Another beautiful day should be heading my way. Yesterday was as beautiful as the day before, and today should be the same. Sunny, warm, not super moist.
Didn’t get much done during the day. I have productive days, then a completely unproductive day. Tried to get dinner at D1’s new job, but the line was out the door again. I’ll get some yuppy burger later. I did get my pickup done, and swung by the “good” Goodwill out in Katy. Didn’t get anything good. Did have some uncomfortable side effects from the carb pill, so I was home most of the afternoon.
The pill didn’t limit the peak, btw, but did change the slope of the down side. It really extended the time it took for my sugar to get back down to ‘normal’, about an hour longer. Not sure I see much of a benefit, but we’ll keep exploring.
Today I’ve got a dentist appointment, with D2 coming along for hers too. I’ll be working around that time and the taxi commitments, maybe I’ll get some work done.
Or maybe not much.
I’m sure I’ll stack something though.
nick
Good luck with the fang doctor, Nick!
It’s a lovely spring-like sunny day here at the BOL. Temperatures were around freezing overnight, but it is warming up nicely now. I see my neighbour’s snowdrops are in blossom, and our daffodils won’t be far behind.
Alas, we have to return downhill to base today, so I will soon be back in warmer climes, where allergy season is in full swing. Yuck. I have to enjoy the pollen-free air while I can, so windows wide open during breakfast…
Anyhow, good morning and have a beautiful Monday!
Temp was in the low 40s yesterday afternoon. It’s about -5F currently, won’t get much above 0 today. (Subject to change, of course.) I’ll need to collect eggs several times today to try to prevent freezing. Chickens are all perched on something and floofed out. It seems that they should cluster together for warmth, but they do that only when a stiff, cold wind is blowing.
A few days ago, I went out with some lettuce. Most of the birds were out and followed me very attentively when they saw what I had. One was in the coop but when I said the magic words “Who wants a treat?”, there was a scramble from the coop and then she popped out as if she’d been launched by a slingshot. As soon as the lettuce was gone, she ran back up. Laying eggs is serious business, but treats are important!
I swear I saw neck tattoos on the early images.
Local Faux News rushed a camera crew out to Pflugerville when they received a tip that ATF was raiding the house where Diagne lived. Details were sketchy, but it seemed like Faux was hiding that multiple unrelated people lived there. The camera guy reported an encounter with the wife before ATF hauled her away for questioning.
Property of Allah. Direct from Central Casting with a stop at Wardrobe.
“Texas gunman”. Could be he’s really that much of a cartoon character. They aren’t known for high IQ.
—-
66F and brightening slowly.
—-
Let’s not forget the mass stabbing. Doesn’t have to be terrorism to ruin your day.
n
The new Chosen One has been making noise about gun control.
God help us all if Talarico wins the Dem primary on Tuesday and the Republicans enter a runoff.
Cornyn has said that he will make Paxton unelectable.
I must be getting soft in my old age. I’m teaching a (for them) advanced programming course to my trade school students. Grade inflation isn’t really a thing here – if I convert our scale to ABCDF, the average grade is probably a B- or C+. In the first exam the average was more like an A-. Hmmm…are they good, or do I need to be harder? I actually think this class is, in fact, that good.
Looking at faces: a couple of Asians, but no one from the Middle East or North Africa. Coincidence, I’m sure…
I spent 20+ years playing bad-ass, teaching (among other things) a weeder course with a 50% failure rate. It’s nice not to be doing that anymore.
@brad, weed out classes are important. So is feeling good about what you do though, so I’m glad you are getting some enjoyment from it.
n
@Brad: as long as your students are still softly humming “Where There’s a Whip, There’s a Way” you haven’t lost it.
They absolutely are, and I really didn’t mind being the bad guy. OTOH, it is wearing, especially since part of the time is spent fighting the school administration.
As for my somewhat cynical comment about where the students come from? In my college classes, in recent years, often the majority of the students were from the Middle East or Africa. I really wanted to keep my usual standards, but it just was not possible. Otherwise, I would have failed 3/4 of the classes, which the school admin definitely would not have accepted. Letting unqualified students through offends my professional pride, but thankfully that was only the last couple of years.
