Probably be clear and cool to start the day, warming to mid 70s F. Yesterday in Houston ended with overcast and 57F. A bit cooler but even wetter at the BOL.
Did my Dr visit. Prescription was wait and see, should be ok, recheck in 6 weeks. Clear on the glaucoma, cataracts, and detached retina, so that was good news. I’ve had a huge list of eye issues over the years, but I tested 20/20 yesterday despite some lingering issues.
Did my pickups on the way to the BOL. Took a different route for the first half of the trip. Much more rural, two lane county roads, and a lot of changing from one road to another. Not doing that in the dark again. I’m sticking to the straightest path. If it weren’t for turn by turn directions, I’d never have made it.
Today I’ll probably try to finish up the walls in the dockhouse. Then I will work the list.
Later, I’ll have a fake beer and some good eats.
These are the good old days, and I’m stacking as much as I can. You should too.
nick
But … but … but … he’s the Real Life Tony Stark (TM) and what Elon wants is good for humanity even if there are “small” short term costs.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/elon-musk-vivek-ramaswamy-open-rift-maga-loyalists-skilled-worker-visa-rcna185557
An email from Microsoft owned Linkedin arrived in my non-Gmail inbox this morning with the subject line:
“Gregory, follow Barack Obama – President of the United States of America at The White House”
If Kamala refuses to certify the Electoral College results, the state delegations in the House are still Republican controlled at 29 to 21, up from 28 to 22 with Pennsylvania shifting to being Republican controlled. The outcome of the Presidential election process would be the same on paper.
Still, anything is possible.
And Big Mike is tanned, rested, and ready.
A “compromise” choice.
First it was $20 Reeboks, now it is $17k Teslas.
Tony will make sure that Pizza Box Dream works this time for sure. Just give him what’s left of the terrestrial TV/radio spectrum and you’ll see.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/yourmoney/article-14230423/hertz-purchase-tesla-backfires-price-electric-vehicles-plunge.html
I once wore a Nixon “is tanned, rested, and ready” in Grad School. I got more high-fives than FU’s, which was curious.
I suspect the survivors would have a different demographic.
My Blu-ray player is a Sony BDP-S1700. $62 after a $15 coupon. Bottom of the line model. I don’t need Ethernet or wi-fi and my TV is not 4K. I have zero interest in the machine being able to stream Netflix and the like, that’s the Roku’s job. Just play discs.
The model up adds wi-fi to the Ethernet. Other models are a couple of hundred dollars more and support 4K and whatever else.
I’ve had the power brick plugged into the back of the receiver. Why? Because the old player was plugged in there. Follow the wires. I changed that yesterday while adding an HDMI cable to the back of the TV.
When there is nothing on an input, my TV goes to a blue screen with a “no signal” scrolling screensaver. For instance, the Roku. Even “off”, it has a display. Un-plugged, blue screen. Blu-ray player powered from the back of the receiver, blue screen when the receiver is off. Same player plugged into the wall gives a black screen when turned off. Off isn’t actually off.
I know HDMI has a control feature. Is it only to share remote control signals? I know that feature wasn’t available for my lowly $2000 TV fifteen years ago.
Some of the Star Trek series have arrived. The complaints about the packaging in reviews is true. The discs are stacked with two or three to a spindle. Could be better. Could be like a spindle of blank CDs. Shelf appearance of the sets is very nice. All discs are gray with silver text. Not exactly easy to read.
I decided to buy another blu-ray player. One player with a Star Trek disc, the other player available for tonight’s movie. Another Sony would work. I decided to skip the hassle of trying to control one player at a time. Panasonic use to be pretty good. I’m about to find out if they still are good. I have a DMP-BD84 on the way. A whopping $70 with tax.
I’m spending my former beer money budget.
This allows my Apple TV to turn on the soundbar, start the projector, and raise the projector screen. When I turn the Apple TV off, HDMI signal turn off everything else. Convenient if all your devices are capable.
Well, well, screw you VA where it hurts. Yeh, not good news.
It seems the VA does not pay back pay when an increase in a rating for the same condition is claimed. The pay is only to the date of the last exam, not when the claim was first filed. The VA delayed 6.5 years in the rating increase for my back. For which time I get nothing. There was no reason for the VA to speedily process the claim and goes along with the mantra of delaying until the veteran dies.
