My CNC Mill Arrived

I still need the stepper motors and the interface box, but those are in transit.  It is very nice to have a brand new mill, instead of upgrading my 23 year old antique.

An Interesting Conflict Within The Coalition

Breitbart reports:

Chicago’s 47th annual gay pride parade was disrupted several times by the usual city disruptions — gang activity, gunshots, and drunks — but the event was also disrupted by a car driving into a group of bystanders. Then there was an even larger interruption by “black lives matter” protesters....

But by far the biggest disruption was from a large group of “black lives matter” protesters. The group was joined by members of the black queer community of Chicago who announced the disruption on their website.

After noting that they had “purposefully disrupted the Chicago Pride Parade,” the queer group explained their reasoning.

“We do so,” the group said, “because our people are dying at the hands of police, military and state-funded militias around the globe. We do so because we refuse to be tokenized by the same corporations that sponsor state violence, refuse a living wage and profit off our poverty. We do so because young queer people need a better outlet to celebrate themselves than a mire of consumption and sexual violence.”

The queer group was also attacked by the “black lives matter” protesters who held signs and walked as a group to push their own message.

 Corporations have indeed backed gay pride as a way to sell beer and tobacco (because substance abuse is a big problem in the gay community) so it's nice to see the different factions of the progressive community coming to argue.

There Goes the Brady Center

A while back, the Brady Center filed suit against Lucky Gunner and everyone else who had sold anything to the theater shooter in Aurora, but because the suit violated both federal and state Colorado law (you can't sue if the gun or ammo works as advertised, short of negligence) the judge ordered the plaintiffs, the parents of a murder victim, to pay defendant's legal fees.  The question is who would get stuck with the huge bill?  The parents or the Brady Center?  

A federal judge has ordered that the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence pay the legal fees of an online ammunition dealer it sued for the Aurora movie theater shooting.

The order, which was issued last week, comes after Judge Richard P. Matsch dismissed the gun control group's suit that sought to hold Lucky Gunner legally responsible for the 2012 shooting. The Brady Center had argued in their suit that the way Lucky Gunner sells ammunition is "unreasonably dangerous and create a public nuisance."

"A crazed, homicidal killer should not be able to amass a military arsenal, without showing his face or answering a single question, with the simple click of a mouse," Brady Center's Legal Action Project Director Jonathan Lowy said at the time. "If businesses choose to sell military-grade equipment online, they must screen purchasers to prevent arming people like James Holmes."

Judge Matsch disagreed with the Brady Center's argument. He said the suit was filed for propaganda purposes. "It is apparent that this case was filed to pursue the political purposes of the Brady Center and, given the failure to present any cognizable legal claim, bringing these defendants into the Colorado court where the prosecution of James Holmes was proceeding appears to be more of an opportunity to propagandize the public and stigmatize the defendants than to obtain a court order," he said in his order.

 

Fusion 360 CAM

Thinking of learning to program a CNC mill?  Nice intro by AutCad:

Does Anyone At Carl's Jr. Think About What They Are Doing?

You may have seen the ads for The Most Americaqn Thickburger:

Carl’s Jr. began selling a 1,080-calorie burger Wednesday that it hopes appeals to Americans’ patriotic spirit, along with their appetites.

The Most American Thickburger features a beef patty topped with hot dogs and a layer of potato chips, combining three Fourth of July barbecue staples in a creation aimed squarely at the fast-food chain’s core customers: “young, hungry guys.”

“People love these big, juicy, indulgent burgers,” said Andy Puzder, the chief executive officer of closely held CKE Restaurants, the parent company of Carl’s Jr. and its companion chain Hardee’s. “We know who we are and we know how to appeal to our customers.”

 There are people that can pile these down without any real long-term health risk.  Guys who spend 12 hours a day digging ditches by hand seven days a week.  But there are not that many people who do this, and even they don't do it year after year.   My wife's reaction was: "No avocado and Cool Whip?  Then it could be the breakfastlunchdinnerdessert meal!"

Not Fiction: Fiction Has To Make Sense

From Legal Insurrection:

Last week, the acting head of the TSA stepped down after a, “news reports that undercover security agents had penetrated airport security on 67 occasions,” according to the Washington Post. That amounts to a 96% failure rate.

As if a 4% screening success rate wasn’t bad enough, a new audit found the TSA accidentally hired 73 workers who were listed on their own terror watch list.

“This is totally unacceptable… we need to revamp the TSA process,” said Texas Representative Michael McCaul in an interview with Fox News. “Most importantly, it puts Americans at risk.”

Any AutoCad Fusion 360 users out there?

It is a cool program, but after my first use of the trial version, it will neither start nor reinstall.  There is an AutoCad forum for it, but response time isn't great on the weekends.  This is what I need to produce the gCode files to run the mill.

Someone on the AutoCad forums helped me!

