Happy New Year to everyone.
The Cats have been fed, coffee made, birds fed and Blueberries thawing out for Blueberry Pancakes. The Blueberries are curtesy of Argentina.
We had 6 to 8 in of snow to start the New Year. First real snow for us this or last year (hey the snow started last year and lasted into this year). I will shovel what hasn’t melted by May. Have not looked at any news yet.
Please keep your positive thoughts and if you pray your prayers for the people that lost their home and livelihoods in the fires. So far it seems that there have been no deaths.
Seems like it couldn’t have come fast enough, according to a lot of people. Most people on my feeds seemed to hate 2021. I guess because of Covid?
Party like it’s 1922: here’s the Benson Orchestra of Chicago, “Say It While Dancing”:
That’s a nice arrangement of that song, PA+Cat. Based on the image of the band at least three of them alternated between reeds and brass, not an easy transition. Talented men!
Don Sensing, a Methodist minister and a long-time and thought-provoking blogger, heard about a store called the Time Shop. He decided to pay it a visit:
We’ve discussed this before; it seems one of our biggest problems (and, perhaps, the over arching issue that contributes negatively to all others) is the large percentage of our fellow citizens developing and living in a bubble that does not require learning basic, life skills.
There is a way of thinking one fosters and develops when having to solve real, tangible problems. We are victims of our own success. We live in an abundance of inexpensive goods and services that negates the need to understand our surroundings so many of our fellow citizens do not bother to do so.
In our youths we had large swaths of time with minimal or no direction and learned to occupy that time with board games, card games, imaginative play, “pick-up” sports, tag, hide and seek… We lived in a world surrounded by people doing tangible things; sewing, maintaining automobiles, tuning radio dials and fussing with antennae, building scooters and soapbox cars, erector sets, doll houses… It was trial and error, cause and effect. Things required work and the best processes and ideas were accepted because they did work.
We developed the ability to reason through the necessities of navigating childhood and adulthood. Think about learning to drive. There was a clutch and gears. One had to learn and understand what a gearbox is and how it functions. Three pedals and a handbrake. You had to give just the right amount of fuel to prime the carburetor without flooding it in order to start the car. Some of us learned on cars with chokes. You had to have a basic understanding that there was an air and fuel mixture causing explosions under the hood. Even if we did not have parents and teachers encouraging us to learn how to think and reason, we had to develop those skills to function.
Today a large number of people grow up in a world of “black boxes.” One pushes a button and something happens. (In the parlance of the old, engineering flowchart joke, the black rectangle in the middle of the system reading, “here a miracle occurs.”) A non-specific “idiot” light comes on your car’s dashboard and you take it to the dealership where it is connected to a machine that tells the mechanic what to do. Few cars even show the driver the engine’s temperature, let alone oil pressure or alternator function. Some new cars don’t even have dipsticks!
And these people who develop into adults without learning the hard, difficult lessons of maintaining things, building things, sewing, working with a group of peers to figure out how to entertain one another… These people vote for our representatives and work in our offices and run our educational institutions. What happens when they are the majority? Are they already the majority?
RTF…”There is a way of thinking one fosters and develops when having to solve real, tangible problems.”
Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein make this point in their book A Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century.
Those were better times. Here’s for a better New Year,
Rufus,
I have read that the older cars came with instructions in the owner’s manual on how to adjust the points in the ignition system. Of course that is all electronic now.
I do handy man type work for customers. I am amazed at how little many people know about how a house is constructed now.
Thanks for sharing your piece on the Erector set, Mike K.!
I think all here will appreciate clicking over and reading it. A nice, concise history of the toy and its inventor as well as an interesting glimpse into Mike K’s day job and a fascinating coincidence when his work helped save a key figure in American toy history!
Wishing everyone out there a very happy 2022…(well, one can always hope…)
“I have read that the older cars came with instructions in the owner’s manual on how to adjust the points in the ignition system. “.
Cut my maintenance teeth on my first car, a ’54 Ford, then I really learned my chops on my favorite car ever, a ’65 MGB. The MG required carburetor synchronization every few weeks. Had to replace a U-joint and also a head gasket. I was a poor college student so I had to learn to do this is order to have a working car. After that, no matter what the car, I would do a 6 month tune-up: oil and filter change, carb cleaning, air filter change, replace plugs, replace points, gap points, set the timing, adjust carb to fast and slow idle. By the mid 80s it all started to change. I can’t even do an oil change now without a lift, so all my maintenance is now done by a mechanic. I suppose it’s good for those people in terms of income. I did manage to replace the wiper blades on my wife’s car 2 days ago….seems to be the limit in car maintenance these days.
The Erector Set lives on, in some form…at least the brand name, which has apparently been acquired by the British company Meccano, which has made erector-type kids for a long time:
These ‘Erector’ kits, and the Meccano-branded kits also, look, though, like they are more oriented to assembling a specific model rather than providing a set of parts for creative use. The exception being the Meccano-Erector Super Construction set:
My husband is out in the garage now, timing a 1970 Triumph motorcycle.
Shirehome and all others near the Boulder County fires: Best wishes, and so glad there don’t appear to be any deaths. Friends up there, about seven miles north of the fire, are hosting two now-homeless families.
physicsguy,
Low vehicle clearance can be a huge issue for home projects.
