stomping on the ground

Skull and crossbones stencil

2014-09-21T15:17:00.000-05:00

I was recently in the process of building a Raingutter Regatta trimaran boat with my son who is in his first year of Tiger scouts. He is a big fan of pirates and decided we should paint a skull and crossbones image on the sail. I came across this article describing how to stencil a skull and crossbones as an arts and craft project. We liked the idea, but unfortunately the article didn't include the stencil, so I did some more searching and came across this svg image of a skull and crossbones on Wikipedia. It was created by an unknown author under the creative Commons license, so I used it as a starting point. I installed Inkscape and made modified the image to fit my needs as a stencil. I trimmed out the middle with a utility knife. Then I sprayed a single base red coat, let that dry, the followed up with the blue coat. You can see I did get some overspray, which was because I didn't get the paper flat on the sail. I also used standard printer paper for the stencil. A thicker paper might help prevent the overspray.

I've included a svg and a pdf version of the file. The both the skull and face images are around 2.5" x 3" in size, printable on single sheet of paper. Since I spray painted the stencil and am not very experienced with Inkscape, I wasn't too careful with making the lines very clean. Feel free to modify or use for any of your projects. Leave a comment if you found this image to be useful.

I release the svg and pdf image under creative commons. I, the copyright holder of this work, release this work into the public domain. This applies worldwide. In some countries this may not be legally possible; if so: I grant anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law.

Interesting development in solar technology

2010-11-26T10:06:00.002-06:00

I have been interested in solar for some time now. I'm glad to see the technology is improving. Hopefully, the cost will decrease as well.

http://www.gizmag.com/boeing-to-mass-produce-world-record-efficiency-solar-cells/17028/

XSS-me and WebGoat

2008-09-18T20:37:00.022-05:00

This is a Flash video I took running XSS-me! against Webgoat. XSS-me part of the Explot-me suite of Firefox plugins from Security Compass. Webgoat is a J2EE web application that was designed to be insecure in order to demonstrate application security issues.
The video was captured using Wink.

Tornado!

2008-06-07T23:54:00.006-05:00

As we were driving south on I-55 from Chicago, IL today, we saw a tornado near Dwight. Luckily, we were a few miles south when it formed. Here is a report from the local newspaper with a few pictures. I haven't heard any reports of anyone being injured, but there was a lot of property damage. It was odd that as we took the picture, the weather where we were was bright and sunny, but this terrible storm was forming just a couple miles north.

Here is the video we took.

Water powered sump pump installation pictures

2008-06-05T19:48:00.006-05:00

In my last post, I mentioned I decided to have a water powered backup sump pump installed.
These two pictures are looking up at the pump in the rafters from below. In the picture on the left, you can see the two 90 degree bends in the discharge pipe that create the back pressure that allows the pump to operate. In the picture on the right, you can see the 1" copper water pipe entering the pump.

The picture on the left shows the installation in the sump pit. You can see the yellow float through the hole in the center of the cover. The device on the floor is a 9V battery powered water alarm. This is what alerted me that the main pump failed. The picture on the right shows the discharge pipe outside the house. I chose this to prevent any issues in the event of a plugged main discharge pipe

Water powered backup sump pump

2008-05-19T21:48:00.003-05:00

I finally decided to move forward and had the Basepump CB 1500 water powered backup sump pump system installed. I am very happy with it. I did some testing and it appears to be able to pump close to 2000 gallons per hour.

Rather than install it myself, I chose Sunkel plumbing, which I found on the distributor list on the manufacturer's website. The installation went smoothly. I chose to have the discharge routed directly outside rather than hooking into the existing discharge pipe. I did this to prevent a blockage of the existing discharge from preventing the water backup pump from working. I know two people who had their basements flood due to their discharge pipe being blocked and I did not want that to happen to me.

I'll post some pictures of the installation soon.

Sump pump

2007-12-23T12:06:00.002-06:00

There was a heavy rain last night, and I noticed the sump pump was running quite often. I took a video to show how much water was pouring into the sump pump pit. I have extended the downspouts to carry the water farther away from my foundation, but that does not appear to have made a significant difference. I wonder if a passive gravity fed drainage tile would help? There is a bit of a grade in the yard away from the house.

I plan on getting a water powered backup sump pump system, since my previous sump pump died after six years, which caused flooding in my basement. Luckily, I had the backup sump pump rider on my homeowners insurance. State Farm Insurance was wonderful to work with. No hassles and everything looks just like it did before the basement flooded.

Take a look at the video:

Data availability

2007-12-05T22:58:00.001-06:00

I noticed this story about a massive cache of seeds being stored in Norway. Slight tangent, but this reminds me of off site backups in IT. Spending an estimated $30 million may seem unnecessary, but it sure might pay off if something catastrophic does happen.

Where do you store your data? Safety deposit box? Gmail? DVD in your desk at work? DVD at a friend's house?

Random thoughts

2007-12-04T19:31:00.001-06:00

Why is it that I always think of things when I'm not in a position to do anything about them. I remember reading that creative people should always keep a pencil and paper handy...

I recently read an article that discusses a few tips how to remember your great ideas. I often call or email myself. I keep a pad of sticky notes in by nightstand as well. What do you do?