Friday  31 Jul 2020           comment?

LockPickingLawyer is one of my favorite YouTube channels. He defeats locks on camera, usually by picking but sometimes by other means. Sometimes he disassembles the locks to show you the tumblers. He has posted hundreds of videos showing all manner of locks.

His videos are typically shot in one take and are no longer than they need to be. His skill at picking locks is first‑rate.

sample pick-and-disassemble	(5:50):	https://youtu.be/_54Kyrbg5e0
sample destructive attack	(3:23):	https://youtu.be/6aNm3qWkW8A

Thursday  30 Jul 2020           comment?

Friday  24 Jul 2020           comment?

Wednesday  22 Jul 2020           comment?

I noticed two little earthquakes today, aftershocks from the 5.8 we had four weeks ago. I deem them aftershocks because they're centered near the same location as the 5.8 was, because they're happening more often than usual, and because four weeks isn't that long. Imprecise criteria, yes; I'm a programmer, not a seismologist.

I like how earthquakes upset usual notions of what is stable. I got mild motion sickness from the 7.1 centered near Ridgecrest last July. One normally thinks of motion sickness as something you get from a car or a boat, not your house.

Wednesday  15 Jul 2020           comment?

The airport in Burbank, California is 90 years old and has had several names over the years:

• United Airport
• Union Air Terminal
• Lockheed Air Terminal
• Hollywood-Burbank Airport
• Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport
• Bob Hope Airport
• Hollywood Burbank Airport

The most recent name change (in 2017) was for business reasons: the hope that more people would use the airport if they knew where it was. The change was not controversial.

John Wayne Airport in Orange County is about 50 miles SE of Burbank. It's an even older airport and has also had a few names over the years. Democrats have recently called for it to be renamed over John Wayne's views in support of (among other things) white supremacy. Quite a few Republicans deplored the suggestion. President Tr--p called it "incredible stupidity".

For what it's worth, Congress honored Bob Hope for his numerous USO tours to entertain servicemen, whereas John Wayne avoided military service in WWII.

My neighborhood is in an area named the Alabama Hills by Confederate sympathizers in 1863, after the warship CSS Alabama. A nonprofit group would like to see the area (at least, the portion of it administered by the federal government as a National Scenic Area) renamed.

Tuesday  14 Jul 2020           comment?

Friday  10 Jul 2020           1 comment

Saturday  04 Jul 2020           2 comments