Should be a really nice day today. Clear, moderately warm, even a bit of lowered humidity. Yesterday was like that and it was great. I’m really hoping… and I’m right at least as often as the pros.
Spent yesterday doing my pickups, and the rest of the task list at the rent house. Spent part of that time chatting with my renter’s dad. Nice guy. I was actually waiting for the washer and dryer to run a cycle so I was sure they were working (connected) properly. It’s not rocket science, but I don’t want a water or gas leak. Everything was fine.
Today I’ve got my non-prepping hobby, meeting for the first time in a new (hopefully temporary) space. We’ve already been impacted by normal church operations as they have a funeral today and we will be adjusting to accommodate them. One of the downsides of borrowed spaces, especially in churches.
After that, I’ll be working the list.
Always be working… and stacking.
nick
Here at the BOL too, at least for people who enjoy snow! It started about 8pm last night, and twelve hours later, it is still snowing. Everything is white.
Good morning!
Just lean into it, live with it and talk like a pirate.
And then a monkey did post… 🙂
Sorry for the light posting yesterday, Chicken Boy!
I had a busy work day, then I found myself down a research rabbit hole.
The shooting club at the BOL asked me to give a talk with some tips and tricks about competitive shooting. It turns out that the game they play in these parts – 100m .22lr rifle bullseye (open or diopter sights only) from a supported, standing position is rather unique, and hasn’t been studied much (or at all) in terms of techniques and optimisation.
I went off at a tangent, looking at training aids for the Olympic target disciplines and biathlon, which are similar games, but not quite the same. I found some leads for training techniques that will probably cross over. The club had its AGM last night, and I even found a couple of volunteer guinea pigs on whom to test my theories.
Do any of you Linux users have a good way to capture the video stream while watching YouTube?
I want to compile a few snippets from shooting training videos, where the originals are too long and/or narrated in the wrong language.
https://www.4kdownload.com/-54
The injectors are also a part which will be carefully tracked for service time by the manufacturer and railroads, with everyone in the chain having a vested interest in knowing exactly when the parts will fail and the manufacturer making it right.
As the Geico Gecko pointed out multiple times since acquiring BNSF, railroads are the most capital intensive businesses in the US right now.
I can’t even imagine a museum railroad like Tennessee Valley doing returns fraud with something like that. We got a complete history of the locomotives pulling our train last Fall when we went on the Hiawassee Loop ride, and it was obvious someone there took great care of their equipment.
OTOH, as I’ve pointed out before, one of the weaknesses of my generation is the $20 Reebok obsession, and we are usually in charge of complicated things being sandwiched between the Boomer managers and the Millennials in work situations right now. It is possible someone running a locomotive committed fraud.
Or fine Chinesium that never made it to its destination.
youtube-dl
I haven’t used it lately, however.
IIRC, it installs with Pip, but I would suggest using a virtual environment and not contaminating your system Python.
Once you have the download, convert using HandBrake. If you are making a DVD, ffmpeg produces both NTSC and PAL video.
Getting ready to head out. Thought I’d check in…
54F and clear. I’m a bit sleepy and I forgot to bring my show and tell home from the shop, so meeting will be very slightly shorter today.
Changed my glucose sensor to the other arm, so we’ll see if it was the arm, sleeping on it, or something else putting jitter into the graph. That also means I’ve got six weeks of data so far. I am learning things every day.
n
Cool start to the morning in North AL. Woke up to 44 degrees, though it will be 70 degrees by noon.
I can’t believe 4 years have passed so quickly. My son graduates in May (aerospace engineering) and just accepted a job at a big defense contractor. He will be in South AL, so only 4 hours away.
Life moves pretty fast…
Another “dead mall” video from Dan Bell, but what I find interesting with this one is the abandoned Hollister & Co. store at the 10:36 mark.
One of my wife’s subordinates literally went bankrupt shopping for her kids’ clothes in one of those stores, all financed on Capital One plastic.
I’ve often wondered how many staff psychologists Hollister & Co.’s parent had on the payroll to help design those facades.
Maybe some retail shouldn’t be re-learned.
