Adaptive Curmudgeon

Friday:

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi: “I’m a terrorist fucknut. I’m one of the bad guys leading ISIS. I’m as creepy as shit. I do things that require my henchmen shovel up body parts and hose down the pavement afterwards. I plan it out for the camera. I’m walking snuff film; a real life horror movie monster. My activities would give Vlad the Impaler moral qualms.”

Saturday:

President Trump: “I’m going to have an important announcement tomorrow.”

The Press: “Impeach the motherfucker!”

Democrats: “Yo! That’s our line. Quit stealing our thunder!”

The Press: “Democrats want to impeach the motherfucker. As they should. Because Trump’s a big mean doody head.”

Democrats: “Thanks, much better.”

Curmudgeon: “What’s this on the internet? New announcement? Meh, it’s just Trump. Probably the cheeky bastard found another way to troll; maybe he’ll pet a kitten and make the Dem’s go on an anti-kitten rampage.”

Sunday:

President Trump: “Good news everyone. Our armed forces just killed the shit out of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.”

Everyone: “Who? Quick, check Wikipedia.”

Everyone: “Oh, that guy. He was super evil. Glad he’s dead.”

President Trump: “Dude was super evil. I’m glad he’s dead.”

Curmudgeon: (Rummaging through his brain and eventually remembering who the heck this guy is.) “Whoa, that was the guy that’s super evil. I’m glad he’s dead.”

Democrats: “How can we possibly be upset about this? The dude set people on fire and that was the least creepy of his ideas. We gotta’ agree with Trump, this is a good thing.”

Democrats: “Ha ha ha… had you fooled didn’t we? Watch this…” (Shrieking) “He didn’t inform Nancy Pelosi first! Waaaahh.”

President Trump: “The terrorist died like the little bitch he was. We’re awesome and none of the good guys got hurt. He’s extra dead. Yay team!”

The Press: “We’re triggered.”

President Trump: “Also Russia was real polite. I called Putin and said ‘we’re coming through on our way to kill an asshole, please give us room to maneuver’. Putin was like ‘you’re going to kill Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi? That guy’s super evil. I’ll be glad when he’s dead. Have a nice day’. Real class act.”

The Press: “Russian collusion! The walls are closing in, we’ve got him this time!”

Most Sane People: “Whoa there, if you’re going to fly helicopters through a war zone sometimes it’s smart to call ahead. That’s just common sense.”

Washington Post: “Does Trump trust Putin more than Pelosi?”

Most Sane People: “Uh yeah. Hasn’t she been trying to impeach him since before he was sworn in?”

Nancy Pelosi: “Actually after the first two years I realized it wasn’t working. Lately I’ve been trying to calm them down…”

Curmudgeon: “Really, and how’d that work out for you?”

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: “I’m very wise. I know lots of stuff. It’s a good idea to impeach Trump because he’s not on my team. Everyone I don’t like should be impeached and the voters will like that. This is a good idea!”

Nancy Pelosi: “Down! Sit! Don’t make me put you back in the gimp box!”

Katie Hill: “Can I do that? I’ve been doing a naked threesome with my employee while taking bong hits. I’m down with the good stuff!”

Nancy Pelosi: “Now Katie, we talked about this. You should be discrete…”

Katie Hill: “It’s on video. I hate Trump too. We should hang out.”

Ilhan Omar: “I’m in. I married my brother and then had an affair with some married dude. He’s getting divorced now. I’m so smart. Everyone who doesn’t agree with me should be impeached.”

Curmudgeon: “I almost feel sorry for you; herding cats like that…”

Nancy Pelosi: “Kids these days. What are you going to do? Hey, wait, I’m agreeing with you? That’s impossible! You’re deplorable and I hate you.”

Curmudgeon: “Of that I have no doubt. I forget, do you represent the district without electricity or the one with human shit on the sidewalk?”

Nancy Pelosi: “You make me sad. I’m going to stop talking to you.”

Curmudgeon: “Knock yourself out. This discussion is just a fictional entry in my blog anyway.”

The Press: “Trump shouldn’t talk to Putin. He should talk to us!”

Curmudgeon: “The President should inform the press before a secret military attack on terrorists?”

The Press: “We meant Trump should talk to the Democrats first.”

Most Sane People: “Do the Democrats have anti aircraft missile batteries in the flight zone?”

