Review: Star Wars - The Last Jedi

Usual warning, my reviews are not spoiler free so if that is a problem turn back now and come back after you watch.

So I managed to get to my viewing of the Last Jedi fairly free of all the hubbub and speculation. I did see one of the trailers a couple of times thanks to seeing Thor: Ragnarok a couple of times. However, I have to say that similar to the Force awakens the late trailers still did not give away to much. In fact, they tried to actively throw you off the scent of the movie itself.

Since I started writing this the second week box office totals have hit. And boy howdy was it a doozy. After opening big the Last Jedi has has an epic fizzle at the box office underway. Either everyone decided staying home with family was more important than the movies or this was a swing and a miss of pretty serious proportions. 69% drop off in 1 week. OUCH.

So what happened?

I will get in to more details below but my theory is that they tried to be 'half pregnant'. By which I mean that Rian Johnson made a few daring calls in trying to make this its own film and not just the inevitable consequence of Fan expectations... but also tried to hit enough of the 'fan beats' to try and have it both ways. The result is... jarring in places.

My biggest complaint about The Force Awakens was it was very slavish to fan expectations in that it was mostly a re-heated re-hash of what we had seen before. Just bigger, faster and snazzier looking with some new faces. Fun yes... surprinsing... no. My biggest hope for the Last Jedi was that they would eschew the expected and swing for the fences in pulling off what Empire (And Star Wars before it of course) did. Not copy Empire mind you... but in the sense of how Empire took the story to a different place and defied expectations.

Many people forget what a ground breaking movie Star Wars was. While at its heart it was a bog standard 'hero's journey' tale.... its presentation based on the expectations of movies at the time was nothing short of astonishing. It was NOT what you were expecting.

Then they follow it up with Empire. What you thought you knew to expect was shattered again. No epic space battle. A lot of mumbo jumbo with a Frank Oz puppet in a swamp, a plot twist that shocked everyone and a rather small scale ending that was major setback for our plucky band of rebels. A lost hand, a frozen scoundrel and big bad Daddy Darth. I mean jeebus. Not one, but two cinematic bolts from the blue. Shame Lucas didn't complete the hat trick with ROTJ. Don't care what he said but I think he caved to the, at the time, howl of dismay at Empire not just being more of what he had launched in 1977. So we got Ewoks... but I digress. Of course over time, at least among most serious fans I know, Empire has become seen as the best of the original 3 Star Wars films. I still wonder what Lucas would have done for his final piece of the original trilogy if Empire had been received better out of the gate.

Fast forward to making the Last Jedi and I have no doubt Disney could have played 'paint by numbers' and simply emulated Empire's beats wholesale and what just happened at the box office would not have happened.  Fans were mostly expecting a darker moodier more contemplative follow on. After all it is what is expected. There are probably a few executives wishing that is what they had done about now as well. I sincerely hope that doesn't influence what is coming for the final installment.


Final warning on spoilers.

The Good:

Rey handing Luke the lightsaber only to have him casually toss it away.

The Bad:

Having Rey just go fetch it. This is what I mean by being daring, but only daring so much. This kind of acts as a template going forward. The implications of what may have followed if Luke's rejection of the saber had been followed through on are fascinating in terms of where the story may have gone.

The Good:

Calling Poe on the carpet for defying orders and getting all the bombers killed even though ultimately they succeeded in knocking out the big bad ship.

The Bad:

Not making it stick. Worse yet... effectively having his mutiny backed instead of him getting an immediate smack down when he tried. This wasn't as bad as say Kirk's demotion in the second re-boot Star Trek that didn't even last until he got back to a ship. I mean Leia did after all stun him to end his mutiny. But in the end there seem to be no consequences for not 1 but 2 major, costly mistakes. Also, I am not much for hitting folks over the head with the obvious. But a more obvious call out that the ultimate reason Admiral Holdo's plan to sneak everyone away failed was directly because of Poe's action with sending Rose and Finn off to find the "Uber Slicer" was probably called for. Hell, drum him out of the resistance as a not so subtle excising of old star wars thinking with regards to "jump in a ship and blow stuff up". Doesn't mean we have to lose him as a character, but it would certainly mean that character would have to grow in unexpected ways.

The Good:

Benicio Del Torro's scoundrel character. I don't like how they got to his character. But the bit about selling to good and bad alike, and his ultimate betrayal provides some solid foundations on which to base the whole damn story. What is the resistance. What is rebellion?

The Bad:

Why talk about a morass of galactic 'grey' ethics at all if you are not getting into any of the wheres and whys that got us from the supposed New Republic that arose after the Last Jedi to a resistance led by Leia WHILE IT STILL EXISTED before the Last order blasted it out of existence with its super duper planet mcGuffin gun. The implication is that something was rotten at the core of both the New Republic and the First Order.

The Good:

Luke's rejection of the Jedi Order. Rejection of the force itself. Yoda's agreement that the force is about more than what is in some musty old books and a 1000 generations of Jedi Lore. Rey has all that she needs. This implies a return to the purity of the originals. Good vs Evil. But also hints at the notion that while the universe is in harmony with itself, the Jedi along with the Sith... or Light and Dark side wielders of the force are equally to blame for causing the unbalance that leads to either side having an advantage. Trying to balance the force ala Jedi vs Sith is the very source of the problem to begin with.

The Bad:

Having force ghost Yoda to kick him back on track. That said I am mixed about this one. Luke's return to the force is something that ultimately I like. But I am betrayed by my fandom on this I suspect. Deep at heart I want the skyhopper womp rat bombing teenaged punk who shaped the face of the galaxy within days of being introduced to the force to step up and assume his mantle of bad assery many bequeathed him in our imagined continued existence of Luke Skywalker post ROTJ. But that is the same part of me that was a kid with the mass market figurine granting his charge god mode powers. This is perhaps the single worst(best?) example of where the movie tried to have it both ways. I think it would have been better off playing to the expectations from the get go rather than playing coy about it. Or take the hard path and carry through with the notion that Luke's rejection of the force is the way it has to be. That Rey is simply headed towards continuing the never ending cycle if she does as he did. To have balance is to not have Jedi or Sith (Light and Dark) in the first place. Oh the horror... we might not be able to guess how the hell that would work because it is.... new. New might not be Star Wars. But then... if Lucas hadn't done something new to begin with we would have Star Wars to begin with now would we? Brain Cramp...

(update: I missed the shot of the Jedi Texts in the Falcon where Rey stashed them... I class this as the bad side similar to the others above. Blow up the myth of Jedi superiority only save the holy texts? Not only is Luke kicked back onto track as a Jedi... the source of the Jedi order knowledge is saved after all. Choose a side. I think either could be a good way to tell the story, but this constant back and forth was really the only thing I found I didn't care for overall.

Ok... the weeble wobbles aside.

The Good:

However we got there. Luke striding out alone to face the full might of the First Order ground assault force is everything BadAss you could want from the "Last Jedi" as a simple fantasy moment. As is the reveal of it being him projecting his presence vs actually being there to buy them time to escape. This scene is on the track of servicing Fan expectations whole heartedly (The lone Jedi with a laser sword indeed) While still having a good twist (it was just a projection).  I don't think it has a place in the movie that is star wars in the tradition of breaking the cinematic mold and expectations. It is perfect in playing to expectations.