Of course, I did appeal the decision several times, moving as far up the food chain as possible. That is basically in line with the reasoning “the appeals aren’t done until the veteran quits”.
Because my appeal was moved to the US Court of Appeal for Veterans Claims (basically the equivalent of the US Supreme Court but for veterans), that court has to make the decision on the TDIU. I now have to go for another exam, having done one three months ago, the exact same exam. Some small procedure was not followed and the court has to have that procedure corrected before ruling.
I fully expect another two or three years delay in the ruling. The VA is a like a massive game of Survivor, Outwit, Outplay, Outlast.
72F and the rain just started. It’s coming down pretty hard.
It was bright overcast when I woke up, so not welcome… I was hoping for clearing.
I’m sure I’ll find a way to fill my time.
—-
Like a mug of hot coffee with some Christmas cookies.
Had an egg with some smoked salmon for breakfast. Not lox, but a plank of salmon, smoked. Vac seal package from costco? or maybe REI. It’s been long enough I don’t remember. BB2023. Still delicious.
—–
It’s pouring down. No light show yet, but heavy rain, straight down.
n
HDMI was all one way back when I bought my first HD television, ca. 2010. For the second television two of the three ports were bidirectional, and one was a single direction – input only.
My current television has four ports and they’re all bi-directional.
I can see the appeal of bi-directional but it also means that one bad or compromised device has access to everything else in your media setup, and very likely your home LAN.
My new 4K Roku HDMI stick, for example, will control the volume and the tv on/off and has a voice input option.
One oddity is that the off button actually turns off the Roku itself as well, whereas before I just turned off the TV and left the Roku running. It is solid state and the boot doesn’t take long, but there is a slight delay of a second or three.
Nixon wasn’t reviled like Trump. By the early 80s, he had rehabbed his image into a kind of elder statesman, particularly on foreign policy issues.
The VA ajudicators probably have a copy of “CIA Dirty Tricks” on each of their desktops. Delay until you die, just like other goobermint teat-sucker* agencies.
*I suck the teat on SS, Mil pension, and Medicare.
You really need a coffee spit-up alert before that one…
Trump inspires derangement at a level several orders of magnitude beyond what Nixon generated.
Delay is the deadliest form of denial.
Cyril Northcote Parkinson
There’s a bunch of us who remember that Kennedy and LBJ got us into the Vietnam war, and NIxon ended thte draft and got us out. No matter how much the media (spit!) tried to tie Nixon to the initial Watergate crimes and paint all Republicans as evil criminals, people knew better. The press reviled Nixon; the people, not so much.
The people who listen to the media now are hopeless.
My first presidential election was 1972, 2 months fter Nixon stopped the draft. I had just been categorized 1A and my lottery number was low.
I was faced with 2 choices: A crook or a fool. I figured a crook had an interest in keeping the system going; the fool would unilaterally disarm and surrender to Communism.
Hard to revile someone when they stopped you from dieing in a muddy ditch in SE Asia.
Also, I do believe Nixon was a crook, but that he was twisted that way by Kennedy and LBJ stealing the election from him. He studied 1960, and learned from it.
In retrospect, Nixon’s biggest mistake was laying the foundation for our eventual economic surrender to China.
Instead of doing what I’m supposed to be doing, I’m watching the 2024 Plumbing National Championship. If I’m still ‘unmotivated’ the Electricians are on next!
Instead of doing what I’m supposed to be doing, I’m watching the 2024 Plumbing National Championship. If I’m still ‘unmotivated’ the Electricians are on next!
I am watching the USC / TAMU bowl game in Las Vegas from last night. I have no idea who won but I will know in an hour. Fubo was kind and saved it for me.
The standard document for C++ 2023 has been agreed upon and released on Oct 19, 2024.
The working draft was 2,403 pages and still there is not a default graphics library or a user interface toolkit. Just absurd.
https://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2024/n5001.pdf
“Elon Musk Responds To Alex Jones’ Breakdown Of The H-1B Visa Controversy”
https://www.infowars.com/posts/elon-musk-responds-to-alex-jones-breakdown-of-the-h-1b-visa-controversy/
“’It is a classic American policy to brain drain the best from across the planet and bring them here. Musk has ALWAYS advocated for this policy,’ says Jones.”