My previous vehicle was a 1994 Chevy Pick Up which I drove as recently as two years ago. I did most of the maintenance work on it myself out of financial necessity. I could just barely squeeze under it to work. A few times I had a near panic attack when my chest was up against the frame. I have laid 2 by 6 type boards FLAT on the ground to roll up on , just to lift the front up a little and block the tires from the rear. The most complicated thing I had to do to it was change the timing chain after it jumped. Also , one time I had to drop the fuel tank to change the fuel pump. If they would have only supplied an access panel in the truck bed above the tank, dropping it would have not been necessary. I have changed numerous fuel pumps and sending units on Bradley Fighting Vehicles in the military, and they were easier to access.
My current truck is a 2008 Chevy Colorado. Unlike every previous gasoline powered vehicle I have worked on, it does not have spark plug wires. At first I was a bit intimidated about changing the spark plugs since you have to remove an ignition coil from above each plug to access them. Once I did the job, I realized it was easier than the old system.
PA-Cat and Rufus: And with a Bass Sax! I’ve never seen one in the wild, but evidently they were common enough then to show up in a nonet.
Foster: Sensing became a Minster after a career as an Artillery Officer in the Army. IIRC, he started blogging while he was still in the army, at the very least well before he was ordained. That post is a great example of magical realism by both he and Vanderleun.
Jon baker: I used to keep a piece of sandpaper, a matchbook and a spare “condensor” in the glove compartment for emergency repairs. If the points were dirty, a quick swipe with sandpaper and reset of the points using the matchbook cover as a guage for spacing. If the points were badly damaged by a bad condenser – more sandpaper and replace. Can’t do that today; points and inductive collapse won’t light off a well under stoichiometric fuel air ratio, much less be accurate enough for emission reduction.
Covid vaccine mandates…
Given their performance (or non-performance) in preventing transmission, there is absolutely no justification to force vaccination. It doesn’t “protect others”. I’m in the “you’re gonna die” demographic, so I’ve taken the jab, but if someone else doesn’t want to, that’s their choice. There are people who won’t take a blood transfusion, and we don’t force them. “My body,my choice.”
The Malone-Rogan interview at zerohedge got pulled.
Owner’s manuals used to tell you how to set valve timing or points.
Now they tell you not to drink the battery acid.
It’s open thread.
I’ve been documenting my bout with covid and some of the solutions available.
I think if you click on my icon it will take you there.
What a co-ink-ee-dinky. I’ve been listening to the Dr. Malone interview on Spotify today.
NOW you tell us 🙂
The interview is back up on Zerohedge. (Just checked…)
Now if they’ll just put Dr. Malone back on Twitter.
There’s also this (from Malone’s substack account), which some/many of you may have already seen. (It echoes some of his recent comments but includes worthwhile, even upbeat, information about omicron and Covid generally.)
“Do Not Take Part in the Lie”— https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/do-not-take-part-in-the-lie
The Malone and McCullough interviews are powerful, and very saddening stuff. Much is what has been suspected, but never told with such details and backed up with actual data and references.
Maybe in a decade or so, this story will get out to a much wider audience. For now, it will be buried.
What is the correct response of a rational society to a group of politicians and business people who have and will kill thousands?
Hint: Nuremberg Trials
2022 I predict will be a Rollercoaster ride through Hell, pray the end of year is the light at end of that tunnel
Finishing the Dr Malone interview on Joe Rogan
In Pa but will not vote for Dr Oz, a good friend or Leftist Supreme Oprah
First step is don’t get tested unless you absolutely have too.
The number of tests done in the last week is extraordinary. Test that many people in the middle of winter and you are going to find this forever.
Skip, who is his primary challenge? That can also get on Fox as much as Oz.
And I know it’s tempting to criticize the administration for not supplying ample amounts of tests but that is the wrong approach also.
Tests are how this goes on forever so by criticizing them now you are just setting them up for a win when they produce 40 gazillion tests in a month.
Griffin, You are right, but I’m wondering how many people are not being allowed back to work without a test they can’t get.
Edward,
Yes, but I can’t imagine that is everybody in these long lines we have seen all over the last few days.
Or the people hoarding the at home tests then going to the ER with their runny nose when the test says they are positive.
It’s all so ridiculous.
I know. I only went because I got kicked out of work for exposure to someone else who tested positive. Worked from home for days and then go get a test to go back to work, only to test positive! Then symptoms.
@ David Foster > “Don Sensing, a Methodist minister and a long-time and thought-provoking blogger, heard about a store called the Time Shop.”
Superb essay (delivered as a sermon) with which to start the New Year. Gerard spun a great story inside the story (I wish there had been a link — hint, hint).
