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The daily linkdump stardate 20200403

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Russia's richest invested about $100 million in Trump Florida properties

Who are the wealthy Russian citizens who've invested a total of almost $100 million worth of properties owned by U.S. President Donald J. Trump? An investigative report by Reuters digs into that question.

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Obama's photographer will never be done trolling Trump

Attention, internet: The newest edition of our favorite series of presidential shade has arrived, and it's probably the only good thing that came from today's press conference.

In case you've been missing out, Barack Obama's official White House photographer Pete Souza has turned his Instagram into the universe's premiere source for Donald Trump shade. This week — between #MicrowaveGate and a painful press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel —Souza's content has been extra shady (and we're here for it).

After the president refused to shake Merkel's hand and the chancellor made horrified expressions throughout the pair's press conference, Souza decided to reminisce on the kinder, less cringeworthy days of yesteryear — when Obama was still our commander-in-chief.

Here's a picture of Donald Trump and Merkel from their meeting today:

And here's a photo Souza posted from the first time Obama and Merkel met:

And another he posted from 2011 — just for good measure:

 The shade is real.

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How to Build Your Own Fast-Action Vise, Table Saw Tips for Beginners, a Crazy Experimental Sawmill & More

Sword in a Cane

This one is nuts! Jimmy DiResta not only fabricates a kris-style blade from Damascus steel, but then fabricates a spring-loaded brass mechanism that allows him to pop it in and out of a cane/scabbard:

Bandsaw-on-a-Dolly Sawmill

Prior to this video we never heard Matthias Wandel say he's nervous, but here he has good reason to be: He's attempting a rather unorthodox method of using a bandsaw as a sawmill. I almost bit my nails while watching this:

Improvements to the DIY Fast-Action Bench Vise

Now that he's had a few months to live with it and abuse it, Izzy Swan shores up the design of his innovative fast-action bench vise and demonstrates it in use:

5 Table Saw Tips for Beginners

Izzy lays out safety, efficiency and maintenance tips borne from years of experience. I hadn't thought of the baseball cap issue:

Wood Bowtie to the Auction

Frank Howarth attends the auction where his wooden handprint art piece is on the block, first fabricating a bowtie for himself from the original piece's cut-offs:

How to Build a Picnic Table

Still no shop, but April Wilkerson's making do working off the back of her truck. Here she knocks together a picnic table at her folks' property:

Improving Dresser Drawer Clothes Storage

Steve Ramsey has become Kondo-ized after reading Marie Kondo's Decluttering Bible. Here he comes up with a simple contraption to make her prescribed method of T-shirt storage work better:

Harbor Freight Drone Case

Bob Clagett repurposes an old hard plastic toolcase, kitting it out to carry all of his drone gear with protective foam fittings:

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WikiLeaks shows us, once again, just how shady it is

It looks like WIkiLeaks' promise to work with tech companies to fix their security vulnerabilities may come with a few strings attached after all.

In a move that's surprising to exactly no one, WikiLeaks has reportedly told Apple, Microsoft and Google that it won't share details related to the CIA's hacking techniques until the companies agree to a "a series of conditions," according to a new report in Motherboard.

What those conditions are is is unclear. Motherboard reports one of its sources said one condition may be a 90-day disclosure deadline, which would require companies to patch vulnerabilities within a three-month timeframe.

It's not clear if any of the tech companies plan to comply with Wikileaks' demands.

Either way, the demands are somewhat of an about-face from comments Julian Assange made last week when he promised to work with the companies in the interest of protecting users. "We have decided to work with them, to give them some exclusive access to some of the technical details we have, so that fixes can be pushed out," he said during a Facebook Live press conference last Thursday. 

Microsoft and Mozilla both previously confirmed they had received emails from WikiLeaks last week but have not provided any update about further contact.

Apple and Google have said many — but, importantly, not all — of the vulnerabilities have already been patched.

What happens next is less clear. Corporate legal departments are apparently wrangling with WikiLeaks' demands — details around the security vulnerabilities stem from a trove of CIA documents leaked earlier in the month — but may not have other options to find out the full extent of the CIA's hacking techniques. 

