Cool but not freezing, chance of rain. Not the most pleasant of days but better than ice and snow. It was grey, blustery, and cold yesterday. I was out in it for only a couple of hours for my pickup, and it sucked.
Did my pickup. Got there and the laundry machines were still hooked up. The valves were stuck in the open position. I ended up going to Home Depot and buying caps for the faucets so I could disconnect and take my washer. Poor form on the seller’s part, but I got it done. Easier to solve the problem and move on, than remonstrate about it. And hopefully the auctioneer will think kindly of me the next time. Picked up a nice mountain bike too. It’ll need tires and tubes but otherwise is in great condition.
I’ve got a lot of tires and tubes, and various other bike parts. When I was a poor student, I rode my bike a lot. Poor people ride bikes. The world is getting poorer. So you should look at riding… it’s good exercise too.
Today I’ll try to get the washer off my truck and installed at the rent house. I’ve got a couple of auction pickups too, including another solar panel. I’ll add setting up a test frame and learning about putting a system together to the list o things to do…
And I’ve really got to get the plywood off my front lawn and into my attic… maybe I’ll start there today. The neighbors will surely appreciate that.
So I’m stacking. Income streams (auction, rent house), alternative infrastructure (solar, water collection), transportation (more bike stuff) and knowledge (making those things work). Stack something for yourself… I’ll feel better if you do 🙂
nick
Lazy Monday for me. I played “lost” for my wife’s dog, practicing “man trailing”. I know, apparently not PC in the US, but a genuine hobby here. First time, I kept it simple. The second, time, I laid a couple of false trails, and lost myself in the middle of the forest. No problems at all – it’s really impressive, what dogs can do with their nose.
Then shopping, then goofing off the rest of the morning. Imminently lunch time. Maybe I’ll do some grading this afternoon, maybe I’ll put it off until tomorrow…
Indeed it is. Dogs must think that we humans suffer from a perpetual head-cold, our sense of smell is so pathetic compared to theirs. I love watching tracking dogs and their handlers working together. It is truly impressive how the species have trained each other over millenia.
Science fiction slowly becoming reality: a laser cannon that can shoot drones out of the sky.
Drones are a serious problem at the moment: They fly low and fast, and it’s hard to target them. A laser cannon will have a much easier time of it, and re-balance the military equation. Of course, it will also be able to knock down larger aircraft, if with a bit more difficulty.
I’ve gathered some classics for a weekend marathon: Buckaroo Banzai, Robocop, Weird Science, and Real Genius.
Big BOO-TAY! Big BOO-TAY!
@brad, I was going to mention a figure from one of my defense industry trade mags- but must have misplaced the copy… the laser power DOD is asking industry to produce was literally stunning. I thought they had an order of magnitude mistake, but they were RFP with a working demo model w/in a year, iirc, so they must have thought it was achievable.
——–
cold and dreary. The rain has slowed, which is nice. everything is wet, including the plywood that I was hoping to move to the attic.
bah.
n
MrAtoz, don’t forget Repo Man.
n
– even if genuine, it’s a profound mental illness. Profiting from it is evil.
n
It is big business.
We have two new childrens’ hospital complexes near my house which I believe were built to do “affirmation” surgeries, construction proceeding at a frantic pace until the Governor signed the ban last year.
Suddenly, both hospital groups were shocked! Shocked! What? People on the payroll doing exactly what the state just made illegal? Fire those people at once!
One hospital group fired the doctors in a public and noisy way to deflect the bad PR, but the other group was more low key about the dismissals, probably hedging.
Ah, yes. Not the execrable remake.
“..ordinary f*cking people, I hate ’em…”
Back of the envelope: £10/28.6p/kWhr ~35kWhr in 10 sec ~138 MW! Much higher than I though they could generate. I wonder what the efficiency is? 50%?
https://portal.cops.usdoj.gov/resourcecenter/content.ashx/cops-r1141-pub.pdf
Critical Incident Review: Active Shooter at Robb Elementary School
Official DOJ report
n
TL:DR
– cops have no duty to protect you
– these cops f’d it up by the numbers, pretty much anything they could have done wrong they did wrong.
ALL of them did wrong.
No one will be punished. One of them even got hired by the district before the parents found out and hounded her out.
There has got to be more to this story. The careful language, and the weird things the neighbors chose to emphasize hint at it.
Reap what you sow.
