One year ago today: October 5, 2014, because 64% of women can cook.
Five years ago today: October 5, 2010, marketing, Coleman-style.
Six years ago today: October 5, 2009, cryptic error messages.
MORNING
Gorilla glue ($8) fails in a trial against a 30¢ bottle of “BridgePort”, a brand from Big Lots. Shown here, a laminate (sandwich) layer of pine and pressboard side by side with the same arrangement in Gorilla glue. Both were applied under ideal conditions and clamped overnight. I was semi-scolded last day for not reporting as many of these trials and experiments as go on around here.
As shown in the bottom panel, I was able to pull the Gorilla glue samples apart by hand. Note the panelboard is shiny smooth, not porous. This is probably a factor but I would like to point out the cheap glue held this material quite nicely.
However, since I agree that learning things that even have a remote chance of coming in handy is important, I shall make an effort in the short run to see if reporting these day-to-day tidbits draw a larger crowd. For example, today’s trials include:
Drilling out a board to make a storage case for new batteries, as in ordinary alkaline cells, for storage in the refrigerator. Trials last month show they keep longer and run longer when stored above freezing, but below 40F.
I redesigned the bird feeder as I was unable to determine why wrens and finches avoided it. The feeder was even placed the recommended 5.5 feet above the ground. They would not touch it, yet when I whistle in the morning, they will line up on the fence ready to pounce on the exact same feed mixture if spread on the ground beneath the feeder. Or even if I empty the feeder on the ground, they relish it.
Batteries are a big part of robotics. Unless you want to go to battery school, everything about them has to be studied or put to the test. What statistics are available are generally about the battery, not about how it behaves under load. So I’ll pass on a primer of what I’ve learned, all of it the hard way.
Use two battery systems. Heavy lead-acid (sealed) deep discharge ($$$) for operating your motors and NiCad for running your electronics. There is no need to inform Nova of any of this progress, since they are so firmly convinced that such knowledge is “reinventing the wheel”. The fact that they don’t know any of this does not even enter their equations.
Furthermore, if you don’t learn a lot about recharging batteries, it is a quick trip to the poor house. You must learn recharging or have a rich daddy. Nova has chosen the latter route. This week’s side project is I’m going back to look at three factors, and they are:
1) DIY battery charge/drain level indicators.
2) Separate relay-operated external battery charge ports.
3) Old flashlight dischargers.
We’ll see how this level of detail works for readership. I hope enough of you find it worthwhile, I know I like it. But this is real life. I cannot always stay on one experiment or topic for a start-to-finish article. That’s a lot like work.
Oh, I might add that the new sander, which was first criticized for being “too small” has already run up a super-reputation. It is not meant for big jobs, nor are any of the five tools that are sitting on what used to be my kitchen table. That I never ate off of it anyway. In fact the sander does a remarkable job, you might even say it is overkill. I have a plan to make an item that will sell the club on smaller tools like this one forever. Let me get better at gluing things first.
Here’s photo of the Gorilla glue that failed the entrance exam. The next stage of experimentation is to “rough up” the smooth surface of the particle board. That is only for curiosity, and nobody around here has time to start sanding surfaces when we now which wood doesn’t need it. Another advantage of laminations is I can replace parts. The individual layers are the correct size for manufacture on my “mini-shop” gear.
NOON
My final judgment on 3D printer is to leave them alone for now. The main drawback is the same as reported here years ago. There is no convenient way in existence to make or create new items. Until there is, these printers are not useful computer peripherals. True, you could use them to print downloaded items, but that is where you will smack into the “Millennial Wall”.
Meanwhile, here is a photo of something they could invent if they wanted to be useful around here. This is my new set of free screwdrivers from HF (Harbor Freight, who may be out of business if Trump gets in). These tools lack a means of identifying the bit shape when the tool is properly stored in a drop-hole. But mundane utility can’t hold a Millennial attention span against the allure of MineCraft. I have more to say about that in the addendum today.
The avocado seed, how is that progressing? It isn’t. As of day four, the seed casing is not cracking. That’s a critical step that should be over by now, but wait, I have no green thumb except for potatoes. I’m removing the seed to a new container, this time glass instead of metal. Just in case. The metal is painted and cured outdoors for a few weeks, so there is very little chance of contamination or even rust. Still, this time it is going into a cobalt blue glass bath, where I can just see the tap root without taking it out of the water.
These recycled containers have been scented for years around here. Normally these are natural smells, like vanilla or anise. But these have already proven to have limitations with the now stepped-up gluing program. I have an aversion to chemical smells and even if I found something flowery, the glue is still set to dry in the corner of the kitchen, where I don’t normally allow artificial anything.
The trick is to immerse or rub what you want to smell nice in a light oil scented with your own choosing. I’ve even dissolved charcoal from incense to get a rose-like trace, but now something stronger is in order. I bought a jar of cloves and ground them down to a fine powder, like talc. Right now, my house smells like toothache medicine, but check back after that settles down.
AFTERNOON
I called Miami with instructions not to come over today. Another spritzing rain shower. And besides, I’m giving you a mostly full day of reports on what I do here when I’m “home alone”. Clearly seen here are the club standard for useage of the charger and the battery labeled “May 2010”. It is starting to act up already and I don’t have money to waste on a new battery every six months. Well, actually, I do [have the money], but I’m just sayin’.
That’s got me thinking of the movies. The foreign cinema has one about some kind of inveterate gamblers. Remember how we used to call compulsive gamblers just plain old “loser”. Now they have all kinds of terms with the common theme that it just could be somebody else’s fault they are that way. T’was society that got them hooked. Why, they were pure as the driven snow, driving home one day, when they saw the sign. Damn the neon. Damn the neon . . .