I was reminded of a Ray Bradbury story in his contemporary-fantasy mode, of boys “time traveling” by listening to the memories of an old man. I can’t find it, of course, but the entire book “Dandelion Wine” has the same feel. The episodes (not really stories) are not titled, but one that comes close to the idea of the Time Shop starts like this:
How it began with the children, old Mrs. Bentley never knew. She often saw them, like moths and monkeys, at the grocer’s, among the cabbages and hung bananas, and she smiled at them and they smiled back. Mrs. Bentley watched them making footprints in winter snow, filling their lungs with autumn smoke, shaking down blizzards of spring apple-blossoms, but felt no fear of them. As for herself, her house was in extreme good order, everything set to its station, the floors briskly swept, the foods neatly tinned, the hatpins thrust through cushions, and the drawers of her bedroom bureaus crisply filled with the paraphernalia of years.
Mrs. Bentley was a saver. She saved tickets, old theater programs, bits of lace, scarves, rail transfers; all the tags and tokens of existence.
“I’ve a stack of records,” she often said. “Here’s Caruso. That was in 1916, in New York; I was sixty and John was still alive. Here’s June Moon, 1924, I think, right after John died.”
That was the huge regret of her life, in a way. The one thing she had most enjoyed touching and listening to and looking at she hadn’t saved. John was far out in the meadow country, dated and boxed and hidden under grasses, and nothing remained of him but his high silk hat and his cane and his good suit in the closet. So much of the rest of him had been devoured by moths.
But what she could keep she had kept. Her pink-flowered dresses crushed among moth balls in vast black trunks, and cut-glass dishes from her childhood—
Reverend Sensing concluded: “Christ will come again. When he does, no matter how it is phrased, our Lord will really want to know one thing: How did you spend the time of your life?”
I hope it’s okay that I spent some of it here with Neo & Company.
Happy New Year, one more time.
Re: “Dandelion Wine”
AesopFan:
Such a lovely book! You could take the boy out of Waukegan, but never the Waukegan out of the boy.
Some writers could really take you to the America of their childhood, of their dreams. Ray Bradbury was one. That was as important an element of his writing as his sci-fi/fantasy ideas.
David Foster, thank you for the link to the Sensing piece. It was beautiful and moving.
“…You may ask why a man cannot feel universal love and impartial sympathy for all mankind. The answer is that he can feel universal love and impartial sympathy, but only until some portion of mankind clashes and conflicts with a portion he particularly loves. Then his partiality and sympathy comes to the fore and he becomes what Dr. Johnson called a “good hater.
.
.
Social sympathy for portions of mankind likewise entails social antipathy for other portions of mankind, since sympathy answers the question, which side are you on? If you sympathize with one side in a conflict, you necessarily hope, and pray, and possibly work to defeat, confound and destroy the other side. We must never forget that sympathy has this Janus face: on one side the gentle smile of commiseration, on the other side the bare fangs of attack.
This means that benevolence necessarily entails malevolence, and benevolent malevolence is precisely what Dr. Johnson meant by “good hate.” Benevolent malevolence is the ill will that is borne by men of good will, it is hate in the service of love…”
But Read on MacDuffs… like all Orthosphere posts, Things Get Complicated… and involved in cogitations as to why Our Hatred is better than Their Hatred and the well-understood observation that the more abstract the Good, the more vicious and unreasoning hatred the lovers of said abstraction feel for those who love it not.
At which point, your humble servant simply activates his patent Who Whom Device 🙂
New York is explicitly using racial/ethnic criteria for monoclonal antibodies. Basically you can’t get the treatment unless you’re black or Hispanic.
Meanwhile my employer has decided to require a booster by the end of January in order to remain employed. Never mind that the jabs evidently do nothing (or less than nothing) to prevent the spread. I’m trying to decide how to respond. I’m tempted to let them know that I’m getting the booster only under duress, with the implicit threat that any complications will put them in hot water. They are going beyond the illegal city mandate that allows for a testing option and only requires vaccination, not boosters (at least as of now).
Dr Oz’s star power does worry me, I am sure he is a Leftist, I like Kathy Barnett so we will see how much traction she can get.
Re: Speakers
Zaphod:
I went with the small KEF Q150 Bookshelf Speakers ($359 on Amazon) with a Fosi 100w x 2 Bluetooth amp ($79).
I’m impressed at the power of cheap amps these days. The last receiver I had was a Sony with 55w x 2 power, yet cost around $250 in 2000. It was a “home theater” system so it had more features plus phono input, but still.
I’ll see how the speakers work out on my work table. If I like, I might buy a bigger KEF set for the living room.
Good job Huxley. Was wondering how things were panning out.
Can I suggest that at a later date you consider dispensing with Bluetooth. Bluetooth audio codecs are not great mostly due to inherent bandwidth limitations.
into USB port on your computer and then Line Out from it hooks to Line In on your new amp.
Not the greatest desktop DAC/Amp and you could google around to find others for similar price and compare reviews. But a cheapish way to dip toe in the water and see if it sounds better to you than the Bluetooth connection. Should do so with ripped CD bitrate audio — maybe not with mp3 files.
(One highly regarded company which sells US-made DACs starting about $100 is Schiit (sic) Audio)
There’s a guy called Currawong on YouTube who reviews headphone audiophile gear and one of his reviews I watched recently was of a sub-$100 DAC which he says is better than something selling for $1000+ 10 years back. So bang for buck has spiked in other areas of the hi-fi world, too. Me like!
@Huxley:
PS: This is a very nice cheap desktop DAC, too. Very highly regarded manufacturer. Unlike the other one, won’t let you plug headphones in.
