Warm and clear, but windy and humid. That’s my prediction for the BOL based entirely on my own feelings. It was warmer in Houston yesterday afternoon, and still pretty warm and humid when I got to the BOL. Something might be blowing in, the wind was pretty strong yesterday too. Like always, we’ll see.
Did my pickups. Shopped for a boat. Helped my buddy. Saturday was a pretty full day, then I drove to the BOL.
Today we’ll be coloring eggs, putting out a few decorations, and hopefully having a bit of fun too. The kids will be “encouraged” to get out of the house and do something outdoors. I’ll have work to do, outside of holiday prep. Because I always do.
It’s a great life, but you can’t falter…
stack some good times.
nick
@Lynn
I noted you comments on the Hybrid F-150. I will share some reflections on ‘Hybrids’. When I bought my Honda Jazz (Fit) Hybrid about 3 years ago, I was particularly taken by the design of the transmission system. It is predominantly an EV with a generator (with small battery – for regeneration and engine efficiency), although it can directly drive the transmission (no EV) if it believes that the Atkinson Cycle (optimises engine efficiency) ICE can be more efficient. The driving experience is excellent (EV like).
The buying decision process did cause me to ponder the design options available to the engineers. They have to envisage a ‘typical customer’ and then compromise their decisions to suit. For my personal use, a slightly bigger battery creating a PlugIn Hybrid would have been ideal for me, as most of my mileage is very limited on a daily basis. To make the the Jazz a Plugin Hybrid would have been, and still would be, very simple – but it would add cost, to an already high end car, which would probably have generated lower sales – thus the design compromises.
I think I can see what the F-150 design team were trying to do, with the limited electric motor able to assist the ICE outside it’s optimum power output range, giving a broader power range, plus enabling around town low speed efficiency with the benefits of regeneration etc.
Your suggestion of the electric motor being able to drive the vehicle up to 60mph would be a completely different design objective, it would make it more like my Jazz (EV like) – the vehicle they have designed is still meant to be ICE driven. Also, I don’t understand the desire for a 10 mile battery – I would see this as only useful (?) if part of a Plugin Hybrid. My Jazz can choose to do about 1 mile on battery, but that is all to do with managing the efficiency of the car – I have no control over enabling it.
Just some pondering!
Our house in Florida had a big 200 gallon propane tank for our hot tub buried in the back yard.
Didn’t Obama have some big tanks installed for his house on Martha’s Vinyeard near “Amity Island”.
Be aware that the downside of big tanks is that they are the property of the installing gas company, and you get locked into that company’s service unless you are willing to have your yard torn up to swap the tanks.
At least, that’s how it worked in Florida.
The Karens’ antics pale in comparison to the ex-military career types holding a “portfolio” of real estate enabled by the off base housing allowance checks, dreaming of a tenbagger return on their final allowance-enabled purchase.
Be aware that the downside of big tanks is that they are the property of the installing gas company, and you get locked into that company’s service unless you are willing to have your yard torn up to swap the tanks.
I guess it depends on the company. My 4×100 gallon tanks are my own, and I can choose the propane provider. That said, I actually use the provider that installed everything. They appear to have the best service-to-cost ratio.
For all of his fronting as a haughty intellectual, Obama’s real estate choices betray him as someone who spent way too much time as a kid in front of a TV in the 70s.
MIT alumni unloads
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2025/04/dear-president-kornbluth-mit-alum-responds.php
I really like the part about MIT probably training Iranian nuclear bomb makers. Do I hear Lenin laughing?
In the US, everything is about manufacturer compliance with 50 MPG CAFE dictate from the unelected bureaucrats at the EPA.. Even an extra 1-2 MPG from asinine “features” such as Automatic Start Stop – note the acronym – is something which cannot be ignored.
Designs in showrooms now went into the pipeline in 2019 when Impeachment started and the manufacturers saw the writing on the wall about what was coming back in 2020.
