... Massage the numbers, like the guy that massage the realestate valuations for him. A felony for which he was convicted. These are 3rd world shenanigans.
The president, and by extension his party, have no shame. Speaking as a former republican.
Chesapeake Sailing -
Coastal Sailing -
Gear Testing
... Massage the numbers, like the guy that massage the realestate valuations for him. A felony for which he was convicted. These are 3rd world shenanigans.
The president, and by extension his party, have no shame. Speaking as a former republican.
I needed a winch feeder block so that I could cross sheet for certain operations. Specifically, reefing on port tack requires two operations on one winch.
I had a large low friction ring I didn't need. I had some 1-inch thick HDPE sheet. I have a metal lathe.
Works perfectly, VERY high load. The HDPE was turned to make a top, bottom, and core for the LFR to run on. The oversized LFR allows for a wide range of in and out angles, and the large core provides friction as low as ball bearings. he full story is in Practical sailor.
This could be made on a 3-D printer. For me, the lathe was faster and I could use solid HDPE. A printer would be faster if you were making more than one.
I need more boat machining projects.
A deal is being struck right now.
I'm not a conspiracy theory guy, but his is ... obvious. His guy is doing the interviewing. Really.
----
But no matter your politics, and even when he does something I think might be smart, I know he's a creep (casinos for starters) and a horn dog. So there isn't likely to be any real news here. Is he's creepier than we thought? Maybe. But that won't change the landscape. You either know this or you've been living under a rock, and you either think it matters or you don't.
Trump knew what was going on. Kind of obvious. That does not mean he was involved. But he knew. That was the fun.
This was a while ago (about 7 years), but I never posted it.
November 2020
I've been asked this question dozens of times by friends, family members, and fellow sailors. And although I was certain sometime ago it was the right thing to do, it took me a long time to understand and get comfortable with the reasons. It's many things, of course. So will apply to other people, some only to me, I supose:
Kids Grown
(From "Stranger in a Strange Land" by Robert Heinlein, for those of you that are young or do not read science fiction. A Martian word that means I understand you deeply.)
xAI has apologized for Grok's "horrific behavior" and said that new instructions caused the AI chatbot to prioritize engagement, even if that meant reflecting "extremist views" from user posts on X.
Put more simply, the AI is dumb enough to read from social media and believe it. And so are people.
I'm scared for what social media can do to society. Maybe I'm part of that too. Read Socrates: learn to question everything, to look at everything from several perspectives, to evaluated things for yourself, and finally to recognize that virtue, morals, and even "truth" change with time. Not as easy as listening to sound bites, is it?
I'm not trying to say which is worse. Just sayin' politicians know that they get re-elelcted if they spend more than they tax.
OK, I didn't want to say it ... but it's kind of obvious. As a young man I voted Republican and believed they must be more financially conservative. We didn't have good access to the real numbers. Now I can see the terrifying reality.
It's up to about $50,000 per person, and nearly $200,000 per family. Ouch. At some point this can be sustainable. Fewer kids. More seniors. Not sayin' when. I'll probably be dead. I guess that's what everyone keeps saying and hoping. Just pass the bag along.
Forget the politics for a moment.
How many of us can actually prove that our parents are naturalized citizens? If you've been here for a few generations, I bet you can't find the records. Maybe your parents' parents were illegal. Very likely some relative was. My wife is deep into genealogy, and though we know when some (not all) of the past generations entered the country, I think only one of my grandparents had papers we could find. All the rest are lost to the sands of time. Another grandparent was a native American; did she come into the country illegally, 20,000 years ago? I guess there was no rule, one way of the other.
Sounds like nightmare to me. All for news bites to someone's base, and not for anything that actually matters to the health of the country. Move on to real problems. Social security. A some-what balanced budget instead of printing money and raising the debt ceiling. That, to me, is a conservative value. Tell people some hard truth about money.
Thirty years ago, when I had a Stiletto 27, I switched from a wire/rope halyard to a 2:1 high modulous line halyard. Part of the reason was a wonky shoulder, the same one that is flaring up now. Both the Stiletto and my current F-24 MK1 have bolt rope-in-slot luffs, which can be high friction for the size of the sail. It's a new sail and moves as smoothly as any I have seen, so that is not the problem.
I'm not sure how much clearance there is between the fully hoisted sail and the masthead. Some, because it tension well with a winch. But I need to hoist and probably look from down the dock with a spotting scope.
These images give me an idea of the other clearances.
Yeah, I know it is PFD in the us.
I very nearly never wear a PFD sailing. It's hard to fall off a multi-hull and it's easy to rig jacklines and tethers that will keep you inside the lifelines.
Whitewater kayaking, or open water paddling, yes. Beach cat and dinghy sailing, yes. But I don't wear the common inflatables. I wear either a whitewater-specific PFD or a Hero Waterwear inflatable. What you do not want is:
I was asked to test a HERO some years ago, and it has become a favorite. It's comfortable, better than a fixed PFD. Unlike an inflatable, it is not a snag machine when inflated. In fact, it is the smoothest, least snag-prone jacket I have ever found. It is just as effective (turning and flotaion) as standard inflatable PFDs.
My one recommendation is to pre-wet it on really hot days. The cooling effect is very nice.
Well, not quite.
This winter I've gotten into machining and shop stuff. Metal lathe. Milling machine. Improvements to many shop tools. Learned to weld (I bought the machine several years ago but didn't get enough practice to get good at anything other than straight passes on 1/4-inch plate required for certain oil tank floor repairs). Originally I was thinking about sailboat modifications/inventions/repairs, but the shop has taken on a life of its own.
I need a new project. I'll we installing a new solar panel on the boat soon, along with a LiFePO4 battery soon. That might yield something interesting. Look for it in PS, and eventually, perhaps here. (Update. This is done and it's working fine. Go lithium! So much easier to lift into place.)
---