One year ago today: November 18, 2018, every damn 34 years.
Five years ago today: November 18, 2014, computers made me stupid.
Nine years ago today: November 18, 2010,before ecology was invented.
Random years ago today: November 18, 2015, New World Order map.
Ah, a day in the backyard. Not as big a day as we just had, but any day spent puttering is a good day for me. I was again designing and building boxes. When I started, I measured everything carefully and wound up with nothing fitting right. Today, I can get a much better box but I’ve got a ways to go with getting good joints and tighter fits. I’m collecting quite a good array of tool boxes, in the sense of one box for each tool, I mean. I’m learning the parts they leave out, like if you use a brad nailer to strengthen the corners, where to put the nails so you don’t ruin your saw blade cutting the lids.
It was a quiet day, I could use many more. This picture shows the advances I’ve made with building the boxes as a solid piece. The major lesson on this box was to make the grain on the ends match the sides. I wasn’t paying attention to that, then again, none of the tutorials I watched even mentioned it.
The router table is worth the time to set up right. I’ve learned to keep scraps of wood suitable for testing the effects. Here’s the set of [router] bits I got for $15. They seem to be matched to 3/4” thick lumber. That’s the size I chose to learn on so that works well. Shown here is the unused and totally new edging bits. I’m pointing at the ogee, a word I only know from crossword puzzles. I think I’ll see about putting some of these fancy shapes on what I’ve got. Again, no instructions. Are these made before gluing up the lumber, or are they made after the box is finished? The bottom row of bits all have guide collars. The cutting edges are carbide, I think I got a good deal on this set.
I picked out some favorite tunes for music and sent them of to the Kaiser. This is usually the step where they figure out some work is involved. I’ve already spotted how he plays differently when singing or not. Either sounds fine and he knows the places in town that hire duos. I usually let them keep the gate and I go for half the tips. It keeps them happy, but you have to watch out for the artists that are really starving. This last weekend downtown showed me that even in our era of entitlement, that can still pose a real problem. Yet my own history shows if you get poor people to do the work, they stay more loyal to the band. Yeah, I thought the same thing. They need the money.
In what I hope is an increasing tendency to curbing “creative law enforcement”, the Supreme Court ruled it is not “theft” to remove a tracking device from your vehicle. The cops maintained the suspect had stolen their property, thereby “depriving the government of the use of its own property”. Since when did the police become the government? The tracker was considered abandoned property, hence no theft. The cops will respond by labeling the device something like “Police property”, which the suspect will then have to first scrape off, and away she goes.
There are two important issues here. One is that the police could even get such a bogus charge into the courtroom. But more importantly, the evidence they found during their search for the “stolen” device, in this case drugs, can now be thrown out of court. That’s the crucial point—that evidence gathered by illegal methods cannot be used. This could well be the legal point that defines the 2020s. It returns to the issue of warrantless searches. The Constitution forbids them and that is that.
I foresee a tendency of the pro-police legislators to attempt a workaround, like they did with the tax law. That’s where they can’t make taxation legal, so instead they make not paying them illegal. And fancy themselves clever. This legal boondoggle is no doubt going to be applied to the issue of evidence found during such searches. The police have traditionally counted on the public turning a blind eye if the result is a conviction. This policy of making it illegal to not do something that displeases the authorities is the source of all the most hated laws in America. Top of the list is still Prohibition, and that was what, 90 years ago.
Family portrait.
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While I’m getting far better results with the rabbet edge boxes, you see here that my joints are not as tight as I’d like. I’m wondering why identical pieces cut on the same router setting still have fit problems. I make sure the lumber is dry and the cuts are as identical as possible. Once again, this box is buillt as a solid unit with the lid to be cut later. I’m also learning more about finishing the lumber but these tool boxes are lucky if they get any finish at all.
The maximum width of board I can cut with my chop saw is 4-1/2” which is barely adequate for some of the projects I’m getting into. That’s also the max for cutting 45° miter joints. The rabbetted boxes appear to be very sturdy, which I was not expecting. I mean to my logic, the actual joints are thinner because you just notched out half the thickness of wood. There’s some physics at work here and the boxes are super-strong once the end caps are put on. I’d like to find out if there is some way to mate up the notch cuts with a miter. Look at me, I’m already trying to make things prettier. And moments later I found out the cut is called lock miter.
Engadget announces an electric airplane with a speed of 300mph and endurance of five minutes. A related article says a auto-driving cars will soon have the technology to deal with bad drivers. Good, a spinoff of that will confirm what we all thought. It is the 5% of bad drivers who cause most problems on the road. Isn’t it funny, with all the data stolen by Facebook and Google that they never publish lists of who the jerks in society are. They don't want to expose their families, I guess. Again, I predict it is that consistent 5% who only need their asses kicked to straighten out.
And the authorities are again plugging anti-encryption legislation in their bids to create a totalitarian state. Folks, democracy can only survive when the average man has the right and ability to keep his affairs and communications private. Otherwise, there is no free thought. The state-sponsored attacks on encryption seek to destroy that freedom under the guise of protection, again with child sex leading the list. It is not about porn, it is about power. The responsibility for children rests with the parents, not the state. Once again, it is being packaged as catching pervs, but the real target is always political opponents and minorities. It is not about safety, it is about power, because once the enemies are pinned down, the technology will be used against ordinary citizens. Canada has joined Australia and England in censoring the Internet by going after the service providers.
ADDENDUM
My long-standing critique on the lack of inventiveness concerning Millennials has now taken a beating. They have invented something, or in the least, applied a known technology to a new usage that could pass as an invention. Up till now, I knew them as the generation that, despite being supplied with the finest instrumentation and computer systems, have failed to invent even a cord that won’t tangle, a spout that won’t drip, or a fan belt that won’t break. They have now exceeded my expectations.
According to PhysOrg.com, Tak-Sing Wong over at the Wormley Center (I’m not making this up) has discovered that if you spray Rust-O-Leum NeverWet inside your toilet bowl, even “synthetic fecal matter” will not stick to the sides. This being a university study, they don’t call it by the brand name, but “liquid entrenched smooth surface”, or LESS. Honest, I swear I am not making this up as we go along, I double swear. These people have funding from the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, the Department of Energy, the Ben Franklin Tech Partners, and The Rice Business Plan. Which also explains where and how they procured enough simulated poo for the lab tests.
See, it was bureaucrat sh*t, so much like the real thing it is only distiguishable because it is 200x stickier. When put that way, there is an urgent need for this product. The product must be reapplied every 500 flushes. So at the Democrat headquarters, that’s around two political speeches, or 8 minutes, whichever comes first.