Zaphod – “Read on, Macduff” – that was cute. 🙂 But you didn’t continue into the next scene….
Jimmy, I know it can seem that way based on the hype that some sites are giving that announcement, but if it’s any consolation, that’s only true in the context of being White with no co-morbidities. (The announcement uses the term ‘risk factors,’ but I think that’s what it’s referring to.) Thus, if one is White but has a co-morbidity to deal with, then the door is still open to get the treatment in question. In other words, it’s just Whites in general reasonable health who are supposedly going to be shut out.
(I’m starting to miss Prince Andy already… God forgive me……)
Zaphod:
I’m aware of Bluetooth audio limitations. I mainly got the Fosi amp for its compact size. I didn’t want to put my old Sony receiver on my work table.
While speakers/amp are on the table, I’ll use the headphone lineout from the computer. The Bluetooth option was cheap and I wanted to keep it open for situations I want to go wireless — mainly to keep cords off the floor.
Are these DACs significantly better than a standard Windows box audio out?
There’s much I don’t know about this level.
it’s just Whites in general reasonable health who are supposedly going to be shut out.
Thanks, I stand (partially) corrected. In practice, however, since any black or Hispanic, even those in good health, will get put in the same pool as whites with serious comorbidities, that adds a lot of patients for a scarce resource, so it’s likely there will be more deserving whites who will be unable to get the treatment. Why should a perfectly healthy black or Hispanic get the same priority as a white with, say, diabetes?
No matter how you slice it, they are using race and ethnicity as criteria to allocate a lifesaving resource.
Zaphod:
You quote:
If you sympathize with one side in a conflict, you necessarily hope, and pray, and possibly work to defeat, confound and destroy the other side. We must never forget that sympathy has this Janus face: on one side the gentle smile of commiseration, on the other side the bare fangs of attack.
Attack doesn’t necessarily mean you want to destroy the other side, it means you want to defeat it. Unless you’re talking about total war, it certainly doesn’t mean what that quote says it means.
Same for “bare fangs of attack.” When I argue with people on subjects I don’t have “bare fangs of attack” except in extraordinary circumstances, and I tend to win arguments.
Sometimes destroying an enemy is necessary (WWII Nazis, for example). But it’s certainly not always part of defeating another side. Not all opponents are enemies, and not all conflicts are wars.
Senior year of high school (1981-82) I was in the stage play of Dandelion Wine, although for the life of me I can’t remember which part I played, other than it wasn’t one of the main three. Our theater was being renovated so we had to put it on in the library, which kinda sucked, but we staged it with all the actors seated stage rear under a canopy with heads down, so that when they entered the story they metaphorically woke up out of the mists of memory.
Most memorable about it to me was that the day of auditions I was having a particularly bad allergy attack and completely forgot and went home on the bus, and then our drama coach called me up that evening and offered me the part anyway (I was in or adjacent to every single play we did for four years, including some leads, so she knew what I could do well enough).
@Neo:
“Not all opponents are enemies, and not all conflicts are wars.”
Yes. I can agree with you on that if I get out of my bed on the right side in the morning.
But what if there exists a class of people called, say, Progressives who do not subscribe to that viewpoint? And you do. What happens in the long run?
Now I know that’s the same ‘argument’ used by the Climate Change Fanatics to push their urgent schemes… Still… I’ve got more confidence my belief in where I think the Left is inexorably heading than their belief in Gaia being in mortal danger.
@Philip Sells:
A Zaphod Precis comes with zero warranties as to fitness, correctness, or coherence. Reader discretion is advised. MacDuff notwithstanding, it’s just occurred to me that the Bard is dangerously nuanced and it’s past time to become acquainted with Vicious Kit Marlowe whom I’ve never read a single word of.
@Huxley:
“Are these DACs significantly better than a standard Windows box audio out”
Recommend “The Jew of Malta”…
You’ll love it!
(Leaves poor old Shylock in the dust.)
There is another “z” word at play here, zealotry, xenophobia doesnt count, except with hand grenades or H-bombs. This ain’t Scrable® or its precursor Anagrams.
@BarryMeislin:
I was sorta kinda hoping you’d step right up and whack the Piñata in just the right spot.
Happy New year, BTW!
@om:
“This ain’t Scrable® or its precursor Anagrams.”
Don’t forget Gematria!
Many thanks.
And a great 2022 2 U 2!
(Happy, healthy, prosperous, exciting, loving…well, you get the idea….)
Happy New Year, All!
Happy New Year to everyone.
The Cats have been fed, coffee made, birds fed and Blueberries thawing out for Blueberry Pancakes. The Blueberries are curtesy of Argentina.
We had 6 to 8 in of snow to start the New Year. First real snow for us this or last year (hey the snow started last year and lasted into this year). I will shovel what hasn’t melted by May. Have not looked at any news yet.
Please keep your positive thoughts and if you pray your prayers for the people that lost their home and livelihoods in the fires. So far it seems that there have been no deaths.
Seems like it couldn’t have come fast enough, according to a lot of people. Most people on my feeds seemed to hate 2021. I guess because of Covid?
