Tesla Model Y

 In February of 2025 I bought a Tesla Model Y Dual Motor.  This is the last of the "old model", a new model replaced it partway through the model year. 

Overall, I like the car.  I think the Model Y is a bit funny looking, but some of that is hidden in the stock grey color, and I've never cared all that much about looks.  It is incredibly quick off the line with a zero-60 time similar to a Mustang GT from a decade ago...but with instant response and almost no noise or drama. 

It is a useful size, big enough for me to be comfortable in the back seat if needed, not much bigger.  Lots of storage, fairly large hatch, very deep under-hatch compartments, and a smallish front trunk. The interior is extremely simple--nothing in the spot for an instrument cluster. almost no buttons, just a large touchscreen in the center.  Mine has the white interior--white seats and a white accent across the dash and doors.  The left stalk is a fairly normal turn signal with a single push button on the tip that controls wipers.  One press wipes once, a harder press washes, multiple presses toggle through the modes or you can use the left scroll wheel.  The wipers default to auto with rain sensing--this is with the camera rather than a dedicated sensor so could be better.  The right stalk does dual duty as shifter and autopilot--if you're stopped, it's a shifter, if you're in gear it controls the autopilot, the tip button is park.  The door latches are small buttons, with an emergency manual release. Controls for windows, seats, map lights, horn and emergency flashers are normal, everything else is some combination of touchscreen and steering wheel controls.   Adjust the steering wheel?  Select it on the touchscreen and move the left control around.  Adjust the mirror?  Select it on the touchscreen and move the left control.  

Your phone acts as the key and fob, with a credit card sized backup key. The backup key requires you to hold it near the door pillar, the phone key connects via bluetooth, with remote features via Internet.  When you get in the screen lights up and the audio starts.  Push the brake and it "starts" and the seat adjusts.  Click the shifter to the direction you want to go and hit the accelerator.  

The Tesla has one-foot driving.  When you are completely off the "gas" pedal you are braking via regeneration, enough to handle most driving situations including stops without using the brake pedal.  The first bit of travel reduces the amount of braking until you get to a point where you get power, so from a stop you kind of take up the slack before you move.  When I go back to a normal car I tend to lurch, as I "take up the slack" and give it more gas than I intended. 

The screen shows a cartoonified overhead view of your surroundings, including parking lot lines and curbs.  You can set acceleration to Chill or Normal, 3 different levels of steering assist, whether to use brakes to keep the deceleration the same when it can't regenerate.  It has generated a couple of interesting misidentifications--a bush in my driveway is sometimes recognized as a person, trains are seen as overlapping semitrucks. 

Teslas full self-driving is fantastic. A click on the shifter stalk puts you in self-driving mode where it will do a pretty good job of driving, stopping for traffic controls, passing slow cars on the interstate, and doing 95% of the work.  It will complain if you look away too long or if it sees your phone in your hand.   It brakes late and hard compared to my driving.  The system is amazing in most ways with a few peculiar flaws.  The biggest flaw is that the speed control is extremely unclear--you apparently cannot set a maximum speed for self driving, which would cure most of my annoyance. Instead, you set a speed profile--but on the interstate there's about an 8 mph difference between "normal" (a little too slow) and "hurry" (risks a ticket). I can usually convince it to go the speed I want by taking it in and out of autopilot, but I'd really like a way to set a max self-driving speed.  You can set a maximum overall speed...but that sends a phone alert every time you reach the set speed, 

If you don't pay for full self-driving, the remaining driver assist functions are less useful than the ones on my 2018 Honda Fit.  Adaptive cruise works OK.  Autosteer is somewhat different than lane centering or lane assist--it will go around sharper corners on its own, but doesn't share control--either it does all the steering or it shuts off completely.  It works OK on interstates but is almost completely useless on other roads. The car recognizes speed limits with a combination of map data and reading road signs...but it is surprisingly inaccurate.  In particular it routinely fails to recognize unmarked 55 mph zones for most country roads and often ignores 55mph signs.  Since Autosteer refuses to go more than 5mph over what it thinks the limit is on 2 lane roads, this makes the feature almost useless there. 

I miss Android Auto.  There are built-in apps for many music streaming services, but not my favorite podcast app.  Bluetooth works well enough, but I have to start the app I want first.   There is no AM radio, apparently because electric vehicles generate too much interference.  The speakers are fantastic compared to any other car I've had. 

When I got the car it had standard headlights with the brights automatically controlled.  A software update changed that to adaptive headlights--instead of bright and dim, it dims only the specific spot where the traffic is.  If you watch closely, you can often see the shadow move with traffic.  A few times it's been a bit confused by reflectors--It dims for the reflectors, then goes bright again when they quit reflecting back, then dim...

I've actually used Dog Mode--this sets the AC to 69 degrees, locks the doors and windows, and puts a big sign on the display with a cartoon dog, a large display of the cabin temperature, and a note saying that the dog's people will be back soon.  

I got the Tesla charger.  Now that I know more, I'd look into a third-party charger--Chargers are fairly simple with the car doing most of the work.  When you set the charger up you program the circut capacity, it tells the car how much power it can take. After a few safety checks it just latches, then feeds whatever power is there to the car.  I had a 220v 50a circuit installed, and I get about 35 miles of range per hour of charging at 40 amps.   With a normal 110 circuit, I got about 5 miles per hour.  I set up a spreadsheet to track the equivalent MPG based on the cost of gas at the stations I used to use, the cost per kWh of electricity and the Tesla's reported consumption and miles, and I've been getting between 85-90 mpg.   Tesla recommends keeping the battery between 20% and 80% when possible, and it lets you pick a percent where it will stop charging.  I have to charge more often than I would get gas...but it's an extra 15 seconds instead of a 5-minute stop.  I was able to program the charger to refuse to charge any other car in the off chance someone would pull into my driveway.  

When I had a temporary plate, I had a number of comments from strangers--in most cases asking if I'm worried about it getting vandalized by anti-Elon protesters, in one case an obviously pro-MAGA lady who assumed I bought it for MAGA reasons.  If anything I bought it despite of Elon's antics.  I bought it because I like the idea of electric, the performance is fun, and prices have come down to my budget.  With the "old model" discount and tax incentives that come off the purchase price it wound up being about $37k (before full self driving).  A few years ago the same model would have been over $55k

3d Printing revisited

Roughly 5 years ago I bought a Monoprice Maker Select Mini ($200).  That broke in a fairly trivial way, I eventually got a full refund after some runaround...and spent $10 to fix it.  In the meantime I bought a Maker Select Plus for $399.  I had fun but when I decided to relocate them to our attic I never went through the process to calibrate them after the move and never printed with either of them again.  Eventually I sold them to a co-worker. 

Recently a couple of family members separately asked me about 3d printing which got me looking again.  I discovered the Bambu Labs A1 Mini--$200 for the basic printer, $350 with the AMS unit that allows multi-material printing.  Lots of good reviews, and it appeared to have substantially better features than either of my previous printers.  Rather than ordering, I went to Microcenter...where my wife talked me into the non-Mini version.  

The A1 Mini is a cantilevered printer--a single tower holds the printhead beam, while the A1 standard is a gantry system with two towers holding the beam.  This is typical for small printers-the single tower is cheaper, but it is harder to maintain accuracy over longer distances.   This was the case with my Monoprice printers as well, the Mini was cantilevered, the Plus was gantry.   The maximum print size of the A1 Mini is a 180 mm cube (the Monoprice Mini was about 120 mm) , while the Standard A1 is 250 mm cube, vs a 200x200x180 volume for the larger Monoprice printer.  

For the single color versions, prices are quite similar between the Monoprice and the equivalent Bambu--the minis were both $200, the full size were $400 for the Monoprice vs $379 for the Bambu.  The AMS module that lets you print with multiple filaments adds $150 to each of the Bambu printers with no comparable upgrade available for either Monoprice.  The AMS can be purchased separately. 

The AMS system is very worthwhile, letting you do 4 color prints, use different material for supports or automatically switch to a fresh roll when the first one runs out.  It isn't perfect--each change of material adds about a minute and wastes a bit of filament per layer, and it prints a purge tower (a rectangle of plastic) up to the height of your last color change.  This time and waste can be reduced at the risk of imperfect color changes.  The accuracy is extremely good--I printed some 2 color coasters that looked like a commercial product.  These work well with the limitations of the system--the color changes are all on the first 5 or so layers so the the extra time and filament is minimal.  This waste and time is per layer and doesn't increase with multiple similar objects.  If you stick with Bambu filament the AMS will automatically detect the type and color based on included RFID tags, this lets the slicer automatically set temperatures and speeds, and to pick the closest colors.  It is not particularly difficult to enter the settings for third party filaments, so you aren't locked into Bambu.  It is also trivial to move the RFID to a new spool--I did that when I re-spooled a tangled roll. 

