Bringing Compassion (Ashley Madison)

In June of 2015, a breach of security happened with a company called "Ashley Madison" - a purveyor of cheating spouses, secrets, and probably a lot of illicit behavior.  Under request of someone I know, I obtained the data from that event, trying to run a little bit of profiling.  The data (compressed) occupied over 10Gb.  That is a lot of data.  It expanded to about 20Gb.  That is a ton of data.  When I imported into a temporary database, it expanded to around 45Gb of data.  Yes, 45Gb of damning, dark data.

Curiosity got the better of me and I wanted to do some statistics on it.  So, I tried running a few numbers.  In the process of running a few numbers, I accidentally forgot to pipe the data through the counting mechanism on a single command (I did not make that same mistake again), and it started dumping names to the screen.  As I frantically smacked "CTRL-C" over and over and over in an attempt to cancel that, I was unfortunate enough to witness a few names scroll past.  These were people that I knew.  These were people that I had full respect for one week ago.

That happened two days ago.

I cannot get that out of my head.  As much as I'd like to say that I am not judging, deep down I can just feel the results of their heavy falls from the pedestals on which I had placed them.  The reverberations of simply knowing someone elses sin can lead to two reactions:

• Throw stones at them (stones could be ridicule, insult, or even turning away from them)
• Give them a little room and allow them to try and pick up the pieces of their lives

Now, what do you do when you know this?  How do you react?  The age old question, what would Jesus do?  It brought to my mind the incident of the Savior, when the woman that was caught in adultery was brought to him.  There were two teachings that came about when this occurred:

• No one is without sin, so be careful about casting the first stone
• If you are the one caught in it, stop doing it.

So, how should we be reacting?  Do you want to be the first to cast stones?  Or even the last?  I grew up at dear old Davis High School.  I hated high school.  I was an outcast.  I know what an outcast feels like.  I have been there.  I have experienced it.

Here are some numbers.  In Kaysville, Utah (population of 28,000), there were 932 credit card transactions.  Of those, there were 140 people caught up in that in the city.  In Centerville, Utah (population 16,600), there were over 900 people caught in the data leak.  In Bountiful, Utah (population 43,000),  there were over 1200 people caught in that.  That is well over 2 thousand people that many call neighbors, friends, or family that fell victim to the desires that should be kept between husband and wife.  That is the fall of Helaman's 2000 stripling warriors.

As these people begin to pick up the pieces of their lives that have just crumbled to the ground in a big pile of crap, please take time to do a few things :

• Give them a chance to change.  The Savior did that very thing so many times.
• Remember that they are now fighting a battle that we have never even imagined.  It is resulting in life-ending suicides, divorces (and future divorces), and shattering of everything they have ever known.
• Please bring compassion to the table.  They are going to need as much compassion as they can get.

I am personally grateful that I know the Savior's atonement applies to everyone, including those caught in the Ashley Madison leak.  We need to remember that at the judgement of God, our own "Ashley Madison" data leaks will occur.  Even now, every bad thing we have done is already known.  We cannot hide that fact.  It all comes out in the end.

So be kind.  They get to experience a little of that judgement earlier than we will.  And we will experience it.

3D Scanning - Proof of Concept

Just as a test, I grabbed the Skanect software, an adapter for the Kinect 360, and the sensor from our Xbox. I wanted to see if I could scan something in. The best thing I could think of quickly was the broken down tiller.  It didn't turn out too bad!

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-DqTExptE5aRjBXTnZOUG1GaUE.

I also exported it and imported into Blender :

A try at embedding it in the page (might take a while to load, since it's 57.3M) :

Lathe Compound Slide Refinished

I received the compound slide for the lathe yesterday, and promptly (of course, after mowing the lawn and spraying herbicide all over the lawn to try and kill the weeds) set to work cleaning it up and refinishing it.