Normally, I wouldn’t comment on a woman’s looks, fashion choices sure, people’s REACTION to her look, ok. There is something horrifying about these pictures though.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-12990285/Nicole-Kidman-56-revealing-dress-attends-New-York-premiere-Expats.html
She’s got a pretty odd scar on her right arm, and the way her “co-star” is holding her arms and taking control of her is really creepy. ‘Mutton dressed as lamb’ is too easy. There’s something more to it.
n
Somewhere, someone’s saying “I’d hit that.” Too bad she was already hit by the ugly stick.
https://amgreatness.com/2024/01/22/three-former-presidents-start-ngo-to-import-illegal-aliens-into-the-u-s/
My dream flight is getting upgraded to first and finding the three of them.
The store at One Infinite Loop is redundant due to the proximity of the new campus retail outlet and the Fountain Valley Mall Apple Store, also nearby.
Theft isn’t the problem, but the logistics issue of dealing with the busloads of foreign tourists pulling into the parking lot to buy t-shirts was probably getting out of hand for Apple and the city.
Kidman’s dress is just bad. Looks like the product of a gay designer that hates women and laughs when they fall for the avant guard schtick.
Geesh, Shrub looks every bit the moron the press makes him out to be in that picture.
WRT “Tinley Park, near Chicago”, I don’t expect them to reveal the true source of the gun, legally purchased or not, and ghost or legal.
Wow, we have gotten about 5 or 6 inches of rain so far today. The front ditch and the side pond between us and the east neighbor have joined together. The east side pond and the north side pond are at least eight inches deep. Lots and lots of water.
The LA/AR/MS/TN area is in a pretty severe drought. So, the rain will be welcome if for no other reason than to refill reservoirs.
Indeed it is. Dogs must think that we humans suffer from a perpetual head-cold, our sense of smell is so pathetic compared to theirs. I love watching tracking dogs and their handlers working together. It is truly impressive how the species have trained each other over millenia.
Yeah, 60% of a dog’s brain is dedicated to smell processing. Be glad that God did not design you that way. Smelling farts and pee from a block away is not high on my list.
The LA/AR/MS/TN area is in a pretty severe drought. So, the rain will be welcome if for no other reason than to refill reservoirs.
We keep on trying to fill the Gulf of Mexico to overflowing but do not even get close.
Science fiction slowly becoming reality: a laser cannon that can shoot drones out of the sky.
And the awesome movie “Real Genius” becomes real. I am not surprised. Even looks like the same laser enclosure.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089886/
Bring on the EMP guns and electric pellet accelerator rifles !
There is still a lot of snow on the ground. Temperature will reach 42F by about 3:00 PM. Tomorrow is even better at 48F. Many back roads are still covered with ice. People are upset with the road department because no one scraped their road. They don’t understand that salt does. not work below about 20F where the temperature has remained for the last 8 days. Plows cannot remove ice from the road as that stuff is rock hard.
It did not help that many of the “bubba’s” decided to use their 4WD and drive on the snow packing the stuff into a sheet of ice before the plows had a chance to remove the snow. Many of these “bubba’s” found out that 4WD does not help stopping while driving on ice.
Then you have the opposite end of the spectrum. The “white-knuckler’s” driving 20 MPH in a 50 MPH zone on a road that is dry, simply because they see snow on the side of the road. Both hands gripping the steering wheel tightly, hunched forward in their seat, ice fixed forward, with a look of fear on their faces.
Schools are closed today and tomorrow. It will take a few days for some roads to clear. The rain expected for Wednesday will certainly help. I expect the snow to be completely gone by Friday.
>> She’s got a pretty odd scar on her right arm,
And somewhat prominent scars on both elbows. Odd indeed…
“How Walmart’s Financial Services Became a Fraud Magnet”
https://www.propublica.org/article/walmart-financial-services-became-fraud-magnet-gift-cards-money-laundering
“Scammers have duped consumers out of more than $1 billion by exploiting Walmart’s lax security. The company has resisted taking responsibility while breaking promises to regulators and skimping on training.”
This is totally unreal. I saw a large bag of gift cards in HEB’s parking lot the other night and figured that was probably a scam.
When I was stationed in Kitsap County, Submarine Base Bangor, This happened EVERY SINGLE YEAR! The peeps with 4wd always ended up in the ditch because 4wd means nothing when the world is spinning by.
And back in thee 80’s all the plows had a 6 inch rubber blade on the bottom of the plow so that they didn’t scrape up the reflective drunk bumps. The roads would have hard packed snow or ice until it warmed up enough to melt.
Cold here now. It got down to the mid-60’s last week. Should hit a high of 80 sometime this week. No frozen pipes here! 🙂
A lot of this falls on stupid people who still believe that someone from the FBI is going to arrest them unless money is sent in. Same deal with being arrested by the local sheriff. With the volumes of information available on these scams I have little sympathy for the victims.
