* Blog & notes for the current week.
DAYLOG MON 14 NOV 24: Recriminations over the election loss are ongoing. 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 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 go along.
* 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.
