Warm and wet again. 60s and 70sF with really high humidity. Yuck. Blue sky helps, but it’s still unpleasantly damp. And it will continue for a few days yet. Probably.
I spent the day on my computer and phone. Turns out I hit my deductible and so all medical expenses until the end of the year are paid for (subject to copays and other limits.) This is the opposite of what I thought happened, ie, I wouldn’t make it so save discretionary treatment until next year. It would have been nice to know last month. I was able to schedule one office visit this year. I haz a sad because I have a half dozen to schedule. Still checking things out, no bad thing lurking.
I’m also poking at my auto insurance both for an old claim, and for the possible new one. Fortunately Ranger parts are pretty cheap, and widely available. If I decide to fix my trucks axle, no matter who funds it, it should be doable and in the ‘reasonable to do’ range for me.
This means I didn’t get anything else done. Other than laundry. So I’ve got all that still to do.
It’s always something, and there’s always more.
Stack. Because the alternative is actually working on stuff…
nick
Amen to that. It’s a great life if we don’t falter.
Friday. Good morning. A week of my holidays passed already! Where did it go?
I think my sinuses are punishing me for something. I am going to apply some steroids and go back to bed for a couple of hours. That might help…
Disagreed that the language wasn’t a factor. Rust’s features, and I use that noun with reservations, make many ordinary tasks a challenge. If Rust stays around, most likely techniques will be developed to implement these tasks in idiomatic Rust without having to bypass Rust’s features. We (they) aren’t at that point yet. Trying to get things done in Rust is more fraught than doing them in other languages.
Agreed that the developer screwed up and that a seasoned developer shouldn’t have.
Who exactly is a “seasoned” Rust developer outside of the language architects at Mozilla?
Anyone with real work to get done is not going to have the time to hassle with a whole new language just to make a propellerhead manager happy that he can notch a resume entry.
“Managed Rust developers.”
Corporate America has a new age discrimination tool.
Seasoned in general, with knowledge of many languages and frameworks and things that can go wrong.
@Denis
Up early to make civet de marcassin (Wild Boar stew
May I bring wine?
Like I said, it’s a bit involved…
– um, yeah. But sounds mouthwateringly tasty. Sometimes a scent unit would be a nice accessory to the pc.
————————
40F this morning. Not warm. At least not yet. Looks clear though.
————————
The IR emitter that I replaced the power supply on the other day is flashing like a chinese LED streetlight. I’ll try replacing the slightly underpowered wart first. IAS – it’s always something.
———————–
Kinder are moving. Coffee smells good. Elf on the shelf can go F itself…
n
Corporate America doesn’t want to pay for that.
Management grudgingly altered my compensation in the last couple of weeks, and that was only due to a change in direct leadership of my group, where stability is required for the next few months to land some big sales while the Monkey Trick plates are still spinning.
The new manager for my group tried the Jedi mind trick on me in a meeting on Wednesday regarding the age issue in the room for most of the last year due to the Go push. “You don’t want to say that to HR.”
This is my last tech job.
Last ever 2nd semester programming lecture – done. Whew. Still have grading to do, but the end is in sight. I have taught that course for way too long, and the student motivation has dropped steadily over the years. During the same time, the number of non-Swiss names has increased. I expect there is a relationship.
Of course, I am teaching programming at the trade school, but that is very different. Also still mostly Swiss, because we are far away from the big cities.
I’m finding that I would like to increase my teaching time. I quit work before I could pass on my hard earned knowledge. Now I would like to.
——-
Not the iranians. Probably. https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/12/brown-university-shooter-claudio-neves-valente-also-responsible/
Thirty year old grudge seems a bit hard to believe.
n
The new auction seller that has the mysteriously disappearing auction when the bids are too low did it again.
I won 3 items last night, but this morning, no record of the auction happening, and he has the same items listed again. This time, with high starting bids.
So the auction ended, my bids were high, the system marked them “won” by me, and he threw all that out because the bids weren’t high enough.
I reported his shenanigans to the platform support people. If, as we are told whenever bidding, “a bid placed is a contract to buy” then surely an item listed for bidding is a contract to sell. One that this guy has violated several times now.
