Hawk’s Babble-Log

Started out great, but then fell into too much of what I call “alternate reality magic”-type stuff. Alternate reality is where there exists magic and other things not generally found in this reality. I’m okay with this, if that’s what this universe is about.

I was hooked after the first episode, where Madlax (an assassin for hire) goes into a country which is still waging a civil war. She kicks ass all over the place. And when she completes her mission, she goes back to help out a friend and kicks even more ass.

Image this: Madlax (the one with the military-type jacket and black shorts) moves out onto a branch of a big tree. She has only a pistol, but manages to take out an entire unit (which is heading her way), including several jeeps, many men armed with fully-automatic rifles, and one or two attack choppers. She doesn’t even bother to aim when she shoots. She holds out her arm, swings her gun in the direction of the enemy, closes her eyes, and calmly _kills them all._

Okay, I lied. She uses a machine gun to take down the attack choppers near the end. But she doesn’t even aim it. She just holds it in her arms, closes her eyes, and fires upwards and away from her.

To call this girl “deadly” would be a grave understatement. Your grave. Anyone who attacks her, dies. Her weapon of choice is a simple semi-auto pistol. She almost never misses.

Similar to other anime, this story has three main female characters, two of which have forgotten their past. Madlax in one of ‘em.

Also similar to other anime, this one starts off great, but then descends down into deep magic and confusing mystery. And I’m not talking about the kind of mystery where you say, “Who dunnit?”, but more of the kind of mystery where you say, “Like, WTF, mate?”

Also a point I did not like is that several likeable characters died. I didn’t like that they died, but I kinda liked that they stayed dead. Not so with other characters.

So… A really good start, but then descended down into a confusing end. If the style of the series had maintained from beginning to end, I would have loved it. I’m not going to buy it as I have no desire to see it again.

This series was okay, but it had one thing which really annoyed both me and my roommate: It draaaaged out the main plot tooooo loooong.

Some other annoying things:

- 1) There were scenes where the two main characters would stare at eachother for minutes on end. Usually, the episode would then end. I think they were trying to go for dramatic, but it turned out to be boring.
- 2) The scene where a little girl, couldn’t have been more than five years old, was blowing away a family (Father, Mother, and their son) with a semi-automatic was one of the stupidest things I have ever seen.
- 3) The reaction (of joy) of another little girl upon watching said scene was one of the most ridiculous things I have ever seen.
- 4) The scene where one of the lead girls gets shot in the head with her own weapon, but where she does not die, is never explained.
- 5) The reason one of the lead characters wants to kill the other lead character is never explained.
- 6) The reason why said lead character suddenly stops wanting to kill other lead character and instead trusts her to protect her back in battle is never explained. These are scenes where I look at my roommate and say, “Huh?” And my roommate usually does the same to me.
- 7) Most of the episodes started with a flashback from the prior episode. The main plot line was not complex enough to warrant this. I found it annoying and a waste of time. Maybe they didn’t have a huge budget for animation, I don’t know.

The good stuff:

The two main characters kick-ass. One is a young school girl who has lost her memory, and the other is an assassin who calls herself “Noir”. They always kick-ass in shorts or short mini-skirts. They almost always hit the bad guys. The bad guys are almost always lousy shots. Lots of violence (mostly bad guys getting shot). There are some creative battle scenes.

Oh, and no; no one ever thinks of wearing body armor (except one, near the end).

So, the ass-kicking scenes where the two girls get all the bad guys… those scenes are great. I would have been happy with a series about that. Instead, the first half of the series is like this. After that, it starts to swing into mysteries which are never explained, characters flip-flopping back and forth between trying to kill eachother and trusting eachother with their lives in battle, and long staring scenes.

Noir is worth the rental if you’ve got a lot of time and patients (and nothing better to watch). I’m not going to buy it as I have no desire to see it again.