I hear that similar problems exist in the trade schools in big cities. Thankfully, I’m out in the mountains…
RefashonedHippie? She’s a hoot.
She could do voice acting for a living, I think.
Once upon a time, I thought there was a credible primary candidate to unseat the treasonous John McCain. So I made my first-ever political donation.
She failed, miserably and dramatically. But the fallout to me was awful, and may still be going on. The campaign sold my name and email address to every whackjob Republican and conservative grifter who came along. I got put on email lists and newsletters from a hundred sites. It took me months of “unsubscribe” to get away from that, and I still occasionally see cr*p in my inbox.
I’m saying this because I feel an urge to support the guy trying to fight Thomas Massie.
It has been said, in many times and many ways, that the Constitution is not a suicide pact.
Libertarianism, however, ultimately is one. It is as idealistic and anti-intellectual as communism. It is a utopian concept, which could only be achieved by perfect people with high IQ. L’s want open borders and unlimited free trade, which only hurts the U.S. They do nothing to recognize the threats to us from foreign entities and bad actors.
It pains me to notice this, as I was both libertarian and Libertarian at various times in the past. And Objectivist as well. I even left Objectivism behind due to Ayn Rand’s denial of the Libertarian party. It also pains me because Massie is one of the few in Congress with a sane outlook on vaccines, mandates, and Big Pharma.
But we can’t fight vaccines, mandates, and Big Pharma with a Democrat government, and what Massie and Paul are doing is fervently and consistently undermining efforts to unify.
The only thing stopping me from contributing to Ed Gallrein is the personal blowback.
Buck says refund the tariffs—to the consumers
https://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=418708
Yup.
Actually I’m fine with letting Trump use it to fund ICE.
But the main thing is, not one dime to the companies—they all raised prices.
Wow, a bowl of super sugar golden grahams hit me harder than a bowl of ice cream after a plate of chinese with rice.
Harder than a bowl of Cap’n Crunch for that matter.
———–
Time to do some things.
n
“Who Needs Matches? This Phone at Mobile World Congress Can Start Fires”
https://www.pcmag.com/news/hands-on-with-oukitel-wp63-mwc-2026
“In an emergency, a fire can save your life. The Oukitel WP63 rugged smartphone is not only massive, tough, and able to charge other phones, but also features a pop-out firestarter that can ignite kindling.”
I am fairly sure that the airlines will not like you having a fire starter on your phone.
This. I remember many moons ago a discussion here where Dr. Bob claimed libertarians would just build roads. I think everyone said what you did above. Only an achieved Libertarian Utopia would “just build roads”, but that is never going to happen.
I tell people I’m a Conservatarian, a conservative with libertarian leanings because goobermint just sucks not matter who runs it.
Well… most railroads were built with private money and most streets today are private developments. The Feddies today admit to ~30% of GDP, an egregious proportion wildly under estimated. Let’s talk again when collapse reduces that to something much less.
… and with government seizure or forced sale of private land to lay the tracks, and with government seizure and sale followed by protection of the land on the frontier. Public-private expense, private profit.
Because most current road work by governments is maintenance or improvement of existing roads. New streets are overwhelmingly for new housing or office developments. Initial construction of the streets is a requirement for the permit, then the streets’ ownership and upkeep are turned over to the local government. HOAs, gated communities, and similar groups may continue to own their streets as a corporation but that’s just a variation of the theme.
I’m concerned about the influence of having a slightly-to-the-right-of-Stalin management at CNN, if that actually happens.
Right now, it’s safe to say that if CNN says it, it’s either wrong or a lie.
If they mix in a little truth, it ruins the purity of that algorithm.
I wouldn’t worry about it. Once a liar, always a liar. Falsus in uno, falso in omnibus. One cup of sewage in the punchbowl.
“Trump approves ‘serious money ask’ to build Texas desalination plant”
https://www.chron.com/news/article/trump-texas-desalination-21947422.php
“Corpus Christi could run out of water by 2027.”
Corpus has plenty of money for DIE spending. Why don’t they use that for their water needs ?
“Reports”
https://areaocho.com/reports/
“22 Pakis were killed while discovering US embassies are sovereign US territory guarded by armed US Marines.”
