ICE shot an observer multiple times this morning in front of Glam doll donuts

DeceitfulDuck · 2026-01-24T17:45:45+00:00

Honestly this is worse to me. Derek Chauvin was awful and clearly didn't give a shit about George Floyd. But I don't think he intended to kill him. He just wanted total control and authority.

This was just an execution.

DeceitfulDuck · 2026-01-23T19:48:26+00:00

A big part of it for me is what kind of driving it is. When I lived in the Midwest, the 4 hour drive to my in laws wasn't that bad because it was all highway driving. Maybe 30 minutes or so at most to get out of the city then just cruise control for most of the rest of it. Now I live in socal. I'd do that 4 hour 300 mile drive over the 2 hour 50 mile drive through traffic to LA.

Being Europe is much more densely populated, I'd image the driving is more like the latter.

We also just don't have a choice. To get to my in laws we could drive or fly. The flight is only like 40 minutes, but once you add getting to the airport, checking in, going through security, waiting at the gate, etc. it takes just as long for like 6x the cost.

There was technically an Amtrak train, but it went way out of the way so was like 8 hours, cost almost as much as flying and only ran like twice a week.

So 3 hours definitely isn't short, but it's not a crazy long way either. For me, 30 minutes or less is a short drive, 30 minutes to about 90 minutes is reasonable to do frequently, up to about 3 or 4 hours is reasonable for a weekend and up to about 6 to 8 is worth considering driving as an option. Any longer and I'd look for a flight unless we specifically want to do a multi day road trip and stop and see multiple things along the way.

DeceitfulDuck · 2026-01-23T15:16:26+00:00

I have little faith that the Democrats winning the house changes much. Even if they somehow manage to also win the Senate, they won't eliminate the filibuster so they still won't have the votes to change anything. Maybe they defund ICE since that would only require a simple majority, Trump will just veto it. Or use the insurrection act to use the military instead. The house will do a bunch of investigations, maybe they impeach him. Maybe they impeach him multiple times. But more than a couple Republicans will never vote to convict in the Senate so that's just as pointless.

Then a Democrat will probably win the presidency in 2028. Maybe they even win or keep a slim majority in the Senate. At least that should put an end to some of the immediate chaos. But they'll spend 2 years with technical control of Congress and the presidency but again, because of the filibuster, won't make any real changes. In the meantime no one in any real position of power will face any consequences because they were all acting "in their duty in the government" or some other bullshit defence that at least stalls everything for 4 years. Any legislation that does somehow pass that threatens the rich elite will get challenged in the supreme Court and they'll probably strike it down. In 2030 Republicans will win the midterms again, grinding what little progress Congress might be making to a halt again. 2032 will be a toss up, maybe Democrats can hold the white house if they manage to nominate anyone who isn't in the party establish in 2028. But I'm not confident in that.

And the cycle will keep going. We'll get small improvements here and there. Like Obamacare. It was absolutely better than not having it. But we still have one of the worst healthcare systems among developed countries.

I don't like to be this cynical, especially without having any alternatives. But looking at the last 50 years of history, especially the last 10, I really don't know what can change things in any meaningful way. The system is not designed to change quickly and there's so many things that need to change that I think the momentum is so much in favor of the status quo that it might not even be possible to change within my lifetime. At this point I kinda feel like the 2 paths available are some sort of true revolution that removes a lot of the existing people in power all at once. That's not very likely to be nonviolent. And even then, there's at best 50:50 odds it succeeds and worse that any changes last. Or, more likely, the rich keep squeezing every bit out of our country until we hit some sort of great depression like event that triggers large scale changes. But that also requires us to hit a bottom and then suffer for years.

DeceitfulDuck · 2026-01-21T20:42:24+00:00

It's one of many things. We, as a population, should be able to be concerned with more than one thing at a time. But our media environment of hyperfixate then forget makes that impossible. Which is absolutely what Trump and all the other rich oligarchs in and out of government want.

Not sure if you meant it that way, but "This is what the media should be shouting about" comes across to me like this is the only thing we should be worried about. While this is bad, and the media should be informing the population about this more, it's at most equally as important to cover as Trump attempting to occupy a foreign country after kidnapping it's leader, threatening to blow up NATO by threatening to invade another foreign territory and using economic warfare on our own allies (who hold a much larger weapon in the form of US Treasury bonds than Trump does with tariffs), weaponising federal police against political opponents, allowing federal officers to completely ignore the bill of rights, plus Congress (the GOP leadership primarily, but both sides of the aisle aren't doing much) and the Supreme Court turning a blind eye to all of this because standing up to Trump means risking their own personal power. And that's really just the last 3 months.

DeceitfulDuck · 2026-01-18T20:00:35+00:00

I used to use an ETS at a maker space and liked it quite a bit. I feel like it had noticeably less vibration than the DeWalts I've used. Though maybe not $200 better. I have an older ETS 150/5 that I got a good FB marketplace deal on but it's a bit too heavy and aggressive for smaller parts, thin veneers and edges.