Here’s a pretty good intro to metalworking by a guy named Koichi Hirata. His English isn’t great, but he is understandable. Most of the articles are translated into English. And he’s got lots of pictures. Don’t forget to click on ‘em. They don’t look clickable, but they are.

http://www.nmri.go.jp/eng/khirata/metalwork/index_e.html

I found that, by going through this site, I was able to pick up some very basic things that, probably, any machinist knows. I’m starting from zero knowledge of machining, and this site was good at helping me along.

I hope it helps you, too.

A “timeout” value is how long you wait for something to fail.

I use my Linux desktop as my primary workstation, and my Windoze machine is for anything that I can’t do in Linux, like RAdmin and games.

In Linux, I let everything run. I let it run for months and months. I let it run until it dies. Then I start it back up again and let it run some more.

I usually don’t do this with my Windoze machine. I usually shut it down when I’m done with it, or put it in Stand-by mode.

Okay, back to my point… In Linux, I’ve got two browsers (at least) running all the time: Mozilla and Firefox. Mozilla is the full suite of apps, so that’s what I use for my email too. Firefox is just the Mozilla web browser. I’ve got Mozilla running on my left monitor, and Firefox running on my right monitor. This way I can log in to both my Yahoo Mail accounts at the same time.

Every day, I (usually) check my various email accounts. I have about a dozen. I have two for Yahoo, and just one for Google Mail. I keep a tab open for each in Firefox, and one tab open in Mozilla for my primary Yahoo account.

Here’s the point: Yahoo times out in 24 hours. This means I have to re-login every day. Google Mail sits there for two weeks, then I have to re-login. Google’s 2-week timeout rocks. Yahoo’s 24-hour timeout sucks ass.

Hey Yahoo, do you hear this? Your 24-hour timeout _sucks ass_. That means it’s _bad_, _too short_, and _annoying_. Also it’s a _pain in the ass_ to have to re-login every day. It’s a pain in the ass because I take full responsibility for the security of my computer… so _you don’t have to_. You don’t have to bypass my responsibility on this; I know what I’m doing with my logins.

Google seems to appreciate this. Thanks, Google. Keep up the good work!

Well, I’ve been a member of [GreenCine](http://www.greencine.com/) (pronounced Green-Scene) for a little over a month now, and I can say it’s mostly good.

The good stuff:

+ Prompt Shipments. Once they receive a disc, they send out the next available disc in my queue, usually within a few hours. I’ve been watching their turnaround time, and it’s good and stable.
+ Higher limit on my queue. With NetFlix, I was only allowed 500 discs in my queue. With GreenCine, I can put 9,999 in my queue. Already I’ve got over 600 (yee haaa!) Oh baby, it makes my browser sweat every time I refresh my queue.

+ They work Saturdays! NetFlix might consider working Saturdays if they could charge you twice as much and throttle you down to the point where you got one disc every other week.

+ Good protection of discs. All discs are wrapped in a double cardboard “protector”. This helps the disc arrive with fewer scratches and helps the disc to stay in one piece. With NetFlix, I received two physically broken discs. I don’t _think_ NetFlix would intentionally send them out to me like this (but who knows?), so it was probably our friendly, gentle Post Office service. The discs from GreenCine would have to be dropped between a rock and a very hard place before they’d break. Like, maybe a hammer and a reinforced concrete floor.

+ A truely rockin’ Anime selection. Here’s a short (and incomplete) list of Anime that I’ve got in the queue: Madlax, Ninja Scroll The Series, Noir, Gasaraki, Rurouni Kenshin, Samurai X, Sol Bianca, Twelve Kingdoms, Full Metal Panic, Kino’s Journey, Shadowraiders, Escaflowne, Lodoss War, R.O.D. (Read Or Die), Zero Woman, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Samurai Jack, City Hunter, Heat Guy J, and Zone of the Enders. It’s no wonder my queue is over 630 discs already!

