09:03 – It was 57.4F (13C) when I took Colin out at about 0650 this morning, foggy and drizzling. We’ve had about 2 inches (5 cm) of rain over the last couple days, and more to come.
Barbara is off shortly to a meeting of the Golf Committee, which does an annual benefit whose proceeds go to the Wellness Center. After that it’s some errands and then the Friends bookstore this afternoon. She has a busy week. Tomorrow, she heads down to Winston to run various errands, and returns Thursday. Then, Sunday morning, she leaves for a week-long trip down to Brasstown in the far, far southwestern corner of the state for a crafts course.
As of yesterday, we have enough chemicals made up to build another two dozen each of the biology and chemistry kits. We’ll continue labeling and filling bottles to boost the limiting quantities of each chemical until we have sufficient numbers of each to build 20 to 30 dozen of each type of kit, which’ll give us a good cushion heading into the crazy season that starts around mid-July.
For years, I’ve been becoming increasingly disgusted with the politically-correct, diverse, multi-cultural mess that modern TV has become. And not just the news and other “non-fiction” stuff. The fictional series are as bad or worse. If you believe the world is as they represent it, most of the doctors, cops, scientists, and other people that people used to admire are now minorities and/or women. White men, to the extent there are any, are generally represented as incompetent if not actually evil. I simply won’t tolerate this bogus representation of reality, so I no longer watch any of these series.
So I’ve started putting mostly old-fashioned TV series in our Netflix and Amazon queues. Many are literally old, done years or decades ago. There are a few recent series that haven’t been infected by this crap, ones like the earlier seasons of Midsomer Murders, when Brian True-May was still running things. Of course, they fired him for not being PC, and the series immediately degenerated into the PC, diverse pile of shit that makes the PTB happy.
So we watch stuff like Vikings and The Last Kingdom. That’s one of the things I like about my Viking ancestors. When they ran into diversity, they slaughtered the diverse men and raped the diverse women and diverse cattle. We’re also watching an Australian series called The Doctor Blake Mysteries. It’s set in 1959, so there’s not much diversity there to start with. And there are a lot of cuties. One of the main characters is a 40-something cutie and another is a 20-something cutie.
The first couple of seasons of BBC’s “Death In Paradise” are fun to watch even if the murder stories are a bit formulaic. Ben Miller and Sara Martins have a nice “will they or won’t they” chemistry which the show never quite managed to recapture once the seemingly non-stop cast changes began at the start of the third season.
BBC and the French production partner force the diversity issue with the female lead, but the writers never forget why the white male (so far) lead’s character was hired from 1000 miles away.
If you watched and liked “Father Ted”, Ardal O’Hanlon will be the new male lead on “Death in Paradise” with his first full season starting in January.
Rarely watch any tv at all this year….
Before that, we’ve had Tivo for a decade so we watch what it gets us, and skip commercials. I don’t know or care what network or time most shows are on, as they are sitting in my Tivo waiting for me.
Since the beginning of the year though, I’ve mostly been watching youtube content creators. I’ve been watching niche hobby related channels mostly, avoiding the ‘popular’ content. Ham radio, electronics repair, watch and clock making, old machinery reconditioning, knife making, blacksmithing, machining, etc. There is a lot of interesting content, and interesting people out there. Most of what I watch would have been too focused for a ‘how to’ or DIY show on tv, yet some of it gets 10s or even 100s of thousands of views. That would have put some episodes at the top of their time slot if they were on a cable channel. Hickock45 would DOMINATE his timeslot if he was on cable.
The tools and the sensibility of professional video production are getting easier to use, and more common. We’re moving from the ‘newsletter with 15 different fonts’ stage of desktop publishing to the POD and Amazon kindle era of self publishing in the video world. I’ve no doubt that most youtube content creators will be able to produce very pro level work if they want to, the same way almost anyone can produce good looking print these days.
n
I just started to read the most hideous article I have ever seen at Unscientific American. Here is the article, but you really don’t want to read it. The title of the article is Science Must Clean Up Its Act, which is certainly a true statement. However, almost everything the author says after the title is a perfect example of one of the problems in science. She complains that when she was in graduate school that her colleagues on a team project thought she was only there because of affirmative action, which she demonstrates is not true as she graduated at the top of her undergraduate class. However, I think her colleagues assumed that because of experiences in their undergraduate careers.
