Cool, then warm, then hot. Unless it rains. Then cool to cool. There is a chance we’re in the Tstorm area for the next couple of days but the wind from the Gulf was so strong yesterday, that could have changed. We’ll get what we get.
Spent the morning asleep. Back hurt, and I was tired. So I slept.
Spent the afternoon doing minor car repair, a couple of office things, and a bit of poking around.
Today, I have to do the pickups I missed in the last 2 days. I did score 3 more of the laptop stands, so more batteries, chargers, and scrap to come. I’m bidding on even more. Now that I know what scrap I’ll get, I’m even more inclined to buy them as I make 60-80USD scrapping them after paying for them. IE, they’re not just free, I get paid to take them and salvage the parts I want.
I’ve got a couple of other pickups to do too, one is mostly food, the other is odds and ends for the house and the BOL.
There are fewer and fewer auctions and I’m winning less. Hmm.
Still stacking though.
nick
Wednesday. Good morning!
Busy with work stuff this morning. It is really too nice a day to be indoors and chained to the PC, but such is life.
Mr AtoZ was a string puller. Who would have thunk it?
WHAT?
Have a lovely day!
I don’t think that’s right. Artillery is the string pullers.
ADA had you sitting at a Vulcan, frantically tracking up and down and left and right to keep the target in your sights as the pilot frantically jinked up and down and left and right to get out of your sights. More to the point, as the LT of an ADA platoon, you’re yelling at people on your supply line to get you more shells and rockets and diesel for the generators NOW!! while the platoon sergeant worries about whether you’re dug in well enough to be protected from Soviet or Nork artillery once they get around to firing against your big ol’ emitters.
Cue Martha Coolidge.
“There’s no defense like a good offense.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=683BIUzVHAw
Now allow we need is a space plane which can launch into orbit on demand. Wait …
And a commercial internet in space that can’t be taken out with a dozen satellite killers…. oh….
———–
76F and overcast at the moment but maybe there will be some sun. The wundermap doesn’t show any real clouds or storm systems.
———–
I got some sleep last night so I feel a little better.
———–
I’m having my coffee and the kids are moving around so at least there is that.
n
@stevef
I called The Child down from her room, then brought her up to one of the fire department guys and asked if it was true that unwanted children could be dropped off, no questions asked.
Coffee on my phone screen. You are my hero – that’s hysterical!
Greg, we also need a house full of popcorn. If you know, you know.
And a 6 inch spike and a 2×4…
n
Seen online:
“I often suffer from PCD (pre-coffee dementia) myself.”
This is a short video, and captures a vital truth about manufacturing.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/h7McXnWRCQY?feature=share
n
Yes, please:
Chris Cillizza Says Trump Wants to Make James Comey’s Life Miserable for As Long As Possible
Dumbocrat Dork Cillizza thinks this is a “Get, tRump! GET HIM!” moment, but it is exactly what Joetato The Human Vegetable did to tRump.
Something to do when bored:
Link to story here, among other places. (Site appears to be a bit busy…)
Creeper vines are not, technically, vegetables.
And a commercial internet in space that can’t be taken out with a dozen satellite killers…. oh….
“Starlink to Drop Tech That Helps Beat GPS Spoofing. Maritime Users Are Alarmed”
https://www.pcmag.com/news/starlink-to-drop-tech-that-helps-beat-gps-spoofing-maritime-users-are-alarmed
“SpaceX will restrict a little-known, but accurate, location feature that boat owners use to counter GPS jamming and spoofing around the Red Sea. They’re urging the company to reconsider.”
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.
Something to do when bored:
Link to story here, among other places. (Site appears to be a bit busy…)
George Noory had a guest last night who stated that the Earth was one continent, Pangaea, before Noah’s Flood. The flood was so devastating that it broke the one continent up in what we have today.
https://www.coasttocoastam.com/show/2026-04-28-show/
“In the latter half, independent researcher Andrew Jones discussed the enduring mystery of Noah’s Ark, blending biblical narrative with archaeological inquiry. Jones believes that the remains of Noah’s Ark can be found at a boat-shaped formation (view related images) discovered on Mount Ararat in Turkey in 1959. The formation’s length —measured at 300 cubits or 515 feet— matches the biblical dimensions described in Genesis 6:4, he said. Initial discovery came through aerial photography, followed by ground measurements and metal detector scans revealing iron patterns suggestive of man-made structures. The site gained renewed attention due to Ron Wyatt’s work in the 1970s and ’80s, which helped raise global awareness.”
“Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and electrical resistivity surveys indicate subsurface tunnels and cavities, including a large rectangular space dubbed the “atrium,” possibly corresponding to the Ark’s interior layout. “We’re seeing tunnels going down the center of the boat… a squarish, rectangular shape cavity… one possibility is the ramp system or the access to all the floors,” Jones explained. Despite the intriguing findings, carbon dating has yet to be conducted. His team aims to extract organic samples such as pollen and animal hairs to verify the site’s authenticity and refute alternative theories, like it being a Mongolian fort.”
“Jones detailed the biblical timeline, involving extraordinary lifespans: “Noah was 500 years old when God told him to start building the ark, and it took him 100 years to complete it.” A retired Turkish geologist involved in the current research supports the Ark hypothesis, bridging scientific analysis with religious texts. Jones affirmed the idea of a global flood and that only eight people survived it, citing genetic studies aligning with the biblical narrative.”
“Army’s New M1A3: A Faster, Lighter, Drone-Killing Beast”
https://redstate.com/wardclark/2026/04/29/armys-new-m1a3-faster-lighter-drone-killing-beast-n2201822
“Perhaps of even greater importance, it is nearly a certainty that the M1E3 will operate with new generations of EW, as advanced systems can now help deconflict the spectrum, identify enemy signatures and RF signals and “jam,” “disable” or even “take over” attacking drones. High-Powered Microwave weapons are also emerging quickly as a key area of focus when it comes to the challenges associated with countering drone attacks. It would not be surprising to learn that the M1E3 operates with AI-enabled C-UAS and threat-oriented computing able to find, verify and validate targets and pair them with an optimal countermeasure or effector … in milliseconds.”
“By operating with a diesel-electric hybrid engine, the M1A3 will not only be more fuel efficient, and operate with silent “watch” capability, but it will benefit from large sources of on-board electrical power generated by the diesel-electric engine. This will bring necessary on-board electricity to support electronics, sensors, targeting and AI-enabled computing at lighter weights without needing to add APUs.”
So, instead of 10 gallons per mile, the M1A3 will get 8 gallons per mile ???
We may be headed on the way to the BOLO self aware tanks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolo_universe
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/
“Trolling Level: Expert”
https://areaocho.com/trolling-level-expert-2/
Oh my, that is hilarious !
The Ballad of Joetato, The Man With the Brain of a Tuber.
TIL how to display a Google map with 1800 addresses plotted as map pins.
I asked myself the question “Where is the geographic center of my hobby club membership. So I extracted the addresses from the membership database, of everyone who’s ever been a member, alive or dead, current or expired.
It has been suggested that the meeting place for our monthly meetings may be one of the obstacles to having good attendance.
Based on my map, I’m not certain that’s the case. Next may be that maybe we’d do better with Saturday daytime meetings like Nick’s hobby club. Our membership skews heavily to retirees, so driving in the evening is an issue for many of them.
Objection! Assumes facts not in evidence.
Correction:
The Salad of Joetato, The Man With the Brain of Vegemite.
If it’s on Amazon, it’s real:
Potato Joe Biden T-Shirt
LOL! By “Worst President Ever” brand.
“In major Voting Rights Act case, Supreme Court strikes down redistricting map challenged as racially discriminatory”
https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/04/in-major-voting-rights-act-case-supreme-court-strikes-down-redistricting-map-challenged-as-racia/
“The Supreme Court on Wednesday, in the case of Louisiana v. Callais, struck down a Louisiana congressional map that a group of voters who describe themselves as “non-African American” had challenged as the product of unconstitutional racial gerrymandering. By a vote of 6-3, the justices left in place a ruling by a federal court that barred the state from using the map, which had created a second majority-Black district, in future elections. Although Wednesday’s ruling did not strike down a key provision of the federal Voting Rights Act, as Louisiana and the challengers had asked the court to do, Justice Elena Kagan suggested in her dissent (which was joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson) that the majority opinion by Justice Samuel Alito had rendered the provision “all but a dead letter.””
“The decision was the latest, and presumably final, chapter in a long-running dispute arising from Louisiana’s efforts to adopt a new congressional map in the wake of the 2020 census. The first map that the state adopted, in 2022, had one majority-Black district out of the six allotted to the state. A group of Black voters – who comprise roughly one-third of the state’s population – went to federal court, where they alleged that the map violated Section 2 of the VRA, which prohibits discrimination in voting.”
It is about freaking time.