Democrats: “I don’t think so. We’re opposed to guns.”

Most Sane People: “So there ya’ go. You check with people who can shoot down helicopters. You don’t check with people that don’t.”

Democrats: “Math is hard. Regardless, this is bad!”

Curmudgeon: “Bad? Killing a terrorist? Are you shitting me?”

Washington Post: “Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, austere religious scholar at helm of Islamic State dies at 48.”

Everyone: “Are you fucking kidding me!?!”

Washington Post: “Well technically he was austere and religious…”

Curmudgeon: “And Hitler was a vegetarian. That’s not the point. When a terrorist is killed by our military you say ‘Military Kills Terrorist’. How hard is this?”

Washington Post: “But Trump is president. We have to mislead about every fucking thing until he’s not.”

Curmudgeon: “Do you… have you… are you seeking treatment? Frankly I’m a little worried about you. Try living in reality… it’s very nice. The scenery is OK and the absence of madness is a real plus. Cloud cuckoo land is not a good place to live.”

Rightwing Social Media: “Ha ha ha… lets all laugh at the Washington Post.”

Washington Post: “Now we’re sad. Can we define laughing at us as hate speech?”

Babylon Bee: “How are we going to top that? A terrorist that sets people on fire is ‘austere and religious’? When the Washington Post leads with a punchline, how can we insert a joke! Satire is hard!”

Mitt Romney: “I want to use social media anonymously. What’s a good pseudonym?”

Anthony Weiner: “Carlos Danger just sent you an image.”

Mitt Romney: “Ugh!”

Anthony Weiner: “Pseudonyms are great!”

Mitt Romney: “I chose ‘Pierre Delecto’. Nobody will figure it out.”

New York Times: “What the fuck?”

Adaptive Curmudgeon: “Y’all suck at thinking up pseudonyms.”

Donald Trump: “Pseudonyms are for pussies!”

About a month ago I got a generous tip from a couple of readers. They liked my salute to the bravery of Dave Chappelle, who dares have a public sense of humor in the age of woke-scolds:

“Nobody feared a joke more than the Soviets. Our version, the woke, have their nuts in a bundle over Chappelle. You know you’re over the target when you’re taking flak. They’re whining and bitching; because what else can they do? If they could do jokes better, they wouldn’t be such losers.”

I get tips from time to time but it’s not an every day thing. Nor is it “quit your day job” money. Regardless, it’s always a huge pick me up to get a tip and Bruce and Kristy made my day.

They suggested I buy some bourbon (and I surely will) but when you’ve got a nice tip… it’s special. You want to savor the moment. You want to daydream about all the cool shit you’re gonna’ buy. You want to have fun imagining all the awesome that will ensue.

I promised I’d notify them when I spent the money and I have. I decided to post it too.

I got myself a pure unadulterated luxury. I bought a shiny new set of Forstner Bits! Here’s a photo:

My God, they’re glorious!

In case you’re wondering, I have a project where I was trying to drill big fat countersink holes and a Forstner Bit is the right tool for the job. I’ve never owned a Forstner bit; which makes it an even more magical thing. This is what I was trying to use:

I simply don’t have a spade bit that could do the job. That’s why I was resorting to the venerable bit and brace. (It’s not as crazy as it sounds, a bit and brace can do a lot.) Alas, I needed pretty big holes and didn’t have a large enough auger bit for the brace (who does?). The bit in this photo is some sort of antique unholy hybrid of spade bit and adjustable hole saw. It sucks and wasn’t going to get the job done. (Note: the photo makes it look bent but that’s just lens distortion.)

So, it was a little piece of Christmas for the Curmudgeon when the bits arrived. Yay!

This is only half the tip. I’m still savoring the last bit. I’m just so damn cheap I didn’t want to spend it all at once. I’ll blow the rest on something cool (possibly bourbon). When I do I’ll probably post that too (which is why this post is “Part 1”).

At any rate, a hearty thanks to Bruce and Kristy… you guys rock!

A.C.

P.S. The link goes to Amazon. If you buy shit from Amazon I get a small kickback and it costs you nothing. (Amazon seems to be uptight that I include that disclaimer at every juncture, but I assume y’all figured it out long ago.) Also, pretty much everything I link to is something I’ve tested but I haven’t yet used the Yonico brand bits. To be honest, they’re so pretty and shiny I hate to get ’em dirty! Right now they’re sitting in their box, simply glowing with promise.