Having subsidized that and other stupidity for a decade at my wife’s office, I have a really profane name for that chain that I won’t disclose, even here, I’ll leave it at Bankruptcy & Co.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpnWKwaaltw
Pi day – enjoy.
Monkey post;
3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445923078164062862089986280348253421170679…
Rookie.
3.1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 5028841971 6939937510
5820974944 5923078164 0628620899 8628034825 3421170679
8214808651 3282306647 0938446095 5058223172 5359408128
4811174502 8410270193 8521105559 6446229489 5493038196
4428810975 6659334461 2847564823 3786783165 2712019091
4564856692 3460348610 4543266482 1339360726 0249141273
7245870066 0631558817 4881520920 9628292540 9171536436
7892590360 0113305305 4882046652 1384146951 9415116094
3305727036 5759591953 0921861173 8193261179 3105118548
0744623799 6274956735 1885752724 8912279381 8301194912
9833673362 4406566430 8602139494 6395224737 1907021798
6094370277 0539217176 2931767523 8467481846 7669405132
0005681271 4526356082 7785771342 7577896091 7363717872
1468440901 2249534301 4654958537 1050792279 6892589235
4201995611 2129021960 8640344181 5981362977 4771309960
5187072113 4999999837 2978049951 0597317328 1609631859
5024459455 3469083026 4252230825 3344685035 2619311881
7101000313 7838752886 5875332083 8142061717 7669147303
5982534904 2875546873 1159562863 8823537875 9375195778
1857780532 1712268066 1300192787 6611195909 2164201989
3809525720 1065485863 2788659361 5338182796 8230301952
0353018529 6899577362 2599413891 2497217752 8347913151
5574857242 4541506959 5082953311 6861727855 8890750983
8175463746 4939319255 0604009277 0167113900 9848824012
8583616035 6377608258 2011659993 3281609631 5588174881
8321112020 6622902026 4252230825 3344685035 2619311881
…
Forget the numbers. A big slice of cherry ala mode would be better.
Grocery store has 9-in fruit pies for $3.14.
Well, we are both pikers compared to some folk:
https://nerds.xyz/2026/03/backblaze-314-trillion-digits-pi/
Judges get panties in twist over indelicate language in dissent
https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2026/03/13/an-amusing-dissent-to-the-9th-circuit-n3812825
Courts should be relocated to urban renewal areas, with open parking lots and public restrooms only.
Part of the job requirements for judges and all elected positions should be enrolling kids in public schools conveniently located near the courthouse–no wealthy suburbs.
Pi is easy with digital computers.
Imagine making a mistake in your life’s work:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shanks
Could we say that from 1853 to 1873 he labored for nought?
I can remember PI to 3.14159 and figure that is close enough. The other approximation (aren’t they all) is to use 355/113 on a simple calculator. Scientific calculators have PI as a standard key, taken to 10 digits. Just six digits of PI is enough for most calculations, 10 digits exceeds those requirements by a lot. I cannot imagine a use for 314 trillion digits of PI. I guess it was done, just because it could be done. The other use is to just pick a spot in the string and use the necessary sized string of numbers for a random number. But then how does a person make the selection location truly random. I know! Ask Billy Gates, the self-proclaimed master of random number generator functions.
I use a browser extension called Video Download Helper. I haven’t tried it with YouTube, but it works on some of the sketchy old movie sites. It’s been a while since I tried it, though.
==========================
I keep my beard shorter than an inch, and I use an Andis electric clipper I bought at Sally’s Beauty Supply. It’s similar to this one. It has multiple cutter attachments. I use a very short one on my mustache, a short one on the underside of my chin, and a slightly longer one on the rest of my face. All this assumes you want the shape of the beard to contour, more or less, to the shape of your face.
For an inch long, you may need to buy extra deep clipper attachments. If you want it cropped square at the bottom, you’re on your own.
FWIW, Great Clips does beard trimming if you’re not ready to try it on your own. They also have senior prices for haircuts and some of their stylists speak English. Some.
Your calculator probably isn’t any more acurate than 10 digits. My HP 48GX and 50G aren’t.
My SwissMicros DM42 is accurate out to 32 digits, but that isn’t really needed for any real-world work.