The passing on of Luke and Snoke. Good bad or indifferent, this was absolutely necessary. It clears the board for the final installment in a way we have yet to see. Two Hero's Journey's coming to their conclusion. Or Hero and Anti-Hero if you will. We never saw a crack in Vader's resolve until he tossed the Emperor down an exhaust shaft (or whatever the hell it was). Anakin... well that was like watching Titanic. We knew where it was going to go. In Kylo we see strife and struggle in both movies so far. Before we see that strife being squashed by his resolve. A 3rd times the charm redemption would be a cop out I think. What is the unexpected path? What is the payoff? As for the two.... Luke hurts but better to see him go out on such a high note than over stay his welcome.... if he hadn't already to be honest. Raw Milk chugging... talk about a "don't meet your hero's" moment? Of course he isn't gone as short of Mark Hamill biting it before filming he will be back as a Force Ghost. Snoke didn't gel. To make matters worse there was a serious spell breaking uncanny valley moment when he walked off the throne where if he had any chance we me they lost it with that gaffe. Full CG characters are getting closer, and Star Wars has a history of pushing it on non-human prime characters. I like to see the effort but all in all Snoke just didn't play well in my opinion. Better rid of him to clear the air.

Rose and her martyred "we barely even got to know her" sister. The celebration of the unheralded of the Galaxy far far away represented in these characters is awesome. However, I grant it took me a few beats to embrace Rose. I blame her introduction that seemed to set her up as a very stereotypical "not gorgeous" female comic foil "wafer thin" (said in the precise head waiter tones of John Cleese in a Monty Python skit) character for Finn. Instead her character makes him come off "Wafer Thin".

Rey's vision trip. Bit literal perhaps... but I think there was no better way to extend a middle finger to the sensationalistic fan theories of Rey's parentage (in which I dabbled a bit myself I must admit). They grind it in later if you missed it with a straight up statement from Kylo that Rey's parents are of no importance to who she is. Rey is Rey. She is not defined by her Lineage as Leia and Luke were. As Kylo Ren\ Ben Solo still is. This is new territory for a central force figure in Star Wars and it opens things up for the future. I imagine more than a little of the let down in the box office stems from not following through on all the buildup the Force Awakens put on a reveal of Rey's past. Sometimes you have to break eggs to get the omelet and all that.

Holdo's sacrifice. Pity nobody is clairvoyant. Instead of Holdo heading to her doom there could have been a passing of the torch to Holdo from Leia as a fierce strong female leader and Leia goes out with a bang. I think Laura Dern did well with what she had. Sucks that we will not get some more of the fierce Purple haired Admiral.

No more gratuitous borderline 4th wall breaking baiting of the prequels gaffes. Goes back to just ignoring them like you do your racist uncle at Thanksgiving. You can't change the past so just get on with making the future.

Kylo and Rey's enemy of my enemy light saber fight with the Emperor's guards. Of course we don't think that is what is happening at the time. They carefully play it so that you think this is sealing their partnership for the light. Or perhaps in the midst of the fight you caught yourself wondering what the heck that would leave for a 3rd movie.

The So So:

The Dreadnaught and Snokes ships. Enough with the introduce some silly massive thing to make the already silly massive things look puny gag. Still... cool ships. Almost enough to make me want to do a second viewing to check them out in 3d.

As much as I love Holdo's sacrifice, I can't ignore the problematic universe conundrum it introduced. Why wouldn't you have hyper drive based munitions? Even if it isn't 'practical' at scale for with the situation the rebellion is in why wouldn't you just send out a Droid in an X-wing or and have it hyper space into the most valuable target. For that matter why couldn't a droid pilot the frigate instead of needing the admiral to "go Down with the ship". Oh I know the reason is making an interesting plot. But these kinds of logical inconsistencies have serious suspension of disbelief problems. BB-8 can rewire the X-wing on the fly... but not actually fly it? It isn't that this problem didn't exist before. But we were not confronted with it directly in the story as we are here in this pivotal scene. Powerful scene and sacrifice... but at what cost? 

The fetch the slicer tangent mission with Finn and Rose. I think the concept of that story line could have played out just as well from inside the resistance fleet. Hell instead of a magic slicer to turn off the McGuffin tracking wizdoodle we instead focused on a way to get Finn on the ship to turn more 'lost first order' troops to his side. That he is the only one who could question the rightness of following the first order is silly. An attempt to sow seeds of rebellion in the heart of the enemy could have setup and interesting arc. No turning of Finn, but Finn turns Phasma and the storm troopers away from the first order rule? A redemption of the old republic military that was suborned by the Emperor?

The Bad:

Again with the poor payoff for Phasma. What it is with Star Wars pissing away good villans? Bobba Fett wheeze out, Darth Maul gone WAAAAAY to quickly and never replaced by any big bad even close in the prequels. Now we have the chrome domed Gwendolyn Christie just begging to be a meaningful story arc and we get..... an eye as she falls into fire after a pretty WTF fight? Leader of the storm troopers bested by weak stomached former janitor without any help from the force or other characters? Similar to the Snoke uncanny valley moments it is a serious momentum and suspension of disbelief breaker in the story. Of course... her armor deflected blaster fire. She could still be alive... with an eye patch. Ooooooooo Gwendolyn Christie with an eye patch leading up to an even more spectacular non-payoff in the last flick?

Porgs. Oh who am I kidding. They are cute. But seriously.... WTF was with the flying calico penguins (said as Benedict Cumberbatch failing to correctly say penguin)? I think they just over stayed their welcome for me. Have the hilarious moment with Chewy getting guilted out of eating his Porg on a stick by the sickeningly cute merchandising units and put them back in the background of the island instead of in the cockpit of the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy.

The.... WTF:

I don't know what these were. Perhaps time will tell.

The crazy old hermit routine of Luke while he goes about "not training" Rey is a complete head scratcher in hindsight. Was it an attempt to mimic Yoda's "To old to complete the training... yes to old" resistance before giving in To Obi-Wan's ethereal cajoling" moment? Is it an extended.... Ok so Luke has been living alone for a while and gone native... montage? If the goal was to bring Rey to some higher understanding of oneness with the force then they didn't follow through on that either. Yoda pops in for a longer version of Ben Cajoling him to convince Luke to take the poor girl under his wing after all. And we are left with a more abridged sequence of training than Luke got on Degobah before rushing off to find out who his Father was. Not to mention a true WTF is how do these timelines gel? How long was Rey there? Is Rigorous save the universe Jedi training always just a matter of a couple of days and a brush with a dark place that sends you on surrealistic trips? Yes I know I complain about not leaving enough mystery while demanding explanations. I suppose my point here is there has to be a balance... and it is a balance the film is often casting about for rather clumsily.

So... Force Ghost Yoda calls down the lightning on the Jedi super secret heritage collection which creates a troubling inconsistency in the heretofore established nature that Force Ghosts are passive entities that can talk with people but not directly influence the universe. In terms of introducing serious universe logical inconsistencies this is right up there with Trans Warp distance no limitation transporting in Star Trek take 2. Does this mean Luke can still influence things in the story to come? Why didn't Yoda\Obi-Wan\Qui-Gon do more before?

This is not so much a WTF as it is I just haven't decided yet. Luke's tragic flaw\moment of weakness in contemplating the first strike murder of his Nephew. Much like I think the whole mystery around how Vader was turned to the dark side was left best as an exercise for the viewer. So to I think they could have left this shrouded in mystery. It is one of the few times these new films has fallen prey to the very mistakes it so likes to berate the prequels for. That said... as far as reveals go of why someone would go hide from the universe for 30 years it wasn't a bad concept. But not sure it convinces me of why he would abandon the cause of the Republic/Resistance etc...


Conclusion.

