Intro
This is another of the W.O.O.D. series of semi-regular
Weekly Occasional Open Discussions.
(i.e. if I forget and skip one, no big)
Immediate prior one here:
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2018/04/09/w-o-o-d-9-april-2018/
and remains open for threads running there
(at least until the ‘several month’ auto-close of comments on stale threads).
Canonical list of old ones here:
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/category/w-o-o-d/
So use “Tips” for “Oooh, look at the interesting ponder thing!”
and “W.O.O.D” for “Did you see what just happened?! What did you think about it?”
What’s Going On?
Weather
Still cold. We’ve had the coldest April EVER in a lot of places, and a very slow start to Spring Planting across the Midwest and even frost down in Texas. California has been wet and dreary, though we did get sun the last couple of days (at last).
North Korea
Little Kim wants to declare victory and get money. Trump will set him straight. Speculation is that their last test was unexpectedly large (perhaps trying for a hydrogen bomb) and accidentally destroyed their testing area, so now they are saying they will voluntarily dismantle it. I’d believe that before thinking the psychopath has become peaceful.
Markets
Still in a negative pattern. Inverted SMA stack. Price bouncing off to the downside (but news gets excited on up days) and the indicators still “red on top” and stay out land. “Blame” laid on the last bad news or Trump, whichever is more eye catching.
The Swamp Looking Dry
We had Gohmert light Mueller’s reputation on fire and Comey put out a book to demonstrate he really was anti-Trump and out to get him the whole time and broke laws in the process. Fox and Hannity look to be reporting on it, the rest of the Yellow Stream Media firmly fingers in ears chanting something:
~”Hey Hey HO HO, Hell NO We don’t wanna Know!”…
Global Trends
Macron of France wanted to be Trump’s Best Buddy, until he was talking to other forums. Managed to look both like a petty sycophant and a posturing puppet all in the same week.
The Royal’s popped another one. Cute Kid, but now Harry is something like 5 from the throne. He’s going to marry a very cute commoner Real Soon Now. But, of course, the Big Question is will the Daft Charles manage to live long enough to outlive Mum and become a King For A Day or maybe a whole year; and how much damage could he do in that time? Hopefully fate finds a way for him to be skipped ( Elizabeth! You Go Girl! I know you can make it to 100!)
Fishing
The weather is at last getting around to something like fishing weather. I’m thinking maybe I’ll run over to the pier and practice some Ocean Fishing again. It’s been a long while.
Don’t know how much different Pacific vs Atlantic ocean fishing might be, but what with our water being about 45 F and Florida closer to 85 F, I’m figuring “Very”…
I’m thinking I might need to make a little fishing book. List what I ought to try to catch on both shores. What baits, what tackle, what methods. Maybe even practice some fish identification.
Musings from the Chiefio 
Re: Fishing – ever heard of ice fishing? :-) It is always fishing season!
re: Harry – Last I heard, he was now #6, so well out of the danger zone. So he can marry who he wants. But then there is the Duke of Windsor scandal. I guess that is why the UK maintains its monarchy. On slow news days, there is always something to print.
re: NK – Nice touch on Kim walking south and then inviting Moon to walk north with him. But as you insinuate, lots of show and very little there there.
Re. Swamp: It’s not dry at all. The last year has been spent feeling around in the muck on the bottom for the drain plug. We’ll know the plug has been found and pulled when the indictments and arrests start flowing.
Re. Fishing: You might want to keep an eye out at garage sales, Craigslist, or e-bay for some used heavy saltwater gear. New; if you look at combos, you can get a rod’reel combo consisting of a Penn 309M reel, which will hold a goodly amount of 100# test braid or 80# mono, paired with a heavy or extra-heavy action rod of about 6-1/2′ to 7′ for about $100. It’s essentially an inexpensive winch and crane. I got one of those combos for $89 and I’ve been very pleased with it.
When you go to the pier hook, a BIG chunk of cut bait or a nice live baitfish on a 9/0 or 10/0 hook and drop it over the side ( the Penn 309M will cast a little bit, but just enough to get 20-30 feet from the pier). Tie it off with a strip of t-shirt or clothesline so it doesn’t go over while you are actively fishing with a lighter rod for whatever eating fish are common at the pier.
Check local regulations for thresher shark. I have been hoping to get one in the 50-100 pound range. Thresher shark steaks are the best fish I have ever had on the grill. I bought them a few times at fish markets and I have been trying to catch one ever since I started saltwater fishing. No luck so far, but that’s one fish that I will be keeping.
Stingrays with about a 24″ span are also excellent eating, which came up on this very blog about two years ago. Can’t recall who mentioned it. Since I found that out, I haven’t caught a single eating-size stingray; only a couple over 50 pounds. Your blog may may be more widely read than you thought. Check for any IP addresses coming from the Atlantic Ocean and posting under the name RayInSouthCarolina 😜
@Phil:
I’ve heard of ice fishing… but never quite understood it… I’m not that desperate to fish that I’d sit in a frozen outhouse for hours trying to not get frostbite…
BTW, I love the scandal that Polite Society is trying desperately to ignore that Harry is marrying someone with some Black African ancestry. Just sooo fun to watch ’em squirm. I think he’s got the right idea (basically, “Have you taken a look at her? She’s a 10+, and with a nice personality too!”) The two of them are a great couple and clearly smitten with each other. Everything else is irrelevant. Well, almost irrelevant… that it gets some folks nose out of joint is a bit fun ;-)
And that, at least theoretically, it will put some African genes on the path to the Monarchy, well, that’s a nice nose tweak too ;-)
@H.R.:
Yeah, I likely ought to have said “drier” or “slightly drying”… not dry. More like a blow torch being applied to the top of a 1000 foot lake… It IS drying, for some degree of drying…
I’ve actually got a couple of nice salt water poles in the garage. From my ONE commercial outing where I caught 3 or 4 really nice salmon and ended up puking for the next 6 hours… so no need for yard sales, just digging in the garage…
I’ll try the two poles big bait thing.
Rays & Sharks, eh? I know that for shark you need to prep and cook fast or it starts to give off ammonia (very strange metabolism). Delicious the first day, inedible a couple later.
So is a 50 lb ray too big or too small?
Now that I’m committed to the T-Mobile hot spot, I can be blogging while fishing ;-) Hmmm… that has potential ;-)
Friends do not let friends fish and blog. :-)
My thought on ice fishing ;-)
I think I just found a reason to go Ice Fishing ;-)
(Though if I lived in a place where water was frozen I’d likely be more involved. Not a lot of ice fishing in California and Florida… Though with more Chicago Winter visits for the future, I think it is a skill set I may need to learn… )
Korean initial Armistices/peace agreement signed today.
It would appear that the new Emperor of China Xi gave little Un a real talking to while Un was is Beijing.. MAKE PEACE NOW! or else. Trump said that “Play time” was over. Maybe this time they will produce a different ending to this story.
The north is broke, starving and It’s military is hollowed out. The Nuclear and missile programs have exhausted it’s government. So maybe Un has decided to advance in a different direction…pg
@E.M.: The small stingrays are the ones for the pot. Apparently, somehow😜 word got out to the small stingrays that I was after them. I think they read your blog. Anyhow, there are prep instructions and recipes online. I was telling my son about the stingrays being edible and it turns out that he had eaten stingray while in Hong Kong. It’s much like scallops, he said.
Good to hear you’re good to go with some heavy gear. For higher strength lines (50# and up), I switched from mono to braided line a couple of years ago. There is no stretch so the feel of the bottom and small bites is incredible. Also, the finer diameter doesn’t get pushed around in the water as much, so your bait stays where you put it, or if the tide is running strong, your line doesn’t move as much.
You have to tie off on a reel a bit differently and use different knots, but all the braided line I have bought came with instructions about the knots and tying onto the reel. The makers don’t want unhappy customers. The only negative I’ve found is breaking off if my rig is hung up. Pack a short piece of 2×2 to loop the line around for pulling. You cannot use your hands, even with gloves. The line will cut deeply into bare hands and is painful even with gloves.
I’ve had no desire to go ice fishing except in Minnesota. They have thick safe ice for many months so they tow out cabins with beds,recliner chairs, porta-potties, TVs (gotta watch those MN Vikings on Sunday), potbellied stoves, microwave ovens and any other luxuries they can think of. Some are used by families as a winter weekend get-away home. Now that’s my idea of ice fishing!
@ossqss: That picture made my day!
I’m still not much of an ice fisherman, though. My cocktail of choice is a Bombay Sapphire gin martini with one olive, up (yes shaken, not stirred). I suppose the one olive might qualify as spear fishing, though 😁
@H.R.:
I grew up on braided line, only moving to monofilament some time later when Dad decided he could work with it after all. He didn’t like the way new heavy monofilament would try to ‘go straight’ on open face reels making a tangle on / after a cast, nor how it would sometimes tangle on a regular reel. Later one that was left unused for a while had conformed to tight circles and he decided it was OK. But still even after that about 1/2 of our gear was mono and 1/2 not.
IIRC I’ve got 80# kevlar on the heavy one (with the little pulley at the tip…). Either that or 60#… Incredible stuff and almost as good as steel for abrasion (just not shark teeth…) And yes, impossible to pull free without something very hard… Also must have nippers or a knife to do any tying and trimming… Yet it looks more like a 20# braided in diameter.. and thinner than 20# mono… If you’ve not tried it, do!
I’ve gotten in the habit of inserting a short length of mono after the swivel and before the end tackle, just so it can be pulled free from snags. The first few I did without that, had the swivel snap pull open… Cheaper to put a length of something about 20# to 50# between the swivel and the end… Mono when fishing for smaller stuff, or some regular braid when going heavier. I’ll often just make up the end tackle on it, and have a loop on the end for the swivel. Have not had to re-tie the end of the kevlar nor replace the end swivel in years now ;-) (Hooks and weights not so much… )
@P.G. & Larry:
I suspect Trump told China “Straighten him out or there WILL be a nuclear war on your border as we stamp them out. You “fix” him, you keep N.K. as your satrap. You don’t, there will be one unified Korea”.
Now that might be nothing but an opening trade ploy, or might not. It only works if it isn’t clear what you really intend…
Then I think it is true that the oversized BOOM! destroyed much of their underground test complex, so Un gets a “free giveaway”… and is told he can run a Filthy Rich N.K. in a couple of decades and go down in history as the great man peacemaker, or be a smoking cinder… and decided to “Declare Victory” and make peace (with assurances from China that they would keep Trump at bay and likely with Trump having told the Chinese that if they cool out Un, Trump would like to haul home most of the military we have stuck there…)
IMHO, the Big Reveal will come in June when the “phased disarmament” starts to show the shape of things…
I often find it amusing that talking heads demand to know your bottom line in negotiations so that They can publish them to your opposition so they can under cut your position. Politicians and bureaucrats might be so stupid as to fall for that. A professional negotiator would never disclose his fall back position. And NEVER tell them that you have to get a deal! No deal is better then a bad deal. Let them think you will walk out and demand far better terms the next time. That is how the Armistice was forced on NK back in 1953…pg
@p.g.sharrow, who wrote in part:
“I often find it amusing that talking heads demand to know your bottom line […]”
You hit my hot button there. The YSM also want our battle plans, troop withdrawal dates, targets and everything any enemy would want to know so they can publish it on the friggin’ front page of their newspaper or broadcast it on the evening news!
