So what’s on the list first? Food. Always a winner, except why today when I was unadventuresome? All I did was catch that new Texas grilled cheese at the Dunkin. For me anyway, this is not exciting food. I’ll get back to that breakfast break in a moment, since for once I could not complete the puzzles. None of them. The next list item is travel.
The Kennedy Space Center. I’ve never seen it and as I check around, seems nobody else around here has either. It’s a five hour drive, same as DisneyWorld, and I’d like to take the space tour. I left the message for JZ but either way, there’s nothing stopping me. This is not the same [as my former travel] plan to watch a satellite or mission launch (they are not the same thing). Prices quadruple near launch dates and I would just like to see the museum. Check back with me on that.
The random topic today says trivia. Let me check my library notebook to see if I have any. That’s a real notebook, with paper pages, kids. Here we go, January 30 of this year. Yes, I date every page. Keeps one organized when you take as many notes as this. It says here a Luddite is one who “ignores, declines, opposes, refuses, or resists” technology. Harrumph. And all these years I’ve been calling them . . . something else.
Simon Evans, a stand-up comedian, has coined a term I like. He states those electric carts that were designed for the elderly have been hijacked by fat people. He calls them “obese-icles”. Ha! Good one. And for everyone who asked, I photoshopped the Whitnay picture. Camp Whitnay is in North Carolina.
Today was the swelter kettle of the decade, and I had to get the laundry done. The heat index read “feels like 102” and I’ll confirm that. Here’s a different take on that issue for you. The Scots are not worried about global warming. In fact, they encourage it. Because, they say, they could then sit on the mountaintops and “watch the English droon”.
I tried for a pleasant morning, but the donut shop with its icy air conditioning was full of people (known in hot weather as “camping out”) and the weekend puzzles in the paper were so tough I couldn’t finish any. I feel like blaming the world for the past week, but then I caution myself. This happens every time there is a major change in my prescriptions. I think the clinics call me Mr. Side-Effects behind my back. Let me check something.
Yes, my private blog guidebook says to record all such [medical] changes. So if I croak, everybody will know my latest condition—just kidding. Statins reduce the liver’s ability to produce cholesterol and thus can reduce the odds of recurrent heart attack by as much as 40%, a number you will not hear me argue with. Statins cause dizziness and memory loss. This probably won’t affect me in any
Ha, ha. Did you get that? Don’t worry, if I had a day job I would not quit it. How hot was it? I drove across town to band practice to discover both the guitar players had not returned from holidays. I don’t make those kind of mistakes, so what else can I say? Um, I needed the exercise? That will have to do.
ADDENDUM
3D printing. I learned (from Jimmyr), which I did not know before, that the reason for the sudden appearance of these machines was the expiry of patents a few years ago . Prices dropped from $14,000 to $300 (although this took five years). These models all squeezed hot plastic through a nozzle, but a superior method called “laser sintering” is about to follow the same path. FYI, the method, called SLS for “selective laser printing” was developed using public DARPA money—and in my opinion should therefore have been public property.
Data is sparse, but apparently a powdered substrate is heated to just below its melting point. Then a very precise scoop or stylus spreads a thin layer of substrate where a laser momentarily melts it at the correct spots to fuse it to the previous layer. Thus, the emerging product is completely surrounded by unfused substrate, eliminating the need for scaffolding.
In both methods, old and new, the end product requires further finishing. A variety of SLS alloy powders are available. I wish I was an inventor, as I use a substance every day here that melts and then instantly sets. It is called solder. I wish, but sadly, I was raised in a household where any kind of building or construction was a highly punishable sin, and by the time I was out on my own, well, unless you are already rich, you know how that goes.
Very little hard information can be found, but I did find a European video. You’ll have to navigate to the video called “EOS GmbH Electro Optical Systems – Tooling” to see the laser in action, but it is worth it. This six-minute video also describes how the object has to be baked like clay to harden up, and it is then milled and polished.
Here are a some addition links:
Materialize. 6:35 (Link went dead in 2015.)
GPI. 5:00 (Worse actors than phone company commercials, what a laff.)
Solid Concepts. 2:08 (Nylon parts only, but explains slicing.)
All of these produce massive waste powder byproduct, and although recyclable, require cleanup. But then again, five years from now. I still like my solder idea better. And I’m not yet convinced that the 3D modeling technology is keeping up.
Caution: All video links here show products that begin with a CAD-finished design, ready to print. That wonderful situation does not occur in Nature.
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