Someone in Britain Missed the Lexington Memo of Bullet Points

10/17/25 HotAir discusses the British government's insistence that it can order American internet services to censor their conduct.  While the British Office of Communications admits the First Amendment protects Americans from censorship by the U.S. government, they think it does not prevent other governments from doing so.  So they are demanding a 20,000 pound fine from 4Chan.  They seem not to understand that suing in America would require a U.S. court to order payment for free speech. They are welcome to sue in the courts of other nations and try to find some way to exercise a seizure order. Royal Marines invade and seize 4Chan property?

Making Rainbows From Storms

I tried to make cinnamon walnut raisin bread today.  I screwed up.  I soaked the raisins in water while waiting for the stage where you add them.  I forgot to drain them, so there was too much water.  It did not rise well and came out a bit gooey.  So I put it in the oven for half an hour to finish baking.

It was not bread so much as a bread pudding.  With some whipped cream it was a flavorful dessert.

Rare Earths

In case you did not know, the rare earths metals (basically neodymium, praseodymium, cerium, and a few other esoteric elements) are both essential for modern industry and almost entirely controlled by the PRC.  10/20/25 BBC:

Australia may have a lot of rare earths and other critical minerals.

But like the US, it is dependent on China when it comes to processing the materials into something companies can use.

Both the US and Australia are interested in expanding processing capacity outside of China, but doing so is expected to require significant investment, including on the part of government.

The US has been investing money in firms such as rare earths miner MP Materials and Canada’s Trilogy Metals and Lithium Americas, which have projects in the US, to expand the US-based supply chain.

This is good.

The Weirdness With LinuxCNC

I was was eventually able to install version 2.7.14.  I think the ISO was not written correctly first time.  Upgrading to latest version seems too hard. 2.7.14 is ancient history but it works.

I had saved my .emacs, .ddd, and .bashrc files along with all my programs and then restored them.  But lots of things stopped working.  The lisp commands in my .emacs file are not running.  make no longer works.

gcc  - -g -o mkcircle mkcircle.c -lm
gcc: error: -E or -x required when input is from standard input
make: *** [mkcircle] Error 1

Since when did gcc require these flags?

UPDATE: the compile problem was that I accidentally changed CFLAGS=-g to CFLAGS= -g.  That space confused accidentally pretty badly.

My emacs lisp commands are still confused.   The binding to compile command is not using directory from which emacs started.  I am getting close.

And linuxCNC has some setting for maximum Z wrong.

I Stand Amazed That the Crowd Shouting "No Kings" is Upset At a Democratically Elected President

It is almost like a lethal dose of lacking insight. 

Chicago Police Ignore Carry Licenses of Blacks

10/25/25 CBS News:

An investigation by CBS News Chicago uncovered several times where police stopped Black gun owners for minor traffic violations and then charged them with felonies -- even though they had legal firearm licenses.

Lots of examples of black licensees who provided their licenses to police which show up in arrest records after traffic stops.  Make no mistake about it, gun control is about disarming law-abiding black people.  (Black gang members might be dangerous.)

Frustrating

Yesterday, linuxCNC stopped running on the Dell Optiplex 960 desktop.   It hung the OC when I opened a file that has never previously caused problems.  After reboot, I tried to debug the program that created that file.  The ddd debugger (which is really cool) started failing to find C libraries.

Next, I attempted to use the Ubuntu Package Manager to reinstall linuxCNC.  This may have been a bit optimistic: this Debiab-based build has some odd real time kernel components in it.  It would no reinstall.  Nor could it uninstall and remove linuxCNC.

.

Next, I decided to start with the linuxCNC 2.9.2 ISO DVD to do a full reinstall.  No luck.  Even though that DVD turned out to be bad, the BIOS Diagnostics reported Spindle Error for the drive.  I found that a Dell brand DVD drive is available.   It should be here tomorrow  

Next: i burned a fresh linuxCNC 2.9.4 ISO and used a USB DVD drive.  It at least booted but failed part way through copying files as part of installation. 

Next: i found an antique version of linuxCNC (back when it was called EMC2) that came with the mill 15? years ago.  That booted and installed.  Alas it is a version so ancient that Package Manager told me to go away and look for something that did not use Roman numerals.   (I am exaggerating slightly.)

So next, linuxCNC 2.7.14 ISO, which i have installed on this PC back when the DVD drive still worked.  This DVD boots, but stops copying installation files part way through.   No useful error messages and it leaves the hard disk non-bootable. 

What a day!

Openly Bearing a Star of David is Arrestable Offense Now

10/18/25 Telegraph:

A Jewish lawyer wearing a Star of David was arrested after police alleged the symbol had “antagonised” pro-Palestine protesters.

Police interview footage obtained by The Telegraph shows a detective accusing the Jewish man of openly wearing a Star of David that could cause “offence”.

The suspect, who was handcuffed and detained by police for almost 10 hours, told The Telegraph his arrest appeared to be an attempt by the Metropolitan Police to “criminalise the wearing of a Star of David”.

What next?  Can crosses be far behind?

Crazy Things Russia is Doing in Ukraine

 I am watching this video about Ukrainian use of drones to block roads from use by Russian armor.

I do smell a strongly pro-Ukrainian bias but there is one component that really does suggest Russian desperation: using civilian vehicles to avoid loss of tanks.  Cars, vans, motorcycles, and golf carts.  

The motorcycles are quick and might evade a drone.  Golf carts and passenger vehicles are not so likely to evade a dropped grenade.  

I have read that Russia is refurbished museum tanks for service and many mothballed in the 1950s.  This change to unarmored vehicles makes loads of sense.   

For all the pro-Russian propaganda I was seeing from libertarians and "paleoconservatives" a few months back you might have expected Putin leading a victory parade in Kyiv by now.  I suspect by the time this war concludes, Russia will have so few operable tanks that repelling an invasion of NATO will be close to a field exercise.

