Hot, still, and overcast, without the relief of rain. Probably. It is possible we’ll get some rain and that will help. It was sticky and hot all day yesterday though.
Did some office stuff then did 2 pickups. I wanted to do 4, but left the house too late. Got the tv installed at the house. I thought it was nice not having it for a couple of weeks, but W was insistent.
Today youngest child and I have dentist appointments in the morning, so I’ll probably end up having a productive day. I’ll be up, dressed, and out, so might as well keep that momentum, right?
Always be working. Always stacking. and your health is a prep.
nick
“It Cost One Man This Insane Amount to Legally Carry Gun Across Us”
https://thelibertydaily.com/it-cost-one-man-this-insane-amount-legally/
“(The Daily Caller)—In videos posted to social media, a Maryland firearms instructor revealed it cost thousands of dollars to obtain enough concealed carry permits to legally carry a firearm all across the country.”
“Liberty Justice Center filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court on Aug. 24, arguing Minnesota’s refusal to recognize out-of-state concealed carry permits was turning the Second Amendment into a “second-class right.” In the videos, one from January 2023, the other from March, Chad Albrecht, the owner of School of the American Rifle based out of Elkton, Maryland, revealed he spent over $12,000 to secure permits from 46 states and the Washington, D.C.”
““We’re including the cost of travel to go to the places that are required by law to acquire some of these permits to get to the training to apply in person if it’s required,” Albrecht said in the March video. “So, these things can be very nuanced depending on where you live as well. So, if you live in California and you want to get this permit here from New York City, you have to go all the way to New York City to One Police Plaza to do your fingerprints, to do your photograph, and do the application process for the interview. If you don’t do that, you don’t get a permit.”
This is insane for a Constitutional Right.
Dadgumit, my favorite flashlight may be off the market. I have bought 35 of these two AA battery LED lights. I have about ten of them left new in the package. I have stashed them all over the place and given many of them away. My niece in NYC used hers when her tall condo building was plunged into darkness for an extended period of time. The flashlight is even perfect for walking at night around here, light weight and balanced.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0716D98GQ?tag=ttgnet-20
Or you’ll be drooling out one side of your mouth for half the day…
… so about as usual, I suppose 🙂
Thursday. Have a good one. Enjoy soup for lunch.
If you spell it “FLASHLIGHT”, it will surely forgive you and come back.
That is especially nuts for any government outside the US. I have never understood it, seeing as Linux and OpenOffice/LibreOffice provide perfectly functional alternatives. Now that France is moving, more will follow.
Of course, given the opportunity, the EU is at least as bad as the US. ChatControl has been passed, on the 4th or 5th attempt. Now they are working towards backdoors in encryption. The EU as a supranational government needs to die.
I follow one person on substack, although only as a free subscriber. he often has interesting takes on things. And I found yesterday’s guest post “Absurd Adventure…” a fascinating read. Have a look at https://www.astralcodexten.com
No fires at all here. It has been a crazy dry summer and we have an absolute prohibition on any kind of fire anywhere. We had planned a “Texas BBQ” for several neighbors next weekend, but it looks like we will have to cancel. No rain in sight, so no fire, so no smoker, so no BBQ.
I wonder if it gets shipped to the Middle East openly, or if the vault gets opened after a change in government and they find a hologram.
Convenient excuse. I imagine that the views from the top of the attraction are less than spectacular right now with the “Rivers of America” drained and construction for the “Cars” attraction underway.
Not that the situation will be better when construction is complete.
“Less than successful” is an understatement.
The Mouse is going to die on that hill because Josh D’Amaro approved the retheming on his watch as “Chairman of Experiences”, and Kamala bestie Dana Walden has been retained as CEO in waiting.
The Bankruptcy and subsequent dismemberment of the company will be spectacular to behold.
Latest in a long string of countries repatriating their gold. Harder for the US to seize it, and better to have it if you think you won’t be overrun or invaded in the coming war.
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Up, fed, started on being caffeinated. Need to do a little stretching and get dressed.
n
I have a MacBook; the wife uses an iMac. Her transition occurred when her machine was no longer eligible for W11 because of a missing security chip. Other than that, her machine served her perfectly. I was concerned about ongoing security.
