August 24, 2026

Yesteryear
One year ago today: August 24, 2025, lowest IQ cube eh-ver.
Five years ago today: August 24, 2021, lost & confused.
Nine years ago today: August 24, 2017, instant band, again.
Random years ago today: August 24, xxxx, WIP

           Another issue to face to day is again guitar players. They all want the 80s back and to front ready-made bands. This will not happen in contemporary Florida. Steve cannot rehearse again until September. I answered a Craigslist posting for a duo looking for a lead player (duh), but said he could strum. If he responds, here we go again. Says he likes to gig 4 – 6 times a month. Where he plans on doing that is such a mystery, I had to send him an e-mail. Meanwhile, I’m stuck with another morning of Tampa radio. The topic today (and many a day) is how long to wait with a new date before you bake the cookies.

           The talk is 90 days. I would not make it. That’s for friends only, in which case make it years, not days. The hilarity was listening to the callers. It would seem most people who take a strong stance on this one have an ulterior motive. Guys know there is nothing like some unmarried broad with a high body count who now wants to sink her fangs in. I have eight women who played significant roles in my live and there was no such waiting period.
           I found this today, one of the original tiny boxes I made with a scroll saw out of solid block of wood. When closed, all the grains match up. It’s done by making all the slices very thin. When glued back together, the cut is imperceptible. I no longer have the patience to make this kind of thing. By mid-moring, the day was written off. I worked in the shed instead of doing things I was supposed to.

           I’ll tell you what is funny. How rapidly even the purest A.I. programming, when left alone to create neurals, quickly becomes “White”, “nazi”, “supremist”, “anti-Semite”, and pro-apartheid. Even when outfits like Google pour in millions to counteract this unexplainable bias, it keeps returning. Several otherwise big apps have been quietly purged because they could not be “fixed” or made “woke”. This photo shows the result when an MIT grad asked AI to make her photo more professional. Before anyone goes lame trying to say it was bias by the coders, she’s the one who wrote the code.
           America is waiting, as Trump moves to deport Ilhan, the one who married her brother to sneak him into the USA. It’s a very popular move in what I believe Trump has planned between now and the mid-terms. He has certainly caught the Democrats with their pants down.

           Breathalyzer cars. I don’t know anything about them. I would have thought there would be a market for used cars with the device already installed. My logic is easy to follow on that one. Not so, there are none I could locate. Once again, I find an item that is not for sale even on eBay. Yes, you can buy the gadget for $30, but in Florida it has to be installed by a certified shop for up to $1,500 and you must return every month for recertification.
           Hinges remain on of the slowest parts of building a box. Several times I have failed to make a simple jig to rout the shape but today I got a Dremel tool to create the correct depth, though it was too difficult to keep it on a straight line. This would be solved by moving the wood instead of the tool. I’ll do some thinking about this. Today’s small project is to test and Arduino controlled H-bridge, the standard approach to making an electric motor run forward and backward. DC only.

           I ran further tests with the combined laser print patterns. Careful, they will print, but with quirks. One being they print in the order placed not left-right-top-bottom. Watch your template preview. I’ve also begun to standardize the laser speed at 3500 mm/min, except 3000 for the new large generic box. I may see if the Thrift is interested in letting me set up a small display. I estimate except for very desirable donations, they don’t make much of a markup once all is considered. With these boxes, they would make $3 each. It’s worth a shot.

           I now have these following designs, small to large.

Button box
Small square
Spice Box
J-box
KL-box
Z box
The new generic box

           The most produced box is the Z box, the most popular is the Spice box. That is partially due to how easy it is to make a Spice, and almost any lumber can be used because the outside dimension is always the same. That means there are dozens of variations of this model, also because most lumber over six feet will make two, kind of a matching set. And they are handy to work with the chop saw. This picture is a dunked tool box drying in the sunlight.
           It’s important to me this fine-testing for ever simpler box design. I admit to myself I’m suffering a relapse, so be prepared with the simplest, if you follow the logic. I'm fallen back to tired, selective tastebuds, although, my sense of balance is returning, though not up to par. I don’t bump into things as much. I’ve maintained my appetite for porridge. My overall energy level has backed off to about a month ago. This is day 207 of 360. I am disappointed.

