One year ago today: August 14, 2024, that’s him now.
Five years ago today: August 14, 2020, not my bass shoulder!
Nine years ago today: August 14, 2016, the truck is gone.
Random years ago today: August 14, 2008, I now dislike “home networks.
News from the Smithsonian. A new directive makes them remove any displays that are not historically correct. Only verified exhibits supported by declassified documents and insider info are allowed in the science and African history wings. Visitors report huge galleries are now stripped bare and the Area 51 building is completely empty. Now we will never know who invented peanut butter. And I think my lady red cardinal is lonely. Spends a lot of time near the feeder, which is again surrounded by baby raccoon tracks again. Tomorrow is a day off and the game camera is on the agenda.
Also, the ad does not specify if the whole building is at that price and you can tell at some point in the past, it was a duplex. It would be just like Tennessee to try that. Even crazier is that Crockett black lady who said any no-crime city would be racist because such a city would be all White people. And the former head of the CIA under Obama has reportedly fled the country.
Nobody around here is listening. Maybe they think I’m a hypochondriac with nothing better to do? Let me spell it out. Both my and my neighbor were bitten by wasps last week and he almost landed in the hospital. Myself, I got rather severe muscle aches that centered on joints and old injuries. By coincidence, the therapy I’m receiving for a spine condition is bothering those same locations. At the rate it’s going, I need a week off, maybe two. Time to relax, am I the only one who has noticed that thousands of youTube titles have just disappeared? Good, almost every one of them was in it for the money. Posting cartoons and stills as “videos”.
I finally searched on the Internet term “enshittification”. This is the word for the slow degradation of most Internet platforms that was pointed out (guess where) right here so many years ago. Each website (which were supposed to share free information if I recall) begins to squeeze viewers for money. In the good old days, if you searched on “silver price today”, you got just that. Try it now, you get mostly junk, ranging from free offers, to memberships, and bogus sales pitches. We just never had an official term for it, so this “enshittification” will have to do.
Few things enshittify faster than anything taken over by Google. Prime example is the new youTube. Not satisfied with forcing intrusive ads, they now want your credit info. I see one of my favorite extensions, AdBlocker, is locked in combat. Good, for I see piracy same as the Swedes, that is, not so much a price issue as an integrity issue. Will Netflix promise never to limit titles? Will X swear never to block your account for political reasons? Or how many times do you find the version you wanted is some concert recording? You get the idea. And I totally disagree that piracy is a dollar-for-dollar loss. It is bullshit that if I could not get a pirate copy, I would go out and buy a new copy at full retail price. As the Guardian puts it, they are “trying to create artificial scarcity in a digital world that promised abundance.”
What’s more, is filters do not work on sponsored (intrusive) ads. You cannot filter out Amazon or eBay. And sadly, except for items like used motorcycles and sheds. One spot of bad news to confirm, our contact at the Kava Bar is gone. It was a rumor, but now certain he was fired permanently for reasons unknown. For my duo, it is VFWs or possibly the tips only swap meet show. Electronic music, much as it sucks, has devastated the local music economy.
Gah, two hours later I am down for the count. But muscle and joint issues, not my precious back. Florida has pushed a bill requiring asylum seekers to push their cases from Paraguay. Let’s see what is making headlines. How about the ICE raid outside the California building where the governor is giving an “all’s well” speech. Trump has purged 12.7 million dead Americans from Social Security and given the boot to 275,000 more illegals. A good start.
Trump is full speed ahead.. It takes time to go up against entrenched enemies, but we finally see crackdowns on the employers. Yes, it is up to them to weed out the illegals from their workplace. I see their point, that why should they be tasked with the chore, if immigration was doing their job, companies should be able to hire anyone who walks in the door. Well, that argument may have worked under Biden. I will admit, some of the illegals are carrying might sophisticated ID these days. Then again, you can buy the ID machines on Amazon—one of the biggest employers of illegals.
Hong Kong, a drone’s-eye view.
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Home in time for siesta, which is a priority. I finally got to see the med staff this morning. The steroids do not cause “secondary” allergies, it is more likely they lowered my overall tolerance. Makes sense. Perceived or not, it was pain so I need a week off the let my system return to normal. I get the most benefit from the sessions by riding their bicycle machine, so I’m thinking.
Slow traffic gave me another hour with “No One Cares”. Why am I torturing myself, I fired such shallow women out of my life more than 50 years ago. Most of the disk is taken up with her excuses for sleeping with some guy. She can’t just do it for fun, no, she takes a half-hour guilt-trip. She was not herself. It was the pressure. She was drunk. Her step-mother hates her. Anything but just admit she had a good time. Next day she goes on about how “dirty” she felt and in a classic, calls her friend for help, but when she gets it, she’s angry with her friend. We find out she just passed her 30th birthday. Why 30 is still young, isn’t it? I’m beginning to see why 94% of people who consult psychics are adult women.
Talking to the other neighbor, we saw how the place up the road has been boarded up for a few weeks now. He heard the price was $140,000. That’s more than the asking, so somebody got taken. Standing in front, we noticed the roof line has sagged a lot, indicated serious structure damage. Yep, I bought this place just in time. Local prices are still out of range, but a glance at Bartow and Eagle Ridge shows lots of price drops. The lowest price livable place is near Lake Wales, by owner for $89,000, see picture. I’ll follow that one because of the financials. That’s more cash than most people have, people who have that much cash won’t spend it in Lake Wales, and banks won’t approve mortgages less than $185,000 any more. And, I wonder what is wrong with it.
This just in: Beyond Meat has gone bankrupt. If you buy a Volkswagen, the engine is limited to 201 horsepower unless you pay a monthly fee for 228 horsepower.
ADDENDUM
Time to do a quick health review. I am taking enough days off (10 planned) to allow my system to “unfreeze”. I plan a four-pronged attack based on rest, mild exercise around the pain areas rather than on them, light work as in yard or carpentry, and the possibility of establishing a daily bike ride. That last one is probably dependent on me finding something useful to go along with it. What was happening is the therapy was helping, but it was also tensing up spots that I relate to those burning, numbing wasp stings. Between sessions was not enough to allow the tenseness to completely abate.
IOne thing I liked was smaller boxes made of the same dimension lumber. Shown here this small box of hand-held microscopes reveals how exponentially stronger the construction becomes with size reduction—up to a point. Let’s take a moment for a closer examination at aspects that would get missed by people who don’t know how things get blogged around here, ha-ha.
The box as shown is does not have a finish, the wood was naturally aged in the yard to that color. So it cannot really be duplicated. You can see the mitered joints and exact “squareness” meaning this was build totally using jigs. That, any beginners out there, is the way to go. It is massive for it’s purpose, but then again microscopes are a valuable instrument (which by the say I have been shopping for some months now). This unit is stapled and glued, it also has a felt lining on the exposed upper and inner surfaces, which are plain hardwood with a thin veneer on the exterior top. Quite a nice piece but no hardware yet.
It’s this format I would like to explore a bit. I realized something later, that this picture is buzzing with information that would freak a wartime censor. It is not posed, this is a natural scene on my desk. Ah, but there’s the half-cup of coffee, with creamer, and a glimpse of computer keyboard. That’s a breadboard to the left showing a 555 timer and two 13 mF capacitors. The trained eye knows this shadowless picture was taken in the morning and that keyboard reveals I am right-handed.
My goal for today is to get that workbench installed in the spare room. There will still be lots of room for a guest, should Taylor drop by. I plan the bench to be 38” from the floor as a compromise as I often stand when working on small pieces. The big accomplishment will be setting up a computer that can run the laser machine. It cannot stay in here with me.
