12:09 – Barbara went to the gym this morning, and has a noon meeting with a group that’s organizing a charity golf event and asked her to help them do it.
It’s about time for us to get some plants started in pots, so we’ll be doing that over the next week or two. We’re still vulnerable to a hard freeze for the next month or so, so we’ll set the pots out on the deck and bring them in if very cold weather threatens. I want to get several of the herbs started, because most of them are very slow to germinate. Once they get started, most of them tend to flourish like weeds, and all of them are hardy enough to survive our winters once they’re in the ground and established. We’ll also plant a few of each of the vegetables, mostly for a continuing supply of seeds, but I’m sure we’ll also have plenty of fresh produce this summer and autumn.
More work on science kits today and for the rest of this month.
“Intel to Lay off 12,000 Employees, Restructure for Future”
https://www.petri.com/intel-lay-off-12000-employees-restructure-future
And desktop computing is moving faster and faster from a mainstream product to a niche product. Prices will eventually follow (up).
Intel seems to be intent on changing direction from PCs to smart devices and the cloud. The bad news for Intel, is the ARM architecture seems solidly planted in the smart devices sector already and they are far more nimble than AMD ever was.
I briefly looked into the kit for a Raspberry Pi powered laptop, but I can’t see paying $299 for it. It would be cool to have an laptop you can upgrade for $35 every time they come out with a new Raspberry Pi though.
The pi-top is too expensive for what it is, if you’re looking for a tool to work with.
But it looks perfect for an educational summer project for a to-be-nine-year-old. Thanks for the heads-up.
Yo, we all gon be in the cloud, homies, everything gon be the innernet of things, reboot yo fridge, turn off toilet cam, and watch March of the Vibrators…
Another gorgeous day with sun and blue skies and steadily warming temps but still got cold nights, and the maple syrup peeps are digging it, say we got a nice season again for it.
Mrs. OFD will be home Friday from MA and then leaves again Sunday for OK City, OK. Meanwhile I ran Princess back to Moh-ree-all yesterday and gotta go pick her up again next Friday. Kind of a PITA but I’m getting used to it and it’s a chance to recon the big city up there and the landscape in between, plus the border control situation. My Enhanced license works great going back and forth, but man, until all the green comes out this spring, it is one desolate and bleak flatland for sixty miles, with barn silos every quarter mile, and they you hit the outer industrial slag heaps, warehouses, power stations and pylons and towers, etc., etc. Downtown it’s cool for me to have a MA plate on the Princess car ’cause the plates are dented and crunched and she’s got scrape marks on the sides, and I can drive like a maniac and scare even the nutty Montrealers up there. Did it yesterday, cutting mofos off left and right, doing 80MPH around hairpin turns, fuck ’em all. Horns blaring behind me, hey, let an old man have an adrenaline rush once in a while, eh? And no sign of any gendarmes. Also did the CC thing, lol.
Next time up, though, I’ll have my RAV4 w/VT plates and will be Mr. Safety.
Off to do errands and back to do some minor chores here but I run outta gas fast with this bug I caught from wife and grandkids and the sore back and numb leg. Later I’ll keep watching the “True Detective” series and see how it goes; pretty good so far, though.
Very little prepping this week so far but I’ll get back into it when I can function a little better; you young whippersnappers will find out as you age just how a crummy little bug can mess up your week.
SteveF: Yes on the Pi as a good educational tool. There are tons of projects that might interest a young person (or even an older person).
I created a media server for ripped movies. One of the best tutorials on getting started is here: https://melgrubb.com/2014/08/01/raspberry-pi-home-server-index/ . Great explanations and tutorial on getting started with a Pi system.
I described my Pi media server here on Dr. Pournelle’s Chaos Manor Reviews site: http://chaosmanorreviews.com/a-raspberry-pi-media-server/ . It was a fun little project. I made two more of them, one for each daughter. One of them used it to digitize all of their DVD’s.
But as a platform for a child to learn about geeky stuff, it is a pretty cheap way to go. And there are tons of projects for it.
Oh, certainly, RaspPi and Arduino are great for learning projects.
I think that I mentioned here that I got a DuinoKit for my daughter a few months ago. When we have the time in the evening, we work on projects or just learning how different components work. She’s been learning real programming and electronics, and demonstrated her first real project to her school and everyone was impressed by how well she understood it all, even more than the assertion that she’d designed, built, and programmed the project herself.
