MrZee

My friends and family absolutely know and see what is happening. When I go to the park and walk, I often hear people talking about what is happening (from the angle of “this is insane; how are they getting away with this.” The lady that manages the corner store that I chat with sees what’s going on. The people I work with are very aware.

Most of the people I know are scared and feel powerless to do anything about it. Of course, some are more aware than others and some are more scared than others, but they are at least moderately aware.

BUT, I live in a very liberal city and the people I just talked about are people I choose to associate with. My sample is heavily skewed.

I also run into a lot of people that are pro Trump. Drive 10 miles outside the city and you start running into a lot more MAGA folks. There are also people that avoid politics and are good at sticking their heads in the sand. Somehow they manage to remain unaware. Ignorance seems to be a concerningly common American trait.

BTW, OP, there’s a good chance the “both sides” people you know are republicans but are embarrassed to admit it. They’re the quiet trumpers — the ones that chose to elect a criminal who tried to violently overthrow the government four years ago. Unlike the rabid, loud MAGA folks, they are uncomfortable talking about this stuff because they know people find their views abhorrent. They use “both sides” as a method to indirectly defend their views without having to admit to having them.

Either that or they’re willfully ignorant about what is going on around them. But I find willfully ignorance and Repubicanism go hand in hand.

In order:

Finished building a wood “skirt” for under my daughter’s bed frame (to prevent her cat from using Underbedland as her jungle gym in the middle of the night). Used 1x5 pine. Cut some decorative edge work on the pieces. I attached the skirt that goes on the long edge of the bed with hinges (recessed into the skirt), so that she can lift up the skirt and store stuff under the bed. I put on magnetic latches so cat can’t do the same. Stained it and finished with polyurethane. It was gold practice on finishing work.

Took apart the passenger door of girlfriend’s truck and fixed a bunch of stuff. I disassembled and cleaned the window switch (yay, the window rolls up again!). Cleaned and lubed the window mechanism. Spliced two cut wires on the door lock. Replaced some missing bolts. Rewrapped wire bundles. Wrapped loose wires. Rerouted wires so they wouldn’t get cut again, made and installed a vapor barrier (the original was MIA). After seeing how bad things were in that door, I need to do the other doors too.

Started some serious setup work on an acoustic guitar (Gibson hummingbird). Fret height was pretty variable. I leveled the frets. Started recrowning all the frets - got through half of them. Once I finish recrowning, Next will be setting neck relief, cutting nut slots deeper (first fret action is currently atrocious), adjusting the bridge down, and maybe some intonation work.

Fully disassembled a Walter Creed 9mm pistol that somehow had sand inside it. Thoroughly cleaned everything, oiled, and reassembled. I seem to have fixed it, but haven’t tested everything yet.

Designed a folding adjustable arm rest to mount on top of the center console of my truck. (Designed, not built. Yet)

9.4mm long centimeters were making my eye twitch (yeah, I’d already done the math before I looked at the comments).

Your addendum makes me feel better. Thanks for the pointing out the visual trickery!

My best guess is to use a spray lacquer for enamel, such as this:

https://a.co/d/ixJ7knW

I suspect the “brass” over zinc that is on that clip isn’t just brass - if it were brass plated zinc, I’d be totally comfortable using that spray lacquer over it. Instead, it’s probably some type of brass colored paint (or paint containing actual brass.

This means that you have mystery paint (and mystery “enamel”) that you are trying to coat. Because of that, no matter what top coat you choose, there is a chance it won’t work well and the solvents in the top coat could melt/harm the clip.

But… if I were in your situation, I would try the spray above and cross my fingers.

If you go that route:

Gently dab a bit of rubbing alcohol somewhere that you won’t be too sad if it hurts the finish. Give it a little rub. If it doesn’t mess with the finish, then you’re probably good to use rubbing alcohol to do final cleaning before top coating with lacquer.

Spray a tiny bit of the lacquer on a something (like the corner of a paper towel. immediately rub it on a spot on the clip to do the same type of test. Is the finish ok? Then you’re probably good to proceed.

Before spraying, clean the clip gently but thoroughly with dish soap and water. Rinse well. Dry well.

Give the thing a good rub with a soft cloth and rubbing alcohol to get any other remnants/grease off the clip before painting.

Give the clip a light coat of spray enamel. Follow directions for ambient temperature and recoat time. Give it another coat a bit heavier. Maybe even a third.