I liked the movie. Need to see it a couple more times but I think I like it more than the Force awakens and that was a pretty fun movie, flaws and all. But as I alluded to in the begining I feel like I am being bounced between two visions of what the film was going to be. In one most of the Star Wars holy of holies are cast aside for a deeper meta understanding of the force and what is driving the conflicts of the universe. It is dark. It is disheartening. It is Lord Fouls Bane territory for those familiar with Stephen R Donaldson's masochist opus The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. It would have been a painful eye opening Star Wars re-invents itself again moment.... but it may have flopped Blade Runner hard... and then stuck around for ever.... or just sunk the whole series beyond reviving (though who are we kidding... start the clock on the Star Wars Reboot count down). The other was a fluff resuscitated zombie shell of Empire with current wiz bang effects and fan boy super Jedi Kewl pew pew marketing monster. It was odd switching gears back and forth but there were some damn good bits to go with the WTF just happened moments.

Stay tuned for the surprise teaser trailer in this summers infinity war for the cross over you have all be waiting for where the Galaxy far far away and a long time ago joins up with the Avengers, the Guardians of the Galaxy and Space, the final Frontier crew for the infinity war times the square root of negative 2.

I kid........ I hope.

Review: iPad PRO 10.5 2017 with Apple Pencil

Before I get into the more ‘review’ like bits, first some background on my iPad usage and what led up to buying this particular device.

I jumped on the iPad bandwagon with gen one and was pretty much on each wave after until the iPad Air. At which point kids happened. After not having broken any of my expensive gadgets I went through 2 iPad airs and had to manually replace the screen a third time not to long after we got the new house.

I stayed with he air because when it broke the first time it wasn’t worth the upgrade to the second gen. air. And the second time I just couldn’t afford it. And the third time I really couldn’t justify it because I had gotten a very nice laptop. Though I also didn’t see much reason to upgrade either. Didn’t want the big screen of the PRO and Touch ID was tempting... but not the 4-500 (or more since I did that one myself) more than the repair it was going to cost me interesting.

When my self repaired screen started goofing up (never got it back on properly) and the home button failed I more or less sat it aside and have been mostly iPad free for the past year. I kept thinking I should cut off my grandfathered unlimited plan... and really I had reached the point where I was going to. And then I saw it.

It.... was someone in front of me in a meeting casually jotting down their notes with an Apple Pencil and iPad. Hand resting on the screen and merrily scribbling away just like it was a sheet of paper. I was mesmerized. Why?

Over the years I have spent absurd amounts of money in search of a digital solution to note taking. NOTHING worked on the front of trying to use handwriting. Pressure sensitive stylus on the early generation iPad made it to the point you could do reasonable art work. But they were not fine enough for note taking at anything approaching natural pace. Drawing wasn’t exactly a great solution. It tended to require lots of tool changes and zooming in and out. But art (at least for fun) isn’t typically on a clock. Effective Note taking is a very demanding and time critical task.

Why handwriting? I type (and most people these days) much faster and far more legibly. However... Study after Study has shown a strong link to doing something physically and better cognition and memory. Despite the fact it is a physical act, typing for some reason just does not seem to engage this as strongly as hand writing. Though I do wonder if it would hold if it was your first method of writing (post for another time). Regardless, I know for me it is true. If I write my notes by hand I often do not ever have to refer to them. Which is a good thing (my hand writing is terrible). But when I type I can capture a LOT more... but often I have to read back through them from time to time and search through them. This has often let me in a conundrum as to whether I should take notes by hand or with a keyboard. With the iPad I defaulted to always having a keyboard case and typing everything. While not perfect... it was consistent.

But once it was gone... I moved back to handwriting when I didn’t want to lug my laptop to a meeting. Which was often. And I rediscovered just how much stronger the link was for my memory.

So perhaps this explains to you why I was staring at a colleague just causally scribbling away on a digital screen at full tilt note taking pace. And he wasn’t messing with it. He was just writing. Since I really wasn’t in the market I hadn’t really dug into the reviews of the Apple Pencil other than when it first came out to find out how well it was working. The initial reviews pegged it as a good stylus but nothing super special. I had a couple of hands on sessions at the local Apple store and nothing leapt out at me on that experience either. Though it was better than any previous stylus I had used before it still exhibited a noticeable lag and palm rejection was a bit iffy even if it was again better than most other options I had tried…. Just not amazingly so.

Apparently, I missed something when the 10.5” Pro iPad hit with its 120hz screen sync. They crossed a line on responsiveness of tracking and ability to reliably reject unrelated capacitive touching from your palm/wrist.

The bug bit again hard and I couldn’t put that image of someone casually writing on their iPad from my mind. So on the evening of Cyber Monday I found myself at the Apple store (no Cyber Monday deal unfortunately) picking up a new iPad Pro 10.5”, and Apple Pencil and the Logitech slim keyboard case.

Did it work for me? In a word... YES. Within two days of having it I sat down in one of my standard meetings where I tend to end up with 2-3 pages of notes and I just did it with the iPad instead of a note pad. Comparing with previous notes from the same meeting later they looked identical.

I am still fiddling around with the various apps trying to figure out which one I want to use. The basic Notes app is good enough but I am not sure long term about organizing with it. One Note is better at organizing and doing other content. Nebo is an oddball I like that I found because they had their hand writing calculator installed on the iPad at the store I was messing with while waiting. It’s ability to deal with math formulae and do flow charts along with what seems to be a really good ability to convert hand written text to typed text is intriguing. And as a long time Evernote user I am wanting to use them… but their poor integration with pencil is leaving me cold right now.

Ok so I am very over the moon on the note taking with Pencil. It is a Killer app for me. What about the rest of it?

The Good:

The screen is awesome but that is nothing new. Apple seems to routinely push things in this space and the extra real estate is more than you think. If I were just using it at home for art work I would probably go for the 12”. Beyond getting to OLED for a better night mode/contrast gamut I am not sure what else they can do here.

It still has a headphone jack. WOOT. I suspect it is not long for this world. But considering how long my Air lasted I think this bad boy may be with me for quite a while.

The guts. The iPad has been slowly creeping up into serious hardware spec territory. The amount of computing power shoved in this slab is impressive. That said the “Pro” moniker is still marketing crap more than any real indication of a professional grade of power. You are not going to mistake this for a developer workstation or graphic design command center. But it can be a part of your work flow in a lot more ways now than when it began. 4GB of RAM and 64 bit CPU benchmarks putting it in the same class as traditional processing is nothing to sneeze at. I have long thought Apple should take a stab at using something like the iPad or iPhone as the basis of a full up OS X experience ala Atrix or the MS phone as dock-able desktop experiment. But they are not going to until it works to their satisfaction (if that ever is possible).

Related to the horsepower is the overall OS and App responsiveness now present on the iPad. But really, responsiveness has been good almost from the beginning. The first iPad was…. Tolerable at launch and rapidly became unusable as app developers got more ambitious. However, since the first Retina iPad they have had a clearly better experience on this front than desktop/laptop and smart phones. This is a particularly striking point for me as one of the reasons I couldn’t afford an upgrade was that I had gotten a serious new laptop. Dell XPS 15. Loaded to the gills. 32GB of RAM, NVIDIA 1050 graphics, 1TB solid state drive and an i7 Kaby lake. An absolute monster system. And yet it is achingly slow to boot, launch apps and browse on compared to using my new iPad. It is noticeably slower than using even my old iPad Air. This was something I was not expecting with having absurd amounts of RAM and solid state drives with decent throughput. Win 10 has gotten a lot right… but priority of user experience is still its Achilles heel in comparison to iOS and OS X (or Chrome and Android for that matter).