Everyone thinks the reselling game is easy money. It’s not. This guy bought a couple of pallets of cop dash cams and saw the list price from the manufacturer and thought he’d bought a pot of gold. I used to buy similar stuff for $20 per pallet. It’s clear that he didn’t even look at ebay ‘sold’ prices for the bits that do infrequently sell, nor did he figure out that most of them never sell.
The networking gear I wanted sells on ebay used for about $20 net to seller, maybe less after shipping. I won with $5 bid, which is about right vs ebay. Today he has it starting at $20, with additional 10% buyers fee. A quick check of some of the other starting prices and it’s similar. He is starting above or around the ebay net to seller– with none of the buyer protections from ebay. Given the fees from the auction platform, even selling at his open will probably net him less than ebay. And no one will be buying from him at that price anyway.
He hasn’t done his research. Doesn’t understand auctions. Spent WAY too much time and energy listing. Will blame everyone but himself when he goes broke and quits.
n
Yes, people doing metal casting use dry stone and gravel so as not to create an all-natural hand grenade if they spill the molten metal.
My neighbor made one of those double barrel contraptions, and it worked very well for him because he was helping a retired lawyer friend destroy hundreds of boxes of documents. He needed an nice clean burn because there was so much of it and because the county would probably get excited about open flame disposal of same and he wanted a smokeless fire.
Out of curiosity, after a full career in tech, where do you go?
My migration was stepwise down. From team lead of highly technical product development to OS customization (VMS) to product maintenance to healthcare DBA (Intersystems Cache and SQL Server) to SME in Medical Records and Hospital Billing. Then kicked to the curb for not taking he clot shot.
Sometimes I regret my active dodging of management positions. Although that wouldn’t have saved me from termination.
re: Rust
Don’t know beans about Rust, but the discussion about multithreading and coordination of updates to shared data structures reminded me of my training in VMS internals, taught by Digital Equipment Corporation when I was a customer, before I became an employee.
When DEC introduced multiprocessing to their VAX computing line, they had to modify the kernel to support it. They introduced interprocessor synchronization tools called spinlocks to handle shared resources. It was an extension of the concept of mutexes.
We were trained in how to use spinlocks and how to queue requests for shared resources and how to avoid deadlocks.
In VAX assembler language.
In retrospect, most of my OS training was about memory allocation, tracking data structures and sharing, and making sure you handled all the deallocation appropriately.
God, that was all so long ago. The last customization I made was in the early 90’s.
Please do! I would recommend a full-bodied dry red; Bordeaux, or maybe a Cahors.
I had the stew last night with a Christmas beer: Bush de Noël. W1 had a Christmas Val Dieu. Those went rather well. I might have a glass of wine with the leftovers this evening, for scientific purposes, you understand…
It indeed was not awful. I think it will be even better today.
My sinuses are definitely acting up. Too much culinary-olfactory stimulation yesterday, perhaps?
I have hit them with everything in the house pharmacy; steroids, Vitamin C, Xylometazoline, Acetylcysteine and some Sage extract (Salvia officinalis). Next, I will inhale the steam from a bowl of boiling water with a few drops of this stuff in it:
Tincture of benzoin, 30 grams
Eucalyptus tincture, 30 grams
Balsam of Peru 0.5 gram
Gomenol (Niaouli oil), 1 gram.
Fingers crossed. I don’t want to be dragging sinusitis and myself around for Christmas.
My doc acted like it was a big deal that I can only breathe through one nostril. Dude, that’s all I’ve ever been able to breathe thru…
Different ones at different times, but it’s rare to have both open. Maybe for 10 seconds after blowing my nose.
———
my buddy had years of sinus congestion and headaches. They finally put a camera up there and found a big ball of mold all partially encapsulated. Removed that sucker and he was cured.
n
Alec Baldwin?
Now that the doosh WI judge is convicted, what will the sentence be? I read up to 5 years. I hope to see at least 2.5 years. At least some justice is served, but her actions were egregious.
Don’t. Management is different animal. Being very skilled technically ensures you know what needs to be done by others. It is no help whatsoever in actually getting that work done. Managing people sucks. This is my third job doing it. I didn’t even ask for this management role, it was just thrust upon me. At 52, I can see me biding my time here until I am able to retire. If I do leave, it won’t be for a management position. I keep my skills up to date to make sure I’m not stuck. Age discrimination is a real issue, though in the gov contractor world it’s not as bad.