Party like it’s 1922: here’s the Benson Orchestra of Chicago, “Say It While Dancing”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyrwIGg29gQ&ab_channel=240252
That’s a nice arrangement of that song, PA+Cat. Based on the image of the band at least three of them alternated between reeds and brass, not an easy transition. Talented men!
Don Sensing, a Methodist minister and a long-time and thought-provoking blogger, heard about a store called the Time Shop. He decided to pay it a visit:
https://sensingonline.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-time-of-your-life.html
We’ve discussed this before; it seems one of our biggest problems (and, perhaps, the over arching issue that contributes negatively to all others) is the large percentage of our fellow citizens developing and living in a bubble that does not require learning basic, life skills.
There is a way of thinking one fosters and develops when having to solve real, tangible problems. We are victims of our own success. We live in an abundance of inexpensive goods and services that negates the need to understand our surroundings so many of our fellow citizens do not bother to do so.
In our youths we had large swaths of time with minimal or no direction and learned to occupy that time with board games, card games, imaginative play, “pick-up” sports, tag, hide and seek… We lived in a world surrounded by people doing tangible things; sewing, maintaining automobiles, tuning radio dials and fussing with antennae, building scooters and soapbox cars, erector sets, doll houses… It was trial and error, cause and effect. Things required work and the best processes and ideas were accepted because they did work.
We developed the ability to reason through the necessities of navigating childhood and adulthood. Think about learning to drive. There was a clutch and gears. One had to learn and understand what a gearbox is and how it functions. Three pedals and a handbrake. You had to give just the right amount of fuel to prime the carburetor without flooding it in order to start the car. Some of us learned on cars with chokes. You had to have a basic understanding that there was an air and fuel mixture causing explosions under the hood. Even if we did not have parents and teachers encouraging us to learn how to think and reason, we had to develop those skills to function.
Today a large number of people grow up in a world of “black boxes.” One pushes a button and something happens. (In the parlance of the old, engineering flowchart joke, the black rectangle in the middle of the system reading, “here a miracle occurs.”) A non-specific “idiot” light comes on your car’s dashboard and you take it to the dealership where it is connected to a machine that tells the mechanic what to do. Few cars even show the driver the engine’s temperature, let alone oil pressure or alternator function. Some new cars don’t even have dipsticks!
And these people who develop into adults without learning the hard, difficult lessons of maintaining things, building things, sewing, working with a group of peers to figure out how to entertain one another… These people vote for our representatives and work in our offices and run our educational institutions. What happens when they are the majority? Are they already the majority?
RTF…”There is a way of thinking one fosters and develops when having to solve real, tangible problems.”
Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein make this point in their book A Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century.
My personal ode to the Erector Set.
Those were better times. Here’s for a better New Year,
Rufus,
I have read that the older cars came with instructions in the owner’s manual on how to adjust the points in the ignition system. Of course that is all electronic now.
I do handy man type work for customers. I am amazed at how little many people know about how a house is constructed now.
Thanks for sharing your piece on the Erector set, Mike K.!
I think all here will appreciate clicking over and reading it. A nice, concise history of the toy and its inventor as well as an interesting glimpse into Mike K’s day job and a fascinating coincidence when his work helped save a key figure in American toy history!
Bombshell interview with Robert Malone:
‘COVID, Ivermectin, And ‘Mass Formation Psychosis’: Dr. Robert Malone Gives Blistering Interview To Joe Rogan”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/covid-ivermectin-and-mass-formation-psychosis-dr-robert-malone-gives-blistering-interview
Wishing everyone out there a very happy 2022…(well, one can always hope…)
“I have read that the older cars came with instructions in the owner’s manual on how to adjust the points in the ignition system. “.
Cut my maintenance teeth on my first car, a ’54 Ford, then I really learned my chops on my favorite car ever, a ’65 MGB. The MG required carburetor synchronization every few weeks. Had to replace a U-joint and also a head gasket. I was a poor college student so I had to learn to do this is order to have a working car. After that, no matter what the car, I would do a 6 month tune-up: oil and filter change, carb cleaning, air filter change, replace plugs, replace points, gap points, set the timing, adjust carb to fast and slow idle. By the mid 80s it all started to change. I can’t even do an oil change now without a lift, so all my maintenance is now done by a mechanic. I suppose it’s good for those people in terms of income. I did manage to replace the wiper blades on my wife’s car 2 days ago….seems to be the limit in car maintenance these days.
The Erector Set lives on, in some form…at least the brand name, which has apparently been acquired by the British company Meccano, which has made erector-type kids for a long time:
http://intl.meccano.com/products
These ‘Erector’ kits, and the Meccano-branded kits also, look, though, like they are more oriented to assembling a specific model rather than providing a set of parts for creative use. The exception being the Meccano-Erector Super Construction set:
http://intl.meccano.com/product/724641305705/meccano—erector-super-construction-set,-25-motorized-model-building-kit
More on Meccano here:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/deconstructing-meccano-the-story-of-a-british-icon-1940749.html
My husband is out in the garage now, timing a 1970 Triumph motorcycle.
Shirehome and all others near the Boulder County fires: Best wishes, and so glad there don’t appear to be any deaths. Friends up there, about seven miles north of the fire, are hosting two now-homeless families.
physicsguy,
Low vehicle clearance can be a huge issue for home projects.