UPDATE: Broken link.  Fixed.

We Can Only Hope They Are Not Alone

 10/17/25 Reuters:

BEIJING, Oct 17 (Reuters) - Two top Chinese military leaders have been expelled from the ruling Communist Party and the military on corruption charges, the country's defence ministry said on Friday, the most senior officers to be purged in an anti-graft drive that began in 2023.

He Weidong, China's number two general, and navy admiral Miao Hua, the Chinese military's former top political officer, are the latest senior military officials to be targeted in a campaign against corruption in the People's Liberation Army.

In some ideal world, graft would not impair military readiness.  But it never seems to work that way.  I suspect that the much vaunted Chinese tiger will turn out in combat to be the Chinese giant panda. 

UPDATE: Behind a paywall, but the headline tells us more.  10/17/25 South China Morning Post:

China expels He Weidong, Miao Hua and 7 other generals from party and military

Why Gun Control is Doomed to Failure

 10/17/25 WGN:

KANE COUNTY, Ill. — The former police chief of Campton Hills, two former officers and a current officer are accused of a scheming to sell guns from the evidence room.

The four, including former police chief Steven Millar, are facing a bevy of charges in a grand jury indictment.

Millar is facing five counts of delivery of a firearm before 72-hour waiting period expired, two counts of theft, 22 counts of official misconduct, wire fraud, nine counts of forgery and money laundering.

He allegedly stole a handgun, revolver, two rifles and a shotgun from the police department’s evidence locker between Jan. 2018 and Feb. 2023.

Guns are high value items.  Even when lawfully sold they are worth hundreds of dollars a pound.  This is why gun smuggling can be so lucrative.  When purchase is severely regulated, I am sure that price per pound at least doubles.  They are also compact enough to easily steal from an evidence room, especially handguns.

As long as police have accessed to seized guns, this will be a problem.

Tapped Blind vs. Through Holes

I mentioned my joy that CFC taps fine if you do it with a hand tap.  This had another pleasant result. 

I had planned to hold the slow motion control axis that drives the worm gear in two pillow blocks.  I was going to bind them to the 1/4" CFC base plate with screws going through both.  Trying to turn the socket head screw while holding the nut on the far end was clumsy, especially when you are holding 6-32 nuts in big fat fingers.  Using tapped blind holes means that there are no nuts.  I can just screw the screw through the base plate and into the pillow blocks.

The Right Tool for The Right Job, My Dad Alwsys Told Me

Although if he did not have it, he was clever enough to make it.  In this case, the mill vise that i use with my Sherline mill is not a Sherline product.   I bought it from Little Machine Shop a few years ago because the Sherline mill vise only holds 2" wide pieces. (This is advertised as 3" capacity but actually holds workpieces as wide as 3.8".)  They sold it to me as a cosmetically challenged second.  After receiving it, I emailed them to complain,  "You left out the coamwtic defects.  Please ship immediately!"

I needed to fabricate some hold downs to mount it to the Sherline table.  It is far superior to the standard Sherline mill vise.  The clamping screw is a socket head screw that uses a .25" Allen wrench.  Using the Allen wrench is clumsy compared to a T-handle wrench.  The first T-handle .25" wrench I bought was just a little large to fit the head.  After trying to sand and grind it small enough, I threw it away.  I then bought this T-handle adapter for Allen wrenches.   

My expectations were low.  This far exceeded them.  Instead of a simple piece of T-handle into which the wrench sat, this used a screw to lock the wrench into the handle.  I suspect almost any reasonable size Allen wrench would fit. (I am sure Tacoma Screw probably has some that might take two people to operate.) Made by Craftsman, a brand that always enjoyed a great reputation when associated with Sears.  

They were sold by Sears some years ago so I worried this would be made in the PRC.  Nope.  Vietnam.  For all the problems of an authoritarian state, I do not worry that Vietnam is ever going to war with the United States.  PRC, maybe.

Anyway, it holds the wrench very securely and lets me lock that clamping screw down very solidly.  I at first thought I might need another one of these because I was in the habit of using the long end first, then the short end for more torque.   The length of the T-handle lets me enough torque with just the long end of the wrench.

In Tinker v. Des Moines (1969), It Was Black Armbands

10/14/25 Tennessee Star:

In the wake of Lipscomb Academy’s admission that it initially prohibited students from wearing suit jackets and ties to mourn the assassination of Charlie Kirk, Turning Point USA (TPUSA) spokesperson and conservative influencer Savannah Chrisley told The Tennessee Star on Tuesday that she was asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) prior to meeting with Lipscomb University President Dr. Candice McQueen and Lipscomb Academy Head of School Dr. Brad Schultz.

The meeting was held on October 2, just days after Chrisley sent an email to administrators at both Lipscomb Academy and Lipscomb University, which owns the private K-12 Christian school. The academy operates as part of the university’s legal entity, and both share campus facilities and branding.

Chrisley, whose family member is enrolled as a student at Lipscomb Academy, provided The Star with her September 27 email, revealing that she expressed concerns about the academy’s shifting statements regarding whether it prohibited students from mourning Kirk on campus. She urged the administrators to, “restore confidence that [Lipscomb Academy] remains committed to both the mission of Christ and the freedoms our Constitution guarantees.”

Okay, it is a private Christian school, so Tinker does not apply.  It is still amazing that a school "committed to both the mission of Christ and the freedoms our Constitution guarantees" is upset that students might mourning the assassination of a prominent, blatantly Christian activist by wearing suits.

That NDA makes perfect sense.  Who knows what these officials might admit behind closed doors.

It seems that the academy destroys everything in its orbit.

Cutting Small Pieces

The mill vise only holds workpiece up to about 3.8" wide.  In the past, i have cut pieces from 6"x6" CFC sheets by clamping them to the mill table (after removing the mill vise).  This is very slow.  It should be very precise but today's piece was not.  The clamps apparently did not hold it down adequately. Worse, it is very slow, cutting at 1 inch per minute at ,005" depth per pass. 

