Going Tubeless!

Given that it was such a nice spring day yesterday, I did the only sensible thing I could: put the kids to work hauling stones! We're pilfering rocks from across the street, and we need to get done before Fred puts the place up for sale. The stones are going to the banks of Rachel River, the Stone Stream, the front walk, or the foundation border, depending on size and shape.

Justin was zipping back and forth with a wheelbarrow full, and ran into some trouble when he tried to run up a short but steep rocky slope with a bit too much zip, and zapped the tubeless tire left and/or right, which allowed the air to run off and play elsewhere. Attempts to fill the tire with air failed, as there was always enough space somewhere between bead and rim for the air to go its own way.

Today, I used that extremely effective home repair tool (Google) to discover a lot of very negative bits and pieces about tubeless tires, such as this: "do yourself a favor and do not even try to replace the tire without buying a inner tube for it." Unfortunately, solutions like that, or the even more helpful "buy a new wheel" involve time and money, and I wasn't in the mood to spend much of either one or the other.

And then, one googleitem away from the previously mentioned bit of "Shared Knowledge", I found this gem, which advised using a ratcheting nylon cargo strap. Of course, that would also require a trip to the store and money spent because I don't have any hanging around - although I will get one at some future time, as chance allows. Always thought one would come in handy, and have made heavy use of them when toting stuff around in my brother-in-law's pickup truck. Guess I figured the pickup truck would have to come before the accessories did, or something, because I never picked one up.

A belt, however, might just do the trick.

Now, considering I'm not as slim around the waist as I once was, I figured maybe one of Justin's belts would be a better fit, so I sent him searching. He has none. Rachel grabbed one of hers, a bright pink thing she didn't really care for that much. It reached about a quarter of the way around. Now I have one belt, and it's for work use - namely because a belt is one of the items specified as required for our business casual dress code. Didn't really want to wrap it around a dirty wheelbarrow tire, not that I thought it would fit without punching a new hole halfway around it.

Well, I'm apparently as slim as a wheelbarrow tire, slimmer, really, because we could barely get the belt tightened to the first setting. But, hey, the tire took air, filled to the appropriate PSI, and we're done.

Except a belt isn't quite as handy as a ratcheting cargo strap with a quick release mechanism, because, well, a belt requires a bit of a squeeze to release it. With a full amount of air trapped within, the tire doesn't leave much room for squeezes, and with less than an inch of belt hanging out, there's not much to yank on and get any leverage. I was able to slide the belt off the tire on the opposite side of the buckle, and then that left quite enough slack for the buckle to be removed.

Job done, no money spent, and no tubeless tire and possibly accompanying wheel sent to the landfill after a few short years of service.

Now, after we get Brandon off to nap time, we can haul some more rocks, as it is yet another gorgeous spring day!

Orson Scott Card on Intelligent Design

...found via bardiphouka, here...

Responding to Orson Scott Card's column on Intelligent Design:

OSC misses a few key points in his argument, methinks.

Taking in turn, with his numbering scheme:

1. Name calling? Quoth OSC: "They're apparently counting on most people to not care enough to discover the difference." Although not name calling itself, that certainly implies the same thing. It's a judgment that is not based on facts.
   
   The outcome of the recent Dover school board case determined that, legally, ID is Creationism. OSC argues in this first item that ID shouldn't be considered Creationism because the proponents of ID are using scientific methods to handle the "inadequate" bits of Darwinian evolution.
   
   Unfortunately, the final step in ID involves faith - it is not something that can be scientifically proven, so therefore, it is not science. If it can be proven and observed, than it is no longer a matter of faith.
   
   True, saying it is "Creationism" is name-calling, in that you're applying a name to it, but as long as ID boils down to a matter of faith, it certainly does not earn the name "Science."



2. Real science - and I've seen this often in the somewhat related realm of archaeology - often seems to resort to credentialism. If something can be proven repeatedly, independently, however, it will get past the knee-jerk defense mechanism. Scientists will look at what non-scientists claim, but when they don't see proof, they look away quickly. Check out my tag Springmatics for a recent bout I had with some pseudo-science that is unrelated to any of the religious issues with ID.



3. I'd really like to see the source information - when OSC phrases the short answers and their longer explanations, he's really boiling them down and slanting them to his opinion. Certainly, the phrase he mentions is not conducive to a good scientific debate, and the same really goes for #2 and this entire list, as well. However, he's wrong when he states that the Darwinists don't take the time to write out replies: without even looking that far or that deeply, I was able to find an essay that assembles a number of quotes from a number of different scientists, explaining things quite clearly.



4. Sniping? Like making a list of skewed comments and undocumented quotes, and painting all evolutionary scientists with that brush? Oh, wait, that would be more like an air strike... =)
   
   As for me, in my admittedly quick research for this reply, and in all my previous reading, I can not recall ever seeing a point-by-point takedown of ID where it purports to replace evolution. I've seen plenty where evolution is documented as fact, scientifically, and appropriately.



5. This one goes back to the issue in #1: ID is faith-based - even if that faith is not specified - thus it is the realm of religion, and should be separate from the realm of state. Because it also speaks of a "Creator" (which has a kind of similar root to the word "Creationism", yes, no?) it is slanting a bias towards monotheistic religions just ever so slightly.



6. As in the sniping bit, this statement is a bit skewed. Again, from my sources (a Google on "evolutionary theory", and only a handful of the top links examined), every single bit I've looked at stressed the need to explore further, experiment further, and prove things that haven't been proven as fact yet. A bit of the opposite of what OSC is stating - I see no grounds for his comment whatsoever. Quoth OSC in regards to Darwinists, although I use it in regards to OSC hisself: "Unfortunately, it was also illogical, personal, and unscientific."
   
   As for the anti-Darwin as opposed to anti-evolution, that seems a bit silly. Darwin's big theory was that "groups" of organisms, (which we now call populations) rather than individual organisms, gradually evolve through the process of natural selection. OSC might be getting confused with the theory of universal common descent, which was not exclusively Darwinian. Evolution includes Darwinian natural selection, along with several other theories, and common descent is one aspect of it.



7. Again with the slanting. His summary statement: Evolution happens and obviously happened in the natural world, and natural selection plays a role in it. But we do not have adequate theories yet to explain completely how evolution works and worked at the biochemical level. is labeled as true, but he fails on the second half. While the theories in place may be supplemented or replaced in future years - as with the Newton/Einstein example - they are not repealed, and are not, as he states, inadequate. That he should make such a statement implies that OSC either fails to understand scientific thought and methods or he is deliberately creating the impression that he is applying them while doing nothing of the sort.

In summary, ID is still Creationism, and new ideas are welcome as long as they can be repeated in experiments.

EDIT: Care of yendi, a link to another response to OSC's ID article