Why I Am Backing Ted Cruz

June 26, 2015 National Review:

This week, we have twice seen Supreme Court justices violating their judicial oaths. Yesterday, the justices rewrote Obamacare, yet again, in order to force this failed law on the American people. Today, the Court doubled down with a 5–4 opinion that undermines not just the definition of marriage, but the very foundations of our representative form of government. Both decisions were judicial activism, plain and simple. Both were lawless.

As Justice Scalia put it regarding Obamacare, “Words no longer have meaning if an Exchange that is not established by a State is ‘established by the State.’ . . . We should start calling this law SCOTUSCare.” And as he observed regarding marriage, “Today’s decree says that . . . the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court.” Sadly, the political reaction from the leaders of my party is all too predictable. They will pretend to be incensed, and then plan to do absolutely nothing. That is unacceptable. On the substantive front, I have already introduced a constitutional amendment to preserve the authority of elected state legislatures to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman, and also legislation stripping the federal courts of jurisdiction over legal assaults on marriage. And the 2016 election has now been transformed into a referendum on Obamacare; in 2017, I believe, a Republican president will sign legislation finally repealing that disastrous law. ADVERTISING But there is a broader problem: The Court’s brazen action undermines its very legitimacy. As Justice Scalia powerfully explained, 

Hubris is sometimes defined as o’erweening pride; and pride, we know, goeth before the fall. . . . With each decision of ours that takes from the People a question properly left to them—with each decision that is unabashedly based not on law, but on the “reasoned judgment” of a bare majority of this Court—we move one step closer to being reminded of our impotence. This must stop. 

Liberty is in the balance.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/420409/ted-cruz-supreme-court-constitutional-amendment

 

Most importantly: he proposes making justices subject to retention votes by the people.

 

 

Why The West Will Die

From June 26, 2015 Wall Street Journal:

On Friday my phone was blowing up with messages, asking if I’d seen the news. Some expressed disbelief at the headlines. Many said they were crying.

None of them were talking about the dozens of people gunned down in Sousse, Tunisia, by a man who, dressed as a tourist, had hidden his Kalashnikov inside a beach umbrella. Not one was crying over the beheading in a terrorist attack at a chemical factory near Lyon, France. The victim’s head was found on a pike near the factory, his body covered with Arabic inscriptions. And no Facebook friends mentioned the first suicide bombing in Kuwait in more than two decades, in which 27 people were murdered in one of the oldest Shiite mosques in the country.

They were talking about the only news that mattered: gay marriage....

The barbarians are at our gates. But inside our offices, schools, churches, synagogues and homes, we are posting photos of rainbows on Twitter. It’s easier to Photoshop images of Justice Scalia as Voldemort than it is to stare evil in the face.

You can’t get married if you’re dead.

 Yup.  The only thing thjat matters to the under-30 set is SSM and legal marijuana, and maybe an increase in minimum wage, so they don't have to confront how useless a degree in women's studies really is.

And count on it, after imams run this country all the marriage license will be checked and the wrong ones will be used for mandatory sex changes like Iran now does to homosexuals.

Fundamental Rights

The Supreme Court now proclaims marriage as a fundamental right (at least for two people) and states may not infringe on it.  The Second Amendment also protects a fundamental right, but will the Court prohibit majorities from infringing on that right?  Of course not.  This is just Justice Kennedy legislating from the bench.

Fascinating Article About Wars of Extinction

and how black Americans seem intent on group suicide.

Another Progressive Victory Against Majority Rule

As many are pointing out this is a repeat of Roe v. Wade (1973).  A majority of the Court decided that the 14th Amendment requires SSM, in spite of no legislative history in support because it makes them feel good to overturn majority will.

 “MARRIAGE RESPONDS TO THE UNIVERSAL FEAR THAT A LONELY PERSON MIGHT CALL OUT ONLY TO FIND NO ONE THERE.”

 So why not allow marriage to 9-year-olds?     Good enough for Mohammed!  And Roe v. Wade  was such a wonderful effect on American politics.  The difference is that Christianity is pretty much dead in America because so many kids learned by example to forgive your enemies, but not your spouse.

As this comment at Instapundit points out:

Adopting a dog from the pound responds to the universal fear that a lonely person might call out only to find no one there.

Look, the line applies to marriage, and it's lovely, in its way. It also has nothing to do with constitutional law. And it also explains why no-fault divorce is not viewed as the social disaster it has become.

and:

I'm lonely, even though I'm not gay. I demand the right to marry whomever I want. Whether or not she's willing is irrelevant, because I have the right not to be lonely.

Not Sure Why We Have A Planning & Zoning Commission

The land use ordinance is here.

On p. 8, 

Hotel/Motel:The word “Hotel or Motel” shall mean a building in which lodging is provided and offered to the public for compensation and which is open to transient  guests.

That describes Rocky Mountain Lodge.

P. 20 indicates that a Hotel/Motel requires a CUP, which it does not have. P & Z has decided that it does not need a CUP.

It turns out that CC&Rs are not really legally binding against someone becayuse they go into bankruptcy and discharge the legal fees.

Has Anyone Here Replaced The Trigger on An AR-15?

