Tommyjournal

Saturday 30 Mar 2024 1 comment

I pay several recurring bills via my bank's web site. The bank sends money electronically to some payees and mails checks to others. This worked fine for years.

A couple days ago, I got a bill from the ISP in town that included a late fee because my last payment was overdue. I called and they said they never got the bank's check.

They suggested I talk to the Post Office, which is pretty funny considering that I'm neither the bank who mailed the check nor the addressee. Was I supposed to say, "That letter you didn't deliver to the cable company a month ago, could you look around and see if you can find it?"

I contacted the bank and they resolved the problem.

It's a bit archaic to mail checks in 2024, but here we are.

Friday 29 Mar 2024 comment?

Same dog and same car as in a pic I posted ten years ago.

Thursday 28 Mar 2024 comment?

cetacean needed

Excerpted from List of cetaceans on Wikipedia. I don't think the pun on citation needed is unintentional.
It's there on porpoise.

Wednesday 27 Mar 2024 comment?

Interweaving contrails this morning. My ADS‑B receiver (antenna visible at right) wasn't getting signals from either plane, as is typical for military flights in my area.

Tuesday 26 Mar 2024 1 comment

Two interview podcasts with Judith Butler appeared on the web yesterday: one from KQED‑FM of San Francisco and another from the BBC.

Neither interview was outright bad but they both disappointed me somewhat. KQED's host Alexis Madrigal didn't ask hard questions. The BBC's Stephen Sachur seemed less familiar with the details of Butler's positions than he should have been.

In general I find interviewers on public broadcasting in the USA to be more timid than their counterparts in England and Germany. Stephen Sachur is skilled at playing devil's advocate. I've heard him pose challenging questions to guests from all across the political spectrum and there's often little to nothing in his tone that gives away his personal feelings on the matter at hand.

KQED's Forum program used to be better. Kevin Pursglove, the host in the early 1990s, was first‑rate.

Monday 25 Mar 2024 comment?

I changed the manual transmission oil on my Ford today and a broken part came out the drain hole in three pieces. The car still shifts fine, lol.

Sunday 24 Mar 2024 comment?

Someone asked on reddit where to get a huge model of a resistor as shown in a tweet. Seeing the pics made me want to make one to put on my wall.

Fry's electronics in Sunnyvale used to have even huger models of electronic parts that looked like they were soldered to the floor. The front door to their store had a big model of an ENTER key on its outside surface and an ESC on the inside.

Turning a resistor shape on a lathe wouldn't take long. Attaching aluminum tubing for the leads would be straightforward. The challenge would be in getting clean straight edges when painting the color bands. I have some ideas. Could be a fun project. I'll post a pic if I ever make one.

Sunday 17 Mar 2024 comment?

Sunday 10 Mar 2024 comment?

Friday 08 Mar 2024 comment?

Most of the power tools in my shop have belt drive, allowing control over the operating speed by choosing the size of the pulleys. The radial arm saw is an exception: the blade is mounted on the motor shaft. It runs at the AC line frequency, minus a little bit ('slip').

I got curious and measured the slip on my radial arm saw this morning: it's running at 59.15 Hz (3549 RPM) in this pic. It runs very close to 60 Hz unloaded. the wood is clamped down

Monday 04 Mar 2024 comment?

I sometimes wonder what it would be like to move to another country. A friend who got fed up with politics in the USA moved to France last year.

I'd miss using old tools if I moved overseas and furnished a workshop from scratch. Yeah you can find used tools if you look hard enough but that's not the same as acquiring them without deliberate effort.