If I did not have so much invested in this three-year-old desktop, that was costly, it would be replaced with Mac Mini. There is also the issue of some software that I use that only works on Windows. I may just relegate my current machine to that software only and convert entirely to Apple. The office suite provided by Apple, at no charge, satisfies all my needs. I could use my current dual monitors with Mac Mini, along with the backup drives. I might have to purchase an external enclosure to accommodate the ports I would need. I would also need to get an external DVD burner.
I do use the iCloud storage some. The wife more than me for storing pictures. the iCloud is also used to sync calendars, text messages, and such. But documents are stored locally and just backed up to external drives.
When we were on the property in April, we noticed that DeSantis has finally allowed the new offramp construction at the east entrance to proceed but at a dramatically reduced scale from what was previously planned.
The Demings machine was still in the hunt for the Dem nomination for Governor until earlier this year, and they are politically beholden to The Mouse.
Business venture: derepatriating gold from nations which don’t really need it. High up-front costs for intelligence, bribes, and experts. Potential for very high return on investment.
It’s possible that the organization would receive sub rosa assistance from the US Department of State, such as for immigrant visas for foreign nationals who provided vital assistance, if the organization promised to store a few billion of derepatriated gold in US repositories.
@Lynn
I looked at the “product page” for the flashlight. No UPC and no manufacturers part number.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2026/09/texas-embraces-idea-of-three-year-bachelors-degrees-to-cut-college-costs/
90 credits rather than 120.
Sounds like a great deal. Graduate high school with half the education that they had in 1920, spend two years taking remedial English and math, then a year taking courses that would have been first year j.c. In 1980.
Walk out the door with a bachelor’s degree, look for a job you can work from home and make the payments on you $100,000 college loan account. You can scrimp by having Door Dash deliver your $8 cooffee drink and $30 non-meat and fake cheese on cardbread at the same time.
Then you register to vote and give your proxy to the Democrats so they can tax those rich bastards some more.
I’m going to convert every penny I own or can borrow into gold, dissolve it in acid, and dump it in the sea far from shore.
I always assumed that the three letter agencies had a back door and we were getting invaluable information (military & economic). Now that’s going away.
‘Unnecessary Electives‘
I know that the engineering school was absolutely maxed out in required credits and course by the 1970s, and they assumed you showed up with AP courses in Math & Physics, ready for Physics 101 and college Trigonometry. Many of us had more than that, but the legal requirements meant that they had to construct a syllabus starting with pre-calculus for the four year degree.
Wasting students time & money with required “womyn’s studies via interpretive dance” needs to go.
I pay for a higher tier. I store all the books I’m reading so they’ll sync to all my devices. I also find or scan every manual on stuff I have and place that in the cloud to have it available.
I wish there was a way to set up your own iCloud that works exactly like Apples, but it doesn’t exist. There are apps to store data on my Synology, but it isn’t the same.
Apple claims they have no way to see your data, but who believes that?
A free MacOs security camera recording (NVR) app;
https://murlet.com
I haven’t used it, and the creator is using Rust which I don’t know and can’t possibly be as good as Fortran, but I looked at it because I was (mildly) interested in memory leaks in Mac programming and he had a post on that:
https://murlet.com/blog/hunting-rust-memory-leaks/
Gahhh.
The engineering school which I started in the early 1980s coordinated Calc I and Physics I so students learned enough math to handle the physics computations as they came up and had practical uses to help show why the operations mattered in math. Similarly for Calc II and Physics II and then Physics III, Statics, Dynamics, Calc III, Differential Equations, and Linear Algebra (all required for first and second year students). We used a standard calc book but the physics/mechanics professor wrote the physics books to make it work. Very well done of them.
Most good engineering degree programs in the US are 5 year programs because of a work study/internship requirement.
That was true even in my day (mid 80s) although it was just really getting going.
Eldest brat is sure she wants to be a civil engineer, but to my eye doesn’t have the engineer’s mind. Smart, but not fixated like you need to be.
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Fangs cleaned, kid back in school. Some GI distress this morning making the whole thing more of a PITA than it should be.
n
Entirely likely
Apple is also an American company. I might trust them a tiny bit more than Microsoft, but they are still subject to the whims of the US government.
