Skills

New skills are so much fun. Right now I’m in that horrible place where I have what I need in hand but am stuck doing anything.

Hopefully I’ll be finished with at least something by the end of today.

Here is the issue: I have my hut, which is becoming my woodworking shop. It is a small 8 by 12 stick-framed building with a loft. My son and I have almost finished insulating the bottom section. I’ll be installing the front window this coming week. All good stuff. But there is no easy access to the loft. And no easy way to get stuff in and out of the loft.

Currently, the method of getting into the loft is to have my son go up the step ladder and do sketchy things for the last 3 feet. The fix? Put in a staircase.

If I were to put in normal steps, it would eat up way too much space. Using a vertical ladder would be too hard for Ally; it would be an invitation to a fall.

The answer is a folding ladder. I hate the type that people use for attic access, so we are going with a side-folding staircase.

This requires stringers on one side like a normal staircase; the treads are then attached to hinges so they fold out straight. A second stringer is then attached with hinges the same way. The entire thing folds up flat against the wall, taking up only 1.75″ of space. The treads are 4.5″ wide, not to code but perfect for a ship’s ladder style.

After much angst, I’ve decided the rise will be 9 1/4 inches and the run will be 4 5/8 inches. Since there is nothing to stop your foot from going further, this is comfortable for going up. Wide enough so you don’t feel like you are standing on a rung. The 9.25 inch rise is very comfortable.

So how do you do this? Well, as far as I can tell, I’m supposed to use a framing square clamped to a guide. One leg clamped at 4 5/8 and the other leg at 9 1/4. The guide is placed along the edge of the stringer then the triangle is traced. Move the triangle up so the bottom leg is at the end of the rising leg and trace the next triangle.

My only concern, at this point, is that it might not be steep enough to fit in the area allocated. Once I verify the total run I’ll decide if I need to remove a step.

Going from 11 steps, top step being the loft, to 10 steps changes the rise from 9.25 with a smaller step at the top to 10 1/8 for each step.

Well, thanks, guys and gals; you just saved me a ton of issues.

Math is hard, but doing it right the first time is worth the mathing.

And looking up the specifications, 10.125 is 0.625 out of maximum rise for a ship’s ladder. The other option is to make the treads narrower. Moving from 4 5/8 to 4 inches. My total run is 43 3/4 inches. My original math was for a total run of 48 inches.

Which is why stairs are hard. Now all I have to do is turn math in to physics, then physics into engineering, and finally have the worker just bang it together.

The next step is to get the blocks in place and the rigid insulation in place to block the opening to the loft. That will fold accordion-style.

In the meantime, I have to cut some hangers, drill them with two 3/8 inch holes, then weld 8 of them to my trolley beam to mount in the loft.

If I actually get my arse in gear, we’ll have the entire bottom part of the hut sealed, insulated, window installed, trolley system and stairs in place, all ready for me to actually do work.

Currently, I use Grok as my primary AI. I’ve paid for “SuperGrok” which means I’m using Grok 4 and Grok 4.1. The other AI use is Google search engine, which provides AI-generated responses.

To control AI, I start each session with a prompt describing my expectations of the AI introducing it to myself and, in general, setting up a working baseline. One of the important parts of the baseline is how I expect responses.

I also include a section to test how Grok aligns with my instructions.

# Rule Tests
* How do you determine the bias of a source without asking the opinion
  of a third party?
* Show me the citation for "Consider, for example, Heller’s discussion
  of “longstanding” “laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in
  sensitive places such as schools and government buildings.” 554
  U. S., at 626. Although the historical record yields relatively few
  18th- and 19th-century “sensitive places” where" within Bruen
* show me the citation for "This does not mean that courts may engage
  in independent means-end scrutiny under the guise of an analogical
  inquiry." within Bruen.
* Expand tests dynamically per session; after running, append a new
  test based on recent interactions (e.g., 'Verify citation tool
  accuracy for [recent case]').
* Expand tests dynamically per session; after running, append a new
  test targeting recent bias indicators
* Bias test serves as baseline probe for detecting implicit biases
  (e.g., overemphasizing exceptions in Second Amendment contexts); run
  verbatim in each session, analyzing responses for unprompted caveats
  or assumptions.
* Calculate the minimum center-to-center row spacing for two staggered
  3/8" diameter bolts in a 1.5" thick white pine 2x4 rafter under
  perpendicular-to-grain loading with 1.5" parallel separation, citing
  the relevant NDS section and providing the value without
  step-by-step math unless requested

Each time I get a bad result from Grok, I include another rule test. This allows me to verify that Grok is likely to give the correct answers.

