Dio's WorkshopWelcome to my brain. It’s messy. It’s interesting. And it’s all connected if you stick around long enough. "Believe Nothing: no matter who said it, even if I have said it, except it agree with your own reason and common sense. Siddhartha Guatamo, the Buddha.
And I ain’ta talkin’bout the poli-ticks,,,, (though more on that towards the end.)
Its early February, and we are already experiencing a ‘spring snap’,,, Temps are supposed to be in the mid 60’s low 70’s for the next week and half,
This is roughly 3 weeks early in these parts. Me thinks, the ‘snaps’ are going to be longer than usual, and the drops inbetween are going to be colder than usual with sudden release: much like these past two weeks have been.
This is the sort of weather that gets people killed. Sickness the usual culprit, but in other ways as well. We have already had TWO kayak deaths here’bouts thanks to ‘springlike weather’ calling the unprepared and naive to water. ME: I KNOW WELL what cold water can do to a body: I have gear for it. I don’t go out in ‘just above freezing’ water with 60 degree air temps without dressing for that water temperature. No sweatshirt’n’jeans cowboy antics from yours truly. I know that the intial plunge is going to SHOCK you into an inhale that usually does you in on the first go-round. IF that doesn’t get ya, the sudden cramps as your body pulls warm blood from appendages to the core, will.
Near as I can tell from reports, the two deaths are due to exposure/hypothermia, because they weren’t prepared: either in the head nor in the gear. My condolances to the families, but I can only hope thier loss will help others be better informed further down the road. (I DO try to educate people when I am asked about ‘off season’ boating. I can tell, only a small percentage listen,,,,)
NOW, on to the shenanigans of falling aircraft, fire blooms in mid-air and in street intersections. The one that happened in DC,,, All I can say on that one is “sumpin’ stinks”,,, What? I can’t say. Too many possibles of incompetence that have a taint of “Deepstate interference” in them.
As for the one that went down in Philly,,, I think that one has a more ‘natural cause’: In the one video with sound, you can hear the turbines screaming, all the way into impact. My take is that something happened to plane or pilot, and what we witnessed was a full-Throttle Dead-stick ‘landing’. Considering they were in take-off mode, reaching for cruising altitude, the full throttle thing makes sense, Then something went wrong. Pilot dead at stick? controls failed to respond? Ice on wings? Ice in hydraulic fluids (that control the surfaces)? One pilot in comments somewhere ruled out the icy wing thing, and seeing how they never made it over 1300′ with ambient temps in the mid forties, I would concur. BUT, the other items could still play a role.
Plus, there is a record of that company with another incident involving that, or similar plane,,,, There may be underlying circumstances. And this situation IS where FAA gets to shine a bit and earn their pay. (Question for others in the know: Can a black box survive a direct hit to concrete at 400mph, followed by a firestorm of spilled fuel? Guess we will find out eh?)
Nominee hearings? My take: If you hadn’t seen the masks fall from their faces before, I certainly hope you can see it now. The attempts to corner the nominees into traps of “yes/no” answers when the circumstances are grey like the fogs on the Thames in October,,,, And the nominees returning fire with allegations of corruption,,,, Sweet pup of DOG, the kabuki is running STRONG,,,,,,
and so are the liberal tears,,,,,
and its only been TWO FRELLIN’ WEEKS!!!!
and for those naysayers that wanna harp on OrangeMan BAD
That last,,,, ‘Take a blowtorch to this whole diseased temple of thieves, traitors, & pedos, burn it to the ground and piss on the ashes‘
FUCKIN’ OORAH!!!!!! When I read about some DC appartachik complaining about needing to commute for 1.5hrs because they are no longer allowed to work from home, and then wail about ‘DIE’ is dead, our entire department is DIE!”
man, the goosebumps of pleasure just can’t be tamed!!!!
