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Showing posts from November 1, 2020

LavaCon 2026 and the future.

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LavaCon is a conference now going on 25 years. Its always fun at conferences where folks collaborate on what the future holds. This year I drove to Charlotte NC from Duluth GA to attend. I used the Tesla in Full Self Drive. I went park-to-park without touching the wheel for over 200 miles. It's crazy. I don't think most people understand how well it works. Lots of nay-sayers still, but it really does work. Be on guard, but enjoy. I spent some of my time "driving" while conversing with Grok as part of my daydreaming. I was discussing with Grok an idea I have of building a West system (cold molded) old style barrel-back runabout maybe 20 feet long- all varnished Mahogony. Of course this boat would have an exotic 12-cylinder engine under a transparent engine hatch between the twin cockpits. We discussed the designs, available actual study plans and pre-lofted design documents for the hull. We also discussed the best engine (perhaps a BMW N73) coupled with a Velvet Dri...
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The remnants of Hurricane Zeta hit us pretty good. This time it was wind, not rain with Delta a few weeks back. A lot of trees down; we were without power for a couple of days. I had the generator hooked up powering the entire house once I convinced myself the power wasn't coming back on for awhile. The generator did well and I think it may be the first time I truely needed the generator (in this case it kept the food frozen). It felt good that I was prepared and we enjoyed the family time. Here is a video I just found that shows the derailment story in Duluth from back in June. A real high energy railfan was there. This is the train I like to visit and have filmed with my drone. It's a marvel. It is wildly cool this guy caught the train as it derailed although he was about 1/2 mile away from where the cars flew from the track. The next video is the first minutes at the scene of the derailment.