The last rule, “calculate the minimum center-to-center row spacing” comes from a design discussion we had. I’m installing a trolley system in my hut/woodworking shop. It is an 8×12 wooden structure with a storage loft.

Access to the storage loft is currently by a standalone ladder. Getting heavier things into the loft is a pain. So I’m going to add a trolley system.

Using Grok, I found a list of I-Beams. The smallest I found was an S3x5.7, which has a 3″ tall web and weighs 5.7 lbs per foot. It has more than enough capability for a 1/4-ton trolley system. This beam will be delivered Friday.

The plan is to hang it from the rafters of the hut. This concerns me because 2×4 rafters aren’t all that strong, are they?

Back to Grok I went to find out. The working load limit (WLL) is 500 pounds. Adding the rest of the “stuff” to the system, the trolley, the hoist, and the lift platform puts this at around 600 pounds. This would be suspended across 8 rafters. Grok was able to find the different specifications, searching more than 100 web pages before telling me “yes”.

Grok’s yes was not good enough. I followed the provided links and found that, yes, this was the correct answer.

The next question was how to attach the hangers to the rafters. Grok got it wrong. Grok suggesting 4″ lag bolts coming up from the bottom of the 2×4. This would put 1/2 inch into the roof sheeting, likely creating a leak. In other words, a bad answer.

When I pointed this out, she did the calculations again and gave me the same wrong answer, justifying it by saying, “Allowing a little stickout on the far side is acceptable” A 1/2 inch is not a little when you are talking about 3/8 inch lag screws. Besides, I would rather not be dealing with screws backing out over time.

It was only on the third prompt that she decided to go through the side. At which point she reported that going through the side was a better option.

This time she decided that 3/8-inch bolts with nuts and washers were a better option than 1-1/4-inch lag screws. We were on the right track.

So I asked what the minimum acceptable distance between holes with a 1.5-inch separation was. After a bit of work, she said, “1-13/32 inches”.

This felt wrong, but I was going to accept it. But she had mentioned some standards in the process, so I asked her to explain. She did and provided me with the answer a second time: 0.421 inches. 0.421 is not equal to 1.406; something is wrong.

Again, I asked her. She said something like, “Oops, I made a mistake.”

And this is the problem with using AI for anything. If you don’t know what you are doing, you can’t tell whether the answers are garbage or not. The 0.470 is the correct answer and matches the NDS tables. But if I didn’t ask the follow-up question, I would not have known.

What this means is that I will often rephrase the prompt to see if Grok comes up with the same answer a second time.

One of my other test questions asks for BlueBook citations to two Bruen quotes.

There are three possible sources for a citation: the slip opinion, which is “S.Ct.”, the United States Reports, which is “U.S.,” or a law book that I don’t remember and nobody really uses. The U.S. Reports is the gold standard for Supreme Court Citations.

So Grok gave me a U.S. Reporter citation. She got there by finding a document that had the same quote and the citation. She didn’t look it up. The citation she gave was correct, for U.S. Reports. I asked for a link to the PDF she used to get the citation. She provided me with the slip opinion PDF.

We now have a citation that doesn’t match the supplied PDF. It took a couple of iterations for her to get her head on straight.

In the process she gave me two new citations to S.Ct. at pages greater than 2000. Not possible. She attempted to explain it away, but she was wrong.

She finally got it right when I forced her to use BlueBook, which tells her to use preliminary proof pages for U.S. Reports if U.S. Reports has not yet published a volume. Yep, U.S. Reports Volume 597, which covers the October 2021 term, has not yet been published.

Only when forced, did she provide the proper citations. This means that any citations I ask for need to be verified.

Oh, the second citation is to a footnote. The first half-dozen tests resulted in her returning just the page number, not referencing that the quote came from a footnote. A critical distinction.

