A thread for miscellaneous stuff...

[rockfan4]

As you know, I've been dragged into my wife's horse obsession.
One thing I started doing is following a horse rescue about an hour north of me, both on Youtube and Facebook. Some times it's hard to watch. A lot of the horses they take in are in pretty rough condition, and for some the only thing they can offer is a last act of kindness. This episode was different though. A couple weeks ago they offered a free adoption weekend. As long as you passed their screening, you could take home a horse.

One of the adopters was this young man. He's 10, but he knows his stuff. I'll post the link to the video below the picture. The pony's barn name was Shady, he's going to rename him to Western. Shady came to the rescue almost two years ago, unhandled and afraid of everyone and everything. They've worked hard with him over the years, getting him to trust people, and eventually getting a halter on him and teaching him to accept a human's touch. He still has a long way to go, but I think he's found his right person.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yl7n_kWB7yc

[CurtEgerer]

^^^ awesome.

This could be useful ....

[Billiam 911 2.8]

This story and the video behind it warms the heart. I never trust anyone who dislikes animals. My experience is that animals can spot humans that are indifferent or mean them harm.

[oldE]

The chatter about geography on another thread got me thinking about an exchange I had at the interpretive center. I asked a visitor where home was for him. He said BC, east of Vancouver. I suggested some towns in the Fraser Valley and he responded, "farther east".
I asked if we were talking the Okanogan Valley and when he confirmed he was from there, I started listing towns from south to north.
He finally said,"Vernon." and I asked if the Italian Kitchen was still open as my wife and I had dined there a few years before.
When my son was working in Calgary, we used to visit him then drive through the Rockies and catch a ferry to visit our friends on Vancouver Island. We saw a bit of the interior of Southern BC .
Good memories.
Best
Les

[oldE]

The chatter about geography on another thread got me thinking about an exchange I had at the interpretive center. I asked a visitor where home was for him. He said BC, east of Vancouver. I suggested some towns in the Fraser Valley and he responded, "farther east".
I asked if we were talking the Okanogan Valley and when he confirmed he was from there, I started listing towns from south to north.
He finally said,"Vernon." and I asked if the Italian Kitchen was still open as my wife and I had dined there a few years before.
When my son was working in Calgary, we used to visit him then drive through the Rockies and catch a ferry to visit our friends on Vancouver Island. We saw a bit of the interior of Southern BC .
Good memories.
Best
Les

[oldE]

Another BC story:
On our first trip to see the interior of the province with our friends in '78, we stayed at an old edifice called the Revelstoke Hotel.
A month or so later, visiting my folks, when I mentioned the hotel by name, my mother got an odd expression on her face and said, " You're uncle,Slim was killed there."
Turns out around the time of the First World War, he worked in the hotel and was shot by some guy who was drunk and fighting. I knew my mother's half brothers were a bit older, I was shocked to learn of his violent death.

Best
Les

[HobieMarty]

I was out in the yard the other day after a heavy rain and at the edge of the woods I saw what I thought was a root, but when I looked closer, I found the object to be a lug wrench. I pulled the thing out of the ground, but it had some TV cable and electrical cords around it that kept me from pulling the thing completely out of the ground. Today, I had some time and cut the cables and excavated it from the earth. I also pulled all the cables and wires out of the ground and properly discarded them in the trash. A previous owner of the property obviously used the edge of the woods as a dumping ground. Anyway, yeah, I found a lug wrench. Why would anyone just bury a lug wrench?
But wait, there's more.
When I was patting the dirt back down, I saw some little wheels sticking out of the ground, so I dug around with a small shovel and found a Tootsietoy Armored Car, and it was intact. I cleaned it up a little, and I plan on restoring it. I wonder how long it has been buried also? I was amazed that the plastic chassis had not deteriorated. So today's piddling in the yard became somewhat of a treasure hunt.

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[masraum]

Originally Posted by rockfan4

As you know, I've been dragged into my wife's horse obsession.
One thing I started doing is following a horse rescue about an hour north of me, both on Youtube and Facebook. Some times it's hard to watch. A lot of the horses they take in are in pretty rough condition, and for some the only thing they can offer is a last act of kindness. This episode was different though. A couple weeks ago they offered a free adoption weekend. As long as you passed their screening, you could take home a horse.

