Back in the late 60′s, I lived across the river, in Elkins Park, Pa.  Camden was a city in horrendous decline way back then.

Is it any better now?  Do a little research and decide for yourself.

Safe to say, you can thank the Liberals and Democrats.

New policies?  New opportunities, new jobs, or new wealth?  The complexity and effects of “new” cannot be overstated.

America, as always, is at the epicenter of new.

I’m very comfortable with new, in the great majority of the time.  I seek it.  I create it.  I live it.  My world…the world of tech, is constantly filled with new.  The rate has been increasing for a long time.   Back in my younger days, I rebelled against a lot of different things justifying my cause in the name of “new”.

New was better.  New was exciting.  New was risky.

In the fuzzy days of my youth, something new always was seen as a good thing.  The promise of new technologies, new techniques, new inventions was a better life and ever increasing standard of living, for everybody.  My whole life has been…well…about new.

The i-Phone is certainly seen as new and tremendously useful.  The labor-saving effects of a phone and Web browser, that fits into your pocket, is nothing short of remarkable.  Throw in on-board GPS, sensors, and a million apps and we have an outstanding example of why I’m so fond of new.

New has always represented a dream.  It represented something to shoot for (not at!).  It represented a brighter tomorrow, opportunity, prosperity, accomplishment…and success.

So now, where are we with new?  Is new living up to it’s potential?  How are new foreign and domestic policies working in American?

New?

Figure it out.

Doc…

A couple of companies are making the book and magazine publishing process super easy.  And, pretty inexpensive.

For books, take a look at Amazon’s CreateSpace program.  You write the text, add graphics, upload the package, and request a proof.  They’ll run a copy off and send it to you.  If everything looks good, you can move to production and Amazon will advertise on their vast network then handle orders.  As customers request a copy, the book is printed and shipped.   They also handle videos and music, the same way.  They have several great royalty programs to choose from.

How cool would it be to have your very own magazine sitting on the tables around your next open house event?

Magcloud is your answer.

They’ll make a glossy 8-1/2″ x 11″ magazine from a PDF file.  Gin up your mag, add the graphics, format according to specs, and request a proof.  Looks good?  Go to production and Magcloud handles the rest.  They work the same as Amazon.  As copies are ordered, they’re printed and shipped.  Magcloud charges US$ 0.20 per page.  Make the margin whatever you like.

Best of all, these services don’t require any up-front costs…well other than your time writing and effort in putting the package together.

Now anybody can be a publishing mogul.

Doc…

All Right Magazine has now published two of my political opinion pieces.

The first one addresses how a number of Liberals may, in fact, have the time-tested American values of a strong family, traditions, faith, country, and the free market.

“Living The Liberal Dream”

The second story highlights why I think Naturalized Citizens tend to become part of the American way of life, only to get sidetracked by the Liberals and Democrats.

“Why Do Newbie Americans Go Democrat?

Perhaps, you should exercise your First Amendment rights to Free Speech.

Just like everything else on Doctortorque’s Workshop, my whole schtick is to encourage bold, active participation.

Doc…

The editor wrote back to me and said that one of his main motivations for creating the site was to provide a place for American Citizens to freely exercise their First Amendment rights.

So here we are, once again with a shining example of the true nature of Conservatives.  He didn’t say Conservative values.  He referred specifically to the right to free speech.  He puts free speech into practice and encourages other to do the same, in spite of the ridicule and attacks that are certain to follow.  Free speech is a traditional American value and a right guaranteed under the United States Constitution.

I did and he published it.

Now it’s your turn.

Conservatives have made their voices heard at Tea Parties.  They have written letters to their congressmen.  They have created blogs and Web sites, voicing their disgust with the way the Obama administration and the Democrat controlled Congress are running the country.

Now is the time to take a stand and let EVERYBODY know what you think.

Get on the Right Team and send All Right Magazine a story at editor@allrightmagazine.com.

He hasn’t done a damn thing to help stop the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico.  On the contrary, he’s been dragging his feet of clay and studying the problem.  He certainly hasn’t enlisted the genius of the individual American innovator or taken advantage of specialized oil containment equipment offered by Sweden.

Now he shows up on national TV saying he is going to save the day and do everything in his power to make things right.  Get off my TV!

Surprisingly, he didn’t mention cap and tax outright.  He did talk about moving to a new green energy economy.  Obvious, code words for a cap and tax scheme.

