Warm and damp. Possibly clearing as we head into the weekend. Warmer later in the day. It’s been getting into the low 80s and I think we may get one more day of that. Then WINTER RETURNS!!1!!1!!!1!! Maybe. But for now, pleasant, if moist.
Did some stuff. Skipped some stuff. Still had kid2 home sick. Made her some soup and went out to do pickups. Got another 3D printer. It was $50. Now I really need to figure out what to do with them. Got some art supplies too. I grab them if they’re cheap. Both kids will occasionally paint something. I’d like to have time and energy to paint stuff again. I used to like doing art stuff. I don’t have much creative outlet anymore, and I’m not hanging around artistic people like I did for decades. Sometimes I miss it.
Today is a bunch of running around. D2 has an appointment in the morning to get her retainer repaired. Then it’s back to school for her. I’ve got a checkup in the afternoon, and some pickups to do. Later it’s D2’s extracurricular sport, and picking up D1 from hers… I think it will be a crock pot dinner night.
[just re-read that and it sure is brusk]
Mmmm, chicken in the crock pot…
Now I really should get busy. Don’t forget to stack something.
nick
I find it remarkable that none of the people on the world stage seem capable of countering Trump’s very obvious tactics: (1) Want something that you have no chance of getting, (2) Propose something utterly insane –> leading to (3) “Settling” for that impossible thing you wanted in the first place.
Mexico: Helping close the border
Greenland: Getting NATO to commit to more serious Arctic defense, probably including more US military bases on Greenland.
Gaza: Dunno what the other hand is doing, but I’m sure Trump knows…
I am really enjoying watching the cockroaches scurry, now that the USAID rock has been turned over. What a pile of corruption! I hope Elon provides some serious security for his DOGE investigators, because they are going to need it.
Yes.
I think explicitly not rehiring would be better. Previous experience in civil service or any of those NGOs should be an automatic disqualification. Get fresh blood in. Sure, inexperience has a price, but it will take longer for rot to set in. Rehiring old hands will bring in the seeds of the old corruption.
You won’t even need that much. I have a mid-range graphics card, price around $500, and I can run mid-sized LLMs with no problem. They are a bit slow, but they work just fine. Since I do want faster answers, I mostly use a paid subscription to ChatGPT, but in another year or two desktop AI will be completely practical on any mid-range PC.
I use AI daily. A lot of it is fixing grammatical errors in my German. But I also use it for questions, both general interest and serious work-related stuff. Instead of wading through a bunch of links from a search engine, let the AI figure out what is relevant. It has the training data, and the newer versions also go online and search on your behalf.
You have to use some common sense – sometimes the AI is flat-out wrong – but it usually works. It is a lot faster than checking all those links yourself.
The corruption has been going on for so long, and so openly, that they felt they didn’t even have to try to hide it. “National Pillow Fluffing Initiative” “National Pretzel Untwisting Initiative”
I hope to see some serious jail time, only there probably isn’t enough space in the jails, so I’d settle for clawbacks, down to the clothes on their backs.
Tents in the desert.
Concrete block buildings with metal roofs in north North Dakota with no or “natural” air conditioning.
El Salvador.
Offer the same deal for Haiti ( Clintons go there).
Plenty of places.
Special attention for roommates.
Increase the cash flow at my employer and the other hardware vendors until something comes along which is more meaningful to the bottom line.
Nothing else sells in tech right now, but AI isn’t very profitable for anyone except NVIDIA.
67F and still dark.
Arctic air still not here.
Tired.
n
Overcast, maybe clearing later.
n
My father retired from USAID in 2002. He did some interviews with the Foreign Affairs Oral History Project for The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training in 2020. You might find his tales entertaining: https://adst.org/OH%20TOCs/Plunkett.Sher.pdf
It’s not your father’s USAID:
“As such, it appears that CIA, USAID, and OCCRP were all involved in the impeachment of President Trump in ways similar to the regime change operations that all three organizations engage in abroad. The difference is that it is highly illegal and even treasonous for CIA, USAID, and its contractors and intermediaries, known as “cut-outs,” to interfere in US politics this way. “
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2025/02/06/wait-usaid-was-involved-in-the-2019-impeachment-of-donald-trump-n2651759
Hang the traitors.
