Some Satire is Too Close to Eurocrat Reality

Elon Musk is about to become a trillionaire

If he agreed to pay just 80% of that as a wealth tax to the EU, the EU government could use its efficient operating experience to fund bicycles with solar panels attached to them for over 40 residents of the Netherlands

Elon is being selfish by not paying the wealth tax

Vast numbers responded to you as a serious proposal.  

The Continuing Saga of the Explire Scientific Mount

I do not have the latest firmware. This explains the problems with using the latest control software. I will update it tomorrow 

I installed the latest firmware in the mount. The ExploreStars Envision app now connects at least with WFi but not Bluetooth. Even without doing a 2 star alignment, its attempt at goto Sun was close enough that I am convinced the problems is solved 

U. S. "Dark Fleet"

Not to avoid sanctions but to circumvent the Irsnian blockade. 6/10/26 CNBC:

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the U.S. military has secretly helped 200 commercial ships and more than 100 million barrels of oil through the Strait of Hormuz.

I have found the relatively low price of oil globally with the Strait of Hormuz closed.  The amount moved (at night without lights) is a fraction of thr normal transport so oil is still tight but at least our allies (Australia, Japan, South Korea) should get some benefit.  Our erstwhile allies even benefit. If only they were helping! Of course, the Royal Navy is now not even a shadow of its former self, more like a shadow of a ghost so expecting their help is unrealistic.  Besides, they have emerging impolite opposition forming. 

ICYMI

The party that drew brush mustaches on Bush Jt. and/made every wave of the hand by Trump or Musk into a Nazi salute just picked a World War II buff with a SS tattoo their nominee for U. S. Senate.

Why? 6/5/26 OpenSecrets reports billionaires are funding his campaign that claims rich people have too much influence. 

If billionaires are upset about their wealth enough to back one of their opponents would it not be simpler to do this wholesale (give away your billions) rather than retail (putting in office intent on taking that wealth). This suggests that he has no intention of doing so.

The New Mount Needed a Protective Carry Case

I am not sure invented this customizable cube foam for making custom cases but I hope they got rich.

This is an SKB, a little more expensive than the Chinese cases but I feel better about buying American 

Everything fits in here but the telescope which has its own case, and the tripod 

The IEXOS-100 Mount Problem Seemingly Solved

The problem with getting the ExploreStars app to reconnect to the mount seems to be solved. The app connects to the mount through TCP which is a connectful protocol unlike UDP. (Stuff i learned last century.)

It seems that leaving the app to do anything else or depowering the mount leaves the app in a state where it still has a connection open. Solution: stop the app. Force Stop (clumsy) or drag the app off the home screen which stops it.  Restart opens a new connection. The app has no stop or quit command. 

I was able to reconnect multiple times this way. I can do two star alignment after reconnecting.  I wish the Envision version which runs on Android cellphones would successfully connect.  A phone is more connection than a tablet for this. 

Do You Have a 1970s 800 BPI Tape Drive?

When I wasx n high school I wrote a veey nice text editor in assembly language for the Interdata 7/16 series of minicomputers. (Interdata's text editor was awful, limited to what would fit into its 64K of RAM, and slow). I found the tape while going through my random collection of stuff. I would dearly love took get access to it again. Any Suggestions?

This is EBCDIC not ASCII. 9 track tape.