That is why I am able to describe the machine’s operation from the photo alone. The print nozzle is a glorified glue gun that runs back and forth on the guide rails, that should be familiar to anyone whose looked inside a regular printer. The object is printed up in layers using the reel of plastic feeding from the spool on the right side. I don’t know why this photo shows black tubing and a white object. Nor do I know how the finished product gets turned into something durable and useful, though it is evident that having a model helps.The gun gets hot, so watch for idiots to have creative accidents with this thing. I’ll hesitate buying one for a number of reasons. One, there must be a design before you print. I can’t draw things worth a damn, so I’d have to buy the plans. Where’s the originality in that? Secondly, this Solidoodle uses standardized files, but it converts them using its own “slicing” algorithm and I leery of proprietory software. You can ask Sony why.
Nonetheless, I feel it is important to follow the development of these printers because they are almost guaranteed to succeed. Just like publishing software continues to gut the publishing giants, this appliance will bring design engineers back to their true worth. I refer to the quote of $2,500 to design my toothpick holder. That’s for the design, not the model, the mold, or any production. Such prices are a barrier to innovation. I suspect, for all the ease of operation, these printers will still benefit greatly from a skilled operator. Oh, and I still have the million toothpicks behind my shed, ready to make money.
One of the more entertaining books I brought back [from Denver] has some chapters about building log cabins. The correct process is rather more precise than most real cabins I’ve seen. Not kits, but cabins built in the woods from nearby trees, felled and drying the year before. If it had not been so pathetic, the funniest instance I ever saw was watching my old man try to build a log cabin on the farm. Since I was fourteen years old at the time, I already knew the man was a blithering idiot but that cabin was something else. Even I knew you did not notch both logs. By the time he got to the third layer, the walls fell over, nearly breaking his goddam legs. He blamed the logs and slapped me when I couldn't stop laughing.
I closely examined the instructions, including lay of the land and how to make shakes. And how to complete the arrangement with a well, root cellar, and privy. Provided one does not get too ambitious, anyone could probably do it. Anyone with a brain, that is. The book didn’t say, but it is at least a three-person job if you want it done in one summer.
My system says take it easy so I was up at the library, the branch on Hollywood. The one I swear they dump all the books nobody reads at the other locations. Shelf after shelf of self-help books for dummies that have never been touched. Folks, my idea of a self-help book is a set of encyclopedias, and the sooner the better. Since all volumes are present every time I arrive, there is a very good chance I am the only patron who has ever read them. They got book after book on African heritage, Jewish history, and famous Latinos, the latter being a very thin volume. And one outdated book on electronics.
The Internet at home is still down (flood damage at the main office) so I was researching robot costs. Not designs, but cost. It figures this is another area where the experts are tight-lipped. They don’t want to tell you what they spent and I’ve seen this phenomenon before. If they admit they have that much money, they aren’t the poor, struggling inventor any more. They won’t even ballpark. My guess is the toy wheeled robots (line-followers) cost around $200. The tracked models with remote controls cost closer to $400. And anything useful easily hits the $1,000 mark. Not a hobby for cheapskates since it is uninstructive to give up half done on such a project.
Once again, the planning returns to printed circuit boards. Whereas there exist robots that use only mechanical parts and some of them are quite ingenious, the microcontroller remains my only hope. And that means PCBs. Outdated Arduinos are available for $15 and I’m quick to notice how other designers, no matter how clever, stick to one microcontroller per robot. I’ve never thought that way.
I may be one step closer to the PCBs, as I think the otherwise reputable Canon printer company has pulled a fast one. They put their printers on sale and then quit making the ink cartridges, a brain-fart of Hewett-Packard origin. I had not planned on spending so much, but there’s an example of a hidden shop cost. The printer to spray the toner to make the patterns to make the printed circuits is a big investment. What I wouldn’t give to go back to work for a couple of years and have all this stuff.
The moment you’ve been waiting for. Libraries mean trivia. Did you know that almost one Irish pub in five operates at a loss? Don’t ask me how they do it, but it isn’t the proximity of the Guiness brewery, since that family now owns only 2% of the stock. Ireland has more tourists annually than their population, so perhaps the government provides a subsidy. Or maybe, in Florida fashion, two plus two equals three.
