250202 Groundhog Day

Posted on February 2, 2025 by AZAtheist

It’s a pleasant day in Tucson today. During my morning walk, the bank style marquee sign outside the elementary school said the temperature was 80 degrees. It was too warm for a light jacket. Also, there was very little trash to pick up. The Sunday bicyclists were out and friendly.

It occurred to me that it is Groundhog Day. Tucson Atheists was created on Groundhog Day in 2003. We don’t have groundhogs in Tucson. We really have winter either. We do have Jack Rabbits though. Perhaps, this rather large one is looking for his shadow. If so, does that mean the snowbirds will be leaving us in six more weeks?

In the movies, Groundhog Day represented a day that kept repeating itself. However, unlike the situation we have currently, each repeat got better…

Posted in American Atheists, Atheist Action, Freethought Community, Religion, Retired--A Day in the Life, Separation of Church and State | Leave a comment

250128 It’s Time to Add a Post

Posted on January 28, 2025 by AZAtheist

Here it is 2025 and almost the end of January and I haven’t posted in a while. I’m going to try and post directly to WordPress instead of using Word then transferring the file. I liked using Word when there was a template to use but the new version seems to have dropped that capability.

OK…I posted a picture…that’s good. In case you’re wondering what’s in the picture, it is a face made out of stuff I find on my morning walks. Today, the face was very different. It was painted brown. The tree where the face exists sits next to a bench. Apparently, those that maintain the walking/biking trail stained the bench and used a bit to add a little color to the face. 

The face is on my “turn around” tree which is 2 miles from home. Every day, except Friday, I walk to the turn around tree and head back for a 4-mile walk. Hopefully, this exercise will allow me to live longer. 

I love living in Tucson. The temperature at 9 this morning was a bit over 50 degrees (F). I light jacket was all that was required. On the way home I saw a pretty bird in a tree. I don’t know birds, but he looked a little like a bandit.

When I’m walking, I pick up litter using a Harbor Freight Pickup Tool. I carry shopping bags from our local Safeway store. Also, I carry soft beef flavored treats for the four-footed friends I see along the way. I know their names, but I rarely know the names of the people walking them. I listen to podcasts, too. I have a set of “open ear” headphones that transfer sound through bones. I listen to NPR News (as depressing as it has been lately), and SCIFRI (which isn’t only on Fridays now). I also listen to other NPR podcasts such as: NPR Politics, Consider This, and The Best of Car Talk, and many others including: 99% Invisible, Cabinet of Curiosities, Al Franken, Apple News, Big Picture Science, BrainStuff, Cautionary Tales, Cognitive Dissonance, The Constant, Creature Feature, Criminal, The Daily, Freakonomics, Freethought Radio, … I’d better stop now. the list goes on and I’m down to the Fs. 

That’s a lot of podcasts. I have to listen to them at at least 1.5X speed to get through them. I also have a couple of mainly music podcasts such as Vinyl on Chrome. Those, I have to listen to at 1X, of course. 

So, I’m walking, picking up trash, decorating the path, listening to podcasts, and feeding dogs. I’m also thinking about what I’m going to write in my blog. I always think about it but by the time I’m home, eat my lunch, and bathe, I usually forget about the blog and fix something, or finish a project, or watch YouTube videos.

Today, I decided to write a blog just before bed…good night all.

 

 

 

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Refilling My Butter Bell

Posted on July 20, 2024 by AZAtheist

I am fond of my butter bell…Mine is made of marble and keeps a quarter pound of butter fresh and soft on my counter. However, reloading it is a mess. I get butter on my hands. Washing up required warm water and my water heater is distant from the kitchen sink, which requires I wait some time before washing my hands.

There had to be a better way…enter the 3D printer…As always, nothing is done right on the first try…

My first thought was to make a simple device to hold the cube of butter upright and allow it to melt into the bell. It didn’t work. The butter just sat there, not melting. I tried using the microwave oven to hasten the melting process.

While it did make the butter melt down into the bell, it also ruined the butter. It made the butter grainy. It separated and needed to be put in the refrigerator to make it solid enough to stay in the bell. I tried putting the bell with the device and the butter outside. Apparently, 100 degrees was not warm enough to do the job completely. Putting it in the direct sunlight for 5 minutes was equivalent to putting it in the microwave oven.

