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Ye Olde Debate
Jun. 28th, 2024 07:31 amI cannot think when, if ever, I have seen an American politician self-destruct onstage like that. An amazing evening.
He Smiled as Fierce as a 40 Pounder...
Jan. 16th, 2024 11:40 pmSo. the election year is finally underway. Trump drove the steamroller in Iowa. I think there's no real doubt that he'll be the candidate.
Vivek Ramaswamy, of whom I had never heard until last year, put in a spirited performance. He was probably my third favourite overall (behind DeSantis), and would have been my second had I judged him electable.
Haley, I predict, will stick it out through South Carolina before she admits that she hasn't a chance. DeSantis I'm not sure about.
*****
Sunny, but desperately cold here. My car still starts, though, *and* I can refuel it. One can't say the same for the EVs. Apparently there are dead electric cars abandoned at recharger points all over the midwest, since they can't be charged, and in some cases can't even be started, when the weather is too cold. That would be a hell of a thing to find out. You stop to charge, and find you're not getting home tonight.
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The FAA has a DEI program which includes deliberately hiring people of low intelligence, and people with psychological problems. Surely this will make air travel safer for all of us.
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The UN are blithering about how nitrogen asphyxiation may constitute torture. I have to think that constitutes basic intellectual dishonesty on their part - either that or DEI has led them down the same path as the FAA. The reason there are so many nitrogen deaths in industry is that there's absolutely zero discomfort when you're asphyxiated by nitrogen. The carbon dioxide exchange cycle continues as always - there's just no oxygen coming. People topple over unconscious with no warning at all.
If it ever comes to the point that I commit suicide, I'll chose either nitrogen asphyxiation, or else stab myself through the heart, depending on how bloody-minded I happen to be at the time.
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Edit: Remove sentence fragment.
Vivek Ramaswamy, of whom I had never heard until last year, put in a spirited performance. He was probably my third favourite overall (behind DeSantis), and would have been my second had I judged him electable.
Haley, I predict, will stick it out through South Carolina before she admits that she hasn't a chance. DeSantis I'm not sure about.
*****
Sunny, but desperately cold here. My car still starts, though, *and* I can refuel it. One can't say the same for the EVs. Apparently there are dead electric cars abandoned at recharger points all over the midwest, since they can't be charged, and in some cases can't even be started, when the weather is too cold. That would be a hell of a thing to find out. You stop to charge, and find you're not getting home tonight.
*****
The FAA has a DEI program which includes deliberately hiring people of low intelligence, and people with psychological problems. Surely this will make air travel safer for all of us.
*****
The UN are blithering about how nitrogen asphyxiation may constitute torture. I have to think that constitutes basic intellectual dishonesty on their part - either that or DEI has led them down the same path as the FAA. The reason there are so many nitrogen deaths in industry is that there's absolutely zero discomfort when you're asphyxiated by nitrogen. The carbon dioxide exchange cycle continues as always - there's just no oxygen coming. People topple over unconscious with no warning at all.
If it ever comes to the point that I commit suicide, I'll chose either nitrogen asphyxiation, or else stab myself through the heart, depending on how bloody-minded I happen to be at the time.
*****
Edit: Remove sentence fragment.
The Orange Man finally takes measures to control drug prices. This is long overdue, IMHO. It doesn't go far enough, but it does allow Americans to reimport drugs from other First World countries, and allows (if I understand correctly) Medicare to finally use their volume as a lever in bargaining. That should knock consumer prices way down. I'd *like* to see a mandate thatdrugs have to be sold in the US as cheaply as they are anywhere else. Not gonna hold my breath on that, though.
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It doesn't seem to have hit the news yet, but Ol' Herr Drumpf also swung a deal to get Eastman/Kodak to produce precursor reagents for making drugs, thereby reducing our dependence on Chinese sourcing.
Edit: This is seriously pleasing to me, as I wrote a series of smoking-hot letters a month ago complaining that the US was subsidizing the R&D costs for drugs that other countries got more or less free.
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It doesn't seem to have hit the news yet, but Ol' Herr Drumpf also swung a deal to get Eastman/Kodak to produce precursor reagents for making drugs, thereby reducing our dependence on Chinese sourcing.
Edit: This is seriously pleasing to me, as I wrote a series of smoking-hot letters a month ago complaining that the US was subsidizing the R&D costs for drugs that other countries got more or less free.