If you are going to gamble, the Swiss investigation into silver price fixing has been glossed over. Like it was nothing, really. Well nothing, unless you don’t know that the daily trading in precious metals is ten times more than all of the stock markets on the planet combined. But do your homework. Since you have to pay a $3 bar charge when you buy it, and [another $3] when you sell it, an ounce of silver has to go up $6 in price before you break even.
And that’s about as likely as the last penny stock you bought going up by that amount overnight. The difference is, your bank doesn’t own a lot of penny stocks. The banks play for keeps. Which is what they usually do in the long run with your money. Are you still with me on this?
Did I say it’s been year without a band? Does that mean I’m like the unemployed who have given up? They are now counted as employed? Does that mean I’m in a band again? The old band has finally removed the videos containing moi, but it’s the same old draggy song list, music that I’d never heard before or since. Their new bass player’s surname is “Bass”, so it’s a good thing he didn’t opt to play the glockenspiel. In fact, they’ve completely sanitized my influence from the band, meaning they may finally have discovered this blog.
I reviewed their videos, it is the same old. The band is totally dictated by what the guitar player wants to play, which is something they consider normal. They are more of a “tribute” band, but instead of featuring one particular group (Beatles, Queen, or Nirvana), they are more a tribute to their own guitar player. And I’ll point out again, at least he is one of the best. But he cannot learn new material. I heard the results when he tried “Venus” and “Last Train To Clarksville” and I can play them better.
They are playing the same old venues, the last places on Earth to get better gigs or get discovered. Again, my biggest peeve was that I told them I was seeking a working band and without denying it, they let me think once I learned the bass parts, they’d be up and running. That’s what I’m used to, so don’t say I got off on the wrong track. The new guy sounds like he learned bass as an afterthought, but now I realize that is all that band needed.
I see the old pecking order back at work, where the bassist is low man on the totem pole. Each member in the band is playing his “part” and it meshes well, considering the amount of practice these guys put themselves through. The band still isn’t together, it still sounds like five separate musicians playing in unison. A big part of my style is to play “unto the music”, but their fixed attitude is not to listen to the bassist. Even when he gets standing ovations and the band doesn’t.
Man, I wasted 17 months with that effort. Why didn’t I listen to my people who all swore they had never heard of that group. And still haven’t. Even if they hit the big time now, it would be like paying for sex, that is, just not as much fun as it should have been.
EVENING
Okay, here's picture of the avocado tree in the making. Happy now, Liz?
“Mississippi Grind”. It’s better than average because of the acting, but at baseline, it is another gambling movie. One thing that every gambler has in common with every divorcee is that they think their situation is unique. It’s got no surprises that way. Interestingly, on their trip down the river, they featured a lot of the casinos where I did something they could not. I drove past the places.
Since such things are of little importance to me, I only vaguely remember the entranceway. I had supper there. But I think it was part of the movie. I remember the bridges of Memphis, that’s about it. I don’t remember any gambling on Beale Street. As for Harlows, it is a sterile nothing place in the middle of nowhere. A monument to the declining empty wasteland of the American middle class. The type of place that inspires songs like “Hotel California”.
Trump said it right, the American dream is dead. Not Trump, but the politicians before him gutted the American middle class and got them hooked on credit cards. Once you took away any hope they have of working for a comfortable living, what exactly do you expect them to do? What do I mean “any hope”?
They can’t get a job anymore, the government sent the jobs overseas. They can’t work, something like 70% barely survive between paydays. Can’t go to college, they just get ripped off on student loans. Plea bargaining has made a joke of the justice system that nobody trusts the law. About the only thing left is to get lucky. And to most people, that means trot on down to the casino, where they can at least pretend they had a good time on the way down.
ADDENDUM
The following means nothing, it is a post to a certain page put there to gauge reaction. But read it if you want, it sums up the crowd at events, which in our troubled times, are called “social networks”. This is in response to my review of Nerd Nite. Have you heard of Nerd Nite? The sad part is that thanks to the Internet, that event plays to larger crowds than I do.
I thought it might be a new low in night club humor. A series of nerds gets on stage and has twenty slides appear on the overhead for twenty seconds each. In that spance, he gets to deliver a speech on his nerd specialty. Maybe I’d hear something technical on a subject I’ve never had time to pursue. Thinking this might be a gem, I watched a few speakers and that was enough.
First of all, there is a reason those losers are called Nerds. Second, spare me the constant appeals to charity and lectures on what I could do to make their lives better. I heard enough of that shit from my own generation of nerds, most of whom became bureaucrats. Anyway, here is the post. (Yes, it contains errors and is a run-on paragraph.)
Knock it off with these "mellenials" and "hipsters" labels. Those people are ordinary, nerds. Nothing special. They are the nerds of the 90s and beyond, faceless, useless cannon fodder for the military industrial complex. The males are all geeks the women either fat and/or problem teens. It's the same old story, 1% or 2% will get lucky and come into some cash but the rest will be just like their parents and grandparents. Bewildered masses caught up in a universal stream of events they don't even understand. Male or female, the ones with an ounce of "talent" wind up in the stripper bars, the rest just wind up in bars period. Like every generation of deadbeats before them, they will convince themselves that since they are the majority, it means something. But in the end, they are disorganized rabble being led around by the government-approved media. They have no privacy or freedom left so they vote that nobody else should have any either. The system knows to get the whole lot of them into debt so bad that by the time they realize their lives are wasted it is too late start over.
Last Laugh
(it's clear frozen ice)
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