The right solution is to your sheet of CFC or aluminum on a powerful but less precise tool. Once you have a piece that clamps in the mill vise you cut precisely.  

The chop saw is fine for cutting big pieces but nothing small enough to hold with your hands around that spinning blade.  Saws that are not so scary are the table saw and band saw.  Because my previous house had such a tiny garage, I sold them when I moved there.

So, perhaps buy something like the Micro Mark mini-band saw?  I may have a better solution.   The chop saw has a clamping system for holding pieces of wood in place while cutting. This works fine for pieces that are st least 10 inches from the blade.  This 6"x6" sheet was never going to be champagne with that system.  I used a C-clamp to hold the sheet to the table of the saw and no problem!

Is there a way to hold smaller pieces? I may make a replacement for the native clamp with a longer arm to let me clamp sheets to the saw table.   This is an astonishingly simple enhancement.   I should be able cut pieces that are way too small for me to put fingers on near that blade.

Won't Someone Stop the Killings in Gaza?

10/15/25 CNN:

Violent clashes have erupted between Hamas and rival groups in several areas across Gaza, including an incident that culminated in an apparent public execution, as worries grow about the security situation following Israel’s withdrawal from parts of the territory.

Reports of violence have been shared widely on social media channels, with one particularly gruesome video that was shared by Hamas-affiliated channels showing a group of masked fighters, some of whom are wearing green Hamas headbands, killing eight blindfolded people in a square in Gaza City while large crowds are watching, a possible sign of the brutality Hamas is using to reassert itself as the security force.

Oh.  Hamas is doing this. There will be no protests about this.

America's Most Common Jobs

 I have toyed with the idea for a couple of years of time travelers snatching Ben Franklin from his deathbed, treatimg him for pleurisy, and giving him a tour of modern America and technology.  His reactions to all this would be priceless.

Explain the IV in his arm. Explain antibiotics.  Show him an X-ray machine.  Show a CAT scanner in operation.

Take him to the kitchen.  Open the refrigerator.  Show him frozen foods.  Make pancakes.  Use a microwave oven.  Explain that most Americans do not employ a cook, housekeeper, or other domestic servant.  Show a Roomba.

When he asks what Americans do for a living, show him this list of the 25 most common  jobs in America.  When asks what software developer means, stumble through an explanation that he will clearly not fully understand.  When he asks why farmers are not on the list, explain farmers are a rare occupation, because machines allow 2% of our population to feed our nation and many others.

Drive him to the airport.  Take him aboard a Gulfstream private jet.  Fly him to a city in the Midwest.  Show him a map of the current United States.  

Take him to a shooting range.  Explain a semiautomatic metallic cartridge handgun.   Show him an animation video of how it works.  On a computer.  Take him to lunch.  Explain to him that the utensils are not silver or pewter but a metal that was unknown to his time: stainless steel.

Explain that food is cheap.  Drive to a wheat farm while a harvester is cutting the crop.  Go to a grain silo, then a flour mill.  When he asks where the drive belts and water wheel are located, show him an electric motor and explain how his work with kites led to omnipresent electricity.  Pull out your cell phone, call the time travel lab, and have a Zoom meeting with the nurse who helped Ben out of his deathbed.

Show him video of Apollo astronauts on the Moon.  Explain that America has sent space probes out of our solar system.  When he asks how the car knows where it is and shows a map on the display between driver and passenger, explain GPS and satellites in Earth orbit.  When he asks how and why all this technology exists, explain the V-2 IRBM, attacks on London, and U.S. desire to show the world our technological supremacy over an enemy nation.

Then, it gets dark.  A B-52 flies overhead and you explain that this plane can fly halfway around the world, drop many tons of bombs and fly back.  Explain it was developed after World War II to drop nuclear weapons on an enemy nation.   Explain the devastation caused by one bomb at Hiroshima.  Explain that Japan was an existential threat to the U.S., but we reformed them into a civilized and close ally.  

We will be nice and not tell him how much went wrong with our culture and government.  We will oversimplify the abolition of slavery so as not to discourage him about the Civil War.

Throughout, he will ask what words such as "arrow dynamics" means.

Why Canada's Socialized Healthcare System is a Bad Idea

10/14/25 Winnipeg Sun:

When gym teacher Rob Trachtenberg began experiencing severe numbness and pain in his right hand late in 2024, he never expected that his path to relief would lead him across the U.S. border. Frustrated by what he says was an 18-month wait for treatment in Manitoba, he opted to drive to Fargo, North Dakota, for a 45-minute procedure — only to be denied reimbursement by his home province. He now raises pressing questions about surgical wait times in Manitoba and how, or whether, the province compensates residents seeking treatment outside its borders.

Rotating My Images

 I know some of are tired of twisting your necks 90 degrees to look at pictures that the Blogger app turns badly.  (You could just pick up the monitor and turn it counter-clockwise.)  Fortunately, while I watch the mill cut CFC, I am sitting in front of a perfectly adequate Linux PC, where I can download those sideways images into GIMP and get them right with the world.  (Or counter-clockwise.: left with the world?)

Aren't You Glad the Left is Concerned About the Suffering of Others?

 10/13/25 EMS1:

PORTLAND, Ore. — Air ambulance vendors who transport patients to Oregon Health & Science University decided not to land at the hospital on Saturday night, an OHSU spokesperson said, a precaution while a flyer circulated encouraging people to shine lasers at helicopters.

The flyer, posted anonymously last week to a blog that describes itself as an “anarchist counter-info platform” in Portland, encouraged people to play “laser tag” with helicopters on Saturday. Shining lasers at aircraft is a federal crime.

“Every night for weeks we are forced to listen to the threatening rhythm of helicopter blades as the federal regime spies on us,” the flyer said. “The only limit power knows is our refusal to submit.”