WTF?!?! Might as well just line our troops up and walk them in a line in front of the enemy like targets in a shooting gallery.
I am so glad we now have General Mattis (“Everybody you meet, have a plan to kill them.” and “Nothing keeps me awake at night. I keep other people awake at night.”) and President Trump (“You’ll find out my plans when the enemy finds out.”).
“But, but, but… everyone wants to know! It’s NEWS!” Yeah, well… loose lips sink ships and there are some things nobody needs to know until after they have happened.
It comes out that the YSM really does want America to fail. There is no other explanation. Traitors all!
@E.M.: Sounds like you are all set to go. What are some of the piers you might use to fish? I search fishing videos of piers that I might fish to look at bait, tackle, and techniques.
I mostly look for techniques, even knowing I will never fish a particular pier. That’s how I learned about balloon fishing and “zip line” fishing, which I haven’t tried yet.
Zip line fishing is where you use a lighter pole that will cast a mile and it only has a weight on the end. You cast that out to just beyond where you want your bait to be. Then you put a clothespin with a wire loop on it on the light line, clip your heavier rigged line onto that and let it slid down the “zip line” until your bait is on or near the surface where you want it to be. When the targeted species hits (I think it’s usually Silver King mackerel), it pulls your line from the clothespin and the fight is on. I think you get a fishing buddy or a passer by to reel in the “zip line” so it doesn’t get tied up in your fighting line. I’m just assuming that.
Anyhow, if you don’t mind, I’d like to know a few of the piers you might hit so I can check out the videos. Mrs. H.R. and I will be taking our trailer out west – maybe a 5-6 month grand tour – and I might actually hit up one of those piers. Of course by then, you and Mrs. Smith will probably be in Florida, which would be a bit of amusing irony. Ships passing in the night and all that.
The media does the same stupid Sh*t on criminal investigations.
No ma’am I have no intention of telling you if is Senator xyz is a confidential informant (what part of the word confidential don’t you understand?), a suspect or a person of interest, do you think I am that stupid? Investigations are confidential until you file the warrant for a reason.
Next stupid question?
Are Liberals deliberately stupid or traitors? Well there is no cure for stupid and being a traitor is a learned behavior. Does that mean that they are highly educated stupid people. ;-) ?
Educated way beyond their intelligence…pg
@H.R.:
One of my favorites is the one in Santa Cruz, but mostly as they have some good shopping / restaurants / bars on it so the spouse has something she likes and I can get a beer ;-) It also has an amusement park on shore so kids could be kept entertained (back when…). You can see it in the background of one of the photos in the link.
http://www.cityofsantacruz.com/government/city-departments/parks-recreation/facilities/santa-cruz-wharf
I go to the fat part where there is more parking. There’s a fee to park, and it fills up on weekends. Then it’s possible to park ashore and hike out the pier, though it’s a walk. One guy I met (when walking in once) was fishing more at the inner serf line nearer shore. Had caught some kind of large flatfish. Flounder? A few feet across… Plus surf perch.
It tends to be a bit crowded with tourists (mostly not fishing) especially on weekends (summer weekends it can be near impossible to cross from San Jose through the hills to Santa Cruz on 17. (Go south to 152 W at Gilroy instead, then work up the coast on Hwy 1).) Great drive and lots more interesting places. Monterey has fishing too, but I usually don’t go that far south – to take a commercial boat, it’s the place to go, though.
https://www.monterey.org/Services/Harbor-and-Marina/Fishermans-Wharf-and-Wharf-II
I think there are other piers between those two, but I’ve never managed to look ;-)
This claims to be the complete list:
http://www.pierfishing.com/resources/?id=california_fishing_piers
Of them in addition to the top two, I’ve done:
Nice pier, caught fun small stuff. Wasn’t fishing for big. Berkeley, Ca.
http://www.pierfishing.com/resources/index.php?id=piers:berkeley_pier
Dumbarton (east side of San Francisco bay):
http://www.pierfishing.com/resources/index.php?id=piers:dumbarton_pier
What is supposed to be one of the best, Pacifica (south of San Francisco):
http://www.pierfishing.com/resources/index.php?id=piers:pacifica_pier
I may have fished one or two others, but I’m not sure. I’d often just pull over somewhere and fish while driving around… Then I had my boat and I’d just putter up near things and fish… all inside the bay, but lots of places. Fun to catch baby sharks there ;-) Near east shore, Tigers (I think) about 3 feet long, some smaller. You can catch big ones in the middle bay channels, but then you have to deal with big teeth and “attitude” ;-)
I’ve not been to this one, it is between Monterey and Santa Cruz, but it’s supposed to be good:
http://www.pierfishing.com/resources/index.php?id=piers:seacliff_state_beach_pier
There’s also a bunch of regular docks and piers you can fish from if nobody’s looking ;-)
Be aware, the bay smelt (giant minnow) are fun to catch, but usually have worms in them; so a bit unappetizing when you find one on your plate… so don’t cook them if you are squeamish…
http://www.pierfishing.com/fish_of_the_month/02-98.html
Hope that’s what you were looking for. Oh, and FWIW, I’ve not fished in Southern California. Trips down there were always with family for some purpose and the idea of watching Dad fish for a few hours wasn’t “interesting” to them ;-) Supposed to be some pretty good warm species fishing down around San Diego. ( I’ll expect a trip report ;-)
Trump Michigan rally (counter point to the Washington Correspondents dinner event in Washington)
http://rsbnetwork.com/2018/04/watch-live-president-donald-trump-holds-campaign-style-rally-in-washington-mi/
Trump coverage starts at 3:12
President Trump is really relaxed in his presentation, he is starting to enjoy this job and getting his stride. You can see he gets his batteries recharged at these public appearances.
@E.M.: Thanks for the rundown on fishing piers in your neck of the woods. I will be searching videos to watch. That will give me quite a few hours of fun.
@Larry: That rally was amazing. One thing I noticed is that he mentioned “short term pain for long term gain” at least twice. President Trump is doing a bit of managing expectations there. His plans will disrupt prices and markets as we transition from imports to domestic suppliers.
I’m thinking the mental health office isn’t going to see a huge spike in business.
“University of Texas to Treat Masculinity as a ‘Mental Health’ Issue”
https://pjmedia.com/trending/university-of-texas-to-treat-masculinity-as-a-mental-health-issue/
A bit of good news (for a change).
“The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit overturned a lower court on Friday to allow a Texas voter ID law to remain in place in a case that could be a major breakthrough for conservative anti-voter fraud efforts.”
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/04/28/appeals-court-upholds-texas-voter-id-law/
@H.R.:
Oh, and note that at Santa Cruz pier there’s a place where various marine mammals can haul out under the pier. This means there’s often a problem with seals ( I think they are seals) stealing caught fish. If you catch a good one, don’t play with it too much, real it in and haul it up as expeditiously as possible. I think this is a seasonal issue, but did see one guy real in the front 1/8 of what had been a very nice fish… as a happy seal was poking his head up asking “Sir, might I have more?”…
@Jim2:
Yeah, I’m not seeing guys lining up for that one either…
Though that court ruling looks interesting, we’ll need to see what the next court up does next…
Fascinating read over at CTH – https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/04/29/the-prequel-understanding-lisa-page-and-peter-strzok/
Basically the Page/Strozk texts provide strong evidence of the existence of the deep state. Where the will of the people is subverted to the ideals of a “ruling” class. And that is more disturbing than the Clinton scandal.
I have a heads-up. I live in a red suburb around a blue city. We recently had city/county elections. I got a letter from the Redimowits stating that Dimowits have organized and are running candidates in an attempt to gain control of local governments. After reading each candidates election blurb, I saw they were correct. Election before this, the liberals gained some ground because there was little conservative interest in local elections. I’m guilty. So, this time around I voted. The liberals had slipped in some propositions, such as making all city documents gender-neutral. Not worth the money in my book :) But, if you haven’t been paying attention to local elections, you might want to rethink that – especially if you are in a red district.
@Phil:
THE most disturbing thing out of this whole mess (starting with the Global Warming Scam, and it IS a scam, then on to the EU blackmailing the UK over Brexit and some of the UK politicians joining in; including the discovery that “Trade Treaties” are not about trade but about Green Handcuffs; and then ending with the Chorus Of Unanimity about Hillary vs Trump) has been the “in your face” and undeniable presence of Some Globalist Agency.
Now I can’t quite say (yet) just what that Agency is. It keeps showing bits in increasingly more disbursed areas. ( I knew Obama had stuff a few True Believers into the FBI, I had no idea they had done a full on purge and replace…)
We’ve seen at least ONE Grand Puppeteer in the background (Soros) and hints of others at the UN (blanking on the name but the guy who got AGW rolling and then moved to China…). Is the rest of the gang the Bilderbergers? I have no idea. But I do know that it looks that way. Is there a clear and efficient communications process? Absolutely. Just look at the way the “Story” turns on a dime and is 100% the same across the nation (and usually Globe) in all media ON THE SAME DAY. Remember when Black Lives Matter popped up out of nowhere, then almost as fast disappeared from the nightly “news” once the election was over to be instantly replaced with the Bimbo Eruption Du Jour? Then we had Mueller and it’s All Russia Evil All The Time.
Then we’ve got physical evidence now in the email trove, the Strozk / Page stuff, and a few more; of outright collusion inside agencies, with the approval of superiors. Then there’s the less physical but just as real evidence of “collusion via action or in-action” where Hillary and Friends NEVER EVER get in trouble despite OBVIOUS and UNDENIABLE CRIMES. Just OMG in your face.
It has been the journey from calling such things “crazy talk conspiracy theory” to realizing they are in fact how our governance is presently running that has been most difficult for me to accept, and internalize. I think the big moment for me came when I read the Agenda 21 web pages ON THE UN SERVER and then saw it in action in my home town, the State and other places on the planet. Then the slam dunk proof was Hillary doing things that would get me 20 years in prison and walking. The “insult to injury” was CNN giving her the questions, and then the rest of the “competitor” news saying not a damn thing.
So now I’m quite certain there is a “ruling elite”, never elected, not working in the interests of We The People, who have corrupted damn near every level of governments around the globe, most agencies of education and communications, and are not even being careful to keep it from being seen. Definitely leveraging lots of NGOs and so called “charities” too.
What to do about it? I don’t know. I’m still coming to grips with just how pervasive the outright lying and deception has become. At the moment, Trump is my only real hope something will be fixed / exposed. But one man against most of the most powerful of the world is just not a long term viable strategy…
New addition #30 out now EM. It is real and it is happening right in front of us. Call it Deep State or what ever you want. It is what it is folks.
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld
Can you say Communist Party? International? Head quarters moved to San Francisco, California after the collapse of The Soviet Union. When George Soros manager for Eastern European money in the 1980s when only the communist party in Eastern Europe controlled the money? .
Remember Joe McCarthy & Richard Nixon of the 1950s, the John Burch Society, they were all correct! My Godmother was a Burch’er in the 60s and 70s, I had a front row seat as the communists were given control of the California Education System in a sell out by the Pat Brown family and the Democratic Party at the end of the 1950s. I was there when the Ecoloons sold out to the communists in the early1970s for funding to break the back of Nuclear Power in America and force the use of “Green Power” and scuttle the completion of the Central Valley Project to provide cheap renewable water and power for the state. All this was a deliberate “death by a thousand cuts” effort to cripple the only real super power in the world by the “International” party.
