All posts by Greg Laden

How to keep Trump in power through 2024 and beyond

Politics, , ,

The first thing to do to keep Donald Trump in power is to make sure impeachment does not happen. The way to trick Democrats into going along with this is to use basic political Kung Fu, using their own weight and movement to bring them down.

Democrats want impeachment. So, trick them into insisting that the House file impeachment proceedings as soon as possible. At this point, the Senate, with its Republican Majority, will not convict Trump because all of those Republicans are loyal. Once the Democrats make hay out of impeaching Trump, and fail, they will look like losers, and the party that looks like the losing party will eventually lose. The Democrats will have spent a huge amount of time, effort, money, and political capital, on an effort that can not succeed. Continue reading How to keep Trump in power through 2024 and beyond →

Interesting LED assisted make project kickstarter coming up.

Technology, ,

You know all those projects where you wire up some electronic circuitry and then hook it all to a bunch of LEDs, then you have fancy or fun lighting? Like a Halloween costume, or a Griswald house, or some nice mood lighting in your home?

It is harder than it looks, though doable if you have a soldering iron and some basic electronic knowledge. The RocketLife project, which is starting a kickstarter any day now, claims to make this much easier.

From the press release: Continue reading Interesting LED assisted make project kickstarter coming up. →

Build Miniature Cities with LEGO

Books, Shopping guides and reviews, , ,

LEGO Micro Cities: Build Your Own Mini Metropolis! is a LEGO building idea book that provides a macro number of examples of building buildings, or other structures using a very small number of bricks. It is like the N-guage of LEGO. This is sort of the opposite of the LEGO idea book I recently reviewed, The LEGO Architecture Idea Book, because the latter is for large scale, and the former for very tiny scale.

Author Jeff Friesen is a famous LEGO builder, and a photographer, who tweets at @jeff_works.

You get an idea of how to build skyscraper, bridges, public transit elements, and tightly packed downtown zones. There are suggestions for how to build the geology that underlies the buildings and other infrastructure. And the subways. Continue reading Build Miniature Cities with LEGO →

Did Voters Vote Climate? Yes And No

Climate Change, Environment, Politics, ,

Voters seem to have liked many candidates endorsed by environmental organizations, or who had good climate change related policies. But, they seem to have rejected ballot initiatives, in Colorado, Arizona, and Washington, that would have moved us closer to the necessary energy transition. Continue reading Did Voters Vote Climate? Yes And No →

Trump The tank Engine Goes Off The Rails

Politics, , ,

This is how we usher in a new era.

The observant will have noticed that over the last several days, during the closing six weeks of an intense campaign season, I posted as my Facebook banner an image representing each of the United States Presidents, starting with George Washington. There have been several interesting comments and observations made on these images. Special Thanks to Jim Crider, presidential historian, for his added insight on those Facebook posts.

This is the image that follows President Obama: Continue reading Trump The tank Engine Goes Off The Rails →

Extending The LEGO Boost Robot Kit With A Book

Shopping guides and reviews, Technology, ,

The LEGO Boost Creative Toolbox is a humanoid robot that is also a guitar, a dogbot, and an industrial fabrication machine. Which of these things it is depends on which set of instructions you follow. A scratch-like programming language lets you control the boost from a phone or tablet, via blue tooth. It is not cheap, but it is an amazing and excellent toy.

It does take absolutely forever to build any of these projects, but there are stages along the way where you can stop and play with what you’ve got so far. Continue reading Extending The LEGO Boost Robot Kit With A Book →