Tony Yarusso's Blog

So, here's a slightly odd thought I was having: I'd like to be able to take songs (ie, off of CDs), and change their tempo, preferably without having to do much work, so that I can reasonably do fairly significant batches of this. So, there are a few steps to this, and I'm wondering if anyone has advice for any of them.

So I was driving behind a cement truck the other day, and noticed something. Now most people understand that the drum rotates in order to agitate the cement mixture and keep it liquid during transport to a construction site; what I'm talking about is how that is accomplished. The mechanically easiest way to make something on the back end of a truck turn presumably would be to just hook it up to the drive axle (or whatever that piece is called), since that's exactly what it does for the rear wheels. That would make the drum turn at a rate directly related to ground speed. This clearly is a problem, as stoplights would give the mixture chances to solidify. You might think the solution would be to get away from such complications by just having a separate engine or motor running the drum, not related to that of the truck. However, my observations while following it showed this is apparently not the case. This may be due to the problems that could arise in terms of a power supply or fuel source for that, being in some ways redundant. It seems the rotation of the drum is directly related to the engine speed of the truck, keeping it moving at idle and changing as the truck accelerates from a stop and goes through its gears. That's all quite well and good while on the road, and solves a number of other problems, but leaves one more that I have to ask about: Can cement trucks park, with the engine off ever other than at the end of the day after being cleaned out?

We're quite officially into the reasons I'm not as fond of summer as most people. Yes, it's great to be out of school, and it's nice to have the occasional sunny weather and to be warm enough for a swim and such, but there needs to be limits to such things. Nineties are not my friend. That said, mom and I got a a short bike ride in today (sort of together, part of the time) to get to a graduation party, and survived. It would seem some other people are in agreement too, as we've had a few bikes come in for repairs now with the reasoning being that it's too warm to ride right now anyway, so might as well.

Meanwhile, I just had two new things suggested to me, so I'm going to check those out and you may hear about them later.

Wait, this song had a reprise too...guess that must be what August is for...

Now, most people know that I'm not a huge fan of standardized testing. The main reason for that is because schools/districts start obsessing over the results of the tests for their school, rather than just using them as a useful check of actual learning. This leads to the inevitable situation of "teaching to the test", where curricula become tailored specifically towards artificially inflating the school's score distribution. Of course, the tests were never designed to actually be the curriculum for any student, but rather as a rather piecemeal check on what was being covered and what was being absorbed by normal means. Additionally, students pick up on this, and feel even less inclined to put any effort into their own work during elementary and/or high school since they don't see a particular value to it, removing what little may have been left — and that's for the good students.

Now, on to the funny part! Students in Fort Worth, Texas who failed the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills will not be allowed to graduate. Not only will they not receive a diploma, but they can't participate in graduation ceremonies. Now while that makes perfect sense, it seems the students are upset, and would like to be able to walk across the stage even though they can't pass the test. Now, you can read the actual article from WFAA, or, for a far more entertaining experience, just look at this picture of the protesting students/parents. Maybe whatever school you went to somehow thought you were deserving of a 3.5 GPA, but something tells me there's a reason they won't let you graduate, hmm?

So today I had the opportunity of experiencing that weird phenomenon common in places were parts are stripped from bicycles and replaced with new, working ones - that of the "shop bike".

In case you can't guess already, what this means is something resembling a bicycle, constructed out of mismatched parts of all kinds that had something wrong with them to begin with, and then were coerced together in ways that sort of work. In our case, this means a Cannondale cyclocross frame, mountain bike disc brakes, a seatpost rack with a lock not worth using, who knows wheels, and a stem off a kids' bike. The front brake almost works. The rear one is 100% useless. It's pretty funny all around.

But it saved me a minute and a half to run to Panera for lunch. And isn't that what it's all about? ;)