One year ago today: September 7, 2024, the average customer . . . .
Five years ago today: September 7, 2020, pure Portland gold.
Nine years ago today: September 7, 2016, on computer sockets.
Random years ago today: September 7, 2009, my bicycle years.
What’s this, people bonding with A.I.? Makes sense with all the wasted empty people in the country these days. It even has a term, “A.I. Psychosis.” It’s when A.I. chat convinces stupid people they are not stupid, then they step back into the real world. This could be why I feature so few personalities in my posts, haha.
Jack quit again, good old wobbly Jack—but I now have his list of places that have bands, some of which I would unlikely have found. I don’t drive around looking, and the hitch is that these GenX places like to disguise the fact they are bars. I’ve been past Cherry Pocket several times and did not know it was anything but a restaurant.
I’ve got the game camera set, having learned to wait for perfectly calm days or the leaves will fill up the memory in a couple hours. Try to get the angle that also includes the clock and thermometer. That’s for future historians who have a Sherlock predisposition. The birdies did not let me sleep in today. What adventure can we find or create today, this is the blog that dares and “spine-wise” this is a good day. First, we grab coffee and check the non-MSM news. You too.
Old Chuck is screaming that 10 million “people” are losing medical coverage without mentioning none of them are Americans. A Canadian lawyer has been disbarred for “being vindictive” by accusing a judge of misconduct. The FaceBook algorithm to fight hate speech found 90% of it was directed at Whites. Canada has outlawed carrying anything for self-defense other that a whistle “or other noisemaker” and prohibited home security cameras that record anything beyond your own property.
Keep reading, I promise to have something unusual for you by day’s end. I’m building a new type of box and my advice to newcomers is this is far from an easy chore. Several trial and error steps come with each design. Each piece of wood can be flipped over three ways and two of them are wrong. While you learn to trust your jigs, it’s not like those jigs build themselves. Even then, keep mindful of the type you have to clamp in place. No two saws are alike. I remind everyone I am available for celebrity endorsements and my fees are very reasonable.
Alpaca ranch near Coeur d’Alene.
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A project I’ve been putting off is building a small box that cannot be opened once sealed. That means without prying or cutting, of course. My solution was a box where all the joints or corners meet at a 45 degree angle. Some of you probably already know why I would build such a box, and this was my first attempt. This video shows a box around 25% larger than projected. I had to find out if my equipment could even manage such intricate cuts. I’ve tried it before on the table saw with minimal results. For those who wonder why so may of my videos have no audio, this blog was originally designed to be opened at work--and that was long before the safe-for-work tags appeared. Mind you, back then it was unknown that this blog would set any standards. What? I didn't tell you about that?
It turns out the maximum length I can cut a plank with these beveled edges is 10 inches. But that is enough for my planned results. I’d toyed with boxes of this sort before, but nothing with lumber this solid and without need for [the] real precision [required here]. This video clearly shows the way the pieces will fit. Will such cuts become as commonplace as others I once considered impossible? Only coffee can tell.
I was in the shed three hours with this, mind you I got other stuff done at the same time. Each cut has to be planned and set up properly. I found out how easy it is to make mistakes with this kind of slicing. One thing I found is as long as the fit is reasonably tight, the exterior can be sanded or planed into a nice shape. All of this is the lower limit in size that my gear can work with. The smallest pieces could not hold a clamp and were planned so all cuts but the final were made from a longer piece. An order of planning and precision beyond what I’ve done before.
My concept is to solidly glue the pieces and pin them with tiny dowels. You may not know that I have designed caskets for pets before, but never build any myself. I’ll tell you a bit because this was during a no-journal period of my life, the late 90s. I’d met a chap who retired early after becoming a millionaire with a chain of stereo stores. He now devoted his life to pets and wanted a more dignified ending. In those days most people just left them with the vets.
The man had bought an island on a river east of Vancouver, in Canada, around 15 miles from my place in the USA. His wanted to have a pet cemetery, and I was to build the caskets. I learned a lot and there is a difference between a coffin and a casket. Years later, he told me why the idea failed. Canada. From that Laundromat I bought across the border, I had learned 15 years earlier that Canada is not a place that likes new ideas. It upsets their monstrous tax collection systems.
He ran into the same entrenched bureaucracy. For example, they would not license him to build his own crematorium for pets. He had to use the retorts (ovens) designed for humans—and of course pay the full costs involved. Then came the regulations for the casket. I designed them but what a hassle, as they had to be submitted for inspection and each Canadian bureaucrat found something wrong. Ay, you ask, what could be wrong with a casket? Canada, that’s what.
The casket could not contain any metal parts. They used magnets and metal detectors and charged extra for any metal still found.The wood could not be treated with any chemicals and had to be completely combustible in two hours, or again, pay extra. Only wood that did not release “toxic” smoke was to be used. The box was necessarily no bigger than the retort door, limiting it to pets under 45 pounds. Somewhere in my storage I have a file with pictures of some of the caskets, one day I’ll find them. However, let’s be clear what I’m talking about.
This is the box most people would consider the “coffin”, or the last resting place of their pet, so it has to be large enough to place the pet. In Canada, this has to be done by a vet or you are breaking the law. It was also illegal to bury pets in your own yard and highly illegal to scatter the ashes. In the end, this added $145 to the price of the casket and an urn or other approved container had to be purchased separately. This was 1997-1998, things may have changed, but far too late for me to get anything going.
There, how many of you were expecting that?
ADDENDUM
Is the Hope diamond really cursed? Nope, it is impurities in the diamond that cause it to glow after the lights turn out. Well, to be exact, the color is not blood-red, but orange and the light has to contain ultraviolet wavelengths. I was reading about super-diamonds. The easy explanation is if semi-conductors can be made on diamond chips instead of silicon chips, they can operate hotter, and thus faster. Today I learned boron is an impurity that lets diamond, an insulator, conduct current.
I could not find any really informative source for what is being developed. Semi-conductors produce heat. I wonder what the implications are for chips that could run much hotter without a meltdown. Seems to me there would be a lot more data and speculation than I found.