Gonna be strange year, but one that I think is going to carry forward into
Apologies to all: Last eve was a catharsis I was in need of and had no idea. Pulled ALL of the scabs off old (REALLY old) wounds and let some pressures off. Admittedly, most of those old wounds were self-inflicted, and the ones that weren’t directly “muzzle to big toe” self inflicted, were due to actions I started (here, have gun, shoot me! sorts )
And even with a fifth of rye down the gullet, I awoke NOT HUNG OVER,,,
and in a much better frame of mind about my current position in space-time.
Lonely? Yah,a little bit,,,, been 16 frillin years since I lived with anyone else, other than furry buddies. Won’t lie about it, sometimes the walls aren’t your best friends when the dark nights get longer. Add in some silly glitch in the matrix that brings up hauntings and ghosts of the past,,,
yah, bad night.
Much better mornin’
Went to the lake today. Even had Lyssa on the water for a short spell. TOO DAMNED COLD. That wind cutting across a mile of open water was sharp like razors and what little mist was up was hitting like a full auto pellet gun. Shit hurt!!! Ducked back to shore FAST and called it good. Even with proper gear, there is still exposed skin, and by the time I hit land, my exposed skin looked bright pink, like I had been smacking it repeatedly.
And that cold ass water hitting the open nerve endings on my exposed digit end,,,,,,, PURE TORTURE.
Masochistic, I am not. (ok, somewhat, but not to THAT level,,,,,)
Even thought about, what with the weather being what it is, ‘may be time to put the boats up for a couple months,,,’ Problem with that,,, I’m lazy. If at least one isn’t ready to go, on Buffalo, I won’t go when there is that perfect window of oppurtunity. Fact is, I may even ADD a boat to the Buffalo since there may be white water days with Brudda B n crew. THOSE happen in literal spaces of hours, not days, and if y’ain’taready,,,, MISS.
But right now, its build fire in stove (even though its in the Forties outside) and get my chilled old bones warmed up a bit. T’ain’t 20 sumpin anymore and I feel the cold deeper and longer than those long gone days of yore
Apologies,,,, Let me explain where I am at, so you can have a sense of what went wrong.
I had an email from “Classmates” saying someone had tagged my yearbook picture. Dunno who, and at this point, ignorance IS bliss.
I made the mistake of following the link and saw THREE pictures
My first Real Girlfriend (and if it means somethin’, I still have a ‘love letter’ from her: forty flippin years and several long term relationships and a failed marriage later, I still have it.)
My FIRST and I ain’t talkin’ GF, though that too
And the Girl I have always had a crush on, whom was also my best friend in the tightest of ways, totally platonic, though I have often wished otherwise.
(I was gonna post pics, and probably could since they are in the public domain already, but, NO, I only post pics when I have been able to ask permission, never otherwise.,,,sorry; y’all gotta use your imagination this time out.)
You can’t go Home again, IT AIN’T THERE!!!
Forty years agone, so many stories to tell them,,,,
and I probably never will. Of all the people in that school, those three were the only ones I would wish to meet again, but there is so much water passed under this bridge I stand on. I can argue that my perceptions of ‘then’ and their perceptions of the same, are NOT the same as mine. Memories fade, discolor like the old kodachrome paper, and emotions ‘evolve’ with time.
I could always spin a yarn, I could captivate with stories; but I was Never serious enough, about any one thing, to pursue,,,,
her
hence the drinkin’
I thought I had forgotten,,,,
dusty in here,,,,
and they say women are romantics,,,, HA!!! Women are pragmatic; its the dudes that get all mushy with the ideas of romance and chivalry, duty, honor,,,, In a round’bout sorta way, we all wanted to be that Shining Knight,,,, No,,, NO round’bout about it,,, we all did; some just hid it better.
Sometimes, and I strongly feel this to be the case here, its best to leave the past, in the PAST. If one of those three Femmes from my history were one that tagged me,,,, Probably best that we maintain that gulf of time. I have changed beyond what I was then, many times over. Those changes may be for the better, but I would rather the memories I have, not be tainted by a new meeting and possible disharmony between souls.
