Then I watched this video of him during a Congressional hearing into the IRS boondoggle scandal:
More like him, please...
Saturday, June 8, 2013
Trey Gowdy...
Before this morning, I had never heard of Trey Gowdy, Representative for South Carolina's 4th District. He's been a member of the House since 2011; he's a lawyer and a Republican.
Then I watched this video of him during a Congressional hearing into the IRS boondoggle scandal:
More like him, please...
Then I watched this video of him during a Congressional hearing into the IRS boondoggle scandal:
More like him, please...
Rumors...
Via reader Jim M.:
Rumors are circulating in California that radical Muslims are planning to go on a rampage in Los Angeles, killing anyone who is a legalU. S. citizen. Police fear the death toll could be as high as 23.
Jamulians Against the Casino...
On Thursday, June 6, there was a meeting of Jamul residents opposed to the construction of the Jamul Indian Casino, organized as “Jamulians Against the Casino”. Debbie and I are adamantly opposed, but we missed the meeting. Our neighbor Marisa S. passed along the organization's email newsletter, which is full of linky goodness:
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Major News from Curiosity on Mars...
The lead:
PASADENA, CA—Nearly a year after Curiosity’s triumphant Mars landing, scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced today that the NASA rover is preparing to explore a large structure six kilometers south of the Gale Crater, which preliminary reports indicate is an enormous Martian synagogue.Read the whole thing...
Visualizing the Wind...
The snapshot I took of the wind map doesn't really do it justice – the real thing is animated and interactive (you can zoom in on any particular area). The wind data being visualized is realtime, collected from NOAA via publicly available APIs. The statement on the web page says it's a personal art project, and in fact it is often quite beautiful. It's also a wonderful example of the power of data visualization: the animated map instantly conveys the current winds in a way we would never get by reading columns of locations, wind direction, and wind speed...
American Dialects...
At the University of Cambridge (UK), Bert Vaux has been running a survey of English dialects for some time, collecting a large amount of data (you can take the survey and add results yourself). Now Joshua Katz at the North Carolina State University Department of Statistics has taken this raw data, filtered it for the United States, massaged it a bit, and produced a beautiful set of interactive graphics like the one below, each exploring a different particular dialectical variant.
The example I've reproduced below shows one such dialectical variant: what you call the device for drinking water in public. The red areas mostly say “water fountain”, the blue areas “drinking fountain”, and the weird little green areas are where they say “bubbler” (what's up with Rhode Island and Michigan?).
If you're at all interested in language, or just English in particular, this is a fascinating interactive graphic, very well done...
The example I've reproduced below shows one such dialectical variant: what you call the device for drinking water in public. The red areas mostly say “water fountain”, the blue areas “drinking fountain”, and the weird little green areas are where they say “bubbler” (what's up with Rhode Island and Michigan?).
If you're at all interested in language, or just English in particular, this is a fascinating interactive graphic, very well done...
Climate Models: an Epic Fail!
Dr. Roy Spencer is a climatologist and long-time anthropogenic global warming (AGW) skeptic. He's just done all of us a favor by plotting all 73 of the climate models used by the IPCC to support their predictions of AGW – along with the actual observations since the mid-'70s. The data chosen is the “tropical mid-troposphere” temperature – the temperature of the middle of the troposphere (the lower 12 miles or so of our atmosphere, so about 6 miles high) at latitudes within 20&deq; of the equator. He chose this particular data for two reasons:
As Dr. Spencer says, this divergence between the models and the actual observations isn't news – skeptics have been reporting it for years. It's just becoming more and more obvious as the evidence accumulates that the IPCC models are fatally flawed.
There's no shame in their models being in error. There's great shame in their defense of them, even in the face of solid evidence to the contrary. That's not how science is supposed to work...
- The IPCC models make a clear prediction of rapidly increasing temperature in this area.
- Since the 1970s, we have excellent objective observational data for this area (from both balloons and satellites), with more than enough data to allow the various sensors to be cross-calibrated.
As Dr. Spencer says, this divergence between the models and the actual observations isn't news – skeptics have been reporting it for years. It's just becoming more and more obvious as the evidence accumulates that the IPCC models are fatally flawed.