There is not a person that directs this show. This is a Socialist movement that began with Sir. Thomas More (7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535) and his book “Utopia”. A contemporary of Nostradamus who wrote that in this time the “Philosophy of More” would be thoroughly discredited…pg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_More
Watching this whole replay on Comedy Central, but can only provide this as a precurser of what was to come. They abused him, and his family in this roast, but he came back strong! LOL
It is asked, how do we fix this?
It is up to us to fix this! We are many. They are few but, They are organized and practiced.
BUT! We have this amazing tool “The Net That Covers The World” They can no longer hide. They no longer control all communication. Today anyone can communicate their knowledge and thoughts to anyone else all over the world in their native language, and the net never forgets. Once published the information can not be erased. Trump leads the way in bypassing the YSM and communicating directly to the people. The Liberal Progressive media is foaming at the mouth at being side stepped by Trump Twits. Today you can publish and televise world wide for little cost. just do it! The tools are at hand, here and now…pg
Odd you should say that about “televise world wide”. While YouTube censors, near as I can tell, Roku does not. Then there is a provider of facilities to make an “instant” TV channel.
http://www.instanttvchannel.com/
They have a free option where it looks like they take a cut of the Roku ad $, and a (cheap) paid version.
I’ve thought of making a channel, but the idea of making a few hundred hours (or even just few dozen hours) of quality video is a bit overwhelming. Not sure what I’d have to say, let alone show!
But yeah, you want to make a global tv channel, it can be near instant and near free. Just need to attract audience ;-)
I’ve seen several Roku channels with their logo at launch, so they are real.
@Jim2: Same for me; living in red-ish burbs around a blue city. Another thing to watch for is Democrats running as conservatives. The radio ads have been heavy for our primaries coming up in May and they all point out that they are “conservative.”
Over at The Conservative Treehouse, a couple of commenters posted links (I don’t have them at hand) to a Democrat plan to take over the house so they can impeach President Trump. It seems there is a coordinated effort to get Dem, ex-military on local and congressional ballots running as “conservatives.” So study candidates carefully this year before pulling the lever.
@E.M. who wrote: “It has been the journey from calling such things “crazy talk conspiracy theory” to realizing they are in fact how our governance is presently running that has been most difficult for me to accept, and internalize.”
It’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you.😜
General Comment; to add to a conversation about home brewing that went on here a few months ago.
My neighbor, his brother, and my neighbor’s nephew were having a brew-session in his garage last Saturday. He invited my son and me over to see how it was done. They were set up to brew 25 gallons of IPA. They have been doing this for years; the neighbor’s brother and nephew even grow their own hops!
I did get a good cost out of the session, which was between $0.60/12oz bottle for lagers and up to $1.30/12oz bottle for complex IPAs. The neighbor and his brother each had a 10-gallon set-up and the nephew had a 5-gallon set-up. The IPAs they were brewing costed out to $1.10/12oz bottle. Their brews compare in quality to the specialty brews you’d pay around $6.00-$8.00/22oz bottle in your local specialty beer store or grocery store.
My son and I learned a lot about hops, developing flavor profiles, and tips to avoid ruining a batch of home brew. I would tell you the different brews they were making except part of the process required drinking up the remaining stock from their kegs so there would be room for the new brews, so I have forgotten some of the details. 🍺🍺🍺😁
Before they acquired their own brewing equipment, they went to a place about a 1-hour drive from our house. The shop sells home-brewing equipment and ingredients, but they also have equipment set up where you can brew larger batches. I’m not sure of the cost to use their equipment, but it wasn’t so much as to make your home brews cost ineffective. The neighbor recommended that my son and I make a few batches there before investing in any equipment.
Saturday was an interesting, fun, tasty day and I didn’t have to drive home, thank goodness! His garage is about 70 yards from my garage.🚶
@HR; link to internet supplier of brew equipment and supplies
https://www.morebeer.com
I have brewed just about everything but beer, The one thing that I prefer to drink! Some day I just got to do this….pg
Also note that the Mr. Beer, despite being incredibly simple, is effective.
It is very small batches and uses plastic screw cap bottles, but still it works. I’ve made more in my Mr. Beer than I have in my 5 gallon glass carboy… mostly just because it is quick, easy, and doesn’t need much room (can be set in the corner of the desk and left to run…)
THE one thing that it took me a while to accept, is that fermenting stuff is NOT as picky nor difficult as all the paranoids would have you think. Yes, it’s good to sterilize things and all… BUT: Do you think the Egyptians in 2000 BC were using fermentation locks, carboys, and sterilizing solutions? How about the Celts of 4000 BC? How about the GIs of W.W.I and W.W.II making “hooch” in whatever they could find, or the folks during the Prohibition fermenting things in bathtubs? “Jungle Juice” makers?
The simple fact is that you take some kind of juice or grain slurry, add yeast, and wait: You will get something fermented to drink. The rest is just details…
(Remember that even today, Belgian beers are made where the “distinctive character” comes from throwing open the big doors of the brewery and letting wild yeasts float in on the wind… to land on the wort and start the ferment.)
So I’d suggest starting with a $50 Mr. Beer, or just an old jug.
Looking at the Mr. Beer, the keg has a little ‘notch’ in the rim; so that the lid can’t get a full seal when tightened down. I’ve used this information to make apple jack in the original gallon jug. Just leave the lid unscrewed by about 1/4 to 1/2 turn. That’s your “fermentation lock”. So take the lid off, pitch the yeast (it is already sterile in the jug), screw the cap back down, then back it off 1/4 turn. Wait. It will froth up and bubble a lot, then eventually go quiet. At that point you can bottle or drink, depending on the need for Jungle Juice vs fizzy cider… (FWIW, I find that pouring out a glass or two of the juice prior to pitching the yeast gives more headroom for foam and less likelyhood of foam reaching the lid… )
Or if you know you really like doing this, buy the whole real kit up front…
@p.g.: The guys made their brewing equipment from used kegs that they got… free! They used a turkey fryer burner for the heat source. For their current equipment, they have just a little over $100 in it; SS valves, fryer burner; SS thermometer threaded to fit the the small tap opening. There’s a little metalworking involve as they used a sawzall to cut a 12-14″ diameter plug out of the top, which they then screwed about an 1-1/2″ strip of aluminum extended around the edge to make the lid.
When I was a kid, a family friend who came from Holland after the war, used an old wringer washer for brewing. I can’t recall the heat source. He didn’t care too much for American beers. I told the guys that story and they are ready to start haunting estate sales for old wringer washers. The washers already have a drain and a lid so they should be good to go after stripping the wringer and anything else in the way.
For a different flavor profile, you could run a load of laundry instead of hops through the batch before draining. I’m sure winter socks brew tastes completely different from summer socks plus one pair of briefs brew. 😆😆
@E.M.: To my surprise, these guys weren’t too concerned about contamination except at two points; they used a one-step cleaner on their brewing tanks and their fermentation jugs. They were careful to protect their yeast by opening the packet immediately before dumping it in. Their concern was contamination from other yeasts from other batches that would give them a flavor totally different from what they were shooting for. They had homemade copper chilling coils that they just hosed down with the garden sprayer before use and other points in the process where they just weren’t too concerned about airborne contaminants.
Oh, your, “ferment anything” comment reminded me of a girl I dated in High School. Their family tradition was to make their own holiday punch. They had an old 5-gallon pottery crock in the basement. At Thanksgiving they’d pour in one bottle of brandy, blackberry IIRC, and then add fruits. I really don’t know, but fresh fruits were more limited back then so I’d guess they used sliced oranges, some pineapple, maybe some canned fruits like tart cherries and peaches. They’d let that sit in the basement with some cheesecloth over the crock until Christmas. Then they would serve the fruit punch either straight up for the adults or cut with some 7-up for the younger ones. It was quite tasty and had a fair kick!
Bears get drunk on naturally fermented berries as they are gorging to hibernate, so nature is not all that picky either.
On the political front we have this interesting item on twitter:
Tim Pool
@Timcast
25 minutes ago
A new Poll from Reuters shows that among millennials support for the Democrats is waning while support for Republicans is increasing.
This is especially true among white male millennials.
Tim Pool on trends for the younger generations regarding support for Democrats or Republicans
meanwhile we have this backlash to Kanye West’s positive comments about Trump and his disgust with the left’s insistence that blacks should be Democrats, and just because you are black you should not be a Republican.
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2018/04/30/kanye-west-trump-daz-dillinger-crip/
Commentary on UT Austin’s anti-masculinity counseling program:
Interesting item on Zerohedge about population aging in China.
They may have shot themselves in the foot with the one child policy as their population rapidly ages faster than other industrial nations.
Are they just a canary in the coal mine for other low birth rate industrial nations?
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-04-30/no-longer-reversible-chinas-low-fertility-rate-and-birth-restrictions-set-stage
@Jim2:
That video and that guy are a real hoot and a holler!
I predict their “masculinity as mental disorder” will appeal to women who want men to be “women with a penis” and to Gay Guys who don’t want to feel like they are not masculine (even when they are not…) It certainly isn’t going to appeal to the men I know… (Well, except for the 2 gay guys…)
@Larry:
“Demographics is Destiny”. China has a big demographic problem and there is nothing they can do to stop it.
Another item on demographics and their implacable pressure in this case France and the forces of immigration changing the country.
https://voiceofeurope.com/2018/04/modern-day-france-replaces-churches-with-mosques/
The “old Europe” we grew up with is gone. The only question is how it finally dies,does it become a ballconized nation subject to continuous friction between groups with limited common ground, or some mongrel new nation with a blending of cultures, or will the old French just be quietly bred out of existence in a century and become a foot note in history?
Anti-masculinity counseling, more po-mo, tsk! Here’s Jordan B Peterson talking
to young men re ‘Lift a load.’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRLZEeT8AGM
(Funny thing is, at the same time the progressives are wanting to do a maker-over
of masculinity in the West, they’re noticeably uncritical of Muslim religious/social
constraints on women.)
@Beth:
Almost enough to make you think maybe “This behaviour is by design”…
Interesting new tech application – translate a low light thermal image of a face to match a data base of visual light images of faces.
https://www.army.mil/article/203901?dmd
Interesting item on zerohedge, it leads off with an alarming headline then closes with a “but don’t worry” conclusion.
They never really specify what the “weird behavior is” presumably the weakening of the magnetic field strength but that has been well know by folks interested in that stuff for a very long time.
I vote mostly click bait drama, or just FUD to go with other recent “a crash is coming” articles.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-05-01/scientists-earths-magnetic-field-acting-weird-we-could-experience-shudder
Gloom and doom economics
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-04-30/big-mac-index-suggests-america-decade-long-depression
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-05-01/i-expect-financial-accident-occur-gavekal-reveals-new-flashing-red-warning
That said I do recall that in mid – late 2007 everyone was feeling things couldn’t get better, and you always have to wonder after a very long bull run on the markets, eventually it has to take a breather and shake out the fat.
The problem is that the changes that President Trump has made are sort of breaking the mold as far as recent economic history so it is really hard to project recent past events onto the near term future because all the fundementals are changed (taxes, return of over seas profits etc.)