Candle Garden
Jun. 7th, 2019 09:46 amI got the old bird bath repaired, in a half-assed sort of way. It does hold water now. Interestingly, it looks to me like I have more birds in the back yard than usual, even though no-one is currently using the bath. I wonder if that standardized "bird bath" shape is something birds see enough to have happy associations with?
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The Starlings are taking turns in the bird bath. One bird at a time gets in and splashes, and the others keep watch from the tree. The submissive birds get their turns cut short (a dominant bird flutters down and lands on the brim of the bowl to show that it's his turn now), but everyone does get a turn, and the submissive ones' don't seem that much shorter.
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I've discovered that if I'm logged into my bank app, then my card gets declined. Were I smarter, that would tell me something about potential avenues of attack that the bank fears. Or perhaps that only one routine at a time can perform an action to the account, and that the mobile app probably didn't exist when the back-end was written.
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Disasteroid! For the past five or six years, I've held the conviction that I will die in September*. This dovetails nicely with that.
* If nothing else, an appropriate month for a Cubs fan.
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Florida man steals car, kills dog, chases man with ax, found naked in chicken coop. Ah, Florida...
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The Starlings are taking turns in the bird bath. One bird at a time gets in and splashes, and the others keep watch from the tree. The submissive birds get their turns cut short (a dominant bird flutters down and lands on the brim of the bowl to show that it's his turn now), but everyone does get a turn, and the submissive ones' don't seem that much shorter.
*****
I've discovered that if I'm logged into my bank app, then my card gets declined. Were I smarter, that would tell me something about potential avenues of attack that the bank fears. Or perhaps that only one routine at a time can perform an action to the account, and that the mobile app probably didn't exist when the back-end was written.
*****
Disasteroid! For the past five or six years, I've held the conviction that I will die in September*. This dovetails nicely with that.
* If nothing else, an appropriate month for a Cubs fan.
*****
Florida man steals car, kills dog, chases man with ax, found naked in chicken coop. Ah, Florida...
Burn It Dry!
Apr. 2nd, 2019 01:00 amSo... Whilst engaged in the traditional furry pastime of organizing my collection of, um, animal pictures, I created a new folder in Win10, then selected some files to move into it. I failed to realize that the new folder was also selected. I will give Win10 credit in that it flagged recursively nesting a folder as probably not being something I had actually intended to do. I'm pleased on the whole, as I like an OS that does as it's told, but do appreciate a warning for questionable commands. I wonder now if I'd done it, whether it would have filled my drive with copies, or maybe just created some sort of pointer from the folder to itself? Something to try if I decide to re-image this machine.
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I have to wonder too just what the hell happened with Renault? Both cars just shutting themselves off, on the same corner of the same lap, has got to be a software issue, whatever Renault says.
I don't really like using computers to run race cars, but I suppose it's appropriate, given that production cars are operated that way anymore. R&D is pretty much what keeps the big teams involved. I'd still love to see all the downforce generators taken off. Those, at any rate, have no relationship to production vehicles.
Surreal sight as well, when everyone is afraid to touch a car, for fear that the energy management system will electrocute them. For more than a century, touching the hot exhaust was about the only hazard an inert race car offered. The March of Progress!
And now I'm trying to think of people who've been injured in unusual ways by dead cars. There's ol' AJ Foyt, of course, who broke his nose by clobbering a tire with a humongous wrench trying to free a stuck suspension element (it bounced back and hit him), although I'm not sure that's really on the car.
I recall Jean Marcenac listening to the '49 Five Hundred from the hospital (a famous tale in itself, in that he could identify, over the radio broadcast, Dennis 'The Iron Duke' Nalon riding his clutch to the start, and he was absolutely correct), and I think it was that very car that put him there, but don't recall the details. Both of the twin Novis seemed to have a curse on them anyway.
*****
Good on Trump for stopping South American aid. The money was obviously being wasted. I hope he'll close the Mexican border as well, perhaps permanently. Those people are not our friends. I am sick as hell of the situation, and wouldn't mind a bit if we had to engage in some regime change to get a friendly government in place.
*****
Some guy fell into the Grand Canyon. The coroner's office say they're investigating the cause of death. Offhand, I'm gonna guess whole-body impact.
