Thursday, April 2, 2015

Time lapse video of undulatus asperatus clouds...

Time lapse video of undulatus asperatus clouds...

Barn progress...

Barn progress...  All the junction boxes are installed for the fifteen lamps going into Debbie's agility arena.  Now I just have to wire them up.  I probably have a couple days more work on those.

The big excitement for the day yesterday was the surprise arrival of my new lathe.  According to the tracking information, it was expected about a week from now.  I'm not complaining about it coming early, though :)  The lathe arrived on a single long pallet weighing 980 pounds (according to the packing label).  That's just barely within the specs for my tractor's loader capacity, but fortunately I was able to get it off the truck with no problems.  It loaded the engine down a bit, and there was a little groaning from the tractor's frame ... but I picked it right up off the truck's floor and drove it into the barn.

On unpacking the pallet, I discovered (naturally) that this is one quite massive kit.  One thing that's a little unusual: the weight of this kit is such that I will either need three helpers to move the parts with me, or I'll have to figure out how to use the tractor to do the lifting.  Once I get the thing assembled I don't think I'll be moving it – so I definitely need to get it in the right place the first time :)

Update:  I just discovered the existence of something called an “engine crane”, designed to allow mechanics to lift an engine out of a car and move it around the shop.  They're not all that expensive, and they can easily lift any of the tools in my shop – so I can move things around, and assemble the lathe, all by myself.  I have one on order now...

Geek: 7 bits of mantissa are not enough for two (decimal) digit accuracy...

Geek: 7 bits of mantissa are not enough for two (decimal) digit accuracy...  Excellent discussion of this little-understood problem, with a (for me, at least) new perspective of the underlying issue as one of interleaving.  Browsing around the site led to all sorts of interesting posts...