My son-in-law says, "Never ascribe to malice what might be explained by idiocy." This first one might fit that category. 10/25/24 GoErie:
"Not every mistake is nefarious."
That's the message the Democracy Defense Project, which includes former Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell and former Republican U.S. Reps. Jim Gerlach and Melissa Hart, is telling voters concerned about a printing mishap that led to nearly 300 Erie County voters being mailed both their own mail ballot, and the mail ballot of another voter.
“We were concerned to learn that nearly 300 Erie County voters received duplicate mail-in ballots," the group said in a statement Thursday. "This is an issue that must be corrected quickly, and we are confident that the Erie County Board of Elections is doing just that.
Maybe not nefarious but certainly it can have nefarious results. This next one could be idiocy but why would you create a spreadsheet with such private information, then hide the tab, before putting it online? 10/29/24 9News:
DENVER — The Colorado Secretary of State’s Office inadvertently posted a spreadsheet to its website with a hidden tab that included voting system passwords.
In a statement to 9NEWS, a spokesperson for the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office said that “the Department is working to remedy this situation where necessary.”
“The Department took immediate action as soon as it was aware of this and informed the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which closely monitors and protects the county’s essential security infrastructure,” the spokesperson said.
On Tuesday morning, Colorado Republican Party Vice Chair Hope Scheppelman shared the hidden tab discovery in a mass email, along with an affidavit from someone who claims they had downloaded the Excel file from the Colorado Secretary of State’s website and discovered the hidden tab by simply clicking “unhide.” The name on the affidavit was blacked out in the Republican Party email.
9NEWS left a voicemail with Scheppelman on Tuesday afternoon.
The passwords that were in the hidden tab are known as BIOS passwords and are one part of the security process for Colorado’s voting machines.
They are passwords needed to configure system settings.
“There are two unique passwords for every election equipment component, which are kept in separate places and held by different parties. Passwords can only be used with physical in-person access to a voting system,” a spokesperson for the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office said.
"To be very clear, we do not see this as a full security threat to the state. This is not a security threat," Colorado's Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold told 9NEWS Tuesday. "There are two passwords to get into any voting component, along with physical access. We have layers of security, and out of just an abundance of caution, have staff in the field changing passwords, looking at access logs and looking at the entire situation and continuing our investigation."
This should have been a no-brainer (and I guess it was, for all judges involved). Virginia decided to remove aelf-described non-citizens from the voting rolls. A Biden judge said they could not. After a bit of movement up the ladder, the Supreme Couirt allowed Virginia to enforce the law about non-citizens voting. Unsurprisingly, Sotormayor, Kagan, and Jackson, appointed by the party warning us that democracy was in danger, voted with the non-citizens.
I had hoped to find a calculator online for this... The wooden sheet on which my big reflector sits is beginning to deform at one of the corners where a caster goes. I want to replace this with something more durable before I have a catastrophic failure. So what thickness of steel do I need to support 150 pounds without too muh deformation? that chatgpt gave me this formula during a lucid, hopefully nonhallucinatory phase:
To calculate the maximum deflection of a rectangular plate supported at the four corners, you can use the classical plate theory (Kirchhoff-Love theory). For a rectangular plate under uniform load, the maximum deflection can be estimated using the following formula e:
where:
- is the uniform load per unit area (N/m²),
- is the shorter side length of the rectangular plate (m),
- is the flexural rigidity of the plate, calculated as:
In this formula:
- is the modulus of elasticity of the material (Pa),
- is the thickness of the plate (m),
- is the Poisson's ratio of the material.
Steps to Calculate Maximum Deflection:
- Determine Material Properties: Find the values for and for the plate material.
- Calculate Flexural Rigidity : Use the thickness of the plate.
- Define Loading Conditions: Determine the uniform load and the dimensions of the plate.
- Apply the Formula: Substitute the values into the formula to find .