“I’ve also seen reports that, for the first time since 1945, a US submarine sank an enemy ship with a torpedo. Another report i saw says the ship sunk was a submarine stalking the Abraham Lincoln. I can’t confirm at this point. If it was in fact a submarine, this would be the first sinking of any submarine by an SSN. EVER.”
Cool and Cool !
“The Precipice”
https://www.schiffsovereign.com/trends/the-precipice-154465/
“The first is that—regardless of how someone feels about this conflict— World War III is LESS LIKELY today than it was on Friday. And it’s not hard to understand why.”
“US military capabilities have been on full display this year— first in Venezuela, where special operations forces managed to extract one of the world’s most tightly protected dictators… and it was over in a matter of hours.”
“Only weeks later we see total dominance of Iran’s air defense systems— most of which are Russian or Chinese technology.”
“In other words, China and Russia saw their military technology completely embarrassed by the United States. And this unmitigated defeat makes them both less interested in taking on America’s military.”
“More importantly, Russia is completely depleted after four years of war in Ukraine. China’s military has almost no combat experience and has never had to project power beyond the South China Sea.”
“So while they’ll certainly phone in their condemnations and strongly worded tweets, these countries have neither the capacity nor the inclination for war.”
I agree. WW III is way less likely now.
Even though Kuwait “accidentally” shot down three of our F-15s Saturday.
And he is right, this may make a Civil War in the USA more likely now.
That’s raycess!!!! Hater!!!
I almost moved to Corpus while in college. Seemed like a nice school. The town was nice compared to say, Brownsville or Reynosa, But overall the place gave me the creeps. There was a vibe…
While it’s true that DEI hires are mostly water, it’s not potable water. After rendering them down and extracting the water, it would have to be desalinated and purified, which puts you right back where you started.
“California Law Forces Age-Tracking Into Every Operating System by 2027”
https://reclaimthenet.org/california-ab-1043-os-age-verification-law
“California wants to build a surveillance layer into every device its residents touch. Assembly Bill 1043, signed by Governor Gavin Newsom and taking effect January 1, 2027, requires every operating system provider to collect age information from users at account setup and broadcast that data to app developers through a real-time API.”
“Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, Linux distributions, Valve’s SteamOS: if it runs an operating system, it’s covered by this overreaching law.”
Not gonna happen. Severe invasion of privacy there.
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/
I woke the Lexmark printer. CX410de. Opened Printers and there it was, my printer. Printed a test page just fine.
I tried to scan to this PC and I don’t have permission. But the printer sees Mint. I’ll figure this out. Maybe I have to reboot?
Then while I’m on a roll, let’s try the ever finicky Dymo label printer. Ok, found a driver for it. Found a GUI label printing program on github but I have no idea how to install it. I tried printing from Text Editor but, nope. On one website someone said they use LibreOffice. I’ll give that a try. I don’t print many labels. I just have it because it seemed like a cool thing to have. I can address Christmas cards by hand.
@Lynn:
This Dan Simmons Story Has The Sci-Fi Gatekeepers FURIOUS!
“Muslim parent sues over Texas voucher program’s block on Islamic schools”
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/texas-voucher-program-sued-islamic-school-block-21950414.php
“A Houston-area parent is suing state officials, accusing them of religious discrimination for barring Islamic schools from participating in Texas’ private school voucher program.”
“The plaintiff, Mehdi Cherkaoui, alleges the state has “systematically targeted Islamic schools for exclusion” from the $1 billion tuition support program, preventing Muslim families from applying and using the state money at a school of their choice.”
“His suit appears to be the first legal challenge to the voucher program that Republican lawmakers pitched last year as a way to help families afford private education, including at religious schools.”
Yup, I knew this was going to happen.
In 3, 2, 1… The PLT turdbuckets that run the Doomsday Clock will move it closer to midnight.
Less nuke capable terrorist nations, tRump, tho.
I’ve watched several YT vids on this. This would go away if OS makers would say suck it. But, they are too big PLT pussies. The consensus is Linux would do nothing since so many people are involved in the kernel.
