* This is an archive of my own blog and online notes, with weekly entries collected by month. The current week in stand-alone format is available here. For daily postings, follow @gv_goebel on SPOUTIBLE.
DAYLOG MON 28 OCT 24: On 1 October, Iran pummeled Israel with a barrage of ballistic missiles; retaliation had been expected, with Israel's allies asking for restraint. As discussed by TWZ.com, retaliatory strikes were indeed performed on Saturday.
The 20 targets hit included the air defenses of the Imam Khomeni International Airport (IKIA) outside Tehran; three IRGC (Revolutionary Guards) missile bases; a solid-fuel rocket production site at Parchin; and other weapons production sites.
The attack on IKIA was noteworthy in that only the air defenses, which cover Tehran, were struck -- opening up targets for another strike if Iran escalates again. The Iranians had (notice past tense) 4 batteries of Russian-made S300 surface-to-air missiles (SAM); one was taken out in a previous exchange of shots, the other three in this one. The Iranians have lots of other SAMs, but none as capable as the S300.
Apparently the attacks were with air-launched ballistic missiles (ALBM) and possibly some drones. The most familiar Israeli ALBM is the "Rampage", which is 4.7 meters (15') long, weighs 570 kilograms (1,250 pounds), has a warhead weight of 150 kilograms (330 pounds), a range of up to 250 kilometers (155 miles), and infrared-imaging target seeker. It is a modified artillery rocket. The larger "Air LORA" and smaller "ROCKS" ALBMs were apparently launched as well. It appears the F-16 is the primary launch platform, with the weapons launched over Iraq, expended booster stages being found on the ground later.
The solid-fuel rocket production site at Parchin is likely buried or otherwise protected, which implies that some of the missiles had penetrating warheads. Later reports hint Iran wants escalation.
* Another Spouter was talking today about the news media saying Kamala might lose the popular vote. The Spouter wanted to get whatever drugs they were on, since they might prove handy. [ED: Unfortunately, they might have.]
Michelle Obama was saying that she was a bit angry with "undecided" voters -- with me thinking: They're all fakes and frauds who have no intention of voting for Kamala. In the same way, the media was playing up a young woman who said she was unhappy with the economy, blamed the Dems, and said she would vote Trump. Why is the media focusing on such fringe characters? The media has always been off base sometimes, but I've never seen it so consistently hallucinatory as it is now. I am not young.
DAYLOG TUE 29 OCT 24: There's a big ruckus going on. The WASHINGTON POST was going to release an endorsement of Kamala, but Jeff Bezos -- the owner -- intervened and stopped it. There followed resignations of WAPO staff and mass defection of subscribers. Andy Borowitz of the BOROWITZ REPORT shot back:
QUOTE:
The Borowitz Report, the last surviving media outlet not owned by a billionaire, broke with its longstanding policy of impartiality in elections on Monday by endorsing Kamala Harris for POTUS.
"We did not take this decision lightly," TBR's editorial board wrote. "But after carefully weighing the strengths and weaknesses of the two presidential candidates, The Borowitz Report has decided to endorse the one who does not resemble Hitler."
The decision to endorse Harris caused the resignation of TBR's top business executive, Harland Dorrinson, who called it "a violation of the mainstream media's most sacred duty: to maximize profits."
"Others at The Borowitz Report may be able to stomach this decision, but I cannot," he wrote in his resignation letter. "It contradicts everything I learned at Harvard Business School and McKinsey."
END_QUOTE
* In similar news, Trump had a rally at Madison Square Garden in NYC on Sunday -- which was a bit off to begin with, because he has no chance of winning anything in New York. The real problem with the rally was the parade of nasty characters backing him up.
The worst offender was a dubious comedian who called Puerto Rico a "floating island of garbage." Public reaction was loud, angry, & still ongoing. The puzzle is that sort of thing has long been Trump's message, he has no other, and has usually had no consequences.
It seems to be having big consequences now. Something's changed, Trump isn't getting a free pass any longer. Some time back, Chuck Schumer said he wasn't worried about the 2024 election, because: "The American people have got wise to Donald Trump."
DAYLOG WED 30 OCT 24: Kamala Harris gave a closing speech in Washington DC for her presidential campaign yesterday at the Ellipse -- the open area in front of the White House. She brought down the house. They were expecting 20,000 spectators, they got an estimated 75,000. The Ellipse isn't that big, so the overflow was directed to the National Mall around the Washington Monument. Incidentally, one news source said the "Jefferson Monument" instead -- which is far away from the Ellipse, down the Potomac from the National Mall.
* As discussed in an article from SCIENCENEWS.org ("How powdered rock could help slow climate change" by Ann Leslie Davis, 1 July 2024), farmers all over the world are now experimenting with spreading crushed volcanic rock on their crops.
The idea behind "enhanced rock weathering (ERW)" is that volcanic rock, particularly when crushed into a fine powder, naturally traps CO2. That had been known for a long time, but it wasn't until about two decades ago that researchers began to get serious about ERW. Not only could ERW help fight climate change, but it can also reduce soil acidity to improve crop yields; crushed limestone is already used for that purpose.
Current efforts indicate ERW is highly promising, but there are challenges. 1st, there is the overhead of crushing the rocks and distributing the powder. The cost-effectiveness of the process is hard to prove at a small scale. 2nd, use of the mineral olivene -- one of the main volcanic rocks for ERW -- might lead to toxic heavy-metal buildup in soils; nobody's exactly sure that's a problem. 3rd, ERW might do bad things to soil micro-ecologies, though nobody's sure about that, either. 4th & finally, it's not easy to measure just how effective ERW is in removing atmospheric CO2.
These issues are not show-stoppers, they just need further study. It would be helpful to that end to establish a global office that could help with the investigation and set standards.
