So it was sunny and hot and sunny and humid for the last few days, and it looks like it will be sunny and hot and sunny and humid for the next few days. We’re nestled right up against 100F every afternoon, and it’s really humid, but it’s still cooler than several of the last few years. We aren’t ‘doing it by the 10s’ yet, 80F at 8am, 90F at 9am, and 100F at 10am… and it does feel nice in the shade toward evening, if there is any breeze at all.
Did my driving around and my pickups. Chatted with a few people. Went to the shop and scrapped out some more pieces of the lappy stand/cart/C.O.W. medical things. I had a pile I need to move to make room for stuff, and I might as well get a couple of bucks for it. It won’t be much because it’s steel, but it’s better than nothing and better than sending it to the landfill. I’ll drop off the truck load first thing today.
Speaking of today, couple of pickups? Maybe, maybe not. Depends on what I decide to do about going to the BOL. Two of them are on the way to the BOL and I can put them off until Monday, if I wait until then to head out. Save some time, gas money, and tolls. Win for me and the planet. Assuming the planet cares at all, which it doesn’t, because we’re like gnats on an elephant.
In any case, I’ll be working on stuff, avoiding work on other stuff, and stacking. Just like you!
n
the federal law forbidding guns in Post Offices.
– remember that this was a bad law, (fairly) recently enacted, in response to a POSTAL EMPLOYEE shooting people. There is no reason to honor any precedent set by this POS law. It banned carry by people who DIDN’T DO the shooting, because they could. And extending it to the parking lot is extra bad as it effectively bans carry during your entire trip to and from the PO.
ALL gun laws that restrict ownership or use are un-Constitutional. ALL OF THEM. The founders were perfectly capable of writing in exceptions and conditions where they wanted them, and they didn’t.
yes, that means felons can have guns. Yes, crazy and divorcing people too. Even wife beaters. you have to accept the negatives with the positives because the 2A is absolute. And there has to be swift justice available too, almost any crime of any real seriousness was a capital offense at the time.
Yup. Yup. Yup. And Yup.
“Guns OK in post office parking lots, federal judge rules”
https://www.cnn.com/2013/07/11/us/guns-post-office
“Judge rules USPS ban on guns is unconstitutional”
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2025/sep/30/post-office-gun-ban-unconstitutional-judge-rules/
I am worn out. I converted about 8,000 lines of Fortran code to C++ today. Oh wait, that was mostly yesterday.
You are probably closing in on becoming the world’s leading expert on converting C++ to Fortran.
“Judge rules USPS ban on guns is unconstitutional”
Unlike democrat judges who issue wide-ranging anti-American rulings with nationwide injunctions, judges who make pro-freedom findings limit the scope of their decisions.
In this instance, it only applies to members of the plaintiff organizations. Which is a reason to join those organizations. I need to do that.
That skill probably is not much in demand.
Converting FORTRAN to C++, on the other hand … let’s just say that Lynn had better watch out for snatchers grabbing him, sticking his brain in a jar, and hooking it up to LLMs for converting the millions of lines of FORTRAN that are still out there.
My bad.
I plead insufficient amounts of coffee before posting this morning…
Gemini/ChatGPT/Claude would have done it in 45 seconds. 😜 🤣 lol
And it wouldn’t have compiled.
Brains.. BRAINS… BRAINS!!!!11!!!
– Light overcast, plenty of humidity, currrently 90F and rising.
Coffee in the mug, food on the plate.
n
It’s good to have good neighbors.
Today was ‘tree waste day’ when the city sends these bucket-y, pinch-y, scoop-y trucks around to pick up branches, piles of debris, even bags of leaves. Kid has been parking in front of the pile, because the pile has been there a while. Neighbor texted to tell me the truck was here, couldn’t get to my pile, but if I moved the minivan maybe they’d still pick it up.
I did, they did, and the yard looks nicer.
That’s a much better outcome than missing the pickup and cursing for another month.
n
I’ve heard of a movie called Citizen Vigilante. I saw a clip somewhere and it’s not on DVD yet. It looks like a good movie. You can stream it from Big River.
Or watch it on X. https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2070157480915538098
I used https://x2vid.com/ to download it to watch later.
I made a nice score at the grocery store this morning. A 4.5 pound package of ground beef marked down 25%. Paying $16 bears paying $22. I have four packages vac sealed and in the freezer.
It’s the ground in-store meat that for some reason tastes better than the one pound chubs.
Pre Monkey Trick, Nvidia was working on an LLVM front end for parsing Fortran under a DOE grant.
The DOE has a lot of Fortran they need to keep running.
I bet there is more fortran and even cobol out there than people realize. It’s not ALL about web shite on the LAMP stack. Bet there are some really critical things running on some very obscure languages out there in the corners of infrastructure.
n
“Texas youngster ”
– I’m getting pretty damn sick of minimizing a certain demographic’s responsibility by describing them as kids.