The alternative to meeting CAFE is paying the even more asinine carbon credit grift to Musk. Stellantis effectively went bankrupt funding Tesla’s R&D of the Cybertruck, and various other Elon the Lotus Eater fantasies, trying to keep the Hemi available in family saloons.
Under Trump, Stellantis will attempt to put the saloons back on the road but with hybrid V6 power trains since the administration has stated that they will not go further winding back CAFE than 38 MPG.
The white phospor PVS-14 seems to be the amplifier of choice for the astronomy crowd on Cloudy Nights, and the price seems to be in the correct ballpark.
You should make sure that whoever you buy it from has a good return policy, perhaps the amateur astronomers are more picky, but there’s apparently a lot of variations in the individual units.
Disclaimer: I don’t own one myself, so this is just something I’ve picked up from reading the forums.
I believe it is export controlled, btw.
73F and medium overcast this morning. Coffee is in the cup, bacon is frying.
Slept poorly but I feel pretty rested.
Export restrictions on items that have world leading alternatives available from other countries are a bit silly. But there are some tools that are like nuclear proliferation. Not something any random jihadi should have.
Egg is ready.
Yum.
n
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14627233/Sarah-Palin-libel-trial-New-York-Times-James-Bennet-cries.html
Followup.
On NODs:
I backed the Duovox Ultra Pro on crowd sourcing and is a useable NOD for viewing around the neighborhood. The link has a review from an Aussie.
On the IR side, I have a Pulsar Helion 2. Very useable and can be mounted. For around the house maintenance, I have a FLIR One Edge. Also very useable. I like that I can use it wireless to get in close. Connects to my iPhone/iPad no problemo.
My dream NOD is one of the new devices with Light Amplification that has an IR overlay. Very expensive.
My biggest complaint is noise, an HOA agreement might be good there.
Between live bands, dogs nuisance barking, dirt bikes, and contractors messing with their equipment on weekends it can get pretty bad.
Today is the 250th anniversary of the events at Lexington and Concord. First shots of the Revolution. We forget and don’t emphasize that the proximate cause of those violent hostilities was resistance to gun control, not tariffs and taxes.
Aversion to gun control is baked into out political DNA, just as desire for gun control is baked into the political DNA of the fascist scum that want to reimpose rule by elites.
Got some minor things done. Might drop a line in the water for a few minutes…
It’s 80F and very humid.
n
For NV I have what is essentially a telescope or spotter scope. No crosshairs and just that much too big to mount on a bangstick. It might be gen III? If there’s any light at all, it shows something.
n
Had a gen II varo that I sold on ebay. It was huge, like a half pound coffee can. it had a variety of reticle choices, and an IR reticle illuminator…
Got a couple of inquiries about shipping to foreign lands even though I stated I’d follow ITAR rules.
n
xkcd: Anchor Bolts
https://xkcd.com/3078/
I want to see the drill. The largest earthen drill in the world to date is less than a couple of hundred feet in diameter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertha_(tunnel_boring_machine)
That bolt shaft has got to be at least a mile in diameter. Maybe a hundred miles in diameter, the scale is difficult to ascertain.
Explained at:
https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/3078:_Anchor_Bolts
I noted you comments on the Hybrid F-150. I will share some reflections on ‘Hybrids’. When I bought my Honda Jazz (Fit) Hybrid about 3 years ago, I was particularly taken by the design of the transmission system. It is predominantly an EV with a generator (with small battery – for regeneration and engine efficiency), although it can directly drive the transmission (no EV) if it believes that the Atkinson Cycle (optimises engine efficiency) ICE can be more efficient. The driving experience is excellent (EV like).
The buying decision process did cause me to ponder the design options available to the engineers. They have to envisage a ‘typical customer’ and then compromise their decisions to suit. For my personal use, a slightly bigger battery creating a PlugIn Hybrid would have been ideal for me, as most of my mileage is very limited on a daily basis. To make the the Jazz a Plugin Hybrid would have been, and still would be, very simple – but it would add cost, to an already high end car, which would probably have generated lower sales – thus the design compromises.