One of the adopters was this young man. He's 10, but he knows his stuff. I'll post the link to the video below the picture. The pony's barn name was Shady, he's going to rename him to Western. Shady came to the rescue almost two years ago, unhandled and afraid of everyone and everything. They've worked hard with him over the years, getting him to trust people, and eventually getting a halter on him and teaching him to accept a human's touch. He still has a long way to go, but I think he's found his right person.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yl7n_kWB7yc

Horses are amazing animals. I occasionally see posts on FB from some woman that rescues horses. The horses often are not trusting of people and she works with them. Amazing stuff. It's shocking seeing videos of horses that are skin and bones or horses that have insane hooves that can barely walk. Fortunately, I've only seen videos where the horses are rehabilitated, at least, that's what the videos portray.

[masraum]

This is cool. Scientists have managed to allow a handful of folks to see a completely new color.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/scientists-say-theyve-discovered-a-new-color-an-unprecedented-hue-only-ever-seen-by-five-people-180986473/

Five people have experienced what scientists say is a brand-new color dubbed “olo,” thanks to an experiment that involved firing laser pulses into their eyes.

The method allowed them to see a vibrant hue they described as a “blue-green of unprecedented saturation,” according to a new paper published in the journal Science Advances last week.

“It was jaw-dropping. It’s incredibly saturated,” says study co-author Ren Ng, an electrical engineer at the University of California, Berkeley, and one of the participants who saw olo, to Ian Sample at the Guardian. “We predicted from the beginning that it would look like an unprecedented color signal, but we didn’t know what the brain would do with it.”

Human retinas typically have three types of cone cells, which are what allow our eyes to detect various wavelengths of light. L cones detect long wavelengths, which we see as red. M cones detect medium wavelengths, which we see as green. And S cones pick up on short wavelengths, which we see as blue.

If the middle-wavelength M cones are activated under natural conditions, either S or L cones will also be activated, since the cones overlap a little in the wavelengths they detect. So, the researchers wondered what would happen if only the M cone was stimulated. To do that, they used a device called Oz, which is equipped with a laser that can stimulate single cone cells.

Five people—four male and one female—participated in the study, and three of them were on the research team. The other two participants were scientists at the University of Washington who didn’t know anything about the purpose of the experiment.

First, the researchers mapped part of each participant’s retina to determine the position of each type of cone cell. Then, they stimulated just the M cones with the laser and asked them to describe what they saw. Ng tells BBC Radio 4 that olo is “more saturated than any color that you can see in the real world.”
a bright blue-green color
This teal represents the closest color to the newly described "olo," but scientists say the true hue can't be seen without their experimental laser setup. Screenshot, hexadecimal color #00ffcc

“Let’s say you go around your whole life and you see only pink, baby pink, a pastel pink,” he adds. “And then one day you go to the office and someone’s wearing a shirt, and it’s the most intense baby pink you’ve ever seen, and they say it’s a new color and we call it red.”

To make sure the participants were really seeing a new color, they also took a color-matching test. In one of the experiments, participants viewed olo beside an adjustable hue and were asked to match its shade to olo as closely as possible. The participants selected a teal color. Then, the research team asked them to turn a dial to adjust olo by adding or removing white light, until it matched the saturation of a teal. All participants desaturated olo by adding white light to bring it closer to the teal.

“It’s a fascinating study, a truly groundbreaking advance in the ability to understand the photoreceptor mechanisms underlying color vision. The technical demands necessary to achieve this are enormous,” says Manuel Spitschan, a light researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics who was not involved in the study, to Jacek Krywko at Scientific American. “An open question is how this advance can be used.”

Some researchers say the work could have medical applications. Andrew Stockman, a vision researcher at University College London, tells Carissa Wong at New Scientist that the results aren’t just “kind of fun,” but they could also enable people with red-green color blindness to experience typical vision.