Picture of the day.
Japanese flavored Kit Kats.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           Finally, I have time to look at Musk’s new factory in Texas. As seen so often, the barrier to market entry is not the technology, but the startup costs. Rumors are he’s sinking $25 billion into it. They re betting on gate all-round, a type of transistor where the current is carried on nano wires, look it up yourself. My interest is the factory. The technology is not new but the design allows for very fast switching and less signal loss. The chips are overkill for consumers so that leaves A.I. as the primary customer. It also takes back chip dominance from the Taiwanese, who sort of stole the know-how, and this factory could leave China in the cold. Musk says most of the computing power will go to “space-based A.I.”, but we have heard such claims before.

           I’ve warned for years, decades actually, that there was a reason the digital world was collecting all your information. Yep, I was a conspiracy theorist, and laughed as people willingly parted with their personal info, thinking nothing had happened to them yet. Ha, now listen to them howl about Flock cameras and data centers. (Flocks are useless without the databases to back them up.) I even get to say I told you so. Sure, my life history is also on-line, but I control the narrative.
           My shed operation is a bit smaller. My big deed was building this nail box. It’s an F-box, no finish on the wood. The jigs for this piece are cutting only. I have none for the assembly stage. But If I ever get around to it, this box is an 8-minute build if all goes well.

           I’ve nothing else for you. Hang on, I have some editorial. It seems some people are again bashing the National Enquirer. Methinks it is an attempted distraction from the real fake news from New York. Hang on, this just in, it seems the National Enquirer has themselves relocated to the Big Apple. Some smart aleck just posted that was because in Florida, 80% of their conspiracy theories started coming true. Unlike WAPO and CNN, the Enquirer admits it pays for its hot tips, known as “checkbook journalism”.
           The tabloid has been the source of tips that led to solving crimes, but I recall various times they were almost bankrupted before being saved by Mafia money. What, you never noticed the lack of Mafia stories? It is from organized crime that the Enquirer began publishing lottery numbers.

           The Ansens are in the news again. That’s the Aussie couple who have now passed the 500 day mark at sea. Instead of paying their cash for a nursing home, bought 51 back-to-back cruise line tickets and live at sea for $100 per day each. No, not for me, I get seasick walking past a Laundromat. One thing on these boats, the entertainment is free.

ADDENDUM
           My property taxes are now annually over 5% of what I paid for the place. And 80% of the tax is for schools where I don’t have any children. Something is going to break the back o that monster. It is far past any argument that so much money is producing a good citizen. Their academic record is appalling, plus I do not agree with the NCLB, the no child left back. It promotes the stupid by taking away from the smart. I say, give the smart ones a fair shake first. That is who will become the future net contributors. And deal with the others with what is left over. Preferably out of your own pocket.
           The saying goes that you cannot comfort the afflicted by afflicting the comfortable. I can agree with some policies that address problems into the future, but not using today’s money to redress matters from the past. Reparations, my foot, unless I can get money for being an “Alamo Survivor” or something. I grew up in a world where dumb students got the bulk of all educational spending, but I had to borrow money to attend college. Don’t even talk to me about other versions of “fairness”.
           I told you about the athletics storeroom, tons of gear in a town that had never produced a pro athlete, but the science lab did not have a single working piece of equipment. It was also the local economy. You could not take a job that paid off later in life because you had to pay rent now. By age 21, of my graduating class of 36 people, 9 were on welfare. A lot of the strife in America today is the result of these unfair handouts to the wrong people, the people who should learn being stupid means a life of damn hard work. There is a reason the rich view poor people as stupid.

           There’s also a rash of videos showing intentional violence by black female athletes against Whites. Time and again, the referees ignore it. I think the leagues would wither and die without the White players, from what I saw, it is something to consider. The leftists continue their age-old demoralization campaign against Trump, but due to the Internet, they no longer get away with each lie very long. This can get amusing in a way, like the big CNN deal being made over the “failure” of Trump’s endorsement. Seems one loss lowered his success rate from 100% to 97%. Some victory, libtards.
           Am I the only one who noticed once USAID was cut back, the BLM and Antifa rioters have disappeared?

Last Laugh