Warm and moist again. Sunlight optional. It got into the 90s yesterday if you were somewhere sunny. It was a bit more reasonable for MARCH in the shade, or light overcast. About a decade ago, I remember being at the Rodeo, and having to recharge my cool vest about 4 times. I’ll take this mild but slightly warm weather.
What did I actually do yesterday? Couple of pickups took me to Missouri City, and to The Woodlands. It wasn’t a very eco-friendly day given the amount of driving I did. Got some stuff for the kids, the wife, the BOL, and for me though. And it was cheap enough that the gas and tolls weren’t an issue. The time used kinda sucked though.
Then I went grocery shopping. No yellow tags, no mark downs, nothing I wanted on the clearance shelves. I think it’s the first time I didn’t even save a dollar on my bill. I bought soda and fresh veg, snacks for the kid’s lunch, and that was about it. Still came to almost $200.
My lottery tickets were “not a winner” too.
Today I’m gonna do another pickup, and move stuff around. If it isn’t raining. There were some dark clouds in the overcast yesterday depending on time and where I was. No moisture from the sky hitting my windshield, but a bit of threatening…
Kids have some standardized testing today so it’s an “early release”day. They used to say “early dismissal” but now everyone slips and says “early release.” Yeah, it’s just like a prison, except the going home at the end of the day part. Our schools were originally designed to provide factory workers. Now they provide inmates.
Stack something that is a treat. You’ll be glad you did.
nick
>>“James Talarico defeats Jasmine Crockett in blockbuster Democratic primary for U.S. Senate” Talarico defeats Jasmine Crockett in blockbuster Democratic primary for U.S. Senate”
Let the lawsuits begin…
Paxton will lose to Talarico.
The WFH Mommy Mafia was out in force at our local polling place yesterday.
My neighborhood polling place had the Dominion machines scanning ballots for the Dem primary.
The Republican primary did not use any machinery on site.
Crockett will get paid off to go away.
Back in my day, we had Tcl to do that sort of thing and we liked it.
Python.
Incorrect strategy Number One.
Again, the LLM is only a DFA with a lot of nodes.
“Resistance is futile” from that same script is overused.
The rumor is that the Ellisons are backing up the money truck to get Ronald D. Moore back working on “Star Trek”.
I have mixed feelings about that, especially after turning off “For All Mankind” early, after Von Braun was dispatched in favor of the Girl Boss in the alternate history timeline.
@paul – I did some digging into my Samba configuration file last night and found the line I added to enable SMB1 security.
In /etc/samba/smb.conf, try adding the following line in the [global] section, just below the “workgroup =” and “netbios name =” lines:
min protocol = NT1
Check the syntax of the changed file using the command testparm.
testparm /etc/samba/smb.conf
Then reboot Mint.
You may want to make a backup of the smb.conf file first and run Timeshift to make a system image before proceeding.
Better paranoid than sorry.
70F and overcast, so far.
I’m having a small coffee, Cafe Bustelo espresso style from the Keurig, and I’ll have a bigger coffee later. Splitting the cup does seem to reduce or move the afternoon crash to later in the day. That helps.
I really need something with little glycemic impact as that first snack o the day. Maybe some bacon? Sausage?
I can just eat my breakfast, but then I’m hungry at 10am.
=========
@lynn, I did like the series your re-reading. At one point they have a car chase right thru my neighborhood, although it is on a minor street that doesn’t actually go thru. Is there a new book in the series?
—————
We’ll be looking at election results for the next 10 minutes, then the news will stop talking about the stuff they’d rather you forget for a while.
—————
Remember, when thinking about what AI can and can’t do, at the beginning of the PC revolution everyone who was dismissive, focused on what they couldn’t do. Moore’s Law, and experience fixed most of that. AI is already scarily far down that path. If these are early days, in 5 or 10 years, we’re in a different world.
n
–I guess you can primary the bastages if you get them early enough in their careers.
n
Epson Ecotank printer. Does all that you asked, wireless, works on Windows or Mac. Less than $300.00 at Costco.
The problem with Texas primary system is that a Congresscritter primaried out still has half a term to create mischief.
Crenshaw could file a motion to vacate the Speaker’s chair and resign.
And if you think I’m kidding about Talarico establishing a shadow Senate staff/office, wait.
Just had an Epson Ecotank go south because the used ink catch tank electronics did not recognize the new tank. Tried two new ones and they both showed full, whereas the old one showed almost full.
Still a good performer while it lasted, and easier on ink. Bought another.
Supposedly everyone has modeled it for safety reasons, but a real world test is something else. I imagine all sorts of people are watching – from a safe distance. A drone strike is a second to worse case (worse case being multiple charges carefully placed by saboteurs).
Will the other tanks on board start to boil off and vent, or rupture catastrophically? Will the existing fires act as a impromptu flare stack or as a fuse?