Other differences between the Monoprice and the Bambu printers:

Automatic bed leveling--this is a major upgrade, measuring the bed height every inch or two and automatically compensating.  Monoprice was a manual system with the only adjustment being a screw in each corner that you adjusted so a piece of paper dragged slightly between the printhead and bed. 

Textured magnetic build plate vs plain fixed plate.  Prints are less likely to come loose during printing, but also far easier part removal.  No glue stick or tape needed for most filament.  You can either flex the plate to get stuff to come loose or let it cool naturally.  

Automatic tangle and end of filament detection--with Monoprice if the filament ran out or tangled the print job would be ruined.  The Bambu pauses the print and either changes the filament automatically or lets you fix the problem. 

Noise and vibration reduction--During setup the printer vibrates the various stepper motors to find the optimum setting to reduce both noise and vibration that could affect print quality.  I don't know how much difference this calibration makes, but the A1 is far quieter than the Monoprice printers and the noise isn't nearly as annoying.  The initial test is noisy, and my dog didn't like it at first...but it's relatively short vs hours of "singing". 

Color touchscreen interface--An improvement but minor. 

Built in camera.  Due to processor limitations the frame rate is a picture every few seconds, but that's enough to see if the printer needs attention.  It will take a picture from the same location at each layer to create a time lapse of the build.  This winds up being an enormous file for the short duration, and it requires that the print head move out of the way, which the manual says can create flaws in the print unless you also print a tower.  

Remote control--you can print from computer, Android or IOS.  There's even an app for Linux.  The Android and IOS versions are fairly limited, effectively requiring that someone has already set up a print profile and published to Makerworld.  This means 1 item at a time with little control of other settings.  It appears that the Linux version is  not identical to the Windows version.  The only missing feature I've run into is repairing an imperfect 3d scan requires Windows or a third party website.

Almost all of the current "best beginner 3d printer" recommendations are for one of the Bambu A1 printers, and this appears to be accurate.

Beeline Moto II initial review

The Beeline Moto II is an easily mountable smartwatch sized device that works with a companion app to show navigation on your motorcycle.  (It works on bicycles too, but the Beeline Velo is a cheaper version for pedal bikes)  Fairly expensive for the hardware...but I haven't found better functionality at a better price. The display shows a very simplified map--Your route with stubs to indicate intersections, the number of miles and an arrow for the direction of your next turn and a bar indicating how much of your trip is remaining.  It announces upcoming turns with a flashing light and a beep on both the Beeline and your phone.  The beep is a bit quiet compared to other sounds on the phone, and the beeps seem optimized for bicycling rather than motorcycling-The upcoming turn beep is at around 0.1 mile from the turn, barely enough warning for even fairly low motorcycle speeds.   I haven't used it enough to see how it deals with complicated intersections or interstate ramps.

The Beeline comes with a universal mount that attaches to your bars with O-rings as sturdy rubber bands.  It charges via USB C, and the screen is bright enough to see in full sun.  Control is by pushing the bezel in the obvious four spots, easy even with gloves.  There are options to show trip miles, speed (turns out my motorcycle speedometer is 4mph slow at 60mph) and speed limit signs--limits can be shown on the map display, speed and miles are on their own screens.  Speed limits are not reliable in my town, usually showing 25 even when the limit is 35.

The app gives the options of "fast" (minimum time) or "Fun" (more turns and fewer interstates-.   You can add waypoints.   A $5/month subscription gives the options of voice guidance and loop routes--tell it how far you want to go and any stops, it will plan from there. 

Before the Beeline I would use just the audio prompts of Google Map to navigate, but this had some issues.  When I choose something other than the default fastest route I'd often get a voice partway into the ride "I've found a faster route, if you want to stay on the one you chose, click the screen"...when my phone was in my pocket and my hands were gloved. I very much like the concept of just a beep to get your attention for a turn, I wish Google Maps had that option instead of choosing between "talk too much" or "don't alert me to turns at all".   The device requires the phone app, but apparently can import routes from some other apps.  The planning is reasonably sensible, but it doesn't know about temporary detours...and the minimalist map doesn't help in finding a route around a closed road.   I'd like less city streets in fun mode.    

As I said, the Beeline is fairly expensive for the hardware's capability.  Also expensive are the accessories.  There is a powered mount insert for $60...and it is incompatible with the stock mount.  That means an accessory mount of at least $25 more for the flat surface mount, or $40 for a bar or mirror mount.   It is possible to charge via USB while riding...but Beeline says that may cause damage that won't be covered by the warranty.  Battery life is pretty good, I'll just charge mine at home.  You can't turn the unit off before you end a ride, so that's 4 clicks and a hold.   It will go to sleep, and standby time appears to be decent. 

Nice shoe care

 This will be about basic smooth leather shoe and boot care for traditional non-sneaker shoes.  Some of this may apply to sneakers, but sneaker leather is usually different than good quality dress/casual/boot leather, often having plastic coatings on the leather. (There are "dress shoes" with plastic coatings as well, those aren't good quality for the purposes of this post.  If polish doesn't stick or conditioner doesn't soak in a bit it's probably coated) 

TLDR version:  Don't wear the same shoes every day, once or twice a year put some Bick 4 on, let it dry and wipe it off.  That's enough to maximise longevity, the rest is cosmetic. 

There are different levels of care.   There isn't all that much you can do for most soles.  For leather soles, sole guards (thin rubber sheets glued to the soles by a cobbler) wear longer...or at least switch the wear to an easily replaceable rubber layer.  If the soles are durable or worth replacing keeping the uppers in good shape makes more sense.  Even minimal care will help with looks.   Note, the look I'm going for is "well cared for" rather than "first time wearing".  If you are going to replace soles and heels, pay attention to the layers.  If you catch the wear at the first layer of sole or heel the job is easier and cheaper, the second layer (in most shoes) somewhat more expensive.  If the wear gets to the welt the job becomes much more difficult and expensive, and likely not worth the cost.  

Preventative:  Number one is rotate your shoes--Give your shoes or boots time to thoroughly dry out between wears.  Alternating between two pairs will give more than twice the life of the uppers compared to wearing one pair daily.   Use shoe trees for storing dressier shoes to reduce wrinkling, curling and creasing.  Trees don't have to be fancy.  Cedar trees will absorb moisture and help the shoes dry faster but plastic or metal will still help hold the shape of the shoes.  Trees also make polishing easier.   

Keep your shoes reasonably clean.  Brush dirt and dust with a horsehair brush, use a damp rag for salt or dirt that the brush won't get. Don't let salt sit on your shoes.  I often see diluted vinegar recommended for salt stains, haven't needed it yet since hearing of it. 

A good conditioner, applied about twice a year under normal use.  Shoes that are in severe conditions will need conditioning more often, but unworn shoes still need periodic conditioning--If the leather is stiff, it probably needs to be conditioned before wearing to prevent cracking.  Bick 4 is probably the most widely recommended all purpose conditioner among shoe snobs--it protects well without darkening most leather, it is relatively inexpensive but still used by some of the best cobblers.  Boot oil, mink oil or neatsfoot oil give more protection in severe use but are likely to darken the leather and prevent a high shine, and over-conditioning is possible. Oils are usually limited to workboots (and similar styles of fashion boots) where durability is more important than shine. 

To use Bick 4--Apply with whatever--sometimes I use fingers, a rag, an old toothbrush gets into crevices better.   Let it soak in for 15 minutes or so.  If it soaks in instantly, add more.  After it dries brush it with a horsehair shoe brush or a soft cloth for a slight shine.  

If you want more gloss, a cream polish in addition to conditioner.  Venetian Shoe cream is a good neutral cream--another inexpensive product used by some very good cobblers.  Neutrals are great when you don't have color damage, and especially if you have different colors of leather--a natural welt on a black shoe for example.  (If you're wearing spectators...you don't need advice from me)  Creams will give more shine than Bick but not as much as a wax.  If there's color damage I use a colored cream, sometimes only where the scuff is depending on how closely the polish matches the shoe.  Saphir has the best reputation, Tarrago and Kelly's are also brands I'm happy with.  I use mostly Tarrago because it's available at a local shoe store at about half the price of similar quality polish from Amazon.  Apply with an applicator brush (a toothbrush works) or cloth, let dry, buff with a soft cloth or horsehair shoe buffing brush. 

For a high gloss, a wax based polish.  Kiwi is a low quality example of a wax polish.  I use Allen Edmonds for colored wax because it has a good reputation and it was on sale.  Saphir for neutral--I don't need much, and it works with all colors.  I like to let waxes sit overnight if possible especially if trying to fix scuffs and scratches.  Wax polish will build up and crack if over-applied.  Cracking is mostly a problem with mirror shined shoes...which I don't do.  I concentrate on the toes and heel area, avoiding wax buildup on flexible parts where it might crack.  You don't always need more polish to get a shine, just buff what's already there.  You also may not need a colored polish to fix a scuff, sometimes just some conditioner or neutral polish will blend in the damage. 