I don’t care about the race, sex or private lives of the people who do science. I care about the quality of their research. I care about whether or not they can state a falsifiable hypothesis and test it. I care about whether their work is repeatable or not.
She complains that when she was in graduate school that her colleagues on a team project thought she was only there because of affirmative action, which she demonstrates is not true as she graduated at the top of her undergraduate class. However, I think her colleagues assumed that because of experiences in their undergraduate careers.
Been there, done that.
During my first attempt at grad school in Vantucky, the CS department faculty carefully shepherded a single mother of six through the undergraduate program, ensuring that the girl graduated with honors and spoke at graduation. Everyone knew the deal, but mouths stayed shut because the program was small and the politics were brutal. The same politics protected my inept (North) Vietnamese thesis advisor, despite widespread complaints.
RIP Roger Moore. Not a bad Bond.
RIP Roger Moore. Not a bad Bond.
No matter how silly his Bond movies got, Roger Moore was always a class act.
Decades from now, I think intelligent people will look back and understand that the greatest crime of the progressives is what they’ve done and are doing to destroy science.
64 and climbing to 70 here, with a very bright overcast and some sun. Ditto tomorrow, I guess, and then back to some rain on Thursday.
The tee-vee here hasn’t been on since the Super Bowl, which, incidentally, was absolutely amazing. It probably won’t be on again until the NFL season starts again, because yours truly has an addictive personality and is finding it hard to give this one up. And I actually have been coming close to maybe watching Red Sox games again for the first time in decades. It’s gotta be some kinda subliminal excuse to avoid doing useful chit here and hewing to the straight-and-narrow. Better, actually, to physically attend minor league baseball games, which I meant to do last summer but never got around to. Cheap seats, families, half-decent food, and a few laffs watching the old stiffs my age line up for the bathroom after guzzling the crappy Murkan lager. Also fun watching young pitchers throw wildly after a couple of innings and the ball is likely to end up bouncing off you if you don’t pay attention.
Other than that I’m doing pretty much the same thing as Mr. Nick and watching Tube vids (via the computer, not the tee-vee) on prep-related stuff, and I agree that Hickok45 would get massive ratings if he was on cable. He’s an amazing shot, but admittedly on square range non-moving targets that ain’t shooting back. Still, I’d sure like him on my side in a firefight.
I’ve come around to the POV of doing 80% of my firearms practice via dry-fire drills at home and going through a whole series of drills before going out to the square range. Gotta build muscle memory and the eye-hand coordination. This also saves money.
We’re back to outside yard stuff today and at 6:30 I’ve got the Planning Commission meeting.
My two short comments on the day:
TV died more than 10 years ago, just because it is still twitching don’t confuse that for “life”.
The MSM, snowflakes, and the politically correct have declared the white man dead; they are wrong, very wrong, and we shall rise again. We are survivors.
My opinions and I am sticking to them. Now get off my lawn 😉
Rarely watch any tv at all this year….
Keep an eye out for the “Westworld” box set. The series was among the best TV I’ve seen over the last few years, and Anthony Hopkins hasn’t turned in a performance like that in *decades*. Ed Harris is also excellent.
Not for the squeamish, but the violence isn’t nearly as intense as “American Gods” (also highly recommended) or the revived “Twin Peaks” (jury still out at our house on that one).
For years, I’ve been becoming increasingly disgusted with the politically-correct, diverse, multi-cultural mess that modern TV has become. And not just the news and other “non-fiction” stuff. The fictional series are as bad or worse. If you believe the world is as they represent it, most of the doctors, cops, scientists, and other people that people used to admire are now minorities and/or women. White men, to the extent there are any, are generally represented as incompetent if not actually evil. I simply won’t tolerate this bogus representation of reality, so I no longer watch any of these series.
