One year ago today: December 19, 2014, child support, Brit style.
Five years ago today: December 19, 2010, a mini-United Way?
Nine years ago today: December 19, 2006, famous orange juicer.
Random years ago today: December 19, 2007, I don’t play guitar!
MORNING
Meet Prometheus, a PCB milling machine. I’ll stand back and watch what happens with this “new” invention because I figured out the need for one years ago. But I lack the skills, and the machine shop, needed to build one. It is a milling machine that produces PCB (printed circuit board) prototypes on ordinary copper-clad phenols. Capable of some fine-looking work, you can read up on it at Zippy. Again, I’m stepping back because everyone has this concept, it is kind of the “flying car” of the robot industry.
This is the type of device I would invest in if I was not shopping for a house. The coppery plate is immersed in a thin layer of oil, while the bit cuts away the copper traces at 45,000 rpm.
I’ve been itching to see “Censored Voices”, the near-documentary foreign movie featuring recordings of Israeli soldiers during the 1967 conflict. My incentive is that so much of it has been censored until recently. It was more of a Zionist win than an Israeli victory. Those who do not understand the difference probably have no worthwhile opinions on the matter. But a gale-force windstorm forced me indoors for a day of coffee, books, and small projects.
So here is a partial list of what interested me around here. The faded paint and apparent repairs reveal my scooter is the oldest unit in town that is still in daily use. At a cost that is still less than buying something new, the only original parts are really the frame and the seat. Even the motor has been replaced, along with the drive train, muffler, and most of the light bulbs. Hold on, the carburetor is the original.
I’ve built a copper pipe thingee, a small dowel with sandpaper to shine up the insides of copper pipe joints before applying flux. My place still kind of hints of flux, so I boiled some instant coffee. (you should not boil coffee, I meant as an air freshener). I’m reviewing advanced copper pipe soldering techniques that downloaded overnight. I immediately find it more gratifying than working with plastic. It is quaint and charming, the more so when I realized I’m already better at it that many of the professional jobs I’ve seen. It’s not a fussy as soldering circuit boards, I can verify that.
Another review was more critical to my next ten years. Consider that ten years ago, there was very little confidence that I’d last to age 65. So my budget was geared toward taking things easy for what was left. However, now that it looks like I’ll make it, I took out my original budget and went over it in detail. It presumed I would live to age 72.
To my joy, those plans were extremely well-made. I’d nearly forgotten the effort that went into those spreadsheets. Everything that could be charted was and the focus back then was a small house or cabin (fancy that), but also the establishment of a better daily situation than what I saw around me in those days, and things are worse now. The majority of pensioners live alone in partial destitution. They don’t know anybody out of their own age group or circumstances. And I’m not the only one who notices single seniors don’t travel much.
I need change nothing to bring that budget back into focus. By age 65, I should have a house, a workshop, extra bedrooms, operate a vehicle, afford all utilities, and have a travel fund. But because I kept my nose clean, I can also see (but not guarantee) a small private library, a maid on weekends, a greenhouse, and operating a small business for pin money. Yep, even in the face of the unexpected mammoth loses of 2005 and the Wallace/Theresa attack of 2010, I think everything listed is entirely possible.
Now should silver, which is now around $13.60, decide to behave, we would have all that and more by noon tomorrow.
NOON
The Lebanese guy from the shoe store (over by the bakery) gave me big helping of home made lasagna. His girlfriend is the same who made that Thanksgiving sweet potato that got the rare rave review here. I know it is not on my diet, but it doesn’t count if someone gives it to you free, right? Like calories don’t count if you eat it standing up. Am I right?
I’m kicking everybody out and saying there will be an extra coffee all around for whoever shows up at 6:00PM. But I need some down time. Part of this is needed to mull over other things that Randall said at the book meet that were less relevant to my meteor theory. She talked about the composition of dark matter. She doesn’t know how to pronounce Oort Cloud, but the latest theories are that the mysterious craters on Earth are from matter dislodged from that source. And it could be dark matter.
From what she said, at least the parts I could hear, dark matter is affected by gravity. Ah, so therefore it must have mass. This is what I’m pondering. And it is hardly the first time physics has encountered something that contains contradictory qualities. The obvious example is ether, which was believed to be infinitely strong to transmit light, but infinitely weightless because it could not be detected (that’s an over-simplification). The famous Michelson-Morley experiment showed that ether did not exist.