Gates PRNG is the stuff of nightmares.
The legend is that he cookbooked it out of Knuth and no one dares change it in VC++.
It may be that someone depends on that value being the same, kinda like the way -1 gets interpreted into a date value in Excel, a holdover from a bug in Lotus 123 which has come up here before.
I learned chemistry and physics with a slide rule, and measurement using rulers, scales, calibrated cylinders, and measuring meniscus appropriately.
One way to get points off your work is to exceed the significant digits. If all your measurements are to a tenth of an inch, using pi to 10 digits and giving the result to 10 digits is just wrong.
Later, in my computer science numerical methods class, we took these principles to their logical extension.
I probably need to revisit it, but when I read about Mandelbrot and Chaos theory, I couldn’t help but think of it as just examples of extended rounding error, and not some great revelation.
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=first+300+digits+of+pi
Change the number in the URL to whatever you would like.
I paid for “Video Downloader ULTIMATE”, some nominal fee years back. Updated soon enough when YouTube implements changes to make downloading difficult/impossible.
“Youtube Downloader HD” is a freebie seems okay, too.
Age restricted videos and most movies don’t work with either of these, usually.
Trump Invokes Cold War Emergency Law to Restart California’s Offshore Oil—Newsom Vows to Fight Back
https://redstate.com/joesquire/2026/03/14/trump-emergency-powers-california-offshore-oil-newsom-n2200214
“the use of the Defense Production Act to compel a private company to resume production from idled infrastructure as unprecedented. “
Unprecedented does not mean it’s not covered by the statute.
It’s also unprecedented that the State of California be in the hands of a bunch of destructive jackasses.
“a political stunt that would contribute just 0.05 percent to total global crude output and do nothing to lower gas prices at the pump.”
Yeah, but let’s look at the percentage of California’s oil consumption and then talk about effect on prices. 50,000 bbl/day x 20 gal/bbl is 1,000,000 gallons of gasoline per day into the California market. No effect on prices my patootie.
Classic Trump–he wins either way:
Cali prevails or delays, the scheduled disruptions further restrict the price of gas in the state, and gas prices continue going up after the mullahs are gone. All on Gavin and his merry crew of energy and economic illiterates.
Fedgov prevails, prioritizes fuel for military and civilian aviation, with the leftover coming to the market after the price spikes due to refinery closures and other California missteps and driving prices back down. Trump says “When you fill up in California, just consider that my policies are saving you $3 a gallon.”
Sure. Nought, and also 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9.
That was fun. Broke the Pi. Something about “root is locked”. Ok, back to the drawing board!
whose operators are facing criminal charges
I guess nuisance is not a believer in due process or assumption of innocence…
And everyone in the country is one bad traffic stop away from “facing criminal charges”, so I’d be very careful about using that phrase to demonize someone…
———–
Missed that it was Pi day. Home from my meeting. I’ve got another assignment for our big show in the Fall, but I volunteered.
Need to get with W and find out what the termite guy said.
n
This is really cool. A custom mRNA vaccine to kill a tumor in a dog.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/technology/tech-boss-uses-afi-and-chatgpt-to-create-cancer-vaccine-for-his-dying-dog/news-story/292a21bcbe93efa17810bfcfcdfadbf7
“JUST IN: Jury Finds Nine Antifa Members Guilty of Terrorism Charges in Attack on Texas ICE Detention Center”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/03/just-jury-finds-nine-antifa-members-guilty-terrorism/
“Last 4th of July, nearly a dozen Antifa members dressed in black bloc and body armor descended on the Prairieland ICE Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas.”
“The terrorists fired off explosives, vandalized federal vehicles, and fired shots at police officers.”
“A police officer was shot in the neck.”
“The defendants were found guilty on riot charges, providing material support to terrorists, conspiracy to use and carry an explosive, and using and carrying an explosive, three counts of attempted murder of an officer, three counts of discharging a firearm during a violent crime, corruptly concealing a document and conspiracy to conceal documents.”
The wheels of justice move slow but they do move.
