No, but every single day of the 37 years and 5 days since the day we met, I have been blessed to live fully thanks to our relationship.
No, but every single day of the 37 years and 5 days since the day we met, I have been blessed to live fully thanks to our relationship.
It don't mean a thing (if it ain't got that swing swing)! We live in a world that has small nice things. This photo was taken this morning in a local ravine.
Solar and wind are widely distributed and difficult to centralize under unitary executive control. Solar and wind energy don't need extraction and refinement. Solar and wind are increasingly efficient. Three strikes and they are OUT. The bastards know exactly what they are doing and why.
I've been told that paying off one's mortgage early is financially suboptimal. That is true ONLY in stable economic times. My wife and I barely sleep at night as it is, and I cannot imagine how we would sleep if we had a mortgage to pay.
My wife and I receive > 5 phone calls per DAY asking if we would consider a cash offer for our home. The owners of private equity are absolutely desperate to grab hard assets as fast as they can. I think they either know that economic disruption is coming or are planning its onset.
A known form of pilot error is distraction leading to "Controlled flight into terrain". With this "government", we have that, except without the "controlled" part. We are in a flat spin with one engine out and circus clowns at the controls.
They are smart enough to hire master manipulators of language, media and politicians. Remember Frank Luntz and newt gingrich, noting that the the new generation of manipulators have better weapons (social media) and skill (decades of study).
Fossil fuel execs understand the source of their incomes: Recurring revenue from drilling and refining. Solar and wind do not need either. Preventative maintenance and storage (and energy transfer), neither of which gives execs control of our economy.
It bothers fossil fuel executives, which is persuasive to their bitches in "government".
My guess is that zeldin is talking about auto engine controls that stop burning our money (turning engine off) when waiting without moving, such at stop lights. zeldim knows that he is advocating for blowing our money into the atmosphere for no gain. Profit for fossil fuel execs.
Chavez-DeRemer is awful but speaks an inverted but genuine truth: trump is the most transformational president since Washington. Weaponized DOJ Destroyed trade Ethnic cleansing (Soon) skyrocketing inflation Deploying armed troops on our streets Terminating health research Secret police (ICE)
Another American here to say the same thing. End the takeover before it's too late! Once they get hold of the levers of power, it's game over. Recovery, if at all possible, takes years and lives.
Ok. My reference is historical, intended to show that the origin of title was a revocable grant by authority, to favored supporters of said authority. Under that structure, "title" was not always earned, often a reward for political support. SS is our saved earned money, not given by authority.
We are just now discovering the depth and pervasiveness of the plan. Part of it was labeling those who warned about rising authoritarianism as loony conspiracists. Dems needed to be elected, so they stayed in the safe zone of centrism while the liars built their fascist infrastructure.
In engineering, we regularly face "latency": The time between an event occurring, detecting its effects and recovering stable operation. During that time, the damage adds up. Same with fascism. Between taking over and failing, people DIE. Often the damage is irreversible.
CAUGHT! The OHIO REPUBLICAN Party Chair just confessed at a party event. They had SOS LaRose (R) intentionally reword the ballot language on the recent anti-gerrymandering referendum so that it would fail and it did. THIS IS NOT DEMOCRACY.
Dr. Denton, try not to lose fhat enthusiasm. It is an investment, meaning there is a short term cost. The sometimes nearly invisible effect of loving the work integrates over time. The area under that curve is an account to draw from during the lean times. ... Says lucky software guy (50 years)...
Healthcare for all would be less expensive, but it has a problem that cannot ever be solved. It takes away the most valuable commodity ever conceived in heaven or earth: Control.
Theoretically, a monarch was a steward of the realm, the "good king" model. The other kind of king was rather more common. He and his supportive minions were more like what we think of as organized crime. Shitty kings were theoretically not "criminals" because They Were The Uncontestable Law.
The theft of SocSec / Medicare is _exactly_ breach of contract! I am using that phrase from now on. Every republican presidency has dramatically increased deficits, every democratic presidency has tried to hold the line. It has been their plan for decades to steal from our trust fund.
Feudalism: entitlement was granted by the feudal "government" (kings, lords, dukes) but could be bought / sold (it could be blocked). The king was ultimate owner and could revoke title. We don't have feudalism YET so your title is yours. Beware private equity! They want feudal ownership.
"Entitlement" originated in feudalism: The king who literally owned *everything* would grant title to lords who would grant title to dukes (I forget the whole hierarchy...) etc. Entitlements were heritable. That 's why "being entitled" is an epithet. SocSec is OUR SHARED RESOURCE not entitlement.
Ohio citizen wishes / hopes for the same here. No luck yet. Gerrymandering in force here, despite overwhelming vote against it in 2019. Our republican masters wrote lying ballot language for a recent measure to force its defeat at the polls last year.
