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.