Comments for Gil's Blog

Comment on House Alarms and Home Protection. by gil

gil — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:56:29 +0000

Hello, thanks, good point. I wouldn’t go that far. It depends on the layout of your house I guess. My bedroom is at the end of the house, so it is easy for me to retreat to it and grab something. A friend of mine hides guns in different rooms.. My point about having a strong door is to give you time to go for your weapon.. This way, you don’t have to have it on you, which really would be a pain I think. Though If I lived in a very dangerous neighborhood, I might think differently. Mine isn’t that great, we hear gunshots a few blocks away once in a while, and stuff has been stolen around the house at night. My pocket knife (Emerson Commander) never leaves my pants pocket, so I guess I am always armed. Having hand-to-hand combat skills also goes a long way in providing a little piece of mind. I don’t worry much anyway, and seldom think about safety, but I do naturally adopt a safe attitude instinctively.

Glad you like my blog! Have a great week-end,

Gil.

Comment on House Alarms and Home Protection. by Grizz

Grizz — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 17:43:29 +0000

Gil

I like your site and your interests a lot. One comment about needing a weapon in your house: my version is you need that weapon in your pants. I went thru all the “in the house” scenarios. Let’s see, where is it when I’m in the bathroom? Where is when I’m watching tv? Where is it when I’m in the shop? See what I mean?

Since I cannot predict where or when I might need to stop a violent aggressor, I decided the only thing that made sense is to have the gun on me all the time. When I’m in the shower it’s not on me, but it’s as close as the soap.

Picking and choosing where the gun is like playing roulette with your safety.

Thanks for posting up the topic, it needs to be common knowledge.

Regards,

Grizz

Comment on Swords as a Home Self Defense Option. by House Alarms and Home Protection. | Gil's Blog

House Alarms and Home Protection. | Gil's Blog — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:28:24 +0000

[...] can’t swing that bat hard enough, forget it. A gun, sure, but you must practice with it. A sword would be better than any kind of club. Non-lethal options like the Taser or mace are in my opinion [...]

Comment on The Best Sailboats You Can Build. by Denise Ganley

Denise Ganley — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 21:58:30 +0000

Hi,

I’ve just come across your blog. The Hitch Hiker plans are still available through Ganley Yachts. Our website is currently being updated and should be live in a week or so.

Regards

Denise Ganley

Comment on Backing Up Your Computer. by gil

gil — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 12:51:57 +0000

Hello,

I don’t have enough information to answer your question…

- What do you mean by “all my files?” Are you doing a bit-by-bit disk image copy, or just copying files by dragging them over? Which files?

- What software, if any, are you using to copy those files?

- You say synchronizing.. Do you mean you’re using SpiderOak?

- If you are synchronizing, is it between two machines?

- How do you plan on restoring your drive?

- What operating system do you use?

- When you say “day one,” do you mean operating system only?

Gil.

Comment on Backing Up Your Computer. by Loreen

Loreen — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 23:52:10 +0000

I am going to be wiping out my hard drive and take my computer back to day 1…
I am copying all my files to an external hard drive and it is synchronizing and encrypting them…

Will I have a problem restoring them once my hard drive is back to day one…or should I not have synchronized when I copied them?

Comment on UK Orwellian Nightmare. by gil

gil — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 19:03:54 +0000

Yet more surveillance in the UK:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jan/23/cctv-sky-police-plan-drones

Comment on The Best Sailboats You Can Build. by gil

gil — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 01:33:22 +0000

Hello,

I wish I knew where to find those Ganley plans… They used to be sold on Fairmetalboats.com. Maybe contacting the domain name owner would bring some info, I’ll try. I never thought about taking offset lines of my boat, but it does sound interesting.. It is very similar to the Tahitiana, but has only one chine, as opposed to two.. If you are interested in building one, I’d say go for Tahitiana plans.. $150 only! http://www.duckworksbbs.com/plans/wf/tahitiana/index.htm

Comment on The Best Sailboats You Can Build. by stuart

stuart — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 19:07:36 +0000

Hello,
Re;your website, then is there any news about a supply of Ganley Hitch Hiker 25ft plans?
Also, have you considered taking off a set of offsets/lines for your heavy 30/32 ft steel tahiti-esque yacht? i.e. Dagny.
If so, then what might be your tems for a copy of the offsets etc?
I am also on the lookout for even smaller steel yachts down to say 17ft.
Regards,
Stuart
U.K.