DAYLOG THU 31 OCT 24: Trump, in an effort to make something of the trading of shots over his "garbage" insult to Puerto Rico, did a video in which he drove a trash truck with TRUMP painted on the side. And this proved what? That he is an unserious person?
Hey, we knew that all along. Trump's getting beaten up with this, so he keeps it going? RIDIN' WITH BIDEN: Get in the Corvette! RIDIN' WITH TRUMP: Get in the trash truck!
* There's been a lot of complaint about the slow delivery of munitions to Ukraine in the face of the Russian invasion, with some claiming the US and its allies are deliberately dragging their feet.
That's based on ignorance of logistics. As discussed in an article from DEFENSENEWS.com ("Army races to widen the bottlenecks of artillery shell production" by Jen Judson, 14 October 2024), the prime example is the critical 155-millimeter artillery shell.
At the outset of the conflict, the US Army could produce 14,400 155mm shells a month, at two facilities in Scranton PA. That was totally inadequate, with the Army throwing billions at expanding production -- notably a new, automated plant being built in Mesquite TX. Other facilities are being brought up to manufacture or help in manufacturing 155 mm shells, with a parallel effort to ramp up production of explosives, primers, and propellants. The US Army had no domestic facility to produce explosives at the outset.
Production of 155mm shells should be 55,000 a month by the end of the year, towards a target of 100,000. Dragging their feet? The US and the allies were not prepared for this war and are playing "catch up". It takes time to build new factories and supply networks.
Many new factories are being built in Ukraine as partnerships; although they have to be buried or otherwise protected, manufacturers have problems justifying building new plant at home. The US is not deliberately dragging its feet. If that were the case, we'd get a flood of Pentagon leaks complaining. We get crickets instead.
DAYLOG FRI 01 OCT 24: As election day approaches, Trump is flailing, saying of Liz Cheney that she was a "war hawk", and that she should be given "a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK?"
Reaction to this was that Trump wanted people to shoot Liz Cheney. Oh, he would -- but my reaction was that Trump was talking meaningless, violent-minded gibberish, admittedly knowing it incites MAGA to do vicious things. Years back, Trump talked trash all day and nothing happened; now it's blowing up in his face.
* As discussed in an article from CNBC.com ("How American Malls Survived The Slow Death Of Department Stores" by DeLon Thornton, 14 April 2024), the rise of Amazon and online commerce has meant the decline of America's shopping malls.
The big malls have adapted -- replacing department stores with grocery stores, casinos, gyms, ice skating rinks and, in some cases, even residential apartments. It's working, with mall traffic remaining at high levels.
The smaller malls, however, are in a more difficult position; the number of such malls is inevitably shrinking. However, at the same time the USA has a housing crisis. Maybe, some think, it would be good to convert the dying strip malls into housing?
Some of the big malls, have noted, have featured conversions from department stores into apartment blocks, with shops and restaurants in the malls serving the apartment dwellers. As for the smaller malls, they are generally demolished and rebuilt.
Mall-building got rolling in the 1960s and 1970s, with the result that malls are often in decrepit shape. It makes more sense to tear down and rebuild than to modify old structures. These updated malls often include shops and other amenities. That poses a problem, in that local zoning laws tend to frown on "mixed use" parcels of land. Work is underway to appropriately reform the laws. In the meantime, the Biden Administration is seeing what can be done to help the conversions along.
AND SO ON: I saw a set of cartoons by Mat Barton online. I wasn't familiar with him, though I think I've seen his work someplace before. Anyway, in one cartoon a band of four fantasy adventurers -- archer, knight, dwarf, wizard -- was standing on a cliff, with a dragon flying in the distance, and the archer saying: "Fate is but a roll of the dice, cast by giant nerds."
* Halloween was of course Thursday night, and I got to try out my Uncle Sam costume a second time. After the first time last year, I decided I didn't like the awkward prop hat that came with the costume, so I bought a tall Dr. Seuss-style hat. I didn't want to put on a fake goatee, so I bought a stars-&-stripes tube bandana instead and went masked.
I had a total stars-&-stripes outfit, including socks and tennis shoes. The tennis shoes had LED soles; I set them to slow red-white-blue blinking -- which was a nice effect, particularly because the two shoes weren't in sync. I only got about a dozen visitors, good enough. I sang SPOOKY SCARY SKELETONS when handing out candy:
Spooky, scary skeletons Send shivers down your spine! Shrieking skulls will shock your soul And seal your doom tonight!
I do a little karaoke, I'll have to add that to the song list. I usually practice silly tunes, because I can't sing well enough to be very serious. Anyway, I was thinking the batteries in the LED shoes would conk out before too long, but they were still going strong when I stood down after two and a half hours.
Incidentally, on Friday I ended my hay fever "lockdown". It's now freezing in the mornings and the pollinators are standing down themselves -- so I shut down my air purifiers, don't need to eat in the air-purified room, and don't mask when go out in the yard. I cough a little bit sometimes, but not very much. I hadn't been riding my Razor A6 adult kick scooter while on lockdown, so that day I took it for a spin twice. I was a bit out of shape for it, but I was fine the next day when I went for a spin again.
My appetite's getting back to normal, or at least as normal as a heavy-eating routine permits. The onslaught of the hay fever drastically cut my weight, which alarmed me. Now, along with my normal food consumption, I drink two fair-sized glasses of milk a day, along with four chocolate-chip chewy granola bars. I'm hoping I'll be back up to normal weight by the start of 2025. I'm looking forward to it -- I don't like stuffing myself like this all the time.
* I've gone through some adjustments in lifestyle as of late. One thing I was after was to find some casual entertainment for a few minutes before I crashed out. I watch an anime three times a week, but on the other four evenings I've got nothing.