I came to say exactly this.
These geniuses have no respect for their base: They disrespect their base. The U.S. side of the fence is on a northern exposure! Even noting that it's not flat, the heat absorption of the paint is not much better than the existing rusty steel. Gloves, protective clothing and ladders...
And it really sucks to live in an apartheid state that was part of a weakly free country. In the before time, red state policy was to a weak extent balanced by a stable federal government. The U.S. had at least a hint of movement on a path of greater freedom for more people. That's gone now.
Not as in rest mass, but rather relativistically: Over the last 9 montjs, many hundreds of man-hours working through major physical / signal processing challenges, extracting information from unexpectedly noisy input. :-)
That isn't quite tautological, but close. Major change in most domains of human activity. Press, media, networking.. I started in 1972 (EE with "computer option") and am amazed by the changes between then and now. Actually surprised that I've been able to keep up. (Still working! :-) )
Sic transit gloria... That good feeling of having done a thing doesn't last very long, as we move on to the next challenge. Exceptions exist... I built a nice little signal generator years ago, and still use it for testing updated sensor firmware.
Thank you, I came here to write this. We are paying heavy taxes due to increased assessments resulting from housing shortage. Homes are the most common store of value for middle class and lucky working class people. Renters paying those taxes too. Why are mutimillionaires so privileged?
To the best of my knowledge, a mirror would be useless to Roger Stone.
I am an old computer geek who participated in and celebrated the rise of the internet. Information democratized, explosion and sharing of creative expression, wealth built and shared widely! <20 years later: enshittification. Screwed by arrogant control freaks. Wishing for better guardrails.
Lessons learned in software development: Sometimes a problem my character (me) can walk away from unnoticed, was a problem my character could not walk away from, and discovered down the road of implementation. ...Therein lies a story... :-)
Mid-decade gerrymandering - like we’re seeing in Texas - is absolutely horrible for our democracy. It’s also leading to the death of competiton in American elections. Check out my recent Substack for a deep dive on the subject. open.substack.com/pub/wileynic...
I am convinced that the of "How to Train Your Dragon" animators met Koala (our solid grey x-large cat) or his doppelganger... More seriously the animators knew what they were doing: Animating a large very powerful intelligent housecat. Remember Anne McCaffery's "Dragon Riders of Pern"..
The Republican party has been hijacked, but it is not due to spinelessness. It is a strategic plan, fully supported up and down the hierarchy, implemented over the last 50+ years.
trump has just given the entire world a *perfect* excuse to stop using Intel products, and possibly other American products: Who's next on the list of government "acquisitions" to distrust? Apparently "we" really are that stupid.
I think you are right, working class power does not require tyranny. What I do think however is that wherever there is power, narcissists and thieves seek to gain access to it. I believe civilized people have not yet learned the magic necessary to prevent theft of society's resources.
"WE" are trying not to let her slide. Our agency as a nation is being destroyed in the authoritarian / oligarchic power grab. You likely know that, but it's worth noting that we are being outspent, deliberately misinformed and by implication outvoted.
I agree 20% with your assessment that "communism" is not ipso facto bad. Unfortunately, there are evil people who take control resulting in nearly every case to tyranny of one sort or another.
70 plus years of using the word "communism" incorrectly by both the tyrants and those talking about the tyrants led to its debasement. Informally it has come to mean generically "control of too much by too few to the detriment of the population". "We" are headed down a *very* dangerous path.
There are only two objectives: power and money. Everything is about those two things. Language is untethered from meaning, conflicting ideas collapse into each other, thought decays, absurdity presents as rational. But never forget, there are only two objectives: power and money.
In academic circles that comment is fully correct. The "leaders" of the Soviet Union (and others) debased the name. It is well known in the non-academic world that "communist" has been stretched to imply ruthless tyrannical control of the population and imperialism. Informal but informative.
Imagine the effect on Intel when the administation decides to sell, or to *threaten* to sell that 9.9% stake in Intel on a Friday afternoon, if trump decides he doesn't like something they did and may not be able to control. No normal investor could do that, but trump would. (Ex. "tariffs")
The team of engineers of which I am a member are constantly 'making' graphical images given data collected from various sensors in the field. It is a TON of coding, organizing, scripting, design, etc. The researcher contributed significantly to the effort and earned that moment.
A casual study of history shows that authoritarian "leadership" leads to *extreme* inefficiency. Which translates to major inflation. I measure inflation as "translating X hours of work to Y products and services". Removes authoritarian privilege of lying about economic performance.
