Tuesday, November 21, 2017
Will there be anyone left in public life?
After the sexual assault accusations finally run down? They sank three newsies on Monday. Who is next? How many are next?
Monday, November 20, 2017
Garage Door Opener goes crazy.
Got home last night and found my garage door wide open, wind and rain blowing into the garage. I know I had hit the button on the door opener remote control to close the door, and actually seen the door start to close, before I had left. I tried the close button and the door would start to close, get to within a foot of the threshold, and then pop into reverse, drive full open, and flash the garage light furiously. I tried a couple ot times, no joy. Since it was dark and raining, I just pulled the emergency release, unhooking the door from the door opener, and closed the door by hand.
This door opener has a safety circuit, an electric eye that looks from rail to rail, and if the beam is interrupted by say a child, or a car, or a pet, or whatever, it kills the close cycle and opens the door all the way. Next day, I heaved the door up by hand and felt a light feathery touch from a twig that was stuck to the bottom of the door. So I took the shop broom and swept off the entire door bottom, and the threshold for good measure. Bingo, that did it, the door opened and closed perfectly. Must have been something stuck to the door bottom that stuck out enough to break the electric eye beam and send the door opener into it's emergency panic open response.
And a good thing too. That door opener has been working steadily for ten years now. I don't know if I could find the instruction sheet, or even the makers name, let alone a spare parts place.
This door opener has a safety circuit, an electric eye that looks from rail to rail, and if the beam is interrupted by say a child, or a car, or a pet, or whatever, it kills the close cycle and opens the door all the way. Next day, I heaved the door up by hand and felt a light feathery touch from a twig that was stuck to the bottom of the door. So I took the shop broom and swept off the entire door bottom, and the threshold for good measure. Bingo, that did it, the door opened and closed perfectly. Must have been something stuck to the door bottom that stuck out enough to break the electric eye beam and send the door opener into it's emergency panic open response.
And a good thing too. That door opener has been working steadily for ten years now. I don't know if I could find the instruction sheet, or even the makers name, let alone a spare parts place.
Sunday, November 19, 2017
Beat the Press
They spent a whole hour talking about sexual assault, Roy Moore, Al Franken, and why they think President Trump deserves more heat over that tape that was dredged up shortly before the election. Boring. Probably they ran the hour long piece because it was cheap and easy to produce.
The suits who run American media think they are running entertainment. The stories they select are intended to boost TV ratings or circulation, not to inform the public. The media workers are mostly Social Justice Warriors who see their duty as getting Democrats elected. Only Rupert Murdock was savvy enough to realize there is a large audience for news without to heavy layer of socialist propaganda you get on the networks and even PBS.
The suits who run American media think they are running entertainment. The stories they select are intended to boost TV ratings or circulation, not to inform the public. The media workers are mostly Social Justice Warriors who see their duty as getting Democrats elected. Only Rupert Murdock was savvy enough to realize there is a large audience for news without to heavy layer of socialist propaganda you get on the networks and even PBS.
Thor Ragnarok
It had decent reviews, the proceeding comic book movies with Thor had been amusing, and it's run at the Jax Jr is over today. So I went to see it last night. OK but not great.
Chris Hemsworth plays Thor, and plays him fairly well. They got Cate Blanchette to play the part of Helle, goddess of death, and general purpose bad guy (bad chick?). I'm surprised she took the part, 'cause she didn't get much in the way of a speaking role. No sign of Jane Foster, Thor's earthly girlfriend, played by Natalie Portman, back in the first Thor movie.
There isn't much in the way of plot in this movie. It just drifts from fight to fight. We have Thor going up against The Incredible Hulk, Thor going up against Helle, assorted armies of guys in armor carrying spears going up against each other, and various minor characters hacking and whacking on each other. The Thor vs Hulk fight takes place on a distant planet, in a huge arena, packed with screaming fans, presided over by a sadistic, but wimpy looking nameless ruler addressed simply as "The Grand Master". How the Hulk gets transported from Earth to this mysterious distant planet is not explained.
Other features unexplained. Asgard now has a civilian population, under attack by Helle, that Thor manages to save, loading them all onto a giant spacecraft, obtained by mysterious means. Asgard used to be just the home of the gods, now it has a civilian population in need of evacuation.
Thor has finally wised up about Loki, and out wits him a couple of times. Thor used to be a sucker for Loki's treachery, in this flick he keeps one step ahead. Although there is a lot of swordfighting, Thor and Loki both find automatic firearms convenient for clearing out snake infested areas. And everybody, even Bruce Banner, can fly the numerous aerospace craft that turn up.
If you like Marvel's Thor character, go see it. If you are only lukewarm on comic book movies, you haven't missed anything with this one.
Chris Hemsworth plays Thor, and plays him fairly well. They got Cate Blanchette to play the part of Helle, goddess of death, and general purpose bad guy (bad chick?). I'm surprised she took the part, 'cause she didn't get much in the way of a speaking role. No sign of Jane Foster, Thor's earthly girlfriend, played by Natalie Portman, back in the first Thor movie.
There isn't much in the way of plot in this movie. It just drifts from fight to fight. We have Thor going up against The Incredible Hulk, Thor going up against Helle, assorted armies of guys in armor carrying spears going up against each other, and various minor characters hacking and whacking on each other. The Thor vs Hulk fight takes place on a distant planet, in a huge arena, packed with screaming fans, presided over by a sadistic, but wimpy looking nameless ruler addressed simply as "The Grand Master". How the Hulk gets transported from Earth to this mysterious distant planet is not explained.