I got to wondering if I could find a manga site to keep me entertained, but I couldn't find one that was satisfactory, and they were all basically for pay. That's only fair, but I didn't see one that seemed worth paying for. It has been possible to get pirated anime and manga off ".to (Tonga)" sites -- but they're sleazy in all respects, and are getting shut down anyway.
I finally found WEBTOON, available as website and smartphone app. It's just what it says, web comics for free, structured for reading on a smartphone. It's a Korean-American collaboration, many stories taking place in Seoul. Much of it is junk, but there are hundreds of comic series on the site, and many are ongoing. I'll sample a series or two on the website during the day, subscribe to one I like, and read an installment of one for like five minutes before I crash out. I may run out of steam on it before long, but it's working well for now. I'm gonna buy some Android credits -- set up for gaming originally -- and hand out dollar tips for the series I like.
BACK_TO_TOPDAYLOG MON 04 NOV 24: Tomorrow is Guy Fawkes Day, and more significantly for the USA, election day. I'm trying to ignore it. I'm not worried about the outcome, and the hysteria in the media annoys me. I check news on my smartphone every morning before I get out of bed. I should get interesting news on Wednesday morning.
* One of the latest weapons to arrive in Ukraine is the "MQ-35 V-Bat" from Shield AI. It has a "tailsitter" AKA "pogo" configuration, taking off & landing vertically, flying horizontally. It has a torpedo-like fuselage with a duct ring at the bottom, enclosing the prop for a 2-cylinder engine, and a long straight wing above the duct. It has a day-night imaging turret in the nose. Height is 3 meters (10'), wingspan 2.7 feet (9'), and weight 55 kilos (125 pounds).
It's not very fast, cruise speed of about 90 KPH (55 MPH), but it has endurance of up to 10 hours, allowing it to spend hours in the target area. Ukraine tests show that it is very resistant to electronic warfare and highly effective.
DAYLOG TUE 05 NOV 24: IEEE SPECTRUM spoke with Rachel Plotnik of Indiana University titled: "Touchscreens Are Out, and Tactile Controls Are Back" (interview by Gwendolyn Rak, 3 nov 24) to investigate the return of the pushbutton.
It has seemed like touchscreens are forever, but Plotnik -- who wrote a book on the history of the pushbutton titled POWER BUTTON -- says there's been a reaction against them. Touchscreens are great, but pushing a button on one gives no tactile feedback.
Besides, touchscreen buttons change with the device mode, while we always know where a physical button is. When driving a car, buttons tend to be more predictable, though they are much more inflexible. Touchscreen inputs are also troublesome for the blind.
Touchscreens aren't going away, but there has been a reaction, with designers adding physical buttons and knobs. Myself, I would find it much easier to play some smartphone games -- pinball for example -- with a couple of buttons. A rocker switch would be nice, too.
Plotnik said she got interested in the history of the button during the gesture recognition craze. I once had an XBox-Kinect and the gesture recognition was fun, but a game controller works much better. Touchscreen gestures have endured, however.
* This goes along with the backlash against touchscreen checkouts in supermarkets. They were seen as eliminating checkout clerks at the outset, but they didn't come close. They don't work efficiently for more than small purchases, and a clerk needs to keep an eye on them. Customers can get confused, and there's been a problem with theft as well. Some stores have abandoned them, but most think they're fine in their place. I like to use them when I want to buy a few items.
* OK, election returns are coming in this evening, and they are making me jumpy. I'm posting this and going to bed. I'll check in the morning.
DAYLOG WED 06 NOV 24: I couldn't see how Trump could do better in 2024 than he did in 2020 -- and last night he didn't, getting about the same number of votes. Unfortunately, Kamala got well fewer votes than Joe Biden did, and we got an electoral disaster all down the line.
It is not clear how bad things will be down the road -- the best case being another four-year fiasco, the worst case being Rightist rule for a generation. It is also not clear how long Trump will serve, since he's obviously falling apart. JD Vance is likely to be president sooner or later. How will that work?
All this because so many Joe Biden voters couldn't be bothered to vote for a black woman. I'd wondered if that might be a problem, didn't think so -- but it was. It's a hard call, but maybe it wasn't really a good idea for Joe Biden to have dropped out of the presidential race. Unkind to say it, but he simply had more clout.
I'm elderly, I may not see this to the end. Right now, I'm just proceeding on track -- not that upset, just at completely loose ends, not really knowing what to do next. Opportunities will arise.
DAYLOG THU 07 NOV 24: All kinds of recriminations going on right now about Kamala's failed presidential bid -- most notably Bernie Sanders, carrying on about how the Biden Administration didn't pay enough attention to the working class.
Since anyone who read the news knows Joe Biden focused on the working class, that was way out of line, and the general response was: Shut up, Bernie. Other foolish reasons have been floated -- but the ugly reality is that too many Dems refused to vote for a black woman, even when the alternative was a crooked, decrepit, fascistic trashbag.
* This morning I got up, started on my morning routine; when I went into the kitchen, a mouse scuttled under the refrigerator. A mouse? I've been in this house for over 30 years, I never saw a mouse in it before.
A mouse was bad news -- not merely filthy vermin in itself, but capable of doing petty damage to the house that wouldn't be so petty to fix. I got a box with a lid and pulled out the refrigerator, hoping to corner the mouse, but I wasn't hopeful it would work. It didn't.
I went on my morning walk, the far endpoint being the local supermarket mall, and bought a pair of mousetraps for $2 USD. I hate mousetraps, they're cruel, and would have bought a live trap for much more, but they didn't have any. When I got back home, I immediately baited -- with cheese, of course -- and set the traps. I didn't think I'd get results during the day since the mouse was likely keeping a low profile until it was dark, but I wouldn't rest on the matter until I had done all I could.
