Author: dale

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Osama goes to his reward

We got the news last night that the asshole Osama bin Laden was finally put down by a team of Navy SEALs.  One can only hope he’s enjoying the rewards of his long and colorful life.  Personally I’d love to think our Sikh friends are right, and that he can be reincarnated as a pig — to be eaten by a bunch of Russian army veterans at a summer BBQ.

I guess now there are Muslim “scholars” bitching and whining about how and where he was buried — namely at sea, off the deck of the USS Carl Vinson.  I’m sure the Navy made certain that proper Islamic burial procedures were observed; after all, we’re not a bunch of murdering bastards with no regard for humanity, and the Navy does love tradition.  But in short, we killed the piece of shit, we get to decide where his ass gets dumped.  It’s that simple.  You wanted to see the fucker buried on land, you should have shot him yourself.

Enjoy the ride, Osama…  burn in hell, you murdering piece of shit.  With any luck your friends will join you in short order.

 

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Update on the CNC mill

I’ve now spent a few days’ worth of free time working on getting the CNC mill set up, tested and adjusted. I finally got access to the more useful forums at Lumenlab’s web site, so I have some additional measurements, adjustments and run-in to do. All in all, by the time I finally get the spindle and am able to do some real work, I should have things set up pretty well.

I’ve still got some stuff to do with getting the wiring cleaned up, and I want to get the motor driver board and power supply mounted into the controller PC case. For the time being, though, everything is going well. With e Dremel flex head temporarily and not-too-solidly clamped to the tool head, I was able to do some test cuts on a scarp 2×4 and will do some more testing after adjusting for backlash and tramming (squaring).

I’ve got a LOT of potential projects lined up. Of course the primary use for the short term will be making the holes for PicoKeyer and other cabinets. I want to make a tabletop stand.cabinet for my Nixie tube clock. I want to do some engraving and see how well it does with relief carving in wood, with the idea that I might be able to make some plaques and decorations. There will be some bits and pieces for the Harley also, starting with new bushings for the removable tour pack kit.

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Grilled Chicken-Bacon-Avocado Quesadillas

  • 3-4 large skinless, boneless chicken breasts
  • 2 white or yellow onions
  • 2-3 Bell peppers
  • 3 ripe avocados, sliced
  • 2 fresh tomatoes, diced
  • Shredded Mexican cheese mix, 1 bag
  • Flour tortillas

I made these on the grill last night. There was some room for improvement, as always, but I thought they turned out OK. The tough part is the timing, especially when it’s 45 degrees and windy – stuff cools off fast.

I started with four large boneless, skinless chicken breasts. I sliced partway through the chicken, then sprinkled with cilantro and lime pepper and doused them liberally with Italian dressing. They marinated in the fridge for a few hours. Cut the onions and peppers into slices, then toss them in a bowl with some olive oil, a little salt and fresh ground pepper.

After marinating, grill the chicken breasts. I used a perforated veggie grilling pan to grill the sliced onions and bell peppers. Nothing is as good as veggies grilled in olive oil! When the chicken is done, slice it and cut the slices into fairly small chunks. Put the tortillas on the grill. Sprinkle shredded cheese, followed by the chicken and veggies on one half. Flip the other half over to cover, grill until it’s hot and starting to brown. Turn the quesadilla over and finish grilling. We used uncooked flour tortillas; if you use the cooked ones the timing is way less critical. After grilling add the diced tomato and avocado slices, then cut into quarters and serve.

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A new toy – err, I mean, tool!!

For the past couple of days I have been working on assembling and figuring out the wiring and setup for the newest tool in the tool box.  OK, it would be a BIG tool box.  I’m just waiting for the rotary tool heads to arrive so I can do some real work with this sucker…

The M3's first words
Motion test -- not bad, for a start
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WordPress.com hacked

Well, it looks like one or more of the WordPress.com blog hosting site’s server(s) was/were hacked.  Among the things the attackers got were, apparently, the keys used to interface WordPress.com blogs with Twitter and Facebook.

If you know me, you probably know I have a fairly low opinion of Facebook and a much, much lower opinion of Twitter (which could simply shorten its name by three letters to improve accuracy).  There has been a disturbing, headlong rush over the past few years to concentrate far too many people’s personal lives onto the servers run by Facebook, Google, and a few others.  I see this as problematic for a number of reasons.

First of all, I see a very great threat to personal privacy.  It may be tempting to use these “services” for their intended purpose, but people tend to either ignore or forget basic common sense.  OK, so Google lets you search the entire internet for “stuff”.  Great, I love that.  But shall we take a Google search as the Gospel truth?  Google is a multi-billion-dollar corporation.  They make lots of that money by selling advertising space.  Where are those ads?  In your search results.  At the top of your search results.  They also provide “free” email through Gmail.  Free?  Well, not really.  Your email is examined, indexed, and used by Google to (can you guess it?) sell more advertising.  “OK”, you say, “It’s not hurting me, I get free email out of the deal”.  Great.  Then you won’t mind if I stand by your mailbox, open all of your email, read it and sell a general synopsis of the contents to marketing companies who will use it to stand outside your house and wave advertising banners as you pull out of your garage – right?  I mean, I’ll do it for free, and hand your mail to you after I’m done with it.