Oh, but who needs gas and oil?  Not America.  The whole darn country runs on oil, for crying out loud.  It is the most cost-effective energy source, for our growing needs.  Yes, I said growing.  We are going to discontinue drilling, off the coast, indefinitely.  Common sense says that this logic will make things infinitely worse.  We absolutely hate what Obama and the political hacks are doing to America.

I’m not moved whatsoever, by his words.  This guy is an utter disaster and loser.  He never does anything to make things better.  It’s always a scheme to make himself look great or grab more power.  He has surrounded himself with quite a collection of Bozo the Clowns.

I think he’s a dictator in waiting.  He thinks he’s going to be king of the World.  He already is the leader of the Muslim World.  He acts like he thinks he’s a god.

He’s not a god and he needs to go.  He should man-up and resign before he is forced out of office.

The Liberals, Congress, and Obama have caused all these disasters.  These people have ginned up all these problems.  Everywhere they go, death, destruction, and despair are absolutely SURE to follow.

The Liberals and Obama must go.

That was up until last week, when I discovered diatomaceous earth (commonly known as DE).

It turned out that the filter was passing the water AND the pollen.  The filter was not catching it, because the pores were too big.

So, I bought some diatomaceous earth from the local pool store.  I mixed about 8 ounces of the stuff with 16 ounces of water in a bottle and dumped it down a short piece of pipe, into the water intake.  I had to frequently shake the bottle to keep the DE mixed in the bottle.  Actually, I had to fill the bottle up several times, continuously agitating the mixture, to get it into the filter.

I then ran the pump continuously for 24 hours.  The next morning, I pulled the filter element out and hosed off all the yellow goop.  I put the filter back in and repeated the same ritual several times.

After a couple of days, the pool was noticeably clearer and I reduced the amount of DE to about 4 ounces.

Sunday morning, there were just a few little globs of yellow on the bottom, so I hooked up the hose and vacuumed the entire bottom.

I then cleaned the filter one more time and today, Monday, everything is absolutely crystal clear.

The DE did the job in fine style.

Apparently, DE is used for all kinds of filtering duties, including beer and wine.  It is a very fine powder that seems to stick together, very well, wet or dry.  A word of warning, it is abrasive and shouldn’t be inhaled.  Don’t breath in the dust cloud!

I’m glad I found this stuff and will be looking for useful applications, in the future.

Doc

In spite of the sad economic climate, prompting the ever-present “using what you already have” rhetoric, I just don’t see it ever happening.  Three things lead me to this conclusion:

1. Businesses have never fallen all over themselves to embrace the Penguin. It’s just reality, even though you and I know Linux is exceedingly capable, robust, and reliable…not to mention freely available on the Web.  I’ve tried repeatedly, over the last few years to promote a sponsored “Intro To Linux” seminar for businesses in the Central Florida area.  The last attempt was in partner with a nationally known tech contracting shop.  The company sent out email blasts, mentioned it when meeting with clients, and even published an article I wrote extolling the benefits of using Linux.

The result?  Nothing!  Not a single client took us up on the offer for the one-hour workshop.  We were even going to cater the food and drink!

2. Linux is a mature technology. Linux on the desktop never really happened.  For a while it flashed onto the scene via Netbooks.  Now, everybody says it will be the OS of choice in the up-and-coming mobile embedded space.  Ah…riiiiiight!

I think Linux will continue to slip in where smart innovators strategically see that it makes sense.  In other words, either the ROI can be soundly proven on paper or the business leader is so far out on the curve (and can command that it gets don), that his gut says it’s the right OS to use.  That group will always be a very small percentage of the population.

Linux will certainly NOT be embraced anywhere that is steeped in bureaucracy or political maneuvering.  Linux is made for people that forge their own paths and make their own decisions.  Adopting Linux simply has too many intangibles, unknowns, and takes too much mental work for your average bureaucrat.  It just isn’t happening.

Not only that, ubiquitous networks, cloud computing, and always-connected phone devices will shortly make knowledge of the OS mute.

3. Linux can salvage your old hardware. Of course it can, if you can live with the slow performance and have a lot of spares.  Old (2 to 5 year) hardware is certainly available.  Performance on older hardware is OK or perhaps better (read more reliable) than Windows (XP, Vista, etc.).

