Daily Archives: 10/24/2018

Computers and technology

Fiddly Bits

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I’ve always loved fiddly technologies. Fortunately, I chose a career that lets me do it that for a lving.

On the home side, though, I have a few: Shooting – handloading the ammunition thereof, right up to casting bullets. Molten metals are always fun.

Communications – I’m a licensed amateur radio operator, have been since the mid 1970’s. I was an early adopter of digital communications, going on line with a computer in 1985, running a dial-up computer BBS for a while.

And 3D printing. Very fiddly. Not as bad as when I first started in it, though it’s gotten a lot better in the five years since I assembled my first printer fram eout of laser-cut plywood , adding hardware and finally getting to the point where I could print some things.

Today I have a couple of printers. One of them did this last night:

That was printed on a Creality Ender 3. It’ looks like this:

Comes in a mostly assembled form. Took me an hour to get it together, another twenty minutes to get he bed leveled (one of MANY fiddly bits) and after that, I was running the first print. It’s cheap – a couple of hundred bucks, but then you need raw materials – filament, that runs from fifteen bucks a kilo, on up.

For those of slightly less inclination to get all technical, here’s a step back from the precipice, the Flashforge Finder.

Its looks belie its friendliness. By making it simple, they give you fewer choices, but they do make it easy. From opening the box to first print is half an hour. Your computer is needed, but the set-up is easy, it’ll do wi-fi for that, and the included software is easy to use.

Call me a pusher.

History

Today in History – October 24

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1260 – The spectacular Cathedral of Chartres is dedicated in the presence of King Louis IX of France; the cathedral is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In twenty years, it will become a mosque if ISIS doesn’t destroy it first.

1851 – William Lassell discovers the moons Umbriel, and Ariel, orbiting Uranus. His seventeen-year-old lab assistant says “huurr hurr, you found WHAT around your anus?”

1861 – The First Transcontinental Telegraph line across the United States is completed, spelling the end for the 18-month-old Pony Express. Message transit time from one coast to the other goes from ten days to instantaneous. Ah, technology! Think about it! I can carry an iPhone in my pocket that holds more music than I could’ve loaded in my back seat when I was a kid.

1911 – Orville Wright remained in the air 9 minutes and 45 seconds in a glider at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina setting a new world record that stood for 10 years. This was pushed to over 21 hours in 1931 in Hawaii. Think cliffs and trade winds.

1929 – “Black Thursday” stock market crash on the New York Stock Exchange. Ultimately, a big screwup in financial markets opens the door for massive expansion of socialism. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

1940 – 40 hour work week goes into effect (Fair Labor Standards of 1938)

1944 – World War II: The Japanese aircraft carrier Zuikaku, and the battleship Musashi are sunk in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the biggest battle in naval history.

1946 – A camera on board the V-2 No. 13 rocket takes the first photograph of earth from outer space. It’s launched in New Mexico. In twenty-three years, we’d be putting footprints on the Moon. And now we’re hitching rides with the Russians…

1960 – Nedelin catastrophe: An R-16 ballistic missile explodes on the launch pad at the Soviet Union’s Baikonur Cosmodrome space facility, killing over 100. Among the dead is Field Marshal Mitrofan Nedelin, whose death is reported to have occurred in a plane crash. Plane crash? The government is trying to cover up a major failure. Of course, they could’ve blamed a YouTube video.

1975 – In Iceland, 90% of women take part in a national strike, refusing to work in protest of gaps in gender equality. Gender equality is still a topic of conversation. For instance, if women get paid seventy cents on the dollar for doing the same work as men, how come greedy corporations don’t hire more women?

1971 – Texas Stadium opens – Cowboys beat Patriots 44-21. Stadium has a big hole in the roof because even G-d himself wants to watch the Cowboys play. That was when pro football was a sport for Americans, not a propaganda platform for multimillionaires playing a game. I just can’t get enthusiastic over pro football any more.

1973 – Yom Kippur War officially ends with Israel 65 miles from Cairo, 26 from Damascus and me sitting at Fort Knox missing my brand new tank that got sent to Israel to help out.

2002 – Police arrest spree killers John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, ending the Beltway sniper attacks in the area around Washington, DC. B-but serial killers are SUPPOSED to be WHITE!

2003 – Concorde makes its last commercial flight.

2014 – The China National Space Administration launches an experimental lunar mission, Chang’e 5-T1, which will loop behind the Moon and return to Earth. While engaging in this daring scientific breakthrough, if the look real close at the pictures, they can see the remains of American manned moon exploration.