Another cool start to the day. Supposed to be clear, so it will warm up later and probably become a very nice day. Moist though. You could smell the damp in the air yesterday.
I didn’t do much except auction stuff in the morning yesterday, and then my appointment took all afternoon. New doctor, and I like him. He is looking at some bloodwork, and I’ll be looking at the [presumed] hypoglycemia in a couple of weeks. Real testing and diagnosis would be nice, especially as he says they have meds to smooth out the carb crash that comes with it.
Took a swing by Goodwill on my way home, and picked up a nice Orvis shirt for $6. They don’t recognize it as a premium brand. To be fair, since Orvis went offshore for manufacturing, it might not actually be a premium product, but it’s still a premium brand.
Went out to eat for dinner. Then I spent a few more hours pulling stuff out of my office and cleaning under it. Yikes there is a lot of hair and dirt. And a bunch of random tiny bolts and screws.
Today I will get up and get the kids out of the house, then do some auction stuff. I have one pickup scheduled for the afternoon, and one I need to schedule.
As I clean the office, I’m certainly finding projects that need to be finished, materials for projects, and useful things that I’d forgotten about. It’s like shopping your closet. Stacks are only useful if you can find the stuff. It’s a good idea to go through it all every so often, check the condition, and check that it’s still needed. And hey, you might find a new watch somewhere in there.
Sort your stacks, and add to them.
nick
Aha. So that’s where those go to.
Well done for cleaning up the office. That’s been on my round tuit list for a long, long time. One of these days…
Good luck with new doctor. I hope he gets to the bottom of whatever is bothering you.
Snow lying outside. It is bright. I think the sun is trying to break through. That would be nice, for my last day of the Christmas holidays. I foresee a lot of domestic bliss in my nearest future.
Good morning!
Good morning, Denis!
Indeed, good morning! Snow, so lovely to look at.
67F and the creatures are stirring…
Coffee is put together but not started. Another hour of sleep would be nice after the kids leave. Can’t do much until 10am anyway.
n
The cams are everywhere around here. I even won a replacement solar panel in a returns auction.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15435449/cameras-texas-san-antonio-flock-safety.html
n
Yes.
Yup, I’ve been totally lazy for the past two weeks. Haven’t even worked out. Trying to get back in the groove today – grading projects, what fun 😛
Playing tennis tonight. Somehow I’m feeling too lazy to do even that, but I’ll kick myself in the behind. Gained the usual kilo over the holidays, so it’s time to start working it off…
Good morning, early risers!
Where is slugabed SteveF?
One of the nephews gave W1 and me a Christmas gift of a pouch of very nice coffee from a boutique roaster in Cologne, Schamong.
We just opened and enjoyed it for our Epiphany breakfast/brunch. Very tasty with our Neujahrsbrezel.
The Magi on the Weihnachtspyramide are running along towards their adoration. A nice quiet way to close up our Christmas break.
After brunch, I will attack W1’s fancy Asus laptop and see if I can break it out of its fuzzy Windows login screen loop. Back to the grind…
36F this morning.
Yesterday the rain let up,and I picked up (literally) a bunch of pallet shelves, 2’x8′ mostly, for about $10 each.
Some will become part of a coyote-proof enclosure for elderly chihuahua’s, others will be used as shelves again, though the racks weren’t available and i will have to build my own.
Perused some pages on RealClear* this morning and came across:
Among the Prophets: Science fiction and the art of prediction
Nicholas Russell, January 2, 2026
Clicking the link took me to a site called “The Baffler”, which promptly informed me that I got to read this as a freebie, and I get one more, but for additional I would have to subscribe for $30 a year.
(This was about a minute after I clicked on link and was taken to Reuters, which also demanded I fork over. Nope. Close page.)
Mr. Russell’s article was a dense compendium of lightly stitched together quotes from other people that quickly became boring, so I bailed. The irony of Baffler wanting to charge for content that is mostly composed of work by others is obvious, but i suppose some might consider it edgy and hip if they have a low tolerance for idiots (Yeah, Nick, you quote Connie Willis talking about what someone else said, you can’t find an earlier reference, so it’s a mystery. Too lazy to email Ms. Willis?)
So I checked the Baffler current issue contents and saw:
A Million Parts per Million by Matthew Shen Goodman
Illustrated with a stock photo of rolling hills of scrub with a “Do Not Enter” sign ‘shopped in.