Not all leather shoes can be realistically polished.  Oily leather boots are difficult to make shiny. Conditioner still helps with oily leather, and a pigmented polish can help with uneven color. Plastic coated leather is essentially maintenance free...not that it doesn't need maintenance, but rather it won't do much good.  

Avoid getting dark polish on lighter colored areas--you don't usually have to polish with color right to the edge.  An exception is for decorative perforations--some people will use a darker polish wiped off immediately to highlight the perforations.  Stitching may or may not absorb the color.  

For buffing I have a brush for black, and a brush for everything else.  Applicators are specific to that type and color of polish, dark brown and light brown use different brushes, cream and wax are also different.  For oddball colors (I've got one pair of navy blue loafers...that I've polished but never worn) I'll usually use a clean spot on a rag. 

2022 Ford Maverick truck 3000 mile review

 A while back I started shopping for a new vehicle.  Wife was driving a 1998 Ranger--still reliable, but getting old and lacking modern safety features.  I was driving a 2018 Honda Fit bought new.  I wanted to keep the ability to haul our quad pedal bike around, to haul plywood and such from Home Depot--more than a car can hold by volume, but rarely more weight. We were thinking of a Civic and putting a roof rack or trailer hitch on one car.  I saw a video review of a pre-production Maverick that didn't include a test drive.  Based on that it looked almost perfect--Front drive unibody 4 door with a useful bed instead of a trunk, with a standard hybrid projected to get 40 mpg city.  The only problem was that they were taking orders before any were available for test drives. It turned out that my local dealer wasn't requiring deposits (and others were refundable) so the only real risk was getting harassed by salesmen.   I ordered an Ecoboost in early August, then when I found out how the E-CVT worked (It isn't a traditional belt and pulley system) changed my order to a Hybrid on August 10.  I had to get the top Lariat model with the top Luxury trim package to get adaptive cruise, a feature I won't willingly go without, I didn't get any stand-alone options other than Area 51 as the no-charge color.  

Then the wait.  Ford has a system to inform customers of progress in their order, but that requires the dealer to properly input your email address. Apparently mine didn't.  Months passed.  I read  r/FordMaverickTruck on Reddit, and Maverick Truck Club forums.   Journalists started reviewing pre-production models, details were finalized. 2.0 Turbo (non-hybrid) trucks were being built and shipped to customers, but hybrids were delayed.   Finally the hybrid EPA ratings were released and they became OKTB (Okay to Buy)...but almost immediately hybrids sold out for the 2022 model year.  All Mavericks sold out in January.   Finally at the beginning of April my truck arrived. 

The Maverick is based on the same platform as the Escape and Bronco Sport crossovers The base model is a front drive hybrid, combining a 2.5 liter Atkinson cycle engine and 2 electric motor-generators through a planetary E-CVT transmission.   This results in 191 combined horsepower, and gas mileage of 33 highway, 42 city, 37 combined.  1500lb payload and 2000 pound towing.  Upgrade to the 2.0 Ecoboost turbo and horsepower goes to 250...but city mileage drops 20mpg!  With the turbo you can get AWD, with AWD you can upgrade to a 4000 pound tow capacity. 

The hybrid takes a bit of getting used to--push the start button, some clicks and whirrs, but no engine, just a ready message on the dash.  Twist the shifter dial and go. The engine never really idles, and there's a power meter instead of a tachometer.  If I had to guess, I'd say minimum RPM is around 1800.  Engine noise is only vaguely related to throttle in normal use, although it will rev up when you floor the gas pedal.  I'm happy with the power--it has substantially more power and acceleration than the econoboxes I'm used to driving despite being bigger.  I'm also very happy with the mileage--according to the dashboard readouts of my Fit and the Maverick I'm not sure which one is better...but it appears to be the Maverick.   For comparison, my one way commute is about 10 miles of 70 mph interstate, 5 city and 5 back country roads, I typically set the cruise at 5-8 mph over the speed limit.  Not an "all city" mix that favors the hybrid.  The Fit in the summer got 36-38 most trips (It did best on country roads to , the maverick is 38+ since I reset the 2nd trip meter shortly after I got it.  

I've got experience with the driver assist systems on Hondas, mostly my Fit but also newer Accords, CRVs and an Odyssey.  The Fit works about the same as the other Hondas except it beeps and turns off below 25mph where the more expensive Hondas can follow a slowing car to a complete stop.   Ford is far more prone to beeping at you--It is much more likely to give a "put your hands on the wheel" message when your hands ARE on the wheel, and when the lane centering can't see the road well enough to center, it beeps at you as it shuts off...then it silently goes back to work, then it beeps again...  On the other hand, Honda is more likely to complain about drifting out of your lane.  Every few months the Fit would mis-judge either oncoming traffic on a curve or someone turning as grounds for an alarm and a BRAKE message on the dash, that hasn't happened on the Maverick.  It is also moderately common for the Fit and I to both decide to brake at the same time resulting in much more braking force than I intended, I haven't felt that in the Maverick.   

The Maverick is substantially smoother in both adaptive cruise behavior and lane centering than the Fit.  One factor may be the type of system, Ford has lane centering and lane keeping, while Honda has lane keeping--Ford tries to center you, Honda only tries to keep you from leaving your lane but lets you wander from side to side.  Sometimes the Fit would lose sight of a car on a winding road or a hill and accelerate when it shouldn't, and the lane keeping assist would wander if it was wet enough for tire marks to show up.  The brakes on the Fit are a bit grabby--I'm not sure if that's some of the driver assist functions or due to it's rear drums.  The Maverick's cruise handles curves and hills better. Brakes on the Maverick are also uneven but in different ways, more at slow speeds--I haven't been able to memorize the pressure needed for a particular amount of deceleration.  I've had a few trips in an Accord hybrid, the transition between regenerative and normal brakes is much better.  Honda's lane assist is a separate feature from adaptive cruise and must be turned on every trip.  The Maverick's lane centering is tied to adaptive cruise, but can be disabled.  The separate lane assist can be left on, it works without cruise at speeds above 45mph.   Honda remembers Eco and Cruise control modes (not your set speed, but whether it's ready to set a speed) between trips, Ford has a couple of other drive modes besides normal and eco, but defaults to Normal and Cruise off for every trip.  That's fairly annoying, I prefer Eco--a bit more regenerative braking when you let off the gas, a more gradual throttle, and the cruise control doesn't accelerate as hard.  The steering wheel controls are shuffled and cruise control function is a bit different--I think I like Ford's better, but the differences sometimes have me doing things the Honda way, in particular I often set the cruise to the current speed instead of resuming. 

The Mavericks seats are more comfortable for me on long trips. I'm not sure I will like the ActiveX seats (artificial leather) in the summer, but they were part of the package required for adaptive cruise. I do like the electric seat's ability to adjust in very small increments. I've got a very wide range of comfortable positions--I can reach everything with the seat all the way back, but unlike most cars I'm better off a few inches forward, and I can go quite a bit forward with only a tiny difference in comfort.  I like heated seats far more than I thought I would .  The interior style suits me-not trying to disguise that it's plastic, but nicely done with a variety of colors and textures.  Instead of covering bolts with plugs, they put Ford logos on the bolts and made them attractive.  (I remember 80's dashboards where fake allen bolts were a thing...)  The one exception ( other than seat material) is the bronze accents on the Lariat package--I like the interiors of the lower trim models better. 

I suspect I'll really like remote start in the winter, especially combined with the heated seats and steering wheel--it has been nice on the few moderately cold days so far.  (I'd love a version that would let me run only a heated seat back, without having a warm butt, call it "old man mode".)  The hybrid affects the air conditioning in a good way--the AC is electric, and the engine doesn't have to run continuously for the AC to run, although the engine will start up briefly every so often to keep the battery charged.  

Navigation isn't available.  Instead all trims have Android Auto and Apple Carplay to show your phone's maps on the truck's Infotainment screen.  

The bed is about 4 1/2 feet long, probably 50 inches wide.  There are slots for lumber in several places to use as a bed divider or to support 4x8 sheets, and the tailgate has a middle position where it can also support a 4x8 sheet at wheel well height  There are multiple tie down points--D rings in the front corners, 4 at the tailgate opening, sliding tie downs on rails on the bed sides, and combination tie downs/bottle openers on the tailgate.  I wasn't sure I'd like a tonneau cover so I got a cheap tri-fold. I keep wood in the "plywood hauling" slots--partly to keep things from sliding forward, partly to hold a folding plastic crate to have a place to put stuff where it's less likely to get leaked on if my cover isn't completely water-tight.  The combination of the tonneau and locking tailgate is nice--of course someone could slash the cover open fairly easily, but they would have to know there's something worth the trouble.  If this cover gets shabby or breaks I'll get a better one but so far it's doing fine. 