I regret taking a management position. It darn near destroyed me and my family. I was angry all the time from dealing with users, vendors, staff, budgets, upper management; chained to a pager. I was a technician, not management. I got fired from that job and that was the best thing that happened to me in that job. I got my life back.
If you have a BP issue, masked hypertension from the sinus problem is a possibility.
Just be careful about getting a sleep study. That should be an off the record conversation if you think the doctor would be cool about it:
BP normal.
Wife has the sleep issue.
n
Ouch!
I had my sinuses operated on in 2018 to further drainage. That was a big improvement, cutting my sinusitis down from almost constant to very occasional. The infections had already become resistant to the first-line antibiotic (amoxycillin + clavulanic acid), so it was high time to get the frequency of attacks down.
I am fortunate, or unfortunate, in that my sinusitis is usually completely asymptomatic (no pain, no blocked nose) until the problem is actually rather serious, with the result that I have difficulty getting rid of it with non-antibiotic methods. If I notice sufficiently early, I can usually knock it on the head with a couple of days of steroid spray, prescribed by the ORL. My GP prescribes antibiotics for me to have on hand, just in case the steroids don’t get it.
For those of you still in the CS rat race:
ACM to open all publications:
https://dl.acm.org/openaccess‘
via slashdot.
My neighbor’s kid texted to say he saw coyotes running around here again, which means I’m back to needing to enclose a safe dog run area for the loaner Chihuahuas.
Bah.
“Now that the doosh WI judge is convicted, what will the sentence be? I read up to 5 years. I hope to see at least 2.5 years. At least some justice is served, but her actions were egregious.”
There is some prattling about the presiding judge being “compassionate”.
Not just no.
Government officials should always be held to the highest standards, by reason of position, accountability, public trust, and training.
And it should help inform this particular decision that the p.o.s. That she tried to protect had been previously deported and was up on charges for punching a man thirty times and then striking a woman who tried to interfere.
The Left lines up to care of its own, no matter how they damaged their party.
The Right lines up to stab their own in the back, no matter how they helped their party.
This.
Dr. Pournelle stated many times that we are no longer a Republic but in fact an empire, and we should at least try to be a competent one. We definitely are not. It’s not a matter of if, but when the empire fades. Hopefully it’s a gradual decline and not a slam a truck into a brick wall at 80 mph scenario.
I ran a couple of errands. Gas went down to @2.119 at HEB.
I picked up a prescription at CVS, and the clerk asked me if I was up-to-date on my vaccines, and specifically mentioned Covid and Flu. I told her I had all the vaccines I needed.
I haven’t been in CVS since a Colonist pharmacist refused to fill an Ivermectin script for my wife and got really snarky about it in the process.
Colonists love bureaucracy.
The Santa Rita Ranch development that caters to them north of Georgetown has an all Colonist shadow government, complete with web site.
Your restraint is admirable. I’d have been massively sarcastic. “Why are you asking? Are you upset that I wasn’t killed in the first two rounds?” Yes, I realize that the clerk is just a barely-above-minimum-wage flunky in the medical-industrial complex, but she’s still a part of it by her own choice. The entire business has shamed themselves in the past six years, and should be shamed whenever possible.
*I ran a couple of errands. Gas went down to @2.119 at HEB.*
Wow. Whereabouts is that? (In general, no OPSEC violations…)
Pretty sure it’s $4.50-ish around here.
Wow, that is high even in Vegas.
To Protect and Serve:
The teddy-hugging progressive cop whose ‘security 101’ blind spots left Brown University exposed to a bloodbath
That hasn’t been the cop motto for decades, even if the shop has it on the side. Now it’s “I feared for my life…” and “where’s my 6-figure salary and 90% pension”. How many times do we need to see cops running the other way or not even showing up?
Yet the Dumbocratic Socialists (a commie pinko bastard by any other name) want to disarm the FUSA. Fuk ’em. How about no security for Congress unless they pay for it themselves? No exceptions.