“Better Signal: 1,600 Starlink Satellites Move Into Lower Orbits”
https://www.pcmag.com/news/better-signal-1600-starlink-satellites-move-into-lower-orbits
“SpaceX CEO Elon Musk suggests Starlink users will get better signal quality after the company lowers approximately 4,400 satellites by about 70 kilometers.”
Cool.
I wonder what the status on launching the other 995,600 satellites is.
mRNA tech still needs extensive testing which Moderna and Pfizer want to shortcut.
The next pandemic kabuki will involve a deadlier virus.
Und kampfs for ze Skippy.
https://socialgalactic.com/images/posts/c1ee628d-d2c7-4184-9405-742a80ce6e7f/medium-3faca83d095ec53567393d034849a31a.png?v=63940718663
I won’t go to the camp, alive. And I wonder how many cops will enforce it when it gets dangerous to enforce. Riding roughshod over people’s rights and the constitution just to collect your pension is one thing. Being in fear every time you step out of the police station is another.
Refresh my memory: How many scoped deer rifles are there in the United States? How many men who can hit a slowly moving target at 400m and who have the discipline to get into position and not move for three hours?
I won’t go to the camp, alive. And I wonder how many cops will enforce it when it gets dangerous to enforce. Riding roughshod over people’s rights and the constitution just to collect your pension is one thing. Being in fear every time you step out of the police station is another.
It won’t be locals. It will be contract mercenaries brought in from elsewhere, such as Mexico or India.
The wind is being a nuisance, blowing the “door” of the run open repeatedly, plus ruffling the chickens’ feathers and blowing a bunch of other things around in run and elsewhere in the yard. To be expected, in this location and time of year, but still a nuisance.
I was gone most of the day. When I got back after seven hours or so, I found that four of the chickens had escaped. However, they all came running to me as soon as they realized I was there, then ran into the run as soon as I held the door open for them. Getting out and scratching in the dirt under the bushes is all well and good, but they know where home and safety are, as well as food, water, and the rest of the flock.
You want to kick off a pogrom that will kill everyone with non-White skin? That’s how you do it.
Refresh my memory: How many scoped deer rifles are there in the United States? How many men who can hit a slowly moving target at 400m and who have the discipline to get into position and not move for three hours?
Which caliber do you want to count ?
Do they all have be scoped ?
Only five round mags or do 20 round and 30 round mags count ?
You want to kick off a pogrom that will kill everyone with non-White skin? That’s how you do it.
Civil War 2.0 is going to be brutal and it is headed down the tracks at 100 mph.
Being cheap, er, economical, I bought two micro SD cards. It was like $20 for one or $30 for two. I bought a Pi 3B+ or something like that. I wanted the onboard ports instead of dongles.
Installed the Raspberry Pi OS on an SD card on this machine. Stuffed the card into the Pi. Pretty nice actually. I mean, it’s snappy enough to surf the web. Plays videos on web pages. I don’t know about editing pictures but the viewer was pretty quick to display. It’s a tiny PC about the size of a pack of Camels that you could use double sided foam tape to stick it on the back of your monitor. Sucker is pretty amazing, I think it’s rated to use 5 watts of power but I think it’s closer to 3 watts. Ever touch a 7 watt incandescent night lite bulb?
Well I goofed it today. Not actually surprised. Actually laughing at myself.
Once I figured how to open the package, I inserted the spare SD card in my PC. Why do I need a toothpick to push the card into the slot? Downloaded “piCorePlayer11.1.0-64Bit”. Un-zipped it and double clicked on the img file. Mint knew what to do. Where to install this? On the SD card of course.
piCorePlayer needs Ethernet to finish installing. Wi-fi is not a default install but can be added. I spent half an hour looking for a cable long enough to go from here to the switch in the next room. After that, zoom zoom. Best of all, it has options to mount your external USB connected drive. Automatically. And then it starts the music server program. Which was today’s project that I goofed up. Anyway, I think the entire OS is about 8Gb. There’s no GUI on the monitor. It’s just DOS looking stuff. It’s made to connect via a browser from another machine.
It’s all actually I need. Or want.
After looking at settings, taking the defaults, I re-booted it. Then gave it a fixed IP address. Rebooted again and then installed the Lyrion server software. Interesting differences from the older version I’m use to using. Kinda neat that it d/l album covers and other info and even some lyrics.
