And it’ll be hot and humid too… because Summer in Houston. No other reason. None really needed. Nor for the weather across the pond, or across the continent. We’re always being told weather isn’t climate when we point out that it’s cold when in should be hot. Just like racism, it goes both ways. I expect it to be over 100F today, and I’ll be in an attic for part of that.
Yesterday was hot too, but seemed a bit cooler for most of the day. Still got over 100F. Maybe the humidity was lower. There was some cloud cover for part of the morning that helped keep it cooler.
I got some stuff done. Not a huge chunk, but a few things. I’ll get a few more done today. The attic fan at the rent house is the big job o the day, so if that gets done I’ll call it a success. Some other stuff should happen too, but we’ll see.
Adding some meat to the freezers should happen too. Always good to stack food.
nick
When exactly did Nick start his strike? It didn’t receive much media attention!
Off to the bridge walk this morning. A cool 56F, with a slight breeze. I did bring a flannel shirt but am wearing shorts.
I tried to download a photo of Hillary to my laptop, but MacOS refused to download the image. I tried on my iPad and that placed the device into recovery mode. I dare not try on my iPhone.
My grandmother wasn’t quite that precise. She had dementia, but with lucid intervals. The family threw her a huge 100th birthday party – all kids, grandkids, and hangers-on were present – and grandma was completely, totally present. After that she kind of checked out, and died about 3 months later.
I read somewhere that death rates in the very elderly are much lower before their birthdays and much higher afterwards.
Lazy day today. And yesterday. And the day before. Played some tennis. Played lots of computer games. Re-reading the Honor Harrington series.
It’s hot here, and a great excuse for a summer break. Real life starts up again tomorrow, and next week I have to start course-prep, because I’m teaching a new course starting mid-August.
Our high school year starts on Aug 13, but the clubs and activities have already started.
———–
I’m up, waiting for caffeine and food. Back is sore. Tossed and turned all night. dunno what that’s about, I usually sleep well. Probably too much caffeine late in the day.
I should check the coffee…
n
Half a million dollars PER GIRL. Seems kinda inefficient. And suspect. Like there was some other reason for it to exist.
https://www.dailymail.com/tvshowbiz/article-16015073/Oprah-Winfrey-South-Africa-school-girls-CLOSE.html
n
Speaking of africa…
Literally an “aspiring rapper”.
https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-16013791/Atlanta-Georgia-gas-pump-kidnapping-Jerahn-Tucker.html
I miss civilization.
n
Atlanta. What section isn’t clear, but I’m guessing Hapeville.
https://crimeresearch.org/2026/07/at-real-clear-politics-americas-murder-problem-is-smaller-than-it-looks/
avoid certain people and the places they frequent and you can avoid most violent crime.
I bet if you pulled “hispanics” out of “ white men” it would go down even further.
n
White women kill people from the voting booth.
There is a concerted, intentional effort to categorize offenders as white, regardless of their actual ethnicity or race. It’s a perennial posting on X showing mug shots of arrested people who are coal black or named “Jimenez” listed as White.
So even the white statistics are suspect, being (grossly?) overstated, and causing Black and Hispanic to be understated.
A few years ago, before Sweden turned black, the national murder rate was admired as very low, and gun control advocates here held it up as a shining example of how great gun control was..
At that same time, in America, the white victim rate was identical to Sweden.
Leave Hispanics but move the “white adjacent“ Asian males into the White category.
The progs use “asian” to blur the indians and islamics into the Orientals to dilute and misdirect.
Western leftists replaced ‘oriental’ with asian, and that was understood for years. Now they want to add indians and islamics, two groups with NOTHING in common with the traditional ‘orientals’ or ‘asians’.
n
added – so let’s not muddy the water by adding “asian” to white.
Back from the New River Bridge walk, and a visit to Babcock State Park.
The bridge walk is not for anyone that is slightly afraid of heights. The views were awesome. The bridge shakes when traffic moves over the bridge, especially loaded big trucks. The catwalk is about 18″ wide with handrails. Everyone wears a harness around the waist and under the legs. That is attached to a pulley device that can only be placed on the safety cable at either end of the bridge. The pulley rolls along the cable the entire length of the trip.