There's no shame in their models being in error. There's great shame in their defense of them, even in the face of solid evidence to the contrary. That's not how science is supposed to work...
Friday, June 7, 2013
FJ Cruiser: Platform - Let the Painting Commence!
This morning I finished the last of the masking, and set up all the parts for painting. Some parts are going to be half orange gloss enamel, half rubberized deck coating (the surfaces the dogs will walk on); some are all orange enamel (having no exposed horizontal surfaces). The half and half parts I laid out on sawhorses, orange side up (since I'm painting that first). The all-orange parts I hung up, so that I could paint them in their entirety in one go.
First step: primer. I followed the recommendation of the “paint expert” at Home Depot, and bought two quarts of oil-based primer that's good for both wood and bare metal (that's a combo that's hard to find). The orange enamel is water-based, and depends on the primer for good adhesion to the metal-and-wood construction of the platform.
I figured that putting the coat of primer on would take maybe an hour, hour and a half. It ended up taking four and a half hours, and by the end of that non-stop marathon brushing session, my arms are mighty tired. I'm pausing to rest them between sentences here :)
It's been a good many years since I did any serious painting. I got a big surprise when I started using the primer this morning – it wasn't thin and watery like the primers I used years ago. The consistency of this primer reminds me of cornstarch-thickened clam chowder – the stirring stick would stand up in it for quite a while. The coverage and adhesion of this stuff was just awesome compared to the primers I've used in the past. It seems paint technology has come quite a way in the past twenty years or so!
Many years ago I had a job working for a slumlord in Trenton, New Jersey – a rotund Dutchman named Mr. Van Czak. It was a horrible job, but Mr. Van Czak taught me quite a few things about lots of “handyman” subjects (and also a thing or two about women, but that's a subject for another post :). One of the things he taught me was that you should always use a brush for applying primer. If you must use a roller or a sprayer, use them only for the topcoat. Why? It's because a skilled painter wielding a good brush can “work” the paint into every nook and cranny on the surface. Even surfaces that look smooth really have many small imperfections. By brushing the same spot in multiple directions, the brush's bristles will work the paint into all these little places, resulting in better adhesion and no holes in the coating. Rollers (but see note at the end of this post) and sprayers don't have this characteristic, and they will leave many minor imperfections in the paint coat. But...if the primer coat is perfect (brushed on), then a roller or sprayer on the topcoat doesn't really cause a problem.
So I brushed on my primer, and worked the paint in just like Mr. Van Czak taught me, 45 years or so ago. Here's what today's work looked like:
On rollers: I noted earlier why brushes do a better job at painting than rollers do. When I was in the Navy, around 1974, I ran into a kind of paint roller that actually did the job as well as brushing. I met this paint roller because of a job I was given as a punishment (nominally for looking unmilitary, but really because I pissed off the officer in charge of my group): for a month I was placed in charge of a group of Bosun's Mates as they repainted part of the ship.
If you haven't been in the Navy, then you probably don't know much about Bosun's Mates. They're the people who keep the ship in shape, cleaning, painting, repairing rope works, etc. Some Bosun's Mates are very bright and skilled people. Many, however, are not. In fact, the Bosun's Mates had a very well-deserved reputation for being closer to our evolutionary ancestors than most people. Some of them really could drag their knuckles when they walked. Some of them could lift hundred pound objects with their pinky fingers, while drunk. Some of them could read, sort off. Less of them could do arithmetic. Being put in charge of a group of them was an unending challenge.
The first thing my group of Bosun's Mates did was to grind off the old paint in the area we were repainting. This creates an ungodly noise, clouds of dust, and is generally awful. The Bosun's Mates didn't seem to notice all this, though. Then they cleaned the surface with a dilute acid (this is metal we're talking about). Finally it was time to paint, and for that they broke out their electric paint roller. This paint roller looked a bit like an over-sized electric drill with the roller holder sticking out from where the drill bit should be. It didn't rotate, though - it vibrated, in a pattern designed to emulate the brush strokes of a skilled painter. Very clever! I tried it for a few minutes myself; it was easy to control, did a very nice job painting, but the vibration was really intense – far more intense than a palm sander, for example. I could feel my whole arm going numb. Once again, the Bosun's Mates didn't seem to notice.
