Tar Balls

Not from Linux...

In these sunny days in the attic it gets like 120F. In Oregon. (I have one of the weather station's sensors in there. I wonder how it is in hotter states). The tiles of the roof are made of bitumen and tiny pieces of it break and fall through the cracks of the plywood underneath the tiles and mix with the insulation and start decomposing. The more volatile components go first and smell bad but the big problem is the nutrients that are coming from the barbecues. They rot in there and mix with the smell of tar and make a stink that combined with other stinks i described here earlier make your life very hard in a place like this. Tar is antibacterial but i think it favors some yeasts. When i opened the attic this morning to take a sample of the insulation that contains these (actually the tiny tar balls separated from the wool rock in the bottom of the bag i used and when shaken make a sound like they're already dried, the volatile components evaporated but they still smell) there was a back flow from the attic inside the apartment. That's because my next door neighbor has a window opened in the direction where the wind is coming from or the two fans in the window are working creating pressure that goes through the cracks or by the lid into the attic and make that smell to back flow into my apartment or through the intake above the kitchen window or through the vents. And because she/he had the fans started yesterday, the temperature in the attic didn't go that high at the expense of the back flow above the kitchen window. But yesterday morning when i had breakfast i had the kitchen window opened then i got really really sick, almost...

To take the macro below i used one more 55 mm fixed length camera lens held by hand at about one inch in front of my 70-105 equivalent Sony/Minolta lens with the zoom at maximum. First i put the focus on automatic and it did focus but for more precise focus i put the focus on manual ant then moved around until i got it. You may click or middle click on it to better view.

The distance between two graduations on the tape measure below is 1/32 inches. The tar samples have been shaken out of a small insulation sample that could been caught between two fingers but these are only a small part. The total amount is probably in the order of 1/10-1/100 of the total mass of the mineral fiber insulation.

(Macro photographs done with one extra 55 mm lens held by hand at one inch in front of the 28-105 mm stock lens of my Sony DSLR-300 set at maximum or 105 mm. The distance between the out of focus ruler divisions is 1/32 inch. Can click to enlarge)

Although it does not look like asbestos to me (in the picture looks more like it but in reality not, these fibers a lot shinier and more regulated) when i manipulated the sample that's already been shaken to extract the above sub-sample in the sunlight near the window i saw one million shiny sparkles that dissipated in a few seconds i don't know where, and i also felt the smell and the sting in my throat.

Or maybe... from here? http://www.flickr.com/photos/39325385@N07/7686495606/in/photostream Or here? http://www.flickr.com/photos/39325385@N07/9472963275/

Ninja

Not about the movies.

As of 1986, there were 20 dojos for Togakure-ryū in Japan that house 100 instructors and around 100,000 students. There were also around 50 international dojos teaching Togakure-ryū outside of Japan


"

• Henso-jutsu (disguise and impersonation)
• Shinobi-iri (stealth and entering methods)"

"Hensōjutsu (変装術^?) was a Japanese martial art skill involving disguise, impersonation, and infiltration.

In some ninja clans it was known as the "Shichi Hō De" (七方出) or, "seven ways of going" (one form of ninjutsu that has a person play a role much like an actor does in impersonating people). A ninja had to appear either as a priest, samurai, merchant, craftsman, performer, puppeteer, or farmer. To accomplish this, the ninja was a well studied sociologist, observing people in other towns for long periods of time until, just like actors, ninjas could blend into the crowd. They acted like either one of the major classes to spy on people. Ninja thus sometimes carried one or two costumes to look like the other classes and kunoichi were specialists at Hensojutsu due to the importance of close contact missions. It also included the art of camouflage, such as mesh covered with leaves, grass, mud, bark etc. It is heavily reliant upon shadows and form manipulation..such as crouching to resemble a rock, twisting to match a bush, and also includes various ways one can "meld" into foliage to virtually disappear.

This is different from other methods in that the ninja needs only to appear like someone else for a short period of time. Ninja typically must learn the character traits of another class quickly and then impersonate the members of that class. For instance, if workers were walking in large numbers toward a worksite, using this skill the ninja observes the worker, copies the same clothing and walking style of the workers, then follows the crowd in just like the other workers. A good ninja ought to be able to impersonate anybody in terms of appearance."