“We had a black president for 8 years and not one ‘white racist’ took a shot at him…”
https://revolver.news/2026/04/we-had-a-black-president-for-8-years-and-not-one-white-racist-took-a-shot-at-him/
True dat.
Zero days since the last reboot on my webserver. Dadgum security patches !
So, W2 has been having some issues with her glasses, (progressive bifocals) tired eyes after driving, dry eyes, reading, etc. She’s been to two optometrists and now an ophthalmologist, all with mixed diagnoses. The ophthalmologist told her she has “early cataracts” and to follow up in a year. She is 62 and reads several hours daily. Consulting with Dr Google it seems that she should be looking into cataract surgery now, not a year (or more) from now!? What say any of our learned folks with eye issues? TIA.
Get it done now. The results are amazing. Voice of experience.
Mint does some things in a way that seems odd.
Minimize Firefox? Same as closing it. FF upon re-opening will randomly open full of tabs from a week or so ago. The window reopens to about third of the screen size which is kind of annoying…. I want the window on the right side of the screen and about the size of a sheet of letter paper.
Thunderbird has quirks but it seems to minimize as expected. Re-opens where It was most of the time.
Audio and video just do not play after a restart. Just a freeze frame picture. Tell the machine to Suspend or wait for it go sleep on its own, then a/v works. Pictures display. I don’t know if animated gifs play.
Nothing bugs me enough to go back to w11.
And for all I know, all of the quirks is because of my hardware. But this is all I have.
Did W2 recently get new glasses? They may have made the lenses wrong.
My glasses are progressive and I think they are great. Time for new, soon.
A friend had progressive lenses and one pair took a couple of tries to get it right. Close but just not quite right….
Might try a pair of reading glasses from the Dollar Tree. Just for reading. $3 a pair last time I looked.
I just scheduled my two cataract surgeries over the next 6 weeks.
But I got a consensus from my retina surgeon, my cataract surgeon, and the surgical fellow at the clinic that it’s time. My prior retina surgeries accelerated cataract development.
One thing I noticed is how rapidly my eyes changed since my last prescription. Not for the better.
The good news is that my right eye gets the “free” standard lens, and the left eye gets the first-level upgrade (about $1500) for astigmatism correction. I am not eligible for the expensive multi-focal lens.
I’m concerned about my shooting after all is said and done. If it goes as planned, I’ll have good uncorrected distance vision for driving, but near and mid will need cheaters.
I may be required to install red-dot sights on all my serious gubs.
My dogs make me laugh. Coming up on 5 PM Buddy the Beagle starts getting antsy.
I can take him out, he marks a couple of spots. Little leaks.
He’s still antsy. OH! BUDDY! IS IT TIME FOR SUPPER???? Why, yes. It is.
His favorite time of the day. Gobble gobble. Twenty minutes later, flat on his side and snoring.
Penny watches. She knows she’s about to be fed but doesn’t get excited beyond staring at me to hurry up already.
Watched @nick’s manufacturing video posted above, and they served up this short on changing a semi-tire:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/pGAh1aSzVsE?feature=share
and I kept eating the candy until I got to this idiot:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/pEYyaaoEAsw?feature=share
then I quit.
The good news is that my right eye gets the “free” standard lens, and the left eye gets the first-level upgrade (about $1500) for astigmatism correction. I am not eligible for the expensive multi-focal lens.
I’m concerned about my shooting after all is said and done. If it goes as planned, I’ll have good uncorrected distance vision for driving, but near and mid will need cheaters.
I got the “free” standard lenses in both eyes. And the $1,500 per eye to laser correct my 0.75 astigmatism in each each eye. IIRC, you can get the laser correction for astigmatism up to 1.00, otherwise you have to get the toric lens.
I use readers for near and mid vision. I can see the dashboard on my truck just fine without readers but the odometer is hard to read without readers since it is small and blurry. Everything else is fine without readers.
I have yet to shoot but I doubt that I would use any correction. I am 20/20 in the right and 20/25 in the left. My dominant eye used to be my left eye but I think that it is now my right eye.
I do have trouble at nighttime with the LED headlights, especially when they refuse to turn them down.
I always kept bowls of dry food out for my dogs and cats. I do that with the chickens, too, though I’ve been told that it’s better to feed them a couple times per day so they won’t overeat. For that matter, I always did the same with the kids, both our kids and those who stayed with us, telling them that they could grab a snack pretty much any time except right before meals.