This thing is going down the rabbit hole just as I thought it might. Analysis paralysis will get to me. I’m mentally regrouping.

First thought: “functionally equivalent” is fine. I don’t need exactly identical. Maybe “both stay in sync” was also too much to ask.

Second thought: One of two devices being “air gapped” is a way to hinder a single event (ransomware!) from propagating system to system. At least I think so. I like that idea.

Third thought: I’m drawn like moth to flame to stupid, unique, and weird ideas. There exists the siren song of the new Raspberry Pi 4. I’ve played around with a Raspberry Pi before but it didn’t become useful production computer. They’re cute but toyish and tinkery. Even so, there’s something about a dirt cheap disposa-computer appeals to me. What about a Raspberry Pi 4 setup with Linux and basic abilities? I suppose if it could check all my e-mails, surf, do light blogging, maybe run off batteries and has it’s own little screen it would be a fine “backup”? It would have to access my data via my RAID and cloud sources? Leave it off the net and it’s air gapped for when the Russians and the squirrels attack my laptop. A Pi “spare tire” might be a nice parachute if the main laptop bites the big one? It’s cheap, but is it stupid? I do use an Android Kindle all the time but it’s no good for regular stuff like e-mail or whatnot… I’m sure a Pi has more grunt & flexibility than the weirdly convoluted Amazon device? (My Kindle is also dying… it too will need a replacement in due time.) Sane people… please talk me out of the Pi.

Fourth thought: No need to move fast. This is a Christmas goal. (Really, it’s a New Year’s goal.)

Fifth thought: A tablet is fine for reading but if it’s going to be useful for more than consuming media I’m going to need my trusty USB keyboard. Also I’m (ideally) tied to two pieces of finicky software on at least one of two devices; Scrivener (which is Win, iOS, Mac, and I’ve run it under Wine) and Dragon NaturallySpeaking (which I mean to use more but never do… regardless, I have a Win license for it). Mrs. Curmudgeon extols the virtue of iDevices and she may have a point. How’s this match with the things I mentioned?

Lord help me, I used to like playing with computers and now I don’t. I just want them to shut up and serve me like a toaster. I’m definitely swimming upstream. Is this what it’s like to get old?

Get those damn kids off my lawn!

A.C.

Today I did nothing special but it killed a lot more time than I planned. You’ve been there too, no? At issue: the shop is hopelessly wrecked. Winter is coming. Time to get my head out of my ass and prepare for indoor projects. This is one small corner of my pigpen/shop. Too cluttered to get anything done.

I decided to throw up some shelves to impose order on chaos. I’m lazy and cheap. I found these brackets in a bucket in a barn years ago. I’ve been keeping them forever. Might as well use them (there’s a little rust but who cares).

They looked right for 6″ nominal wood so I picked up a couple 2″x 6″s. Total cost; like $11 or something.

Total fuckin’ disaster! The brackets were 1/2″ too wide for a nominal 2″ x 6″.

Fer fuck’s sake!

As an aside, I like to use plain wood for shop “fixtures”. I rarely, if ever, paint or varnish shit. I just leave it there because varnish or paint would be “final”. Half the time I decide to re-purpose whatever I built at first into whatever I happen to need now. I’ll toss up a bench or a bracket or a wall out of a plain dimension lumber, and years later tear it down to build something else out of the materials. Often, the Mark II version of my materials use will serve for years and yet again I’ll tear it down and use what’s left for another thing. Each time the chunk of wood gets more haggard and worn (and smaller)… but if it’ll serve the purpose I’ll use it down to the last molecule. I don’t know why I’m like this, it’s not like wood is going extinct.

Finally, it winds up in the wood stove; which is why it wasn’t varnished or painted decades prior. There’s clearly a mental imbalance in refusing to treat wood in 2019 because I may burn it in 2030. But… I cannot deny my true nature.

I have a shelf I made for an air compressor. I made it in a different state, in a different time zone, for an air compressor that died so long ago I barely remember it. The shelf followed me through several locations before it became a chicken coop door. Then it was a feed bag storage area. Then it was a nesting box. Then, it became heat. That’s five uses. Hippies bitching about recycling got nothin’ on a cheap redneck!