Alternating coding in C for our firmware, Python for data gathering and analysis, and shell for sequencing lower level script execution.. I write C with a python accent (semicolons), python with a C accent, and shell remains a world of its very own. :-)
Yes. People who are compromised must never be allowed in positions of authority. We are seeing the cost right now. I have friends and relatives who were profiled DEEPLY by FBI before receiving even normal secret / top secret clearance. Known indiscretions may be allowed as nonthreatening.
Paying off a mortgage: Instant raise!
I have always thought trump was a sideshow. These guys and probably others are the real threat.
The Ukrainian people had the courage to throw off the shackles of Putin's puppet regime. The crime syndicate in Moscow attacked, knowing their serfs would catch on and stop dying en masse to feed a dictator's insatiable gluttony. Ukraine has returned fire and is (I hope) bleeding the kremlin dry.
Agreed. I don’t need to like politicians. I certainly don’t need to want to drink a beer with them. I need to trust that my elected officials are competent professionals who will advocates for the needs of their constituents.
Thanks, I've been distracted by normal vicissitudes of life lately...
I have not read the California gerrymandering bill. I have the (forlorn) hope that the legislation has an end-of-life clause that reverts to honest districts if enough other states do the same. That said small-D democrats cannot afford to disarm in the face of the current attack on our democracy.
Yes. But he is also backed by a whole cabal. Stephen King would have trouble competing with the evil in the stories written by Lewis Powell, Roy Cohn, Lee Atwater, Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Jerry Falwell, Rush Limbaugh, Rupert Murdoch, Jeffrey Epstein, and many others.
I agree with both points. But I would go further. You cannot afford NOT to prevent the takeover. Once oligarchs, theocrats, authoritarians, neofeudalists, power freaks get even a hint, a whiff of weakness, they will attack relentlessly. U.S. democracy has been under relentless attack since 1980.
Mandated to update maps after census, they ran out the clock, arguing past a deadline established in the amendment. The weakness in the amendment was a lack of enforcement. That's the trouble with all legislation. Once a group takes power, legislation becomes a set of agreements to be ignored.
I live in Ohio. The anti-gerrymandering Constitutional Amendment was strictly limited to controlling gerrymandering. It passed 74.9 to 25.1 percent, not just "democrat party". An attempt to try again last year failed due to Republicans twisting ballot language. Republicans violating the law.
There are decades of decay that led up to us in our current state, and centuries of stupidity and theo-fascism that made the decay possible. Many of us are doing what we can to end this, but the roots run really, really deep here and it won't be easy if it's possible.
An FBI employee I knew years ago described why he transferred from drug enforcement to white collar crime: Most drug dealers don't stand a chance against committed law enforcement. White collar criminals (think "corruption") are far more challenging, and stopping them much more important.
youtu.be/Xtt78SW-mgg?...
For whatever it may be worth.... I found a cover of "Everyone Wants to Rule the World" in classical latin by The Miracle Aligner on youtube, and cannot stop listening to it. Admitting that my conservative parents wanted me to study latin in jr.high. It worked out ok...
Wife and I thinking about (former) U.S. advantages in research & development. We got best and brightest from around the world. Brain gain. Now "we" are shitcanning that huge but slow / long-time-horizon advantage. It CANNOT be privatized, no company can afford decades of possibly useful research.
Change is challenging. Sometimes it takes effort and time to see the benefits.
...Didn't even breathe... LOTR and Wizards were *wonderful*, each in its own way. Enjoyed Wizards @21, deeply appreciate the story @68. Thank you. P.S. Thanks for Peace.
In areas with recent construction in central Ohio (Dublin and other westside communities especially) we have converted a surprisingly large fraction of our mid-to-large intersections to roundabouts. It took a bit to get used to them, but we're coming around... Shockingly, we can learn...
You just nailed my two Heinlein favorites. Citizen of the Galaxy too. Stranger was difficult. His later works are unreadable. I agree with many other readers that those original classics should be required reading for Ph.D. candidates, but as products of an earlier time they are anacronistic today.
The most important problem with solar and wind is the complete lack of extractive revenue. Fossil fuel execs are making bank on extraction, and counting on their bitches in government to preserve their hold on our energy economy. Efficiency is insufficiently profitable for the feudal lords.
Of course you are right, but could you take it one step further. Major/multinational corporations are antithetical to democracy. They will consistently act to disrupt, subvert and eliminate democracy. Someone needs to put it together as say it publicly.
Samsung Galaxy S23, Android 15: Auto detection of unknown trackers can be enabled only if device location is enabled. I do not enable device location (for obvious reasons). Inappropriate "Interesting" asymmetry: Reduce privacy to detect possible tracking.
Dr. Dunn-Walters is correct, but I wish she had emphasized the value of a well-vaccinated population in reducing mutation. Retransmission rate falls dramatically, and produces lower viral loads when infection does occur in vaxed people. Less mutation to chase, longer lasting vax protection.
