Chris Johnson

There are two basic types of devices, an embedded system, and a general system.

There are embedded systems everywhere. Your smart TV. The Chromecast you have attached to your “dumb” TV. Your coffee maker, your washing machine or drier.

These are a few of the embedded systems you use every day. There are some that are “critical” systems. Your car, likely, has an embedded system. If that system were to be modified, it could cause “bad things” to happen.

Medical devices are also considered to be critical systems. The computers that control your IV medical drip, even the automatic blood pressure machines or any of the machines that are used for monitoring are critical.

While the blood O2 monitor, attached to your finger, might not seem critical, if the values it is reporting are in error, your health care professional (doctor) could miss diagnose something.

Other examples of critical systems include: many military computer systems, voting systems, systems processing classified information, alarm systems, spacecraft control systems.

Your computer and laptop are not normally considered to be embedded systems, yet they have a part that is embedded. That is the BIOS on your computer and laptops.

Your phone and tablets are a sort of hybrid, where a large part is embedded, but there is an easy way to add other software.

Update A System

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Ok, but what does that mean? More importantly, what does it mean to us?

To get an example of cognitive dissonance in “practice”, dig up “I Mudd” from Star Trek. At the end, the crew destroys the androids by setting up cognitive dissonance in their “logical” brains.

One such method was Spock saying to one android “I love you”, and to another, identical android “But I hate you.” When the androids point out that they are identical, Spock replies, “Exactly.”

The left has been trained to exist in a state of cognitive dissonance.

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Brandon debunks some idiot’s claims of “fake”. 1 MOA red dot on a 2 MOA rifle at 130 to 150 Yards gives you a 4 inch grouping.

One of the most interesting things I’m currently discovering, is how to move back in time. What happens when there is no electricity? What can we do, how can we do it?

One path is to learn how to live off-grid. This is part of where I am. This is why I spent the time learning how to make a steam expansion engine, learning how to run it, and then learned how to build a 2 HP boiler.

That steam engine is intended to run a generator or a lathe, depending. Yes, I have some generators, but water and wood will be easier, in some situations, to get than other fuel.

But there is another entire type of skill set, that of taking a step back in time.

Let me discuss just one part of this, I want to make some items, such as a table-top. That’s easy, just drive to the lumberyard and buy the lumber, do the glue-up, feed it through the plainer, sand it and a bit more. Easy stuff.

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I grew up in an innocent age of TV and movies. The heroes were the guys in the blue uniforms and the white hats. The lawyers were evil men working for evil criminals, or they were good men doing good deeds. The press was there to expose the truth, to give us the facts.

The whole truth and nothing but the truth.

What I learned about the court system was that everything happened in the courtroom. It was where all the excitement was. Paying attention because some lawyer was going to expose the truth at the last minute to make their case.

Even modern legal dramas suffer from the same tropes.

As I have been reading and listening, I’ve found that most of the hard work comes long before the jury is sworn in. The excitement is buried in hundreds of words and page after page of motions.

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Alec Baldwin’s case was dismissed with prejudice.

What does this mean, IANAL view point

Alec Baldwin was charged with involuntary manslaughter after he shot and killed his cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins.

The relevant facts: Alec Baldwin was holding a real gun. Alec Baldwin pointed the gun at a person. Alec Baldwin cocked the gun (pulled the hammer back and set it on the sear). Alec Baldwin then pressed the trigger, causing the gun to fire, killing Halyna Hutchins.

Irrelevant facts: Somebody told Alec Baldwin that the gun was unloaded (Treat every gun as if it is loaded). Somebody said they loaded dummy rounds into the gun (Treat every gun as if it is loaded). He says he did not pull the trigger, (Never point your gun at something you are not willing to destroy/kill.). In addition, he injured the director(?) (Be sure of your target and what is beyond it).

Other irrelevant facts: Baldwin is just a trained monkey. He can’t be expected to know the safety rules. Baldwin is so stupid that he should never have been handed a real gun. It was somebody else’s responsibility to make sure that the gun was “safe”.