20 is adult. Youngster is 12 or less.
He’s an adult, responsible for his choices. Hang the SOB.
n
https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15932277/Spoilt-rich-kid-BMW-death-birthday.html
Amish. No impulse control.
27 years ago there was a lot of FORTRAN still in use in the electric power industry, among many others. In the Y2K runup, I did very little concerning payroll systems or public-facing systems. I thought that it was more important to keep the lights and heat on. As the clock rolled over to Jan 1, 2000, I was on a hill overlooking Albany while the sheeple did a First Night party. Not a single flicker that I could see. You’re welcome.
17 years ago I was employed by a company whose major business was managing and maintaining COBOL systems for other companies and agencies, mostly payroll and personnel systems. In talking with my boss, the VP of Operations, I found that at the time there was a lot of COBOL out there and that it still couldn’t be translated to other languages and systems because of lack of documentation and subject matter expertise (a situation which had been the case since I was a teen) and because of the lack of people with COBOL expertise (a relatively new situation), and that a lot of the companies and corporations using it would love to be able to out-source their support because they were having trouble keeping enough staff to do it themselves. My employer would have loved to grab up more of this work but they were having trouble hiring people with the necessary experience.
I have no direct knowledge of whether the legacy systems have been replaced or if they’re still limping along. I can read industry reports but I do have direct knowledge that managers lie when responding to surveys, so I don’t know that the reports are worth anything.
Well, as I expected. The dealer will not negotiate on the MSRP of the Highlander. Platinum trim is difficult to find and sell quickly. They will offer me $8K on trade. I have an offer locally of $9K, but trading in I gain about $1K in taxes so a wash. The dealer will toss in the carpeted floor mats, a whopping $250.00.
What is strange, is that if I finance, and bring a check from a credit union for the full amount, the dealer in Georgia has to collect TN taxes. If I pay cash with a personal check, the dealer does not collect taxes, and I have to pay the taxes when I register the vehicle in TN. What else ticks me off is that I have to pay $48 registration in Georgia for the temporary tags, then pay again in TN when I register the vehicle.
So, $56,500 to the dealer and another $4K to TN for taxes. The vehicle should be here in 23 days, then a day for the dealer to install the towing hitch.
I am worn out. I converted about 8,000 lines of Fortran code to C++ today. Oh wait, that was mostly yesterday.
Converting FORTRAN to C++, on the other hand … let’s just say that Lynn had better watch out for snatchers grabbing him, sticking his brain in a jar, and hooking it up to LLMs for converting the millions of lines of FORTRAN that are still out there.
I got my link to work the other day and found that I had missed six Fortran subroutines out of the six hundred that I have converted to date. I groaned at one of them, it is over 6,000 lines long and is bringing in over 100,000 lines of code to convert. I thought I was close to my second stage of testing. Sigh.
Converting FORTRAN to C++, on the other hand … let’s just say that Lynn had better watch out for snatchers grabbing him, sticking his brain in a jar, and hooking it up to LLMs for converting the millions of lines of FORTRAN that are still out there.
BTW, there is almost as much old Fortran code out there as old Cobol code. Billions of lines of code for each. Thousands of programs running today.
My method is too programmer intensive. My modified tool is only getting about 70% of the code converted. The rest I have to convert by hand, mostly character strings.
Dilbert: Ted’s Wedding
https://varnham.net/dilbert-archive/comic/2006-09-09
Yes, there is a big difference between men and women.
“Not Buying It”
https://areaocho.com/not-buying-it/
“The gaslighting is real. This guy, part of an Antifa terror cell and a wanna-be killer tranny Bradford “Meagan” Morris says, well, I will let you read it:”
Yeah, it does not matter who shot the federal agent, every one involved is guilty of the act.
“Qatar cargo jet comes frighteningly close to Texas runway in viral video”
https://www.chron.com/news/article/qatar-airways-horsehoe-bay-texas-22320285.php
“Safety wasn’t the priority of the plane’s pilot on Wednesday.”
Wow. That was quite low for that big bird.
The full video is at X:
https://x.com/aviationbrk/status/2069982159469678968
Complete with the typical dead-eyed, soulless Amish physiognomy.
I’m playing with the Ooma. The phone app that will sync my Google phone numbers? That my phone can’t use? Don’t need it.
On my phone I exported my Contacts. Then e-mailed them to me. Once on my desktop, it’s just a text file with plenty of extra stuff like field names. Then to the my.ooma.com site. Enter the contacts there. Thankfully it sorts alphabetically. No need to select / copy /paste. Just select and drag to Firefox.
Then from the ooma handset, I selected Sync.
Pretty slick
I see no way to delete call logs. Only that it saves a rolling 60 days worth.