Texas should pass a bill that Islam is not a religion.
LOL
‘I’m done with this!’ Shocking moment Hillary Clinton storms out of Epstein deposition
She’ll be back before the arrest warrant is issued.
The article even says Lauren Dumbert took the pic before the session started.
Someone with what looks like insider knowledge made a shiteton of money on polymarket betting on the attack on Iran.
Of COURSE lefties are up in arms about war profiteering and various other supposed crimes and the involvement of Trump friends and family.
So I replied – ok now do carbon credits trading, Hillarity’s futures contracts, and Hunter Bindon’s million dollar artworks…
n
Don’t forget Crone Pelosi’s 5 figure % return on investment during her time in Congress.
Texas should pass a bill that Islam is not a religion.
The USA should declare Islam to be a terrorist organization.
@refashionedhippie
Yep, she’s hilarious.
n
@refashionedhippie
Yep, she’s hilarious.
n
“The world that rich people live in is so different from ours. I wonder if it rains there ?”
The people who live in Massie’s distrct will decide when Massie needs to go.
The manufacturing jobs are not coming back beyond whatever jerbs are necessary to build the sex robot infrastructure.
I worked in a circuit board manufacturing facility right out of college. The novelty wore off after about six weeks.
Critical background to understanding
How Iran Trying to Punk President Trump on a Deal Went Terribly Wrong, and Why No One Should Try It
https://redstate.com/streiff/2026/03/02/how-iran-trying-to-punk-president-trump-on-a-deal-went-terribly-wrong-and-why-no-one-should-try-it-n2199750
relies heavily on:
Marc Caputo, the White House reporter for Axios, has a revealing X post on how the negotiations unraveled from the perspective of the White House. The thread is lengthy and image-heavy, so I’m not going to embed it, but I encourage you to read the whole thing.
The mullahs having nuclear weapons would be no less dangerous than giving 400-lb psychotic syphilitic weasels automatic weapons and the keys to elementary schools worldwide.
Hearing Democrats criticize the removal of that crowd confirms that they are the most dangerous existential threat to the United States. Barrack Obama and Susan Rice should be found guilty of treason and hanged. To start.
Almost No One Needs College Algebra Anymore
https://hotair.com/headlines/2026/03/02/almost-no-one-needs-college-algebra-anymore-n3812425
How about we just call “college” without algebra and calculus what it is, which is a watered down exercise in education whose real purpose is a) credentialism; b) woke indoctrination, and c) imposing a crushing burden on debt on the white majority. “Skool” would be intellectually accurate.
In 9th grade, in Mobile, I had one of the top ten school teachers I ever had. Algebra. I’m not nuts about math. Too much being yelled at to memorize the times tables. Being a stubborn sort, I never did.
But I can add in my head pretty fast. I’ve managed decently. I figure I just do math differently. Shrug.
Anyway. Algebra. She made it interesting. And dast I say, fun. A couple of months before the school year ended she announced that we had been doing trig and calculus since the Christmas holidays. Lots of kids acted freaked out. I’m like “cool!”.
Perhaps the best class I had in all of high school.
Then we moved to Texas. La Joya High didn’t require any more math classes. Heck, they didn’t require much of anything…. other than showing up.
I’m a math guy. one quarter of my college classes were math. For a BSCS in those days, you needed an area of specialization, and math was one of the choices.
I don’t insist that everyone needs to know all of higher mathematics. I only used it a few times in my 45 year IT career. But knowing the math is different from knowing what math can do. And if you don’t know what math can do, you’re much more likely to throw up your hands and declare your problems unsolvable. You’re more likely to take the work of “experts”. Never really contemplated big, Earth-sized numbers? You’ll buy the climate change fraud. You’ll accept NGO fraud is “reasonable”. You’ll sign student loan papers without being able to see what they actually cost in the long term.
Take “useless” matrices, for instance. The simplex algorithm has been around for 75 years now, and there are huge problems in resource management, economy, mixes of all sorts including everything from dog food to crop allocation in land to refinery operation. Minimizing resources while maximizing output or profit.
I had the idea to look up “flowbee”. I use to see it advertised on TV. Maybe $40?
