One year ago today: April 24, 2024, no marathons or miracles..
Five years ago today: April 24, 2020, yes, but I like sheds.
Nine years ago today: April 24, 2016, the dog-poo place.
Random years ago today: April 24, 2004, but do it nicely.
Jet lag. From a three hour trip. It’s a woozy good morning, let’s examine the news until enough coffee hits my system. One of the empanadas I bought y’day seems to have been a pineapple noodle mix. I was not after desert, but it was sure good. Disney has halted all live action remakes. A billion dollar loss isn’t fun, I guess. Europe is attempting to fine Apple $800 million because they won’t hand over code keys. Media’s biggest money-maker, youTube, turns 20 today. (The Hubble is 35 this year.) There is a serious consequence of A.I. that relates to a problem I identified 23 years ago, see addendum.
It seems A.I. is posing a threat to more than dumb-bunnies. The California law association is furious to discover questions on its bar exam were A.I. generated. Your kids are probably safe from measles now that the fake media is screaming that “measles misinformation is taking hold”. South Korea has uncovered $20 million in mislabeled Chinese goods trying to evade tariffs. Good, the Chinese regime based on cheap labor and stolen technology is sweating. They are acting tough, but have already exempted jet engine parts from their counter-tariffs.
Here is an example of near-flawless A.I. manipulation. All danger aside, this is an hilarious clip if you ask me. I have a hunch that software will soon appear that automatically detects most A.I. spoofs and spark the next round of security wars. Video has sound.
Another murder by an illegal, Trump is letting the left hang themselves on this issue. The Democrats, who so long denied due process to the J6 people, are not demanding it for illegal aliens. The Left has trapped themselves with their own game. In order to oppose Trump, they must support criminals. And I’m too lazy to get off my tush and quit watching it on-line. I told you my office chair was comfortable. I’d thought of going to a movie when my estate manager called. It is Sheeba’s fifth birthday. We were over an hour on the phone, mostly concerning changes in the law. Where she is, if you try to take more than $2,000 of your own money out of the bank, you have to tell them what it is for.
Next time she travels, we have planned that she drop in to check on Marion. It has been some years and frankly, we are not expecting good news. It is doubtful she has the use of her hands any more. Also, my plan to determine a remote bank balance has been approved. This is a long story but I have never thought the banks should interfere the way they do. I have never found a contemporary investment that is both optimal and that can be left unmonitored. Ah, did someone say CDs? Wrong, you either have lengthy lock-ins or you have those auto-renewals at pitifully low rates. One more thing, CD renewal dates never seem to happen at a convenient time.
Sometimes, I have to wonder. The world today complains so much about the same things I pointed out were wrong 20-30 years ago. Does that mean it took them all this time to get to the stage where they encounter such things for the first time? Actually, when it comes to investing, I’ve seen this a lot. If you think this means a head start, you are wrong. I started from so far behind, it means I took this long just to catch up.
Love this where this guy blasts shit on people who touch his car. The way they run, and that guy who say’s he’s sue? Priceless. Best was the fattie XYZer who told his Tesla to drive him somewhere he’s “never been before”. It took him to the nearest Fitness World.
I took a look at an analemmatic sundial generator. That’s the word for a type of sundial where the gnomon must be moved throughout the year to keep the shadow on the hour markings. You don’t see them much except as novelties where a human stands on marker. The nearer the Equator, the shorter and more difficult these are to use. I found the information complicated, but it explains why, when you build a sundial, you must factor in your latitude.
Arctic coastal erosion.
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A lost day. A little paperwork let to a siesta, and I snoozed away another five hours. Once or twice a year it seems, but that’s a fraction of time lost when you work at the corporation. There were times I got off shift Friday and slept until Monday do start over again. Ah, but these days I can fill any gap by doing a Sun GP calculation. Let’s see where that finds us. The GMT is 23:40:09. By logic, that is almost midnight in England, so the Sun is in the Pacific, approaching the Date Line. I come up with N13°04.7’ by W175°02.3’. Converting to the bastard GPS format, that is N13.764 by -175.506, which is WSW of Hawaii.
It has been a refueling depot, a missile, biological, and nuclear test site as well as the disposal dump for Agent Orange. Allegedly, the site was cleaned up by 2004. The seabird nest were being overtaken by invasive crazy yellow ants, listed as one of the world’s top 100 introduced pests. The biggest island has been significantly enlarged by coral dredging meaning the Chinese did not even invent that, ha-ha. It’s flat and 30 feet above sea level.
The island as been a seaplane base, emergency landing strip, cable repeater station, and at one time a barracks for 400 men. If you are interested, it has an very extensive Wikipedia article, no link. This photo, from 1973, shows leaking Agent Orange barrels. There is no fresh water on the island.
I’m finding another problem directly related to the lack of standards on the Internet. I’ve chosen HO249 as the Sight Reduction Tables I will learn. It should be a simple matter of ordering a copy. What could go wrong? The book titles have been millenialized. Dozens of books with the same title, but not what you want. You must carefully read the title of each book, then confirm what you want is inside, which takes hours of time. Example, the book that shows up top in every search is has the correct title, but in very fine print underneath “for selected stars”. It completely leaves out the Sun, Moon, and planets. You need the one that says “and selected stars”
Many others do not mention the word “Concise” in the title, you must find ads that show the exact tables, or you’ll get the wrong figures. Avoid the editions that say “Epoch” because although the calculations are static, the Epoch brand go out of date every eight years. Ordering books on-line has become as tricky as reading real estate ads. Some of the books are labled "Commercial Edition" but no explanation of what that means.
ADDENDUM
Who recalls the time I had to rip my own resume out of the grip of the fat lady in Ft. Lauderdale. Was that 2001 or 2002? Either way, I had long since realized these “hiring agencies” were really dealing in your private information. The fat lady was insisting I fill out her “application form” in addition to my resume. I instantly recognized the form as a credit application and refused. The important aspect here is that these agencies are all about your private information, not finding you a job. A real accounting firm does not need to know if you have “a current valid driver’s license” unless you are applying as a truck driver.
Flash forward to the newest scam. A.I is being used to create fake resumes, Way slicker than fake credit applications, these fool the “resume collectors” who have placed North Korean spies into IT jobs and allowed foreign workers to funnel money and trade secrets back home. Companies have had to resort to (gee golly) good old expensive face-to-face interviews. Folks, this is why most of the questions on those phony applications should be marked “available upon hiring”.
I won’t tell you about a nasty trick I used to pull on these resume collectors when I went to job fairs. But it involved filling out fake application forms with a twist. Now, it would seem, A.I. is doing the same thing at lightning speed. Dang, I never made any money at it.