Trump missed one bet:Immediate suspension of the use of paper shredders, with secure burn boxes available for any demonstrated need.
I’m spending today untangling some hideously unstable code which a young’n’ wrote in a Hot Skillz language using the AI.
I don’t know the Hot Skillz language, but that’s no excuse.
Young’n’ also outranks me by a pay grade.
I was reading some AI stuff the other day, and it occurred to me that pretty much every LLM released has been censored and aligned.
So, any juicy gossip on just what they are like before all that? Saintly? Satanic? Libertarian, fascist, something unclassifiable?
The articles all were about the models being racist.
n
The golden pager symbolising Israel’s renewed friendship with the US
Heh.
“Norway Sounds Alarm as Scientists Link Covid ‘Vaccines’ to Global Death Surge”
https://slaynews.com/news/norway-sounds-alarm-scientists-link-covid-vaccines-global-death-surge/
“A group of leading scientists in Norway is sounding the alarm after a major study of international mortality data linked Covid mRNA “vaccines” to a global surge in excess deaths.”
“While the link between deaths are Covid shots may not be new, the researchers also found that previous studies showing high mortality rates among the unvaccinated had selectively used unhealthy cohorts.”
I am reading a lot of chatter that the mRNA shots can cause heart issues. Some people are calling them the “Clot Shots”.
We need some serious testing of these mRNA shots by an ethical facility. And I am not going to get any more mRNA shots (but I decided that a long time ago).
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/
I think explicitly not rehiring would be better. Previous experience in civil service or any of those NGOs should be an automatic disqualification. Get fresh blood in. Sure, inexperience has a price, but it will take longer for rot to set in. Rehiring old hands will bring in the seeds of the old corruption.
Bro ! We are of like minds.
I’m spending today untangling some hideously unstable code which a young’n’ wrote in a Hot Skillz language using the AI.
I don’t know the Hot Skillz language, but that’s no excuse.
Young’n’ also outranks me by a pay grade.
You can use this for leverage to get jumped a pay grade.
Your manager is an idiot. But, you already knew that.
Proud member of the Control here. I believe we are far more than the 10-15% of the population frequently estimated.
Regardless, the studies are never going to get done now. Even The Orange Man has an interest in the truth never surfacing if it is bad.
The manager immediately above me doesn’t like the Hot Skillz language, but it isn’t his decision.
You lucky bistid. I got the double-clot to work at schools, but primarily to go on the TMC Classic Movie Cruise. I can’t imagine getting 6 boosters or annual boosters. I had COVID confirmed twice, one with flu-like symptoms, the second no worse than a cold.
“Rules For Radicals”
https://areaocho.com/rules-for-radicals-2/
“Have you ever played Monopoly? What if one of the people who is in the game is also the banker, and you know that he or she is giving themselves interest free loans from that bank? Would you do as Hobbes did and fight back, or would you simply refuse to stoop to their level and maintain your principles?”
“Participating in today’s society is a lot like that. The left has no principles or morals whatsoever, as long as they win. They define a win as imposing their will and desires upon others. That’s it- all that matters is that they impose their desires and will upon you. If you refuse to play- they win. If you stick to your principles and refuse to fight back- they win.”
The endgame is total domination. Usually this ends in a civil war though. The USA is close and getting closer.
The manager immediately above me doesn’t like the Hot Skillz language, but it isn’t his decision.
Did they fire the Hot Skillz guy ?
“Trump Will Seek to End Carried Interest, Expand SALT in Tax Bill”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-seek-end-carried-interest-184956595.html
Carried Interest is a Wall Street scam.