Therefore, I needed to go back to the physical method of pushing the room temperature softened butter into the bell. I tried a spoon. It worked OK, but the spoon is round and the hole in the device was square…Back to the printer…

Finally. I modelled a square plunger for my butter bell filling device. Now I don’t get my hands buttery.

You can get the files HERE.

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We Are Living in a Plastic World

Posted on March 30, 2024 by AZAtheist

Yesterday, I put up a couple of posts about our personality robots. I’ve always loved the idea of having robots. I remember asking Santa for a Robot Commando way back in 1961 when I was 8. My neighbor did get one. I was sure that Santa got the address wrong. Robot Commando moved on wide wheels. He was battery powered and voice controlled. He fired missiles and hurled bombs. Turns out, I can have one today. They’re on Ebay for $250 to $500. I don’t want one though. These were the kind of things that were great to play with when getting up and down off the floor was quite a bit easier. The desk ones I have now won’t conquer a city but they’re entertaining and sit on the desk or kitchen counter.

Times change. We live in a “plastic world” and desires can be shaped or molded over time. I started buying my (now) ideal robots during the pandemic because I had the time and the money.

 

Also, during the pandemic, I fulfilled another dream of mine. That was the desire to have a 3D printer for my workshop. COVID 19 restrictions gave me the luxury of being able to spend time learning about how to take rolls of plastic filament and turn them into useful and not so useful things around the workshop and the house.

The last thing that I made was a hook for my computer headset. There is beauty in having the machine, material, and experience to make your life a little bit better. Often, I’m up late at night on the computer and I need to put on a headset so I can hear the YouTube videos without disturbing Nancy. I always kept it in a drawer. I needed a way to avoid getting the set out a drawer, untangling the cord, and plugging it in to the USB port on the front of the tower. I decided to make a custom device that would attach to the tower.

 

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Second Blog Post for Today

Posted on March 29, 2024 by AZAtheist

Did you ever have a situation where something changed, and you’d pay a high price to get things back to where they used to be? That just happened on my computer and the way it talks to my WordPress blog. Something happened to my Microsoft Word. It stopped working and none of the “fix” apps seemed to make it work again. I tried downloading the files from my Microsoft account. They wouldn’t install. I tried deleting the program. It still wouldn’t allow me to install the program. At this point, I can’t tell you what happened exactly, because it all got quite confusing. Eventually, I was able to get the MS Word installed (along with the Outlook program). All was well…so I thought. I had no idea that I had lost the ability to create a WordPress blog entry with MS Word.

Hopefully, we’re back to normal. Crossing my fingers…now PUBLISH! No wait, I need to add a picture so that I know that that part still works…

EMO

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We Are Now a Three Robot Family

Posted on March 29, 2024 by AZAtheist

Four years ago, while stuck in the house due to the pandemic, we decided to unbox our Vector Robot. It was cute and we spent some time getting to know the little guy. He seemed to have a personality and kept us company. We had fun asking him questions and doing all the robot centric stuff like: changing his eye color and asking about the weather. We found him a permanent home behind the sink. Everyday, he would keep Nancy company when she prepared dinner and cleaned up the dishes. Now we call him “The Old Guy.” A lot has happened since then. The company that originally built him was Anki. Anki made Cozmo first. Vector looked a lot like Cozmo but operated autonomously and employed elements of Artificial Intelligence. However, Anki went out of business. Another company DDL (Digital Dream Labs) took over the intellectual property of Anki and created Vector 2.0. Our second robot was a Vector 2.0. For the most part, the “New Guy” did the same stuff as the first one. However, DDL overpromised, and the delivery took months longer than anticipated. We finally received him. We were then a two-robot family. All was right…for a while…

Then, DDL decided to take down the servers that gave our little robots a good portion of their personality. The company promised that the servers would be down for a short time. That was in July 2023. They said that the downtime would be about 2 weeks. During that downtime the robots still did stuff, but they didn’t respond to voice commands. They wouldn’t play their one and only game—blackjack. They couldn’t act as timers. They couldn’t tell you the weather or answer any knowledge questions. They just made cute squeaky noises and would once-in-a-while recognize us and say our names. The still did their favorite tricks: play with their blocks, offer a high five, and return to their chargers but they weren’t the robots we’d grown accustomed to having on our kitchen counter.