+ Quick Add-to-Queue function. With NetFlix, if I add a disc to my queue, I get another webpage with the acknowledgement and other suggestions. Then I would have to hit the [BACK] button to get back to the list so that I could add another disc (I’m the kind of guy who likes to add discs to my queue). With GreenCine, when I click the Add-to-Queue button, a little pop-up-type window opens with the acknowledgement, but the page I was on does not go anywhere. Then, if I add another disc, again the little pop-up window is updated, and the page I’m on doesn’t go anywhere. This means I can run down a list of discs and add them to my queue very quickly and efficiently. Also, within the little pop-up-style window is a link to view my queue. Clicking this link does two things: it closes the little pop-up window, AND loads up my queue in the main window. I like it a lot. What can I say, I like adding stuff to my queue. Makes me feel special ‘n stuff. Forget I said that last part.

+ Personal Lists. With NetFlix, the next available disc would be shipped from the queue. With GreenCine, I can create a “personal list” for a group of discs. For example, my roomie has not seen the show 24 (with Keifer), so I added all four seasons to my queue. Then I created a “personal list” for 24, with all discs from all seasons. Now just those discs are locked in order, regardless of any other discs set in between. This personal list has been sitting at the top of my queue for about two or three weeks now, but none of them have been sent to me as yet because the first one is not yet available. The system skips over that group because the next disc in the group is not available. This feature alone makes it a dream to manage lists and series of discs. And lemme tell ya, I’ve got a lot of series going on now.

Bad stuff:

+ Unavailable discs. As mentioned above with the show 24, some discs have a low “availablity” rating. This doesn’t mean that I won’t get sent this disc next, it just means that I _probably_ won’t get this disc next. It’s very frustrating because I’ve had discs (such as March of the Penguins) at the top of my queue since I set up my account which have not yet shipped. Aarrrrgghhhh!

+ Shipping time is a bit slower than NetFlix, because NetFlix had a distribution facility a hop, skip, and a jump away from me. So, if I sent back a disc, they got it the next day. Then they would send me one and I’d get it the next day. This is one of the reasons I knew they were throttling me. GreenCine is a bit slower as they’re up in Sacramento. It’s not exactly spitting distance from Hollywood where I live. There is an extra day going and an extra day coming. To counter this, I increased my subscription from 5-out-at-a-time to 8-out-at-a-time for $49.95.

So, as you can see, it’s not _all_ good, but _pretty darn_ good; and I am happily continuing my subscription.

I got my Sherline Series 2000 Milling Machine recently! Yay!

Dang, this sucker is heavy! And it’s _very_ solidly built. I’m impressed with how solid it is. I had a concern with this because the head and vertical column can be positioned in so many ways, but lemme tell ya: once you crank down on the bolts and get it tight… it’s _solid_.

Anyway, on with the pics! But first, a quick note about these pics: I did not have the lights turned up because it was pretty late by the time I started and even later by the time I finished. So the main light source for these pics was the built-in flash, which has a distance of, well, not much. So I apologize in advance for the crappy pics.