The steel of the bridge is some type of alloy that has copper in the alloy. The bridge looks rusted, but is not. It is the copper that keeps the bridge from rusting or needing painting. Bolts were used to attach the beams, cross members, braces, and there were a lot of them, rather than rivets.
It was cool this morning, 60F when we got on the bridge, rising to 68F when we got off the bridge. It is a one way trip with a shuttle on the far end bringing everyone back to the staging area.
It is an impressive bridge.
I should have something on my website about Sunday or Monday and will provide a link.
@ray, I bet there is a fairly large portion of guests that would refuse to walk across again if they had to, as well as whatever logistical issues there are with having the path be two way…
n
The guide stated that he has had 20,000 people take the walk and only 13 refused after getting on the bridge. The deal with the one way trip, and shuttle back, is there are usually two tours at a time on the bridge. The catwalk was built as part of the bridge, for inspections, and not for people touring. That touring was added years after the bridge was built.
Besides, once a person has been across, walking back is seeing the same stuff again. Not something I would want to do.
“Father who gifted son rifle used in Georgia high school shooting sentenced to 15 years”
https://justthenews.com/nation/crime/father-who-gifted-son-rifle-used-georgia-high-school-shooting-sentenced-15-years
“Colin Gray, who gave his 14-year-old son a rifle as a Christmas gift that was later used in a high school shooting, was sentenced on Thursday to 15 years in prison.”
“Judge Nicholas Primm said that Colin Gray’s failure to act against the crimes committed by his son factored into the sentencing decision. A few months before Gray gave his son the weapon, law enforcement had come to their home because the son had threatened to shoot up an elementary school, prosecutors allege, NBC News reported.”
Yup, there is a problem here. But 15 years in prison for something he did not do?
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/
“VPN Provider Fights Microsoft’s Hidden Windows Device Tracking”
https://www.pcmag.com/news/vpn-provider-fights-microsofts-hidden-windows-device-tracking-gdid
“Windscribe VPN creates an experimental computer script that removes the mysterious Global Device ID (GDID) from a Windows PC, though it does break some functionality.”
A hacker’s arrest exposed a little-known way Microsoft can track users on a Windows PC, but VPN provider Windscribe says it developed a process to shut it down.
Windscribe says its experimental computer script can remove the Global Device ID (GDID) from a Windows PC. That identifier was used by the FBI to identify 19-year-old Peter Stokes, an alleged member of the hacking group Scattered Spider. Agents uncovered that an IP address associated with his hacks was linked to Stokes’s Windows PC through the 16-digit GDID.
Removing anything from Windows is dangerous as Windows has always struck me as a fragile environment.
“Siberian Wizard: A Paranormal, ESP Thriller (The Wizards Series #5)” by Jack L Knapp
https://www.amazon.com/Siberian-Wizard-Paranormal-Thriller-Wizards/dp/1723741183?tag=ttgnet-20
Book number five of a six book science fiction fantasy paranormal series. I read the well printed and well bound POD (print on demand) trade paperback self published by the author in 2018 that I bought new from Amazon in 2026. I have bought the following book in the series and plan to read it soon.
Chief Warrant Officer T was serving in Afghanistan as a squad leader for foot patrols. However, T was never trained as an Army officer, he is the product of a failed CIA Black Project to develop telepaths for insertion around the planet. The strong telepaths can read anyone’s mind who is close to them. T is a weak telepath, he can only converse with other telepaths, but distance does not matter. And T is a strong telekinetic and a weak precognitive. T and a telepathic Army nurse officer, Shezzie, left their duty post in Afghanistan and returned to the USA. And the former CIA black project group head was killing all of the telepaths to hide the failed project.
T and the other talents are now meeting more and more people with various talents. It turns out that just being around people with talents is causing people with latent talents to start manifesting their talents to their surprise.
T was back in the past trying to locate the teenage grandaughter of his friend Shorty. It turns out that teleporting over long distances to the west can cause a person to go back in time. T ended up meeting Nikola Tesla and investing in his wireless electricity experiments on Long Island, New York. But the apparatus blew up and T found himself in Siberia, Russia without his memories of who and what he was.