If I meet my doom by falling into the Grand Canyon, I hope I have the presence of mind to yell "Oy Veeeyyyyyyy..." on the way down, and that someone videos that. And as the camera follows me down, I'll dwindle to a dot, and then there'll be a tiny puff of dust, and a few seconds later, a faint 'poom...', and I will have achieved oneness with the Coyote.
*****
It's 2019, and here I sit playing the modern implementation of "Lemmings". And... While it's pretty true to the original design and feel of the game, something is hinky. It takes about two minutes to load. The explosions aren't real-time. The explosion animation plays, clears away, you briefly see the undamaged map, and then the crater appears. No flying, bouncing debris, and each crater is identical. No physics engine for the explosions, apparently. Worse still, when I pushed 'nuke' with 90 lemmings in play, it pretty much used all my processor (holy shit!), and bogged down to about one frame every three seconds. They all exploded at the exact same time, too. On my old 486, I could pack 'em all in a tiny space, nuke 'em, and they'd go off in rapid sequence like a string of firecrackers, maybe eight to ten a second, chewing their way down through the rock with debris flying everywhere as they fell into the crater and then exploded in turn. I loved the game when I played it as designed, but I also liked seeing how much of the landscape I could obliterate too. It accomodated me however I wanted to play, which is characteristic of a good toy. The new one plays adequately (apart from the explosions) when you play it as a puzzle, but is worthless if you just want to relax by blowing stuff up and giggling. Why? This machine, cheap laptop that it is, is nonetheless a monster compared to that 486. I can do animation and video processing, but what's essentially a 16 bit game is too much for it? I doubt that. I suspect that the repro game is built on some generic engine, rather than actually being programmed.
*****
I have to wonder too just what the hell happened with Renault? Both cars just shutting themselves off, on the same corner of the same lap, has got to be a software issue, whatever Renault says.
I don't really like using computers to run race cars, but I suppose it's appropriate, given that production cars are operated that way anymore. R&D is pretty much what keeps the big teams involved. I'd still love to see all the downforce generators taken off. Those, at any rate, have no relationship to production vehicles.
Surreal sight as well, when everyone is afraid to touch a car, for fear that the energy management system will electrocute them. For more than a century, touching the hot exhaust was about the only hazard an inert race car offered. The March of Progress!
And now I'm trying to think of people who've been injured in unusual ways by dead cars. There's ol' AJ Foyt, of course, who broke his nose by clobbering a tire with a humongous wrench trying to free a stuck suspension element (it bounced back and hit him), although I'm not sure that's really on the car.
I recall Jean Marcenac listening to the '49 Five Hundred from the hospital (a famous tale in itself, in that he could identify, over the radio broadcast, Dennis 'The Iron Duke' Nalon riding his clutch to the start, and he was absolutely correct), and I think it was that very car that put him there, but don't recall the details. Both of the twin Novis seemed to have a curse on them anyway.
*****
Good on Trump for stopping South American aid. The money was obviously being wasted. I hope he'll close the Mexican border as well, perhaps permanently. Those people are not our friends. I am sick as hell of the situation, and wouldn't mind a bit if we had to engage in some regime change to get a friendly government in place.
*****
Some guy fell into the Grand Canyon. The coroner's office say they're investigating the cause of death. Offhand, I'm gonna guess whole-body impact.
If I meet my doom by falling into the Grand Canyon, I hope I have the presence of mind to yell "Oy Veeeyyyyyyy..." on the way down, and that someone videos that. And as the camera follows me down, I'll dwindle to a dot, and then there'll be a tiny puff of dust, and a few seconds later, a faint 'poom...', and I will have achieved oneness with the Coyote.
*****
It's 2019, and here I sit playing the modern implementation of "Lemmings". And... While it's pretty true to the original design and feel of the game, something is hinky. It takes about two minutes to load. The explosions aren't real-time. The explosion animation plays, clears away, you briefly see the undamaged map, and then the crater appears. No flying, bouncing debris, and each crater is identical. No physics engine for the explosions, apparently. Worse still, when I pushed 'nuke' with 90 lemmings in play, it pretty much used all my processor (holy shit!), and bogged down to about one frame every three seconds. They all exploded at the exact same time, too. On my old 486, I could pack 'em all in a tiny space, nuke 'em, and they'd go off in rapid sequence like a string of firecrackers, maybe eight to ten a second, chewing their way down through the rock with debris flying everywhere as they fell into the crater and then exploded in turn. I loved the game when I played it as designed, but I also liked seeing how much of the landscape I could obliterate too. It accomodated me however I wanted to play, which is characteristic of a good toy. The new one plays adequately (apart from the explosions) when you play it as a puzzle, but is worthless if you just want to relax by blowing stuff up and giggling. Why? This machine, cheap laptop that it is, is nonetheless a monster compared to that 486. I can do animation and video processing, but what's essentially a 16 bit game is too much for it? I doubt that. I suspect that the repro game is built on some generic engine, rather than actually being programmed.