Well, you can buy the whole shebang complete with a small canister vacuum cleaner. Or buy the system without the vacuum and use your own. But still, $120 seems kind of pricey.
Not needing to have a great haircut for work, plus not caring what folks at the grocery store think, I’ve been cutting my hair. Get it out of my ears and out of my eyes.
Yeah, sometimes I goof and give myself whitewalls over my ears. It grows back. The rest is pretty much “scoop up a handful of hair with one hand and use the beard trimmer to cut off what is beyond my fingers”. Probably have some weird layering effect on the back of my head. But I can’t see it so it doesn’t exist.
It works.
Matrices are at the core of the monkey trick. The GPUs multiply extremely large probability matrices quickly during the training of the LLMs.
Have you ever seen the “Wayne’s World” movie?
The Flowbee makes an appearance at the beginning of the flick.
I remember the price tag being “four easy payments of $19.95” back at that time.
I don’t think the device ever went out of production, but “Waynes World” pretty much killed the market.
Hecho en USA. Or was back pre-Clintons.
Absolutely.
I’m a math guy. one quarter of my college classes were math. For a BSCS in those days, you needed an area of specialization, and math was one of the choices.
I don’t insist that everyone needs to know all of higher mathematics. I only used it a few times in my 45 year IT career. But knowing the math is different from knowing what math can do. And if you don’t know what math can do, you’re much more likely to throw up your hands and declare your problems unsolvable. You’re more likely to take the work of “experts”. Never really contemplated big, Earth-sized numbers? You’ll buy the climate change fraud. You’ll accept NGO fraud is “reasonable”. You’ll sign student loan papers without being able to see what they actually cost in the long term.
Take “useless” matrices, for instance. The simplex algorithm has been around for 75 years now, and there are huge problems in resource management, economy, mixes of all sorts including everything from dog food to crop allocation in land to refinery operation. Minimizing resources while maximizing output or profit.
I have 18 hours of college math, 15 hours of which was various calculus courses. I use math extensively in my job, whether I was a plant engineer, a roving system engineer, or writing chemical process simulation software. Engineering is all about applying math to various tasks.
I stumbled across a youtube clip called Star Trek： DS9 – Dukat schools Weyoun.
Weyoun is from the Dominion. I simply don’t like the guy. Gul Dukat, yeah, he’s a bad guy but he’s honest about it.
So in this clip Dukat is about halfway into a bottle of whiskey.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDpxuWj2A7o
Major vendors can’t ship Linux pre-installed on machines sent to California.
As with cars, general purpose computers are going away for most people.
Jeffrey Combs is brilliant as Weyoun, however.
If the Ellisons give Bakula his chance to finish Archer’s story, Combs must return as Shran.
No matter how much liquor he consumed, Dukat couldn’t remove the baseball.
No problem. Set the machine to boot from a USB drive and put the OS there. Call the USB stick “a free gift”. Just like what I just did to install Mint on this machine.
If I remember correctly, there’s supposed to be a lunar eclipse on the morning of March 3. Between 5 and 6 AM Central time.
I might be up to see it. But odds are that it will be cloudy. Like most mornings.
Cali seems hell bent on destroying everything.
n
What does the law say bout existing systems? Isn’t there a law that you can’t just make something that was legal, illegal w/out a grandfather for existing formerly legal things?
Every tv, set top box, apple product, cars, all the new smart washing machines, fridges, even toasters with wifi have an OS.
It should just mean that not one single new thing gets sold in Cali again, kinda like Cuba.
n
Redneck rock um sock um robots
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/HuwGTKf2Uy0?feature=share
I like.
n
@lpdbw
Matrices are bloody useless in this context and could get booted
Take “useless” matrices, for instance. The simplex algorithm has been around for 75 years now, and there are huge problems in resource management, economy, mixes of all sorts including everything from dog food to crop allocation in land to refinery operation. Minimizing resources while maximizing output or profit.
Missed the qualifier? The second is not the same as the first.
I used to teach simplex method as part of a “calculus lite” course designed to meet the single math course requirement for non-STEM majors. I will guarantee you two things:
@lynn
“I have 18 hours of college math, 15 hours of which was various calculus courses. I use math extensively in my job, whether I was a plant engineer, a roving system engineer, or writing chemical process simulation software. Engineering is all about applying math to various tasks.”