I liked the excursion into the early 1900s tales of the AEF (American Expeditionary Force) into Russia. I did not know that we sent USA troops into Russia after World War I.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Expeditionary_Force,_North_Russia
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Expeditionary_Force,_Siberia
My rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars (60 reviews)
Lynn
“Dear Diary: Lying About COVID is Making Me Rich and Famous!”
https://www.schiffsovereign.com/trends/dear-diary-lying-about-covid-is-making-me-rich-and-famous-155545/
““Press is going wild with me,” Dr. Anthony Fauci wrote in his diary on March 22, 2020, days after he had helped pressure the country into shutting down in the name of COVID.”
“The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee just released 1,141 pages of his near-daily entries from the COVID era, days before he appeared yesterday. They read like the diary of a nine year old girl.”
“Weeks later, in early April 2020, 22 million Americans were newly out of work thanks in large part to Fauci. Yet he was still focused on himself: “Intense publicity about me continues with stories of grandmothers who have crushes on me.””
“He noted a “beautiful profile” from the BBC. He logged the online petitions to vote him People’s Sexiest Man Alive. He made 641 entries cataloging his own press coverage, and beamed over having to turn down Dancing with the Stars.”
This is a person who is fascinated with themselves and will do anything to feed that supposed self worth. Up to and including destroying the USA. He created the virus and then he sowed it among the people of the world using willing accomplices. Fauci is a mass murderer in my view.
OK, I don’t know how well this is going to work. I made a small movie using iMovie, a piece of software I have never used before. I normally use a much better editor, DaVinci Resolve, but I don’t have it on my MacBook.
Here is a link the movie of the bridge walk.
https://www.raymondthompsonphotography.com/BridgeWalk.mp4
Mostly uncharted territory for me as I don’t normally do video, I understand the concepts of an editor, layers, tracks, transitions, motion, etc. The videos, joined together, were all taken using a GoPro 7, a slick little video camera.
Damn car dealership, and Toyota, and the thieves. It is now required use a service, Beacon Auto Services, to do the vehicle registration. And that costs $282.00. And they cannot do DV plates, like I have, so now when I get the new plates, I have to turn those in and get new DV plates, for another $26.50.
According to the finance manager, who f**ked it up to begin with, it is some new procedure required by Toyota, that a service be used, to stop the flow of vehicles that are being stolen and sent overseas.
@Ray
Your river walk is tres cool! Half a century ago, my family trekked across the Royal Gorge in Colorado. A similar height and visually impressive. However, we walked on the bridge’s deck without vehicular traffic. The deck was wood plank/timber with slight gaps between members. NOT the catwalk underneath!
I have also done that bridge. One in 1973 when I was stationed in Colorado Springs, then again in 1980, five years after I got married. Both bridges are impressive. Considering they were designed before large scale use of computers and the technology of today. Those engineers and designers were some awesome dudes and dudettes. The construction bubbas had balls of titanium.
Very cool Ray! I could feel my palms start to sweat a little…
I’m assuming that the dealer was located in Fulton County.
Cool, Ray.
Couple questions:
I don’t like heights. I frankly can’t handle heights. I get dizzy just watching some videos of heights. I could not watch that video.
Bingo. I am not so certain it is just the dealership but Toyota that is causing the issue. The dealer apparently does not work with out-of-state sales much and the collect tax when purchased is a new requirement from Toyota, according to the dealer.
Yes, groups are limited to about 12 people according to my count. Largely due to the size of the shuttle bus, I think. It also makes the tour guide easier to be heard at the back of the group. There could be other reasons.
Yes. No backpacks and all phones must be on some type of lanyard. The place sells such a lanyard for $6.00. We were told anything dropped, is lost for good.
Deceptive. All the phones have a strap around the four corners of the phone and a lanyard that went around the neck. I never took my phone out of my pocket. The GoPro was mounted on a handheld grip with a lanyard around the wrist.
OK, I don’t know how well this is going to work. I made a small movie using iMovie, a piece of software I have never used before. I normally use a much better editor, DaVinci Resolve, but I don’t have it on my MacBook.