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Your Favorite Hoodie Is the Flint & Tinder 10-Year - Barely

Flint & Tinder 10-Year Hoodie

Your two favorite hoodies share an $89 price tag, and look basically identical, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that this was our closest vote in history. It was back and forth until the very end, but Flint & Tinder’s 10-Year Hoodie edged out the American Giant Classic Full Zip by a mere four votes.

Flint and Tinder 10-year hoodie. Well made in the USA, handy interior pocket for your phone, very comfy. - Seattleish

Came here to post this. Excellent hoodie, just the right weight, raglan sleeves and a well-sized hood. It’s the consumate adult hoodie. - Felonious Drunk

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Angela Merkel's powerful side-eye at Ivanka Trump is asking the question we're all wondering

Angela Merkel's powerful side-eye at Ivanka Trump is asking the question we're all wondering

Why are you here again?

Image: UPI POOL/EPA/REX/Shutterstock

By Tim Chester2017-03-18 00:31:10 UTC

Ivanka Trump gatecrashed Angela Merkel's ill-fated summit with Donald Trump Friday, the latest in a line of questionable appearances at gatherings where she probably doesn't really belong.

The reality TV star, businesswoman and jewelry vendor had a seat next to the German chancellor, who has a Ph.D. in chemistry and speaks fluent Russian, for the roundtable discussion with German and U.S. business leaders. Twitter was quick to spot a theme in the photos that emerged from the encounter.

In some of them, it looks a lot like Merkel is chucking serious side-eye at Trump's daughter and wondering inside just what she's doing there.

For some, the photos spoke for themselves.

Ivanka, for what it's worth, was honored to be there for the robust discussion.

But she faced another barrage of questions on Twitter, mostly on a common theme.

It's worth noting that other photos of the pair show them having a better time. But those pics don't help us answer the central question here. Which is why was she there in the first place?

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Toyota Is Building The Ultimate Racetrack Driveway In Texas

Bring these! Photo credit: Toyota Motorsport GmbH

Toyota’s somewhat troubled new HQ in Texas includes an executive retreat that will have something special: a private racetrack right by its 12,205 sq. ft. Tudor-style chateau.

Toyota’s most private racetrack sits is under construction on a 75-acre ranch just outside of Argyle, Texas, which lies just north of Ft. Worth, per the Dallas News. You can see photos of inside the house as well as the race track they’re building on-site on their website here. Toyota bought the ranch shortly after deciding to move its North American headquarters to nearby Plano.

If you blink, you might miss the street sign for Hilltop Lane -- a tree-lined country road… Read more Read more

Facilities include Japanese gardens, a private auto museum and fishing ponds. The existing house itself is just as extravagant, featuring seven bedrooms and and 12 bathrooms, plus a wine cellar, movie theater and swimming pool, according to the Dallas News. The Denton County tax office values the property at $11 million. Toyota has been buying it in chunks, with the largest piece purchased in 2014.

Toyota spokesman Aaron Fowles told the Dallas News that they’ll try to be good neighbors, and not constantly hoon on the track until the cows get mad:

We have facilities like this all over the world. It’s not going to be a ranch we have constant events at. We will have people that live on the property and take care of it.

In other words, they won’t be hiring me as the caretaker. Bummer.

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Sorry Trump, even Fox News thinks your wiretapping claim is BS

Not everyone at Donald Trump's favorite news network is gobbling up his latest piece of red meat.  

Fox News anchor Shep Smith countered Trump once again Friday, this time aiming his measured, declaratory tone at the president's outlandish claim that his predecessor was wiretapping him.

"Fox News knows of no evidence of any kind that the now president of the United States was surveilled at any time in any way," anchor Shep Smith said during a Friday broadcast. "Full stop."

Smith's "full stop" comment, which was spread widely on social media, comes after analyst Andrew Napolitano claimed on Fox & Friends Tuesday that "three intelligence sources have informed Fox News that President Obama went outside the chain of command" and requested British intelligence officials spy on Trump.

But that wasn't the case.

"Fox News cannot confirm Judge Napolitano's commentary," Smith said.

Looks like Smith's continuing his journey to become the most viral fact checker on the network. 