I’ve spent my lifetime, 7 decades so far, as a white male American. I’ve been accused of every evil on Earth, blamed for everything bad that happens everywhere, to anyone, and told incessantly that I’m privileged and bear responsibility for all the sins of all the whites in history. I’ve watched opportunity after opportunity disappear, to be consumed by foreigners and less capable people who were somehow better for being “diverse”.
It was not my choice to leave technical computer programming behind as a career. When I got laid off my last such job in 2007, there was no space for a 50-ish white male in that space. In fact, only my security clearance and DoD work got me that far along.
They have no idea the restraint I show, daily. Sarcasm would be the least of their worries.
The religion of vaccine-ology is the result of a brainwashing campaign of long duration and deep emotional manipulation. I bear no ill-will to some dumb clerk reciting a script. The rot is much deeper, and very sinister, and aimed at the destruction of Western civilization.
As someone on X noted, England had jury trials from the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215. Until today.
It was nice while it lasted.
My saving grace was the US Army. Up until about my 10th year that is. At that point, the rot began to creep in with female standards for combat arms. Ass kissing minoritys. Rubber stamp promotions. Nothing against females, but their PT standards pale compared to males. tRump is reversing the most egregious shite forced on the military by Obottom and plugs The LastTM. We still have the rot of dual standards with us. How in the Lords Holy Name did Sikhs successful sue the military to allow them to wear turbans, beards and long hair. Evey member of the military should have buzz cuts and wear the same uniform. We don’t need separate uniforms. No makeup, jewelry, or hair coloring of any kind. It used to be no visible tattoos. Now full “sleeves” are allowed. The military looks like a bunch of gang thugs these days.
Have I mentioned how happy I am that I am retired. I recommend no one join the military anymore.
Beware!
There be monsters, Dumbocrats, crimmigrants, and moo-slims in your neighborhood.
I see that the phantom downvoter took offense at my characterization of the clot shots and/or the medical business.
Wah, wah! Cry harder, little snowflake! But I won’t use your tears to salt my oatmeal because chlamydia of the eye can be transmitted through fluids.
Arlo and Janis: College Football Playoffs
https://www.gocomics.com/arloandjanis/2025/12/19
Yup, just as crazy as the old systems.
Darn, I feel slighted. @SteveF only criticized the clot shot. I implicated the whole vaccine religion, and I didn’t get a downvote.
Sniff.
It’s the tone more than the content. I’m nastier than you. This inspires snowflakes to respond with the full, righteous fury of their … downvote.
“Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s 2018 pay package reinstated by court”
https://finance.yahoo.com/video/tesla-ceo-elon-musks-2018-220658213.html
“The Delaware Supreme Court has restored Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk’s 2018 pay package valued at $56 billion. This all comes after Tesla board members agreed on a $1 trillion pay package pending if the EV maker hits certain performance targets and milestones in the coming years.”
I suspected that this was going to happen eventually. The Delaware judge who threw out the pay package is corrupt and incompetent.
Corporate America doesn’t want to pay for that.
Management grudgingly altered my compensation in the last couple of weeks, and that was only due to a change in direct leadership of my group, where stability is required for the next few months to land some big sales while the Monkey Trick plates are still spinning.
The new manager for my group tried the Jedi mind trick on me in a meeting on Wednesday regarding the age issue in the room for most of the last year due to the Go push. “You don’t want to say that to HR.”
This is my last tech job.
Never say never. Replacing your expertise will be difficult for your employer.
So is your new manager over 25 years in age ?
Last day of exams at God Forsaken Blue State U.
His last exam ended at 4 PM EST.
Merry Grading Christmas!
Quite likely, but they won’t admit it.
Ego > Practicality
The manager has been with my employer longer than 25 years.
I’ve spent my lifetime, 7 decades so far, as a white male American. I’ve been accused of every evil on Earth, blamed for everything bad that happens everywhere, to anyone, and told incessantly that I’m privileged and bear responsibility for all the sins of all the whites in history. I’ve watched opportunity after opportunity disappear, to be consumed by foreigners and less capable people who were somehow better for being “diverse”.
This. I am watching the destruction here with a 40% Asian population in Fort Bend County. It is not very pretty and I want to leave.
Arlo and Janis: College Football Playoffs
https://www.gocomics.com/arloandjanis/2025/12/19
Yup, just as crazy as the old systems.
