Scum Fighting on the kitchen floor.

Today was clear and sunny, good day for drying. So, haul the kitchen table and chairs and stuff out on the deck.   Wash the dishes to empty the sink.  Fill sink with Pinesol & hot water.  Do floor with sponge mop.  Notice that a scrummy film stays on the floor.  Pinesol doesn't seem to have the sack to cut thru it.  End up on hands and knees with 409 and a Scotchbrite.  That cuts the scum but it's a lot of work.  Wet mop after scrubbing and the rinse water comes out pitch black, so at least the dirt is coming up.  Four changes of rinse water and it's still coming out black.  But the floor is cleaner, and a shot of mop & glow and it's not too bad.  Dunno if it measures up to my Mother's standards, but it's good enough for me. 
   The world needs a better scum fighter.  Something that will cut the scum with just a sponge mop. 

Troop ships?

Meet the Press ran a video clip of Rand Paul worrying about Ebola contagion among our troops while they are packed onto troop ships.  Paul cited the cases of some cruise liners stricken with wierd virii that turned all the passenger's tummies.  As well as laying out a lot of the crew.
  The White House guy on camera, a white guy, didn't get his name, said "Oh we will screen them and everything will be OK."
   The White House guy should have said, and didn't,  "The US hasn't transported troops by ship since WWII."  Which is true.  They flew me out to Viet Nam in 1967, and they flew me back in 1968. 
    Anyhow, put one "idiot" chit against Rand Paul and a second one against the White House guy, who ever he was.  And by extemsion, one against who ever hired the White House guy.
   BTW.  Meet the Press and its competitors would make life easier for us poor viewers by placing name plaques on the table in front of all the players.  Even a news junkie like myself doesn't know everyone by sight.  Betcha plenty of viewers don't recognize anyone at all. 
   Then the discussion rambled on about Ebola, and the need to run in circles, scream and shout.  I give Gwen Ifil and David Axelrod one attaboy for not joining in the war dance, and saying we have just one case, where as West  Africa has more than a thousand deaths, and we can keep it that way. 
   There was a little talk about shutting down air travel out of Africa but it didn't really go anywhere.  There are few direct flights to that part of the world.  In fact the case in Texas had to fly to Brussels in Belgium to get a flight to the US.  Plus,  we have a lot of US citizens over there, and infected or not, they are Americans and America does not let its citizens die from a loathsome disease in African jungles.  We bring them home, we treat them, and so far we have had really good luck in curing them. 

Jeh Johnson, HHS secretary on Fox News

Bret  Baier had him on the 6PM news show last night.  Put a good long 20 minute interview on the air.  Asked Johnson about Ebola, and the Secret Service.  Johnson did not do well.  He came across as evasive and a man with something to hide.  Several somethings in fact.  I thought Baier did a nice fair interview, but Johnson kept evading the questions or changing the subject, or replying with meaningless platitudes. 

Easier to see scrollbars in Firefox

Some how in making the jump from XP to 8.1 Firefox messed up his scrollbars.  They went light grey, almost invisible, and the slider, or thumb, was just a shade or two darker than the scrollbar and damn hard to see.  PITA.
  There is a fix for Firefox.  Down load an add-in called NewScrollbars, or sometimes NOIAScrollbars 1.21.  Google will find it for you.  Good fix, you can set any color you like and the slider is a nice high contrast easy to see.  Significant improvement. 
Too bad I haven't found something like this for Windows 8.1 itself.  The M$ people were into very soft pastels this time which are hard to see.  User friendly those Microsofties. 

Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital

The one that failed to diagnose Ebola and sent the infectious patient home with some antibiotics.  I wonder if they are on the narrow Obamacare network?   According to the TV news, a nurse actually asked the patient about travel, and the patient said he was from Liberia.  The nurse didn't tell the doctors, she just typed it into the electronic medical records system.  The doctors didn't read the electronic system.  The hospital is blaming the computer system.  I'm thinking that nurse should have known that Liberia was Ebola country and she should have brought it to everyone's attention.  As it is, the electronic medical records system recorded it for later embarrassment of the hospital.  Obamacare has been demanding everyone go over to insecure electronic systems, claiming they improve care.  Right.  In actual fact, they make everyone's medical records available to anyone who cares to snoop, such as potential employers. 
   Any how, I would avoid Texas Health Presbyterian.  The goofed, big time, allowing an infected Ebola patient to wander around infecting people.

Australia's over-the-horizon radar.

Standard radar is strictly line of sight.  It's like using a searchlight.  The radar transmitter illuminates the target and some of the energy is reflected off the target back to the receiver where it is "seen".  Should the target be over the horizon it is just out of view.
   Down under, the Jindalee system uses extremely low frequencies, at least low for a radar.  The Aviation Week article didn't mention the frequencies used, but its got to be  10 meters or longer.  CB band and below.  At low frequency the ionosphere acts as a mirror and reflects the transmitted pulse back down to the ground far beyond the horizon.  The Australians have constructed three low frequency over-the-horizon (o-t-h)  radars spread across their sub continent, looking northward, covering the sea between Australia and Indonesia. 
  O-t-h radar, since it reflects off the unstable and fluxuating ionospheric mirror, suffers from image distortions, blind spots, and difficulties computing range.  You might say the picture is blurry.  But usable.  And operating three radar stations has got to be cheaper than flying reconnaisance, or launching recon satellites. 
   I notice that the o-t-h radar covers the sea areas in which they are still looking for that lost Malaysian airliner, the one that dropped off radar and was never heard from again.  Could the searches be guided by Jindalee o-t-h radar tracks? 

Leaves are beginning too fall

Leaves will be quite good this weekend.  By next weekend they will be mostly on the ground.  Or brown.