The Dr. Jeckyl side of the Pencil… we shall deal with Mr. Hyde in a later section. I swear Apple was reading my complaints about previous styluses. But really… the complaints were pretty common. Previous options either had a bit or precision but a horrible feel (Adonit Jot) or decent feel and horrible precision (Pencil by 53). The best compromise I tried was the Bamboo Pogo with replaceable tips…even paint brushes that allowed you to skew towards precision vs reliability/feel. They were all hurt massively by a refusal by Apple to embrace any kind of stylus at the OS level. This made pairing the devices a PITA and required app by app level adoption vs being able to rely on a consistent OS level support. Apple Pencil solves all of the above. It has a fantastic feel (though one does have to adjust to it), exceptional precision, and it benefits from being integrated Apple hardware. What do I mean by feel? A stylus fundamentally feels different from a pencil or pen writing on paper. That feel drives a lot about how you write and or draw. Even those most indifferent to the subtleties have a fairly negative reaction to the slick nature of rubber\plastic\foam on glass vs pencil or pen on paper. While the pencil does not excel here… it brings a level of tactile feedback that makes it useable. The bigger issue is that it seems so far you do not need to adapt your writing posture (or at least in my case I do not) in order for palm rejection to work almost flawlessly.

The So So:

Physical Home button instead of a Taptic solid state button. May just be to sensitive to this after my failed physical button on my last iPad. This is exacerbated by the move to force usage of the home button to get logged in. On my old iPad the button was the only problem but it rendered the iPad almost useless as I could only launch some of my apps through SIRI recommended apps to get to the PIN login and then it would only launch that app. From there I often could not get back to the home screen. ACK. Odds are this or the battery are in a race to be the failure mode for the device.

Screen gunk magnet. So... I thought keeping a screen clean was a PITA before when all I did was touch element app interaction. It is MUCH worse if you are using the pencil for note taking. Much worse.

The Bad:

The powerful guts and display and pencil come at a cost. Literally. I got the 256GB cellular model with the pencil and a keyboard case and it rung up around $1400. That is way to much for a secondary system. It is also why until I saw a clear non-marketing related real world example that my unicorn note taking solution had finally been realized I had no real interest in updating my iPad Air. I always knew Apple would keep their tablets at the pricey end. But even I have been a bit shocked they have not done a better job  bringing costs down a bit on the iPad. Especially as their year over year sales continue to dip. They really seem to think they can push this as a sole system.... but it really is, and I think now likely to remain, a companion device unless they solve how to make it the heart of a docked solution desktop with expandable on demand power to run a full OS seamlessly. Without this, No matter how much power they cram into an iPad, I do not see it becoming a main device if for no other reason than the ultimate lack of screen space… even the 12” is small to avg for a thin and light laptop.

No wireless charging… still? Yes it would be slow for the size of battery in the iPad. But it would be so damn awesome if to recharge it at night you only had to sit it on a pad rather than plug it in. Finding a lighting slot when the lights are out sucks… but it sucks less than turning a light on and angering your better half. Perhaps its just me. I just think an inductive charging should be pretty much default on all electronics of this level by now.

The Ugly:

The 64Gb to 256Gb memory jump in models. REALLY? Apple has a long history of absurd memory amount and cost of upgrade choices. This one may top them. No… I’d still give the crown to soldered RAM in MacBook Pro laptops with no upgradeability at extortionate costs for more than the base… or possibly the increasingly vexing 16Gb RAM maximum in the same line. But this one is probably 3rd.

Time for Mr. Hyde. Let us talk now about the design of and device integration (or lack as the case may be) of the pencil. Jobs is spinning in his grave. Not because Apple reversed itself on the usage of a stylus with the iPad. But because of how poorly it was executed as an integrated part of the experience. To be clear… once the pencil in in your hand it works very well per the Dr. Jeckyl section above. But, to first get to tablet and stylus Nirvana you have to… mate the two. As in literally plug the pencil into the lightning slot of the iPad. This inelegant solution does solve a tricky issue of how to link the two devices so I can kind of give this a pass. However, this is also one of he ways in which you recharge the device.  This recharge method of sticking the pencil into the lighting slot is a farce. Yes its nice it can be charged by the device... but it is an absurdly problematic setup from a “bad accident waiting to happen” standpoint. GET APPLE CARE. While I am on it... the little modesty cap on the pencil to hide the lighting tip when not in use is another one. Almost lost mine on day 3. Apple doesn’t have them in the store and to get a replacement it seems you have to contact AppleCare. Though of course, many folks on Amazon will sell you replacements. Integration with the device or cases I have seen is comically bad.

Continuing on the absurdity of charging is the optional method of using a female/female adaptor to allow you to plug a lightning cable into the phone. IE one side goes on the pencil end. A particular side. And yet it has no visible indication of which end is which. The adaptor itself is TINY. So the pencil has not one but two tiny bits that are fairly important which are absurdly easy to lose. Both are small enough to be choking hazards for small children. Apple really should have figured out some kind of captive solution.

The device itself has no consideration for what to do with the pencil when not in use. Nor do any Apple case solutions I think. I just can’t count the sleeve as it just means you have a pencil in a sleeve that doesn’t go anywhere. And in conjunction with the case sleeve it is remains ridiculously exposed. Samsung has this beat handily with their note range where the stylus is integrated in the hardware. Apple needs to figure out how to do the same... in their way.

Basically this is a $100 device that if you need it, is pretty much indispensable. Yet there is absolutely ZERO indication of that in the design of the iPad or its first party accessories. Even further… it seems actively designed to be lost, have parts of it lost, damaged or to cause damage to your overpriced tablet.

This should give you some indication of just how important and personally powerful I find this blending of digital and analog note taking capability to be.

Conclusion:

Despite my misgivings It is a hell of a device. But you really need to have a reason for it at this level of cost. Multitasking is in iOS 11 but the screen size and way you multitask is a bit gimmicky. Especially considering the really low rate of app optimization for the capability. This is not a primary computer no matter how much Tim Cook wants to insist it could be for anything beyond casual use.  That said, it is closer to being able to fill that role than any iPad before it. These updates on a next gen 12” device with real amounts of RAM and legitimate OS X compatibility might do the trick at least to the extent a thin and light laptop might. But wait… once you add a keyboard/case such a device is larger and more awkward than that laptop. And you don’t have a mouse. Minor quibble when talking about a casual use device. Major critical fault when talking about serious usage in any kind of professional context.

If you want a couch web surfing machine then stick with he mini or lower end iPads. They will not disappoint and the experience on the Pro just won’t be that much better.  And really I’d say only go with iPad if you are in or want to be in the Apple eco system. Apple Messenger in particular is pretty potent if your friends are all in Apple land or you already have lots of apps. Otherwise a cheap android tablet with a decent screen will do you fine.

For me personally, the compelling bits are that it has cellular data (and I have an old unlimited plan) and a major boon for my ADD management in how well the pencil works for taking notes. Plus, added bonus of being able to get back to my digital sketching habit which I really missed.

The compelling case for the iPad Pro beyond the regular role of an iPad as far as I can tell is related to uses of the pencil. There is nothing else it does better than the competition (which is primarily a cheaper non pro iPad or Galaxy tablet). Most apps will not be designed such they will only work well on the Pro. Multi-tasking with the more powerful apps will require the added resources the PRO has …. But it is early days. Let’s just say it isn’t super compelling on its own yet but there is potential there.