Let it dry and cure for a long time. The lacquer will seem completely dry and “done” after a day, but it won’t be fully cured. Giving it time to fully harden before messing with it too much.

Other notes: dust is your enemy. It’ll stick to your top coat while it’s drying. Try to minimize dust and similar nasties.

If you haven’t done used spray cans much, learn to use them first. Do a practice pass on something you don’t care about. It’s really easy to put on too much and have your clearcoat run. No fun.

This person is correct.

I’ve finished, painted, sealed, and repaired enough stuff to know that “maybe try clear nail polish” is a terrible idea for OP.

Nail polish is very hard to get to go on smoothly over a large area and OP is very likely to end up with an uneven or marred finish. If you just put down nail polish, you are not going to get a lasting finish on much of any material without cleaning and degreasing it first.

I would clean/degrease (I don’t know what to use as I can’t tell what the material is). I would lean toward using some type of spray top coat (again, I don’t know which product because I don’t know the material). You still need to know how to spray on finishes, but I find it much easier to do well than brush on finishes.

Yep. Ken Chang is a comedian and does LinkedIn satire.

OBJECTION!

When police think they have right suspect they often do everything they can to prove that person did it. Essentially, once they have their targets set on a suspect, they shift from trying to figure out who may have done it to putting all their resources into finding evidence against the suspect and building the strongest case they can against them. This includes ignoring evidence that is counter to their theory and discontinuing investigation of other leads.

Their goal at that point is to convict. Because, to them, getting a conviction is success and the person going free is failure. Alternately, getting the person to “commit suicide” is success because they can claim that they were guilty and no trial is necessary.

It’s all about winning and getting a conviction because conviction=justice=case closed. And that means the public can rest soundly knowing “justice” has been served. Especially after PR has done their work.

Prosecutors are the same. They treat their job as finding anything and everything to get the conviction. Exculpatory evidence is ignored and buried. If “evidence” is planted/manufactured, they do their best to ignore and hide that fact and make said evidence look real. It’s the defense's job to prove innocence. In theory, the police should be working to find and provide evidence for both sides, but the police and Prosecutors anre working toward the same goal, leaving the defense severely hindered.

This is the system that railroads people into conviction. They use the media to amplify their story and make it look like they are infallible. When information comes out that counters the police/prosecutor story, they circle the wagons to protect each other and discredit the information that contradicts them. Because they think that they are the good guys and even if they got something wrong, their original hunch must have been right.

Just to make sure I have the situation correct:

You filled a tub that you don’t normally use with water (for an emergency supply). A day or so later, the ceiling and wall directly below the tub are soaked. You then drained the water. 20 minutes later you still hear dripping so wonder if it was the water in the tub or something else.

It’s possible the supply line to the tub faucet cracked or otherwise started leaking when you filled the tub, but it seems much more likely that the water in the tub was the source.

The drain was plugged when the leak occurred, so the drain lines themselves are unlikely to be the issue.

This is a fiberglass/plastic tub, right? I think the tub itself is slowly leaking either from a hairline crack or from around the outside edge of the drain. This leak slowly soaked and pooled on the floor beneath the tub. Now you are hearing that pooled water drip down.

I’d do a careful crawl of the tub and see if you can find anything that appears to be a crack.

I’d keep listening to the drip rate in the wall and see if it’s subsiding. Hopefully it is. At that point, it’s figuring out what, if anything you can do for mitigation. My first thought is heat and airflow in the room with soaked walls/ceilings.

The Anarchist’s Cookbook is actually legal to possess (and buy and sell). It’s a common misconception that it is illegal. In the US, at least.

Non-expert here, but something I’ve read about popped in my head reading this, and I suspect it may be part of the solution you’re looking for.

Look up audio ducking. My understanding is that ducking means dynamically lowering the volume of background tracks when you want a voiceover (or other track) to be in the forefront. It looks like Davinci has settings to do ducking automatically.

Wow… I feel like “substance over form” contradicts a core sovcit belief: That there are specific magic phrases and processes that must be executed precisely to be valid. The systems in place intentionally hide, obscuring, and otherwise make it as difficult as possible for the sovcit to perform the rituals correctly. But if they do, they will “win”.

Of course, leave it to a sovcit to find another contradictory concept to shove into the rest of their contradictory beliefs.