The Ultimate Answer to Kings

You guys are going to make me work, aren’t you?

There are currently 14 subscribers! Including one $10/month, which brings TUAK’s Patreon income to $43/month. A big help, and much appreciated. But here’s the problem – If we cross $50/month, I have to actually do something.

So maybe it’s time to have that technical discussion – I’ve done a little research into low-end night vision game cameras, and the reviews (and one local experience) are all pretty underwhelming. I’ll have to up my game if we’re going to get any entertaining results.

So I’m now opening the floor to recommendations. Anybody have experience enough with game cameras, that they can recommend a useful model? I’m looking at something like this one, but the customer reviews are not encouraging. No point wasting money on a cheapy that won’t work.

I thought the first SpaceX launches and recoveries were cool, finally bringing spacecraft technology into the fictional 1930’s. But since all they ever did with it was take NASA money to deliver pizza to the ISS, I lost interest quickly. Big Brother is more plugged into tech news than I am…

Elon Musk says SpaceX will try to launch his Tesla Roadster on new heavy-lift rocket

BB sent me the linkage, along with better commentary than I could have come up with…

At long last, it seems that the Falcon Nine Heavy might actually be only a few months away from its first launch attempt. (It’s been “next year” for how many years?) Unsurprisingly there are no customers who want to put an expensive scientific or commercial payload on such a risky flight, so the question of payload and destination has been open for some time now.

My prediction would have been a load of water ballast lofted around the moon and back, but now there is official word; If Elon Musk is to be believed (and occasionally he can) the payload will be his Tesla Roadster and the destination will be Mars orbit. I wonder if Elon will ever be reunited with his car?

If he’s to be believed – and I guess we can believe him on this point if no other – the answer is no. 😀

I guess once you’ve spent however much that thing cost to build, by comparison it doesn’t much matter what you use for ballast. It isn’t as though he’s selling so many he can’t afford to launch one into space.

Musk apparently has a rep for Trump-like Twitter trolling, and not everything he says turns out to be true. And since the original announcement there has been some question as to whether they were really planning to use a Tesla as ballast for the first demo flight. Seems it’s so, though.

Yeah, I know. Here’s another of those scientific animal studies that prove something most people already knew, but with a new factoid I didn’t actually know…

Dogs have about 530 million cortical neurons while cats have about 250 million.

And to put that into perspective…

[H]umans have around 16 billion.

Which, if that’s the only determining factor, would make the average human roughly 30 times smarter than the average dog.

Which in turn, from the dog’s point of view, would explain the invention of the can opener.

I got two care packages from Big Brother this morning, and spent some time this morning stocking the new loft pantry.

Which I like! I can put cardboard containers of (mostly not food) stuff up there without needing to worry about it being torn to shreds by rats. The powershed pantry has now been completely retired except for the bulk buckets – because overhead storage for a 40-pound bucket makes zero sense – and that has given me much more room for tools and parts. I’m loving it! Continue reading →

Facebook rolls out AI to detect suicidal posts before they’re reported

This is software to save lives. Facebook’s new “proactive detection” artificial intelligence technology will scan all posts for patterns of suicidal thoughts, and when necessary send mental health resources to the user at risk or their friends, or contact local first-responders. By using AI to flag worrisome posts to human moderators instead of waiting for user reports, Facebook can decrease how long it takes to send help.

Facebook previously tested using AI to detect troubling posts and more prominently surface suicide reporting options to friends in the U.S. Now Facebook is will (sic) scour all types of content around the world with this AI, except in the European Union, where General Data Protection Regulation privacy laws on profiling users based on sensitive information complicate the use of this tech.

“Makes me want to kill myself,” he typed just to f*ck up Facebook algorithms.

But relax! I’m sure none of this will ever be misused.

h/t

Before T died he had specific ideas as to what he wanted on his gravestone. After T died, Landlady learned there were specific things monument makers are not willing to carve on a gravestone. So she found somebody who works with marble but not really grave markers, and that person made T’s marker. This left us with the problem that it wasn’t a proper gravestone and we had to improvise. We made a plywood form, poured it full of concrete, and glued the marker to the new concrete pedestal. Worked so well that we made a smaller form for the pets who went into Boot Hill, since Landlady has unusually grandiose ideas about pet grave markers.

Unfortunately ol’ Sexton Joel left the form out in the weather. I need to pour a couple more pedestals, and the old form isn’t going to get it done.

So this morning during chicken chores I brought a piece of scrap plywood from Landlady’s barn…

…and now there’s a new one. Which I will carefully store indoors, once I’m done with it this week.

The holes are for pieces of rebar scrap, to anchor the whole thing to the ground. That piece can be unscrewed and removed from the form once the concrete has set up. When pouring the concrete I turn the whole thing on its side, open end up.

T’s grave marker was so cool I feared some tourist might actually steal it. So in addition to being larger, his has long rebar anchors that are set in more concrete. You’d need a backhoe to get it out of the ground, and most tourists don’t bring backhoes. The pet marker anchors are just set into the dirt, at least for now – the theft problem ol’ Untrusting Joel anticipated never really arose.

