Wanderings of a RuinExplorer

My grandfather once shared a dream from his hospital bed. He described that he had passed through the veil between this world and the next. Upon arrival he felt the impression to wait, that there he would be met by someone to guide him. Thus he sat to wait. He said it was not the brightness nor the light that most impressed him - these he had expected. Rather, it was the level of activity, the extreme busyness with which he found himself surrounded by that most impressed him. He shared that after a little while, he left - feeling perhaps he was not yet expected. It was not long after sharing this experience that my grandfather passed away. I can't help but ponder on his words as I'm sure he did on his experience. Were I, like him, obviously near the end of my time on earth, either confined to a bed or body failing with age, left to ponder and perhaps regret my inability to continue to contribute to my posterity, Decide then that the time honored adage, "Rest is Peace"...

Games innately appeal to most people. They engage, entertain, challenge, and reward players. They have many forms nowadays including cards, board games, table top role-play, and video games to name a few. Now there are games that involve reaction times and timing, but more often than not what appeals to gamers is making decisions that either improve or hurt their position when played out alongside the decisions of other players. This element of game theory presents in both competitive and cooperative formats. Usually the winning strategy is to reduce or eliminate options from your opponent causing them to act in a limited or predictable way or in the case of cooperative games, to increase the number of options to your allies empowering them with perhaps a more optimal strategy. It turns out this strategy is a far more prevalent and deeper aspect of the human experience itself. In business, a move that puts you a position with greater options is usually the optimal one. In warfar...

Yesterday I matched my body mass in dead-lift at the gym. For the typical bodybuilder, not noteworthy. For me, this is a big flipping deal: http://ruinexplorer.blogspot.com/2016/05/20160528.html http://ruinexplorer.blogspot.com/2016/05/20160514.html You see, a little over a year ago, I destroyed my back. Months later learned that I had degenerative back disease, bulging and outright dissected disks. I used a cane, A CANE. After months of talk, Baker convinced me to come to the gym with him. It started out slow. I was sore a lot. originally 4-5 times a week, 2 hours a session. I've slowed to 3 times a week for about an hour and a half, but I'd like to take that back up. Before his help, hadn't ever even attempted a dead-lift. In any case, my back may still be completely screwed, but now it seems to have enough supporting structure it doesn't bother me as much. I have more strength than I did. I haven't lost any weight, but my waistline has lost a couple inch...

I have been working a lot recently with millennials. There is a phrase I believe is at the heart of their problems and quite possibly the population at large, "I can't." In my personal experience, there exists no more damaging claim - no more debilitating, depression invoking, self-fulfilling prophesy in existence. I recognize that millennials in particular were raised in a world where they were brought up believing they could do anything. Compound that with mobile devices where the answer to nearly anything was immediate. When smacked square in the face with 'adulting,' this combination made for disaster. (their word, not mine) 'Adulting' is hard and nothing is immediate. Everything they know is now challenged. Some adapt. Interestingly enough, it seems those that have already endured hardships adapt fastest. Adversity becomes a source of strength. More power to them. But what of those with expectations borne of YouTube successes? (this applies to much mo...

<warning>this post contains far more unrelated detail than you're probably anticipating</warning> Last night was a ton of fun. Had a dozen friends over for a card game tournament which went late into the wee hours (2:30am before the after-game games started - I went to sleep, sorry Liz - should have warned you...). It served as a fantastic distraction to the 'real world.' Woodworking as recently evolved for me. It use to be something I simply enjoyed. You're might be familiar with various species of wood, their different grains and characteristics. Woodworking has always appealed to me on some level for its intention to abruptly bring amazing order to the product of decades of uninhibited entropy. But that's tangent for another day. Recently, due to a desire to wrap up or at least make great strides on the bunk bed project, my wife has been playing interception to allow for greater stretches of uninterrupted time working on it. I'm more frequently fi...

Didn't get near the progress I had hoped over the last week. I've read in a couple articles now that people tend to paint a clearly positive view of their lives on social media, Facebook in particular. The admonition from some is to share the trials and tribulations too so that readers understand that there is still diversity and in doing so, perhaps help them through something of their own. To that end, progress has been slow because I'm in pain. Four weeks ago I got off a plane and proceeded to limp for the entirety of a business trip. It felt like those charlie horses you get in your calf that will jerk you out of a deep sleep. Usually stretching helps ease the pain and eventually it ebbs. My leg hasn't. It's that same intensity constantly. I finally made it into a doctor who rushed me to an ER. They did ultra sounds to verify it wasn't a clot. I came up clean. Apparently that was sufficient for the doctor as I was sent home with painkillers. A week later, I...

Next to moisture, dust is the second biggest environmental threat to your electronics. Dust builds up, blocks airflow over heat sinks and in extreme cases can actually carry a current. Now lots of people blow out their PC periodically with canned air. When we work on PC's here, we use an air compressor. This allows us to clean much deeper using much higher flow and pressure. Here's an example mid-size tower with just a few fans moving air though the case. This is about three months worth of buildup in a home office that admittedly doesn't get vacuumed more than perhaps once a month. Here is the CPU heat sink. Keep in mind the function of the heat sink: The fan pulls air across the fins. The heat exchange occurs between the moving air and the surface area of the heat sink. In this case, the dust buildup is actually blocking the fins of the heat sink reducing heat exchange efficiency. Dust similarly affects airflow in other areas such as graphics cards and power...