Autodidact Ambitions 12 – Is it Time

by | Jul 16, 2024 | LifeSkills, Pastimes, Technology | 161 comments

In part 10 I desined a few daughterboards to kludge a fix to my clock which was not keeping correct time. I had a hypothesis and a tangent that my brain went down. The hypothesis was that the changes in the layout between the breadboard and first prototype to the second prototype lead to a change in the electrical properties of the traces connecting the watch crystal to the microcontroller.

Having been frustrated with the whole thing, I designed a daughterboard which would skip the hassle of dealing with the crystal myself, but afterwards, I figured I’d test trying to correct the crystal anyway. I designed a different daughterboard to fix all of my suspects at once. Mostly because I didn’t want to iterate through to figure out exactly which of my mistakes caused the problem. I want to move on. Getting the clock completed has been stalling my effort on the original project of working towards a still-unspecified device with a Nixie tube output. My discovery that the MSP430s support serial protocols at a low level has my brain running through fantastical possibilities. So I need to ground myself (not in the electical sense).

Lets get this clock working correctly. Then I can worry about the next project.

The timkeeping circuit is only the MSP430F2003 and the watch crystal. To fit the clock on a smaller PCB footprint, I’d turned the crystal to the side, and I’d removed a copper panel which had been under the crystal previously. In researching the possible issues, it appears that whole copper panel was there because it is common practice to connect the outer casing of the crystal to ground. I also recalled that the capacitance of the traces between the crystal and microcontroller could impact the signal.

Please fix it, please fix it, please fix it...
Circuit Diagrams

So here’s the part of the existing board where the timekeeping circuit lives, along with the diagram for the daughterboard I designed for the simplest fix. There are two identical fourteen pin socket footprints on the daughterboard. One is for an actual socket where the MSP430 will move to. The other one is for tweleve pinheader pins to connect the board to the socket on the existing clock. Pins 12 and 13 will not have anything connecting from the daughterboard to the main board. If I were being more methodical, I would have removed them. But right now they’ll just be avoided. The shorter, symmetrical traces and a grounded exterior casing are my last attempt at doing this myself. All the other pins are just connected one to one between the MSP430 and the main board. Those all worked right.

I got the PCBs the day I’m writing this up. Even when I designed it, I knew order of operations was going to be important during assembly. The socket and pinheaders were on opposite sides of the board, and could get in the way of soldering the other.

Being the most delicate and important component, I attached the crystal first, along with a bent resistor lead to tie it down (soldered into the holes marked ‘3’ on its footprint). I have a bunch of these leftover leads from cutting them off pieces put on previous boards. I clipped the long row of pin headers into segments of seven, four, and one pin each. The single pin tried to escape by flying from the clippers and bouncing off the far wall. In this escape attempt, it made the mistake of landing next to my feet, so I got it back and was able to attach it. To hold these rebellious pin headers in place, I set them into the 14-pin socket I was going to use later. It kept them neat and orderly, but also provided additional thermal mass to mess with my soldering efforts. I was worried about solding between the rows of pin headers to put the socket on, but this proved almost trivial in comparison.

So, now I have a daughterboard that fits where the microprocessor goes on the clock. I do have a poor track record of pulling Integrated Circuits from sockets. I’ve bent a lot of pins pulling ICs. I’ve bent even more trying to place the ICs in sockets. So, hesitantly, I set about pulling the F2003… and it came out without trouble. It also didn’t fight me going into the daughterboard. What spoor of madness is this?

Neatest looking bodge I've ever done.
The assembly went well.

I’ve got it in place. I checked to make sure that there was no short with the Inverter chip. There was ample spacing, though it did touch the plastic of the IC, that should be sufficient insulation. Now, nothing to it but to plug it in and see if it keeps time.

At first, I tried to time the blinking of the colon. I was unable to accurately measure the frequency of the blinking, and initially thought I’d failed. Rather than give in to despair or frustration I postulated that eyeballing the blinking lights and the stopwatch on my phone was not the most accurate way of testing the time. So instead, I started timing the minutes. It looked good against the stopwatch on the phone, so I brought it to my computer and watched what second the minutes turned over.

At twenty-four seconds after each minute according to the computer, the minute on the clock ticks over. And watching the colon, the frequency matched the tick of seconds on the computer clock. So, my clock is now within the human-parsible margin of error.