It looks pretty simple.  I was in Sawtooth Tactical yesterday, and they had an impressive AR-15 trigger that uses needle bearings to produce a beautifully light crisp trigger.

Perhaps A Solution To Samba

There is a new version of LinuxCNC that runs under debian wheezy, which is a recent release, and likely works with Windows 7/Samba.

What Happens When Child Sexual Abuse Becomes A Subculture

This has been a developing multiculturalism scandal in Britain.  From the June 25. 2015 Daily Mail:

Britain's second largest police force withheld a report about gangs of Muslim men grooming children in case it inflamed racial tensions ahead of a General Election, it was revealed today.

West Midlands Police were warned more than 100 predominantly white children - some as young as 13 - were at serious risk of child exploitation five years ago.

A document entitled 'Problem Profile, Operation Protection' from March 2010 reveals Asian gangs targeted schools and children's homes across the force area.

The report, written for senior officers, also reveals how white girls were used to recruit other vulnerable victims on behalf of the gangs.

But there were fears over a row ahead of the May 2010 General Election and an English Defence League rally in April leading to a 'backlash against law abiding citizens from Asian/Pakistani communities'.

Despite the warnings police did not warn the public or appeal for information about the men responsible and the report was only published this week under the Freedom of Information Act.

In one heavily redacted passage, the document reads: 'In (redacted) a teacher at a (redacted) that a group of Asian males were approaching pupils at the school gate and grooming them. Strong anecdotal evidence shows this MO (modus operandi) is being used across the force.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3138984/Police-withheld-bombshell-report-revealing-gangs-Muslim-men-grooming-100-schoolgirls-young-10-case-inflamed-racial-tensions-ahead-General-Election.html#ixzz3e7FNKzXt
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Aren't all cultures equally valid?

The Only Good Thing About Antique PCs

As long as parts are available, they are generally cheap.  I am using an antique Compaq NC600 for the LinuxCNC PC, and the original Lithium ion battery from 2003 finally stopped holding a charge.  The replacement was $15.13 shipped.

Why I Can't Take The "We're Being Humane" Argument Seriously

Progressives defend open borders on the grounds that it is inhumane to return illegal aliens to Mexico.  (Mainstream Republicans defend open borders on the grounds that they don't want to pay decent wages to citizens.)  But even if you buy the progressive argument, what about cases like this?  From chaanel 9 in Oklahoma:

OKLAHOMA CITY -

Authorities confirmed Wednesday morning that a man, accused of causing a crash that killed local sports journalist Bob Barry Jr., had previously been deported three times.

Gustavo Castillo Gutierrez, 26, has been charged with causing an accident without a valid driver's license and drug possession on Tuesday.

On Sunday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) placed a detainer with Oklahoma County on Gutierrez from Mexico, following his arrest on criminal charges. ICE officials confirmed that Gutierrez had been voluntarily returned to Mexico three times, twice in 2010, and once in 2013.

According to an accident report released on Wednesday, Barry took “no improper action” in the crash, meaning he was purely a victim. Authorities said Gutierrez had been distracted before the collision for an unknown reason.

A slow learner, but not as slow as our government.

Orico 10-port USB 3.0 Hub: Don't Buy

I bought one in November, which failed.  I bought another in May and it no longer powers up.  Too late to return it through Amazon and no obvious way to request refund or replacement from Orico.  Finally found a support email in China.

Novel: Chapter Two

My classroom is Assembly Hall 3, two decks above my mess hall.  The first class is seventh tier – most of them are twelve or thirteen years old, but a couple of them are a ten or eleven, and a couple are fourteen or fifteen.  Sometimes students are held back moving to the next tier because of emotional maturity, sometimes because of intellectual deficiency.  I read accounts of teachers on Earth long ago, and I marvel that such an inefficient and clumsy system was ever acceptable – students advancing up the grades purely because of age.

I enter the hall; the students rise as I enter, and I motion to them to sit.  “Good morning!”  I wave my hand in front of the podium, and the display projects in front of me.  “Enrolled: 44.  Present: 43.  Excused absences: 1.”  I sweep my hand down and close it, and the display clears.

Around the classroom, students are showing differing levels of attention – as is usually the case at 0730.  “Janos, late night gaming?”  Janos’ eyes were closed, trying to catch a bit more rest, but he was not asleep.  He glares at me, but he knows better than to talk back.

“Today we start with a part of history that I know interests many of you, because it is why you exist.  Today we move away from ancient events on a planet that we will never see and we explore our place, our meaning, our purpose.”  I waved my hand again, and an ancient, low resolution video appears above the podium, and above their desks.  It shows our ship as it neared completion almost a thousand years ago, a huge, uninspiring silver cylinder with only a few markings indicating entry points.  Behind it, as the video panned to the left, was the curiously beautiful blue and white orb of Earth. 

