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Day: January 7, 2009

Wheel locks

January 7, 2009 / / 0 Comments

saabwheel2

With the advent of cool aluminum wheels, wheel locks have become more popular. These are strange looking little things with an odd looking head made of high strength steel that need a special tool that locks into it to remove the wheel.

locks

The neat thing is that while some of tools interchange, there are not many duplications. And it’s really hard to get the wheel off if you don’t have the tool. So in this respect they’re great. However if you loose the tool you’re in for it.

Tool manufacturers make all sort of devices to get them out if the tool is lost, but it’s a throw of the dice if your wheel doesn’t get ruined in the process. Some wheel designs really make it harder by putting the lug nuts down some deep hole.

Personally, I don’t want taking a wheel off to be any harder than it is. The tool is small and easily lost, or left behind in a garage that is servicing your car. The Chinese make wheels cheap now that will match yours, like here.

To lock them down or not to, that is the question…

greg

Ancient History… very confusing…

January 7, 2009 / / 1 Comment

historyofancientworld

Been reading a good book lately, The History of the Ancient World by Chester G. Starr. I’ve been hung up on the transition from cave men to civilized men (?), and Chester’s book covers that transition up till the fall of the Roman Empire. This is arguably an artificial limit to ancient, but you got to cut it off somewhere.

I’ve learned loads of things I didn’t know about the ancient world, like a huge barbarian invasion (from who knows where) just before 1000 BC that brought the civilized world to it’s knees from Greece to Babylon and on to India. This precipitated a dark age that lasted 500 years before these areas got back on their feet. (I like a good dark age… I think were just entering one now.)

And the Romans having direct seaborne trade with India and China. It wasn’t a lot, A trip in a ship from Rome to China in 200 AD must have been pretty rough. It was rough on sailors in the 17th Century, much less the second century. But the thought of a Roman trading ship sailing into Shanghai harbor is pretty cool.

I’m wrapping up this book, and I’m getting close to the part where the Christian faith takes over the Roman Empire, but ol’ Chester just threw me a religious and philosophical curve ball… and I quote..

“Neoplatonism, as measured by Christianity, could not truly formulate a metaphysical explanation of human individuality in relation to transcendental unity, and it could not excise the defects of it’s pagan inheritance.”

What?

greg

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