Traditions: 3, 2, 1 Tea

Being Southern means having an opinion about your tea. Most of us seem to tilt towards sweet but not all. Lemon? Hmmm getting into interesting territory. Hot or cold? Thems fighting words.

So... what happens when a Southerner such as myself marry’s someone British?

Well for me it added a new element to my take on the Southern tradition. 3, 2, 1 tea is about the tea bags I use and why.

Three:
3 single bags of PG Tips black tea. It’s my wife’s “Cuppa” choice and well known across the Atlantic where the hot mug of tea rules. I have tried them multiple times and it just doesn’t work to well for me. That said when in Rome (well London really) I enjoy my cuppa when offered. With a little milk please. Warm tea goes with the weather there. Not so much in the South. It added a good strong hit of flavor I can’t describe... but I like it. When it is cold at least.

Two:
2 family sized Lipton Ice Tea bags. It’s the tea I largely grew up on. When they launched the bags specifically for making ice tea it made it a lot easier to avoid getting bitter tea if you cooled it to fast. Least that is the theory. Real or not it is the bag I graivitated to once I moved out on my own and became responsible for stocking my own tea. I did have a detour where I blasphemed and bought my tea (Milo’s if you must know) but I have recovered since and am now again one with the faith of self respecting southerners :-). One weakness of Lipton.. and of ice tea in general to be honest... is a lack of flavor. I see the Lipton now as the base. These are the big quart sized bags.

One:
1 small tea bag of constant comet. This is for Dad who was ever fiddling with his tea mixture and in particular I remember him adding constant comet and getting that hint of orange. I liked it and it reminds me of him in the kitchen forever in search of whatever it was he was looking for in his tea.

Steps:

1. Boil water in kettle... 1- 1.5 liters. Yes Liters. I got a plug in kettle for Suzie her first trip over. Very useful things. 
2. Put sugar amount of choice for gallons of tea in jug. For me I am now at 2/3 - 1 cup which is way down from the 2+ of my youth. 
3. Put bags on top of sugar. I used to fiddle with twining it all together on the strings. Now I just pull the strings off and toss the bags in. You have to fish out the PG tips bags anyway...
4. Once kettle pops pour over and stir. Don’t wait. If water cools even for a few seconds hit the button again and pay attention. I joke... but only a little bit. Black tea and water at or as close as humanly possible to boiling temp is important. 
5. Let steep... at least 15 minutes but I have left it on the counter for an hour or more with no real ill effects.
6. Add water to fill jug... try to avoid bubbles. Stir while adding if possible. 
7. Let cool on counter... do NOT put in fridge immediately or thou mayest endeth up with cloudy tea... no soup for you... wait... no tea for you... better. 
1. If you really want that first cup you can pour over ice at your own risk... normally comes out to weak but you gotta do what ya gotta do sometimes. 
8. Put in fridge and wait for it to reach maximum chill 
9. Add to glass with epic portions of ice... don’t forget to squeeze your lemon slice and put it in the glass BEFORE the ice. You have been warned. 
10. Enjoy your nice refreshing glass of 3, 2, 1 tea ala Southern tradition meets British style. 

*Author is not responsible for any addictions that may arise from consumption of 3,2,1 tea. And yes... Suzie likes it. Don’t let her tell you otherwise as she is often conflicted about her slow conversion to Southern life. At least one other person from Europe has praised it as... well it translated literally into the reproductive organs of a canine.  However, I was assured was a good thing. If it wasn’t he drank an awful lot of it in an attempt to be polite.

Traditions: First Frost Chili

For a few years now there has been a common conversation in our house. My wife asks if it is time for Chili and I say no... I’ll make it after we have our first frost. However I do not really play by a set recipie when it is time to cook. More like a set of guidelines and following my nostrils. 

Sometimes it works out fantastic.... other times.... yeah. Nothing ventured nothing gained and all that. Here is how this years varient turned out. 

Started out with:

• 1 28 oz can Hunts tomato sauce
• 1 28 oz can Hunts diced oregano and garlic tomato
• 1 14 oz can Hunts diced oregano and garlic tomato sauce
• Ended up getting another 14 oz can of sauce and a 14 oz can of plain diced as well.  
• 2 bell peppers
• 4 small onions... like 1 and half decent sized ones. 
• 2 pounds ground beef
• 1 pound Jimmy Deans sage sausage
• 1 brown bag blue ribbon chili mix (also use Shelby’s a lot)
• Small jar of minced garlic
• 1 can low sodium kidney beans
• 1 can low sodium pinto beans
• Pinch of sugar... like two fingers pinched in the container. 
• Various other seaonings listed in steps.. but in general salt, pepper, garlic (if not using minced), cayenne, ancho chili powder, jalepano salt, cinnamon and bay leaves

Cooking:

1. All cans of tomato in a big vat to boil
1. Season with some of the bag of chili mix... maybe half
2. Add salt (generally use kosher and a big pinch or two), black pepper and a dollop or two of minced garlic
3. Cayenne pepper
4. Ancho chili powder
5. Jalepeno salt
6. Bay leaves
2. Half stick of butter in skillet, toss in diced up onion (this is happening at the same time as the base is cooking)
1. Season onion with salt, pepper, minced garlic (spoon full)
3. Add diced bell pepper to onion
1. Cooking on med to high heat till onion starts getting translucent... not wanting to burn but a little carmalizing is good. 
4. Get base taste at least in the right neighborhood. I prefer a little to the hotter side as I start with less than the pot will contain and then add until I get it right vs adding to a full pot and possible overshooting. 
5. Add onions and bell pepper mix and keep on simmer
6. Other half of the butter stick into the skillet (don’t clean it)
7. Add meat to skillet and season and brown meat. I used the rest of the pre packaged seasoning I had and usual pinch or three of salt, black pepper, jalepeno salt. The meat should taste good by itself but I normally do not go for much heat
8. While the meat is simmering open the beans and rinse them well in a colander in the sink with cold water. Get all the can gunk off them. If you have time soaking some beans ahead of time overnight is better but I have found as long as you rinse them well it does not make a huge difference using canned. 
1. Once rinsed add to base
9. Drain the meat
10. Drain it some more
11. Really.... drain it. Lean beef is easy to deal with but the sausage has a tonn of grease to get rid of.
12. Add meat to base slowly to desired meat level. I added about 2/3rds at this point
13. Stir and simmer for a few moments and taste. I had been a bit heavy on the various hot spices so...
1. Used some beef bullion and about 8 oz of water to thin mixture a bit (was about half a small can of tomato sauce... mixed in all the cans to get any remaining sauce out of them)
2. Used masa flour to thicken back up as needed. Generally dust top of sauce evenly, mix in and simmer for a bit before adding more. 
3. Wasn’t enough...

Rest of it:

• 1 14 oz can of Hunts sauce
• 1 14 oz can of Hunts diced tomato (no additional seasoning) 
• And I got the sour cream and saltines I forgot earlier... 

14. Added two additional cans of tomato and the rest of the meat. 
15. More Masa to desired consistency... I like a hearty spoon full that is thicker than a ‘stew’. 
16. Simmer down now... just simmer down now. I had no specific timer. Started a little after three and was done by about five. Made some rice at this point and when the rice was done turned it all off. 

Notes:

I don’t have measures on seasonings to use. Hot spices where a lot lighter than the salt and pepper. The cinnamon was very light and I still almost used to much... haven’t used it before but I have had some good chili’s with it so it was this years experiment. I used a pinch of sugar in there as well to cut some of the acidity... not something I typically do. Literally pinch. 

