If Harris Wins...

It will tell me that the voters (some of them alive and U.S. citizens) are not smart enough to realize that Harris intends to continue the policies that got us where we are, or that the election counting process has been so corrupted that we are likely past peaceful national correction.

Peaceful secession of Red States in the only likely solution.  CA, OR, WA can look for some other path to ship goods to the East Coast.  I suspect they will get a chance to go very Green by stopping imports of electricity.  Perhaps we can put up a Las Vegas-style sign at the Oregon border.  "We have electricity.  Read by our lights."

Why the First Computers Were Made Out of Light Bulbs

On YouTube.  It explains how a quirk of early light bulbs observed by Edison led to the vacuum tube diode, then triode,  then boolean adders.

This Morning's Incompetent Scam

 Look at the date sent stamp:

Yes, 2/2/2330.  The default outlook domain is onmicrosoft.com.  These crooks were not smart enough to set a valid or at least not onviously bogus email address.

A Good Chuckle at Doctor's Office

 

The Duplicate File Program

Most of the duplicate files on OneDrive are of the form * - Copy.*.  I can fix this from bash using find.

find . -name "* - Copy*" -exec rm {} \;

The directories thst are copies will require rm -r

Weirdest Video of the Day

But there are no monkeys and no torture.  An odd reason why French arrested Telegram CEO.  It appears that Russian military and intelligence services are quite dependent on the encrypted version.   How well is it encrypted?  Can the CEO help?

Monkey Torture Videos

No, that is not the result of asking an AI program for the most improbable collection of words.  8/27/24 ArsTechnica tells a story of a drug dealer lawyer who got his act together, resumed his law practice, and then came to attention of federal prosecutors for his involvement in a fetish that makes Caligula look like a Sunday School teacher.  I am not going to quote from the article nor encourage you to read it.  If you do, have some steel wool and Clorox on hand to scrub out your soul.

There are actions out there so horrifying that they yell that Evil, with a capital E, is real.   Humans alone could not make this stuff up.

DupGuru

I am pretty impressed.  I have a Lenovo 11e with a 256GB SSD.  I have close to a TB of files in OneDrive.  Manu are duplicates often with the same name - Copy ot name -Copy2.   Some are the same file in different directories.   Downloading session laws for different court cases often means duplicates. 

So I am running DupGuru against OneDrive.  I was expecting it to download all of these 600GB of files then do the compare.  No, it is smart enough to download one at a time, compare them, and record the differences.  

It likely wears out the SSD faster but the laptop will likely become obsolete before the SSD wears out.

Not the Most Photogenic Examples

 But still nice to see.  8/27/24 AP.

Hawaii residents carry battle-axes, samurai swords, celebrating a change in weapon laws

Threat to Democracy

8/26/24 East Idaho News:

"the Capitol received an email Monday that said a group would place a bomb at the Capitol building if Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris didn’t win the November presidential election. Snell said the threat wasn’t immediate. Idaho State Police cleared the building within the hour."

Partisans as smart as their candidate. 

Do You Have Friends at Venmo?

 A couple years ago, one of you nice people sent me $20 through Venmo.  I had no Venmo account so I opened one.  I could never sucessfully move that money to my checking account, but someone hacked into my Venmo account, took that $20 and proceeded to use it for I suspect shady purposes.  Fortunately, Venmo is so insecure that I was able to regain control of the account.

Then I received a notice that someone bought cryptocurrency with my Venmo account.  I tried to get in and delete my Venmo account.  But it wanted me to give the verification code that it texted to a number ending with four digits that I have never used.  There is no phone number that I can find that lets me talk to a human at Venmo.  The Chastbot is not smart enough to recognize "human agent."  I really want this awful thing to forget that I exist.

They keep insisting that my selfie with my license is too blurry to use.  This is obviously a way to keep  the account open.  FDIC next.

The Fascists Drop the Mask

8/25/24 Fox News:

"Retired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who made waves as a key witness in the impeachment trial against former President Donald Trump, issued a warning to Elon Musk on Sunday after Telegram messaging app CEO Pavel Durov was arrested in France.