We LIVE ( and eventually die)
We LEARN (and forget what we learned)
We LOVE (and lose sometimes)
We LAUGH (and often cry,,,)
And We keep on LOADIN’, prayin’ its for naught.
The PATH remains, always.
((later date,,, Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy,,,, Leave the past in the past,,, better for all involved…)))
Now, I’ma gonna break that up into two parts, driving with the last part FIRST “So who are we saving it for?”
Damned good question. We know that our progeny are going to inherit what we leave, in pretty much the exact same state as we had it, since the time-line is too short to do SERIOUS change,,,
We are also finding that the little bit of this-that, that certain groups hollar over, are actually ‘nothin’burgers’ in the grand scheme of things. We do far more damage to OTHER lifeforms than we can do this rock we inhabit (currently) We nearly wiped out certain breeds of whale in the pursuit of lamp oil as example. We have wiped out some forms of birds, such as the passenger pigeon, back in the beginning of the last century.
And we have been finding that species extinction is a whole lot more common than those that WE as a species have caused. Its a natural thing, even if we sometimes ‘put our thumb on the scale’.
So who are we saving the Earth for? It gets a little grey in the grand scheme of things, or in certain timelines; like Epochs,,,,
I recall one discussion over coffee in the wee hours after the clubs had closed,,, (way back in my past life as SOundDood,,,) We were discussing nuclear weapons and how damaging they really are. One of the peeps in the discussion was a undergrad Engineer, and was usually the silent one, but on this, He jumped alive and debunked all sorts of garbage thinks.
One was some idea that we could ‘split the earth in two’ with our weapons: the person even went so far as to describe what they thought would do it. Dropping the largest nastiest weapon into the Marianas Trench and detonating when it hit bottom, wherever that is. Engineery type slammed that one fast. Explained that the pressures of water at those depths would TAMP the explosion and about the most you would get would be a big “Burp” of radioactive steam and gas at the surface HOURS LATER,,, And probably a lot of dead fish from the limited concussion spike. At worst, it would start some seismic shit and might be ‘felt’ around the world, but more likely, not even that.
Then there was the “waste the entire surface of livable earth”,,, that one got a nod, but quickly turned into, ‘nope,,, maybe for a few years, but Earth bounces back fast,,,,” (note: the next night, he brought photocopies of Hiroshima /Nagasaki b4 and after pics to prove his points) “we, as humans might get wiped out, but in 10 years, not a trace of the war other than rubble.” All one need do is look to Chernobyl and how the wildlife and habitat are back to normal; that happened in only a few short years. No Hyper-mutant Bugbears or xenomorphic freaks running in the woods there: the wolves look like wolves and the squirells are still tree clowns of normal size.
Seriously, even the damage we cause in strip mining (and there are more than a few MTR projects left over from the 50-60’s in this area to use as example) is quickly absorbed ONCE WE LEAVE THE AREA TO ITS OWN DEVICES. Yah, it takes some time, but even in the short span we inhabit this rock as individuals, one can see the change. Plant a tree when you are ten, and by the time you retire, its ready to be harvested for lumber. Most living things do not live at the same pace. A dog lives for 12-18 years. A horse might go 30. Mules may live 50. People are averaging around 80 these days
And the earth is 8 BILLION* years old,,,,
8,000,000,000/80 8.0*10(exp9)/8*10(exp1) ,,,, Our lives are one one hundred millionth a percent of time compared to the earth,,,, your eye blinks are roughly that percentage of your life,,,, We are but FLEAS on the surface of this planet. Smaller than that even, when you compare a flea to the size of your dog, vs our size in comparison to the whole of earth,,, Maybe we make this planet itch in our doings, but I would say, in the grand scheme of things, we aren’t doing THAT MUCH, at least not to the rock we live on. As I mentioned, we do more damage to each other and other species than we could ever hope to inflict upon this rock. (and the other species are just as much ‘FLEAS’ as we are, just not as obnoxious about it,,,,)
And if modern Geographical evidence is to be believed, this rock has gone through MANY changes and only a few of them have been hospitable to life as we know it. Many periods in our rocks time period, where the surface was nastier and meaner than the surface of Mercury or Venus. We just happen to be lucky enough to be in a ‘good spot’ in our rocks time.
