“Solipsism is the philosophical idea that only one’s mind is sure to exist. As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one’s own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside the mind.” (Wikipedia)
Author Archives: Steve Mays
Typical Russian Apartment Tour
“This Russian apartment was built during Soviet times, in about 1981. Within 40 years it has of course been partially refurbished and now represents the collaboration between the interior design of the past years and some new features that were gradually added through the years.”
Not sure I can explain my fascination with this (and similar videos). I need to find some video of “typical” Russian apartments in 2022.
Chipper goes to the woods
Having determined how big a branch the new chipper can (and cannot) chew up, we’re ready to roll the chipper down the hill to start chipping. It took about 45 minutes to cut and stack these cedar trees but it would have taken much longer to drag them up or down the hill. This will be the first real-world test for the chipper.
Praise the Lord!
I’ve been watching the HBO series, Carnivàle. First aired (streamed?) in 2003 so nearly 20 years old but holds up well. The scene above is a great example of what I call the “after thought” shooting. A staple in action movies but not so much back then.
According to Fashion Stylist Rebekah Roy: “It cost $4 million US per episode; it was one of the most expensive shows to produce. There were an estimated 5,000 people costumed in the show’s first season!” The costumes were designed by Chrisi Karvonides-Dushenko.
I purchased a chipper shredder
My first brush with brush dates back to 2015 and I’ve cut and hauled (or had hauled) a lot of it since then. I’m constantly asked, “Why don’t you burn it?” Can you say forest fire? No thanks. There’s lots of video here of crews from Korte Tree Service chipping up my brush piles and while I knew they made small chippers for home use, I just never made the leap.
According to a whole bunch of YouTube videos, this one can chip branches up to 3 inches in diameter. That would take care of about 80% of my scrub cedar trees. The manual said run the engine for 3 hours to “break it in” and following that we shredded some hydrangea clippings.
The chipper is damned heavy but it rolls pretty easily so my plan is to take it down into the woods a way, closer to where I’ll be cutting, and chip those rascals up on-site. No more dragging up the hill, stacking, loading into the pickup and hauling off to a friends property who burns them for me.
Before taking the chipper into the woods, I ran a couple of scrub cedar trees through to see if it could eat a 3 inch tree. I’d say 2.5 inches is a big as it can handle. I also learned I need to trim the trunk of limbs.
The most surprising thing I’ve discovered is just how small the pile of chips is. Photo below is from two small trees.
This afternoon I’m heading into the woods to drop and stack a bunch of small cedar trees. Tomorrow I’ll roll the chipper as close to the pile as I can get it and start chipping.
Vintage Rides
Paul Bandelier shared these beauties. I’ll update with the particulars in a few days.
Black-eyed Susans
The Peripheral
If you made me pick one author as my #1 favorite, I’d have to go with William Gibson. And his novel The Peripheral is near the top of my short list. I’m not convinced it’s possible to do justice to this story in film but I’ll be watching season one starting October 21st on Amazon Video. Here’s Mr. Gibson reading excerpts from the book.
What a point!
Blocking spam calls and texts
Like everyone else, I am constantly bombarded by telephone spam calls. Blocking the numbers does no good because they have an infinite number of bogus phone numbers.
Yesterday I downloaded AT&T’s ActiveArmor app (free) and it has been blocking calls that previously got through. One spammer used a dozen different numbers within a matter of seconds.