"Durov was served with an arrest warrant in Paris on Saturday night following a preliminary police investigation surrounding his alleged failure to sufficiently limit criminal activity on Telegram, according to TF1 TV and BFM TV. 

"While experts and industry leaders sounded the alarm about the international free speech implications of his arrest, Vindman championed the move, taking to X to warn its CEO about the "growing appetite for accountability" before suggesting that Musk could be next....

"Vindman's warning to Musk seemingly garnered significant backlash, prompting him to double down in a follow up post, where he railed against "free speech absolutists weirdos.""

Yes, if you want to know why our current masters need to be overthrown,  here it is.

Saying Good-Bye to Racism

 8/21/24 [U.K.] Independent:

The University of Kentucky will disband its Office for Institutional Diversity in response to questions from policymakers on whether the school has stifled political discussions, its president said Tuesday.

The action on the Lexington, Kentucky, campus comes after state lawmakers debated whether to limit diversity, equity and inclusion practices at public universities. Republican supermajorities in the Kentucky House and Senate were unable to resolve differences on the issue before ending this year's session in April, but the matter has been expected to resurface when lawmakers reconvene early next year.

In the school's preemptive action, units housed in the shuttered diversity office will be shifted elsewhere on campus, including into a newly created Office for Community Relations, UK President Eli Capilouto announced in a campuswide email. The restructuring won't result in job losses, he said.

Capilouto stressed that the school's core values remain intact — to protect academic freedom and promote a “sense of belonging” for everyone on campus, regardless of background or perspective.

Belonging is fine.  It applies to the melanin-challenged as well.  I am disappointed that there will be no lost jobs.  Every unneeded administrator increases the cost of higher education.

Urbanization By Decade U.S.

Yes, I need this for a case.  Somewhere within the Census Bureau enormous and incomprehensible organized website there are either tables of a graph showing urban percentage of U.S. population by decade.  I really,  really need it.

Not the Babylon Bee

8/22/24 Newsweek reports a newly appointed nuclear weapons analyst has written articles calling for "queering nuclear weapons. "

I am sorry, but Minutrman missiles do not belong in nuclear submarine launch tunes.  They will not fit and it is unnatural. 

Biden Appointee Strikes a Blow for Second Amendment

 I do not have a link to it yet. 

CRPA v. Los Angeles Shariff's Depasrtment (C.D.Cal. 2024).   This is "ORDER GRANTING IN PART,

DENYING IN PART, PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION FOR PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION."  This means the final decision still requires trial, but on a preliinary basis some California concealed carry licensing laws are unconstitutional.

The plaintiffs challenged the extraordinary license fees and limitation of licenses to California residents.  While the judge did not direct that California recognize out of state licenses, it appears that her decision would require non-residents to be able to apply for carry licenses.

Here, Plaintiffs have only demonstrated that the text of the Second Amendment likely applies to the first of its arguments, that non-residents have the right, like California residents, to apply to lawfully carry firearms for self-defense while in public.

 One of the other erteaining parts of California's defense (and upn which I( had great in the rebuttals) was:

Plaintiffs respond that the LA Defendants’ showing is insufficient. First, Plaintiffs contend the LA Defendants purportedly rely on laws that post-date both relevant eras.  Second, Plaintiffs argue that, to the extent the LA Defendants cite to laws from the Founding era, those laws are “explicitly racist laws that have no place here.”

The Court finds the LA Defendants have not carried their burden to demonstrate that the over 18-month delays imposed on Individual Plaintiffs Weimer and Messel are part of a historic tradition of firearms regulation.

Time for reparations?

This Should Be Easy to Find

 A spreadsheet with the U.S. population by decade from 1790 to 2020,  It is coubtless somewherer in the Census Bureau's website but obscured by thousands of other tables.  I asked ChatGPT and it told me to visit links to that data.  While colored as though they were links, they were not.

