The whole gasket thing turned out to be a nonissue, anyway.
I need to take the block to the machine shop, too. Cylinder walls are pitted.
My bad I did not take a careful look at the block till I did.

 

A month ago, you were drilling holes in some god-forsaken land, with the hope of maybe providing a source of clean water to a village which has never known freedom from disease and pestilence.

Today, you're asking "Hey, can I save ₺100 by omitting a gasket?"

I find this problematic.

(Also, know that I'm laughing as I write this - it's intended to be humorous.)

 

 

 

Now THAT is funny! (In case you don't know, I am a Trump supporter)

 

I've been stewing on the concept of artificial intelligence. Is the Turing test the only way to identify machine intelligence?

There are many active branches of mathematics wherein humans rely on a computer to calculate an algorithm because it is complex enough that it cannot be calculated by a human within a human lifetime. This is happening all around us.
What about an algorithm that is too complex for a human to express within a human lifetime? This seems like it should be an important differentiator between human and machine intelligence. It seems plausible that you could task a program with creating some arbitrary algorithm that would take a human... 100, 200, 1,000,000 years to even read? Is this "a difference that makes a difference" as they say in information theory?

Insomnia + booze.

 

No.



Overnight maintenance + remote monitoring:

 

This morning I realized that Douglas Adams addressed the issue of computers asking difficult questions in a much more eloquent and comical manner quite some time ago.

 

^ = he kind of did, yes.

Also, if machines autonomously decide to exterminate humanity on the basis that we are a harmful parasite, that's another way to identify machine intelligence.



Fifteen-ish years ago, distributed intelligence was a big deal. And the chief architect at Pacific Research & Engineering, where I worked at the time, was majorly into it, and used that concept as the basis for the signal recruitment algorithm in the VistaMax router.

Sadly, the VistaMax was never quite perfected. We shipped a few hundred of them, but it was not a totally reliable product.

Thus, the very last white paper which I authored prior to exiting the field entirely was on the subject of distributed stupidity.

In all seriousness, it turns out to be quite difficult to construct an artificial moron which behaves in a predictable / deterministic manner.




Unrelated: imagine what potentially amazing cheeses we are missing out on by not milking dogs at a commercial scale.

 

I have to believe that if it was even marginally edible, there would be a fancier French word for it other than fromage de chienne.

 

Do a little homework into how a GlobalHawk flies missions... HAL-9000/Skynet baby steps.

 

I haven't seen anything which implies that it is capable of autonomous goal-seeking or decision-making. The data available to civilians like me all seems to suggest that it is controlled by a pilot and a sensor operator, which accounts to little more automation than an EA-6 with the autopilot switched on.


Unrelated, the past-tense of "Tweet" is "****."

 

Exciting week...

There's a Modena 360 in the garage, and I am in the process of taking it all apart. Needs a ton of "going through" - clutch, engine, exhaust, suspension, the works...

We also have a pretty nasty Evo9 (550 Hp in street trim, 700 Hp on track and 900 Hp with E85).
They normally have a wheelbase to track ratio of 1.72 (intended for loose surface, rally use). I tweaked the geometry to 1.62 for track use, modified the brakes with 6 pot Brembo calipers in the front, 4 pot calipers in the rear, bias adjustable pedal box, massive lightness added and stuff too numerous to mention..
We will start testing the car on the F1 track with professional pilots this coming week. That thing is simply too much for my abilities. My friend attempted driving it 3 times and passed out on the track during all three attempts on the second lap. His ride from the track was in an ambulance every time. The car is brutal.

We also have an appointment with a CEO of a VERY prominent international corporation to discuss technical consulting options in the coming week. The meeting will take place in our garage. Massive opportunity...

Aaand, there's talk of a third TV show...

I will provide details on the last two items as they become official news.

 

I am more than a little envious.

 

Seriously. He's incredible.

 

I'm parting out my old turbo build, and I found a guy who wants to buy a whole ton of stuff, but I need to ship it from Seattle to Indiana. Were talking a set of wheels, roll bar, intercooler setup, full turbo including exhaust...

How would you ship it?

 

A few options immediately spring to mind:

1: Greyhound. Yes, the bus company. They operate a terminal-to-terminal freight service on the side, to fill unused luggage space on their busses. Slow as hell, but cheap. http://shipgreyhound.com

2: Amtrak. Yes, the train company. Ditto the above. https://www.amtrak.com/express-shipping

3: Literally any of the dozens of consumer-accessible freight forwarders. I've used uship.com a few times to move engines, transmissions, etc. Obviously, you need to either strap everything to a pallet, or build a palletized crate around it, but these folks generally provide door-to-door liftgate service, which is nice.

4: UPS / DHL / FedEx. Totally serious. Wheels are a no-brainer, this is how Tirerack ships them. The heaviest thing I've personally shipped this way was a complete Miata differential including rear carrier. I built a box out of 2x4s to enclose it, and screwed / strapped it down to the base.

 

@EO2K recently had a terrible experience with greyhound. Would not recommend.

Wait until @concealer404 does a fly and drive on some JDM thing over here and send it back with him

 

I'm down. Also down for a drive 'n' drive.

I'm looking to sell either/or:

1) 1998 Montero Winter Package. TONS of goodies. Pulled it out of Sacramento, hasn't really been driven much here because i work from home
2) 1994 Land Cruiser. Has some damage from some dumb **** running a red. Not totaled, clear title, i have all parts to rebuild/improve, including ARB Deluxe Bull Bar to just straight up kill the next idiot.


Looking to purchase:
1) Gen2 Taco, V6 4x4
2) 70 or 80 series land cruiser, diesel
3) 70 series land cruiser pickup
4) Diesel gen2 SWB Pajero
4b) Diesel gen2 LWB Pajero
5) Y60 Patrol

Listed in no particular order, though the Taco is the one i SHOULD buy.

 

https://seattle.craigslist.org/searc...auto_year=2015