So it never really cleared up yesterday and was quite dark and dreary by late afternoon. It felt like it would rain at any time, and the humidity was stifling. Didn’t rain though. I have no idea what today will be like, but the national forecast has us in the clear.
I did auction stuff in the morning, and then finally got out of the house (after some needed personal maintenance) to do my pickup. One of the things I got is a little 3d printer that is marketed as sort of “kid’s first printer”. It’s mostly made from plastic and has a small build envelope. I’ve got to see if it’s all there, and see if it actually works. The whole thing fits in about 1 cubic foot. It’s cute. $14 wasn’t much of a risk.
Today I’m not even making plans. I’ll just do what I can, where I am, with what I have.
All with the goal of improvement, and stacking.
n
Thursday. Good morning!
Too much paperwork will indeed give one piles, Nick. It’s the sedentary activity…
LOL. I have a bull in the china shop approach. I generally ply guests with Gn’Ts (large G, small t) as soon as they arrive.
It has worked well in the past to mellow MiL. Or maybe it just mellows me. Who knows?
When he wrote the first book, Clancy was still selling insurance for his father-in-law in the Maryland suburbs.
Once Reagan read “The Hunt for Red October”, Clancy no doubt acquired sources with clearances who were fans. The book was originally published by the Naval Academy press and not one of the big names.
When I worked for Clapper in 2022, the CEO of the company who worked the connections was the co-founder of Spectrum Holobyte, Gillman Louie. Louie had a lot of fans inside the Pentagon thanks to his company’s fighter sim games, and, post-video games, he was involved with Deep State antics such as In-Q-Tel.
Things that make you say “Hmmm…”: Spectrum Holobyte’s founding product was the PC version of “Tetris”, licensed from the original Russian developer by Gillman Louie and his partner.
In “Red Storm Rising”, Clancy used every non-classified source he could lay hands on about the F-117, primarily those related to the Testors model company’s “F-19”, part of a deliberate misinformation campaign run by the Pentagon.
I have an F-19 toy around somewhere. That was pretty good misinformation created by someone, easily on the level of the Dark Star from “Top Gun: Maverick”.
The Dark Star doesn’t really exist. Or does it?
The F-117 was coming online in significant numbers by the time of the Libya strike, but the aircraft did not have the range to hit Libya from their base in the UK because France and Germany denied the US flyover rights for the strike.
The F-111 was an old aircraft by the time Libya came up.
The F-117 was designed to go after the Middle East dictators. I spent an afternoon looking at the one in the Palm Springs Air Museum last Spring and talking to the docents, who were most likely Skunk Works alumni.
At the risk of sounding like George C. Scott in “Dr. Strangelove”, it is a big plane with a very small bomb payload, very single purpose.
Officially, the F-117 is being decommissioned, but at a *very* slow pace. The planes have the range to strike Venezuela out of Puerto Rico and were probably part of that operation.
Writing “Red Storm Rising”, Clancy also used the “Harpoon” war game extensively to work out battlefield scenarios, and the game’s creator, Larry Bond, had a lot of Pentagon connections since the Naval Academy used the system for teaching students.
@greg, that is really interesting. I built a display for an aircraft system simulator and the computer guys were just running random scenarios so we had moving video on screen when people wandered by or stuck their heads into our bay to see who was disrupting their flight schedules (we were in a tent inside a highbay with other simulators that were running 24/7. We got a lot of uniformed look-i-lous.) One of the guys was VERY concerned because the onscreen aircraft model had classified details showing in the shape. Apparently there are specific lumps and bumps that would reveal capabilities if the viewer knew anything at all about our fleet… which means we were still rigidly controlling images of real aircraft to the point you never saw “real” aircraft at all.
It was fascinating.
———
70F and looks like mostly cloudy so far. I’m drinking coffee and eating an apple pie snack to see what happens with my blood sugar… Some time next week, I’ll do the same but follow with the med the doc gave me that is supposed to help with the glucose spike. I’m trying different foods and scenarios.
It looks like, if I’m already on the down side of the spike, that I can eat more sugar with a small uptick that will quickly return to a downslope. IE, if I wait for dessert, it won’t add to the high point, and will only prolong the spike a little bit.
