Divinest Sense

Omigod, it’s my very first video podcast! Paste the link into your iTunes to subscribe and view the movie. This is a short series of clips that I filmed using the movie function on my Canon Powershot A80 at the Hagley Museum in Delaware. The museum is the original site of the DuPont gunpowder mills.

The scenes I filmed are from the machine shop and a gunpowder rolling mill, both of which have the original machines in working order, powered completely by water. I took notes so that I can build machines to power my lights and computers when the oil runs out. I was fascinated by all of these machines with their open gearwork and ingenious drive mechanisms - they are unwieldy and elegant at the same time. The immense wheels that were used to crush the gunpowder are 8 tons of cast iron each - but move so quickly and gracefully that they are beautiful to watch. The whole thing is activated by opening a sluice gate - the water rushes down into a turbine, which turns gears that rotate a drive shaft, which extends laterally into the bottom of the rolling mill, and turns an enormous gear to power the wheels. So simple - and accomplished without the use of polluting gasoline or coal. It’s really too bad that DuPont is all about the scary chemicals now.

If you ever find yourself in Wilmington or the greater Phildelphia area with some time on your hands, go to the Hagley Museum and tour the grounds - it’s definitely a must-see if you are interested in pre-industrial-revolution technology.

This is what I’ve been waiting for - the Church Sign Generator! Also, for a quick laugh, see 16 reasons God never received tenure.

Did you know that we have secret laws and regulations in this country? I wish I could tell you more, so that you can avoid breaking them, but since they are secret, I’m afraid I don’t know what they are. Except that apparently one of them is that a government-issued ID is, in fact, required to board an airplane, even though that law is not on the books anywhere. Kevin Drum is following the story. I guess these laws were passed by the secret congress of the shadow government. Which was elected by the shadow citizenry, I presume. But waitaminute, I learned in my fancy private school that we, the non-secret American people, *are* the government, and *we* pass the laws through our elected representatives. I better write to Miss Roberts about this one, she may want to change her curriculum for 4th grade social studies.