On one break we took during the repainting, I noticed that the Bosun's Mates were calling their roller “Sheila”. Naming their tools is not a normal Bosun's Mate behavior, so I asked them why. One of them eagerly obliged with a detailed explanation, promptly making me very sorry I had asked. It seems that soon after receiving the new rollers and noting their vibrations, the Bosun's Mates came up with an, er, alternative use for the the roller – as an aid for masturbation. All of my Bosun's Mate team proceeded to tell me, in very graphic terms, about just how wonderful this new roller was for it's off-label use. I'll spare you the details, except to note that they were quite clever about making use of this tool. It was very clear that they had all had a lot of personal experience with the roller, developing a close personal relationship with it. So good was the roller, in fact, that they decided the rollers (the ship had four of them) each needed their own feminine names.
If you've never been in the Navy, that conversation and its subject will probably seem unlikely and outlandish, but trust me, in the U.S. Navy of the '70s, that was behavior well within norms. With women on ships in today's Navy, I suspect the culture has shifted just a tad. Maybe. I debated about whether to pass the word on the off-label roller use to the guy in charge of the Bosun's Mates, but in the end I decided not to. If they wanted to have a romantic relationship with a paint roller, that was their business...
I've never seen one of those vibrating paint rollers for sale anywhere. A quick Google search didn't find any, either, though I did find this patent talking about the same general idea.
First step: primer. I followed the recommendation of the “paint expert” at Home Depot, and bought two quarts of oil-based primer that's good for both wood and bare metal (that's a combo that's hard to find). The orange enamel is water-based, and depends on the primer for good adhesion to the metal-and-wood construction of the platform.
I figured that putting the coat of primer on would take maybe an hour, hour and a half. It ended up taking four and a half hours, and by the end of that non-stop marathon brushing session, my arms are mighty tired. I'm pausing to rest them between sentences here :)
It's been a good many years since I did any serious painting. I got a big surprise when I started using the primer this morning – it wasn't thin and watery like the primers I used years ago. The consistency of this primer reminds me of cornstarch-thickened clam chowder – the stirring stick would stand up in it for quite a while. The coverage and adhesion of this stuff was just awesome compared to the primers I've used in the past. It seems paint technology has come quite a way in the past twenty years or so!
Many years ago I had a job working for a slumlord in Trenton, New Jersey – a rotund Dutchman named Mr. Van Czak. It was a horrible job, but Mr. Van Czak taught me quite a few things about lots of “handyman” subjects (and also a thing or two about women, but that's a subject for another post :). One of the things he taught me was that you should always use a brush for applying primer. If you must use a roller or a sprayer, use them only for the topcoat. Why? It's because a skilled painter wielding a good brush can “work” the paint into every nook and cranny on the surface. Even surfaces that look smooth really have many small imperfections. By brushing the same spot in multiple directions, the brush's bristles will work the paint into all these little places, resulting in better adhesion and no holes in the coating. Rollers (but see note at the end of this post) and sprayers don't have this characteristic, and they will leave many minor imperfections in the paint coat. But...if the primer coat is perfect (brushed on), then a roller or sprayer on the topcoat doesn't really cause a problem.
So I brushed on my primer, and worked the paint in just like Mr. Van Czak taught me, 45 years or so ago. Here's what today's work looked like:
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| Some tricky masking, on the inside of this connector. The piece of wood that fits in there must be removable, so both the inside of this connector and the mating wood part must be masked off. The wood was easy, but on the inside of this connector was tricky! |
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| Another tricky masking job: the hinge holes. I never had to mask a hole before! I did this by stuffing masking tape in there to completely cover the hole, then trimming the edge with my (very sharp) pocket knife. I had to do eight of these - what a pain... |
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| Hanging parts, on ropes rigged to pine trees, with steel wire risers and hooks I fabricated from 3/16 steel rod. This all worked great, except it really pissed off our grey squirrel. He sat up there in the center pine tree, high over my head, and hollered at me for hours... |
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| The half-and-half parts, laid out orange-side up on sawhorses... |
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| I'm hanging them from the points where they attach to the FJ. You can also see the hook I fabricated, slightly different for each part so that they hang correctly... |
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| This is the biggest part by far, probably as much surface area as all the other parts put together. It took me almost two hours to paint this one piece! |
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| All done with the primer (it's white). Whew! |
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| Those nuts and bolts are a real challenge to brush paint onto... |
On rollers: I noted earlier why brushes do a better job at painting than rollers do. When I was in the Navy, around 1974, I ran into a kind of paint roller that actually did the job as well as brushing. I met this paint roller because of a job I was given as a punishment (nominally for looking unmilitary, but really because I pissed off the officer in charge of my group): for a month I was placed in charge of a group of Bosun's Mates as they repainted part of the ship.
