Warm, and moist. Great in a cake, not so great in the weather. But it could be cold, and moist, which hurts. I’m assuming that we actually will get to hot and wet before the end of the day. It was certainly hot and moist yesterday.
I did get some stuff done. I got three pickups out of the way, with a bunch more to do today. Then it was grocery shopping for the weekend (and some sale items) and kid stuff. The kid stuff took until late, then dinner out, then finally home.
Today will be mostly pickups. Some shopping for stuff for the BOL. Some loading of stuff to take up. I am juggling possibilities to see if I go up today or tomorrow. It’s looking like tomorrow as I have some awkwardly timed pickups. Even then, I won’t be leaving in the morning tomorrow either. Which raises the question of picking up the solar panels today, or tomorrow on the way out of town… The timing really sucks though, with nothing quite lining up. The most annoying thing is that I didn’t win the major item in the auction with the last pickup, but I did win some minor things. So I’m stuck getting them later than I would have liked.
I was busy with the kid stuff and couldn’t adjust my bids.
Oh well. I like to combine trips, and have everything lined up, but I can’t always. W and the girls can’t head up until later Saturday either because of kid stuff commitments. As long as I get everything, it is what it is.
Probably time to buy even less, but I find it hard to pass on a great deal. And there is still stuff we need, like stuff for the boat. Freaking auction had a bunch of good stuff, on Lake Conroe, which was convenient too. But I didn’t win most of it. Had I known, I’d have been more aggressive bidding on lots once I knew I was making the trip.
It seems like there is always something to do, or buy. But that’s the story of my life. Always be working, always be stacking. Today’s no different.
nick
Awake, but not really. Would prefer to be in bed.
Coffee will help.
n
The Death Star will buy the fiber business, but the legacy CenturyTel copper lines will continue to operate under the CenturyLink management based in Monroe, LA.
At GTE, we referred to CenturyTel as “The Ol’ Plantation”. Sounds like things haven’t changed much in 25 years.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/05/att-has-6-billion-deal-to-buy-centurylink-fiber-broadband-business/
78F and overcast. Super humid too.
yuck.
n
Michael “Hockey Stick” Mann gets hit with another $500k legal bill:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/05/22/michael-manns-legal-costs-now-climbing-past-1-1-million/
I was talking with someone about SpaceX deorbiting older Starlinks, four or five a day currently (and probably for years to come).
It occured to me that it is a waste, all that mass in orbit is “halfway to anywhere”.
I was thinking at first that you could reuse the solar cells and batteries, at least, but while the actual satellite design is a company secret it seems to be the case that these are not comprised of JPL-like super high-end equipment, they are like the “one horse shay”, all designed to fail about the same time that the satellite runs out of station keeping fuel.
Still, mass is mass. Maybe some other use could be found?
The software is probably embedded Linux and mostly open source, but the routing algorithms, probably layered on top of Quagga, would need to be protected from reverse engineering at all costs.
That’s a scarcity mindset. Elon has reduced the cost/kg to LEO so much, that those older satellites are a sunk cost. Launching a repair/recycling factory and staffing it and developing harvesting equipment to scavenge the satellites and transfer them to the factory is way more complex than just bulding new on Earth and replacing them wholesale. Newer and better. 30 new satellites per launch, on reusable rockets.
Not to say that won’t be a practical approach later., and maybe a requirement as the satellites evolve into larger ones that would survive re-entry.
LEO could become less viable due to congestion. I see that as a bigger issue.
I want space elevators.
The most Houston thing.
Went to Walmart yesterday, and the Sikh cart guy was taking a break. 90+ degrees, and he was sitting amid the carts, drinking tea from a china cup. In his turban.
Arriving in Ketchikan today. It is blustery. 20MPH wind, with light rain, and 45F. Outdoor activities are out of the question.
We leave tonight at 6:00PM for Vancouver. We will be traveling all night, all day on Saturday, and all of Saturday night. Almost 36 hours of nothing but ship.
The logistics of getting that much food on board, the staff to prepare, disposal, has to be logistical nightmare. Experience has probably honed the entire process. The food has been generally good, with an outstanding variety. Several buffet places. The biggest problem has been getting butted in by the Asians. More than once I have had the tongs for the bacon and some Asian lady will grab another tong and crowd me out of the way. It is not like there is not going to be enough bacon.
I have not been seasick for the most part. A couple of moments I felt like it was coming but quickly disappeared. The ship does some movement but nothing severe except for a couple of times when the leaning was really noticeable and walking required grabbing something.
We have seen three shows and they were on a par with the best the Dollywood has offered. Good performers, well done sound and lighting.
