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.

(Mis)Adventures in 3d Printing: ABS Benchy Ahoy

Benchy's ahoy: Misadventures in open air ABS printing...

Whoa..... thats a lot of Benchy's

So... if you squint hard and look towards the top left you can see wood filament blur that would be the first ever "Benchy", the good ship printer torture test, I printed. It came out great. Around labor day I decided to grab a few spools of filament from MakerGeeks grab bag deal and for some reason I selected ABS as one of the surprise rolls. In came this nice red that my better half locked onto for an "Adalinda". You may have seen a couple of silver ones from my early prints on the new Prusa.

Now... I knew the getting a high quality print out of the Prusa with ABS was going to be hard. I decided early on I was not going to try and mess with it with the printrbot. But the quality of the printer parts for the Prusa which are made on Prusas gave me some hope I could do it. Now... based on that hard earned scruffy but more or less intact Benchy at the end of that long long loooong line of much scruffier or complete abortion Benchys  I have decided ABS can wait until I have an enclosure to better control the temp. Within some limits I think I could make some useful parts. Not sure how MakerGeeks ABS stacks up. For any that are interested that last print was actually at their recommended 245, with PRUSA stock simplify 3d abs settings (purse slicer edition had most of the epic fails) with mods to a skirt/breeze shield for the first 45 layers and a bed temp of 100 instead of 110. The biggest problem was the overhang of the bow... it inevitably started curling early and often the probe or head would catch on it and skip the belt leading to a shifted print.

A lot of the failures in the line were due to I D 10 T problems. When trying to get the Z offset closer to the bed I was moving it farther away and it took me a while to figure it out because I was messing with some other settings at the same time like flow rates etc... Great case of going faster meaning going slower in the end.

After I figured that out I started getting much better results for bed adhesion. But 10 or so layers in the bow point layers would lift even if the bow corner stayed stuck which is the nail in the coffin for now. Tried hotter. Tried cooler. Tried keeping it the same (no first layer difference) etc... Ultimately hit a damned if a did and damned if I didn't state where I just couldn't solve all problems. Getting it stuck took a lot of heat. But when I got it cool enough to handle the overhangs in the door/bridging etc... the bow section layers would bow worse. If I heated it up to hold the curling at bay it would melt on the short slower sections at the top. Swapping to S3d slicing vs the Prusa slic3r slicer helped but couldn't go much slower in those sections.

All that said... the toughness of the ABS material has me wanting to setup an enclosure of some sort to try this with a bit more controlled environment. PLA is pretty easy to print in and you can do a lot of cool things with it. But it is fragile when it comes to any drops. Pretty much assured if there is anything remotely fragile about a print it will get damaged in a fall. ABS is a lot more resilient . I have some PETG which is similar... but not wanting to risk my PEI bed while they are not easily replaced.

To make a long story short... as many before me have learned so to now do I know and try and pass on the nugget of knowledge that is... Don't print ABS in the open air unless you have a warm draft free room to do the printing in. Recommended ambient is around 30c (86f). A plastic tent and heat lamp will do it in a pinch. I ran across many on forums saying they use large storage bins placed over the top while printing.

So that has been a frustrating past few days. But I have also had some other pretty big fun prints. Finally got around to one I have been wanting to do for a while and I will talk about in more detail later but here is the pic...

Hovalin open design full size violin. Yes it plays. .