Meanwhile, I’ve been writing tutorials for using the DuinoKit. The guy who sells them likes my work and wants me to write tutorials for his upcoming PiKit, if he ever finishes designing it and gets the first set from the manufacturer. (He has a day job which keeps him very busy, so new kit work has to be squeezed in.)
However, regarding the Pi-Top, it’s a laptop which allows web surfing and document creation, which my daughter has been pestering me for, and it should be limited enough to prevent most of the viruses that lurk for the unwary. I don’t know about anyone else, but I get really tired of setting up a Windows laptop, including antivirus packages, turning it over to my wife and daughter to use, and having it be infected by the next morning and unusable within a week. (I don’t know how they do it. Even when I deliberately use a Windows laptop for web surfing and such for a few days, I never manage to get it infected the way they do.)
I have the urge to build something. An urge which has gone largely unfulfilled since I built my Heathkit H-89 and later built the monochrome monitor for my H-148.
I’m almost tempted to build my daughter a Pi-Top around a Raspberry Pi 2. By the time she is old enough to figure out how to replace the Raspberry Pi 2 with a Raspberry Pi 3, she may be as ready for the Internet as she ever will be.
The same me that says the Pi-Top is too expensive wants to pick up a 3D printer and build something similar around a Pine A64 which Raspberry Pi like but supports higher capacity Micro SD cards. Of course, the 3D printer will be more expensive, and the parts will still probably come to $300.
@nick, did you go see how that office / warehouse that you were considering purchasing fared during the flooding?
@lynn,
not yet, I just got back from delivering a craigslist sale. Not something I usually do, but hey $300 is $300 and I got into n houston (just outside 610) and Bissonet to Holcroft and up thru the Villages. Signs of water every where, but little still on the street.
I’m headed over to addicks to look at the water. My wife sent a pic but I want to look myself. I’m REALLY not comfortable with a wall o water hanging over my kids’ school, and I’m 5 9s certain that their emergency planning doesn’t consider a levy break and flood. this is something I’m gonna be monitoring closely for a couple days.
nick
Surprised? Not.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/treasurys-lew-to-announce-hamilton-to-stay-on-10-bill-222204
Just the latest obamination that needs to be reversed. Two centuries of progress destroyed in just less than 8-years. One could have expected this and many will say that the Constitution was dead the day it was signed. But in perspective Obola has accelerated the death of this great experiment faster than anyone, even Obola, would have believed in 2008. It is far more than a “fundamental change”.
Found out an interesting bit of local history. Ninety years ago, they closed schools here for a scarlet fever epidemic. There was also a measles epidemic at the time. Seventy seven years ago there was a quarantine due to a smallpox epidemic.
“… I get really tired of setting up a Windows laptop, including antivirus packages, turning it over to my wife and daughter to use, and having it be infected by the next morning and unusable within a week. (I don’t know how they do it. Even when I deliberately use a Windows laptop for web surfing and such for a few days, I never manage to get it infected the way they do.)”
Ditto here. I lost count of the Winblows laptops, netbooks and suchlike that got effed up within hours of turning them over to the fembats. (true at work sites, also) And our one remaining Winblows desktop has to be ROUTINELY and RUTHLESSLY examined by me, running all the sw needed to clean it up and do cold reboots a couple of times a week. If something slows it down, it’s MY fault because I have the security stuff running on it plus it’s on an offshore VPN. If I didn’t have that, this machine woulda been dead a long time ago. And I point out every chance I get that the Linux machines boot a lot faster and so far have not been infected by anything.
Wife down in MA has her Win7 laptop, which was crashing and would not reboot a few days ago (until I inserted a Ubuntu Studio DVD and then it came back up OK w/her Win7, still a mystery to me), and she has my Mint netbook. Watch her lose the latter and come back with a dead Win laptop.
“Just the latest obamination that needs to be reversed.”
Yikes! Just saw the pic of Tubman; howdja like to wake up next to THAT in the AM?
Naturally all the lefty rumpthumpers dig it and creamed their designer jeans over it. I’ll quit using twenties, and the tens, also, since Hamilton was another betrayer of republican principles and a toady for corporate interests. Ones, fives and fifties from now, but on the other hand, who gives a shit? It’s just fiat currency anyway and ALL our money is simple 1’s and 0’s in the Cloud, running on State and bankster databases worldwide.