Mr. ATOZ: What do you think about the new MacBook NEO?
Seems like a good machine for those that want to enter the Apple Ecosystem. The machine will be OK for a large majority of users.
With a couple of exceptions, that machine would do every thing I need. For those exceptions I could use my Windows machine. I may get a NEO just for traveling.
I did order a new iPad AIR. My current one is a 4th generation Air purchased in 2020 when it was released. The battery is not lasting as long as it did and is in fact needing replacement. Apple is giving me $165.00 trade-in allowance. I could sell it for more in a private sale, but the hassle is not worth it to me.
Totally misses the point.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15607061/Trump-Dan-Crenshaw-ousted-MAGA-revenge.html
it’s not that he’s “Trump spurned” or that some other scambag didn’t endorse him. Typical dem thinking that voters will slavishly follow advice from their betters. No, he got booted because he isn’t what he said he was, and he didn’t do what he told people he’d do.
People liked his story. And they liked his message. But the reality was different from the sales pitch and this time, people did something about it.
n
I have a Brother MFC-9130CW color laser printer from Amazon. Print, copy, scan, fax. Does not do duplex, sorry. On the LAN. I’ve had it for …. 7 years? It’s never given me any fits, and does not give me any grief when I use cheap toner cartridges.
We just purchased the 4950. Don’t need the fax, but wanted the touch screen. It works flawlessly on the Mac. Recommended.
This going to be a hit. Great price and running macOS. It might outsell the Mac Mini, which is also awesome. Look out lap makers.
I watched a YT vid where it was claimed soon the only difference between macOS, iPadOS, and iOS will be switches in the OS for the device running it.
I can’t wait for Linux running on it.
My concern with eco tank is ink drying in the feed tubes. I use the color rarely, so I have had terrible luck with tube fed HP printers, and a tube fed brother.
Any thoughts?
n
People are only just realizing what the CC and BCC on emails mean
Email is a part of modern everyday life – but many of its functions still remain a mystery.
Because everyone is a baby duck and the world started yesterday.
Article should say, ignorant people under 40…
n
The tRump tOrpedo:
US submarine uses torpedo to SINK Iranian warship in international waters for first time since the Second World War
I like.
LOL. And the term “flimsy”. Give me my mimeograph when the Barackalypse hits.
Don’t they have a cleaning cycle to take care of that?
Don’t they have a cleaning cycle to take care of that?
– the cycle cleans the heads. if the ink dries in the tube, there isn’t anything to do.
n
No issues in two years. The wife prints stuff a couple of times a month.
Second this. Mine is about 10 years old, on its second set of toner cartridges. I have literally never had a problem getting it to print.
Tell the girls that they can print their artwork, party invitations, etc.
A few days ago I ran across an old tablet in a drawer, plugged it in just to see what it was.
It turned out to be a Nook tablet, basically a rebadged decent Samsung (for that era).
There were no books on it at all for some reason, but apparently it has phoned home and I am starting to get email ads from Barnes & Noble’s.
Strange.
If the Android base version is 7 or better and you are able to side load apps, the tablet can become useful with software installed via FDroid.
Android Version 6 or better can still install VLC via FDroid to play videos off of the SD card, but the writing is on the wall for that release.
If the tablet has GPS, OSMand is a must.
The solution wasn’t perfect, but the problems were incredibly minor, so it would be a top grade. Here, that would be a 6, which is an “A” in US terms. And we don’t really have the kind of grade inflation that the US has.
Would it be a good basis for a human being to clean up and make a permanent solution ?
Maybe a permanent solution to a student assignment. OpenAI has probably trained their LLM on hundreds of similar assignments if not more:
This Is Our Shocked Face: Mil Spouse Whining That Epic Fury Is a Distraction Is Far-Left Activist
https://redstate.com/jenniferoo/2026/03/04/this-is-our-shocked-face-mil-spouse-whining-operation-epic-fury-is-a-distraction-is-a-far-left-activist-n2199833
Even though my only involvement with TMZ is recognizing it and changing the channel, I happened to see this broadcast the other day. Nothing in this article changed my opinion, which is that someone needs to start a gofundme to buy this shrew’s husband a weekend with a talented professional that can show him something he has probably never had: a great blowjob without begging for it.
(There are indications that this is one of Rennae Good’s fellow travelers from MN, and if that is the case I would strongly encourage the people that infiltrated the Signals chat directing the mayhem to comb their records and release anything that they can find.
“Another luxury master-planned community is coming to this growing Houston suburb”
https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/evergrove-richmond-homes-21954932.php
“Fort Bend County is the 8th most populated county in Texas.”
“Another luxury, master-planned community is heading to the Houston area—this time in Richmond—signaling that even as affordability dominates headlines, high-end suburban growth isn’t slowing down.”