SSTO first.
Sad news…
https://abcnews.go.com/culture/story/billy-joel-cancels-scheduled-concerts-due-diagnosis-normal/?id=122118860
@Nick; a few days ago, you noticed a train of armored vehicles headed north. From today’s “Texas Flyover” newsletter;
“Fort Cavazos is gearing up for the the Army’s 250th birthday celebration next month, shipping dozens of armored vehicles to the nation’s capital.
https://www.kcentv.com/article/entertainment/events/fort-cavazos-tanks-vehicles-train-washington-armys-250th-birthday/500-be590f43-d3c5-4e33-9f59-3f58f5c409e7
You’re lucky they didn’t jab you in the ribs with an elbow.
I’ve never had an encounter like that, but I’ve heard multiple stories lately from different people to make me believe something is up with that demo expressing physical dominance.
With my own Chinese in-laws, they’re all banned from the house except my wife’s mother, and we went through a couple of year period where she wasn’t allowed to visit either.
Life is better that way.
We saw Billy Joel and Sting last year. Joel was moving slow, but he still gave a great performance.
I noticed that virtually every app on my iPhone wants an update today, 21 in all. I updated them all a week or two ago.
I wonder what is up? Some are probably iOS 18 AI-scraping “upgrades”, but some seem unlikely to be doing that.
Some sort of older and very serious security hole in a foundational library being patched?
The App Store approval process probably got backlogged, and everyone in Cupertino wanted their desk cleared for the holiday weekend.
Single Stage to Orbit? Esthetically pleasing, for sure, but fast-turn reusable boosters that land themselves achieves the goal of payload to orbit without the cost of boosting all that extra mass that’s just deadweight above current separation point.
Unless it isn’t deadweight, but useful construction material. Which loses the reuse feature,and the production cost of all those rocket motors.
The software is probably embedded Linux and mostly open source, but the routing algorithms, probably layered on top of Quagga, would need to be protected from reverse engineering at all costs.
Probably FreeBSD, it is more secure.
“The fat cats do protest too much, methinks…”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-fat-cats-do-protest-too-much.html
“… with apologies to William Shakespeare, of course. In this case, I’m referring to the firms marketing rooftop solar energy systems to homeowners. They’re a major pest in these parts; I daresay we get at least one every month ringing our doorbell and trying to hard-sell us on the “benefits” of such installations. When I counter by showing them the real costs and disadvantages of such projects, they either deny the facts, or insist that they’re false, or just walk away.”
“Now they’re complaining that they can’t make money without a very generous government subsidy.”
There should be no subsidies for anyone or anything. Market manipulation by the government causes huge problems down the road.
If the government does need to manipulate the markets then tariffs are a much better idea.
xkcd: Drafting
https://www.xkcd.com/3093/
No, no, no, that will not work. But it is cute.
Explained at:
https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/3093
“Top Doctor Testifies on Surging Miscarriages: Covid ‘Vaccines’ Are ‘Chemical Abortion Drugs’”
https://slaynews.com/news/top-doctor-testifies-surging-miscarriages-covid-vaccines-chemical-abortion-drugs/
“Dr. James Thorp, a highly respected obstetrician and gynecologist, has testified before the United States Senate on the surging miscarriages he’s seen among women who received Covid mRNA “vaccines.””
“Thorp testified that the number of miscarriages has now spiked so dramatically that he likens the Covid injections to “chemical abortion drugs.””
Again, if this is true then heads will roll. I would like to see some actual numbers though.
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/
“Of Course: The Left Begins Praising Antisemitic Assassin Elias Rodriguez”
https://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=414949
That is sick.
“The penny costs nearly 4 cents to make. Here’s how much the US spends on minting its other coins”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/penny-costs-nearly-4-cents-195117940.html
“Each nickel costs nearly 14 cents ($0.1378) to make and distribute. That price tag is nearly triple the five-cent coin’s buying power today.”
“Each dime costs nearly 6 cents ($0.0576) to make and distribute.”
“The quarter costs nearly 15 cents ($0.1468) to make and distribute.”
“The half-dollar coin costs nearly 34 cents ($0.3397) to make and distribute.”
I guess that the costs of the metals are expensive. Maybe move to aluminum coins ?
Shoot maybe we need to move to just currency notes since they are cheap. But, they dont last as long:
https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12771.htm
What source would you trust?
I can’t think of one. Since 50% of STEM studies can’t be reproduced, and 80% of non-STEM, and that’s pre-COVID, I think the best course is to find out what the mainstream narrative is, and assume the opposite. It’s still a coin-toss, but it’s a comfortable heuristic for me.