Why I do this is a mystery to even me. Wood isn’t that expensive.

But it’s relevant to today’s project. I needed brackets for a 6″ (nominal) shelf and buying a couple new metal Chinesium brackets just never entered my mind. The cost would be a couple bucks a bracket and it would save some time. Honest to God it never occurred to me.

Instead I found a chunk of rough cut wood; cast off from some other thing I’m building (more on that later).

I love my thickness planer. I ran the rough cut dirty old POS through it several times (probably dulling blades that cost more than the wood’s worth). It came out, if not pretty, at least not hideous.

Then I ripped both sides on a table saw. End result? I’d “resawn” a block of wood into a couple linear feet of something resembling what you’d buy at Home Depot or whatever. I’d also burned an hour to make something worth a few bucks. Dumbass! There’s something with my brain that just feels like I’m always in an economic depression; maybe it’s something you pick up in your youth and it stays with you?

Geometry. It ain’t rocket science. Metal brackets are for pussies.

Then, on the wall it went. As is my weirdness, I hung it up there with the minimum of Torx screws. Someday I’l be in urgent need of a 2″ x 6″ and my shelf will be sacrificed to the Gods of “Too Lazy To Drive To The Lumber Yard”. So I’ll want the minimum number of holes in my “new” raw material.

Which reminds me, am I the only one who loves Torx screws? You can back them out of damn near anything? How did I survive the horrible dark age of nails?

It’s amazing how much order you can get from 16′ linear feet of crude shelving.

None of this is rocket science or even interesting. I just know it makes me  happy when I see some other dude’s workshop all clean and orderly (I find it inspiring). I made it so there’s a tiny bit less chaos on the planet and I want to pass the joy on to you. Hope ya’ like it.

A.C.

P.S. In case you’re wondering, every square inch of the rest of the shop still looks like a tornado sucked up a county dump and took a shit through a blender. Heck, for the work surface “after” photo, I only managed to clear  6′ of the 8′ field of view. (Some of those tiny bits of wood are scrap walnut… I may need ’em someday.) But who cares, every cleaned cubic foot of workspace is a good thing. Good luck to everyone else in their battles with creeping clutter.

This post is an open invitation for anyone who wants to offer advice, ideas, suggestions, etc… Y’all are smart cookies. Please help brainstorm my idea. I’m open to creative solutions… fill my comments with wisdom!

My laptop runs fine. It’ll die eventually. I set for myself the goal of doing more “digital hygene” / best practices on or around Christmas. Here’s my goal:

I want to replace my laptop before it matters.

Also, I want to do something smart. I know… crazy thinking! But here goes:

I want a total duplicate machine… not a backup of files but a whole damn machine ready to go.

Not backups. Not files. Not my RAID plugged into its UPS. Not the cloud. Not a handful of passwords. I want a physical thing that’s always on deck.

I want to be able to toss a smoking wrecked computer out the window and use an understudy device already prepared and readied for it’s moment in the sun. I want that to happen in less time than it takes to brew a pot of coffee. I’d feel very James Bond if it came together like that.

Can it be done?

I have options. My needs are small and I have a good laptop now, a solid handle on my files, and nothing’s cratered yet. I can buy stuff new and I have a pile of junk machines hanging around. I can resurrect any of them (if I was willing to spend the time).

The problem is I only use one machine daily. I have my data backed up six ways from Sunday but only one computer that’s my “go to” device. I have data here and data there and passwords and cloud this and backed up that. I can (probably) recover from a pickaxe suddenly hitting my laptop. (I think.) But recovery would be a PITA.

“Rebuilding” takes time. I’d need to acquire a new machine (possibly using some cobbled together interim machine to surf Amazon), load up software, change the stupid idiot settings the newly installed software will include (we’ve replaced “menu” with “ribbon” that has all the same features but in new places), load up information, re-enter my passwords into whatever password manager is running, upgrade iTunes (iTunes always needs to upgrade… I don’t even use the damn thing but it’s like the cockroach of software)… and so forth.

I estimate a total electric shitstorm would kill 20 man hours. There has got to be a better way.

I can overcome a truck’s flat tire in 15 minutes. How? By having a spare that’s just as good as the regular tire. Why not switch to spare computer just like a spare tire?