Watched this again tonight, and it was enlightening again.
https://www.history.com/shows/forged-in-fire-knife-or-death
As a follow up to the above…. Which one would you pick from my own sample?
http://imgur.com/FcKPUkM
The biggest one (on the bottom) looks like my “gardening tool” machete. The one in the middle looks like my “Florida Alligator Tool”…
Personally, I like the middle one the most. Short enough to be a fast draw, long enough to be effective, and thick enough to not bend much. My Machete had too hardened an edge and broke chips out on chopping against a hard wood tree. Took a while to re-grind the edge.
Oh, and that tanto shapped middle one, at least the one I got, was a rust resistant steel. Important in wet places… Most stainless steels do not hold an edge as well as the iron blades, but I don’t actually chop with it enough for that to matter (or even for me to find out if this is softer metal…)
So generally I’d say either of the bigger too (bottom 2), with the choice between them being based on wetness and what you will chop how much. Not very wet and lots of chopping soft woods and greenery, the bottom one. Some water issues and mostly “attitude removal” from various critters with occasional brush? The middle one. (IIRC the serrated back is a saw, but I’ve never used it.)
@Larry:
I’ll be a lot more enamored of Zerohedge if they EVER say things are just fine, enjoy the bull market. Every time I read any of there stuff, it has ‘doom in our time’ overtones….
Is this market toppy? Yes. Is the FED raising rates? Yes. Does that mean the bull run is likely to drop for a year? Yes. Is that the end of the world as we know it and 2008-9 back again? No.
True enough on zerohedge but that is their market niche, to expect them to announce all is good is like waiting for Infowars to have a piece on how capable and trustworthy HRC is ;)
I use them as a limiting boundary case reference. I know that they seldom mention positive spin related to their articles, but given how everyone else is like an industrial spin dryer when it comes to trying to throw out the “good spin” I find it a useful check on all that
I just make sure to install my “end of the world” filter before reading their stuff.
With that in mind I just found out today a small business near where I work is going out of business, his business has been down since President Trump was elected, because he catered to prepper folks and that market pretty much exhausted its demand when Obama was busy wrecking everything he touched. (anyone concerned about such things bought up what they needed as fast as they could afford it.) In doing so it pretty well saturated that market niche and demand slackened significantly after Trump won the election.
That sends a couple of related messages:
The population is better prepared now than they have been in a couple decades (probably since the late 1980’s) as lots of folks have taken care of their emergency vulnerabilities.
Second the consensus view among those folks so inclined is that the threat of things coming undone in the near future is perceived to be lower now than it has in many years.
Bad news is even well run brick and mortar small business are definitely struggling as they try to compete in small niche markets against the likes of Amazon.
Like you I consume a large range of information sources to try and get a balanced perspectives, even though they tend to cry wolf they do point out things I would be totally unaware of with out their news items. Over the last few years I have watched them and learned the proper filter setting for their stuff and apply the appropriate caution to their feed but they only have to be right once if things really do go sideways.
Like most prognosticators of doom they tend not to consider (or at least avoid) the fact that the world is an adaptive system and most of their “predictions” have an unspoken assumption of “if things remain the way they currently are and no one shifts to a new paradigm.” qualifier, but that means that you can then watch for those adaptions which change the end state by changing the rules.
@ossqss: Middle one if I had to choose only one. Looks to me to be the best for two-legged critters and quite useful to defend against overly aggressive plants (“FEED ME, Seymour! 😜).
@Larry: “[…] most of their “predictions” have an unspoken assumption of “if things remain the way they currently are and no one shifts to a new paradigm.” qualifier […]”
I actually find that to be true of just about any ‘news.’ That’s how they get eyeballs. Medical and science articles are just as bad. One lady over on CTH posted an article that said that in 10 years, 1 in 4 children would be born with autism. I replied, “Then we should conclude that in 20 years, all children will be born with autism.” (It’s worse than we thought!)
Things change. Perhaps the stock market may become obsolete some day in the future for reasons we can’t imagine today. Depending on the assumptions, it could disappear because of a positive development (some ‘better’ replacement) or a negative development (zombie virus, all bombed back into the stone age, etc.).
Wasting power for fun and profit (bit coin mining) has taken another interesting turn, they are now trying to build portable coin mining modules that can be moved around to waste the cheapest energy they can find to generate their bit coins.
Not surprisingly they make more money selling the hardware to others than they do running it themselves to waste energy (ahhem mine bit coin).
This is a clue folks like the California gold rush the folks getting reliably rich will not be the miners but the folks selling them stuff to facilitate their search for gold (bit coins).
The bad news is that at least during the gold rush if you found a few nuggets they retained their value, unlike a computer hash in memory some where which can just evaporate in a puff of free electrons due to some random power glitch or if like Tulip bulbs the world decides they can’t assign value to some numerical value that has no intrinsic utility or use other than to be another link in a chain of similar values
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-crypto-currencies-italy/born-in-a-dishwasher-drawer-an-italian-spin-on-currency-mining-idUSKBN1I413U
About a decade ago, while living in hotels “on the road”, I experimented with bitcoin mining. As electricity was free, any coin mined was net profit.
Unfortunately, the laptop was, even then, outgunned in the arms race and didn’t find a coin before I changed hotels and lost interest. (Something about needing to update secret access codes to the hotel wifi…)
So the question now is: Can a miner using less than 1.5 kW be made to look like a laptop on a charger, and run at Starbucks?
Sold a pup?
https://climateaudit.org/2018/04/24/douma-videos-and-photos/#comments
E.M. FYI
https://rosebyanyothernameblog.wordpress.com/2018/04/27/comey-leaked-classified-information/
Well it appears our new Secretary of State has a sense of humor (and is willing to tweak the Clinton machine)
Jack Posobiec🇺🇸 liked
Mike Pompeo
@SecOfState70
29 minutes ago
Any IT experts that can help me set up a private server?
I just need it for yoga and planning my daughters wedding.
An interesting read IMO
https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2018/05/03/whos-actually-running-this-game/
Small earthquake swarm in Hawaii today
small Hawaii earthquake swarm
I don’t know if anyone else has played cornhole or bag toss as it is called in some areas. My neighbor and I are pretty good at it. I just watched a national championship doubles match on ESPN2.
Turns out we are not good, is all I can say. Incredible watching Matt Guy (won singles) and with his son (won doubles). They obviously don’t drink beer when they play like we do here ;-)
A look at risks and the proper application of the Precautionary Principle by N. Taleb.
http://fooledbyrandomness.com/pp2
He discusses the difference in treatment needed for thin tail and fat tail problems and how the need for the precautionary principle depends on both the type of risk (thin tail, fat tail) and how broad the risk can spread as well as its direct impact.
An outbreak of plague in a prairie dog town is self limiting to that prairie dog town and perhaps a few near by neighbors because the geography of the terrain in which those towns grow has built in circuit breakers to spread, such as distance between towns and the death of predators which might spread the plague before they die.
The problem is entirely different in a high density population like 1300’s europe where there was lots of local travel and an abundance of highly mobile carriers like rats.
Locally this justified precautionary measures like quarantines, large scale extermination of rats and changes in trash disposal / hygiene to limit spread to local pockets rather than sweep through one community after another.
The proper assessment of risk includes both the probability of the event and its impact if it happens multiplied together. Very rare events like an asteroid strikes or super volcano eruptions have very high impact so the degree of impacts nullifies the low probability in computation of the true risk. That justifies an ongoing precautionary effort to seek to identify likely impactors and find a method to change their trajectory far enough out to prevent the impact.
Other links on his web page:
http://fooledbyrandomness.com/PrecautionaryPrinciple.html
Ooops looks like a bit of volcanic activity in Hawaii following those earthquakes earlier today.
From twitter
The Weather Channel
@weatherchannel
33 minutes ago
BREAKING: Lava from Hawaii’s Kilauea Volcano has begun to seep into Leilani Estates on the easter side of the Big Island. Evacuations have been ordered for up to 10,000 residents.
the Puu Oo (POO’-oo OH’-oh) vent floor collapsed and is spewing red lava into residential area 10 miles away::
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/05/03/hawaii-volcano-erupts-county-issues-evacuation-orders.html
just hit FoxNews as well…pg
Reuters on the Kilauea eruption.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hawaii-volcano/hawaiis-kilauea-volcano-erupts-forcing-evacuations-idUSKBN1I50AK
Okay here is an interesting question, how much pressure is required to squirt highly fluid Basalt lava 150 ft in the air?
https://apnews.com/9849329ad377436aa21c4bb30f796a45
CNN reporting about 15 minutes ago.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/04/us/kilauea-volcano-hawaii-earthquakes/index.html
Cross posting this item from tips since it got buried in nutritional posts.
I expected folks would find this as fascinating as I did, no comments so I think it just got lost in the shuffle over there.
View at Medium.com
Another Ian says: 3 May 2018 at 10:23 pm
An interesting read IMO
Yes that is a fantastic summing up.
@Larry Thanks for the repost. I’d filed it away in my head to go back to it on the other thread, but that memory was fast fading.
A wonderful story.
Obviously, this volcanic eruption is due to “climate change.”
@Larry – I read that article about a year ago. A friend (retired) sends me odd ball stuff like that, and it was a fascinating read. One hell of a ride!
Random thoughts on the volcano and disasters.
Hmmm… I guess this means there are no virgins left in Hawaii. 😜
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From the first article Larry posted, there are about 770 structures where lava is flowing in the streets. Maybe all of those and more will be covered in lava. If your house is destroyed, how do you get your property back? Do they map the old property lines up to the new surface?
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Has anyone heard of the possibility of a Tambora-like blowout? I haven’t heard any mention of bulges around the sides nor discussion about a portion of the top blowing off.
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Everybody needs a bugout plan, particularly for important papers, valuables, transportable heirlooms and mementos; things you hear people talk about being irreplaceable as they are interviewed while sifting through the rubble of their homes. I’d guess it’s a slightly different plan for volcanoes, tsunamis, wildfires, earthquake, tornadoes, or hurricanes.
My personal most likely total destruction scenarios are house-fire, with subsequent water damage, and tornado. I have a small, fire-rated safe with our papers and small valuables that’s inside a large fire-rated safe. The only risk I see is that a tornado might take the safe and dump it in the State Park woods or reservoir that’s only a 1/2-mile from the house, never to be found. It’s not unheard of for tornadoes to pick up heavy things and dump them a mile away. I guess the best I can do is put a label on it saying, “Property of…. If found, please call XXX.” 😁 (Maybe it’s not a stupid idea after all.)
@philjourdan Yes definitely one hell of a ride – there are a lot of similarities in that story and the story of the last PT boats to leave Corregidor of Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Three with General MacArthur and his wife and son before Bataan fell.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_MacArthur%27s_escape_from_the_Philippines
I got to thinking about why that story never got out at the time, and I suspect that the fact the plane had done what it had done was a very important military secret at the time, that if they could get fuel to them, those big birds could do things that at that time were nearly unthinkable.
As regards those kind of stories, I am a bit of a romantic, had tears in my eyes as he recounted the story of that hot air take off in Africa and that tight bond between man and machine as he gave her the “Good job Baby – – good job” pat on the decking.