Later, I went into the bathroom -- and looked into the trash bin there, with the mouse staring back at me. I picked up the bin &, shaking it to keep the mouse from escaping, took it outside and emptied out on the lawn. I said: "Now BEAT it!" -- and the mouse scurried off. Things moved too quickly for me to inspect the mouse in detail, but I think it was a field mouse, not a house mouse.
The mouse boxed itself in. Happy ending -- I didn't want to kill it, certainly didn't want to mangle it in a mousetrap. Even if I hadn't caught it, I doubt it would have survived inside the house, since I keep it clean; I don't think it could have easily found food and water. I don't believe it had been in the house for long -- probably crept in while I had the door to the garage open.
Later I looked up live traps on Amazon, and found out I can get two for $10. No rush to get them, it might be decades before another mouse gets into this house. I'll just trash the two kill traps. I don't want them to be used.
DAYLOG FRI 08 NOV 24: I mentioned getting into the Korean-American WEBTOON site. I've been sampling comic series that seem interesting to follow, and finding more than I expected.
Latest I've found is THE GREATEST ESTATE DEVELOPER by Lee Hyun Min and Kim Hyunsoo, apparently adapted from a "light novel" series by Moon BK. It's an "isekai (Japanese term)" or "isegye (Korean term)" series, meaning "different world". It involves a person from our world transplanted to some other world.
One common variant of an isekai is people being transplanted into works of fiction, gothic novels being popular targets. ESTATE DEVELOPER involves a civil engineering student named Kim Suho, who went to bed after reading the novel KNIGHT OF BLOOD & IRON.
The novel was about a failing aristocratic family -- Lord & Lady Frontera, along with their dissolute and worthless son Lloyd; the hero being the knight Javier, a family retainer. In the novel, the family comes to a bad end. Suho wakes up to find out he is Lloyd, lying in the road after a drunk. Suho / Lloyd is brought home by Javier -- to find out everyone despises him, and for good reasons.
Suho / Lloyd decides to use his civil engineering skills to rescue his reputation and head off the family's doom. He starts out building a tiny house with an "ondol", a traditional Korean underfloor heating system. It soon attracts attention and more customers. Javier is bewildered, since Lloyd is acting like a sensible person, and doesn't know what to make of him.
Typically, isekai involve the hero charging forward with a sword. With Suho / Lloyd, it's a shovel instead. I'm trying to get four comic series to read, checking out an installment every night except the three when I watch a video. ESTATE DEVELOPER has over 150 installments.
AND SO ON: Latest reports from Ukraine indicate that Ukrainian forces are using drones that lay out a fiber-optic thread, making them highly resistant to jamming. The thread is about 5 kilometers (3 miles) long. Other reports indicate that AFU attacks on Russian artillery with drones were often ineffective, because it's hard to damage artillery. Now they're attacking with swarms of drones -- some with fragmentation warheads to hit the gun crews, one with a shaped-charge warhead to punch a hole in the gun barrel. Once holed, firing the gun would burst it. Gun barrels are not easy to replace.
Trump 2 Administration officials are already making noises about selling out Ukraine. We'll see how that goes down. I am refusing to be optimistic or pessimistic: it's like playing a game, the issue is not whether I'll win or lose, because at the outset there's no way to know. The issue is what my options are and what moves I make next.
Indeed, after a few days of dither, my morale's back to level. Incidentally, Spout's Chris Bouzy says Spoutible has been booming in the aftermath, though spammers and some trolls are coming in along with new users.
BACK_TO_TOPDAYLOG MON 14 NOV 24: Recriminations over the election loss continue. One of the more noteworthy examples was Nancy Pelosi, saying Joe Biden should have given up his campaign sooner, and there should have been a primary vote on her.
That's dubious. Kamala lost because too many Dems wouldn't vote for a black woman. Had her campaign been longer, they still wouldn't have voted for her. It seems that Pelosi wanted the primary so her faction could install their own candidate -- but it's hard to believe they could. Kamala would likely have won because she was the heir-apparent and had the support.
Pelosi may have been trying to cover her tracks on pressing Joe to drop out, which may not have been a good idea. On another track, some clown was saying Kamala should have been interviewed by Joe Rogan. Why? She wouldn't have got any votes out of it.
And ... there is a hysterical faction saying: *wE l0$t s0 tHeY chEETED!!!" Please people, that never worked for Trump, it won't work for us. No way there could be election fraud on such a scale with nobody noticing. If any Dem candidates thought something was wrong with the vote, they would have demanded a recount. Kamala accepted the results of the election and told us to respect the will of the people. THE END, no more discussion. People telling us we shouldn't accept what she told us are placing their word over hers, and nobody buys that.
* The Israeli steamroller continues to crush Gaza, with Bibi Netanyahu doubling down with the election of Trump. It is only too plausible the Israeli objective is to kill the Palestinians or drive them out of Gaza and annex it to Israel. That would be the "Final Solution" to the Gaza threat. The Qataris had been trying to negotiate a cease-fire, with little success; they have now given up and gone home. In the USA, protests over Gaza seemed to have stopped with the election: the "op" has served its purpose?
* According to BBC.com, a Londoner named Patrick Ruane, age 55, has been sentenced to 5 years behind bars. Ruane is an antivaxer who got online to encourage assassination of pro-vaccine authority figures, execution of politicians, bombings, & so on.
His defense in court was that he was always "blind drunk" when he posted, but Judge Richard Marks was unimpressed, saying Ruane was "exaggerating". In short, Ruane's behavior was much the same whether he was drunk or not.
