.
|with or without mold, there is 1 mold that may work, needs cleaning/repairs
|Nate W.
|Clean up small 6" mold to test
Arburg C4b ToDo List
|Degrease more
|Grab a bucket of warm/hot water, put some purple power in it, wipe grease off machine.
|Grease machine
|Find grease nipples and make sure they are lubed
|Nate W.
|Move to new home
|Located between kiln and tool crib on east wall
|Electrical wires on machine:
|drooping/hanging wires, deteriorating insulation, replace main plug,
no wiring diagram as yet.
|Open loop chiller. TIG Chiller project
|Compressed air supply
|Route line down to machines. Tap off above line if possible.
Line at TorqCut nearby. Will reroute at later point when machine leaves.
|Solenoids: Not engaging, could be a timer (controls on controller box) issue.
|Wiring is pretty rough, Need to determine if they electrically function.
|Solenoids: Exhaust mufflers
|There are screw caps on the solenoids for caps or exhaust mufflers, most likely mufflers.
|Thermocouple: Replace!
|Open circuit, currently working though should still be replaced.
|Nate W
|Attach Casters
|Need to weld plates on bottom, then bolt on.
|Nate W
Tons of work still to go
|Nate W
Project Milestones
- First photo of the Injection Molding Shop with machines and supplies in place (Done!)
- Electrical power supplied, machine turns on (C4b Done!)
- Working pressure reached in hydraulic circuit with no visible leaks (working pressure reached in compressed air circuit with no audible leaks) (C4b Done!)
- Cooling water flowing with no visible leaks
- Stable temperature control observed (C4b needs new thermocouple !)
- Melted plastic supplied to a mold (C4b Done!)
- First example of molded plastic item using mold from the pole-barn. (C4b Done!)
- First mold fabricated at i3 Detroit
- First example of molded plastic item using mold fabricated at i3 Detroit


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SAN DIEGO, Dec. 24 (UPI) -- A woman was able to call 911 after being shot in the head in the parking lot of a San Diego shopping mall early Tuesday, police said.
The victim, who later died, and a man were shot for unknown reasons while seated in a parked car at the Westfield Mission Valley Mall around 1:15 a.m. PST by an unknown gunman who remained at large.
Police said they were looking for a man wearing tan slacks who was seen leaving the area. A gray Honda sedan was also being sought, KNSD-TV, San Diego, said.
Both victims were shot in the head and torso. The woman who called for help died at a hospital and the male might not survive, police told the San Diego U-T.
Homicide investigators were on the scene Tuesday morning when the mall opened for Christmas Eve shoppers.


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Xiaomi unveils its new CEO succession plan
BEIJING, China - As part of its latest move to ensure a steady CEO succession plan is in place, the Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi Inc announced new management jobs.
The company's business rejig is aimed at creating new leadership positions that are aimed at building a second tier to CEO Lei Jun.
The move comes in light of increased scrutiny of governance and successions at Chinese tech firms.


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"parking innovation" entries
Need parking? There's no app for that…yet
Our parking problems need nuanced civic tech solutions.
"We will not abide businesses that hold hostage on-street public parking spots for their own private profit," said the San Francisco city attorney last month, after declaring illegal Monkey Parking, ParkModo, and Sweetch, new start-ups that provide mobile apps for buying and selling curb spaces.
Some might see this as a case of cities standing in the way of private-sector innovation, comparable to regulatory fights over Airbnb and Uber. However, those profiting by using Monkey Parking to "share" their on-street spots are effectively trying to sell something that doesn't belong to them. Curb parking is a publicly owned "commons" — not the private possession of whomever occupies a space.
Even if their solutions are illegal, these start-ups are right: parking is broken in many American cities, and their solution is a business opportunity for both the public and private sectors. We need a thorough reassessment of parking management in American cities, and civically minded technologies are a big part of the solution. That's the thinking of other departments of San Francisco's government as well as one of urban planning's most cited and least read theorists, Donald Shoup. For the nascent field of civic technology, Shoup's nuanced research demonstrates how new technologies and policy can together improve city life — and lead to true public good — at the same time as the city attorney's enforcement actions highlight the potential pitfalls of "sharing" services designed only for private profit. Read more…