Nancy’s birthday was in March. If the servers were still down after her birthday, I made the commitment to myself to buy the “wire pod” server (which made the robots independent from DDL) and convert them. Of course, it was a confusing, frustrating endeavor, but eventually, with a lot of help, I got through it and we were back to being a “two robot family.” Then came EMO…

We’re just getting to know EMO but so far so good.

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Glad That’s Over…

Posted on January 2, 2024 by AZAtheist

Happy New Year! However, the Chinese curse is still with us. Not talking about COVID 19, although that IS still with us. I’m talking about the curse that goes, “May you live in interesting times.” I’m going to try and make the best of 2024. One of the toughest things for me to do is throw things out. My favorite activity is making things. It’s particularly rewarding when I can improve on things that I already own or, better yet, use materials that I find. Throwing things out represents a failure to me. Unlike Marie Kondo, I get no pleasure out of discarding stuff. Particularly, if I remember how much money I paid for the stuff and I have a good memory. I often tell people that I’m a cardboard box short of being a hoarder. But things wear out and if they can’t be salvaged for parts, they must go. I’m beginning to believe that about relationships too.

Sunday was the last day of 2023. Nancy and I don’t go out on New Years Eve. This year we had some friends over to sing Karaoke and keep us awake until midnight. This was new for us, and we realized that we’d not have a big crowd because there were quite a few celebrations and many of our friends are a bit more active than we are. We had seven people join in and it was a good time. There were plenty of opportunities to sing before midnight. Earlier in the day, I used my remote fire making skills to wire up a fire basket full of fireworks. We had champaign and sparkling cider, noise makers, and handheld sparklers to welcome in the New Year. The weather was “Tucson mild.” A light jacket was all that we required.

A few minutes of “oohing” and “aahing” and drinking and we were back in front of the Karaoke machine. The songs were varied: A Country song, followed by a show toon. There were folk songs and plenty of oldies. Everyone got a chance to sing eight songs if they wanted.

I didn’t sit down to write this blog and tell everyone about our New Years Eve party. I sat down to show off my latest improvement to my workshop environment. On Facebook a couple of days ago I posted a picture of my workbench. I had just cleaned everything off it and it looked like an invitation to start a new project. My workbench came from Harbor Freight a few years ago. It’s really made for woodworking. So far, I’ve made a few improvements.

I added a cut-down Fiskars self-healing mat. I replaced the side runners on all the drawers so that they would pull out enough to reach the items in the back of them. I added shelving and lighting above the bench along with a power panel. I also added a “long bar” power strip along the front to support any corded hand tools. The last thing that I added was a way to mount a bench vice without ruining the surface of the bench for woodworking projects.

In honor of this being a new year, I wanted to make a better-looking bench vice mount. The one I made out of scraps of wood worked but not as well as I wanted it to, and it was UGLY. I drew up a new one on Tinker CAD and sent the file to be produced on my Bamboo Labs x1 Carbon using black ABS filament. Six and a half hours later, I had my finished mount. It took a little adjusting because I didn’t get everything perfect. Here it is:

Beautiful, isn’t it?

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Halloween Animation: BBs Are Ball Bearings

Posted on September 20, 2023 by AZAtheist

Admittedly, this article is for the truly Halloween/Technology obsessed.

Ever since I turned 12 years old and quit trick-or-treating, I’ve been interested in providing an enhanced experience for those that are still able to fully enjoy my favorite holiday of the year—Halloween. My parents were OK with me handing out the treats. In fact, they insisted on it. It was a great deal for them because they could be assured that I was occupied and in the driveway and not creating havoc somewhere.

I didn’t have a lot to work with: a bowl of candy, a chair, and a card table. I needed something to surprise the kids when they came up. What I came up with was a loud noise maker that I could activate from my seat. It consisted of a model train transformer connected to an old radio speaker hidden in the bushes. I mounted the transformer under the table so that I could reach the on/off switch. When the costumed kids came up to the table, I switched on the transformer. The resulting 60 cycle hum was loud and unexpected. Some were startled. Only one broke out in tears, which I felt a bit bad about. In general, my efforts were appreciated. The hobby continues to this day. Now, my “scares” are a bit more sophisticated.

