Sushi Counter
File a Lawsuit, Break the Law in the Process
So… The Office of Hawaiian Affairs filed a lawsuit against the University of Hawaii challenging the lease for the summit of Mauna Kea. This is news across the state, press conferences were held, a big media deal.
You can see the images here. There are two shots, one of a wrecked Toyota from earlier this year, one of an ancient Hawaiian ahu or shrine high on the mauna.
As one Facebook friend already noted “At least they credited you!” That does not make the infringement go away, it is still infringement. They even left my watermarks and copyright symbol on the image, there is simply no excuse.
Interestingly it appears that OHA, a state agency, does not host their website on a state server. Rather they use Google Cloud Services to host the website. Thus it makes filing a DMCA take-down notice much easier.
I have done just that.
This is not my first DMCA takedown action, or even my third, done this a few times, it works fairly well. The notice goes to the hosting service, if they do not take action, they become legally liable. As a result service providers take DMCA notices fairly seriously.
A legal notice has been served and should be addressed in the next few days. We shall see what the OHA webmasters do with that. Either they remove the material, or the entire website goes poof.
Terminal Block
The Perfection of Fish and Chips
While the British may have originated the dish, they did not perfect it.
I tried little shops in fishing ports and beach-side resort towns, I had fish and chips in pubs and from London street vendors. I went out of my way for the proper dish, one of my favorites since I was very young.
Waterlilies
Full Moon
Flasher Fun
With the Keck Observatory open house approaching I am helping get one of the most popular activities ready. At the last two open houses we have made flasher pins, we will do so again this year.
The PCB is configured as a pin or badge, with a brooch pin soldered to the back that also serves as a switch to turn on the LED’s.
The original design came from John Maute at SAO. The circuit is based around the venerable LM555 timer IC configured as an astable multivibrator. The LM555 timing circuit is simple enough to solder together in a few minutes, complex enough to look cool and provide a real introduction to an electronic circuit.
Relay
Telescope on the Beach
New Front Bearings for the Ford Explorer
My vehicle comes to a rather abrupt stop, the front brakes lock up while pulling onto Paniolo drive, the main road serving the village. I am stuck across the northbound lanes.
Shut down, restart, nothing unlocks the brakes. I am still stuck in the middle of the road. Another driver gives me a quizzical look and drives around me.
With no other idea I put the vehicle in 4WD low and drag the locked front tires backwards into the side street where I can safely work on the issue, I left skid marks in the road.
In retrospect the failure was not a complete surprise… I knew the front bearings were going, making noise, but the vehicle was still driveable. Over the last week I had checked on prices and asked about with the guys about borrowed tools to do the job. I was thinking I had a few weeks before the issue was truly an issue.
Nope.