Maybe it was just dumb luck that I didn’t have any pets, livestock, or children (to the extent that there’s any difference) who would eat everything available. I think that it’s because food was always out that they learned they didn’t have to grab it when they saw it. There were my daughter’s fish and aquatic frogs, who would and occasionally did eat until they died, but their brains were the size of sesame seeds, if that, and they were almost pure stimulus-response machines.
“In major Voting Rights Act case, Supreme Court strikes down redistricting map challenged as racially discriminatory”
Racial gerrymandering is only possible when there is only one racial minority to consider–add another that has significant geographic colocation and it is likely not possible to draw contiguous safe districts for both.
Might I suggest a nice game of “let’s you and him fight” between the different racial minorities to determine who gets to be gerrymandered in? If it’s done right, they will no longer be a consideration.
Did W2 recently get new glasses? They may have made the lenses wrong.
My glasses are progressive and I think they are great. Time for new, soon.
A friend had progressive lenses and one pair took a couple of tries to get it right. Close but just not quite right….
Might try a pair of reading glasses from the Dollar Tree. Just for reading. $3 a pair last time I looked.
Some years ago I had a new pair of glasses that I could not adapt to. Took them to my optometrist, who determined that they did not match his prescription. IIRC, the prism angle was incorrect.
Ignore it. When it says 80085 stop and take a picture.
Oddly enough, that manufacturing short also looked at prescription lenses, something like 80% of the world’s lenses are made in another city in China.
——–
Based on my map, I’m not certain that’s the case. Next may be that maybe we’d do better with Saturday daytime meetings like Nick’s hobby club. Our membership skews heavily to retirees, so driving in the evening is an issue for many of them.
— our membership is older, like ham radio. Saturday morning was more important than location, although our BOD has me looking at venues again. The president’s church suddenly has a bunch of conflicts, and attendance was down 2 months in a row.
n
Yes. Fido the cat always had a bowl of food. Beau the dog, same. Wilma, here in the house, always had food to eat. Snack all day.
Penny would eat like Wilma. After Missy died. But Missy, she was hind tit and had food issues. Buddy the Beagle, well, he weighed about 23 pounds when he showed up. Def food issues there.
The chickens? They always had food. The cats are more of a problem. I have to ration it. If there’s a lot of food the ants invade. Then the raccoons eat the food. Maybe I can figure how to hang a food dish for the cats. Maybe they’ll be smart enough to figure it out. But, cats.
One girl who stayed with us wasn’t fed at home. Her mother was insane and refused to keep food in the house, so all the kid ate was the school lunches. Mother also did a lot of screaming. When the kid first came over, around age 6, my wife and I had to tone way down on the joking and teasing because the kid would think that she was really in trouble and about to be hit.
Notably, she always ate everything set in front of her. One night she asked for mashed potatoes to go with whatever I’d cooked and I unthinkingly made a me-sized serving of instant mashed potatoes, not a little girl-sized portion. She stayed at the table until it was all gone, plus the fried chicken or whatever and a glass of milk.
Eventually I figured out that I could help her with the food anxiety by giving her breakfast bars and such to keep in her jacket pocket or backpack, for when she needed them or just to know they were there. She did pretty much get over it after a few years.
Like I keep saying, I’m a homicidal psychopath and my wife has many issues of her own (which boil down to her being a self-centered jerk). It’s a sad state of affairs that so many kids we know are better off with us than with their own parents.
There is nothing that will allow cats to eat that will prevent trash pandas from gorging themselves at night. We have 4-5 feral cats living in our back acre. Because my loving bride is a super-soft touch, so I put down a bowl of cheap dry cat food every morning. I have to pick up that bowl each evening, because if I don’t, it’ll be empty by midnight. My trail cameras tell me that raccoons and possums will both eat the cat food.
I’ve never heard you claim to be a homicidal psychopath. I’ve heard some questionable stories but if anything, the basis is caring too much, not a lack of emotional involvement. Bodycount notwithstanding.
Do you care about the spare kid? How about your own kids?
Caring implies not psychopathy. W2 (I think it’s 2) seems to care about the spare kid, too.
I get the impression that your homicidal tendencies are not entirely random. Nor indiscriminate violence towards people or animals. You keep chickens, cats, and dogs.
Not to rule out mental illness entirely, of course, but a low threshold for “he needed killing” isn’t necessarily the same as homicidal psychopath. Let’s say high-functioning sociopath, shall we?
Of course, I’m depending on the unreliable narrator for my facts. In the person of SteveF.