Lovely, just lovely. More traffic in luxury vehicles.
Paxton will lose to Talarico.
The WFH Mommy Mafia was out in force at our local polling place yesterday.
Nah, not this year.
The real question is will Paxton beat Cornyn ? Cornyn was strong in the voting yesterday. His ads worked to get rid of Wesley Hunt.
Karl Rove is Cornyn’s campaign manager. All of the dirty laundry is coming out.
https://apps.texastribune.org/features/2026/primary-election-results-2026/
The tRump tOrpedo:
US submarine uses torpedo to SINK Iranian warship in international waters for first time since the Second World War
I like.
The USA Military is getting a chance to demonstrate all of their tools to the world. People will be running for dark corners of Earth to hide after this.
I edited smb.conf. Easy. But I can’t save it because I’m not the Owner. Just a mere User and I can’t change permissions.
More stuff to learn. Cool! Something else to figure out.
Before I toss my Lexmark I’m taking alcohol to the rubber rollers. Because I have extra toner for it.
And while I’m at it, I’ll take the back off and see if I can fix the document feeder. The feeder tilts up so you can put items on the glass. Like the lid on an average Xerox machine. It’s on a couple of posts to accommodate thick items. I scanned something out of a book and it won’t go all the way down. Just a quarter of an inch more… like there’s a loose wiring harness in the way. Maybe I can fix that. I mean, a duplexing document feeder is pretty nice to have.
But it is getting old so I’m looking.
For want of a shoelace
Scott Johnson writes:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2026/03/for-want-of-a-shoelace.php
The judge is a buffon, but if he tries to let Murphy off without a citation for contempt he should be impeached and defenestrated.
“Sense”
https://areaocho.com/sense/
“There is a segment of the left that wants a civil war. There is also one on the right that wants one. Both of those groups are delusional, because they both think the war will be short, and they will win.”
“Both sides are wrong. If there were a CW2 with similar casualty rates as the first one, we would see something on the order of 7 to 8 million dead and another million wounded. The majority of those deaths would be from disease and famine, not guns.”
“Still, this guy is a tool. They seem to think they will all be sitting in coffee shops, watching the military carry out their orders to wipe out their own families on CNN.”
“The reality will be much different. Cities would become disease infested wastelands once electric and water are cut off, and food deliveries stop. Some military units will simply desert their posts, taking weapons and gear with them. It would quickly degenerate into sectarian warfare.”
“No one really wins in such a scenario.”
The USA Military is giving a demonstration right now of what they do. But despite their fancy tools, CW2 will quickly degenerate into a guerilla war, a quagmire war that the world has never seen the depths of before.
Back in my day, we had Tcl to do that sort of thing and we liked it.
Python.
Incorrect strategy Number One.
Again, the LLM is only a DFA with a lot of nodes.
DFA ????
@lynn, I did like the series your re-reading. At one point they have a car chase right thru my neighborhood, although it is on a minor street that doesn’t actually go thru. Is there a new book in the series?
Yes, the book I reviewed yesterday that Reddit shot down flaming into the ocean was just released in Jan 2026.
“Beast Business (Hidden Legacy #8) by Ilona Andrews
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1641973722?tag=ttgnet-20
Book number eight of a six book and two novella (eight books total) paranormal romance fantasy series. I read and reread the well printed and well bound novella POD (print on demand) trade paperback published by the Nancy Yost Literary Agency in 2026 that I bought new from Amazon in 2026. There are also six short stories appended to the book. This was a totally unexpected new book in the series and I hope for more.
Totally cool series for me. This makes the fourth series that I have read from Ilona Andrews, a husband and wife writing team based here in Texas. The Innkeeper, Kate Daniels, and The Edge are the other series of books. They are now starting a couple of new series of books. In fact, I am wondering if The Innkeeper, The Inheritance, The Edge, and the Hidden Legacy series are all in the same universe ???
The Hidden Legacy Universe is a complex place. The Osiris serum that induced magical powers in humans was released to the general public in 1863 and the world was never the same. The Osiris serum has three results: death, paranormal powers, or paranormal powers with a warped human body. The serum was banned after a while but the world was irreparably changed since the paranormal powers are inheritable. Families starting breeding children for strength in magical powers with breathtaking results. Magic users are segregated into five ranks: Minor, Average, Notable, Significant, and Prime. The Prime families operate mostly outside the Federal and State laws since they are so powerful and incredibly dangerous.
Diana Harrison is a Prime Animal Mage who can control and converse with almost any animal. She was raised by her parents in a black panther crèche, she is not what we think of as a human. Her middle brother was raised with wolves and her youngest brother imprinted on a timid raccoon before their parents managed to imprint him with a bear. Diana is head of her House since deposing their parents and forcing them to retire.
