Category Archives: General

General, Technology and Society

Home Improvement Conundrum

5 Comments

Posting is light because we’re doing things around the house this weekend. We just replaced the bedroom door (to the outside), and I’m replacing the threshold as well. The thing has an aluminum channel into which a rubber seal fits, after mounting it with screws. But you can’t put the screws in with the seal in place, and once it’s mounted, you can’t slide the seal into the channel (as the instructions say) because the ends are butted up against the door frame. All I can think to do is to shorten it so I have some clearance for inserting the seal, but then the ends won’t have channel, just seal.

[Update a while later]

OK, I figured it out. If I pinch the bottom flat part and bend it upward, I can squeeze the sides into the flange. I still don’t understand why the instructions say to “slide” it in, though.

General, Popular Culture, Technology and Society

Endgame Question

12 Comments

OK, saw Endgame yesterday. Question to people much more into MCU than me. In the final battle, there’s a very angry woman who comes at Thanos with two fiery swords. It looked like Natasha to me, but I suspect not, because, you know? If not, who was it?

[Update a few minutes later]

Never mind, someone on Twitter told me it was Wanda (the Scarlet Witch, a character with which I was unfamiliar, or had forgotten from Infinity War).

[Update a while later]

Question in comments: Sure, it’s been out long enough to have a spoiler discussion there. Have at it. No one has to read comments except me.

Continue reading Endgame Question →
General, General Science, Science And Society, Weird

Ashe And Ember Update

15 Comments

Remember the sister kittens we adopted just before Christmas?

Kittens

Well, we took them in for their third vaccination yesterday, and (SURPRISE), it turns out that Ember (the one on the right) is not a sister, but a brother. The other couple who adopted the other two of the litter discovered that they had one of each, which meant that we did as well, and upon inspection, yup, things are sprouting down there that were less obvious when they were six weeks old.

So we’ve been misgendering him for several weeks; hopefully it won’t give him a life-long complex.

We’ve decided not to rename him; it’s not clear that combustion byproducts of wood have a gender (though they probably do in German), but now we’ve got to get used to saying “him” instead of “her,” and “he” instead of “she.” Fortunately it’s not a long-held habit. We’re looking at him with new eyes now. It’s funny, because he’s the smallest (he was probably the runt), but he’s fearless, and loves to attack his big sister.

General, Popular Culture, Social Commentary

Book Collections

2 Comments

Thoughts on Marie Kondo from Lileks.

I have too many books, and I’d never have time in this life (barring breakthroughs in life extension) to read or reread them all. I have a twenty-volume encyclopedia of the Illustrated Science And Invention, which may come in handy after the apocalypse, when all knowledge of technology has been lost, and we have to rebuild civilization, so that definitely stays. But I really need to organize all of my books, and papers. My office is a godawful mess.

Business, General, Space, Technology and Society

Iridium Last

10 Comments

SpaceX had a successful flight of a used booster this morning from Vandenberg, delivering the final birds of the new Iridium constellation. It was socked in in LA, so I couldn’t see it, but it looks like it was beautiful up on the central coast. Michael Baylor got a gorgeous shot, his first from a remote camera.

[Update a while later]

Here’s another one.