Sometimes it is nice to hear stories where people manage to do the unthinkable and sometimes machines seem to give just a bit more than they should be able to. It is why sailors have such a bond with their ships, and airmen have a bond with their aircraft. Sometimes it just seems reasonable to think there was just a bit of divine intervention to get them home.
It would have been very interesting to be looking over the shoulders of the men that over hauled the engines on the Pacific Clipper after that ride to see what they found, considering those engines has pulled 3 full minutes at full power in 100 degree heat on less than ideal fuel.
Similar stories of badly shot up B-17 and P-47’s getting their crews home when they should not have been able to fly at all, provide encouragement to never give up that sometimes the impossible works and its not over until the fat lady sings. It is good for people to know those stories!
@Larry: Yup, thanks for the repost of “Long Way Around.” I’d meant to get too it and then my 2-track mind – food and fishing – got derailed by recent discussions.
@H.R. As I recall the last time they burned down a neighborhood in Hawaii with lava, the property is simply written off. Sort of like barrier islands and hurricanes. You can build there if you like but don’t expect a lot of help getting back to your old property, Just cash out your insurance and move some place else.
@Larry and others:
How about the F-15 that landed with one wing?
https://theaviationist.com/2014/09/15/f-15-lands-with-one-wing/
I was working at McDonnell-Douglas when that plane was in for repair and saw it off to the side in a roped off area. The damage it survived just made you shake your head when you looked at the plane. Uhhh… they weren’t going to do any field repairs on that one!
I’m joining the chorus of “oh yeah, I was gonna….” Nice story!
BTW, for all those stories of ships and planes that just kept going; thank an Engineer. somewhere at some drafting table some years before, an Engineer made a design decision. He decided “Nah, don’t cheap it, put a little extra in there, it might be needed…” Often this is the “human rated 50% overage allowance”. Sometimes It’s a lot more.
My favorite in the “a lot more” department is the A-10 Warthog / Thunderbolt. One of the design specs was to make it incredibly survivable. So things like 3 control systems, 2 of them hydraulic, but one steel cable as those are harder for a bullet to destroy. Then the titanium bathtub under the pilot, able to lose big chunks of wing and keep on flying. Even the ability to lose an engine and be fine with that. All designed in.
One bit of trivia – known to work for leaded gas and I think for unleaded as well: Octane rating isn’t linearly additive. Mix equal parts of 90 and 100 you do NOT get 95. More like 97.5 (IIRC it’s a power of 2 function so to get 95, you would mix 3/4 90 and 1/4 100 ) For this reason even modest mixing of “super” with low octane improves it greatly. They could also have slightly retarded the timing to get function on lower octane fuels, but with less max power and less fuel economy – meaning takeoff would be harder and range shorter – so would only work with some shorter legs of the trip and take-off into the wind with some wind when fully loaded.
@H.R.:
The Hawaiian volcanoes have a very thin runny lava and do not have an explosive mode like the Pacific mainland volcanoes or those of Indonesia (both subduction zones while Hawaii is a mantle hot spot).
The islands DO have a “massive slide chunk falls into ocean mode” and if you look at the older islands from above, you can see the sort of “napped” look where “flakes” have slid off into the ocean (where the flakes are many miles long & a few wide..) Then on the ocean floor they find the missing chunks.
So no worries about an exploding volcano, but it is possible that many acres could just slide off into the ocean depths…
It is my understanding that IF you keep up your property taxes, then whenever TPTB declare it safe to return, you still own your plot. Getting to it and finding it can be a bit tricky though…
Realize this volcanic action tends to happen in one narrow part of the island. Land prices there are significantly cheaper (for obvious reasons) and often promoters push it at new arrivals…. Folks there pretty much know it’s a temporary home and just hope to be done before the volcano eats the house.
Oh, and “Hawaiian Construction” is often just exterior boards over 2 x 4 studs. Interior painted. No insulation (why bother? Temps are ideal.) and no sheetrock (again, why bother?) So it’s pretty fast to build. Frame up and floor, board up & paint, windows if you want them or screens on some rooms, roof. (often no ceiling and no insulation there either.)
At one time I visited that area with a friend from Hawaii… It was pretty much known that you build a house there and just figure the life style is worth rebuilding it every decade or three…
Under the category of planetary alignments influence on the sun and climate I stumbled across an interesting item:
July 4th 2020 planetary alignment
This guy has some nice weather summary videos too of upcoming/current weather developments.
Also a close look at some of his videos I extracted this source for some of his discussion videos.
http://weather.cod.edu/satrad/
Some time in the next 10 minutes to 20,000 years or so Hawaii might have a mega tsunami from a slope collapse event on the big island.
I think Venezuela and Argentina have finally crossed into the final economic implosion stage.
Frankly it took longer than I expected for the wheels to come off the apple cart.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/venezuela/article210282264.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44001450
@Larry – Venezuela is on the time line I expected. What they have that Argentina (and Zimbabwe) does not is a longer term asset that requires more incompetence to deplete. The latter 2 countries primary asset was agriculture that incompetence can wipe out in one season. But Oil, you have to actually destroy the infrastructure (which barring a war, is usually accomplished through neglect).
What Maduro effectively did was to raise the $7.25 minimum wage to $50/hour (about half of what a surgeon makes in the US). Which is merely wasting paper. Government mandated wages do not reflect the value of the product of labors. A surgeon is worth a lot more than 60% more than a burger flipper – in any society.
Socialists never learn. Just listen to the idiot Bernie. He wants a return to the 1930s!
Part of that problem, phil, is that Marxist notion that ‘labor’ is value. Labor, as such, has no more value than paper, or gold, or anything else. What gives something value is the use to which is it going to be put, relative to the value of some other use or if there is a value at all. Note well that said value only exists to the user and what that user’s evaluation determines. What that may be to others will vary and vary widely.
In my own lifetime, arbitrarily raising the minimum wage from its real number, which is what the market will bear willingly, has *never* *ever* helped me. It has directly, whether visibly or invisibly, hurt me until I was able to prove my value to others.
@CD – you are entirely correct. Labor is a resource. Like iron, or water, or any other. Take dirt for example. What value does it have to an electrical engineer? Nothing. But to a farmer?
The value of a resource is the negotiated (note the term) value between the owner of the resource (seller) and the one that requires it (the buyer).
So a person digging a ditch that no one wants is producing no value, and hence his labors are worthless. But for that camp ground that needs a new latrine, his efforts are worthful. How much depends then on how much the owner is willing to pay (as he could do it himself, but probably has other opportunities to pursue). No amount of government intervention is going to change that. If the government dictates that yard mowers have to be paid $100, I simply will mow my own (I do anyway as I get a kind of zen like enjoyment from mindless work like that) and the lawn mower is then out of a job. His real worth has dropped to $0
I’m liking this judge …
““I don’t see what relationship this indictment has with anything the special counsel is authorized to investigate,” U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III in the Eastern District of Virginia said.
At a tense hearing at the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, the judge said Mueller should not have “unfettered power” in his Russia probe and that the charges against Manafort did not arise from the investigation into Moscow’s alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.
“It’s unlikely you’re going to persuade me the special counsel has unfettered power to do whatever he wants,” said Ellis, who was appointed to the bench by Republican President Ronald Reagan.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-manafort/u-s-judge-questions-special-counsels-powers-in-manafort-case-idUSKBN1I51WE
A Mueller “Slap Down” with a “get back to your mandated narrow work area” would be a great gift.
Mueller has gone so far beyond what would be considered reasonable by most people. I know he was set up purposely with a ill-defined mandate, but THAT should also be attacked – not to mention the entire FISA warrant was based on false “evidence.” The whole investigation is a farce – or, as some people say – A WITCH HUNT!!!
@cdquarles: The way I learned it, the sources of wealth are mining, manufacturing, and agriculture (in Grade school! Discussing Adam Smith!).
Taking advantage of the sources of wealth requires labor or capital, but mostly both. I like what you pointed out about the value of labor. A few weeks ago, we discussed here the value of our own labor and when it was best to hire others or do something ourselves.
There’s always been the argument about which has the most value, labor or capital? Back to your point (like! 👍👍) that labor itself has no intrinsic value until put to use. It gets its value from the available supply of labor of a particular skill and demand for labor with that particular skill. Capital is acquired and built up from the results of labor, but that capital pretty much retains the value of the labor that went into it so long as the capital continues to provide an adequate return. Capital is also vulnerable to obsolescence, so someone depending on capital to increase wealth can lose it all and see the value of the asset plunge to zero or scrap.
The point you made that I’m feebly trying to bolster is that the value of labor is mostly a supply and demand issue whereas the value of capital is often determined by factors unrelated to supply and demand.
P.S. While reading your comment, I was amused by imagining the plight of chainsaw jugglers. That is a highly skilled bit of labor but there is only so much demand for chainsaw jugglers. That’s probably some weird-looking supply/demand curve as acquiring the skill, shall we say, cuts down on the supply of less skilled jugglers trying to learn the trade. That would be a flat demand curve with a ??? supply curve. Flat, too? Only enough survive to meet demand? 😜
I find the idea that one should hire out any work that it less per hour than ones own wage rate misguided. That only makes sense if I can work whenever I want. Most people can’t do that. So, I will have free time. If I do some work myself, say lay a tile floor, I have saved the wage I would have otherwise paid someone else.
This was an interesting read from Mish. Thought some might enjoy it.
https://www.themaven.net/mishtalk/economics/can-we-please-try-capitalism-just-once-_5Fa97FCmEyxzNnoBhZr4Q/
@ HR, A thing is, though, as the Austrians would tell you, even mining or manufacture or agriculture, of themselves, don’t generate wealth either. Wealth resides in minds capable of making realistic evaluations of value … to themselves, enhanced by … being valuable to other capable minds. They’d also tell you that economics is poorly served by reifying mathematical abstractions. What counts is who is trading to whom, for what and how intensively is it felt among those trading. That’s why you cannot ‘redistribute’ wealth. Only fundamentalist materialists think that by redistributing stuff against the will of willing traders, they are ‘sharing’ wealth. They aren’t. What they are doing is destroying wealth. Adam Smith was a product of his times. The Austrians built upon his, and other’s work.
@H.R.:
Um… I think you missed just a little on saying capital is not valued based on supply and demand…
First, just a side note that there are 2 major kinds of capital usually pertinent to these discussions (and a third usually ignored – intellectual capital or “know how” or “IP” in capitalist economies as Intellectual Property). So when folks say they need to “raise capital” they are usually talking actual money or currency of some kinds. Yet when it comes to making or doing something, it is a piece of physical capital that maters. So it’s helpful to keep those separate in your thinking.
Clearly “financial capital” doesn’t suffer things like obsolescence or wearing out.
So limiting it to physical capital:
WHY does obsolescence make a particular bit of physical capital “worthless”? Precisely because the demand for it drops toward zero. Take chemical film developing machines. At one time worth $Tens of Thousands and found all over the place. Now mostly in the recycle pile. Most of them did not wear out, they became less in demand due to digital photography. AS a chemical processing machine, they are still state of the art and work Just Fine. But it was the demand that went away.
Kind of a minor point, but important. Similarly, the coal fired power plants being demolished by idiots around the globe are still fine productive capital, nor have they been physically made obsolete by solar and wind. The demand for their product has been crushed by legislative fiat choosing winners and defining them as losers. Shifting demand strongly against them.
