Building an Outdoor Oven

One of the first things I did after I built one of my houses was to pour a patio slab and build an outdoor oven. I enjoy doing the holiday cooking outside. I can cook a 20 pound prime rib and a big turkey in my outdoor oven without batting an eye. Near the end of the cooking I'll throw cast iron Dutch ovens in for my bread. The cooking process is simple. 

How to Do Holiday Cooking Outdoors

As If I Didn't Have Enough To Do

It's always rather surprising to me when people discuss certain aspects of  subjects and I discover they don't read much about the work in the field under discussion. What I have come to find out is that often times people just don't know where to look. I've solved that problem, sort of. There are 10's of thousands of journals from around the world that have open access, meaning free to download. This is why I said I have sort of solved the problem. You still have to do the reading.

Every week I spend at least 4 hours reading journal articles in fields of study I'm interested in. This is a habit I would encourage in anyone with a thirst for understanding. I used to spend a full day of work once a week doing the same thing with the published and bound dead tree version. If you like that sort of thing, I still do, go to your local community college, or university library and find the journals. These days though this wild and wooly thing we have called the Web has lots of resources.

First off, the Directory of Open Access Journals. Just search by keyword(s) and you're off.

Next up, Open Access Journals. This link takes you to the journals by subject.

Ok, for the pirate in you there is Sci Hub for journals behind pay walls. They have by-passed them. Sometimes you might have to follow them around as they've been sued by publishers several times. You might open yourself to civil action in the United States by using the site, so if you go there understand what you are doing. I think they are currently down, probably on the run again.

For United States defense related research, and a lot more, there is the DTIC or Defense Technical Information Center. For most US government labs and centers each agency will usually have a publications outlet site. 

A lot of people think that these journals are primarily for the experts in those fields. That is only part of it. They are meant to communicate your work to others in that field sure, but also many of the articles are written with a broader audience in mind. So dive in, the water is great.

It's Never Been Like This Before

Every so often I'll get in a conversation with someone about our droughts here in the mountains of California. The snow pack in the Sierra Nevada mountains is the major source of fresh water in the state so knowledge about it is vital. Fortunately there is data to be had that I can use to inform myself. I get the snow pack data for the two watersheds I am interested in from the California Data Exchange Center.

I update my files every year at the end of the snow season. This is usually April 1st. It's always surprising to me when people talk about the Sierra snowpack from news reports they hear or see, but don't actually look at the numbers. In fact some of the things I hear from people is so far from what the data implies it's troubling. Let me be clear from the outset, this is not about the overall water situation in California. It is about the two watersheds that directly impact my life. They are the Kern River Watershed and the Owens River Watershed.

Seki-Joju Bonsai and The End of The Season

I've finished up most of my horticultural work for the year and soon it will be time for the plant world to rest for the winter. We don't have much of a fall here but when winter descends it comes fast and with a vengeance. I planted my newest bonsai in its pot and it seems to be thriving. I have it wired for training and the root system is strong.

Seki-Joju Style Bonsai.

Down The Rabbit Hole

Charles Dodgson who wrote the wonderful book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland under the pen name Lewis Carroll was a mathematician by training and practice. His book was admirably illustrated by Sir John Tenniel. Dodgson  made some good strides in mathematical logic, linear algebra, and matrix operations. Of course, who doesn't remember who Alice spotted one fine day and decided to follow. 

 

Our notorious white rabbit, and so down his rabbit hole we go to do some exploring. Namely data, mathematics, curve fitting, and models,  all of which would be familiar territory for Dodgson. I was planning to post on a completely different matter when I realized I have been remiss, and that I needed to better define some things. 

SIR Model Revisited

I've gone back and cleaned up my basic SIR Model as described in a previous post. I have added some features and put some more thought into it. I hope to describe it here and what might be some of the ramifications. Given the current state of political affairs here in the United States and being the election season it has helped me wade through some of the effluvia that is always present in politics. Especially concerning this matter.

Properties of Explosives and Their Application Part 2

From the first post in this series I wrote about determining the performance of an explosive using the Cylinder Expansion test, or Cylex as it's commonly known. As I mentioned the radial velocity of an expanding cylinder (copper for the cylex test) is measured. This is done a number of different ways. The earliest method used a streak camera.