“AG Paxton Joins Legal Challenge to California Plastics Act”
https://texasscorecard.com/federal/ag-paxton-joins-legal-challenge-to-california-plastics-act/
“A coalition of 17 states says the law would raise prices and burden interstate commerce.”
“The act forces companies that sell products in the state to reduce single‑use plastic packaging, make it recyclable or compostable, and help pay for recycling and cleanup. It does this through strict reduction and recycling targets by 2032 and an extended producer responsibility program that shifts costs from taxpayers to packaging producers.”
“Fort Bend County Plunged Into Fight Over Who Is County Judge”
https://texasscorecard.com/local/fort-bend-county-plunged-into-fight-over-who-is-county-judge/
“After the county attorney said Daniel Wong’s interim appointment had expired and a commissioner moved to preside instead, Wong’s lawyer fired back with a formal demand letter insisting he still holds the gavel.”
“The situation traces back to April, when County Judge KP George was suspended, and Wong was temporarily appointed to the administrative post. That was done under the auspices of a state law allowing a district judge to temporarily remove an elected official and install a replacement while a civil removal case is pending. (George was convicted on March 20 of two counts of felony money laundering and suspended in June.)”
Ah, Fort Bend County is a mess again with the dumbrocrats trying to screw things up as usual.
“Democratic socialists are coming for 2028”
https://endtimeheadlines.org/2026/06/democratic-socialists-are-coming-for-2028/
“Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) leaders are moving swiftly to position one of their own for a prominent role in the 2028 presidential contest, building directly on recent electoral gains that have strengthened the progressive left’s influence within the Democratic Party.”
And here comes the Civil War in the USA.
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/
The Dems are the Colonists’ tool to achieve their goals.
My H1B visa co-workers are meeting former management “for coffee” on Sunday (!) morning at 10 AM.
Their lives have sucked since he left. I’m hoping that they will go work for him at his new company, but I doubt that will happen since the management there is Taiwanese.
Sink me, but I think that The Scarlet Pimpernel may yet ride again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtAM7YDap6o
Geesh, Jane Seymour was hot.
‘Stache Bolton pleads guilty to one charge of possessing classified documents. This after all Dumbos claimed it was revenge by tRump. I bet he will not serve a single day behind bars. If he gets community service, it better be scraping up gum off sidewalks with a popsicle stick.
Without a security clearance and access, he has nothing to offer a potential employer.
When I worked for the company with Clapper on the board, he was gone the moment the NY Times threw him under the wheels of the bus.
There are thousands of people who end up in prison each year for offenses more picayune than Bolton‘s. When an ashhole like this cuts a plea deal to plead to one count and take many others off the table, the sentence should be in the upper range specified by the statute.
I just finished watching Citizen Vigilante. It’s a decent movie. Maybe think of John Wick mixed with Sisu. I’m going to buy it when it is out on disc.
Sure, it could use better editing. But that applies to any movie. It’s fine just the way it is. If you pay attention, hit pause when you gotta go pee, the story holds together.
I put the .mp4 file on a USB stick, shoved it into the Sony Blueray player and it simply played. A solid state disc for things like pause and such. My TV has a USB port that is suppose to do the same….. Never worked for me. But my TV is pushing 15 years old and the Sony is just a couple of years old.
Good movie.
I had some fun with the new phone today. I called the neighbor. “Howdy Neighbor!!!”. Ok, let me call you with my new phone. So you have the new number and can add it to my contact on your phone.
“You sound perfect!”. Well, of course! I am perfect. Lots of laughing.
“What number do I call?” My cell phone, Same number as always. I have it forwarded to the new phone. I just want your caller ID to show it’s me.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2026/06/bolton-pleads-guilty.php
Every time he sent an email with classified attachments it was a separate act.
Five years is the minimum he deserves, and would serve notice to others.
Note also that:
“AOL account was infiltrated by Iranian-linked hackers, according to investigators.”
so the de facto result was disclosure to our enemies.
Five years is a gift–it should be the rest of his pompous worthless life.
picayune = North American English
adjective
adjective: picayune
informal
petty; worthless.
“the picayune squabbling of party politicians”
noun
dated
noun: picayune; plural noun: picayunes
a small coin of little value, especially a 5-cent piece.
Trump to Request Over $1.4 Billion in Ebola Funding from Congress
Just no. Contribute to research efforts at labs outside of Africa, maybe. Half of any money sent to African ends up being stolen, and if it flows through the corrupt WHO it’s more like 75%.
Not our circus, not our wildlife to save.
Require an appropriate quarantine period for anyone traveling from an infected country and anyone who has had contact with such a person. Make hiding that information subject to very large fines, and hiding that information resulting in infection subject to mandatory prison time, and hiding that information resulting in infection and death subject to the death penalty.
and the author assumes without evidence that it only happened at the end of an otherwise noteworthy career. What if he was mishandling sh!te the whole time?