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XLR Connectors are tough connectors which are used on the studio and stage, with applications in audio, lighting and controlling accessories such as fog machines. This electrical connector is popular in professional audio applications for many reasons, but mainly because of their suitability in delivering balanced microphone and line-level signals with no loss of quality over long cable distances.
What are male and female XLR connectors?
XLR connectors are available in male or female genders. Both genders can be paired with wires which are attached to contacts on the connector. The male XLR connector features pins which plug into the female XLR connector. Female XLR connectors are often mounted onto devices, instead of being wired.
XLR connectors typically have built in push-button locking, ensuring a secure connection which may be vital in stage audio set ups, or wherever the possibility of accidental disconnection is high.
For secure, durable and quality audio connections, XLR connectors are the industry standard.


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Nourison Nourison 2000 2117 Area Rug
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To clean your rug of spills, firmly press a clean cloth onto the area to absorb as much liquid as possible. Avoid rubbing or stroking as this can set the stain deeper into the rug. For general maintenance of your rug, carefully vacuum on a low power setting. Professional cleaning is the preferred and recommended method for stains. Using a rug pad is also recommended to extend the life of your rug.
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• To return an item, simply fill out our Arrange A Return form.
• All returns must have a Return Authorization # before being shipped back. Customer will be responsible for return shipping.
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I'm standing in an old cabin. Blood and bits of brain are everywhere. It's on the floors. It's caked on the walls. It's wherever your eyes happen to look. And it's awesome. While I was nervous when Sony announced they were remaking the original Evil Dead, after spending the past two days on the set in Auckland, New Zealand, and talking with the filmmakers and cast, I'm extremely confident fans of the franchise and casual moviegoers are going to be really happy next year. And it's because of the blood and brains. Unlike most movies that try to appeal to a wide audience by releasing a PG-13 movie, Sony is making a movie filled with blood and guts. The Evil Dead remake is absolutely going to be rated R, and based on what we learned on set, they might have to cut some of the gore or they could get an NC-17. It's a refreshing change from when studios play it safe.
But let me back up a second.
It's June 14, 2012 and I'm flying back to Los Angeles. As I said, I spent the past few days on the set of director Fede Alvarez's Evil Dead remake that stars Shiloh Fernandez, Jane Levy, Elizabeth Blackmore, Lou Taylor Pucci, and Jessica Lucas. In the remake, a group of friends go to a remote cabin to help one of them recover from a recent heroin overdose, and that's where they come across the Book of the Dead.
Before going any further, I know some of you are upset that Evil Dead is being remade, and you might think Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell are getting ready to burn Sony to the ground.
You can relax.
Not only are Campbell, Raimi, and original Evil Dead producer Rob Tapert onboard as producers of the remake, they were the ones who decided Fede Alvarez would direct the project. Futhermore, Tapert has been on set the entire time. Also, before production began, Alvarez spent a week in Miami with Campbell going over the remake and getting his input. The remake is being done with everyone's blessing and their involvement is one of the reasons I'm so confident in the project.
35 Things to Know About EVIL DEAD
95% of the remake was shot in order. They did this because a lot of the film takes place in a controlled environment and the level of blood and violence gets worse and worse as the film progresses. By shooting in order, they can throw blood on the walls and not worry it will mess up another shot where it needed to be clean.
The gore and violence in Evil Dead is going to be over the top. If you were nervous they would shy away from anything, they're going full force.
As Raimi fans know, he always puts a 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88 in every film. Named "The Classic," it's the car Ash used in the original Evil Dead. You'll be happy to know the car is in the remake, but I won't spoil where and when it makes an appearance.
Tapert said they have a budget that's "pretty good based on the horror market" and compared the number to The Grudge 2 and most Ghost House Pictures.
While most films are owned by movie studios, Raimi, Campbell, and Tapert still own Evil Dead so they maintain a lot of control. This is another reason why you should be very confident in the remake.
As an Easter egg for fans, the clock in the hallway is the original clock from Raimi's first two Evil Dead movies. Alvarez is hoping to get Campbell for a cameo, but he's busy filming Burn Notice.
One of the main reasons Alvarez landed the gig is he was the only one to pitch the remake without the Ash character. The remake doesn't have anyone named Ash.
The remake has a few direct lines from the original. I won't spoil which ones. The remake is also recreating scenes from the original film.