(*an arguable point for certain, and NO, I am not going to go into that rabbit hole that some christian sects go, saying the earth is only 12,500 years old,,, too many points I have valid points against, and most of the ones that do believe that crap are leftoid indoctrinated shits that don’t WANT to hear any evidence otherwise,,,,” believe what I say or you are Heretic!!!!” )((Update: getting numbers backwards in me mind. Universe is supposedly 8 billion years old, Earth is a mere 4.3billion Y.O. my numbers are off, but my point remains ‘close enough’ from ‘simple hooman perspective’,,,,))
Ah,,, and now its time to pick apart the first part of Sarahs quoted statement. I won’t say she is Wrong,,,, Its a statement based on empirical evidence,,, BUT,,,, Its unprovable, in either argument: “You can’t prove a negative” You can only make suppositions (in both orders)
I propose that the Earth, and every other stellar body (that isn’t frozen solid rock, aka our moon and that may be wrong as well.) is alive in some fashion. Sentient? thats a very tightly defined term using only empirical evidence. When a ‘being’ has a lifespan in BILLIONS of years, who is to say it isn’t sentient? It may ‘think’ or ‘live’ on a different frequency level, one we can’t really detect with our current state of tech, but that does NOT mean it isn’t alive. What if the beings ‘eyeblink’ takes 250,000,000 years to achieve? What if ‘being sentient’ the earth isn’t even aware of us, except for the occasional ‘itch’ we give her as we dig into her skin for our resources?
And I think we are going to find through Quantum mechanics that even the peices of gravel in your driveway have a certain amount of life to them,,, it just moves MUCH much slower than us FLEAS,,,
That was the only part of Sarahs article I took exception too. I understand the statement; I just had to be the contrarian and point out my opinion of the matter.
tore the tip of one of my fingers off, while at the J.O.B. today,,, Just skin, but its down to the subcutaneous soft tissues and exposed nerve endings. One digit down makes typin’ a bit OUCHIE!!!! ‘specially if I’m hammered down,,, owww!
Watched some of the hearings when I stopped at Da’s this eve. Tulsi is one gorgeous woman, no matter what anyone says. Her creds even more respectable. Didn’t get to see RFKjr rip The BERNIE a new one on live TV, but I did get to hear about it, Garan-dang-teed that he won’t get a single Dem vote now,,, They’z SKEERED,
And maybe they should be. Bastaches have been doing the dirty deeds thing for decades, accountability free,,, Pay back’s a bitch as they say. They’d best be grateful for a courts system that still functions in the marginal sense: far better than tar, feathers, split rail fence, or hemp and Oaktree.
We now have a Secretary of Defense with more REAL combat time than all of the Generals within ranks COMBINED,,,,
By real, I mean two way shooting gallery where your ass is on the line,,, not 30 mikes away in an airconditioned Shack listening to the battle over the radio,,,
As is, the gnashing of teeth and screeching of harpies has been a thing of wonder to me.
Word to RFKjr,,, DON’T FRELLIN BACK DOWN OR ‘WALK IT BACK’,,,, Stand ground brotherman, stand YOUR ground,,,, Get weaselly for even a moment and you lose,,,,
Cyberwar breakin’ out ‘tween China and US,,,, China releases an open source AI app that is powered by NVidia chips,,, NVidia is a US Patented chip, that I beleive is made in Taiwan, though I have heard it is made here as well, Not sure and not willing to dive too deep at this stage. The point I bring up is that this is par for the course at this point. China doesn’t want a kinetic war, never has, never will. They are prepare(d)(ing) for one, but as was seen on their Northern border, where their soldiers got their collective asses whomped and ran home,,, They ain’t ready. Besides that, kinetic is the last option for them, they much prefer the long game and strategy over blunt force trauma.