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Lotus takes even lighter touch with new Elise Sprint

Despite new materials and efforts to improve fuel economy, most cars are significantly heavier now than equivalent models from a few decades ago, due to a greater focus on safety and luxuries modern buyers now expect. There is, of course, one notable exception to the rule. Lotus doesn't sell many cars, but its whole range adheres to the simplify, then add lightness philosophy of founder Colin Chapman, and the Elise Sprint is no exception.

.. Continue Reading Lotus takes even lighter touch with new Elise Sprint Category: Automotive Tags:

Lotus

Lotus Elise

Carbon Fiber

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TEN

In this Marketing Over Coffee: Learn About Finding Influencers, Bot Bust and Chris Hanging with Katy Perry

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Trump's big VA meeting at Mar-a-Lago weirdly canceled at last minute after this awkward moment

Well, that was awkward.

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Fireproof human skulls for your gas fireplace, barbeque or fire-pit

They're $65 each, handmade from "lava granules plus significant heat ceramic refractory," available in black and white. (via Geekologie)

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A Better Way To Pack Tactical & Tech Gear

Designed to organize and neatly transport your tactical &/or technology essentials, the OP1 from Triple Aught Design is a customizable carrying system made of rugged Cordura with a full-zip clamshell design that opens wide for easy access. On the outside, it’s got MOLLE & PALS compatible webbing for securing it to other gear.

For purchase information, Click Here

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What It Means To Be A Woman Who Loves Racing

Being a woman who loves racing is exhausting.

Being a woman who loves racing means wanting to go to a race but not wanting to go alone, because going alone means subjection to harassment. When I went to a 2015 Pirelli World Challenge race, I had men ask for pictures with me because they “try to get pictures with sexy little things at every race they go to.” During that same weekend, a man sat next to me in a grandstand, his three friends surrounded me, and he proposed a bet: we choose a car, and if his car wins, he gets my number and a kiss.

At the IndyCar race in Toronto, during the two hours I was at Friday practice by myself, the man who approached me confused IndyCar with Formula One, protested when I tried to correct him, and wouldn’t accept me trying to leave until I told him a made-up boyfriend was waiting for me to bring him his tickets at the gate.

Being a woman who loves racing means constantly being questioned and second-guessed. The round of questioning a woman is subjected to feels more like an interrogation than a friendly conversation. When I’m asked how I got into racing, it’s because I need to prove my worth as a longtime fan and not just as some silly girl who decided to show up to a race one day. There’s almost a set script. “Who’s your favorite driver? Team? Why did you choose them? Why did you travel for a race? You really like racing that much?”

Being a woman who loves racing means that if you fail any one of the many qualifications and requirements you’re supposed to meet, you can’t be a real fan. I can see the disdain—the exact moment where I’m written off—when one of my questions falls short of expectation. Oh, you haven’t been a Formula 1 fan since you left the womb, well… Oh, you don’t understand the complicated engineering terms I’m throwing out to you, well…

Lovable F1 backmarker Marussia, repping America proudly on its endplates in 2015. Photo credit: Lars Baron/Getty Images

Being a woman who loves racing means being constantly undermined. When I told men I was a Marussia fan, they wanted to know if I was aware that they were the worst team on the grid. When friends told men they were Mercedes fans, they rolled their eyes and wrote it off as the woman choosing the team they saw at the top of the time sheets. When I support for a driver, more often than not I’m asked if I support him because he’s cute.

Being a woman who loves racing means having to choose between being vocal about the problems in motorsport—and there are many—and being silent, subjecting both yourself and your fellow women to more of the same. It means being branded a “rabid feminist” if you criticize. It means hours of arguing. It means stating your point over and over and over, to one man after another. It means no one listening to you, to the case you’re making, to the logic you’re presenting. It means standing up for yourself, and having your experience undermined in the face of the status quo. It means “Can I just play devil’s advocate for a second?” It means “tradition.” It means men scrounging for every example they can to shove in your face and say, “See? This one single woman doesn’t believe in what you’re saying, stop being so sensitive!”

Being a woman who loves racing means you don’t have the luxury to get to see yourself in motorsport in a non-visually appealing way. It means grid girls holding signs on the grid. It means women with sponsor logos branded on crop tops and booty shorts. It means women posing next to cars. It means women as decoration next to the drivers at events, on podiums. It means albums of photos on Motorsport.com titled “Paddock Beauties.”