To a large extent so is chemistry.
And there is a lot of math that is useful in the physical world inhabited by adults. Calculus was invented to describe physics. We push calculus in college as a gatekeeping class that screens for intelligence and perseverance but does little to teach non-STEM students a darn thing.
“How about we just call “college” without algebra and calculus what it is, which is a watered down exercise in education whose real purpose is a) credentialism; b) woke indoctrination, and c) imposing a crushing burden on debt on the white majority. “Skool” would be intellectually accurate.”
When I wrote that earlier I was implicitly including anti-Semitism as part of “woke indoctrination”.
Upon reflection I would list is separately.
“roving system engineer”
Teela Brown?
“roving system engineer”
Teela Brown?
https://larryniven.fandom.com/wiki/Teela_Brown
Nope, this was on Earth for our little part of the Texas grid, ERCOT. We covered 600 miles east to west from Texarkana to Odessa, including Dallas and Fort Worth. And we covered 400 miles north to south from Wichita Falls to Rockdale. All with thousands of miles of 345,000 volt transmission lines with 125 generating units, 109 steam turbines and 16 gas turbines. Plus around 200 diesels from old 10 cylinder submarine engines, 1,250 hp, to supercharged V16 locomotive engines, 2,500 hp. We generated and sold 45% of the power in Texas while I worked at TXU.
After being out of school for a couple decades, suddenly I was aligning physical things in 3d space for my job. Lots of circles and segments of circles, lots of triangles and pyramid sections…
I knew I could do it with math and measuring tapes, string lines and laser levels, but I needed serious refreshing or my trig skills. With a little practical application, I could do layout faster and better than guys with theodolites and total stations.
I ended up doing a lot of drawing review too, and would find so many errors in the guys’ calcs based on their computer models and 3d simulations that they never caught because they never got out in the real world and had to measure anything.
Trig, geometry, simple algebra and basic circle math covers almost everything you run into in the real physical world that most tradesmen or technicians will run into . Engineers need more. Scientists need more. Everyone else only needs to KNOW there is more, so they know to go up a level when they need to. And so they can understand why the upper level has authority.
There are a lot of formulas to apply in the skilled trades once you are journeyman or master level.
Being able to do the math is important.
n
NB – I started college in engineering at a small university in the midwest. The weed out classes weeded me out. And they were right to do so. I didn’t have the mindset or temperament for engineering. I do have a Fine Arts degree, even if I spent most of my last career, and big chunks of my other previous careers, doing engineer stuff. I did have real degreed engineers to back up my sketches and turn them into real things.
Also, I never did ‘get’ calculus. My college course was taught by a TA from the subcontinent with a thick accent, and no aptitude for teaching. Eventually, to fill my science requirement, I took the only qualifying science course to graduate, that didn’t need calculus.
Dadgumit Tucker Carlson, I am done. Your refusal to see the big picture that Trump just cut the legs off Russia and China is too much for me. Have a good life.
https://rumble.com/v76j6vm-tucker-carlson-the-last-person-to-say-no-to-israel-was-jfk.html
I never bought fully into Tucker, so I’m not invested in his weirdness.
—–
Tonight I was inspired by Paul’s kitchen adventures and a craving for fried chicken, and since I had some extra time, I made dinner “from scratch”, sorta. I did use cans, mixes, and shelf stable items. Turned out perfect and delicious.
—–
I set tomorrow’s post to go live at 03:03 on 03/03/2026 because I like the silliness of it.
But now I’m going to bed.
Dunno who I’ll vote for tomorrow. If I had my druthers, I’d vote No on every @sshole that sent me a political text or junk flyer in the mail, with special emphasis on those who did it more than once. But. Realpolitik will win the day and I’ll hold my nose.
Sometimes awful is the best you get.
n
I wondered if Teela Brown thought she was lucky, or if she’d have preferred to be somewhere else, doing anything else.
I loved the Ringworld books and even used Louis Wu as a pen name in high school. Big space opera. It’s what I grew up with.
n