The fix worked. Even two hours after plugging it in it’s still keeping time and turning over at 24 seconds.

So…

Do I fit the adjusted timekeeping circuit into a PCB design? Or do I turn attention to the Pluggable MSP?

I do already have the curcuit boards to replace the existing MSP430F2003 with the Pluggable MSP. Redrawing the main clock board won’t teach me anything, but if I don’t, I’ll never be able to built a case for the clock.

Decisions, decisions.

I will do both. Designing the main board to better fit in a case will mean a delay to get the new board delivered. In the meantime, I’ll be doing my second ever surface mount soldering job to get a 40-pin pluggable MSP assembled… and ordering another custom board to build an adapter for it to connect to the launchpad. I can work around not having that board with jumper wires, but it’s just easier than looking up which pins go where every time.

Why bother adapting the Pluggable MSP to drive the clock? Well, I have to implement I2C to use the external Real-Time Clock I’ve already paid for. Using the serial protocols…

Wait, what? While writing this article, the clock has Desynchronized. It no longer had 60 second minutes, but 62… WHY!?

That does it. I’m not drawning a new main board to drag this into the design. I’m going to implement the Pluggable MSP so I can use someone else’s Real-Time Clock to get rid of the damnable drift. I do not want to sit here and do voodoo troubleshooting for tuning the crystal timing, nor do I want to sink the time to learn hwo to fix it correctly. I want to move on already.

About The Author

UnCivilServant

UnCivilServant

A premature curmudgeon and IT drone at a government agency with a well known dislike of many things popular among the Commentariat. Also fails at shilling Books

161 Comments

  1. UnCivilServant

    I would have a Part 13 but I ran into a snag trying to get inputs to work with the new MSP430 chip I’d switched to.

    Would you prefer incremental “I’ve stalled on this” updates? Or longer delays?

  2. Sensei

    Wait a second! Are all those resistors lined up in a random directions?

    You can 3D print a case for it. This looked really interesting, but I utterly failed in getting Open SCAD to work with. I think it was because I couldn’t get it to recognize where I installed one of the required files. However, I gave up after an hour and modified another project box instead. That took all of 15 minutes and I was done.

    https://willem.aandewiel.nl/index.php/2022/01/02/yet-another-parametric-projectbox-generator/

    • UnCivilServant

      There is nothing random in the resistors, They are all aligned the same way as the other resistors of the same capacity – there are just interleaves 220 and 4.7k ohm resistors for the display circuits. I made sure the stripes were all aligned the same way.

      • Sensei

        I was worried there for a second!

      • UnCivilServant

        I may be borderline obsessive compulsive personality disorder – If they were not all facing the same way I’d get bothered by it (despite being electrically equivallent)

  3. The Late P Brooks

    Wait, what? While writing this article, the clock has Desynchronized. It no longer had 60 second minutes, but 62… WHY!?

    Temperature?

    My grasp on all this is pretty feeble, but I absolutely respect and admire your focus and determination.

    • UnCivilServant

      It’s the only thing that makes sense in afterthought.

      • R.J.

        Temperature is definitely one potential cause. The copper back on the quartz was probably also doing a little heat dissipation. Another thing could be the number of sockets and pins in between the quartz and the board. Reduce those as much as possible and get everything right next to each other. Each socket and solder point is signal loss and resistance. Add them up, it matters. Possibly more than temperature.

      • UnCivilServant

        It started out at the perfect signal for the better part of an hour. Nothing about those other parameters could have changed to change the signal frequency. That’s why I narrowed it down to temperature – it can change after assembly when sitting on my desk.

    • Chipping Pioneer

      Made in China

  4. UnCivilServant

    the clock has Desynchronized. It no longer had 60 second minutes, but 62… WHY!?

    My best guess is that I have no temperature compensation and the crystal/chip had heated up.

  5. Not Adahn

    Apparently TPTB have declared this “fiddly unsuccessful projects day.”

  6. The Late P Brooks

    To satisfy (y)our curiosity, you need to conduct heating and cooling experiments. Put it in the freezer.

    • Not Adahn

      I’m thinking a sous vide and plot the temperature/response curve. Boltzman’s constant will probably show up.