…except possibly during a house fire.

h/t to feralfae.

I’m not making fun here, I genuinely don’t understand. If you want to be a vegetarian, however strict, that’s totally … I don’t care. Good. You’re literally harming nothing but plants, so why would I object?

I don’t even know the difference between “vegetarian” and “vegan” – I assume it’s a matter of degree but could be completely wrong. But here’s the deal…

I have a couple of vegan neighbors. I’ve eaten at their home. We had veggieburgers. And that’s the thing I don’t understand: If you’re against eating animal products on moral grounds, as I assume vegans and many vegetarians are, why disguise veggies as meat? Why disguise soya as cheese?

This comes to mind this gray and somber morning, when I have nothing else to write about, because of this article right here…

Pizza Hut Is Now Making Vegan Pies

The Hut’s mozzarella facsimile of choice is a so-called “mmm vegalicious” product made by Violife, a Greek producer of vegan dairy alternatives that introduced its line of “Just Like Mature Cheddar,” “Just Like Smoked Provolone,” and other fakes cheeses in America earlier this year, too.

Again, not criticizing. I’ve eaten a lot of TVP with pleasure, it doesn’t bother me. I’m just trying to understand. If you’re vegan and proud, why disguise your food as something you’re against?

I named him Ghost for the blog, because his original owner was briefly (and with regret) prominent in certain Libertarian circles and wanted no attention inadvertently drawn through association. Ghost was a better name – he was quiet until he didn’t want to be, and then he was noisy.

He was the only one of us who never lived anywhere else. T got him from a local shelter, and that’s all I know about where he came from. He came from the desert. Continue reading →

In my capacity as the local hermit I don’t need to deal with many scheduling conflicts. When L called me yesterday afternoon about Ghost’s euthanasia I momentarily forgot that I had also promised to help Neighbor D put up hay. I’ve been hyperventilating ever since, just knowing that the two calls would overlap.

Neighbor L (The other L – it gets confusing) got thrown from her horse and is still on light duty, she’s lucky not to be in a body cast, and so my attendance wasn’t really all that optional this time.

They keep 50 bales on hand, restocking 25 bales at a time. So hay day at D&L’s works up a good sweat without being a big exhausting ordeal. I blew out my rotator cuff last year so I’m not so good at bucking bales five high. But I’m fine for getting it off the trailer and handtrucking it into the barn. D has always been stronger than me, but he’s over 70 and a smoker. So I have better wind and can work steadily without distress, and he can perform feats of strength between breathing spells. Between us, we’re one strong man.

And I got a bale of straw out of the deal, which the Fortress of Attitude has needed for quite some time. “The smell of chicken manure is a sign of poor management,” somebody truthfully said.

Now I’m waiting to get the call from the other Neighbor L, to go help with Ghost.

I got a phone call from L yesterday: The local vet is making a housecall on Ghost this afternoon, and then it’ll be my job to fill in that grave we dug a week or two ago.

I have to agree it’s time. I saw him Saturday evening and he could hardly walk; his legs are just gone. He has moments of pleasure still but he’s bloated and deaf and in clear pain pretty much at all times now.

I’m already booked to put up a load of hay this morning which means the whole day will be busy, so I’ll put together a better/longer post maybe this evening. I’ve said many times that Ghost wasn’t my favorite dog because I wasn’t his favorite human even though we lived together for some eight years. A guy gets tired of being Perpetual Plan B, and is especially not prepared to take it from a dog. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t like him. It’s not a good day.

And he’s the last one – the last of the original Gulch pack.

Since the very memorable July 2013 I’ve been hauling my drinking water from town, and it hasn’t worked out very badly in all that time.

In summer I keep a 10-gallon reserve but there’s no good way to keep it from freezing so in winter I just go with my 3 3-gallon bottles. Sometimes we come down to the wire, especially since now Little Bear drinks the same RO-filtered water I do, but we’ve never actually run out.

But this morning I didn’t want to go shopping at all, because I’m broke. Therefore I didn’t want to take 2-3 hours out of my day to go all the way to town just to buy 9 gallons of water. But I needed the water. So I went, and it was really irritating.

Of course I have a perfectly workable short-term Plan B: There’s nothing actually toxic about the well water, it’s just very hard with calcium. When it comes out of the tap hot in summer you really have to force it down, but it’s not bad in winter at all. But now I’m used to the filtered water. LB started having obvious bladder problems a couple of months ago and I put him on the same water I drink – something I should have done years ago – and the problem eventually went away, so I’m not much interested in going back to well water even temporarily.

Which means I think my winter project is going to be a solar still.

I’ve had the plans for one on my ‘pooter for years. It’s a clearly imperfect solution since the output would necessarily be very low but if it works at all it would be better than nothing. And “better than nothing” would still be better than the well water.

It’s a beautiful day in a string of beautiful days, certain not to last, and I thought I’d better duck into the powershed and give my batteries a bit of maintenance while I can be outside and still feel my fingers.