I know, for a fact, that the real life SteveF will reach out to help people he hasn’t even met face to face. I’ve been a recipient.
Hey! I resemble that!
—–
I actually can, but I don’t like to, and generally don’t without someone riding shotgun.
Unfortunately our club meeting is 7pm in East Palmdale, full of illegals who never had a driving lesson in their life and people driving very recklessly, often with one or no headlights – and add in pedestrians dressed in black jaywalking at any point.
A while back there was somebody on a bicycle riding in a lane against traffic at night.
Maybe if I get my cataracts taken care of this year, but I doubt it.
It’s a sad state of affairs that so many kids we know are better off with us than with their own parents.
– such has always been the case. My mom moved in with a girlfriend in high school. I called her aunt, and her mother grandma. W’s uncle raised a friend of his son as his own from at least middle school on. Even Huck Finn was better off when he was away from Pa. It’s just that in the before time, people understood and did the right thing. They hadn’t outsourced their judgement, charity, and caring to the government.
——–
Did my pickups. All stuff for the BOL or home. Some pure stacks, some current use.
——-
Hobby website suddenly needs another page or two about our Fall event. I was going to do it yesterday but forgot because I was tired. Might do it tonight.
n
My trail cameras tell me that raccoons and possums will both eat the cat food.
And deer. I had two young bucks eating the feral cat food at the office. I walked outside and they just looked at me. I told them that was for the possum and the feral cats but they ignored me.
Sounds like a good LLM candidate.
—-
Hmmm, someone gave me a tub of what I thought was squash soup. In fact it’s very hot chili, barely edible over rice, even with a nice red washing it down.
You Will Own Nothing
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/josephchalfant/2026/04/28/you-will-own-nothing-n2675218
Strict application of federal wiretapping laws.
And way, way past time for a constitutional amendment guaranteeing a right to privacy that includes prohibitions against requiring “permission” as a requirement for doing business, prevents governments, individuals, businesses, and other entities from disclosing or keeping confidential information.
The legal implementation must include aggressive penalties in the form of fines and jail time, and include “digital death sentence” for egregious violations by individuals–who cannot be shielded by government position–wherein conviction includes removal of any right to use digital communications for a specified period of time up to and including life.
It’s just that in the before time, people understood and did the right thing. They hadn’t outsourced their judgement, charity, and caring to the government.
It’s becoming increasingly evident that such outsourcing involves exorbitant expenses extracted from the taxpayer, with at least half and probably much more being paid out without oversight to scammers.
AI is increasingly being used to find such scams, and the evidence found is so blatant that it is further evident that most of the government employees charged with oversight could be terminated with no downside.
ADDED:
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/amy-curtis/2026/04/29/snap-recipients-driving-luxury-cars-n2675233
California’s Political Commissars Surrender To Elon Musk’s Lawyers
https://thefederalist.com/2026/04/29/californias-political-commissars-surrender-to-elon-musks-lawyers/
The federal government should never have let Cacafornia have anything other than the right to comment (aka exercise free speech) regarding launches.
WRT the starlink positioning data… well the sailors had a perfectly good backup in LORAN C but they decided it wasn’t useful with GPS.
FWIW, all my .mil contractor magazines have ads, RFPs, and editorial saying “We need your thing to work in a GPS denied environment”. They are all looking for alternative positioning, timekeeping, routefinding systems too.
In CONUS and anywhere the google cars have mapped the streets, they could provide positioning from wardriving the wifi emitters. They use that data to get better accuracy than GPS alone now…
n
Co-op City: What It Looks Like When Energy Reality Catches Up To You
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2026/04/29/co-op-city-what-it-looks-like-when-energy-reality-catches-up-to-you/
Liberals will destroy their blue shiiteholes, blame it on other people, and demand bailouts.
Not disagreeing at all. I’m just curious what phrasing would achieve that goal. IANAL!
Not disagreeing at all. I’m just curious what phrasing would achieve that goal. IANAL!
Anything that would get rid of the FISA courts as being unconstitutional.
I think that ought to be on a t-shirt!
I beg to disagree. LORAN wasn’t perfectly good. In my experience, it usually failed in fog or heavy weather. It was just better than nothing before there was GPS.
Thursday. Good morning! Last work day of this week. Hurray. Nick seems to be sleeping in today…
Nope, too much caffeine after 5pm. I was still driving around, so I was sipping my Dr Pepper without thinking about it.
But after this snack, I’m headed to bed
n
added, and the new day’s post will be up in about an hour.