A little due diligence, a phone call, and these types of scams could be stopped. My mother-in-law got snookered out of $1200.00 because she thought her grandson was in jail in Mexico. Had she simply called my wife, or her son, it would have been stopped.
She did go to HEB to get the money card and HEB said nothing to her or asked any questions. Not that is the card issuers responsibility, it certainly would help.
My niece texted me and said she was going to be arrested for a mistake at Walmart. She forgot an item was under some dog food and was accused of shoplifting by Walmart. She apologized, explained what happened, the incident recorded, and went home. The cost of the item was $3.95.
The next day she gets contacted by someone who says there is a warrant for her arrest and unless she pays $250.00 immediately she will be taken to jail. I told her to ignore the text because if she had a warrant against her, and was under arrest, uniformed officers in marked cars would make the arrest. She did ignore the text and several others and nothing happened. What is more troubling is that someone working at Walmart had provided her information to the scammers, or were the scammers themselves.
>> Many back roads are still covered with ice.
These people need to move to houses on main roads 😉
https://www.constructionequipmentguide.com/dot-officials-discuss-different-ice-melting-techniques/54716
I’ve always found it impressive a dog will scarf down corn-poop like it is a Milwaukee brat.
Me: ick, corn-poop. Who feeds their dog corn?
Dog: You gonna eat that?
To me, that looks like “I told you not to touch me” in action.
I’ve done that one.
I saw a Boeing demo video for their 747 laser at a career day event about a decade ago in the Northwest. The target range for the laser looked just like the one set up by the production design people for “Real Genius”.
I figure someone at Boeing had a wicked sense of humor.
In the end, I don’t think the 747 laser worked any better than the one installed on the bomber in the movie.
Visit a Walmart in an agricultural area in the early evening on a Friday night and note the line at the customer service desk handling money transfers south.
Walmart’s lobbyists will be the biggest obstacle in taxing or even halting remittances.
>> She’s got a pretty odd scar on her right arm,
And somewhat prominent scars on both elbows. Odd indeed…
She is Australian. That is the consequences of fighting off the wildlife …
Normally, I wouldn’t comment on a woman’s looks, fashion choices sure, people’s REACTION to her look, ok. There is something horrifying about these pictures though.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-12990285/Nicole-Kidman-56-revealing-dress-attends-New-York-premiere-Expats.html
She’s got a pretty odd scar on her right arm, and the way her “co-star” is holding her arms and taking control of her is really creepy. ‘Mutton dressed as lamb’ is too easy. There’s something more to it.
She was so much prettier in “Days Of Thunder”.
I think that Tom Cruise broke her when he was married to her.
He tangled with Gropey Joe, back in the old days. Corn-poop was a bad dude.
““So you’re telling me there’s a chance…””
https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/so-youre-telling-me-theres-a-chance-2-148665/
“I’ve written before that the US probably only has around five years, if not less, before the government reaches the end of its financial rope. The national debt and entitlement spending are simply too high.”
“By the early 2030s, the only realistic way to ‘solve’ the fiscal problem will be full-blown default… on the national debt, on Social Security, and on just about everything else.”
“So, yes, there is a chance this problem can be fixed. But at the moment, I objectively see very little evidence that there’s any appetite to even discuss these problems, let alone make the difficult decisions to solve them.”
Me too.
Barrett for the loss:
SCOTUS’ 5-4 Ruling Clears Way for Biden Admin to Remove Texas Border Barriers (‘WTAF?’)
Roberts voted as expected. There is no doubt the Federal Goobermint has jurisdiction over our International border. But shouldn’t the States do it if the Feds won’t do their job?
Over to you, “Wheels”.Stick it right in plugs’ face. The TX Air Guard has F-16s, too. The border is an excellent training ground.
with skin-bearing backless dress
– come on interns, bearing?
n
– sudden attack of morality policing?… was my second guess after some sort of honor killing.
n
“Eyes Wide Shut”.
Fortunately she followed it up with “Moulin Rouge”.
I think this is the scene Kidman will spend the rest of her career trying to top. Ewan McGregor too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8dW1ddAC_4
The song was ineligible for the Oscar, which even Whoopi commented about opening the Academy Award broadcast that year.
“Magic Rises (Kate Daniels)” by Ilona Andrews
https://www.amazon.com/Magic-Rises-Daniels-Ilona-Andrews/dp/1937007588?tag=ttgnet-20/
Book number six of a ten book paranormal romance dark fantasy series. There are short stories and followon books to the series also. I read the well printed and well bound MMPB published by Ace in 2013 that I bought new on Amazon recently. Note that “Ilona Andrews” is the pseudonym for a husband and wife writing team. I have all ten books now and will read book number seven later this year.