Augustine Montgomery is a Prime Illusionist and the head of his House since his father, brother, and aunt were brutally murdered by another family. Augustine has hidden powers that no one knows of that he has killed to keep secret.
Diana finds and grabs Augustine one fine day in Houston and persuades him to join her in a search for a precious and incredibly rare cub who has been stolen from House Harrison using magic and murder. The cub is still nursing from the mother and cannot live on its own yet.
Arabella Baylor is Catalina and Nevada Baylor’s younger sister and a Prime Beast that is mostly unknown to the general populace. She can transform to a 65 foot tall beast and she now has control of that transformation along with total reasoning ability. The only other recorded person who had this power could never control their transformations or reason while in beast form so the populace is incredibly scared of her.
The authors have a very active website at:
https://ilona-andrews.com/
My rating: 6 out of 5 stars (I read it three times, I never do this)
Amazon rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars (2,678 reviews)
Lynn
“Republicans brace for an ugly fight in the Texas Senate runoff between Cornyn and Paxton”
https://www.chron.com/news/article/cornyn-paxton-runoff-21954731.php
“Four-term Sen. John Cornyn and his allies spent nearly $70 million to survive the first round of the party’s nomination fight on Tuesday. He was slightly ahead of conservative firebrand Ken Paxton, the state attorney general, with more votes still being counted on Wednesday.”
“Both now advance to a May 26 runoff election that Republicans fear could be even uglier and more expensive than the first contest.”
Yup, this is gonna be a mud slinging fight. The winner will be covered head to toe in nastiness.
BTW, Paxton saved his ammo. He only spent $3 million on his campaign.
If Paxton can successfully label Cornyn as a gun grabber, Cornyn is gone.
If Cornyn can successfully label Paxton as a philanderer, that will hurt Paxton.
I was rummaging through bookmarks today. All that Windows stuff? I don’t need it anymore. I found this:
https://homehack.nl/creating-a-raspberry-pi-squeezebox-server/
I can do this. I need to buy a Pi. Which seems complicated. Or maybe I haven’t found “a kit” with Pi, power supply, case and a couple of other parts. I have keyboard, mouse, and monitor already. And an external HDD.
I have a Pi running Pi-Hole. It simply works. I bought it from a friend already configured.
A Pi running SlimServer and not much else beyond a stripped down (no add-ons) version of Firefox would be good. I can turn Moa off and have an easy to use PC in case I just have to use Windows. And I’ll have another spare PC. Ya know, One is None and all that.
Firefox is so I can deal with the router and Nanobeam. That would be all. I’ll block the Pi’s address in the router from reaching the internet and that will stop FF from trying to update.
Plans. Got a few.
Six year terms. Bugger off and retire after 24 years of sucking on the Federal teat. Just go away already.
A remarkable picture of that LNG carrier in the Med with an entire compartment side blown out has been published.
Reports are that it has sunk, finally.
The Russians are blaming the Ukranians, but they have’t claimed it, so it may just be shoddy Russian shafow fleet practices.
Remember, when thinking about what AI can and can’t do, at the beginning of the PC revolution everyone who was dismissive, focused on what they couldn’t do. Moore’s Law, and experience fixed most of that. AI is already scarily far down that path. If these are early days, in 5 or 10 years, we’re in a different world.
I am scared that somebody is going to release an AI in a war machine to slow down CW2 in the USA or stop it. Lots of them. Just think about about a couple of million war machines running free in the USA.
I just read a book about this. Dadgum intense.
“Trilobyte” by J.L. Bourne
https://www.amazon.com/Trilobyte-J-L-Bourne/dp/B08BW84JBZ?tag=ttgnet-20
Deterministic Finite Automaton. C’mon, dude, you should know this.
And again I disagree with Greg. LLMs are non-deterministic FAs because they random number generators and have trained weights for the branches. That’s why you can ask the same question four times and get two basically similar answers, one somewhat divergent, and one well off.
This afternoon was seasonably warm, clear, and sunny, likely the last such day for a while, so I brought the chickens out of the run and up to the front of the house to sun themselves, scratch in the dirt (we have 6-15″ of compacted snow but there are clear patches along the house’s south side), and generally wander around and have fun. This endeavor was not completely successful, mainly on account of chickens being dumb. Half came right out and started heading up the stairs. The other half went to the closest point in the run, which is the farthest from the door. It was only with great effort and a few raisins that I got them to go away and then sideways and only then forward. I probably shouldn’t have bothered, but I wanted them together so I could keep an eye on them all. They enjoyed themselves for an hour and migrated toward the coop after the sun went below the horizon. (Actually the houses to the west, not the horizon itself. Not that we have a real horizon around here because of the hills.)
Supposedly everyone has modeled it for safety reasons, but a real world test is something else. I imagine all sorts of people are watching – from a safe distance. A drone strike is a second to worse case (worse case being multiple charges carefully placed by saboteurs).