It is interesting to mention that the first paragraph is written as about the past, as ninjutus " existed", and in the others at present.

Gaffe, as a Relief Valve

Every once in a while they try to discredit Wikipedia, like in the current attempt of joking with Romney's page. The wicked pedal. But they cannot reedit all the pages as they cannot alter our memory, the temple of our existence. "Despite his campaign's blunders, Ford managed to close the remaining gap in the polls and by election day the race was judged to be even."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1976#Results

It seems there are politicians that are professional candidates. They always successfully candidate, giving us the illusion that our favorite party actually has a fair chance.

And then there's the relief valve, the pacifier, the great balancer, when pressure is build up too high. Blunder in the past, now polished and re wrapped with the word gaffe and brought to an art, cause of course, you have to know how to do it without raising probable suspicion in a hopeful but weary elector. But for that they have polls and more modern feedback institutions.

And the symbolism of course. The parallel paradigmatic reality that governs our subconscient with its own logic and sequence of events.

Dole. It almost sound like doll or dull.

Anybody remember what senator Bob Dole did after his last campaign? What kind of advertisements? It looked to me at the time like he was the perfect candidate for those, bringing a bitter smile.

Almost as hermetic as Gorbachev's add for Pizza Hutt. Remember?

http://media.oregonlive.com/ohman_impact/photo/ohman080312jpg-95cede99a25bcb74.jpg

High Windows

Today i cleaned the vaulted ceiling windows above the couch where i watch TV and sometimes i sleep. (The other day i went to bed in bedroom and woke up on the couch). Haven't done it yet, in a couple of years. (I painted that area with an extension for the brush, the ladder was too short. The only time when the handyman came, when i moved, he sealed the windows with the silicon i bought. But i was too sick to the stomach to get up there on his ladder.) Full of dead bugs, spiders and ceiling pop corn. It stank like the primordial stink in the apartment, when  i worked a month before i moved and continued until today. So now it all still stinks inside from disturbing that shit. First i tried with a duster, then the vacuum cleaner. They are at least 4 meters above the floor so i had to improvise an extension for the vacuum. After that i took pictures with a camera tied at the end of a pole because i don't have a ladder that long and i cannot see in there. This is the left one, the one above the couch where i watch TV and sleep, with the cracked window, after vacuuming. But there are a lot of people around making noises and trying to suggest i was doing something else in here. Never heard a single kid yelling at the neighbors' pool after 8 PM. Today it was until after 9 or more. Especially when i was taking pictures of the vaulted ceiling windows.

Ambushed, by Crows

I saw several films and videos both on TV and youtube about the inteligence of Corvidae. Jays, crows, ravens. Their intelligence is compared to that of humans. To me it was very intriguing judging by the size of their brains. And yet i just saw a crow on youtube learning to use a tool.

Today i went again at Tryon creek. It is the only park when you can walk on hills for miles on a radius of many miles. There's shadow and it's cool when outside is hot. And today i needed it because i was feelling numb and paralyzed after that smoke came inside when my neighbor made some big noises like moving furniture and left.

But on the road there i saw a crow diving in a weird almost calculated way in front of my car then going back in the same tree or a close one visible on a branch. The same happened in the park near the entrance when i started walking.

And then i said to myself what if some people believed what the first paragraph says and took a chance and train  them to do different things. Like dolphins.

Earlier i saw a couple of jays from the balcony being buzzed by the tiny hummingbirds that visit my wife's flowers hourly. And i was thinking, what other places are they visiting before mine? I heard they also have a good memory and do the same route daily or many times a day.

I remember at the last place i was living a noisy, almost deafening fight between two groups of crows that took place for hours. And how i learned what an American Robin is by listening one for 8 hours a day for months, in each spring. One night i was awake and heard one of my neighbors at 3 AM whistling on a high pitch until awoke the poor robin that started to sing and then it kept singing until noon. (There must have been some other tricks involved like bird hormones i don't know).

And then of course there's the humans with kids that i meet on trails in the most unexpected ways and places. Almost always where there are tiny freshly bent branches that always make me bow in the last moment in order to avoid them getting in my eyes. Today, it happened to me twice, once immediately after the entrance after the crow episode and once deep in the forest on a sloppy trail with many trees and branches.