The basement of the cabin is filled with dead cats hanging from the ceiling and laying on the ground. It's also where the group comes across the book.
Technology doesn't play a role in the film. No one has iPhones. The cabin has an old VHR with tapes, but the group goes to this deserted old cabin to get away from everything to help a friend detox. It's a good excuse why they can't easily get help.
Unlike some films that go back and forth on tone, the Evil Dead remake is a horror movie that's not going for any cheap jokes. If something happens to be funny it's okay, but they're making a horror movie first. It is not Evil Dead 2 or Army of Darkness. It's a serious horror movie.
When the camera is on the actors, it's a lot of handheld shots. When the camera follows the spirits, it's like the original in that is will move quick, be kinetic, and have some low angles. It will also follow behind some of the actors or quickly zoom in on one of them.
During pre-production and during every meeting, they always planned for a hard R. The studio never said pull back.
The production is doing as much practically and in camera as possible. They recently shot a sequence where one of the cast uses a kitchen knife to cut off their hand and it was done on one take and they won't be adding any CG to the shot.
If you were nervous a tree wouldn't do something to one of the female characters, it still happens. In fact, Alvarez says it's even more brutal than the original.
Even though the remake has a lot more money and time than the original, they tried to stick to the scale and the simplicity of the original. When I was on set, it felt like a small production rather than some studio movie.
During the third act, there is a scene where it will rain blood, and the production bought 50,000 gallons of blood to use in the scene.
They're shooting the movie on the new Sony F65 4K, and it's anamorphic widescreen. They're also using a shutter on the camera to give it more of a film look. Also, unlike some productions that shoot digital but use an old 70s lens, they're shooting on Master Prime lenses.
Due to the HD cameras, everything effects related had to be done with more detail because the camera picks up everything.
Fede Alvarez was the one that wanted to do the effects practically. It's always a smart decision to go practical.
The production is planning for multiple versions of the film due to the level of violence and gore. Eventually, the most violent material will make its way to Blu-ray/DVD. But this way they will be assured of getting an R rather than an NC-17.
3D was a consideration for a "heartbeat."
Diablo Cody did some character and dialogue tweaks on the script, but didn't change the action or beats of the film.
The actors talked about the level of violence, and how shocked they were at the physicality of their roles. They also talked about how gross it was. One of them has a scene where they had to puke a crazy amount of liquid on someone else.
With the makeup, they tried to go realistic and not cartoony. They wanted to make it so it would be like what would you look like if this really happened to you.
Some of the cast have three hour makeup sessions and then another hour or more to get out of it.
The movie takes place now but they tried to make it timeless with clothing and hairstyles.
Evil Dead is shooting for 3 months. They started on April 9th and they go until July 11th.
The production built two cabins. One is in a real forest and one is one a soundstage in Auckland. The one in the forest is being used for most of the exteriors and the one on the stage has been build with breakaway walls so they can shoot any room with any angle.
The forest where they're shooting was also used for Xena, Hercules, The Bridge to Terabithia, and Legend of the Seeker.
The remake will use some of the same props as the original. We got to see and hold the chainsaw, fake tree branches that can wrap around a victim, and, of course, the Book of the Dead. For those wondering, the production made three books and they're constantly adding pages during the shoot as needed.
Due to a copyright issue, they couldn't put a face on the book, so now it's just a stitch cover and it's more grounded in reality. Raimi approved the look of the new book. He also saw and approved the props.
The costume department had six weeks to prep and then two weeks with the actors. They were shooting the next day.
We were told that Raimi is not involved in the day to day filming at all. He has a policy that director should be left alone during production and when they screen the rough cut he'll give notes and then get involved.
Alvarez says he hates cheap scares and won't do them. He also doesn't want music cues to make you think something is about to happen if it's not leading to something. He also said he won't use any pop songs in the remake.
Possibly spoiler: The film will end like you've seen a complete story but you might feel like there is something that could still happen.
Final Thoughts
If the final film turns out like I think it will, Evil Dead is going to be a great remake and a fantastic horror movie. While I've been fooled on previous set visits by thinking something will be cool and it turns out to be a fiasco, Fede Alvarez is making an extremely violent movie filled with death, dismemberment, and destruction. He's not going for middle America. He's not trying to placate casual moviegoers. He's making a horror movie for horror fans and I really think he's doing it right. I can't wait to see it next year.