Will the other tanks on board start to boil off and vent, or rupture catastrophically? Will the existing fires act as a impromptu flare stack or as a fuse?
I model these in my software. The failure process is called a BLEVE. Run away very fast as the expansion of one cubic foot of LNG liquid is 3,600 cubic feet of vapor and the process tanks and piping cannot handle the resulting pressure change. Pieces of the tanks AND the supply pipes can be thrown over a mile. I have seen the results of a BLEVE, very dangerous. A cascading BLEVE will kill many people, just ask Phillips.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_liquid_expanding_vapor_explosion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillips_disaster_of_1989
I used to know a guy working in the lab at Phillips. He woke up with an 8 inch I beam laying on him. He does not remember the 8 inch I beam landing on him or the explosion. The lab roof landing on him saved him from the cascading explosions and the fires. He cannot work in a lab anymore at a refinery or chemical plant due to flashbacks as he spent many hours unable to get the roof and I beam off himself.
“Things that absolutely should not exist, Part XVIII”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2026/03/things-that-absolutely-should-not-exist.html
“How many of you have been to, or know the culture of, the Philippines or Cambodia?”
“How many of you have sampled the (in)famous balut?”
“If you have, you’ll know why this image (courtesy of the blogger at Come And Make It) led to an instant attack of visual indigestion . . .”
Gross, gross, gross, gross, gross !
Wizard Of Id: I Don’t Do Cardio
https://www.gocomics.com/wizardofid/2026/03/04
You better run dude if you want the reward.
The photo show an entire length of the side of the ship gone, about 100 feet long, apparently one of the fuel storage tanks. And what I suspect is ice floating on the water.
I didn’t realize but I guess there are two methods of transporting LNG, the first being giant spherical pressure vessels, and the second being basically a thermos with a really really big refrigerator keeping it cold. The Metagaz seems to have been the second type.
I wonder if the ships fridges failed after the fire (and the crew – wisely – abandoned ship) and the remaining tanks did a BLEVE?
I BLEVE I wouldn’t want to be within a mile of that thing when it went off.
This is crazy. In all cases I still have to buy an SD card.
First, we have this. $55 bucks. And then variants
https://www.amazon.com/Vilros-Raspberry-Incudes-HDMI-USB-Adapters/dp/B09M1PS35R?tag=ttgnet-20
And another for $43
https://www.amazon.com/Vilros-Raspberry-Starter-Power-Premium/dp/B0748MPQT4?tag=ttgnet-20
And this, with the Official Case for $60
https://www.amazon.com/CanaKit-Raspberry-Zero-Starter-Official/dp/B0CT1Q3PCD?tag=ttgnet-20
I think I’ll go with this for $90
https://www.amazon.com/CanaKit-Raspberry-Premium-Clear-Supply/dp/B07BC7BMHY?tag=ttgnet-20
Because it has four USB ports so I don’t need a USB hub. It’s not like I need to keep the keyboard and mouse connected but a powered hub is another expense. Ditto for the dongle for Ethernet.
Add another $20 for a 32GB SanDisk SD card. Or what the heck, $32 for two.
It’s not like it’s real money. Dearly Departed had almost $1200 in cash back on his Capital One card. It was his gub fund. I used it up to buy Big River gifts cards, sent to me.
All NFAs are DFAs, proof through construction.
“Ernst Ellert Returns! (Perry Rhodan #83)” by Clark Darlton
https://www.amazon.com/Ernst-Ellert-Returns-Perry-Rhodan/dp/4416606370?tag=ttgnet-20
Book number eighty-three of a series of one hundred and thirty-six space opera books in English. The original German books, actually pamphlets, number in the thousands with several spinoffs. The English books started with two translated German stories per book translated by Wendayne Ackerman and transitioned to one story per book with the sixth book. And then they transition back to two stories in book #109/110. The Ace publisher dropped out at #118, so Forrest and Wendayne Ackerman published books #119 to #136 in pamphlets before stopping in 1978. The German books were written from 1961 to present time, having sold two billion copies and even recently been rebooted again. I read the well printed and well bound book published by Ace in 1975 that I had to be very careful with due to age. I bought an almost complete box of Perry Rhodans a decade or two ago on ebay that I am finally getting to since I lost my original Perry Rhodans in The Great Flood of 1989. In fact, I now own book #1 to book #106, plus the Atlan books, and some of the Lemuria books.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Rhodan
BTW, this is actually book number 91 of the original German pamphlets written in 1963. There is a very good explanation of the plot in German on the Perrypedia German website of all of the PR books. There is automatic Google translation available for English, Spanish, Dutch, Japanese, French, and Portuguese.
https://www.perrypedia.de/wiki/Ernst_Ellerts_R%C3%BCckkehr
There is alternate synopsis site at:
https://www.perryrhodan.us/summaries/91#
In this alternate universe, USSF Major Perry Rhodan and his three fellow astronauts blasted off in a three stage rocket to the Moon in their 1971. The first stage of the rocket was chemical, the second and third stages were nuclear. After crashing on the Moon due to a strange radio interference, they discover a massive crashed alien spaceship with an aged male scientist (Khrest), a female commander (Thora), and a crew of 500. It has been over seventy years since then and the Solar Empire has flourished with tens of millions of people and many spaceships headquartered in the Gobi desert, the city of Terrania. Perry Rhodan has been elected by the people of Earth to be the World Administrator and keep them from being taken over by the robot administrator of Arkon.
