One year ago today: May 5, 2021, dudes, Adobe is spyware.
Five years ago today: May 5, 2017, early solar research.
Nine years ago today: May 5, 2013, free trade, my eye.
Random years ago today: May 5, 2014, MicroSoft cheats, a lot.
Yard work, feel free to join in. Using those “bike hooks” from Harbor Freight, I put up some fake window boxes and transplanted some of the flowers. My thinking is if nothing above ground is slowing them, put them I bigger pots. I pinched the zinnias and that handful of beans I threw out for the squirrel have sprouted. This is the black soil
from the laundry area, and the best soil is now under the deck. Will I ever develop a green thumb?
More time was spent than I should on the yard but it makes me happy. There are two more pistachio trees and I leave them because of the shade they make. The leaves are almost a square foot each. Once I got the Dyson apart, I found two small problems, but they did not add up to the big problem that the thing didn’t run. This is where I discovered a series of interlocking gimp features. The bar won’t spin when the handle in is the upright position, or if there is no pressure on the front plate. Plus there is a belt switch on the handle next to the power button.
The impression I had was the Reb had used this unit, but nope, she could not tell me what was normal. So I went on-line to find a video showing the thing in action. You got it, every useless video imaginable, but none showing somebody operating the thing on a carpet. I dragged the unit into the bedroom, they are not small, and tested it on the worst areas. Again, seems to work fine but once you get a problem of this sort, it’s new fan belt time, and I’ve seen the price tags on those puppies.
Closer examination says this is not animal fur. It was this crap and not pet hair jamming the rotor. It was difficult to remove but the rotor sprang back to life. I tested the vacuum on my carpets and I don’t see what is so wonderful about these $400 units, but it works fine. This got reported back to the Reb, who now needs the contraption, so let me see how quickly I can saddle up. This time, I have many of the larger projects that were put off when her parents were around.
Porcupine Mtn. State Park.
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For years I had a medium-sized map from the company plotter, but larger than I can print here. I marked my motorcycle trips over the years and it became like an expanding flower. I retraced over repeat routes in lighter colors so in time it looked like a center sending out tentacles. But I never kept it up and tossed it when it got wet. Here’s a map of the area around Bainbridge in southwest Georgia. I’ve been, for example, all through here by motorcycle always on the way to somewhere else. These places rarely get mentioned.
Staying up late, I read some statistic on the situation in China. Ever skeptical of their production figures and retaining my stance that they can only copy, never innovate, I see others begin to agree, but slowly. China industrialized in record time, but also underwent the Europen-style depopulation trend at the same pace. Ironically, their working age population has already begun to decline. In states with centralized control, people simply have few children at a later age. Couples don’t bring children into a hopeless totalitarian world.
This always leads to the question of Taiwan. Technically, the civil war the communists won on the mainland in the 1940s is still in progress. They could invade any time but they have not done so. Same as Hitler was stopped by the English Channel, China faces the Taiwan Strait. They would have to move a half-million men across and they can’t do it. Their navy, large as it is, can’t transport anything like that even without the enemy shooting back.
I rate China as a posturing but empty giant. They can go through the motions, but it is a choreographed copy of what they want the world to see. No substance. They still import most of their fuel and food. Their population controls have to cause an industrial and economic decline soon and they (like the USA) are reliant on Taiwanese computer chips. Let’s take a closer look at that.
This “chip shortage” has always been a crock. So here are the points you don’t know. The so-called shortage is not the chips you see all over, these are old model but quite functional. What’s more, they are designed in the US (and other countries) and shipped to Taiwan for manufacture—another revelation that the Chinese can only copycat. Moore’s Law applies to these chips, which are known as 5-Nano type due their architecture. Taiwan holds a monopoly on this, but knows it must move to 4-Nano and 3-Nano. And Moore was right about the cost, you are looking at a hundred billion dollar price tag for a single fabrication plant.
As Taiwan pours resources into the new technology, the 5-Nano chip production is slowed. There’s your shortage, which they could gear back up at any time. In response the US is building three plants, but they are 5-Nano and thus cost a piddling fifty billion apiece, all to build soon-to-be-outdated product. They talk of Taiwan building a plant in Arizona, but I’ll believe that when I see it. The most advanced military hardware and A.I. require the latest chips so nobody is invading Taiwan without suffering—hence the Taiwanese single-mindedness on those latest chips. The fact this protects them is sometimes known as their “silicon shield”.
But while we are on the topic, don’t think the US military is anything like it is portrayed either. There is a cutting edge of pilots and other crews willing to die, but the jabs, masks, queers, undeclared wars, expulsion and jailing of dissidents, outdated equipment, transgenderism, diversification, and distrust of leadership dominates the rest. And the elitism of an officer core that are 80% demonstrable assholes doesn’t help a bit.
ADDENDUM
My annual statement arrived from my pension plan. It remains the largest fully-funded plan of its nature. Fully-funded means it can meet all of its retirement liabilities, something very rare these days. In fact, the fund is over 130% funded. Most outfits carry just enough to meet their current obligations and rely for the rest on “future earnings” which as we know will probably never materialize. Let’s see, what are my three biggest holdings.
a) Northleaf Global (London, England)
b) Concert Real Estate, Canada’s Blackrock.
c) Various mortgage funds.
I leave these to pro management firms, but I’m leery of Canadian real estate, the number two slot in my portfolio. The structure of my pensions is that I don’t directly own anything, but with these numbers I do not care. Remember my famous “backwards” formula, I have the income equivalent of massive ownership. I owe nobody nothing over this and happy it worked out so well. This is the plan I projected ahead when I was 28 and in the end was only $1.93 per month off. I control the equivalent of $340,000 in investments, but outright own just a fraction of that.
The actual numbers are private info, but include adjustments like how I must plow back the same amount of the income as I pay in taxes and accounting for inflation, just to break even. The ultimate cost of all this was 25 years of my life. Don’t be calling me lucky, I grew up in the same world as all the broke people around me.