      • UnCivilServant

        I have a thermocouple controller that I plan to get working once I get my code working on the updated chip. It’ll be easier to map temperature with a real thermometer.

  7. PieInTheSky

    Honestly i would rather watch paint dry than do electronics in my spare time. So i aint readin all that 🙂 . I am happy for you though. Or sorry that happened.

    • UnCivilServant

      Have I mentioned my other hobby?

      Thankfully miniature paint dries faster than wall paint.

    • The Last American Hero

      I get most of my electrical knowledge from that electroboom guy on YouTube.

      At least when the world falls apart, the clocks in Glibs Gulch will be accurate. Plus or minus a couple seconds.

  8. The Late P Brooks

    You have to get the timer sorted out if you want the bomb to go off properly.

    • UnCivilServant

      Don’t go with unreliable electrical timers, use a fuse.

      • The Other Kevin

        Lit with a fat cigar.

      • Rat on a train

        All you need is a pack of matches and a cigarette.

      • Sean

        All you need is a pack of matches and a cigarette.

        Pffft. I use a high powered laser.

      • Nephilium

        Sean:

        You may go with your plebeian lasers; but sometimes, there’s no kill like overkill.

      • Sean

        Neph, I think my HOA might frown upon that.

      • UnCivilServant

        Do something about the HOA then.

      • Nephilium

        Sean:

        Then go with the drone or robodog. Just land it/have it return to the worst person on the HOA board’s house.

    • The Other Kevin

      How embarrassing would it be if he walked away slowly from an explosion but it was 2 minutes off.

  9. The Late P Brooks

    I want to move on already.

    Like building a water cooled breaker box so your air con will stay on?

    • UnCivilServant

      You joke, but the thought of wiring up a computer water cooling system to the front panel of the box to draw out the excess heat had crossed my mind.

      I came back to “How to avoid a leak causing issues?”

      • Rat on a train

        dielectric coolant?

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        Oil bath, I saw Great Scott do it on yt

      • UnCivilServant

        Part of me goes “Oh, just attach the heat sinks to the sides of the breaker blocks…” then my rational side goes “NOOOoooooo…. that’ll sort everything with the metal of the heat sinks”

        Now, I’ve taken a look at the actual box, I can use the front panel itself as the main heatsink, attaching the cooling modules to the exterior side and running the coolant tubes inside PVC pipe over to a spot by the dryer where I can set up the base station (I may want to add another layer of filters there to keep lint out of the air portion of the box)

        This is totally doable.

      • UnCivilServant

        Having done some research, my brain is going “This is really Doable.”

      • Swiss Servator

        Re: Earlier question…Submit installments as you get them done.

  10. The Other Kevin

    This is entirely too much fun. Russell Brand is live at the convention. I just missed him interviewing Vivek. He spotted MGT talking to Dan Bongino, and he somehow got her to come talk to him. (It’s really funny how he’s intimidated by Bongino).

    https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1ypKdpRWOzVKW

  11. The Late P Brooks

    Speaking of electrons…

    I am still plagued by this random mystery gremlin on my Civic. I have replaced the “main relay” twice. It receives a trigger signal from someplace, possibly the ecu. There is a sequence of events: turn key to “ignition on’; ecu light in instrument panel comes on; ecu light goes off, accompanied by audible click from vicinity of light; turn key to “start”; engine cranks and fires.

    But sometimes the ecu light does not click off; engine cranks but will not start. If I tap on the main rely, the ecu light goes out and engine will fire.

    Could this potentially be a voltage issue to the relay? As in bad/corroded/dirty connection somewhere (of course I cannot find any good info about where the fucking original trigger signal comes from). i tried checking the voltage at the relay connections, and the numbers were weird (as in not 12v) but I’m not sure it isn’t my cheapo Harbor freight meter throwing me off. Of course, the random intermittent nature makes dfiagnosis that much more difficult.

    • UnCivilServant

      Have you cleaned your filter caps and refilled with fresh electrons?

    • Tundra

      Hinky ground?

    • OBJ FRANKELSON

      Don’t forget the blinker fluid.

      • Rat on a train

        Still have winter air in the tires?

      • Gender Traitor

        ::takes notes for future reference::

    • Sean

      Have you tried installing a pedal commander?