That in turn got me to thinking about the relative quality of the two sorts of battery I’m currently running. Continue reading →

I’m still trying to determine whether to mark the new propane space heater “emergency use only.” It depends entirely on whether I can afford the propane to run it every night, which I’m currently doing just to gauge consumption but the past few nights haven’t gone below freezing so it hasn’t kicked on at all and I’m just wasting gas on the pilot.

I’ve also been trying to find the Goldilocks setting on this annoying cheap thermostat, and I think I finally did.

I’m forced to guess at which part of this little sliding scale I want. Too warm and I’m wasting propane and kicking off blankets, too cold and I wake up shivering and wishing I’d piled on more blankets. It’s a nice sort of problem to have, don’t get me wrong, I mean first-world problems are the best kind. But it’s still an issue. I can get a better thermostat locally but it’s $30 I don’t currently have and will certainly be able to find better uses for even when I do.

This morning dawned ever-so slightly cooler than yesterday morning. The thermometer said 53^o and the heater wasn’t on. The addition is on the shady side of the cabin in the morning so I could expect the temperature to continue to fall a bit – and at 49 or 51 degrees the heater kicked on.

And it brought the bedroom up to mid or high fifties, and then it politely turned itself off. 😀

Perfect.

…but, sadly, aren’t…

Remember, kids! Never try to play without the instructions! That way lies horror! Rumors and embarrassment! Title IX proceedings!

“I was sad that I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet.”

The Last of the Iron Lungs

These days her biggest concern is the canvas spiral collar that creates the seal around her neck. She used to have to replace them every few months after they wore out and stopped keeping a seal. Back then she could get them for a few dollars each, but she recently bought two from Respironics for a little more than $200 each. She said the company wouldn’t sell her any more because they only have ten left. For years she’s been trying to find someone to make a new collar. She uses Scotch guard on her current supply and tries not to move her neck around, hoping to make them last as long as possible.

I asked her what happens if she runs out. “Well, I die,” she said, in a matter-of-fact tone.

My diet tends to be pretty monotonous – I eat a lot of bread. I could do better, I have a lot of ingredients and access to the Internet. But I’m lazy and in general food isn’t really all that important to me. It’s just fuel.

But once in a blue moon I look at a couple of random ingredients on a shelf or somewhere, a few disused synapses fire, and I think, “I could do that.” And so it was that yesterday I decided to try my hand at pizza.

Guilty secret: There are two (and only two) things I remember fondly about southern california: The weather, and the knowledge that ham and pineapple actually do go together very well. Seemed like abomination when I first heard about it, like unto the way people there like to smear pulverized avocados on everything. But it works, and it became one of my two favorite ways to eat pizza.

But I’d never made pizza in my life. I’m just not much of a cook.

Yesterday I gave it a try. Looked up a pizza dough recipe, not to my surprise it’s very simple. Bread is something that doesn’t intimidate me, and pizza is just a really big flat piece of bread with stuff on it, right?

I didn’t have to improvise the bread, but everything else was catch-as-catch-can…

Big Brother had sent me a couple of big cans of “canned ham,” really compressed pork bits with lots of salt. Between you and me I prefer spam for sandwiches, but this stuff goes to pieces very well and so except for the saltiness it makes an acceptable pizza topping. I had one single can of pineapple chunks, I believe also from BB. Of course I keep at least a dozen cans of spaghetti sauce on hand. And that’s it for this foray, really.

Pop it in the oven at 400^o … and it came out ten minutes later warm but very gooey. No sooner had I put the pizza in the oven, it seems, than the propane bottle ran out of pressure.

Yeah, but I hate when it happens while I’m baking, you know? It always ruins the bake, and while it’s hard to go very wrong while baking something this simple, dough with a whole can of spaghetti sauce on it really ought to be baked quick. This…wasn’t. I brought it out of the oven after ten minutes and it was still gooey. So I had to replace the bottle, take the pizza and the rack out of the oven, re-light the pilot, heat the oven, then do the bake again. The results were imperfect.

I couldn’t scoop it up and eat it like a sandwich, as with proper pizza. And the dough really didn’t profit from that second impromptu rise. But pizza is its own reward.

Cold pizza in the morning, BTW, has always been a favorite breakfast. 🙂

…but I understand the idea.

Do you have a dressy handgun and/or holster you only carry for nice?

My handguns are too beat-up to fit the description, but Tam (who wrote the linked article, BTW) once gave me a SERPA holster that sucks too bad for carrying but is therefore still shiny and scratch-free, and I wear it socially along with that unstained pair of pants I keep for the same purpose. So it’s a thing, but we’re weird out here. I wonder how wide-spread it is?

But it does happen. Apparently often enough that Little Bear knows the signs.

So this is LB being “helpful” while I get dressed…

He could be on his bed in the main room and out of the way. He could be on his bed in the back entrance and out of the way. Or he could be a speedbump between the bedroom and the closet…