One year ago today: February 4, 2020, around the house
Five years ago today: February 4, 2016, Facebook was a factor.
Nine years ago today: February 4, 2012, they stole it anyway.
Random years ago today: February 4, 2007, guitar anniiversary coincidence.
Here’s a novelty item I found at Tuesday Morning (a discount store). I’m interested because I read “Men of Salt” some years ago. To people in some parts, salt is something they can tell apart by taste and color. The book proposes the best salt is some lake bed in Ethiopia. At this time pink Himalayan salt is being pushed in the country, but it contains no iodine. And there is no other sure source of this substance in our diets. The rumor is it is not real iodine, so it’s your call.
Bezos quits CEO position to become a chair. Let somebody else take flak.
Google cloud loses billions. And they will move to get it back.
Cable bills are rising again. Some people just never learn.
Wikipedia puts in new rules. Too many pro-you-know-who posts.
The latest super-computers have backdoors. Surprised? Not.
Wait, there was one JimmyR actual link to an actual site that contained actual technical news and information. This is so rare, pause while I look into it. It’s that Webb telescope replacement for the Hubble, which was its own mini-fiasco. I mean, who else could launch a billion dollar telescope that will not focus? Anyway, the Webb will orbit out around four times the distance to the Moon and is said to be seven times more powerful than the Hubble. We do not fail to note that NASA no longer has an American rocket that can do the launch.
Just when you think things can’t get worse, Android is poised to be installed on Ford cars for the next six years. It’s going to work around as well for cars as it does for cell phones, for those of you who like dropped calls and error messages at 70 mph. Remember, Android was originally created to run video games. What appears on-screen is more important than how it got there.
And how about those entry level jobs that require three years experience? I addressed this nonsense back in the 1980s, when employers were already complaining they could not get quality job applicants. The problem is the same now as then—they don’t want to pay a decent wage for what they expect. This is why I believe in strong unions, but only for very large companies and I would not want to be the one to define the dividing line. For reasons unsaid, I believe Amazon, MicroSoft, and Google should be unionized. America allowed their prosperity, solet them spread it around a bit. Funny, innit, that despite the Internet claim to be an equal platform, there are not big tech companies that are pro-Republican? What’s that smell?
Blonde women drinking beer.
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Shortly after noon, the guitar player contacted me back. It would be smart-ass to say I told you so, thus I won’t say it. But such events are always top story so here are some of the details. You know what I have to say about guitar players and in this case, he said much the same about bassists. Let me explain that I regularly meet other musicians who knew something was not right, but until I came along they often figured they were the only one who thought it a problem. Not so, and I do claim to often be the first person they met that has categorized and defined the situation. Glen, I said “often”.
This warning must have had some impact, since he inadvertently repeated some of the vocabulary back to me, such as his complaint about comping and people who tried to follow his left hand. Turns out he dislikes that as much as myself. I find out, to my amusement, that he has been trying to get a band together for a year. And got nowhere, which is good since he’ll have met the same pack of losers I went through. He said if I can learn the material, it’s on, which relates back to when I auditioned. I told him I’d keep on learning his material because I knew what he was up against.
I decided to celebrate, but first got some yard work done. It got dark on me and I had to finish staining some planks in the dark. Then I headed over to Bartow, where it’s quiet enough or so I thought. I took out my scribbler and did some planning when these three ladies began paying a lot of attention. I casually glanced around and yes, I can see why. Maybe I was the only man in the room who could both read and write and often does so, aw, that’s mean. But none were my type. They were all obvious housewives on girl’s night out. Finally, the one on the end comes over and asks what I’m doing. I gave her the chicken coop story.
She was the slimmest of the lot and still had thunder thighs. Around twenty minutes later, she sneaks up behind me, waves her phone and as I look up she snaps a selfie of us in a Valentine frame. I tell ya, these paparazzi can be annoying.
ADDENDUM
I spent some time next to the electric heater looking for the source of those inconsistent sextant readings. It’s not magnetic inclination, since Florida is one of the few places where the geographic and magnetic north poles are close enough to ignore. I have the habit of writing dates in the margins and I’ve been taking the sextant readings since 2017. That is, I bought the sextant long before I began taking readings and I wonder if it was damaged in storage. Dunno.
A mystery to me has always been the markings on the sextant arc. I’ve yet to find an explanation why the equator is zero and the poles are 90°. Why not start at the north and measure 360°. It might have something to do with finding another planet, where you don’t know which is north. Better yet, somebody tell me why, in navigation, minutes can be time, distance, direction, or angle. My question is, if the equator is zero, why is the sextant marked so when you calculate latitude, the markings are “backwards”. Most people would rather add than subtract.
And most people would rather not hear any more about the phony Trump impeachment. It will not happen because the two-thirds majority rule was put there to prevent partisan politics. The goal of the leftists is plain, to prevent Trump from running again. But why? The media says Biden is the most popular president in history, so should not after four years of uniting the country, he win by a landslide. The snag is that this last election made the Democrats put too many of their cards on the table. Even their party faithful from the past are can openly see there are too many hidden agendas and double standards.
My guess is that if Trump runs again, the Democrats lose more than an election. The left cannot win legitimately in America, so they are so in debt to their corporate and special interest donors that they cannot survive another loss, either politically or personally. They ran up huge bills in 2016 and by 2020 had to start borrowing new money from the tech giants. By 2024, the only large pile of money left is in people’s pension plans, and we would have open conflict it they dare touch that. Actually, they are, by slowly putting in rules and taxes if you live too long, but I mean they can’t just grab it.
Their new donors, Google and Facebook, the eFAG crowd, know their empires are built on cards. One new invention, one innovation, and their power ceases. They would turn anywhere that promises them continuity. Gates got out of MicroSoft for much that reason, turning to traditional forms of American corporatism in the form of “health care”. The tech giants are betting they can buy some form of protection but don’t seen to realize that they could also be cut off at the knees and nobody would cry. The next start-up would then just balloon out of nowhere.
Meanwhile the backlash media has labeled Joe as “the former Vice-President. What a laughing stock that whole administration has become, and just when you think it can’t get any worse, click on the news. Turn on your record player.
So here is where you put two and two together. The techies want their money back in some form. How is it possible to guarantee such a thing? Well, one plan would be to shut down all the small businesses but let the corporations continue. Some pretty big excuse would have to be orchestrated to pull that off. Nonetheless, it has to be tried. Can anybody think of some excuse to shut down all the small businesses in America? They did.
A great example of the paradox this creates is Amazon supporting Biden. The Democrats are pro-union—only in the sense that they need the votes. But Amazon opposing unions, which would drastically curtail their insane profits. So poor old Joe has to juggle the outcome. He has to openly support unions while giving his corporate bum-boys their money back in kind.