The first thing to do was to take it apart.  Yeah, you read that right.... I want to take it apart, and there are two reasons for that.  First, I want to have every part cleaned - no old grease, no rust, no dirt, no old metal flakes in there.  Second, I repainted the lathe, and it would be fairly nice if the tooling matched.  So, off I go.

Surprisingly, it only took a few minutes to have it in pieces.  I already knew the carriage (the bottom casting) for this lathe matched the right part number (L2-51).  I didn't know if the rest of it matched up.

The swivel slide (the second cast iron piece) did match up as well (L2-52).   It is separated from the carriage (L2-51) by way of the compound rest swivel (part 9-301):

I could not validate that casting as it was aluminum, and had no part number stamping.  Riding on top of the assembly is the tool post slide, part number L2-53 :

While apart, I wanted to know if the tool post slide could be replaced with something that would allow me to use the lathe as a simple mill.  It's a nice angled mechanism that keeps things in a solid state, so there is no reason why we can't :

Once I had it apart, I threw some acetone at the parts to clean the old paint off.  This took the longest chunk of time.  I had already picked up some self-etching primer from Sherman-Williams, so I masked off the surfaces that weren't painted with machine gray, and sprayed primer all over.

I used two coats of primer, and then sprayed three coats of Sherman-Williams blue.  I had used the cap that was a close match to the original blue (the cap was slightly lighter in color, but you know, that "cap indicates color" thing means it should be close enough).  Unfortunately, the final blue was more of a sky blue.  Yeah, the cap color was half way between the original blue and the color of the sky.  Still, it doesn't look too bad :

While at it, I dismantled the tool rest, the tailstock, and the headstock for the lathe, and cleaned up and painted them.  The only thing left to refinish is the lathe bed.  I can't test-fit the tools to the lathe bed, either, because I just don't have it right now - I had sent it off to a good ol' welder to braze a crack.  But, as soon as it comes back, it will be time to take the labels off the bed, strip the paint off, and refinish that, too.  Then I can put it back on, and find a milling attachment for the compound slide.  Woohoo!

Shop Footprint - Lathe Table Hack

I don't have a lot of room for a "shop".  Actually, I do have room.  It's about 5'x10'.  That's not a lot of room for anything but storing tools, not actually using them.  As a result, I'm all about trying to reduce my "shop" foot print.

One thing I've acquired is an old Craftsman wood lathe (becoming a wood/metal lathe).  It came with a table under it that was fairly solidly built (half-square steel channel, welded together) - about 2'x4'.  There is a problem with the table ... it's heavy.  So much so that it is a bear to move to where I can use the lathe, and then put it away.

So, I opted for the next-best thing.  I welded a steel square tube to the feet, drilled holes, and painted it.  It allows me to throw caster wheels on when I need to move the thing around, and take them off when turning.  Sometimes, I amaze myself (you should be thinking, "if that's all it takes, there are probably issues there).

While I was at it, I welded some angle iron to the frame, and riveted a chunk of peg-board up.  That allows me to keep my tools with the lathe, without them being in the way.  I also riveted a hinge (simply a "custom angle anchor") and another piece of peg board up, and had a sand-paper storage on the tool "rack".

On the other side of the peg board, I riveted a plastic storage container down to hold spare chucks, spindles, etc.

I also grabbed some 1/16" wire "rope" (cable), and connected a hammer, a wooden "mallet surface" (something I can hit with the hammer and not damage tooling), and a printer rod...

... wait, what?

Yeah, a printer rod.  I took a printer rod, cut it down to size, and, since it had a hole in one side, I cabled it up to the lathe.  It is a perfect size to slip inside the headstock spindle and is used to drive out the Morse Taper #1 (MT1) bits.  Since it's cabled to the table, it's always available.  Now my table is complete, mobile.  The next task is to add some adapters to add a lead screw, making this a complete metal lathe with a compound slide.  I already sold my AK47 - the funds are helping purchase a 3D printer! Can't wait!