Specifically, with an official source.

What Happens If Trump Wins While in a New York Prison?

A felony conviction is not a disqualifier from federal office.i could see Americans who do not like Trump voting for him as a protest against the Democrsts' threat to democracy.   New York will not release him.  It would be a little too transparent if they Epsteined him, leading to perhaps didorganized civil war.  and 

I would like to think that a federal judge would issue a writ of habeas corpus for Trump.  While the tradition is that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court swears the President into office, this is not required.  Calvin Coolidge was sworn in by a Justice of the peace

If he is not able to take the oath of office who is President?  No one.  Biden might claim that he is or Harris might claim that she is but without an Electoral College victory, clearly neither is.  I wonder how many Red State governors will declare that there is no legitimate national government because the chief executive of the national government is not in office and simply refuse to follow national government orders.  Texas would likely enforce a border. This might lead to de facto secession. 

.

Today's Scam

 It looks legit.  I call the number and the East Indian in a boiler room wants me to correct the error with a URL ending in live.  Oh yes, if I do not, the charge will go to my checking account.  Worse, when I try to close my Venmo account which has been hacked in the past, it wants to send me a verification code to a number that I have never had.  Venmo is apparently very insecure.

Venmo's instructions for dealing with this are wrong.  No such choices appear.  They seem to have no phone number.

	Delaney Foster requests $79.99 Your account has been charged for a cryptocurrency purchase. If you didn’t authorize this, reach out to support at +1 (808) 460_6127. Transaction ID: DX24KG8MT.

Pay Delaney

Send money. Transfer to your bank.

Make sure you know how to spot payment scams - you might not get your money back if someone scams you.

Venmo is a service of PayPal, Inc., a licensed provider of money transfer services. All money transmission is provided by PayPal, Inc. pursuant to PayPal, Inc.’s licenses.

PayPal is located at

2211 North First Street, San Jose, CA 95131

If you do not wish to receive this type of email from Venmo in the future, unsubscribe with one click.

For Almost Any Need There is Something Open Source

The problem.   I have multiple copies of some very big PDFs (usually primary sources of 80-100MB).  Yes, vast quantities of antique laws.  Even on a 2 TB drive they gobble up space.   When backing up to OneDrive this is even worse and slower to back up. I am also reaching the 1TB limit on OneDrive.  There are also many files on my OneDrive that were copied several times and have slightly different file names.  Cleaning those up will also be useful.

I was thinking,  it would be so useful to have a program that identifies files that are duplicated even if the names are different.  Even better,  if it would delete the older version and link the newer version to the older version's directory.   This reduces extra space without losing the association with existing projects. 

https://dupeguru.voltaicideas.net/ seems like it may do that job, at least in part.  If it lets me delete the duplicate that is not in my primary sources directory that simplifies finding them.

Full backup first, of course. 

Even Billionaires Do Not Get Out of Here Alive

8/20/24 CNN:

"British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, Morgan Stanley International director Jonathan Bloomer, and Chris Morvillo, a prominent American lawyer, are among six people still missing after a tornado hit a luxury yacht off the coast of Sicily.

"The vessel sank Monday — killing one of the 22 people on board — after its mast, one of the world’s tallest, broke in half during the storm. Fifteen people have been rescued."

There are no U-Hauls headed to Heaven.  Nor are there wire transfers there.  Live your life as though you may not be here tomorrow and in a way that makes you not afraid of Judgment.

Treasury Yield Curve Inversion Alert

From Bloomberg we see:

GB12:GOV12 Month0.00 4.23GT2:GOV2 Year4.38 100.72GT5:GOV5 Year4.00 101.40GT10:GOV10 Year3.88 100.56GT30:GOV30 Year4.25 103.27

Yields are falling over the next 10 years.  This usually warns that smart money (or at least big money , which is usually the same thing) is expecting recession is here or coming.   This is doubtless no surprise to most of you.  The hangover after the Inflation Reduction Act party is arriving.  It was not much of a party for me, but connected billionaires doubtless had lots of fun wearing lampshades. 

