Beto is not in…

I was on /. and ran into this gem:
Slashdot | 111 Years Ago, Indiana Almost Legislated Pi
Indiana, a nice place with great people was smart enough to avoid legislating the value of pi. The bill proposed 111 years ago said something like “The ratio of the diameter and circumference is as five-fourths to four,” or pi is the “new mathematical truth” of 3.2; why would a politician get involved? Because they were going to charge royalties to use this new truth! The whole story is here “Indiana Pi”. So why did the bridge fall down again?

I think during this election season we should pause to remember we are talking about politicians. The personality type that values popularity over logic, one that assumes that we wish they control our collective projects- because the politician believes they know what is best and are the most capable to do what we need done. The reality varies and we all have our opinions, my opinion is that we are doomed. A person who is arrogant, and simultaneously capable of ignoring important subjects that require rational debate, careful judgment, and foresight (that would be amazing) because they are unpopular or “off the radar” will lead us where ever a gut feeling of what the mob wants, or where personal gains will take this fearless leader. So we get free money because Santa has a printing press, and tomorrow well tomorrow will take care of itself. What we end up with is elections where all we care about is who is the least offensive of all these chosen ones. So remember go out and vote, you may not feel so insignificant in this whole process for an entire minute or two.

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Add comment February 6, 2008

Time to build wheels?

I went for a night ride last night with some of the wheelers and met a guy who built his own wheels, took ~five hours he said and he also worked at a bike shop so I am sure he had experience with truing and was very familiar with the ins and outs of the whole thing. This morning I open up the email and from Peter White’s “Bicycle Lifestyle” google group I find the post I am listing here:

Piaw’s Blog: The Bicycle Wheel

There are a couple of videos, and information from googlers teaching googlers on how to build your own wheels- so do I take the plunge is the question. My only hold up is the investment, this is truly a worthy skill to have but the local bike shop (LBS) and inner nets can sure take care of me. The first video makes a good point about problems on the road and having the skill to deal with it, but I usually don’t go very far and to be beyond cell phone operation is even more rare.

Then there is Peter White who personally guarantees his work, and build price is very reasonable at $35 a wheel with 24-36 spokes. I will mentally bounce this around for a while, do some calculations and think about it some more.

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Tags: bike