I recklessly spent my second and final free click and was
rewardedbored by a scant four paragraphs of salad-shootered word spatter with a side of formatus overlaptus that made the left edge of the paragraphs barely decipherable.The Baffler. Apropos. “Irrelevancy of Dunces” might be closer to the truth.
*RealClearScience did have news of a 5000BC-era paleo-wall discovery off the coast of France. Seas rising is a modern problem for some value of modern.
Misattribution and fuzzy attribution have been with us for centuries. I have a teeshirt that quotes Ben Franklin:
“Beer Is Proof that God Loves Us and Wants Us To Be Happy”
No record has been found of Ben actually saying it–the closest is a quote about wine.
That’s okay–I like the shirt and wore it out.
Just for reference in the future: Yes, I said it all and it’s copyrighted. Pay up.
Hilton Axes Hotel From Their Systems After Video Shows Them Continuing to Ban DHS and ICE Agents
https://redstate.com/rusty-weiss/2026/01/06/hilton-axes-hotel-from-their-systems-after-video-shows-them-continuing-to-ban-dhs-and-ice-agents-n2197811
Cheap talk. Get the Hampton Inn sign down today.
FAFO. Can’t wait until the internet delivers the receipts.
I saw the same article, but through a link on Y Combinator news.
(One soon learns the names of some of the paywalled sites, but it is easy to get burned. YCN (and all aggregators) should mandate a “$” next to such links.
It has occurred to me that one could throw a a real stick into the spokes of the offshore wind industry in Europe, particularly the huge wind farms, by insisting that they do the correct archaeological surveys before construction. All these submerged low lands (Doggerland,etc) were probably heavily populated during the Mesolithic and Paleolithic. Once the heavy equipment has had its way to make expensive subsidized electricity for 25 years that millenial old site and knowledge is gone forever.
Indeed. As Spock once said from the deck of the Millenium Falcon: “So say we all!“
Tom Cruise does not deliver the “What the F*ck” monologue in “Risky Business”.
Happy J6 Day!
Kankles will never be President!
The Kamel will never be President!
Thank you for that President tRump and thank you for pardoning the J6’rs
Happy J6 Day to the troll.
Got my vote. As noted, the wall predates the pyramids significantly.
“enormous angular vehicle” – um, ever see a commercial truck?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15438597/family-tesla-cybertruck-ban-son-killed-hit-run-hartford-connecticut.html
I’ve told the kid that hitting anything at all is preferable to hitting another vehicle head on. Head on collisions are not particularly survivable at highways speeds.
Even trees or bridge abutments don’t add the other vehicle’s momentum.
n
added- they complain about the Cybertruck weighing 6700 pounds. “Malachi’s family said Cybertrucks are far too large and powerful to safely share the road with regular traffic”.
In comparison…
Class 2b – Light/Medium Truck
Class 2b is the tipping point between light non-commercial pickup trucks and heavy-duty haulers. GVWR is limited to 10,000 pounds, while the average curb weight ranges between 6,300 and 7,000 pounds. Examples of Light/Medium trucks include:
Chevrolet Silverado/GMC Sierra 2500
Ford F-250
Nissan Titan XD
Ram 2500
Spring Semester at God Forsaken Blue State U starts Jan. 26.
Despite Claims He Was ‘Briefed’ on Maduro Operation, Mamdani Doesn’t Have Federal Security Clearance
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/amy-curtis/2026/01/06/mamdani-security-clearance-n2668924
Giving this toxic clown security clearance would be against the interests of the United States.
I’d suggest instead that the resources needed to provide such be used to document his clear intentions to violate the U.S. Constitution, and bring chages at the earliest possible opportunity.
BTW, banning that weight of truck would remove 14 MILLION trucks from the road. Good luck with that.
I get that they’re upset and looking for a payday. But ignoring reality and redefining things to benefit yourself is delusional.
n
Tesla knows which one of their Jesus Trucks is responsible.
Ludicrous Speed!
The crowd which used to be obnoxious in leased BMWs moved on to Rivian and Tonymobiles. More lawsuits are coming.
Why should he? Mayor of NYFC isn’t a Federal position.
Aaaargh.
Have I mentioned that I HATE tinkering with Windows PCs?
I started working on W1’s broken Windows 11 laptop with its vicious-circle login loop just after brunch, around midday. It is now going on 10pm, and I still don’t have a working lappy, despite my best efforts.
I made a bootable Linux Mint USB stick and used it to copy W1’s data off the machine to an external drive of hers. At least the data are saved.
Then I followed all the advice I could find online about resolving the known login loop problem, but none of it worked. A total waste of three or four hours. Grr.
I downloaded installation files from Microsoft and made another bootable USB drive.
I downloaded all the relevant drivers and BIOS updates from ASUS. I updated the BIOS.
I booted from the W11 installation drive. Installation failed for lack of drivers.
I used the ASUS system recovery utility in the BIOS to download installation media and reinstall. Installation again failed for lack of drivers.
Now I have forced the machine into Windows recovery mode and am having it do a system “reset”. We are at 2%: “Your computer may restart a few times”. I am curious to see when it will fail for lack of drivers.
Have I mentioned I HATE Windows? Had I been recovering a Linux machine, it would have taken me about 30 minutes from bare metal to a working system with all the applications I need, and the machine would have loaded its own bloody drivers without input from me. Grr.
Even if the “reset” works, I will still have to resinstall all the relevant updated drivers plus all of the software that will have been lost, and then restore W1’s data. At this rate, it will take me the rest of the week. Grr.
Orange Man Go CrayCray:
Trump threatens to use US military to seize Greenland as White House issues extraordinary statement revealing plans to take Danish territory
Boots on the ground in Greenland wasn’t on my bingo card. Sabre rattling.
“Perilous Waif (Alice Long)” by E. William Brown
https://www.amazon.com/Perilous-Waif-Alice-William-Brown/dp/1520430574?tag=ttgnet-20
Book number one of one book space opera science fiction series. I read the well printed and well bound POD (print on demand) 2 lb (1 kg) trade paperback that was self published by the author in 2017 that I bought new from Amazon in 2025. The author has been threatening to release a sequel to the book since 2019 but no sequel is available yet. I will purchase the sequel if it is ever released.
Several thousand years in the far future is incredibly different yet things are still the same. Upon discovery of the three hyperspace bands, humanity has spread to over a million planets, moons, space stations, etc. But, humans being humans, conflicts are prevalent and forefront to the quadrillions of humans across the Milky Way. Piracy is common along with private armies and highly armed space fleets. Robot warriors of all types from gnats to thousand ton battle tanks are in common usage. Androids provide the labor that makes things move along. AIs are everywhere, running everything possible, and even grouped into four classes of ability.
Alice Long is a 14 year old girl being raised in an orphanage on a terraformed frontier planet of only females who are all vegetarians. Most of the planet’s human population have been genetically adapted to be furry with tails and claws for climbing trees. Unlike most of the population, Alice looks human but underneath, she has many genetic modifications that are growing with her and starting to come online. Her skeleton and muscles have diamonds in them for strength and robustness. She has many sensory adaptations for her eyes, ears, etc. And she has a full AI brain that is taking over management of her body from her human brain. She frequently sneaks out of the orphanage to hunt and eat raw small predators to get more protein that her body is starving for.
The Mirai, Japanese for future, are a Japanese descendant race who totally converted their bodies and brains to artificial beings. They were very dangerous and expansionary. The rest of humanity built huge warship space fleets and destroyed the Mirai at great cost. People even spread rumors about how strange and destructive the Mirai were.
The book is highly technical and even explains the technology in detail in three appendixes. Some reviewers call the girl a Mary Sue but I disagree. Alice is a fully fleshed out character with good days and bad days. The book does feel kinda like a anime book without the drawings.
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars (4,193 reviews)
Lynn
Orange Man Go CrayCray:
Trump threatens to use US military to seize Greenland as White House issues extraordinary statement revealing plans to take Danish territory
Boots on the ground in Greenland wasn’t on my bingo card. Sabre rattling.
I am beginning to think that Trump has decided to go full out Empire to save the USA.
Rep. Jasmine Crockett Says ‘F**k You’ to Supreme Court Over Texas Redistricting
MTG throws her a lifeline “Join me on OnlyFans!”
Dems don’t care. Take commercial trucking:
Between the collapse of the CDL mills for illegals and California basically outlawing owner-operators (AB5) it seems California may be losing about 100,000 trucks & drivers this year alone.
Add in the mass exodus of refineries making the drives longer and the closure of the main Bakersfield-NorCal oil pipeline and it means the state will need a lot more commercial fuel trucks, not fewer.
It is going to get ugly.
Tuesday. Past my bedtime.