The Lariat Luxury package comes with 110v outlets in both bed and cab, limited to 400w.  I haven't used them, and like a lot of that package it isn't something I'd have bought separately.   Ford includes DIY 12v wiring in the tailgate so you don't have to run your own wires to add an accessory.  There's also a cubby on the passenger side that can store tie down straps or similar.  

The Fordpass app lets you start, stop, lock and unlock from anywhere you have cell coverage to anywhere the truck has cell coverage, can tell you where it is,  how much gas is left and how long before the next oil change.  It turns out that if you try to use it while riding a bike it makes you verify that you aren't driving. (The bike in question is a two person four wheeler, and Wife was steering)

For my uses, the Maverick is exceptional.  Even though it's the cheapest new truck available, I don't know that I'd prefer any of the more expensive ones at the same price.  I don't need much of a truck, I don't need a truck that often--but the Maverick is pretty good as a car while being plenty of truck.  It's actually a bit more truck in cargo capacity and towing than the Ranger it replaced. 

The hybrid continuum

At one end of the scale, there's a pure ICE--Internal Combustion Engine.  This is the normal gasoline or diesel engine everyone knows about.  At the other is pure electric--Tesla, Rivian, etc.   A hybrid is a mix of the two. 

Why add the complexity of a hybrid? 

Conventional brakes just turn speed into heat.  Hybrids have regenerative braking--this runs the generator, slowing you down as it charges the battery so you can use that charge to get moving again.  ICE engines are generally most efficient at a particular speed...but that speed is rarely the one you want to use for normal driving.   They are often particularly inefficient at speeds you need to use most often.  Atkinson Engines are an extreme version of this--They tend to make less power per liter/cubic inch of engine size but do considarably more work per gallon of gas, and by themselves do not have enough power for normal driving at low engine speeds.  Conveniently, electric motors are best where the Adkinson is worst, so a blend of the two works well.  Hybrids also make it more practical to power accessories with electricity, so the engine doesn't have to run to keep the AC on for example. They also take advantage of the fact that almost nobody needs full engine power for more than very short periods. 

A mild hybrid system has a relatively small electric system.  It recovers power from braking, but the hybrid motors and batteries may not be capable of powering the car alone.  An early BMW system merely charged the normal 12v battery to reduce the load of the alternator.  The first generation Honda Insights had "Integrated Motor Assist" a 13 hp electric motor sandwiched between the  67 hp ICE and the transmission.   This allowed regenerative braking and gave a bit of extra power to the ICE--but the engine had to be running if the IMA was running.  Honda continued using IMA with bigger electric motors until fairly recently.   There isn't a clear line between mild and full hybrid.

A full hybrid will have a bigger electrical power system, generally with the capability of running on pure electric for short periods.  Our Ford Maverick has a 162 HP Atkinson cycle ICE, plus 131 hp electric from two motor-generators.  All of these are combined in various combinations of charging and generating power through the E-CVT with planetary gears similar to an automatic transmission. The E-CVT doesn't use belts and variable pullies like a standard CVT, it is closer to a conventional automatic...except mechanically simpler.  Electric motors have peak torque at low speeds, while the ICE peak is at a higher speed.  Since the peaks don't align the total is lower than just adding the two, in this case 191 hp.   The ICE will attempt to only run at its most energy efficient speed, and the system will attempt to charge the batteries primarily with regenerative braking.  Moderate acceleration from a stop will usually be electric only, switching to ICE after a few seconds.  Under hard acceleration both ICE and electric will run until the battery is depleted.  Depleting the battery due to acceleration is extremely rare.   The end result is that weight and stop and go driving make less difference to MPG, the ICE engine can be designed for efficiency rather than power and drivability so a 4 seat compact pickup truck can get better MPG in real world driving can get better MPG than a subcompact hatchback despite having more interior room and better acceleration.  

A plug in hybrid has more batteries than a full hybrid with the ability to run some substantial distance on battery alone.   It is intended to be plugged in and run off that charge for most trips, but with the ability to use gasoline for longer trips.  This may be similar to a full hybrid with bigger batteries, or closer to a full electric, with a relatively small ICE that only charges the battery with no connection to the wheels.  To get any useful range the battery has to be many times larger than a full hybrid, especially since batteries last longer if kept primarily between 20 and 80% charge. 

Sewn Shoes

"He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet."   (Men at Arms, Terry Pratchett)

Years ago, I had a sole of a pair of sandals come unglued at the toe, leaving the sole flapping.   I found a replacement pair. I thought to myself "At least ths sole is sewn on to these, they should last a long time".   I was wrong on both counts.  When that sole came loose I found out that the stitching was just decorative and didn't attach anything.  As I got older i learned that a non-sneaker shoe over $100 was far more likely to last more than a year, but I still had some trouble telling the difference between $100 worth of durability and a $50 shoe with $50 worth of fashionable brand name tacked on.  A few months ago Youtube suggested a video by Bedo's Leatherworks where he recrafts shoes as he explains, and I learned the difference between stitched on and cemented soles. 

A leather Goodyear Welt is the traditional American construction.  A strip of leather (the welt) is stitched to the uppers and insole, then the midsole and usually the outsole is stitched to the welt.  Bulkier and stiffer than most other methods, but durable and easy to re-sole.  The construction leaves a cavity in the shoe between the insole and midsole that needs to be filled, often with cork or foam.  If care is taken while recrafting the welt can be re-used through multiple resoles, and the welt can usually be replaced.  (Click to enlarge the pictures--and my blog reader is mangling the layout, you may want to read this directly on Blogger)

A couple of generations  ago Goodyear welt was the normal construction for even mid grade shoes, now it is limited mostly to mid-grade or better work boots.  Dressier GYW shoes still exist but are relatively rare.  Not all GYW shoes are quality--in particular boots that advertise it as a feature often use a plastic welt that is likely to crack.     Pictured is a vintage GYW shoe with the outsole and midsole removed, showing construction details at the welt joint.  The upper picture shows the welt sewn through the upper, the lower picture is the same area from the bottom.  This particular shoe has Poron sheet foam filler, better shoes would generally have cork or leather. 

Blake Stitch is relatively simple in concept--the whole stack of insole, midsole and outsole is stitched straight through by a machine that can reach all the way into the toe.  Sleeker and more flexible than Goodyear Welt, may need less break in.  They can be re-soled, but not all cobblers have the machine to do it. They also can't be re-soled as many times--you can't re-use the holes, and when too many new holes have been made the leather will tear and there's no welt to replace. 

Hand Sewn--The toe of a moccasin style shoe is hand stitched, then the sole is usually Blake stitched to the upper.    The shoe pictured is a blake stitched hand sewn loafer with the sole stitching visible inside the shoe.  Blake stitched shoes may have a liner covering the inside stitching, you may be able to see traces of the sole stitching between the upper and the sole.  On the shoe pictured you can see that there is no stitching visible on top of the sole, ruling out GYW without looking inside.

Blake Rapid is sort of a hybrid between Blake and Goodyear welt.  Instead of a welt, the midsole is Blake stitched to the insole and upper, then the outsole (bottom layer) is stitched to the midsole .  Eliminates the direct path for water to wick.  It can be hard to tell the difference between Blake Rapid and Goodyear welt without disassembling the shoe

Stitch Down--The upper is folded outward, then stitched to the sole.  More common on boots, and especially chukka or Desert Boots.  This picture isn't entirely typical of stitch down, usually the upper leather will extend all the way to the edge of the sole rather than being inset like this one.  

A few sneakers (mostly from non-athletic brands) use a cup sole sewn through the sidewall.  Born uses a similar construction on many of their shoes they call Opanka.  Many of the sneakers are at least technically resoleable, Born says their version isn't.   

Most other sewn sole shoes are variations and combinations of the above...but sewn soles are a tiny percentage of all shoes, mostly in work boots where the durability is more important.  Most shoes are some sort of cement (glued) construction.  

It turns out my floppy sandals were bondwelt, a form of cement construction that mimics the look of GYW.  Bondwelted shoes have a welt that is only decorative with stitching that is only decorative, the sole is held on with glue.  These often look tidier than a true GYW because it is easier to stitch in a straight line on a roll of flat welt than to follow the shape of the shoe with an upper in the way.   

Shoes don't have to be sewn to be fairly durable--there are plenty of good non-sewn shoes that will  last until the sole wears through.  However, sewn-on soles are far more likely to be economically reasonable to resole or recraft, and with care can last through several recraftings.   I also object to fake details--If there's a welt I want it to be real, if there are stitches I want them to do something. 