Ernest Ellert, the time teleporting mutant, has been trapped in the Druuf Universe for thousands of years now. He left his body behind on Earth 70+ years ago and Rhodan put his body in mausoleum with perpetual care. Ernest Ellert has been controlling the body of the Druuf Chief Scientist for many years and making him help out the Terrans. But Ellert is growing weak and must go back to his body.
Two observations:
1. Forrest Ackerman should have put two or three of the translated stories in each book. Having two stories in the first five books worked out well. Just having one story in the book is too short and would never allow the translated books to catch up to the German originals.
2. Anyone liking Perry Rhodan and wanting a more up to date story should read the totally awesome “Mutineer’s Moon” Dahak series of three books by David Weber.
https://www.amazon.com/Mutineers-Moon-Dahak-David-Weber/dp/0671720856?tag=ttgnet-20/
My rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 0.0 out of 5 stars (0 reviews)
Lynn
The Bush Cabal wants revenge for ending the dynasty (at least for now) with George P. (Diddly), Son of Jeb!, falling short in the primary against Paxton for Attorney General four years ago.
“Trump Issues Ultimatum In Texas GOP Senate Primary Slugfest, Hints At Endorsement”
https://dailycaller.com/2026/03/04/trump-truth-social-endorsement-john-cornyn-ken-paxton-texas-senate-drop-out/
“President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he is planning to endorse one of the two candidates that advanced to Texas’ May Republican Senate primary runoff election.”
“Trump’s comments come after Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn and Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton advanced to a May showdown in Tuesday nights primary, after Trump had remained neutral. The president wrote in a Truth Social post the following day that he plans to make his endorsement in the race “soon,” adding that he will be asking the candidate that he does not endorse “to immediately DROP OUT OF THE RACE!””
I hope that Trump endorses Paxton because Cornyn is a back stabbing gun grabber.
The Kernel is common as are the application binaries, but, for now, macOS is a general purpose operating system and provides the traditional Unix experience. A bunch of FreeBSD is in macOS, and, IIRC, FreeBSD supports Grand Central Dispatch, Apple’s threading, natively.
Deterministic Finite Automaton. C’mon, dude, you should know this.
And again I disagree with Greg. LLMs are non-deterministic FAs because they random number generators and have trained weights for the branches. That’s why you can ask the same question four times and get two basically similar answers, one somewhat divergent, and one well off.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deterministic_finite_automaton
Yuck, that is some nasty stuff.
You gotta remember, I am a mechanical engineer who writes software. I am not a software guy by education. I don’t know all of these industry terms and processes that software guys learn in University.
I agree on the single question with multiple answers conundrum. I have experienced that with Grok. Maybe I need to ask my question again to see if they have improved the answer. After all, both answers that Grok gave me were wrong and wildly different.
Most universities recommend 16 GB RAM minimum in student machines, and 8 GB RAM is barely usable for anyone interested in poking around with iPhone/iPad app development.
The Air base model now has an M5, 16 GB RAM and 512 GB storage. That’s the minimum student/developer machine.
Rob Braxman just announced his open-slate tablet on YT. It will support Ubuntu and U-Touch, which apparently caved to the pseudo-age CaCafornia requirement. He went with Ubuntu as officially supported via an agreement.
Mathematically, yes. However, it’s like observing that all Turing-complete programming languages are equivalent. It doesn’t mean that every programming language is equally suitable for every programming task.
Uh. Duh. Right click the Samba folder and “Open as Root”. Enter your password.
Duh. I opened the file, didn’t add anything. Just deleted a couple of == in the commented parts and it saved.
I’ll get this figured out.
Perhaps.
Because that is what is available at the campus book store. My last encounter with college students and my impression is that most would work well with the NEO. The exception being the math, engineering, and science classes that require MatLab. The liberal arts, pfffttt, most could get by with an Etch-a-sketch.
Whew, another auction seller bites the dust. The guy who wanted to quit after his first reseller auction, but hung in there for about a year, has switched to direct sale/retail.
I was trying to think of everyone I know of that started and ended their auction business in the last few years. It’s a lot. Hard to make money reselling.
