At least it’s a bit cooler as Fall begins to assert itself. It’s been cold these last two nights. The damp adds additional discomfort even if the temp doesn’t sound that extreme. From 95F to 55F is a pretty big jump for a couple of days. Time to get out the cold (by Houston standards) weather clothes.
Slept in a bit too long and then was tired from low blood sugar. Once I got moving, my brain was good but my back was sore. I did a variety of domestic bliss, with more to be done today. Then I worked on the electrical system of the golf cart, alternating with cleaning up my driveway and getting out some more Halloween decorations. They are all related as the driveway stuff was mainly me looking for other things. I have let things go, and stuff that was useful has been damaged or deteriorated, or proved that I didn’t need it in several years. I’ve got some culling to do.
Today I’m trying to keep moving. I’ll do more with the cart, a bit more decor, and some more cleaning and sorting. That’s after I cut my hair and shave though. Oh, and do a load of laundry. Told ya I had more domestic bliss to do. I need to find time to do more volunteer hours at school, and spend at least some time at the rent house on Wednesday too, so this week should be full of opportunities to find some joy. Just chock full.
Plenty of time to keep working too. And maybe a bit of stacking.
nick
That may simply be inapt phrasing or it may be fulfillment of an earlier promise, but if volunteering causes you difficulty in making room for it, it’s time to drop it.
Eh, the main difficulty is getting out of the house before noon. I generally enjoy the time with the kids, and passing on what I know. It’s a bit frustrating because class is 55 minutes long so I get them for so little time unless I go in more than one day in a row.
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58F and still grey.
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I think I’m up for the day. Got about 5 hours of sleep, which feels about right.
n
I downloaded the Artcraft replacement apps for Adobe and MSOffice. There is some work that still needs to be done. I used my MacBook for the trial. The Artcraft apps, on the Mac, will not open any files from the Apple apps such as Pages and Numbers.
The Lightroom replacement is clumsy and not a very good replacement. There are no separate processing panes such as Develop and Web. What I was unable to find is the ability to sync the changes of one image to all the other images. That is a critical piece. I did not find any way to set the Metadata. These items may be there, but they are all hidden.
The Photoshop replacement is quite good and Adobe should be very worried. For many users the replacement is more than good enough. Much better than other implementations. The Word app is quite good although there are some missing font selections.
I would like to see Intuit attacked next. A replacement for Quicken would be welcome to avoid the yearly fee. I don’t want a replacement for Turbotax as I will pay for that product. Tax laws are complicated and Intuit has been doing the tax stuff for years. I would not trust an AI generated app to get the tax calculations correct and messing with the IRS is not pleasant.
From your lips to God’s ear.
My hobby club uses a mysql database where we have to manually enter all the statements. We had a one year subscription to Quicken’s product Simplifi, and all I needed was the download part.
I suppose I need to prioritize writing my own. I hate dealing with the authentication part.
I also suppose it’s already out there as open source somewhere, but I’ve been too lazy to search.
I’ll add it to my todo list.
Monday. Back at base briefly after a long weekend of bashing Bambi. I got a calf, and sibling a 10-point red stag and a six-point roebuck. Sibling is happy. I am also happy, as sibling’s first shot at the buck was a miss, so I will be taking the Mickey about that for the rest of the season…
It was nice to spend time in the woods, with sibling and close friends. A few beers, talking lots of nonsense and some important truths, many laughs. Teaching the next generation of hunters. Recharging our batteries.
Tonight I am at base to celebrate getting to know W1 thirty years ago. Where did the decades go? We will go to our favourite pizza place. Real Italians. I will have the Zabaglione for dessert! Mmmm.
Have a good week!
I was wrong, sleep caught me. NOW it’s time to start my day.
n
Here, here! I would LOVE to have an open-source, or even one-time purchase, of a program to replace Quicken. Especially since I use almost none of the “new and improved!” features & gimmicks.