I think I can see what the F-150 design team were trying to do, with the limited electric motor able to assist the ICE outside it’s optimum power output range, giving a broader power range, plus enabling around town low speed efficiency with the benefits of regeneration etc.
Your suggestion of the electric motor being able to drive the vehicle up to 60mph would be a completely different design objective, it would make it more like my Jazz (EV like) – the vehicle they have designed is still meant to be ICE driven. Also, I don’t understand the desire for a 10 mile battery – I would see this as only useful (?) if part of a Plugin Hybrid. My Jazz can choose to do about 1 mile on battery, but that is all to do with managing the efficiency of the car – I have no control over enabling it.
Actually, if I cannot get my true hybrid F-150 4×4 in 5 or 6 years then I may consider an electric F-150 with the dual motors and the small battery with a generator in the bed. I would like to have a 100+ kW generator with a 20 gallon tank but, I am not sure that will be available. But, the aftermarket is quite ingenious for the number one vehicle on the planet.
BTW, Ford has applied for a patent on a generator in the bed of a electric F-150.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a34277725/ford-f-150-range-extender-ev-pickup-patent/
The white phospor PVS-14 seems to be the amplifier of choice for the astronomy crowd on Cloudy Nights, and the price seems to be in the correct ballpark.
You should make sure that whoever you buy it from has a good return policy, perhaps the amateur astronomers are more picky, but there’s apparently a lot of variations in the individual units.
My son gets very emotional about non soldiers having night vision since they conducted most of their operations at night in Iraq and wore an IR repeater that blinked a few times a minute on a shoulder to to stop friendly fire.
Don’t worry, we left a few thousand night vision units in Afghanistan along with a lot of other military guns, mortars, MREs, cannons, armored vehicles, etc. So Jihad Joe might have a night vision goggle now.
Army Aviation’s motto is “We Rule The Night”. I remember practicing a NOD landing in powder snow at Fort Drum, NY. I never had to do that again. I was a Captain at the time. Geez that was scary. I imagine it is almost as bad in the desert.
SCOTUS has agreed to hear oral arguments on tRump’s EO on “anchor babies” that several district courts have issued a “you can’t do that” order when some States sued. Yeah, a district court can control the whole country
This is going to be historic. Even Dershowitz thinks SCOTUS is going tRump’s way. Especially since ACB will have time to adequately study the case. There is more than illegal immigration at stake for the Dumbo’s. If SCOTUS says the States have no standing, the judges will be forced to rule on only those in front of them. This will also mean some district doosh can’t order the whole country to follow what he says. Rulings apply to the party in front of them, period. The 14th will be clarified so illegal aliens don’t get US Citizenship for babies born here. Only legal immigrants or visitors. This could also force Congress to due their job and not let unelected Department write and enforce law.
On his show, Dershowitz also talked about Judge Lurch threatening the tRump Admin with contempt of court. How do you enforce that? Why do you have to do what a judge says? That’s not law. He also said judges sort of made up contempt and throwing you in jail. What’s the law that says that? Lurch also said he will appoint a special counsel to look into contempt. Totally unConstitutional according to Dershowitz.
tRump may make history and change us back to a real sovereign country.
And of course SCOTUS ruled today 7-2 against tRump preventing deportation TdA gangsters under the aliens act. They even bypassed the 5th Circuit which is unusal. Hopefully this was just to slow down the process. Illegal aliens have no due process IMO. At least the crimmigrants are locked up.
Cats sleeping with dogs.
Either the F150 Lightning will be gone in five years or Ford as currently constructed will be history. The losses are unsustainable.
Tommy Boy will be gone regardless. The terms of the semi-secret Shrub bailout of Ford involved installing Alan Mulally from Boeing as CEO.
