Modern Vespa

Groundskeeper Willie!

... and look at all the well-wishers with postive* posts for a negative post!






*positive-rated

nope

Sir is enjoying a fresh pile of nip.

I'm enjoying something even better.

Is that a positive test result? I figured it was a neg test result since it's in the "what's cheering me up thread". I thought a line at 'C' was the control line and a line at 'T' is the test result. But I haven't been sick since 2019 so I haven't had the need to use a test kit yet and read the instructions.

It's a negative test result. Indeed, the C is the control line and T (blank here) is the test result.

I think Rusty was trying to indicate that it's a positive post.

Cheers!

I'm just drinking some plain Sazerac rye at the moment.

dash of peychaud's, a lil absinthe rinse....we're on the right track.

Ah, I think you're right. I mis-read it.

Goes well with some sweet vermouth and a dash of Angostura bitters.

This I've heard about! ...to be honest, probably in the American Pickers.

I left for work a little early this morning. It gave me a chance to ride up by Reeds Lake. The sun was just coming up, the ducks and the EGR rowing team were on the lake and big fish were jumping. It was a great way to start the day.

My new Golf clubs have turned up, 3 Woods and 9 Irons. Now I just need to learn how to swing the bloody things properly!

We've just exchanged contracts on our housemove. 2 weeks and we are gone!!

nope

Ok, I'm going to talk shop for a minute. I program a CMM (Coordinate Measuring Machine) for a living. I've been here nine years, but have been doing this since 1991. The machine I program at this plant has been here that long. It's an old Mitutoyo, and on the big side as they go. Looks like this :



That is one big slab of granite, and the rest of the machine rides around on a cushion of air driven by motors and belts and screws. All of it ends up at a 1mm cultured ruby spherical stylus at the end of that articulating arm. Coffee cup for scale.

Yesterday I received a gage back that we had sent to another plant back in 2019. I certified the gage before we shipped it out. Last week it wound up back in my lap. Since the last time I certified the gage we've had this CMM completely rebuilt with new scales and electronics, a different controller and new software.

I had some questionable readings, so I called up my five year old inspection report to compare the numbers. Here's where it gets cool. This is the comparison.



For those of you who want to read those numbers, those are out three places metric. The biggest deviation for any of yesterday's readings from my 2019 readings is 0.005mm.

tl;dr

I measure stuff and it's cool.

We had a few of those CMMs where I worked, but nothing near that size! Cool photos!

One of my staff told me he's moving in July, so there will be no one left in his area to take care of some office tasks he currently does. My first thought was, great, now I'll need to fly out to NYC every few weeks to water the floors and sweep the plants. Then I realized that he said he was moving in July. As I already had plans to leave a few days before that happens, I realized it's just Not My eFfing Problem.

Cheered me right up.

I hate the Apple Magic Mouse 2. It doesn't fit my hand right. When I try to do a right click, the right side of the mouse isn't aligned correctly. And the touch surface is extremely sensitive, so I end up moving things unintentionally.

In preparation of replacing my current MacBook Pro with a new MacBook Pro, I was checking to see if the Logitech MX Master mouse that I bought to use with the PC would work with the Mac. It has the Logitech Unifying Receiver USB dongle thingy to connect to the PC. The MacBook only has USB-C ports. I was looking at the box it came in and saw that the mouse also connects via Bluetooth. And it can be set up on three different devices (but only used on one at a time). So I set the selector to 2 and went to the Bluetooth settings on the MacBook and connected it.

It works perfectly.

I'll need an admin to install the Logitech software to get full use of all the mouse's features (extra buttons), but for now it's great.

I'll still carry the Magic Mouse in my bag, just in case, though.


Forgot to mention, I also connected the Apple A-1243 Extended USB Keyboard to the MacBook Pro. I missed not having a 10-key on the keyboard.

I've been using the MX Master 3 Since Feb 2020. It goes everywhere my MacBook Pro goes.

Since I was the Apple software engineer that took the original Magic Mouse from early prototype all the way through shipping -- and also did some consulting work on Magic Mouse 2 -- I feel like I am suitably positioned to respond. You're absolutely right. There were several sizes considered (all were the same shape, just differently scaled) and the industrial designer ended up choosing the smaller of the models. I think it tested well with kids, or something. I don't know. I probably objected to the size, but since I wasn't a designer, my opinion meant jack shit. I still think it's too small. I'm not entire sure I understand what you're saying here -- does the top shell not actually fit, or is it that your hand is slightly diagonal across the surface (as is mine)?

In any case, the left/right split is set at 55%. I did that. I don't think I asked for permission, I just did it. And I left the variable that controls the left/right split very obviously labeled in the kernel registry so that someone could hack it, since Apple had no plans to give the user control over that split. This was the main problem throughout development of the Magic Mouse. Putting a touch surface on the top of a surface that you're always touching is... obviously problematic. This is a good example of the kind of surreality that exists within Apple -- someone would come up with an idea that obviously couldn't work, and we would all march forward and build it anyway, fully prepared to fail. The thing is, on more occasions than you would expect, we didn't fail. And even if we failed, we almost always learned something in the process that informed our next attempt at the impossible.