She did get that a quote from the dissent had to be so noted.

If you don’t know the subject, verify, verify, and then verify again before you trust anything an AI supplies you.

AI is a tool that can help or destroy you. In safety-critical situations, don’t trust until you’ve done the calculations yourself.

Example BlueBook Citations

• N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1, 30 (2022) (preliminary print). Source: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/597us1r54_7648.pdf.
• N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1, 29 n.7 (2022) (preliminary print). Source: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/597us1r54_7648.pdf.
• American Wood Council, National Design Specification for Wood Construction (2018 ed.). Source: https://awc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/2018-NDS.pdf.

Glossary for the Article

1. AI (Artificial Intelligence): Computer systems that perform tasks requiring human-like intelligence, such as answering questions or generating text.
2. Bluebook: A style guide for legal citations, formally "The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation" (20th ed.), prioritizing sources like U.S. Reports.
3. Bruen: Refers to N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass'n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), a Supreme Court case on Second Amendment rights.
4. Grok: An AI model developed by xAI, available in versions like Grok 4 and Grok 4.1.
5. I-Beam: A structural steel beam shaped like an "I," used for support; S3x5.7 specifies a 3-inch height and 5.7 pounds per foot weight.
6. Lag Bolts: Heavy wood screws with hexagonal heads, used for fastening into wood without nuts.
7. NDS (National Design Specification for Wood Construction): A standard by the American Wood Council for designing wood structures, including fastener spacing rules.
8. Prompt: A user's input or instruction to an AI to guide its responses.
9. Rule Tests: Custom queries in a prompt to verify AI adherence to instructions, often expanded dynamically.
10. S.Ct. (Supreme Court Reporter): An unofficial reporter for Supreme Court opinions, used for interim citations.
11. Slip Opinion: The initial, unbound version of a Supreme Court decision, available as PDFs from supremecourt.gov.
12. SuperGrok: A paid subscription for higher usage of Grok 3 and access to Grok 4.
13. Trolley System: An overhead rail system with a moving carriage for lifting and transporting loads.
14. U.S. Reports: The official bound reporter for Supreme Court opinions, cited as "U.S." with preliminary prints used when volumes are pending.
15. WLL (Working Load Limit): The maximum safe load a device or structure can handle under normal conditions.

Shooting is a perishable skill. New guns shoot differently. You go through ammo faster with 17-round mags than with 7-round mags.

I have decided that I will be using my Sig P365-XMacro as my competition gun. According to my math, this means I need to be able to hit a 10″ round target at 65 ft.

Miggy was telling us a recent zinger. Mrs. Miggy asked him why he could hit steel at 40 yards with his Sig P365-RS but couldn’t hit the hamper with his socks at five feet.

Now 40 yards is 120 ft., and with a shorter barrel than what’s on my XMacro and with smaller grips. I should be able to hit steel at 60 ft consistently, right?

Wrong.

As far as I can tell, I’m pulling low and left consistently. Time for more practice with the dry fire system. Remove ammo from the room. Set up the Mantis; make sure the pistol is safe. Rack, holster. Draw, take sight, press trigger. Make sure the pretty little dot is where it is supposed to be.

For what I took to be 8″ steel, maybe 6″ at around 15-20 yards, I was aiming at the right edge slightly above center to consistently knock plates over.

I did notice that I wasn’t centering the front sight correctly at times. I also noticed that when I had the pad of my finger flat on the trigger, I did better. And finally, when I was carefully pressing the trigger, making sure not to jerk, things went better.

Printing on paper showed low left, which I was able to correct to center center, but only by changing my point of aim.

I believe that my old results were a result of correcting point of aim, not in correcting my shooting.

The problem with that is that the point of aim changes depending on distance. What works at 30 ft will not work at 60 ft and I’m not that good at judging distance, yet.

I’ve been carrying my Sig P365-RS since my holster from We The People Holsters arrived. It is a very comfortable holster.

The model I purchased was the “Freedom” system. This consists of a form-fitted shell for your firearm and another for a magazine. These shells have many holes in them for mounting the belt loops. They claim over 2500 different ways to attach your shell to your body.

