John Ratcliff's Weblog

I haven't had a good healthy rant in a while, so perhaps I will today. I could rant about what is going on in Freemasonry in West Virginia but, last I checked, the rest of the blogosphere has that topic covered quite nicely. (For an excellent resource on the topic of PPM (perpetual motion machines) I highly recommend Donald Simanek's Pages . A highly entertaining site well worth a lengthy visit.) I have really been enjoying using Google Reader . It is without question the best way to get content from the Web. While I am waiting for a long compile I will quickly browse through news feeds that I have subscribed to in various categories. Several of the news feeds I am subscribed to are related to energy technologies. Some of these sites are pretty out there as they mix compelling coverage of developments in solar and wind technologies with fringe topics like Free Energy. I enjoy reading speculative and out-there stuff, I find it all quite entertaining. However, at time...

My friend and brother over at the Burning Taper already posted this video but I want to include it on my site here as well. This is a fantastic piece promoting Freemasonry and the statements many of the brothers on the film make echo my own sentiments exactly.

The First Robotics Competition (FRC) was held this weekend. Our regionals were at the F amily Arena right here in St. Charles. Teams all across the country competed in the game 'Overdrive' on Friday and Saturday. Our team, 1706, had a very respectable showing especially considering the fact that we are a young team with a very limited budget. (Here is a link to some recent news stories about the competition.) We heard that some teams had budgets in excess of $100,000; I heard of one that was over $150,000! (By comparison our budget was $7,000.) Some of the robots were built by technical schools where the entire student body was involved and had access to incredible facilities. What I felt was the most amazing robot, at least based on software, was the team 148 machine. It was able to perform two revolutions of the track, avoiding other robots in the way, in fully autonomous mode. When I spoke to one of the team mebers I learned the software was written by an engine...

My daughter Lauren had an assignment for her advanced English class to produce a satirical video. She executed this assignment with a team of about 5 or 6 students total. This video took weeks to produce and an untold number of hours in video editing. The lead actress the team chose, Holly, gave an incredible performance which is a big part of the charm of the film. The group decided to make a spoof of the recent hit film ' Juno '. Like 'Juno', 'Honolulu' is faced with an unexpected pregnancy and has to deal with the consequences of this life changing event. In reference to ' A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens the heroine is confronted by three ghosts who show her some of the possible outcomes that may occur based on the decision she ultimately will make. There are also references to the film ' Requiem for a Dream' , 'Labyrinth' and ' A Modest Proposal ' (The most famous satire in history) by Jonathan Swift. This produc...

Yesterday was a rare and special day on the 2nd of March. Today it is rainy and 35 degrees outside but, yesterday, it was warm and sunny and got up to almost 80 degrees at one point!!! I put about 200km on my car driving it all over the country roads. I am absolutely stunned by how well the vehicle handles. It literally handles better than a Mazda Miata when going through turns. Once, in a parking lot, I got it up to about 40mph and then ripped the wheel trying to make it spin out. It refused and immediately recovered from anything I could do to it! The only negative was that, at the end of the day, the gear box started acting up and I couldn't get it to go into all gears. I have it scheduled to go into the shop on Wednesday and I'm sure they will take care of the problem.