I like to say that every part is a puzzle, and one of the puzzles that interests me the most is rifling a barrel. Especially a rifle barrel. I'll be the first to say that creating a match grade rifle barrel is a work of art on a par with any sculpture or high art you can imagine and I don't see any way that's in my future. But what about applications where the demands aren't quite as severe, like a pistol used out to a few yards or a battle rifle used to a hundred or two?
This is one of those "how would you cope if the system collapsed"
questions: barrels wear out. What can we do? Stockpile barrels? Hat tip to Weapons Man today for getting me thinking about this, after posting a couple of interesting videos of rifle barrel manufacture, although thinking of how I might rifle the barrel of the GB-22 started this thought process days ago.
A few days ago, I ran across this interesting video of a guy who's making a .380 pocket pistol, sort of based on a Colt Mustang (I gather) that he calls the Kolt380. Take a look at this:
Now think about this: how is rifling different from an cutting an internal screw thread? The main thing I see is that instead of "turns per inch" you're interested in "inches per turn". Rifle twist rates are described as "1 turn in 16 inches" or 16 IPT. Cutting threads on the lathe is a fundamental operation, with the thread TPI set by changing gear sets to fix the ratio of turns of the work to the advance of the cutting bit. In this video, the barrel is clamped motionless and the cutter is spun into the work. In internal threading, the cutter wouldn't rotate, the barrel would. As a practical consideration, the number of TPI that can be cut with the typical lathe's set of gears is going to be much larger than you'd want for a gun barrel; say a minimum of 4. A .223 barrel might be 1 turn in 7 inches, or .1429 TPI, while 1 in 10 inches, 0.1 TPI, is common for .308. A typical .22LR is 1 in 16" or .0625 TPI. Handguns run in the same general ranges.
How do we get those very small TPI values? Extremely wide range gears? I'm guessing the gear ranges are limited by what fits in the machine. What if we didn't use gears? What if we drove the chuck holding the barrel with a stepper motor and advanced the cutting tool with another stepper? There could still be gears or something to slow down either rotation, if necessary. The most common stepper motors have 200 steps per turn. That could be geared to 400 or more, if necessary. The ratio of speeds would be set with CNC controller. It would need feedback so it knows the motors are in the position they're supposed to be, but rotational encoders are pretty common in CNC threading.
Saying "let the CNC do it" doesn't let one off the hook! There are still going to be ratios of speeds that have to be considered. I haven't looked into this, so I can't say for sure, but I can imagine needing to run a range of speeds that might be impractical. I might have enough numbers to start looking at potential solutions, though.
Well, this is kind of rambling, "what if?" pondering. Something to think about as we wait to find if our long national nightmare is ending or just beginning. Just kidding. The Deep State always wins.
Tuesday, November 8, 2016
Monday, November 7, 2016
Conflicted on the Election
Tomorrow is election day. In some states, tomorrow is the only day to vote (except for absentee); but in the majority you may participate in third world-style early voting. As you may gather from that quip, we're old school and will be voting tomorrow.
The rest of this is peculiar to Florida and local politics so those of you who are reading in other states are probably not going to be interested. See you tomorrow. According to blogger, after the US, the nation that consistently places second as viewers to my blog is France. Pourquoi? Je n’ai aucune idée. I'm sure nothing here will be interesting to readers in France.
I've done all the study and prep that I can for our election, but there are still two things I'm conflicted on: a constitutional amendment and a local ballot initiative to add a 1/2 cent sales tax dedicated to cleaning up one of the biggest estuaries in the country.
The amendment, #1 on the ballot, is usually called the solar power amendment. You'd think all the ecosexual greenies would all be behind this, right? As it turns out, the enviro-weenies are almost all against it. They think it's a Trojan horse intended to kill solar polar. Why? It seems to be because the electric utilities have invested a relatively large amount of money in promoting it and the greenies just know the power companies want to enslave their customers and burn more coal. In fact, if you read a list of who's for the amendment and who's opposed to it (like this one) they're almost exactly the opposite of what you'd think. Al Gore is against it, along with virtually all the lib icons in Florida.
I had originally decided to vote against it and the reason I wanted to vote "No" is has not been mentioned by either pro- or anti- amendment 1 sites. To borrow a snippet of the wording from our county ballots, let me give you the phrase that bothers me.
All well and good.
What it doesn't say is that we're not required to pay for installation of the solar panels themselves and that's a significant cost. We have a backup generator that runs on natural gas. When we installed it a while after the '04 hurricanes I was very interested in solar panels for many reasons and shopped systems. My 17 kW generator cost in the vicinity of $8000 when everything is included. 10 kW of solar panels was going to cost over $60,000. 59% of the power at 7 1/2 times the cost. That $60k included federal subsidies. I don't want to pay for other peoples' solar panels either way. Running powerlines out to remote places is expensive, and I don't want to pay for that, but most people are close enough to a power pole that it seems the most expensive thing for most solar panel users will be buying their systems.
If I were a lawyer trolling for income, the first thing I'd do if this passes is sue the utilities to subsidize installing panels for anyone who wants free money. I'm sure they'd argue that if the amendment doesn't forbid it, it must be permitted.
That said, this is one of those cases that maybe shows the best reason to vote for it is by looking at who says to vote against it, and I think I'll end up voting for it.
The other one I agonize over is to approve a temporary sales tax of 1/2 percent just for our county to implement a $300,000 plan to help fix the Indian River Lagoon. This one means a lot to me because the River (as we call it) is in sad shape and desperately needs help. Fishing is another outdoor sport I really enjoy, and in the last couple of years - especially the last year itself - the condition of the river has gotten desperate. In just this calendar year there have been fish kills, dolphin and manatee kills, brown and green algae blooms. Clarity of the water column has gone from 6 to 8 feet down to 6 to 8 inches in some measurements.
Ordinarily, I'd probably vote for this. Yeah, it bumps our sales tax from 6 to 6 1/2%, but doing nothing essentially makes my boat and fishing tackle worthless. In the 80s, we used to launch our little aluminum boat out at a nearby city park, go to some spots we knew of that are literally within 5 miles of my door, and catch as many fish as wanted, releasing virtually everything, except for the occasional day we'd take home something to eat.
Let me quickly add that I don't think my neighbors have any responsibility to pay for my fishing, just as I don't feel any responsibility to pay for my neighbors' solar panels. The impacts of the river go far beyond my personal sport fishing and effect everyone in the county (which largely parallels both of its shores). The economic benefits add around $200 Million to the county yearly, while if the River were to collapse into a dead zone, that would cost the county more than just the loss of tourism; they estimate a loss of $135 million a year. Losing $135 Million instead of making $200 makes a $335 Million swing in the wrong direction.
On one hand, the county instituted a study to determine how to improve things and a plan was put forth (pdf warning). Unfortunately, they didn't publicize this well enough and I didn't know about it until the proposal was in. I don't know if they looked for local input. As a result, after reading those 78 pages, I have misgivings. The first one is: how do they know this is going to fix it? Sure I realize these are "professional scientists and experts" in this area, and that frankly doesn't mean much to me. I think we've all heard the expression that "no battle plan ever survived contact with the enemy" and I fully expect that here. To borrow another phrase, this time from Donald Rumsfeld, the project is going to face both known unknowns; things they know they don't know, and unknown unknowns; things they don't even know they don't know. If they get five years into the plan only to find it isn't working, and then need to come back to ask for more money, will anyone in the county believe they know what they're talking about?
On the other hand, because they went off and did this without much discussion from the public I don't know if anyone asked these questions, but is this the best way to fund this? The majority of the effort has to be to remove nutrients in water runoff, like rain water causing fertilizer runoff (both suburban and farms); they need to replace all the old, leaky orangeburg sewer pipes and leaking septic tanks. Since that impacts all voters, they should be involved in the process. Is half a cent enough? Do they need to do a full penny increase? Would trying to attack the problem faster help or hurt? Should there be ways to focus the taxes on those who want to use the river more, or who live along the river? They already pay more taxes because riverfront property is more expensive. If the river collapses into a dead zone, their property values will collapse.
The plan focuses on removing organic matter from the river bottom, including dredging muck from the bottom (which, by the nature of dredging, can only affect that spot in the river, not the whole system). Yet I've read many people over the years who maintain the causeways that cross the river in several places along its 70 mile length in our county impede the water flow and it would help immensely to replace them with bridges. That would be extremely costly, but does it need to be done?