“France’s “Chaos Inc” Exposed as the Global Islamo-Marxist Franchise Launching Revolutions With Plans to Spread to 12 Nations”
https://jdrucker.com/frances-chaos-inc-exposed-as-the-global-islamo-marxist-franchise-launching-revolutions-with-plans-to-spread-to-12-nations/
“France is on fire again, and the usual suspects are pouring gasoline while calling it student solidarity. On Saturday the student protests over “school conditions” merged with a nationwide revolt that put more than half a million people in the streets. Rioters attacked public buildings, looted stores, and set fires from Paris to Lyon. More than 800 people were arrested.”
“And that was just one day.”
Where is Napoleon and his cannon brigades firing grapeshot in the streets of Paris when you need him?
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/
“$125M tower near Texas A&M could become College Station’s tallest building”
https://www.chron.com/texas/article/college-station-parking-texas-a-m-22483816.php
“The new complex is being built to house the growing number of Aggies.”
“According to filings with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, the development is a 24-story mixed-use building totaling 753,612 square feet and will include 342 residential units, ground-floor commercial space, indoor and outdoor amenities and an eight-story parking garage.”
“According to the most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau, College Station’s population grew from about 94,000 residents in 2010 to more than 120,000 in 2020, with continued growth in recent years. Much of that development has clustered around Northgate, the historic entertainment district across from campus that has evolved into a dense hub of student apartments, bars and restaurants.”
“The city’s growth mirrors the rapid expansion of Texas A&M University, which in recent years has become one of the largest universities in the country. University leaders last year announced plans to cap undergraduate enrollment, citing concerns that the institution’s size was beginning to outpace available housing, classroom space and faculty resources.”
Unreal. They need to push students to the other campuses.
There are over 19 million people registered to vote in Texas. This is a new high and makes me suspect that there will be a record turn out for the election.
https://www.texastribune.org/2026/10/16/texas-voter-registration-2026-election/
Railroads are hugely capital intensive, with the Geico Gecko being the current big kahuna of capex in the US, but that yearly investment pales in comparison to the requirement of the AI buildout, currently at ~ 20% of GDP annually.
It would be more precise to talk about the ongoing capex in transportation. Plus the operations and maintenance expenses of transportation. The two of these are well over 20% of the GDP in the USA. Maybe 30% in the USA.
No other country comes close to the USA for transportation flexibility. And 40+% of liquid fuels in the USA are used for transportation.
“Memes that made me laugh 332”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2026/10/memes-that-made-me-laugh-332.html
I am not going to tell my wife that I want to be cremated.
Here, here! I would LOVE to have an open-source, or even one-time purchase, of a program to replace Quicken. Especially since I use almost none of the “new and improved!” features & gimmicks.
Who is going to maintain and fix bugs in that software?
If they write good COMPLETED software, rather than releasing the Alpha version like M$ does, there shouldn’t be that many.
If they write good COMPLETED software, rather than releasing the Alpha version like M$ does, there shouldn’t be that many.
ROTFLMAO. There is no such thing as completed software.
I can’t tell you how many times that my perfectly working software was broken by a operating system patch or update.
And of course there are the users constantly clamoring for new features.
Let’s hope they all vote against TalaFreako.
“During National Address to France President Macron Says He “Doesn’t Know What is Going On” but He’s Sure President Trump is to Blame”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2026/10/18/during-national-address-to-france-president-macron-says-he-doesnt-know-what-is-going-on-but-hes-sure-president-trump-is-to-blame/
“Following days of riots, violence, arson, buildings destroyed and mass looting, French President Emmanuel Macron delivered a national address to the people of France. Remarkably, in the beginning of his remarks Macron says no one in the French government understands what is happening, but he is demanding an investigation.”
“A few paragraphs into the prepared transcript and Macron says high fuel prices driven by President Trump’s war against Iran, “a war we had nothing to do with,” is certainly the cause of the protests that have mysteriously turned violent for some unknown reason. Macron further notes those protests are righteous, justified and he agrees with them.”
