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.