Trying Google Fi

I decided to try Google Fi, their wireless phone service.   At the same time, I purchased a new phone for Wife since her phone is ancient with horrible battery life, and wasn't fully compatible with Fi.  The new phone was a Moto G Power, a mid-grade phone with excellent battery life.  The phone was advertised as carrier unlocked so if Fi service didn't work, I should be able to use it on Verizon.

Apparently two phone lines require two Gmail accounts and I was supposed to sign up for Fi, then invite Wife.  I tried to set her phone up first, which linked it to my account making it difficult to switch that to her phone.  I also didn't want to completely leave Verizon until at least one phone was working on Fi.  After several hours with support over several days, Support wanted me to abandon my phone numbers and get new ones.  Finally got it mostly working except with Wife's appointments showing up on my phone.  

Unfortunately coverage wasn't very good at work or while commuting.  After giving it a few months, I decided to go back to Verizon.  My computer is Linux.  Verizon's website is virtually unusable with either Chrome or Firefox on Linux.

It turns out that the "unlocked" Fi phone isn't fully unlocked--the Google Fi software  only allows phone calls on Verizon's network but does not allow data.  This caused hours of support with Verizon--got the phone working by switching sim cards from phone to phone, we assumed that data would eventually show up.  It didn't.  The phone could do calling and texting, could not send a picture via text, and anything Internet was wifi only.   I finally did some research and found that this is a known issue with the Google Fi version of this particular phone--Google's software won't let the phone connect data to Verizon's network.  The software can't be changed without voiding the phone's warranty.  Google offered to exchange phones with an identical phone with identical software. I questioned that, since if the software is the issue the problem is likely to remain.  They persisted, I asked if there were other steps to take if the same software caused the same results, they assured me that there was.   The new phone arrived, exact same results and it turns out that the "other steps" was "ask the guy at the next desk". 

I finally unlocked the phone, voiding the warranty and installed Verizon software.  The phone works perfectly--pretty much proving that the problem is neither hardware nor Verizon. 

Black Rights Matter

I'm a middle-aged white man.

I believe that genetic differences between races are almost entirely visual, obvious and unimportant.  Differences that matter to me are environmental--things like education.  Even if there were no current racism, these types of things are certainly affected by past racism.   My grandfather came to the US as a young adult in the 20's.  According to family lore, while he was a concrete laborer he was able to start a business by getting materials on credit and paying for them once he was paid.  The business grew to employ several dozen people, and my kids are better off as a result.  I believe it very unlikely that a black man would have been allowed the same opportunities at that time--as a result, his great-grandkids will likely have a harder time. 

However, based on the studies I've seen, I don't think blacks are more likely to be murdered by police than whites.   Another data point--June 2020 (the last full month as I write this), Chicago had 469 gunshot injuries, 2 shot by the police, plus an additional 87 gunshot deaths,  none of those by police.  The police aren't the major problem for life and death here.  This is my main disagreement with the phrase "Black Lives Matter"--If the studies I'm basing my opinion on are correct, the death part isn't a racist issue. We need to fix that problem, but if police murders aren't significantly different by race then looking to solve the problem via race is unlikely to work.  On the other hand, Black Rights Matter--and the racial aspect is far more likely to be important.  I do believe that blacks are unjustifiably abused by police at a much higher rate than whites.  This makes logical sense--a racist cop can abuse blacks in smaller ways and be almost guaranteed to get away with it, but a killing will be investigated thoroughly.  I also think that millions of smaller abuses are more important than a handful of deaths. 

What do we do? As individuals, I don't know what we can do, other than don't be racist and support government policies that will help. 

Policies that I think will help:

End the drug war--Not just decriminalizing pot, but legalization of virtually everything.  Whether or not a chemical is available to the general public should be based on its danger to others and not on its potential for recreational use.  Maybe pure fentanyl or LSD is too potent as a poison to allow unrestricted use, (I don't know) but then it should be treated like cyanide or similar, and more than likely dilute forms should be allowed.  The fact that some people might enjoy it should be considered a positive if it is considered at all.  I would probably support a prescription requirement for antibiotics and similar where your misuse can harm me.

Even better, eliminate all victimless crimes--If you aren't harming or seriously endangering someone else without their consent, it should not be a crime. Not just drugs, but prostitution, gambling, sin taxes, etc--you should be free to do really stupid stuff to yourself.  Reduce selective enforcement.  If we can't or won't enforce a law, take it off the books...and if you can prove selective enforcement that should be an affirmative defense.  You should probably be allowed to be peacefully drunk in public, disturbing the peace while sober should be the same as disturbing the peace stoned or drunk.  Note, DUI laws stay, that's endangering others. 

End qualified immunity  If police or a policeman violates your rights in a meaningful way, they should be liable under almost all circumstances.   Police departments should be responsible for most property damage they cause--virtually all damage to an innocent party's property, and even to a criminal's property when the damage isn't reasonable compared to the crime. 

End civil asset forfeiture and other forms of policing for profit.  There should be no permanent forfeiture without a conviction.  Fines and forfeitures go to the general fund, not to the department, and the general fund can't give them back or otherwise incentivize fines. Where state law forbids civil forfeiture, end loopholes where departments can partner with federal agencies for a percentage of the seized assets...or just end federal forfeiture.  While it may be reasonable for some items to be held by police until trial to make sure they aren't hidden, the bias needs to be towards the owner.  Very early in the process there should be a hearing, and the government should have to show the criminal connection with at least the same standards as a civil trial. The police should be responsible for damages to items they hold, and if they are found to hold something without cause they must return the item plus a percentage of the item's value that's similar to the interest rate that the owner would qualify for.   

End investigatory no-knock warrants, or more likely all no knocks except to capture dangerous, violent felons.  In particular, the potential for the destruction of evidence isn't justification for a no-knock.  We also need to verify that no-knock warrants are following proper procedures--that the application isn't just a cut and paste, and that the judge is actually reading and reviewing, that there isn't a less risky method available.  Judges should be random, police should not be able to judge shop.

As much as possible, end "the process is the punishment".  Bail needs to be reasonable and based on how likely that person is to show up for trial, with a basis in statistics for that particular crime.    There need to be incentives against excessive bail or a high bail used as leverage for a plea bargain.  I would probably like to see some process for refunding bail bondsman costs for someone found innocent, or for a substantially lower crime.

Get coercive plea bargains and over-charging under control.  I do want incentive for a guilty person to plead guilty, but we need to make sure we don't have incentives for innocent people to plead guilty.  Plea bargains should never be for a tiny fraction of the potential jail time or fine.  I think I would like something similar to the English system where an early plea to the crime charged gets half your sentence reduced, with less reduced as you get closer to the final verdict.   I'd also like to require that prosecutors prove the crime charged or the suspect goes free--in other words if you charge someone with attempted murder but only prove assault then there's no conviction.

End pretextural stops, where "you crossed the center line, I haven't decided whether to give you a ticket, may I search your car for drugs and weapons?"  The officer should have to record what the justification is in a timestamped form before the stop is made, and there should be a bias towards dashcam or body cam evidence.  The recorded justification doesn't have to be fancy, just a verbal announcement on the cam prior to the stop would be enough.  This goes for stop and frisk as well--if the policeman doesn't have a reason, he doesn't get to stop.  There also needs to be some tracking of how often the suspicion is correct--if a particular officer suspects a gun often but rarely finds one...

None of these are racial, all of them will have a disproportionate benefit to blacks.  None of them depend on having just the right people with power.

Selling fear

I recently heard a presentation by Strategos International on workplace safety and suicide prevention.  The speaker almost immediately set off my BS detector.

Bits and pieces of the speech, paraphrased and filtered through my memory:
We're a big deal with major clients.  I'm Vice President of... (If your company is a big deal, why is a vice president doing a routine speech?)
We love companies like...who hire us before they have an incident.  (Incidents are inevitable without their help?)
I bet the White Settlement Texas church wished they had a security plan before there were 3 dead (The murderer was shot and killed by a member of the security team, while several other parishioners drew guns and advanced on the shooter.  That sounds like they had a plan, even if it didn't turn out perfectly)
The world is a more and more dangerous place  (except statistically it isn't, murder is at or near the lowest level it has been in my lifetime)
We've had XXXX school shootings since... (No definition given, so what counts as a school shooting?  What does it have to do with workplace safety?)

The speech was padded to be half an hour, but could be summed up in a few lines--Most suicides and spree shooters show signs, talk of violence before they strike.  so "see something, say something NOW"

According to Google, their headquarters is a little one-story building next door to a strip mall.  Google Street View shows the strip mall's parking lot to be oddly empty.   It turns out that the strip mall is entirely occupied by the International House of Prayer University.  Strategos main focus appears to be church security, but they got their start with a grant to teach defense against school shooting.  According to their website, the Vice President for Operations is a black belt in Sho-Lum-Tae Karate.  Searching "Sho Lum Tae", the top results are all that the vice president of operations is a black belt.   Basically nothing I found on Google helped to disarm my BS detector, it just got more and more odd.