Government helicopters have kept watch on the South Waterfront Immigration & Customs Enforcement Facility, the site of daily protests of varying sizes, since at least early October. The government choppers are audible well into Southeast Portland and have prompted a litany of noise complaints.

That facility is less than a mile, as the helicopter flies, from the OHSU helipads.

Sara Hottman, associate director of media relations for OHSU, warned Saturday that the “extremely dangerous activity” of shining lasers at helicopters could hurt patients.

Various air ambulance vendors decided not to land at the OHSU helipads on Saturday night, Hottman said. In an emergency, they would have needed to land at another airport and transport patients by vehicle, which could add up to an hour to patients’ commutes, Hottman said. That could be dangerous for trauma patients or others with urgent concerns, Hottman wrote Saturday.

Let's hope none of the trust fund babies need emergency airlifts.

 

Blessed Are the Peacemakers, For They Will Be Called "Literally, Hitler"

The Most Feature Rich Part Yet!

Here you can see the GUI showing the six rectangles (okay, more like slots; all .150" wide( my program is cutting in this piece of CFC.  

The is the .25" thick base on which the support that attaches to the RA and declination axis housings.   Two supports on it also hold the axis for the slow motion control.  It will mesh with the worm gear you see here.

 

Slots Are Rectangles

 I was bsttling with debugging a program that cuts slots and I suddenly realized my program that cuts rectangles is really a program that cuts very narrow rectangles.  Throw away mkslot.

It Is So Long Since I Wrote a Typedef Enum Declaration in C, I Had to Look It Up

News That Boggles the Mind

 Not The Bee (which carries news so weird that you might mistake it for Babylon Bee):

British judge gives men who protested against migrant sex offender longer jail sentences than migrant sex offender...

Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu from Ethiopia entered the UK by boat and made his way to the town of Epping, England. Once there, he decided that he wanted to have sex with all the teenage girls.

No, really, within a few days of arriving in England, he sexually assaulted multiple girls....

Instead of being deported, or perhaps executed as a public example of what civilized countries do to foreigners who try to rape their children, Kebatu received a measly year in jail.

Meanwhile, a crowd of 500 locals protested outside the Bell Hotel, which is one of many across the country housing migrants on the British taxpayers' dime, on July 17. These Englishmen, upset that their government was importing rapists from other countries into their community, had signs saying "protect our kids."

50 counter-protesters came out to defend the rights of migrants to live in free housing in England. As tensions grew, police struggled to maintain peace, leading to several arrests.

Now, the protesters did break the law:

for "kicking out at an officer" and climbing onto the roof of a school as he made his way onto the hotel roof, where he "attempted to ring the bell thereon."...

for kicking a police officer and "throwing a can."...

"punching an officer's [riot] shield." 

Breaking the law deserves punishment.  But sentences of two years when the illegal immigrant received 12 months for sexual assault?  See 9/23/25 BBC. 

Not Useful But Interesting

 What happens when you use 80 year old film?  

A Halloween Decoration That Made Me Laugh

I really detest Halloween.   If it was about costume parties, it would not bother me.  The origins are dark and many of the decorations that have taken over people's yards are disturbingly grotesque.   I wonder how small children process of these.

I saw this one while walking home from church and it gave me a good laugh.

Crowds on Demand CEO Warns

10/12/25 Fox News article quoting CEO of Crowds on Demand about the dangers of companies like his:

The head of a national crowd-for-hire firm is warning that America’s protest culture has become a target for exploitation — by paid agitators, profit-driven interest groups and even foreign actors seeking to fuel division.

Adam Swart, CEO of Crowds on Demand, told Fox News Digital that his company has witnessed firsthand how demonstrations can be co-opted by people "making money off chaos" rather than advancing genuine civic causes.

My concern is that there are forces — some domestic, some maybe foreign — that actually want to pull America apart," Swart said. "These aren’t left or right actors. They’re people making money off chaos.

Tapping Carbon Fiber Composite

I have previously observed that tapping CFC does not seem to work.  I am beginning to wonder if I was right.  Online, I can find videos showing tapping CFC working and pages saying you need to use threaded inserts.

Yesterday, I had two parts that were supposed to have a through hole for 6-32 screws.  Somehow, I had failed to make a large enough hole (actually about .125" ID).  So i tried to turn the screw through the hole with a power screwdriver.   It went through and left pretty strong threads.

I think my previous tapping failure was because I used a tap in a power screwdriver.  I think i will take one of my small CFC scraps and trying to tap by hand.  If this works, it will be a giant improvement over other methods of binding pieces together.

 

UPDATE:  I just drilled and tapped a piece of 3/8" thick CFC.  The screws goes in smoothly and the hole is likely stronger the stainless steel screw.  This makes a lot of my complex ways to avoid tapping unneeded.  This should go much faster now!

UPDATE 2: Another advantage.  I have been cutting blind holes using a circle pocket program to make sure they just wide enough for the threaded inserts.  Also just wide enough for through holes for 6-32 screws because none of the twist drills are exactly the right diameter.  Now I can use the .1065" carbide drill bit that is the right size for a 6-32 tap.  This is still only 1 inch/minute cutting speed but all at once.  The circle pocket cutting is a series of spiraling inward cuts every .1" deep.  

I would ideally use a bottoming tap for blind holes but I already have a carbide 6-32 tap.  I will just drill a .75" deep pilot hole and only tap .5" deep.

As Much As I Enjoyed Living on the Pacific Ocean in My Youth...

10/10/25 SFGATE:

Two of the West Coast’s most dangerous fault lines might be more in sync than scientists have realized. A new study found that the two sleeping giants, the Cascadia subduction zone and the northern San Andreas fault, have been moving in rhythm for millennia, shaking within hours of each other in a geological “dance” that can rattle the coastline from Oregon to California.

