One year ago today: October 28, 2014, on wood-burning stoves.
Two years ago today: October 28, 2013 Johnny Cash, Kingsland.
Three years ago today: October 28, 2012, the new KenKen puzzle.
Four years ago today: October 28, 2011, tea & bingo.
Five years ago today: October 28, 2010, to Florida, from Chicago.
Six years ago today: October 28, 2009, California, 20 years ago.
Seven years ago today: October 28, 2008, Koontz + Steele + King = GAG!
Eight years ago today: October 28, 2007, Montana, 45 years ago.
Nine years ago today: October 28, 2006, ASF = A Stupid Format.
MORNING
Logistics dominates the blog again today. Want the fun news? The cost of that Father’s Day flat tire on the sidecar has now risen to $655. Here is the new rim, which finally arrived a month late. Um, think of it as history in the making. The most thoroughly documented sidecar flat tire in the universe. We concluded the seller listed the price without realizing it costs $45 to ship the rim, seen on the right. Then they tried to play games over it, only setting themselves up for a complaint [to eBay].
The flat tire in question can be seen leaning on the door. The white spot is a marker where the repaired puncture is sited. It seems tight enough, but we decided on a tube. That’s despite the terrible performance of the last one, and those tubes are $25 each. True, much of the cost of the flat has been the issue of ensuring the same can never happen again. But it sounds so much worse when I include everything in one cost category.
I’ve concluded the 8 hours of study I earmarked for the history of camouflage and deception. I still believe a cloaking device will be made that bends light waves around and object, rendering it invisible in at least one direction. There is also talk, far-fetched talk of holograms as cover or to create decoys. Those would have to be accompanied by sound, heat, and other such spectrums to fool anybody. Yet, decoys work, especially against air observation.
What was that in Serbia, NATO destroyed 400 tanks when in fact the enemy only had something like 22. Or that bridge they blew up six or seven times. It was made of felt, which apparently has the same infrared signature as asphalt. Anyway, that concludes my look at what is new. Nothing really, nothing not already mentioned here years ago. The available books on the topic are among the worst written I’ve ever seen. Plain bad writing, grammar, and readability. It is not by accident that this blog, for one that contains a surprising lot of technical material, is quite easy to read.
It was interesting and I feel up-to-date on what is involved. I see that many people who are finally clueing up to the danger of Internet and cell phone surveillance are just now starting to publish books and counseling caution. But they are all wrong in trying to get people to “hide” their identities and home addresses and unlisted phone numbers. Wrong, that is so amateur. And even if you succeed, it draws attention. While I will balk at blatant scams like raffles, on-line purchasing, and Facebook, trying to conceal oneself is not how you tackle covert surveillance.
You confront it by giving your enemy exactly what he expects to see. My address, for instance, is very easy to find because it has been the same for nearly 35 years. You must give the bad guys enough information that they think they’ve got you and stop looking. But to try to live a secret life is impossible and probably really is paranoid. I wouldn’t know.
NOON
Now they are saying coconut oil is not bad for you. It was supposed to be the worst of vegetable oils, although calling it a vegetable doesn’t impress me. The way the reports are worded, it may not actually be good for you, rather just not as bad for you as the hydrogenated detoxified “near-oils” that line the supermarket shelves. Canola, modified corn, soybean, all tinted an eye-catching buttery yellow.
Internet sites are dropping at record rates. That’s the capitalist system, that sites which don’t make money eventually fold. Which raises a small problem. Some of the regular features on this blog are links to sites that may not be there forever. For instance, the gifs that display the moving graphics at bottom. Those day names are a link, and every animation is. For the still photos, I’ll download and repost so they’ll remain as long as the blog company exists. But I should start thinking about the links that aren’t my own.
How about XP on my Android? Most sources say it cannot be done because of the different chip designs. Others say it can be put into a mode that runs XP, which I would settle for. My biggest beef with Android is it gobbles up all your RAM for itself, limiting it to one or two tasks at once. And I confirm, the Android does not include any useful apps, it is all toys. The apps that came with my “Proscan” are
ApkInstaller, Browser, Calculator, Calendar, Camera, Chrome, Clock, Downloads, Drive, Email, Explorer, Gallery, Gmail, Google, Google Settings, Google+, Hangouts, Maps, Messenger, Movie Studio, OnlineHelp, People, Photos, Playbooks, Play Games, Play Movies & TV, Play Newsstand, Play Store, Settings, Sound Recorder, Video, Voice Search, and YouTube.