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Kind of thundery tonight. No rain yet. The sky has an off color. But it’s almost dark. The dogs have no interest in going for a walk.
I bought the $90 Raspberry. Should be here on Monday. If it sucks I’ll return it and start over.
Yeah, when you are selling used stuff? Garage sale grade stuff? Who’d a thunk it?
Most of it is from store returns or amazon returns. So, kinda used.
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xkcd: Solar Warning
https://www.xkcd.com/3215/
You know, it would be real nice if Sol did that kind of thing before blasting the Solar System.
Explained at:
https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/3215:_Solar_Warning
I’m just bouncing off of the walls today. Anyone I call goes directly to voice mail. E-mail? Zero response.
I mean, I bathe. Use deodorant on the pits. And, well….. wth.
It’s not thunder. It’s some fat woman going past.
I seriously annoyed a young woman some years ago when she was bitching at me for no good reason. I held up my hand to shut her up for a moment, cocked my head and put my hand to my ear, and asked “Hang on. Is that thunder?” beat “Oh, no, it’s just your thighs.” She wasn’t even fat, just not-slim enough that it was a good bet that she was self conscious about every bit of pudge. And I was right!
In my defense, I’m very seldom deliberately offensive unless someone else started it.
I never touched MatLab in grad school, which surprises even me.
I had an 8 GB surplus ThinkPad running Windows 10 on a used 1 GB hard drive for my last degree program, and that ran everything I needed.
Just last August, when memory was still cheap, 8 GB vs 16 GB was a really insignificant price difference, maybe $100.
Redmond always finds a way to use every byte.
Used Fitbit trackers. Cheap!
I had another return recently where Newegg just told me to keep the item.
I received a $13 Netgear switch with a bad port which flaked out intermittently. The other one in the shipment worked fine.
Yeah, $13, but the switch is for my kids game center. My son burned out the WRT54GL I had there acting as a switch and WAP serving an 802.11G network.
A SCOTUS ruling today will hopefully help get rid of crimmigrants by limiting what District Judges can do in cases. They are now limited to reviewing rulings by I-judges findings if the crimmigrant has shown sufficient proof he should get asylum*, not opening whole new cases for review for years. Maybe the “Maryland Man”, Kilmar Abrego Garfukstikia will finally be deported. If he can’t prove that every country in the World will persecute him, he’s gone.
*Of course, doosh judges can just say “naw, not sufficient”.
Had dinner kinda late tonight.
Found my favorite pork roast, with the ribs, in the bottom of the freezer. 12/23. Baked that with salt pepper and garlic, with strips of bacon on top. Made au gratin potatoes from a box. Opened a can of sliced apples (for pie filling) and made stewed apples with brown sugar and cinnamon. Leftover take and bake bread. Everything cooked in the oven. SO GOOD. That rib roast is so much better than just the loin. Costco only carries the roast at Christmas and Easter though so stock up.
D2 has talked me into giving her friend a ride from his cousin’s house to his house. Dunno why she’s involved, but the kid’s ride fell thru. He lives a block from my buddy’s fun store, so not a real problem, I just don’t like driving at night anymore.
Time to be dad taxi.
n
I just don’t like driving at night anymore.
Cataracts.
A SCOTUS ruling today will hopefully help get rid of crimmigrants by limiting what District Judges can do in cases. They are now limited to reviewing rulings by I-judges findings if the crimmigrant has shown sufficient proof he should get asylum*, not opening whole new cases for review for years. Maybe the “Maryland Man”, Kilmar Abrego Garfukstikia will finally be deported. If he can’t prove that every country in the World will persecute him, he’s gone.
“Court unanimously sides with government in immigration dispute”
https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/03/court-unanimously-sides-with-government-in-immigration-dispute/
“The Supreme Court unanimously sided with the federal government on Wednesday in Urias-Orellana v. Bondi, holding in an opinion by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson that federal courts of appeals must use a relatively deferential standard of review when assessing the Board of Immigration Appeals’ determination that asylum seekers did not experience the level of persecution necessary to qualify for asylum protections.”
Whoa, unanimous. We do not get many of those now.
Or not. The kid got his ride together on his own. Which is good, because now I can have my dessert without worrying about a sugar crash.
n
Just got checked by my eye specialist a couple of weeks ago. He says 10 years before doing any cataract work.
n
Without the randomness, the right prompt could cause the DFA to cycle through a group of nodes endlessly, with the AI never reaching an “accept” state where it outputs an answer.
Randomness introduces a very large but still finite set of symbols into the language. The right prompt could make the DFA cycle endlessly, but I imagine there are watchdogs monitoring the AI to restart the model if it doesn’t return an answer in a specific amount of time.
Scorpio!
He’ll sting you with his dreams of power and wealth.
Beware of Scorpio!
His twisted twin obsessions are his plot to rule the world
And his employees’ health.