Falling interest rates mean you should be taking out ARMs for house loans, not fixed rate. Buying bonds now or buying CDs means likely better returns than you will get in three years.  Falling interest rates will also mean that fund managers who are obligated to get some decent return for pension funds and annuities will be buying equities not bonds.

If you are risk averse, municipal bonds of states run by adults (like Idaho) are probably a good purchase.  I see a number of trades yesterday of Idaho munis with 4% and up yields.  Remember that the interest on most municipal bonds is exempt from federal income tax and if you are a resident of that state, exempt from your state's income tax 

That WiFi Connection That Keeps Dropping

I have mentioned that two of my Lenovo laptops refuse to keep a WiFi connection after 3-5 minutes.   Worst of all, they work reliably on every other WiFi.

Lenovo replaced the WiFi transceiver and motherboard without success.   SparkLight had not a clue.

Yesterday Lenovo had me reset the PC.  Problem solved.

Cool Kids Change Their Pronouns

 Really cool kids change their nouns.  8/16/24 Telegraph:

Church of England dropping word ‘church’ to be more ‘modern’

Maude Royden-Shaw (not Disraeli) called the Church? of England "the Conservative Party at prayer." 

It is not even that anymore.  It is not even a church anymore.  Suggest a more appropriate noun.

Do Republicans Do This?

8/19/24 New York Post:

"San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins has come under fire and is facing accusations of nepotism after quietly promoting a close friend to be her chief of staff, making her the first person without a law degree to hold the position.

"Jenkins hired Monifa Willis, a nursing professor at the University of California, San Francisco, in 2022 to run the District Attorney’s Office’s Victim Services Division before she was promoted in March.'

The criticisms in the story include evidence that the DA and the chief of staff have been friends since high school.  The only good news is thst she replaced Boudin, who charged one guy with felon in possession, carrying an unregistered assault weapon, carrying without a license and he served three days in jail 

Where Low-Trust Society Takes You

8/14/24 Fox Business:

"San Francisco has lost its only Denny’s restaurant....

"It was reportedly negatively impacted by dining and dashing and other factors.

"The cost of doing business is tremendous. There’s vandalism, and people come and eat and walk away, and there’s no one to stop them," Haque reportedly said."

When no one enforces even minor crimes such as defrauding an innkeeper, we get money first then your meal and everything in locked display cases.

I Have Hope for America in November

But as my wife's blog reminds us: "The Messiah Will Not Arrive in Air Force 1."

When You Lose the Washington Post ..

8/16/24 Washington Post:

"Vice President Kamala Harris’s speech Friday was an opportunity to get specific with voters about how a Harris presidency would manage an economy that many feel is not working well for them. Unfortunately, instead of delivering a substantial plan, she squandered the moment on populist gimmicks."

No they have not turned conservative.   They just know that inflation is not caused by price-gouging.  They did not raise this, but why would corporations under Trump not engage in price-gouging but suddenly change direction under a Democrat?  Harris is clearly surrounded by people with no understanding of economics.   Are you surprised?

It is fun to read the deranged comments by Democrsts who think the Washington Post is now backing Trump.  

How Far Does Harris Have To Go? Nuking Israel?

Chicago businesses are boarding up their windows for the Democratic Nationsl Convention.   10/16/24 New York Post:

"Protest organizers told NBC News tens of thousands of people from several states will take over the streets in Chicago when Democratic delegates nominate Vice President Kamala Harris as the party’s presidential nominee.

“We’re not going to do anything different. We’re going to mobilize,” said chief organizer Hatem Abudayyeh, the national chair of the US Palestinian Community Network advocacy group.

“Harris represents the administration; she represents Biden. There is nothing that she has expressed,” he added."

Harris is fiercely pro-Hamas and picked Walz to get the Dearbornistan vote.  That is not enough?  In 1968, the protestors were challenging the VP of Vietnam LBJ.  What more can the Democrats do?  Require Jews to wear yellow stars?