The biggest objection I come across to this is that our local politicians are too stupid and too corrupt to manage this. That could be. I've already heard that the group that's going to manage the project has been formed and people from around the county with records of unethical behaviors are already in place. Of course, if we plop $300,000 in one place, that's going to attract grifters like ants to a picnic.
So color me conflicted on this one. At the worst, I can only say it may not be enough to fix the river and some money will be lost to cronyism. On the other hand, it's very likely better than nothing.
One view of one of the fish kills, from March this year (source).
The rest of this is peculiar to Florida and local politics so those of you who are reading in other states are probably not going to be interested. See you tomorrow. According to blogger, after the US, the nation that consistently places second as viewers to my blog is France. Pourquoi? Je n’ai aucune idée. I'm sure nothing here will be interesting to readers in France.
I've done all the study and prep that I can for our election, but there are still two things I'm conflicted on: a constitutional amendment and a local ballot initiative to add a 1/2 cent sales tax dedicated to cleaning up one of the biggest estuaries in the country.
The amendment, #1 on the ballot, is usually called the solar power amendment. You'd think all the ecosexual greenies would all be behind this, right? As it turns out, the enviro-weenies are almost all against it. They think it's a Trojan horse intended to kill solar polar. Why? It seems to be because the electric utilities have invested a relatively large amount of money in promoting it and the greenies just know the power companies want to enslave their customers and burn more coal. In fact, if you read a list of who's for the amendment and who's opposed to it (like this one) they're almost exactly the opposite of what you'd think. Al Gore is against it, along with virtually all the lib icons in Florida.
I had originally decided to vote against it and the reason I wanted to vote "No" is has not been mentioned by either pro- or anti- amendment 1 sites. To borrow a snippet of the wording from our county ballots, let me give you the phrase that bothers me.
... and to ensure that consumers who do not choose to install solar are not required to subsidize the costs of backup power and electric grid access to those who do.Aside from my general dislike for Florida's tendency to pass constitutional amendments for anything, what bothers me about this the most is what it doesn't say. What it says, and the full, exact language with definitions is here (pdf warning), is that (1) consumers who don't choose to install a solar electric system are not required to pay for (subsidize) power flowing to solar-paneled homes when it's dark or cloudy or when they're otherwise are not producing enough energy; and (2) consumers are not required to pay for (subsidize) running the electric grid to solar-paneled homes that need to be connected to the grid and are too far from powerlines.
All well and good.
What it doesn't say is that we're not required to pay for installation of the solar panels themselves and that's a significant cost. We have a backup generator that runs on natural gas. When we installed it a while after the '04 hurricanes I was very interested in solar panels for many reasons and shopped systems. My 17 kW generator cost in the vicinity of $8000 when everything is included. 10 kW of solar panels was going to cost over $60,000. 59% of the power at 7 1/2 times the cost. That $60k included federal subsidies. I don't want to pay for other peoples' solar panels either way. Running powerlines out to remote places is expensive, and I don't want to pay for that, but most people are close enough to a power pole that it seems the most expensive thing for most solar panel users will be buying their systems.
If I were a lawyer trolling for income, the first thing I'd do if this passes is sue the utilities to subsidize installing panels for anyone who wants free money. I'm sure they'd argue that if the amendment doesn't forbid it, it must be permitted.
That said, this is one of those cases that maybe shows the best reason to vote for it is by looking at who says to vote against it, and I think I'll end up voting for it.
The other one I agonize over is to approve a temporary sales tax of 1/2 percent just for our county to implement a $300,000 plan to help fix the Indian River Lagoon. This one means a lot to me because the River (as we call it) is in sad shape and desperately needs help. Fishing is another outdoor sport I really enjoy, and in the last couple of years - especially the last year itself - the condition of the river has gotten desperate. In just this calendar year there have been fish kills, dolphin and manatee kills, brown and green algae blooms. Clarity of the water column has gone from 6 to 8 feet down to 6 to 8 inches in some measurements.
Ordinarily, I'd probably vote for this. Yeah, it bumps our sales tax from 6 to 6 1/2%, but doing nothing essentially makes my boat and fishing tackle worthless. In the 80s, we used to launch our little aluminum boat out at a nearby city park, go to some spots we knew of that are literally within 5 miles of my door, and catch as many fish as wanted, releasing virtually everything, except for the occasional day we'd take home something to eat.
Let me quickly add that I don't think my neighbors have any responsibility to pay for my fishing, just as I don't feel any responsibility to pay for my neighbors' solar panels. The impacts of the river go far beyond my personal sport fishing and effect everyone in the county (which largely parallels both of its shores). The economic benefits add around $200 Million to the county yearly, while if the River were to collapse into a dead zone, that would cost the county more than just the loss of tourism; they estimate a loss of $135 million a year. Losing $135 Million instead of making $200 makes a $335 Million swing in the wrong direction.
On one hand, the county instituted a study to determine how to improve things and a plan was put forth (pdf warning). Unfortunately, they didn't publicize this well enough and I didn't know about it until the proposal was in. I don't know if they looked for local input. As a result, after reading those 78 pages, I have misgivings. The first one is: how do they know this is going to fix it? Sure I realize these are "professional scientists and experts" in this area, and that frankly doesn't mean much to me. I think we've all heard the expression that "no battle plan ever survived contact with the enemy" and I fully expect that here. To borrow another phrase, this time from Donald Rumsfeld, the project is going to face both known unknowns; things they know they don't know, and unknown unknowns; things they don't even know they don't know. If they get five years into the plan only to find it isn't working, and then need to come back to ask for more money, will anyone in the county believe they know what they're talking about?
On the other hand, because they went off and did this without much discussion from the public I don't know if anyone asked these questions, but is this the best way to fund this? The majority of the effort has to be to remove nutrients in water runoff, like rain water causing fertilizer runoff (both suburban and farms); they need to replace all the old, leaky orangeburg sewer pipes and leaking septic tanks. Since that impacts all voters, they should be involved in the process. Is half a cent enough? Do they need to do a full penny increase? Would trying to attack the problem faster help or hurt? Should there be ways to focus the taxes on those who want to use the river more, or who live along the river? They already pay more taxes because riverfront property is more expensive. If the river collapses into a dead zone, their property values will collapse.
The plan focuses on removing organic matter from the river bottom, including dredging muck from the bottom (which, by the nature of dredging, can only affect that spot in the river, not the whole system). Yet I've read many people over the years who maintain the causeways that cross the river in several places along its 70 mile length in our county impede the water flow and it would help immensely to replace them with bridges. That would be extremely costly, but does it need to be done?
The biggest objection I come across to this is that our local politicians are too stupid and too corrupt to manage this. That could be. I've already heard that the group that's going to manage the project has been formed and people from around the county with records of unethical behaviors are already in place. Of course, if we plop $300,000 in one place, that's going to attract grifters like ants to a picnic.
So color me conflicted on this one. At the worst, I can only say it may not be enough to fix the river and some money will be lost to cronyism. On the other hand, it's very likely better than nothing.
One view of one of the fish kills, from March this year (source).
Sunday, November 6, 2016
Video of the Day
I have two words for these "crazy kids": Batshit. Crazy.
No English is spoken in this, but there are English subtitles.
Question: do you think you could walk down the street in the US carrying something like this, dressed like they are, and not get stopped?
No English is spoken in this, but there are English subtitles.
Question: do you think you could walk down the street in the US carrying something like this, dressed like they are, and not get stopped?
Saturday, November 5, 2016
The Walker Razor X: Good Price and Performance for In-Ear Electronic Hearing Protection
Over a year ago, I posted an info bleg looking for input on active electronic ear plugs that don't cost a small fortune. Like I said at the time,
(Illustration from the Accurate Shooter Bulletin)
The best part is that doing this allowed them to put these on the shelf at the local BassPro for $99 which seems to be a common price point. (Note to FTC: I bought them. Nobody provided me with anything.) True, it's more than the low end ear muffs, but it's far below the $400 price I was seeing. The box includes different size foam plugs to go on the ear buds to allow sizing for a different sizes of ears, carrying pouch, USB format charger and the cable to charge them.