Most foods/meals look like a triangle, roughly equilateral, with slopes between 45 and 60 degrees, and elapsed time being 3 hours from start to finish. Or to restate it, most meals, I eat, then a short while later my blood glucose starts to rise, in a straight line, slope about 45 to 60 degrees, and if it was a meal with lots of carbs or sugar, it rises until it peaks around 150-170, then declines in a straight line, mirroring the rise time, until back to my ‘baseline’ of around 100.
If I wait an hour after the meal to have a piece of cake or icecream, it looks like about half way thru the downslope there is another small triangle up, then continuing down, that is shorter and lesser than it would be if I just ate the cake or icecream following my meal. Also, a meal of red beans and rice with sausage had a much different curve.
That meal eased into the upslope, curved into the peak, curved out of the peak, and finally eased into the base line. Like an s curve stretched out going in, curved top, and s curve coming out, or part of a sine wave, trough to trough.
What we’re looking for is why I get so sleepy on the down side of the curve sometimes, but not every time. I suspect it’s in the slope, since some meals/foods are steeper slopes, and a few are asymmetrical.
The goal is to change my diet to eliminate the sleepy period, shorten it, or learn to avoid it by avoiding trigger foods, without cutting carbs and sugar completely. I can do breakfast and lunch as if I was on Atkins, and not see any change in blood sugar, but I am always hungry on a low carb diet, and I lose weight pretty quickly.
It’s interesting being monitored. You can’t change what you don’t measure…
n
Hmm, if I continue to overshare, maybe I need a new tag. Maybe ‘cyborg’? Is any one interested, or are you all skipping my comments about blood sugar?
n
Did anyone catch Rubio’s speech to European leaders?
It’s been commented that it was like a dad talking to a teenage son, telling him to get his act together.
No. Rubio talking to the Europeans was the adult, self-sufficient son talking to the over-the-hill father who’d taken to partying and hanging out with people who were only bringing him down farther, was barely working, wasn’t supporting himself. “You have to get it together. I been helping you for years but you’re only getting worse. I’m going to have to cut you off and hope that you straighten yourself out.” This was even more evident because Rubio was visibly a generation younger than most of the faces in the audience.
You already shared about your piles, so nothing shocks us anymore.
I am enjoying hearing about the blood sugar shenanigans. I might learn something useful.
Don’t get too excited about Little Marco. He’s still beholden to the Bush cabal, particularly the group centered around Jeb! in Florida.
Now that P. Diddly seems to be the end of the line for the family political dynasty, the cabal needs a new face.
Here in Texas, the cabal is moving to install James Talarico into the Senate out of spite. They don’t care about you.
I find it interesting.
Comparing what you said in an earlier post today to what a type I experiences is fascinating. I would guess you aren’t full blown type II since your body seems to not be overly insulin resistant. Good on you for working on making changes before it gets worse.
I’m pretty sure that was Trump’s policy that he presented; I didn’t notice any deviation from the points Trump has made in the past couple months. Rubio gave a very good speech – kudos to the speechwriter(s) but also to him for the presentation. But the most important aspect of the speech was the faces of the European leaders. They looked very displeased at the hard truths being set before them.
You need to eat more animal fat. Ribeyes are good, but the price is going up. I can’t lose weight if I eat any type of grains. So, cut those out for me to lose weight. The more protein and fat I eat (animal) the less hungry I am and the less cravings I get.
It’s easy to fall off the wagon. Fried rice is my kryptonite.
Have you tried a low-carb version. Say, replacing the rice with grubs?
If you hesitate to eat a plateful of grubs (with vegetables, egg, and seasoning), sounds to me like you need to run through Escape and Evasion school again.
It’s time for tRump to say we will trade with you, but that’s it. Handle Ukraine by yourself. We are not going to drop anymore money or supplies. Vlad won’t deal and Führer Z won’t deal. Fuck ‘em, let God sort it out. NATO won’t let Ukraine in, so deal with it.
Rubio did a good job. He’ll be VP or POTUS in 2028. Vance needs to get in the spotlight more if he wants to beat Rubio for the GOP nomination.
Also, the military-industrial complex is drooling over Iran. We are going to need plenty of new bombs and missiles in the near future.
Also, I think Shot GirlTM cemented herself as the dumbest person in Congress while at the overseas summit. Please Dumbocrats, run her for POTUS.
No thank you, Grand Nagus.