Why Defeating Trump is So Important

10/4/19 CNBC:

"

• The jobless rate for Hispanics hit a record low of 3.9% in September, while African Americans maintained its lowest rate ever, 5.5%. 
• The unemployment rate for Asian Americans was 2.5% in September. The jobless rate for adult women came in at 3.1%. "

A 9th Circuit Victory

Nguyen v. Bonta chakllenged California's one gun every thirty days purchase limit law.  We received a summary judgment in district court.  California appealed of course.  The 9th Circuit initially stayed the district court's summary judgment.  Now they have reversed that stay.  We are still awaiting a decision but upholding that summary judgment means California now needs to request a writ of certiorari from the Suprteme Court and these are usually rejected unless other Courts of Appeal come to different conclusions.

But There Were No Repeating Guns in the Framing Era!

 Just added this.

Alternative to Red State Secession

Or perhaps a negotiated alternative;

1. Customs Union.  No internal tariffs or other trade barriers.

2. Shared military.  Good for all of us and international peace.

3. Shared foreign policy.  There is not that much of a partisan divide on this, or rather the extremes on the left and right are not overwhelming to the middle.

4. Allow states to pass their own laws (abortion, gun laws, state taxation, reparations).

What we could call it?  Federalism?

Do Not Panic

We have just experienced a substantial stock market correction or loss of confidence or whatever you call it.  But most of that decline has been regained in the last week or so.  Short-term losses are to be expected.   Long-term is up.  People that bought stock in 1930 or 1931 and held it for 20 or 30 years came out rich.  Stay invested in equities in your 401k or IRA.

Remember That Story About the Lab in Reedley?

It smelled bad but this 8/15/24 Sacramento Bee story about federal indictments suggests just ordinary fraud:

"A federal grand jury handed down new charges on Thursday for the man accused of being behind the Reedley lab that regulators said was illegally distributing misbranded COVID-19 test kits as the owners lied to investors. Jia Bei Zhu, 62, previously faced three counts of lying to regulators and distributing misbranded medical devices, but the grand jury on Thursday returned a new 12-count superseding indictment."

Read more at: https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/article291100330.html#storylink=cpy

It appears they misled investors into believing they were making huge numbers of American-made COVID-19 tests which were actually imported from China and then mislabeled. 

This Was the Improvement From Biden?

It is so sad.

If she wins, either truly or by election fraud, I can see Red State secession.  But please, let the national government draw first blood.  As long as Red States do not make war on the national government,  it is not treason.

Wyoming and Texas have oil.  Idaho has RAM

 manufacturing. Potatoes,  and sugar.  Wyoming has coal.  Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming have cattle.  The Dakotas have wheat and corn.  Iowa has corn and pigs.  California imports much of its electricity from northwest Red States.  If Nevada joins us, Los Angeles' water is seriously reduced. Big dams across the Snake and Columbia Rivers would impact Oregon heavily.  Texas and Louisiana gives us seaports.  Any serious attempt at military intervention would cause mutiny in many Regular Army units and state guard units.  Ten million Militia armed with rifles would make  infantry helpless.  Bombing raids on Red cities would likely break Democrat unity.

Early Repeaters

 I have a page now with 18th century American ads that mention repeating arms.  Tell me if you find more.

Drone Surrender

No, the drones are nor waving white flags. 8/14/24 Forbes:

"Drones are creating a new type of warfare in Ukraine. The latest unexpected twist is ‘non-contact surrender’ in which a drone with a speaker and microphone approaches Russian troops and invites them to lay down their arms. They follow the drone back to Ukrainian lines where they are taken safely into captivity. There have been occasional spontaneous surrenders to drones in the past, but this looks like an organized campaign to take surrender remotely."

Advantages.  No worry that Russian soldiers pretending to surrender will open fire on Ukrainian soldiers.   Safer for both groups.  It is nice to see technology make war more humane 

Is This the Future?