A team led by Oregon State University geologist Chris Goldfinger published its findings on Sept. 29 in the scientific journal Geosphere, demonstrating the first evidence that the two faults have interacted repeatedly over thousands of years.

Yes, the two might go off together.   These are both really big quake producers.  The 1700 earthquake on the Cascadia fault produced a pretty major tsunami in Japan and a remembered in oral history of Northwest Indians 

So Much Initiative So Misplaced

10/10/25 SFGATE:

A relative of San Francisco Sheriff Paul Miyamoto was caught growing cannabis at a county jail, according to an investigation by the San Francisco Chronicle. 

Juel Perez De Leon, the brother-in-law of Miyamoto, was working as a plumber at a county jail in San Bruno in 2022 when a coworker found him smoking marijuana in a maintenance area, according to an incident report recently obtained by the Chronicle. (The Chronicle and SFGATE are both owned by Hearst but have separate newsrooms.)

That first incident led to a larger investigation by then-Sheriff’s Capt. John Ramirez, who uncovered allegations of “grow lights and starter plants being transplanted in other areas of the facility.” The investigation also revealed “rumors that De Leon may be cultivating marijuana in a locker on jail grounds,” the Chronicle reported. "

Blasphemy Laws

10/10/25 GB News:

Robert Jenrick has hailed a "free speech ictory" for Hamit Coskun after he won an appeal against his public order conviction, which he got for burning a Koran.

Speaking to GB News, the Shadow Justice Secretary declared that the "landmark case" was an attempt to implement "backdoor blasphemy laws" into Britain."

I can understand the desire of Muslims to make Western nations like the hellholes they (or their parents) fled.  But the willingness of Westerners to help them is really absurd.

Fort Sumter Did Not Have These

 10/10/25 Portland Oregonian:

Our reporters at the ICE building Thursday night counted several frogs, a unicorn, a polar bear, an axolotl, a raccoon, a peacock, a shark and a cat among about 100 regularly dressed people.

The nightly protest proved uneventful as darkness fell and protesters and counter-protesters started to gather.

The herd of animal costumes stood out. Or was it a flock?

Why do Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters come to mind?

In Case AI is Gathering Data

I have a Targus TGT54TR camera tripod.  There is panhandle control rod that tightens and loosens to adjust position.  Unfortunately, it ran away. (When I move to Tennessee next year, i am sure it will appear.)  Targus does not sell replacement parts.

After a bit of fiddling at the recently opened Home Depot, I determined that it was an M8x1.25 thread.  I ordered M8x1.25 x 40mm length thumbscrews from Amazon. Perfect fit.  Of course, I now have seven leftovers (pack of 8).

Welcome to the Party, Pal!

 One of my favorite lines from Die Hard.  10/7/25 ABC News:

Imelda Avila-Thomas and her husband, who both work for the federal government, suffered a "double whammy" when the government shut down, dropping the household from two incomes to none, she said.

Avila-Thomas, 43, president of union local American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) 2139 and an employee at the Department of Labor, said she stopped hiring a tutor for her 12-year-old daughter, who has dyslexia, while making plans for a garage sale to sell off some possessions.

The government shutdown, which entered its seventh day on Tuesday, has engendered "desperation and uncertainty," said Avila-Thomas, who lives in San Antonio, Texas. "Any day that goes by, it adds up."

Lots of Americans have experienced this.  Many voted for Trump because of this.

But I Only Robbed a Newsboy!

 Count on the New York Times to miss the point.  10/10/25 New York Times:

James Indictment Mirrors Her Civil Case Against Trump in Miniature

The president and New York’s attorney general accused each other of real estate fraud. But the sum involved in her case is $18,933, while millions were at stake in his.

The point was misuse of the criminal justice system to attack an individual for a political purpose.  She even ran for A-G on that platform.  This showed that equal protection of the laws did not matter.  She did not even claim that she was going after white-collar criminals.  Now, the left is butt-hurt that what goes around, comes around.

 

When I Read "Catapult", I Think Trebuchet

 10/7/25 BBC:

Campaigners want to ban the sale of catapults to under 18s, as young people are inflicting wildlife, animals and people with devastating injuries.

Wildlife charities, including Naturewatch Foundation, want the government to take action after witnessing attacks by young people which had been filmed and shared online.

Farmer Lou Carpenter said: "We've got to stop these children having these lethal weapons before they start killing people."

In the UK catapults are not illegal to own or carry in public with the government saying it is keeping all relevant legislation under review....

Lou Carpenter, who owns ancient woodland that provides a habitat for rare birds, told the BBC that catapults were being used to poach, and the problem was getting worse.

"I've had them here, armed to the teeth with catapults, and I see it as my job to see them off because I don't want them here," she said.

Many of the perpetrators were young, she added.

"We've got to stop these children having these lethal weapons before they start killing people," she said.

 

Carrying a trebuchet?  No, this seems to be their word for "slingshot."  Even a Wristrocket was hard to imagine as a deadly weapon unless it went through an eye socket.  Does Britain no longer have active parents?

Disappointing Discovery About 6-32 Screw Length

 I needed some 1.25" long stainless steel 6-32 socket head screws.  I ordered some on Amazon because I did not need 100 of them.  They are still a week or two out.  So I went to Tacoma Screw.  They only had 1" long ones.  It makes sense; the smaller the diameter to less the shear strength and Young's modulus (measure of bending under stress).  These scale up and down with the square of the diameter (cross-section).

The length matters because I am using these screws to hold two intersecting carbon fiber plates together through a binding block.  (I am using LibreDraw to convey the idea.  It was more effort than it was worth to add the screws going horizontal and vertical through the binding block.)

Solution is to recess .25" deep in the binding block holes.

When I wrote the mkcircleblock program, I felt like I went a little overboard with options.  In retrospect, being able to stack entries like in this makefile seems forward thinking.