The load is not centrally located but this seems a worst case assumption. The casters at the four corners of the current 28" plywood square are not sitting at the true corners of course but close.
load = 150 pounds / 2.2 * 9.8 giving 668N/m^2 (okay the load is not the same eveywhere but this is an approximation)
a = 28 inches/39.37
thickness is .25 inches /39.37
E is 200 GPa for steel
v is Poisson's ratio, which all examples seem to regard as .3
D calculates as 4385.9
maximum deformation is .04 m or about 1.5 inches.
This seems absurdly high for 1/4" steel plate. The plywood sheet there right now is not eforming that much. Do you see what I am doing wrong?
UPDATE: Simpler solution: buy another piece of oak plywood the same dimensions. That has worked for two decades just fine. About $90 at Home Depot. Use existing board as template for holes.
I was told that I would pay $300/day for the first five days in the hospital. My insurer received about $30,000 in bills at their heavily discounted rate. My share so far seems to be $0. I did not even get billed for the $300/day hospital charges. I can see that a bill was submitted to Blue Cross but I guess because they were in-network no part for me to pay.
Lancaster County DA press conference discussing 2500 voter registration forms, 60% of which so far were fraudulent. She also says two other counties have similar investigations under way.
Any guesses which party?
I received a call today from a firm that tracks down mising heirs. A half-brother to my father left an estate to a what... half-cousin who died intestate in Florida. My siblings and I will receive a bit of money from the unclaimed property section. They seem to have correctly identified my siblings, including my late brother. I have heard of such firms before so I do not find it implausible. They get some of it for doing the paperwork verifying family relationships.
So I checked the Florida unclaimed property website which in spite of the name seems to be a Florida government agency. Anyone had this experience?
It appears they charge an incredible premium for this.
I spoke with an attorney in Florida who immediately knew who I was ("I'm a fan") and walked me through the not terribly hard process of establishing a claim on the estate, death certificate of the late Cramer gives birth county which gives birth certificate to show ancestry.
Fort Wayne police and the Allen County Prosecutor’s Office say the shooter was acting in self-defense.
It all happened at a Halloween Party on Saturday, October 12th. Police say that the homeowner told them that the party “quickly got out of hand” by around 10:30 pm when the shooting happened....
It seems they were caught and confronted about it and when things escalated, investigators say it was Ivy who pulled out a gun and started shooting first. He fired nine shots into the windows of the kitchen and living room injuring nine people in the process.
Another person then shot and killed Ivy."
His parents are understandably grieving. They came from a church focused on gun violence and the headline makes you want to yell:
"Family of 17-year-old North Side football player killed in weekend shooting speaks out
“Losing a child to gun violence is the worst feeling ever
”
Yes, but drawing a gun and opening fire makes such a death inevitable. Still sad that a 17-year-old thought carrying a gun into a party and resisting when told No was appropriate. Opening random fire at that.
Of course, the other inevitable:
" Ivy III was ready to graduate early, fielding offers to play football in college. He was loving—and as his aunt, Vickii Ivy, tells it, he was very, very loved."
I hate to raise race, but this is a recurring theme when a black man dies now. How their future is bright. Brighter if you do not break laws. You may recall this issue raised in Bonfire of the Vanities.
I watched a YouTube video about the B-58. This was a really cool airplane. I passed under one while it was either taking off or landing in Tecas in 1967.
The 1950s and 1960s created a a whole bunch of astonishingly advanced aircraft: B-58, F-102, F-106, B70, SR-71. What amazes me is the money the U.S. had to develop these aircraft. I shudder to think of what would happen today. Amazingly, we ran a balanced budget during most of that period.
Things sure collapsed in the 1970s.
This graph shows deficit as percentage of GDP.
"Anything you can buy is usually cheaper than machining it yourself." This attempt to make ScopeRollers for my little Skywatcher EQ1 mount was harder than it looked, pr at least not a good use of my highly-paid time, so I asked, "Why doesn't anyone make them?" Becsuse the EQ1 mount is so light that only a person in need of open-heart surgery would think it needed to be rolled, not carried.
