One year ago today: May 16, 2025, at light speed.
Five years ago today: May 16, 2021, they’ve learned . . .
Nine years ago today: May 16, 2017, offending the unsquitable.
Random years ago today: May 16, 2012, on stenography.
Let’s get to that Kooter’s logo. It’s the color design India cropped me off their web page. Nice, but not suitable for laser imprinting. Grab a coffee and let’s see what we can do. Photoscape to the rescue. First, turn in black and white and get rid of that shaded background. Brighten it to the max and do the same with the sharpening filter. Keep looking, you will find the setting that lets you crop circles. Ha-ha, did I just say crop circles? The trick is keep what you want printed above the laser’s white or blank resolution.
mmm, only a half-hour and we have something usable. Take a look at the two side-by-side, the rendering direct from jpeg, then the final output for now. I know that Adobe has the function of changing these graphics to SVC files. But I don’t put Adobe on an Internet computer because I’m not quite that stupid. Without a vector file, each logo requires ten minutes burn time. With accompanying sparks and aroma. Fun and games‽ (Yes, that is an interrobang, and if you see the phrase “hard-to-find 3rd IQ digit” on-line, yep, that was me.)
These views show the results almost to scale but otherwise not that accurately. It appears number three looks best, but it is number four. And the fifth is a “vector” that is junk. Since the software file has no visual edit, you cannot remove that outside border. And the graphic is a lame outline, similar to that Arduino scribe or sketching program I tried many years ago.
The tradeoff with my equipment is time or bother. You can lighten the scan by moving the laser faster, then darken the imprint by making more than one pass. This won’t do, so I stepped through each “free” vector converter on-line. The results are a mixed bag of crap, let’s say I’m still working on it. I cannot be the only person unhappy with the offerings. To date, I would warn impatient people away from laser etchers. There are dozens of desolate dead-ends awaiting you. For example, scorched tabletops, disappointing delays, countless bad results, and the need to have an attended and convenient work table nearby—as if your desk is not already cluttered enough.
It’s pork fried rice for brunch, by mid-morning I am still on the vector conversion path. As usual, 99% of the services are dirty, lying, cheating scum with their fraudulent “free” claims. Worst are the douches who step you through a “free” trial and zap you with their lame price at the final stage. They must figure you won’t back out now. What complete and utter lowlifes, the strange part is how they think they have latched on to something new. The same scams were around along before the Internet—but nobody was ill-bred enough to do it for a living.
South Haven, Michigan.
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According to the James Webb, this 71-galaxy cluster is the largest known single object in the universe. Here is you speeded up pirate copy for those, like myself, don’t think publicly-funded offices should be able to copyright anything. It is near the edge of the event horizon, but don’t quote me on this. NASA has a bad reputation for miswording these type of discoveries. Meanwhile scientists say they are baffled at the increase of AIDS-like turbo-cancer among vaxxed young people.
By 6:00PM, I made it to the shed and built this “bedroom box rack”. I’d measured it out before January and made several errors. Thus, my net gain shown here was one box. It looks neater, you did not see it before I landed in operating theater. My bedroom doubles as a hyper-convenient workshop and that’s the way it will be. The rack was really so I did not have to move more than two boxes to get at anything and for that, it works admirably for a two hour project.
As shown, the boxes are just thrown into place to get them out of my way. I’ll make it more efficient. This is the first real strutcture I’ve built from pallet skids and it was fairly nice to work with. Mind you, keep your clamps handy or it becomes a two-man job. Since this worked well, I think I’ll make a bench along the picture window with storage underneath. What do you think?
My music blurb, which states I am interested only in a duo, has alerts a Lakeland five-piece outfit has been checking and re-checking recently. So I pulled up their profile and so can you, at youTube, They are a five piece, but I’ve jammed with the singer and lead player some five years ago, probably in Auburndale again. They do the Legion circuit and they are loud. Big bands are almost a full-time job.
Which brings us to tonight. I would normally have invited India, but decided to check out Kooters on my own. The guitarist, Jack, was not there. I was way in the back but instantly recognized superior vocals—and also how-and-that the lady with the guitar was not playing most of the time. Aha, I’ve seen this before. Who remembers the mother-daughter band that gave me the runaround? I hesistated because I did not recognize the daughter at all. I remember the girl at 13, not the married woman at 23. But when she began singing her old song list, it clicked. That’s the daughter and she’s back from Nashville.
Aha, again, for the reason I hinted as a warning ten years ago—these other yahoos are failed guitar players and will never stick around. Tell you what, here is a video clip. Recognize the lady? I didn’t, but that is one familiar stage. I’ve played there some 30 times. Remind me to send a copy to the Prez. Let this band happen and there will be no looking back. I already know her entire song list but it is a different band without the mother.
ADDENDUM
It seems Trump’s policies are causing disruption over at OPEC. People tend to forget that organization is a cartel with the sole purpose of inflating oil prices. That tactic works when there is nobody competing with lower prices. That is exactly where Trump is applying the pressure. I don’t know the finer points, but if the cartel falls, the gas should be under a dollar per gallon. I gather the situation in Venezuela could cause the Saudis to increase production at a lower price, which is not compatible with a cartel’s “artificial market discipline”.