Here is a link the movie of the bridge walk.
https://www.raymondthompsonphotography.com/BridgeWalk.mp4
Awesome! I would like to do that catwalk. Once.
That reminds me of the days and months working inside steam boilers, 175 feet off the ground inside the boiler. No safety straps, no safety equipment except our hard hats.
To go to break, since the skyclimber took 20 minutes to get up there, they slid a 20 foot long 2×12 over to us. Highwire Bob just walked the 15 feet over to the 24 inch diameter porthole. 200 lbs Max crawled on the severely bowing board to the porthole. Me, I was 225 lbs at the time and did not want to to risk my life so I stayed on the skyclimber. Peed off it too.
Nice video Ray! The audio is sort of muddy which under a bridge, yeah, to be expected, but the view is astounding!
“It is some new procedure required by Toyota, that a service be used, to stop the flow of vehicles that are being stolen and sent overseas.”
I call bull shirt-r. The dealership is lying.
I mean, you bought a Toyota. But not from Toyota. Toyota sold a car to the dealership. Why would Toyota care if it is stolen and shipped overseas?
My guess is that the dealer is part of a much larger corporate parent such as Group One or Lithia.
“Dear Diary: Lying About COVID is Making Me Rich and Famous!”
Cool, I got three thumbs down, and five thumbs up, so far for calling Fauci a liar, narcissistic, and an egomaniac.
My guess is that the dealer is part of a much larger corporate parent such as Group One or Lithia.
All of the Toyotas in Texas, and maybe other states, are imported and sold by Gulf States Toyota to the Toyota Dealers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_States_Toyota_Distributors
You forgot the “vaccines”, but I don’t believe that we will ever know the full truth about those lest Herr Docktor one day find himself being dragged out of his house by his hair, beaten, and set on fire in the street.
That puzzles me. He’s obviously all those things, and worse, and the 5th worst mass-murderer in a hundred years. Maybe 4th. How many did Pol Pot kill? I’d look it up, but it doesn’t matter.
And yet people downvote your observing of it.
I lost my job and my career and a lot of money and was separated from my dying brother because of the “science” and lies of Fauci.
In any event, I gave you an upvote to counter.
I am not so certain. I was told that if buying a vehicle with a loan, even in TN where I live, the taxes have to be paid by the dealership. It happened with my F-150. I financed for 5 days (cash flow issue) and I said I would take of taxes when I registered. Nope, not allowed. Of course there was a lien holder involved.
The government, FEDs, are really clamping down on auto sales. I had to have my wife and my driver’s license sent to the FBI before the sale could continue. That took an hour of waiting while the FBI searched their black boxes and whatever, then responded.
I know there are two Rick Hendrick’s Toyota Dealers.
I wanted to eliminate the audio, but replace it with what? Also something else I would have to learn. All the music I have on my MacBook is copyrighted. I do have a song, written by an obscure music writer, to whom I paid $30.00 for a lifetime license to use his music. He was grateful I asked for permission and that I was willing to pay for the use.
Hendrick is one of the largest dealer groups in the US.
They have the Audi dealer here at a minimum. Maybe more, but that’s the one I see frequently.
Yeah, mass murder. Trump, tho’.
I’m not kidding when I say that I believe The Scarlet Pimpernel will ride again before the left gets this Bad Daddy Derangement Syndrome out of their collective systems.
I think it goes far beyond Trump, but he’s a convenient target.
“The steel of the bridge is some type of alloy that has copper in the alloy.”
Cor-Ten was developed by U.S. Steel for railroad hopper cars in the 1930’s, and then transitioned into architectural use. It develops an oxidation layer (aka rust) over six months or so that protects from further oxidation.
@ray, it all sounds sketchy as heII. We had nothing like that when buying the wife’s new Honda. We weren’t out of state, but FBI???
Something ain’t right. Even if you’re caught up in the large transaction nonsense, it’s just reporting, no approval or disapproval. Approval implies there could be disapproval.
———-
Flock cams still popping up around here. And some that DON”T point just at the back of the vehicle.