He’ll welcome you into his lair
Like the nobleman welcomes his guest
With free dental care and a stock plan that helps you invest!
But beware of his generous pensions
Plus three weeks paid vacation each year
And on Fridays, the lunchroom serves hot dogs and burgers and beer!
He loves German beer!
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/04/climate/nuclear-power-terrapower-construction-permit.html
I just don’t like driving at night anymore.
“Cataracts.”
Not necessarily. I share the aversion and have no hint of cataracts. Older people require more light in all environments and do not adapt between light levels as easily. The automakers are evidently not being required to use good design to prevent blinding incoming traffic, and some of the Eurotrash models have features that are actively designed to show color shifts off-axis, giving blue color flashes from turning vehicles.
A pox on them all. I long for the good old days before the weasel lawyers destroyed standard-setting bodies, when we had a strong SAE and took our own damn time in studying and accepting the halogen sealed beams.
I’d like to see a special luxury tax for any vehicle with ridiculously high replacement parts. I’m thinking specifically of the YT I posted a couple months ago with the $9k headlight lens module.
And if we’re writing a bill let’s include defining any data transmission not authorized by the motor vehicle owner as wiretapping and making any performance degradation or other de facto penalty due to lack of said authorization a felony with mandatory jail time for management from platform up to CEO and board.
I was just mis-remembering the german power plant buyers and Mr Burns saying in german “pay no attention to my lickspittle.” Turns out he actually says “My lickspittle says I never cease to amaze him.”
Simpson’s were so good.
n
US headlights INTENTIONALLY have a part that shines up. It’s a regulatory requirement so that they can light overhead signs.
US vehicles imported in europe have a piece of tape applied to the lights to block out that part.
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https://redstate.com/beckynoble/2026/03/04/proof-of-what-we-have-been-saying-all-along-voting-for-democrat-prosecutors-and-das-can-be-deadly-n2199846
You don’t have to look far:
Hours after jail release, man is accused of killing his Minneapolis cousins before police killed him
https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/eddie-duncan-north-minneapolis-double-homicide-killed-by-brooklyn-center-police-jail-release/
In any kind of sane world a man possessing “a gun modified with an “auto sear switch.”” would not have been released. Add the need for a psych eval and it’s even more imperative that he be kept off the street. Democrats do not live in a sane world.
Duncan and one of his cousins were in the 20-29 group, directly contributing to the next calculation of the 6.6%. The other cousin was 14, and I’d advise the researchers to expand their age groups a bit to see if what we already suspect is true, is true.
“US headlights INTENTIONALLY have a part that shines up. It’s a regulatory requirement so that they can light overhead signs.”
And in between the light that shines on the roadway and the light that f*cks off somewhere other than traffic signs is the part that blinds oncoming drivers, who are, btw, to the left whereas signage is straight ahead or to the right in almost all cases. We used limit excessive glare by crudely aiming headlights to keep them out of the oncoming traffic and down on the road, with enough off-axis to illuminate signs. Now the intensity and pattern of the light can be controlled , and decoupling the light source from the reflector takes away all the excuses.
Dems May Have Played Themselves With Talarico: His Remarks That Would Be Killer Ads…for the GOP
https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2026/03/04/gop-needs-to-make-these-into-talarico-ads-n2199856
A 4:52 Filing; a 5:00 Withdrawal – Hours Later Steve Daines Confirms He’s Done
https://redstate.com/ben-smith/2026/03/04/a-452-filing-a-500-withdrawal-hours-later-steve-daines-confirms-hes-done-n2199861
New candidate (later endorsed by Daines) files at 4:52, eight minutes before the deadline.
Daines withdraws just before the deadline.
The report is unclear on exactly how these papers were filed. In person or by proxy?
I looked at Best Buy’s pre-order page for the Neo.
All 8GB ram, choice of 256 or +$100 for 512GB SSD. No sign of 16GB RAM.
Choice of white, pink, celery or pewter is free. The colors that didn’t make the cut in 1998? Where is Bondi Blue?
Apple is Benjamin crazy. They kneecap the base models in three or four ways, then charge a Benjamin to upgrade what would be a $20 increment outside a Cupertino Case.
It’s a model that works pretty well for them.
n
I followed my dinner with a big piece of cobbler, warmed up and served with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream. Time for bed…
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Virginia Lt. Gov.’s Bodyguard Pushes Reporter Who Asked About Illegal Alien Accused of Murder
There are two ways that action could end, both of which have the “bodyguard” on the floor.
Paxton offers to stay in the race and drain $200 million in campaign funds if Thune continues to fudge around
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/jeff-charles/2026/03/05/ken-paxton-says-he-wont-drop-out-no-matter-who-trump-endorses-heres-what-the-president-had-to-say-n2672371
He should also be asking the guy who got 12% of the vote to apply some leverage.