For some people Facebook is replacing email – not to mention phone calls, text messages, and in-person meetings.  I lost count long ago of how many arguments have spiraled completely out of control due to simple misunderstandings and miscommunication.  Some people’s newfound refusal to just pick up the phone and call someone, or drive ten minutes to visit in person and discuss things face to face, has been the cause of at least two family feuds that I know are going on at this moment.  Brothers and sisters not speaking to each other, sons and daughters, friends falling apart — largely because we seem to be losing our willingness to communicate in ways that involve more than a few seconds of typing.  Hurtful, horrible things that we would never dream of saying to someone in person just seem to slide right out of the keyboard and onto a website, to be seen by people who have absolutely no business knowing your business.

But I’ve strayed away from the WordPress thing.  Yes, I run WordPress (the open source blog software) for my blog as well as another.  But no, I don’t use the WordPress.com site.  Why not?  Well, this is one huge reason.  By keeping my own data on my own systems, I am responsible for what’s there and how secure it is.  I have control over how the site is run, the advertising supporting that site (or complete lack thereof), and whether my blog has to co-exist with those with whom I don’t want to be associated.

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Cool beanies!

I’m sitting at a little table at a Chili’s in the Charlotte airport, writing a new blog entry using my cell phone. While it’s true that the keyboard is a little small for my massive mitts, if I want I can pull out the laptop and use it instead… connected to the Internet through the cell phone, of course.

I made it through the TSA checkpoint with no printed boarding pass, and will board the plane the same way. A new electronic boarding pass displays a 2-D barcode, which I can scan both places. This time I printed a copy just to be safe.

This morning I was able to remotely log into my server at home, and from there make a complete backup of the four web sites I am currently running on a GoDaddy server.

This is some cool stuff.

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Truxedo Lo Pro QT roll-up truck bed cover

After having a Truxedo Lo-Pro on my Sport Trac pretty much the whole time I owned it, I knew I wanted to put one on the F150.  They’re not cheap by any means, but quality products seldom are.  And the Truxedo covers are definitely high quality!  The fit is perfect, installation is quick and painless, and the materials are all top notch.  The new cover looks great and works exactly as it should.

I ordered mine from Mechanics Warehouse and got it the next day — they shipped it from a warehouse in Kansas City via FedEx ground that day.  I chose them becuase their price was the same as the lowest I found anywhere else, they also had the rubber bed mat I wanted, and they threw in some goodies for free.  Lots of them.  There is a ratcheting cargo bar, a telescoping retriever hook (for stuff that is up in the front of the bed), a tailgate weather seal, and a set of four Bull Ring tie-downs.  I can’t use the Bull Rings, but will either sell them or give them away.

If you’re looking for a soft tonneau cover for your truck, I can recommend the Truxedo line without reservation.  I like the Lo Pro QT because of its automatic tension adjustment and the single release on the rear bar.  You won’t be adjusting the cover when the weather changes, and getting it rolled out of the way to load stuff into the bed (and putting it back in place afterward) is quick and easy even for one person.

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QR codes… cool stuff!

I finally took a few minutes (or maybe a couple of hours) to play around with QR codes.  Those are the odd-looking square bar codes you see in a lot of places now, including on product boxes, in ads and on signs.  Naturally there’s a free Linux program to generate them, so I did…

A sample contact card

HamGadgets news blog

This blog (home page)

Link to MasterKeyer product page

You get the idea.  If you scan these with your Android, iPhone or Crackberry you’ll see that you can encode a lot of different stuff into one.  I’ll be using these for sure…  easy way to point people with smart phones to a web site, or to exchange contact information.

 

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Radio installation – finished!

Well, it’s all in, and I’m very happy with the result.  It looks good, it works as it should.  Right down to the delayed shutoff — I can park and shut off the engine, the rig stays powered until I open a door (or some delay times out).  I mounted the control head with Command foam tape mounting tabs for easy removal if needed.  Also, my old roll of 3M foam tape finally got too old and these were all Wally World had.  🙂  You can click a picture for larger views.

The only thing I’m not sure about is the foam tape mounting for the control head.  If that doesn’t hold over the long term, I’ll probably switch to a ProClip.  It’s working for now, but it’s amazing how much you can see in a high-resolution picture that you don’t see when your eyeballs start aging.  The transceiver isn’t hard mounted; I’ll stick the hook side of some industrial strength Velcro to the top surface (it’s upside down) to keep it secure but it’s not shifting around even under hard braking.