Framed the east wall.
Mediocre joints. Still working too slowly and carefully.
Still haven’t decided how to put the roof together.
Using nails here and there, when there shouldn’t be sundering pressure. Having to pre-drill oak even to put nails in.
360° Panorama: Lobster Pound, Friendship, ME
Stitched together in Hugin from 32 camera phone pictures. Miller cylindrical projection.
Building the Shack, Part 2
Replaced the frame of the picture window.
Removed the old goop and gave the window a preliminary wash. Cut a 1/2″ x 1 & 3/4″ channel into the new frame edges on the table saw, then removed the excess with a chisel.
Still need to improve at making joints, but started to get the hang of using a combination of bandsaw and hand saw to cut the corner bridles.
Used Silicon II to seal the glass into the channels. Fixed the corners together with screws.
Framing east wall next.
The Fetish Diary: Bandage Fetish
By now a well-known Japanese fetish, based on the injured Rei Ayanami character from Neon Genesis: Evangelion with a dash of Southeast Asian bird flu chic, I find I can’t get behind this one. Perhaps it’s meant to inspire sympathy, a desire to care for — nurse a potential mate back to health and reap the benefits, but I’m always reminded of the line from William Gibson’s Neuromancer: “Beyond them, at another table, three Japanese wives in Hiroshima sackcloth awaited sarariman husbands, their oval faces covered with artificial bruises; it was, he knew, an extremely conservative style, one he’d seldom seen in Chiba.”
…As We All Must
Darwin Swag
YouTube Captioning: How to Build a Large Family
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CDIfbW0iCuE
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.oO(That… bitch…)
“…for sex.”
It’s strangely hard to scrub the bullshit smell from a hyphenated URL.
“…or sobriety, or even the inclination…”
Often?
A) Family planning C) Rupert Grint
B) Bacon D) Their daughters seek
to fill the loveless
void by getting
knocked up at 15
Wait, what? Back up…
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
“Building a warren of tents and shacks, if necessary.”
“Somehow.”
(Just not one-on-one.)
“…you try to remember their names…”
That is a dangerous twitch.
“Or help them with their homework. Which is good, because most of you probably can neither read nor write.”
“Just take it! Take it, bitch! F*CK FOR JESUS! *sob* Daddy, stop hitting Mommy…“
You get a phone call in prison.
“…shepherds them, if you will…”
“Mommy, I have a nail in my head.”
“Stop being so needy and demanding, dear.”
Unlike your husband, a tool who doesn’t work.
“But what do I know? I’m just a woman.”
Capped by Space Toast
YouTubeCapper.Blogspot.com
Building the Shack, Part 1
Finished framing the floor tonight.
Old boards Dad sawed on the bandsaw mill unreliable — variable thickness, width and straightness. A lot of it’s warped.
Getting better at using long clamps. Trying to use screws as much as possible.
Will have to get better at cross laps and joints — plan to use a lot to add stability. Need to get better at marking pieces too; wasted a lot of time with a backwards cross brace tonight.
Frame came out diamond-shaped by about an inch. Seems sturdy though.
May box in and seal picture window. Corner of the frame rotted, but building a new one seems beyond my skills. East wall next.
Intransigent Design
A discussion swirled up this week on 3 Quarks Daily over an item about scientists Sean Carroll and Carl Zimmer withdrawing from BloggingHeads.tv after the site began including intelligent design creationists in its Science Saturday segments. The discussion was generally supportive of the scientists’ decision not to support a platform that equates science with religion, with the exception of laudably non-anonymous Luke Lea of BornAgainDemocrats.com. My thoughts were as follows:
The scientific method can be applied to the study of anything that can be defined. It can’t be applied to concepts whose definitions are constantly shifted around for the purpose of preventing science from examining them. We need to bear in mind the difference between a concept and a word game.
To present Intelligent Design uncritically — and especially to give it equal time — does a disservice to the public by equating it with science. I’m reminded of Dara O’Brian’s skit about giving equal time to people who don’t believe in outer space when NASA launches a satellite. Unless the Intelligent Design hypothesis can evolve into a falsifiable theory, it’ll remain what it always has been — a belief, comforting in its simplicity, but of precisely one cent less real world value than a lucky penny.
Mr. Lea responds, “Space toast: Space is an empirical concept, design isn’t.”
Luke: “Design” indicates a specific set of actions in 4-dimensional space. When I cut a board to size, I have designed it. When I measure once and cut wrong (sadly common), is the board still designed? What about if I find a use for it later? Indeed what if I find a board on the pile that’s just the right size to begin with; is it “designed” for the purpose? While we’re at is, how come trees are soft enough to be cut with metal blades, but hard enough to hold up an entire building?
It’s a fun word game, but it’s meaningless. The appeal of Intelligent Design creationism hinges on the common meaning of the word “design,” but its philosophical assertions hinge on an invented cosmic special definition of the same word.
Design is a perfectly empirical concept, when one settles on a specific definition. It’s only when ID’s assertions come under attack that its proponents get “intelligent” and begin playing a definitional shell game.
And just to sate my own curiosity, is toast an empirical concept too?
The Correct Response to Anti-Healthcare Wingnuts
Courtesy of Rep. Barney Frank: