Warm and moist. Ewwww moist. It was super gross and moist yesterday. It did get better later in the day. I’d be happy if it was NOT so gross and damp today.
I did my volunteer day at the middle school. We got a lot done. Sound kid graduates to High School next year and his crew don’t want to step up and do the main part of the job. I will probably be doing some intro classes next year in the hope of stirring up some interest in the crew position. Business continuity isn’t just for businesses. If you have a group and some people do the important and difficult jobs, but you don’t have anyone to step in if they disappear, you aren’t going to last as a group.
Today I’ve got home stuff and a couple of pickups to do. Routine stuff. Ordinary stuff. Probably some domestic bliss too. Ah well, some days are just that, ordinary.
So on an ordinary day, do ordinary stuff. Like working. Or stacking.
n
I’ve pissed off a number of kool kids, recruiters, and hype-pushing managers by observing that [hot skillz] is an awful lot like [tech from 30 years ago], just with a new name and a couple twists.
Telcos. A whole lot of disorganisation.
The telco laid glass fibre in the street of our BOL this summer.
Unfortunately, they laid it along the opposite side of the street. They are now stringing fibre across the street from the telephone poles, but we want our cable buried, not strung, for three reasons: our IT stuff is in the basement, there is a conduit ready for them, from our basement to the property line; our IT stuff is in the basement, and I don’t want them stringing cable to our eaves, then having to route it inside the freshly-renovated house from top to bottom; we want to insulate the exterior of the building, so any point of attachment for strung cable would be in the way of doing that.
I told the telco all that on the phone, and they insisted on sending two guys in a van this morning to look at the place. OK: I arranged to be here for the appointment. The guys arrived ready and expecting to string cable, but I repeated that we wanted the cable buried, so they said, “we don’t do that, we will have to send someone else to do a survey and make a quote for you for the work”. Total internal disorganisation, and more delay. SteveF’s chickens could probably do it better and faster.
The snow is pretty much melted from the roads and footpaths, bit it still looks pretty on the trees and roofs. Happy Thursday, all!
Node.js is reinventing the Tcl event-driven I/O wheel.
Apple was heading down the road of deprecating Tcl when they stopped suddenly with the latest macOS release. They even fixed ‘wish’, which had been broken for several major releases.
I think ‘gitk’ had something to do with Apple fixing ‘wish’.
I will give them Git. That spared the world endless closed source revision control systems sold with Hookers-n-Steaks marketing.
OTOH, Git came from the Benevolent Dictator who crushed commercial Unix forever with his clean sheet implementation of a Posix API kernel.
The Hot Skillz toy I really can’t stand is Visual Studio Code. We are required to use it as part of our required AI coding efforts, but, IMHO, that tool is Redmond picking and choosing Linux releases, mostly based on what they can scan with Coverity to fix the rancid code of their Subcontinent developers.
Microsoft recently deprecated Ubuntu 18.04 for VSC, and that was a major blow for many in the developer community who still depended on Python 2.x in their build chain.
We just had a C++ project blow up which the developer built totally with AI and VSC since he knew nothing about C++. The AI spewed a bunch of borderline unintelligble C++23, and I’ve kept my distance even as management has dropped hints about me fixing the code.
The irony is that the C++ project was to supplement our Go fiasco, which is too slow for the specific use case.
Officially, I don’t know any more C++ than the other people in my paygrade. The developer who “wrote” the C++ code is a paygrade above me – about $20,000 – and ~ 15 years younger.
Forcing me to fix the mess without an adjustment in compensation is breaking the law, but I’d hate to play the age card twice in one year.
BTW, C++23. WTF, Bjarne?
71F today. Still a bit groggy. Took my meds a bit late for a 630 wakeup.
Might go back to sleep.
Coffee is brewing just in case.
n
Currently sitting in the outpatient surgery center while my wife gets her right eye lense replaced. She had the left done a couple weeks ago. Before this, she was very nearsighted. Her left eye is now 20/20 and the right should be too. She was amazed at how colors were much more vivid with the new lense. My only complaint is that she can now see me roll my eyes at her, though she could somehow always hear me do it.
And speaking of hot skills, we are being pushed at work to be able to handle Podman on the closed network. Of course, the push is coming from business development, who never really seem to sell anything.
Oh, and they have no hardware budget. I‘m having my guys rebuild an 8 year old server, with original drives, in RH8 for them. Why could go wrong?
Podman is Docker.
The up and coming Hot Skillz right now is Kubernetes with Docker or Podman to solve the performance problems of Node.js and Python by throwing AWS cycles at the problem on demand.
Someone at Charles Schwab thought this was necessary.
I guess more people are seeing the markets for what they are.
n
This is true, but it is also true of any modern aircraft, 4th generation or later, from anyone.
The F-35, the Typhoon, the Rafael, the J-20 , the SU-57 – you are buying planes, sure, but the training, simulators, parts, upgrades and all the rest are where the real money is.
Common sense says no seller is going to let you fly them against them and their allies. That will be in the contract.
And, yes, people payed attention when quick thinking US engineers manually disabled the Iranian F-14s before leaving the country, it’ll be built in now.
If you aren’t a major airframe builder your options are pretty limited, pick an older lesser airframe that your in-country tech can reverse engineer, or pick the side that you are closest to politically and hope for the best, both of which suck.
We’ll know for sure when the heads of Fidelity and Vanguard appear on the FanDuel Pregame show sponsored by bet365, right before the big game at DraftKings arena.
Blackrock, Fidelity, and Vanguard hold roughly 20% of Draft Kings stock, with VTSMX holding its customary 3%, like everything else.
The difference between gambling and investing: Gambling is when you don’t have control over the outcome.
The Schwab app doesn’t provide the same dopamine hit as Draft Kings’ app.
For the nitpickers, Apple “borrowed” heavily from BSD to build the Unix OS powering all of their devices.
“SteveF’s chickens could probably do it better and faster.”
Do they take jobs out of town? Asking for a friend.
I am shocked, shocked I say, at the suggestion that the ‘Sports Entertainment’ francise outcomes might not be entirely due to team skills…
To be fair, is there anything Apple didn’t borrow?
And they work cheap! Half a head of romaine lettuce and a couple dozen raisins will keep them happy.
Apple is a hardware manufacturer. It doesn’t make sense for them to reinvent the BSD application layer.
The kernel is theirs, and they’ve made significant contribuations to open source with Clang and CUPS.
Apple Silicon is wholly theirs, based on ARM but significantly optimized from the upstream design.
What’s this about Texas making the NCAA football playoffs?
To basically ‘borrow’ everything (hw & sw) is not necessarily wrong, almost everything in the modern tech world is derivative, and it is admittedly very, very hard to do reverse engineering and integration competently (maybe harder than actual originality).
So they excel at that.
I purchased a couple of beginner networking courses on Udemy.
I am networking dumb.
https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2025/11/20/new-house-dem-steps-down-from-committee-after-federal-indictment-for-fema-fraud-n3809106
Guilty, Guilty, GUILTY.
Nah.
To mangle an old aphorism about war: “In networking everything is very simple, but even the simple things are very hard”.
There is a copy of ‘Networking for Dummies’ around here somewhere that I still look at occasionally instead of googling.
I’m just too old to be bothered to remember the minutia.
One of my credit cards just changed policies and won’t let you log in without updating your browser.
I don’t WANT to update. F#ckers.
n
Took a bit to figure out that I wanted an extension to change “user agent” on FF. (Since this machine is win8.2 I use the ESL version of FF, and while it’s current, the reported version is too low for the bank.)
Finished my banking after changing my reported user agent. Everything worked fine.
Now I just need to remember it’s on, so I don’t try to d/l the wrong version of ff next time there is an update.
n
Alcee Hastings’ district.
We gonna git all you Devils starting with your Orange King.
To recap, Hastings was one of the few Federal Judges ever to be impeached and the only African American convicted in the process. However, since the trial took place in 1989 under a Dem majority Senate, Hastings was not barred from future office and was elected to the House in 1992, riding BJ Clinton’s coattails.
Don’t … stop … thinking ’bout tomorrow.
Voters in that district of Florida will continue to vote for her.
Texas fire head of Alamo renovation after she writes this,,,
Really? Wait until Tejas elects it’s mooslim governor.
https://althouse.blogspot.com/2025/11/it-has-come-to-my-attention-that-post.html#comment-form
Stiff and sore, but at least the nap get rid of the rest of the aftereffects of the meds.
Time to stop faffing about and get some pickups and work done.
Of course one of the pickups only opens at 2pm.
n
George P. (Diddly) Bush would be just as bad, continuing the family tradition of “compassionate conservatism”.
I don’t get why the US hasn’t fixed the system. Obamacare is apparently nothing but a disaster. Surely no one in either party would object, if Congress took action?
Switzerland is expensive, yet our health insurance costs significantly less, for a lower deductible (can be as low as $300). And we have no stupid games about in-network or out-of-network: Any reputable doctor is “in network” for all health insurance providers.
Switzerland is a country of 9 million mostly homogeneous people. The USA is a country of 340 million very heterogeneous people. The needs are wildly different.
Obamacare was setup by the dumbrocrats to fail to get to Medicare For All ™. The cost would be several trillion dollars per year. And the 20 million legal immigrants and 40 million illegal immigrants are making the situation much, much worse.
I do not know about Switzerland but getting timely medical care in Canada and the UK is reputed to be very difficult. They are going broke in a hurry with the reputation of take two aspirin and see me in a year. We do not want to transition to this type of system in the USA. Our medical care is awesome. Paying for our medical care is a disaster.
Plus most of the medical research is being performed in the USA with amazing results. I can keep your body going in a hospital for years, way after the brain has died. You would be surprised how many people are doing this in the USA and Medicare / Medicaid is paying for it.
George P. (Diddly) Bush would be just as bad, continuing the family tradition of “compassionate conservatism”.
George W. Bush gave us Part D in Medicare (drugs for seniors) that is wildly out of control, costing the feddies an expected $140 billion in 2026.
Forcing me to fix the mess without an adjustment in compensation is breaking the law, but I’d hate to play the age card twice in one year.
What law is that ?
Warm and moist. Ewwww moist. It was super gross and moist yesterday. It did get better later in the day. I’d be happy if it was NOT so gross and damp today.
Global Warming. We are all going to die.
They did it for Biden and it wasn’t even in a hospital.
I think I heard that same saying while enjoying a bar in the Philippines.
BTW, C++23. WTF, Bjarne?
Bjarne is retired and out of the game. Herb Sutter is pushing everything now. C++ 2026 has a boatload of new stuff including contracts which is just a fancy assert. And Reflection for objects.
https://herbsutter.com/2025/11/10/trip-report-november-2025-iso-c-standards-meeting-kona-usa/
Herb Sutter tried to write a new syntax for C++ a couple of years ago but seems to have given up.
https://herbsutter.com/2024/07/28/cppfront-midsummer-update/
ADEA of 1967.
Currently sitting in the outpatient surgery center while my wife gets her right eye lense replaced. She had the left done a couple weeks ago. Before this, she was very nearsighted. Her left eye is now 20/20 and the right should be too. She was amazed at how colors were much more vivid with the new lense. My only complaint is that she can now see me roll my eyes at her, though she could somehow always hear me do it.
I have not been able to tell the difference between red and green for about 20 years now. Traffic lights could be exciting. I just thought it was an aging thing.
With the new lens in my right eye, I can tell the difference between red and green perfectly now.
I get my left lens replaced on Dec 2. Hopefully the double vision at night time will go away.
Bjarne is teaching at Columbia. He was at Morgan Stanley after TAMU showed him the door.
I’ve heard all negative things from TAMU grads who suffered through his “teaching” and attempts to develop a true C++ textbook rather than a reference guide that is “The C++ Programming Language”.
The Death Star still holds the copyright to his book, which I’m sure grates.
As I have been saying for years, the cataract surgery is trivial and the results are amazing. The diminished vision is gradual and the brain tries to compensate, until it can’t. To see really blue skies, really green trees, amazing sunsets again is just simply amazing.
When I had the one eye done I wanted the other eye done immediately. But I had to wait a week.
The only downside is that insurance, and Medicare, do not cover the cost of the replacement lens. They cover the removal, and insertion, but not the actual lens. I think my lenses were about $800.00 each, if I am remembering correctly.
The difference between gambling and investing: Gambling is when you don’t have control over the outcome.
Tell me more about this investing where you have control over the outcome.
I watched my father lose several million dollars in the 1980s in Texas on retail investments going bad. It was so bad that the banks died too.
It has all recovered since then but the original investors all got wiped out here in Texas. Then the IRS refused to let him take the losses due to the 1988 ? revision of the tax code.
Keep us apprised, night driving and astronomy are my main goals for thinking about it.
—–
A front is blowing in, just heard hail on the well sheltered west windows. Brought in more pellets from the garage.
Age discrimination?
You Sweet Summer Childtm
You’d have to fund your own lawsuit with some ambulance chaser. Or go through the joke we call the EEOC. I filed an age discrimination EEOC complaint the first time I was fired. The lead investigator let me know upfront that the average award to a winner in cases like that was $3000. After you go through the whole lengthy process.
I tried the race angle too, since they fired all the white people over 40 in the office that day. The investigator said that was a non-starter. He didn’t quite say that a white guy can’t plead racism, but that’s what he meant.
I got caught in the crossfire in an internal political battle at a Jesuit university. They were tired of our complaints about insufficient funding and staffing.
In the end, after firing the 6 of us, they had to hire 10 to replace us. And some temporary contractors as well.
You know what’s worse than dealing with doctors and medical schools? Religious medical schools.
Pearls Before Swine: Walking App
https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2025/11/20
Yeah, that violates the rule of “to thine own self be true”. There is a very slippery slope there and Pastis skipped right across it.
I’ve been through the process once before, stopping short of hiring a lawyer.
“No, this wasn’t self-defense”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2025/11/no-this-wasnt-self-defense.html
“I note the ongoing argument over whether a Michigan resident was defending himself, or acting recklessly, when he fired at intruders.”
The home owner was defending his property. He is not guilty. Yes, I live here in Texas. Go read up on the Joe Horn incident where he was adjudged not guilty by a grand jury. Remember, not guilty is not innocent but the law is on the side of the home owner.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Horn_shooting_controversy
The thieves are guilty. If the home owner did not protect himself then the chances of the thieves coming back is high, very high.
Keep us apprised, night driving and astronomy are my main goals for thinking about it.
If I close my left eye at night time, the double vision goes away. Getting the left lens replaced will fix it. Hopefully. My doctor calls it ghosting and it is common with a good eye and a bad eye.
I drove back from Port Lavaca Monday night with my mother. I had to close my left eye a lot with the oncoming traffic.
I got caught in the crossfire in an internal political battle at a Jesuit university. They were tired of our complaints about insufficient funding and staffing.
In the end, after firing the 6 of us, they had to hire 10 to replace us. And some temporary contractors as well.
You know what’s worse than dealing with doctors and medical schools? Religious medical schools.
I do not want to live in a theocracy. They seem to be the Spanish Inquisition all over and over again.
“Why the Green Agenda Is Crumbling” by Victor Davis Hanson
https://www.dailysignal.com/2025/11/19/is-the-era-of-climate-change-orthodoxy-dying/
“What is causing this? Well, the first thing is, in reference to Bill Gates, is artificial intelligence. It’s going to require an unprecedented level of electrical generation. It takes huge amounts of electricity. We don’t have it. And we will not get it by subsidizing wind turbines and solar panels.”
“Sam Altman, one of the pioneers of artificial intelligence, said, if the United States wants to achieve preeminence in the field—and this seems to be the greatest technological breakthrough since the Industrial Revolution—we’re gonna have to build 100 gigawatt, 1-gigawatt plant, that’s the size of a large nuclear reactor, a thousand megawatts. We’re gonna have to build, he says, a hundred per year or the equivalent of clean coal or natural gas.”
The change is in the wind.
“Another perspective on the job market”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2025/11/another-perspective-on-job-market.html
“I just had a great conversation with Jim Farley, the CEO of Ford Motor Company, which will air Sunday night at 10pm on One Nation. (That’s Kilmeade’s show on Fox.) Jim told me that as of yesterday morning, Ford Service Departments around the country had 6,000 empty bays. Not because people’s cars and trucks didn’t need fixing, but because the shortage of technicians has become that profound.”
“Ford isn’t alone. Every single automotive company in America is struggling to hire technicians, and the problem – (in spite of what you’ll likely read in the comments,) has nothing to do with the pay, the benefits, or the working conditions. These jobs offer a clear path to a six-figure career, with little to no college debt. In part, the problem is mathematical – this year, 37,000 new techs were hired across the country. Unfortunately, 76,000 retired. That’s a 2:1 ration, which is actually pretty good, compared to the 5:2 ratio in most of the construction trades. But along with a lack of warm bodies, there’s a lack of interest in the work itself. A will gap, in other words, combined with a skill gap. Happily, I think that’s about to change. Unfortunately, at the expense of a colossal upheaval.”
Whoof. And there is a lot of retirement going on for the tail end of the baby boomers.
Over 20 years ago, Dave Ramsey supplanted Bruce Williams as the dominant personality dispensing financial advice on the radio because Ramsey had support of the churches, telling people to continue to tithe even when they were broke and on his “baby steps” plan.
Williams had a successful business empire, but nothing like what Ramsey Associates is worth today.
Franklin, TN, where Ramsey operates as well as CKC (Hardee’s/Carl’s Jr.) and, now, In-n-Out Burger, is an insanely wealthy town. We stopped at the Publix on the way up to Nashville from Chattanooga, and, among other subtle signs we noticed, the strip mall’s other big tenant was Haverty’s.
What? No Big Lots?
And Ford leads the industry in recalls. Or did for a few years recently.
Tommy Boy needs to go. The last semi-secret Ford bailout under “W” made removal of Bill Ford as CEO one of the terms to get the loan guarantees.
Hopefully, that happens again with the bailout that is coming.
Insurance covered both lenses. Total billed cost for one eye was $5,550. We were responsible for a $200 copay.
Yes it is. My son still goes to Vanderbilt’s pediatric endocrinology department, and they have a satellite office in Franklin. It saves us about a half hour of travel time each way, and is way easier to access.
In addition to Publix, we ate at Bishop’s Meat and Tree in Franklin. Recommended.
The best “meat and three” I had on the trip, however, was Arnold’s Country Kitchen in Nashville.
My wife suffered with the rubber chicken special at the conference lunch that afternoon. I did take her a dessert, Hot Pepper Chocolate Pie.
I didn’t even get a taste of that, however.
Good for you! My insurance plan at the time would only cover basic lenses, not the upgraded lenses, the better quality. Think rust covered Yugo versus a Ford Taurus. The lenses insurance would cover where “crap” according to doctor. There was no allowance to apply that cost to new lenses. I had really lousy insurance.
When my wife had her eyes done, about four years ago, she was on Medicare and Medicare would not cover any lenses, none. Maybe, hopefully, that has changed.
If training an auto mechanic to repair your product requires the same amount of time as training to be a medical doctor (MD, not Phd) then you, Farley, and your POC product are to blame.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskMechanics/comments/13h3pkd/how_hard_is_it_to_become_a_master_mechanic/
When my wife had her eyes done, about four years ago, she was on Medicare and Medicare would not cover any lenses, none. Maybe, hopefully, that has changed.
Medicare paid for my single vision lens that I had set to distance for my right eye. Medicare also paid the surgical fee and the surgery center. Medicare would not pay for the laser, $1,500, to remove my astigmatism or the ORA machine, $350, to accurately set my lens correction during the surgery.
Multifocal lenses cost anywhere from $1,000 to $2,500 each, more. And the multifocal lenses have problems with night vision, halos,etc. Especially for people with glaucoma, etc.
“Abbott Calls for Criminal Investigations Into Sharia Courts Operating in North Texas”
https://texasscorecard.com/state/abbott-calls-for-criminal-investigations-into-sharia-courts-operating-in-north-texas/
“Additionally, he cited Texas Penal Code provisions that make it a crime to impersonate a judge, issue counterfeit court orders, or pass off documents as official government records.”
“The letter singles out the “Islamic Tribunal,” a group operating in the Dallas area, pointing to its public statements that it resolves a broad range of disputes according to “Islamic jurisprudence and its Shari’ah or Law” and claims “approval of the Texas Judicial system.” The group’s founding charter describes its decisions as “final according to Islamic jurisprudence,” something Abbott says crosses into unlawful authority.”
“Abbott warned that such practices “stray far beyond traditional church autonomy” and risk functioning as “a rival court in violation of the Texas Penal Code.””
Ah, so they do have an entity claiming to be a legal court system. That is not good. Somebody needs to go to jail and then deported.
The home owner was defending his property. He is not guilty. Yes, I live here in Texas. Go read up on the Joe Horn incident where he was adjudged not guilty by a grand jury. Remember, not guilty is not innocent but the law is on the side of the home owner.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Horn_shooting_controversy
The thieves are guilty. If the home owner did not protect himself then the chances of the thieves coming back is high, very high.
The information is wholly incomplete, even after following the link to the news article.
What is not in dispute is that the single act that precipitated the events was the decision by 6 young men to participate in a felony burglary. Everything else followed from that. When those young men made that decision, they willingly stepped over a line that was clearly defined and ventured into uncharted territory. Dangerous territory. Makes you wonder about their moral upbringing, their prior history of bad decisions, their encounters with the law and the legal system, and how any such contributed to the idea that felony burglary was a good decision.
Makes you also wonder what the response of the families of these young men would have been if they suddenly showed up the next day with dirt bikes amid news reports of stolen dirt bikes.
“You go see Antwan down da street. He give you da mos money fo dem.”
These things don’t just happen overnight. Abbott is making a fuss only because Chip Roy has raised the issue ahead of the filing deadline to run for office in Texas, and the Governor does not want to face a primary challenge even if the candidate doesn’t have a chance of winning the nomination.
Muslims from the Subcontinent in particular are flying stealth in Texas right now because most people not from that part of the world think that Hindu vs. Muslim isn’t any different than Jewish vs. Catholic in the US.
I have an idea for a game. It’s called “Let’s you and him fight.” But we don’t need them fighting here, around civilized people. How ’bout they bugger off to Turdistan and Turdia and fight there.
It just occurred to me that when I mentioned that my chickens work cheap, I should have said they work cheep. Curses for the missed opportunity! Maybe next time.
Did my pickups. Took one load from storage to the shop. Spent some time moving stuff around at the shop. Now home for a bit, but soon off to a school function that D2 is involved in.
D1 is at training for her new job, Retail Associate at some mall fashion store… I’m betting her work hours screw up our Thanksgiving plans for the BOL.
Dang kids.
n
I suggested building a catapult and boinging D1 into orbit, or at least into the next county. Did you listen? No, you did not. You have no one to blame but yourself.
Is D1 a confident-enough and capable-enough driver to make it to the BOL after working a Thanksgiving morning shift? If yes, the rest could go up and start cooking and preparing and she can join you in time for the meal. If no, One parent and D2 go and get started, to be followed by the other two in time for the meal. Annoying but doable.
– makes it sound like ordinary folks voted for her. Was probably the hedgies.
n
It’s where you invest in an operation in which you have some say in operations, whether as a partner, as a board member, or as someone that the main owner consults before major decisions. There’s a term which I can’t dig up, “significant minority investor” or something.
Putting money into the stock market is a reasonably safe bet, with expected returns greater than inflation, but it’s still a gamble because you have no control over Microsoft’s stock price or the value of the mutual fund.
Re: Muslims & Christians & Hindu’s – I just finished this book:
Book # 33 of 2025 was The Anarchy, by William Dalrymple. (Audible)
It is best described by the Subtitle: THE EAST INDIA COMPANY, CORPORATE VIOLENCE, AND THE PILLAGE OF AN EMPIRE
It is a long and frankly depressing look at the accidental (at first) conquest of the Muslim rulers of India (the Mughal dynasty) by the British East India Company, though this was 150 years after said company came to India, and after a brutal Afghan Muslim conquest & looting of Delhi (it is not just the borders of Islam that are red). Patricide, fratricide, genocide, famine, heroics, insane bravery, nobility, it’s all there,
Blood & treachery & greed & murder & war on all sides for a hundred years, with brief glimpses of kindness, humanity and open-mindedness.
Recommended if you are older than 30, enjoy history, and have a long attention span and strong stomach.
The last chapter is a rather pro-forma rant against corporatism, I suspect his publishers made him put it in there, tho even a conservative brit is pretty lefty for America.
Yah. I’ve listened to more whining by Indians than I wanted to hear, about the horrible, bad, wretched, evil, terrible British East India Company. If the Indians hadn’t been factious, simpleminded, and incompetent, a few thousand Brits would not have been able to conquer a hundred million Indians. And spare me the exaltation of the invention of zero. What else did that glorious civilization manage to accomplish in their claimed 6000 years?
See also: Cortes’s conquest of the Aztecs. If the Aztecs hadn’t been rotten to the core, 500 men would not have conquered a million.
Yes, the EIC shouldn’t have been that successful, it was a very minor player at first, well behind the Dutch and French.
In the end it was factions & civil war(s) that brought the Empire down.
Nothing new, just humanity being humanity.
Some interesting cameo’s by Cornwallis (after Yorktown) and Arthur Wellesley (before Napoleon).
Cracker Barrell has no retail insvetment left. The institutions are playing the game, expecting private equity to make an offer to buy all of the shares, load up the company with debt, and strip mine the real estate.
Toys R Us redux.
I could swear that I ordered some 4th gen Airpods a few days back, to try out the noise cancellation, but there was no sign of it being ordered on Amazon just now when I checked.
On the bright side the price has dropped, $109 as of today, and they should arrive tomorrow. My ears are ringing from the pellet stove on low.
On the other hand my brother had to order three iPhones before one passed the gauntlet of the thieves at the Amazon fulfillment center, so…
Joy Behar Just Put ABC on the Brink of Another Huge Trump Lawsuit
https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2025/11/20/joy-behar-just-put-abc-on-the-brink-of-another-huge-trump-lawsuit-n4946236
Interesting.
The President is wealthy, takes no salary, and donates money from settlements.
I wonder what the tax forms look like?
If the rumors are true, BillG is back firmly in charge in Redmond.
“Trey” lost both his CEO gig and board position due to choices in his personal life which made the board uncomfortable concealing, but, once the Epstein files get published, what’s left to hide?
Hooters is starting a new food delivery service. It is called Knockers.
Seconded.
A connection between tinnitus and sleep?
https://www.sciencealert.com/tinnitus-is-somehow-linked-to-a-crucial-bodily-function
Probably BS, but maybe.
Nice little event at the kinder’s school. Dinner wasn’t great though, just salad, spaghetti and red sauce with no meat. One roll, and no dessert.
So I had some frozen White Castle when I got home.
Saw some of our friends from other kid activities and our friends that got us on the lake, so it was a good night.
n
Rolled the trash can to the curb and the wheel fell off. It’s always something.
Fortunately, even though it was dark, I found the cap that is supposed to hold it on, and it should just take minutes to fix it. When it’s light out.
——
I was thinking of reading by the pond tonight, but I think I’ll try for another early bed time. If I start now, I should make it around midnight.
n
Man, just pouring out.
It is bedtime but the former stray cat is tucked up against me tightly, I can wait up until it passes I suppose.