If you haven't been in the Navy, then you probably don't know much about Bosun's Mates. They're the people who keep the ship in shape, cleaning, painting, repairing rope works, etc. Some Bosun's Mates are very bright and skilled people. Many, however, are not. In fact, the Bosun's Mates had a very well-deserved reputation for being closer to our evolutionary ancestors than most people. Some of them really could drag their knuckles when they walked. Some of them could lift hundred pound objects with their pinky fingers, while drunk. Some of them could read, sort off. Less of them could do arithmetic. Being put in charge of a group of them was an unending challenge.
The first thing my group of Bosun's Mates did was to grind off the old paint in the area we were repainting. This creates an ungodly noise, clouds of dust, and is generally awful. The Bosun's Mates didn't seem to notice all this, though. Then they cleaned the surface with a dilute acid (this is metal we're talking about). Finally it was time to paint, and for that they broke out their electric paint roller. This paint roller looked a bit like an over-sized electric drill with the roller holder sticking out from where the drill bit should be. It didn't rotate, though - it vibrated, in a pattern designed to emulate the brush strokes of a skilled painter. Very clever! I tried it for a few minutes myself; it was easy to control, did a very nice job painting, but the vibration was really intense – far more intense than a palm sander, for example. I could feel my whole arm going numb. Once again, the Bosun's Mates didn't seem to notice.
On one break we took during the repainting, I noticed that the Bosun's Mates were calling their roller “Sheila”. Naming their tools is not a normal Bosun's Mate behavior, so I asked them why. One of them eagerly obliged with a detailed explanation, promptly making me very sorry I had asked. It seems that soon after receiving the new rollers and noting their vibrations, the Bosun's Mates came up with an, er, alternative use for the the roller – as an aid for masturbation. All of my Bosun's Mate team proceeded to tell me, in very graphic terms, about just how wonderful this new roller was for it's off-label use. I'll spare you the details, except to note that they were quite clever about making use of this tool. It was very clear that they had all had a lot of personal experience with the roller, developing a close personal relationship with it. So good was the roller, in fact, that they decided the rollers (the ship had four of them) each needed their own feminine names.
If you've never been in the Navy, that conversation and its subject will probably seem unlikely and outlandish, but trust me, in the U.S. Navy of the '70s, that was behavior well within norms. With women on ships in today's Navy, I suspect the culture has shifted just a tad. Maybe. I debated about whether to pass the word on the off-label roller use to the guy in charge of the Bosun's Mates, but in the end I decided not to. If they wanted to have a romantic relationship with a paint roller, that was their business...
I've never seen one of those vibrating paint rollers for sale anywhere. A quick Google search didn't find any, either, though I did find this patent talking about the same general idea.
Thursday, June 6, 2013
A Reader Wonders...
...why I don't have photos of my workshop as I'm building the FJ Cruiser dog/storage platform. Joey M. would like to see where I'm making these things.
Sorry, but I can't oblige – for the simple reason that I don't have a workshop. I don't even have a garage! This is why all my project photos are shot outside. I do all my fabrication work on sawhorses in our driveway, and with the sole exception of the drill press, the work is all done with hand tools.
I'd love to have a well-equipped workshop, and for sure such a workshop would have made the work I'm doing much, much easier. But I'm not one to forgo a project simply because I don't have the best tools for the job. If I can do it with the tools I have (or can reasonably get), I'll do it anyway!
Sorry, but I can't oblige – for the simple reason that I don't have a workshop. I don't even have a garage! This is why all my project photos are shot outside. I do all my fabrication work on sawhorses in our driveway, and with the sole exception of the drill press, the work is all done with hand tools.