W1 has a working fancy ASUS laptop again. Domestic harmony is restored. Hurra.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that the Windows 11 “reset” procedure both worked and managed to retain most of W1’s data and settings, although none of her installed programs. I had to reinstall MS Office 2019 from her MS account, a job that took a lot of DDG-ing to figure out; MS really wants to sell you a subscription rather than let you re-download and install products you already paid for. Once the intertubes had told me how to do it, it worked, but it was sloooow, like everything else in this blessed Windows repair job. Had it been my lappy, I would have nuked it with Linux Mint and been done within the hour. Ah well. Let’s see how long Windows 11 lasts this time before it borks itself again – last time it was about six months from new, without actually being used very much.
If I think of it tomorrow, I will also install Libre Office on the laptop as well as MS Office.
Time for bed. Work tomorrow. Joy.
Goodnight!
Ewww…
MTG might be ok with the volume down, but JC?
Glad I don’t do internet porn (anymore). Never did pay for any.
Definite 2 bagger. As Redd Foxx used to say: “Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clear down to the bone!”
Rep. Jasmine Crockett Says ‘F**k You’ to Supreme Court Over Texas Redistricting
It is most hilarious watching Dumbocrats cry when “Rules For Radicals” is used against them. FAFO, bizatch.
6. A good tactic is one your people enjoy.
I’m enjoying rule 6 very much.
Fired again? I’m shocked. Shocked!
https://apnews.com/article/falcons-coach-gm-fired-morris-fontenot-69499fae4ba4d818adf1326ca61e20f6
Had a bit of ‘fun’ over the last few days.
Noticed that there was fluid dripping from the bottom of the domestic natural gas house boiler in the kitchen. Then noticed that there was water damage to paintwork focusing around the top edge of an adjacent window.
Went upstairs into the bathroom immediately above the problem area – pulled panels etc (designed to be removed), but could not find any water leakage. Noted that a header tank overflow pipe ran through the outer wall at approximately the appropriate location.
Went outside, and the outer wall below the overflow pipe was soaking wet/iced. But no current flow out of the pipe.
Went into the loft, examined the header tank, and the cutoff valve was dripping, but water level well below the overflow.
Examined the external overflow pipe, and found that it was tilted slightly upwards, so that when a limited overflow occurs, the water runs back to the wall. This in part explained why I was seeing internal water damage. Given the wall is a twin brick cavity wall, in theory, water should not cross the cavity. However, my observation is that the current boiler replaced an older model, which had some form of concrete layer at the bottom of a redundant and removed chimney, and this was creating the unfortunate bridge.
As the overflow pipe was copper, I used brute force to point the pipe slightly downwards, which should minimise the risk of future internal water damage. I also tried to fix the header tank valve with a new washer, but it was still dripping to a limited extent, so (prep success) I already had a replacement valve handy to the tank, which I duly installed. It would appear my problem is now resolved.
In conclusion, it would appear that when I ran the hot water (sourced from the header tank) the level dropped to the correct level, thus no leakage from the overflow. However, if no hot water was used for a period, then the dripping valve would overfill, resulting in the intermittent dripping from the external overflow pipe, which, ran the water to the wall, thus causing the evident water dripping and paintwork damage.
Exciting, what?
Today was nice. 81f. Sunny. Warm enough to shuck the t-shirt. Work on the tan and make some vit-d. Then the sweatpants come off. This lazy bum was cutting up carpet scraps, finally, after a few months of putting it off. I got hot. Middle of 25 acres? All I need it flip-flops. So, I saved a few roughly 4×4 scraps from the hallway carpet. Good doormat stuff.
The old 5×7 ish area rug, I sliced it into thirds the long way and rolled it up. Interesting how much it faded after a few months outside on the patio, mostly in the shade.
The carpet and rug have been “whatever” since I had the living room done with the vinyl plank stuff…. and then the hall way a month later. Back in June and July.
Yeah. I get it. I’m “depressed” or whatever. My give a shit meter just don’t give a shit. But I know it and I’m muddling through. Just figuring it out like everyone else.
Everything into the truck. Carpet scraps, that is.
And what the heck. It’s nice weather. Tomorrow is forecast to be the same as today. But suddenly I need cat food. So put on some clothes and shoes and go to Tractor Supply. Three bags of cat chow and one of Diamond lamb and rice for the dogs is a quick $145. I’m almost at the HEB so stop by there for some beer and sausages.
Great weather for early January. I plan to sit in a sunny spot with Buddy the Beagle and Penny tomorrow. Penny will be in the shade, but that’s Penny. After 15 minutes Buddy, as much as he likes to curl up in the sun, he gets hot and will want to go in the house. I might last another ten minutes.
Ya know, all in all, everything is good. Kind of quiet, but hey, no point complaining about what life gives you.