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      If you can find the dipstick, be sure to check your gender fluid.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      Seriously, have a look at your alarm system, a glitch will do just what is occurring with your car

    • DrOtto

      What year is the Honda? I know on older GMs, the signal came from the crank sensor.

  12. The Late P Brooks

    Speaking of temperature related issues, this phenomenon originally appeared to be heat related, but the last time it happened was on a chilly morning.

    Of course, not knowing for certain I will make it back from the grocery store is kind of a problem.

  13. The Late P Brooks

    Have you cleaned your filter caps and refilled with fresh electrons?

    I banged on them with a monkey wrench.

  14. The Late P Brooks

    Hinky ground?

    That has been my number one suspect. I have cleaned and in in some cases relocated all the ones I can find. I even jumpered the main engine block grounds straight back to the battery.

  15. Sean

    I can clearly see your problem UCS. You don’t have a single toroid coil.

    • UnCivilServant

      The flux is stored in tins instead.

  16. Shpip

    Breaking: “Gold Bar” Bob Menendez convicted by federal jury.

    Looks like they didn’t go for his “By the standards of New Jersey Democrats I’m honest compared to Richard Nixon” defense.

    • Sean

      Nice.

    • creech

      Nixon’s wife wore a cloth coat. What kind of coat does convicted felon Menendez’ wife wear?

  17. PieInTheSky

    is the on topic stuff done and can we return to witty banter?

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      Return?

    • ElspethFlashman

      Yes.

  18. PieInTheSky

    so during the hot day (42C) there was a rain storm which cooled things down but made them much more humid and that didn’t fucking help.

    Tomorrow 43C and more humid than today. goddamnit. I blame the… well you know

    • Nephilium

      I blame the… well you know

      The over reliance the civilized world has on fossil fuels instead of clean renewable power?

      • UnCivilServant

        Incorrect, the answer was “the weather”

      • pistoffnick (370HSSV)

        And who controls the weather?

      • Nephilium

        pistoffnick:

        The Stonecutters?

      • kinnath

        Master controls the weather.

      • Rat on a train

        Darth Cheney?

  19. The Late P Brooks

    Unspecified amorphous threats

    U.S. authorities are concerned about possible attacks in retaliation to the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security said Monday in a rare joint intelligence bulletin.

    Violent extremists or others “may attempt follow-on or retaliatory acts of violence” in response to the attempted assassination of Trump at a rally over the weekend in Pennsylvania, the agencies said in the bulletin obtained by POLITICO.

    No specific targets are mentioned, but the four-page bulletin notes that extremists have conducted or plotted attacks against “perceived political or ideological opponents,” in the past, the DHS and FBI said.

    ——-

    Authorities have not yet determined what motivated Crooks, who was shot and killed by the Secret Service after he opened fire on the rally, killing one spectator and critically wounding two others.

    I think it’s pretty obvious he was a radicalized right wing antigovernment lunatic obsessed by the so-called Deep State, out to destroy civil society and democracy itself. Trump is a red herring. It wasn’t about Trump, or the danger to society Trump might represent in some people’s minds. Trump wasn’t the target, America was the target.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      The Projection is strong….

  20. Drake

    Bob Menendez convicted on all counts.

    • UnCivilServant

      He didn’t have a spare gold bar for each of the jury members?

  21. The Late P Brooks

    Threats across the political spectrum have proliferated. Supporters of Trump sent death threats and envelopes full of white powder to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office led the hush money prosecution against the former president. Others “swatted” Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows after she found Trump to be ineligible to appear on the state’s 2024 primary ballot.

    The vast spectrum of political extremism from A to B.

    • creech

      Like no conservative ever has received death threats. Heck, as a member of the LNC, I received a threat from a soldier to beat the shit out of me. I bet Chase Oliver has been threatened. (Maybe he should get SS protection too?)

      • Gustave Lytton

        Chase Oliver was threatened when someone held the door open for him.

  22. Mojeaux

    Y U NO LIKE MY COMMENT, Internal Server Error?

    • UnCivilServant

      I’m so sorry.

      If we ever find this Internal Server, there will be disciplinary proceedings over this high error rate.