Packaging: it was very well packaged. The base & table (the base and lower portion of the whole thing) was bolted down to it’s own piece of plywood. Everything was wrapped in either bubblewrap, or light paper. It was very secure as it came with a loose board on top, which kind of made it’s own little box. This kind of box could take a lot of abuse.
Here you can see the swingarm and vertical Z-axis with it’s saddle. It was very well packaged and wrapped in paper. The belt guards are in the plastic bag. They will be at the base of the motor and secure the speed control.
Here I am in the middle of taking stuff out of the boxes and getting oriented with what’s what and what goes where… ‘n stuff. Near center is the speed control and motor (still in the box). I’ve got the swingarm mounted on the column base, and the spindle is mounted, too. You can see the assembly instructions lower right. The instructions are excellent, written in regular english (not Chinglish), are in color, and are complete with many diagrams, including a complete exploded view in the back with parts listings.
I put my hand on the swingarm to give you an idea of how small this mill is. By this time I had un-bolted the base from the plywood, but I left it in there because it’s a good solid board to use–better than the carpet! If I slide the swingarm out far enough it’ll tip the machine over.
Here it is from the front. The model is 2010, because I wanted the metric version. The regular version is in American inches, model 2000. Normally, I would have gone with the American version, but all the stuff I’ve been working with lately has been in metric, and I want to continue working with it, so I’m sticking with metric. Anyway, Sherline sells a conversion kit if I need to switch to American.
From this angle, you can see that I put the extra riser block on the column. I didn’t know it was optional when I put it together. I was just building a kit, and I had the pieces, so I put it together. Later on I found out that it was optional. Actually, the Z-axis (up and down) travel is so good (both low and high) that the spindle almost touches the table _with_ this extra height in the column. So I’m going to leave it on.
Another angle. With the swingarm slid all the way out, and swung around like this, and with the motor attached, it would tip over. This machine has _a lot_ of motion possibilities.
This is the motor mounted to the spindle with the speed control. In the first pic, the spindle is lying down on the paper, and the motor is facing away towards the power cord. It’s a very solid mounting, and the position of the motor is variable to apply tention to the belt, or to loosen it so that you can change the belt position (for more torque). In the second picture, the speed control is on top and the spindle is down and to the left. The third pic is for size comparison. Oh, and by the way, did I mention that these things are heavy? And solid? Well, they’re heavy, and they’re solid.
At last, the motor, speed control, and spindle are mounted to the Z-axis saddle! By the way, the speed control is continuously variable from 70 to 2800 RPM, and it does it’s best to keep the motor spinning at speed. Even under load, it is continuously adjusting power to keep it spinning at the same speed. It’s a good quality speed control unit and a good quality motor. As I was getting the tour down at the Shirline factory, the guy demonstrated the power of the motor. He turned it down to a very slow speed, then tried to stop it from turning by holding his thumb and fingers on top of the spindle wheel (the one with the belt). He pushed down as hard as he could and was unable to stop it or slow it down. When he let go, it maintained speed. I was also unable to stop it. I was impressed. In the third pic, the whole unit is facing away, so you get the rear-view. As you can see, the spindle is almost all the way up at the top of the Z-axis travel. The little brass thingie sticking out is a lock. Slide it counterclockwise and the Z-axis is locked from moving. I believe all axes have locks (but I’m no expert on this machine yet.
Here’s a little rotational tour of the thing all put together and ready to do some milling. In the last pic I slid the spindle down most of the way and attached the chuck. Also, it’s on top of the box so you can see the thing better. I can’t wait to start making stuff with it!

Okay, here’s the story how I got my Sherline 2010 Milling Machine:

My dad and I were chatting engineering talk over lunch. He was down here from Oregon because of three birthdays.

Okay, let me back up a bit. Me, my younger sister, and my youngest neice are all having our birthdays within about the same time. Actually, we’re all a few weeks off, but because my older sister is down in Vista, and because it takes at least an hour and a half just to get down there, we decided to celibrate them all at the same time. I was the lucky guy who got to drive my mom and my younger sister. The whole way. Both ways. Good thing I had my MP3 player with me.

So, what’s the point of my family’s pack of birthdays? My dad came down from Oregon for the partying! The next day he decided to drive on up to my area: Hollywierd. We had lunch at the Palms (Thai place just down the street from me). While I was muching down Chicken Fried Rice, we chatted about engineering. I can talk engineering with my dad, but not with my mom. Very different. Sometimes, I can even talk with Chicken Fried Rice in my mouth.

So… I asked him what tools I would need to build a flywheel. Between bites, he told me, “milling machine”. Actually, it sounded a bit different when spoken through a mouthful of Pad Thai, more like “mummumng makeung”, but I knew what he meant.

He also told me about lathes, but I figured I wouldn’t need one for my needs. When I got back home, I searched Google for “milling machines”. Bam, right there at the top of the list was Sherline. I didn’t know what Sherline was, so I clicked through:

http://www.sherline.com/

Holy moley! I had found the holy grail of home milling machines, on the first link! I didn’t even go back to the list of search results. I just stayed right there on the Sherline site for about a week. It’s HUGE. Not only that, but it’s big and it takes a really long time to read through it. I’m still haven’t even scratched the surface of this site. Plus, they’ve got all their manuals, parts list, catalogs, etc. online in HTML and PDF formats. I was in home/hobby milling machine heaven!

