One year ago today: January 24, 2021, my best window ever.
Five years ago today: January 24, 2017, stupid reasons to stay home.
Nine years ago today: January 24, 2013, at least it ain’t Vista!
Random years ago today: January 24, 2014, begin the drone era.
Whoa, almost down to freezing and I have to take the van in at 8:00AM. It’s just daylight now, as I hear the cardinals at the feeder. I took my best winter jacket in Tennessee to walk the dogs and forgot it there last year. I’m impressed by the conversion software, it is produced by a programmer, not a coder. It does one thing and does it very well. The resulting files take excellent stills from the video, see this example. They come out somewhat sharper than before, this is so clear it looks like a movie set from Bonanza. (A 1960s TV show with painted backdrops.)
It’s me that needs some down time. All I did was walk across to a coffee shop to wait on the van and got back here exhausted. I know what you’re probably thinking, but I can’t take a chance that it’s not a signal, so soon it means early siesta. Too bad, since the day turned out great once the sun burned off the frost. Including the new tires and front rim on the scooter, this month’s repair bill is over $1,000. But if it gets us to Miami three more times and Tennessee four times, we break even.
Moments later, okay, what’s going on? Seven times the normal web traffic to this blog and it is just past noon. The eye shows 787 people active at this moment. I get peaks in April, June, and October, but nothing like this. Contrast with my slowest day in ten years, 32 clicks, was just last week. Hmmm, wild swings out there, the signal of widespread panic, or diarrhea. Place your bets.
What do you know, Wired has a useful article written in plain English. It concerns the Space Elevator, which you may have read about in this bog around ten years ago. The article speculates what happens if the cable breaks, but contains a ton of other information for the naturally curious. For the naturally uncurious, you’ve got the wrong blog.
The article has one of those typical “duh” millennial titles that you don’t want to be under the cable if it breaks. Okay, Wired, we can suppose nobody wants to be beneath anything that falls from outer space. But as far as a headline that would appeal to the shitheads our present education system is churning out, the sole measure is whether or not it sells. I read it, didn’t I?
Nile River in Uganda.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
Write the day off, my siesta decided for me, as in nearly seven hours later. I see we have another non-event for the media to feed and distract the millennials. The volcano in Tonga. “Biggest Ever” scream the headlines, subtitled, “visible from outer space”. Millennials don’ t know space is only 62 miles away, and they are complete suckers for this brand of journalism. This satellite photo is making the rounds. The so-called tsunami was a “wall of water nearly 30 cm deep”, about the same as your bathtub. And how about that Brit University which wants to ban Orwell’s “1984” as hate speech for what it says about communism. Yes folks, it’s time to cull the herd.
I missed a great work day but I did read some interesting view on the Spanish Armada event. There was a lot more to it even if nobody has the time to get into the details. A lot of the materiel onboard the lost ships was towed artillery and other gear for the expected land invasion. Most of the casualties were soldiers, not sailors. This broke the myth of Spanish invincibility, though it was really a military shored up by plundered gold from the Americas. Spain has never produced much of anything except after desperately inefficient measures.
The laughable part was how the Armada included galleys designed for the nearly tideless Mediterranean. It must have seemed like a Roman invasion approaching. I see the weather as much as the English took toll on the Armada, as did having to dock in unfriendly Dutch territory. Due to royal descent at the time, the Spanish ruled the Netherlands and were universally hated.
ADDENDUM
Windows 7 wins another round but still cannot get a knockout. This office computer is an HP, meaning it isn’t real Windows 7. It’s been around five major tries now to eliminate the WGA (Windows counterfeit) notice. They got me again as I gave up after an hour, but I will find it and delete it. The switch is buried in the Windows\Syste32 directory but even with hidden files checked, I cannot find this file
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE>>Software>>Microsoft>>WindowNT>>Current Version>>Windlogon>>Notify Key.
It’s got to be there because I think it is the control that keeps turning the WGA notices back on, it may even be reinstalling them when deleted. Darn rights this means the computer has pirated software, but I didn’t put it there. Besides, I have an aversion to buying things that don’t work right and Windows has never worked right. Try turning off the gimp features, it cannot be done. I get paid to be forced to feel sorry for gimps. Not to feel sorry, but to be forced to just because I want to use a computer. Some say that is my choice and I say, “Is it, now?”