My Aggies play Miami at College Station, Texas in the morning at 11 am on ABC and Fubo.
Management at the Death Star never admitted it but, after two years, they sent seven contracting companies to talk to me and then resorted to effectively putting an Apple employee badge on the table in the main conference room of Bandley 3, where the pirate flag flew.
The only prop missing from the scene was Wozniak’s Defender machine in the lobby.
Our last windstorm earlier in the week blew all the leaves off the trees in 24 hours, so I’ve been looking in the garage for my extension cords & splitters for the lights I normally put on them.
I think there’s three or four of the dark green weatherproof cords that weren’t in the tote with the lights for some reason.
So far I have found and hung up 15x other extension cords. In my defense several of them were special duty cords, 30A Marine & RV, and a couple were simply given to me last year with some abandoned contractors tools.
Still looking tho….
“Innocent Venezuelan Fishermen: ‘Hands Up! Don’t Shoot!’”
https://anncoulter.com/2025/12/11/innocent-venezuelan-fishermen-hands-up-dont-shoot/
“No matter how much I try to ignore the Democrats’ latest “The Walls Are Closing In” spectacle, it has come to my attention that liberals are hopping mad about our military killing two Venezuelan drug traffickers.”
“Cocaine has killed 100,000 Americans in the last 20 years. Venezuela is a major player in the supply chain that brings it here. But Democrats are concerned with the safety and well-being of the narco-terrorists. Of course, Democrats also root for cop-killers, serial rapists, wife-beaters, drug kingpins, cold-blooded killers and Ana Navarro.”
“Liberals are OK with killing people unless it’s good for America. They want our military sticking its nose into every bar fight around the globe, while leaving the bad guys in our hemisphere alone.”
There is a huge gulf in our country between the conservatives and the liberals and it is not getting closer.
According to US Census July 2024, Fort Bend County has the following demographics:
Similar statistics from other sources. I didn’t find any source specifying an Asian population above 25%.
This will be an unpleasant weekend for the Texas alumni.
Quinn Ewers starts for the Dophins on Sunday.
Ewers had another year of eligibility but opted for the NFL rather than face another year of alumni pressure to step aside to make way for “Arch”.
Mars also bought out CheezIts among other brands, closing the sale this week.
The CheezIts-M&Ms Citrus Bowl at Camping World Stadium?
No, wait, Orlando. The Skittles-CheezIts Citrus Bowl!
Big money. Big prizes. I love it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCKWp6-kYpc
Best video game ever.
Remarkable. I went to the link for the census numbers you posted for Fort Bend county, and they match, line-for-line, with the same source’s numbers for Harris county. To the decimal.
It’s almost as if the numbers are made up.
Also curious, is how the media reported about 5 years ago that for Harris county, English is not the primary language spoken at home in the majority of homes. The number of homes that use Spanish, Mandarin, Hindi, Tagalog, Vietnamese, etc. outnumber the English homes.
But diversity is our strength.
The stats are very dubious.
In theory, in my local area, I should be able to look around (in Costco, for example) and see one white person (25% according to the census) for every other 3 ethnicities. In practice the number is 1 in 10, possibly 1 in 20. I have been in the supermarket when I was the only Anglo among a hundred shoppers.
I don’t say this in anger, it’s simply an observed fact.
If I have to decide between the census bureau and my lying eyes I know which way I’m going to go.
So, if SpaceX
those public, should one by(thanks, speech recognition!) goes public, should one buy?ACM has been useless for a while.
The big tech companies drive all of the research and papers.
I deal with Nvidia quite a bit as part of my job, and I noted that Jesse Kornblum, the real life Agent McGee from “NCIS”, jumped ship from Meta to Nvidia recently.
If the observed number of Whites is lower than the number reported in official statistics, then you need to start killing nonwhites until reality matches the reported numbers. Modern problems require modern solutions.
Similar statistics from other sources. I didn’t find any source specifying an Asian population above 25%.
Take a hike buddy. I live here, I know what reality is.
All statistics lie and especially government statistics.
@EdH, I’ve commented here before on late night shopping at my local HEB and how me and the other white guy exchanged looks and made that unspoken promise to be there for the other if needed.
In theory, we’re roughly 40-40-10-10 white, hispanic, black, other mostly asian . In practice a lot of hispanics get counted as white for various reasons.