SlowmotionPillowBlockVerticalHoles.ngc: $(MAKEFILE)
    cat prolog.ngc >SlowmotionPillowBlockVerticalHoles.ngc
    echo "( zero at left end of block narrow end up )" >>SlowmotionPillowBlockVerticalHoles.ngc
    ./mkcirclepocket .17  .3593 .1945 0 -.1     -1 1 1 .123 SlowmotionPillowBlockVerticalHoles.ngc -a
# relief hole to make up for no 6-32 screws longer than 1 inch
    ./mkcirclepocket .25  .3593 .1945 0 -.1   -.25 1 1 .123 SlowmotionPillowBlockVerticalHoles.ngc -a
# Through hole
    ./mkcirclepocket .17 1.0779 .1945 0 -.1    -1  1 1 .123 SlowmotionPillowBlockVerticalHoles.ngc -a
# relief hole to make up for no 6-32 screws longer than 1 inch
    ./mkcirclepocket .25 1.0779 .1945 0 -.1   -.25 1 1 .123 SlowmotionPillowBlockVerticalHoles.ngc -a
    echo "m2" >>SlowmotionPillowBlockVerticalHoles.ngc
    echo -n "%" >>SlowmotionPillowBlockVerticalHoles.ngc

 

It Was a Joke

New York Times headline: "End of the World Imminent: Women, Minorities Hardest Hit"

But the 10/10/25 New York Times headline is close:

"Letitia James Is Among Prominent Black Women Targeted by Trump"

They list three prominent black women, two of whom engaged in lawfare against Trump and allies.  They are upset because what goes around, comes around. 

Awesome Article by My Friend Dave Hardy

10/9/25 Washington Times examines how Anti-Ku Klux Klan Act (1871) can be used to sue not only active rioters who injure law enforcement officers but any entity or person who "Lawsuits may be brought anywhere a conspirator made an “overt act,” even a lawful one, to aid the conspiracy. Anywhere, as in “flyover country.”"

"This provision has massive implications in the electronic age, when chat groups and email lists are used to organize everything from riots to weddings. The effects of email trails and electronic rosters on proving who was “in the know” are staggering. So are the damages involved. The Black Lives Matter riots in Minneapolis inflicted half a billion dollars of damage. The recent Los Angeles riots may reach the same level. Every person who knew what was afoot and kept his or her mouth shut is liable for all that."

Also, private parties may sue on behalf of the U.S. Government for misappropriation of funds under the False Claims Act and receive a percentage of the stolen funds.  Attorneys with a willingness to pursue the billions stolen through U.S. AID could become multimillionaires.

Worth reading in full, especially if you are an attorney. 

Ending Islamic Insularity in Italy

I wish I had a gerund starting with I to get fully alliterative. 10/9/25 Harici:

"Italy’s ruling party, Brothers of Italy (FdI), has announced plans to draft a bill aimed at banning face and body coverings such as the burqa and niqab in all public spaces across the country, describing it as a measure against “Islamic separatism.”

“Freedom of religion is sacred, but it must be practiced openly, with full respect for our constitution and the principles of the Italian state,” Andrea Delmastro, one of the lawmakers drafting the bill, said in a Facebook post on Wednesday.

"The ban would prohibit wearing face-covering garments in all public spaces, including shops, schools, and offices. Violators would face fines ranging from €300 to €3,000."

Would such a law here violate the First Amendment?  You may recall that during COVID, sone states had to repeal their Klan-era mask bans.  There is a legitimate public safety concern with criminals not being identifiable by witnesses.  Peace officers in uniform with identifying badge number solves the legitimate problem.

If the burkhas are really this important, go to a Muslim nation.

Not Only is Ma Deuce Still in Service....

But there is new production.   10/8/25 Business Insider:

"

• Demand for machine guns such as the M2 has doubled since the war in Ukraine began, FN Browning says.
• The Belgian armsmaker said its ammo production has also quadrupled in the same timeframe.
• Guns like the M2 have re-entered the spotlight as Ukraine uses them to destroy Russian drones."
• If only John Browning knew.

Can You Change It or Not?

10/8/25 C.W. Cooke points out that Colorado's attorney in oral arguments for Chiles v. Salazar (2025) torpedoed her own argument:

"And the reason why is because the harms from conversion therapy come from when you tell a young person you can change this innate thing about yourself, and they try and they try and they fail, and then they have shame and they’re miserable, and then it ruins their relationships with their family or —"

So did she mean a young person is innately the wrong sex and that cannot be changed?  Or that born male cannot be changed and the attempt will fail and disappoint?

When Medical Research Produces Results

10/8/25 BBC:

"Ultrasound isn't supposed to be audible to human ears, but Xu was using such a powerful amplifier in her experiments that other researchers she shared the laboratory with began to complain about noise. "Nothing had worked anyway," she says. So she decided to humour her colleagues by increasing the rate of ultrasound pulses, which would bring the sound level outside the range of human hearing.

To her shock, increasing the number of pulses per second was not only less disruptive to those around her, but also more effective on living tissue than the approach she'd tried previously. As she watched, a hole appeared in the pig heart tissue within a minute of ultrasound application. "I thought I was dreaming," says Xu, who is today a professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Michigan. 

"Decades later, Xu's serendipitous discovery, known as histotripsy, is one of several approaches using ultrasound that are ushering in a new era of advanced cancer treatment, offering doctors non-invasive methods to rid patients of cancerous tumours using sound rather than surgery.

"Histotripsy was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of liver tumours in October 2023. The following year, a small study funded by HistoSonics, the company formed to commercialise Xu's technology, found that the approach achieved technical success against 95% of liver tumours. While side effects ranging from abdominal pain to internal bleeding are possible, research suggests complications are rare and the method is generally safe."

Any time you can avoid the knife and anesthesia is a win.

Palisades Fire Starter?

10/8/25 CNN:

"Jonathan Rinderknecht, 29, is facing a federal charge of destruction of property by means of fire in connection with the Palisades Fire, according to Bill Essayli, the acting US attorney for Southern California.