Other features unexplained. Asgard now has a civilian population, under attack by Helle, that Thor manages to save, loading them all onto a giant spacecraft, obtained by mysterious means. Asgard used to be just the home of the gods, now it has a civilian population in need of evacuation.
Thor has finally wised up about Loki, and out wits him a couple of times. Thor used to be a sucker for Loki's treachery, in this flick he keeps one step ahead. Although there is a lot of swordfighting, Thor and Loki both find automatic firearms convenient for clearing out snake infested areas. And everybody, even Bruce Banner, can fly the numerous aerospace craft that turn up.
If you like Marvel's Thor character, go see it. If you are only lukewarm on comic book movies, you haven't missed anything with this one.
Saturday, November 18, 2017
Do I believe in battery 18 wheelers with 500 mile range?
That's what Elon Musk claims. He even has a prototype to show. Of course he didn't demonstrate the range. Cruising on the interstates at 70 mph such a truck needs 7-8 hours to travel 500 miles. Which is a good day's run. I think there are regulations, honored as much in the breach as on the road, limiting driving shifts to 8 hours. In short that battery, if it lives up to spec, will keep the truck moving as long as the driver is supposed to be driving it.
Nor did Elon mention a price. Last I heard you could get a conventional diesel tractor, new, for maybe $65K. Can Elon even come close to that? Who knows? How long does it take to recharge?
On the other hand, heavy trucks have the room for a massive battery pack. More weight just gives a tractor more pulling power. And heavy trucks run a lot more miles in a year than private autos, so a small improvement in operating costs will pay off sooner.
Nor did Elon mention a price. Last I heard you could get a conventional diesel tractor, new, for maybe $65K. Can Elon even come close to that? Who knows? How long does it take to recharge?
On the other hand, heavy trucks have the room for a massive battery pack. More weight just gives a tractor more pulling power. And heavy trucks run a lot more miles in a year than private autos, so a small improvement in operating costs will pay off sooner.
Friday, November 17, 2017
I didn't know that Congress had a slush fund to pay off sexual assault victims.
Not sure just where I stand on this issue, but the fact that Congress kept it secret doesn't speak well of it. Nor does it speak well of Congressmen.
How did the Russians win WWII?
First it helps to understand the relative sizes and strengths of the great powers in 1941. Today, we have just two, maybe three superpowers, powers so much bigger and stronger than ordinary powers that nobody dares mess with them. Back then, there were more great powers (Germany, Russia, Great Britain, France, USA, Japan) and they were closer to each other in strength. Germany was the strongest and scariest European power, the US lacked the regard that it earned during WWII. Certainly Hitler didn't think much of America.
Hitler attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941, a bolt out of the blue attack. Hitler poured in 3-4 million soldiers, 5000 tanks, 10,000 warplanes. He caught the Russians by surprise, and captured most of western Russia, encircled and destroyed two huge Russian armies, taking 1.2 million prisoners of war. The Luftwaffe wiped the floor with the Red air force. That first year the Germans nearly captured Moscow. Advanced German patrols got as far as the Moscow trolley lines and claimed to have seen the domes of the Kremlin gleaming in the sun. By the end of the year, the Germans owned the Russian heartland, all Stalin had left were a bunch of remote frontier districts.
Somehow, I've never read a good description of just how, the Russians hung in there, drafted another 30 million men into the Red Army, picked up and moved a thousand factories from western Russia to remote Ural Mountain locations, got production of war machines going again from Siberia, and next summer at Stalingrad met the German army head on and beat it in a standup fight.
To do this, Stalin's regime had to have political control via the NKVD, and a lot of popular enthusiasm for the Great Patriotic War. Otherwise, those 30 million draftees might have decided that service in the Red Army was suicide and bolted for the woods. And just how did the Red Army turn draftees into combat soldiers so quickly? And trying to get a tank factory which had been dumped by the side of the railroad tracks back into production must taken superhuman effort on the part of the workers. Suppose the workers had lost heart and just leaned on their shovels?
In short, it took a miracle for the Russians to stay in the war, and fight back so effectively, after the tremendous damage the Germans did to them in that first summer.
Hitler attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941, a bolt out of the blue attack. Hitler poured in 3-4 million soldiers, 5000 tanks, 10,000 warplanes. He caught the Russians by surprise, and captured most of western Russia, encircled and destroyed two huge Russian armies, taking 1.2 million prisoners of war. The Luftwaffe wiped the floor with the Red air force. That first year the Germans nearly captured Moscow. Advanced German patrols got as far as the Moscow trolley lines and claimed to have seen the domes of the Kremlin gleaming in the sun. By the end of the year, the Germans owned the Russian heartland, all Stalin had left were a bunch of remote frontier districts.
Somehow, I've never read a good description of just how, the Russians hung in there, drafted another 30 million men into the Red Army, picked up and moved a thousand factories from western Russia to remote Ural Mountain locations, got production of war machines going again from Siberia, and next summer at Stalingrad met the German army head on and beat it in a standup fight.
To do this, Stalin's regime had to have political control via the NKVD, and a lot of popular enthusiasm for the Great Patriotic War. Otherwise, those 30 million draftees might have decided that service in the Red Army was suicide and bolted for the woods. And just how did the Red Army turn draftees into combat soldiers so quickly? And trying to get a tank factory which had been dumped by the side of the railroad tracks back into production must taken superhuman effort on the part of the workers. Suppose the workers had lost heart and just leaned on their shovels?
In short, it took a miracle for the Russians to stay in the war, and fight back so effectively, after the tremendous damage the Germans did to them in that first summer.
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