I am leaving for Madagascar in a week to shoot three more episodes. I'll be there for 24 or 25 days.
Next stop after that will be Senegal, followed by Haiti.

Good thing I did not make plans to fly to the US for MATG this year.

Haiti is pretty near. You should come visit.

That's my neck of the woods!

Caterpillar is a bunch of pussies. Fuck them.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/06/...its-trademark/

Santa Cruz coffee shop Cat & Cloud fights Caterpillar Inc. to keep its trademark

https://www.mercurynews.com/wp-conte...-021.jpg?w=804

SANTA CRUZ– Santa Cruz coffee shop Cat & Cloud is under pressure from construction equipment manufacturer Caterpillar Inc. to remove Cat & Cloud’s trademark from apparel and footwear.

Co-owners Jared Truby and Chris Baca opened Cat & Cloud in 2016. The coffee shop sells coffee and other drinks, shirts, hats, water bottles, mugs and other merchandise. It has shops in Santa Cruz, Portola, and one opening soon in Aptos.

“To assume any company can own the word “Cat” seems ludicrous,” Truby said in a prepared statement. “Their trademark seems to be specifically the CAT with a yellow triangle under the ‘A’ which we have never put on any clothing. Our Class 25 trademark is for ‘Cat & Cloud’ which we have printed, rightfully. We are just feeling bullied and tired.” The third Cat & Cloud cafe is opening in Aptos in the next two weeks, and the fight with Caterpillar is bad timing because it is draining and distracting, he said.

The Cat & Cloud trademark is classified as an International Class 25, which includes clothing and footwear, according to the Petition for Cancellation. Cat & Cloud owns its trademark, a cat dressed in a hat and T-shirt, accompanied by a lightning cloud. Caterpillar Inc. claims that Cat & Cloud’s trademark resembles Caterpillar Inc.’s trademark to the point that it could cause consumers confusion and could dilute the distinctiveness of Caterpillar’s famous CAT trademark, according to the petition.

“The morale is great as usual for our team,” Truby said. “The morale for us owners is fairly great as well considering. “The biggest impact we fear is all the lawyer fees to defend ourselves. We are funded by SBA loans and independently, with the cafe opening, we are extra tight.”

“Caterpillar serves customers around the world, many of whom earn their livelihood with one or two machines and often a good pair of work boots,” Caterpillar spokeswoman Bridget Young said in a prepared statement. “We value all of them and strive to provide exceptional products and services. This means we have a responsibility to protect and maintain the brand they love and rely on every day – including our existing trademarks.”

“We are not suing Cat & Cloud, not targeting a small business and not focused on Cat & Cloud’s primary interest: coffee,” Young said in the prepared statement. “We’ve simply asked the U.S. Trademark Office to remove Cat & Cloud’s trademark registration on footwear and apparel only, products for which Caterpillar has longstanding trademarks and a considerable business. We hope to resolve this issue quickly.”

Caterpillar Inc.’s 2019 first quarter sales and revenues amounted to $13.5 billion. The company has a portfolio of approximately 20 brands offering machines, engines, services and more, according to the Caterpillar website. Cat is the flagship brand of products and services. Its 2017 revenues exceeded $45 billion, according to the petition.

Caterpillar Inc. hasn’t filed any opposition or cancellation of the Target Brands’ trademark for Cat & Jack or Dr. Seuss Enterprises for Cat in the Hat, according to the Answer to Petition for Cancellation. Caterpillar Inc. has also requested 10 other companies cancel their trademarks, listed in the Answer to Petition.

One person started a petition to urge Caterpillar Inc. to stop bullying and lift its actions against small businesses. The petition has nearly 15,600 signatures.

Nicole Junod, team leader at the downtown Santa Cruz Cat & Cloud, said the trademark dispute has cost $10,000-$20,000 in fees. She added that the community has been very supportive and is coming in to buy more drinks and products and is supporting employees.

Michael Foy, who designs some of the merchandise for Cat & Cloud, also sees the backing of the community.

“I’m optimistic, the support we’re getting is absolutely insane,” he said. “It feels like all the energy we put into making people happy is coming back to us.”

Truby said after encouragement from the general public, Cat & Cloud will launch a GoFundMe fundraiser Wednesday to cover lawyer fees . He said Cat & Cloud doesn’t know what to expect from the conflict besides lawyer fees, but it hopes the media push will help Caterpillar Inc. see Cat & Cloud isn’t conflicting and both companies can be successful without further action on the cancellation of its trademark.