Fort Bend County has more hookah shops, more ‘asian groceries’, more sari stores, and more subcontinent local government than any of the other local areas, other than the one section of Southwest Houston. It’s nuts.
Every strip mall seems to have at least one, and usually more, stores catering to that market.
Almost all the political campaign signs were for non-whites, non-hispanics.
A dying or dead strip development doesn’t get better when the hookah shop and import grocer move in.
n
LOL! BJ Klinton is squawking that tRump is out to get him with the Pedostein files. Gee, BJ, is that you in the pool/hot tub with wimmins, you getting massages, you with you arm around his pedo getting convict girl friend?
Payback is a bizatch, BJ.
I was trying to think of some iconic white stores or businesses…
No Vineyard Vines. No Container Store. No Yankee Candles. No Curves gyms. No party supply stores. No Specs in that area that I’m aware of. No Lands End or Lacoste. No Red Wing Shoes. No Gap. No Busters.
But our school district has ‘color runs’. And celebrates the festival of lights.
n
Try the Costco in Bellingham where Canadians from the Vancouver, BC metro buy their milk and cheese.
Seattle is where they buy North Face.
Portland’s Apple Store is the busiest in North America. Lots of Canadians there too.
@EdH, I’ve commented here before on late night shopping at my local HEB and how me and the other white guy exchanged looks and made that unspoken promise to be there for the other if needed.
In theory, we’re roughly 40-40-10-10 white, hispanic, black, other mostly asian . In practice a lot of hispanics get counted as white for various reasons.
Fort Bend County has more hookah shops, more ‘asian groceries’, more sari stores, and more subcontinent local government than any of the other local areas, other than the one section of Southwest Houston. It’s nuts.
Every strip mall seems to have at least one, and usually more, stores catering to that market.
Almost all the political campaign signs were for non-whites, non-hispanics.
A dying or dead strip development doesn’t get better when the hookah shop and import grocer move in.
I love it when half of the women in HEB are wearing burkas. If their man is present then he glares at you until you move to the next aisle.
I am guessing what happened is that the entire Sharpstown / Alief area just picked up and moved to Stafford and Sugar Land when the Asian gangs got so bad 15 to 20 years ago.
A lot of Asians get counted as White also.
Ok, the NRA has managed to piss me off again. They are dropping their monthly distributions of “American Rifleman” and their other three magazines and moving to quarterly print distributions along with monthly emails of their magazines. I guess in PDF which I could hardly care about. I spend all day in front of a PC, the last thing I want to do is read a magazine or a book on a PC. Not even a Kindle.
All of the details are here, it was nra.org/change, but the script kiddies warp you to a new place:
https://membership.nra.org/OfficialJournal/SignIn
I am paid up through 2030 so I guess that I will see how the quarterly print editions are. If they suck, I am out of here. The NRA’s ability to advocate for gub owners sucks compared to the GOA so I don’t trust them on that.
Avoiding sales tax. I can save $200 on a MacBook Pro. Have it shipped to a friend in Oregon, then shipped to me. Even with $50.00 in shipping cost I am ahead.
IIRC, the taxes on computers sold in Canada are ~ 30%.
The Cascades rolls down from Vancouver, BC, through Vantucky, and into Portland, not far from the Apple Store. A train ticket is a lot cheaper than the VAT.
The problem with using that method to avoid the VAT these days is that Portland is dangerous downtown.
When we lived in Vantucky, prior to the Supreme Court overturning National Bellas Hess, Amazon purchases carried a 10% sales tax while Newegg, shipping via a courier service out of the John Wayne Airport in Orange County to PDX, would deliver overnight to our house for free without any sales taxes.
To an HR droid working remote from her apartment on Peachtree in Buckhead, HBCU diploma hanging on the wall, Asians are “white adjacent”.
New Release: Bill Clinton Pics With Epstein, Maxwell, and Women Could Make Things Worse Over Subpoenas
https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2025/12/19/new-release-bill-clinton-pics-with-epstein-maxwell-women-n2197309
So, Miz Bleechbit, do you recognize the shirt your husband is wearing in the photograph with the convicted pervert?
Why, hello!
Didn’t I see you here last Saturday?