Have you tried “The Blacklist” ? This may be the most violent show on tv now, surpassing General Hospital. James Spader has been surprisingly believable as the most evil gangster in the USA and the world. But the FBI guys and gals are fairly good. And the USA senior government officials are corrupt and incompetent. The wife loves it also.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2741602/
I’ve also been enjoying National Geographic’s “Genius” about the life of Albert Einstein. We take a lot of physics and chemistry for granted nowadays that came from his genius. The director is Ron Howard.
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/genius/
There is also a strong subplot about his effort to leave Germany for the USA in the middle 1930s. It was not easy.
Decades from now, I think intelligent people will look back and understand that the greatest crime of the progressives is what they’ve done and are doing to destroy science.
The AGW “scientists” should be ashamed of themselves for their McCarthyism of the skeptics. Hansen suing the USA government under the whistle blower laws is particularly bothersome.
https://www.fastcompany.com/3064305/why-climate-scientist-james-hansen-is-suing-the-federal-government-to-force-action
My son thinks that we are dropping behind in the space race. He is hearing a lot of noise about the new EM drive. Apparently China has a satellite in orbit now with an EM drive and is testing it out.
http://www.popsci.com/emdrive-engine-space-travel-china-success
We really enjoyed the Doctor Blake shows and have watched a lot of similar non-US shows in the last couple of years. We’re currently watching The Coroner on PBS, have caught up with Midsomer, Endeavour & Grantchester, really enjoyed Miss Fisher, and still have a couple of seasons of Murdoch. I’m hoping I can get dad interested in Death in Paradise (if we try it again) and Rumpole. I’m thinking we’ll rewatch Foyle again sometime soon and maybe MI-5. It’s not a procedural, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how much he has enjoyed As Time Goes By. We tried Pie in the Sky and Morse but haven’t really gotten into them yet.
One of my all time favorites is one I saw on DVD from the library when I lived outside Dallas – The Sandbaggers. I think I saw somewhere that it was available to stream. And I haven’t checked out Heartland despite our host’s recommendation.
The other one we’re watching is Shetland on Netflix streaming. We just started watching it last night, and are binge-watching it and Doctor Blake. Both are very well written. In fact, everything is very well done. The one problem I had with Shetland was understanding what some of the characters were saying, so we switched close-captioning on. I was relieved to see it wasn’t just me. There are a lot of Celtic words spoken, and even some full sentences.
The one thing I don’t like about either show is that they kill young women. I’ve watched enough young women being killed to last more than a lifetime. Yes, I know it happens, but I don’t consider it a fit subject for entertainment.
Almost no TV here lately. A bit of local news in the morning for the weather. Maybe Wheel of Fortune and Antiques Roadshow on Monday night.
Homicide Hunter once in a while. Sometimes some NatGeo and the like. No point watching Food Network anymore… it’s all “Chopped” and Guy Fierio types running around, no actual cooking.
Most evenings we watch a LaserDisc or a DVD after supper is cooked.
Heh, and hail our betters for HDTV because that’s on UHF freqs and I’m in a hole behind a large hill. At least with analog I could get a scratchy picture and sound instead of /nothing/. I get nothing in the house. In the motorhome, on ground 10 feet higher than the house, with the roof mounted antenna, I get 2 stations. In Spanish.
I’m kind of stuck with DirecTv. I do need to trim the plan, $138/month is too much.
I’ve also been enjoying National Geographic’s “Genius” about the life of Albert Einstein. We take a lot of physics and chemistry for granted nowadays that came from his genius. The director is Ron Howard.
If you didn’t see William Hurt as Richard Feynman in “The Challenger”, dig around for a source. The BBC did the film a few years ago, commemorating, IIRC, the 25th anniversary of his passing. The film is especially good when paired with the BBC’s hour-long bio which aired the same night, right after the premiere of the docudrama.