The other minor point I’d make is that yes, in the time of Adam Smith those where the big recognized creators of real wealth. We now recognize that “location matters” and that the value of a lump of coal a mile under ground (mined, but sitting in the cart…) is far less than the value of that lump of coal in my coal furnace… Basically, transportation is a value (and thus wealth) creating activity. (Which is why there are so many ships, trains, planes, trucks…) Similarly, Intellectual Capital is a wealth creator. Though that one is a bit more involved; since, as shown, creating the I.C. of digital cameras destroyed the I.C. of film developing machinery… But still, it is pretty clear that lots of R&D gets done precisely because it enables the creation of more wealth. Yes, eventually that I.C. must be realized as a (patented?) crop grown, a mine or oil well worked with new methods, or a new manufacture of iGizmos… So you can make the case it is “one removed” and not in the basic set. But leaving out transportation and Intellectual Capital as wealth creators kind of ignores most of the 1800 to 2000 wealth created…
(Sidebar on Economists: This is JUST the kind of thing Economists love to kibitz about… what is, and is not, wealth and what creates it…)
Per chainsaw jugglers:
As they start practice with them not running, I think the supply rapidly self selects based on bruise counts… And the demand? I’ve only ever seen one in any one year… I suspect it isn’t high…
The Min Econ Size and Max Econ Size are both “one”, and the demand seems to be about “one”, so I suspect the supply / demand curve is a DOT at ONE…
@Jim2:
Yes! “Marginal supply” and “Marginal Demand” issues. IF I have a supply of my labor but no market demand, I have “marginal supply” to offer elsewhere, and that may be at home. In other “markets” with other “prices” My marginal supply will drop to zero only when my marginal demand is too low to interest me. So, for example, I don’t value “clean the garage” very highly and that demand never rises high enough to consume my labor. Yet I value “BBQ Chicken” chef duty very highly, so just finished a very nice plate of same ;-)
We first supply labor to those “marginal demand” items with the greatest return, then do ever less valuable work until the value drops below the point where we are willing to supply the “marginal supply” which drops to zero… ( and I sit on the couch eating my BBQ chicken with the game on ;-)
Also remember that direct wage RATE comparison is not valid. One must allow an uplift for professional skill and a decrement for tax burden. So I figure I’m about 1/2 as fast as a professional plumber. So I allow 1/2 plumber wages / hour as my “return”. HOWEVER, where I live, I’m in a very high tax area. About 50% combined State, Local, Federal. So for me to actually PAY $100 / hour, I need to “earn” $200 wages. That means my actual net of taxes “worth” as a plumber is roughly the same as a professional – net net. So I only use them when they have some expensive machine I don’t have or can’t rent. ( like that deluxe roto rooter…) Or a particular skill I don’t want to spend time learning ( like lead pouring / packing a 4 inch cast iron drain segment).
@CDQuarles:
I think there is some inherent “wealth” outside the minds of traders. For example, women love their gold jewelry and men love their tools and cars. I have a sense of “wealth” from owning my old Mercedes Diesel, even though the market value of it is nearly nothing and even though I’m never going to sell it. ( I tend to use them up to scrap condition… really consuming them).
So yes, a farmer with 100,000 tons of wheat doesn’t really have any wealth created until it is traded to someone else ( it could rot in the silos…); yet that wheat is truly a wealth of food especially to folks who are hungry, and that farmer DID create it.
So I think there’s some even more realistic description of wealth more nearly 1/2 way from Adam Smith to Austrians… (but I’m still wandering in the woods trying to find it ;-)
Oh, and the counter example I’d give is all those traders trading Magic Quatloos over the years. From Credit Default Swaps just before the housing bubble crash to Bitcoins in their more recent bubble to Silver every decade or three as the fad hits / implodes. Just because folks are trading it, that does not make real value… Just a price… (Ben Graham Value Investing is all about finding and exploiting that margin. That’s the method used by Warren Buffett too.)
So generally, yes, that’s where the Socialists / Marxists go off the rails, but that there is SOME intrinsic value in things devoid of markets is why it works “for a while” as the real products get “re-distributed” and the loss of creation is not yet felt.
“So, for example, I don’t value “clean the garage” very highly and that demand never rises high enough to consume my labor.”
But then you have to fix the associated cost into your value. The associated cost of your wife carping on you to “git er dun!” :-) That kind of raises the value in most cases.
@cdquarles: “Wealth. It’s all in your head.” Is that the Austrians position? 🤔
People have the need for food, shelter, and clothing (in most places). An individual can get those items by their own labor and if their good at it, produce an excess; wealth. And that wealth can be retained by the producer. They can live off their wealth in lean times. But the source of that wealth remains the same.
There is no economy of any type if you have a bunch of self-sufficient people milling about on their own and feeding and sheltering themselves and storing up for lean times. I’d say economics is the attempt by individuals to maximize the excess they can create and that is where value is determined. The value of the storehouse, when retained by the individual is anywhere from zero, when the excess rots in fat times, and infinite if it saves them starvation in lean times.
Now you get some bright hominoid who shows up and says, “Hey you dumb@$$es! You can generate twice as much food if you follow my brilliant insight into food production.” If it is a valuable idea, he can become an agricultural consultant and the other hominoids will feed and clothe him and let him sleep on the couch in repayment. He acquired wealth through an economic exchange of something of value. The source of wealth remained the same; something grown using flint that was mined and made into tools. But I agree with the Austrians that value is determined during the exchange between parties.
Now the ideas of that PhD hominoid have value, but they aren’t the source of wealth. Put Brightus Standupus Dudeious and another bright guy on an island and they can generate brilliant designs, plans, and solve the world’s problems, but they’ll both die of starvation unless someone actually gets up off their butt and generates at least some personal wealth or eats the other guy, whichever comes first.
I’m not particularly disagreeing with the Austrians. I just think they are skipping a step. The Earth holds all the materials but no wealth is created until somebody does a little mining, manufacturing, or agriculture. That creates an intrinsic wealth as the result of those efforts. The value of those efforts is undetermined until the horse trading begins.
Once you get three horse traders together, an economist will show up to predict the theoretical outcome and point out that the three are doing it wrong. 😜
@H.R.:
Economics is the study of “who makes what for whom” and that would include a tribal society with each person just working for their own needs. No trade need exist (despite it existing in all economic history…)
Oh and when that economist shows up, they will NOT say “that the three of them are doing it wrong”! They will say “Let’s look at the 3! combinations of trade. There are 3 optimized and 2 non-optimized ways to do it, and you are doing none of them, plus the way you are doing it, so there are at least 5 ways you are doing it wrong”… ;-)
I know because I are one 8-}
@Phil:
That is called “slavery” or at best “indentured servitude”, so falls outside this labor wage discussion… (whips and starvation are not “wages” ;-)
Isn’t Kerry violating the Logan act?
“John Kerry’s bid to save one of his most significant accomplishments as secretary of state took him to New York on a Sunday afternoon two weeks ago, where, more than a year after he left office, he engaged in some unusual shadow diplomacy with a top-ranking Iranian official.
He sat down at the United Nations with Foreign Minister Javad Zarif to discuss ways of preserving the pact limiting Iran’s nuclear weapons program. It was the second time in about two months that the two had met to strategize over salvaging a deal they spent years negotiating during the Obama administration, according to a person briefed on the meetings.
With the Iran deal facing its gravest threat since it was signed in 2015, Kerry has been on an aggressive yet stealthy mission to preserve it, using his deep lists of contacts gleaned during his time as the top US diplomat to try to apply pressure on the Trump administration from the outside.”
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2018/05/04/kerry-quietly-seeking-salvage-iran-deal-helped-craft/2fTkGON7xvaNbO0YbHECUL/story.html
Looks like it to me.
Private Citizen. Check.
Negotiating Government Policy. Check.
With a foreign Government. Check.
Over or involving a dispute. Check.
NOT approved nor hired by the government. Check.
Yeah, I think Kerry has checked all the boxes…
File under global warming taboo
I am shocked absolutely shocked!
https://www.westernjournal.com/weather-service-dir-denies-assaulting-employee-for-mentioning-global-cooling/
@phil; “your wife carping on you to “git er dun!” that is a woman thing and Is as old as the first man built the first woman a hooch and she demanded he clean up his small area in it. ;-)
I generally keep our little home neat and tidy. She comes home from shopping and covers the table, counter and floor with her stuff and purchases and then grips about the neatness of my small end of the table. I just get out of her way and let her grouse. After she runs down and fusses a bit things are fine.
Just a woman thing, something she has to do to feel right with the world…pg.
This item implies that cost of food has actually gotten cheaper in real terms over the last 100 years or so.
Looks to me there is no legitimate basis for reducing sugar import duties for example.
@Larry; what you see is the reason that our government can get away with being so massive and the countries population so wealthy because of the farming community has been bled to death. Long term low income and huge debit has brought things to crises levels out on the farm. When I was young It was remotely possible for a young man to start with nothing and make a successful farming enterprise in one generation. Today it requires nearly three generations to accumulate enough wealth through farming.
Today there are less then 1 million Americans farming. We may well be nearing collapse when whole farms are abandoned because of lack of resources to plant the next crop…pg
@p.g.sharrow says:
4 May 2018 at 11:46 pm
@phil; “your wife carping on you to “git er dun!” that is a woman thing and Is as old as the first man built the first woman a hooch and she demanded he clean up his small area in it. ;-)
I generally keep our little home neat and tidy. She comes home from shopping and covers the table, counter and floor with her stuff and purchases and then grips about the neatness of my small end of the table. ”
I am not alone!!!! :)
@p.g.sharrow
Yep when the corn in a box of corn flakes is only worth 12 cents you know who is making the money on the cereal and it ain’t the farmer.
That is why I got so irritated by folks complaining about farmers making a fair profit on corn for a change, they have been at break even prices for a couple decades (since the farmer strikes of the 1970’s and early 1980’s really)
The economists and the political types can’t seem to get it through their heads that viable farming capacity to feed your own population is a strategic asset and must be protected at all costs. I don’t want to be in a world where we have to pay what ever the market will bear for food grown in some other country. I’ve seen what that was like when the Soviets had to do it after wheat crop failures, and the spike in costs for sugar when they killed the domestic sugar beet producers etc.
I remember coffee price spikes when columbia lost most of their coffee crop due to weather and spikes in citrus and tomatoes when we had freeze outs in Florida etc. In the 1960’s 1970’s
Most of the population is too young to remember when annual crops could fail badly enough to restrict supply, they think it is like manufacturing cars, just order more when you need them.
@Larry:
The cost of most manufactures and agricultural goods have gone down in real terms over the last 100 years. Why? Rampant mechanization / automation.
When my parents were kids, a steak was a very rare treat, if seen at all. Remember the promise of a “Chicken in every pot!”? That was because a chicken was so special and so expensive most folks could not afford them, and those that could often had it as a Special Meal (like Sunday Dinner). I’m just old enough to remember the very end of that age. As a wee child I watched the price of chicken plunge from “High but sometimes” to now “cheapest thing I can buy”… (Chicken now is often less per pound than black beans or lentils… significantly lower than packaged breakfast cereal…)
Something very similar happened to trout, but more recently. As recent as about 50 years ago, when we had our restaurant, trout IF you could buy it at all ran up around $7 / lb. That would be close to $50 in today’s money with only conservative inflation numbers. Now it’s one of THE cheapest fish in the store. Often $3 / lb range at COSTCO.