DAYLOG TUE 15 NOV 24: There is still much wailing about the election defeat online, but there's also been pushback, telling people to chill out and get real. We've already been through four years of Trump, it was endless trouble -- but Trump didn't accomplish much of his stated agenda.
Remember the Wall? And how Mexico was going to pay for it? Never happened, not even close. The Trump mob is as incompetent and clueless as they are crooked and nasty. They're "The Gang That Can't Chew Gum & Walk Straight". Don't be afraid of these clowns.
There will be endless lawsuits against them -- all the more so because SCOTUS overturned CHEVRON V NRDC, allowing lawsuits against Federal regulations. That cuts both Right and Left. Except for Alito and Thomas, Trump is not particularly liked by SCOTUS.
There will also be pushback from Congress. Ukraine support is high on my own concerns list, but Ukraine is popular among voters and Putin is not. There is a Ukraine Caucasus in both the Senate (9R/9D) and the House (22R/78D). Also, Zelenskyy may be influencing Trump.
Add to this that Trump is in obviously poor physical and mental health. He is certain to get worse -- how fast is hard to say, but it seems unlikely he will be in the White House in 2028. In the meantime, the Trump Gangsters will increasingly backstab each other.
* I bought an ASUS ROG Ally handheld game box, and just got it working yesterday, playing BEACH BUGGY RACING. I had a Steam Deck, but didn't like it: it ran too hot to play in bed, and wrestling with the Steam system was a pain. The ROG Ally is, unlike the Steam Deck, a Windows-based computer, so configuration is based on what's familiar to me and not such a pain -- and it doesn't run hot. That suggests its performance is not the best, but I don't play high-overhead games anyway.
I bought a 256GB U3 uSD flash chip for it and have been downloading games from my Steam account into flash. 256GB should be plenty: I don't play big elaborate games, I don't have the time, I should be able to download all I need.
There's still a learning curve -- in particular, along with the Steam environment I installed, the ROG Ally has its own gaming environment, the Armory Crate. I'll be busy getting up to speed.
DAYLOG WED 13 NOV 24: As discussed in an article from SCIENCENEWS.org ("A star winked out of sight. Could it be a failed supernova?" by Emily Conover, 07 nov 24), astronomers were puzzled when a star simply faded out.
The supergiant star M31-2014-DS1 is located 2.5 million light-years away in the neighboring M31 / Andromeda Galaxy; it has a mass 20 times that of our Sun. It brightened in 2014 before dimming from 2016 until 2023, when it finally could no longer be seen.
Big stars live relatively short lives, going through a sequence of fusion reactions, building up layers of elements until the core fills up with iron. Iron doesn't support fusion, so the star collapses on itself, causing a massive fusion blast from the hydrogen left on its surface.
The result is a supernova, with the core of the star collapsing into a black hole. Why M31-2014-DS1 didn't produce a supernova is not clear; all the hydrogen on its surface may have been stripped off. However, there are other possibilities.
* There's been an exodus of users from Xitter since the election. Spoutible has benefited, but it seems BlueSky is getting the majority of Xitter refugees. That is fine -- BlueSky users report that nuisances Laura Loomer and Catturd came over and were promptly kicked out.
It's beginning to seem as if there will be no one "Xitter replacement", with multiple microblogging sites catering to different user groups -- and with many making use of more than one site. I'm getting more into BlueSky, but only post ebook ads there. I post on Spout.
With the new arrivals on Spout, I've been rapidly expanding my blocking list for the moment. We've been getting a small number of Merrick Garland bashers who can't imagine why the biggest investigation in US history took so long. I call them out -- then block them.
* Sunny today if somewhat chilly, but I felt encouraged enough to take my Razor A6 kick scooter out for a spin. I had to bundle up a bit, with a vest and light gloves, but it was still fun. I'll probably be able to scooter off and on through the winter.
DAYLOG THU 14 NOV 24: Alex Jones lost the defamation suit pressed by the Sandy Hook families he had so greatly wronged, and owes them a bit less than $1.5 billion USD. Of course, he's dodged payment, so now his INFOWARS operation has been seized and auctioned off.
The buyer was ... humor site THE ONION. That kinda made my day. THE ONION, in the mask of the "Global Tetrahedron" corporate group, issued an announcement, glorifying the buy, saying that the decision was an "easy one":
"Founded in 1999 on the heels of the Satanic 'panic' and growing steadily ever since, InfoWars has distinguished itself as an invaluable tool for brainwashing and controlling the masses."
* Along similar lines, obnoxious House Member Matt Gaetz is being nominated by the Trump Gang to be US Attorney General. The reaction has been consternation. Lawyer Ty Cobb, one with the Trump Gang, called the nomination a "big F*** YOU" to the USA, calling it "unserious".
It is indeed ridiculous -- Congress overwhelmingly detests Gaetz, he won't be confirmed. I'm wondering if we're starting to see Trump Gang infighting: the hardcore nominate someone to please Trump, the expedient let the nominee get shot down and then advance their own pick.
* Ukraine's foreign ministry, following up comments by President Volodymr Zelenskyy about acquiring the Bomb, says that won't happen, adding that Ukraine is a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Some sources are claiming Ukraine could get the Bomb quickly, but I'm dubious. They don't have facilities to make highly enriched uranium, and don't have breeder reactors to produce plutonium. Besides, Ukraine is being economically supported by the Allies, and they wouldn't provide the funding.
* NEWATLAS.com had an article about the startup iMicro, which makes lenses to turn any smartphone into a microscope. The latest is the "Q3p", with a maximum magnification of 1200x. It comes with a flatbed stand and an app for the smartphone.
It's only $35 USD, but that's for Kickstarter backers, and it will likely cost more for the rest of us. It will ship in April 2025 -- though anyone familiar with how shipment dates work knows that means it just won't be available before that time. Anyway, I'm tempted.