Parallel computing (among other things) came from Feynman.
As I’ve mentioned, when I still lived up in Pennsylvania before moving down to Winston, the woman I was seriously involved with was the daughter of two professors at Princeton’s IAS. She was born in 1951, and her early memories were of her mom and dad taking her into the office, where Einstein used to bounce her on his knee. He loved children, and particularly little girls.
“Parallel computing (among other things) came from Feynman.”
Who was, IIRC, a black muslim woman, right?
No, but Feynman stole most of his ideas from gay black muslim womyn and they’ve never been credited, thanks to the racist patriarchal hegemony and the fascist scum who rule the world.
No tee-vee at all here from about February through September. We listen to various streaming radio stations via a Linux Mint netbook connected to a tower speaker in the house, and wife listens to Canadian classical stations or VPR out in the studio. And I have the scanner and shortwave on but not much going on; this is a pretty quiet AO around here.
I probably wouldn’t watch any TV at all, but Barbara enjoys watching it from after dinner until she goes back to bed around 21:00 to read.
Hey kids! It’s just a few disgruntled haters! Not the whole religion! C’mon now! Don’t be haters like them!
Oh wait…isn’t their holy book the Koran, or Q’u’ran or whatever?
https://defensivetraininggroup.wordpress.com/2017/05/23/offered-without-comment-2/
My current choice is this season of Silicon Valley. Not Hot Dog!
Oh, and it’s real.
https://www.engadget.com/2017/05/15/not-hotdog-app-hbo-silicon-valley/
“Jane Sanders: Iranian Elections ‘Show the World How It’s Done’”
http://freebeacon.com/politics/jane-sanders-iranian-elections-show-world-how-its-done/
@OFD, your crazy neighbors are being crazy again.
My son thinks that we are dropping behind in the space race. He is hearing a lot of noise about the new EM drive. Apparently China has a satellite in orbit now with an EM drive and is testing it out.
You can thank Obola for that. Eight years of NASA Mooslim “outreach” and Climate Ejaculation studies/evangelism.
My son thinks that we are dropping behind in the space race. He is hearing a lot of noise about the new EM drive. Apparently China has a satellite in orbit now with an EM drive and is testing it out.
We aren’t behind as much as China has caught up.
Returning to regular manned flights needs to be a priority. However, instead of getting the Falcon and Delta IV rockets rated for manned flight with requisite capsules, NASA pisses money away into SLS, currently projected at $1 billion (with a ‘b’) per flight.
We aren’t behind as much as China has caught up.
NASA is spending about 30% of their current budget on AGW if I calculated correctly. Obola and the crazies converted all every federal agency into AGW fake studies, etc.
WTR to the Popular Science article about the emdrive unit and the reference to the Delta IV rocket mentioned above, allow me to add this:
Personal experience – if your car has GPS in it and it works, it is due to no mistakes on my part. For the period of 1995 – 2001, I was the lead engineer on the Delta II propulsion analysis group. Consequently, I was the last check on validity of all the preflight analytical calculations, performed by our number crunchers, for the GPS satellite launches during that period.
Outside of that, I have no familiarity with that new whatsoever; I just can’t relate to it. I did notice that its force is noted at 1 digit of millinewtons. Kind of hard to relate that to the Delta II 1st stage engine with thousands of pounds of thrust. But then sometimes government programs don’t really go well. Think about Solyndra bankruptcy after Obamanoid through millions at them. Google solar energy plant at Daggett, CA, which they shut down after a few years as they could justify tossing more out. Thirty years later the same type at Ivanpah, CA, now making 50% less power than for which it was designed. Then my personal experience with Solar City, owned by Elon Musk, that would not guarantee me 20% savings on solar panels on my roof.
Oh well, I might Wikipedia that emdrive tomorrow.
“The Science Behind the Impossible EM Drive”
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a24745/science-behind-em-drive/
“When a team of NASA scientists tested it, they found that it produced about 1 newton of thrust for every megawatt of power they pumped into it. This would make the EM Drive about as efficient as the ion drives already used by most long-range spacecraft.”