There is a Thing which Speaks
Aug. 3rd, 2018 03:42 pmI had no idea that there existed man-made geysers. Quite attractive as well.
With all of the limestone that underlies West Trumpistan, we could probably sink a nuclear reactor for heat, and make geysers that form cool flowstone structures here too. Ours could even be radioactive!
*****
Lynchburg is being evacuated in anticipation of a potential dam failure. While that's distressing, I'm satisfied to note that pets are going to be provided for in the evacuation centres. That's been a longstanding issue here, is the expectation of the authorities that people will just leave their pets behind. In the old days, when they didn't expect people to evacuate unless their lives were in actual danger, that may have worked. The modern practice seems to be to take no chances of any sort whatsoever, so if we're to accept having our lives disrupted on the offchance that someone might possibly get hurt, it seems sensible to have higher expectations of what the authorities will provide.
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Dude with samurai sword attacks ice cream truck. Alcohol may have been involved. :)
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Sad that the guy got shot, but there's a certain irony in that he had come to see "cowboy culture". For whatever reason, many Germans seem fascinated by cowboys and indians.
*****
Oh yes! I need one of these!
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McDonald's are on my shitlist again. There's no excuse for that sort of behaviour.
With all of the limestone that underlies West Trumpistan, we could probably sink a nuclear reactor for heat, and make geysers that form cool flowstone structures here too. Ours could even be radioactive!
*****
Lynchburg is being evacuated in anticipation of a potential dam failure. While that's distressing, I'm satisfied to note that pets are going to be provided for in the evacuation centres. That's been a longstanding issue here, is the expectation of the authorities that people will just leave their pets behind. In the old days, when they didn't expect people to evacuate unless their lives were in actual danger, that may have worked. The modern practice seems to be to take no chances of any sort whatsoever, so if we're to accept having our lives disrupted on the offchance that someone might possibly get hurt, it seems sensible to have higher expectations of what the authorities will provide.
*****
Dude with samurai sword attacks ice cream truck. Alcohol may have been involved. :)
*****
Sad that the guy got shot, but there's a certain irony in that he had come to see "cowboy culture". For whatever reason, many Germans seem fascinated by cowboys and indians.
*****
Oh yes! I need one of these!
*****
McDonald's are on my shitlist again. There's no excuse for that sort of behaviour.
Under the Eaves, the Swallow is Resting
Jun. 13th, 2018 12:49 amIt is not, really, every single day that you see politics generate more drama than the furry fandom, but this seems to have been one of them. The satisfaction is upon me.
*****
So, driving to visit my mom for her birthday. About a mile and a half before I got to her house, I saw a fledgling bird in the road, sitting exactly on the centreline. It was something big and grey-black, maybe a grackle. Anyway, I drove past, without stopping to shoo him out of the road, then felt guilty for not helping him, but didn't go back.
Then, about half an hour later, I went with mom to help her pick out a new laptop (she actually ended up with one of those HP ones that convert from laptop to tablet). I looked as we passed the spot - no smashed bird in the road or on the side, so that worked out okay.
Later, as we were returning from the store, at that exact same spot there was some sort of a land turtle in the road, exactly on the centreline. Exactly. That very same spot. I got mom to turn around, and I carried him across the road to where he looked to be headed (a corn field by a creek). He was a big turtle, seven or eight pounds at least, and some sort of actual land turtle, not one of the box tortoises you commonly see here. Not any kind of snapper that I recognized, although he certainly hissed like one when I picked him up (and I picked him up from way back on the shell, just in case). As we turned back around on an access road to a field, right there sitting on a wooden fence just calmly watching us was a cock bluebird, which you almost never see around here, and which are generally spooky around humans to begin with.
When I was young, I was very much a materialist and a rationalist, but the older I get, and the more I see, the more I tend to believe that there's some sort of meaning underlying certain (if not most, or even all) events, and tying them together.