I need some tough good looking chairs for my breakfast table. I sat my fat ass in one the other day and it finished breaking a cross member. I did not not go down but the five inch drop was unnerving. Plus, I have a 400+ lb 6 foot 1 inch nephew who is a guaranteed chair breaker. His 6 foot 2 inch brother is 300+ lbs. Do not feed sugar to Cherokees !
So far, my Amazonian look has turned up these chairs self rated at 500 lbs at 2 for $134. Has anyone got anything better ? “Flash Furniture 2 Pack HERCULES Series Black Ladder Back Metal Restaurant Chair – Natural Wood Seat”
https://www.amazon.com/Flash-Furniture-HERCULES-Ladder-Restaurant/dp/B01LWJSOQQ?tag=ttgnet-20
I bought a dining room table from Mattress Mack back in 1992 or so. It has six awesome all wood chairs that are still brand new and can obviously hold 400+ lbs. He came by the transaction ($1,800 IIRC) and asked how things were going. I asked him for more chairs and he said buy another table which I did not have the cash for. He now sells the same table and chairs, all made in East Texas, for $4,500 the last time I looked.
I got yelled at by my wife for rocking back in one of the Mattress Mack dining room chairs at Thanksgiving. I told her that I have done it a hundred times. She said she did not care, that is our best furniture. My mother did not say a word but obviously agreed.
Girl. No.
The Git history shows a lot of Chef de Cuisines in this kitchen.
Hot Skillz!
“African-American History Month!”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2025/02/african-american-history-month.html
ROTFLMAO !
I know several South African immigrants to the USA. My Dad sponsored two engineers to emigrate to the USA back in the 1970s and 1980s.
I hope tRump is turning the clock back. Defunding Dumbo poseurs is a first step. Cashiering a shit-load of Federal goobermint employees is next. Keep the traitorous Dumbo fingers out of the pie. Maybe we should just call them traitors. They are really commie pinko bistids.
Ha,ha! Kankles gets jap-slapped by the MAGA Transportation Secretary:
Sean Duffy has brutal comeback for Hillary Clinton after she trolls DOGE for taking over FAA safety system
I wonder how much the Klinton Foundation (slush fund) got from USAID? And, really, the jet-helo crash is tRump’s fault. That loss of the USAID Dumbo slush fund must cut Kankles pretty deep.
tRump should issue a one-sentence EO:
“If you are in the USA on a visa and denigrate this country in any way, you will be deported and banned for life.”
I’m sick of exchange students, celebriturds, and dooshes from other countries coming here on our good graces and promptly shitting all over us. Then claim OUR Constitution protects them.
“Ford Says Large Electric Trucks And SUVs Have ‘Unresolvable’ Problems”
https://insideevs.com/news/749756/ford-large-ev-trucks-have-unresolvable-problems/
“The economics just don’t work right now for the biggest “utility” vehicles, he said. But Ford’s still pressing on with EVs in other ways.”
“If you want a decent electric pickup truck from the likes of Tesla or General Motors, be prepared to drain your bank account. The non-work-truck version of the 2025 Chevy Silverado EV starts at around $70,000 before destinations and fees. The Tesla Cybertruck starts at $79,990. The GMC Sierra EV starts at $92,000. They also have massive battery packs, as big as 212 kWh on the GMC Hummer EV, for example, and deliver terrible real-world efficiency.”
“Consequently, the sales of electric pickups didn’t look great in 2024. Sure, the Cybertruck was the best-seller among these EVs. However, the truck was once rumored to have a million-plus reservations, and Tesla was preparing a production capacity of over 250,000 units a year. Its sales fell far short at 38,965 units, according to Cox Automotive. Plus, the hype is already cooling off. Sales of Ford’s F-150 Lightning grew year-over-year but paled in comparison to gas-powered pickups. The company has had to cut production multiple times to keep it in line with demand.”
Ford needs to be run by the engineers, not the accountants.
And I am hearing about multiple battery failures in the Lightning.
One of my neighbors Cybertrucks came home on a tow truck last Saturday. I have no idea what went wrong with it and why they brought it home.