Good point about Obola accelerating the ongoing slide to dystopia without even realizing how successful he and his handlers have been; it gets easier for them now, and with the coming election of Field Marshal Rodham, who I’m thinking is some kind of science experiment gone way wrong (clone of a combination of Angela Merkel, Golda Meir and the jizz from a warthog litter in Upper Silesia), we’ll see it all start to fold even faster.
Nine months. Semper paratus, fratres.
“…Princess car ’cause the plates are dented and crunched and she’s got scrape marks on the sides…”
Princess must have had the same driving instructor as my younger niece. My sister’s car had all sorts of dents and scrapes from Emily’s escapades in it. Not to mention the time she came back from the gym with the number plates missing… 🙂
Nine months. Semper paratus, fratres.
I am rarely ready nowadays, bro.
it gets easier for them now, and with the coming election of Field Marshal Rodham, who I’m thinking is some kind of science experiment gone way wrong (clone of a combination of Angela Merkel, Golda Meir and the jizz from a warthog litter in Upper Silesia),
lol! That would make a great Dark Horse graphic novel!
Just the latest obamination that needs to be reversed.
Washington’s next, racyiss haters! He’ll be replaced by George Washington Carver. When they run out of ‘Frikan ‘Murkans for fiat pics they’ll just make shit up. Like “you WHITEYS! want Obola dead, so we *can* use him on fiat currency. Maybe a new $200 note with rainbow anti-counterfeit fibers to represent fags*, also.”
*Sorry, macro-aggression. I meant LGBTXYZ-CAIT!
I see Obola is sucking Saudi dick again. What is wrong with him? Moosloid much.
The Saudis were jealous of his relationship with the Iranians.
“…Maybe a new $200 note with rainbow anti-counterfeit fibers to represent fags*, also…”
Won’t even be worth 2¢
“I see Obola is sucking Saudi dick again.”
Now you know why the Saudi always wear those robes, to make it easier for other heads of state to give some head as they go down the line. Obola, pulling the train.
Should we expect anything else:
http://www.infowars.com/report-authorities-buying-more-riot-control-gear-over-fear-of-riots-sweeping-america/
Keep poking us with a stick and don’t be surprised when you get bit.
The smart “authorities” will soon figure out what side of the line they should be on. Oh wait, smart and authority in the same sentence, doesn’t work.
To update an old joke, why do Arabs wear flowing robes? Because goats can hear a zipper going down from a mile away.
Discussion of Trump’s VP selection. Most of it is chin-pullingingly serious and no more interesting than armchair generalship ever is, but not quite everyone is quite serious. You might find it amusing.
Wow. A bunch of real HATERS here. Yikes. So many micro-aggressions and macro-aggressions, and AGAIN, with zero trigger warning and zero indication of a safe space.
“…they’ll just make shit up.”
Which they pretty much do for everything nowadays; globalwarmingchangeclimate, the epidemic of Nazi cops murdering black toddlers, Cankles ever uttering a truthful word in her pathetic and dismal life, Larry Klinton’s “I did not have sex with that woman,” the list just goes on forever. When you see their lips moving….and we must give them cred here, brahs; to come up with the idea of a sudden need to replace nasty old white patriarchs with Approved Icons. Brilliant! Of a piece with putting a tennis player statue among the line of Confederate generals and digging up General Forrest and his wife and moving them elsewhere.
And speaking of Obola and the Soddies; every time he goes over there a pic comes out showing him deeply bowing to those subhuman scumbags; now is that for real or did he just notice some lint on somebody’s robe? Or drop something, like his iPhone with all the child porn on it? (the stuff Larry Klinton sends him every week).
But it sure looks like he’s bowing. I can’t wait to see what he does when they finally change over to Cankles. And I suppose everyone’s seen the various pics of her as “Bride of Chuckie” by now, eh? She’s a rock-solid certifiable fucking psychopath if ever there was one. I blame Mr. DadCooks; he had a golden opportunity to get her drunk back there in high skool, put her behind the wheel, and send the car over a cliff.
“…will soon figure out what side of the line they should be on.”
Some of them will, maybe even half. There’s a bunch of serious Christians and PromiseKeeper and OathKeeper types among both LE organizations and the military.