I could hear a few sudden inhalations from my students as Earth came into view, even though it isn’t new to any of them.  I confess; no matter how often I see an image of Earth, it makes me pause for a moment.  And it isn’t just Earth.  When I was their age, we passed a solar system with a planet that looked much like it, and caused much the same reaction.  We almost spread our seed there, but at the last minute the biologists found something incompatible with the life already there.  Nonetheless, it was gloriously beautiful with clouds and oceans and great cyclonic storms.

“Here is the start of our journey, a voyage of discovery and expansion.”  I scrolled my hand sideways, and a galactic map showed our ship’s movement across the stars in one of the spiral arms.  I pulled my arm back slightly, and the podium zoomed out from the map.  “Our ancestors committed themselves and us to a bold experiment, to seek out new homes for mankind, and to find other intelligent life.”  No surprises here; the students pretty much all know how the story starts, but every story needs a flourish of an introduction.

“Over the last thousand years we have traveled an enormous distance through the galaxy.”  I slowly spread my thumb and index finger apart, and the slightly jagged line showing our path across the galaxy completed. “How fast are we traveling?” I knew who was going to answer the question; Janos was going to be a physicist in a few years, and was already taking twelfth tier physics.

Jan raised his hand, and I nodded in his direction. “At full cruising speed: .95c.”

“So how much time has elapsed on Earth since our journey started?”

“At least 5000 years. We don't keep that full speed throughout our voyage; when we slow down to visit a solar system, it reduces our average speed. Time dilation is dependent on v² divided by c². We know that a lot has changed on Earth since we left.” Jan frowned, but knew better than to say more. The end of broadcasts was hardly a secret; still, it is considered impolite to say it, rather like speaking ill of someone who has air locked.

“So what happens when we slow down to visit a solar system?” I looked around the classroom again, trying to find one of the quiet kids who never volunteers. “Jana,” and stared at a pretty brunette trying to hide in the last row of tables. “I know you're taking tenth tier biology already. I'm sure you know the answer.”

Jana is very shy, and the look on her face screamed, “Why me?” She looked down at the table and, just barely audibly, “We survey planets that might contain intelligent life, or where our species might settle.” I confess that I do not understand Jana’s shyness; she is very pretty, and in a year or two, she will be very popular in Lounge C. Or perhaps someone did not wait for her to come of age?

“What have we found so far?” I again stared at Jana.  I'm sure that she feels very picked on by me, but my job is not just teaching history to these kids, but also to socialize them into a form useful to the needs of the ship.  Jana looked around the classroom, with that desperate look of, “Won't someone pick up the ball here, please?” It's always hard to tell if her classmates were enjoying seeing her on the spot or simply felt that she was most likely to give a correct answer. This is such a ferocious age.

Jana realized that no one was going to save her from answering the question. There is no room in our society for a person who is not prepared to take the lead. And that is another reason why my job is to pick on students like Jana. “So far, I think we have visited 45 Earth-like planets, and found intelligent life on none.  A few had life, but primitive."

“That is correct. No intelligent life. Even the planets with life were shockingly simple. Photosynthesis, a few sea dwelling creatures, and one planet with land animals. It was not at all what we were supposed to find." I smiled at Jana. “What about planets habitable by man?”

In the front row Mark raised his hand. Mark was not shy; he was a tall, muscular kid with curly blond hair and an infectious smile. “Several so far. Some require terraforming because there's no life there to produce oxygen, but by the time some other ship passes through, the plants we've left will make those planets habitable. They'll be their own Edens.”

“Mark, you should probably explain what an Eden is.”

Mark turned around in his chair to make sure that everyone could hear them; my guess is that he will end up as a teacher himself someday. There certainly is not much need for any other form of public speaker in our society. “I've been reading up on the ancient superstitions of Earth, and Eden is the name of a perfect garden claimed as the origin of man.”

Before anyone had a chance to ask about those ancient superstitions, I thought it best to keep the class headed down the narrative that I had planned. “What about the planets that already have oxygen?”

Mark smiled even more broadly. “We seed those planets with Earth plants and animals and pioneers. I want to be one of those pioneers!” There was a brief tittering from some of the girls; there's something romantic about being a planet pioneer, and even if Mark was not sincere in his desires, I can see why more than a few teenaged boys have affected the planet pioneer career path as a dating strategy.

“How many of you want to be pioneers?" I smiled as I said it, so that no one would feel ashamed to say yes. There is a need for pioneers, but someone needs to keep this ship headed outward. Our policy is to neither encourage pioneers, nor to discourage them. Well, maybe discourage them a little bit.

Perhaps five hands went up, some rather tentatively. “Why would you want to be a pioneer?”  I continued smiling; I don’t want to discourage my students from expressing interest in an almost disreputable career goal.

“There's something unnatural about the way we live on the ship.” For once, Jana spoke clearly and forcefully, without a hint of discomfort. “I want to live on a planet, like my ancestors did. Not in a metal box.” And to my surprise, not only Mark, several other students cheered and applauded.