God knows who Trump will want running Ford if he has to write a check.
Alamo Drafthouse has screenings of “Tommy Boy” this week.
Geesh. Thirty years.
“Castigo Cay” by Matthew Bracken
https://www.amazon.com/Castigo-Cay-Matthew-Bracken/dp/0972831045?tag=ttgnet-20/
Book number one of a three book post financial apocalypse thriller series. I read the well printed and well bound trade paperback published by Steelcutter Publishing in 2011 that I bought new on Amazon in 2015. I have ordered books two and three in the series.
In the not so distant future, the USA Dollar has lost most of its value and annual inflation is running 20% per year. Gasoline is $60 per gallon and rationed at 10 gallons per week, so is electricity. Food and housing are comparatively expensive. The taxes have gone up including new personal healthcare taxes and such. Many people have left the USA looking for cheaper places to live.
Dan Kilmer is a former US Marine with a failed shot at college. He joined his uncle restoring an old 60 foot long (20 meter) twin masted steel schooner down in Florida. As they got close to the end of the immense project, his uncle fell off a ladder and subsequently passed away. Dan inherited the “Rebel Yell” from his uncle and finished the project, launching the ship and moved to the Bahamas. He makes money by running small cargoes and helping salvage operations.
Dan Kilmer’s Venezuelan girlfriend needs to go to Miami. Dan can’t take her since he owes the IRS money. So she jumps ship to a ship supposedly heading for Miami, but is the ship really headed to Miami?
The author has a website at:
https://www.enemiesforeignanddomestic.com/
My rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars (1,383 reviews)
Lynn
@Mr. Lynn:
Are you impressed with my Photoshop skills on “You Make the Call!”?
@lynn
I received a lot of flak for the fertilizer in my discussion with my friend, but, since one of the implicit rules here are operational security I remained silent, I dont want to bother anyone.
The comment was, your people know a lot, but not of this. He said NOX is harmful etc etc.
Yes faulty English, the boxes karlson with tweeters, maybe Celestion speakers
Thanks again
@Mr. Lynn:
Are you impressed with my Photoshop skills on “You Make the Call!”?
Yes.
>>There is an HOA with an annual fee of $200. I hate HOAs, bunch of Karens.
@lynn, what does the $200 cover? Anything tangible? Or just a list of “rules” you have to follow?
https://youtu.be/n2NQU5C0AGA?si=qPSdldcLlQ8jCxGa
>>There is an HOA with an annual fee of $200. I hate HOAs, bunch of Karens.
@lynn, what does the $200 cover? Anything tangible? Or just a list of “rules” you have to follow?
No idea. I have found that HOAs tend to spend money like they are spending Other People’s Money (OPM).
I received a lot of flak for the fertilizer in my discussion with my friend, but, since one of the implicit rules here are operational security I remained silent, I dont want to bother anyone.
The comment was, your people know a lot, but not of this. He said NOX is harmful etc etc.
If NOx was a problem, workers at power plants would be dropping like flies. Workers at power plants have been proven to have half of the illnesses of the general population. So, NOx is not a problem until you get serious amounts of it.
I don’t trust anything coming out the USA EPA nowadays. They got political several decades ago.
Did some small projects. I’ve got audio and video in the dockhouse and on the dock now. Bonus that it can mostly be controlled with an app from anywhere on property…
Cooked dinner and played cards with the family.
Loaded up the plastic eggs, and decorated 20 real hard boiled eggs. It’s late and the bunny comes early around here. Time for bed.
No little fire for me, just a warm bed.
n
@Lynn, I know I know
Some part of my working life was at a generating company, they have, among others, an LM2500 cogenerating and selling vapour. The funny thing was that the other people whom I was discussing this was evaluating time ago a change in burners to allow less water consumed and increase the quantity of vapour delivered.
But, time ago and discussion ended