If they’re buying more riot gear, let me be among the first to step up and assure them that any mass rioting won’t be coming from Mr. and Mrs. Cleaver, Wally and the Beav.
” You might find it amusing.”
Which I did, including your fine pitch for the job. If Trump is nominated, of course, and picks a veep? He needs somebody fah away from Noo Yawk values, so that opens up the whole South and West right there; maybe the former gov of Arizona, Jan Brewer? If has real ballz he’d pick Finicum’s widow.
You guys are going to run all the ladies off!
As regards Trump’s VP choice, I did notice last night that “Lyin’ Ted” has transformed to “Senator Cruz”. And Dick Morris has weighed in on Trump’s VP choice, “Kasich Amasses A Dowry”:
http://www.dickmorris.com/kasich-amasses-a-dowry/
“Question: Why is John Kasich running for president?”
“Answer: To be Donald Trump’s vice president.”
“Question: So why is he still fighting for delegates?”
“Answer: To have a dowry to present to Trump in return for the VP nod.”
“The nuptials are scheduled for July 18 in Cleveland. Save the date.”
A couple of the usual suspects are figuring he’ll pick either Carson or Cruz. And the former gov of Minnesota has expressed a strong interest.
What does Cruz bring? Latinos? Youth. Help in winning Florida?
Texas is a given for an Republican, so is OK, so is the rest of the South.
What does Kasich bring? Ohio, a solid battleground state and 148+ delegates.
I just don’t know about Ben Carson as VP. I would ask him to be Surgeon-general in a heartbeat. The wife still wants him to be President.
I forgot about Chris Christie. I am not sure what he brings other than being able to have hugs with Obola.
And Rick Perry, brings nothing.
Jesse Ventura wants to be Veep? I approve!
Check out image #16 in the following, “Highway 6 could be closed for a month in wake of Houston floods”
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Highway-6-could-be-closed-for-a-month-in-wake-of-7277397.php#photo-9840787
I think that is the levee between the Brazos River and my house. My house is about a mile down the levee from that spot. We are running another levee test on our 14 ft tall levee.
Image #15 is the freeway by my house. Both the north and south turnarounds are flooded.
The water is still coming up in all five rivers across the Houston metroplex.
http://water.weather.gov/ahps2/hydrograph.php?wfo=HGX&gage=RMOT2
Woof! Now you can just throw your guns out the front door and they’ll be in the Brazos.
As long as the Brazos does not come in my house! Or my office!
Sure do wish we could ship Las Vegas some of this water. Oh well, it is headed to the Gulf of Mexico at about 10 mph.
@lynn, back from my errands and my looksee…
The dam by the kids school has seeping and squishy places. I don’t like that at all. The water is about 20ft below the top, so no real chance of overtopping but that squishy part worries me. The water is moving visibly to the south.
There is a ditch in front of it for runoff that was 10ft higher than it currently is. It’s moving FAST. Right at the north end, there’s a nice gated community. Can’t really get to the end to see where they might install an additional spillway. All the storm drain manhole covers in the area where I parked were lifted. I’m guessing a BUNCH of water hit the ditch and back pressured the drains. It tells me no one has been to look. There is a wastewater lift station right there too.
I’m going back tomorrow and if the seepage is still there or worse, I’m gonna start calling people.
The warehouse I was thinking about looked dry.
Wife is now sure we WON’T be looking for houses in the Sherwood Oaks area 🙂
nick
“What does Cruz bring?”
He brings his Canadian citizenship, so is thus ineligible under the U.S. Constitution to become President.
http://freedomoutpost.com/constitutional-eligibility-is-a-matter-of-national-security-the-family-time-line-of-rafael-edward-ted-cruz/
I will advise The Donald to pick Jan Brewer or Leroy Finicum’s widow.
“Jesse Ventura wants to be Veep? I approve!”
Ditto.
“It tells me no one has been to look.”
Our tax dollars at work again. They’re billing this as the eighth historic U.S. flood in the past year or so.
“The dam by the kids school has seeping and squishy places. I don’t like that at all.”
Ditto. To me that’s an indication that it’s waterlogged and could fail at any moment. But I’m not an engineer, just an old faht who’s seen flooding firsthand and a bunch of dams in my time.
That’s what I was thinking, but the wife says “our yard is saturated and squishy, why wouldn’t the dam be wet and squishy too?”