Thanks to a special event at our gun club today, we were able to try these out standing close to everything from several .22LR rifles to several different large calibers at our Class F, 600 yard range. They're impressive performers. I've been wearing a set of Pro Ears Gold electronic ear muffs that work well, but are large and bulky. I find them prone to getting knocked off my ears while trying to get a rifle cheek weld. The diminutive but deadly Mrs. Graybeard has an even worse problem with her Howard Leight Impact muffs, where rifle or shotgun recoil knocks her hearing protection out of place on every shot.
Unlike the Pro Ears Gold, these seem to mute the gunshot noise spike for a noticeable period after the shot. This function is called fast attack/decay AGC (Automatic Gain Control - the amount of audio volume is adjusted automatically) and it says Pro Ears have a faster decay than these do. It's not bad, just different. During that couple of tenths of a second, the volume is down and it might affect conversation a little, but didn't seem to be an issue.
Obviously, this is only one day's evaluation, but the two of us took the opportunity to shoot two different .22 rifles and one of the 6BR rifles at 1000 yards. No issues with the different rifle geometries upsetting the earpieces and they were more comfortable than the Pro Ears.
Overall, we're both happy with these. I'll let you know if that changes.
Edited at 11AM EDT on 11/6/16 to add: I really should RTFM sometimes. The longer mute of the gunshot noise spike is the indicator that the headphones are in "Indoor Mode", a deliberate design move to handle the longer echos of indoor ranges. The headphones feature an indoor and outdoor mode. It's changed by pressing both volume up and down buttons at the same time.
It's a feature, not a difference.
I've seen some at a couple of hundred$, and I'd prefer to keep it in the price range more like this ($50-ish) and less like this ($400-ish). And for darned sure not like this. (Yeah, I know. It's Orvis; what do I expect?)I finally found some: the Walker Razor X was introduced since then. Walker came up with an ingenious solution to the obvious design problem of trying to put the circuitry and battery in a package small enough to fit in your ear. They don't do it. They put the circuitry in a lightweight, flexible "collar" you wear and just the microphones and speakers go in your ears. With the larger format, the user controls are easier to adjust (volume is adjusted by the two buttons on your left looking at this picture) and the larger size allows a rechargeable lithium battery that's rated to give 10 hours of use. We both wore them for around four hours today and the batteries did that easily.
The best part is that doing this allowed them to put these on the shelf at the local BassPro for $99 which seems to be a common price point. (Note to FTC: I bought them. Nobody provided me with anything.) True, it's more than the low end ear muffs, but it's far below the $400 price I was seeing. The box includes different size foam plugs to go on the ear buds to allow sizing for a different sizes of ears, carrying pouch, USB format charger and the cable to charge them.
Thanks to a special event at our gun club today, we were able to try these out standing close to everything from several .22LR rifles to several different large calibers at our Class F, 600 yard range. They're impressive performers. I've been wearing a set of Pro Ears Gold electronic ear muffs that work well, but are large and bulky. I find them prone to getting knocked off my ears while trying to get a rifle cheek weld. The diminutive but deadly Mrs. Graybeard has an even worse problem with her Howard Leight Impact muffs, where rifle or shotgun recoil knocks her hearing protection out of place on every shot.
Unlike the Pro Ears Gold, these seem to mute the gunshot noise spike for a noticeable period after the shot. This function is called fast attack/decay AGC (Automatic Gain Control - the amount of audio volume is adjusted automatically) and it says Pro Ears have a faster decay than these do. It's not bad, just different. During that couple of tenths of a second, the volume is down and it might affect conversation a little, but didn't seem to be an issue.
Obviously, this is only one day's evaluation, but the two of us took the opportunity to shoot two different .22 rifles and one of the 6BR rifles at 1000 yards. No issues with the different rifle geometries upsetting the earpieces and they were more comfortable than the Pro Ears.
Overall, we're both happy with these. I'll let you know if that changes.
Edited at 11AM EDT on 11/6/16 to add: I really should RTFM sometimes. The longer mute of the gunshot noise spike is the indicator that the headphones are in "Indoor Mode", a deliberate design move to handle the longer echos of indoor ranges. The headphones feature an indoor and outdoor mode. It's changed by pressing both volume up and down buttons at the same time.
It's a feature, not a difference.
Friday, November 4, 2016
Fiat Justitia, et Pereat Mundus
Translates as "Let justice be done, though the world perish". Apparently it's not really a phrase from the Roman Empire but from a book in 1563. Wikipedia says:
Common Sense Evaluation posts a story on the special perversion of John Podesta: spirit cooking. I had never heard of that term before today, and it appears to be a barbarism that the most decadent times of the Roman Empire might have produced. It comes from an "artist" named Marina Abramovic:
It's rumored that Huma and Anthony kept a lot of this stuff in hidden folders called "Life Insurance". There appears to be some evidence that's how this network of perverts works; everyone who's alive has something on the rest. The files that have been recovered include thousands of emails that Hillary had deleted and presumably wiped with Bleach Bit. It's no wonder that the NYPD Police Chief as quoted in the True Pundit article said,
I've mentioned here before that I regularly give to a charity called Operation Underground Railroad, which specializes is freeing children kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery. I never once imagined that it would be an anti-Clinton political donation.
This sentence was the motto of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor, probably originating from Johannes Jacobus Manlius's book Loci Communes (1563). It characterizes an attitude, which wants to provide justice at any price. Its first documented use in English literature was about half a century later.Hat Tip to The Arts Mechanical for this information, in a piece called Nightmare Fuel, and it really is reading that's not for the squeamish. He, in turn, links to a number of sources that are reporting on the truly disgusting things going on in Clinton Foundation's universe. First a link to True Pundit:
BREAKING BOMBSHELL: NYPD Blows Whistle on New Hillary Emails: Money Laundering, Sex Crimes with Children, Child Exploitation, Pay to Play, PerjuryIt's. Not. Just. Bill. It's all of them. From Reddit's The_Donald forum :
If a quarter of what's alleged in this thread on Reddit is true, the entire Clinton Foundation and everyone in that circle needs to be burned to the ground. Fiat Justitia, et Pereat Mundus Anthony Weiner turns out to be on the moral high ground in this crowd if he merely sent pictures of his junk to underage women.BREAKING: I believe I have connected a convicted child abductor who was caught stealing children in Haiti with the Clintons
The individual in question is one Laura Silsby, former director of The New Life Children's Refuge. She was caught trying to steal 33 children from the country, most of whom were not even orphans and had families.
Hillary has a LONG history of interest in Ms. Silsby. Wikileak emails dating back till at least 2001 have been found in her archives discussing Laura's NGO. Laura had claimed she planned to build an orphanage in the Dominican Republic, but authorities in the country said she never submitted an application for this purpose. They instead located to Haiti.
Sources:
Huma Abedin was constantly forwarding Hillary articles on this woman's organization:
- https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/10BUENOSAIRES166_a.html
- https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/3465
https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/2772
One of the first things Hillary did when she took over the scene in Haiti was to get Laura off the hook:
http://harvardhrj.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/King.pdf
And the attorney who represented Laura Silsby? A man who was himself convicted as a sex trafficker:
https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/32/323249_-os-haiti-us-legal-adviser-to-u-s-haiti-missionaries.html
Even more disturbing, we uncovered an email in Wikileaks where they are literally pricing how much it costs to transport children:
https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/3741
Again, this was the same group that got busted by Haitian Authorities trying to Traffic kids.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Life_Children%27s_Refuge_case
They're in the Clinton Emails;
https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/3741
Pitch for funding or some shit, super sketchy.
https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/3465
This looks like Mills & co are drafting statements following extradition.
https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/2772
Help me research!!! There are surely more emails to be found in Wikileaks on this! If we can connect the Clintons to a child abductor their campaign is DONE!!!