Not everyone is convinced that olo is truly a new color, however. John Burbur, a vision researcher at the University of London, tells the Guardian that the work has “limited value.”

“It is not a new color,” he says. “It’s a more saturated green that can only be produced in a subject with normal red-green chromatic mechanism when the only input comes from M cones.”

Unfortunately, most people aren’t likely to experience olo for now. It can only be seen using the Oz laser technology in a scientific lab. “This is basic science,” Ng tells the Guardian. “We’re not going to see olo on any smartphone displays or any TVs any time soon. And this is very, very far beyond VR headset technology.”

[flatbutt]

Where have these been all my life? I have struggled with the keyless chucks since their introduction. I just can't get them tight enough and I end up having to wrestle the smooth shank bit out of the wood.

Harbor freight had a small set of the hex shanks on sale. Oh sweet relief!

[oldE]

Someone gave me a set of those maybe 25 years ago. There are basic sizes of twist drills, augers, forster bits, counter sinks and hole saws. Maybe not the best quality, but once I got a 1/4 inch impact driver, I started using them more as they have the notch in the shank so they lock in.

[A930Rocket]

If you use the drill bit with the hex, make sure they are the one piece. I’ve used a few, where they have an aluminum or cheap metal base and the drill bit wall twist out of the hex.

[A930Rocket]

Originally Posted by HobieMarty

I was out in the yard the other day after a heavy rain and at the edge of the woods I saw what I thought was a root, but when I looked closer, I found the object to be a lug wrench….

Years ago, we were building in our neighborhood, and we had a laborer working for us. Along the wood line towards the entrance, we told him to grab an old wheel and tire and throw it in a dumpster. After a while, he comes to us and tells us he couldn’t throw the wheel away, because it was attached to a car! We left it there.

[HobieMarty]

Originally Posted by A930Rocket

Years ago, we were building in our neighborhood, and we had a laborer working for us. Along the wood line towards the entrance, we told him to grab an old wheel and tire and throw it in a dumpster. After a while, he comes to us and tells us he couldn’t throw the wheel away, because it was attached to a car! We left it there.

Wow, that's crazy!!!

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[rockfan4]

Out to dinner with the wife tonight, and I saw one of my former co-workers at another table. When we were done, I went over to say "hi", and he said "I was just going to text you. You need this for your car." He pulls out his phone to show me a picture of a license plate frame he saw in the parking lot. It says "My other ride is a spoiled rotten horse". Yeah, that's my wife's car.

[masraum]

This is cool. Folks in the past were pretty darn smart. It always amazes me when current scientists don't give folks from the past the benefit of a doubt.

[Por_sha911]

Milk is good for staying hydrated. Who knew?

"Research has found that milk actually hydrates better than water or sports drinks," she said.

"This is because milk is packed with natural electrolytes like potassium, sodium, magnesium and calcium, along with carbohydrates and protein, which help your body recover and retain fluids after exercise."

https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/americans-told-avoid-coffee-extreme-heat-warning-3-states

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Por_sha911

Milk is good for staying hydrated. Who knew?



https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/americans-told-avoid-coffee-extreme-heat-warning-3-states

chocolate milk is very popular as an after ride drink (not sure if that's before or after the beer).

[Crowbob]

Originally Posted by HobieMarty

I was out in the yard the other day after a heavy rain and at the edge of the woods…I saw some little wheels sticking out of the ground, so I dug around with a small shovel and found a Tootsietoy Armored Car, and it was intact. I cleaned it up a little, and I plan on restoring it. I wonder how long it has been buried also? I was amazed that the plastic chassis had not deteriorated. So today's piddling in the yard became somewhat of a treasure hunt.

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I would not restore it. Its condition and your story behind it gives it a charm that would be lost without the patina.

[oldE]

My son was telling us his girlfriend's son brought home a toy light sabre after spending the weekend with his dad. Never having seen any of the Star Wars movies, he didn't know much about it and asked my son. As he learned a bit, the questions started coming fast, one after the other. As he was satisfying the kid's hunger for light sabre lore, my son thought to himself, "I have been preparing my whole life for this!". Nerd to the bone.