“SpaceX Faces More Pushback Over Plans to Launch 15K Cellular Starlink Satellites”
https://www.pcmag.com/news/spacex-faces-more-pushback-over-plans-to-launch-15k-cellular-starlink-satellites
“Concerns from rivals like Viasat and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin range from radio interference and orbital dominance to potentially harming the Earth’s atmosphere.”
Wow, are the satellites gonna burn up the atmosphere ?
Mamdani was “briefed”, as were we all, by X posts and video clips.
Stephen Miller Gives Epic Response When Jake Tapper Starts Freaking Out Over Venezuela
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/dmitri-bolt/2026/01/06/stephen-miller-blasts-jake-tapper-on-venezuela-n2668969
Pipe-Hitter First Class.
A few movies….
Hanging Up, A chick flick I suppose. But hey, Meg Ryan and Walter Matthau, give it a look.
The Ghost and the Darkness. Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas. Outstanding movie, for the scenery if naught else.
Spygame. Robert Redford and Brad Pitt. I like both actors. Good movie. The ending was a bit of a surprise to me.
Onto the re-watch stack.
I tried to watch Monsters, Inc the other night. “Collector’s Edition”. I managed to watch 15 minutes …. and part of that time was feeding the dogs. Too shrill and what’s with one eyed creatures? Trash pile. Errr, Library Thrift Shop stack.
“Concerns from rivals like Viasat and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin range from radio interference and orbital dominance to potentially harming the Earth’s atmosphere.”
Wow, are the satellites gonna burn up the atmosphere ?
— ah, their competitor, elon’s radio waves will cause interference and harm the atmosphere, but their own planned radio waves won’t, of course.
Hard to call them competitors when SpaceX has rockets that fly, and over 9000 spacecraft… and they don’t.
n
@paul, um, make sure the tender bits are not out in the sun too long… the itching might be uncomfortable. 🙂
n
Small tasks, but necessary took up the day.
The garage kerosene heater was getting stinky, for example. I am running a pint of Klean-Heat through it this evening instead of the usual k1 kerosene, doing a “dry burn” with the slightly hotter burning stuff. I usually run it on low so it is a bit eerie to see it glowing cherry red, out on the step.
Now, now, let’s not be mean: the Bezos constellation has severaldozen satellites currently (half launched by SpaceX).
I suppose one might more correctly refer to it as a *asterism*.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15436519/Maduros-capture-Tren-Aragua-activate.html
n
The US Might Seize That Runaway Oil Tanker After All
https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2026/01/06/the-us-might-seize-that-runaway-oil-tanker-after-all-n3810554
Speculation based on good evidence indicates that the Bella I is going to get boarded in the vicinity of the UK by a force assembling there.
I’d call 16 tankers out of 200 a low-hanging 8%.
If they are loaded with oil, chances are good that any payments did not go to the government of Venezuela. Theft on the high seas?
If they are not loaded then intercept one and put a “kinetic” round into the main thrusters.
These ships are not operating independently, they are getting orders from Putin.
Tesla knows which one of their Jesus Trucks is responsible.
— yeah, but the people aren’t alleging or blaming any of the features of the truck, no failure of the self driving, etc., their only point of attack is weight and how pointy it looks.
And there isn’t anything in the article to describe the circumstances of the accident – THEY could have crossed the line into his lane.
Musk is a target, and they are going for a payday in the most ridiculous way.
n
Jeez, the movie Serenity was 20 years ago. That means the show was even more. I’m old.
n
So much for early bedtime. I’m outie…
n
Since it is the “time between”, nobody will see this, but:
And don’t forget the sunscreen. I find that the more one puts on, the more one needs…
There was something about tool chests and testing them after a crash of some kind the other day. I can attest that one of my ancient 3-box towers of USA Craftsman tool cabinets survived a fall off a moving truck (run by idiots) which involved a couple of rotations before it ended. They were dented but still worked fine.
The Craftsman/Stanley metal cabinets have come down in price and are still assembled in Missouri. Since Craftsman abandoned the middle cabinet, some of my stacks in the garage are now red and black. I’m really digging the 52-inch red variety in my workshop. They are fairly reasonable these days.
Sorry for the sporadic posts; my time is not my own (in a good way.)
I wish you all a wonderful Epiphany of the Lord.
…and, yeah, the three cabinets were wrapped with plastic wrap to be a single unit and were still full of tools. I found a bunch of “missing” sockets under the bottom drawer, once it was removed.