“But unlike an ion drive, the EM Drive uses no propellant. This means it violates a bunch of physical laws like the conservation of momentum. As Space Time puts it, it’s a bit like trying to make a car go forward by sitting in the driver seat and pushing on the windshield.”
If this is true, then all you need are solar panels and em drives once you get to space. I saw one person who said that a spaceship using this drive could travel to Mars in 70 days.
wow, cowboyslim is an actual rocket scientist! Cool.
n
Yep, we’ve had actual rocket surgeons and brain scientists commenting on my posts for close to twenty years now.
It wasn’t the Russians and Trump.
“BOOM!! Kim Dot.Com DROPS BOMBSHELL! — SETH RICH LEAKED DNC EMAILS TO WIKILEAKS”
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/05/breaking-internet-hacker-kim-dot-com-releases-documents-seth-rich-leaked-podesta-wikileaks-emails/
I would investigate Hillary Clinton and John Podesta for murder.
wow, cowboyslim is an actual rocket scientist! Cool.
Very cool !
I would investigate Hillary Clinton and John Podesta for murder.
We’ll need a yuuuge! database to keep track of the people dying on Cankles watch. If this turns out true, Cankles should be investigated for murder.
“wow, cowboyslim is an actual rocket scientist! Cool.
Very cool !”
OK, I appreciate the acknowledgements. OTOH, when I was transferred from passenger aircraft design activities to rocket propulsion performance analysis in 1980, the term “rocket scientist” had not been invented!
“@OFD, your crazy neighbors are being crazy again.”
I don’t consider them my neighbors. They’re not even in the same county. And she’s yet another fugly bovine commie who ran a college into the ground financially up here and lied about it and so far is getting away with it. Then, coincidentally, a day after her commie husband is screwed out of the Dem nomination, they buy a $600,000 house on the island to our west and her story is that it was the sale of her deceased parents’ house in Maine that made it possible for them. Wife believes this story, hook, line and sinker and gets mad when I snark about it.
Rocket surgeons, brain scientists, hitmen, ex-cops, ex-programmers, yes, it’s a multi-culti very DIVERSE group here…
I guess we can assume that the Obola spies spied on us:
https://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2017/05/23/better-go-get-gomers-nerve-pills/
But of course now that tRump is in, all the stuff has ceased, amirite?
Shoot him in the face multiple times. That is exactly right.
http://blog.suarezinternational.com/2017/05/i-dont-want-to-live-like-that-the-manchester-terror-event.html
Surprising!
https://straightlinelogic.com/2017/05/23/why-the-left-refuses-to-talk-about-venezuela-by-ryan-mcmaken/
The neocons in NYC and Mordor want desperately, and have for decades, to get us into a war with Iran. This would not be the “cakewalk” like we had in Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, however. It would make those capers look like the teddy bear picnic on the beach.
https://straightlinelogic.com/2017/05/23/the-donalds-risible-rendezvous-in-riyadh-by-david-stockman/
https://straightlinelogic.com/2017/05/23/as-iran-elects-a-moderate-trump-cozies-up-to-its-terrorist-enemy-saudi-arabia-by-muhammad-sahimi/
“Start now—in your own communities, in your schools, at your city council meetings, in newspaper editorials, at protests—by pushing back against laws that are unjust, police departments that overreach, politicians that don’t listen to their constituents, and a system of government that grows more tyrannical by the day.”
https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/the_republic_has_fallen_the_deep_states_plot_to_take_over_america_has_succe
K, I appreciate the acknowledgements. OTOH, when I was transferred from passenger aircraft design activities to rocket propulsion performance analysis in 1980, the term “rocket scientist” had not been invented!
