The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning

Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.

Category: Administrivia

Overhead

No Kings
I discovered this commentary, in several variations in different contexts, after attending the Poughkeepsie No Kings protest last weekend:

You are allowed to say, at any point, “I can’t support this”.

Even if you did.

Even if you were unsure.

You can say, at any point, “This has gone too far.”

And, while the best time to say that was earlier, the second best time is now.

That is relevant, because the Executive branch of the United States government has internalized two facts:
- There are no rules
- There are no consequences
The President and the Executive branch now act with the knowledge that the separation of powers, the checks and balances, and the restrictions written into the US Constitution no longer apply.

Justifications based on Constitutional hairsplitting are irrelevant. The Founding Fathers did not intend the Executive branch to operate as it does now.

Justifications based on “But what about …?” are irrelevant. The scale of current malfeasance dwarfs all precedent; there are no valid comparisons.

Justifications based on “But Congress is dysfunctional!” are irrelevant. It takes only one to dysfunction and the parties have been swapping irresponsibility for decades.

I commend to your attention the Army Talk Orientation Fact Sheet 64 from March 1945. It is straight-up US WWII propaganda with a rosy view of the Soviet Union, but you should fact-check all items in the section “Can We Spot It?” on page 4 against current events.

Should you think your particular identity, institution, tradition, behavior, property, possessions, protection, legality, or beliefs will remain untouched because you’re in a particular group, you are incorrect.

I changed my voter registration to “No Party” several decades ago, when it became evident the Republican Party had lost interest in whatever small-government / low-deficit / personal-responsibility principles it may have once had; thinking it had those principles was likely a misunderstanding on my part.

I cannot support many planks of the Democratic Party’s platform, either, but they remain based in rule-of-law and have some appreciation of what functions a government should perform.

I still vote in every election and intend to continue doing so.

WordPress likes images and this seems appropriate:

No Kings Logo
2025-10-28
Dirac Delta: Hacker News

Every day, about 200 readers peruse 300 pages, but sometimes this happens:

Softsolder vs Hacker News – 2025-10-24

Unlike AI or robot scrapers, this spike came from actual humans reading a note on Hacker News.

I was surprised at how much traffic came from the various Referrers based on Hacker News.

Here today, gone tomorrow …

2025-10-27
All’s Well Who Ends Well

Eventually this happened:

Negative COVID tests

Three weeks, more or less, from my exposure to clearing the hurdle. Mary, being tougher than I, got it done in two.

For the better part of the first two weeks I was in bed ten hours every night, plus an hour or two of afternoon nap (no milk & cookies, drat), plus dragging around the house getting nothing done.

No major health problems, good blood oxygen levels throughout, no loss of smell apart from what you’d expect during three days of complete nasal blockage, and we’re both feeling OK-ish now.

However, we are making more than the usual number of stupid mistakes, which is one way we know we’re not really OK yet.

Back to the Basement Shop, with considerable caution …

Memo to Self: That was the first time in four years you didn’t wear a mask in close quarters. Don’t ever do that again.

2025-09-23
Lovely Weather

The forecast of several pleasant days will have me in the garage wrenching on bikes, doing car maintenance, and finishing home chores.

Back next week …

Obligatory cat(erpillar) picture:

Milkweed Tussock Caterpillar

2025-08-20
Busted For What I’ll Never Know

An email from Electronic Arts arrived in an email account I haven’t used in over a decade:

Welcome to your EA Account!
Your EA Account serves as an all-access pass to everything EA, from websites and mobile apps to console and PC games.

Seconds later:

Your EA Security Code:
<<< redacted, not that it matters >>>
If you didn’t request this code, please go to your My Account page and change your password right away. For assistance, please contact EA Help.

Thanks for helping us maintain your account’s security.

Not ever having had an EA account nor being in the process of signing up for one, I did nothing.

After a few more seconds:

Dear EA Insider,

Thanks for signing up. We’re looking forward to bringing you the latest news and information on your favorite games.

All the emails look to be genuinely from Electronics Arts, not scam emails routed through the usual sketchy / compromised servers.

Four days later:

Dear Customer,

We are contacting you regarding your EA account.

We wish to notify you that we have found your account to be in violation of our User Agreement or our Terms of Sale, and due to the nature of this violation we are left with no option other than to permanently close your account with immediate effect.

Which looks much more impressive in email HTML:

EA Account Closing

Although I did not respond to the Security Code message, the scammer surely used a phone number under his (it’s always a he) control, because “2FA” really means “pick an authentication method that lets you in”.

Just for the amusement value, I fed that email address into the EA sign-in page, hit the “Forgot my password” button, and got a Security Code just like the scammer didn’t. I suppose I could change the password and discover / change the phone number, but that would put me in full ownership of an account used for nefarious purpose.

I sometimes wonder what else happens using my identity.

A good prosecutor could nail me for Third Party Retro-associative Complicity and, if I didn’t already live in Poughkeepsie, send me up the river.

This likely came from the old Thingiverse compromise, although that address also appears in the recent dump of a thousand dumps.

2025-07-28
Bizarre Spam

Thanks to Google Translate:

Mrs Sgt Candy Payne spam

It’s not clear why a Sergeant in the US Army would translate her request for help into Simplified Chinese so I can better understand it, but that’s the world we live in.

This deposit would move my Quality-of-Life needle, but certainly not in a good direction:

Mrs Sgt Candy Payne spam – detail

Today I Learned: there are humanitarian doctors connected with the Red Army in Morocco.

The cost of sending this junk must be low enough to fuel the spam machine from a minuscule response rate.

A pox on their collective backside!

2025-06-11
Power Outage

This housing development was the second in Poughkeepsie to have underground utilities and, to put it mildly, a lot has rotted out over the last 70 years.

Over the weekend, one phase of the AC power flickered and eventually failed completely, with the other phase supplying a steady 120 VAC. Central Hudson (Gas & Electric) crews located long-lost buried boxes in places not matching their maps:

Power Outage – flooded box

Then they pumped / bailed enough water to repair / lengthen the wires:

Power Outage – corroded wiring

I’ve never before seen anybody work on live wires underwater.

They installed above-ground boxes to simplify The Next Time.

Some improvisation was required:

Power Outage – improvised cocoa stirring

Gotta say, cold Fireball Cocoa tastes different than hot Fireball Cocoa.

2025-04-28