I’ll check tomorrow, and if it’s worse, I’m calling people….
@Lynn, that pic 16 looks like the inside of addicks reservoir too.
nick
http://www.houstoniamag.com/articles/2015/5/6/will-the-addicks-and-barker-dams-fail-may-2015
“Leaking Voids” is a little unnerving but not a lot unnerving. I sure would not buy a house near those dams though. Leaking voids to me are cracks through the dams that have had so much water flow through them that they are now voids. If one of the voids was to wash out, would it take out that section of the dam? Would it take our five miles of the dam?
When Katrina happened, our neighbor’s sister lived in the Big Easy with a 25 ft tall Mississippi river levee in her backyard. Her sister could see the ships going by from the back windows of her house. When NO flooded, she got 15 ft of water in her house. Needless to say, that house was bulldozed and her sister moved to Baton Rouge.
There is no way I am living near a levee with water on one side of it 100% of the time. I would equate it to living next to a rattlesnake den. Sooner or later, something is coming in your house.
But if there is water on that levee for just 10% of the time, it is probably safe. Maybe. I know this, Buffalo Bayou and Brays Bayou are going to be running full for a month or two as they drain those reservoirs to the very last drop.
BTW, there is about 5 or 6 ft of water on the river side of our levee right now. We raised our levee 4 ft just 5 years ago when FEMA redid the flood maps in Fort Bend County and lowered everything. I was a big fan of that even though it cost $15 million for our subdivision. They refinanced our levee loans and actually kept our levee property tax the same, I pay about $900 per year for my house.
“That’s what I was thinking, but the wife says “our yard is saturated and squishy, why wouldn’t the dam be wet and squishy too?”
Except that the dam is under pressure from that wotta and your yard is not. And the consequences of having it buckle or burst are a tad worse than one’s yard turning into a bog, temporarily.
Mos def check tomorrow early and get on the horn, get some peeps on the stick.
Funny thing was, I wasn’t the only concerned citizen out there taking a look. I chatted with a lady as I was walking back to the car, and she said she was going to see it herself.
It shows how even someone like me, a fairly prepared guy, can totally miss a real threat, staring him right in the face. NEVER occurred to me that the water would get that high, or that the dam might be unsound. (BTW, it’s hardly a dam, really just a berm on the 2 downhill sides of a sloping field. It doesn’t even enclose the reservoir.)
Good wake up call…..
nick
nick, tell your wife that the dam is like a tightly-sealed diaper after the kid has had colon blow. The contents are under pressure, the restraining system is under pressure, and you do not want to see any leaks or squishiness.
I read somewhere a while back that there’s a chit-load of dams, or other water-restraining structures like that berm, in this country that haven’t even been inspected, let alone maintained or upgraded. Like I mentioned earlier, a bunch of them here in New England were built in 1938 after that big mutha whacked us, with nearly zero warning back then. Well, 1938 was nearly eighty years ago, and quite a few of them are out in the woods and peeps in nearby towns may not even be aware of them. We’ve had flooding in recent years here in Vermont and in NH that left fatalities.
Online maps and videos and pics are great, but there is no substitute for getting out and walking one’s AO and looking around at stuff like this. I still heartily recommend the book “Outside Lies Magic: Regaining History and Awareness in Everyday Places” by John R. Stilgoe, who’s also written on railroad history, estuary marinescapes and language. He pays particular attention to rights-of-way, power poles and telephone lines, substations, etc., etc. All very good chit to know in your particular ‘hood. Along with being aware of the peeps who tend to frequent such places besides oneself.
I have personal knowledge of the failing state of bridges in NYS, which comports with reports of the same across the nation. Money is the problem, of course. But there’s always tax dollars for bunny inspectors, to use Pournelle’s example.
So, we’re forecast to get snow again in a few days.
Anybody got any Global Warming they can send our way?
“…Money is the problem, of course. But there’s always tax dollars for bunny inspectors…”
Oh, absolutely. The allotment of our tax dollars is a truly fascinating subject. Another little trick I’ve seen them pull over the years, and in three different states: tax reform citizens will push for a referendum for tax relief of some sort, and the powers-that-be then tell us, “oh well, gee, we’ll have to cut the police and fire, etc.” My response has always been “Well go the fuck ahead, then, do it.” In Maffachufetts they cut a veterans mental rehab residence in Worcester County and a few months later one of the patients killed himself. Always tax dollars for DOD, too; whatever they want they get. Always dangerous new threats to the nay-shun, etc. And you, me and several others here have been all too well acquainted with DOD waste writ large.