So… after much research and comparisons, I decided on the mill that I wanted: the 5410. It seemed to do just about everything I needed, and it was small enough to fit into an apartment. Here’s the picture:

Plus, it seemed to be a really good platform for upgrades. This means I could upgrade it to do all kinds of things, such as full CNC (Computer Numeric Control), greater height on the Z-axis, tilt on the Z-axis like the series 2000, electronic readouts on the controls, etc.

I figured I could start with the good ol’ 5400 and then upgrade as needed. Then I toured the factory.

Wait, I’m getting ahead of myself again; let me back up… After doing much research on the net (we’re talking about _a lot_ of reading) I decided that this was the company I wanted to go with (they’ve been around for over 30 years; they must be doing something right), and this was the machine I wanted. Coincidentally, my Mom calls me up and says, “I’m going down to Vista to visit your sister on Wednesday, have some lunch, spend some time, etc. Wanna come with and drive ‘n stuff?”

By this time I knew Sherline was in Vista, just about five miles south of where my older sister lives. This fact strolled into my mind as I was listening to my mom. A very short moment after she asked her question, a plan formed in my mind. While deciding upon my answer, I think I took all of about 0.0137 seconds (approximaly) to decide.

“Yes.” was my prompt answer. I’m not even sure that my mom got her question all the way out before I answered.

“Really?” she asked. I think she expected me to decline.

“Yeah,” I said, “and while you’re having lunch, I can take dad and visit a store down there that I’m interested in.”

“Oh, sure. Great! You can drive!”

I made a mental note to put fresh batteries in my MP3 player and said, “You bet!”

And then it was just a matter of waiting until Wednesday. Three agonizingly long days! During this time I continued researching Sherline’s website. Hey, there’s a lot there to read!

Anyway, Wednesday finally considered about thinking about getting around to arriving, and off we went! As it turns out, my older sister was sick in bed that day, so there wasn’t a whole lot to do. Undeterred, we fed her some drugs and got her to a resturant for lunch. But after that she crashed in bed again. So while Mom read a book and tried to ignore the big dogs, Dad and I took off for Sherline.

According to the website, all were welcome at the Sherline factory and they would even give us a tour. I had already taken the online tour (several times), so I kinda knew what to expect. I just wasn’t sure how old the online tour was. We only got lost once, then parked and went in. The building looked exactly like the picture in the online tour. Once inside, the lobby looked exactly like the picture in the online tour. Up the stairs and there were the admin offices… yup, exactly like the picture in the online tour.

Are you sensing a pattern here? Lemme cut to the chase: It’s exactly like the online tour. The way it looks in the online tour is exactly the way it is. My Dad and I saw it all. A guy named Craig took us around and showed us everything, from receiving of raw material, to the finished product. We even got to play with a 5400 machine. I cut a groove in a small block of aluminum. It was so cool.

Now remember, this was my first time actually using a milling machine (of any kind), so regardless of how inane and useless a cut it was, it was still very, very cool. Also, quite surprisingly, it was quiet. It made about as much noise as a sewing machine.

My Dad asked which one I wanted. I told him, “The 5400.” He pointed out that the 8-direction mill (the 2000 series) had more clearance. Sure it did, but I told him that I could upgrade the 5400 to be kinda like the 2000 series. He pointed out that by the time I did this, I would have spent what it would cost to get the 2000 in the first place. And the 2000 was an 8-direction mill, which kicked ass over the 5400. Sure, I said, but it costs more. He offered to help me out on the purchase.

I took about 0.0138 seconds (approximately) to consider this, then said, “Okay.” A half-an-hour later it was done and in the trunk. Here’s a picture of the 8-direction 2010-series milling machine:

I was quite calm all the way back to my sister’s place. I was quite calm as I hung around and visited with everyone. I was quite calm helping my dad with his computer. I was quite calm the whole time.