The list is long of such things.
@P.G.:
Mechanization is eliminating the “Family Farm”. Just the financial clout to get lower cost loans for land and equipment assures that the Agribusiness Global Conglomerates can drive the little guy out of business whenever they want. The survivors will be those with boutique niche operations. “Local Organic Hand Raised” blah blah blah or selling “straight from the farm to you!” care packages… The big guys will dominate things like Asparagus and Wheat. The Asparagus I buy comes from Chile, or Peru, or Stockton, Or … just based on where it’s ripe at the moment. The operator who has production in all those places can offer a constant supply to the major chain stores. “Some guy” in Lodi, not so much. Similarly, wheat is a globally produced and shipped product. The folks who can source it from everywhere win. The guy in Woodland with 640 acres is just a peon with little leverage and a price taker from Cargil… He may survive, but only by going out of business more slowly than the next guy…
@Larry:
Economists DO “get it”. But that is a value decision that belongs in the realm of Politics, not Economics. OUR job is just to describe what happens and what the causes are. It is up to others to decide what to do about it. (Economics is called The Dismal Science for a reason… Part of it is that we can describe the “demographic change” that will happen in a crop failure; i.e. millions dying: but WE are not charged with policy making to fix it…)
There is a growing segment of “Political Economy”, but it is as often dominated by Politicians-in-the-Maknig (who could not get into law school) and Socialist Wanna-bees looking for excuses to play with The Economic Shiny Thing as actual Economists…
So as an Economist, I can make neat little charts showing how prices are going to go through the roof on disruptions; how remote suppliers will feed themselves first in major problems, even charts of probable millions dead of starvation or cholera. I’m just not allowed to do anything about it or, usually, even share those charts and graphs if they are NOT what the “Policy Makers” ordered to be made… So I get an order to “show the reduction in cost if wheat flakes are manufactured in China from Australian grain”; and that is the paper I produce. IF I stick in there “but it would be a bad strategic move as it puts American Wheat Farmers out of business and jeopardizes stable food supply due to a long supply chain in hostile foreign hands”, well, if the Client is Cargill or General Foods, you can bet that will be redacted and I’ll be looking for new work… (So usually such things are couched in vague question form in footnotes like “No exploration was made of the risks to long logistics pipelines nor impact on wheat production.” Which can be read as the “Here There Be Dragons!” PC Code Words…
I actually had a class where we looked at writing a paper on the Impact Of Regulation. We were told to write one that was how it was good, and one that showed how it was bad. Why? The professor said: Well, you don’t know if, when you graduate, you will be employed by the Government demanding to regulate, or an Industry fighting it off; so I have to prepare you for both. Actually said that in class. That was about the time I started my “Computer Minor”…
By economists I was referring to the popular media economists people recognize the “pay to order political spin masters” who can claim economic degrees, but primarily push a political agenda, not the true professionals who try to keep their clients from going broke,
Do a google search for top economists and you will see a list of 20 or so, only 3 or 4 of which the average person has ever heard of because they regularly are trotted out like trained circus monkeys to pitch the current political agenda (or try to shoot it down as you noted).
Rolling it back –
“Stone tools found in the Philippines predate the arrival of modern humans to the islands by roughly 600,000 years—but researchers aren’t sure who made them.”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/index.php/2018/05/04/the-sound-of-settled-science-5/
@Another Ian 5 May 2018 at 8:04 am
So, not only did they cross an ocean, the killed a rhinoceros. Bad Ass!
What you’re missing, HR, is that no one mines or grows stuff or makes stuff until *they* see the value in their own head. They they act on that vision. Remember, the Austrians built upon the logically valid points of their predecessors and dropped the invalid ones.
Here’s a topic that came up on the Maps thread, started by the recent discovery of ~700,000 year-old tools in Indonesia.
This is one article about the recent find of a city off the coast of India that throws a monkey wrench in the grand theories of Western Archeologists.
http://www.spiritofmaat.com/announce/oldcity.htm
I also enjoy the threads about lost technology, such as the Egyptians quite likely use of electric light and The Ark of The Covenant possibly being a large capacitor. Is that technology even older, having been developed in the ‘drowned’ cities a few thousand years before Egypt got up and running?
Did someone figure out radios 10,000 years ago? I’ve wondered about that from time to time.
Latest Hawaii earth quake plots over the last 7 days – may be too much data for small hand held devices (they give a warning when you select the 7 days all magnitude option)
7 day all magnitude Hawaii earth quake plot auto updated
Looks to me like a large slab area on the south east flank of the big island might be either getting ready to break away or a new volcanic center just on the edge of the island is in the early stages of developing. If you click the various earth quakes and watch them hop around that area, it is like what you would expect with a large bulge dome developing as they systematically hop all over the area but mostly to the boundaries. Looking at the color coding for older earthquakes looks like the most intense (current) activity has shifted to the south west along the near shore area of the big island over the last few days.
Interesting to watch in any case. We are 10 days away from the new moon tidal stress peak.
Current situation status summary from USGS.
https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/volcanoes/kilauea/status.html
@Larry
wOw! It;s dicey. It looks like it might be a “Virgin Sacrifice Needed, STAT!” situation, (and Hawaii is running short of virgins) or at least a few deaths are possible.
It would be a good thing if enough pressure is being released to settle things down but, who knows? History is not particularly on Hawaii’s side.
I’ll be 65 later this year and, from your writings, you are of similar age based on things you’ve referred to. Do you recall an eruption in Hawaii about 1960 (+/- a few years) that dominated the evening news for a bit? (Anyone else, feel free to chime in. It’a vague recollection to me.) I remember being fascinated by the pictures, even though they were in black and white. I think Walter Cronkite was reading the news at that time.
P.S. I think E.M.and I share a birth year but he was born a bit earlier (geezer! 😜). We commented on it a couple of times, but it’s really not too important to me, so I never recall the details. I’m also aware that a few of the regular commenters here are of similar age, from mention of retirement or memories of events of their youth that roughly coincide with memories of my youth. Some are a few years older and even that bit of extra age and experience shows in their additional experiences, memories, and imparted wisdom.
PPS. to Larry: My wife just asked what I was reading and what I was commenting on. I was hemming and hawing, but she persisted. I told her I was commenting on the Hawaii volcano and a couple of other topics here. (She does read a few of the computer topics here as she was quite the geek before her stroke. (Other topics? –^—-^—-^—-^———————————)
She made the mistake of persisting, despite my warnings. I started reading your volcano update, stamped 10:16pm, and she made it three-quarters of the way through before her eyes glazed over and and she said, “Alright. Enough. I get the picture. It’s nice you found somebody to play with.”
I am beginning to suspect that jim2, p.g., and I are all married to the same woman, and she just travels between houses. We notice her appearances, we walk Spanish for a bit while she’s there, lot’s of “yes dear, of course dear, oh yes I should have dear, sorry” and then she’s gone for a bit, but we’re not always exactly sure where and for how long. Besides, we’ve either got chores, projects, cooking, or some puttering to do or we’re on our computers. 😜😆😆😳🤷♂️
I’m beginning to think we need to all post at 10:00pm EST whether or not our wives are (shared wife is at our?!?) home. But I won’t because I’m afraid of the answer 😳. (Ain’t no winky big enough right about now, but here goes. 😜😜😜😜 ;o) ;o) ;o) 😜)
Yes I am a handful of years older than you but not much. In grade school one of out teachers went out to Hawaii not long after that eruption (2 – 5 years later??) and she told us the lava flow was in places still so hot it would melt the soles of tennis shoes. it takes a long time for that much hot rock to cool off if it is not quenched by sea water.
Hawaii does have a history of massive slope landslides into the sea from the islands. Does not happen often but there are several documented incidents which if they happened today could produce massive tsunami on Oahu and the major tourist beaches.
The pattern of the quakes forming a line parallel to the beach worries me in that context.
Simulation of a flank collapse mega tsunami in Hawaii
(there is no audio on this clip)
Interesting that the above video potulates a flank collapse in almost exactly the are defined by the pattern of earthquakes we are seeing.
National Geographic Channel. Honolulu disaster
documentary on such an event Tsunami Hawaii 2012
Remember that the lava, once hardened, is very hard and very strong. Then it begins a long process of water reacting and oxidation turning to a friable rust like stuff.
Now put a crack in that lava flow, as they often get, and that weak oxidation / hydration line slowly descends to the depths until a slab is free to slide…
The nature of the Hawaiian rocks assures that the islands slowly slough off slabs as they erode away…
That reddish lava and pumices concerns me. Red indicates remelt of Old, wet lava rock.. This plus serious earthquakes and a fissure opening could indicate a major break-off is underway.
Once while swapping lies with submariners at a Pearl Harbor bar they described the big Island as a massive mushroom with great overhangs. Sea bed around the Island has massive areas of fallen rock from these overhangs breaking off…pg
@p.g.: I can visualize the mushroom shape due to lava flows cooling rapidly as they his the ocean. Never thought of that but it makes sense. What I don’t have any clue about is the slope of the supporting cone and the diameter of the base of the cone. I wonder if the base is for all the islands and there is only one base? Multiple bases? (Vague memories that I once knew that answer, but I can’t recall the answer. Looks like I’m in for a little search time.)
.
.
I’m just puzzling now: The Cascades were formed from the Pacific Ring of Fire, so I don’t think there is an useful analogue there. What has been learned from the analogues that we might apply to the Hawaiian chain? Are the Hawaiian Islands unique or just another blowhole like all the rest? Are there topless cones below the sea surface where other analogues to Hawaii eventually blow their tops? (Hello, 49-star flag.)
OK. Cinder cone volcanoes, steep sides, and Hawaii is a cluster of them. Memory jogged…. It just makes the mushroom that much more interesting to visualize.
Here is a high resolution sea floor map for Hawaii to match to the earthquake map.
Looks like the current activity matches up with the:
Papa’U Sea Mount ( previous massive slide block in all likelihood)
Hilina slump
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilina_Slump
Have a peek. If it works. ……
https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/#%7B“autoUpdate”%3A%5B”autoUpdate”%5D%2C”basemap”%3A”grayscale”%2C”feed”%3A”1day_m25″%2C”listFormat”%3A”default”%2C”mapposition”%3A%5B%5B12.08229583736359%2C-163.16894531249997%5D%2C%5B25.145284610685064%2C-142.0751953125%5D%5D%2C”overlays”%3A%5B”plates”%5D%2C”restrictListToMap”%3A%5B”restrictListToMap”%5D%2C”search”%3Anull%2C”sort”%3A”newest”%2C”timezone”%3A”utc”%2C”viewModes”%3A%5B”list”%2C”map”%5D%2C”event”%3Anull%7D
Nope, didn’t work. Scroll and pinch zoom.
Great image, Larry. Thanks.(My search returned words, not much in the way of pictures. My bad choice of search keywords.)
Doesn’t show the mushrooms, but really does a good job of showing what I was trying to visualize; better than expected. Thanks again.
The map image I posted above, is actually an active link –
open that map link I posted above by clicking on the image, and then click on the map that displays to zoom to get the map that Ossqss was trying to link to. You can zoom it to full screen with lots of detail.
Here is the source page for that map image. (note that image is public domain and you can do with it what you will, including commercial use)
http://www.shadedrelief.com/hawaii/
E.M.