Getting caught at the end undoes any good done previously, in my book.
n
Man, a lot of earthquakes in the news lately.
As someone living a dozen miles from the San Andreas Fault I have to admit that I’m a bit concerned.
I read an article today that compared the fault line for the Venezuela earthquakes to be comparable to the San Andreas Fault.
I suspect Nick would advise to ensure you have earthquake preps.
…and then there is the fire danger if you live in those types of areas…
Ford rehires AI layoffs:
https://slashdot.org/story/26/06/25/1624241/ford-rehires-350-engineers-after-ai-fails-to-preserve-expertise-or-train-juniors
Fetid raving Democrat Carville is looking behind him at the antsemitic rotting communist fringe of his party and tealizing that he will be up against the wall in short order:
https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2026/06/26/cpl-cueball-carville-flummoxed-by-finding-new-proggy-dems-more-offensive-than-he-is-n3816371
”911. What is your emergency?”
”Migawd! My Benz is on fire and they’re beating down my door! They were supposed to keep killing Republicans!”
”Hey Jimbo! Yeah, they called earlier to let us know about a mostly peaceful protest. We confirmed your address and opened an office betting pool. Call us when you get crispy! Bye!”
That’s a good point about the fire danger, several of my neighbors are very careless about the amount of dried brush in their yards.
My propane tank does not have any sort of tremblor shut off, that I know of. It is low pressure, but still… Something to look into.
@Edh, of course you know that your immediate preps should be outside your house, under flimsy cover, so you can get to them if all the structures collapse…
And you have the gas shut off wrench near your gas supply (except you are on propane?)
n
I suspect you are well aware of the concept of ‘defensable space’. And fire-resistance building materials (roofs and siding materials), along with spark guards on any eave vents. And proper planting and ground cover (wood chips not a good idea) next to the house, and fire-resistant plants and trees.
I’d worry about the neighbors’ lack of concern about ‘defensable space’. It’s going to affect your property as well as theirs.
As well as ‘bug out bags’ with important docs and meds and backup data at the ready. Lots of info on the interwebs about how to prepare for emergency evacuation.
That’s a good point about the fire danger, several of my neighbors are very careless about the amount of dried brush in their yards.
My propane tank does not have any sort of tremblor shut off, that I know of. It is low pressure, but still… Something to look into.
And rereading “Lucifer’s Hammer” for what might happen during a horrible disaster.
https://www.amazon.com/Lucifers-Hammer-Novel-Larry-Niven/dp/0449208133?tag=ttgnet-20
“Ford rehires AI layoffs:”
We formed a new union: Bump salary $50k, add ten days vacay, record to show continuous service, and here’s the list of dead-weight managers that you need to fire to get the productivity up. “
Muslims are left drenched in blood as they cut themselves with knives to mark Islamic festival
– ‘good practice boys, now again, but 8 inches lower…’
n
I have decided that I need the short barrel automatic 50 round magazine version of the P90. Why can’t I buy this weapon which is so perfect for crowd control that the Secret Service of most countries carries it?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FN_P90
https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15931973/British-influencer-23-facing-execution-firing-squad-living-life-Dubai-treated-boyfriend-accused-stabbing-death.html
– trashy looking woman, hooks up with fellow brit in Dubai, who also appears to have a trashy and violent past, and things go wrong. And now she’s subject to arabic justice in Dubai.
n
https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15932715/teens-summer-job-decline-explained-experts.html
– fails to cite the illegal worker issue, mandated minimum wages, and the economic disaster facing discretionary spending as inflation runs 30% or more in real terms.
n
“competing with adults” yeah, illegal alien adults.
Nice tiny little fire. Temps dropped to the low 80sF. Mosquito spray truck came by and chased me inside. They don’t billow out fog anymore but it still makes that weird ‘bullrush’ noise and I’m not breathing whatever it is releasing…
6 very heavy caliber shots tonight, lots of distant street racers, and one black cat.
Frogs seem to be done for the season.
Time to shower and go to sleep.
n
Frogs seem to be done for the season.
Nah, they moved out here to the real swamp. They are still going hard all night long.
Wow, I am getting up to 7 MB/sec using Starlink to download my 17 GB website tonight. I have never seen speeds above 2 MB/sec before.
Hmm, low blood sugar alarm just woke me. It’s probably the compression false reading thing, but I’ll have a meat bar anyway. I ate dinner late, so I didn’t have a snack before bed. Maybe it’s really low. Better to have the snack and be sure as I was back below the weight I was at before the cruise trip.
The “Uncured bacon” flavor of Epic bar has just a few grams of sugar to go with all the protein and fat. It’s my favorite for taste anyway. Hmmm, bacon….
n