The Harrier jet. This is that English fighter-bomber that can take off straight up, the one Arnold uses in the movies. The airplane as a war machine is around a hundred years old, so I aspired to learn what tactics have been most successful. When it is all said and done, most successful dogfight attack is still the pounce from behind. The complicated rolls and turns still work by getting behind the other airplane. The favored maneuver is called a yo-yo, except for the Harrier.
While most pilots are loathe to anything that decreases airspeed, the Harrier is almost impossible to shoot down once it resorts to VIFF, or viffing, the term for using the jet nozzles to completely change the flight characteristics. Missiles, like most weapons, face forward, so there is a huge advantage in getting the front of the attacking airplane toward the enemy. The Harrier can do this even standing still in the air. Impressive.
I biked past the old place this morning. The people that bought it did most of the things I had planned before Wallace started playing big shot. They cut down the messy trees, patched the roof, and made my bedroom into a rentable area with a side entrance. What a disappointment that boy is when he tries to think, he just ain’t equipped for that brand of activity. Same for Patsie, as the two of them now go down in history as a couple of peasant morons. (They actually think no amount of facts can ever prove them stupid unless you can get them to admit they are stupid and they are smarter than that.)
When are old people going to stop trusting the AARP? I can’t elaborate, but I remind you it is a private bureaucracy in it for themselves. Their only association with old people is the get on file any information that may have slipped through the cracks. Have you seen the information they want to “help you find a job”? A list of all your prescriptions, traffic tickets, all languages you “understand”, copies of property deeds in foreign countries “like Canada or Mexico”, and any destination visited for more than 21 days or requiring an airline flight of “longer than four hours duration” during your entire lifetime. This has nothing to do with a job. It is not the type of information one gives a stranger.
They will alert the authorities if you refuse to answer any questions after the “interview” begins—and they’ve got you on file by then. In 2005, I asked them how many jobs they actually placed and was told it was “not a question [they] normally answered”. How do you spell “h-i-d-d-e-n a-g-e-n-d-a”?
ADDENDUM
Blog research, especially this blog. Today was a comparison of writing style, against other blogs, that is, in competition with them. The closest match I could find were political blogs and this publication is nothing of the kind. Such topics, when mentioned here, are meant to be controversial, not persuasive. For the record, yes, I do tone down the writing here quite a bit from what I am capable of. My best writing gets kind of technical and hard to follow. And uses much bigger words.
I found the most opposite of my writing to be celebrity magazines. (Know your competition - and your opposites.) For that reason, I read the magazine “Us” and only recognized two of the personalities. (Sarah J. Parker because she’s so unattractive and some other lady.) Most of the women were 40-ish with big, fat bottoms and I have no idea how it is possible to consider them attractive. The photos of pregnant women were garish. The magazine accomplishes one thing well in displaying how these supposedly rich and famous women have no ability whatsoever to find good men. Most of the husbands and boyfriends look like they just got out of juve.
Yet, I am unwilling to change my style to boost ratings. I admit I cannot discover my own reasons for holding back when I could easily adapt. But there is no clear answer. My most viewed page ever shows a naked woman but my second most viewed is an article on Axis Sally, who was no looker. (That article also drew comments from ill-informed readers who should learn to operate Nexis-Lexis before running off at the keyboard.)
The two most tempting options are to include inflammatory accusations (like the New York Times) and to glamorize the useless (like the sports section). But while this blog contains intentional inaccuracies, it stops well short of propagating lies. Most of the events reported here can be verified, though most points of view are entirely my own. I should not be expected to look at things the same way as where I come from, where the average person has a third the years of formal education as over here.
In conclusion, it does not seem to be my writing style that influences readership. My best keywords are, in any order, “silver”, “music”, and “expensive”. Most new readers stumble in here looking for something else. That’s not so surprising when you count the blogs. They still exist by the tens of millions.
So the question remains how does one increase the readership of a blog that is not likely to change? The obvious answer: Advertise.