This year’s Daytona 500, where the Monster Girls were out in force. Photo credit: Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images

It means seeing the exact moment when a man stops seeing you as a person and starts seeing you through the heart-eyed lens because “wow, you like racing?” It means a barrage of unanswered DMs from men who all want to get to know the girl who watches F1.

Being a woman who loves racing means some iteration of the above, every single day, for as long as you exist as a visible feminine presence in the sphere of motorsports. And y’all, I am tired.

Which only makes it worse when shirts like the “Girls who love racing are rare. Wife ’em up” make their rounds, and you have to watch the people you admire—drivers, pundits, fans, and friends alike—take part in perpetuating a stereotype that you spent every day trying to reverse. For them, it’s a justification for their behavior, justification to not have to think about what it means to reinforce the objectification of women in a male-dominated sport, justification to sit back and let the status quo run its course. For women, it’s a step backward that we now have to redouble our efforts to overcome.

I know that these things aren’t done intentionally, or with malice. I know that for many, it seemed an innocuous enough shirt. But that doesn’t negate the fact that this kind of thing is Not Okay and does more harm than good.

It doesn’t negate the fact that the people spreading this kind of message are the ones who have the power to be heard and taken seriously and therefore need to be more conscious of the things they’re saying. It doesn’t negate the fact that it creates a climate detrimental to female race fans – and yes, even female race fans spreading that same message.

A group of female fans watching qualifying for the 2009 F1 European Grand Prix. Photo credit: Ryan Pierse/Getty Images

The group of fans that I attend races with is entirely female. We’ve met, traveled the world, and watched races together—all of us women. It’s one of the most passionate, well-informed, friendly, funny, and incredible groups of race fans that I know.

And yet not a single woman in that group has been afforded access into the world of motorsports fandom with the same ease as a man would have. Not a single one has been free from criticism, ridicule, questioning, or objectification. It breaks my heart that such a talented group will have to fight tooth-and-nail just to achieve a fraction of the respect they deserve. This is not the kind of welcoming committee I want to see represent my sport.

I don’t treat racing events like parties of the eighteenth century. This is not me presenting myself in my quest for a husband. I don’t attend to be “wifed up” by starry-eyed men seeking their manic pixie race car dream girl or ogled by those who think any woman at the track is there for their specific entertainment. I don’t attend because I want to steep myself in an a testosterone-drenched atmosphere where I am exclusively singled out, objectified, or harassed because of my gender.

I go to racing events for one reason, and one reason only. I am woman who loves racing, and I’m just here to watch race cars and have a good time. I only ask that I be respected for that.

This post originally appeared here on The Grid Girls podcast co-host Elizabeth Werth’s blog and we wanted to share it. You can find Werth on The Grid Girls podcast here, on her blog here or at numerous tracks throughout the year.

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Next Japanese solar sail will be 10-15 times bigger than Ikaros solar sail and have a far better ion engine

A researcher with JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), Matsumoto is deeply involved in the design of the space sail that will pick up where Japan’s IKAROS left off. Launched in 2010, the latter was a square sail 14 meters to the side that demonstrated the feasibility of maneuvering a sail on interplanetary trajectories. JAXA has talked ever since about going to Jupiter, but the challenges are formidable, not the least of which is the question of generating enough power to operate over 5 AU from the Sun. (H/T Centauri Dreams) The new JAXA sail, which has been in the planning pipeline since before IKAROS flew, will span 50 meters to the side, 2500 square meters that will contain the 30,000 solar panels — thin film solar cells attached to the entire surface of the sail membrane — necessary to operate at the 5.2 AU distance of Jupiter’s trojan asteroids. Like IKAROS, the sail will use liquid crystal reflectivity control devices as a means of attitude control. But the new sail will also carry a high specific impulse ion engine for maneuvering among the trojan asteroid population. Here we’re at a key issue in the mission, for operating this far from the Sun, generating electrical power becomes increasingly difficult, and the craft will also need to perform numerous trajectory changes. Just as significant as the sail itself, then, will be the operational success of the new sail’s solar panels and ion engine. The sail is to be made up of 10-micrometer-thick polyimide, with the payload attached to the center of the sail. Current plans are for launch in the early 2020s. The Jupiter trojans are a group of asteroids that share orbits with the giant planet, clustering in its L4 and L5 Lagrangian points. There should be no shortage of candidates, for the total number of Jupiter trojans greater than 1 kilometer in size is estimated at about a million. The JAXA sail will perform both flyby and rendezvous operations, with a landing on the surface of a 20-30 km asteroid, operations there and, if all goes well, a sample return to the Earth in the 2050s.