There is an excellent short story at the end of the book that I recommend reading first as it sets the stage for the book. Kate and her crew are called to rescue Saiman from a gang of kidnappers holding him for ransom. Kate does not pay ransom.
Kate Daniels is a mercenary in Atlanta, Georgia and the consort to the Beast Lord. 40% of the children of the shapeshifters are going loup as they go through puberty and must be executed. There is a drug to improve their chances but it is rare and incredibly high priced. Kate and Curran have been invited to the country of Georgia to help guard a pregnant woman and the payment will be in the anti loup drug so they go, knowing that it is a trap.
I liked everything about the story. I especially liked the very clear distinction between the tech time and the magic time. I had never thought about it that way. The series may be inspired by “Ariel” by Steven Boyett and “Dies The Fire” by S. M. Stirling except those never interchange the tech time and the magic time, they just transitioned to the magic time.
Kate Daniels’s universe sucks. Forty years ago, the tech world crashed over the entire Earth and was replaced by the magic world in the form of a magic flare. Guns don’t work, cars don’t work, electricity and phones do not work. But magic works. Good magic and bad magic.
After a week, the tech world came back to a drastically changed world. And radically fewer humans. And the magic world came back after a while. And the tech world came back after that. And so on and so forth. Each world can last a few weeks or a few hours.
The authors have a website at:
https://www.ilona-andrews.com
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.7 out of 5 stars (8,217 reviews)
I’m surprised that Kavanaugh didn’t vote with Roberts.
Barrett isn’t surprising.
“John Kerry Told The Washington Post He Wants To Remove 1.6 Trillion Tons Of Carbon Dioxide From The Atmosphere Via Direct Air Capture”
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2024/01/22/john-kerry-wants-to-remove-1-6-trillion-tons-of-co2-from-the-atmosphere-cost-1-6-quadrillion/
“Estimated Cost For Tax Payers: $1.6 Quadrillion Dollars”
“That’s $1,600,000,000,000,000 (This isn’t a joke, he’s serious)”
These people are nuts.
That’s a lot of ketchup.
You’ll need a lot of catsup and hot sauce to choke down that much bullshite…
n
“Many of these “bubba’s” found out that 4WD does not help stopping while driving on ice.”
4WD does not mean 4-wheel stop.
One of the pleasures of winter driving is getting passed by a bubba in a pick-em-up and waving to him in the ditch a mile later.
It has warmed up enough that dripping faucets is not needed. Cloudy and dark. 1½ inch of rain overnight. 55F, I let the pellet stove run out.
For supper, well. I’m going to BS this.
A 28oz can of Keystone beef. (yes, it’s prep thing but I still over 30 more cans) A 14 oz can of diced tomatoes. A small can of corn. All un-drained. Two 14oz cans of whole potatoes, rinsed and cut up a bit. Half a can of water. To clean out a pot in the fridge, here’s 4 tablespoons of refried beans with a tablespoon or so of Wolf Brand Chili. Dog food that the starving pups don’t get.
Add in a spoon full of beef bullion soup base, some salt, black pepper, garlic and onion powders.
Stir it all together and the broth tastes pretty darn good. I have it on a low simmer. If I need to thicken it, a handful of instant mashed potatoes will work.
Lazy cooking.
If I wasn’t so lazy I’d have a loaf of bread coming out of the machine in an hour. Saltine crackers will have to do.
“John Kerry Told The Washington Post He Wants To Remove 1.6 Trillion Tons Of Carbon Dioxide From The Atmosphere Via Direct Air Capture”
Kerry sucks but that’s a worthy goal even for him.
Please explain. Show your work.
There’s just as much verifiable evidence that CO2 we’ve put in the atmosphere is holding off the current ice age as there is it is causing “Climate Change”. Which is to say, none at all.
I quibble with “worthy”. Ambitious, grifting, audacious, shameless, and other such words come to mind.
A couple of days ago, I added a 52K long list of IPs that my NAS will reject. Today, I’m still getting 10+ attempts to get into the NAS. Access is 2FA, so the hackers aren’t getting in, and the specific IP is denied further access after 5 attempts. But still, 10 attempts a day is too many.
So, I added some rules to the NAS firewall. Simply allow US IP access only and deny access to all other countries. All of the 10/day attempts are from IPs other than US. I know sophisticated hackers will use a VPN, but for now, let’s see if I cut down the 10 attempts.
BTW, my NAS has an outside name, so I can access it on the road. That address was probably scraped off the Synology website. Or somebody sold all the names.
