Today's Machining Lesson

The attempt to cut the slice went poorly because the direction of motion and velocity unscrewed the chuck from the rotary table. It was not enough to come off but enough that the tube moved away from the endmill. Solution: cut in a clockwise direction so it does not loosen.

The Count of Tesla

My wife and I are watching a sumptuous 2024 version of the Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. This is one the great novels and well worth your time to read.

It has been several years since I read it. Complicating my ability to tell how closely they are following the book, I watched a YouTube video recently that researched the real life case in which Dumas based it. The guy seeking revenge in real life was not a fabulously wealthy count, but the essential story of a guy wrongly accused of being part of a Bonapartist plot who was sent off to prison without a trial was there.  There are some problems verifying the existence of the victim from the department's records, but the summary of the case written by a Paris police archivist upon which Dumas relied seems to be real, with the conspirators and their children suffering the revenge seem to be real. By comparison, the novel is dark with a couple moments of the vengeance seeker showing compassion. 

Anyway, what does this have to do with Elon Musk? Recall that part of why he spent billions to buy Twitter and then spent millions to get Trump elected was that the transgender industrial complex used "he'll commit suicide" to mutilate Musk's son. Musk has used his wealth that dramatically dwarfs Monte Cristo's wealth to take revenge on an industry thay destroyed his son.

Unlike the protagonist of Dumas' novel, to my knowledge Musk has not taken personal revenge on the people involved, except to the extent that he has destroyed this money making criminal enterprise.

I Was Not Successful at Using My Parting Tool

I wanted to cut a piece of aluminum tube down to 1.23" length but I could not find a feed and speed that parted it without pulling the tube out of the chuck. I thought of using the chop saw but I feared it would bend the fairly thin wall tubing while cutting it.

So I mounted it on the rotating table.

I needed to make very slow and shallow cuts because again the chuck is unlikely to hold the tube as tightly as it should. But why write a program specific to this operation? So I wrote a program called mksub that accepts zStart, zStep, and zEnd parameters as well as a string of gCode commands to execute at each step of Z. In this case, a move to degree 0, then to degree 360, and back to 0.

This is general enough that almost relatively simple gCode command can be repeated to any arbitrary depth with only a trivial change in the Makefile.

Perhaps the Caliphate of Lesser Britain is Farther Away Than We Thought

Just watching a YouTube video of B1s lining up and taking off from RAF Fairford a couple of days ago.

I Went Shooting With my Son-in-Law Today

It is so nice having an entire range to ourselves. We were using one of those diagnostic targets that show you your likely error if you are hitting left or right down or up. Very helpful. 

The PPK/S is so accurate that I can fire at the 25 yard silhouette target as fast as my finger works and make every shot hit. The Browning Hi-Power not quite so much.

The PPK/S performed flawlessly with PMC hollow points.  The American Eagle kept failing to fire (perhaps 20% of the time). These will become range ammo only so that I can practice failure modes.

If you carry a pistol for self-defense (why else would you do so?) you should plan on shooting at least a box or two a month to stay proficient. 

You do not want to shoot at a bad guy and hit an innocent bystander. This both bad press for gun owners, and a civil suit looking for a target. To my surprise, analyzing antigun propaganda, they seldom find licensees doing this. I suspect most licensees know when to leave and when to shoot.

Unlike a rifle, handguns are intrinsically not easy to shoot accurately, except at conversational distances, where most of the need exists. Shoot the ammo you carry, at least to verify you are hitting to point of aim and that you are confident that your spectacularly expanding JHPs will reliably feed and extract. If your practice rounds are the same weight and manufacturer, hitting point of aim with FMJs should not be a problem.

I am a member of Homedale Rod & Gun Club. If you live in the Boise area, I strongly recommend that you consider membership. It is not expensive and often completely empty during the week. We have metal plate targets on the rifle range to 500 yards. The only downside compared to an indoor range is pit toilets, and as bad as you can imagine.

While cleaning the PPK/S, I accidentally pulled the trigger while attempting to get the slide back on the receiver. This creates a serious difficulty. SuperGrok told me something should have been obvious: put a cleaning rod down the barrel to force the hammer back and then the slide unjams.

Insomnia

I am not sure if these are lone wolves or sleeper cells. First, the attack on a synagogue, ISIS supporters throwing pipe bombs in New York City, then this. 3/12/26 New York Post:

A heroic ROTC student fatally stabbed the crazed ISIS-linked gunman who opened fire inside an Old Dominion University classroom Thursday, preventing further carnage, law enforcement sources said.

Shooter Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, 36, gunned down an instructor before the unidentified cadet jumped into action to put an end to the suspected terror attack on the Virginia college campus, according to sources.

Joliah had a prior conviction for attempting to aid ISIS. His first name is, of course, a coincidence. 

Photographs and Memories

I just woke up from a dream so powerful that I had that i had to write it down to share. The dream involved working somewhere where some of the people with whom I worked in my 30s at startups in Northern California were still around. 

There had been a wedding for one of my crew. I went on an emotional bender and failed to show up for work or call in sick for several days.

I suddenly found myself stuffing a time sheet taking those days as vacation into a cigarette box even though I have never smoked with a note explaining that the wedding brought memories of the best years of our lives, long but rewarding hours, first houses, children, happy marriages. (Best years of my life in spite of not yet being rich.) Somehow, I had a few inches of movie film with those positive memories to put into it for mailing (you know with stamps). The Jim Croce song "Photographs and Memories" was the sound track.

Verse 1]

Photographs and memories

Christmas cards you sent to me

All that I have are these

To remember you

[Verse 2]

Memories that come at night

Take me to another time

Back to a happier day

When I called you mine