Laptops aren’t free but they’re cheaper than the old days. Plus there’s stuff that’s practically free like RaspberriPi or jamming Linux onto something. What’s in very short supply is my time. I’m stretched to the limit.

Given that I’m thinking of buying a new computational critter (got no idea what) in a few months, now’s the time to be clever. How do I set myself up with dual redundant machines that stay more or less up to date? (The machines don’t have to match perfectly… I just don’t want the 20 hour hassle of “start from blank” if one dies.)

Surprisingly, I find not much about this on the internet. Mostly it’s “store your shit on the cloud” and “restore from backup”. Neither is the same as “computer A shit the bed so I turned on computer B which was already waiting”. (Hell, depending on the solution, maybe computer B can already be ON. A small thing might burn almost no AC.)

I might even keep computer A for travel and computer B for stay at home?

All suggestions and ideas are welcome.

A.C.

P.S. I was “inspired” in this endeavor by Claire Wolfe who had “an unfortunate event”. She reflected on the difference between a hard drive full of files and a functioning whole cloth computer. She has a good point:

“A functional backup computer. Given my reliance on the computer to earn a living and communicate with the world, I should not only have had backups, but should have had a fully functional, frequently tested second computer with those backups on it, up-to-date and working.”

Hat tip to Ace of Spades.

Today’s post has three points:

1. We are currently so regulated that cool shit is lost, forgotten, or never invented. “Never invented” worries me; how can we know what we didn’t discover?
2. Nobody learned a fucking thing in high school chemistry.
3. Doing cool shit is worth it, because obviously.

Suppose you’d never seen a kitchen match. Suppose they hadn’t been invented.

Link goes to matches on Amazon. You pyromaniac!

It’s not like we’d lack the secret of fire. People started fires before they had matches. There’d be lighters and so forth. (Note: When I wander about the woods I have several ways to start a fire. I carry them in addition to matches. That said, starting a campfire with my trusty FireSteel is a PITA. It’s a good backup, but matches are easier.)

Suppose that I, in a fit of Curmudgeonly innovation, invented a heretofore unknown technology called kitchen matches. A handy device I’d love to share with the world! How would that discussion go?

“I just invented a new way to start a fire.”

“Really? Is it safe?”

“Sure is. I dipped a strip of wood in a mix of phosphorus sesquisulfide and potassium chlorate. When I slide it across sandpaper it bursts into flames. Very convenient! I’m gonna’ call them ‘Lucifers’!”

“You’re bizarre.”

“I carry them in my pocket. Here, have some. I’m giving them away as a marketing gimmick. I’m going to be rich.”

(Recoiling in fear.) “Are you mad!?! You carried them in your pocket? You’ll burn your nuts off! Also, there’s no child safety feature. Don’t you care about children?!?! And what about fumes? They’re made with the kind of shit that’s known to the State of California to cause cancer. What if these get in the hands of an arsonist? The liability is huge! Some drunk, mentally ill, minor is going to light one and stuff it in the gas tank of a Prius… then every lawyer in creation will sue you to death. Go back to using a magnifying glass like normal people.”

Luckily, matches were invented long before society lost its goddamn mind. What we think of as a common “safety friction match” is well over a century old. Otherwise, some committee would be regulating them right now.

How many cool and useful things only exist today because they were invented before the limp dick chickenshit buzzkills of today got a chance to eliminate it?

Every generation should be inventing totally new things. We’ve become stupid and risk averse. We’re largely coasting along with variations on a theme. For example, your smart phone/panopticon device doesn’t have the same level of brand new awesome experiences as lunar landings of 1969 or even a Harley Davidson in 1903. (Steve Jobs’ sweater aside, cell phones are variations on a theme. Pretty much every house in America had a phone with long distance service three generations ago; long before Pac Man was invented. Making it battery operated is a variation on a theme. For that matter, do you think the DMV would allow motorcycles on the road if they’d just been invented in 2019?)

Anyway… back to my story. Matches are one universe. I discovered the alternate universe fire starter that really pleases me.

How to start a fire while looking like a wizard, not using matches, and playing with chemicals.

Get yourself a handy dandy, somewhat nasty, chemical called potassium permanganate!

Potassium Permanganate (don’t mess with this shit if you’re a snowflake or idiot.)