I suspect a lot of the truth could be found in the Epic databases but I also believe it’s being scrubbed as we speak, by the medical communities and by Epic itself. And CMS, of course.
The last thing the .gov wants is real evidence of the perfidy.
“Trump Signs Orders to Revive US Leadership in Nuclear Power”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-signs-orders-revive-us-181453260.html
We have ZERO planned reactors in the USA ? Not good.
You know, Skynet could be savior of the human race by fighting off an space alien invasion or four.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/my-random-fiction-bits-and-pieces.480427/page-21#post-67118953
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/my-random-fiction-bits-and-pieces.480427/page-30#post-71571229
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/my-random-fiction-bits-and-pieces.480427/page-31#post-71780661
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/my-random-fiction-bits-and-pieces.480427/page-33#post-71843022
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/my-random-fiction-bits-and-pieces.480427/page-35#post-71888283
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/my-random-fiction-bits-and-pieces.480427/page-43#post-72079896
“Weregirl” by C. D. Bell
https://www.amazon.com/Weregirl-C-D-Bell/dp/1937133575?tag=ttgnet-20/
Book number one of a three book young adult urban fantasy series. I reread the well printed and well bound trade paperback published by Chooseco in 2016 that I bought new from Amazon. The font selected for the book was a typeface that I had never heard of before and extremely easy on the eyes. I own and have read the following two books in trade paperback, I may reread them also.
“All stories are about wolves. All worth repeating, that is. Anything else is sentimental drivel.” — Margaret Atwood in “The Blind Assassin”.
Nessa is a high school junior who is trying to use cross country running competition as the method for getting a free college education. She was in the middle of the pack until she was badly bitten by a white wolf. Now she is a werewolf and the leader of the high school competition. But a college education does not seem to matter so much anymore.
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars (since I reread, raised to 5 stars from 4)
Amazon rating: 4.3 out of 5 stars (113 reviews)
Lynn
I still have some One Won aluminum coins from Korea.
breifly home to do kid taxi stuff.
Picked up my solar panels. Turns out I bought them all. I’ll have to check to be sure but I think I averaged about 15c/watt.
$1/watt retail is about average.
Now to figure out how to use them…
——–
@ken, thanks for the link about the vehicle movement. I’ve got a couple of interesting articles to link later from one of my .mil trade magazines.
——–
Time to head back out and fight traffic. 45 thru downtown was a huge mess. Holiday weekend, and lane closures for construction are a recipe for delays.
32 minutes by the beltway, which only gets slower this time of day, or 38 by surface streets with some options. I think I’ll take surface…
n
Microsoft and AI have been busy in Verona.
When Judy passes, Redmond will emerge with control of Epic.
Pray whatever is eating at BillG causes him to assume room temperature first.
Bell Labs designed the alloy “silver” coinage starting with the quarter. The coins are speced to pass a battery of tests going into a payphone.
Bell Labs is no more.
Anyone with serious tech cred left at AT&T Labs going into the 2000s got spooked by the prospect of climbing telephone poles during the 2009 strike year and either retired, went to work for Google, or, like Stroustrup, chose to inflict their “teaching” ability on the next generation.
The last CEO of actual AT&T, also the last president of Labs, who drove the business down to the stub that SBC acquired now sits on the board of my current employer.
I am not kidding.
If there is one thing that person knows how to do, it is shrinking a once hallowed business entity into an acquisition target.
Linux has Common Criteria certification for mission-critical work. That’s what we targeted at the mesh networking place I briefly worked for in Seattle which would have seen deployment on military airplanes if the management hadn’t been stupid.
The product was remarkably similar to a Starlink network except targeted at airplanes above a battlefield, not satellites.
I mounted the dish on the building. A few gripes… the mount could have less of an angle with a longer mounting pipe. Or keep the current angle but make the mount extend further from the wall.
Yeah. I had to use a scrap of 2×4 to clear the roof eve. But that may be on me. Is there a standard for roofs extending over walls?
Aiming is not as perfect. The mount is ridged for pleasure. I mean, grip. I’m right on the edge of a bit too West or a bit too East. I went for East, I have trees to the West. I must be good. Speed test from phone to router runs about 160 down. On Moa? GB ports and CAT8 wiring? That speed test site I shared the link to the other day says just a peak of 385 down that leveled off to 280. Crazy.
It’s off the ground and safe from critters. I’ll get the Ethernet wire through the wall real soon. I got hot today..Plenty of water and not much pee. It looks decent up there and all of the tools are put away. Time to call it a day.
Oh yeah, another thing.