———–
Replaced the attic exhaust fan at the rent house $120 and 20 minutes. 140 degrees F in the attic. The fan should help. One A/C short run vent was 70F and the one that runs 30ft thru the attic was 76F.
I was soaked to the skin in minutes.
———–
Lowes had peeler logs (for landscaping) in the cull pile for half off. Just so happens I needed some so winning!! They were not all twisted or bowed either.
———–
They are jamming new houses into every lot in Houston.
———–
Traffic was light today for some reason, and Lowes was a wasteland. Weird.
n
The dealer said FBI, it could have been any 3 letter agency. My license was also scanned when I bought my F-150. I did not think much about it since I was financing for 5 days. I figured it was an ID check for the loan.
I also had to prove I had valid insurance before I could drive the vehicle off the lot. That may be a state requirement. Who knows?
Aerosmith: “Walk this Way”
Tom Petty: “Free Fallin’”
Lindsey Buckingham: “Don’t Look Down”
They are jamming new houses into every lot in Houston.
I have seen many places in Houston where they tore down a very old house on an 80 foot to 120 foot wide lot and built a quadplex three story homes on the lot. Backyards 20 feet wide and 5 foot deep. Hope you like climbing stairs and hearing your neighbor’s parties. Perry Homes specializes in this.
My brother rented a townhome in a quadplex for the last couple of years before he bought his newish house in the Heights. The townhome bolted to his townhome was an AirBnB. Parties lasting 48 hours every weekend.
I also had to prove I had valid insurance before I could drive the vehicle off the lot. That may be a state requirement. Who knows?
Definite state requirement in Texas.
But we were born free!
Aerosmith: “Walk this Way”
Tom Petty: “Free Fallin’”
Lindsey Buckingham: “Don’t Look Down”
“Leon Russell – Tight Rope [Official Lyric Video]”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qvep3Vsv_uQ
“Diary Of A Madman”
https://cdn.creators.com/589/420398/420398_image.jpg
From:
https://www.creators.com/read/tom-stiglich/07/26/420398
The down voters probably still wear masks when they go out.
FauXi failed to save the Gays, even denying them other hopeful drugs, opting for a vaccine which never worked. Now he has failed to save us all from COVID. He tried to position the virus as fatal when it turned out not so bad. I feel for the people who died without holding their loved one’s hands. FauXi should rot in Hell just for that.
tRump fell for FauXi’s lies and plugs The LastTM continued them.
All Hail DeSantis!
I feel for the people who died without holding their loved one’s hands.
My wife told the nursing home to send her 87 year old father to the hospital ER in August 2020 when they told my wife that he had stopped eating. She got to hug her father in the hospital then, and so did her sister. I tried to talk my daughter and son into running up there but they just figured he would last another year or two. He died the next week when my wife had him sent back to the nursing home. My daughter regrets that very much.
With that experience, I had my 86 year old father in a San Antonio hospital in 2025 and I was telling family that he was “not doing well”. Every one came flooding in to get one last hug and talk to him which he loved. Dad had a major stroke four days later and never woke up again. I moved him to a hospice three days later and he died three days later there.
Colonists want new and big.
They are used to densely packed neighborhoods.
The single home next to my rent house turned out to be on 5 lots. They replatted as three rectangular lots, typical 25ft wide, 120ft deep. The three houses built on them are 24ft wide and about 60-80ft deep and three stories, sometimes with roof decks.
24ft gives you 20ft for the garage and shear walls, and a 4ft wide walk to the front door set back from the street. The depth depends on the size of the driveway and if you want any back yard. Some have a separate garage with alley entry and an apartment above instead of a back yard. The apartment rent makes the deal easier to sell…
My rent house is on the front half of two lots. The back half was already separated and subdivided when W bought it. No further subdivision of my two, so no buying one house and building two or three. That’s why it’s only worth $250K instead of $550K.
The developer math is Xsqft for the dirt, plus Ysqft * Cost of new construction per sqft + carrying costs + profit =< average sale price per sqft * Ysqft
The first floor loses a third of the square feet to the garage, the driveway and yard come out of the lot footage, which limits the usable square feet for the plan foot print, which determines how many floors and what level of finishes….