The real killer is time.  Will a school fund the time it takes for a teacher to come up to speed on Linux?  Is a teacher going to dive into swapping boards or power supplies?  Will they learn the networking and server concepts well enough to support 30 or 40 laptops in a lab?  They better be a special person, if they plan on going the Linux route.

They are also going to need quite a collection of spares and assorted parts, as well.  From experience, I know that a typical notebook hard drive will last about 30,000 hours.  That’s about 3-1/2 years of continuous operation.  What teacher is going to be able to fund 40 new notebook hard drives for their 4 year-old machines?  A new drive is $100, while a new cheapo notebook is $400.  School systems will cite the cost of cheapo notebook and resist spending 1/4 of the price for drives.  Of course, they would never buy $400 notebooks for their school, because they need “better” equipment.  They’ll end up buying nothing or it will take so long to get approval, that another solution will surely appear from the ether.

Bottom line, old machines are not snappy enough and will require too much effort to keep running…in addition to the perceived “Linux” learning curve.  The school leaders and administrators just won’t want to go to the trouble to make it work.

Perhaps the titans of Silicon Valley might put their efforts into getting freedom and free market-oriented leaders in Washington.  Lack of growth in the United States economy, job market, and manufacturing/tech sectors are completely negating the need for computers in schools, anyway.  Increased taxes and regulations are killing America.  Create the environment and need for good equipment and incentives to learn the hard subjects.

I think schools should leave Linux to the adventure seekers, rugged individuals, innovators, and DIYers that have the guts, brains, and committment to make it work.

Doc

What more could a garage-based inventor ask for?

How about a program to document everything and help with the design.

Behold.  The Fritzing CAD package.

It’s available under for Windows, Macs, and yes, Linux.

Fritzing is a computer aided design editor that you can use to design a breadboard/prototype layout of your microcontroller project.  It’s library of parts include resistors, transistors, caps, wires, and microcontrollers.  Various flavors of each is represented.  Resistor color codes actually show up on the resistors.  The program uses vector graphics, with anchor points, so you can run wires between your devices and they will represent the actual circuits.

But it gets better.

You can also switch over to “schematic” view and get a layout of the circuit in standard electronic symbols.  Granted the routing is a little goofy, at times.  Wire routing and component placement can be moved around without too much trouble, for clarity.

There’s also a “circuit board layout” view that shows the board.  Again, it isn’t the smartest board routing program going.  It is free and with a little work can be used for simple board layouts.

Fritzing, on Linux is at version 0.3.19 now.  It is a little rough around the edges.  I think it shows great promise and I am using it for some of my paid tech article work.  Creating a graphic for an article of Arduino breadboard project is ten times easier than drawing it in Openoffice.org Draw  or Inkscape.  You export the output in various industry standard graphics formats including .jpg, .png, and .pdf.

You can also export a cool bill-of-material in plain text.

So, if you need to record your microcontroller circuits complete with graphics and parts lists, why not give the Fritzing CAD package a try.  Check out this design.

How does it relate to DIY?

Take the case of Clint Eastwood, one of my favorite actors.

Mr. Eastwood hails from the Carmel, California area.  He’s lived there a long time and has had several businesses in the area.  It is a beautiful and inspiring part of the country.  Naturally, he’s also a longtime movie producer, as well.

That’s were the DIY comes in because he started out as an actor, doing uncredited bit roles, then after being in the business a while branched off into directing and producing films.

Mr. Eastwood is a true do-it-yourselfer.  He came from meager beginnings, learned the movie business, and built a very successful and enduring production company.

The Western usually pits an aggressive evil villain against a hard working (or hard drinking) hero who has some type of ethical dilemma, haunting him.  Mr. Eastwood’s films have used this theme often.  He has produced and starred in many of his movies.

The Western represents the traditional good versus evil, so common in the world.  Almost always, the good guy wins, in the end.  One notable exception has been a recent Eastwood film, set in the Michigan auto industry region.  Even in that film Eastwood, takes matters into his own hands and solves problems.

DIY all the way…although not always neat, at best, and pretty darn messy, at worst.  The DIYer always gets the job done.

The Western and Clint Eastwood showcase the traditional American moral high-ground.  They also promote the notion that hard work and perseverance will win in the end.

With all that’s going on in the world I think I’ll go watch “The Outlaw Josie Wales” or a Dirty Harry movie and get back in a good mood.

Doc