While looking for a 2×4 scrap I thought I was about to discover a wasp nest. Nope. Just a nest of four yellow and white kittens snuggled together. Cute critters. I found my scrap of wood at the other end of the pile.
@paul, yours must be a common problem as they make extended reach starlink mount poles. I needed one at the BOL, but it’s currently fine with a piece of wood and the standard pole. I have several of the extra long ones, they came as a lot. I’ll bring one home from the BOL this week and if you decide you want to go that way, I’ll send it to you.
——
Took me 50 minutes to get to the pickup , 24 to get home. Traffic. Even though it was light on the surface street I took, still was more than other times of day.
——
Now to unload the stuff that is staying here, load some of what’s going up. There is a huge mass of black sky and storm to the north of here, north of the belt, east of 249… high wind gusts and visible rain streaks in the distance. Nice here at the house, 101F in the driveway…
I don’t want to put anything that could be spoiled by water in the truck tonight.
———
I ordered solar connectors, wire, and a crimper. We’ll see what actually arrives before I leave tomorrow.
———
It was really hot today. I spent about 20 minutes in the sun loading the panels and securing them into the truck and it about wiped me out. I think I caught up with gatoraid and water. Have to pee, so that’s a good sign.
n
Well, that was exciting. At about 9.30 pm, I shot a roebuck. Often, when hit hard with a .308, roe deer drop like sacks of potatoes. This one didn’t.
Half an hour of searching in the fading light (note to self, get some more and better FLASHLIGHTS) yielded sight of neither blood nor hair at the “Anschuss”, so I called my forrester buddy, who kindly came with his tracking dog.
In the time it took them to arrive, I found some lung tissue on the ground, which was good news. The dog had a few sniffs, and made a bee-like into a nasty thicket. Fleeing downhill, the mortally wounded buck (about 25kg or 50 pounds live weight) managed to get 70 metres/yards through very difficult brush. A tough animal!
Aside: dogs, with their acute sense of smell, must think that we hairless apes have a perpetual headcold. Fortunately, they enjoy sniffing out scent trails we can’t even perceive. It was amazing to watch dog and handler working together. I am convinced that domesticating the dog was essential to human development. Without dogs, our forefathers would not have been able to hunt enough protein to develop our huge homo sapiens brains.
The goodest dog deserved every treat I gave her…
ComNavOps is a curmudgeon.
https://navy-matters.blogspot.com/2025/05/leadership-and-cno.html
I am not saying that he’s wrong, just that he’s the most even-tempered man I know, mad all the time.
Back on the ship from the off-boat experience in Ketchikan. I met with a co-worker from 1999-2002 time frame. She showed us around the island, met her husband for lunch. Better than any paid excursion. I never thought about Ketchikan being an island.
Three cruise ships are here today. Karen (my former co-worker) said there is about 18,000 permanent residents. Last week there were multiple cruise shops that brought in 24,000 people over the week.
It was a good visit. Now we have a long ride back to the Vancouver dock. We spend the night in Vancouver as it is impossible to get a reasonable flight with a decent arrival time from the west coast to Atlanta.
Amen, brother. Dogs are the best.
Nimitz spent a considerable part of his career a submariner and not on the track to lead the Navy until Pearl Harbor.
Dogs rule, cats drool. Wait …
I’m good Nick. Thanks for the offer.
With a little paint it will look great.
Novel Series Recommendation:
Superpowereds by Drew Hayes.
It’s a world of people with super powers, as may be deduced from the title. Not everyone with powers gets good ones, or ones that they can control. The series follows a handful of college students as they go through the training program to become licensed heroes.
The worldbuilding isn’t bad. It’s internally consistent, which is the major stumbling block of most fictional universes. I’m not sure I buy it but it’s more plausible than the old-style comic worlds, with heroes throwing around cars and blaster beams and taking chunks out of buildings just as readily as the villains and no one seems to care much. But the training and licensing is just the setting. The meat of the series is the characterization of the main characters and many of the supporting characters. Very well done, and that’s coming from someone who has little free time and won’t waste it on fiction which isn’t really good. (Unless I’m reading it because it’s so bad that it’s unintentionally hilarious, but that doesn’t apply here.)
The fifth book in the series is in the same universe and has some of the same characters but follows an adult hero who’s dealing with things. You can read just the first four books and have a complete story which doesn’t need anything else but the fifth is also good.
Reasons not to read it: You hate good things and probably kick puppies while you’re at it. You’re an aspiring author of terrible fiction and you don’t want to be adversely influenced by good writing. If you don’t fall into either of those categories, you should read it.
