Distractions

The Book of Cannabis is well worth the read. What an amazing plant. Some takeaways:

Cannabis is an excellent pioneer plant for disturbed or barren ground. It thrives in maximum sunshine, photosynthesis never resting (other plants get enough sun and rest).

It is a good environmental remediator, easily extracting heavy metals from the soil. (Just don't burn that). As plants go, it is an opportunistic generalist (like us)

Studies have shown that smoking low percentage THC is better for people than high. It is probably best to wait for the brain is developed before partaking (too late for me).

The ingredient THC is only one of thousands of cannabinoids, and a variant THCD(?) or something, is the most powerful psychoactive component found in the plant. There are terpenes as well, aromatics. These are all filtered out for vaping, losing a lot of character. (You can tell I'm a flower enthusiast). 

The future of weed seems to fork between quality grown hemp with terrior (like wine), and concentrated product. Hashish you can get to about 30%, but chemists have ways to get liquids up to 100% and can also make synthetic cannabinoids.(Some very bad for the brain).

Humans are good at distilling things, poppies to heroin, coca leaves to crack, uranium ore to plutonium. It is a simultaneous blessing and curse. I myself am rooting for low THC grandpa weed, organically grown. You can still function and have a conversation on that stuff.

Speaking of which, I played with the computer to make molds. I won't show pics of the whole process, but basically I came up with forms I could make plaster molds from. Multiple parts.

I used Tinkercad, which is a children's program, making it perfect for me. 

I wanted the molds for the plaster out of silicone rubber as it gives great fidelity and separates clean. I had to make multiple negative forms to get the silicone rubber molds.

I 3 D printed the forms to cast the silicone rubber in, and realized a design flaw. No draft provided to remove the rubber. It was stuck in there.

My solution to this design flaw:

There you go. Doing it the old fashioned way with clay dams against the object would have taken less time, but it was a good problem solving and visual challenge. I'm sure I'll find some use for it.

It is too bad you can't 3 D print silicone rubber, because you could make cute squishies and stuff.