Why a fixed address? So I know i can go to 192.168.0.5 to access piCorePlayer and 192.168.0.5:9000 to access the server software. I mean, I don’t want to deal with looking in my router to see what is connected where.
Moa isn’ t going away. Moa is going to be turned off. If I need a PC in the EDC for whatever reason, Moa is ready to go.
A few more tweaks of settings and figuring how to connect with Filezilla and I’ll be good.
I think I might have spent more time writing this post than it took to install piCorePlayer and the server software.
Low carb lunch is completely canceled by 6 cookies. I just woke back up. Like being sledgehammered.
Nice day though.
n
Rats Are Jumping Ship: Is the Iranian Regime Relocating to Canada?
https://pjmedia.com/tim-o-brien/2026/03/14/is-the-iranian-regime-relocating-to-canada-n4950644
Giving citizenship to butchers?
The U.S. needs to get a list of the 700, put them on a no-entry list, pass the list to the new government of Iran when it emerges, and support their claim if they designate any as war criminals and demand their return.
Nice day for a coma, apparently.
Do We Really Need Laws and Regulations Governing Space Exploration?
https://pjmedia.com/rick-moran/2026/03/14/do-we-really-need-laws-and-regulations-governing-space-exploration-n4950634
A nice introduction with some links worth following.
I can think of a few laws and regulations that would be worthwhile.
Or, depending on what we find, maybe only one rule is needed:
Do not piss off Dahak.
Giving citizenship to butchers?
– SOP for Canada. Financial aid too.
n
Well, there goes Tony’s Mars plans.
Right. Assuming you want to and are able to go, hang out, and get back, that’s over a 3 year commitment. Launch windows are a thing.
More likely, it’s a one-way trip, for the first people. Hopefully, in the “settler” and “colonist” sense, not the “failed expedition” sense. Though I expect shortened lifetimes for the first people.
You can’t quit in the middle. So your contract with SpaceX is binding and uncancelable.
Just like indentured servitude.
20 years ago – perhaps even 10 years ago – I’d have jumped at that opportunity to die on Mars. Now that I’m old and feeble, I’m staying put until the end right here in Texas. And I no longer have any skills that would be valuable in a pioneer economy.
I wrote down the passwords. Seems like I’m doing something wrong to connect with Filezilla. I’ll figure is out. Tomorrow.
Anyway. I sat down in The Chair around 6:30. Pulled my legs up, sitting sort of crossed legged and my feet are warm. With half a headache and thinking, ya know, if I didn’t have dogs I’d just go to bed right now. And I watched the sunlight lighting up the dust/dog hair under the TV stand. Sure. I’d be wide awake at 2am but hey, I could make First Post, right?
Next I knew it was 7:30. I do not take naps. And Penny was staring at me. Now she has the chair, Looks rather happy, too. I’m groggy, not grouchy mean like I usually get after a nap, and I’m just starving hungry.
And what’s there to eat? Without cooking? Jelly beans. Some stale pretzels. Pass.
The server has been running a few hours now. The Pi is barely warm. So too, the USB drive. Both are much cooler than when the Pi was running Raspberry. I think I have the hardware sorted.
Filezilla is sort of a big deal if I want to add music to the library.
An interesting to me thing…. somewhere in the settings the new server sees Moa and sees the Squeezebox2… and offered to migrate (its word) that player to the new server.
I use to read Audio magazine. They reviewed the Slimp way way back when, maybe 1988, and I wanted one. But mp3 was new. Heck CDs were new. And a PC in your house? Much less a LAN? Get outta here!
I don’t have a Slimp. I started with a Squeezebox 3. Setting it up was a puzzle. A lot of the directions seem to assume “you know this part” and go to the next step.
Oh, wait!!!! That’s Linux!!!!
Then I got a Squeezbox2 from eBay. Some where along the way I bought a Boom. And a Radio.
Er, I have couple of everything stashed away.
I think, just for the grins, I’ll see if I can find a Slimp on eBay. Ain’t much, a display on an exposed circuit board.