EDIT: Wanted to add this email showing HRC contacting a lawyer regarding the 10 people who were arrested for their roles in this kidnapping case, thanks /u/Look_See_Think for bringing me this:
https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/3539
EDIT 2: More info on this story:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1249280/Haiti-earthquake-Missionaries-led-Laura-Silsby-accused-stealing-orphans.html
Common Sense Evaluation posts a story on the special perversion of John Podesta: spirit cooking. I had never heard of that term before today, and it appears to be a barbarism that the most decadent times of the Roman Empire might have produced. It comes from an "artist" named Marina Abramovic:
Abramovic is known for her often-gory art that confronts pain and ritual. Her first performance involved repeatedly, stabbing herself in her hands. The next performance featured her throwing her nails, toenails, and hair into a flaming five-point star — which she eventually jumped inside of, causing her to lose consciousness.It gets worse from there. Perhaps Christians might recognize similarities to Baal worship going on here. Worship of bodily functions, pain, excrement, human sacrifice… those sorts of things. I notice Ann Barnhardt sees it, too. Common Sense Evaluation has more background here. Caligula would fit right in with this group.
During the next, she ingested a medication to treat people who are catatonic, which caused violent muscle spasms.
It's rumored that Huma and Anthony kept a lot of this stuff in hidden folders called "Life Insurance". There appears to be some evidence that's how this network of perverts works; everyone who's alive has something on the rest. The files that have been recovered include thousands of emails that Hillary had deleted and presumably wiped with Bleach Bit. It's no wonder that the NYPD Police Chief as quoted in the True Pundit article said,
“What’s in the emails is staggering and as a father, it turned my stomach,”Fiat Justitia, et Pereat Mundus
I've mentioned here before that I regularly give to a charity called Operation Underground Railroad, which specializes is freeing children kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery. I never once imagined that it would be an anti-Clinton political donation.
Thursday, November 3, 2016
So There I Was, Dripping Blood at the Gun Range
No, it wasn't from a shot. I wasn't that stupid. It was from getting my left thumb bit by the slide on my XD subcompact. Which is stupid enough.
I'm not entirely sure how I did it, other than just saying it was from being uncoordinated. Being uncoordinated is a lifetime gift of mine that just keeps giving. If I had tried to be a dancer, say, there would be a string of dead girls, having been crushed to death by my falling on them.
I felt it when it happened, of course, but after I finished the magazine, I put the gun down and realized it was bleeding. That's when it hit me: for all the times that I've read "have a first aid kit in your range bag" and nodded in agreement, I still hadn't actually put the kit in the range bag. When I put my left hand down, it started to drip blood. I had a package of Kleenex in the bag, but couldn't open it one handed. I interrupted Mrs. Graybeard's shooting to see if she had a band-aid and she went off to look. Meanwhile, I stood with my hand over a garbage can in case it kept dripping and raised to shoulder level to stop that. Thankfully she had a good band-aid.
Needless to say, the range bag is getting a first aid kit before it gets put away. It was a lesson for me; let it be a lesson for you, too.
Aside from that it was a normal, fun day at the range, as they all tend to be. Very nice weather, maybe getting up to 82 when we left, but breezy. The range, while outdoors, was quite pleasant compared to even a month ago.
While still on the topic of guns, has everyone seen Mark Serbu's video on the GB22? Mark is the head of Serbu Arms, a small company in Tampa, probably best known for a bolt action, single shot 50BMG rifle called the BFG-50. He had the idea that it would be fun to make a dirt cheap, simple gun to turn in when the gun buyback programs come around. If it costs you $25 to make a gun and the buyback will give you a couple of hundred, you've made out well. If you can make a couple, maybe you can make enough to buy a real gun if you "work" at it. He made a single shot .22 from a piece of waterjet cut steel, a 1" square bar cut into two pieces and a few other parts. Naturally, everyone flooded him with "we want plans" and "we want kits". The plans were released today and I've already ordered mine. They're currently planning a kit based on the 80% receiver idea. I have no idea what the receiver is going to be; possibly the steel frame. That will have to await a BATFE ruling. You know BATFE haaaates the idea of 80% guns. It might be a while.
It'll be a while before the big mill is up to cutting steel, but it will be good to have the plans. Maybe someone will pop up offering waterjet cut steel frames, if those aren't considered the gun.
I'm not entirely sure how I did it, other than just saying it was from being uncoordinated. Being uncoordinated is a lifetime gift of mine that just keeps giving. If I had tried to be a dancer, say, there would be a string of dead girls, having been crushed to death by my falling on them.
I felt it when it happened, of course, but after I finished the magazine, I put the gun down and realized it was bleeding. That's when it hit me: for all the times that I've read "have a first aid kit in your range bag" and nodded in agreement, I still hadn't actually put the kit in the range bag. When I put my left hand down, it started to drip blood. I had a package of Kleenex in the bag, but couldn't open it one handed. I interrupted Mrs. Graybeard's shooting to see if she had a band-aid and she went off to look. Meanwhile, I stood with my hand over a garbage can in case it kept dripping and raised to shoulder level to stop that. Thankfully she had a good band-aid.
Needless to say, the range bag is getting a first aid kit before it gets put away. It was a lesson for me; let it be a lesson for you, too.
Aside from that it was a normal, fun day at the range, as they all tend to be. Very nice weather, maybe getting up to 82 when we left, but breezy. The range, while outdoors, was quite pleasant compared to even a month ago.
While still on the topic of guns, has everyone seen Mark Serbu's video on the GB22? Mark is the head of Serbu Arms, a small company in Tampa, probably best known for a bolt action, single shot 50BMG rifle called the BFG-50. He had the idea that it would be fun to make a dirt cheap, simple gun to turn in when the gun buyback programs come around. If it costs you $25 to make a gun and the buyback will give you a couple of hundred, you've made out well. If you can make a couple, maybe you can make enough to buy a real gun if you "work" at it. He made a single shot .22 from a piece of waterjet cut steel, a 1" square bar cut into two pieces and a few other parts. Naturally, everyone flooded him with "we want plans" and "we want kits". The plans were released today and I've already ordered mine. They're currently planning a kit based on the 80% receiver idea. I have no idea what the receiver is going to be; possibly the steel frame. That will have to await a BATFE ruling. You know BATFE haaaates the idea of 80% guns. It might be a while.
Wednesday, November 2, 2016
So Springfield Armory Has an AR-15 Now...
Does that make everyone except Glock and Taurus?
I think anyone who follows gun blogs and news has seen the hype over the "SAINT" that started a month or 6 weeks ago, complete with vague statements ("defend your legacy") and a mandatorily diverse group of hot and sweaty models. I guess I haven't talked about it much since the CNC project started taking over my life, but I'm a bit of a Springfield Armory fanboy. I have three SA handguns, an original XDm, a subcompact XD and a compact XDm. I love them all. With any one of them, I feel like I can pick it up and hit the target, even with months off. Given my background, then, you might figure I was interested in seeing what the hype was about.
Meh. I mean, it looks like a nice enough AR-15, but it's an AR-15 in a world where they're pretty much potato chips. A commodity product. Mrs. Graybeard and I each have our own AR and I have the 80% receivers to build more.
To be honest, I was expecting a handgun, perhaps a successor to the XDs, which seems to be an extremely successful product. Maybe a version of the only handgun currently on my wish list with a stainless slide, like they do for so many others in that product line. Or maybe something that goes head to head with Ruger Precision Rifle, which I still must confess some irrational lust for. Or maybe their M1A line in something other than .308 (not that there's anything wrong with that).
Instead, we get another AR-15 in 5.56 NATO. I'm whelmed.
I think anyone who follows gun blogs and news has seen the hype over the "SAINT" that started a month or 6 weeks ago, complete with vague statements ("defend your legacy") and a mandatorily diverse group of hot and sweaty models. I guess I haven't talked about it much since the CNC project started taking over my life, but I'm a bit of a Springfield Armory fanboy. I have three SA handguns, an original XDm, a subcompact XD and a compact XDm. I love them all. With any one of them, I feel like I can pick it up and hit the target, even with months off. Given my background, then, you might figure I was interested in seeing what the hype was about.
Meh. I mean, it looks like a nice enough AR-15, but it's an AR-15 in a world where they're pretty much potato chips. A commodity product. Mrs. Graybeard and I each have our own AR and I have the 80% receivers to build more.
Instead, we get another AR-15 in 5.56 NATO. I'm whelmed.
Tuesday, November 1, 2016
But... But... It's Orange
The surplus box I bought to house the motor controllers for my CNC conversion had a black sheet metal cover that was essentially identical to the black sheet metal bottom it has. Early in the planning process for the box, Mrs. Graybeard found an old sheet of plexiglass that has been in a corner for a long time, like maybe since the early 80s. She thought it would be a good top for the box, since there are diagnostic LEDs in the box and a see-through cover would make it easy to check those lights if something starts going wrong. I've got to say I don't see many see-through box covers in industry, but that doesn't mean it's a bad idea. Made sense to me.