The year I went to flight school, the Army ended the SERE section of the course. We did get a tour of the “prison camp” setup. I guess they figured they would issue one round with the crappy .38 we got, Barney Fife style. “Use it as you see fit, son.”
…overcoming incredible effort by other contenders.
I’m pretty sure that was Trump’s policy that he presented; I didn’t notice any deviation from the points Trump has made in the past couple months. Rubio gave a very good speech – kudos to the speechwriter(s) but also to him for the presentation. But the most important aspect of the speech was the faces of the European leaders. They looked very displeased at the hard truths being set before them.
The old Germans and old Franks think that they can fight WW III on their terms with 60 year old fighting men. That war will roll out of their control on day one.
Then things will get bad and they will demand that we, the USA, will join under their command. Not gonna happen.
I did just a one-day, or maybe even half-day, E&E course as part of some other training. I don’t remember which training or just when; I think I’ve mentioned that some of my memories were scrambled.
I got seriously bitched at that day. Court martial was brought up but it was just an empty threat. Not the last time I was threatened with court martial because someone’s feefees was hurted. I ambushed and took down the “trackers” who came near me. IIRC (and I’m not sure that I do – I don’t remember doing it but remember conversations about it) I stole their boots and whistles and beat feet out of there. The one guy held it against me for the rest of the training. On the other hand, I did later get recommended for training which emphasizes out of the box thinking, so…
and with half of the fighting-age men in their nations being enemy aliens who must be expected to go on the attack as soon as the nation’s attention turns outward.
Ido wonder whether the “leadership” of most European nations are completely deluded or are in denial so deep that the possibility of being wrong cannot enter their heads.
The dream ticket: Humpy Harris and Tidepod Evita.
The commies won’t run that ticket, though. They’ll have Humpy and a different bland White guy.
Mint goes to sleep and wakes after a few seconds. Well, the screen goes black, keyboard light stays on. I’m not touching it. Nothing is running, like a web browser.
Google isn’t being very helpful today.
sudo pm-suspend asks for my password and the machine goes to sleep and lights on the keyboard included. The power button does the slow blink. Wakes up in a few seconds.
Maybe there is some Wake on LAN setting and the wi-fi is keeping the machine from sleeping?
Mr. Paul: “Google, why does Mint keep waking up?”
Google: “Son, you’ve just been Linux’d.”
My first programming job, I worked with a guy whose final military job was teaching the SERE course at Fairchild AFB in Spokane.
He had stories. As a mid- to senior-level NCO, he really, really enjoyed pushing around the officers.
I had another friend who “died” in the interrogation section of that training. They told him during the debrief that resistance was a good thing, but they’d rather he stayed alive in the real world.
He turned out to be a whack-job who committed suicide by burning down his house with 2 kidnapped bankers in the basement, who had attempted to foreclose.
Ironically, one of the bankers was a former Marine, and he managed to smash a hole in the wall and dig his way out, saving both of them. Successful escape and evasion.
Over The Hedge: Why do they call it Social Media ? https://www.gocomics.com/overthehedge/2026/02/16
Yup, true, very true.
Suspend is a wild card. I turn it off if I can.
The OFD laptop has screen dimming problems with Mint 22.3. I’m going to try Fedora in a separate partition when I have time to experiment.
Arrested Andrew is pictured being released from custody: Former Prince is driven from police station after becoming the first modern royal to be arrested
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has been released from police custody, following his arrest on Thursday on suspicion of misconduct in public office.
He must be feeling that the world is unfair. He paid the money to silence the girl, and I’m sure there were other payments to smooth things over, and he’s arrested anyway for his own crimes.
Boo hoo.
n
He seems like a weak person, suppose he’ll be Epsteined or will he cut a deal in time?
ha, he’s the person formerly known as Prince…
n
Starmer badly needs a distraction.
What were the rules someone quoted here for deep state ‘relevations’ (and press releases) a while back?
And increasingly, why am I seeing it?
n
Where’s the stockpile? Where’s the artillery?
One rifle (the most popular rifle in the US) one shotgun, and two pistols. Some accessories and ammo.
Someone, everyone, should be pushing back on reporting like this but I don’t want to even look at comments anymore.
n
And why aren’t they using his preferred gender identity and pronouns? They bend over backwards to do so for every other type of person reported on.
