Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Covid-19 #2: Omicron
This Post This post was written over a few months from late August 2022 to late 2022, was published in October, and has been revised. Omicron evolved Omicron, Pango lineage B.1.1.529, was first recognized as a variant of concern of Covid-19 by the WHO in November 2021. By the end of September, 2022, reports and […]
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Changes at CyclingTips
CyclingTips started as an online magazine (web publication in 20O8; commercial in 2013), and remained an online service into November 2022. CyclingTips was the leading source of information on maintaining and repairing bicyles in 2020, 2021 and 2022. The Nerd Alert podcast was informative. Pocket Outdoor Media, the corporate owner of Beta, a paywalled site […]
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Cancel Western Literature
The Book None of the essays in the 2022 book How to Read Now, by the millennial novelist Elaine Castillo, appear to have been previously published in print elsewhere. Elaine Castillo is the author of the novel, published in 2018, America is Not the Heart 1No Wikipedia entry as of September 2022; for plot summary […]
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Bread Baking, Summer 2022
Bread Machine Broken The mixer seized up My bread machine, a Zojirushi Virtuoso model BB-PAC20, stopped working on Monday June 27. The pan would not even seat on the drive connectors in the machine. One of the drive shafts was seized. The pan was already loaded with unmixed ingredients for a light rye bread. I […]
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Spoon-Fed by Tim Spector
Spoon-Fed discusses the diets of people in developed countries. Spoon-Fed puts a great deal of information into a short book. It fails to reconcile some inconsistencies. It discusses a number of “myths” about food and nutrition. A myth is a story that many people have learned to believe, but not a scientifically proved factual story. […]
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Bike Chains 4 – Lubricant prices, testing, innovation
Prices Motor Oil & Gear Oil Motor oil, the lubricating oil distilled and sold for use (4 stroke) internal combustion engines, was sold in quart containers for decades. For decades the containers were cardboard cylinders with metal end caps. Automotive service centers, once known as garages, issued workers spouts that could both puncture an end […]
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Bike Chains 7 – Melted Paraffin Immersion
Wax Not dripped Paraffin is a wax, a dry solid, which is melted down into a low viscosity (thin) liquid, and applied to a chain immersed in the hot wax. The liquid fills the spaces around the pins and along the edges of the rollers. When the chain is removed from the liquid paraffin cools […]
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Covid-19 #1: Covid-19 wanes, Omicron rises
This Post This post was written in the spring and summer of 2022. I stopped working on it, subject to corrections, August 19, 2022. Covid-19 The Pandemic The SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) pandemic, is a mass infectious disease, caused by repeated mass infections with SARS-CoV-2 viruses. The name means: The original SARS-CoV-2 virus was: An outbreak of […]
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Getting Tires Right
Tires Pneumatic Modern tires allow cyclists to ride pavements, gravel, trails, dirt, mud, and other surfaces. Tires are pneumatically inflated with compressed air. Pneumatic tires were invented and industrially produced before the end of the 19th century. Solid rubber was used to manufacture bicycle tires. It was better than other material. Getting a bouncy wheel […]
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The Diet Myth
The title of Tim Spector’s 2015 book The Diet Myth refers to one “myth”. The book begans with an Introduction that discusses the author’s midlife health crisis when his blood pressure rose suddenly, and present an overview of his research into the modern diet. The Introduction identifies the problems of deciding “what is good or […]
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