When I graduated from TAMU in 1982 with a degree in Mechanical Engineering, I had a job offer to go work for NASA on the space shuttle software. They liked the fact that I actually knew Fortran and assembly language on mainframes to minis. There was a hitch though. Ronald Reagan had frozen all of the federal hiring and NASA was very subject to that. So, I went to work for a small electric company serving North Texas from Fort Worth to Monahans and Wichita Falls to Centerville. 45 job interviews and only two job offers, one of those worthless since they could not hire me. BTW, 2/3rds of my classmates had zero job offers at graduation and were starting to panic.
ex-programmers
Hey, I wrote 40 lines of code today ! No ex-programmer here !
Sigh.
That’s about eight months worth for me. I hated being turned from a programmer into a bureaucrat.
All hail Fortran! All hail Pascal! All hail Compass!
I did a couple of lines of bash in Mint’s CLI. Does that count?
Before that I was at the town’s planning commission meeting: MEATSPACE! Not outer space but right here.
Tomorrow night I will be at the Legion post’s monthly meeting and installation of new officers. MEATSPACE!
And Thursday night I’ll be at the Latin mass down at the co-cathedral in Burlap. MEATSPACE!
And now off to BEDSPACE, where the other person’s snoring will lull me to sleep in about ten seconds. But when I snore, allegedly, I get poked, punched and shoved. This is known as The War on Men. They attack us when we’re asleep, for petesakes!
Pax vobiscum, et ut ne quis lignea nickels…
But forget investing in gold and silver coins; no one after SHTF will take them as payment for anything. Invest in AMMO! Cigarettes! Booze!
And off to LA for four glorious days. I get to squat in the hotel while the wimmenz teach Head Start staffers to act like Human Beans with the kids they teach. Taking the Mavic drone with me. Probably get shot down instantly by some libturd.
And off to LA for four glorious days. I get to squat in the hotel while the wimmenz teach Head Start staffers to act like Human Beans with the kids they teach. Taking the Mavic drone with me. Probably get shot down instantly by some libturd.
Take the drone out to the Reagan Library in Simi Valley. No libturds stick around that place for long. Plus, the scenery is awesome.
“I get to squat in the hotel….”
PBRs on me if you can get to Anchor Bar in Costa Mesa.
https://www.facebook.com/The-Anchor-Bar-215937013772/?rf=167307196639996
NASA is spending about 30% of their current budget on AGW if I calculated correctly.
Not near that much. The 2017 budget request was about $19 billion, with $5.6 billion total for science. Of that only a little over $2 billion was for earth science. A big chunk of that was for Landsat, which does all kinds of observations. So AGW is a lot lower.
However, instead of getting the Falcon and Delta IV rockets rated for manned flight with requisite capsules, NASA pisses money away into SLS, currently projected at $1 billion (with a ‘b’) per flight.
SLS is going to cost a lot more than $1 billion per flight. It does carry a lot more payload than Falcon/Delta IV/Atlas V, but there are no payloads being developed by NASA that could use it. Possibly the Europa Explorer, but even that is overkill. The SLS budget killed off development of all the possible payloads for it other than a test flight of the Orion capsule. It’s a pork program that was literally designed by the Senate staff at the behest of Sen. Shelby, R-Alabama, to keep Marshall fully busy.
(Also, I am an ex-rocket scientist. Worked on Shuttle, ISS, Mars base design, and Orion in various capacities.)
Dad was a model rocket scientist since the early 1960s. I used Estes Rockets https://www.estesrockets.com/
I built rockets as small as 4-inches tall and as big as 48-inches, as many as 4 stages. I built several camera equipped rockets, my Grandfather really liked the aerial photos of his farm. I also sent a fair number of mice and hamsters on rocket rides with everyone returning home safely.
We had a model rocket club at my high school, as did many high schools. We had competitions for altitude and design. No participation ribbons, but I had more than my fair share of ribbons and trophies that really meant something.
Not a chance for me here to grew up to become a rocket scientist. And that is in spite of having in this town, Sibiu, some notable pioneers of rocket technology:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conrad_Haas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Oberth
I was a student of the Hermann Oberth Faculty of Engineering in Sibiu, and I can testity that it teaches no rocket science, not a word. I had there computer science classes.