I'd love to have a well-equipped workshop, and for sure such a workshop would have made the work I'm doing much, much easier. But I'm not one to forgo a project simply because I don't have the best tools for the job. If I can do it with the tools I have (or can reasonably get), I'll do it anyway!
FJ Cruiser: The Platform Saga Continues...
Working on the FJ Cruiser project has been wonderful therapy for me. While I'm working on it, all my concerns about what's happening to my country disappear – there's only the work at hand, and it's work that I find both engaging and satisfying.
Yesterday afternoon, I finished the last of the fabrication on the the dog/storage platform. All I have left to do now is some wood patching, sanding, and masking – then I start painting. Unless something goes horribly wrong, I should have the finished platform installed by Sunday evening, Monday worst case.
A few photos for you:
Yesterday afternoon, I finished the last of the fabrication on the the dog/storage platform. All I have left to do now is some wood patching, sanding, and masking – then I start painting. Unless something goes horribly wrong, I should have the finished platform installed by Sunday evening, Monday worst case.
A few photos for you:
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| Here's the complete framework of the dog/storage platform; only the lids (port, starboard, and forward) are missing. This is viewed from the open rear door of the FJ; you can see both front doors are open. The rear panel (in the foreground of the photo) has cutouts for the air compressor switch, compressed air port, 110 VAC outlets, and the power plug for the refrigerator. The "pocket" on the left will hold the air compressor (there's a little shelf in there to mount it on), and the "pocket" on the right will hold the 2000 watt AC inverter. The two doors will cover the open areas you see on the left and right, there's a separate little door that covers the square opening between the front seats. The two big doors are hinged on each side of the center "rib" you see (the only flat surface visible now)... |
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| Fitting the oak hinge bar into the the port door's surface. This is the same exercise I did last week on the center rib, except this time I have to match that center rib exactly, adding another dimension of trickiness to an already-tricky operation... |
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| The port door, nearly complete. Here I'm laying out the holes for the wood screws that will (together with glue) attach the oak hinge bar to the plywood door. |
Can This Get Even Worse?
Reading the news over the past few weeks has been tortuous for any American who cherishes the freedoms our Founding Fathers intended us to have. It seems like there's little room for other news between the IRS scandals, the Benghazi coverups and mysteries, the AP phone records, the Rosen phone taps, the Verizon phone records (including mine!), the Bin Laden leak disclosures, and the IRS conference boondoggles.
It all leaves me with a sense of unreality. It felt like a familiar feeling, and I finally placed it this morning: it feels like the way I felt when I left home to join the Navy. The familiar place that I loved was gone, and instead I was rudely thrust into a new world with little to commend it. Furthermore, I had no idea what was going to happen to me – could be good, could be bad. I was profoundly aware of the limits of my own influence of the future course of events. It was mostly scary, and it was definitely hard to maintain a positive attitude.
I feel like that now.
I also am being trained to expect more and more of this horrifying news. I'm losing any ability to be surprised at what the Obama administration might do...
It all leaves me with a sense of unreality. It felt like a familiar feeling, and I finally placed it this morning: it feels like the way I felt when I left home to join the Navy. The familiar place that I loved was gone, and instead I was rudely thrust into a new world with little to commend it. Furthermore, I had no idea what was going to happen to me – could be good, could be bad. I was profoundly aware of the limits of my own influence of the future course of events. It was mostly scary, and it was definitely hard to maintain a positive attitude.
I feel like that now.
I also am being trained to expect more and more of this horrifying news. I'm losing any ability to be surprised at what the Obama administration might do...
D-Day...
Thousands of them would not survive this day. I've visited several of the Allied cemeteries in Normandy. The sheer number of memorials is staggering and overwhelming. I've read a lot of history about WWII and D-Day, so I have a reasonably good understanding of what those troops were facing. I am in awe of their quiet courage and determination to win.
To win, and to survive – because WWII was an existential war for America and its allies. That's something I've discovered that many Americans today, especially younger Americans, simply don't realize: that in WWII our very existence as a nation was threatened. Not in some obscure, indirect way – but very directly indeed. If Adolf Hitler had prevailed, America would be a very different place indeed.