Comment on I’m a Skeptic, But What is That on Mars? by Frank

Frank — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 22:00:01 +0000

Hi!

I think this picture is a 3d model with a normal map.
We can see that on the top of the picture … It’s look like a cube.

So yeah! the pathern is the same
SEMPMT0A90E
SEMCMT0A90E

The quality of this one is poor … I cant see details. Where is the original?????
SEMTQWWJD1E

We can see details in this one. But it’s a close-up view of surface near Crater Hale -.-
+ it’s the same description … the same the High Resolution Stereo Camera and the distance … but the quality is a lot better.
SEMPKT0A90E

This is very strange

Comment on The Plane I Would Like to Build. by gil

gil — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 18:03:45 +0000

Hi Keith,

When that boat if finished, I’ll have a bit party when putting it back in the water, and you are invited! The plane ride, I certainly wouldn’t take passengers before flying it quite a few times Stop by the Systema class sometime! Happy new year!

Comment on The Plane I Would Like to Build. by Keith

Keith — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 02:57:54 +0000

Gil that is great that you are rockin your own plane and boat projects. The boat you can take me on one of these days for a test run , the plane, I will watch you take off from the ground and you can tell me how it goes…LOL Best of luck brother!

Comment on UK Orwellian Nightmare. by gil

gil — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 23:13:48 +0000

Waoh! http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8277378.stm

Comment on I’m a Skeptic, But What is That on Mars? by WTFologist

WTFologist — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 16:09:28 +0000

when i first saw the patterns, immediately what came to mind was video compression artifacts (like you see when MPEGs are decoded). But on closer examination, it was obvious that these patterns are mapped to the contour of the terrain.

So then I thought, how could I duplicate this? If I had a 3-D terrain map for this region (I don’t know where I could get one), I could take patterns of 2-D barcodes, or Amish quilts, or crop glyphs, and map them onto the surface, as is commonly done in 3D rendering.

But when I looked at another photo of the same area taken from a different perspective, I was amazed to find that the same patterns are there, and consistent with the new orientation.

After talking to Leo, I have to agree with him that these are 3-D enhanced photos, not the original 2-D photos. Therefore, by definition, all the photographic pixels were indeed mapped to a terrain model, this necessarily includes video compression artifacts. And these patterns definitely look like MPEG compression artifacts.

One thing still bothers me: because the artifacts are the same in two different perspectives, then the same 2-D source photo had to be used to generate both perspectives. Yet the ESA website seems to present the “photos” as separate shots from separate locations. But in fact, these are computer generated mappings of the same photo. Now why would they do that?

That being said, there are plenty of other weird objects photographed by the Mars rovers that are not explainable in the above manner. I remain convinced that there was, at some time in the distant past, humanoid inhabitants on Mars.

Comment on I’m a Skeptic, But What is That on Mars? by gil

gil — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 14:32:04 +0000

I thought about that.. It does look like it follows the terrain though, and I don’t know if image compression would generate something like that. I have never seen it on any other photos. Maybe someone with good knowledge if image processing could comment here?

Comment on I’m a Skeptic, But What is That on Mars? by Artisticleo

Artisticleo — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 13:47:19 +0000

It looks to me an awful lot like some sort of Image distortion. I’m guessing this is a computer generated image of a radar sweep blended with actual imagery? Depending on the process and compression possibly used in putting it all together, that checkerboarding looks like compression artifacting.

Comment on UK Orwellian Nightmare. by gil

gil — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 00:59:22 +0000

Geez, two comments the same day! Pubs warn over plastic pints plan

Comment on UK Orwellian Nightmare. by gil

gil — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 00:51:53 +0000

Click on the image to enlarge..

Comment on UK Orwellian Nightmare. by gil

gil — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 19:16:43 +0000

1,000 cameras 'solve one crime'

Comment on The Best Sailboats You Can Build. by gil

gil — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 01:06:36 +0000

Hi, thanks. I have seen these boats. Intriguing method of construction.. I do not think they are much lighter, but certainly faster to build..