Served above over a bed of white rice cooked with a handful of chopped cilantro, sprinkled with shredded sharp cheddar and a small dot of sour cream. Was VERY good. 

Review: Thor Ragnorok

Spoilers ahead. Reminder if you don't read my reviews that I review the entire movie and do not avoid plot spoilers. Turn back now if that bothers you. Of course... I have to say for this flick it matters less than most. And for that reason this isn't going to be that long of a review. There just isn't a lot to unwrap here. It is fun, fast, big screen fare at its best. Really if you haven't seen the film this review will be hard to follow as it is just kind of a random comment collection on bits in the movie.

The Good:

Idris Elba's Heimdal may be the most underutilized character thus far in Marvel. Part of me wants to see a whole epic movie of what he was doing on Asguard during the Grand Master party sequences.

It is funny... I mean genuinely funny. Very self aware in a good way... It isn't 4th wall breaking Mel Brooks funny just very tongue in cheek. My personal favorite in the whole bit was probably how they made fun of the past Thor movies where despite supposed aeons of history together Thor unfailing falls for Loki's mirage tricks. Here they turn the tables and make the Trickster the slow poke unchanging one.

I like the Bad Ass Valkyrie and unstoppable Hella Goddess of death. Gal Gadot's DC Wonder Woman looks to just be the first of some more equal opportunity ass kicking going on Hollywood style.

Dr. Strange makes a nice cameo and the nod to Cumberbatch's Sherlock was one of the few bits it took me a second run through to really catch. Perhaps Waititi should get a shot and a follow on for Dr. Strange. His weird comedy and Dr. Strange really could be a good fit. 

Mostly I am meh on the Sekar segment as a setting but it has a so many good 'bits'. The Willy Wonka ride introduction to the Grand Master is classic. As is Corg the "living Pile of Rocks". "Another Day.... Another Doug". And the Quinn Jet Authentication bit with Thor's authentication phrase is "Point Break" and "The Strongest Avenger" is Banners welcome (and an attempted authentication by Thor) are fantastic callbacks.

Most of Hella was just pure and simple Bad Assery. Something oddly rare for a female role. A high mark to me which was played to the hilt and made full use of having such a heavy weight in Blanchet in the role was the reveal of  the history Odin had paved over of the Rise of Asguard.

Sometimes old jokes are not bad. Honorable mention must go to Karl Urban's "Skurge" getting busy with a shake weight. 

The So So:

Being a Marvel big screen special effects fest means it suffers from green screen hell. These movies are seriously one step from going full Toy Story.

I must Say Goldblum had a good bit.... but not so sure it or the whole Sekar (or however you spell it) sequence will really stand up long term visually. The piles of trash and general overall setting put me in mind of Idiocracy.... and not in a good way.

Another Hulk Fight? Don't get me wrong... Seeing who wins among the Avengers fighting each other is great and all but they might be going to the well a bit to much here. That said I kind of wish they had left off the Iron Man vs Hulk bit and just waited for this one... and managed to hide it in the build up a bit better. The fight itself was a special effects success.

The Bad:

What was up with killing Thor's Posse like that? I mean seriously... the leader of the Guard at the entrance to the Palace puts up more of a fight than Thor's band of Hero's. I smell contract hell bleeding onto the screen.

So the first time through I was laughing to hard to really pay much attention to the movie as a whole. The second time though... some weak spots were pretty glaring. The flow while I think overall is good does suffer from some pretty sharp breaks and disjointedness in the set transitions. The other thing that becomes very apparent is that most of the comedy is really skin deep. Not the kind that keeps on giving. Most of the better bits really owe a LOT to The Avengers. Lets see... Point Break, Tony's Clothes, Hulk's flip flop smashing of a God take II, and Loki's reaction to Hulk's reveal call back to same. The "adopted" bit with the brothers.

There was a story I read that tossed this on top of the heap as funniest Marvel universe film and I am not buying it. In terms of outright Comedy it is a fair claim. For shear quantity it outstrips the rest fairly easily except maybe Guardians. But I personally would still rank The Avengers tops. It gets funnier the more I have seen it... there are layers on layers in all the Banter Joss laid into that opus. Next would be Guardians 1. I'd probably put this one as a toss up with Guardian's 2.... Really it has funnier highs... But Guardian's is better crafted overall. Both are somewhat lackluster on the 'Epic Scale' despite both being about the end of the universe as we know it...

The damn trailer. I avoided everything I could and even so I could see the whole Hulk Reveal from a Mile away. The best viewing of this movie would be for someone who had no idea who was going to be in it. As is the trailer really ruined one of the best gags.

Now I like the bad ass Female thing. But the whole chugging a 40 drunk thing felt a bit off to me. I think they could have found a better way to have a 'damaged' character flaw to liven things up. Seriously just having her keep Thor on his Toes and tongue tying him in addition to literally tying him up may have been enough on its own.

Conclusion:

Two thumbs up. It has its flaws but nothing terminal. It is a fun flick and I want to see some more.

Review: Pixel 2XL

Not going to go into to much detail. I got one sight unseen once they launched. I didn't even watch the launch event. I was tired of my 6p for various reasons. iPhone is still not supported fully on Project Fi. And the first Pixel had racked up a solid reputation as a premier phone and fantastic camera.

Then I watched in horror as the official reviews started rolling in and there was massive wailing about the screen.

So... is there a problem? Yes and No.

First lets tackle 'muted' or 'dull' colors. Google selected a real world color pallet. Compared to the super saturation of Samsung displays it comes across as a bit less.... dramatic. But it isn't dull. It isn't muted. At least in my case it is a fantastic display. It is far more viewable in sunlight than the 6p LCD. However there are some issues with enough of the early review units for concern on that front. That said my phone displays no unevenness in the backlight at low settings on grey screens and it has none of the 'grittyness' that some have.

Second is the blue tint when viewed off center/tilted. And my phone does display this behavior. Slightly. And it is typical of most AMOLED screens. Samsungs displays do not suffer to badly from this and actually tend to tint pink from my experience with demo units. But... again at least in my case it is very slight. It in no way keeps the display from being useable and it only presents at angles far enough off typical use that it is not an issue on my unit.

Finally... and perhaps most worryingly is the apparent burn in some early review units have shown after just a few days.

In response to all of this Google has extended the factory warranty to 2 years.

So is there a problem? Yes, Google issuing the warranty extension says two things to me. One, there is a problem. Two, they do not think it is something they cannot cover. So in the grand scheme of things I would surmise they expect it is something that impacts a fraction of what they make, possibly tied to early batches.

So get the phone if it is one that appeals to you. Google will replace the unit if you have one that has problems. And that is a worthwhile risk for the rest of the phone. Because this one possible sour note that Google will in all likely hood handle if you have an issue should not keep you away from this fantastic phone.

The camera is fantastic. Fast. Very fast. And the optical stabilization works great.

Oreo Android on this hardware is swift and clean. The Google extras (assistant, lens etc...) are what they are. I personally still find them more gimmicky than useful. But the assistant is easily better than Alexa. Lens.... is neat... but still very early days.

Battery life is significantly better than on the Nexus 6p. Solid day of use.

The size and textured finish make it less prone to slipping out of your hand.

Really about the only negatives I have so far is the off center camera lens bulge which makes for a slightly off kilter experience when pecking at the device when sitting on a table. And of course the asinine deletion of the headphone jack.

3d Printing: Ideas to Designs to Parts...

