One year ago today: October 24, 2014, favorite metaphors.
Five years ago today: October 24, 2010, sigh, the Smithsonian.
Six years ago today: October 24, 2009, Caddies in the Snow.
Nine years ago today: October 24, 2006, the Bell South Scam
MORNING
What’s this, a bill introduced to bar anybody who does not support global warming from running for or holding US public office? Duh, okay. Listen, people, I am aware that my opinions are not unique over here, but I do not watch television. Part of the appeal of this blog is that what I think cannot be traced back to some form of manufactured position. Hence my view of global warming is not for nor against any political position. So yeah, you could say part of the charm here is now close what I do conclude fits in with other standpoints of which I am totally unaware.
The day is overcast, yet there is your proof these solar panels can crank out enough to harm your equipment. The meter on the left is suspect, the other is showing 17.40 volts at 4.95 milliamps. Several hours at this level is enough to cause damage. Agt. M says it should be possible to built a cheap regulator, a type of better-than-nothing affair. He has not kept up with his studies, but he’s been right in these instances often enough that I will begin a design.
Bergdahl, your goose is about to get cooked. Trump finally said that case and dozens of other glossed over issues from the last administration will be reopened when he’s in. It has me thinking, wondering actually, why Trump’s opponents have not hit on the idea of fielding a clone. You know, put up another candidate who promises exactly whatever Trump does and copies his platform. Except this candidate is a political stooge. His purpose is to play Trump’s game.
The game is to get elected, then revert to politicking again, doing nothing, running the country into the dirt, and changing the basic fundamentals that made the nation once great. Like, for example, a white Christian morality. Nobody says that is perfect. Only that it apparently works better than anything else that’s come along in any other countries.
Watch for it, it would be a bit much if 21 days from now somebody tries it. That is the usual lag time between this blog and some event. But the challengers have to do something to split the Trump vote or they don’t stand a hope. Trump has been leading in every poll for what, something like 100 days now. That is incredible. It shows how plastic and cookie-cutter all the others have become, you know, when one man with no fear of telling the truth can stand them all on their heads.
NOON
Spitting afternoon weather kept me away from my precious cPod work. Indoors is fine, this is some work with the scroll saw. I’m making the internal cuts on my snowflake ornaments, I’ve decided to stain them a dark color as well as shoe polish. It’s a departure from glittery Xmas decorations, but that’s the idea. I’ll sparkle them with fingernail polish, but otherwise, they should be the darkest ornaments on the tree. I’ve arbitrarily decided that nine is the correct size for a set. JZ calls this my "little sewing machine saw".
While I didn’t say no, I reacted to her like I would anybody else who initially treats me like I’m weird because I will read, write, and work on small projects in public. Of course, it always depends on the project, guys, so don’t run out there and try to copycat. I’ve been this way my whole life, if nothing is going on, I’ll haul out a textbook or a slide rule. It doesn’t work if you haul out a tennis racket. Try something to do with academic content, I think, but make sure you have the brains to follow through.
Today’s trivia. My historical military studies have often touched on the issue that Adolf Hitler (that is the correct spelling, there is no “ph” in German) was not the complete maniac as usually portrayed. But I won’t go there, I’m just saying the facts are not consistent. Anyway, I would like to address the popular idea that Hitler used “the big lie” to con the Germans people into electing him. Actually, he did the opposite.
In “Mein Kampf”, he warns against the big lie. He cautioned people to be on the guard against it. So there, the trivia, except that of course I am very carefully following the developing situation in Israel over the scramble to clarify recent statements by their leaders that shed doubt on “official” versions of World War II.
EVENING
This is the tree that died so fast last year. Well, it is the stump of that tree that the city left. I’ve been watching it return to nature and thought this photo of new live emerging around the bass was kind of pretty. What do you think? You want me to post occasional photos of this? Maybe, but you know, the bakery is for sale.
And have you heard the conspiracy theorists advocating as system of swapping your cell phone with a friend now and then? It throws off the “Echelon” tracking system. I’m not going there, either, but my long term readers will know how long ago that same advice appeared right in this little blog. It was not intended for real, but to see if anyone copied the idea. (Trading phones means your number gets out to all your friend’s weirdo friends, your outgoing calls sometimes get blocked, it is inconvenient as hell.)
The trick is to get a new cell and keep your old one for incoming calls only. Block the new phone call display, although that can be cracked and often is. Try calling an insurance company anonymously. Generally speaking, to remain even partially anonymous, you need two cell phones. And you are tracked, like the old phone system, not by who you call, but by who calls you. Because you have so little control over that.
ADDENDUM
I had National Liberal, er I mean, National Public Radio on in the background. It sometimes isn’t bad on Saturdays, and today they had articles on Israel’s reaction to the statement that Hitler got his ideas from Palestinians and a second discussion on “open source” [software], the concept that all users should have access to all computer code. The Palestinian claim is based on some meetings held before the war, but the danger is that it does not follow the version of the Holocaust as dictated by the Jewish community. That makes it revisionist, which is against the law in most countries using the Rothschild banking system.
The significance of open source code is wider than most people understand. Personally, I don’t believe the people who “gave” code free to the world, such as the developers of the spreadsheet, Linux, or the World Wide Web. I think they would have cashed in on it if they possibly could, and that includes the instance where they were just too dumb to know it. Like Tim Berners-Lee. They claim afterward they did it for mankind, but it doesn’t ring true. They missed the boat.
The concept of free access to the code is a stickler. If I write a program, there is no way I should be compelled to give the source code away as a condition of making a web–compatible version. Yet, that is what much of the web community is pushing for. If you want to be allowed to put your program or site on the web, you must allow strangers access to your code. In other words, if you don't show them your source code, they don't have to let you on "their Internet". That's about as Canadian an attitude as you'll ever get ("we didn't say it was our Internet, we said it is our server and we have a law that says you can't hook up your own without obeying the rules we made up"). This is part of the danger of calling programmers “scientists”. They are not scientists, they just like to call themselves that.
They do not have the far-reaching intellectual or academic wherewithal to be scientists. Hell, Berners-Lee did not understand fourth grade punctuation rules. The connection is that the scientific community, at least in the progressive societies and cultures, know that you make progress better if you share information as much as possible. It makes sense to share formulas and tech details in a scientific setting. But not in business. While you can't steal science, you sure can steal proprietory information. Hence, backward societies encourage the business or individual who discovers anything to hide it from view, sort of every man for himself.
But that is meant to be confined to knowledge, not a universal demand for “truth”. Can you see my point? If I discover or invent something by dint of my own hard work, should society have the right to block me from capitalizing on it unless I freely give away my ideas and methods. Of course not, that is unbridled capitalism. Those already with money would be the only parties with the ability to market anything new.
This must be a confusing concept to Liberals, who tend to believe that every other person has an obligation to reveal “the truth” as much as possible, even to the point of compelling them to do so. Look at the oath in the courtroom, to tell the whole truth. That is unconditional and nobody should ever agree to anything unconditionally because conditions change. I heard some of this stuff on the radio. But it my personal opinion that knowing truth is not an duty to tell. Truth can do just as well locked in a box as written across the sky. The real issue is not the truth you know, it is who has a right to demand that you tell them. In my world, almost nobody has that right, and it is a right you relinquish only when you cause others real harm.
Last Laugh – what the heck, it’s Saturday.
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