My previous vehicle was a 1994 Chevy Pick Up which I drove as recently as two years ago. I did most of the maintenance work on it myself out of financial necessity. I could just barely squeeze under it to work. A few times I had a near panic attack when my chest was up against the frame. I have laid 2 by 6 type boards FLAT on the ground to roll up on , just to lift the front up a little and block the tires from the rear. The most complicated thing I had to do to it was change the timing chain after it jumped. Also , one time I had to drop the fuel tank to change the fuel pump. If they would have only supplied an access panel in the truck bed above the tank, dropping it would have not been necessary. I have changed numerous fuel pumps and sending units on Bradley Fighting Vehicles in the military, and they were easier to access.
My current truck is a 2008 Chevy Colorado. Unlike every previous gasoline powered vehicle I have worked on, it does not have spark plug wires. At first I was a bit intimidated about changing the spark plugs since you have to remove an ignition coil from above each plug to access them. Once I did the job, I realized it was easier than the old system.
PA-Cat and Rufus: And with a Bass Sax! I’ve never seen one in the wild, but evidently they were common enough then to show up in a nonet.
Foster: Sensing became a Minster after a career as an Artillery Officer in the Army. IIRC, he started blogging while he was still in the army, at the very least well before he was ordained. That post is a great example of magical realism by both he and Vanderleun.
Jon baker: I used to keep a piece of sandpaper, a matchbook and a spare “condensor” in the glove compartment for emergency repairs. If the points were dirty, a quick swipe with sandpaper and reset of the points using the matchbook cover as a guage for spacing. If the points were badly damaged by a bad condenser – more sandpaper and replace. Can’t do that today; points and inductive collapse won’t light off a well under stoichiometric fuel air ratio, much less be accurate enough for emission reduction.
Covid vaccine mandates…
Given their performance (or non-performance) in preventing transmission, there is absolutely no justification to force vaccination. It doesn’t “protect others”. I’m in the “you’re gonna die” demographic, so I’ve taken the jab, but if someone else doesn’t want to, that’s their choice. There are people who won’t take a blood transfusion, and we don’t force them. “My body,my choice.”
The Malone-Rogan interview at zerohedge got pulled.
Owner’s manuals used to tell you how to set valve timing or points.
Now they tell you not to drink the battery acid.
It’s open thread.
I’ve been documenting my bout with covid and some of the solutions available.
I think if you click on my icon it will take you there.
“The Malone-Rogan interview at zerohedge got pulled.”
Looks like twitter censorship is working 24/7/365…
(But scrolling down the article is still somewhat worthwhile. Here’s that link, again:
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/covid-ivermectin-and-mass-formation-psychosis-dr-robert-malone-gives-blistering-interview )
and something related:
“NY Times Targets Dr. Oz Over Pa. Senate Race”
(Unsurprisingly…since Dr. Oz is running as a Republican and is also a Trump supporter. Besides it’s the NYT merely taking its scurrilous scumminess to the next level…)
https://www.newsmax.com/politics/dr-oz-new-york-times-pennsylvania-senate/2022/01/01/id/1050659/
I’m surprised it’s on Youtube still.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW4mdAGOg-g
Except that that Youtube link seems to be a one-minute and 45 second excerpt of what I believe is originally over a three-hour-long interview.
Darn. I was looking forward to it. My son told me about it today.
He’s turning from neutral to the right.
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3SCsueX2bZdbEzRtKOCEyT?go=1&sp_cid=835eff745d59e360a1f4c80472c7ae14&fallback=getapp&t=883&utm_source=embed_player_v&utm_medium=desktop&nd=1&signupPrompt=1#login
Super-sleuth….
What a co-ink-ee-dinky. I’ve been listening to the Dr. Malone interview on Spotify today.
NOW you tell us 🙂
The interview is back up on Zerohedge. (Just checked…)
Now if they’ll just put Dr. Malone back on Twitter.
There’s also this (from Malone’s substack account), which some/many of you may have already seen. (It echoes some of his recent comments but includes worthwhile, even upbeat, information about omicron and Covid generally.)
“Do Not Take Part in the Lie”—
https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/do-not-take-part-in-the-lie
The Malone and McCullough interviews are powerful, and very saddening stuff. Much is what has been suspected, but never told with such details and backed up with actual data and references.
Maybe in a decade or so, this story will get out to a much wider audience. For now, it will be buried.
What is the correct response of a rational society to a group of politicians and business people who have and will kill thousands?
Hint: Nuremberg Trials
2022 I predict will be a Rollercoaster ride through Hell, pray the end of year is the light at end of that tunnel
Finishing the Dr Malone interview on Joe Rogan
In Pa but will not vote for Dr Oz, a good friend or Leftist Supreme Oprah
First step is don’t get tested unless you absolutely have too.
The number of tests done in the last week is extraordinary. Test that many people in the middle of winter and you are going to find this forever.
Skip, who is his primary challenge? That can also get on Fox as much as Oz.
And I know it’s tempting to criticize the administration for not supplying ample amounts of tests but that is the wrong approach also.