“Elon Musk” @elonmusk “Exactly”
Alex Jones is a Musk fanboi but he is not wrong.
Fubo’s fast forward preview sucks on Roku. It is off by at least a full minute.
I do not know what Fubo’s problem is but Netflix’s fast forward is spot on. So I doubt that the problem is with the Roku.
It isn’t about the best as much as it is having a more pliant workforce willing to work for less in return for the “opportunity”.
This was technically a “shutdown” week at my employer, paid time off in lieu of additional vacation time, but the stock price is flat for the year so upper management applied extreme pressure to have everyone keep working.
Back in the day those orders did not exist–they had to be invented for Trump, and that had to wait until the Democrat Party debased itself for another 40 years.
I’m seeing reports of tornadoes in Houston – are you guys that live out that way OK?
“Legends & Lattes” by Travis Baldree
https://www.amazon.com/Legends-Lattes-Travis-Baldree/dp/1250886082?tag=ttgnet-20/
Book number one of a three book fantasy series. I read the well printed and well bound trade paperback published by Tor in 2022 that I bought on Big River. I have ordered the second book in the series.
Viv is an orc who has been a mercenary for 22 years. She has been in a small band of mercenaries who fight, apprehend, and do just about anything for hire. Now she is going to start a coffee shop with her hard won savings in a small town that does not know what coffee is. But first she has to build the coffee shop.
Seanan McGuire says: “This is a story about following your dreams, even when they take you away from who you thought you had to be. It’s sweet, beautiful and, most of all, kind. I hugely recommend this book.”
My rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars (24,713 reviews)
Lynn
I enjoyed the first two. The third won’t be released until this coming November.
I’m seeing reports of tornadoes in Houston – are you guys that live out that way OK?
No worries here on the far southwest side of Houston.
Our part of Katy (Western suburb of Houston) is ok. We did get a couple of waves of storms though.
The local bayou filled up but didn’t overflow.
My Reverse New Year’s Resolutions: Things I Won’t Stop Doing, Despite Leftist Finger-Wagging
https://redstate.com/wardclark/2024/12/28/my-reverse-new-years-resolutions-things-i-wont-stop-doing-despite-leftist-finger-wagging-n2183690
Yeah, verily.
(Ward Clark is the primary reason I subscribe)
“Elon Musk Responds To Alex Jones’ Breakdown Of The H-1B Visa Controversy”
The corruption in the H1B program is multi-faceted and has evolved somewhat over the years.
The common thread that has run through it is the use of the foreign workers by U.S. companies to screw the U.S. workers–keep their wages depressed and threaten their jobs.
Unless Elon can figure out a way to compensate workers for half a century of abuse, he can go phuck himself on this one.
“Elon Musk Responds To Alex Jones’ Breakdown Of The H-1B Visa Controversy”
The corruption in the H1B program is multi-faceted and has evolved somewhat over the years.
The common thread that has run through it is the use of the foreign workers by U.S. companies to screw the U.S. workers–keep their wages depressed and threaten their jobs.
I hate to tell you this but the USA is in competition with the entire world.
At first, we imported thousands of Indians to work on engineering and software projects. But now, all of the big companies have huge offices in India, Canada, etc. Shoot, Microsoft has a huge office in Vancouver right across the border.
So, do you want people with technical expertise working in India, Vietnam, China, etc or here in the USA ?
And yes, wages are being depressed for technical workers. Again, the USA is in competition with the entire planet.
Well-publicized case from 2015:
Southern California Edison IT workers ‘beyond furious’ over H-1B replacements
https://www.computerworld.com/article/1628728/southern-california-edison-it-workers-beyond-furious-over-h-1b-replacements-2.html
Congress was well aware of this particular situation,
https://www.congress.gov/117/meeting/house/112814/documents/HMTG-117-JU01-20210713-SD016.pdf
as they were of many others before and since.
Rules, schmools:
https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-20150222-column.html
I suspect the pressure of such a situation would have resulted in severe medical problems requiring an experienced attorney’s care and making it impossible for me to work for months.