Anyway, with some armwaving, and using that as just a starting point, there are lots that are uneconomical to build on. I’m stuck in that part now, until prices in the area increase significantly to justify the construction costs. Unless I want to be the developer because I already own the dirt…
n
I should add that in areas with older homes on big lots, or multiple lots, it comes down to breaking even on X number of units and profiting on the rest.
A typical three lot single home (1200-1800 sqft) sells for $550 because the developer will scrape the lots, build three townhome style houses, sell the first for $550k (pays for the lot), the second for $550k (pays for construction of three houses), and the third for $650K which is all profit.
Took three houses to double his money tho.
In areas around where my live in house is, there are single bungalows on 1 acre lots. You can fit 8-12 townhomes on that acre including setbacks and driveways. City says 22 housing units per acre, so it COULD be a lot more if the neighborhood would put up with it. Doing the math, it’s $800K to $1M for the dirt, and sell the units for $450-650 depending on how many there are and how nice.
The $800k just for the acre is why real buyers, ie a single family, is priced out of the market for traditional homes on big lots.
This is in Houston anyway, where we don’t have zoning. Some of the surrounding areas make it harder to do, and some of the areas a bit further out are less desireable and much less dense, so the math doesn’t work. You can still buy a house on ¼, ⅓, or ½ acre. Get 20 minutes out and you can still buy acreage.
n
Capturing this snip of a bio from my county commissioner.
You know, someone educated at Harvard might consider she’s supposed to represent all of us, even the Americans. Is she a proud American? Is she a proud Texan? Well, at least she mentions Texan. Not proud, just native. She’s definitely woman first, mother first, and “diverse”.
Let me note what’s missing from this. American. Proud Texan. Representing whites, English speakers, and males.
I’m more and more sick of this. I want people who represent me to be American, Texan, Constitutionalist, and only incidentally other things, as tertiary or later qualities.
F your “proud Latina” excrement.
Someone with my very name fought in the 3rd Virginia Regiment of the Revolutionary War.
https://pjmedia.com/catherinesalgado/2026/07/30/john-cleese-drops-truth-bombs-about-islamic-culture-n4955630
Islamics have no respect for my culture, my country, or my life. They are morally bankrupt.
Rumor has it that the name lpdbw started because the volunteer in the 3rd Virginia was illiterate. Another rumor has it that he knew what he was doing when he enlisted under an unpronouncable name. The sergeant comes along looking for people for some crap detail. “Johnson, ellpuhdebwuh, come with me.” The original lpdbw could ignore it because his name hadn’t been called.
What Does It Mean to Be a Culturalist?
Insert X post by JC.
Insert excerpt from Life of Brian
https://redstate.com/wardclark/2026/07/30/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-culturalist-n2204980
A lot of people are priced out of a $5000 mortgage.
Friends in Florida are learning that a $4000 mortgage prices out a lot of potential buyers of their house at a $600k asking price.
Haircuts are coming for everyone.
I only have so much sympathy. John Cleese has consumed the EV Kool Aid in vast quantities.
I’m still a huge fan, and I just watched Rupert Lowe on Joe Rogan earlier today.
“Two Weeks”
https://areaocho.com/two-weeks-2/
“Some time in the next two weeks, the US debt will hit $40 trillion. It’s currently at $39.71 trillion. For those of you who are keeping track, we hit $37 trillion last August. Taking into account the $5 trillion a year in tax receipts means the government spent $8 trillion in the last year, or about $22,000 for every single resident.”
“Seven years ago, our debt was $23 trillion. In 2010, it was $13.6 trillion. In 2009, it was $11.9 trillion.”
“When Obama took office in January 2009, the national debt was just $10.6 trillion. It has tripled in the past 17 years. What is the limit? At what point does the whole thing come down?”
Great question. I wish that I had an answer.
This is why the USA will have a financial apocalypse in the not so distant future. It will not be pretty.
And this is why I plan on starting my Social Security next year when I turn 67.