>>
Walmart’sAll corporate lobbyists will be the biggest obstaclein taxing or even halting remittancesin any anti-business practices.FIFY
>> “Estimated Cost For Tax Payers: $1.6 Quadrillion Dollars”
“That’s $1,600,000,000,000,000 (This isn’t a joke, he’s serious)”
These people are nuts.
Hey, wait a minute, we need that money for reparations.
>> with skin-bearing backless dress
– come on interns, bearing?
Hey, what do you expect? It passed spell check…
Should be “noteworthy”?
The movie so bad that it killed the director.
No opinion, just an order vacating the stay listing the dissent.
Maybe not all is happy in the Old Schoolmarm’s classroom. Kavanagh presented a request for a stay on another case today which was rejected for consideration.
The Court only has one decided/published opinion for the term to date.
>>The Court only has one decided/published opinion for the term to date.
Saving their ink for all the Trump cases 😉
One published decision isn’t unusual at this point in the year, but things should start heating up soon. The Court had ~ 6-7 weeks of hearings before Thanksgiving break, and votes usually get taken after arguments are heard, with the Old Schoolmarm handing out the writing chores for each case.
The opinions on the Colorado “insurrection” decision will be interesting.
“IS MY DUMP TRUCK TOTALLED?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO93NwmNbws
Wow. Glad her husband did not hurt himself. But he messed up her beautiful dump truck something nasty.
Her insurance is with Progressive, so is my commercial vehicle insurance. Looks like they are trying to hose her.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLP8pcZWPeE
@lpdbw
“1.6 Trillion Tons Of Carbon Dioxide From The Atmosphere”
Please explain. Show your work.
Approximately 1.45 trillion metric tons.
At STP each 44 grams is 22.4 liters.
Average human lung capacity 6 liters. About 8.5 million breaths per year. → 100 metric tons per year.
If it were separated first, 14.5 billion years.
If it were not separated, at 450 ppm he would have to process more than 2200X the volume, and take 2200X14.5 billion years.
Those are approximate numbers. I’d be willing to put Kerry in a room full of carbon dioxide and measure his actual capacity to suck it.
“Hey, wait a minute, we need that money for reparations.”
Pay them directly in CO2.
“handing out the writing chores for each case”
What if some of them can’t …
nichevo.
I looked up a book that I had in hand and found that Amazon
–had no copies
–listed the publication date as January 1, 1615 (book showed 1994)
–the ISBN-10 and ISBN-13 ended with the same digit.
Further check showed the exact same information listed elsewhere.
I visited
https://www.isbn-international.org
–to make sure the ISBN check digits were correct. They were.
–and to check if the publisher assignment was correct. It was not.
The latter was not surprising, as the book did not have an ISBN-10 number.
(Note that books published before ISBN-13 are often shown in databases with the ISBN-13 computed from ISBN-10, even though the ISBN-13 never appeared on the book)
I visited the publisher website and their search did not provide any information, so I am pretty sure it is out-of-print.
I was able to find a recent sale, but no current listings anywhere.
If I subscribed to a computer pricing service it would find no listings and probably suggest a price of, say, $100. If I listed it on Amazon and waited a few days, I would find 3-4 additional listings for the same book, all priced $100+ higher than my copy and the highest in the $500-600 range. When my pricing software crunched through it would jack my asking price up to the $200 range, and within a day or two the other prices would also go up.
Someone familiar with the business would look at the listing page and immediately know that I had the only copy and the rest of the listings were phantoms, put up by dropshippers who have no inventory, but use a computer to scan Amazon for opportunities for book arbitrage, relist them at exorbitant prices, and hope to catch an order from the unwary buyer.
Computers were once touted to smooth the flow of information, but at some point it seems that the chisellers have made them primarily a tool to siphon money into their pockets.
Classical economics states that wealth can only be increased through farming, mining, and manufacturing. Does anyone really think that it’s a coincidence that these are the primary centers generating ever-more regulation from our government, at the behest of students who have never studied, professors who know nothing about wealth, and masses of entitled sure that they have been stolen from?
>> https://www.mediaite.com/opinion/trumps-gaffes-and-slurring-this-weekend-should-be-leading-every-newscast-why-arent-they/
How about he’s near-exhaustion running back and forth between campaigning and the multitude of kangaroo court cases he’s involved with?
I’ve been noticing a lot of fashion and lifestyle articles on Ivana too, weird how that’s changed over time.
n
I’ve been noticing a lot of fashion and lifestyle articles on Ivana too, weird how that’s changed over time.
Did you mean Melania ?
Re accelerator rifles, have a look here on Forgotten Weapons
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwHRjgVWFno
Baby steps, but people are working on it, Ian shoots it towards the ends of the review, he also has a couple of other videos of earlier iterations.