Sometimes, a fresh evaluation of your needs is the best solution of all.
I have a Eoropean trip schedule for April, so getting recovered enough to walk from Gibraltar to North Cape (okay maybe just around European cities) is important. Cardiac rehab told me that treadmilling at home the distance and speed I am doing with them every other day is okay. So Saturdays are that day. It felt okay.
If exposure is too high, there is nothing useful that Registax can do to clean them up. But another video produces a decent image.
Islam, Monirul (2016). "Posthumansm: Through the Postcolonial Lens". In Banerji, Debashish; Paranjape, Makarand R. (eds.). Critical Posthumanism and Planetary Futures (1st ed.). New Delhi: Springer India : Imprint: Springer. p. 117. ISBN 978-81-322-3637-5.
This crap goes everywhere.
“It’s going to be redone,” he said during a Fox News town hall that aired Wednesday. “They’re going to, you’re going to, you end up with a vote of the people. They’re too tough, too tough. And those are going to be redone because already there’s a movement in those states.”
"Trump did not specify if he meant he would take some kind of action if he wins in November, and he did not say which states or laws he was talking about. He did not elaborate on what he meant by “redone.”
Yes, inadequately written laws will be corrected. That seems to be what Trump is saying.
A few months back. 5/23/24 Fox News:
The Gem State has become a popular moving destination for both retired and active-duty police officers, a trend Horst and Idaho Fraternal Order of Police President Bryan Lovell broadly attribute to a more positive climate.
"They come to Idaho where they can enjoy their career and make a difference," Lovell told Fox News Digital. "They see that, in large part, our communities are supportive of law enforcement and public safety."
Cities large and small across the country suffered severe staffing shortages on the heels of anti-police protests in 2020. Four years later, some departments still can’t stop the bleeding.
Seattle’s police staffing is at its lowest level since the 1990s, according to a March KING 5 report. Earlier this year in California, the Alameda Police Department offered a $75,000 signing bonus — the highest in the nation — on top of a six-figure starting salary to try to entice new officers.
And while Lovell said Idaho hasn't been immune to recruiting challenges, the state also saw a wave of out-of-state police applications around the same time other departments began losing officers.
Opening Presentation by BATF Counsel took credit for the next day processing of suppressor approvals. He emphasized their goal is rapid processing of lawful transfers. I will be speaking about 1:00.
I ran this video through PIPP, Registax, and GIMP:
My laptop came with a 1TB SSD. Within a year or two, that was not enough. (I have more PDFs of antique American statute books than you can imagine.) I did not want to risk fauilure to copy over from my old drive C to my new drive, so I made my new drive D and told the BIOS to boot from the new drive.
Now, I have drive C with 160GB free, and drive D with all my files and programs installed on it. I would like to be able to clear drive C and map various directories (Pictures, Documents, Videos, Downloads) to drive C. Perhaps map all the non-programs to drive C.
In Linux, assuming that my memory of how symbolic links work is correct, you would create a symbolic link so that D:\Users\clayt\Documents actually points to C:\Documents so all references will actually turn into C:\Documents.
It appeears that a directory junction ("mklink /J link destinationfolder") does what is required.
I created a junction link
mklink /j "D:\users\clayt\testlink" C:\testlink
Then I copied files into D:\Users\clayt\testlink. They appeared in C:\testlink. If I deleted a file in D:\Users\clayt\testlink, it disappeared in C:\testlink.
Of course, once I was outside, I realized the two AAA batteries that power the clock drive were dead. (The power switch is in a position that makes it easy to forget to turn it off.) Nonetheless, short exposures (1/80th sec. ISO 800) still produce okay images.
I am part-way through season 1. I do not mean that all humanoid species seem to be just like us, speaking and understanding English, or that many alien worlds have an uncanny similarity to Southern California. There were sound reasons why a 1960s TV series had to operate within these artificial and unrealistic constraints.