And again, I can’t get past the window that insists I open a Google account or exit the device. Even my pro Android advocate, Agt. M, does not have any idea how to get rid of all the junk and install a word processor. Why doesn’t he know how to operate Android to at least these system basics? Because he does not understand why anyone would want to change anything. Talk about a different generation.
Nor can he grasp why I don’t want a Google “One Account”, that I prefer each Internet access to be independent. Equally incomprehensible is why I want to delete all the Play apps to free up memory space. Delete Play Store! Are you crazy? I can get the office WiFi to log connect, but I can’t get any traffic. This is a condition that every so-called expert I have ever asked cannot explain to me exactly the cause so I can work around it. They just want to show me how to make it connect, which I did not ask them for. I want to know how it functions, so every time I get a new device I don’t have to relearn “how to make it connect”. Over and over and over.
AFTERNOON
More inflation. Here is one of the stainless steel bolts required to clamp down the new saddlebags. Say, how do you like that colorful picture. I had others with grey cement in the background, clearer pictures, but I opted for the Dorito backdrop. Speaking of poisonous food, can you even read the label on any kind of chips these days? Remember, it is all government approved. Like the space shuttle.
That is, cut off all welfare for a month. Women, babies, the whole lot need reminding the money is not free and the primary responsibility for paying their household bills rests with them, not the taxpayer. Then everybody has to requalify and those that don’t, permanently booted off even if later they have a legitimate claim. Treat them like the criminals they are. There, that proves only rednecks want the law enforced. What? Other people also want law and order? Well, they must be closet rednecks or something.
It seems the Tenth Amendment may be getting some attention as the Trump presidency approaches. That’s the amendment that says except for the few items mentioned in the Constitution, all rights to govern remain with the States, no the Federal government. So technically and legally, items like prohibition, the war on drugs, fixing the age of consent, and environmental protection are all off limits to the Feds. So how do they get around it, how is the Fed able to stick its nose into the business of every State?
Simple. There was no taxation when the Constitution was written. And no Federal Reserve. The Feds push their agenda onto the states by withholding revenues for other programs unless they toe the party line. Even the imposition of civil rights is unconstitutional. The Tenth is designed to prevent the Federal government from becoming a tyranny. In that sense, it is now the most important Amendment. And you read it, in the context of the Trump victory, predicted here first.
Who remembers Proposition 187 in California in the 1990s? The one that cut off welfare to the children of illegal immigrants (among other things). The idea was to cut welfare rolls, to stop welfare payments to single mothers who continue to bear children, and generally to cut down on abuse. The Feds threatened to stop funding everything in California from Interstate highway upkeep to military contracts. California caved.
NIGHT
Dang, I thought a mild overcast day meant work outdoors, but the summer rains have stayed on. And it was actually chilly this morning. First time since 2003. So I decided to do my Friday real estate check up early, plus the other regular peeks like at the silver market. Take a look at today’s graph, it is typical of what’s going on. Silver wants to take off because demand vastly exceeds supply. Sure, silver is cheap, but try to find some to buy. Yet every time there is an upward surge, somebody (it must be the banks, who else) batters it back to the price it has hovered at for years. You are looking at the green line for today’s spot.
Now real estate. What is out there? More overpriced junk. The great little numbers in the $30k to $35k range up country have disappeared. I suspect, and that’s all I can do, that everybody is holding on to see what effect the ending of Quantitative Easing will have and the restoral of higher interest rates. The logic is that if banks can once again charge high interest, they will be more willing to hand out mortgages.
It will be tougher this round, no matter what they do. There are no longer any jobs that pay enough to recreate the real estate pyramid of the previous few decades. There are swaths of mobile homes on the market without land, many advertised without mentioning that. Add a rash of places in bad neighborhoods being advertised as “historic”. A blatant ripoff. History, and right next to a crack house, too. Politically correct real estate ads.
There is a place in Fort Myers that sold for $1,100 last New Year’s Eve back on the market for $49,900 (3351 Edgewood Avenue). If it was in the country, I’d take it. Then again, central Ft. Myers is turning into a bit of a ghetto. Nope, within 15 minutes of looking, I’ll wait until the next round of fire sales. There is nothing except scam artists trying to unload dangerous locations and junk.
Last, here’s something I’ll grumble about. Those texts that have that thermal binding that dries out or whatever. After a while, blocks of pages begin to separate. Well, 152 pages disappeared from one of my better robot books. You see, they got replaced by pages from a similar sized book that I didn’t like and threw out a few weeks ago. Bye-bye to my chapters on voltage regulation. Grrrr. It has to be the people using the process get chintzy on you. Why? Because I have other books with the same melted plastic binding that have lasted twenty years.
Last Laugh
(Yes, it is animated.)
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