When students are already coming in lacking the basics? I mean, if you actually had legitimate AP credits, you could already do a bachelors in 3 years. But if that still includes the nonsense of the first year? Dunno what you should call it. Hmmm. Masters degree is on one side, so…how about an “amateur’s degree”?
https://www.dailymail.com/yourmoney/article-16099153/sony-playstation-digital-game-ownership-court.html
Louis Rossman is the featured expert in the article. Good for him.
n
I am at the one level up from the free level. I pay $2.99 a month. Cheap backup for the wife’s thousands, and unorganized, photos.
Actually, I believe Apple is telling the truth. Apple has never been a friend of 3-letter agencies based on their refusal to hand over iPhone data. I think another entity cracked the encryption, but not Apple, of the one case I read about where the government demanded the data.
Or a ”slave” degree. Or is that raycist?
Already called and Associates Degree. Yeah, 2 years typical, but also I’d bet most take longer.
n
Sure, I’ll believe that. The thing is: encryption doesn’t protect the endpoints. Users have to be able to see their data. If a 3-letter agency demands that Apple send the data at that point in time to the government, they won’t be able to say “no”.
That may make things a little more difficult: getting spyware installed on individual phones instead of a massive, central data dump. But it is still going to happen…
I assume y’all heard about the guy who is now being prosecuted for a felony, for erasing his phone at the border? Specifically, he had a system with 2 PINs. One PIN to unlock the phone and a seecond one to erase it. The customs agent demanded his PIN, so he gave the second one. Boom, destruction of evidence, felony.
He is an activist, so he did this deliberately. If he actually had anything to protect, he would have come in with a reset phone to begin with, and downloaded his data once across the border. Still, I doubt he expected to actually get prosecuted.
Huh, looks like we’re finally getting some rain. Oh, and the power just dimmed.
n
I assume y’all heard about the guy who is now being prosecuted for a felony,
I saw the headline. But what felony? Was he under an actual investigation or just a typical border crossing fishing trip? If destroying evidence, how do they know there was any “evidence” on the phone? He could have wiped an otherwise blank phone.
Without a warrant, narrowly defining the object of the search and laying out the reasons to suspect there was something to search for, I think he’ll beat it or it gets dismissed. So far it only looks like a “respect ma authorite’ ” arrest.
If he asks for money for defense, I’m inclined to send some.
n
added – since fedgov has demonstrated that they will frame people for CSAM* I’d be hesitant to release any of my electronic devices to them.
* off the top of my head, the brother of the patsy for the Vegas shootings, also the underage honeypot for the founder of distributed defense…
If you want terminators, this is how you get terminators…
https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-16101529/Robot-attacks-customer-martial-arts-skills.html
n
Regarding the ‘border phone wipe” story, here’s one news article (there are many) from TechCrunch; https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/24/us-accuses-american-of-allegedly-wiping-his-phone-using-a-duress-password-during-border-search/
The story includes this:
It was just a random fishing trip. Heck, as an activist, he may have deliberately provoked it.
What he didn’t reckon with is that there is specifically a crime for this: 18 U.S.C. § 2232(a). If you don’t want to follow the link, here is a shortened version of the law:
“Whoever, before, during, or after any search…of property…takes any action…for the purpose of preventing..the Government’s lawful authority to take such property into its custody or control…”
It is notable that there is no requirement for the government to show that the “property” was likely to be illegal. Just preventing the search is sufficient for up to 5 years in federal prison.
The case is still being fought, and I hope he has plenty of funding and good lawyers.
The real issue here, and I expect what he wanted to argue about, is the right of the US government to suspend all Constitutional protections near the US border, even for US citizens. Unfortunately, that’s not the fight he actually got.
The universal solvent for sticky legal situations.
n
Just remind her that electrical engineers make weapons, while civil engineers make targets.