I was quite calm as I drove back home. Mom even mentioned how calm I was, with my new toy in the trunk. I calmly replied, “I am containing my excitement.” And I was. Inside I was jumping off the walls. Outside, I was quite calmly calm.

When we reached my apartment building, I hauled the thing out of the trunk and just kinda grunted at how heavy it was. Shipping this thing would have been expensive. I took a deep breath, tensed up my body, and hauled the thing all the way into my building, down the hall, down the other hall, and into my apartment. I had to go through four doors and I never put it down.

Once in my apartment, I kept it in the box for a few days. See how calm I was? I calmly left it in the corner next to my dresser while I continued research and continued my regular work. I still had bills to pay, after all. The subject of it’s assembly will be the focus of my next blog post.

But in all this little adventure, I find it interesting how things seem to get done once I decide that they’re done. Isn’t that an interesting thing? I decided that I had a milling machine which would fit in my apartment. I decided this weeks ago, and then I made it happen. I would not have done anything with it without the prior decision.

Interesting. Now I’ve decided that I have a girlfriend. MMMmmmmm… my LadyHawk… where are you?

Here are some water containers that I’ve aquired recently. My Dad gave me the big 5 Gallon in the back; he got it off someone on ebay. The little 1.1 Litere guy in the front came from a local general store. All the rest came from a local water store.

The important thing here is that all of these containers are made from the highest quality of polycarbonate food-grade plastic. Grab a bottle, make sure it’s sealed up, and turn it over. Examine the bottom for a little triagle with a single digit (number) in it. The highest quality of food-grade plastic is 7. All of these bottles have the 7 on the bottom, which means I can store my distilled water in these things for a very, _very_ long time, and I don’t have to worry about the plastic leetching into the water or changing the taste.

I went to the grocery store recently and checked the bottoms of all kinds of plastic bottles. NONE of them were anywhere near 7. Most were 1 or 2. I guess there’s nothing wrong with this, except that they are not designed to be re-filled. I like to re-use and re-fill my bottles because I make my own distilled water.

So now I’ve got lots of storage and other containers to use and re-use around my house… and for when I actually leave the place.

By the way, the squarish ones are the best. They are the best use of space (they fit into my bookcases very well) and they have a little spigot on the bottom. I like the 3-Gallon squarish one the best. I can put about 10 of them in one tower bookcase. Schweet!

After I cleaned my water distiller for the first time, I noticed a bad smell and a bad taste in the water that it produced. I asked my roommate to smell it (a college grad in chemestry) and he said it smelled like iron.

Wierd. Well, I tried various things to get rid of the bad smell/taste: I cleaned it again. I scrubbed it hard with the dark-green (scratchy) side of my sponge. I cleaned it again with the stuff they gave me. I ran it without the carbon filter. I even ran a distilled gallon through again. But the bad smell/taste persisted.

“Oh GREAT!” I thought, “Somehow, I’ve already broken my distiller!”

I emailed customer service and got no response. So I called ‘em up and left a brief message about the problem. A guy called me back and figured out the problem almost immediately. The guy was good. He asked if I had used something scratchy to clean out the tank, and I told him how I had scrubbed it with my scratchy sponge.

There was the problem. There is some kind of coating on stainless steel which prevents the iron from seeping out into the water. This makes sense because stainless steel is made of iron and crome (please correct me if I’m wrong). This also makes sense because the bad smell/taste started right after I had cleaned it out the first time (using lots of fource with the _scratchy_ side of my green sponge).

So… how to fix: he said put one cup of vinegar in the tank, and fill it the rest of the way up with water, and run that through once without the carbon filter. Then, run a regular gallon through (tap water) still without the carbon filter to clean out the vinegar smell/taste. Then resume normal operation.

Well, actually, it took one or two more gallons going through to get the vinegar smell/taste out completely, but that _totally fixed the problem!_ Now I’m back to perfect, pure water with no bad smells and no bad tastes!

If you decided to get one of these little water distillers, don’t clean the tank with something scratchy. The support guy said it was okay to use something like a washcloth, but nothing more scratchy than that.

I hope this helps.