The plexiglass was orange. A bit unusual, but I can't say I'm concerned. More people will see this here than will ever see it in person. The sharp eyed will note the heads of the screws in the cover are blue. These were left over from my powder coating adventures. No particular other reason other than using some junked parts.
The box is complete with the fourth axis motor driver added and checked out. The fourth axis motor isn't here, but that's OK: I don't have anything for it to drive, yet. The only this box needs is some labeling. There are four cables, each should be labeled, the plugs should be labeled, and maybe a logo for front of the box.
If you want a closer look, here's a 30 second video moving the camera around while it's running. You can see the green and red LEDs quite clearly.
The plexiglass was orange. A bit unusual, but I can't say I'm concerned. More people will see this here than will ever see it in person. The sharp eyed will note the heads of the screws in the cover are blue. These were left over from my powder coating adventures. No particular other reason other than using some junked parts.
If you want a closer look, here's a 30 second video moving the camera around while it's running. You can see the green and red LEDs quite clearly.
Monday, October 31, 2016
A Little Halloween Music
A completely unique arrangement of Iron Maiden's "Hallowed Be Thy Name" by Thomas Zwijsen. A haunting performance, perfect for this spooky day.
From his double album Nylon Maiden - from playing Iron Maiden on a nylon stringed guitar.
I'm not quite sure how many parts he plays in that video. The video description says "arranged for two guitars", but at times it sounds like four or five. It's not uncommon to hear someone playing classical guitar and think there has to be more than one person to generate that much music, but in this case we can watch him playing one part and see his hand motions don't go with the music. Then they'll show video from another track where hands and music do match.
Enjoy your evening.
From his double album Nylon Maiden - from playing Iron Maiden on a nylon stringed guitar.
I'm not quite sure how many parts he plays in that video. The video description says "arranged for two guitars", but at times it sounds like four or five. It's not uncommon to hear someone playing classical guitar and think there has to be more than one person to generate that much music, but in this case we can watch him playing one part and see his hand motions don't go with the music. Then they'll show video from another track where hands and music do match.
Enjoy your evening.
Sunday, October 30, 2016
UK Mail: Comey Sick of Stack of Resignations, Being Dissed By FBI
According to the Mail today, FBI Director Comey was essentially forced into his latest email reveal by the agency's other employees. The FBI, collectively, was madder than hell at Comey for ruining their reputations.
With Loretta Lynch putting herself back into the middle of this (she had previously recused herself from the case), there are no guarantees anything will come out of it. Her first act was to tell Comey not to go forward with investigating the new emails. Lynch and Obama are reportedly steaming mad at Comey. A short perusal of the Sunday news/talk shows is all you need to take to know that the Hillary camp and DNC have decided the only way they know how to respond to this is by character assassination on Comey. The vitriol level is on a par with the great floods of all time. Harry Reid is making up charges like he did about Mitt Romney not paying his taxes. It's the only response they know: "if you can't attack the message, attack the messenger".
(Gabriella Demczuk/Getty Images)
James Comey's decision to revive the investigation of Hillary Clinton's email server and her handling of classified material came after he could no longer resist mounting pressure by mutinous agents in the FBI, including some of his top deputies, according to a source close to the embattled FBI director.Maybe I watched a bit too much of Efrem Zimbalist Jr. during my junior high and high school days, but his lack of spine was disgraceful an FBI agent, let alone director. As I said before, everyone may assume that he went full weasel on this because of concern for showing up dead, but I thought guys in his position weren't supposed to be so easily intimidated.
'The atmosphere at the FBI has been toxic ever since Jim announced last July that he wouldn't recommend an indictment against Hillary,' said the source, a close friend who has known Comey for nearly two decades, shares family outings with him, and accompanies him to Catholic mass every week.
'Some people, including department heads, stopped talking to Jim, and even ignored his greetings when they passed him in the hall,' said the source. 'They felt that he betrayed them and brought disgrace on the bureau by letting Hillary off with a slap on the wrist.'
He told his wife that he was depressed by the stack of resignation letters piling up on his desk from disaffected agents. The letters reminded him every day that morale in the FBI had hit rock bottom.
If you're thinking someone on the left has a franchise on horses' heads to stuff into the beds of chickenshits like Comey, isn't the FBI director supposed to be the kind of guy who will stand up to thugs like the mafia or the drug cartels without backing down due to personal fear? Isn't the "Chief Law Enforcement Officer" of the country supposed to be fearless, willing to fight the thugs? At 72, Rudy Guiliani comes across as much more fearless than the 55 year old Comey. [Nota Bene: I realized shortly after writing this that the term "Chief Law Enforcement Officer of the country" is the attorney general, not the director of the FBI - SiG]It's an interesting article. If you can believe the Mail's source, Comey clearly knows he screwed up, and screwed both the agency and people he cares the most about. He has a guilty conscious - which he should, IMO. On the more pragmatic side, there are indications he's afraid that he'll be caught in a roll-up of the corrupt, should Trump come in and appoint someone to drain the swamps.
With Loretta Lynch putting herself back into the middle of this (she had previously recused herself from the case), there are no guarantees anything will come out of it. Her first act was to tell Comey not to go forward with investigating the new emails. Lynch and Obama are reportedly steaming mad at Comey. A short perusal of the Sunday news/talk shows is all you need to take to know that the Hillary camp and DNC have decided the only way they know how to respond to this is by character assassination on Comey. The vitriol level is on a par with the great floods of all time. Harry Reid is making up charges like he did about Mitt Romney not paying his taxes. It's the only response they know: "if you can't attack the message, attack the messenger".
(Gabriella Demczuk/Getty Images)
Saturday, October 29, 2016
Let Me Tell You a Crazy Theory
I've been thinking about this for a while, and while I'm not sure I believe it, I think it's in the realm of possibility. I thought I'd run it by you.
Let's start with the Federal Reserve. While I think they're so bound by their models for Keynesian stimulus programs that their blinders won't let them see any other answers, I don't think they're idiots. They just don't have words for what they're seeing because it's impossible in their models. Therefore they have to know that for some reason, their creation of $4 Trillion dollars hasn't really stimulated the economy. At this point, it has to be dawning on some of them that creating debt to get out of debt isn't a winning strategy. They have to know on some level that all their lies about the economy being healthy and inflation being nearly zero are just that: lies. They have to know they're building a house of cards, now taller than the Empire State building, that's going to come down in the slightest breeze.
If untrained lay people like me (and about a zillion others) can see the economies of the west are heading for collapse, they have to be able to see it, too. So imagine that Yellen or someone from the Fed tells the POTUS that they just can't hold back the flood too much longer, and the dike is going to collapse.
What if the Democratic Party leaders got together in one of their covens and said, "look, the economy is going to collapse within the next four years. Let's get the worst candidate the world has ever seen. The Republicans will win, the collapse will happen, and everyone will blame them. If they use our argument about everything being Bush's fault and blame it on us, we can get the media to show how stupid that is. No Republican will ever be elected so much as dog catcher ever again."..."But who can we get that's so bad anyone can beat them"... "Get Shit For Brains Clinton". I think the leaked DNC memos showed conclusively that the Hildebeest was selected, and it didn't matter what the voters did, with the super delegates and all (as well as the DNC memos getting Seth Rich murdered).
The Republicans put up a good field of candidates who ran the gamut from the really good, strong constitutional conservative Ted Cruz, to other strong candidates like Rick Perry, Scott Walker and even Carly Fiorina, all the way to a circus clown, um, reality show host. Said reality show host became the personification of the "F**k all y'all" vote and took everything early.
We've all seen the pictures of the Trumps and Clintons socializing at some wedding. Are they really friends or are they the "have your people call my people" kind of friends? You could make the argument that he ran to help her win, but I'm not going to. I think he got into it on a lark. Not that it matters.
I think we're in a weird situation where some elements of the DNC wanted to throw this election and keep their status quo positions in the ruling class. Donald Trump entered never thinking it would come to this. Queen of Corruption Clinton is thinking she's the hottest thing to hit a campaign trail since The One Itself and can't figure out why she isn't 50 points ahead. Trump suddenly sees that he's neck in neck with the establishment and has a real chance to become the most powerful man on Earth.