Here is Randall, from an on-line still. Does she look a little tired? I’d say so, but I have a differing reason why that might be. She is constantly being asked dumb questions after her talks. Not smart questions like I tried to ask, but low-grade “see-what-she-says” type social interrogation. Such as whether “science” runs in her family. Or is there sexism in her faculty at Harvard? Yeah, we really need to hear what she has to say about that, you pack of dishwater morons.
(I did like her answer. To the effect that every professor in every university probably feels there is some institutionalized factor holding him back and marginalizing his brilliant work.)
Oh, and I found the meteor impact site, Earth Impact Database at a site called passc.net, no thanks to Lisa other than hearing her say it existed. Okeechobee is not listed as an impact site. And Okeechobee is uncannily in the same plane or direction as the Chicxulub (Yucatan) crater, as regarding the location of the crater to the actual impact point. That would mean the meteor struck at the southeast extremity of where the lake is today. I have no way of knowing if these craters are actually related.
Trivia: there are 188 known meteor impact sites. I hope to make it 189. Note that Crater Lake in Oregon is not a meteor crater. And neither is Hudson’s Bay. It just looks like that. And what is with those tard Liberals in Canada that they have not changed Hudson’s Bay to its proper name of Nunutukumokatuktuktokananunanu Bay?
Didn’t I warn that MicroSoft Outlook is a virus? Once it gets into your system, it converts all your other MicroSoft non-Outlook accounts to Outlook. Now, they have disabled your option to ignore updates. And the most recent update has removed the option to easily create blocking rules. So you have to accept spam and phishing scams. The only remaining option is to report them to MS, which is a time consuming bore. Also, you cannot block MicroSoft ads as the spam that they are.
EVENING
For those wondering what kind of money the new Margaritaville resort is paying for musicians, the answer is not very much. But it is more than you’ll get from the other local hotels or bars. It works out to $150 per musician per night, plus your cut of the tips. Roughly the same numbers as you got in 1980, before Karaoke and backing tracks.
I viewed some documentaries on the big war. It is strange how 70 years later the propaganda still clings on. The big bad Germans were rearming after 1933, but the British never did quit disarming as they had agreed to do. Instead, they formed a ring of allies almost completely encircling Germany. The fact the Brits had so few modern weapons is a testament to their inefficiency, not their love of international peace.
The club meeting at the donut shop was hilarious. What? Hilarious? Well, you see, for some reason, we must have picked street hooker night. It took an hour to get twenty minutes of attention. In a nutshell, there are dozens of great deals on bicycle parts on the market. Between a maturing market and enough time to allow quality used parts to reach the public, a great conversion of the Jamus should cost less than half what I paid for my original.
Back to the club, Agt. M has met this pretty fancy Russian gal. College student, but owns a condo, 27 years old, blonde. So make that 35. I’m trying to think of who she looks like and I get a picture of Meryl Streep, but that isn’t it. Well, maybe, but with a broader forehead and bigger nose. Like Streep, attractive as hell when getting her picture taken. But I’ve only seen photos. Who’s her good-looking friend? Anyway, here is a photo of Meryl in 1990 and that’s the one I’d compare her to.
ADDENDUM
It requires careful “calorie-counting”, a diet technique frowned on by those who frown upon such things, but I went out for Chinese food. Going out alone is kind of sad because later in life, you have much more money than food you can eat. And no decent women to share it with. I won’t define decent, but it has a lot to do with conversation, charm, cleanliness, college, compassion, and consideration.
It is not true that I do not listen to guitar players. One thing that group as taught me was that I go about chasing women the wrong way. According to their popular wisdom, decent wornen are only available to me whose standards are much lower than mine, but only if they don’t try too hard, and even then, only at nearby churches on those particular days when I cannot be there.
Last, don’t bother with EaseUS data recovery. The advertising says that the non-commercial version is a free offer. It isn’t. After you install the app and run it, which wastes your time, the pop-up tells you it only locates the lost files. If you want to recover, it is no longer free. Up yours, EaseUS. Free trial, my eye. More like free half-trial. Again, up your Asian asses, your traditional role in world history.
Last Laugh
(. . . admit it, you waited and watched a cycle.)
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