    • slumbrew

      #releasethelogs

      (I would really love to look at the server logs to see what the errors are)

    • Translucent Chum

      The Bee is in the house. /looks around accusingly…

  23. The Late P Brooks

    Seriously, have a look at your alarm system, a glitch will do just what is occurring with your car

    1990- no alarm, no immobilizer, no “smart key”.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      Take that as a plus, maybe get some contact cleaner for the hard to reach connections?

    • R.J.

      It is of an age where capacitors can start to go bad. It won’t be visible at first, but the ones on the ECU board can start to go. It would do exactly what you described. I am not going to tell you to replace your ECU board, but if you can get it out and look at it, look for dark stains starting under or around any capacitors. If I recall, those ECU boards are in a big metal case that also drastically increases the heat around that thing and will shorten the life of little waxy capacitors.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        Great call! That can still be worked on

  24. The Late P Brooks

    And who controls the weather?

    BigOil, duh.

  25. The Late P Brooks

    Don’t you people know a joke when you hear one?

    Jack Black’s comedy rock band Tenacious D has canceled its remaining tour dates after band member Kyle Gass sparked a backlash with an apparent joke about Saturday’s assassination attempt on former US President Donald Trump.

    Footage posted on social media from the band’s concert in Sydney on Sunday showed Black presenting Gass with a birthday cake onstage and telling him to “make a wish.”

    Gass responded: “Don’t miss Trump next time.”

    The exchange prompted a call from one Australian lawmaker for the band to be deported from the country.

    I miss the old days, when people could say stupid shit without everybody in the world hearing about it (and weighing in) ten seconds later.

  26. The Late P Brooks

    In a statement to CNN on Tuesday, Black said he was “blindsided by what was said at the show.”

    “I would never condone hate speech or encourage political violence in any form,” he added. “After much reflection, I no longer feel it is appropriate to continue the Tenacious D tour, and all future creative plans are on hold. I am grateful to the fans for their support and understanding.”

    Good for you, you groveling simp.

    • Tundra

      Fuck him. He was laughing uproariously at the time.

      The backlash bitch-slapped him and he changed his tune.

      • Brochettaward

        He’s a real loyal guy, huh?

      • R.J.

        I was already looking at him askance. Now to Hell with him and Gass. There is nothing he did that I care enough to keep around.

  27. The Late P Brooks

    On Saturday, US President Joe Biden condemned political violence in the wake of the shooting.

    “There is no place in America for this kind of violence – it’s sick, it’s sick, it’s one of the reasons why we have to unite this country,” Biden told reporters.

    “We cannot allow for this to be happening. We cannot be like this. We cannot condone this.”

    And by “unite” mean ruthlessly crush dissent under the heel of my boot.

    • The Other Kevin

      He’s been including Jan 6 as the same type of political violence.

      • R.J.

        Just as a reminder, here is Biden’s speech against a blood-red background. 24 minutes of crazy.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JemWkV2Vcic

        This guy is going to unify what exactly? Communists against Americans?

  28. The Late P Brooks

    It is of an age where capacitors can start to go bad. It won’t be visible at first, but the ones on the ECU board can start to go. It would do exactly what you described. I am not going to tell you to replace your ECU board, but if you can get it out and look at it, look for dark stains starting under or around any capacitors. If I recall, those ECU boards are in a big metal case that also drastically increases the heat around that thing and will shorten the life of little waxy capacitors.

    I did that a while back. No obvious signs of damage. It all looked like new, really.

    And, if I could be reasonably certain the ecu was the problem, I wouldn’t go hunting for a “known good” factory replacement, I’d go with something like a Microsquirt. Maybe even do that twin cam swap I have been considering for fifteen years. There are a lot of things I could-I-should-I-would-I.

  29. Sensei

    Well that was as predictable as the sunrise.

    The New Republic
    Ban the AR-15 Rifle

    8 hours ago
    Timothy Noah

    • Drake

      So the next guy has a scoped 7mm mag hunting rifle?

    • The Other Kevin

      I saw that sort of thing this weekend. They just love that “gotcha” type stuff. But it really doesn’t matter what rifle was used. I think a hunting rifle would probably have been worse.

      • Rat on a train

        AR-15s are more dangerous to the public because they can’t hit a target at more than 100 meters.