Things went wrong on that set. Some of it appears to be Baldwin’s responsibility. Including rushing the safety crew, disregarding safety “suggestions” and overall shitty safety.

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There were several cases GVRed at the end of June. This is one of the methods the Supreme Court uses to communicate with the inferior courts.

What they are doing is telling the inferior courts, all of them, that this opinion we issued, applies to these sorts of cases.

The Loper Bright case was the death of Chevron. Chevron was the horrible opinion out of the Supreme Court that said, if the agency administrating a law thinks it is ambiguous, then it is ambiguous. If it is ambiguous, the courts must use the agency’s interpretation of the law.

Since the Chevron opinion, the Supreme Court has been attempting to “fix it”. The problem was that they needed the inferior courts to do rational, reasonable things. Too many of the inferior courts did not do reasonable, rational things.

Chevron became a catch-all for any power hungry agency.

The Loper Bright opinion told the inferior courts, “Stop avoiding your job. You are the final arbitrator on questions of law, not any party. Get out there and read the law and do the right thing.”

Judge Aileen M. Cannon did exactly this.

Trump’s team had filed a motion to dismiss his case based on the theory that Jack Smith did not have the authority to bring charges.

While everybody has been calling Jack Smith “The Special Counsel”, that is a position that must exist.

The Trump motion points out that the Constitution defines how “Officers of the United States” are appointed. Those officers are separated into “inferior” or “principal” officers.

Principal officers must be appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate.

Jack Smith argues that he is an inferior officer.

While inferior officers can be appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in Heads of Departments. — U.S. Constitution

The state, through Jack Smith, argued that his appointment was lawful because it was done under an ambiguous law. Since it is an ambiguous law, the DoJ was able to say, under Chevron that of course they got it right.

But with Chevron dead, the Court looked at the law and determined that the DoJ did not have the authority to create the position. Since they could not create the position, Jack Smith had no special standing. I.e., his authority was no more than yours or mine.

This is another win for us. And this case was decided without a need for looking at Presidential Immunity for official acts.

I like to learn new things. My goal is to be able to fix anything at The Fort At #4. A large part of that is learning how to turn wood.

This is not as difficult as it could be because I have experience with a metal lathe. The concepts are similar, but very different.

In metal working, we look at the type of metal, the amount of metal we want to remove, and the speed at which we wish to do it. This informs us of the type of tool to use.

Steel likes larger nose radius than aluminum. The chip breakers are different, the rake is different. The cutter shape defines speeds and feeds. What tool I pick is dependent on what I am doing.

In wood turning, there are two major types, “spindle” and “bowl”. A spindle is a long, round thing. Think of round legs on chairs, or the spindles in the back of a chair. Round chair rungs. All of those are spindle turnings.

Bowl turning is just about would it sounds like. You are carving out wood from the center of a round, thick piece of wood. The difference is grain orientation.

In spindle turning, the grain is oriented end to end. In bowl turning, it is side to side.

When cutting the outside of a spindle, you are always cutting away the along the grain. The easy way. In bowl turning, you are cutting side grain, then end grain, then back again.

The tools are different. A bowl gouge and a spindle gouge have different shapes and different sturdiness.

Having watched the video of Trump being shot, my first thoughts were of “Thank God he survived the attempt.”

My third though was of grief for the person in the audience who was killed and the other that was injured. This asshole, shooting at Trump, didn’t give a shit who was hit by his shots. In his zeal to kill Trump, he killed a Trump supporter, and likely considered that “good.”

My second thought was, “Why would I give up my guns now? You evil assholes.”

There are many more. It is always the same, “Now that it happened to YOU, you will ban guns, right?”

This is just as revolting as the idiots that post “Now that “People of Color” are buying guns, Republicans will be willing to ban them.”

There isn’t a single drop of blood these vultures won’t use against us.