Weight maintenance and random thoughts

According to my diet gurus, almost everyone who maintains their goal weight 2 years will maintain it 5.  I'm  past 3 years well below target.  What was my target?  211...(based on my max allowed weight in the USAF)...then 200, then 192 which is what I consider my real goal--that's based on Metlife's maximum longevity.  I got down to a one-day low of 176.  Now I'm around 183, plus or minus a couple.  If I get above 185 for more than a day I get a bit stricter until I'm back down.

Some of this will repeat from my last weight loss post, this is what I've settled on for maintaining.

Oddities:

For a few months my tailbone was sore.  That improved. 

My feet are at least a full size smaller. 

My hat is a lot smaller. 

For a while I would occasionally kick myself in the ankle when I walked.
Most candy is too sweet, when I was very strict most candy was unpleasant.
Either fewer or vastly less severe colds.
Less congestion and sinus trouble.
I can't lift as much, but I've got far greater endurance.
Rarely need an afternoon nap.

I've settled on a relatively limited diet, with days off a few times a month.

I cook main dishes ahead in big batches and freeze in pint deli containers--2 kinds of chili, several spicy bean dishes, split pea soup, hummus, Alton Brown's Winter vegetable soup.  Most of these are about 7 or 8 pints at a time.

Strong black Aeropress coffee early in the morning.  (by strong I mean 3 scoops per mug, Aeropress lets you go this strong without being bitter. The coffee being bitter, I mean)

Breakfast around 9am at work, varies or skipped at home.   A pint of raw vegetables (usually mini sweet peppers), a pint or so of fruit.  I was also drinking a smoothie with a pound of frozen fruit and a half cup of almond milk, I've stopped that.

Lunch is a pint of raw vegetables, a pint of cooked vegetables with Chipotle Mrs Dash,  a pint of main dish and a pint of fruit.  After lunch I often have about half an ounce of 70% dark chocolate. Not too particular about the brand, most 70% tastes pretty good to me, 80% or higher is too bitter.   Milk chocolate is now too sweet.

Another cup of coffee early afternoon.  I was also trying to reduce my caffeine, so I'm limited to 2 cups a day., or sometimes iced tea in the summer.  I don't drink pop anymore, I do have selzer, sometimes plain, sometimes flavored but not sweetened.

Snack is a pint of fruit or raw vegetables.

Dinner is a huge salad, at least a pound and a half, often over 2 pounds.  Kale, spinach, mixed greens, cucumbers, tomatoes, half an avocado (when available) and about 1 1/2 oz nuts and seeds most of the time.   I alternate between a small sweet onion and homemade walnut vinaigrette dressing,  otherwise a chopped Granny Smith apple, grapes and raisins with half an ounce of commercial raspberry dressing and 2 oz lemon juice.   Another pint of main dish, or something from the air fryer--sweet potato fries or crunchy buffalo chickpeas.   I weigh many of my salad ingredients to get proportions right and to avoid too much dressing or nuts.  I may also have an ounce or so of cheese.

At first I thought a food processor was essential.  I was using it to chop salad among other things.  Now I don't use it much, instead I have a family sized salad slicer guide.  Dump salad stuff in whole or in large chunks and cut it all at once.  I also thought a high power blender was needed, but now that I'm not drinking daily smoothies it gets less use as well.  I'm glad I have them and still use them, but I don't consider them essential.  In retrospect, I might not recommend daily smoothies--very little effort for the calories, and leaving them out seems to give a bit more leeway for off diet days without exceeding my max weight. I suspect weight loss might be even faster without.  On the other hand, I lost half a pound a day for months with them, so they are at least a substantial improvement on what I ate before.  Maybe to start, then dropping them when my weight loss slowed?  Even though breakfast is usually 14 hours or more after my last meal, I'm not particularly hungry then.  I'm more hungry about 4 hours after lunch.

Restaurants are very difficult, and usually I don't even try to stay on diet if I have to eat out. Salad bars are usually limited in the greens and the dressings are generally fairly bland for the calories.  Kind of annoying to plan a day trip if I don't want to be off diet, I'll have an early lunch and a late breakfast.

My diet gurus wanted very low salt.  I eat fairly low salt--I don't add it to anything.  I try to get "low sodium" but I don't try all that hard.   I'm old enough that I usually have to get up once during the night to pee...but not the night after I've had a normal diet, or even a moderate serving of chips or similar.  I don't drink as much liquid as I did, although I'm sure I get more in my fruit.

At first normal meals would make me a little queasy, especially if there was lots of bread or starch.  That's not entirely gone if I go overboard, but it isn't usually a problem.

There's a common belief that "almost all diets fail, the few that succeed at first almost all fail within a few years".   I was trying to find the exact statistics for that...and found that it is apparently based on a single very old study where people were given a single set of diet instructions.  My experience with this has not been consistent with "so hard almost nobody succeeds"--this has not been all that difficult, nowhere near at my limit of willpower.  It's annoying, there's more time chewing and more frequent grocery visits, but not really a challenge once you're used to it. 
Worth it.

why does anyone need an AR-15

Recently I bought my first "real" rifle, a Ruger AR-556.   This is Ruger's version of the Colt AR15, sharing ancestry with the military M16.  (M4 is the current standard rifle, it is mechanically an M16, but with a shorter barrel and telescoping stock)   AR15 is a Colt trademark, AR is used to refer to all rifles of this type.

Isn't that too powerful for civilians?  No, the  .223 (5.56mm) is at the low end of rifle power.  Before WWII, almost all armies used bolt action rifles with a much more powerful cartridge, generally near the limit of what a draftee soldier could handle one shot at a time. During Vietnam we switched from .308 to .223 caliber giving up some range and power for the ability to control full auto fire and carry two or three times more ammo.   Most other armies followed a similar path.  Hunters of medium to large game generally wanted something closer to the old full power rounds.

But it will go through a bulletproof vest!  Bulletproof vests are a compromise, designed to protect against handguns without excess bulk.   Rifles (other than .22 rimfire) are far more powerful than handguns and will penetrate most vests.  A vest to withstand rifle fire would be much bulkier for little real world benefit, since rifles are rarely used against police.

Isn't the AR a military style rifle?  Depends on what you mean by style.  Many if not most rifles have military ties--in some cases a military design was adopted by civilians, in others the opposite.  Most military rifles from the last 100 years are either more powerful or full auto--intermediate caliber semiautos like the AR-15 are uncommon in military use.   Before must service rifles were full auto it was common for leftover military guns to be sold as surplus, generally a really good way to get a quality rifle cheap.

Civilians shouldn't own machine guns!  What crimes are you aware of by legally owned machine guns?  You're almost certainly wrong, we go decades without violent crimes using legal machine guns anywhere in America.  It is possible to legally own a true machine gun, but only if it was registered prior to 1986, if you've had a background check, and you've paid a $200 transfer tax every time ownership changes.

Isn't the AR an assault rifle?  The M16 is, the modern AR15 is not.  Assault rifle has a pretty standard definition of a machine gun using an intermediate power rifle cartridge. 

But it is an assault weapon, and it is a rifle, what's the difference? Assault weapon is a term invented to sound like assault rifle.  For 10 years, assault weapon rifles (there was a definition for pistols as well..that included most of the pistols that police use) were defined federally as a semiautomatic rifle with a removable magazine and 2 or more of the following:
Folding or telescoping stock (so a stock adjustable to fit 2 different people would fall under this)
Pistol grip--a gun is more deadly if the angle of your wrist changes?
Bayonet mount (do we really have bayonet crime?)
Flash hider or threaded barrel to accommodate one.  A flash hider redirects the flash so less shows up to the shooter, it is still visible to others.  They are also used to make a 14" barrel legally 16 inches to duplicate the look of an M4.
Grenade launcher--this one is particularly silly.  An underbarrel grenade launcher is more restricted than an AR15 by itself (same rules as real machine guns), while a 22mm launcher is a flash hider of 22mm diameter, so a rifle grenade slides over it.  Plus each grenade falls under the same rules as a machine gun, including the $200 transfer tax.
If this is the best they could come up with, it indicates to me that there isn't a real functional difference, they are banning things that look scary--or they are banning whatever they can get away with.

Aren't they easily converted to machine guns?  AR15's are not easily converted except by replacing the sear with an auto sear...which is legally a machine gun all by itself, subject to all the laws of machine guns. The receivers of AR15's have enough differences from M16s that the "machine gun" parts of the M16 either will not fit or will not function as machine guns.  There was a time when some semiautomatic machine gun lookalike guns (mostly pistol caliber) were easily converted, this loophole closed decades ago--current law says that if it is easily converted, it is a machine gun.