To summarize it in a nutshell, the Evil Party tried to throw the election by getting the least liked, least capable candidate they could come up with. She doesn't know that's why she's there. The rank and file party, media and the rest don't know that's why she's there. The Stupid Party's voters are so sick of the party's duplicitousness that they wanted the biggest outsider they could find. If either of them was clearly better than the other, this would be all over but the shouting.
Let's start with the Federal Reserve. While I think they're so bound by their models for Keynesian stimulus programs that their blinders won't let them see any other answers, I don't think they're idiots. They just don't have words for what they're seeing because it's impossible in their models. Therefore they have to know that for some reason, their creation of $4 Trillion dollars hasn't really stimulated the economy. At this point, it has to be dawning on some of them that creating debt to get out of debt isn't a winning strategy. They have to know on some level that all their lies about the economy being healthy and inflation being nearly zero are just that: lies. They have to know they're building a house of cards, now taller than the Empire State building, that's going to come down in the slightest breeze.
If untrained lay people like me (and about a zillion others) can see the economies of the west are heading for collapse, they have to be able to see it, too. So imagine that Yellen or someone from the Fed tells the POTUS that they just can't hold back the flood too much longer, and the dike is going to collapse.
What if the Democratic Party leaders got together in one of their covens and said, "look, the economy is going to collapse within the next four years. Let's get the worst candidate the world has ever seen. The Republicans will win, the collapse will happen, and everyone will blame them. If they use our argument about everything being Bush's fault and blame it on us, we can get the media to show how stupid that is. No Republican will ever be elected so much as dog catcher ever again."..."But who can we get that's so bad anyone can beat them"... "Get Shit For Brains Clinton". I think the leaked DNC memos showed conclusively that the Hildebeest was selected, and it didn't matter what the voters did, with the super delegates and all (as well as the DNC memos getting Seth Rich murdered).
The Republicans put up a good field of candidates who ran the gamut from the really good, strong constitutional conservative Ted Cruz, to other strong candidates like Rick Perry, Scott Walker and even Carly Fiorina, all the way to a circus clown, um, reality show host. Said reality show host became the personification of the "F**k all y'all" vote and took everything early.
We've all seen the pictures of the Trumps and Clintons socializing at some wedding. Are they really friends or are they the "have your people call my people" kind of friends? You could make the argument that he ran to help her win, but I'm not going to. I think he got into it on a lark. Not that it matters.
I think we're in a weird situation where some elements of the DNC wanted to throw this election and keep their status quo positions in the ruling class. Donald Trump entered never thinking it would come to this. Queen of Corruption Clinton is thinking she's the hottest thing to hit a campaign trail since The One Itself and can't figure out why she isn't 50 points ahead. Trump suddenly sees that he's neck in neck with the establishment and has a real chance to become the most powerful man on Earth.
To summarize it in a nutshell, the Evil Party tried to throw the election by getting the least liked, least capable candidate they could come up with. She doesn't know that's why she's there. The rank and file party, media and the rest don't know that's why she's there. The Stupid Party's voters are so sick of the party's duplicitousness that they wanted the biggest outsider they could find. If either of them was clearly better than the other, this would be all over but the shouting.
Blogging's Big Time
In case you haven't seen it, Concerned American (CA) over at Western Rifle Shooters' Association has gone over 7 million blog views this year alone. Call it 10 full months for the extra couple of days. That's around 23,300 views per day.
That's the big time.
I just turned over 2 million views in over 6 1/2 years, not months. I'm a rather different blog from CA's, as you know. Overlap in audience, but still very different.
Well done, CA sir! Stop by to say congratulations.
That's the big time.
I just turned over 2 million views in over 6 1/2 years, not months. I'm a rather different blog from CA's, as you know. Overlap in audience, but still very different.
Well done, CA sir! Stop by to say congratulations.
Friday, October 28, 2016
Comey's Letter Was an Interesting Development
I've got to say I was surprised by the big news today, that Comey might have grown a backbone. There have been a lot of reports that insiders at the FBI were making their displeasure known about his previous caving to the Clinton crime syndicate and there have even been rumors in the press that some have threatened to resign. Could that have been what got Comey moving?
Politico prints the entire text of the letter to the various committee chairs in DC, which reduces to a "paragraph and a half" when stripped of its large address block and closing.
It's particularly ironic that it appears the emails they found to investigate showed up while investigating Anthony "Carlos Danger" Weiner. It doesn't seem possible for Weiner to legitimately have anything classified from Hillary, so the emails would have had to have come from his soon-to-be ex-wife, Huma Abedin. Could it be that serial sexter Weiner is the one who brings down Hildebeest?
Does this matter? In a reality where Comey thoroughly discredited the FBI (and then gets mad when everyone talks about them being weasels), it's hard to say. Unless I miss my guess (always likely), a move that seems to respect the rule of law will appeal more to conservatives than liberals, so this might stiffen the spines of the Stupid Party people who aren't on board with Trump and get them to show up and vote. It might affect "the undecided" vote, or lower their opinion of Hildebeest a little bit. It will have no effect on the committed Evil party voters.
Just can't resist using the Ramirez cartoon again.
Politico prints the entire text of the letter to the various committee chairs in DC, which reduces to a "paragraph and a half" when stripped of its large address block and closing.
In previous congressional testimony, I referred to the fact that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had completed its investigation of former Secretary Clinton's personal email server. Due to recent developments, I am writing to supplement my previous testimony.By the way, "I cannot predict how long it will take us to complete this additional work" translates as "we'll be back in touch well after the election".
In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation. I am writing to inform you that the investigative team briefed me on this yesterday, and I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation. Although the FBI cannot yet assess whether or not this material may be significant, and I cannot predict how long it will take us to complete this additional work, I believe it is important to update your Committees about our efforts in light of my previous testimony.
It's particularly ironic that it appears the emails they found to investigate showed up while investigating Anthony "Carlos Danger" Weiner. It doesn't seem possible for Weiner to legitimately have anything classified from Hillary, so the emails would have had to have come from his soon-to-be ex-wife, Huma Abedin. Could it be that serial sexter Weiner is the one who brings down Hildebeest?
Does this matter? In a reality where Comey thoroughly discredited the FBI (and then gets mad when everyone talks about them being weasels), it's hard to say. Unless I miss my guess (always likely), a move that seems to respect the rule of law will appeal more to conservatives than liberals, so this might stiffen the spines of the Stupid Party people who aren't on board with Trump and get them to show up and vote. It might affect "the undecided" vote, or lower their opinion of Hildebeest a little bit. It will have no effect on the committed Evil party voters.
Thursday, October 27, 2016
@*($&%#! Computers! - Part 2 - Windows Update Problems
Any of you folks Windoze 7 users? Judging by the comments on using the GWX app to block Windoze 10, I'm guessing more than a few.
There appears to be somewhat of an epidemic of Windows Update not working. Almost two weeks ago, Mrs. Graybeard noticed that her Win 7 PC (an HP Pavilion) was not applying updates. That prompted looking a little closer only to find out it hadn't updated itself in a couple of months. That, in turn, led to almost two weeks now of chasing down fixes from every Knowledge Base article on Microsoft, every Tech Blogger and every other self-proclaimed Guru that a search engine can turn up and it still isn't working. We even tracked down a rumor in a comment on McThag's blog. A lot of folks are reporting problems with this.
Being a little suspicious and cynical, I thought maybe it's because Microsoft is anxious to kill off Win7 and isn't really assigning, shall we say, the sharpest knives in the drawer to work on 7 and those folks screwed it up. The problem is that this seems to affect all Windows versions. They screwed up something fundamentally ans it's affecting all of their OSes.
My regular desktop (this computer) updates normally, and an older computer in the other room does as well, so 1 out of 3 has the issue. Perhaps 2 of 4; there's another of our dedicated computers I haven't verified, yet. The new refurb was acting strangely, but the "official Microsoft fix" found here has apparently fixed both Mrs. Graybeard's HP and the refurb. Hers has installed something like 15 updates, and the refurb is currently installing 153 updates. That's OK. I figured it would need about 90 million.