  30. Mojeaux

    My Floridaman brother is here to visit. He holds views I find repugnant. I’m hoping not to get baited into a discussion, because he does not argue in good faith. I love him, but I’d like to keep him at KC → Florida length. I am dreading this so much.

    • R.J.

      My mother in law and sister in law are the same way. Refused to come to my daughter’s baptism because the church doesn’t like gay people. I keep them at arm’s length for things like that which come up constantly. I wish you luck.

    • Drake

      Pineapple on pizza?

    • The Other Kevin

      There is hope. We have close friends from NJ that were over this weekend. Very lefty, but know we don’t agree and we just don’t talk politics. Our border patrol agent friend is also in town. They know him as well so everyone was over one night. They asked him about his job, he gave them the unvarnished truth, and… 100% agreed the border is a huge problem and everyone needs to be shipped back where they came from. The NJ couple hates Trump but were upset when we heard he was shot. So you never know.

  31. Not Adahn

    Question: after the Santos precedent, can Menedez get impeached?

    • R.J.

      He was asked to resign by Schumer. Now let’s see if he does. Grifter’s gonna grift, so I bet not. Then what?

      • Nephilium

        I saw one headline saying his wife’s trial was indefinitely suspended. So… she’ll take the seat?

      • R.J.

        Oooh, good call. That is a Grifter Supreme move.

      • Translucent Chum

        Caucus with the Republicans for maximum LoLs.

      • R.J.

        Democrat.

    • Drake

      He’s up for reelection this year and was already kicked off the ticket by the Democrats. Was running as an independent.

  32. The Late P Brooks

    What year is the Honda? I know on older GMs, the signal came from the crank sensor.

    ’90, single point throttle body injection (electric carb)

    There isn’t a “crank trigger”. As I comprehend it, the triggers are in the distributor, with crank signal generated using a trigger wheel in two 180 degree segments to trick the ecu into seeing crank rotation.

  33. The Late P Brooks

    Ban the AR-15 Rifle

    Ban politics.

    • Gustave Lytton

      I’m really getting fucking sick and tired of cops that want to look like bar bouncers or outlaw bikers.

      Clean shaven every day
      Short haircut
      No fucking jewelry
      No fucking visible tattoos

      Get rid of those who can’t meet those minimal standards. That’s for a start.

      • Sean

        Amen!

    • R.J.

      Somewhere today I heard the roof was too hot, so the local SWAT team that was supposed to be there went downstairs. it’s all bullsheet bullsheet bullsheet.

    • Sean

      Comically Tragically inept.

    • cyto

      This one is nuts.

      Please note the roof from which the SS snipers who killed the shooter were operating

      https://x.com/seanmdav/status/1813226897582522659?s=19

      Also….

      They are now saying they had uncovered an Iranian plot to assasinate Trump….. SO THEY BEEFED UP SECURITY!

      This was the “Beefed Up” version!!

  34. Gustave Lytton

    Local blogger and professor that’s been calling Trump “Orange Caligula” for the past 8 years has been completely silent about it since Saturday. Own it, bitch. Of course he won’t, just like his other blind spots.

    • Nephilium

      “When we called him Hitler, we didn’t mean that he should die like Hitler… besides, Hitler had some good ideas!”

    • Compelled Speechless

      That’s funny. I’ve been calling this election Caligula vs. Nero for a while. The crumbling empire parallels are too much to ignore.

      • Ted S.

        Wouldn’t “crumbling empire” be at least 150 years later?

  35. Sensei

    Words fail me.

    “That building in particular has a sloped roof at its highest point. And so, you know, there’s a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof,” she told ABC News in a startling admission.

    “And so, you know, the decision was made to secure the building, from inside,” she told the outlet.

    https://nypost.com/2024/07/16/us-news/secret-service-boss-kimberly-cheatle-says-the-buck-stops-with-me-calls-trump-rally-shooting-response-unacceptable-but-still-wont-resign/

  36. The Late P Brooks

    it was sloped and she thought it was too dangerous.

    Too dangerous for whom? An agent in high heeled sneakers?

    • Gustave Lytton

      Agents that are too fat and untrained to reholster their handgun?

      • Gustave Lytton

        The keystone kops would do a better job than the USSS. I think they just coasted over their reputation this past weekend.