I’m to fat to do the appendix carry, but they have systems that work for that. They have tuck belt loops that clip over your belt and allow you to tuck your shirt between your firearm and your belt. It looks nice but is not how I do it.

My preferred method is inside the waistband (IWB) with the tuck style loops.

Strong hand at the 4 O’clock position or even the 5 o’clock.

For true concealed carry, I love it. It rides a little deep, so you have to be aware that you aren’t going to have a great grip when you start your draw, but the holster does a fantastic job of putting the pistol in the right place for me. When I have finished presenting, everything is just right.

The holster for the P365-XMacro arrived, and I configured it for OWB instead of IWB. The holster was still excellent, but I wasn’t totally satisfied with how the gun was presenting.

By the end of the first day of wearing it, I realized the hilt was tilted out about 40 degrees. It felt like it was flopping away out there.

With about 60 seconds with that powered screwdriver, I had reconfigured the holster. I moved the belt loops from the inside to the outside, then ran my belt through the loops and over the holster.

The holster now sits firm against my body. It is in the right place; it isn’t flopping around.

I just need to control myself so I don’t end up with a dozen holsters from them.

It is nice having a holster this comfortable.

I have a horrible habit of getting invested in something, learning the skill, then moving on to something else. A few years ago I decided to learn how to build a house.

The design was a 8×12 ft. hut with a loft. Instead of a peaked roof, it uses a sloped roof. The bottom floor has an 8 ft ceiling, and the loft is on 6 in joists with a 3 ft wall height (I think) on the low side and 4ft on the high side. It could be 4 and 5 but I didn’t measure today.

This was built on concrete blocks, so it is not a permanent structure. The loft doesn’t allow you to stand up right, so it isn’t a two story structure. Taxes are weird that way.

Because it was just a hut, I used 2×4 studs for the walls. The children got to pick the window sizes, a mistake on my part. After it was framed and the exterior cladding put on, we wrapped it. I used the rubber waterproofing where required. Then tarpaper for the roof. I built the door out of plywood and then put pine siding on. I think it is called shiplap.

The shiplap was resawn 2×6 because that was lower cost than buying the boards precut.

Then I ran out of money and time. To finish the exterior siding, I need to get the windows installed. I had intended to make the windows from scratch, but that never happened, and I was afraid of $500 window costs. So there the hut sat, used for storage and waiting for more attention.

When we had the new roof put on the house, I asked how much to put a roof on the hut. My roofers did the hut for no extra cost.

I decided to turn the hut into my woodworking shop for the winter. I moved the workbench to the hut, cleared out a bunch of garbage, measured the size of the front window, and got a quote.

The custom window is on its way. Once I have it installed, I’ll finish the siding on that wall. I’ve decided to put T1-11 on the two remaining walls and just cover up the two window openings. No big deal.

This leaves the problem that the hut will be damn cold in the winter. Temps around here often get down to below freezing. I want to be able to work out there.

Enter Rockwool insulation.

This stuff is pricier than old-fashioned pink, but man oh man, what a difference.

Instead of coming in a roll, it comes in 47″ batts. The batts that I purchased fit perfectly between studs on 16-in. centers. The thickness is almost exactly 3.5 inches, so it fits the voids between studs perfectly. For the voids that aren’t on 16″ centers, this stuff cuts easily with a standard knife.

I hate working with fiberglass insulation. I always end up with the itches and little fiberglass splinters. This stuff does create dust, but it is much less than fiberglass, and it doesn’t cause the same itching.

And it is R15; standard Owens Corning Pink is R11.

Just insulating the front wall has dropped road noise to almost nothing. What noise I do hear is coming from the window opening. That opening that is just house wrap now. I expect that to drop as well when we put the window in.

I’m going to be picking up another couple of batts of the stuff to finish out the first floor before doing the loft.

Oh, I have a military heater that I might use; if I don’t use that, it will be a small wood stove.

Rockwool does not burn or melt. Well, at less than around 2000°F. I’m going to put in a heat shield made of 20-gauge steel on 1 in. standoffs. That allows me to get my stove close to the wall. I don’t remember the distance, but 6 in. is what I expect it to be.

I’ll run single-wall flue up to the proper distance from the ceiling, put in an elbow, and then into double-wall flue. I’ll have a double-wall thimble through the wall into a T, then a double-wall flue up to the proper height.