The phone, as the property in question, is not damaged or destroyed.
n
If you search here you will find that we’ve discussed the novel theory that the Constitution doesn’t apply near a border, and also how much of the country and the population is included in that “no Constitution zone”. It’s a huge chunk.
n
This is going to be a nut to crack. SCOTUS made rulings that searching your phone is not the same as searching your auto trunk. Your whole life could be on your phone. Specific items have to be listed with probably cause. Then throw in the suspension of Constitutional rights at the border are/aren’t “Constitutional”. If SCOTUS doesn’t get involved, I believe he will lose. I believe warrantless searches at the border are wrong.
How did CBP know the phone was erased? He could have erased the phone before entering the border. If it were me I would factory reset the phone so it looks like a new phone that has never been activated. Then restore the phone once outside the CBP control boundary. Would that rise to a destroying evidence charge? What is the time frame for keeping evidence? A person could argue the phone had an issues, needing resetting, and waiting until back in the US to do so.
Can CBP force a person to restore a reset phone? A person could argue they are not going to restore but set the phone up as new. A better option is a second phone with nothing on the phone.
The guy was looking to make an issue.
The nice part of being a civil engineer is that things get done relatively quickly, unlike many other disciplines.* And there are a lot of subfields to choose from.
* Except train lines & people movers … except anything, actually … in California.
The nice part of being a civil engineer is that things get done relatively quickly
— one of the things that initially bothered me a LOT when I moved to Texas was that highway projects ENDED. They’d sweep, clear out the barricades, and the lanes would be open. Same with surface streets.
Coming from Chicago, finishing a road project was so unnatural that it caught my attention.
Turns out there are completion bonuses if the work meets standard. And if you can’t or won’t finish, someone else will.
n
According to the articles I read, the custom agent had the phone in hand, and asked for the PIN code to unlock. The guy gave them the ‘wipe’ PIN code. Agent entered it, and the phone blanked the screen a couple of times and rebooted to an ‘out of box’ screen. Subsequent analysis of the phone by agents/their techies saw that there was no data. So he was charged with destroying data.
The phone had a custom OS (see the article I referenced) that allowed for two PIN codes: a normal ‘unlock’, and a ‘factory reset destroy all data’ code.
The EFF link in the article has some ideas on how to protect your phone data when travelling, and upon entry back into the US (or any other country). A ‘travel burner phone’ is one idea.
Bonuses and liquidated damages do work, if the contracting agency has the will to impose them. In California & Chicago the civil governments are basically a criminal gang giving the work to the connected at this point, and so…
“Believe Them”
https://areaocho.com/believe-them/
“When someone says they are your enemy, believe them:”
“Islamic ‘scholar’ Mohammad Nusairat in Chicago lays out the plan: “We did NOT come here to coexist. We are superior to everyone else and will not be surpassed. No one is above us. If other religions want to live with us, they have to worship Allah”.”
Yeah, there is a storm coming and it will be loud with the sounds of guns.
China ditching Windows for Linux
https://www.zdnet.com/article/china-drops-windows-for-linux/
and that article has a link to France doing it too.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/france-leaves-windows-for-linux-desktop/
Most good engineering degree programs in the US are 5 year programs because of a work study/internship requirement.
That was true even in my day (mid 80s) although it was just really getting going.
I got my Mechanical Engineering degree at TAMU in 1982 in four years by taking 19 hours per semester. My grades suffered because I was overloaded but I graduated. I took 143 hours, started off Chemical Engineering and moved to Mechanical Engineering in the middle of my sophomore year. I also took computer courses and passed a couple of Fortran courses using tests for credit.
Back then, all you had to have to graduate from TAMU was a 2.00 GPA. Since then, they radically upped the requirement to graduate in Engineering to a minimum of 2.75. I am not happy with this as TAMU was built for the common folk, not the ivy league.
Eldest brat is sure she wants to be a civil engineer, but to my eye doesn’t have the engineer’s mind. Smart, but not fixated like you need to be.
If she did excellent in algebra, geometry, trigonometry, elementary analysis, chemistry, and physics in high school then she will do ok. Any trouble in those subjects will hurt her.
I had a girlfriend when I was a junior and she was a freshman who was in Chemical Engineering. Her dad was a chemical engineer in Abilene running a natural gas plant design body shop. She bounced out of Chem.E. because she had trouble with calculus and chemistry. I do not know what she went into then since we broke up.