  37. The Late P Brooks

    we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof

    Did anybody bother to point out the slope of the roof where the countersnipers were positioned?

    • creech

      Every one of us here would do a better job of journalizing. How many times have you screamed at the TV “ask the fucking followup questions!”

  38. kinnath

    I missed the morning links.

    I assume you all discussed that the shooter was spotted and photographed on the roof with a range finder half an hour before the shooting.

    What a clusterfuck.

  39. The Late P Brooks

    The keystone kops would do a better job than the USSS. I think they just coasted over their reputation this past weekend.

    Tiger repelling rock works just as long as the tiger believes in it.

    • Gustave Lytton

      I want to see video of the secret service moving him off the stage and into the suv at 2X with Yakety-Sax playing.

      • R.J.

        I hope the universe makes that happen.

      • ElspethFlashman

        Or dueling banjos.

  40. cyto

    I was past the “this is so weird” and accepting incompetence when they told us that he cased the building for a half hour with a rangefinder, came back with a backpack

    But now?

    We left the roof open because slope??

    When the slope on this is a tiny fraction of the slope the actual snipers were on???.

    And then they say this was beefed up security because of a foreign state sponsored plot!?!?!?

    Ok…. 1000% back in the conspiracy camp.

    • kinnath

      I firmly believe this was a problem of “not my yob”.

      No one wanted to be on the roof. No one went onto the roof.

      • Drake

        As Brochettaward said – it was hot.

        Gives me flashbacks to dealing with slacker Privates who I couldn’t trust out of my sight. Paying attention and taking initiative was way over the pay grade for some of them.

    • Drake

      It does make sense that the SS didn’t immediately shoot – knowing that the local cops were in that building.

  41. The Late P Brooks

    I firmly believe this was a problem of “not my yob”.

    Complacency. Decades of security theater fending off imaginary threats have made them even fatter and lazier.

    • cyto

      Complacency and incompetence makes sense….

      Until the boss says they didn’t put people up there on purpose because of the slope (and I look at the snipers on a much steeper slope) and then the boss says they actually beefed up security because they uncovered an Iranian plot.

      Now I don’t believe complacency or incompetence. They are claiming everything was totally the bestest. They were not just 100%… they were beefed up.

      The only way out of this is acknowledging that she also had her top priority as getting 30% of SS agents to be female. Then we could posit her incompetence plus vindictive backbiting throwing her under the bus by making her repeat such stupid things.

      So… I guess I am back to maybe.

      But damn…. the slope claim is such an obvious lie…. and beefed up for a foreign threat???

      Holy shit, if that is the honest story, we are completely vulnerable.

  42. tarran

    Tim Kennedy was on a podcast about the security failures that led to Trump getting shot.

    His take is that there was a great deal of incompetence in the training and assignment of personnel, which led to poor performance and bad decisionmaking on the ground.

    I expect that in Washington DC, there were two schools of thought that led to the short-shrifting of his security detail:
    1) A resentment towards Trump and malicious compliance as a way of pettily annoying him.
    2) A hope that Trump would be assassinated by someone not affiliated with the government.

  43. The Late P Brooks

    Who knows- maybe that kid has been scoping out Trump rallies for a year or more, and saw how porous the security really was. Get inside the perimeter? No dice. Find a duck blind with a clear field if fire? It could work.

  44. ElspethFlashman

    I have an avocado flip clock found at an estate sale. Suuuuuper cool and the date and days flip, and it has an analog clock.

    • R.J.

      Oh wonderful! I bet it’s accurate too!

  45. Sean

    Boy, am I conflicted here…

    I went for a quick haircut, but I got charged the senior rate…

    Which means I saved a couple bucks…but…“senior”

    • R.J.

      My beard is gray. Hair hasn’t gone grey yet. I could do with a senior rate. Things are expensive enough!

    • kinnath

      Embrace the discount

    • Nephilium

      /looks at $45 clippers

  46. The Late P Brooks

    Every one of us here would do a better job of journalizing. How many times have you screamed at the TV “ask the fucking followup questions!”

    How can they not just erupt in howls of derisive laughter?

  47. The Late P Brooks

    The people in those press conferences should be chanting “Bull Shit! Bull Shit!” like hockey fans after a bad hooking call.

    • cyto

      If we had a real 4th estate, that is what would happen