“Elon Musk talks about plans to build catapult to launch from moon”
https://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2026/02/elon-musk-talks-about-plans-to-build.html?m=1
Now that SpaceX has bought the AI company xAI, it seems that SpaceX is leading them into the often-talked about solution to the enormous power problems with AI – data centers in space.
So, will the lunar colonists be convicts ?
Yes, this is beginning to look like The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress. Heinlein was incredibly prescient.
You’re a racist hater for asking that.
You’re a racist hater for asking that.
”Total Recall” is looking remarkably prescient as well,
The AI servers are *heavy* and have intense cooling requirements in an environment without air.
Find a way to watch “Sherlock: A Scandal in Belgravia”.
More prescient pop entertainment.
I watched it last year (?) on your recommendation. Watched the whole thing, which is unusual for me; I usually nope out of TV shows within minutes. I found the episode to be well-written and -acted, which of course relates to watching the whole thing. Kind of dumb in spots, but that might have been running jokes or characterization that I didn’t recognize; I don’t think I’d known that the series existed before you mentioned it.
As may be, recommended.
A while back, the joke on most conservative blogs about news items like this used to mention what they called the “Texas Starter Pack”.
There was some debate, but typically it looked like:
So anything less than 6 gubs and you don’t meet the minimum Texas starter level.
Oh, and 1000 rounds minimum for each caliber in your ready-to-use supply. More than that might be considered stockpiling.
Looking at this list, I realize I am inadequately prepared in shotguns and shotgun ammo.
I would give my inventories of guns and ammo but I think I would be outing myself to a future ATF. My wife did a quick visual the other day and asked me who in the world paid for all this stuff.
But I dont have a bass boat or a bay boat. Probably the same cost.
re: my inventory
First of all, the ATF has already illegally compiled a database, which itself is illegal, from all FFL transfers. They’ll lie and say they’re complying with the laws., but they’re liars, and liars lie.
If you’ve ever used a credit card to buy ammo, anywhere, I bet the FBI/ATF/CIA/NSA know what caliber you bought, and that’s on your list as well.
Having said that, my post above only shows what my minimum inventory might look like. I will respect OPSEC at least a little and not give lists or counts.
I just got up from sleeping 5.5 hours. Then was greeted with dry heaves, seriously strong, hurt my muscles. Nothing expelled. All I had to eat today was two pieces of toast. I did go to the VA doctor for my annual chewing out. My A1C was 6.7 and the doctor said nothing stood out.
I asked him about this crud I have, horking up lots of mucus, I can hear my own lungs rattling. He said air is going in and out and coughing up the mucus is good. It is just something going around and it has to run its course.
I did take two Mucenix tablets last night and that was a really bad idea. I woke up to pee and was really disoriented, stumbled to the bathroom, and peed on the floor. Maybe two tablets was too much to take.
Indiana is attempting to lure the Bears out of Chicago.
Let me be the first to propose that the team be called the Nappy Bears.
https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/m4yiw1/the_late_charlton_hestons_gun_room/#lightbox
ATF droolworthy, NYT eyebrow dance, sport boat cargo…. 🙂
I don’t need Mucinex to do that….
Don’t underestimate the appeal. People on both sides of the political aisle want to have sex with her.
VP maybe if the ticket needed a boost in Florida, but the Bush cabal needs to be kept out of the Oval Office.
When W1 moans about gub purchases, I do not mention shoes or handbags. I just mention that I don’t have a mistress yet.
Visit from MiL and co going very well so far. Liberal libations lubricated living.
Friday already? Goodnight!
I pulled a sample ballot for the primaries to see which way I should go to keep Paxton from being beaten by Talarico like a narc at the proverbial Hells Angels rally in November, but I really can’t vote Dem/Jasmine Crockett and spend the rest of the election year on that party’s Texas mailing list.
And speaking of losers, with Michael McCaul’s retirement, our district was gerrymandered into Pete Sessions district out of Waco.
Sessions lost to Colin Zachary in 2018 in his original district outside Dallas. He held that seat for 22 years prior to the loss.
LooooL
Apparently, viewers get to see Tig Notaro’s feet in the latest episode of ST:SFA! Granny feet! The YT reviewers (Nerdrotic, HeelvsBabyface, Jesterbell, etc.) absolutely destroy the latest episode. They are all calling out that one of the producers has a foot fetish. There are no straight characters either. Mostly Gay, the rest Bi.