There appears to be somewhat of an epidemic of Windows Update not working. Almost two weeks ago, Mrs. Graybeard noticed that her Win 7 PC (an HP Pavilion) was not applying updates. That prompted looking a little closer only to find out it hadn't updated itself in a couple of months. That, in turn, led to almost two weeks now of chasing down fixes from every Knowledge Base article on Microsoft, every Tech Blogger and every other self-proclaimed Guru that a search engine can turn up and it still isn't working. We even tracked down a rumor in a comment on McThag's blog. A lot of folks are reporting problems with this.
Being a little suspicious and cynical, I thought maybe it's because Microsoft is anxious to kill off Win7 and isn't really assigning, shall we say, the sharpest knives in the drawer to work on 7 and those folks screwed it up. The problem is that this seems to affect all Windows versions. They screwed up something fundamentally ans it's affecting all of their OSes.
My regular desktop (this computer) updates normally, and an older computer in the other room does as well, so 1 out of 3 has the issue. Perhaps 2 of 4; there's another of our dedicated computers I haven't verified, yet. The new refurb was acting strangely, but the "official Microsoft fix" found here has apparently fixed both Mrs. Graybeard's HP and the refurb. Hers has installed something like 15 updates, and the refurb is currently installing 153 updates. That's OK. I figured it would need about 90 million.
@*($&%#! Computers!
I think I've mentioned here that I have some computer issues to go with the CNC upgrade process I'm going through, but let me explain. The existing shop computer which runs my Sherline/A2ZCNC system and lathe is a 12 year old Pentium 4 computer running XP. Because it's XP, I keep it off the network. Firewalled. Nothing goes to it except by sneaker net. It has an odd intermittent failure. Every few weeks to months, moving the mouse will make it suddenly hang up. The computer accepts no input, not even reboot, and has to have a hard power down. It would be A Bad Thing if this were to happen during a CNC operation - if the computer continued to drive the parallel port during this time.
While it has never happened, it makes me less than completely comfortable with that computer.
The reason I'm using this computer is that it replaced another old computer that had a different weird problem. Sometimes when I go to turn it on, it won't power on and takes 2 to 5 attempts at turning it on before it actually will. I replaced the power supply, since it seemed the 5V supply wasn't on (I have an optical mouse with a red LED, and you can see the LED was off when the computer wouldn't boot). That didn't fix it. It's the computer I put LinuxCNC on. I eventually put it aside. The one I'm using doesn't fail as often as the one with the funny turn on sequence does.
As a result of having two flaky computers, I've been keeping my eye out for another computer. The problem is that it needs to have a parallel port and those are hard to find lately - this desktop I'm using is 5 years old and it doesn't have one. This weekend, I found one. NewEgg had a deal on a refurbished computer: a Dell T3500 workstation. It's a 2010 computer, but was fairly high end back then. I had one of those on my desk at Major Avionics Corporation for several years and it was a good, fast computer. After a lot of debate, I decided to buy it, and it got here yesterday.
It's my fault I didn't read the ad closely enough, but the computer wouldn't boot because I had to install Windows first. The only problem was that it wouldn't install - Windows kept giving me an error message. Had to call tech support - about two minutes after they were done for the day. The tech said in his experience I need a new DVD reader and he'd ship me one today along with another one of the backup CDs. Great. Now my migration to the computer is off until Saturday or Monday (I hope!). Then my brain said, "it's a Dell, my computer is a Dell running the same OS I'm trying to install. Why not put another Dell bootable disk in the CD and see if it can read that?" It's not like I could make it worse. I thought.
It worked. I found a CD-R that I had written at some time while installing software where I had scrawled a label on it saying "Win 7 64 Repair Disk". It booted and was able to install Windows 7 last night. The computer behaved completely normally once it had the OS. Until this morning. Today, Windows asked to connect to the mother ship to be authorized and told me the Product Key I entered is no good. No explanation of why. So I'm trying to get to the bottom of that, which is taking my attention away from everything else.
I'm not posting links to the computer or the company or saying they're the problem because I don't know enough, yet. The company that sold me this computer isn't NewEgg, it's one of their affiliated companies. They were very helpful and nice on the phone, despite it being after their working hours. On the other hand, if they're really nice but don't make it right, they're a problem.
(I see I've used this cartoon a few times)
While it has never happened, it makes me less than completely comfortable with that computer.
The reason I'm using this computer is that it replaced another old computer that had a different weird problem. Sometimes when I go to turn it on, it won't power on and takes 2 to 5 attempts at turning it on before it actually will. I replaced the power supply, since it seemed the 5V supply wasn't on (I have an optical mouse with a red LED, and you can see the LED was off when the computer wouldn't boot). That didn't fix it. It's the computer I put LinuxCNC on. I eventually put it aside. The one I'm using doesn't fail as often as the one with the funny turn on sequence does.
As a result of having two flaky computers, I've been keeping my eye out for another computer. The problem is that it needs to have a parallel port and those are hard to find lately - this desktop I'm using is 5 years old and it doesn't have one. This weekend, I found one. NewEgg had a deal on a refurbished computer: a Dell T3500 workstation. It's a 2010 computer, but was fairly high end back then. I had one of those on my desk at Major Avionics Corporation for several years and it was a good, fast computer. After a lot of debate, I decided to buy it, and it got here yesterday.
It's my fault I didn't read the ad closely enough, but the computer wouldn't boot because I had to install Windows first. The only problem was that it wouldn't install - Windows kept giving me an error message. Had to call tech support - about two minutes after they were done for the day. The tech said in his experience I need a new DVD reader and he'd ship me one today along with another one of the backup CDs. Great. Now my migration to the computer is off until Saturday or Monday (I hope!). Then my brain said, "it's a Dell, my computer is a Dell running the same OS I'm trying to install. Why not put another Dell bootable disk in the CD and see if it can read that?" It's not like I could make it worse. I thought.
It worked. I found a CD-R that I had written at some time while installing software where I had scrawled a label on it saying "Win 7 64 Repair Disk". It booted and was able to install Windows 7 last night. The computer behaved completely normally once it had the OS. Until this morning. Today, Windows asked to connect to the mother ship to be authorized and told me the Product Key I entered is no good. No explanation of why. So I'm trying to get to the bottom of that, which is taking my attention away from everything else.
I'm not posting links to the computer or the company or saying they're the problem because I don't know enough, yet. The company that sold me this computer isn't NewEgg, it's one of their affiliated companies. They were very helpful and nice on the phone, despite it being after their working hours. On the other hand, if they're really nice but don't make it right, they're a problem.
Wednesday, October 26, 2016
I Predict More UFO Sightings
Courtesy of Digital Photography Review, the site I watch for digital camera news, comes a video from a guy who put a 1000 W LED Light Bar on a drone and photographed the results from various perspectives: the ground, the drone itself and another drone above this one.
Worth watching in full screen.
Worth watching in full screen.
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
The Test Box Works First Time
Well, a wire pulled loose while I was moving it from the work bench to where I tested it, but once I put that back it worked perfectly as designed. Time to celebrate another little milestone.
Here's a quick shot of it on the bench where I've been building it, followed by a look inside.
A better look inside.
The sharp eyed will find the loose controller cable for the to-be-added fourth axis, and a connector on the back panel for it. Here's the obligatory video of the motors moving. Left to right: X, Y, Z.
The very end of the video shows me pushing the Big Red Stop Right F***in' Now button, then showing the motors not moving then doing a clumsy camera pan over to the computer to show Mach3 responding with "Hey, you told me to stop".
The box and cables are a little ragged looking and I should clean that up a little. Mrs. Graybeard suggested a plexiglass top so we can look in and "watschen das blinkenlights". I haven't made that, but it's lower priority. After a few little cleanups, it's on to taking the mill apart and rebuilding it as a CNC mill!
Here's a quick shot of it on the bench where I've been building it, followed by a look inside.
The very end of the video shows me pushing the Big Red Stop Right F***in' Now button, then showing the motors not moving then doing a clumsy camera pan over to the computer to show Mach3 responding with "Hey, you told me to stop".
The box and cables are a little ragged looking and I should clean that up a little. Mrs. Graybeard suggested a plexiglass top so we can look in and "watschen das blinkenlights". I haven't made that, but it's lower priority. After a few little cleanups, it's on to taking the mill apart and rebuilding it as a CNC mill!