@lynn,
I’d get real furniture vs. flat pack crap.
Try CORT the office furniture rental people
https://www.cortfurnitureoutlet.com/used-furniture/dining-seating/_/N-x126oa
Or a used restaurant equipment company…
http://www.jks-tx.com/ or somewhere similar…
n
Emeco Navy chairs. If you break one of those, you’re trying.
Your wife may not be thrilled with the look, however.
And the chairs are pricey. Emeco does not permit knockoffs to stay on the market for very long.
The Feds forced Alan Mulally on Dearborn after the semi-secret bailout arranged by Shrub in the mid-2000s. Bill Ford got kicked upstairs to Chairman, where he remains ensconced.
Mulally was the last engineer to run Ford.
Current CEO Jim Farley aka Tommy Boy is a BA in … something … from Georgetown and an MBA from UCLA.
You can get a good look at failure by sticking your head up an EV’s tailpipe, but wouldn’t you rather take the engineers’ word for it?
And the chairs are pricey. Emeco does not permit knockoffs to stay on the market for very long.
Have I ever mentioned that I am cheap XXXXX frugal ?
I am going to a POA (property owners association) meeting tonight. I had to promise my wife that I would not get upset and threaten to beat up most of our pitiful board members.
It turns out that one of our former board members was getting his 1.0 acre lawn mowed for free weekly by the company mowing all of the POA property. The company mowing all of the POA property has not been mowing all of the POA property that is on the contract.
It also turns out that we did not pay the City of Rosenberg our $60K fee last year for our 500+ homes to be included in their city fire protection. We are negotiating that with Rosenberg now. If my home insurance company finds out, they will raise a squawk. We apparently will have a special collection for each home soon.
And we have been paying invoices without contracts. Not good.
Our HOA does too much, not too little.
n
And find out where the fire subscription money actually went.
n
>>You lucky bistid. I got the double-clot to work at schools, but primarily to go on the TMC Classic Movie Cruise. I can’t imagine getting 6 boosters or annual boosters. I had COVID confirmed twice, one with flu-like symptoms, the second no worse than a cold.
My PCP says in his practice, for all intents and purposes, Covid cases now are like the common cold and to stay away from the boosters. FWIW, he did get the original jab but has since abstained. He’s 72 and just got back from a trip to Thailand and Vietnam. I hope he continues to enjoy being an MD more than retirement.
And find out where the fire subscription money actually went.
We built a two room restroom at our main park. Cost $60,000. Unbudgeted.
Thank goodness we do not have a public pool. That is where you really spend the money.
The POA meeting was very interesting. I was one of the three complainers. I complained about the speeding (up to 70 mph) on my 30 mph street. Afterwards our sheriff’s motorcycle deputy (we pay $34,000/year for) told me that he gave a ticket to a guy going 85 mph last week on the next street over in our little neighborhood. Now that is crazy.
And I found out that I am still getting a 85 foot diameter single lane roundabout in front of my house. They have been talking about it for two years and the county is running contracts out now for the work. The last I heard was that the County Fire Marshall could not get his new eight story ladder truck through a single lane roundabout and canceled it.
“Elon Musk Savagely Trolls Outraged Fed Workers With New Title for Himself as DOGE Attempts to Seize $5T System”
https://resistthemainstream.com/elon-savagely-trolls-outraged-fed-workers-with-new-title-for-himself/
“Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has gained limited access to the Treasury Department’s $5 trillion system, despite fierce opposition from federal workers and mounting legal challenges.”
“The development marks a pivotal moment in the Trump administration’s promise to overhaul federal bureaucracy.”
“The news came as Musk, who recently dubbed himself “White House Tech Support” on his X platform, continues his aggressive push to reshape federal institutions under President Donald Trump’s administration.”
Travel day 2. Pensacola overnight, couldn’t get my behind out of bed, so a late start.
Two hours down the road, changed time zones, lost an hour.