The race for the Governor’s Mansion here in Texas is still way too close for comfort so Abbott is in campaign mode. I doubt he means it.
Three years and 90 credits is not a college education.
As for engineering students enduring “nonsense” classes, the typical four year program requires learning how to carefully budget time and, in most cases, money to reach the eventual goal. The education is the first complex system that the student engineer will learn to master before moving on.
Gina! is the first serious opponent Abbott has faced in the four elections he’s run for Governor.
Plus, Talarico/Paxton is at the top of the ballot.
Any chance that she could work in an engineering shop during senior year? Minimum wage or even unpaid, as the goal is to see what real, working engineering is like.
I don’t know that fixation is needed to be a productive, working engineer but it certainly helps and it is needed to be a good productive, working engineer.
It’s a tough call. I hate to discourage people from trying out their dreams. On the other hand, I hate not to discourage them from wasting time and money on something that it seems likely they’ll end up dropping. Special case: I’ve seen lots of young women who got through engineering or computer school by getting young men to “help” with their homework and projects. If D1 shows any inclination of doing that, discourage her from matriculating. She’d be likely to receive an unearned degree and be unable to do the job without getting guys to “help”. The world does not need more female engineers, programmers, etc who are unable to do the jobs they’re paid for.
(Equal opportunity time: the world does not need more male engineers unable to the jobs they’re paid for, either. However, except for Indians and other immigrants, that isn’t really a problem, that I’ve seen.)
“Steel’s Edge (The Edge, Book 4)” by Ilona Andrews
https://www.amazon.com/Steels-Edge-Book-4/dp/1937007820?tag=ttgnet-20/
Book number four of a four book paranormal romance dark fantasy series. I read the well printed and well bound MMPB published by Ace in 2012 that I bought new on Amazon in 2024. Note that “Ilona Andrews” is the pseudonym for a husband and wife writing team. Unfortunately, I think that the series is complete now. BTW, this series is related to the author’s Innkeeper Chronicles series and the Breach Wars series.
“The Edge lies between worlds, on the border between the Broken, where people shop at Wal-Mart and magic is a fairy tale—and the Weird, where blueblood aristocrats rule, changelings roam, and the strength of your magic can change your destiny…”
“Charlotte de Ney is as noble as they come, a blueblood straight out of the Weird. But even though she possesses rare magical healing abilities, her life has brought her nothing but pain. After her marriage crumbles, she flees to the Edge to build a new home for herself. Until Richard Mar is brought to her for treatment, and Charlotte’s life is turned upside down once again.”
“Richard Mar is a swordsman without peer, future head of his large and rambunctious Edger clan—and he’s on a clandestine quest to wipe out slavers trafficking humans in the Weird. So when his presence leads his very dangerous enemies to Charlotte, she vows to help Richard destroy them. The slavers’ operation, however, goes deeper than Richard knows, and even working together, Charlotte and Richard may not survive…”
The book concludes the four book series in an awesome manner as Richard and Charlotte fight the slavers, even to the top of the Adrianglian royalty. I must admit that I like books even better when they are fighting a righteous cause.
The authors have a website at:
https://www.ilona-andrews.com
My rating: 6 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars (4,762 reviews)
Lynn
W knows lots of engineers and architects thru her work, but very few civils. She’s gonna try to find someone to have a sit down and chat with D1 about the realities of the work.
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D2 is going to a concert with her bestie tonight. Not my idea.
I’ve handed out ear plugs.
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Fell asleep after lunch, and am bidding on stuff that needs pickup tomorrow. Combining those trips makes more sense.
n
BS Computer Science Univ. of Illinois class of ’76. That degree program was in the College of Engineering, so I call myself an engineer. I had to meet all the minimum requirements of the college, which included 13 hours of Math beyond college algebra, plus Chemistry and Physics. Plus stupid liberal arts credits.
I had no AP classes available then, and my high school did not teach calculus. I was one of 3 students who attended calculus classes at the local university at night. Two quarters (stupid system) at the local university got me just even with the Chicago area college prep kids, who got calculus in high school.
