Doing it the hard way

I thought this was cool. Wally Wallington moves really heavy objects using simple machines. A must watch for the engineering-minded.

Misuse of equipment

I wonder what the engineer who designed this piece of earth-moving equipment would say if he saw this.

Tents on wheels for the homeless

A few days ago I stumbled across this CNN story about a unique way to help the homeless. In LA, they are distributing these tent/shopping cart devices called EDARs (Everyone Deserves a Roof). I found the story very interesting.

I'm still trying to decide what I think of the idea.

On the one hand, the EDAR does seem to improve the quality of life for those who need them to some small degree. Having people not die of exposure on the street certainly seems like a real benefit.

On the other hand, it seems like the makers of EDAR are labeling the underlying problem as unsolvable and accepting too little as a victory. The people in the video don't seem to be particularly disabled or mentally dysfunctional to any extreme. Why are they homeless? I'm sure those were probably the some of the more photogenic and likable people in the homeless population, but the question stands.

Does the good of improving the quality of life for a fellow human being offset the evil of condoning laziness, dependency, and the feeling of entitlement that damage our society and further propagate the problem?

One thing right

President Bush did at least one thing right. Tomorrow is the change to daylight savings time.

I'm glad he moved the changeover date to be earlier and the change back to be later. Sure the software programer in me hated it-- all those computer time calculations that had to change--but I will be happy for an extra hour of daylight after work.

Here in Ohio the time change marks the week I can safely go bicycling after work again.