What about capacity? Isn't that a problem?  
There is at least some sense to that in the particular, unusual situation of spree murders, but it isn't inherent in the AR-rather almost ANY gun with a box magazine (which is almost all semiautomatics) can take a larger magazine.   You probably won't see many extremely high capacities in larger calibers just because the magazine length and weight would be unwieldy.  Capacity works both ways though--a good guy is likely to have only the capacity he's legally allowed.

You don't need an AR for hunting, do you?  Did Rosa Parks need to sit on the front of the bus?  Although I don't hunt,  .223 ARs are used for hunting when the game is small enough, with deer being somewhere around the upper limit.   The Second Amendment isn't about hunting--it was written by literal revolutionaries.  It was meant  for a situation like a president who refuses to leave office, for police turning a blind eye when racists firebomb churches, to protect against rioting, looting or foreign invaders.

A couple of guys with AR15's can't stand up to the US Army.   A couple of guys shouldn't be able to.  A majority on the other hand should be able to withstand their own government if the government won't obey or allow an honest election.  I see this as deterrence rather than something that will ever happen--As long as we CAN revolt, we won't need to.  To be clear, I don't think we are anywhere near needing to revolt, but I don't want to move in that direction.

The second amendment only applies to guns available when it was written, and it's a collective right  Does freedom of the press only apply to literal manual, mechanical presses?  Does freedom of speech cover telephone conversations?  What would be an unconstitutional infringement of a collective right?

That's different, speech doesn't kill people.  How many kids has anti-vax idiocy killed?  And yet giving the government the ability to censor this sort of speech would be worse.  We've had bans on sex worker ads under the pretext of protecting exploited women and girls, that in fact makes sex work more dangerous.

OK, I don't know the details, but isn't it obvious we need to do something to stop these mass shootings?  How much should we base laws and loss of rights on sensationalism? We're talking about 0.24% of gun murders, according to Mother Jones magazine.   What about the Red Menace and McCarthy?  There were a few communist agents in the government and Hollywood back then, there are almost certainly a few now--does that justify purges and blacklists?  Another possibility for "do something" is to violate the first amendment instead of the second--these shootings are more likely in the days after a previous one.  If we restricted reporting on the first one, if we didn't keep reporting the name of these losers, refused to let them become famous we would have fewer of them.
...and while I would love it if news organizations would adopt that policy voluntarily, or even via threads of boycott, I'm firmly against a law demanding it.  A free press is just as important as gun rights.  I don't want the Trump administration or any other in charge of deciding what's "fake news"--especially since there is no way to limit this to what was originally intended.

So why an AR for me?  In the 70's and 80's, there were many, many different architectures of personal computers.  Eventually IBM released their version.  This used many third party parts including the operating system, making the clone industry possible.  It wasn't the best or cheapest at first, but the backing of IBM got it past the initial teething pains until it became the dominant type of computer.  The AR-15 took a somewhat similar path--Invented by Armalite, sold to Colt, years of improvements resulting in a lightweight and reliable gun. At some point the patents expired and the clone market opened up (this took a lot longer than with computers), now it is the most common centerfire rifle type, possibly the most common overall. (Centerfire effectively means anything more powerful than a .22 rimfire, including most handguns)  If you gol look at the rifle section of a typical gun shop, you'll probably find something like roughly a third .22 rimfire, a third ARs and a third everything else--and a lot of that last third are guns too powerful to be practical in an AR platform.  There is no worry about the manufacturer dropping support or going out of business.  it's the most common for many reasons, and many of those reasons apply to me.

comments are off due to a persistent spammer. 

Drug legalization

Saw the same basic argument by Aesop on two of the blogs I follow, Borepatch and Bayou Renaissance Man Turns out my fisking of https://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2019/07/if-we-legalize-and-tax-drugs-it-will.html is too long to leave as a comment, so I'll do it as a post here.

...drug dealers and narco-cartels will line up twenty deep to pay their taxes on their newly legalized products, they being such law-abiding and tax-paying folks since forever.

Properly legalized, current dealers and cartels won't be the ones selling.  They won't be able to compete with merely sleazy but mostly legal operations, let alone if "corporate greed" gets involved.  (Note, I'm generally in favor of corporate greed).  Sure, they might control where the majority is grown and produced now, but there are lots of places you can grow the raw materials...if you don't have some government official with a gun you need to bribe or hide from.

...cartels will not smuggle drugs in illicitly, unlike they already do with legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco products, which was your most recent argument for why we should stop trying to stop drugs from getting here.

Does anyone smuggle cigarettes to Missouri?  If we tax drugs at multiples of their free market price there will be smuggling.   Don't do that unless you're trying to fail.

...drug cartels and dealers will not undercut the price of legal, taxed drugs by selling their product for less, exactly unlike they've been doing with pot in Califrutopia since 0.2 seconds after weed became legal here, because they're not capitalists, and will do nothing to maintain and expand their market share, and profits, even by continuing to break the law.

California tax rates are rarely the right answer, no matter what the question. 

...the cartels will not get fifty times wealthier, once getting their product safely into the U.S. will become virtually consequence free once it hits our shores, and thus be emboldened to try to take over this country de facto if not actually de jure, as they already have in any number of nations south of the Rio Grande.

Profit margins will be similar to other products, unless we do something stupid like California-tax them.  With legal competition, the amount of money will not support cartels, especially if they keep their risks and their legit competition doesn't.  That's true even if the legal producers have to grow in less than ideal conditions--if it needs a greenhouse to grow in Texas or Ohio, and it's legal, that isn't much of a barrier.

...drug dealers will never, ever allow minor children to get their hands on drugs, just like that never happens with alcohol and tobacco now.

...they will never expressly market their products to younger users, knowing that the actuarial tables means that as their old clientele dies off from using their products, that's the only way to continue raking in fabulous sums of money, unlike producers of legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco do right now, and since forever.

I knew who to get pot from in about 6th grade, late 70's, a few years later than that for pills. (note.  "knew who" isn't the same as "bought from")    I was driving before I could reliably get beer, which is what I actually wanted.   The dealer was risking jail to sell to anyone, selling to a kid made little to no difference.  A carryout on the other hand had plenty of risk-free customers, the tiny extra profit selling to me wasn't worth it.   There's a really good chance that legalization would make it more difficult for teens to get drugs.  Unless things have improved since the 70's, it can't be much easier.

And MOST of the point of legalization is that there won't be fabulous sums of money to corrupt everything.  Nobody sane is worried about Bacardi taking over governments.  Cartels aren't doing this to get people hooked, they are doing it to sell.  They can't afford to give drugs away until they are illegal again.

...drug users will never shoot up in public, they being such famous respecters of community standards in the public square and public sensibilities since forever.

...drug users will never discard their needles and paraphernalia in public places, they being so well-known for their long-term planning skills, their respect of other peoples' welfare, and being such all around great neighbors.

If you want to rid some places of junkies, which would work better:  1.  Make drug use illegal everywhere, even though that hasn't worked so far   2.  Make drug use legal in private, moderately criminal in public, and very criminal in a handful of places like schoolyards.

...junkies desperate for a fix will not rob, burgle, and thieve any longer, despite not being able to afford a fix, because they are such law-abiding citizens, and so well-provided with long-term planning and financial responsibility skills.

If someone is going to steal to feed their habit, I'd rather that habit be as cheap as possible so they don't have to steal as much.

...police enforcing the collection of the taxes on legal drugs will never bungle the address on warrants for violators of same, and never, ever shoot innocent citizens, which every Dope For Dope argues as a reason to end the War On Drugs now.

Do we really have problems and raids collecting liquor taxes, cigarette taxes, etc?  I've never heard of a bungled beer tax raid.   The idea that drugs will be sold by the same people with the same methods and locations is absurd--it will be the sleazy carryout that used to sell "bath salts" and "tobacco use only" glass pipes.

...ordinary citizens will not see DUIs skyrocket, once pot, meth, cocaine, heroin, and everything else join alcohol as legal drugs to imbibe prior to a quick trip to the store for more.

Or maybe we allow delivery, or Uber.  We aren't going to have a huge spike in use.  Chances are pot use will go up, alcohol down a bit and not much change with other drugs, the people who will take them already do. And we haven't even begun to talk about people in legit pain whose doctors are afraid to proscribe medically appropriate amounts of legal drugs.   God forbid a cancer patient gets a buzz.   And I've yet to see someone seriously advocating legalization of driving stoned.

...employees and employers will see far less people stoned off their ass at work while using power tools, forklifts, semi-tractors, cranes, and every other machine known to man, just like no one now ever comes to work drunk, which will make work a much safer place than now.

Employers would still be allowed to drug test.   I've known more people who say they are clean because of employee testing than fear of arrest.  On the other hand, I don't hang out with known users, my sample may be biased.