Computing advice needed.
I have an extensive reference collection (around 12000 references) on REF-11. The data is extensively keyworded. It is an orphaned DOS program which did all I needed (money being in short supply) and which runs ran quite happily on the XP laptop I saved for it. It saves data as .ref and .rex files – which are likely specific to that program.
That laptop is now going downhill – lost some usb ports and now the functions on the keyboard are going out – which REF-11 uses.
The options that have come up so far are
1. Find another bibliography program (free or cheap) that will read REF-11 – anyone know of one? DDG doesn’t show anything in that line
2. Get the (ASUS) laptop fixed – likely questionable
3. Find another computer that will run XP (it won’t be hooked to anything so security shouldn’t be an issue) – possible as our local IT bloke is a good scrounger
4. Does there happen to be software that will bolt on to W10 (current use due to accounting software) that will run DOS programs?
5. Get a file delver program(s) to work out the file structure and retrieve the data . I have done this in the past but don’t have such a toolkit at the moment and am out of practice. Somewhere in back-ups I have it printed to an OO Writer file so it isn’t entirely vanished. But a word processor file is formatted horizontally and the reference file is vertically.
6. Any other suggestions?
TIA
“This Simple Tesla Production Trick Could Cost Taxpayers An Additional Half Billion Dollars”
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2018/04/this-simple-tesla-production-trick-could-cost-taxpayers-an-additional-half-billion-dollars.html
I’ve used DOSBOX to run some old DOS games. Might be worth a shot?
https://www.dosbox.com/
And here are multiple alternatives to DOSBOX.
https://alternativeto.net/software/dosbox/
@Another Ian:
So maybe that’s why the “production problems” have slowed the output of the newer lower cost model… just a matter of a little timing needed…
Per your computer issue:
Options are NOT mutually exclusive. Multipath it.
1) You really really need to get off that old software, simply because your problems will get worse over time. So start a project, even if a slow one, to figure out how to do that “someday”. Start exploring the options. Other data base systems. Information extraction tools. Etc. It’s likely to take a while and be a modestly larger sized project, so start it now and expect it to take a while and complete “someday”. IF something else makes it irrelevant in 2 years, not much lost as you didn’t get far. IF something makes it essential in 2 years, you’ve got enough start to expedite it effectively.
2) Me? I’d put it on a Pi:
https://devtidbits.com/2013/04/23/run-dos-on-the-raspberry-pi-use-rpix86-to-turn-your-pi-into-a-1980s-super-computer/
But maybe that’s just me ;-)
3) Laptops are notoriously harder to keep operating as they age. Old Boxes are easier. I’ve got a couple of old XP boxes at the moment. Hit up your local Craigs List or tech junk shop and you can likely get an expeditious solution for about $30 as a desktop. Do that as your “rapid patch now, not a long term solution”.
4) ONLY if you are REALLY desperate, you could get a DOS Emulator to run under (GAK!) Windows:
http://www.dosgamers.com/dos/dosbox-dos-emulator
Well, really that’s likely to be less trouble than the Pi emulator on a different instruction set, but really, don’t you think it’s time you broke the Windows Addiction? Your friends will think more of you when you say “Linux and”, you will be wealthy (er…) as you spend less, your language will improve (as you have less to cuss about ;-) and life will at last be fulfilled (or at least the Linux part of it…)
As to the “buy a junker” vs “get an emulator”: That sort of depends on what other hardware you already have. IF you already have a box with a recent OS on it, just start exploring DOS emulators for it and finding out if anyone has run your program under that emulator (ie hit the forums and such). IF you don’t have a suitable machine already, then hit Craigs List and / or local computer recyclers for an XP desktop while you wait for your R. Pi order to ship ;-)
I run DOSBOX on Linux.
“DOSBox emulates an Intel x86 PC, complete with sound, graphics, mouse, joystick, modem, etc., necessary for running many old MS-DOS games that simply cannot be run on modern PCs and operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows XP, Windows Vista, Linux and FreeBSD. However, it is not restricted to running only games. In theory, any MS-DOS or PC-DOS (referred to commonly as “DOS”) application should run in DOSBox, but the emphasis has been on getting DOS games to run smoothly, which means that communication, networking and printer support are still in early development.”
https://www.dosbox.com/wiki/
Here’s a detailed tutorial for Linux Mint 18.2 …
https://www.computerbeginnersguides.com/blog/2017/08/15/install-and-configure-dosbox-gaming-on-linux-mint-18-2/
Oh, and remember your “Hierarchy Of Cool” aspect:
1) Got an ancient machine fixed, or bought an old XP box to run DOS:
Not cool. “trained monkey”.
2) Running it on a DOS emulator in Windows:
“Feh. OK, you are a bit more than average.”
3) Ported to new hardware and software:
“Hey, that’s cool. You have tech chops!”
4) Running it on a DOS emulator on a R. Pi:
“Wow, way cool! Retro-Computing! Linux Rules!”
“Cutting edge tech stuff… hey, are you one of those Linux Gods?”
Just sayin’… your friends WILL judge you and strangers will leap to conclusions about you… It’s happened to me. I’ve done the expedient “buy a crap box” for something and then had people give me the “Trained Monkey” look when talking about it – had to rapidly shift the conversation to managing a Unix supercomputer center and porting Climate Models to a Raspberry Pi Cluster to claw my way back to being “acceptable in geek conversation”…
Another Ian, you could in the mean time attach an external keyboard. I would back things up if you have not. I was perusing this for compatibility clues, but am not familiar enough with the application to see any clearly. Maybe it can help?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_reference_management_software
Building an extended Pi based system and porting Climate Models into it IS Way Cool!, Head of the Class 8-) in my opinion.
Next problem is multiply that accomplishment professor….pg
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@P.G.:
Thanks for the props!
I’m working on it. Not as fast as I’d like, but life is like that some times.
A sudden need to deal with an AT&T outage (from a sudden power surge that fried my UPS too) then a just as sudden need to figure out why I was sleeping badly after the new AT&T router, then…
So yeah, most of my cluster got shoved into the corner as I created an ersatz House Network via a different router and the T-Mobil hot spot, then UN-did that when the new router came in. Then…
So about 2? weeks ago I mentioned a new switch had arrived (after discovering the Netgear wasn’t working due to dead PSU…). I’ve got the whole cluster on it now (so REAL Gb switched network! At Last!) for the Beowulf “back plane”. I’ve got it now uplinking through it’s own dedicated netgear router (wifi mostly off, but can be turned on if desired with one button push); and I have a dedicated “head end” Raspberry Pi on the stack. That was about 2 weeks back.
This week just past, I got it all re-booted (somewhere in the power surge / UPS fail / shutdowns / etc. some fsck failed, so I had to move the monitor to each board and do a manual boot / fsck to recover them). As of about last Thursday it was all up and running and communicating again and had been stable a couple of days. Friday I tried logging in to do some work on it via the laptop… and was “reminded” I had left that WiFi turned off (DOH!) …
But the whole infrastructure recovery is basically done now. Next on the list is a fresh download of the current version of temperature data. I have a pristine locked down copy from about a year ago and I don’t want to do an update over that. It’s for proving what changed… I’m intending to run that this week (since in the next week or two I need to decide to upset my internet connection again by moving to Earthlink, or just suck it up and keep AT&T as I cancel DirecTV and expect that means a NEW 2 year lock in – but then only to the internet link part of it…) so maybe some of the infrastructure still isn’t quite done… ;-)
I guess the short form is:
Just ’cause I didn’t SAY anything didn’t mean I wasn’t DOING something ;-)
Just not something that advanced the ball…
(and after that 15 yard pass, the quarterback has regained the line of scrimmage… now 3rd and 10.)
What is it that possesses liberal elite to act out the very behavior they pretend to be campaigning against? Schneiderman is an especially loathsome creature given the accusations, even if done “consensually” as he maintains. S&M is one thing (we are told to allow everyone to “do their own thing”), but when you start demanding that your paramours declare they are your “slave”? It really lends credence to the contention that liberals are still smarting from losing their slaves 150 years ago!
Interesting if true:
From twitter
Dan Bongino liked
Benny
@bennyjohnson
4 hours ago
Source inside WH tells me the Iran Deal is done. Specifically blames John Kerry’s meddling.
Exact quote: ,b>“Trump was headed that way but Kerry just took away any of the teeth of the detractors — [Kerry’s] BS killed the deal.”
Now will we see a Logan act prosecution of Kerry?
Looks like Reuters and a few others are confirming Iran deal withdrawal will be announced this afternoon.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-nuclear/trump-to-announce-decision-on-iran-nuclear-deal-european-allies-on-edge-idUSKBN1I90D6
Just announced. And Kerry killed it.
And on the twitter front:
Conflict News
@Conflicts
BREAKING: Israel reportedly drafts reserve soldiers from military intelligence, home front & air defence commands in response to Iranian threat. – @NTarnopolsky
1:17 PM – 8 May 2018
Qalaat Al Mudiq
@QalaatAlMudiq
17 minutes ago
Breaking. Explosions S. of #Damascus. Air Defense in action.
World-Events Live Retweeted
ELINT News
@ELINTNews
15 minutes ago
#BREAKING: IDF Reserve troops called up to Golan Heights and Northern Israel, possible imminent attack by Iran/Iranian proxies- Israeli media
World-Events Live Retweeted
Danny Makki
@Dannymakkisyria
17 minutes ago
Reports of Syrian air defense firing rockets in the sky over #Damascus, suspected Israeli attack
Strategic Sentinel
@StratSentinel
39 minutes ago
More Strategic Sentinel Retweeted Liz Sly
Pentagon officials say they are seeing signs that #Iran might be preparing to strike #Israel from #Syria. This follows similar reporting that we have seen for the past 3 days from Israel and Syria.
Liz Sly
@LizSly
Follow @LizSly
CNN’s @barbarastarrcnn reports that Pentagon officials say they are seeing signs that Iran is preparing to strike Israel, perhaps from Syria.
Strategic Sentinel
@StratSentinel
5 minutes ago
A general call for reservist has not yet been made, but IDF is pulling reserve soldiers from military intelligence, home front & air defence commands. Bomb shelters in #GolanHeights on alert and ready.
On the topic of coldest April:
More
Bucking the trend, “During April, the average contiguous U.S. temperature was 48.9°F, 2.2°F below the 20th century average, making it the 13th coldest April on record and the coldest since 1997. ” -NCEI. More: https://buff.ly/2FVQcjH
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/national-climate-201804
That blue area looks like the typical “extent of glaciation’ map, Larry.
Yes isn’t that “odd”!
There is a reason the glaciers accumulated where they did, that cold interior continental climate plus moisture and presto one glacier.
Sanctuary counties for guns…
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/05/07/illinois-counties-form-sanctuaries-for-gun-owners-to-thwart-states-push-for-gun-control.html
I can’t tell you how much, living with the insanity from this state, this just tickles me pink. My favorite is the Dim rep talking about how you can’t just ignore laws if you don’t like them. I guess the irony of sanctuaries for gun rights vs immigration is lost on her.
This one is just soooo good 😆
That would be a funny cartoon even if it wasn’t political, but funnier yet because it is.
@H.R.:
Oh My! YES!
Just what he Judge did… and the “fishing” for ducks…
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