“…we’re forecast to get snow again in a few days.”
Not up here, just a bit of rain and more sunny days. Y’all down in the tropics have been getting more snow than us for the last several years. I blame Algore.
I read somewhere a while back that there’s a chit-load of dams
Vegas has one big-ass dam. The one way above it hopefully will break and fill Hoover up. Aqua thieves.
Hey, MrAtoz; there is a sculptor doing military memorial statues in Lost Wages, and one of them is supposed to be an M60 gunner; you got any intel on that caper?
I found this to be very useful too and along those same lines:
http://www.amazon.com/Field-Roadside-Technology-Paperback-Author/dp/B00FVG0602/ref=sr_1_cc_2?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1461214589
A Field Guide to Roadside Technology [Paperback] [2006] (Author) Ed Sobey
Infrastructure, can’t be easily replaced, is everywhere, and holds our society together.
nick
Looks very good, Mr. nick; thanks for the tip/link. I have the habit, developed during my mil-spec and cop days, of frequently looking UP, which most peeps hardly ever do. There’s a whole other world above us, and not by many feet, either.
With a lot of useful, repurposable stuff, come a zombie apocalypse….
nick
now off to bed
I have the habit, developed during my mil-spec and cop days, of frequently looking UP
You need to walk around a college campus. Half the cretins walking are looking down at their phone, their link to the world, their lifeline, a new body part. I was walking to the parking garage on the sidewalk one day, a wide sidewalk with enough room for three abreast. Saw one of them faggot philosophy majors walking toward me with their head down. I stopped. They ran into to me. Then complained I was not watching where I was going. I told the fairy queen that I was stopped and they ran into me. They complained some more, walked on, with their head down.
My drive home from work takes me by a local junior college. I have to watch very carefully since the students will just walk across the road without looking. Yes, they have the right of way, but that won’t change the laws of physics. Fools.
Yes, always look up. Last fall walking in the woods I looked up and there was a guy in full camo sitting in a tree with a bow. I waved at him, he waved back. It was a no hunting area (grounds of a monastic retreat) but I didn’t care.
students will just walk across the road without looking. Yes, they have the right of way
No they don’t unless they are in a crosswalk or at in intersection. If the intersection is controlled by lights they are supposed to obey the walk signals.
But these are students, think they are privileged, little common sense. So YOU have to look out for them because they certainly cannot look out for themselves.
Around me the law is that the moment the pedestrian steps off the curb they have the right of way over the motorized vehicle no matter what. Even if they are out of the crosswalk. Some of the local towns conduct
revenue boosting stingspublic education events where a plainclothes officer steps off the curb and anyone who doesn’t stop gets an educational ticket.JLP is right, Ray. It depends on jurisdiction. Pedestrians here have absolute right of way, too. No matter what. No matter if they’re just standing in the middle of the road, or wandering all over with headphones on and looking down at their phones.
Why, it almost makes me want to put fake plates on my 4300 pound van and drive around playing Death Race 2000. Idiot student – 1 point! Drunk staggering along the road – 2 points! Aggressive panhandler in the middle of the intersection – 4 points! Five rambunctious underclass youths deliberately blocking traffic – 10 points each!
Or maybe drive around in an ice cream truck, looking for targets of opportunity.
“You need to walk around a college campus.”
Nope. Last July walked around downtown Boston by the waterfront and saw the same kind of chit; EVERYONE was gazing into their pixels and I had to watch out for THEM, as I would have trampled them otherwise. Several of them were startled by my sudden shadow in the sun, too. Cretins. Man, I did NOT fit in well down there, stood out like the proverbial sore thumb, Gray Man cancelled. If I was gonna do the Gray Man thing down in Megalopolis I’d have to lose about 100 pounds, stoop a lot, cut my hair and shave, wear hipster style apparel, and do the same pixel-gazing stuff.