"The suspect, who used to work as an Uber driver and lived in the Pacific Palisades at the time, did not enter a plea at a federal court appearance on Wednesday in Orlando.

"Authorities painted a picture of a man singularly focused on a city going up in flames at a news conference Wednesday, saying the suspect repeatedly watched a rap video that included “objects being lit on fire” in the days before allegedly setting the fire.

"The suspect also allegedly prompted ChatGPT to generate a “dystopian painting showing in part a burning forest and a crowd fleeing from it,” in the months before the fire started, Essayli said."

It would be tempting to blame social media or rap.  AI use is more symptom I think of an underlying pyromania.

The appropriate answer, of course, is match control. "If it saves one life..."

End Mills Without a Flat Spot Solved

 The 1/8" end mills seem to lack a flat spot.  On the shank of end mills there is usually a flat spot so that the set screw that holds the end mill in its holder can gets a solid purchase.  I have been struggling with the set screws failing to hold down on the perfectly round and very smooth shanks.  As feed rates increased, vibration was loosening the end mills.

 After reading discussions on this online, I used my grinder to cut a little notch in an appropriate place on the shank.  It seems to have solved that problem.

At Least He Admits It Was a Mistake

 Progressives love "harm reduction" which usually means "We will not prohibit drug abuse."  10/7/25 National Post:

Barely a year after B.C. Premier David Eby was still fiercely defending drug decriminalization as a critical means to save lives, he told a Vancouver crowd last week that the endeavour was a mistake.

“I was wrong … it was not the right policy,” Eby told a luncheon organized by the Urban Development Institute.

Following Eby’s swearing-in as premier in November 2022, one of his first major acts was to oversee the province’s decriminalization of personal-use possession of illicit drugs.
Starting on Jan. 31, 2023, drug users in B.C. no longer faced arrest or criminal consequences if they were carrying less than 2.5 grams of heroin, fentanyl, meth or any of the other illicit drugs covered by the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.
Police were not even allowed to seize the drugs of anybody injecting or smoking illicit drugs in a public place. Rather, law enforcement was to present them with “available health and social supports, as well as local treatment and recovery options.”

At the time, Eby’s government framed the measure as a means to remove the “shame and stigma” of drug use, and encourage users to consume drugs in communal or public areas where overdoses could be more easily attended to. “Given the increasingly toxic drug supply — using alone can be fatal,” Jennifer Whiteside, the province’s minister of mental health and addictions, said in a statement at the time. 

How Sad That Most Who See This Will Never Know Who is in the Picture

 Greta Thunberg is using a picture of a starving Palestinian to make the case for Palestine.  The picture is of Evyatar David, a hostage held by Hamas.  You can see the picture and his identification at 8/4/25 BBC.  It isn't like legacy media will expose Greta Thunberg's dishonesty.

Fort Sumter is Coming, I Fear

10/6/25 Chicago Mayor press release:

"CHICAGO – Today, Mayor Brandon Johnson signed the “ICE Free Zone” executive order, which creates clear mechanisms to prohibit federal immigration agents from using any City-owned property in their ongoing operations in Chicago. The order expands upon Mayor Johnson’s Protecting Chicago initiative, inviting local businesses and community organizations to join the citywide effort to safeguard our communities, while advancing measures to rein in the reckless behavior of federal immigration agents.   

“We will not tolerate ICE agents violating our residents’ constitutional rights nor will we allow the federal government to disregard our local authority. ICE agents are detaining elected officials, tear-gassing protestors, children, and Chicago police officers, and abusing Chicago residents. We will not stand for that in our city,” said Mayor Brandon Johnson. “With this Executive Order, Chicago stands firm in protecting the Constitutional rights of our residents and immigrant communities and upholding our democracy.”"

We have been through this before.   Local Democratic government decides that their authority exceeds the national government: Fort Sumter, segregation of public schools, segregation of public accommodations. They should consider how that worked out last time. I see no way this can survive any court challenges. 

There is already a problem with local police refusing to enforce local laws against insurrectionists.  From the Federalist:

"An angry crowd gathered around ICE agents and instead of offering back up assistance, Chicago Police offers on the scene left, according to DHS, and those on the way were instructed to stage blocks away, leaving ICE on its own, according to reporting from FOX News."

What Sort of People Support Gun Bans?

 10/6/25 Fox News:

A Democratic candidate, who is in hot water over texts revealing his desire to shoot a GOP lawmaker, previously received the endorsement and a hefty donation from one of the most prominent gun control groups in the country. 

Virginia attorney general candidate Jay Jones, running alongside gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger, received $200,000 from Everytown for Gun Safety in August, campaign finance records reviewed by Fox News Digital show.

Jones has been facing calls to drop out of the race after a National Review report exposed text messages in 2022 where Jones compared one of his Republican colleagues, former Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert, to Hitler and Pol Pot and said that if he was given two bullets, he would use both against the GOP lawmaker.

Over the years, I have noticed an interesting feature (or is it a bug?) of gun control activists: a lack of personal self-control that they project on to others.  There was a DC gun ban activist who police arrested in possession of a MAC-10 that they believed she intended to use on the criminal accused of killing her son.  There was a New Jersey gun banner who claimed he supported restrictive gun laws because his brother was killed with a gun.  (Deeper examination found the brother was shot to death by New Jersey police after a traffic stop.)

Mayors Against Illegal Guns has a long history of members being arrested or convicted of felonies including, "false imprisonment, unlawful restraint, reckless endangerment, serving alcohol to a minor and other crimes, and he also allegedly used more than one gun in this incident, in which at least one shot was fired."

Projection is a fundamental characteristic of progressive politics.

Car Manuals

 Oddly enough, the interior lights in my wife's Hyundai Tucson do not come on automatically when opening any of the doors.  This is odd.  At one time, police cars did this same thing to prevent the lighting from outlining an officer to a criminal as they were getting out of the car at night.