Melissa spoke next. “I want to grow my own food. I want to sleep under a blue sky. I want natural children, my own children.” Now, instead of cheering and applause, I heard gasps. This was not the first time that I heard a student express this desire, and certainly among adults I have heard this strange request, but at this age it is all quite daring to talk so directly about such things. “I want children, not the black tube.”

It was time to redirect this conversation before became any more awkward than it already was. “Well, some of you may get your opportunity. Most of you know we are decelerating into a system with a very Earth-like planet.”  I saw a couple of slightly surprised faces but most of the students seemed to know this already.

The time had come to suggest assignments. “For this week's assignment, you are to pick out some aspect of the launching of the expedition, or of the history of the expedition to the present. I know some of you much prefer the ancient history, but let's keep the assignment no more than 50 years before launch. I expect you to make use of the usual sources, but if you are researching something of recent history, feel free to conduct interviews with people who were part of those events.”

One of the more satisfying parts of teaching in the modern times was how many students did oral histories with people whose stories had never been recorded. A few years back, one of my students had recorded the experiences of the planetary exploration team that had explored SN 9468 – 4, an Earth-like planet around a G0 star. This was 70 years ago, ship time, but the memories of the disappointment were still very strong. A small team of pioneers were already starting to build temporary structures on the surface, when the cattle started to sicken and die. There was something in the indigenous bacteria that was in conflict with our life forms; had they remained in contact with the local biosphere, the pioneers would've died too. Of course, there were technical reports of what had happened, but the intervening decades had granted some perspective to the team that could not be found in the official reports of that time.

Mark raised his hand. “I think I would like to explore what the first members of the ship's crew thought would happen to their children. Did they ask if we wanted to be born, live, and recycle so far from Earth?”

“Mark, just keep it dispassionate. Stick to the facts you can find, and don't let your personal feelings take over the paper.” I knew that Mark felt, as did more than a few of our society, being stuck on this expedition by our ancestors was supreme selfishness. There was no way “home” from here, even if everyone aboard agreed to turn the ship around. At least ten generations separated us from the green hills of Earth. Some were embittered by this knowledge; some leaped at the first chance to get something at least close to “home” by becoming pioneers; some, in their depression, air locked. I could understand their hurt and sense of loss, but this was home, not Earth, nor any substitute, no matter how blue the sky, how green the forests, or how luxuriant the grasses we planted there.

Imagine If Hitler Had Publicly Committed Such Atrocities in 1938...

From June 23, 2015 Daily Mail:

Vile jihadis fighting for the Islamic State in Iraq have brutally murdered five prisoners by locking them in a metal cage and lowering them into a swimming pool.

Filmed in the ISIS stronghold of Mosul, the sickening seven minute long video uses expensive underwater cameras to film the terrified men as they sink below the surface with no hope of escape.

Shortly afterwards the cage is lifted back out of the water, with the dying men - who are understood to have been accused of spying - seen foaming at the mouth as they lie motionless on the floor of the cage, piled on top of one another.

Elsewhere in the video, ISIS militants are filmed brutally killing prisoners by locking them in a car and shooting them with a grenade launcher, while another group of jihadis chain a set of prisoners together with explosive necklaces which are then detonated.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3135913/Sickening-new-ISIS-video-shows-caged-prisoners-lowered-swimming-pool-drowned-shot-RPG-blown-explosive-filled-necklaces.html#ixzz3e3Dn3Qgf
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Why do progressives have time and energy to compare Republicans to the the Taliban, but nothing bad to say about ISIS.Obama refuses to call ISIS Muslim, but:

Jihadis fighting for the Islamic State have held a Koran memorizing competition in which the top prizes include a Yazidi sex slave.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3135913/Sickening-new-ISIS-video-shows-caged-prisoners-lowered-swimming-pool-drowned-shot-RPG-blown-explosive-filled-necklaces.html#ixzz3e3EQnEsa
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Adventures in CAM

There seem to be two choices for producing gCode for the Sherline mill; HeeksCAD/HeeksCNC (which is open source) and CUT3D (which costs $299).  CUT3D is pretty slick, but only runs on Windows.  I am going to try and get the Heeks stuff compiling and working first.

Temporary Solution To Samba

I don't have to transfer files from Windows to Ubuntu Linux very often, so I can email them over.

The Port-A-Poty Wedding Recption Hall

I mentioned a while back that a neighbor was asking the county for a conditional use permit to start a  wedding reception retreat down the hill from us, in violation of the CC&Rs.  It was going to have port-a-potties because they lacked sewer capacity  We understood the county was going to say NO, because of fire and road problems, but the business is now open and accepting reservations.  First step, inform the county.  Second step, sic our lawyers on him.

It turns out the CUP was not granted.  Brandon just went ahead anyway.

UPDATE:  The party down there tonight was loud enough for me to hear from my back porch425 feet away.

Anyone Know Why Ubuntu Linux And SAMBA Don't Work With Windows 7?

There are innumerable cookbooks for allowing access to Windows 7 files from Ubuntu 10.04.  None of them seem to work.