*****
So, driving to visit my mom for her birthday. About a mile and a half before I got to her house, I saw a fledgling bird in the road, sitting exactly on the centreline. It was something big and grey-black, maybe a grackle. Anyway, I drove past, without stopping to shoo him out of the road, then felt guilty for not helping him, but didn't go back.
Then, about half an hour later, I went with mom to help her pick out a new laptop (she actually ended up with one of those HP ones that convert from laptop to tablet). I looked as we passed the spot - no smashed bird in the road or on the side, so that worked out okay.
Later, as we were returning from the store, at that exact same spot there was some sort of a land turtle in the road, exactly on the centreline. Exactly. That very same spot. I got mom to turn around, and I carried him across the road to where he looked to be headed (a corn field by a creek). He was a big turtle, seven or eight pounds at least, and some sort of actual land turtle, not one of the box tortoises you commonly see here. Not any kind of snapper that I recognized, although he certainly hissed like one when I picked him up (and I picked him up from way back on the shell, just in case). As we turned back around on an access road to a field, right there sitting on a wooden fence just calmly watching us was a cock bluebird, which you almost never see around here, and which are generally spooky around humans to begin with.
When I was young, I was very much a materialist and a rationalist, but the older I get, and the more I see, the more I tend to believe that there's some sort of meaning underlying certain (if not most, or even all) events, and tying them together.
Ho-Zuntly!
May. 14th, 2018 10:07 pmAll of my glasses were dirty. I readily admit to being a slovenly housekeeper. At any rate, rather than wash one, I grabbed a plastic storage tub, and filled it with ice water from the refrigerator. And... damn... that's an amazing way to drink water! The tub partially encloses my face, and I get a faceful of the cool air and smell of the water as I go to drink! It's very much like drinking from a stream, without the mess.
*****
We've finally done the right thing and moved our embassy to Jerusalem! That's been a standard campaign lie for every POTUS for the last 25 years, at least, if not longer, but Trump actually did it. I'd pretty much forgotten what it's like to have a President of whom I can be proud for keeping his word, regardless of pressure.
There's apparently a commemorative coin now with twin profiles of Trump and Cyrus the Great.
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I hadn't really been following the royal weeding as closely as I might, but I see now where Meghan's father isn't going to attend, which I think is sad. I'm sure there's some awkward story behind that.
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The official version is now that the MH370 pilot committed suicide. I still have my doubts.
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We've finally done the right thing and moved our embassy to Jerusalem! That's been a standard campaign lie for every POTUS for the last 25 years, at least, if not longer, but Trump actually did it. I'd pretty much forgotten what it's like to have a President of whom I can be proud for keeping his word, regardless of pressure.
There's apparently a commemorative coin now with twin profiles of Trump and Cyrus the Great.
*****
I hadn't really been following the royal weeding as closely as I might, but I see now where Meghan's father isn't going to attend, which I think is sad. I'm sure there's some awkward story behind that.
*****
The official version is now that the MH370 pilot committed suicide. I still have my doubts.
Bit of a shocker...
Mar. 9th, 2018 12:01 amWell, I never saw this coming. I expected us to be at war in a few weeks. If true, it represents an absolute climbdown from their most recent statements. Obviously, if we're going to come to an accomodation with them, that's going to involve giving up on the idea of regime change, and turning a blind eye to how Kim treats his people. I'll give vent to my native cynicism, and predict that as soon as a deal is struck, the same media that fawned all over the Tubby Tyrant's sister and the NK cheerleaders at the Olympics will suddenly develop an intense interest in NK's human rights situation.
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What would really be cool would be if Trump pulled out a pistol and shot the evil clown at the photo op.
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What would really be cool would be if Trump pulled out a pistol and shot the evil clown at the photo op.
I could use a New Toilet...
Jan. 27th, 2018 12:16 amI need to give these guys a call, and tell them that if the POTUS doesn't want their solid gold toilet, I'll be a stand-up guy and take it off their hands for them.
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The museum's trolling Trump, obviously, but I tend to think that whoever got them to display a solid gold toilet as art trolled the museum bigtime, and I very much doubt if they understand that.
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I wonder what that weighs? It'd probably collapse my bathroom floor.
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The museum's trolling Trump, obviously, but I tend to think that whoever got them to display a solid gold toilet as art trolled the museum bigtime, and I very much doubt if they understand that.
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I wonder what that weighs? It'd probably collapse my bathroom floor.