LooooL
Post a heads-up when Jonathan Frakes epsiode airs in March.
I was disappointed with the Frakes episode of “Strange New Worlds” from last season, but his “Those Old Scientists” episode with the “Lower Decks” cast crossover from the year before was brilliant.
Mary McDonnell is going to be in Dallas in two weeks. I’m taking my “Sneakers” BluRay for an autograph.
“You don’t have a business. You have a club.”
Tell it, sister. I’ve lived that line for 26 years.
What’s the legal basis for seizing property not used in the commission of a crime?
What’s the percentage compared with that wanting to masturbate with a robot?
And was there a space on the form indicating whether she was to be alive, and if not, what temperature?
Significant increases in memory and disk drive prices, and subsequent shortages – will they shut down some consumer electronic companies soon?
(link); several similar stories online
Could affect many industries: cell phone, electronics, TV’s, car computers. Already hitting disk drive supply, as previously mentioned by others here.
Tomorrow is trash day. So I’m making my list for the grocery store. Olives for Olive Butter. I might hate the stuff but I won’t know if I don’t make it. Bread. Sandwich meat.
That sounds weird. But it’s a mile to the paved road where the trash cans are. Then three more miles to the grocery store. Two trips in one. Sort of.
Scratch sandwich meat. I have DAK hams and store brand spam. And several little cans of potted meat spread.
I went to bed early last night. We did the bedtime potty walk and instead of the usual “sit in the living room for a while” the dogs went directly to the bedroom. I don’t know why. 7:15. My Garmin watch as usual says I had poor sleep. It always says that. I woke up once to pee and that was it. Didn’t get any on the floor. No laying in bed wide awake beyond a few minutes of listening to the dogs snore.. No weird dreams.
The Mint box. I’ve been playing with the power settings Via the GUI, I have no idea of what config files to look at, much less what to edit. Are they even called config files? Like win.ini and system.ini and config.sys? No joy.
I’m too brain tired to mess with getting into BIOS. Tomorrow. The machine slept just fine under Win11. I just need to find what is waking it.
Mint worked fine on my PC when booted from a USB stick. I don’t think I ran it long enough to see if it would sleep. Might have, I forget. Never even thought about it.
But running off a USB stick is going to be different than from the SSD. Pretty sure. But it booted and looked good so let’s do this. The “new” machine is the same as this machine other than having a TB of storage, 16 instead of 32GB RAM, and it’s on wi-fi, not Ethernet. I’m thinking the problem has to do with wi-fi. I can’t imagine the Logitech keyboard and mouse mattering. Or using audio over an earphone jack vs HDMI to the monitor’s speakers.
Tomorrow is “look in BIOS”. Though, the only thing I changed was the boot order. And also, find a cable and connect via Ethernet instead of wi-fi.
I’m just sort of wobbly in the head feeling. Going in circles.
Maybe. She’s not at all attractive to me beyond “female” and nope nope nope.
Dogs. Both were lazy all day today. And tonight, at 7:37 they are suddenly ready to for a walk.
Guess I’d best find a coat and go for a walk.
64f and 38% humidity. It feels chilly.
37F at 5:50pm, they say a chance of snow flurries on the valley floor tonight, though nothing will stick.
—-
Looks like the 2nd Artemis WDR went off OK today, just finished at T-33s, despite some minor issues.
She could be considered attractive if it weren’t for the crazy eyes. unlike lots of other women, she can’t hide them. id that weren’t bad enough, then she speaks…
Girls got a ‘ship:
https://twitchy.com/justmindy/2026/02/19/american-women-hockey-gold-n2425222
And looking at her taste in company, the soy boy she’s dominating, I’d nope that even if it weren’t for the crazy eyes.
Lot’s of things are safer, including putting your junk in a garbage disposal and playing with the switch.
n
or ferret legging
So what might be the common denominator ?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15571023/Mom-anguishing-new-details-knife-attack.html
Mom describes moment maniac with long criminal history slashed her 13-year-old son’s throat in an unprovoked attack
Remember the stranger who threw a kid off a balcony in an indoor mall a couple years ago?
Yeah.
n
I’m headed to bed. Too much to do tomorrow that can’t be put off.
n