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Civil War in Russia (2)
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The AMX-30 is a main battle tank designed by GIAT, first delivered to the French Army in 1966. The first five tanks were issued to the 501st Régiment de Chars de Combat (Tank Regiment) in August of that year. The production version of the AMX-30 weighed 36 metric tons (40 short tons), and sacrificed protection for increased mobility. The French believed that it would have required too much armour to protect against the latest anti-tank threats, thereby reducing the tank's maneuverability. Protection, instead, was provided by the speed and the compact dimensions of the vehicle, including a height of 2.28 metres. It had a 105-millimetre (4.1 in) cannon, firing an advanced high explosive anti-tank warhead known as the Obus G. The Obus G used an outer shell, separated from the main charge by ball bearings, to allow the round to be spin stabilized by the gun without affecting the warhead inside. Mobility was provided by the 720 horsepower (540 kW) HS-110 diesel engine, although the troublesome transmission adversely affected the tank's performance.
Due to the issues caused by the transmission, in 1979 the French Army began to modernize its fleet of tanks to AMX-30B2 standards, which included a new transmission, an improved engine and the introduction of a new fin-stabilized kinetic energy penetrator, amongst other improvements. Production of the AMX-30 also extended to a number of variants, including the AMX-30D armored recovery vehicle, the AMX-30R anti-aircraft gun system, a bridge-layer, the Pluton tactical nuclear missile launcher and a surface to air missile launcher.
It was preceded by two prior post-war French medium tank designs, including the ARL 44. Although the ARL 44 was an interim tank, its replacement tank, the AMX 50, was cancelled in the mid-1950s in favor of adopting the M47 Patton tank. In 1956 the French government entered a cooperative development program with Germany and Italy in an effort to design a standardized tank. Although the three nations agreed to a series of specific characteristics that the new tank should have, and both France and Germany began work on distinctive prototypes with the intention of testing them and combining the best of both, the program failed as Germany decided not to adopt the new French 105-millimetre (4.1 in) tank gun and France declared that it would postpone production until 1965. As a result, both nations decided to adopt tanks based on their own prototypes. The German tank became known as the Leopard 1, while the French prototype became the AMX-30.
As early as 1969, the AMX-30 and variants were ordered by Greece, soon followed by Spain. In the coming years, the AMX-30 would be exported to Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Cyprus and Chile. By the end of production, 3,571 units of AMX-30s and its variants had been manufactured. Both Spain and Venezuela later began extensive modernization programs to extend the life of their vehicles and to bring their tanks up to more modern standards. In the 1991 Gulf War, AMX-30s were deployed by both the French and Qatari armies, and Qatari AMX-30s saw action against Iraqi forces at the Battle of Khafji. However, France and most other nations replaced their AMX-30s with more up-to-date equipment by the end of the 20th century.


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Book Launch – Golden Boy by Abigail Tarttelin
Rising literary star Abigail Tarttelin launched her second novel Golden Boy in London last week. It's one of those books that you'll just want to stay up all night and read. It's a coming of age story about Max Walker – the Golden Boy, the perfect son, the best friend. The girls at school likeContinue reading