Fact is, WE aren’t ready either,,,, WE have a serious problem in the logistics department since we haven’t brought production up to usage levels, let alone surplus levels, which is what you need if you even wanna think about ‘Going Hot’. We are dependent on 40+ year old tech to keep the wheels turning as the newer stuff (not including small arms stuff, but the big expensive toys) is purt much CRAP (coff, F35, coff coff,,,)
Then you bring up the personel side of things,,, Recruitment is down by the tens of percentage points, and falling. Force reduction has been the name of the game since 2020, even if they call it by other names. Maybe with Hegseth at the helm of defense, things will start to ‘return to normal’. Lord knows, we could lose the cadre of O-6 and up and probably do better than we have the last four years.
Why did the Chinese bust out an AI app right now???
Try a 25% tariff for starters. Now, I have had qualms about that whole scenario from first mention. Tariffs never truly effect the tariffed: the damage is downstream of that. The purchasers of such items end up paying the tariff, much like Big Corps don’t actually pay taxes, they adjust the costs to pay that and the buyers are the ones that pay the taxes. The only upside to tariffs, and this only applies if you have REAL competition: it prices the tariffed items out of competition. To compensate, they have to lower the quality (lower the prices) and then they are still pricier than the competition. That would work, except most of the items we might see tariffed are sole source these days. Most everything we purchase, no matter what the namebrand says, is made in China. Dewalt tools-CHINA, Milwaukee tools-CHINA, Snap-on Tools-CHINA,,, All our manufacturing (most all, that is) OUTSOURCED and kept only the admin side of things here at home. Even the service side of things, in most cases, is outsourced to places like India!!! (that is starting to shift back though with ‘work from home’ being a killer advantage to many people. I’d happily do desktop support if I could work at my house, and not chained to some terminal in a cubefarm, like I was when I did that stuff before/during the crash of 2008)(downside to that for me,, We have such shitty internet providers here local,,, I would need to move to a better location to make that work for me. Not far, not even out of state, just not HERE.) And its not just US. I saw a broadcast while at Da’s about Mercedes,,,,, and how they had a factory IN CHINA, that was producing ALL of their crankshafts. In a small factory that had only a handful of employees to run the CNC 5 axis mills that were turning out thousands of crankshafts a day, to include the heat treatment of them. This is across the spectrum, and if you start slapping tariffs on countries of origin, you may as well be slapping a VAT tax on things as well ( DON’T!!! just DON’T,,, That way lies dragons and destruction,,,,)
So, with the above thinking, I have to wonder, how much of this Tariff thing is bluff and bluster from OMB? I know that Hillsdale College has had tentacles into the admin; mostly as advisors, and they lean very much toward Mises Institute teachings when it comes to economics. Someone must have had OMB’s ear on this and should have told him ‘this ain’t gonna work like you think,,,’ Dunno for certain, but after seeing his Golf Cart diplomacy sunday (Columbian Prez caving on taking their criminals back. All between the third hole and the 9th hole while Trump was playing golf; hence the ‘Golf Cart Diplomacy’ kick.) I would say there is far more ‘Bluff and bluster’ involved. Its when the ones that won’t bluff come into play that things get sticky.
We ain’t ready for kinetics, and financially, we are teetering on the razor’s edge of total collapse. China is one of the BRICS group and they were making serious inroads to being ready for the DOLLAR to collapse before all of this: does anyone think for an instant, that that has changed just because Trumped took office? Maybe we are ‘recovering’, but that is NOT PAST TENSE,,, Recovering patients die all the time, before they become ‘recovered’ patients.
