Orion Telescopes Zombified

 Orion Telescopes was, for a long time, my go-to location for people just getting into astronomy. Then it became a "gone dead" site. This caused some big problems for people who needed warranty work, especially for those who telescopes were back at Orion for repair. Highpoint Scientific apparently has bought them and they are back in business.

This Could Have Ended Much Worse

11/11/26 CNN:

Trapped in a dog crate and entombed beneath a foot of dirt, a South Carolina infant miraculously survived 24 hours buried underground, authorities say.

Koah Sharp was unearthed Tuesday afternoon “clinging to life” and “screaming at the top of his lungs,” Lexington County Sheriff Jay Koon said. “It was the most joyful sound you ever heard of a crying baby.”

The sheriff’s department previously gave a different spelling of Koah’s last name.

Koah’s father, Michael Comer, is facing charges of attempted murder, unlawful conduct toward a child, custodial interference and burglary, the sheriff’s department said in a Wednesday news release, citing arrest warrants....

bout 100 law enforcement officers and other personnel scoured central South Carolina for any sign of Koah or his father. By Monday afternoon, surveillance footage captured the 25-year-old father at several businesses – but without his baby.

While the day was sunny and warm, the Batesburg-Leesville area saw temperatures drop to roughly 40 degrees Fahrenheit on Monday night into Tuesday morning. Koah was trapped underground around this timeframe, according to the sheriff’s office.....

Investigators found Comer holed up in an outbuilding in the town on Monday night, Koon said. Again, his baby was nowhere to be found.

The next day, while searching an area near the home of Comer’s father, investigators noticed freshly disturbed dirt in pine straw about 50 yards into the woods, Koon said.

As they started digging, they heard a baby crying.

“The race was on,” Koon said. “Everybody’s getting down there trying to get him out.”

Custodial interference? I think this must have been a very nasty divorce. 

Things That Amaze Me

I was watching a History Hits documentary about Blackface.The documentary told the history of blackface entertainers from America came to Britain on the 1840s and made this style of entertainment so popular that there was a long running BBC series which was primarily white women and white men in blackface singing silly songs with a Southern content. This was still running in 1978.

The black Shakespearean actor narrating the show explained how destructive this was to his identity growing up with this. I do not doubt it. I have never seen blackface entertainment except in historical examination of cinema. 1978.

Insight into a Profession Most of Us Never See

 My daughter is a professor of social work. She is beginning to record podcasts that you may find interesting, especially if you have no idea what social workers do (which is actually a lot of things).

Need Someone to Talk Me Through Installing a Bandsaw Blade

Eight years ago, it was hard. Not five hours hard. I must be missing something simple. It is so easy on YouTube. 

1. I put the blade in its little tunnel, wrap it around lower wheel as centered as i can.

2. Reduce tension control which drops upper wheel enough to get blade almost on wheel.

3. Hold blade to lower wheel while sliding blade mostly on upper wheel 

4. Press down on tension knob which depresses upper wheel enough to slip blade on upper wheel.

5. Increase tension. 

 

6. Rotate upper wheel by hand adjusting blade tracking to try and center blade on wheel. At this point,  regardless of direction,  it goes off the wheel.

UPDATE: My wife came to the shop. I suspected that I needed a third hand. Cutting just fine.

Bandsaw

It has been at least eight years since I changed a bandsaw blade. I remembered it being difficult. I have spent hours trying to get the blade on the wheels. 

I seem to have found part of the answer. When you have turned tensioning knob all the way to loose, pressing down on the knob gets you a bit more slack to slide the blade on the upper wheel, barely. Keeping it there while turning the tension knob may require three hands.

I understand why this works this way. Keeping the blade on the wheels is not trivial but there must be a better design.

Border Wall Construction Continues

11/9/26 KATU:

Border wall construction in the Big Bend region can move forward again after the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily lifted a lower-court order that had halted the project while a lawsuit plays out.

In an 8-1 decision issued Monday, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to resume border construction in the Big Bend region while the legal challenge continues.

The justices said the administration is likely to succeed in its argument that the lower court did not have the authority to hear the particular claim at issue.

Whatever legitimate environmental concerns might be the pretense for this suit, it should be apparent to all that this is rally a TDS symptom. For all the Democrat hollering, the new Congress is not going to stop the wall.