The stories could be amusing, such as "Shore Leave": "Oh my, whiskers," followed by Alice chasing after the rabbit. "Arena" was another favorite. When I watched it for the first time, when he got to the saltpeter, I knew immediately where it was going. It has a very positive ending to a very dark story.
Where Star Trek really shone was its connection to the great events and concerns of the time, some of which remain today: "A Taste of Arnmageddon": How do we confront the hazards of Mutual Assured Destruction? While I do not remember the title, the one with the Salt Vampire:
"The Cage" was an impressive repurposing of footage from the pilot "The Menagerie" to produce two episodes on short order.
Framing Era and Early Republic Pistol Prices
Finding prices for pistols in this era is a struggle. Advertisements do not generally list prices
for much of anything. Until the advent
of the Quaker “one price” system, purchases involved haggling and the
proprietor’s perception of what a buyer could afford.[1] However, we do have U.S. Government contract
information telling us they were willing to pay for military pistols.
We can also convert these prices into hours of labor for agricultural
workers for each contract year. All
pistol contract prices are from Carl P. Russell Guns on the Early Frontiers:
From Colonial Times to the Years of the Western Fur Trade.[2]
Agricultural daily wages are from Carol D. Wright, Comparative Wages,
Prices, and Cost of Living, 46-47. When there are multiple wage levels for
agricultural workers, I am using the lowest wages for that year, which will
exaggerate how many days a worker would need to buy a pistol.
[1] E.
H. Henken, “The Mental Ability of the Quakers,” Science Progress in the 20th
Century: A Quarterly Journal of Scientific Work and Thought 16:657 [1921-1922]. See Dialynn Dwyer, “Macy’s Famous Red Star
Has Nantucket Roots,” Boston.com, Sep. 23, 2017, for a discussion of
Macy’s pioneering use of Quaker “one price” strategy in the middle of the 19th
century. https://www.boston.com/news/history/2017/09/23/how-macys-famous-red-star-has-roots-in-nantucket/,
last accessed October 15, 2024.
[2] p.
200-213.
"Pink-haired DEI trainer slams Oregon forestry bosses 'for hiring on basis of merit not gender or identity'"
Obviously, the pink-haired, face tatooed DEI trainer was not hired on merit.
Christian v. James (W.D.N.Y. 2024) struck down New York's law requiring that a business must post a "licensees welcome" sign befor cocealed carry licensee can enter.
An 1821 Tennesse law:
An Act of 1821, § 1. Every person so degrading himself by carrying a dirk, sword cane, Spanish stiletto, belt or pocket pistols, either public or private, shall pay a fine of five dollars for every such offence, which may be recovered by warrant before any justice of the peace, in the name of the county for its use, in which the offence may have been committed; and it shall be the duty of a justice to issue a warrant on the application, on oath, of any person applying; and it shall be the duty of every judge, justice of the peace, sheriff, coroner, and constable within this state, to see that this act shall have its full effect: Provided, that nothing herein contained shall affect any person that may be on a journey to any place out of his county or state.
The following session, less than a year later, the prohibition on carrying "French knives" was repealed.
What is a French knife? I have xeen court cases involving "Spanish pirate knives." Do French knives threaten you with escargot?
No homosexuals could be reached for comment because they are all tragically dead.
"After years of harassment I am finally free to just bake cakes," said Jack Phillips, a baker who first made headlines in 2017 for politely turning down a request to design a cake celebrating a person's gender transition. "I'm sorry this led to the death of millions but, honestly, I don't know why they were relying on me for food. There really are other bakeries out there."
Homosexuals, who can literally eat anything a normal person can, became addicted to Phillips' baked goods and refused to go anywhere else, sources say. When asked what made Phillips' food so special, they could not provide an answer. "I think we just crave what we can't have — which is also why we are gay," said Kevin "Jazzy" Lafarb, who starved to death this week.
With the level of engagement that my readers have, I suspect that my reminder to register and vote is unneeded, but this may be our last chance to stop the billionaires who hate us. Yes, Trump is very New York City and unpleasant but we are electing a president not Prom King. He is not arriving at the door to take our daughter on a date.
"Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, 27, was arrested on Monday in Oklahoma and accused of plotting to kill Americans with an assault rifle on behalf of ISIS. Court documents said he had contributed to an ISIS charity in March and accessed online ISIS propaganda, but they did not say whether he was radicalized before or after he came to the U.S. in 2021. A senior law enforcement official said the FBI is still investigating that question."
It makes you wonder how much our Afghanistan effort might have been working for Taliban
Could two fuses in the controller box both fail simultaneously? Yes, and they are a booger to replace. The leads are long and think and they like to bend. First time, it fixed Y axis; the Z axis fuse was not deeply enough inserted. Without tweezers, I would had to hire the world's shortest bodybuilders.
Everything works now. I tried to finish the cut manually but I remembered why this is an issue. It is very easy feed so quickly that the force moves the mill vise and thus the workpiece.
Fema spends $4.9bn on Covid in one month — 20 times more than on Hurricane Helene aid
Agency suffering dual challenge of funding crunch and staff shortages ahead of Hurricane Milton
Even if not spent on illegals, COVID is no longer the disaster it was four or even two uyears ago. Where is that money going?
University of Wyoming Law School is having a symposium about the National Firearms Act October 18th in which I will be a presenter. To reserve a spot go here.. If you are a lawyer, you can get CLE for this, instead of a class in Contracts or Tort Law Reform. I know which you would rather do.
MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian court on Monday sentenced a 72-year-old American in a closed trial to nearly seven years in prison for allegedly fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine. Prosecutors said Stephen Hubbard signed a contract with the Ukrainian military after Russia sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022 and he fought alongside them until being captured two months later.
My wife gets freaked out by the chop saw. I confess that if I can cut material in a less dangerous way, all the better.
I need to cut a 30 degree angle on some .99" aluminum square material. An alternative strategy is put the material in a mill vise on the rotating table and run a carbide end mill through the material after turning the rotary table to 30 degrees.
I am working up to this because I am still easily fatigued.
Part of the set-up is getting the workpiece exactly at a right angle to the mill table. Here is the workpiece in the mill vise on the rotary table.
Now squaring the workpiece to the mill table. I used a square to get the mill vise square to the Z axis:
The next step is to zero the Y-axis at the end of the workpiece, ask the rotary table to turn 30 degrees and move the end mill to 1.75" cos 30 and slice across. I will write some code with a bash script to make repeated cuts .01" deeper each time until I have cut through it.
It is slower cutting (while avoiding jams caused by too high a speed).
I am not entirely sure of their methodology. The article Psychopathy, gun carrying, and firearm violence. The abstract claims:
Firearm violence was positively related to the affective and antisocial facets of psychopathy. Whereas gun carrying without a concealed permit and defensive gun use were associated with only the antisocial facet. Gun carrying with a concealed permit was not related to any of the facets. Conclusion: These findings build on existing research on psychopathy and gun carrying among youth, suggesting that examining the facets of psychopathy can contribute to our understanding of the individual-level risk of gun violence among adults. The results also enhance the nuanced exploration of psychopathy’s role in different aspects of gun behavior, providing valuable insight into important risk factors to target during the intervention.
This surprises me not in the least. However, the article that led me to it apparently has access to the article and contains this curious explanation of the surveyed population:
The study was conducted using a sample of 343 adult participants who had been treated for violent injuries at a trauma center in Virginia. These individuals, ranging in age from 18 to 75, were recruited because they were considered to be at high risk for future violence. The majority of participants were male (74%) and identified as Black or African American (65%). All participants completed a series of interviews and self-report surveys to assess their psychopathic traits and gun-related behaviors.
Without question, violent criminals are also disproportionately victims as well. I am just skeptical that you can assume victims are a meaningful match for the victimizers.
"At least nine others were reported to have been injured, and several are in a critical condition."