Ended up in Xeno’s paradox on Google maps. There was an issue on Florida’s Turnpike, where the delay kept getting longer. Google kept delaying my final arrival time, but kept up the “2 hours” remaining. For over a half hour. Every mile I passed got eaten by the increasing delay.
Finally, if offered to take me on a less eco friendly route, which cut 15 minutes off.
Orlando near Universal is not laid out for pedestrians.
Walked to Miller’s Ale house for dinner, and sat next to a codger at the bar. In the course of conversation, he admitted to killing 3 sheriff’s deputies 20 years ago.
Florida man. Go figure.
@Lynn
“He now sells the same table and chairs, all made in East Texas, for $4,500 the last time I looked.”
Amish furniture?
If you don’t know where they are made so you can contact the maker directly, take a photo and have the magic electron pusher do it’s thing.
If you can’t match them you should have two other options:
Find a local that can make near copies–but only if he has a sample you can test.
Give up on matching and start watching auctions. Excellent dining tables and chairs that are not “name” can often be very reasonable.
Flailing attempt at relevancy.
Freaking fedgov with clickbait headlines.
n
In every case except Tesla they are losing money and subsidizing the losses by jacking up prices on ICE vehicles.
They can all stick it where the sun don’t shine.
“It turns out that one of our former board members was getting his 1.0 acre lawn mowed for free weekly by the company mowing all of the POA property.”
Drag him in by the scruff of the neck, beat the crap out of him, and suggest that going forward the board will get a lot more scrutiny.
And make a motion from the floor that anyone on the current board that was involved in not paying for fire protection last year should be fired, or impeached, or if you can’t remove them just beat the crap out of them, too.
I ran out of nice on Monday this week.
@Lynn
Small towns all over the United States got one-way streeted to death in the 1950’s, and it took 30 years to get rid of them. Mostly.
They want roundabouts give them a photo of picadilly circus.
Call the fire marshall and ask if he still has concerns. If he does, get together with two of your neighbors and have an attorney send a letter to the County Attorney asking for an analysis of the effect on response times to fires on all affected properties, including any equipment limitations, and the effect on homeowners insurance rates. Tell him if it is not forthcoming before construction starts you will file suit against the county, any contractor degrading fires response, and any dumbass road engineer involved. I’d also ask for a list of all the county engineers along with their qualifications and PE status.
Judge Temporarily Blocks Federal Worker Buyout
“funding for most federal agencies expires on March 14”
Cool!
That means they are all done March 14, doesn’t it?
“Amazon Surpasses Walmart in Revenues for First Time”
https://www.theepochtimes.com/business/amazon-surpasses-walmart-in-revenues-for-first-time-5805662?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=TheLibertyDaily
“More growth is ahead for Amazon stock, an expert predicts.”
Amazing to see what has changed in our lifetime.
Small towns all over the United States got one-way streeted to death in the 1950’s, and it took 30 years to get rid of them. Mostly.
They want roundabouts give them a photo of picadilly circus.
The roundabout is to try to slow down traffic on my 30 mph street. I see people routinely running 50 mph and occasionally 70 mph.
Flailing attempt at relevancy.
Freaking fedgov with clickbait headlines.
n
I met the doctor who survived Ebola whom they brought back to the USA several years ago. He preached at my church on our annual Bring A Friend day. He was trying to get a visa to go back to Liberia ???. The State Department was trying to tell him nicely that he was not allowed to leave the USA anymore. Looks like he finally was allowed to go back. I bought a copy of his book for my wife and he signed it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_Brantly
Different country, maybe different laws. But: don’t large, unbudgeted expenditures require a homeowner vote? Surely the financial authority of the board must have a dollar limit?
Different country, maybe different laws. But: don’t large, unbudgeted expenditures require a homeowner vote? Surely the financial authority of the board must have a dollar limit?
Not that I know of. They pass the budget and authorize all expenditures. They were arguing tonight about whether or not to get three bids on all work for the POA. I suspect that this is an attempt to reign in certain POA board members who were doing some of the work and charging the POA without a bid.