I got my degree in four years by clever double-counting of credits. My binary logic class was taught under the Philosophy department, so it counted as CS and liberal arts. My astronomy class prof was writing a textbook about Turing Machines. Same. I took a programming class from the Education department called “Computers in Education”. I also “challenged” 2 courses by taking the final exam from the previous semester. Chemistry and Music Theory.
I coasted through a German literature in translation class, taught in English. I had already read some of the works in German in high school… But not the Nietzsche, so it wasn’t all coasting.
The CS degree required an area of specialization and I chose Math. So, Numerical Methods, and my favorite class “Applied Modern Algebra”, a graduate level class I needed special permission to take. It was Number Theory. Sets, rings, fields, functions. It gives you a different perspective on arithmetic when you invent it out of very few axioms.
If I hadn’t worked the system the way I did, it would have been at least one extra semester.
I took an AI class from visiting professor Donald Michie. He wasn’t released from the Official Secrets Act until 1977, so he couldn’t tell us he worked with Alan Turing at Bletchley Park.
U of I is a land grant university, and when I was there we had to have a 3.0 GPA in our Major classes, but I think we could drop to 2.5 overall.
To be fair, I have seen it. Specifically 2 that I remember. The white guy just couldn’t handle the work, it was beyond his capability. The black guy talked a good game but never produced anything useful, and zoomed past us due “Equal Opportunity”, i.e. early DEI. He got hired by Microsoft and what little I heard says he was playing the same games there. Presenting other people’s work as the DEI face of the company.
There was also the entire IT department at Saint Louis University. They fired their only competent guy, a network engineer.
God, that’ s going on 20 years ago now.
A girl in my new hire training class at GTE was a UIUC CS graduate, Class of 1993. She started there as EE but her GPA dipped below (her claim) 3.5 after her second semester and the department strongly encouraged her to find another major.
The University of Florida was the land grant university in the state, and, thirty years ago, they had a bizarre system for culling the underachievers which led to my sister essentially flunking out of the school because she couldn’t pass Freshman Chemistry.
Of course, my parents would never admit that, especially my mother.
Ironically, my sister went on to become a pharmacist, but that paper cost my parents over $200k at a private university.
I’ve seen a lot of bad texts on Computation Theory including Turing Machines. The big kahuna in the topic since the mid-80s is Sipser, but that’s a pricey book and requires a very specific way of running the class which I’ve witnessed first hand.
I discourage white boys from studying CS or EE, and my wife tells aspiring healthcare providers to go to nursing school and get an ARNP unless they want to do some high end specialty which will justify the necessary loans.
The clock is ticking on GPs. In a decade, most people will see an ARNP or an MMBS as their primary provider.
Sure, the MBBS may have a piece of paper that says MD, but that’s because the AMA has a plan.
Like the Cylons.
Bidding on some stuff. Generators mostly. There’s one auction out in the boonies that has a lot of gennies and construction stuff that would be useful. It’s not far from my client’s house. Prices are very low at the moment.
——
All the XXs have left for the concert. W and D1 are just chauffeuring and getting dinner downtown. I just ate leftover steak and potatoes. I had leftover prime rib for lunch.
Quiet in the house.
n
Oh, I’ve seen quite the handful of male (non-immigrant) engineers, programmers, DBAs, etc who can’t or won’t do their jobs. Above, I meant that they’re not a significant fraction of the workforce. Unlike incompetent female engineers etc, who do make up a significant fraction of the workforce.
Most of my work experience has been with either government agencies or large, bureaucratic corporations such as Bank of America and GE. This may skew my experience. However, I saw much the same in smaller companies (though they generally hired fewer female engineers etc because they needed to turn a profit rather than look good to grievance mongers) and in college.
Harder to hide incompetence in a smaller setting too.
n
I did that with The Child, with a couple of engineers in different fields that my brother or I knew, keeping in mind that my brother and I were both engineers. She’s chosen to follow her passion, “satellite design or some engineering to do with the space program”, which is mostly fine but would seem to have limited employment opportunities. Or maybe I’m wrong about that or will be by the time she graduates.
“satellite design or some engineering to do with the space program”
I know a professor at Florida Institute of Technology, in fact I called him last night. I’ve known him since 7th grade, well before he went to MIT. He worked a couple of contractor jobs at NASA for over 20 years, and he teaches undergrad and master’s level classes in space tech.
