Integrity in politicians

I'm not so much a "git 'er done" kinda guy as I am a "do the right thing/do it right" kinda guy. These are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but it is hard to find that balance to "git 'er done right". That said, I'm a little concerned about a politician willing to "git around" the law....
In our area there is a by-law that says you are not allowed to post signs on the shoulders of the main roads - I learned this after losing my garage sale signs one Saturday morning. I assume this law is in place for safety reasons(?). So I'm not sure how I feel about voting for someone who has political campaign signs in the back of a truck parked on the side of the road, with a guy standing on the shoulder also holding a sign.
Do I really want someone in office who is willing to go around the law for personal/professional gain?

Fuel Cell Powered Clock

Here is a project I have been thinking about for a while. I've had a Thames & Kosmos fuel cell car kit for a while. And I am collecting a bag full of "dead" batteries to drop off at hazardous waste disposal. My mind started wandering and I thought "I know there is still energy in those batteries, just not enough to run the device they are in, I hate to throw them out while there is still energy in them..." The wheels in my head started turning and I starting thinking about how to drain these batteries completely before disposal while storing and using the recovered energy. First challenge is voltage variation, almost by definition the voltage of these batteries is low and getting lower as they are drained, so that got me thinking of electrolysis to drain them while producing hydrogen which I could then use to power the fuel cell. But the fuel cell only puts out a small voltage, so can't use it to power anything significant - but maybe my 1.5 bathroom clock! So, with all of that in mind, here is my thought process and at the bottom is the final plan.

Basic Car Kit Connections:
This is the connection setup defined in my Thames & Kosmos Fuel Cell Car & Experiment Kit. This configuration uses a solar panel to power the load and power the fuel cell in electrolysis mode to produce hydrogen. When there is no light on the panel, the cell reverts into generator mode and consumes hydrogen to continue powering the load. The book suggests that plastic containers apparently won’t hold hydrogen for long(?) so looking for something glass to use for storage. (book indicates ~50% reduction in hydrogen volume over 12 hours!)

Basic Car Kit Connections - with Bad Idea:
Thought #1 - connect “dead” batteries to the system to remove every last bit of energy before sending for recycling. Problem: book says that the fuel cell needs at least ~1 volt to operate in electrolysis mode, so won’t fully drain the battery. Also, at that low voltage it would become a load for the solar panel and fuel cell (they would try to charge the battery). I think a full battery could be used if a transistor was put in line such that if the voltage of the system drops below a minimum, then the battery is engaged, but that is extra (complicated) circuitry.

Basic Car Kit Connections with Hoffman Apparatus:
Thought #2 - connect “dead” batteries directly to the water for electrolysis. This changes the problem into one of plumbing - the fuel cell needs distilled water, and straight electrolysis really needs salt water to be effective, so the tubing connections need to be done in such a way as to avoid any salt water from getting into the fuel cell. A little Internet searching found "The Hoffman Electrolysis Apparatus", which appears to be exactly what I need.
NOTE: booklet says hydrogen comes off negative terminal of energy source.

Hoffman Electrolysis Apparatus Connections:
Operation, Daylight:
- solar panel powers clock and fuel cell, hydrogen produced is stored in Hoffman apparatus
- battery also produces hydrogen, also stored in apparatus
- when “full”, cathode is out of water and battery electrolysis stops
- continued fuel cell hydrogen produced is vented through center tube

Operation, Night/Dark:
- Fuel cell consumes hydrogen to power the clock
- battery produces hydrogen to replenish
- when water level reaches top, air is drawn from center tube to avoid salt water flow into fuel cell supply tube and electricity production stops (clock stops)

I don't understand...

So, there is a Sears warehouse on my route to work and the staff have been on strike since April. There are signs up around the area that say "don't shop at Sears"... Is it just me or is this REALLY short sighted? If they are successful in convincing people to stop shopping at Sears, then once the strike is over - guess what - sales will be down, therefore revenue will be down - and layoffs! In my opinion, the strikers should be saying "Shop at Sears!!", this will drive more sales and revenue, and then the company will be stronger to support more jobs and higher pay going forward. Maybe I'm missing the whole thing, but that's my thinking...

MP3 Player Playlist Suggestion

I must not be a normal person. My friends will immediately agree with this, but I'm saying it for a different reason... Almost all MP3 players and computer-based music programs allow the creation of playlists, but none that I have found allow songs to be added to these playlists while the song is playing, or allow adding a song to multiple lists. From what I can see, if I load a CD into my music archive, I need to immediately assign each song to a single playlist after loading or at some point while my MP3 player is connected to the computer - which I think is kinda stupid.
My suggestion:
- create multiple playlists by music type or listening pattern (ie. driving tunes, quite Sunday morning tunes, dinner background tunes, etc)
- load all the songs from the CD into the computer/MP3 player
- allow the user to select playlists to associate to the song while the song is playing

Scenario is this: load 1 or several CDs onto the MP3 player, listen to the songs however you like (I prefer shuffling everything), while listening to each song, tag it to all of the playlists you want, go to next song....after a while, all the songs are categorized and you can then listen by category. Oh, and be sure to create a "Delete" playlist so that you can flag a song for removal from the library next time you are doing list admin.

Gizzy Howling to Alert the Pack

Our little fuzzy boy, Gizzy, must have a little wolf in him. He is part Chinese Crested and part Pomeranian and the best parts of both. We don't really think of him as a dog, but when he howls like this you just have to giggle! He is mostly blind and mostly deaf so I think he sometimes gets confused and that leads to some howling to bring the pack to his aid.

Stone Lamp and Gate Posts

So the lamp posts at the end of the driveway are starting to fall apart - the brick appears to be disintegrating for some reason. I dug into the crumbling mess and it appears that the inside of the post is filled with loose bricks and then the cement cap was poured on top of these. I've been putting off the replacement of the posts because finding good people for this kind of thing is always a pain, but then we stumbled upon a modular stone pillar/post system by a company called Anker Pillar Systems while paging through a local newspaper. This looks very doable, and since I already have the foundations from my existing pillars, this should work fairly well! It also appears that these can be used as gate posts if the center hole is filled with cement and rebar after its built - bonus! I think this might be a project for next spring....!