I have heard it suggested that Microsoft intentionally broke the SAMBA interface.

There seems to be general agreement that SAMBA and Windows 7 are no longer on speaking terms.

I have been struggling long enough to be convinced that Linux has gone from a realistic alternative to Windows, to a realistic alternative to TRSDOS.  And I am not the average ignorant end-user.

Sold the Old Sherline

Someone paid the Buy It Now price.

Samba Sucks

It appears that Samba doesn't work very well with Windows 7.  The more I chase problems with inability to retrieve the share list from Windows 7 PCs on the network, the more apparent that the Linux community has no clue how to solve this.

But this provides a workable solution.But only once.  Now it fails. 

preprinted for CNC milling

I solved my file sharing problem without Samba.  This morning I replaced windows XP and Ubuntu 12.04 on my Compaq NC600 with the Ubuntu 10/EMC2 combo.  Windows XP was a security problem anyway.

Way Too Much Time Wasted On Samba

It sounds like a regret of a 1940s crooner, doesn't it?  But actually I was trying to share files between my Linux VM and my PC, and I forgot that VMWare Player has a file sharing scheme that works quite well.

You Want To Know What's Wrong With The Younger Generation?

This is who is teaching them:

I definitely experienced this. There was a time in my 20s when everything I learned about the history of racism made me hate myself, my Whiteness, my ancestors... and my descendants. I remember deciding that I couldn't have biological children because I didn't want to propagate my privilege biologically.

If I was going to pass on my privilege, I wanted to pass it on to someone who doesn't have racial privilege; so I planned to adopt. I disliked my Whiteness, but I disliked the Whiteness of other White people more. I felt like the way to really end racism was to feel guilty for it, and to make other White people feel guilty for it too. And then, like Dolezal, I wanted to take on Africanness. Living in South Africa during my junior year abroad, I lived with a Black family, wore my hair in head wraps, shaved my head. I didn't want to be White, but if I had to be, I wanted to be White in a way that was different from other White people I knew. I wanted to be a special, different White person. The one and only. How very White of me...

 Beverly Daniel Tatum has written that White people don't choose to identify as White because the categories to choose from are loaded from the start. Traditionally, one can identify as a colorblind White person, a racist White person or an ignorant White person: those are the three ways White people get talked about as White. If those are the options, who would choose to identify as White? And so White people identify as "normal" and "Irish" and "just American" and do not self-identify racially. And that leaves us with a society in which only people of color have a race, where only people of color seem to be responsible for racialized problems. It makes it hard for all of us to know and tell our racial stories -- because White people think we don't have any. And it makes it hard for us to own our history, because we don't see it as ours.

 Many White people also feel like we don't have culture, and this isn't a coincidence.

University of Penn professor.

I See A Lot of Learning Coming My Way

I will initially use the new mill manually, then hook up the PC to run EMC2 with CUT3D to convert my STL files to gcode commands.  Even if you don't have a CNC mill, CUT3D is fun to play with, watching it simulate the various cutting tools.

It appears that EMC2 only runs on Ubuntu 10.10, so I am installing that in my VM  for testing.

UPDATE: I have emc2 running in my virtual Ubuntu.  There is a default 3-axis Sherline configuration.CUT3D which converts from STL to gCode only seems to run under Windows.  Fotrtunately, I can copy to the VM.

Old Mill on eBay

http://www.ebay.com/itm/-/201374730892?

Racist Murderer: Pot Worshipper

From June 20, 2015 Daily Mail:

The site was also stuffed full of images of Roof burning the America flag, spitting on it, posing next to Confederate landmarks and posing menacingly with a gun pointed at the camera.

+15

Killer: A website seemingly belonging to Charleston killer Dylann Roof included this photograph of him aiming posing with a gun and a Confederate flag surrounded by pot plants

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3132670/Dylann-Roof-manifesto-Killer-unveils-Charleston-target-church-massacre-calls-black-people-stupid-violent-complains-s-no-real-KKK-help-him.html#ixzz3dcnUovhJ
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Any guesses about his mental health?  I've written before about the connection between schizophrenia and marijuana use.   Hardly a right-winger, burning the flag and celebrating treason.

Frustration

I have spent several hours trying to get the new headstock on the 5000 mill and returned to its factory state before ordering the upgrade.  The frustrations of doing so are making me think I should buy a new CNC mill and sell the old one on eBay.  It's $2550, but might be worth my time.

Road hazard

where would you dispose of a stereo except in the middle of a road?  From my wife's tire.

White Values

From June 17, 2015 National Review:

Oregon’s Gresham-Barlow school district spends $100,000 each year on a white-privilege conference that teaches its faculty that they’re racist and should therefore blame themselves for student misbehavior. The week-long “Coaching for Educational Equity” conference is mandatory for all administrators (and optional for teachers) in the Portland-area K–12 school district each year, according to the Education Action Group Foundation, a national non-partisan, non-profit education reform organization headquartered in Michigan. 