[Warning: People are stupid! I tried to buy potassium permaganate locally. It should be available at a pool supply store or water treatment place, but people are so fuckin’ stupid I didn’t get far. It sucked and I got depressed. Nobody learned a fucking thing in high school chemistry and it shows. One salesdrone tried to tell me potassium gluconate (a dietary supplement) is the same as potassium permaganate (something you will only ingest once) because they both have potassium. I was offended by such concentrated dumb: “There is iron in a dietary supplement and iron in a steel bar. If I hit your skull with the steel bar will it make your diet better?” We’re living in Idiocracy! Accept that our society is mostly chimps living in the wreckage of a declining world and order online.]

Potassium permanganate is about a buck an ounce in the 20 oz. bottle (photo is a link or click here). There are many varieties but the chemical you want is potassium permanganate and nobody cares about the brand name. Make sure it’s powdered. For some reason, companies like to mix chemicals into liquids instead of powders; I don’t know why.

The bottle shown above is what I bought. It’s about as cheap as I could find and it should last a long time.

It’s a real genuine chemical. Pay attention.

STOP READING NOW IF YOU’RE A DUMBASS.

This isn’t a bullshit wuss substance like when some dweeb uses food coloring and thinks they’re a chemist. This shit will jack you up. It’s nasty in a variety of ways and if you’re an idiot stay away from it. Read the warnings, act accordingly, etc…

The remainder of this post assumes the reader belongs at the adult table. If you’re triggered or too stupid to use dangerous things, go away: browse Facebook or eat crayons or whatever window lickers like to do. Also, if you’re too stupid to use chemicals you probably shouldn’t be playing with fire regardless of how you start it. Sheesh!

OK so potassium permanganate is groovy stuff that you should handle with care. It’s a powder so it’s not going to leak but it does like to dissolve… keep it dry! It also happens to be a dye, if it gets wet and on your clothes they’ll be new and interesting colors… forever. It’s odorless, it’s pretty dense so a little goes a long way, and it does a lot of useful things. YouTube has a zillion videos of survivalist types using it start fires and treat water and (inexplicably) making some sort of solution to soak their feet(?!?). The point is, it’ll start fires.

When you want to start a fire, put down your bottom kindling (newspaper, bark, branches, whatever) and arrange a flat spot in the middle. Then carefully pour about three quarter’s a teaspoon or so in the spot. (Don’t sniff the powder into your nose for fuck’s sake! You promised you belonged at the adult table; don’t make me demote you.) Also don’t get it on your hands and rub your eyes. In fact, as a general rule don’t do stupid things.

Now, add more wood but always leave a little spot where you can see all the way down to the powder. Soon you’ll have your fire materials nicely stacked up with a teeny weeny “chimney hole” that leads all the way down to a little bit of powder.

Don’t go overboard. A half-teaspoon is way more than a match. A full teaspoon is ample, more is dumb. You’re starting a fire, not fighting zombies.

Now it’s launch time. The secret ingredient is glycerine.

Glycerine: totally harmless.

Unlike potassium permanganate, glycerine is harmless. Don’t worry about children, pets, or hippies getting into it… it’s just lotion. Like all pointless lotions, there are a million variants and you can probably find it at a local pharmacy. What you’re looking for is gel. The link above is about the cheapest I could find; $8 for the bottle which is plenty for a long time. (Note: you can also use ethylene glycol which is car antifreeze. But that’s going to smell worse, can accidentally poison pets, is a fluid that can leak, and you’ll have a bottle of that crap to manage instead of a convenient gel.)

Pop open your bottle of glycerine, aim it down the little chimney you made, and squirt a tablespoon or less onto the powder. Ideally, it’ll hit the powder and ooze off to the side. Don’t overthink it; the chemicals know what to do.

The ensuing exothermic reaction is satisfying. First there’s a brief delay. Then a little smoke. The amount of smoke is dependent on how much of the two reagents you added and how they mixed. If you somehow created a pool of glycerine on top of the powder and there was no way for the glycerine to ooze to the side you’ll get excess smoke… which kinda’ sucks. (I did an experiment with a toilet paper roll and found that out.)

After 3-8 seconds or so it’ll burst into flame. Very hot, impressive, and excellent at starting fires. You’ll get far more “oomph” from this stuff than a matchstick. Think “short term blowtorch”.