“I wouldn’t bet against this man…”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2026/07/i-wouldnt-bet-against-this-man.html
“A SpaceX engineer once described receiving an email from Elon Musk at 1:47am. The email was one sentence long. Just a question about a valve pressure reading from a test that had happened nine hours earlier.”
“The engineer responded at 7am when he woke up. By the time he opened his inbox Elon had already sent two follow up emails. One with a proposed solution. One asking why no one had responded yet. It was 3:12am when the second email was sent.”
“The engineer said what disturbed him wasn’t the hour. It was the specificity. Elon had referenced a data point buried on page 47 of a 200 page test report that had been distributed to the team that afternoon. He had not only read the entire report. He had found an anomaly in the data that the team who wrote the report had missed.”
Unreal.
“That’s why I’m also intrigued by the launch of X Money a few days ago. Musk was one of the founders of Paypal, and withdrew from it several years ago. He learned a lot about the consumer finance industry at that time (not to mention all he’s learned about the corporate finance industry before and since). X Money is still in its early stages, but I expect it’ll incorporate all those lessons in due course, and will probably end up being a major threat to the consumer banking industry. It’s already offering an interest rate of 6% – three times higher than most banks of which I’m aware. For those who keep “nest eggs” handy, either as an emergency reserve or saving to buy something expensive, that’s a very large incentive, offering interest rates that offset most of what inflation is costing us.”
@SteveF, my g-g-g-grandfather lpdbw farts in your direction.
John Cleese still doesn’t get it. He worked, hour by hour and brick by brick, to tear down Western Civilization, and fails to see his contribution to its destruction.
Monty Python’s sense of humor was divine. Their liberal politics was ultimately destructive. And they couldn’t end a sketch to save their lives.
“Spain Finally Calls Out the Military as Illegal Aliens Flood Ceuta Border and Nine Die”
https://jdrucker.com/spain-finally-calls-out-the-military-as-illegal-aliens-flood-ceuta-border-and-nine-die/
“Thousands of illegal aliens stormed Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta on Thursday. They swam around coastal barriers, scaled fences, and overwhelmed the border until it collapsed. At least nine people are dead. Bodies floated in the water while rescue teams worked. Local officials called it absolute chaos. Madrid finally sent in the military.”
“The Spanish government ordered the Armed Forces to support the Civil Guard after Ceuta’s leaders warned the city could no longer cope. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska are expected to visit as the government scrambles to restore order.”
Unfortunately, if the military does not bring their weapons and dispose of the illegal aliens, the action will be fruitless. The illegal aliens will pour into Europe in greater and greater quantities.
Video of the illegal alien rush:
https://rumble.com/v7didas-shocking-footage-shows-the-migrant-invasion-of-a-spanish-enclave.html?mref=1wxk5&mc=ehuil
Slowly, and then all at once.
————
Time for bed. Lots to do.
n
“VPN Provider Fights Microsoft’s Hidden Windows Device Tracking”
https://www.pcmag.com/news/vpn-provider-fights-microsofts-hidden-windows-device-tracking-gdid
“Windscribe VPN creates an experimental computer script that removes the mysterious Global Device ID (GDID) from a Windows PC, though it does break some functionality.”
A hacker’s arrest exposed a little-known way Microsoft can track users on a Windows PC, but VPN provider Windscribe says it developed a process to shut it down.
Windscribe says its experimental computer script can remove the Global Device ID (GDID) from a Windows PC. That identifier was used by the FBI to identify 19-year-old Peter Stokes, an alleged member of the hacking group Scattered Spider. Agents uncovered that an IP address associated with his hacks was linked to Stokes’s Windows PC through the 16-digit GDID.
Removing anything from Windows is dangerous as Windows has always struck me as a fragile environment.
If you want to see your 64 bit GDID, start up the regedit program:
For currently logged in Windows account:
Key: HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\IdentityCRL\ExtendedProperties
Data item: LID
Data value: unique GDID string per Windows account
For all Windows accounts:
HKEY_USERS\*\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\IdentityCRL\ExtendedProperties
Data item:
LID
Data value: unique GDID string per Windows account
If you use an MS account login, you’ll also find your stored MS identity
under:
HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft\IdentityCRL\StoredIdentities