DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Well, this is disturbing.

When President Bush travels around the United States, the Secret Service visits the location ahead of time and orders local police to set up “free speech zones” or “protest zones,” where people opposed to Bush policies (and sometimes sign-carrying supporters) are quarantined. These zones routinely succeed in keeping protesters out of presidential sight and outside the view of media covering the event. (Source: How the Secret Service protects Bush from free speech)

Why is it disturbing, other than the loathsome same-old-same-oldness of it all?

1. This has been going on for at least six months, yet this is the first I’ve heard of it. I read Google’s news page and the SF Chronicle daily. I skim the NYTimes and LA Times frequently. I’m not uninformed. And yet a story as ugly as this has escaped my attention. Is the media complicit with its own manipulation? I guess the media isn’t as liberal as conservatives claim.
2. I find the Bush administration’s sarcastic use of the term “free speech zone” despicable. Bush’s supporters are allowed to line the roadways, but dissenters are evacuated to a cage a half-mile away, far from the view of TV cameras. How is that “free speech?”

   The precedent of naming something for what it is not is an old Bush (or, really, Orwell) trick; it worked well with Bush’s “Clean Air” act. For my part, I’m not fooled… just disgusted.

3. What Bush is doing is probably unconstitutional. Imagine that, a US President ordering regular and frequent violations of the 1st Amendment. Then again, I shouldn’t assume Bush is aware of any of this. This is more likely the work of the puppet masters.

The obvious solution is to stealth-protest: show up at Bush’s next rally with pro-GOP signage, but then after the Secret Service has sanitized the crowd of dissenters, strip away the “more blood for oil” text (or whatever such a feel-good Bush rally sign would display — really, I can’t imagine) to reveal something more honest and heartfelt like “I’m about to be arrested for exercising my 1st Amendment right to assemble peaceably!”

The Matrix website contains a short story by Neil Gaiman, entitled Goliath. It uses and expands on some of the ideas in the first Matrix film. If you liked the movie, you’ll probably like the story. It’s a free read, and contains neat illustrations, and neater implications.

Neil Gaiman has written a number of compelling books, my favorite of which (at the moment) is Neverwhere.

Today I tried to catch up with a backlog of digital pictures. I wholly appreciate that digital photography affords me the opportunity to improve my pictures — I can correct exposure and color balance problems, and I can crop to improve composition. The cost of this is that it takes time: I processed 90 photos in about 5 hours.

The reason I bother with this time-consuming process is that we print our photos and stick them in books. It’s pretty easy to make huge improvements to most images in 1-3 minutes per. Some images take longer; the payoff for this investment in time is recovering a nice image from what initially appeared to be a ruined shot.

Here’s a representative quick correction. (Click to see a larger version. The original is on the left… I hope that’s obvious.)

This image could be improved more, I’m certain. There are techniques in my favorite image-repair guidebook that I haven’t attempted yet.

Fun food-safety fact: At room temperature, E. coli 0157 survived for 34 days on stainless steel and only four hours on copper.

Think of that the next time you see a gleaming stainless-steel commercial kitchen. Or a stainless-steel toilet, for that matter.

Our water heater expired last Saturday. The thermocouple had failed.

We had a plumber replace the thermocouple. He pointed out numerous symptoms of a failing water heater, and began selling me a replacement, which he’d be able to install the next day.

“What about a tankless water heater?” I asked. They don’t store water, so there is no tank, so there is no risk of tank failure. The tank on a traditional water heater is the part that eventually fails, and cannot be replaced. US residents discard and replace six million water heaters annually due to tank failure… creating an enormous pile of jagged, rusting metal and an awesome breeding ground for mosquitoes — coming soon to a landfill near you.

“Tankless water heaters? They’re junk,” said the plumber in a tone that suggested a long-standing grudge. I guess he doesn’t sell tankless water heaters.

“They’re used all over Europe,” I said, thinking that in my experience Europeans tend to be way ahead of Americans in embracing environmentally-conscious technologies, like styrofoam-brick homes, solar power generation, and tiny high-mileage cars.

“Europe?!” he exclaimed in a tone that suggested a long-standing grudge. “They’re way behind us!” That hung in the air for a moment like a piece of day-old beef, beginning to stink, needing to be addressed soon. After a few seconds the plumber conceded lamely, “Well, maybe their cars are better.” And then he admitted he’d never been to Europe.

Later I asked him about anodes. Typical water heaters contain a metal rod whose only purpose is to corrode. This “anode” is there because something is going to corrode; you can’t have bare metal and water together for long without the metal going away. The anode is sacrificial by design; it rots away until it’s gone, and after that the tank will rust out. If you replace the anode before it gets used up, chances are excellent your water heater tank will last a long time, because it never has an opportunity to corrode. This is basic water-heater science, and it’s explained beautifully at WaterHeaterRescue.com… a website this plumber has obviously never seen.

“Replace the anode?!” he snorted. “That’s just theory.”

“That seems unlikely,” I didn’t say, “given that nearly every water heater that’s tall enough for an anode has one inside, if not two…”

“Look, it’s like carburetors,” he said. “In theory, the Quadrajet is the best carburetor in the world.”

“Because of the small primaries and big secondaries?” He’d mentioned the one internal-combustion engine piece I actually know something about. I used to own a Quadrajet; it was attached to my Camaro. For normal driving around, a Quadrajet uses its smaller, more fuel-efficient “primaries.” When the driver stomps on the gas pedal to pass someone, or when doing donuts in the high school parking lot, the fat “secondaries” open up and feed enormous quantities of gas to the engine.

“That’s right,” he agreed, on familiar and probably well-worn turf. “If the Quadrajet was really the best carburetor, then every car would have one. But they don’t.” I guess he was trying to prove that all theories are wrong. But in fact he was just proving that he knows as little about logic as he knows about water chemistry.

We found someone else to install a new water heater. He’s great — he doesn’t bullshit, and he charges less. The only downside is that he’s booked two weeks into the future. Go figure.