The man’s house is burning down and he blames Trump, not the hordes of muslims that have flooded his country? Amazing. What an idiot.
You assume that the AI executes flawlessly, generating perfect code as part of the piracy -er- “reverse engineering” process.
You also assume that the code is perfect in the shipping product being copied.
For the second time today – Incorrect Strategy Number One.
At a minimum, the AI has randomization symbols built into the state machine in order to prevent “hallucinations”, where the prompt to pirate, say, Quicken, causes the DFA (my guess) to loop which would mean that the language is regular and the pumping lemma applies.
This means that horrors like this will occasionally get inserted into code by the AI, an example which I saw first hand last year.
ptr = calloc(0, SIZE);
Perfectly legal C.
I’ve used QuickBooks Online for a long time. Problems arise anytime a bank changes its access. AMEX is one of the worst. Then the blame game starts.
Maybe they could build software that runs in Docker, makes it OS-independent, and lets you pay for additional modules for advanced features or financial institution access.
I’m just going to let AI handle all of my finances.
They seek him here.
They seek him there.
Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.
Is he in heaven.
Or is he in hell.
That damned elusive Orange Pimpernel.
My professional experience is that anything with a user interface will experience failure. No matter how hard you try, you cannot surpass the idiocy of users with “idiot-proof” software.
Each new idiot will need new programming to get around.
Even software without a user interface will fail, because at some point the environment or input devices or output devices will change in unexpected ways.
Microsoft added containers in WSL as a standard Windows feature recently, but that does nothing for Mac OS X users since Apple shifted to ARM and deprecated Rosetta 2 for the next OS release.
Only specific applications without an Apple Silicon port – probably “Starcraft” – will continue to receive Rosetta 2 support.
I had forgotten about that. I didn’t use that product, but did use Mint. It used to be free and useful, but it was a real pain whenever my banks “upgraded” their interfaces. Then Mint got bought and started charging, or just got shut down, I don’t recall. I started doing my personal budgeting on a spreadsheet.
That was in the days of my divorce, when I was deciding which bills to pay, and which to punt. So there weren’t many checks to track.
There’s an option called HomeBank that is free and has been around since Amiga days. I’ll check it out. It does batch downloading of transactions from the bank, and has duplicate detection. Supposedly.
Ilhan Omar’s Cover Story May Be Blown: Investigators Find Something Is Strangely ‘Missing’
https://redstate.com/kyle-becker/2026/10/19/house-investigation-reveals-jaw-dropping-finding-about-ilhan-omars-winery-n2208345
This could be the best of all possible worlds.
If she is not a U.S. citizen, then every vote that she has ever cast is fraudulent. Every vote in a primary, every vote in a general election, and every vote in Congress. Every time she filed for election and attested her citizenship was fraudulent. Every time she took the oath of office was fraudulent. That’s a lot of prosecutable felonies that are under the statue of limitations. That’s also a great foundation for a few thousand civil suits.
[Note that Omar is alleged to be the youngest of seven children. The others were over 18 and had to apply for citizenship on their own. But if Omar’s alleged father didn’t get citizenship in 1995 (cue Slick Willy on the sax) it will be interesting to see if they did or did not. Further, with DNA evidence in the mix and credible claims that her alleged father understated his military service history to downplay potential war crimes, and the man alleged by some to be her real father most certainly a war criminal, the entire family would be tainted and not qualified for entrance to the U.S.]
It is increasingly evident that this whole operation is an all-fronts investigation. Sister Sahra Noor, already connected to Somali Scam I (Feed Our Future) has received a subpoena, and earlier reports indicated that part of the evidence presented to the Biden-appointed Democrat judge was derived from phone calls between Omar and her sister. I’d be surprised if current husband (he of the empty wine barrels) and past husband aren’t on the list, too.
We have serious prison time, deportation, massive civil fines, and all sorts of goodies on the table. If this comes to fruition, we need the best legal minds in the country to make the consequences airtight, so no future election can undo any of it and allow Omar back in the country.
