Your leaking thatched hut during the restoration of a pre-Enlightenment state.

 

Hello, my name is Judas Gutenberg and this is my blaag (pronounced as you would the vomit noise "hyroop-bleuach").



links

decay & ruin
Biosphere II
Chernobyl
dead malls
Detroit
Irving housing

got that wrong
Paleofuture.com

appropriate tech
Arduino μcontrollers
Backwoods Home
Fractal antenna

fun social media stuff


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   raise a column
Thursday, April 6 2006
That pump I raved about yesterday, though it was advertised to be able to raise a column of water 40 meters (that takes more than 50 psi, by the way) proved capable of only going to 32 psi. But that lay within my requirements. More problematic has been keeping the output connection of the pump from leaking through its inch-wide threaded connection.

In other news, I've been modifying phpBB, a php/MySQL message board system, such that it will work on various community-style site I am being paid to build. I picked it for no other reason than that its table column naming convention was most in keeping with the standards needed by my generic MySQL web-based admin tool. The one thing I don't like about phpBB's naming convention is that all its tables are plurals. Thus a table that hold posts is called "posts." I prefer table names that are singular, which allows my tool to use the name of the table to tell the user what they are adding or modifying. When a user adds, modifies, or deletes an administrator using my tool, for example, the name of the table being edited is admin, and the tool uses that table name ("admin") when saying things like "Are you sure you want to delete this admin?" This makes no sense if the table's name is "admins." Luckily, though, it's very easy to change the names of tables in phpBB. They're all set in the PHP in a single constants file, and then I can change all the tables its installation script installed using a tool such as MySQL-Front.

pictures taken by Gretchen in Antigua, Guatemala, during the week I wasn't there


Decorations on a Lent-season processional float.


Onlookers during the procession.


That is the end of broom atop this kid's Roman helmet.


The uniform of float-carriers is always purple, and all float-carriers are kids of about this age. Luckily for Guatemala's processions, this is about the average age of Guatemalans. But, given the demographic crisis this implies, it's a little strange that so far there have been few floats themed around the idea of a "hellbound handbasket."


Delicious street helado!


Inside the Paseo De Los Museos, a cluster of museums set in the ruins of an old Antigua monastary.


A work in the Paseo De Los Museos.


A display of crutches, as cast aside by miraculously-healed people.


Formulaic expressions of gratitude, some of the authors of which used those crutches.


Gretchen's madre for a week in Antigua.


This ruin is fairly intact and provides symmetry to help with any future restoration.


Mannequins making paper at a mock paper factory.


Colorful sawdust (or sand) that is laid out in elaborate designs on the streets of Antigua, only to be ruined by Easter marchers the next day (and then redone to be ruined again). It's a microcosm of life in an earthquake-ravaged region where nothing is permanent.


A copy from the original printing of Don Quiote.

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http://asecular.com/blog.php?060406

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