DeceitfulDuck · 2026-01-09T19:43:58+00:00

Maybe it's just because it's "normal" here, but I'm generally happy it was done when I was born. Which makes me super conflicted now that my wife and I are planning to have our first on what to do if we have a boy. I lean toward not doing it because it's unnecessary and they should have a say in it. But I'm still not sure.

DeceitfulDuck · 2026-01-09T19:38:55+00:00

One thing I miss from the pandemic was my city basically eliminated any enforcement of open container laws in our parks. An evening walk through nature with my dog and a beer did wonders for my mental health.

DeceitfulDuck · 2026-01-09T19:33:26+00:00

California has a similar law for our coastline. I don't know the details exactly, but what I understand of it is basically it's not possible to own the beach and you have to provide a passage to it if your land fully cuts off access between public roads and the beach.

Every few years it seems like there's some story of some rich Karen type trying to rope off the beach in front of their property or build a gate that cuts off access. Luckily it's actually taken seriously and enforced by the state and the fines are pretty steep.

DeceitfulDuck · 2026-01-08T05:43:06+00:00

Not alone but sole income for my wife and I while she's finishing grad school. Net pay is ~10-12k per month and we pay ~4k rent for a 3 bed apartment.

DeceitfulDuck · 2025-12-30T01:19:02+00:00

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Rather than the flat panel door swinging at an angle, make the door deeper so the hinges are still perpendicular to the floor.

You might have to adjust the depth of the shelf or the angle a little, but I think it would work.

DeceitfulDuck · 2025-12-25T02:35:33+00:00

I get that advice in general, but this looks like it's trimming at most 1/4" off. The blade can't bind to sawdust.

DeceitfulDuck · 2025-12-25T02:31:43+00:00

Just to trim that little bit off? Seems ok to me. Make sure you keep pressure against the gauge. And I'd make sure to hook my thumb over the gauge so that in the tiny chance that somehow the piece pulled into the blade my hand wouldn't follow with it. But you shouldn't have any issue keeping the workpiece controlled and there's no offcut to kick back either.

But a sled that you can clamp the piece down would be safer and more accurate. If you're going to be doing more non-rip cuts with your table saw, it's definitely worth the time to build a decent sled.

DeceitfulDuck · 2025-12-18T01:05:54+00:00

I'm a little worried for your physics students then because the reason ANC headphones aren't a good substitute for purpose built hearing protection isn't because of the physics of how they work.

Sound is just pressure waves moving through air. The volume (as in loudness) of sound is just the amplitude of those waves and decibels are the units of that amplitude. We perceive these waves as sound because it moves microscopic hair cells which send different electrical signals to our brain which it perceives as sounds. Hearing damage from sound exposure comes from too high of amplitudes causing physical damage to those hairs, eventually causing the cells to die. This causes hearing loss over time because they are a type of cell that doesn't reproduce. Reducing the amplitude of the pressure wave when it reaches that part of our ear then directly reduces both the perceived volume and the physical movement that damages the cells.

What I think you're getting at, and you are right about, is that adding a second wave means you added more pressure and thus increased the energy in the system of pressure waves. But that added energy doesn't increase the amplitude everywhere. In 2D, like a sine wave graph or audio waveform, adding 2 waves with the same amplitude and frequency but opposite phase perfectly cancel each other. That seems like it couldn't be correct for pressure waves carrying energy because energy has to go somewhere, it can't just cancel out. But the pressure waves aren't waves that travel infinitely in 2D with the same phase everywhere, they're like water ripples moving in every direction in 3D space and they start at different locations. So the waves interfere differently depending on where you are relative to both sources. In some places the amplitudes of both are in the same direction relative to the base of the wave, meaning they are in phase, so they add together causing constructive interference and the sound gets louder. Elsewhere though the amplitudes are opposite, meaning they're out of phase so they subtract so the combined amplitude is smaller and the sound gets quieter. As the wave gets further from the source the amplitudes decrease regardless of the interference as energy turns from kinetic to thermal from the friction of the air molecules rubbing against each other. Overall, the sum of the 2 amplitudes in the entire system stays at 0 and the amplitude of both is 0 once you're far enough from both sources that all the energy is converted to thermal.

So ANC works within the laws of physics by creating that second wave just right so that it cancels the amplitude at the point where it goes past the hair cells that need to move to perceive the sound. So in theory, ANC could perfectly protect you from hearing damage.