Ideas always start somewhere. For me they often start first in my head (duh...) where they turn around and around and around. Go away, come back etc... Not something I can really show. In this case ever since getting my printrbot a couple of years ago I have wondered about strapping other equipment to it than a hot end. But I don't want to ruin my first printer... so the notion of building my own creeps in. You see a lot of designs going across Kickstarter with the same idea but none seem to stick. How hard would it be to take inspiration from my printer designs with cheap parts, put a Dremel on there and mess around.... Spinning around and around in my head. Sooner or later I get some paper and a pencil and start trying to visualize. 

Nothing special... often I don't get a lot of real usable info on paper. In some ways it is just a way of helping focus what is going on in my head. The rough notion I had here was to double most of the rep rap design parts from two shafts and 1 lead screw to 4 shafts and 2 lead screws (maintaining cheap easy to power NEMA 17 motors). If looking to do a router... why not go the traditional router design route? Well... wasn't my intention to follow the known path. I am fairly certain the cantilevered arm approach to cutting something is iffy at best. Have a notion that vibration in the arm and a laser engraver may not go so well either. But it offers a surprisingly compact set of parts which gives me a bit more freedom in what I can design myself with printing bits. I also have a nice example sitting there in my old printer to draw inspiration from on how to solve all sorts of problems I am not considering yet (sensor locations, wire routing etc...). Also, the long rails and sturdy gantry solution of typical CNC routers requires some large precisions parts I can't hope to replicate, and even extrusion solutions are relatively expensive compared to what I am attempting. So I settle on my already compromised design choices and head off looking for parts. Some noodling around on amazon and later bang good and some trips to the grabcad portal to find some bits and bobs and off to CAD I go. 

First notion is to use some block bearings on aluminum plate. Maybe get a drill press to pilot the holes before tapping...

At some point my head keeps turning the design around and starts wondering about the forces through the central blocks if they are not joined... so instead of a larger block of aluminum I think about connecting the plates with a large central 3d printed block of plastic. 

Well.... costing of the block bearings vs the cost of ubiquitous LM8UU cylindrical bearing in rep rap and other 3d printing systems and the fun of connecting the aluminum plate makes me shift to a more printed design. Central XY block with 16 bearings (45mm long ones at this point). Looking at my printrbot and its sheet metal single arm in addition to the shafts has me wondering again about loads so I add a printed shell concept on the outside of the Y axis. 

First take on the base and top plate for the z axis. Earlier version of this had a separate rear section into the X axis bed and I realize the pushing force of a cutting tool when pressing down would lever the whole assembly back. decide I need a full metal plate.... Still not sure about this. Have another idea on this... but not sure about it yet. This bit is kind of on hold for now... Not like this is going to work for metal cutting....

Some fun learning how to do assembly of parts in Fusion 360. Still a hot mess organization/component wise but the parts slide and move and have limits and hey... it almost looks like something at this point. Probably would work but if nothing else it has been fun to get a relatively whole set of major parts of a design together on the screen.

Small parts printed out... this was from before I figured out the leveraged plate problem. The ribbed side panels turn out a lot better than I expected. The reason for the ribs was inspired by the Hovalin build using a carbon fiber tube as the backbone. The 3 ridges are tubes for carbon rods which are cheap up to a certain size for quad copter/RC plane designs. Don't know how much strength they will add or even if the panels will provide much relevant strength.

First full size y panel printed.... getting more than width of X or Y axis by printing on the diagonal at 280mm length. With a 60mm central block that means a possible 220mm stroke on the y. However.... warping is a real problem. I had been planning to do this in ABS... but my ABS Benchy adventure put paid to that until I can get an enclosure sorted out. The tubes I want to try to use are out of stock on banggood so I alter from 6mm tubes to 5mm rods and instead of the exposed rib I double the width to enclose it and make it shorter. I also have decided to drop the doubled up shafting and probably any real chance to handle a Dremel for more than foam, maybe soft wood in order to keep costs way down while I am learning. Also lets me reduce the central block from ~100mm to 60mm giving me a much better stroke size on the y and z axis vs having such a large block... also cuts down on filament mass needed. 4-600 grams down to 180ish... This is also the point I finally pull the trigger on about 60$ of parts from banggood and around 20 from amazon. Selection of M3 nuts and bolts, 5mm carbon rods, a printer motion kit (12 bearings, couplings, belt gears etc...) 300mm hardened chrome linear shafts, 2 lead screws etc... I already have plenty of electronics to play with though I may still need to get some limit switches and z probe at some point. 

New two shaft, single lead screw 60mm central block.

New shorter, wider panel. Also now on a single arm panel instead of dual. Still thinking dual on the Z axis but not there yet on the designs. You can see the insert rectangles for the M3 nuts. I settled on this design vs a long threaded rod with nuts on either end compressing everything together in the middle tube. Not certain about it... but the one I got put together you can see below is feeling very stout even without the carbon fiber rods in place. What you can't see here is some of that "impossible" internal geometry (for standard fabrication techniques) in that I have internal hollows to reduce how much plastic is needed along with fileted internal rounds to allow successful printing. There is about 20mm of solid block at each end for the inserted nuts and to support the rods. The rod tubes all run the entire length. Print is ~130g. You can also see the mouse ears I added... these are 10mm and ultimately were not enough (at least with PLA). I think I may be able to go as far as 20mm before running out of space in the corners. This is damn near a worst case part for warpage... really need a heated enclosure setup to do this right I think.

First render of the new design on the y axis with the Z central block. Components in Fusion starting to make sense but still have a habit of executing design changes with the wrong component selected... seems odd that would count as work under a different component. Anyway... back to the task at hand. 

New y panel prints. Still warping but the one in the middle I did actually use to build a first semi assembled version. But I was using shafts from my old printrbot X axis which were not 300mm. But my banggood order hasn't shown up. So I printed a shorter version (230mm for 250mm shaft... ~170mm stroke possible... but it also goofs the lead screw I got... so probably will print out a longer one once all that stuff arises. Was just really wanting to see how strong this was going to be just using the M3 square nuts imbedded as the attachment.

And yes.... I also just wanted to see it almost all put together. Surprised by how rigid this feels. Also... as you can see I was out of the orange PLA. This is actually a PET-G print with almost no Warpage. Was on the bed flat, showed a slight warp after I released it.


Designs are never done. This is where I am on this one now. The end plates are to wide... need to tighten them up. Have not designed any mounting solution to the implement end such as an extruder, engraving laser, pen, Dremel or small spindle. I have some long m3 bolts for the lead screw nut... but they are the same width as the central block so I am going to recess the nut and the nuts the bolts will screw into. If you are sharp eyed you may notice the Z Y block is missing some bearings. Something happened in that print that impacted the diameter of the holes. 6 of the bearing went in with a good friction fit. Went to far attempting to get the others in and ruined at least one bearing and had to cut the block up to get it extracted. Going to have to reprint it anyway due to the recessed lead screw nuts so it will be in PET G as well at this point. I am pleased with how the recessed M3 cap head bolts worked out. May need to make the y end plate thicker to allow for more clearance of the 300mm lead screw as I didn't account for the flexible coupler. or I can add some to the motor plate. Thinking the added material will make more sense on the implement end to give me more meat to design a robust attachment point solution around.