Monday, October 24, 2016
On Thorium Reactors for Power Generation
Early this month, I got a link to a discussion of the difference between Thorium and Uranium nuclear reactors. Whenever the topic of nuclear fission reactors comes up, Thorium reactors are talked about as being a safer technology. While I'm an advocate of nuclear power, I was familiar with the concept, but not the details. This article provides a really good overview.
While reading about them, I did some web searches and found a really good article, by the Slow Facts guy, Rob Morse. While that previous article is in an engineering magazine and written for folks with that background, the Slow Facts article is more like something you'd present to a friend who is adamantly against nuclear power. Thorium is two elements below (to the left of) Uranium in the periodic table, but is much more common; about as common as tin. It's estimated we have about a thousand year supply of Thorium in the US alone. All current nuclear reactors in this country, at least, are Uranium fission-based reactors. Comparatively, Thorium reactors:
While reading about them, I did some web searches and found a really good article, by the Slow Facts guy, Rob Morse. While that previous article is in an engineering magazine and written for folks with that background, the Slow Facts article is more like something you'd present to a friend who is adamantly against nuclear power. Thorium is two elements below (to the left of) Uranium in the periodic table, but is much more common; about as common as tin. It's estimated we have about a thousand year supply of Thorium in the US alone. All current nuclear reactors in this country, at least, are Uranium fission-based reactors. Comparatively, Thorium reactors:
Unlike conventional light water reactors, cooled by regular water as the name implies, they're cooled by molten fluoride salts (Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors - LFTRs). Molten salt baths are exotic to most folks, but are used in heat treating metals so there's over a century of industrial experience with using them safely. They are low pressure systems and since there's no steam (no water) a steam explosion is impossible. As a class, these liquid fluoride reactors are passively safe, which means the system can respond without human intervention. They can even respond to some things without intervention of any kind at all. The plant will respond properly even without an active control system. How? For example, the molten salt is cooled to keep its temperature at the desired operating point. As it heats up, the nuclear reactions slow down. That means an accident caused by loss of cooling is essentially impossible.
- Are safer
- Produce less radioactive waste, and waste that is easier to provision for
- Are easier to install, and easier to find a site for
- Can be smaller and less expensive
- Are more secure: Thorium can't be used to make a bomb
Only one reactor has ever been built that could qualify as a reactor representative of the third phase of the plan, and that was the final core of the Shippingport Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania. The experiment was called the Light Water Breeder Reactor and involved using thorium/U-233 fuel in a repurposed pressurized water reactor. The experiment was a success and showed that just as much U-233 could be produced as was consumed.This experiment was in the early 1960s. 1960s! So why can't we build one now? The usual: regulations. Regulations have changed and no developer is going to bet the money required (a billion? hundreds of millions?) that a politician's promise is any good. Meanwhile, in the rest of the world, developing Thorium energy is a major goal in India.
Sunday, October 23, 2016
Trump Almost Uses My Platform
A month ago, I rolled out what I think the most important thing we need to hear from a candidate is: deregulate. I even put the graphic at the top of the right sidebar in an attempt to get people spreading it around. I want to start a movement to deregulate; to both add sunset provisions to all new laws and get rid of old ones. Either one is a good first step.
This morning, I heard Trump said something in his “Gettysburg Address” that was almost as good. Instead of saying, “form committees to go through the CFR throwing out regulations”, he called for, “Eliminating two federal regulations for every one passed.”. This would be a good start. I'd rather see elimination of three or four old for every new one - if nothing else, it's good busy work to keep the roaches in DC busy, and not passing more new laws. That's not happening without a strong national movement, or strong leadership.
If you haven't seen it, The Federalist Papers Project has a good summary of the talk. It actually sounds pretty good to me.
Mrs. Graybeard and I were saying to each other that we really seem to take a different view of this process than the vibe we pick up from the nevertrump crowd. We were watching Dr. Krauthammer, whom I generally respect, talk about how he can't vote for Trump in good conscience so he's going to write in someone. Both of us look at this as if we're hiring someone to do a job for us not some mystical grand leader on a white horse who's going to rescue us and make everything wonderful. To use the small business analogy, our little radio shop has gotten too busy for us to manage by ourselves and we've got to hire help. We've interviewed two applicants for the position. Neither applicant is ideal in any sense and we really don't like either one, but one is clearly better than the other. We'd rather have someone better but we only have these two, and we need somebody because we don't have enough hands to do everything ourselves. All we can do is hire the best one we can and hope they're better than they seem.
This morning, I heard Trump said something in his “Gettysburg Address” that was almost as good. Instead of saying, “form committees to go through the CFR throwing out regulations”, he called for, “Eliminating two federal regulations for every one passed.”. This would be a good start. I'd rather see elimination of three or four old for every new one - if nothing else, it's good busy work to keep the roaches in DC busy, and not passing more new laws. That's not happening without a strong national movement, or strong leadership.
If you haven't seen it, The Federalist Papers Project has a good summary of the talk. It actually sounds pretty good to me.
- Push a constitutional amendment for term limits for members of Congress.
- A hiring freeze on all federal employees to reduce federal workforce through attrition, exempting military public safety and public health.
- A permanent Ban on members of the Executive administration from ever becoming political lobbyists.
- Eliminating two federal regulations for every one passed.
- Repeal the “Obamacare Disaster” and provide relief to American families.
- Impose tough tariffs on foreign imports to keep American companies from moving overseas.
- Immediately open up energy production to jumpstart our economy.
- Appoint judges who will strictly uphold the Constitution.
- Immediately begin renegotiating NAFTA to make it a better deal.
Trump also said he would cancel “every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum and order issued by Barack Obama, cancel funding for sanctuary cities, remove all of the more than 2 million criminal illegal immigrants from the country. “These are our drug dealers, gang heads, gang members, killers, and cancel visas to foreign countries that won’t take them back.”I don't like the idea of “tough tariffs”, because tariffs attract negative attention. There's more than one way to discourage companies from moving overseas. Aside from that, I have to say I like that agenda.
Mrs. Graybeard and I were saying to each other that we really seem to take a different view of this process than the vibe we pick up from the nevertrump crowd. We were watching Dr. Krauthammer, whom I generally respect, talk about how he can't vote for Trump in good conscience so he's going to write in someone. Both of us look at this as if we're hiring someone to do a job for us not some mystical grand leader on a white horse who's going to rescue us and make everything wonderful. To use the small business analogy, our little radio shop has gotten too busy for us to manage by ourselves and we've got to hire help. We've interviewed two applicants for the position. Neither applicant is ideal in any sense and we really don't like either one, but one is clearly better than the other. We'd rather have someone better but we only have these two, and we need somebody because we don't have enough hands to do everything ourselves. All we can do is hire the best one we can and hope they're better than they seem.
Saturday, October 22, 2016
Saturday
Today marked two things. First, was the rescheduled annual Melbourne Hamfest. It was originally scheduled for October 7th and 8th, but the 7th was the day Hurricane Matthew came to town. They were able to reschedule for yesterday and today on remarkably short notice. The second thing that today marked was that the first cool front of the season came through and the "turn to fall" switch was flipped on. It was 62 at daybreak this morning, as opposed to 76 on Thursday morning. The highest temperature I heard today was 76, vs 86 yesterday. Tomorrow morning is forecast to be 57 with a high of 78. The skies have been beautiful.
The hamfest was a bit of a disappointment. I'm sure some or all of that was due to the sudden reschedule. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the commercial sellers on the flea market circuit already had someplace else set for this weekend and couldn't reschedule. This is a small town get together, although this year it was the site of the ARRL Florida State Convention. There was lots ofold junk vintage radio gear for sale, but we just doesn't need any more of that. I found an old wrench and hammer I could use from someone's junk sale. As long as I don't count the cost of the ticket in the price, it wasn't bad.
The weather sure was nice, though. The weather made the tailgate area the most pleasant to wander through it has ever been.
The hamfest was a bit of a disappointment. I'm sure some or all of that was due to the sudden reschedule. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the commercial sellers on the flea market circuit already had someplace else set for this weekend and couldn't reschedule. This is a small town get together, although this year it was the site of the ARRL Florida State Convention. There was lots of
The weather sure was nice, though. The weather made the tailgate area the most pleasant to wander through it has ever been.
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