Another delicious side dish is going to be the impeachment process. If the evidence is as damning as the potential it could hasten the collapse of the Democrat Party if most of them refuse to live up to their oath of office.
And if we have had a non-citizen in Congress for years expect not only legislation requiring proof of citizenship for federal elected offices, expect a constitutional amendment that will require such proof for all elections, and defeat the massive voter fraud operations in Democrat states at the local and state levels.
Gnu Cash has been plugging away at providing a Quicken/QuickBooks for years, but it has lacked the online capabilities of Quicken.
Another obstacle is that Gnu Cash uses a traditional double entry accounting ledger model which would require some retraining on the part of the user.
Advocating use of an AI to pirate commercial software is advocating a solution which would be neither free as in speech nor free as in beer.
How about a real free alternative?
Did anyone cover this over the weekend or today before the Monday posting went up? I have been buried at both work and home.
RIP.
https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/cvillerightnow/name/mark-stephens-obituary?id=62687488
More of the old guard passing on.
n
The vagaries of amazon prime.
I decided to get some structural adhesive for repairing the golf cart where I had to cut away plastic body panel. I’ve used sikaflex 252 before, in a different setting but I figure it will work for this.
ONE tube, I can get free tomorrow morning delivery. TWO tubes, I get it Wed. sometime before 10pm, so really Thur.
One tube tomorrow and another later would have been fine with me. I wanted two to be sure I had enough, but now if I need more, I’ll order one tube again. This can’t be more efficient.
n
Amazon’s algorithms project that you won’t order another tube in the near future.
“Trump: ‘Paris Is Going to Be a Muslim City Very Soon’ — ‘Close Up Your Borders’”
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2026/10/19/trump-paris-is-going-to-be-a-muslim-city-very-soon-close-up-your-borders/
“President Donald Trump warned Monday that Paris is on course to become a “Muslim city very soon,” blaming France’s escalating unrest on mass immigration and saying he had repeatedly urged French President Emmanuel Macron to close the country’s borders.”
““Paris is going to be a Muslim city very soon, and that wasn’t the deal,” Trump told reporters at the White House as France grappled with days of violent riots, looting, and arson.”
“Trump said he had warned Macron about the consequences of his immigration policies years before the latest unrest.”
Look at the picture. The invaders are tearing down the monuments and burning the city’s history down.
Apparently the invaders will be starting in London in November.
London? They will be in New York after the Midterms, definitely by January.
Dallas wouldn’t surprise me.
Even if the Republicans hold the statewide offices below the Senate race, what’s Sir “MAGA” Mayes Percy going to do about it?
Sink me.
The next statue that is assaulted by a mob in the U.S. may draw snipers.
Early tiny little fire tonight. One black cat. No gunfire, a few normal small planes.
Temperature was 69F and moist, with a whisp of a wind, just enough to keep the smoke moving.
Time for a shower, and hopefully an early bedtime. Even with the unwanted nap, I’m still pretty tired and it would be nice to get to bed earlier.
n
London? They will be in New York after the Midterms, definitely by January.
Dallas wouldn’t surprise me.
Even if the Republicans hold the statewide offices below the Senate race, what’s Sir “MAGA” Mayes Percy going to do about it?
Sink me.
Rule .308 in the USA might apply.
France and Britain are nuclear powers. If either of them fall to the Muslim hordes, we’ll need to work with the French and British military forces to evacuate their nuclear weapons to the US, or destroy them, to prevent a nuclear-armed Caliphate from nuking US.
Maybe we can cut a deal; get the French & British sailors to bring their families and the special weapons aboard their ships, and defect to the USA with their nukes AND their ships.
Definitely tense time in the old UK at the moment, we have to get this criminally incompetent Labour government out and do something about our borders and their dribblingly stupid energy policy. Don’t suppose your boy Trump is up for another bit of regime change?