DAYLOG FRI 15 NOV 24: While poking around online, I ran across references to "audio-only games". I followed up, and found out there is such a thing, and it's lively. No vision required, they're played with stereo headphones and a smartphone touchscreen or a game controller.
For example, the audio-only game PAPA SANGRE II starts with the player being dead and trying to get back to the land of the living, navigating with taps or swipes on the smartphone display.
The stereo sound indicates where things are in the darkness: If a player is surrounded by pools of poisonous water, for example, sounds coming from a pool of toxic water indicate whether it's in front of or to the sides of a player. Much of the game involves following a certain sound in order to grab an object or reach an exit, while avoiding other sounds indicating hazards. While such games are obviously useful to the blind, they're not restricted to the blind and have a following among the sighted.
* Retired Navy Master Chief Malcolm Nance had a YouTube video chat with one Stephanie Miller of the POLITICAL VOICES NETWORK, reflecting on Trump's bizarre cabinet picks -- Chief Nance saying: "What the actual foxtrot?!"
Tulsi Gabbard, Trump's pick for Director of National Intelligence, was the first example, Nance saying she was regarded in government intelligence circles as a Kremlin asset -- Nance adding that she's a "wild conspiracy nut", and unlikely to be confirmed.
If she is, Nance went on, every foreign intelligence service hooked up with US intelligence will cut loose immediately -- because she'd be blabbing "straight to the Kremlin". In addition, US intelligence services would "safe" their systems to block her access to them. Other dubious picks are being floated for the CIA and FBI, and would get the same treatment. Chief Nance said: "Y'know what? I suspect [Trump] is gonna pardon Edward Snowden and make him deputy director of NSA." Miller cracked up.
And now, RFK-JR is being pushed as director of Health & Human Services. Words fail me. Worse, Colorado Governor Jared Polis endorsed him. I thought highly of Polis and voted for him -- he used to be our local House Rep. Turns out he's a libertarian. I am ashamed.
* Anyway, there's been talk of Trump using "recess appointments" to install his picks, but that can only happen if Congress lets him do it. Recess appointments used to be common, but changes in the rules during the Obama Administration brought them to an effective stop. Current rules say that recess appointments can only happen if the recess is 10 or more days long. Normally during an extended recess, there's a "pro forma" session at least once every three days, in which any Member of Congress can call a session, even with few people present, and then dismiss it.
Congress can, jumping through some hoops, have a long recess to allow for recess appointments, and incoming Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he was in favor it -- only to later say the votes weren't there. I suspect Thune was just being tactful, and doesn't like the idea of Gaetz and comparable losers getting positions of responsibility in the Trump White House.
* AND SO ON: Bike lanes are taken for granted in the USA today, but fifty years ago they were unusual. As discussed in an article from THEVERGE.com ("How to Build a Bike Lane in America" by Wes Davis, 9 December 2023), they're not necessarily trivial to implement -- and the USA hasn't done that good of a job with them, with cyclist death rates from accidents unpleasantly high.
The USA lags Europe in cycling infrastructure -- having a long way to go before it catches up with Copenhagen in Denmark, seen as a model cycling city. In the USA, bike lanes and trails are unusual in the suburbs, and in cities they can be unevenly distributed and often disconnected, forcing cyclists to get ingenious to get from one place to another safely. There's a lot of inertia blocking attempts to change the status quo.
Anything that can be reasonably done to reduce automobile traffic makes complete sense, and bicycling also improved public health by providing more exercise. Bike lanes are really a good deal: building and maintaining streets is expensive, while biking / pedestrian paths are cheaper to build and maintain.
Bike lanes are typically just a stripe on the pavement towards the side of the street, with a bike symbol painted on them at intervals; there may be an inner stripe separating the bike lane from parking places. Of course, as all bicyclists know, bicycling and parking do not always get along well, with the unexpected opening of the door of a parallel-parked vehicle being a hazard to bicyclists. There are a lot of variations on the theme:
It should be noted that unprotected bike lanes can be, sometimes, more dangerous than doing nothing. In addition, drivers need to be educated to understand how bike lanes work, as well as understand the need to protect cyclists.
Americans have been gradually cycling more, but growth in cycling infrastructure hasn't kept up. There are efforts underway to change things. Milwaukee is a generally pleasant city for cycling, with a city-spanning paved trail stretching from the city's north end to its south end and a network of supporting bike lanes. However, even there development has been uneven.
Fortunately, the city has adopted a "Complete Streets" ordinance mandating road designs that facilitate all kinds of transportation, not just cars -- and later announced a "Vision Zero" policy to eliminate traffic deaths by 2037. In 2023, the city became an affiliate member of the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO), an association of cities that share road design concepts with each other. City officials have found widespread support for bike lanes, even among people who don't ride bikes.
Milwaukee isn't the only US city putting a priority on bike lanes. Dallas, Texas, is putting together "the Loop" a series of 11 trails intended to "connect Dallas to Dallas" by forming an unbroken, 80-kilometer (50-mile) circuit around the city center. When it's finished, the project will connect to five of the city's DART commuter rail stations. One leg of the Loop connects to the DFW Discovery Trail, a 106-kilometer (66-mile) paved path under development that would connect Dallas to Fort Worth, passing through several of the mid-cities on its way.
For Milwaukee, the challenges have been complacency and delays, while Dallas needed to get the full community on board. In both cases, funding is unsurprisingly a challenge -- but the return on investment is excellent, both in terms of public health and the financial benefit of a community.
BACK_TO_TOPDAYLOG MON 18 NOV 24: People on our side are still, of course, sore about the election, but as the soreness wears off, things don't look quite so bad. Yes, we got beat, they're bad, but are seeming less bad.