“You can’t quit in the middle. So your contract with SpaceX is binding and uncancelable.
Just like indentured servitude.”
Not quite.
Having a contract with SpaceX is considerably different than having a contract that binds a person to a master who can then sell them and dictate marriage, religion, socialization and other basic elements of their lives for the sole benefit of that master. The latter is simply slavery with an expiration date, whereas the former is an employment agreement with stiff non-performance penalties.
A contract with SpaceX does not have to be cast from pure capitalism and will not be as long as it remains an entity born in and needing good standing with the USA. There is a wealth of past history that can guide and inform the creation of a new type of “settler’s contract” that begins with the total non-necessity of dealing with any indigenous population and includes the advantages of modern communication. If I were going to start research on developing such an agreement I’d probably start with Steven Austin, but in short order I would reread everything where Heinlein discussed the rights and obligations of peoples living together in the hostile environments of the moon and space, starting with The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Time Enough for Love, and The Cat Who Walked Through Walls.
There is also some interesting discussion to be developed from other science fiction authors. Taylor’s final evacuation of Earth and other situations in The Bobiverse and Allen Steele’s Coyote series come to mind.
I have no doubt that Rand Corporation and other think tanks have similarly interesting reports, if they can be found. I have a content-based (result, not a title) reference to a Rand report from the 1970’s that is rock-solid, but I have never been able to find the document. Perhaps they have put everything online since I last looked, but it’s more likely that they have the NYT disease and think their old reports are worth charging high cost for admisson.
Nope. The govs on Earth can F off. They have no jurisdiction.
@paul
“ And what’s there to eat? Without cooking? Jelly beans. Some stale pretzels. Pass.”
Crackers, cheese, sausage.
Next time you make chili put a large bowl’s worth in a container and freeze it for just such an occasion.
I’m going to make a drink, a small plate, and watch Doctor Who.
I’m not sure what I did to myself, but my back is KILLING me. I’m going to take some meds and go to bed.
Had a nice pizza for dinner, and I’ll have a small slice of Goode Co. pecan pie. Then it’s time to stop sitting here, and lie down.
Tomorrow, I’ll do plumbing, but tonight, I’m reading until the meds kick in.
n
Ya know, no telling what you did. My mom threw her back out, I saw her do it, she just bent over to pick something, like a sock, up from the floor and the next day she could hardly walk.
Do your stretching. Get W to rub your back and rub the knots out.
Absolutely. Right outta the deep freezer. Probably 45 minutes of nuking to heat enough to eat.
But it’s a great plan.
I know what you mean. Not being a jerk.
Did 90m or so in the yard, then decided to take it easy, it was a long week. The NE corner of the lot has a lot of debris, dumped there by people over the years, concrete chunks, pipes, etc.
Went into town, returned the overdue library books, no traffic jam. Bought a burger & fries … for $15 … sheesh.
I started something like that after developing meal fatigue. I used to make a pot meat, usually 8 to 12 servings and then eat it until it was gone. N.B. I live alone. I got real tired of that and started picking up food at work, which got really expensive. So now I make the pot meal and eat one or no servings (aside from tasting – sometimes extensive) and freeze then vacuum bag all the portions for later. Rinse and repeat, and I now have a selection I don’t get tired of. Cheaper than takeout and easier than scratch meals every day. I’m branching out to veg and starch sides for more variety.
Coming back from a friend’s house tonight, made the mistake of going by the extra large muslim temple. About a thousand cars were there and another thousand cars were trying to get in. Ramadan. There was a guy in bedsheet outside of it directing cars inside, trying to not get run over.
I will bet that all five of the muslim temples within 10 miles of my house are doing big business today. I passed back the other temple just five miles from my house, they had the parking lot chains up and were turning people away. Their parking lot was full also.
Buddy the Beagle is an interesting critter. He follows me everywhere. I am his whatever he needs to be near.
Does he respond when I talk to him? Like “come here” and “sit” and “shake”. Nah….. not much. I suppose he has bad hearing. although he always hears me opening the cookie jar.
although he always hears me opening the cookie jar.
– certain things are beyond the physical world and into the metaphysical… the sound of a chip hitting the floor is another.
n