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BROOKLYN – Cassette tapes, typewriters, vinyl records, NES consoles. The reclaiming of forgotten technology is every hipster's siren song.
Mopeds are no different, and the vintage bikes are forming better meatspace communities than most iPhone apps.
Almost every major city in the U.S. boasts at least one moped gang, and the names straddle being badass and ironic: Creatures of the Loin (San Francisco), Puddle Cutters (Portland, Oregon), the Tom Cruisers (Tempe, Arizona), Latebirds (Los Angeles), Landsquids (Sacramento, California), Decepticons (Kalamazoo, Michican), Hells Satans (Richmond, Virginia) and more.
The Oprhans are Brooklyn's fearsome two-stroke contigent (pictured above), and they're obsessed with the abandoned pedal-start bikes.
Mopeds reached the height of their popularity in the late 1970s during the oil crisis. Now they litter backyards and clutter garages with their rusted frames and rotted tires. A growing subculture, to which the Orphans belong, is eager to breathe life back into these motorized gems and turn them loose in the streets.
In April, some Orphans opened the Orphanage in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. It's a full-service moped shop that carries parts and accessories, as well as engine and exhaust kits to power up a moped. Most of the shop's business comes from fixing broken mopeds, since the bikes that roll through its doors often haven't run in 30 years.
Read on as we meet some of the Orphans, have a run-in with the law and take a ride over the bridge into Manhattan, moped-style.
Bradley Carroll zips down Franklin Avenue on his moped.
Photos: Bryan Derballa/Wired.com
As much as it is a business, the unassuming Orphanage has also become a clubhouse for members. Regular riders stop by to tinker with their bikes. Members of out-of-town gangs use it as a hub to meet up with old friends.
When not fixing mopeds, the guys roll dice, watch YouTube videos and eat Mexican food from down the street. The newest addition is a TV and Wii console, which has resulted in Mortal Kombat tournaments.
A Puch Magnum sits around the corner from the Orphanage. The bike features the whole gamut of customizations including a larger cylinder, carbon fiber exhaust pipe and a fresh paint job. Although mopeds use far less gasoline, their two-stroke engines generate more pollution than the four-stroke engines used by cars and motorcycles.
Photos: Bryan Derballa/Wired.com
Ryan Due, a longtime rider from Chicago, owns the Orphanage. His first attempt at collecting mopeds failed because his live-in girlfriend at the time couldn't understand why he'd need more than one moped. Since the break-up, Due's collection has grown so much that the Orphanage and its storage space has become almost a necessity.
Due's been working on computers for 11 years, mopeds for seven. By day, he's an IT guy in Manhattan. He says the general fascination is the same with computers and mopeds. It's all problem solving.
Due adjusts the cylinder on a customer's bike. A standard moped can go about 35 mph, but with a larger cylinder a bike can take in more gas and run faster. Most of these modified mopeds top out in the high 40s, with some seriously souped-up bikes hitting the 60s.
Due's particular philosophy seems to permeate the Brooklyn moped scene: "If it doesn't run it's because it's too pretty." His personal bikes are fast but not attractive – they feature exposed wiring, rusted shocks and dirty engines. In contrast, mopeds in some different scenes, like San Francisco, tend to be slick with custom paint jobs and carbon fiber exhaust pipes.
Photos: Bryan Derballa/Wired.com
They call him Handsome Dan. Dan DeBiasio is one of The Oprhanage's mechanics. DeBiasio is a natural tinkerer and started apprenticing as a piano tuner when he was 19 – about the same time he got into mopeds. For him, tuning a piano and tuning up a moped come from the same curiosity, and now he makes a living doing both.
Handsome Dan pedal-starts a moped. Walk by the street in front of the Orphanage on an average day and you'll find mechanics testing bikes, listening to engines run and checking brakes.
On top of being a good mechanic, DeBiasio is also a strong rider. After his first moped trip from his home state of Arizona to Kalamazoo for a rally, he was inducted into the Tom Cruisers, one of Arizona's moped gangs.
Most recently, he rode with some Orphans from Brooklyn to Chicago for a rally. On longer trips Orphans all make sure to ride the same bike (a Puch Maxi) so repairs are easier on the road.
Photos: Bryan Derballa/Wired.com
Due and fellow Orphan, Nathan Isherwood (center), help newbie Ben Schechter (right) work on his bike. For many riders, owning a moped means working on a moped. At the Orphanage, the mechanics gladly show owners how to repair their vintage vehicles.
This particular model is a 1977 Puch Maxi. It's one of the more popular mopeds on the street. Bradley Carroll, another Orphan, calls the Maxi "the most soul moped – looks good, easy to ride, easy to work on."
Lauren Walsh repairs her JC Penny Swinger 2. Walsh lives in Chicago and drove her bike in the back of her car to spend time at the Orphanage. She knows Due from Chicago and has met other Orphans at rallies.
Walsh hasn't had the best luck at rallies. At an event in San Francisco she broke one of her arms and then broke the other at a rally in Los Angeles. Despite the mishaps, she keeps riding and working on her bike. Bones heal but friends are forever.
Andrew Schrock (aka Hippy) and Brian McCrocklin (reflected) work on bikes in front of the Orphanage. They are from the Hells Satans in Richmond, Virginia and just came up to Brooklyn for the weekend to hang out, ride and work on mopeds.
Many moped gangs are on good terms with one another. They meet at rallies every summer and stay linked-in through the vast online forum Moped Army.
Photos: Bryan Derballa/Wired.com
Pat Lowery lays on the roof of the Orphanage while visiting Brooklyn for the weekend with Hells Satans. Lowery lives in Richmond and is a founding member of the gang. He grew up skateboarding and started riding mopeds to get from one skate spot to the next. Soon moped culture became just as important to him as skate culture – which both share a penchant for exploration.
"If we're on a ride and see an access road into nowhere, we're gonna go down it," says Lowery.
Hells Satans return from a sunset ride around Greenpoint, Brooklyn on bikes borrowed from the Orphanage. Lowery is connected to many other gangs throughout the country, mostly through rallies, and so he feels comfortable in almost every major city in the country. The Hells Satans recently hosted their own rally in Richmond.
Lowery indulges a passerby with information about mopeds. Older people are often confounded that they are still being ridden.
Like many riders, Lowery likes how his moped fits into his minimalistic lifestyle. Though he owns a car, he rarely drives it, opting instead to ride his moped 25 miles out of town to visit his parents once a week.
Photos: Bryan Derballa/Wired.com
During an unfortunate ride, Brian McCrocklin was arrested for riding a moped that was reported stolen.
Because the Hells Satans were visiting from Richmond, they didn't bring their own bikes and Ryan Due let them borrow a few from the shop – one of which belonged to Due and was stolen last year. Due recovered the bike on his own and never resolved the matter with the police. McCrocklin spent the afternoon in jail while Due smoothed things out. McCrocklin was released with no fines.
Lowery and the other Hells Satans received $90 tickets for not having motorcycle licenses. The Hells Satans claim this is their last trip to Brooklyn.
A cop rides the "stolen" moped back to the police station.
Photos: Bryan Derballa/Wired.com
Ryan Due gears up for a ride. With the shop open six days a week, working IT five days and tending to the incessant slew of visitors, Due has had little opportunity for leisure rides.
Once all the bikes are ready to roll, the gang heads out over the Williamsburg Bridge to begin their weekend group ride.
Photos: Bryan Derballa/Wired.com
Andy Kenney, the newest Orphan, leads the pack up Avenue B in Manhattan's East Village. Kenney says, "it's so much fun riding that you forget about all the people on the sidewalk making fun of you and just enjoy it."
The gang zips through midtown Manhattan dodging tourists at 30 mph. The tailpipes are inherently less noisy than motorcycles and the group can talk amongst themselves, mostly about how their mopeds are riding.
The mopeders ride on at their own speed (fast but not too fast) and on their own creations (solid but not too pretty). They're unconcerned with acceptance, just enjoying the wind in their faces and the mild rumble beneath them.
See Also:


