One year ago today: June 13, 2020, the scooter return.
Five years ago today: June 13, 2016, that crackpot, Tesla.
Nine years ago today: June 13, 2012, no reply yet.
Random years ago today: June 13, 2018, Twood’s a quitter.
Yep, the guitar player canceled out, leaving me with one candidate. And he might not be out of the slammer yet. Reading these old magazines is interesting for the way things have changed and for the way they have not. Here’s a list of occupations by correspondence that reads pretty much the same as these days. However, most trade schools no longer carry many of these courses. I see COBOL programming made the list. It’s enlightening how many of those careers from 1993 are still well-paying trade jobs. I would have prayed for any one of those skills as a teenager if I had know what was coming. It would be great to fix my own A/Cs these days.
I see this compressor I bought for $59 is now $149. The new model has a few bells and whistles, but it’s the same contraption. While there I picked up a new spray nozzle, the neat thing about air compressors is you can use them to clean themselves. Being Sunday I put on the birdbath dripper and that brought the yard alive. There are another three or four pairs of juveniles not identified yet. They like that sprinkling water.
The day is mine, call it a siesta day. Last evening I contacted the Reb with my concerns about how long this was taking and why that somewhat encourages me. I have not worked a day job in some 25 years and I have a few words to say about how this on-line adventure is growing on me. I have every intention to master the process, I mean, we’ve all seen complete idiots like Dorsey get in there and make money off the thing.
She confirms what I wrote, that mistakes in the course materials that should have been corrected tell us we’ve past the point where most people give up. With me, it is the awful job they’ve done formatting spreadsheets, while the Reb reports quirks like being unable to open two needed templates simultaneously. I know that if she doesn’t uncheck the “keep me signed on” boxes, I can’t get into the Amazon account. What I’m saying is these are items that would not withstand the complaining if others had gotten this far. I advised her to stay mum about this unless we find a situation we can’t deal with ourselves. We are here to travel the road, not pave it for the competition.
And competition is something I watch closely. You are okay as long as they take the path of least resistance. Internet business has only come into its own once the early startups produced billionaires. I watched the behavior of business change and the way people reacted. Almost anyone over 30 even these days has to learn an entirely new business model than is semi-taught in school. There no set of ethical rules, no standards of behavior, and no incentive to get chummy with customers. I had a darn good idea of what I was going to have to unlearn and relearn, and you know, to an extent, that gives the dumbass who knows nothing and actual advantage in doing e-commerce.
Thermal imaging in action.
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Nope, I did not stay outside long. It was 92 Burmese degrees. I stayed in the cool, sipping coffee and hot chocolate. I salvaged a pallet to start replacing the expensive 2x6” planks in the attic. That’s about all you’ll get out of me in this weather. I’ve got a stack of unwatched DVDs and the inclination to take it easy. Let me check the news feeds. So, the Democrat attack on the audit has gone frantic. The media activists are shaming themselves trying to cover for their hit jobs on Trump. Could be they see what is coming, but Trump has a very long memory for those who done wrong.
My original criticism of search engines remains unchanged, that they are designed to be so easily tricked. They are so non-contextual that garbage regularly gets past my filters, including an ingenious design that is supposed to block any social news from people over 40. I know they exist, but I don’t want to be reminded of it. For blog filler, here is a list of ten things I consider on par with any self-inflicted social problem of that nature.
1) No ketchup in take-out.
2) Incessant pen-clicking.
3) Skip button delay.
4) Phonetically-spelled names.
5) One-ply toilet paper.
6) Nancy Pelosi.
7) Rearview mirror grooming.
8) Doorway conversations.
9) Global warming.
10) Humblebragging.
Anyway, the post got past my filters because the guy was a bass player. He was complaining that after 50, he never met any women. Dude, that’s because you are doing it all wrong. After 50, the women come after you. The problem is, they are also over 50. I get approached by such women, oh, I’d guess, almost two times per month. I have never yet taken such an offer, but the idea you can’t even meet women makes you, well, a total loser. Deal with it or get yourself a blog, which is a license to complain. Then again, even then you have to do it right, so maybe socializing just isn’t some people’s thing.
Back to air hoses. The driver rear tire of the van is low. The dashboard readout says it was down to 22 pounds, a useful convenience. I don’t use compressed air that much so I had to haul the gear out from behind other stuff. I bought stuff I already had and forgot, I seem to have accumulated two of every air fitting, all of it nearly new. I carry a 12V minicompressor in the van, but it takes much too long in non-emergency times. I strung out my nice 20 foot hose in time for an evening rain shower.
I sincerely tried to watch the NASA video on the Artemis, their vastly overpriced replacement for the Saturn V they let lapse. It was a simulation, but I gagged on their contrived portrayals of who does the actual work and the background music, which drove me buggy. It was like a soundtrack from an armaments advertisement, you know, rock music because war is fun. The Artemis is reputed to be a sixth more powerful than the Saturn, hardly an impressive gain for the billions spent. They look like the same engines (RS-25s) of the Shuttle era, operating at around half of the power of Musk’s proposed “Starship”.
This reminds me of the late 1940s history. Jet engines all used the German designs, where there was a trade-off between power and turbine blade life expectancy. You can build as powerful an engine as you want, such as the Avro Arrow powerplant, but they burn out after ten hours. Space rockets only need to last a few minutes, so what is the trade-off there? It is safety. Musk doubles the thrust by having passengers sign a release, we’ve seen it before. People are paying $28 million to risk their lives these days.
ADDENDUM
Interesting BBC reporting concerns India and how Big Tech and such have considered that country to be their next logical move. Lower costs, mainly wages, is the driver. They are overlooking the freakish mentality of the people and their equally bizarre politics. I’ve said before, it is the caste system combined with corrupt British-style bureaucracy. Reforms and modernization do not and cannot make a dent in a way of life that has not changed in 2,500 years. You can import all the technology and progress of the West into such places with zero impact on the underlying character. It works for them but nobody else.
What’s peculiar is how on the surface they can apparently adopt western cultural ways and manners, although it is rare for them to get the accent right. They become doctors and lawyers and meet all the criteria needed to pass our tests. Yet there is an element in the way they regard other humans that just ain’t quite right. Somehow, deep in their psyche, some of the pieces just never fit together right.
As an example, some on-line business in Canada unknowingly advertised a bathing suit that was some obscure territorial Indian flag. The reaction was typical in that the average Indian citizen, while exposed to Internet, media, and what not, could not give a flying frisbee. But all the English-educated, English-acting, ruling class who have learned how Westerners think leaped it as a huge opportunity to express outrage and indignation. We know, because in America we witness this immigrant stunt a lot.
Mark my words, this is an emergent problem that will grow like cancer in America. Already the authorities have coined a new word to describe these East Indians. At street level, they are called Pakis and Hindus, while the sycophants are pushing the cumbersome “man of Indian-origin”. The perception is that in Canada they all live in one house and in America they are the backbone of car warranty scams. Myself, I don’t know if I’d say backbone, when other body parts and functions are far more accurate.
Want to know how touchy they are? Next time you get a telemarket call, address the other end as “Ja-heel”. Their reaction is your introduction to how they value others. Keep the earpiece back from your head, or risk going deaf.