Less "imagine", more "remember fondly". Back then, "apps" were far simpler (though creatively built), and developers were FAR more intimately familiar with the work. Front panels dropped from mainframes in the '70s, minis in the '80s and micros in the '90s with OS and application complexity.
The Confederates always used "state's rights" when it was convenient and the feds to control the states when it wasn't. We are still fighting the confederates...they weren't punished well enough and they never went away.
Selling indulgences was a major contributor to the processes that led to reformation (your point is valid) and ultimately centuries of war. Corruption kills, always. Sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. And the least powerful always pay the highest price.
American feudal self-sabotage follows a well-known path. My favorite example is Islamic "leadership" 1200+/-200 years ago, with a thriving scientific/research community. They tossed their advantages in the shitter when their clerics wanted power over the lives of their people. (Dates approximate)
More frustrated with "conservative" policies every day. The American production worker paid the highest price for decades due to offshoring production, enabling foreign competitiveness! Now highly regressive tariff policies force us to pay AGAIN to rebalance trade! Win win for the feudal thieves!
Throughout history, rulers have taken advantage of the people they ruled. Decline of monarchies did not change the dynamic of people who want to dominate underlings. In our country, executives (for- and non-profit) and government leaders carry on in that tradition.
The POINT is the 1% dividing (and conquering) the 99%. They know exactly how to pit people against one another and the funny thing is no one ever seems to catch on. Meanwhile, when we fight each other, the police state wins.
The right has been creeping towards facism for years, and now that it is obvious they are absolutely sprinting towards it. They know that this is their chance and they are going to push it as far as they can
Elle Cordova has been doing these (brilliant imho) for years. My two favorites are Fonts Getting Together, and Subatomic Particles. In every case, note her attention to detail. Others may have done similar styled vids, but Elle's work is exceptional.
Republicans, especially those close to The Inner Party, are in on the scam. They are not "scared", they are apparatchiks.
Fell off the wagon Saturday... Large peperoni pizza.... I promised my wife I would eat half, leaving half for later. When I woke up 20 minutes later, the whole thing was GONE!
Interesting visitors to our back yard. Three impressive guys. Nontrivial photo subjects, they are in constant motion. At least I was able to capture one of them.
Our "representatives" are bought and paid for: Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, January 21, 2010. Legislatures gerrymandered in violation of sate constitutions (I am a frustrated Ohio voter). They don't bother to hate us, we have been demoted to the status of irrelevant serfdom.
The beat(ing) goes on.... Fewer executives more power over major logistical resources.
Sometimes the world brings us nice surprises... This is one of them. Imagine what you could do with an Alienware(tm) laser mouse!
1992: Boeing 777, Columbus to Denver, window seat 14 ft behind trailing edge of the wing... Transfixed through the entire flight, watching constant adjustments of the flaperon. 35 years old then and still a kid who loved anything that flies... Lookimg forward to true stratospheric travel.
That shot of a private plane carrying a bomb shows Ukranian balls of steel, creatively using every resource available in their revolutionary war of independence. Respect.
...We pay tariffs and they get stock buybacks. None of these and the many other corrupt tricks contributes one single penny to American productivity. Education? No Research? No Strong population? No Healthy population? No Efficient government? No Truth? No
The U.S. executive class engaged in labor arbitrage for 25 goddamned years, funding China's rise to manufacturing dominance. Every time I hear some dumbshit elitist bitching about China, I get more frustrated. To American "leaders": You shitcanned our economy for your goddamned stock price!
Yes.
Yeah, and sooner or later he'll end up dead as a result!
What might be the MAGA American equivalent of Russian style falling out of windows?
Yes, A Wrinkle In Time got me addicted too. Loved the hard SF too, and your point about political philosophy is on target: I learned about friendship, commitment and care for fellow beings independent of origin or form.
"The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress" Heinlein's story of people fighting for agency... The friendship between Manuel and Mike (AKA Adam Selene) inspirational. The story of helping an entity grow into self awareness was life changing for me. A tasty fantasy. 50 years as a developer, still employed...
I was relieved to turn 65 several years ago, one step further from risk of loss. I love my work but am dependent on decisions by people who have no idea of the value of one developer.
In my cohort (also free range, thank God), a few stitches, several scrapes, the occasional road rash were rites of passage. A little freedom in youth leads to far far less fear in adulthood.
Seeking a respite from this increasingly challenging authoritarian reality, I added a nice income reporting feature to the appointment / charge / payment scheduling app for my wife's practice. I so love her, she understands...
Yet The Heritage Foundation got what they wanted, got what they've been working toward for decades and they could not care less that it was brought to them by pedophiles and putin. They want an end to our representative system of governance and thru this horrifying human they got the cult to do it.
Nuke it from orbit. Hard no.