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The Secret Money Project NPR has teamed up with the Center for Investigative Reporting to track the new crop of independent groups funding advertising in the 2008 election cycle. Find out what these groups are up to — and watch and hear their latest ads. Plus, find out who is funding these organizations.
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The Olive Fairy Book
Andrew Lang
Fairies, sprites, brownies, pixies and other tiny mythical creatures have featured in the folklore of many nations over the years. Publishers, writers, anthologists and illustrators have also embraced the tales of the wee people and have retold them again and again.
Some cultures believe they are a subclass of the dead while others see them as spirits of the air, water or earth. Often these small creatures are playful, but they can also be evil and malicious with questionable motives – it pays not to cross a fairy.
A particularly famous collection from this intriguing genre was Andrew Lang's Fairy Books series. They contained many of the classic fairy stories Lang grew up reading in the rural Scottish Borders, as well as doses of the violent and mischievous side of the little beasts. The 12 books were published beginning in 1889, with The Blue Fairy Book, and concluded with The Lilac Fairy Book in 1910.
The rich art of Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac brought traditional, classical fairies to life for millions of readers, while more modern illustrators like Brian Froud often take a humourous approach to the subject as seen in Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Book.Whether you're a devout fairy-fan, a strict non-believer or just curious, this genre is highly collectable thanks to beautiful illustrations and memorable tales.