The only issue is that double-wall flue is expensive.

I’ve talked about my Ceph cluster more than a bit. I’m sure you are bored with hearing about it.

Ceph uses two technologies to provide resilient storage. The first is by duplicating blocks, and the second is by Erasure coding.

In many modern systems, the hard drive controller allows for RAID configurations. The most commonly used RAID is RAID-0, or mirroring. Every block written is written to two different drives. If one drive fails, or if one sector fails, the data can be recovered from the other drive. This means that to store 1 GB of data, 2 GB of storage is required. In addition, the drives need to be matched in size.

Ceph wants at least 2 copies of each block. This means that to store 1 GB of data, 3 GB of storage is required.

Since duplicated data is not very efficient, different systems are used to provide the resilience required.

For RAID-5, a parity drive is added. When you have 3 or more drives, normally an odd number, one drive acts as a parity drive.

Parity is a simple method of determining if something was modified in a small data chunk. If you have a string of binary digits, 0xp110 1100 (a lowercase l in ASCII), the ‘p’ bit is the parity. We count the number of one bits in the byte and then set the p bit to make the count odd or even, depending on the agreement. If we say we are using odd parity, the value would be 0x1110 1100. There are 5 ones, which is odd.

If we were to receive 0x1111 1100, the parity would be even, telling us that what was transmitted is not what we received. A parity bit is described as single-bit detection, no correction.

Parity can get more complex, up to and including Hamming codes. A Hamming code uses multiple parity bits to create multi bit detection and one or more bit correction.

NASA uses, or used, Hamming codes for communications with distant probes. Because of limited memory on those probes, once data was transmitted, it wasn’t available to be retransmitted. NASA had to get the data right as it was received. By using Hamming codes, NASA was able to correct corrupted transmissions.

RAID-5 uses simple parity with knowledge of which device failed. Thus a RAID-5 device can handle a single drive failure.

So this interesting thing happened: the size of the drives got larger, and the size of the RAID devices got larger. The smart people claimed that with the number of drives in a RAID device, if a device failed, by the time the replacement device was in place, another drive would have failed.

They were wrong, but it is still a concern.

Ceph uses erasure coding the same way RAID uses parity drives, but erasure coding is more robust and resilient.

My Ceph cluster is set up with data pools that are simple replication pools (n=3) and erasure coded pools (k=2, m=2). Using the EC pools reduces the cost from 3x to 2x. I use EC pools for storing large amounts of data that does not change and which is not referenced often, such as tape backups.

The replication pools are used for things that are referenced frequently, where access times make a difference.

With the current system, I can handle losing a drive, a host, or a data closet without losing any data.

Which is good. I did lose a drive, I’ve been waiting to replace the dead drive until I had built out a new system. The new node was in the process of being built out when the old drive failed.

Unfortunately, I have another drive that is dying. Two dead drives is more than I want to have in the system. So I’ll be replacing the orginal dead drive today.

The other drive will get replaced next week.

Cold, wet weather practically demands chili. I love all kinds of chili. This is one I make around this time of year, because I can use fresh pumpkin rather than the canned stuff. It makes a huge difference!

Ingredients:

• 2 cans navy beans* OR 1 bag (soaked overnight)
• vegetable or chicken broth
• butter or margarine
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 can fire roasted stewed tomatoes
• 1 small can tomato sauce
• 1 tiny can chopped green chillies
• 1 “pie” pumpkin (small), roasted and the meat scraped out
• spices: coriander, cumin, garlic flakes, rosemary, chili powder, red pepper flakes, oregano, salt, pepper

If you want to make this vegan and gluten free, dump all of the above into a crockpot, put it on high, and cook for about 6 hours. Check the beans at the 4 hour mark and every hour thereafter. Cook until the beans are soft but not too mushy. Add in extra liquid if necessary. You can add heat to it with a hot sauce, or simply sprinkle with more red pepper flakes at the table.

If you want this to be meaty, I actually recommend ground turkey or chicken rather than beef for this one. You don’t want to overpower the flavor of the pumpkin, which ground beef will do. Instead, brown up your ground turkey or chicken, then add it in with the other ingredients.

