Lee.org

The day D and I brought home my new '98 Sebring!

With Charlotte in Seattle, I’m tightening up my expenditures and dumping my car & garage. It’s startling how expensive my car is… $7320 per year! Of course, I need a car to get around, I can’t just say something like, “food is too expensive, I’m not going to eat any more.” So I’m getting a Zip Car membership.

car costs per month

$200 garage – it also doubles as storage, now squished into the apartment
$90 insurance – $1,000/year
$120 gas – 10,000 miles/year, $4/gallon, 27MPG
$120 depreciation – $20,000 new in Sept 1998, worth $1,000 now, that’s 13 years
$50 maintenance – car repairs, oil
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$610/month… $7320 per year!

Zip Car by comparison
if I don’t change my driving habits:
10,000 miles/year if driven at an average speed of 20MPH is 500 hours. * $9/hour = $4,500/year

If I drive less:
6,000 miles/year = $2,700/year

Update 1-26-12: the above isn’t correct because it doesn’t account for the hours and days that a car sits. With Zipcar I am paying whether the car is moving or not. So I’m not sure what Zipcar really costs.

I can rent a truck or a Mini Cooper when need be, it’s always clean, it’s always new, never any fuss, and it’s parked directly across the street. Ask me again in 6 months if I still love it.

How much does your car cost?

Symphony of Science – Onward to the Edge!

local version:

Darn if this isn’t good music.

Went to Come Out And Play SF today. Great fun!

Sunday (tomorrow!) is the last day. I highly recommend you go out to play!

My upcoming Flame Effects class in LA topped BoingBoing.net on October 24th :-). Thanks to Mark Frauenfelder for posting and asking me to bring the class to LA in the first place. (The class)

This class has sold out. If you want to be alerted to future flame effects classes, please drop me an email at Lee at Lee dat org.

Learn several awesome things this weekend. Hang out with a coolio maker crowd in the Bay Area!

It’s 2 things: classes and hanging out between classes with people into learning and making. The format kinda reminds me of a science fiction convention.

Here’s the list of classes go look!
– Learn to Solder
– How to use the Arduino Tinker Kit
– Make a Tin Can 2-String / Intro to Instrument Making
– Sewing Circuits
– Build a Camping Stove
– Marble Roller Coasters
– Basic Electroluminescent Wire Workshop
– Flow-Wand
– An Introduction to Poi Spinning
– Going from Idea to Product for the Small Time Maker
– Beginning Web Development with PHP
– Wet Felted Flower Workshop
– Introduction to PCB Layout
– Fusing Plastic Fabric
– Conductive! Sew a Soft Circuit
– Spontaneous Magic
– The Internet & Computer Networks

Go trick or treating. Get candy. Eat it. Get that sugar buzz! Enjoy life.

Nobody has ever poisoned anybody with candy at Halloween. Really.

Read up:

Poisoned candy turns out to be a Halloween myth

Snopes: Halloween Poisonings (False)

Snopes: Pins and Needles (True but very very very rare)

I’ve been trying to use Google+, I really have. But here are a couple major reasons why it remains is irrelevant to me.

Here is a prime example. A friend of mine wrote on their Google Plus: (I have changed the text slightly to make it unsearchable and won’t post the name)

Sept 24th
After I changed the name on my other Google+ account, I got it back. However the people in my circles had been deleted. And the nickname I specified (in hopes people that knew me by that name could find it) doesn’t show up in my profile. To the extent I use Google+ at all (which looks dubious), it will be with this profile.

Sept 24th followup
Well, all my peeps on the other account mysteriously came back this afternoon. However, I still don’t think it useful to use that one, since no one would recognize me with the name that’s on it.

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Another major issue is that I keep getting Friend requests from people that I don’t believe I know. I’d like to write to them asking “Do I know you?” but there is no way for me to contact these people unless I join their circle and then publicly comment on one of their posts. That’s kinda dumb. Apparently Google+ doesn’t let you communicate one-on-one with people. It is only a one-to-many medium.

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Sifting though high volume vs low volume posters remains just as difficult as with Facebook. Some of my friends blog 3 times a day (“Had eggs for breakfast”), some once a month (“Got a new job”). I need an interface that lets me see the low volume posters!

(image credit)

Be there.

Nemo Gould, Eric Joyner, Mark Galt, Jeremy Mayer, Benjamin Cowden

Very cool event:

Kinetic Steam Works’ annual Roll Out event is coming up! Saturday, November 12th, from Noon to 10PM, come celebrate this autumnal steamy spectacular with us. There will be plenty of cottony cloud soft steam, food, beer/wine, a silent auction, mechanical entertainments mammoth and bijou, craft vendors, and a magnificent musical lineup including Lord Loves A Working Man, Beso Negro, Sour Mash Hug Band, Shovelman and others. Kinetic art and attractions include several wood fired steam engines including all 9-tons of “Hortense,” KSW’s lovingly restored 1923 traction engine, the Pumpkin Guillotine returns, steam powered abominable snow cones, Jon Sarriugarte’s “Serpent Twins,” Justin Gray’s jet-turbine powered “Robot Charlie,” Ben Cowden’s “Gathering” and “A Gentle Tugand,” and much more. We invite you to come on down and celebrate, you’ll be supporting Kinetic Steam Works, a unique nonprofit organization. $10 to $100 sliding scale. Kids under 12 get in free (they must be accompanied by an adult), the family rate is $20. Location Info: 2525 Mandela Parkway, Oakland, CA, 94607.

I didn’t feel the 4.0 earthquake in Berkeley yesterday at 3:15pm, but I did feel the 3.8 at 8:15pm. They were both really short, like 5 seconds.

These two earthquakes are obviously the earth readjusting itself after the news that Charlotte is moving from San Francisco to Seattle.