So there you have it. I’ve tested it a couple dozen times in my woodstove (the weather sucks lately). It’s easier than matches. With a match I’ve got to build the tinder and fire materials and then shove my arm waaaaaaay in there to get the feeble little match to the bottom; at which point it’s a race to light the paper before it burns my fingertips or goes out. With the “powder at the bottom of the chimney” method I  just slime glycerine from waist height and it all works out.

Also, the delay is handy. I dump the glycerine, close my stove door on unlit wood, shuffle to a comfy seat, and wait. A few seconds later it bursts into fire without any smoke getting into my living room’s air (even a match makes a bit of smoke).

The best part is it looks like I’m a damn wizard. Doing cool shit is worth it, because obviously.

Go ahead and try it yourself.

A.C.

*Editorial Note #1: This post has Amazon links because I did research to select what I wanted and I’ve tested the products listed. If you order anything from Amazon via links on my blog, I get a tiny kickback. It doesn’t cost you a penny and I appreciate it. (Keep me in mind when Christmas shopping season rolls around!)

*Editorial Note #2: Amazon is a corporation and we’re in an age of corporate madness. It’s rare for any corporation to stick to their knitting and Amazon tends to drift between “don’t be evil” and “bend over deplorables”. Living in the hinterland, Amazon is my lifeline. I crave things that are impossible to buy locally. Alas, in 2019 all companies interject politics where it’s not needed. They may someday kick me off their system for “wrongthink”. My compromise is to enjoy it while it lasts but never let the scorpion on the frog’s back. (I mention this because they hosed Claire Wolfe and that was gold plated bullshit.)

Change is simply a fact. It’s neither good nor bad.

I don’t fear change. If change is good, I enjoy it. If it’s bad, I adapt as much as possible. I don’t let it ruin my attitude; why would I?

Roll with it as best you can and you’ll probably do alright. Anything else is counterproductive. To piss and moan about change is to scream at the sky because you hate the color blue. That way lies madness.

I’ve come to believe being mellow about change is uncommon. There’s a great mass of folks who have been trained to fear change. (Perhaps they inherently crave stasis from birth and never learned the difference between what you wish and what you get?)

It goes off the rails once one of these dweebs finds their way to power. They piss and moan that things have changed (or might change). They expend energies trying to stop the world’s turning. They commandeer my resources and mess with my life trying to return to or preserve that which is ever fleeting.

Rather than descend into recent politics (which is rationality free in this age), I’m going to talk about change that happened long ago. What I’m relating are facts from before folks lost their shit and started seeing Trump (or Hillary) lurking under their bed.

Remember, this is all ancient history. There is nobody to blame. It simply… is.

One of my favorite toys was a gyroscope. (Yes, I’m a nerd.) As a gyroscope spins down it begins to wobble. Like this random image I grabbed off the internet:

That’s the “wobbly basketball” from my title. (I never could spin a basketball on my finger. I’m poor material for a “Globe Trotter”.)

You know what else is spinning down? The earth.

You heard me, the earth is not powered by magic. It’s spinning down; though on a scale humans couldn’t recognize with their senses. It’s only detectable through careful math and measurement.

The earth wobbles just like the top in the image. At times the axial tilt is one way. At times it is the other. It’s a cycle. That’s one part of the various eccentricities of the earth’s orbit which are collectively called Milankovitch cycles.

So this is all on massive epic planetary scales that relates to moon formation and stuff right? Wrong. It has (and does) affect humans (on a timescale scale that’s invisible to the uninformed).

About 5,000 years ago, depending on which source you’re reading, the world’s axial tilt cycled from more optimal for the Saharan environment to less optimal. (Optimal in this case as defined by how well it supports human life.)

The big giant dead space on earth we call the Sahara is here now, but it wasn’t the same back then. This overlaps human history. There were paleolithic humans running around a big open savanna that is now totally destroyed.

Let me repeat that. An area the size of the continental US, home to the evolution of our species, was totally, utterly, completely, unreservedly, deeply, and powerfully… destroyed. It no longer supports humans.

It happened just before the Egyptians got into the early dynastic period. The Sahara changed from savanna & steppe to “so inhospitable it’s like it was nuked from space”. (Ironically, the causality of the nuking was orbital situations… the stuff we associate with space.)