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Design Experience that Matters: Handy Tools for Working With 3D Printers

Here at Design that Matters we do a lot of 3D printing, so we've built up this collection of handy but inexpensive tools for supporting our 3D printers. They live in IKEA silverware caddies mounted next to the machines and they just make the work go easier.

1. Super Lube synthetic grease for the build plate lead screw (the lube supplied with most machines gets used up quickly). A single tube of lube lasts for ages. 

     2. Cheap cutting pliers for trimming PLA spools.

      3. Metal feeler gauge for consistent results when manually leveling the printer build plate (Makerbot Rep2 works best when the 0.2mm gauge just fits between nozzle and build plate).

     4. UHU glue stick for securing prints to build plate (useful even with heated build plates). This works better and is more convenient than covering the build plate with blue painter's tape.  

    5. Window scraper for removing glue residue and stubborn PLA deposits from build plate. 

     6. Cricut craft spatula for un-sticking prints. We'll create a little gap under the print with the window scraper, and then lever the rest of the print off the build plate with the craft spatula.  Bonus: we're less likely to stab ourselves. 

    7. iFixit metal spudgers for scraping off and digging out printed support material and other defects.

      8. Cheap dental picks for removing support material from internal cavities.

     9. Steel tweezers for getting gunk off the extruder nozzle without melting fingers.

      10. We also have a couple self-healing cutting mats taped to the table next to the machine so we can fuss around with scrapers without scarring the tabletops or damaging the build plates. 

    A Few More Items:

We've mounted an appropriate set of Allen wrenches on a 3D-printed bracket attached to every machine. 

To reduce filament-jams in our oldest machine, the trusty Replicator 2, we printed and mounted this filament guide from Thingiverse on the back of the machine:

Image by FERDYP

For storing PLA, we were delighted to discover that even the big Makerbot-brand spools fit perfectly inside a standard 5-gallon bucket. To prevent humidity from spoiling the PLA, we snap a Gamma Seal Lid on top of the bucket and throw in a handful of silica gel desiccant packs before we screw it shut.

Stay Tuned!

After a productive four years with our Makerbot Replicator 2 (and a frustrating two years with our Makerbot Replicator Gen5), we just upgraded to a Lulzbot Taz 6.  We've started experimenting with new filament materials and a heated printer bed.  

We find that glue sticks are still useful for first-layer adhesion, although for exotic materials like nylon some consider generic PVP-based glue sticks more effective than UHU sticks. We still prefer the combination of the window scraper and the spatula for unsticking prints. The new filament spools also fit in our airtight 5-gallon buckets for storage. The biggest change is that we no longer need the feeler gauge, given that the Lulzbot has a self-leveling bed.

Do You Have Any Tips for Us?

We're still learning how to get the best results from our 3D printers for the least amount of effort. Some machines create rafts (print bases) that are tedious to remove. Although we've had success sanding parts with paper or a Dremel, the resulting smooth parts very quickly look grubby (something about dust and oil getting into the seams). For high-quality aesthetic models, we haven't found an alternative to the laborious process of: bondo, sand, primer, paint, clear-coat. Have any of you come up with a better solution?

_____________________________________

This "Design Experience that Matters" series is provided courtesy of Timothy Prestero and the team at Design that Matters (DtM). As a nonprofit, DtM collaborates with leading social entrepreneurs and hundreds of volunteers to design new medical technologies for the poor in developing countries. DtM's Firefly infant phototherapy device is treating thousands of newborns in 21 counties from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. In 2012, DtM was named the winner of the National Design Award.