EAG reports that school-board member Dan Chriestenson recently obtained the conference materials after a long battle with the Oregon Center for Educational Equity, the private nonprofit that presents the conference. 

 “Many white people in Oregon have no idea that our schools and state are immersed in white culture and are uncomfortable and harmful to our students of color, while also reinforcing the dominant nature of white culture in our white students and families,” one of the conference documents explains. 

The manual defines this “white culture” with a list of values, such as “promoting independence, self expression, personal choice, individual thinking and achievement,” because apparently those are strictly “white” concepts and not emphasized in black communities. 

The training instructs participants to stop “blaming when students don’t meet standards” and instead start “examining our beliefs and practices when students don’t meet standards.” It advises faculty to avoid “controlling or teaching discipline to students” and to instead think about “changing school practices that alienate students and lead to disruptions.”

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/oregon-white-privilege-100K

 The murderer in South Carolina must have attended that conference.

The Pope IIs Preaching Global Warming

As Instapundit points out:

They told me if I voted Republican, America would wind up taking scientific dictation from religious leaders. And they were right!

Remjember when the Church was the symbol of scientific ignorance to the left

CNC Is Coming!

The only sensible solution is to upgrade my Sherline 5000 vertical mill to CNC.  I can order the upgrade kit (no computer) for $1050.  I have a PC running Ubuntu Linux already.  With what CNC machinists quote me, the capital investment makes sense, and all the existing Sherline tooling can be reused. Just verifying mt antique can handle this.

Soon I hope to be doing this!

Why This Tragedy in South Carolina Is Going To Hurt Gun Rights

The average white American feels enormous guilt about slavery and racism (part of why whites voted for Obama so strongly).  This nut case can make them all feel guilty again.  Worse the gun was a birthday gift.

UPDATE:   The good news.  The gun was not a gift.

One key part of this horrific scheme -- the weapon -- came in April, when Roof bought a .45-caliber handgun at a Charleston gun store, the two law enforcement officials told Perez and Bruer from CNN, the first network to report this development. His grandfather says that Roof was given "birthday money" and that the family didn't know what Roof did with it.

So background check was done.  Also he told police his goal was to start a race war.  Sort of a progressive, I guess.  Certainly he and Obama have similar goals.

T4 Updated

I have always understood and slight sympathy for the physician-assisted suicide argument: but this item from the June 11, 2015 Guardian (not at all a Christian or right-wing paper) makes me think of the Nazis' T4 program:

Thousands of elderly people have been killed by their own GPs without ever asking to die under Belgium’s euthanasia laws, an academic report said yesterday.

It said that around one in every 60 deaths of a patient under GP care involves someone who has not requested euthanasia.

Half of the patients killed without giving their consent were over the age of 80, the study found, and two thirds of them were in hospital and were not suffering from a terminal disease such as cancer.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3120835/Belgian-GPs-killing-patients-not-asked-die-Report-says-thousands-killed-despite-not-asking-doctor.html#ixzz3dNgyguBO
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So Outrageous I Had To Make Sure It Wasn't The Onion

From June 15, 2015 Washington Post:

This is what you get when you put a community organizer in the White House — he tries to reorganize your community from Washington.

Apparently, President Obama thinks your neighborhood may not be inclusive enough, so he has instructed his Department of Housing and Urban Development to issue a new rule called Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing, which is designed to force communities to diversify.

According to the Obama administration, in too many neighborhoods “housing choices continue to be constrained through housing discrimination, the operation of housing markets, [and] investment choices by holders of capital.” (Yes, that is a quote from an actual HUD document, not a bad undergraduate thesis on Karl Marx.)

Under Obama’s proposed rule, the federal government will collect massive amounts of data on the racial, ethnic and socioeconomic makeup of thousands of local communities, looking for signs of “disparities by race, color, religion, sex, familial status, national origin, or disability in access to community assets.” Then the government will target communities with results it doesn’t like and use billions of dollars in federal grant money to bribe or blackmail them into changing their zoning and housing policies.

I keep hoping Americans will rebel against this fascist, but I think they like it.

Progressives Now Prohibiting Color-Blindness

Prof. Volokh reports on new efforts to suppress free speech at UCLA:

Tool: Recognizing Microaggressions and the Messages They Send
Microaggressions are the everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership (from Diversity in the Classroom, UCLA Diversity & Faculty Development, 2014). The first step in addressing microaggressions is to recognize when a microaggression has occurred and what message it may be sending. The context of the relationship and situation is critical. Below are common themes to which microaggressions attach….
[Theme:] Color Blindness[:] Statements that indicate that a White person does not want to or need to acknowledge race.
[Microaggression Examples:] “There is only one race, the human race.”
“America is a melting pot.”
“I don’t believe in race.” …

I can remember a time when denying the existence of race was a sign of being PC!

Proof That Obama's People Couldn't Competently Toast Bread

From June 16, 2015 Fox News:

The federal government cannot verify nearly $3 billion in subsidies distributed through ObamaCare, putting significant taxpayer funding "at risk," according to a new audit report.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) released an audit Tuesday finding that the agency did not have an internal system to ensure that subsidies went to the right enrollees, or in the correct amounts.