I bet he could help if she had specific questions, or would like to sit in on some of his classes, which are mostly zoom these days.
For the entirety of the Shuttle-based version of Spacelab, no experiment flew without his signature on power/environmental.
You know how to reach me.
Thanks. Let me run it past her. Might be a bit of a delay before she replies. Freshmen are filtering in before the semester starts and as a lofty sophomore The Child is helping getting them settled.
Back in the ‘60s there were three year “pass” BAs and BScs and four year “honours” degrees. Don’t know what is offered now,
The diesel gennie went for more than I wanted to pay. Oh well. It’s the only fuel I don’t have a gennie for…
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Prices were way low in my other more industrial auction with a lot of unsold lots even at $3. Stuff that definitely would have sold a year ago. I picked up some supplies for my workshop.
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Got a nice ladder.
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Maybe time for a tiny little fire…
n
Why buy a company for exactly $12,930,300,000?
https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2026/09/03/hugging-face-easter-egg/
The diesel gennie went for more than I wanted to pay. Oh well. It’s the only fuel I don’t have a gennie for…
Diesel just went up to $5.399 per US gallon from $5.199 at both of our gas stations.
Diesel was $5.699 in Dallas.
Get ready, it is going to be wild ride. It was conjectured in the past that school buses and UPS trucks would shut down when diesel hit $6 per US gallon. Obviously that is not going to happen … yet.
I discourage white boys from studying CS or EE
I wouldn’t. The baby boomers are retiring by the gross now. And the H1-Bs are going to get canceled.
“Mysterious superyacht’s secret A-list owner unmasked after days of dominating LA harbor”
https://nypost.com/2026/09/03/us-news/j-k-rowling-revealed-as-owner-of-massive-yacht-docked-in-la-harbor/
“A massive ship docked in Marina del Rey all week has sparked much speculation, with its A-list owner now confirmed.”
“The ship arrived Sunday, shrouded in mystery, since the ship’s name was covered upon entry, a tactic many locals considered quite unusual.”
“Sources confirmed to the California Post that the boat’s owner is none other than “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling.”
Looks like J. K. Rowling is doing ok. I am envious, that is a sweet ride.
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/
“Vance leads first WH press briefing since Leavitt’s departure, discussing Iran conflict, gas prices and military successes”
https://www.oann.com/newsroom/vance-leads-first-wh-press-briefing-since-leavitts-departure-discussing-iran-conflict-gas-prices-and-military-successes/
Responding to questions about gas prices, the vice president attributed the surge directly to Iran’s ongoing attacks on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
And, over 20 refineries in the USA have been shut down in the last ten years. About 10 in California, 1 in Texas, 2 in Hawaii, several on the east coast. Only three new refineries have been built in the USA in the last ten years: Arizona, South Dakota, and Texas.
The 90? refineries in the USA are running at 97% capacity factor right now. That cannot continue as they are delaying maintenance now.
I just read Vance’s new book, “Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith”. It was interesting. He has led an interesting life so far.
https://www.amazon.com/Communion-Finding-Way-Back-Faith/dp/B0GTQMJ53N?tag=ttgnet-20
Charlie Kirk’s death affected him immensely as they talked daily. It is why Vance and his wife had a fourth child.
We’ll see how this goes down. Rowling approves everything down to the smallest detail, including Black Snape, mixed race Hermione Granger Kagan, and stacked Secretary of State McGonagall.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RnyZgfN-JY
Christmas Day.
We’ll see how this goes down. Rowling approves everything down to the smallest detail, including Black Snape, mixed race Hermione Granger Kagan, and stacked Secretary of State McGonagall.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RnyZgfN-JY
Christmas Day.
Looked like the same movie as the first movie to me.
Hermione was supposed to be black. The studio said no way was the ‘mudblood’ going to be black.
Read that Rowlings herself said that.
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Kid is home having enjoyed the concert. She could hear my very low volume questions so that seems ok. They did have ear plugs with them if needed. Modern venues and producers are very aware of hearing damage and lawsuits, so it should be better than back in my day.
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Had my snack, time for a shower and bed.
n