Tests are how this goes on forever so by criticizing them now you are just setting them up for a win when they produce 40 gazillion tests in a month.
Griffin, You are right, but I’m wondering how many people are not being allowed back to work without a test they can’t get.
Edward,
Yes, but I can’t imagine that is everybody in these long lines we have seen all over the last few days.
Or the people hoarding the at home tests then going to the ER with their runny nose when the test says they are positive.
It’s all so ridiculous.
I know. I only went because I got kicked out of work for exposure to someone else who tested positive. Worked from home for days and then go get a test to go back to work, only to test positive! Then symptoms.
@ David Foster > “Don Sensing, a Methodist minister and a long-time and thought-provoking blogger, heard about a store called the Time Shop.”
Superb essay (delivered as a sermon) with which to start the New Year. Gerard spun a great story inside the story (I wish there had been a link — hint, hint).
I was reminded of a Ray Bradbury story in his contemporary-fantasy mode, of boys “time traveling” by listening to the memories of an old man. I can’t find it, of course, but the entire book “Dandelion Wine” has the same feel. The episodes (not really stories) are not titled, but one that comes close to the idea of the Time Shop starts like this:
https://www.readanybook.com/online/737724
Reverend Sensing concluded: “Christ will come again. When he does, no matter how it is phrased, our Lord will really want to know one thing: How did you spend the time of your life?”
I hope it’s okay that I spent some of it here with Neo & Company.
Happy New Year, one more time.
Re: “Dandelion Wine”
AesopFan:
Such a lovely book! You could take the boy out of Waukegan, but never the Waukegan out of the boy.
Some writers could really take you to the America of their childhood, of their dreams. Ray Bradbury was one. That was as important an element of his writing as his sci-fi/fantasy ideas.
David Foster, thank you for the link to the Sensing piece. It was beautiful and moving.
Give Hate a Chance in 2022:
https://orthosphere.wordpress.com/2022/01/01/benevolent-malevolence-and-the-rewards-of-good-hate/
“…You may ask why a man cannot feel universal love and impartial sympathy for all mankind. The answer is that he can feel universal love and impartial sympathy, but only until some portion of mankind clashes and conflicts with a portion he particularly loves. Then his partiality and sympathy comes to the fore and he becomes what Dr. Johnson called a “good hater.
.
.
Social sympathy for portions of mankind likewise entails social antipathy for other portions of mankind, since sympathy answers the question, which side are you on? If you sympathize with one side in a conflict, you necessarily hope, and pray, and possibly work to defeat, confound and destroy the other side. We must never forget that sympathy has this Janus face: on one side the gentle smile of commiseration, on the other side the bare fangs of attack.
This means that benevolence necessarily entails malevolence, and benevolent malevolence is precisely what Dr. Johnson meant by “good hate.” Benevolent malevolence is the ill will that is borne by men of good will, it is hate in the service of love…”
But Read on MacDuffs… like all Orthosphere posts, Things Get Complicated… and involved in cogitations as to why Our Hatred is better than Their Hatred and the well-understood observation that the more abstract the Good, the more vicious and unreasoning hatred the lovers of said abstraction feel for those who love it not.
At which point, your humble servant simply activates his patent Who Whom Device 🙂
New York is explicitly using racial/ethnic criteria for monoclonal antibodies. Basically you can’t get the treatment unless you’re black or Hispanic.
Meanwhile my employer has decided to require a booster by the end of January in order to remain employed. Never mind that the jabs evidently do nothing (or less than nothing) to prevent the spread. I’m trying to decide how to respond. I’m tempted to let them know that I’m getting the booster only under duress, with the implicit threat that any complications will put them in hot water. They are going beyond the illegal city mandate that allows for a testing option and only requires vaccination, not boosters (at least as of now).
1995 Calling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnhpeDWZJow
Dr Oz’s star power does worry me, I am sure he is a Leftist, I like Kathy Barnett so we will see how much traction she can get.
Re: Speakers
Zaphod:
I went with the small KEF Q150 Bookshelf Speakers ($359 on Amazon) with a Fosi 100w x 2 Bluetooth amp ($79).
I’m impressed at the power of cheap amps these days. The last receiver I had was a Sony with 55w x 2 power, yet cost around $250 in 2000. It was a “home theater” system so it had more features plus phono input, but still.
I’ll see how the speakers work out on my work table. If I like, I might buy a bigger KEF set for the living room.
Good job Huxley. Was wondering how things were panning out.
Can I suggest that at a later date you consider dispensing with Bluetooth. Bluetooth audio codecs are not great mostly due to inherent bandwidth limitations.
Could plug this thing:
https://www.amazon.com/FiiO-E10K-Headphone-Amplifier-Black/dp/B00LP3AMC2/ref=sr_1_4?crid=2QWRVWNFTB4HT&keywords=desktop+dac&qid=1641089435&sprefix=desktop+da%2Caps%2C314&sr=8-4
into USB port on your computer and then Line Out from it hooks to Line In on your new amp.
Not the greatest desktop DAC/Amp and you could google around to find others for similar price and compare reviews. But a cheapish way to dip toe in the water and see if it sounds better to you than the Bluetooth connection. Should do so with ripped CD bitrate audio — maybe not with mp3 files.