Yes, Peds up here are the Holy Sanctified as well, esp. in the state capital. I’ve had peeps just step right the fuck out in front of me, nowhere near a crosswalk. And the assholes who deliberately move as slowly as possible. One time I stopped around dusk at a stop sign, carefully looked 360 degrees to be certain there were no peds anywhere near me and began to proceed. Out of NOWHERE (and eerily near a cemetery) an old fembat dressed all in black suddenly appeared in front of me, shaking her fist and shouting imprecations. I jumped a foot as I did NOT see that coming, despite my careful lookout. As I was leaving the scene, I wished I’d asked her about the Thane of Cawdor or something.
It depends on jurisdiction
Here is jaywalking and the jaywalker assumes the risk.
http://www.ncsl.org/research/transportation/pedestrian-crossing-50-state-summary.aspx
Five rambunctious underclass youths deliberately blocking traffic – 10 points each!
Politician – 1,000 points, double if they are wearing a suit.
Hey, MrAtoz; there is a sculptor doing military memorial statues in Lost Wages, and one of them is supposed to be an M60 gunner; you got any intel on that caper?
Just the web site.
http://lasvegasveteransmemorial.org/
of frequently looking UP
The first rule of helicopter club…
Saw one of them faggot philosophy majors walking toward me with their head down.
Major macro-aggression. Six month Cankles scab scraping duty. See Mr. OFD for details involved.
“http://lasvegasveteransmemorial.org/”
OK, I get it now; the M60 guy represents the ‘Nam war. Your humble northern correspondent did not wear a helmet (in defiance of regs, like much else I did or did not do) and ditto no flak vest. Too friggin’ hot and the gun and ammo weight kicked my ass after a few hours hiking around. 110 in the shade and extremely humid. I wore jungle boots, OD fatigue pants, OD t-shirt and boonie hat and that was it, and still got crotch rot and other noxious ailments. Getting the enlisted air crew duty was in one sense a blessed relief and in another sense was quite often a lot more nerve-racking.
“… faggot philosophy majors…”
Yes, a new low for Mr. Ray. Shame! Funny experience for me was two of the courses I took back in grad skool at Rutgers: a “critical theory” indoctrination by two fembat radicals where the class was 100% female; and a medieval philosophy course taught by an old white guy and it was 100% male. We studied and wrote about Saints Augustine, Anselm and Aquinas, and also Maimonides ( Moshe ben Maimonand), and Averroes (Abū l-Walīd Muḥammad Ibn ʾAḥmad Ibn Rušd).
“If God is all-merciful, why does He permit evil in the world?”
“If we have free will, can God know our futures? If so, does not that contradict free will?”
“Is war ever just?”
Ya know, useful questions like that. We ain’t gonna get straight answers from anybody after, say, the anti-Federalists, and that’s only political philosophy anyway.
I enjoy pointing out to philosophy types that they’re still pondering the same imponderables that were being pondered 2500 years ago (Plato in Athens or Lao Zi in China, roughly contemporaneous). And are no closer to answers.
Meanwhile, the advances just in materials science just in the past century have improved the lives of everyone on earth to the point that we’d be considered gods by Plato’s contemporaries.
All true, but depending on one’s philosophy, material sciences become immaterial if said philosophy is misused to evil purposes. Words are extremely powerful and the pen is, in fact, mightier than the sword. Ideas are what motivate people after the basic needs get met, and ideas are what motivated them to even come up with scientific method in the first place. It’s no accident that a chit-ton of Aristotle’s and others’ philosophical ponderings concern nature and science. And it’s political philosophy imponderables that got this country started and other such imponderables are destroying it.
Uh-huh. Not wanting to be taxed to pay for a war you didn’t want sure is imponderable.
And if you take the view that most of the American founding fathers wanted national independence solely for their own profit — land speculation, getting away from royal monopolies — then philosophy played even less a role.
And if you take the view that most of the American founding fathers wanted national independence solely for their own profit — land speculation, getting away from royal monopolies — then philosophy played even less a role.
That’s certainly the view of the New Left historians from the 60s on. The reality is a little more complicated. Some of the founders were motivated by the trampling of the rights of Englishmen, some by the mercantilism imposed on the colonies that prohibited manufacturing, some by a sense of destiny, and some by greed. And political philosophy was strongly in their minds when they drew up the constitutions of their colonies/states and later the US.
Oh, sure. All I was getting at is that whether you take the traditional view (pissed-off plebs) or the revised view (greedy founding fathers), abstract points of philosophical maundering played very little part.