Note that I read the web-published version of the series, not the for-money published series. Comments that I’ve seen indicate that the Kindle version is the same story but cleaned up and generally tighter and better. (As is to be expected.)
I may have recommended this series a few years ago. My memory is shot because I sleep so little. As may be, it’s worth reading, unless you kick puppies or something.
“I am convinced that domesticating the dog was essential to human development. Without dogs, our forefathers would not have been able to hunt enough protein to develop our huge homo sapiens brains.”
Gift from God did just that. People that abuse dogs should be shot and turned in for a bounty.
When man started farming God gave us cats to protect the grain. Same deal.
https://ace.mu.nu/archives/IMG_12880.JPG
“Chief Justice Roberts Hands Trump Administration Another Win, This One Regarding DOGE”
https://redstate.com/smoosieq/2025/05/23/scotus-hands-trump-administration-another-win-this-one-regarding-doge-n2189529
“BREAKING: Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts has temporarily stayed discovery into whether the Department of Government Efficiency is a government agency subject to public records requests until further notice. #SCOTUS”
“Again, if this is true then heads will roll.”
Very inefficient.
We could just put a bounty on them, and let the hunters decide.
Or pith them like frogs and hang them on a bobwahr fence. Give ’em a coat of pison coyote bait and eliminate some a dem vermin at the same time. Heck, space them right and prolly make a good snowfence to perteck the roads.
“Joe Biden’s $93 Billion Scandal That No One’s Talking About Yet”
https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2025/05/23/joe-bidens-93-billion-scandal-that-no-ones-talking-about-yet-n4940098
“During a blistering Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) was visibly floored after Energy Secretary Christopher Wright dropped a bombshell: the Department of Energy handed out a staggering $93 billion in loans and commitments during the final 76 days of the Biden administration, a figure that more than doubled the loan total from the previous 15 years combined.”
“Kennedy, in classic fashion, drilled in with precision. “The 76-day period you’re talking about, that’s the period between the time that President Trump was elected and President Biden left office. Is that right?””
““That is correct,” Wright confirmed.”
“Kennedy didn’t mince words when he asked how any agency could properly vet such massive spending in such a short window. “How do you do due diligence on one loan, much less $93 billion?” he asked.”
“Wright’s answer was damning.”
““I think it’s probably pretty clear it wasn’t done in many cases,” he said. “There were commitments made from businesses that provided no business plan, no numbers about their own financial solvency, or how this project actually worked.””
This is criminal. Not even borderline. Way beyond irresponsible.
Novel Series Recommendation:
Superpowereds by Drew Hayes.
It’s a world of people with super powers, as may be deduced from the title. Not everyone with powers gets good ones, or ones that they can control. The series follows a handful of college students as they go through the training program to become licensed heroes.
Is it as good as Worm and Taylor Varga ?
https://parahumans.wordpress.com/
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/taylor-varga-worm-luna-varga.32119/threadmarks
I got only a couple chapters into Taylor Varga before dropping it, so I won’t address that.
Worm and Superpowereds are so different that they’re hard to compare. Superpowereds‘s writing quality is better, especially compared to the beginning of Worm. The scope of Worm is much larger, spanning as it does a multiuniversal existential threat and global (or multiglobal) conspiracies. Superpowereds focuses on a handful of students through four years of college with only glimpses of the wider world. There is a shadowy conspiracy but it’s pretty small beans compared to Cauldron.
I will say that I’ve seen comments by a number of people who didn’t get past Worm‘s first few chapters and by even more who greatly disliked the story because it’s “grimderp” – a step beyond “grimdark”. I disagree (other than agreeing that the first few chapters are roughly written) but see where they’re coming from.
By contrast, I can’t see anyone dropping Superpowereds Year 1 after the first chapter because of the bad writing or the unpleasant universe. They might not want to read a superhero story but that’s another matter.
>>Bell Labs designed the alloy “silver” coinage starting with the quarter. The coins are speced to pass a battery of tests going into a payphone.
Iirc the vending machine industry wanted their “two cents” included in the specs. (ouch!)
Vending machine industry rallies the troops whenever noise is made about cutting down on coinage. That may change with contactless payment methods being so common now.
I hate that my cards have RFID chips in them, but they sure are convenient, when the chip readers often fail, or take special handling to get the card read.
———
I should be asleep but I had to fix the toilet and then I was wound up. I’ll head to bed soon though.
n
“Scott Adams Starts New Cancer Treatment, Most Haven’t Heard of, Survival Odds Jump From 0% to 30%”
https://rumble.com/v6ts8k9-scott-adams-starts-new-cancer-treatment-most-havent-heard-of-survival-odds-.html
I wish him well and hope that it works.