(One highly regarded company which sells US-made DACs starting about $100 is Schiit (sic) Audio)
There’s a guy called Currawong on YouTube who reviews headphone audiophile gear and one of his reviews I watched recently was of a sub-$100 DAC which he says is better than something selling for $1000+ 10 years back. So bang for buck has spiked in other areas of the hi-fi world, too. Me like!
@Huxley:
PS: This is a very nice cheap desktop DAC, too. Very highly regarded manufacturer. Unlike the other one, won’t let you plug headphones in.
https://www.amazon.com/Topping-ES9038Q2M-OPA2134-Amplifier-Decoder/dp/B08F54TT79/
Zaphod – “Read on, Macduff” – that was cute. 🙂 But you didn’t continue into the next scene….
Jimmy, I know it can seem that way based on the hype that some sites are giving that announcement, but if it’s any consolation, that’s only true in the context of being White with no co-morbidities. (The announcement uses the term ‘risk factors,’ but I think that’s what it’s referring to.) Thus, if one is White but has a co-morbidity to deal with, then the door is still open to get the treatment in question. In other words, it’s just Whites in general reasonable health who are supposedly going to be shut out.
(I’m starting to miss Prince Andy already… God forgive me……)
Zaphod:
I’m aware of Bluetooth audio limitations. I mainly got the Fosi amp for its compact size. I didn’t want to put my old Sony receiver on my work table.
While speakers/amp are on the table, I’ll use the headphone lineout from the computer. The Bluetooth option was cheap and I wanted to keep it open for situations I want to go wireless — mainly to keep cords off the floor.
Are these DACs significantly better than a standard Windows box audio out?
There’s much I don’t know about this level.
it’s just Whites in general reasonable health who are supposedly going to be shut out.
Thanks, I stand (partially) corrected. In practice, however, since any black or Hispanic, even those in good health, will get put in the same pool as whites with serious comorbidities, that adds a lot of patients for a scarce resource, so it’s likely there will be more deserving whites who will be unable to get the treatment. Why should a perfectly healthy black or Hispanic get the same priority as a white with, say, diabetes?
This is the statement I was responding to, as tweeted:
https://twitter.com/NAChristakis/status/1476753802439053329
No matter how you slice it, they are using race and ethnicity as criteria to allocate a lifesaving resource.
Zaphod:
You quote:
Attack doesn’t necessarily mean you want to destroy the other side, it means you want to defeat it. Unless you’re talking about total war, it certainly doesn’t mean what that quote says it means.
Same for “bare fangs of attack.” When I argue with people on subjects I don’t have “bare fangs of attack” except in extraordinary circumstances, and I tend to win arguments.
Sometimes destroying an enemy is necessary (WWII Nazis, for example). But it’s certainly not always part of defeating another side. Not all opponents are enemies, and not all conflicts are wars.
Senior year of high school (1981-82) I was in the stage play of Dandelion Wine, although for the life of me I can’t remember which part I played, other than it wasn’t one of the main three. Our theater was being renovated so we had to put it on in the library, which kinda sucked, but we staged it with all the actors seated stage rear under a canopy with heads down, so that when they entered the story they metaphorically woke up out of the mists of memory.
Most memorable about it to me was that the day of auditions I was having a particularly bad allergy attack and completely forgot and went home on the bus, and then our drama coach called me up that evening and offered me the part anyway (I was in or adjacent to every single play we did for four years, including some leads, so she knew what I could do well enough).
@Neo:
“Not all opponents are enemies, and not all conflicts are wars.”
Yes. I can agree with you on that if I get out of my bed on the right side in the morning.
But what if there exists a class of people called, say, Progressives who do not subscribe to that viewpoint? And you do. What happens in the long run?
Now I know that’s the same ‘argument’ used by the Climate Change Fanatics to push their urgent schemes… Still… I’ve got more confidence my belief in where I think the Left is inexorably heading than their belief in Gaia being in mortal danger.
@Philip Sells:
A Zaphod Precis comes with zero warranties as to fitness, correctness, or coherence. Reader discretion is advised. MacDuff notwithstanding, it’s just occurred to me that the Bard is dangerously nuanced and it’s past time to become acquainted with Vicious Kit Marlowe whom I’ve never read a single word of.
@Huxley:
“Are these DACs significantly better than a standard Windows box audio out”
https://youtu.be/J_lEs4FYkhs?t=134
Recommend “The Jew of Malta”…
You’ll love it!
(Leaves poor old Shylock in the dust.)
There is another “z” word at play here, zealotry, xenophobia doesnt count, except with hand grenades or H-bombs. This ain’t Scrable® or its precursor Anagrams.
@BarryMeislin:
I was sorta kinda hoping you’d step right up and whack the Piñata in just the right spot.
Happy New year, BTW!
@om:
“This ain’t Scrable® or its precursor Anagrams.”
Don’t forget Gematria!
Many thanks.
And a great 2022 2 U 2!
(Happy, healthy, prosperous, exciting, loving…well, you get the idea….)
https://youtu.be/J_lEs4FYkhs?t=134
Zaphod:
I confess I don’t quite believe Sally.