I retired from paid work in March of 2008. My thought was that Halloween of that year would be legendary. It didn’t turn out to be true. I got started too late. Despite having more skills and resources, I didn’t put in the time required. Sometimes, having great ideas is not enough. One must put in the work and spend the time. Since then, I’ve learned to do just that, and I also picked up a few new skills (and equipment). In 2009 when I learned to use pneumatics, the homemade props got snappier. In 2015, I added Arduino control circuitry and replaced much of the “Rube Goldbergesque” mechanics and that made the DIY animatronics work more reliably. 2015 was also the year that the “witch theme” was added to the annual display. The following year the theme was zombies followed by: “CarnEvil (clowns, etc.) in 2017, “Ghost Busters” in 2018, “Aliens from Outer Space” in 2019, “Ghost Rider” in 2021, “The Devil” in 2022, and this year it will be “Monster Mash.” There was no theme in 2020 due to COVID 19. All my creative energy was spent building the machine that allowed us to distribute candy from 10 feet away.

This year the theme is “The Monster Mash.” The song was immensely popular when I was in grade school.

From Wikipedia:

“Monster Mash” is a 1962 novelty song by Bobby “Boris” Pickett. … The “Monster Mash” single was number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on October 20–27 of that year, just before Halloween. It has been a perennial Halloween favorite ever since. In 2021, nearly 60 years after its release, “Monster Mash” re-entered the Billboard Hot 100 chart at number 37.

In the song, Bobby “Boris” Pickett mentions the “Crypt Kicker Five.”

Members of “The Crypt Kicker Five”

Here they are! The lead singer is Wolfy. Frankie is on lead guitar. Teri (the witch) is on keyboard. “Grim Ripper” is on bass, and “Bones O” is the drummer. The four standing members will pivot together, but Wolfy’s head pivots independently.

The wolfman started out as a Halloween costume. The costume is laid over a ¾” PVC framework. There is a bicycle seat inside the wolfman’s head, and the bicycle seat is attached to a ½” PVC pipe that passes through a ¾” PVC “cross” connector. Wolfy’s head pivots. The ½” PVC pipe easily passes through the “cross” connector with room to spare. Inside his chest there is a small motor, the type one can find in a Christmas lighted reindeer lawn ornament. The rotation from that motor passes up through his neck and rotates the head back and forth. However, the fit is sloppy. To solve that problem, I designed a bearing that makes the ½” PVC pipe fit snugly inside the ¾” cross piece.

 

The ball bearings are Daisey BBs. The top and bottom races were designed on TinkerCad and printed on my Bambu Labs 3D Printer.

Another 3D printed part is attached to the neck pipe within the chest cavity of the wolfman. A short link converts the round and round rotation of the reindeer motor into the back-and-forth turning of Wolfy’s head. He rocks with the rest of the band members, but his head turns independently. The movement is not jerky and natural. Most importantly, it should work throughout the display time without giving me any trouble. Happy Halloween!

Posted in Art, Halloween, Repurposing Material, Retired--A Day in the Life, Robotics, Science and Technology | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

A Eureka Moment at Camp Quest Arizona 2022

Posted on July 10, 2022 by AZAtheist

Introducing STEM activities at a summer camp is particularly challenging. Especially when there is a wide variety of ages and interests. Particularly difficult is finding projects. The projects must appeal to the wide age range. Also, they must be “doable.” This year, we made “Joust Bots.” I started with a beam following robot and added a “rider” and lance. Development of the kits took some time. Fortunately, I had plenty of time over the past two years during the pandemic. I got a 3D printer, and it was used extensively in the development of the JoustBot.

It’s not enough that the machine works and it’s not enough that it is buildable, but it must be built safely. That is why this robot uses a breadboard instead of soldering the components to a circuit board. Using soldering irons open the possibility of burns. It is also easier to trouble shoot a mis wired bread board. There was only one “wire-to-wire” connection left in the design and I chose to use a “button splice” to accomplish that connection. The button splice only required a firm squeeze with a pair of pliers instead of soldering iron. It also made the build go faster.