As discussed here some days back, Trump is going into the White House the 2nd time in worse condition than he did the 1st time -- and the 1st time, the only thing he was good at was making trouble. And oh yeah, with the recounts Trump's vote is 50% ... maybe it will go under that?
In addition, it looks like the Dems will not lose any seats in the House, and may gain 1 or 2. As far as the Senate goes, typically in this era the party ratio for Senate seats is very roughly 2:1. This year it was 2:1 against Dems; in 2026 it will be 2:1 against GOP, same in 2028.
Kamala just sent around an email asking for more money to handle the recounts. I had paid up all my giving budget for the month, but I've got reserve funds, so I gave her some more. She's also got some campaign debts to take care of, & she's not a deadbeat like Trump.
Finally, Trump is facing judgement in his hush-money trial. I suspect Judge Merchan will give him a fine; no way the judge can lock up a president-elect. However, it would be fun if Judge Merchan gave him a tough jail sentence, and suspended it -- another black mark on Trump's record.
Blogger Ray Palmer was saying instead of futile attempts to reverse the vote or get Joe Biden to issue dramatic but ridiculously unworkable executive orders, we need to tear down Trump's approval rating through mockery, making him look puny -- not hard to do.
* Oh, and another thing: don't worry about Trump making recess appointments. They used to be common up to the Obama era, and then the GOP changed the rules to stop them. The Senate now has to be out 10 days to permit them -- and during long recesses, a senator, any senator can perform a "pro forma" session, calling the Senate to order about once in three days, and then closing up again. The Senate can vote for a 10-day recess, and Trump asked for one. Incoming GOP Senate Majority Leader John Thune pretended to be agreeable, but then said: "Votes aren't there." Like even the GOP is gonna give up "advise & consent" authority to Trump? Not gonna happen.
DAYLOG TUE 19 NOV 24: I've got very fond of my Google Nest Hub, finding it very handy. Amazon recently offered the Google Nest Doorbell on sale; I'd wanted a video doorbell, I assumed it would work well with the Hub, so I bought it.
I got it and started to investigate installation -- to then find out about doorbell transformers. Wot? I should've known, I'm an EE by education, but I didn't really consider that doorbells (and chimes) don't use 120 VAC. Visitors might find that shocking.
So where's the transformer? It's generally installed in out-of-sight places like a utility room, the attic, under a stairwell. I was puzzled until I remembered there was a transformer attached to the electrical box providing power to the furnace in the crawlspace.
I'd wondered what that transformer was for. I went down in the crawlspace to find it was rated at 10 VAC, 5 amps -- checking online said that was way too low for a video doorbell. I got on Amazon and bought a transformer providing 16 VAC 30 watts output.
It was designated as for Ring doorbells, but it would work with any video doorbell. Next problem: how did it mount into the electrical box? I finally figured out doorbell transformers have a "conduit connector" in the rear being a threaded stub tube with the input leads coming out, plus a hand-tightened nut to secure it into the box. I was then more or less all set, but I was still worried about running into snags.
The transformer arrived, and when I got the time I went down into the crawlspace. I opened up the electrical box, pulled out the wiring, then went back topside to throw the breaker switch for the crawlspace. I didn't have to worry about a hot line, since it shut off all the crawlspace.
Replacing the old transformer in the cramped crawlspace was awkward. It had two leads, the new one had three -- I had to look that up, the green lead was ground, to be hooked up to the electrical box. I did a lot of fumbling, particularly trying to get the wire twist nuts on right -- but all got done, "and Bob's your uncle" as they say in the UK. Not too much trouble, somewhat more than a hour's work, but all in good condition in the end. Next, I install the doorbell, shouldn't be hard. Configuring might be trickier.
DAYLOG WED 20 NOV 24: Trump is still waiting on judgement in his hush-money trial. The word has gone out that NY-DA Alvin Bragg is asking Judge Merchan -- the DA asks does not tell a judge to do anything -- to suspend the judgement.
There was much outrage over this on Bluesky, the read being that Bragg was saying the judgement should be canceled, but on further inspection it was more devious than that. What he was saying was that judgement should be put off until after Trump leaves office in 2029.
I just stared off into space for a moment on thinking that over. It makes total sense. There's no way Judge Merchan can lock up a president, SCOTUS will shut him down without question. However ... there's no time limit on passing judgement. That seems to imply Judge Merchan was definitely thinking of locking him up. Best solution available. Now Trump faces four years in the White House with a judgement hanging over him. Sure, he may not live long enough to be judged ... but would that be a bad thing?
Might this apply to Fani Willis and the Georgia election fraud trial? She defers judgement on Trump and takes down his stooges -- four have already copped a plea. Hey, Julian Assange was indicted in 2019 but wasn't judged until 2024, also copping a plea.
As far as Tish James & the almost half-billion USD fine on Trump goes, that's a civil suit -- no POTUS immunity, no SCOTUS involvement, only the NY courts, who don't like Trump. He might get donors to cover the fine, but good enough, seizing properties wouldn't work as well for NY.
* This was my day for misunderstandings. Chris Bouzy of Spout was talking about comparison between Spout and Bluesky. I replied that I used both, & wondered: Maybe I should focus on Bluesky instead of Spout? On inspection, I observed Bluesky had nice features & was much better than Xitter, but had a "low signal to noise ratio". People flamed up, it seems not understanding that phrase means: much noise not much signal.
I clarified, but they insisted on flaming; it did not end well -- some people, it seems, do not understand engineering expressions. Chris Bouzy would, but in any case the lesson for me was: The next time that happens, delete the problematic posting IMMEDIATELY, then repost / rewrite. Do NOT try to clarify. If they still flame me, I just block them. I'm not gonna get along with them, so OK.