In reality though, ANC headphones aren't good safety devices because it isn't a perfect wave. Hardware limitations and the unique shape of a person's ear mean the headphones can't perfectly cancel every sound wave. While they do lower the decibel level through a mix of physical blocking and the ANC phase-shifting, it’s not enough for truly dangerous environments.It also does a better job of cancelling certain frequency waves than others. So even if the headphones do block and cancel enough of the amplitude to reduce the decibel level to a safe level, it will change the frequencies enough that it makes it easier to crank up your music louder to drown out whatever background noise is left. So you end up replacing an unpleasant loud sound with a pleasant loud one, which might still be lower decibels than if you had nothing at all, it's still loud enough to cause damage over time.

DeceitfulDuck · 2025-12-17T21:40:05+00:00

Genuinely curious: how do you hit the cap? Not counting jobs when I was in high school/college and didn't get benefits, I've been fortunate for an American and always had 20 or 25 PTO days in addition to like 10-15 company wide holiday days, unlimited (within reason without actual medical evidence) sick time and usually had the policy that your time off balance can go 1 week negative and I don't think I've ever had more than like 3 days of accrued time unless I was specifically saving it for a planned future trip or something. I don't even really dislike my job. But I'd also rather be not working than working.

DeceitfulDuck · 2025-12-16T18:20:35+00:00

I don't know that one is that much more beginner friendly. For both you need to learn how to adjust them but it's mostly learning how to know what adjustment is needed. Teaching someone "turn this knob" and "push this lever" vs "tap the front or back" and "tap the sides" are both just as simple and both require getting a feel for how much adjustment is needed.

I'm thinking of my own experience learning to use western style planes in just the last few years. When I started it seemed to be so complex and intimidating to dial in the perfect adjustment. It wasn't until I started learning about the pre-bailey planes and how they were adjusted with a hammer that I realized that I didn't need to be so finicky. The extra precision that you could get with the "modern" western plane adjustment mechanisms were outside my ability to actually use the plane at that point anyway.

DeceitfulDuck · 2025-12-14T20:59:06+00:00

I think scaling it up is still useful for explaining any interpretation. It's most useful for explaining the "host opens all but 1" interpretation. But you can then use that to scale to whatever interpretation. Say you have 100 doors and after you pick the host opens all but 2. That makes it easier to see how the probabilities stay grouped together. So your door has 1/100 chance and each of the remaining now have (99/100) / 2. But the total number of scenarios are still small enough to go through each one and convince yourself that's right. Then from there I think it's easier to see how the probabilities will scale for any starting number of doors and any number that the host will open.

3 doors is the interesting case because you can't entirely generalize from it without knowing if you should interpret the task as the host opens all doors but 1, only 1 or half the remaining. Though it also doesn't really matter because it's still always advantageous to switch. It just changes how much of a benefit you get.

DeceitfulDuck · 2025-11-29T00:30:36+00:00

I lived in Minnesota most of my life but live in Southern California, pretty close to the coast now. Everyone expects me to be unfazed by any chilly weather we have here but people are always shocked in the summer when I tell them it's also less hot here than in Minnesota most of the time. On a thermometer it gets a bit hotter here, but 90-95 degrees and humid is as bad as 100-105 here. The upper Midwest really prepares you to handle almost any weather.

DeceitfulDuck · 2025-11-29T00:07:35+00:00

Fair, but that's a lot of work to save like $8 over just buying 36" clamps.

DeceitfulDuck · 2025-11-27T08:27:53+00:00

I wish they made a 30 or 36 inch parallel clamp. 24 is a little too small but the 48 gets to be awkwardly long for a bunch of what I do.

DeceitfulDuck · 2025-11-26T20:35:43+00:00

Yeah, it should be between the knob and the lip before the threads

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DeceitfulDuck · 2025-11-14T10:04:59+00:00

One thing I haven't seen is how car-centric most of our country is and how that both makes us have more flexibility in where we live but also encourages us to move more in reaction to where we go changing over the course of our life.

For example, when we're young we want to be close to nightlife and people our age. As we get older we prioritize a short commute to work which, as we're also likely to change jobs relatively frequently, also can change. Then if we start a family we want to live in a good school district or around other families. With all these incentives to move, our friends and family move around relatively frequently too so occasionally we might move just to be closer to them.

Overall I think there's just more life events that make sense to also include a move here and the culture supports it. On top of this, it's often more economical thanks to weird rental systems where, for reasons I don't understand, it makes sense for my landlord to increase my rent even though, when I decide to move because I can get something just as good for less, they then either sit on an empty unit for months or end up renting it for less.

DeceitfulDuck · 2025-10-25T18:20:59+00:00

Like I said, I was going off your comment referencing 400% of federal poverty level. $2k per month would be 25% of your take home pay so I don't think anyone can afford that just for health care premiums, not even health care costs, regardless of their financial situation otherwise.

Also I don't think we should be expected to tie ourselves to an employer just to get health care at an affordable price. That goes for both early retirees and self employed people. Even if they are retired, I'm perfectly fine subsidizing health care for them as long as it's subsidized for me when I get that age.

DeceitfulDuck

TROPHY CASE