Cell Phone Battery Life

 I try to carry my cell phone everywhere, in case I fall down, or the car breaks down stranding me on I93, or you name the disaster.  My children all informed me that venturing out of the house, or even out of bed without a cell phone was a life risking activity.  It's a low end Sam Sung, model AM01.  I bought it after Tracfone announced that they would no longer support the even lower end Tracfone I had been using.  I got into the habit of plugging the SamSung into the charger when I went to bed in the evening.  Smart phone would give a chirp and display battery charge, 80-90%, in short, using up 10-20% of battery power for just sitting in my shirt pocket, not making any calls.  

   The charger ran into trouble and stopped charging.  I noticed the battery charge going down, reaching 7%.  I messed around on the keyboard, settings has a "battery" option now (it did not back when I got the phone)  and it offered a "max battery saving" option, which I took.  I also had a good look at the charger, which has a strange internal connector which had become disconnected.  Plugged the charger back together and it started to charge again. 

After a day or so I noticed that the battery was at 100% when I plugged it into the charger in the evening.  "Max battery saving" was doing some good,  the phone was claiming 8 days and a few hours worth of battery charge. That is a goodness.  I have had some lengthy power outages up here, but the worst was only six days.  That was back before cell phones.  So, on "max battery save" my cell phone ought to ride out the worst power failures I will ever suffer up here.  The max battery save mode gains much of its saving from doing the screen white letters on a black background, instead of vice versa. That way the battery only has to light the few pixels in the letters, rather than every pixel on the whole screen.  I find the screen easier to read the white on black background mode.  It also claims to have shut down some applications doing who knows what behind my back.  Anyhow, if you are running a low end Samsung phone, try the max battery save option. 

Infrastructure/Pork bill passed the House.

 The bill is now trimmed down to a mere $1TRILLION.  It started out at $2.5 TRILLION.  So at least some trimming happened.  I think half of it is actually infrastructure and the other half pork and freebies.  Thirteen House Republicans (RINOs) voted to pass this democrat bill.  We ought to find out their names and districts and make sure they have opponents in the primary.  It's not clear to me if this bill needs to go to the Senate, or go right to Biden for signature and become law immediately.  

   And Congress has a second bill for $3.5 TRILLION or perhaps more, that is all pork and freebies to be voted upon this month.

USS Connecticut, Seawolf Class Nuclear Sub collides with sea mount

 Accident happened in the South China Sea back on 2 October this year (2021).  The sea mount was described as "uncharted".  The Navy relieved the captain, the executive officer and the chief of the boat. Amount of damage is undetermined, at least by civilians like me.  Must have been pretty bad, 11 crewmen were hurt (not seriously) and Connecticut traveled from the collision site to Guam on the surface.  There is talk about returning her to Bremerton Washington for repairs that might take a year or more.  

   This is the first I heard of this.  Chalk another one up for the MSM.  I came across it websurfing at the US Naval Institute site.  USNI has been around for 60 years that I know of, and probably a lot more, and I consider them highly reliable.  They were the publishing house that published Tom Clancy's first best seller, Hunt for Red October, after all the regular publishers refused to touch Clancy's masterpiece.  Sea Wolf was the last cold war nuclear sub design, so advanced that it was considered worth two or three ordinary nuclear attack subs.  They are expensive, we only built three of them since the Cold War ended.  They got named USS Sea Wolf, USS Jimmy Carter and USS Connecticut.  Dunno how the Navy got the Jimmy Carter name thru Congress.  Surely these Sea Wolf class nuclear attack subs would be VERY useful for stopping a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.  Well we have one less of them now. 

   Just how Connecticut managed to clip that sea mount is unclear.  How deep was the South China Sea at the point and how deep was Connecticut running?  Was it me, I would allow a thousand feet or more between my sub and the bottom, at least for peace time exercises, and in a poorly charted place like the South China Sea.

Buying at retail for this Christmas.

 I did it.  Last few Christmases I ordered everyone's Christmas present off the Internet.  This Christmas I went to LaHoute's ski shop in Littleton and came way with gloves, hats, and shirts.  Then I did the Little Book Store on Main St and came away with toys for grand neices and grand nephews.  I had a Christmas wrap session and I am now ready for Christmas.  Bring it on St Nick.

Biden is reported to have nothings to say about the Virginia election

 Jeez, What can he say?  His party took a big loss in Virginia.  What is there that any Democrat can say about it that sounds half way intelligent?

Virginia

 Glenn Youngkin has claimed victory just a little after midnight.  And the Republicans have won the lieutenant governor and attorney general races.  Margin of victory was thin, 2 or 3 %, but better than nothing in a long time democrat state.  I wish the new Republican government of Virginia all the best luck in the world.  This Republican win will certainly strike fear into the hearts of democrats about the 2022 midterm elections. 

Self Driving Cars

 All the car manufacturers are working on this product, some claim to have one that works already. Question:  Would you buy a self driving car?  Would you feel safe riding in one?  Me, I would not trust a microprocessor to handle Rte 128 rush hour traffic.  Especially when it snows.