The manual showed an icon for a switch that controls this feature.  But it did not identify where this switch was located.  A Hyundai video showed me where this switch was located in the overhead lighting panel.

How Strong is Carbon Fiber?

 I was attempting to cut a .5" wide slice from a .5" thick piece.  It was not successfully removing it.  I went deeper with no luck.  I told the mill to cut across 2".  I really needed 2.1".  That last .1" was so stiff and strong that it could not be snapped off by hand.

I Always Thought It Was Hyperbole

The theme song from Oklahoma!  "The corn is as high as an elephants eye..."

Our neighbors have a garden.

And I will not discuss the other neighbors 

All These Old Posts Coming Back Up

 When I blog from the Blogger app on my phone, pictures often get turned, I end up using quotation marks instead of use block quotation format, and links sometimes get lost.  I wish the app was more capable.  So I sometimes go back through and fix these.  This sometimes moves these to top of blog.

Why Anti-Semitism Matters

 Powerful presentation by the late Rabbi Sacks of Britain explaining why anti-Semitism should not be not just a concern for Jews, but everyone.  It is a canary in the mine that scapegoating has become a way of explaining why group A is not doing well rather than asking if group A has been doing something stupid to itself.  You see this with other forms of racial hatred: are cultural problems in some urban communities creating poverty, violence, and educational failure, or can we blame systemic racism (which has been legally prohibited and generally derided by nearly all Americans for decades now).

This video points out that the distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism is a distinction without a difference.

"Insult Me Again!"

Torque News:

"Tesla Cybertruck Owner Says, “It’s a Futuristic Chrome-Plated Dumpster Designed On an Apple II By a Stoned Elon Musk, But Requires Less Maintenance Than a Goldfish...

"Cybertruck owner knows it's a "futuristic chrome-plated dumpster," but he doesn't care. He says it goes from 0 to 60 in 2.5 seconds and has "less maintenance than a goldfish."

Are Molotov Cocktails Arms Protected by the Second Amendment?

 Over at Instapundit, Sarah Hoyt links to a news story  New Jersey man arrested for having Molotov cocktail outside DC church during high profile mass, and asks DOES THE 2ND AMENDMENT COVER THOSE?

Arguable. The Court has largely focused on self-defense on its decisions, and emphatically so with respect to bearing in Bruen.. Molotov cocktails are only such weapons under the most extreme conditions (large mobs coming to burn out the black section of town as happened in East St. Louis in 1916). Even this would likely not require the right to bear them off your own property.

The Court has never dealt with the primary motivation for the Second Amendment: the insurrectionary theory, that a tyrannical government might need some kinetic conversation to prevent misuse of its powers. This does not require a right to carry any category of arms.  Revolutionaries have bigger problems than violating carry laws.  To be ready to persuade the government to stop or relinquish the levers of power, you only need to possess such arms at home in preparation for such revolt. In practice, laws prohibiting possession of the required components for Molotov cocktails (flammable liquid, glass bottle, rag) are unenforceable.

This Explains So Much

Skeptic Research Center:

Our recent Skeptic Research Center survey of over 3,000 Americans found that 67% of GenZ men and 72% of GenZ women (i.e., those born between 1997-2006) believe “mental health challenges are an important part of my identity.”7 It isn’t just young people, though. After all, American culture—and possibly that of most Western nations—is one dominated by therapy and psychiatry.

 So, while rates of identifying as mentally ill are higher in younger generations, we still found that over a quarter (27%) of Baby Boomer men and over a third (34%) of Baby Boomer women (i.e., those born between 1946-1964) believe that mental health challenges are an important part of their identity (see Figure 1).

Important part of their identity.  That is scary. More importantly for understanding why so many people see the world as it is:

A final interesting finding worth mentioning here is that younger generations and liberals are also more likely to ascribe social status to identifying as mentally ill. Specifically, we found that these demographics more often agreed with the statement, “People with mental health challenges have more important points of view than people without mental health challenges” (see Figure 4).

So it is not only that crazy people were running the asylum in D.C. but they believe that they deserve more power.

What they believe about America also explains their tantrums about policy:

Although we didn’t measure attitudes about income inequality per se, we did measure peoples’ accuracy in estimating poverty rates in America. Specifically, we asked our sample to take a guess as to the percentage of Americans living in poverty (according to the U.S. Census,19 about 11% of Americans live in poverty). Those in our sample vastly overestimated the rate: only 3% of the over 3,000 people that took our representative survey gave the correct answer, and over a third of our sample told us they think the majority of Americans (i.e., > 50%) live in poverty (see Figure 5). Revealingly, a key finding is that those who agreed more strongly that mental health challenges are an important part of their identity tended to give even more extreme overestimates of the poverty rate....

If you had to guess, about what percentage of Black Americans live in poverty? According to the U.S. Census, the correct answer is around 17%, a record low.20 Yet the average guess in our sample was 45% and, again, those who identified more strongly with their mental health challenges tended to give higher estimates (see Figure 6).

Their beliefs about black incarceration rates are similarly wrong. 

A whole political system built around mental illness.  What do you expect?

Not Our Fault!

10/30/25 ABC News:

The Des Moines Public Schools board announced Friday it intends to pursue legal action against a consulting firm it says it hired in 2023 to conduct a search for a new superintendent, claiming the firm failed to "properly vet candidates" after the district's now-former superintendent was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents last week.

Federal authorities said the superintendent, Ian Roberts, is not in the U.S. legally and has not had any work authorization in the U.S. since 2020. He had served as the superintendent of the Des Moines school district since July 2023 until his resignation this week following his detainment.

This is bizarre.  Every employer of mine since 9/11 has required proof of citizenship or other legal employable status.  So Des Moines School District did not?  How many other employees slipped through the cracks?