In the 1980’s there was a monthly columnist that frequently documented problems with H1B abuse. He was an electrical engineer with decades of experience, and although I recall his name as Irving Freest I can find no internet confirmation.
Not the point at all, Lynn.
You are probably thinking of Norman Matloff. UC Davis.
The wealthy families backstopping the H1Bs in order to estabish a beach head outside of India and China don’t aspire to live in Canada.
Canada is easy, but it is cold there. Plus, the cities are unfashionable except Vancouver.
Trump States Where He Stands on H-1B Visas
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/saraharnold/2024/12/28/trump-states-where-he-stand-on-h-1b-visas-n2649707
Trump can get some lube from Elon on this one.
As I stated before, things have evolved over the years.
There are a lot of moving pieces, but consider this: Over decades culminating with Obama, but with the willing participation of every congress and every president, the American educational system has been effectively destroyed using a variety of tools. The end result today is that makeup of graduate schools in U.S. universities does not reflect the population of the U.S. The largest reason is that the depressed wages for the best and brightest make it financial suicide for most U.S. born students to take on the debt required to complete an advanced degree in a STEM field. Hand in hand with this is the decades of preference given to foreign professors in universities, and foreign managers in corporations, with a very heavy preference for sub-continent.
@Greg Norton
No. Much too young. I’d guesstimate he was in his late fifties forty years ago.
The entire planet wants to live in Austin, however.
The wealthy families backstopping the H1Bs in order to estabish a beach head outside of India and China don’t aspire to live in Canada.
Canada is easy, but it is cold there. Plus, the cities are unfashionable except Vancouver.
Nope, they are living here in Fort Bend County where the Asian population is hitting 40%.
If my advice had been taken when the USSR dissolved, the United States would have actively recruited the best and brightest scientists and engineers, targeting Russia in particular.
Using the immigration system as one of many devices to make and keep our country strong is perfectly reasonable. Using it to oppress the citizens and move them toward serfdom is not only unreasonable, it is evil.
ADDED:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/12/civil-war-in-maga-land.php
I left TXU in 1989 while they were desperately trying to get two nuclear power plants online. About six months after I left, TXU laid off the entire 5,000 person engineering department on a Friday, cutting the workforce to 11,000.
Any engineering work needed was outsourced to the E&C companies. And that work was slim, very slim.
Companies in survival mode, like most companies in the USA right now, are going to do anything they need to survive. Cutting costs is paramount with with most of them.
I’m not at my company laptop tonight. Instead, I’m watching “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” in a hotel room in Fredericksburg.
I forgot that this was the really pervy Potter flick directed by Alfonso Cuaron.
I swear Roger Ebert’s nipples were hard when he did the review on “Ebert & Roeper” that weekend.
The first server supplier to ship a Blackwell chassis wins. The others will be shipping “obsolete” hardware at that point.
There can be only one.
The problem is that the “winner” will not reap a significant financial windfall.
>> Canadians aren’t generally allowed to own guns.
Not true. All you need is a “Firearm Acquisition Permit” or a “Restricted Firearm Acquisition Permit” to buy a gun or ammunition. The requirements are online.
@Rolf, does that apply to handguns or only long-guns?
Pennies from Heaven…
https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/nvidia-increases-blackwell-orders-from-tsmc-by-25-percent-18m-gb200-nvl36-server-cabinet-expected-to-account-for-bulk-of-deliveries/
Applies to any firearm. All handguns are in the restricted class. There are far more regulations on the use and transportation of restricted class weapons. Open and concealed carry permits do exist but you will see God (or at least a burning bush) before you ever see one of those. You can find all the this online. I did look it up several years back but I don’t remember where. Probably looking for “Acquisition Permits” should work.
The entire issue of firearms in this country needs some serious adult supervision. Carrying a loaded handgun (unless you are a cop) is illegal here yet somehow everyone wants to make it more illegal.
It’s a mess at the moment and shows no sign of getting better any time soon. And I have my own thoughts on the matter.
Headed to bed, but I did get some things done. I’ll put it in tomorrow’s post, given the late hour….
n
“late” is for the weak, right @lynn…
:-O