"[The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services] CMS's internal controls did not effectively ensure the accuracy of nearly $2.8 billion in aggregate financial assistance payments made to insurance companies under the Affordable Care Act during the first four months that these payments were made," the OIG said.

At Least The Media Identified Him As A Democrat

From Channel 8 in Knoxville:

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) -- State Rep. Joe Armstrong, a Knoxville Democrat, has been indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly being involved in a tax fraud scheme.

According to the indictment, the scheme began in 2006 before there was any public mention of boosting the state cigarette tax. It alleges Armstrong and others devised a plan to buy cigarette tax stamps at the then price of 20-cents, knowing it would soon increase to 60-cents and wholesalers would have to buy new tax stamps.

The document alleges Rep. Armstrong, who was a member of the Finance Ways and Means Committee, had insider knowledge that the increase would pass.

Armstrong is also accused of claiming less than he made on his 2008 tax returns. According to the indictment, his return showed taxable income of $152,999 when he knew his taxable income was $471,418.

Clueless twit.

Sarcastic Fringehead

I was watching BBC's Life and I saw the sarcastic fringehead fish, which  looks like what would happen if Jurassic Park had a Castro District.

Good News About Peruta Case

From June 17, 2015 San Diego Union-Tribune:

SAN FRANCISCO — If the lawyers arguing both sides of a controversial concealed weapons case agreed on one thing Tuesday, it was that the constitutional right to bear arms extends outside the home. 

The panel of 11 judges with the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals appeared to agree on the same point, but to what degree was less than clear as arguments on the issue wrapped up in San Francisco.

Dave Hardy who was there has a pretty positive reaction.

It's hard to predict an outcome from an argument, and impossible with an en banc. Eleven judges, half of whom did not ask a question, and several who did grilled both sides equally.

The good guys faced a very big problem: the Ninth is 2/3 Demo appointees (party of the appointing president is the only way to judge their political feelings, and is rough enough). Odds of winning 6 out of 11 are not high.

The good guys thus posed the question narrowly. We aren't attacking the licensing system as such. We are attacking the fact that the two sheriffs here employ its broad "good cause" term to exclude anyone who doesn't have an exceptional need for self-defense, one not shared by the average person. Heller suggests, at the very least, you cannot demand that. (I think a licensing system of that type is unconstitutional, and they certainly do as well. But an advocate's job is to win THIS case, not to debate broad principles and lose on them).

This put the State in a very interesting position, which at least one judge probed. It's moving to intervene -- but why, this late in the game? It could have joined the suit years ago. It didn't even join before the panel decision came down. California didn't want to say "Heck, we thought the sheriffs would appeal it farther." Instead it tried to argue that the suit started out as a challenge to the sheriffs' exercise of discretion, in which the State had no particular interest, and developed into one where the State statute itself was under attack. But if the good guys say that isn't the case... And if the State isn't granted intervention, the appeal dies, since the sheriffs didn't ask for further appeal, and that leaves the panel decision standing.

Antarctica: A Year On The Ice

Just watched this on Netflix and I really enjoyed it.  Made by a New Zealander who works at the U.S. base on McMurdo Sound.  Full of lots of surprises, including some excerpts from the Antarctic Film Festival.

Also just watched Remote Area Medical. about a group by that name that started out providing medical care in remote parts of the Third World, and now does it in darkest Tenneesee.  It is difficult to watch this and not feel bad for people who lack medical care because there are no jobs, and no medical insurance, but there are a lot of reminders that money isn't that scarce,judged by the tattoos and piercings.  And even in Tennessee they must know that smoking causes lung cancer.  It is a discouraging reminder that democracy fails because much of the population is irrational, and you don't have to be black to be poor and trashy.  Whatever the flaws of some of those they are helping, it is a reminder that the modern equivalent of Jesus' healing ministry is modern medicine.

Some Of You Won't Like This

Children whose sexual abuse was videotaped by abusers had trouble remembering it.

Results:There was a significant tendency among the children to deny or belittle their experiences. Some children simply didnot want to disclose their experiences, some had difficulties remembering them, and one child lacked adequate concepts to understand and describe them

Another Aspect of the Sherline Vertical Mill That Sucks

The End Mill Holder is round with nowhere to get a wrench on it.    Once frozen in place, it doesn't want to let go.  I hate having to do this myself, but the economy is clearly running at full capacity;
I can't get any CNC mill shops to respond to my needs.





Little Machine Shop sells a very nice end mill holder for the Sherline mill that is designed to be removed with a wrench.  That's what I use now after the last struggle to get the Sherline end mill holder off.  I have now trying heating and ice water to try and break it loose, without success.  Now it is in oil, in the hopes of loosening it.  I suppose if Sherline doesn't have a fix, I could drill the interior out.

Just tried to drill it out without success, so I ordered a replacement headstock.