How in the world can that be considered even...........I don't.........I hope the judge throws this out and forces Catepillar to pay restitution + significantly more. I guess the corporate lawyers on retainer don't have anything else to do.


It's not like the Rich Energy drink lawsuit in F1 where it was OBVIOUS that logo was completely copied.

That's a fairly egregious abuse of the P&T office, and I would honestly be surprised if Caterpillar isn't hit with punitive damages once it's all over.

When I get in front of a computer I'm going to check and see if I can order t-shirt from the coffee shop. After all, it's got a cat drinking coffee on it so they must be good people.

https://catandcloud.com/collections/...13831855276134


Also, our .4 channel (lower left TV) has been pretty much non-stop kitten videos for the past hour.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...4f68af77e9.png

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...fa69d3032a.png

Still nothing but kittens.

I just checked the program log, and we literally have non-stop kitten video scheduled all the way until 8pm tonight.

My mind is blown.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...3d57bc1be8.png

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...0c48c88aaf.png

You should go Fight Club and add in snippets of inappropriate content.

Like pictures of puppies.

Just found out the price of the 30AE MX5 in Turkey today.

$57,737.80

Almost 58 thousand US dollars.
How much are they in your neck of the woods?

According to the Mazda website, they start around $35k. 500 units, all are already pre-sold. At least it’s only a $2-3k premium over the regular GT.
Count me among the dubious - people seemed to think my Miata was special because it was one of the first 3000 produced, ignoring the other 397,000+ NA’s made after. Now it’s really worth about the same as a good-quality professional paint job.

Mass-produced is the opposite of special.

The dining table that goes with the banquette. I was hoping for a more uniform gray color and less mapley-beige showing through, but alas maple sucks to stain (it wasn't my original plan, but sometimes plans change and budgets do not).

Top is maple veneer plywood, built up around the perimeter to three layers of 3/4".
finish is polymerized linseed oil over a mishmash of gray stains, dyes, and frustration finished by a couple coats of food-safe carnauba-beeswax blend.
Legs are stainless steel adjustable hairpin style.


https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...10226de060.png
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...e57b9cb866.png


This is how we do:
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...247d369401.png

In order to get a more even stain, try using tea next time. Yes, plain old black tea. If you want it dark, further blacken it with steel wool soaked in vinegar.

But I think it looks just fine the way you have it.

The problem I had was
1) not letting the stain dry long enough before adding the linseed oil. It sucked all the color right off the wood. Whoops. Next time (there wont be one) it'll cure two additional days or more.
2) Adding aniline dye (gray) to the second coat of linseed oil, though testing on fresh maple didn't give me great hope. I suspect the water based dyes work way better.

I tried steel wool and vinegar once. What a mess. I find "ebonizing" to be much easier with good ol fashion india ink.
I did this on some oak speaker cabinets. It's so easy and effective. Later when I made a sub for a fellow miata enthusiast (brgracer), I got some premade black "wood like" cabinets. The color and texture match was uncanny.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...7ac8db4a14.png

Anyone have experience mounting strain gauges? I'm looking to permanently mount some as part of a DIY project, and I'm trying to determine what chems to use for prep & bonding.

Has to be rigid. No soft stuff like E6000 or cheap epoxy. I'd try J.B. Weld.

Agreed with Я-L33t.

Depending on how critical this application is, and how much force is involved, you might consider something like 3M DP420 epoxy. It's not cheap (about $35 a tube), but it binds objects together stronger than either true love or The Force. It's what the e-bike guys use to bond steel torque plates to aluminum dropouts.

Joe, after being chief engineer at TV, I am surprised you think $35 for a tube of industrial grade epoxy is expensive. We go through tons of DP110 here like it's butter on toast.

Also don't forget you need the dispenser gun...

In other measuring device news, I recently had to learn the best ways to mount teenie tiny K type thermocouples (thermal epoxy sucks, accelerated cyanoacrylate wins). And make the couples with the welder box. Pretty neat to be able to connect all that into a many-port datalogger to measure how well a peltier and some heat pipes move heat into a microdisplay at -40 C (or move it out at 73C). We recently acquired a nice thermal chamber. This project is rapidly expanding my test equipment experience.

Next up is the leak tester. If only we had a manual...