Vance Dance: MAGA Embraces White House ‘Soul Train’ AI Parody Video Being Shared by the Left
https://twitchy.com/warren-squire/2025/12/19/soul-train-soulless-train-hustle-ai-video-backfires-maga-loves-it-n2423000
Cool!
Now do “The Ep Train” featuring Slick Willie and the Side Pieces with special appearance by Chuck”Shakin'” Schumer! Maybe a 30-second spot by Boss Hill for Hampton Carpet Mills.
I’m perfectly happy with my M1 MacBook Pro, purchased as a refurb, but we tend to be in Dallas for college events during the Berkshire weekends at NFM so I’m tempted to see what the shareholder price for Apple gear is next May.
That is, if Greg Abel keeps the discounts. A lot of uncertainty is already creeping into BRK, just two weeks from Buffett’s retirement.
Todd Combs just defected from Geckoland, and he, along with assistance of Ajit Jain, was supposed to take over picking the investments in companies not purchased outright.
Recently we* discussed portable glory holes. It seems that a “heritage American” could interact with The Diversity by bringing up how glory holes are intended to allow naughtiness while preserving anonymity. And burkas can serve as portable glory holes, with self-contained glory hole attendants.
* by which I mean “you”; I don’t believe that I participated, being all pure as the driven snow n stuff.
“Hey, fellas, you remember this one? ‘Here’s to swimming with bow legged women?’ That reminds me – Where is Spielberg this weekend?”
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/2148631/bill-clinton-pictured-swimming-pool
Darden restaurants now that Red Lobster is gone. Olive Garden immediately springs to mind.
Recent acquisition Chuy’s customer base is a little more diverse, but the name was originally going to be spelled Chewie’s, as in the Wookie.
George Lucas was not amused.
“Not Happy About Firefox Becoming an AI Browser? New CEO Promises AI Kill Switch”
https://www.pcmag.com/news/not-happy-about-firefox-becoming-an-ai-browser-new-ceo-promises-ai-kill
“’Firefox will always remain a browser built around user control,’ says Anthony Enzor-DeMeo.”
“Anthony Enzor-DeMeo mentioned the kill switch on Reddit after a user published an open letter blasting the AI focus as out of touch with the community. “Firefox doesn’t need AI, it needs leadership that listens,” the user writes. “Mozilla has a pattern of struggling to implement and support basic features, and much of the time fails to even acknowledge serious user feedback.””
Are you kidding me ? An AI kill switch is just stupid.
“SpaceX Exec Tips ‘Real’ High-Speed Cellular Starlink, With 15K More Satellites”
https://www.pcmag.com/news/spacex-exec-tips-real-high-speed-cellular-starlink-with-15k-more-satellites
“As explained in Nov. 25 and Dec. 5 FCC filings, SpaceX’s new plan requires launching a new constellation of 15,000 satellites, larger and more powerful, into low and very low Earth orbits.”
“Unlike the current set of 650-plus direct-to-cell satellites, these third-generation satellites are planned for launch on SpaceX’s Starship rocket. That massive launch vehicle should be able to lift 60 at a time to orbit, but Starship itself has yet to reach orbit in a test campaign that began in April 2023 and has seen multiple failures.”
How big are these third generation satellites ? If a Starship can only carry 60 of them, they must be huge.
And what is “very low Earth orbit” ? Duck Martha, incoming !
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1928929070047440901
“With the version 3 Starlink satellites, which start launching on Starship in 6 to 9 months, we should be able to get latency below 20ms.”
“The new, much larger satellites will be at ~350km instead of ~550km altitude, which cuts latency due to speed of light down to ~5ms.””
“Also, the Starlink laser links transmit data ~40% faster in vacuum vs fiber, so packets will move faster than anything on the ground. Helps to have physics on your side!”
That’s the kind of thing I would expect an AI to write.
“The biggest security threat to our nation, and others”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-biggest-security-threat-to-our.html
“former British Secretary of Defense Liam Fox points out that debt is the single greatest security threat facing the Western world.”
I can not decide which is coming first in the USA, the financial apocalypse (failure of the USA Dollar) or the Civil War II. Both seem to be rolling towards us at 90 mph.
