Entries by Gregg Berkholtz

I love your mochas, but your place is nearly empty and you're losing money, because of silly decisions you've made.

My body and half my brain appreciates the charge from your tasty drinks, but the second-half of my brain is drained over the course of a few hours. You can help me.

As a very busy professional I'll often land in your place for a few hours to:
- Meet with a client, and possibly demonstrate work.
- Prepare for a nearby meeting.
- Seek different scenery, and escape the office.

I might have purchased a 2nd cup, or some of those tasty looking pastries, but you chased me out.
Continue reading "Dear most Portland Coffee Cafes.."

My personal blogging tool, Serendipity needed an upgrade. Here's how I did it:

cd /path/to/blog/
wget "http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/php-blog/serendipity-1.5.5.tar.gz?download"
mv serendipity-1.5.5.tar.gz\?download serendipity-1.5.5.tar.gz
tar -xzf serendipity-1.5.5.tar.gz --strip-components=1

Then I went to the Admin Panel, and saw the Serendipity upgrader. It said all was good, so I clicked the only option (return to your blog).

Done

Yea, it really was that easy!

This morning I stumbled across a blog posting that's...well...one hell of a wakeup call, and a very inspiring blog posting.

In the western world, we're all taught that if we work hard, plan well, and save diligently...we'll be able to peacefully retire, and maybe even discover a few little ones quietly running around.
Continue reading "You are the only one in control"

A few years ago I posted a few rather blunt although honest reviews of Phonak's hearing aid technology.

Now, considering I'm not wearing Phonak Naida V UltraPower's right now...here's the report on what's occurred since then... Continue reading "Phonak Naida V UltraPower - dying again"

When we say things like, “people don’t change,” it drives scientists crazy, because change is literally the only constant in all of science.
Energy, matter - it’s always changing, morphing, merging, growing, dying. It’s the way people try not to change that’s unnatural,
the way we cling to what things were, instead of letting them be what they are,
the way we cling to old memories, instead of forming new ones,
the way we insist on believing, despite every scientific indication that anything in this lifetime is permanent.

Change is constant. How we experience change, that’s up to us. It can feel like death, or it can feel like a second chance at life.

If we open our fingers, loosen our grip, go with it, it can feel like pure adrenaline, like at any moment, we can have another chance at life, like at any moment, we can be born all over again.

From “Grey’s Anatomy” Season 7, Episode 1 – September 2010

The summit sits at 4055 feet, its parking lot is where the Portland Astronomy club meets to study the night sky. The viewpoint is worth the ride, or drive; on a clear day, you can see four major mountians, with a ~270 degree field of view. As for climbing this hill on a bike...we'll, you'd better be reasonably fit, or the screaming legs of exhaustion will turn you around.

From my house, Google says that this ~36 mile trip:
By car, would take 1.25 hours.
By bike, 4.5 hours.

I did it, by bike, in under 2 hours and 15 minutes. Of-course, I have no ordinary bike; I had help. Google assumes your average speed would be around 8MPH, mine averaged 16MPH.

The assent was fun and brisk, the good company and screaming fast descent were worth the trip. The cougars...well...I could have done without them. Continue reading "Biking to Sherrard Point (Larch Mountian's Summit)"

Our local recumbent parts and accessories manufacturer sells some awesome TailSoks & frames. Although I'm not ready to purchase one of their admittedly well-made aluminum-tube based TailSok frames.

TerraCycle recently started making making their TailSoks with retro-reflective fabric, and so that means they're currently clearing out their old inventory of non-reflective soks, for bargain at $39/each.

So, after picking one of their clearance soks... Continue reading "How to make a TailSock frame for less than $10"

How disturbing...

Earlier yesterday I posted to a CAD/CAM machinist forum, seeking help with their software. Hours later I find that my posting has been doctored to not only remove information valuable to anyone visiting, but they fraudulently re-characterized my original message into a semblance of praise for their software.

What's even more disturbing is their recent Award, and how they cited forum comments as "...Vectric wish to Thank all of our customers for posting such glowing feedback and positive information on the Forum, because the Queen's Awards committee considered this to be very important when making their decision..."

How disgusting...here's the facts.
Continue reading "What a fraud Vectrix"

An update to my previous rant about Apple's attempts at forced obsolescence.

Rumor is, Apple is going to release a software update to Fix iPhone 3G performance issues...soon...

I'll believe it when I see it. Until then, some of us have Real Work to do on these things and simply cannot wait for Steve Jobs/Apple to throw us long-time loyal customers a tiny little bone.

Steps to fix slowness on iPhone3G w/ iOS4.0.2... Continue reading "iPhone update due "soon""

I'm happy to see the wrongs being corrected in California now.

I wish it could be this simple:
You may organize and do as you and your group pleases. For as long as your group's charter, expressions & actions always respect and protect:
1) Equal access to liberty, security, dignity, privacy & individual sovereignty.
2) Equal opportunity of association, education & occupation.
3) Freedom of thought, conscience, art & expression.
4) Exclusivity to lawfully acquired & created possessions.
5) No discrimination for age, ethnicity, disability, gender or sexuality.
6) Fair compensation for products & possessions.

The guiding principals would be:
1) No hateful actions or expressions.
2) Embrace and encourage diversity.
3) Enabling success for those less fortunate.

The core corrective principal would be restitution, before repression.

A guy can dream...

My Apple iPhone experience has taught me a few things:
1) Apple has an awesome return/warranty policy. If it's broken, they replace it, period.
2) My 3G iPhone works seamlessly with my beautiful and highly-reliable 8GB/500GB MacBook Pro.
3) A $500 technology investment is intentionally engineered into a paperweight just two years later.

Allow me to elaborate on the third point ... Continue reading "Lessons from Apple Computers"

In the past few years I've met some amazing engineers, many are local folks...there must be something in the water.

The list grows daily, and I can no longer track them all manually. So...now comes a wiki page:
http://gregg.berkholtz.net/wiki/diyprojects


Examples:
Three-wheeled leaning vehicle:


Electric Motorcycle:



My list is absurdly-long...keep an eye on the new wiki page

An update to my Feburary posting; the airless Kenda inserts are working great.

Yes, I do feel just a little bit slower off-the-line...but...over the past couple of weeks I've realized that I'm no longer scanning the roads for glass, nails & other crap anymore. Only the largish potholes and other uneven surfaces.

Combined with the fact I no longer haul around pumps, tire wedges and patch-kits. Is it worth feeling slightly-slower off-the-line, yet never worrying about flatting again?

Hell yes!

After being stuck in outer-SE Portland, fixing a flat, during a dark freezing midnight downpour...and then solicited from a tweaked-out overweight older man (musta been the bike shorts) :o ...I turned to airless tire solutions; I've always hated flatting, and found it silly that a good chunk of my randonneuring kit was in pumps, tubes, tires and patches. My first venture was ordering one-piece tires from AirFreeTires.com, my first order arrived with no issue, and while the tires were a bit quirky, they were alright. My second order took months, and a series of public/online complaints before arrival. The third order never arrived...and that order was placed in October of 2008.
Continue reading "Experiences with Airless Bike Tires - www.airfreetires.com is just a scam site now"

I LOVE TaskPaper, and look forward to the day when the iPhone version is ready. Though I've been struggling with utilizing a new and very valuable feature; online sync.

Why? Continue reading "The Power of Open Source & Open Minds"