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A collection of scholarly works about individual liberty and free markets. A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.
Popular Government, with an Introduction by George W. Carey (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1976). https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/904,
|Available in the following formats:
|Facsimile PDF
|This is a facsimile or image-based PDF made from scans of the original book.
Originally written for the Quarterly Review, these essays question the commonly accepted justifications for "popular government" - Rousseauian natural law and Benthamite utilitarianism. The Liberty Fund edition based upon the first edition of 1885 contains an introduction by George W. Carey.
The copyright to this edition, in both print and electronic forms, is held by Liberty Fund, Inc.
This material is put online to further the educational goals of Liberty Fund, Inc. Unless otherwise stated in the Copyright Information section above, this material may be used freely for educational and academic purposes. It may not be used in any way for profit.


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Elegance bedroom crafted from birch wood with cherry veneers and burl inlays on the drawer fronts.Decorate leather with individual antique brass nail heads.The dresser and nightstands comes with an attached marble top. The drawers come with drawer stops, dove tailing, single wood glides on the small drawers and double glides on the large drawers plus dust covers.
Traditional Louis Phillippe bedroom is perfectly interpreted in this timeless design. Excitement comes from functional hidden drawer, classic antique brass handle, and largely scaled case pieces with over-hang top and fluted wood molding on the front and sides. Elegance and beauty are brought to mind when viewing this popular collection. The wood itself is hardwood done in updated warm distressed cherry finish. Dijon II Collection is available in traditional sleigh bed, and panel bed.
An urban contemporary bedroom in an espresso finish on cherry solids veneers and selected hardwoods. The geometric design in satin nickel further represents the contemporary styling.
Classic bedroom set. In stock. Lead time is 2-3 weeks. The craftsmanship and timeless elegance of old world European antiques, Valentino has been carefully designed and hand crafted . A beautiful piece of art attains a perfect balance by combining all of its elements. The selection of imported woods detailed with extensive hand carving to the original creation of our multi step "Tuscan Miele" finish.
This Ladya Sleigh-Gondola Bed is a stunning example of how classic Sleigh Bed design has been taken to a completely new level. The curved side rails make a strong statement regarding the character and bold lines of this unique bed and the Oval Marble Medallion accent in the center of the headboard is a signature design element throughout the Ladya Collection.Crafted from Birch Solids Cherry and Mapa Burl Veneers Honey Walnut Finish Queen bed 76''w-99''d-76'' Cal.King 88''w-99''d-78''H East.King 88''- 96''d -79''H Bedside Chest H34.00" W32.00" D20.00" Dresser H42.00" W78.00" D20.50" Dresser Mirror H48.50" W52.50" D2.00" 6 Drawer Chest H66.50" W53.00" D20.25" Armoire H92.00" W54.25" D24.25" Leather Bedside Bench H21.00" W54.75" D24.50"


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Steve & i: One Photographer's Improbable Journey With Steve Jobs
Becky Green Aaronson BA '88 coauthors the story of her husband's encounters and friendship with Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Jeffrey Aaronson is a professional photographer who met Jobs when both were 29, and their friendship lasted more than two decades. The book includes personal anecdotes and rarely seen photos.
Improbable Publishing, Kindle edition, 2012. 32 pages.


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