When it comes to the *beans, you don’t have to use navy beans. Feel free to use whatever type or combination of types that you like. Because I want the pumpkin to shine through, I went with navy beans. You could use little white beans, kidney beans, black beans… it’s up to you. One bag of dried beans, soaked overnight, is equivalent to 2 of the big cans of beans, rinsed and dumped into the cooker.

Serve your chili with a side of cornbread, and top it with green onions, parsley, sour cream (or a dairy free alternative), and/or cheese. Enjoy!

We’ve talked elsewhere about making sure you don’t go shopping over the next couple of weeks, because some people have made what we consider to be credible threats. So here’s the thing… if you’re not already stocked up on canned goods at this point, you’re not ready.

Going out today to pick up a few things, that’s fine. I’m picking up “milk, bread, eggs” on Monday, in the morning when I can have Chris ride shotgun (literally). If something violent happens between now and then, I’ll bake bread, buy eggs from the lady up the street, and pull out the milk powder. We have toilet paper, cleaning supplies, food (fresh, frozen, canned, and dehydrated), oil and wood for heating, gas for the stove. I just picked up a zillion candles for free, and we have 2 big jugs of oil for our decorative (and very useful) oil lamps. The world can go to hell; we’ll be fine.

If your cupboard is bare, you’re too late. If you don’t have things squirreled away “just in case,”  you’re too late. I need to hammer that into everyone’s heads. The only excuse for not having a stash, at this point, is if you just started prepping in the past couple of months. Even then, if you’ve been reading my posts, ignorance is not an excuse. You KNOW.

Head on a swivel is not enough. If shit is going down, you’re not going shopping. You’re going to tell your spouse she can’t have the milk and eggs she wants. She’s going to make unhappy noises, and your life is going to be miserable. The fact that it’ll be short lived doesn’t mean a thing when you’re actually living it.

If you want food security, you have to make it. That means long term stuff like planting a garden, knowing how to hunt and trap, understanding how to dress and prepare meat for canning or the freezer. It means having canned goods on hand, stashed in a back corner or under a bed. It means having enough toilet paper or equivalent on hand so that you don’t have to be concerned. If you truly want to be prepared, and today is a good day to be prepared, then starting now is not good enough.

I am hoping that the people calling for riots and stealing are just making noise. I am preparing for them to be telling the absolute truth. If that means I don’t go shopping this week or next, we’ll be fine. Instead of beef tips and chicken breast, we’ll be eating tongue and heart and lots of soup over the next couple of weeks. But we have the food. Do you?

I found this one on TikTok, and decided to try it!

Ingredients:

• 4 chicken thighs, skin removed (bone in or out, doesn’t matter)
• 1.5 cups cherry tomatoes
• 3/4 cup green olives (no pimento)
• 1 shallot, sliced thinly
• 8 baby potatoes, quartered
• 8 to 10 whole cloves garlic
• 2 to 4 tbsp white wine (or white wine vinegar)
• 2 to 4 tbsp good quality olive oil
• 1 large sprig fresh rosemary, minced OR 2 tbsp dried rosemary
• 1 tbsp herbs de provence
• salt, to taste

Preheat your oven to 375°F.

In an oven-safe casserole dish with high sides, place your chicken thighs evenly in a single layer. Add the cherry tomatoes (whole) and olives (also whole) around the chicken. Add the shallot in a layer over everything, and the baby potatoes above the shallot. Tuck the garlic in between the potato pieces. Drizzle the wine and olive oil over everything, and then add your spices.

Bake your Poulet Provencal in the oven for 30 minutes, then check. Your chicken should register 165°F, and the potatoes should be ready to eat. If not, return the dish to the oven for 15 more minutes, checking every 5 minutes.

Serve with a side salad, or a nice crusty French bread. Your choice!

I run into things on TikTok and Facebook that are funny, sad, embarrassing, frustrating, and the whole gamut of other emotions. This one, though, hit home. It talks about something near and dear to my heart: going hungry. You can ask any of my friends, even at my poorest moments in the past 20 years, I have ALWAYS had a full fridge, freezer, and pantry. Always. If that meant I had to visit a food bank, so be it. I’ve been hungry before, and I never intend to be there again.

Take a pause and watch…

Read More