That's how Izzy happened.
Please do not the cat.
I graduated high school in 2005, one out of some 300 of my graduating class. Had plenty of friends. Went to community college, several folks I knew from school went to the same community college, met plenty of new folks. Had plenty of friends. Transferred to university, had plenty of friends, got to know my roommates pretty close, that kind of thing.
Out of college, I disappeared into what I thought was going to be my career for a few years. When I came back up and looked around, I found myself in a different world with people that aren't people anymore, there are walking talking eating shitting cell phone stands.
I don't try to socialize for the same reason I don't go hunting for Carolina parakeets: Interpersonal relationships aren't a thing that exists in the world anymore. We killed them all and the corpse of the last one is on display behind glass at the Raleigh museum of Natural Sciences.
Soaps like Lava and Gojo have pumice in them. Because sometimes your hands need an 80 grit washing.
Both of my grandmothers are dead, but I did teach my aunt to use Linux. She had a laptop that "ran" Windows 10. It would take 30 seconds to open the Start menu. One SSD, one RAM upgrade and one install of Mint later it's a whole new machine. She can Firefox and Mahjongg just fine.
The Demon Core was a sphere of plutonium intended to be used as part of a nuclear bomb dropped on Japan. It wasn't used for this purpose, and instead nuclear physicists used it in various experiments. Two of which involved approaching criticality.
One experiment involved stacking bricks made of some neutron reflecting material, like beryllium or something, around the core. Reflecting neutrons back at the plutonium would cause more fission events to occur; if it hits a certain threshold called criticality it it will release a considerable amount of radiation and heat. The goal was to get close to, but not exceed, that limit. The scientist was about to place one more brick when his instruments told him it would go critical if the brick was placed, so he started to back off...and dropped the brick.
The core went critical, releasing a wave of heat and a blast of dazzling blue light. Thinking quickly, the scientist smacked the brick away with his hand. He spent the next couple weeks dying of radiation sickness.
A short time later, another scientist started a similar experiment, this time enclosing the core in two half-spherical metal shells. If the core was completely surrounded by the shells, it would go critical. He used the blade of a flathead screwdriver to almost, but not quite, close the shells. Then the screwdriver slipped and the shells fully closed.
The core went critical, releasing a wave of heat and a blast of blinding blue light. Thinking quickly, the scientist smacked the upper shell away with his hand. He spent the next couple weeks dying of radiation sickness.
Decades later, youtube hair and beard model Kyle Hill released a video detailing this story, and it has since become something of a sensation on the internet. Images of the demon core in its "closing the shells" configuration is often used as shorthand for something that is exceedingly needlessly reckless. Some of the humor comes from if ya know, ya know, some of it is based in the justaposition of teh high intelligence required to do nuclear physics, with the negligent stupidity of putting nothing between you and a long ugly painful death but the blade of a screwdriver.
I'm sure in 1985, plutonium is available in every corner drug store.
I would end up with a farm that took all day to water, and never enough time to go down in any mine far enough to find iridium enough to make sprinklers out of, and then stop playing.
Don't worry, I've got a plan that will 100% take care of it. I'm going to:
- feed my cat her breakfast
- build some nice furniture
- probably get rained on because it's summer in North Carolina during the climate apocalypse and Trump fired all the meteorologists
- bake a pizza from scratch for dinner
- play a video game about process engineering
- feed my cat her dinner
- fall asleep listening to an astronomy podcast.
I think I've got it surrounded.
I'm convinced it isn't.
Possibly the wrong community for this, it was either here or casual_conversation which also feels like possibly the wrong community for this, but I haven't found anywhere better.
It is allegedly Men's Health Awareness Month, so instead of doing something lazy like post an image macro telling you it's okay to cry or other bullshit platitude, why don't we all hit the trails and talk about what we see along the way?
I went out to a trail around a lake local to me. Was almost tough getting any pictures at all without getting people in the shot. Used to be you could have the whole place to yourself, I'm not sure I was ever out of sneezing distance of someone the entire 2 miles. Used to be people would say hi as they passed, everyone's got earbuds in these days.
A deer! First of two I saw on this walk. Used to be you'd never see any deer or anything like that around this trail, too many people. But they've been clearcutting the forests around here left and right to slap in those godawful HOA housing developments or apartment complexes that we're running out of woods for the deer to live in. Used to be you'd never see them in town, but now there seems to be one living in the back of my yard. Not sure it's a great sign for the future that all the wildlife is being displaced.
The crik. Hope it don't rise.
I've always liked this spot, the path forks a little here and the lower path gives you this peek at the lake. About 20 years ago now I took the best picture I've ever taken at this spot, I was walking this trail shortly after sunrise, happened to look over, said "That's pretty" and snapped a shot with my LG EnV2.
Desire path? I don't fully understand this one, though I remember decades ago it was a lot narrower, like only bikes ever went to the right.
I don't know what this invasive species is but it's apparently not too healthy for the local trees.
So, now it's your turn. Go on a walk, talk about what you see out there.
I foreshadowed this one pretty good. I'm still working on the countertop but the cabinetry is done.
And here are some of those infernal hinges that are way harder to buy than they should be.
It's a little scratch and dent given it's made out of offcuts, scraps and extras from other projects but I think it came out okay. Three coats of fake "tung oil" finish and it came up to a nice warm semi-gloss, and ambered up the pine enough to take the edge off the grain.
Detail shot of the side hung, center guided drawer and its rabbeted dovetail front and shop made handle.
Yeah I'm going on a bit of a victory lap here, I'm pretty happy with how this one turned out.
I'm slapping together a night stand for my cousin out of crap I have lying around the shop, and I'm using the project as an excuse to try out some stuff.
Carcass is "hardwood" mystery meat 7-ply from Lowe's. Joinery is all dovetails; lower shelf and mid frame are sliding dovetails, upper frame is half-blinds. I did that to see if I could. Answer: Barely. The sliding dovetails were fine but the half-blinds wanted to blow the plywood apart.
Face frame is rift sawn traumatized pine. That's what I managed to salvage from a damaged section of 8:4, and judging by the growth rings that tree had been through at least one divorce. The curve on the bottom I laid out with a bowed spline. First time I've actually done that. It's attached to the carcass Norm style, with Tite-bond and #10 biscuits.
Tomorrow I'll build the drawer.
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I kinda like the orange smell, too.