Tuesday, May 5, 2026

When the Communists Come to Power...

whining millionaires
Yes. They will pass by her mansion because she showed her solidarity with the people! $12 million means she could invest it in municipal bonds of her state and enjoy $480,000 a year income exempt from federal and state income tax. Can you live comfortably on $40,000 a month. Let's see her try 

History

 It is an article of faith that the enormous loss of Indian life after the Spanish arrived was because the Indians had no immunities to measles, smallpox, and a bunch of other diseases that had been killing people in the Old World long enough that our gene pool had selected the weak ones out. One of the student papers referenced a CDC article that I found fascinating:

Abstract

The native population collapse in 16th century Mexico was a demographic catastrophe with one of the highest death rates in history. Recently developed tree-ring evidence has allowed the levels of precipitation to be reconstructed for north central Mexico, adding to the growing body of epidemiologic evidence and indicating that the 1545 and 1576 epidemics of cocoliztli (Nahuatl for "pest”) were indigenous hemorrhagic fevers transmitted by rodent hosts and aggravated by extreme drought conditions.

Now, this was not entirely without Spanish involvement:

These infections appear to have been aggravated by the extreme climatic conditions of the time and by the poor living conditions and harsh treatment of the native people under the encomienda system of New Spain. The Mexican natives in the encomienda system were treated as virtual slaves, were poorly fed and clothed, and were greatly overworked as farm and mine laborers. This harsh treatment appears to have left them particularly vulnerable to epidemic disease.

Warming Up

Time to pull out the Hawaiian shirts. The next few nights will be 70 degrees when I roll out the telescope at 10:00 

Not Much Activity; Well Pump Failed

I have been busy solving other problems.  Our well pump (or at least part of the supporting electrical system) has failed.  American Home Shield, our home warranty company, has performed well on the only other problem we have had but that was a dishwasher, which is nice but hardly an emergency. Not having water in the house for cooking, laundry, dishwasher, and especially toilets is another matter. 

Our first service request yesterday is apparently working through the system. I called this morning to emphasize the emergency nature of this.  We are promised a service provider call today. 

I confess to being rather spoiled by past experience. The house I had built above Horseshoe Bend was never a problem. I designed it with self-sufficiency in mind although I was not truly off-grid. The backup generator ran off the LP gas tank.  It powered the well pump, the pressurization pump, the furnace and A/C and the kitchen.  When Idaho Power dropped the ball, as they often did, it had little impact.  We had a 1000 gallon tank.  I have no idea how much gas the backup generator used but we never ran out. 

The well pumped water into a 1000 gallon cistern which had enough elevation to give us 5 psi. This was enough that when the pressurization pump failed once, we still had enough water to hand wash dishes and flush toilets.  Also, 1000 gallons takes a long time for two people to use.

I miss that house. 

Anyway, after going through a lot of bottled drinking water to flush toilets, we suddenly realized that the canal water for the sprinklers, as gross as it, will flush toilets just fine. My wife labeled some of our empty drinking water bottles Toilet.

Whoever put together our sprinklers did something a little clever. Our Red Lion sprinkler pump in most applications needs to be primed every spring. The air trapped in it, will hold a bubble that the incoming low pressure canal water can not push through.  The system we have uses pipe with a faucet to allow air to escape. 

When the air finishes bleeding through, irrigation water comes out, even if the pump is not running. I hooked up a hose to that faucet.  Irrigation system gravity pressure let me fill up those jugs in a hurry.

Sunday, May 3, 2026

What Do You Do If There is a House Blocking Polaris?

Worst of all, it is your house? Getting a telescope mount lined up true North which is within a degree of Polaris is very important.

I am using my Losmandy GM8 mount at the moment while waiting for an 8 pound counterweight to properly balance the G811G goto mount.

The GM8 is not goto. This is a very solid older mount. The solution:

1. Align to North as accurately as Google Maps allows.

2. Pick an object in the sky with a known Right Ascension and Declination. Google "Jupiter RA and DEC right now". 

3. Center the telescope on it and see how far from that DEC the declination setting circle is. In thus case, it should be +22 degrees. Move the polar axis in whatever direction seems most likely to correct it to the correct DEC. On the GM8, there is a azimuth adjustment screw good for several degrees either direction. 

4. Keep moving polar axis until recentering Jupiter, in thus case, gets it at +22 degrees. You are aligned with the universe's coordinate system. You chi is probably adjusted now as well as a besutiful aura.

5. The RA axis circle is only lightly bound to the polar axis. Turn it until the RA there matches the RA of the object.

6. Whatever you want to see, turn declination axis to that DEC and polar axis to that RA. You are done. As long as you do not move that driven RA setting circle and keep the clock drive running, you are set for the night!

Saturday, May 2, 2026

AI

 As I continue to grade papers, I see troubling items. Sometimes not AI. From a comment on a paper:

No page numbers or headers are often signs that a student copied and pasted from an AI program. There are enough grammar errors and clumsy sentences that I doubt you used AI, unless it was developmentally delayed AI.

Another paper with AI fingerprints all over it.  Some of these, even if not provably AI, are so bad that many AI programs need to go to college. Vague, general, shallow obvious statements with references to unnamed documents. Has anyone figured out where we go after AI? Assuming colleges and universities still have a use.


I Do Not Generally Repost Memes, But This Was Too Good