NO, we ain’t ready, and the opening salvo of this war was not the current AI app from China. The first shots fired were threats of tariffs, and shuttering/throttling a different set of apps.
Honestly, you want things to change, DEREGULATE, Offer tax breaks to ON SHORE production, Free up energy resources to lessen the cost of production and shipping (helping to lower costs) (about the only thing he is nailing down correctly, IMO, at least in the economic regions) In other words, GET GOVERNMENT OUT OF THE FRELLIN WAY AND LET THE PEOPLE DECIDE. There are other ways for the government to make money, other than taxing thier people to blood and bone existence (seems they did quite fine prior to 1913,,, may wanna look into that DJT.) BUT, we are going to need a sound money supply, not fiat bux, THAT needs to become a priority.
Oh, and since we are going all “MERIT” based stuff, lets talk about De-UNIONizing. Bust the unions to shreds! That will help bring down production costs, incenitivize merit based hiring practices, and put competition back into the workforces. The Unions had a good reason to exist at one point, but have become another arm of government and a financial one at that, and the original intent has become diseased beyond recognition. (note, I have NEVER been a Union member and never will be. Every union shop I ever saw was a flat mess of dead wieght overshadowing the real workers. And god forbid the days I did shows in FNYC,,, Teamsters unloaded us on the street, and IATSE from the stage doors in: DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING or the hands go to lunch, on the shows dime. The only upside to the IATSE-NYC, there was enough turn over that talent was able to rise in ranks, not get buried under seniority.)
What can I say, there are so many aspects of the mess we are in, that focusing on one will only allow others to grow larger. First things first, fix the Government, reduce its size and scope and SPENDING. Get that done, then the focus needs to be on getting THE PEOPLE back on thier feet and on the ground RUNNING, not suckin’ at the teat of Gov. Far too many on the dole, either directly or through ‘workfare’; far too many make work jobs that only prolong the pain. (and that is the purpose of DOGE, right? find the waste? eliminate it? Sadly, a large portion of the make work jobs are State jobs, like the redundant number of DMV workers, who don’t actually do much of anything except find ways of saying ‘no’,,, Just as an example. but I digress) There needs to be serious attention given to those that are SSD, that have never worked a day in their life, but get benefits that rival those of SSI that DID work their entire lives for a promise of support. (and personally, I think we need to start phasing it out. since its inception I feel that the American people gave it too much creedance to ‘retirement’ and not enough planning of their own: again, Just My Opinon,,,,)
So much more I can go into; things I feel need addressed in more ways to correct DECADES of failure.
Biggest things. GET EDUCATION STRAIGHTENED OUT.
DOWNSIZE THE FED GOV AND ENCOURAGE THE STATES TO RECIPROCATE.
IF IT CAN BE DONE IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR, LET IT BE DONE IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR; Get government out of the way. Let competition determine winners and losers, not best grifter and politics.
I do feel we are at the cusp of seeing TOP DOWN GOVS dying. And amazingly, we aren’t the worst or the biggest dying dinosaur: that one would be China. BUT, we are seeing worldwide, conservative values rising, revolution against government overreach, and downsizing the production means. Independent producers, across the board, from music to books, to geegaws: even complicated aftermarket parts for current production cars. I see that trend growing in leaps and bounds, and more and more seizures and fits from the old world TOPDOWN heirarchy
It was the early part of the Tweens when the political divisions of the United States reached irreconcilable differences. Ted, a burnt out computer programmer, and Jim, a double amputee combat vet, reverse engineer the pentagons drone program and create a rebel air force. While traveling the country helping others defend what is left of the country, they run afoul a most evil woman intent on creating a serfdom within the country.
A beginner’s guide to going off grid. how to evaluate if you even want to make the attempt. written by the curmudgeonly author of this blog and his dog
Dio's Workshop 