This is probably the single biggest reason why Apple is successful: because they try things against impossible odds.

In any case, the sensitivity of the touch surface had to be dialed way, way down from what an ordinary trackpad would use. And though it was part of the initial spec, we had to abandon pinch-zoom and rotate gestures, as we just couldn't balance the sensitivity necessary to make those work against the fact that the surface is constantly being touched for other reasons (e.g. moving and clicking the mouse around the desk).

The main designer complained repeatedly about accidental scrolls in his CAD software (which translated scroll to zoom, as it happens) and we repeatedly adjusted the sensitivity and did some other algorithmic tricks to remedy it.

Ultimately, though, it was a balancing act, and for some people it doesn't work. I myself use a Logitech MX Anywhere 3. I got it primarily for gaming (the Magic Mouse just absolutely does not work with Minecraft) but I now find myself using it as my daily driver.

I miss the ease of side-to-side scroll on the Magic Mouse, though.

This cheers me up. 1:10

1:10 scale or 1:10 produced?

Barbie is 1:6 so she going to need a bigger bike.

DC does 1:10. Maybe Aquaman would like to go for a spin.

Aquaman sucks.

Mike Tyson can ride my bike.

You know why don't you ?

No, but please tell me you have a Mike Tyson figurine.

Only if you get the joke.

C'mon it's easy.

Well shit, Bill. I really want to see the Mike Tyson figurine, but aside from his Ducati getting stolen and biting Holyfields ear off, I'm at a loss to make any comical connection between Aquaman, toy motorcycles, Mike Tyson, and Mike Tyson being allowed to ride your toy motorcycle.

What's Mike Tyson's true vocation ?

What configuration is a horizontally opposed twin ?

That's easy! He solves mysteries on Adult Swim!

He was also one hell of a boxer.

I was going to go way darker on this one.. so much material. Good thing I didn't make a Robin Givens or prison joke.

It's not so much that it's too small, it's that it's not ergonomically shaped. In order to hold it comfortably, my index finger is pretty much dead-center on the front of the mouse. The MX Master is shaped better to fit the buttons directly under the fingers. Very cool information! I love that Apple doesn't seem to be afraid to try new things. There are lots of cool things out there now because of that. My problem is that my finger will slightly drag/shift as I lift my finger when I click/select something in InDesign, and the selected item will then move just a bit. I then have to hit ⌘-Z to undo it. I picked up an early predecessor of the MX Master about 10-15 years ago at a previous job. I loved the additional button functionality. I was able to map different commands to them to speed up my work day. I replaced it with the MX Master about 3-4 years ago, which I also love, but haven't been able to get it to have the full functionality of the previous one, probably because IT has locked down the computers so much. I'm really looking forward to using it with the MacBook.

Yeah, Apple doesn't generally do that kind of ergonomic design. One obvious reason is that it leaves approximately 10% of the population (i.e. left handers) without any viable solution. To the best of my knowledge, there's never been an asymmetric Apple mouse.

Logitech seems quite willing to make products that cater solely to right-handers, though. Which is fine -- there's obviously enough of a market to make a go at it. But I don't think Apple could get away with that.

I am in the mountains of North Carolina this week.

Last week we had friends in Asheville, riding scooters several days.

I had routes and we only used three of my four.

So today I rode the fourth, extending it to 220 miles.

It went from Weaverville to Cashiers and back, with almost every mile spectacular.

It was a great ride, but the thing that cheered me up was the stop for lunch.

I ordered a cappuccino with food and had a brief conversation with the barista, acknowledging my lack of coffee sophistication. I ordered a "small" instead of a "short".

As I was leaving, she got off of her shift and was leaving too.

We spoke briefly again and she told me that I had been her favorite customer today.

Don't know if she meant it or not, but it was a nice moment.

Then, when I filled the gas tank at the end of the ride, the Xmax took 2.18 US gallons to go 218 miles. 100 mpg.

Bill

I use mine with my left hand, mostly because of carpal tunnel in my right hand. I like it fine, but the touch for scrolling is too sensitive for me.

Our photg is done with our photos from Carnevale. Here's a couple.

GREAT photos, and costumes!

Thank you!!

The costumes/masks are the passion of this guy, Armando. He's Venetian and has a shop called La Bauta on the Campo San Polo. All costumes and masks (and everything else) is handmade right there in their atelier. He and his team are so unbelievavlbly talented!!

He actually got asked to leave a museum because he took a 3d scanner to capture original 16th and 17th century shoe buckles to have accurate repros made. He doesn't deal in "close enough". He even buys original period clothing (which isn't even close to cheap) just to have in-person references to make sure everything looks proper.

We adore him and can't wait to see him next February.

Armando is the man! Incredible talent.

Looks like a beautiful day on the BRP! I've been up there on days when the fog was so thick you couldn't see 100' down the road. This photo is from 22 years ago.