...medical insurance prices will plummet once anyone who wants to can get heroin and cocaine any time, anywhere, there being no actual medical consequences to their use, neither once nor serially.

Let insurance companies give better rates based on actual risk--those of us who don't use can get better rates than drunks or junkies.   I'll give up a bottle of pee or a chunk of hair every so often, or every ER visit to get cheaper rates.

...ER wait times will plummet because of the total absence of millions of more drug addicts after legalization, and your father or grandmother having a stroke or heart attack will never have to sit around in the waiting room hoping not to die because every bed in the hospital will not be filled up with the drunk and the stoned in small armies, 24/7/365.

There will be fewer people in ERs just trying to scam some narcotics.
There will be fewer people overdosing on Fentanyl-laced drugs (which EVERTHING I're read says accounts for an overwhelming majority of current overdoses). 
There will be fewer people overdosing because they got a stronger batch than expected.

...the cost to society of even the anemic, hamstrung, and deliberately and corruptly incompetent half-assed current War On Drugs will not pale into infinitesimal insignificance beside the new cost to society and civilization of "Legalize and Tax".

Legalize and lightly tax--tax it like beer, not like California pot or New York cigarettes.  If you tax it so poor people can't afford it...you lose most of the benefits of legalization.  Let police and prisons concentrate on crime that directly hurts or risks decent people. 

Recreational drugs are generally stupid and bad for your health.  Freedom includes the right to do things I think are stupid.  Legalization done right may be bad for junkies, but it's their choice.  Legalization done right will be good for the rest of us.   Prohibition of alcohol was a well-intentioned disaster that we eventually fixed.  The War on Drugs is pretty much the same, except it's taking much longer to fix.  Maybe "legalize everything" is too far (and maybe not) but "prohibit everything except alcohol" is too far the other direction. 


eBay lighting setup

Ebay pictures are a special case of photography.  As a buyer, I want clarity over artistry.  As a seller, I want to give buyers what they want with pictures that are flattering but don't hide significant flaws, and I want to do that quickly.   Note, this also applies for documenting my collection.

My setup evolved, and I might do it a bit differently if I were starting from scratch or had different sources to scrounge from.  I started with a cheap light tent that my wife found at a big box store, when I was mostly photographing watches.  This could be easily replicated with some sheer white cloth and a PVC or wire frame.  It came with lights, but they were inconvenient to set up in a way that gave the light I wanted, and the official  background cloth that came with the kit was usually wrinkled enough to show in pictures.

I tried various different backgrounds--smooth cloth, fuzzy cloth, cloth draped on its own, cloth glued to plastic sheet, cloth glued to posterboard.  Wasn't happy with any of them.  My current setup is a piece of blue posterboard.  Doesn't look great in person, looks fine in photos.  The downside is that it gets dirty easily.  I'm going to experiment with coating the next one in clear spray on finish. To get the corner curve the way I wanted, I cut open a couple of steel food cans, then cut each can into 1/4 of a cylinder and glued the posterboard to the inside radius of the cans.  The cans make a small radius without creasing, giving more useful space in the tent.  I like blue, but no matter what color I chose it would be a fairly medium shade so it doesn't require compensation in metering.  (This is especially true if your subject is relatively small,

With my old DSLR,  it was hard to get low noise and enough depth of field while handholding with the lights I was using. For a while my solution to that was to borrow my wife's mid-grade point and shoot--its small sensor gave more depth of field at acceptable visual noise levels.   Eventually I covered 3 sheets of foam core board (craft section of Walmart) in LED strips from Amazon.  The sides were about 40% covered, the top as close to 100% as I could manage.  This gives ample light for even my old DSLR.  The lights are powered from a 12v power brick from a thrift store.   (Side note--a new mid-grade DSLR has less noise than a 10 year old entry level)

The rest of the setup is not as necessary, but nice additions with stuff that I had already.  The whole thing sits on a piece of 3/4 plywood bolted to an industrial super heavy duty tripod, probably a speaker stand. This lets me adjust the height while taking up minimal space.  I had an old darkroom enlarger timer in my collection, I've started using it to control the lights--push of the button and the lights go on for about 45 seconds, then the timer resets itself automatically. 

Photo Eaze dental camera

"The PHOTO EAZE CAMERA will permit an inexperienced operator to obtain professional results of the most difficult photographic areas or cavities of the body."  From the instruction manual that came with this camera....apparently despite its cobbled together appearance, this was a commercial product from a real company made for multiple decades, and the typewritten paper labels and blobs of paint are original to the camera.  The handwritten label on the side of the base appears to be from a previous owner.   (Click pictures to enlarge)

I think this particular camera is from around 1989.   The camera body is a Yashica FX-3 Super 2000, which was introduced in 1986.  One of the accessories is wrapped in newspaper from 1989 and held with masking tape, the handwriting matches the other notes, and other images of Photo Eaze cameras show similar wrapping and handwriting on a different camera.

The lens mount has been removed and a bellows permanently attached with phillips screws.  Lens is a Russian Heilos 44-2, possibly from a rangefinder--a very inexpensive lens, but likely adequate for the purpose.  A collar with a pointer is attached to the aperture ring of the lens, this points to an odd glossy label with numbers that do not correspond to normal F stops.  The mounting screw for the collar runs into a painted over blob, this appears to be deliberately preventing setting the aperture wide open.  Since this lens does not have a typical SLR auto aperture, the viewfinder ranges from slightly dim to very dark depending on the aperture setting.   There is a flash tube on either side of the lens in grey painted cylinders, the lens assembly and front of the bellows appear to be coated in the same grey paint.  The flash lenses were not well masked when built, there are spots of paint on them.  There are wires soldered to the hot shoe on top that lead into the base.  Several places on the camera have hand-painted spots calling out controls, and there's some plastic hacked away to allow easier access to the film rewind button.

The camera, bellows and flash tubes are mounted to a roughly cast platform connected to an aluminum hobbyist project box by a pistol grip.  There's a mount for a cable release in the pistol grip.  The box has a switch, a hole with a small neon tube and a rectangular light, plus an assortment of typed paper labels. On the front is a Photo Ease MFG logo that appears to have been cut from letterhead paper, complete with a phone number starting with YU-2. (elsewhere that's YUkon-2.  The address currently houses a small copy shop in New York City.


 Power cord is to the rear, the bottom has a grey PVC bottom held by 6 sheet metal screws.  Under that cover is a tangle of wires and components wrapped in paper masking tape.  The ground wire is just jammed into a corner of the box, held by the plastic bottom.  I'm guessing not UL listed...

The camera came with a fairly flimsy fiberboard case
with some bare wood blocks attached, and an assortment of rods.  Most of the rods have a frame at the end with dots of paint near the corners to indicate the picture area, one has a platform.  According to the instructions most of the frames are placed even with the part you are trying to photograph.  This will push the camera back on the bellows  by the proper amount to focus at the appropriate distance for that attachment.  Each rod has a large and small number depending on which of the two allowed film types you are using.

The instructions have one page with professional looking (if old-fashioned) typeset, line drawings and photos showing different cameras and an additional 3 pages of instructions that appear to be typed on a manual typewriter, with xx'd out words and handwritten corrections in blue ink.  One of the photographed cameras appears to be a Russian Zenit.  Zenit-based cameras were among the cheapest and most primitive SLRs available in USA in the 60's and 70's.  The other camera in the photos appears to be a Wirgin Edixa with a waist level finder.  The Edixa series ended in 1968, and Wirgin went out of business in the early 70's.  There isn't much detail in the line drawings, but they appear to represent an Exakta or more likely the budget version Exa.  The instructions show versions for dental work, plastic surgery and dermatology, pathology,  "eye camera", a copy stand, and a gynecology camera with a similar set of frames for 2x3", 4x6", 6x9" and "Cervix (Tubular)" attachments.   I think the gynecological version explains the Edixa--In its time it was likely the least expensive SLR with a waist level finder available, so the photographer would not have to put their eye right against the camera while photographing a cervix.  On the other hand with the dim viewfinder I'm not sure if they could see anything anyhow.  (I'm also guessing that any patient who saw how this was wired and the difficulty in sterilizing would refuse...)

By this time Yashica had introduced the Dental Eye for many of the same purposes, even using the same camera body as a base.   The Dental Eye was a much more refined camera.  All the specialty parts including flash are inside an oversized lens barrel, there are no rods or frames, and focusing sets the aperture.

Information relating to the Photo Eaze camera is a bit hard to find, compounded by "eaze" being far more common as the name of a marijuana delivery service and a sexual lubricant.   I've found a few pictures with Edixa and Kalimar/Zenit bodies, and one with a Pentax K1000 body.  One source with a Kalimar bodied version from 1982 showed an invoice for $399. The only picture with a Yashica body I've found so far is the eBay auction I bought mine from.   If anyone reading this has information I've left out, please leave a comment.