Roughly 6,000 years ago about half of what we call the Sahara desert was savanna:

The drier portion of what we now call the Sahara desert was steppe:

Due to orbital eccentricities it turned to dunes:

Compare those photos. The savanna has life. There’s grass, birds, antelope, trees, bushes, etc… It’s not a lush paradise but it’s able to support humanity. It’s not much different than what you might find in Wyoming. The steppe is also habitable. Lots of grass; a good place to raise a horse or a cow or a buffalo. It’s not much different than eastern Montana. Montana and Wyoming are perfectly fine places to live.

Look at the last photo. Dunes. Essentially, bereft of life. I see one bush and a couple tourists… just enough life to snap a photo and then hustle back to the truck and get the back to a place where it rains. The place in that last photo cannot support humans.

Humans lost a big ass piece of habitable earth.

(Source for the map is the NOAA.)

My point isn’t to bore you with talk of orbital mechanics or the prehistory of what existed before the Egyptian empire. My point is that people talk of right now as if we currently live in “the perfect environment”. They seize upon the climate they’re familiar with, the geography they’re comfortable with, the ecology that was outside their window when they were growing up. (I theorize most humans think the right climate is the one they experienced around age 9 to 13. Grow up in a drought and you’ll fret over “too much rain” the rest of your life.)

The planet is not specifically and perfectly optimized for humans. Yet folks imagine our world as some sort of perfect magic incubator meant to support us. It’s not.

If you were building the perfect place for humans you wouldn’t cover 3/4 of it with water. You wouldn’t make most of the water undrinkable with salt. You wouldn’t lock up the poles in ice. (Polar ice wasn’t present throughout the earth’s existence.) Closer in time, you wouldn’t put a giant dead spot right where the species evolved.

Good thing all humans don’t spend their time bitching about what ought to be. If they did, we’d be dead. Many humans adapt, they grow, they live where they can, using what they’ve got, to do the best they can. The rest form a committee to complain about change. Recently they’ve taken to bullying the ones who’re adapting.

There’s a deep fear underlying it all; and a missing sense of scale. The fear is that all change is bad. The lack of scale is that the tiniest change is appalling.

Consider the scale of sea levels. Folks piss and moan about potential sea level changes measured in millimeters. It’s as if you could stand there with a ruler and a change the thickness of a pencil will doom us all. Even the biggest baddest climate change doom predictions ‘aint shit compared to what’s already happened.

Here’s a map of the sunken lost territory of Doggerland:

Roughly a thousand years before the Sahara became incompatible with humans, an area the size of England sank beneath the waves. Humans lived there. We have evidence of that (as we do of pre-desert Sahara). Another big chunk of fertile human habitat that was there in the past and gone in the present. It sure as hell ‘aint a sunk just few millimeters in depth.

It’s part of my thesis that how the world is today is simply one way it can be. It’s not inherently “perfect” or “the best”. It’s just what we’re used to. And the change isn’t measured in millimeters or tenths of a degree.

I think of this sometime when people are publicly emoting over changes in a glacier. If there was no power and prestige attached to fretting over glaciers as they are right now would people be bitching at me that the way they are right now is the perfect condition? Maybe they’d be happy they’re melting. Maybe they’d be bored thinking about it? Glaciers are completely bereft of human habitability. We hate that they’re retreating (at least politically). Would we be happy if they were advancing? Chicago was once under 3,000 feet of impenetrable ice and most of what we call Canada was dead and frozen. Only the remnants remain.

Would we once have desperately wanted to preserve the beautiful glorious natural ice over a dead and uninhabitable Chicago? Does a person in the Sahara right now prefer endless dunes to a past of grasslands and antelope? Do either’s wishes actually matter?

Hard to say. But knowing about past change does calm the fever doesn’t it? Predicted theoretical modeled change somehow emerges as a regulation to limit my choice in dishwasher design and it just seems silly; or at least it doesn’t seem so urgent. Whether we’re pawns to ice ages, Milankovitch cycles, or our tragic insistence on owning cars… change will happen.

“True, social media is impressive. The internet gives us instant access to global knowledge. We are a more tolerant society, at least in theory. But Facebook is not the Hoover Dam, and Twitter is not the Panama Canal.”

Read it all.