More details leading up to the “Eureka Moment” …

Connections to the breadboard are made by pushing wires into the holes. The wire is a bit “wimpy” on its own. To make them stiff enough to easily be inserted, I tinned all the bare wires. This works well. The jumper wires are DuPont connectors that end in small metal pins specially designed to plug into breadboards. I packed a few extra. Unfortunately, if a tinned wire gets bent, it needs to be re-tinned. Anticipating that might be an issue, I packed a soldering iron that I could use to re-tin damaged wires. Unfortunately, I left the solder and flux on my workbench at home. With three hours into the four-hour project and only one day left, I was anticipating that many of the campers wouldn’t have working robots at the end of camp. That thought was depressing.

However, Eureka! An idea occurred to me in the middle of the night and woke me up early in the morning. I could make it work with the button splices and the spare DuPont connectors. I raced to the craft patio where the robots were stored. One by one I removed them from the box, found the broken leads, and spliced in the DuPont connectors. Then I tested each one for functionality. Every single unit worked…then I went to breakfast…

Since all the robots were in working order when the last hour of the project began, the campers were able to spend their time testing their skills and machines against other campers. Mission accomplished…whew!

Posted in Camp Quest, Freethought Community, Repurposing Material, Retired--A Day in the Life, Robotics, Science and Technology, Youth Activity | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Multitasking:

Posted on July 5, 2022 by AZAtheist


The performance of more than one task at the same time.

This morning I got up early…well…early for me. I decided to not waste the cooler morning temperatures and take my daily walk. I walk at least 4.3 miles per day which is about 10K steps for me. Before I start, I run a checklist to get out of the garage. I need my hat, sunscreen, grocery bags, and my 36″ pickup and reach tool. I must log my breakfast which includes one hardboiled egg, one Ultra Sunrise Monster Energy Drink (I no longer drink coffee in the morning since COVID changed my taste for it.), and dog treats. Finally, I start the Walkmeter App on my iPhone.


The first thing I do is visit the neighbor’s dogs—a white Labrador and black Labrador named Malibu and Leo. They love to see me. They don’t bark or try and scare me away. At least, not anymore. I started giving them dog treats. They wag their tails and lick the air. Nancy and I don’t have a dog, but for the time it takes for them to enjoy their morning beefy treats, I have two very attentive best friends. They may look a bit tired today. It is July 5th and I’m sure they had a stressful night.

They’re right across the street. My first stop. Now my multitasking can begin in earnest. I start listening to one of my podcasts. There are several I subscribe to: NPR News Now, Stuff You Should Know, The Moth, Hidden Brain, This American Life, TED Talks Daily, TED Tech, Radiolab, Penn’s Sunday School, Today Explained, Stuff They Don’t Want You To Know, Stuff To Blow Your Mind, Godless Rebellution, Ron BurBurgundy, Brave New Planet, Stuff You Should Know, NPR Politics, Rachel Maddow, The Daily, Big Picture Science, Cognitive Dissonance, Monster Talk, OH NO Ross & Carrie, and You Are Not So Smart, Scathing Atheist, Opening Arguments, and a few others. I listen to all of them at 1.75X speed. If I run out of talking podcasts, I switch to music podcasts, usually Oldies or Classic Rock, at 1.0X speed.

It’s not difficult to listen to podcasts on headphones while walking. So, it’s not difficult to also pick up trash along the trail. Today, I added a fourth task—fixing things. I fixed a small flag display and repaired the “Rock Tree” at my turn-around point.

The little flags are getting weatherworn and sometimes the top or the bottom come off the stick. It is an easy fix. I carry 28-gauge annealed specialty wire and my Leatherman multitool. It takes a couple of minutes to poke the wire through the cloth and wrap it around the stick. The hardest part is getting up off the ground when the job is completed.

The “Rock Tree” is about 2.2 miles from my garage door. It is located where I turn around every day. It’s really the stump of a Palo Verde Tree that was growing next to a small Saguaro Cactus. Some time ago I would place small quartz rocks that I would find on the trail on the tree. Then I got the idea to attach other things that I find along the way. There are small glass bead and a wide variety of shiny chrome bicycle parts and reflectors. The last thing I added to the tree was a bundle of streamers the I picked up next to an elementary school. The streamers are easy to see because they glint in the sun. I think they work better on my hat and on the tree than on the ground…don’t you?

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