This is one of the reasons that I got my eyes set for distance in my recent cataract surgeries. Getting a working set of glasses in the middle of a national war or disaster may not be feasible.
Yes, having many multiple sets of reading glasses may be a prepping thing now.
Same price at the Costco here in “far west San Antonio”. Zip 78245
When in Caprica…
Has it really been 20 years?
As I recall the first couple of seasons were amazing.
“Dave Ramsey Explains What’s Causing the Housing Shortage”
https://rumble.com/v737xl8-dave-ramsey-explains-whats-causing-the-housing-shortage.html?mref=1wxk5&mc=ehuil
Dave is not wrong. REITs should not own thousands of homes each.
I have seen the list of AirBnBs close to my home. The number of them is amazing.
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/
“Ilhan Omar Doubles Down on Support of ‘MEALS Act’ That Allowed American Taxpayers to Be Defrauded of Billions”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/12/ilhan-omar-doubles-down-support-meals-act-that/
“What was originally reported as a $250 million “Feeding Our Future” scandal and later acknowledged as a $1 billion fraud may now exceed $9 BILLION (and growing) according to whistleblowers and new federal investigations.”
Why is she not on a slow boat to Somalia ?
Why is she not on a leaky boat via the Panama route?
It was a rough first quarter, but Bama played like they did in the first Georgia game. Roll Tide!
I’m looking forward to Saturday’s games.
Yes, having many multiple sets of reading glasses may be a prepping thing now.
– I was stacking reading glasses in various powers, even though I was only using the 1.25s. I still have stacks. Can’t sew, or do electronics repair if you can’t see. Or read the manual for that matter.
————
Had a nice tiny little fire, read for longer than I meant to. I’m enjoying this new book and even burst out laughing at one point. If it holds up, I’ll mention it later.
D1 went to a party with a Girl Scout friend who is home from her first semester in college. Turned out to be “lame”. It was shut down by the popo before they got there. Someone posted on social media and too many kids showed up. Those sort of parties get out of hand quickly, and property damage is the least of what happens next.
Some of the group moved to Wataburger for a while but D1 was not impressed and made it home before her curfew.
I stayed out reading for another hour after that, and I still need a shower, so this will be a late night. I’ve been trying to get to bed earlier, and mostly succeeding. Not tonight though. I blame reading.
———–
The cold weather has my fingers cracking around the edges of the nails. That’s how I know it’s winter. Happened to my dad too. It would be months long in a colder climate. I can deal with it here.
———–
Time for bed.
n
“SpaceX Exec Tips ‘Real’ High-Speed Cellular Starlink, With 15K More Satellites”
https://www.pcmag.com/news/spacex-exec-tips-real-high-speed-cellular-starlink-with-15k-more-satellites
“As explained in Nov. 25 and Dec. 5 FCC filings, SpaceX’s new plan requires launching a new constellation of 15,000 satellites, larger and more powerful, into low and very low Earth orbits.”
“Unlike the current set of 650-plus direct-to-cell satellites, these third-generation satellites are planned for launch on SpaceX’s Starship rocket. That massive launch vehicle should be able to lift 60 at a time to orbit, but Starship itself has yet to reach orbit in a test campaign that began in April 2023 and has seen multiple failures.”
After thinking about this for a while, I have decided that SpaceX is going to have about two billion cellphone users in the next ten years, or sooner. Just think, your cellphone will work worldwide and you do not have to have a cellphone tower within five miles. The downside is that your cellphone needs to have a direct view of the sky to work. But, the bright geeks at SpaceX will figure that out so mama can call her baby from inside the kitchen in the center of the house.
So when SpaceX goes public, think about it having two billion customers within ten years. Or not, I could easily be very wrong.
T-Mobile has satellite capability for supported 5G phones for a couple of months.:
(link)
My son has figured out how to get around the drone problem killing all the soldiers and tanks. He wants to build destroyers on land. The land destroyers will have many .22 caliber miniguns for shooting down drones. The land destroyers will also have a couple of 5 inch guns for shooting down planes and missiles.
The land destroyers will have regular sized Abrams tanks and Bradleys troop carriers parked inside for moving troops around and swift advances into the enemy lines. People might call these land destroyers Bolos.
https://robots.fandom.com/wiki/Bolo_(tank)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolo_universe