DAYLOG THU 21 NOV 24: The International Criminal Court (ICC) has now issued warrants for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas commander Mohammed Deif -- though Deif was apparently killed in an air strike this last summer.
The US has rejected the ICC decision. It is easy to understand Netanyahu's point of view: Hamas is a threat & always will be a threat, so Israel scorches the earth of Gaza to make sure it isn't a threat again. It's Netanyahu's "Final Solution" to the Hamas-Gaza problem.
The difficulty is that Netanyahu is unavoidably a war criminal in doing it. Will he ever stand trial? I have no idea, but I'd like to see it. Not incidentally, it is less important to myself that people be punished than that they answer for their crimes in court.
* Today Matt Gaetz withdrew his nomination for attorney-general. What happens to him now? Can he get back into the House when the next Congress convenes? He'll still be staring down the muzzle of the House Ethics Committee report.
In response to this news, over on Threads one "harryhadapine" commented: "Somewhere, Kevin McCarthy is drinking champagne & eating caviar." BTW, Stephen King is a big shot on Threads these days, some calling him the "Official Threads President".
* With regard to the suggestion yesterday that Trump's trial in Georgia for election fraud could be put off until 2029 ... there is one potential snag, the "Speedy Trial Clause" of the US Constitution, which says defendants are entitled to a speedy trial.
That clause is, as usual with the Constitution, somewhat ambiguous, with the need for a speedy trial being dependent on circumstances: a court cannot be held responsible for delays beyond of their control. In this case, Georgia cannot put a sitting president on trial, so SCOTUS can't hold that against them. What happens, if anything? We'll see.
* Ukraine is currently testing the use of a "T10 Dovbush" drone to carry up to six quadcopter killer drones under its wings. This extends the range of the k-drones, all the more so because the Dovbush operates as a radio relay for the k-drones. Interesting, but not new idea it seems.
DAYLOG FRI 22 NOV 24: Angela Merkel has released her memoirs, and in an interview with DER SPIEGEL pushed back hard on accusations that she was indirectly responsible for Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
That goes back to the 2008 NATO Summit, held in Bucharest, when Merkel blocked a path for Ukraine to join NATO through a Membership Action Plan. Caution was actually warranted, since at the time Ukraine was thoroughly corrupt, and it would get worse under Viktor Yanukovych; in addition, there was still significant pro-Russian sympathy in Ukraine.
Merkel denies that NATO leaders were unworried about Putin; he delivered a speech at Bucharest that was entirely paranoid of and hostile to NATO. NATO nations were already (slowly) ramping up defense spending at the time, though the instinct was still to deal with Putin, then see if he got better or worse. At that time, there was no indication that Putin was thinking of invading Ukraine.
As far as limiting military support to Ukraine went, the Ukraine military at the time was almost nonfunctional and badly corrupted, with weapons going on the black market. It only started to get better from 2014, & it took time to see results. As far as German dependence on Russian gas went, Merkel pointed out that Ukraine and Poland were both dependent on Russian gas, and had deals for piping it over their territories. In short, framed in what was known at the time, the decisions were prudent.
* Re sentencing for Trump's hush-money trial: Judge Merchan has asked Trump's lawyers to make their case for dismissing judgement and not suspending it, with Alvin Bragg's office to then reply. Trump's lawyers will of course object if the judgement is suspended, and so it is prudent to short-circuit the objections ahead of time.
That links to Trump's Georgia election-fraud trial: will they put it off until 2029? Why not? Hey, do they even need to say or do anything? Could they just sit quietly on the indictment and say little or nothing until the time comes? Hmm.
AND SO ON: I finally got around to completing the installation of my Google Nest video doorbell. It was somewhat trickier than I expected.
I got instructions on the chore from the Google Home app on my smartphone, using a barcode on the phone (duplicated on a card) to tell the app what to do. Incidentally, there used to be a separate Google Nest app, but it was folded into Google Home.
First thing was to install a "puck" into my mechanical chime box. The puck was about the size of a checkers piece and had two leads. The app was a little confusing about wiring it in, but that was easy: the chime box had two leads supplying it, and I wired the puck leads across the two input leads. I then used sticky tape to mount the puck to the side of a chime, and closed the chime box.
I wondered what the puck was for -- wireless transmitter or electric chime? Those didn't make sense, on consideration it was obviously power-line conditioning. An electromagnetic chime is an electrically noisy device, throwing spikes on its power circuit that could damage solid-state devices. The puck appears to have a low-pass filter and possibly an over-voltage shunt.
That done, I turned off the power, went outside, and removed the old doorbell. I figured all I had to do was drill holes and screw in the mounting plate for the doorbell, then wire up the doorbell and mount it. Setting up the mounting plate was indeed straightforward, but then the first problem arose: it was too shallow to give clearance for the wiring to the doorbell. I had to expand the hole through the siding so I could tuck the wires in, trying to make sure the drill didn't damage them.
That led to the second problem: mounting the doorbell meant screwing in a tiny "security screw" into a tab on the top of the mounting plate. It was very difficult to screw in; I finally had to bend the mounting plate to make it easier. Unfortunately, while monkeying around with the screw, I dropped it into the gravel, and it immediately disappeared.
I was distressed for a while, but then I remembered the doorbell came with an extra screw. This time, I spread out some old towels so I wouldn't lose the screw if I dropped it -- I should've done that first time -- and finally managed to get the doorbell screwed in. The bent mounting plate meant the doorbell was tilted up a bit; I used double-sided tape to mount a lego block onto the mounting plate to make sure the doorbell rested solidly when pressed. It was a bit of a hokey installation, but nobody would see a problem; the lego block is hidden.
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