Needless to say I have enjoyed having a more dimensionally accurate producing system in the Prusa I3 MK2s. Also liking PET-G a lot. Its habit of bonding to PEI and having to use glue to keep it releasable had me hesitant but so far it has worked rather well. Not happy about the glue... but getting something that long and skinny to not warp off the bed was damned impressive. Bit more flexible overall than the PLA though. Still thinking ABS, or maybe a carbon infused nylon would be the best ultimate option. Very curious how much stiffness the carbon rods will add. They are 300mm so 10mm embedded in the end plates and its all held together my 8 m3 20mm bolts going to inserted m3 square nuts about 5mm into the panel.

Now to get the Z axis, base and X axis sorted out....

Politics: Disrespectful Kneeling? Healthcare and EMPs

I am ok if you think it is ok for NFL players to take a knee during the anthem. I am ok if you think it is deplorable/disrespectful etc... I would fight for either sides right to voice their opinion.

But....

I am most certainly not ok if you think they do not have a right to protest injustice in the nation during a civic activity like the playing of the national anthem. They are citizens of this nation. The anthem is a civic event. And last time I checked this nation was not based on blind unquestioning fealty|faith|support|approval to the authority of the state or its military services. Quite the opposite as the case happens to be. May I suggest you try phrasing your dissatisfaction in that you think the strength of their chosen action to challenge something so important is out of measure with the issue they are trying to increase awareness of?

But... in my personal opinion to do so would be silly. We still have race issues in this country. Young black men and minorities in general have every right to be frightened at the state of police interactions. The fact most cops are good is immaterial to the simple fact that there is a demonstrated pernicious element of law enforcement that most certainly executes oppressive action on the grounds of race. And these elements are often wrapped in the protection of the brotherhood of law enforcement. And it is not ok.

Yes today is better than yesterday. However.... Are you really..... really going to say our race is run on this issue? (I know... pardon the pun...) perhaps I should instead ask if those that think these players (and now owners?) have nothing worth protesting in this manner that there truly remains no more that needs be done?

As for the whole disrespect thing. Please explain to me again how taking a knee is an act of disrespect? Last I checked I could not find in my recollection any scenario in which kneeling was considered disrespectful. Perhaps in forcing someone to kneel as a form of subjugation? Though even in that despicable case kneeling is ostensibly considered the respectful act... and not doing it the disrespectful. It certainly isn't seen as disrespectful in church on Sunday's. Or when proposing. I do happen to think Kaepernick's initial act of sitting on the bench during the anthem (with a towel on his head if I remember correctly...) was much more open to being considered disrespectful. Something even he agrees with. Which is why at the advice of a veteran he modified his act to kneeling during the anthem.

So.... perhaps before you dismiss these players actions as un-necessary, inappropriate, disrespectful etc... and turn off their games, stop drafting them in your fantasy league and in general kick your pigskin habit in disgust at their yellow bellied ungrateful lack of patriotic spirit. I ask you to consider what it is you would care enough about to lose a multimillion dollar job playing a game for a living over. And maybe... just maybe consider that this topic is that important to these guys. And that perhaps there is a possibility they are justified. If nothing... at least start a discussion about that topic and not this red herring of "what is and is not appropriate to do during the playing of the national anthem".

Speaking of red herrings...

This whole mess is a pretty good example of our Commander in Tweet's ability to drag the nations attention away from other topics. Like the last ditch effort of the Republican's to run through a simple majority reconciliation vote repealing the ACA. Committing the very sin they so vehemently admonish the Democrats for in passing it in the first place.

Was the partisan vote to pass the ACA good? Nope. Was it better than a repeal attempt through reconciliation requiring simple majority? Yep. The Dems at least have a small shred of dignity to hold onto in that 60 vote pass even if it was entirely on party lines. But in case you missed it that is 'Damning with faint praise". For all the good it has done in extending coverage to millions, the lack of a bi-partisan solution always meant the ACA was a wounded abortion of a policy. And it certainly has issues.

WHICH IS WHY BOTH PARTIES NEED TO GROW UP AND GET BACK TO DOING THEIR JOBS FINDING WHAT IS BEST FOR THE NATION. And the rest of us need to grow up to and accept that there is no "my way or the highway" answer to this and support our representatives working across the isle in the best interest of the nation. Turn the television off and dig into the details and stop spouting sound bites from your particular corner of the world. Healthcare impacts all of us. And our system is beyond sick/insane/inefficient you name it. It was not better before the ACA and the ACA is at best a first step in addressing the issue.

We have a health care system that is not doing its job on par with other nations in the world even though it costs us a hell of a lot more than it does them. And we are mired in a set of partisan bickering whose logic and arguments seems to be on an intellectual par with two kids in the back seat trying to even up "Got you lasts".

Finally:

You want to know what scares me? The potential rationalization a new nuclear power could make over attempting a non-lethal (at least directly) nuclear driven EMP blast at altitude above the continental US. We are about to watch Puerto Rico go through rebuilding their entire power grid in the wake of Maria. I hope the mainland US will not be doing something similar courtesy of a "gift" from "Rocket Man".

I wonder if President Trump and all the gung ho America First crowd has any inkling of the disconnect in saying "America First... and other nations should be for themselves first" (or UK first, fuck the EU etc....) and not connecting that is EXACTLY what North Korea is doing? And Iran? Nationalism is Tribalism writ large. And sooner or later that means this planet aint big enough for the lot of us. Not to be corny or anything but the phrase "There can be only one" comes to mind. If you think the last 50ish years of relative global peace is just how it is you have little appreciation of history.

Figuring out how to get the human race on a peaceful common globalist footing vs these massive tribal/nationalities is a matter of our long term survival in my humble opinion. North Korea is acting LOGICALLY and SANE in being a nation that does not want to exist at the whim of the current global power structure. This is not about them being right or wrong. It is about how do you survive if you are Kim Jong Un. If you want a seat at the big boy table as a nation the ante is nuclear power. The US in particular has set a precedent in how we act towards non-nuclear powers if we view them as a sufficient enough threat even when we do not have world support. So has Russia. You want to find out how dangerous something is? Back it into a corner and give it no other option. This is what we are currently doing to a nation that is playing with nuclear fire and who has a shit ton of guns able to blanket Seoul at the proverbial drop of a hat. Hopefully Kim Jung Un has no illusions about his nations no win scenario's as regards the detonation of a nuclear device over a world population and he is content in playing a nice game of  "political" chess as opposed to GTNW.

Really finally:

I try to have something nice to say when being so negative on things like regarding the republican handling of the ACA repeal attempts or disparaging the President with a moniker like "commander in tweet". The lifting of the Jones act for Puerto Rico by the Trump administration was a good thing. (next bits edited as I have read more about the Jones act). If you read previous version of this I had a bit about Jones act where I was thinking it prohibited foreign trade vessels landing in the ports. The Jones act is about shipping between US ports, not international vessels coming to call. Basically if you take goods from one US port to another the Jones act requires that vessel to be US built and manned, owned by US citizens. So... a ship from China can't stop at Hawaii drop of goods and pick up Hawaiian goods to continue on to mainland US, then pick up goods at a mainland port and drop back off at Hawaii on the way back. This often leads to ships going to the mainland and then US ships carrying all cabotage traffic to other US ports. Not quite as bad as what I was thinking... . And it has almost the same effect as dead legging cargo space on ships (IE stopping but not adding anything when leaving) generally means shipping does not stop at the smaller ports of the island territories and Hawaii. Doesn't help Hawaii is already well off trans continental shipping routes. US built ships, crews and ownership makes port to port US shipping very expensive. The act ostensibly ensures the US will maintain a healthy mercantile fleet that is needed in times of war etc... As usual the issue is more complex than at first it seems. Still a good thing it was waived... still something that needs to be addressed even for normal trade.