There are a few dates each year that I make a point of remembering and thinking about. June 6 is one of them. This year, I got to thinking about conversations I've had over the past year, mainly with some of my colleagues. I was quite amazed, though I probably shouldn't be, at their profound ignorance of WWII in general, and D-Day in particular. In no particular order, here are some of the things I heard:
- A belief that America's involvement in WWII was essentially like our involvement in Vietnam or Korea – we were there to help an ally, not because we were directly threatened.
- A belief that America's casualties (killed and wounded) in WWII were lower than our casualties in Afghanistan.
- A belief that Hitler's extermination of Jews was at best overblown and at worst a complete fabrication of wartime propagandists on the Allied side.
- A belief that Allied aircraft had complete air superiority throughout the war, and routinely (and successfully) bombed both stationary and mobile targets.
I'd be willing to bet that none of people voicing the beliefs I outlined today are remembering D-Day today. I'll remember for them...
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Roadside Ear Cleaners...
It Must Be Nice...
Someone in England has complained to the BBC Trust that the clock on the BBC website isn't necessarily accurate.
I'm envious. It must be really, really nice to have that be your worst problem!
I'm envious. It must be really, really nice to have that be your worst problem!
Awesome Imagery...
Sonar has come a long, long way since the primitive gear I worked with in the Navy some 40 years ago. Back then, state of the art was detecting the existence of a submarine, or the depth of the water under the ship. These days, side-scanning synthetic-aperture sonars take “pictures” that look like sharply focused old-fashioned black-and-white photos:
This shows the stern of the Titanic (at left) and many piece of debris from the ship after in broke in two on the way down. It's not a simple sonar image, but rather a composite painstakingly made using a combination of sonar imagery and underwater photography. I like the relief provided by the shadows; it makes the image “pop” almost as though it were 3D.
Much more here...
This shows the stern of the Titanic (at left) and many piece of debris from the ship after in broke in two on the way down. It's not a simple sonar image, but rather a composite painstakingly made using a combination of sonar imagery and underwater photography. I like the relief provided by the shadows; it makes the image “pop” almost as though it were 3D.
Much more here...
Weird, But Real...
Most of the animals are kind of cute, but a few look like something out of a low-budget Bollywood horror movie...
CTRL-ALT-DEL...
If you've ever used a Windows computer, then you are surely familiar with the “three-fingered salute”: pressing the control, alternate, and delete keys simultaneously to reboot your computer. While other operating systems have used the same key combination for rebooting, Windows users need to use it much more frequently. Many other operating systems have a similar reboot command (perhaps with a different key combination), but users often never need to use it, so they don't even learn it. Not so on Windows; virtually all Windows users need the three-fingered salute quite often. In fact, for many people it's the very first thing you try when your Windows computer is acting up – because all too frequently it solves the problem. I've been using Maci computers now for six years, and until I wrote this post I wasn't sure whether the Mac even had such a key combination (it does, but it's not CTRL-ALT-DEL). I've never needed it.
The invention of the CTRL-ALT-DEL sequence is most often attributed to David Bradley, one of the engineers who designed the original IBM PC, in 1982. He put the key combination in to make life easier for the engineers, as they frequently needed to reboot their computers. There is another claim for the invention, though: Mike Wise, founder of A-Systems, in 1975.
Why one would be eager to claim this particular title, I'm not sure :)
Reader, former colleague, and friend Doug S. passed along this interesting video clip from 2002. In it, David Bradley pokes a little fun at Bill Gates for having made CTRL-ALT-DEL famous – and Mr. Bill isn't happy about it:
The invention of the CTRL-ALT-DEL sequence is most often attributed to David Bradley, one of the engineers who designed the original IBM PC, in 1982. He put the key combination in to make life easier for the engineers, as they frequently needed to reboot their computers. There is another claim for the invention, though: Mike Wise, founder of A-Systems, in 1975.
Why one would be eager to claim this particular title, I'm not sure :)
Reader, former colleague, and friend Doug S. passed along this interesting video clip from 2002. In it, David Bradley pokes a little fun at Bill Gates for having made CTRL-ALT-DEL famous – and Mr. Bill isn't happy about it:
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