Not Terminators but Annoyanators.  8/13/24 Daily Mail:

"Outraged San Francisco condo residents are being kept awake at night by parking lot full of driverless cars that constantly beep at each other...

"The dystopian video shows the cars driving in circles around the lot with their lights on in the middle of the night as they randomly start beeping at each other,"

The only thing I can think of from reading this was a bizarre incident from my youth.  A friend's car had disappeared and we worried that it had been towed to the West Los Angeles Official Police Garage. So we went over and asked the guy in the office if he had a list of license plates.  "No."

"Can we look around and see if we can see it?'

"No."

"Can we look over the wall?" It was about 6' tall.

"No.  I could have your eyes arrested."

By this point,  we realized that someone working night shift on a Saturday night with the chaos going on in the yard was probably not completely normal. 

So we walked around the lot looking over the wall.   Because so many of the cars were traffic accidents,  there were lots of short circuits flashing headlights and beeping horns,  like a Stephen King short story.   As the batteries ran down the flashing and became less intense and slower.

Then LAPD showed up and questioned us.  The not-quite-this-sideof reality guy in the office told them we climbed the wall into the yard. The officers were very polite and when my friend repeated the "have your eyes arrested" line and suggested that he was a few fries short of a Happy Meal, they understood.

Remember When All Your "Libertarian" Alt-Right Friends Were Saying Russia Was About to Defeat Ukraine?

8/11/24 CNN:

"Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has confirmed Kyiv’s troops are fighting inside Russia, days into the surprise Ukrainian cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region that has become a major embarrassment for the Kremlin.

“Ukraine is proving that it really knows how to restore justice and guarantees exactly the kind of pressure that is needed – pressure on the aggressor,” Zelensky said in his nightly address to the nation on Saturday, thanking “every unit” of Ukraine’s armed forces for making it possible “to push the war out into the aggressor’s territory.”"

Russia should file a complaint with the U.N.

At a minimum,  this should force movement of Russian forces out of Ukraine and back to Russia.  I suspect if Ukraine occupied Moscow, the same "libertarian" alt-right crowd would be claiming Ukraine was on thr brink of destruction. 

I confess that this weird coalition of Rothbardites and people who support Putin because he claims to be fighting the "globohomo" conspiracy has always left me befuddled.   Whatever the motives for Biden, giving money to Ukraine instead of a face to face war of NATO vs. Russia is a clear win. 

Even if Putin ordered use of nuclear weapons,  I am pretty sure there would be a 9mm veto by his commanders.  They are not that stupid.  They may have been lying to Putin about their military readiness with respect to Ukraine, but they know darn well thst war with NATO will either incinerate 1/3 of the Russian population or have a NATO flag (preferably Polish or Lithuanian) on the Kremlin in a few weeks.  Ukraine has been fighting Russian with our surplus weapons tightly controlled out of fear that Putin might get angry.

Would President Harris Extradite?

You betcha. 8/9/24 Fox News:

"London's Metropolitan Police chief warned that officials will not only be cracking down on British citizens for commentary on the riots in the U.K., but on American citizens as well.

"We will throw the full force of the law at people. And whether you’re in this country committing crimes on the streets or committing crimes from further afield online, we will come after you," Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley told Sky News."

I think such extradition would cross the clear line of ctuonable criminal behavior by our government. 

8/9/24 Reuters clarifies that posted material need not be incitement to riot:

"The act, passed in October but not set to be enforced until early next year, allows the government to fine social media companies up to 10% of global turnover if they are found in breach.

At present, companies would only face a fine if they fail to police illegal content, such as incitments to violence or hate speech. Proposed changes could see Ofcom sanction companies if they allow "legal but harmful" content such as misinformation to flourish."

Legal but harmful.  I would call 1619 Project legal but harmful.  The solution to bad free speech is more good free speech.

When You Enter WiFi Password, Where Is It Stored?

SparkLight still has no clue why two Lenovos drop WiFi connection within 5 minutes while staying connected on all other WiFis.

One quirk us that trying to connect requires new to re-enter the WiFi password.   

Surgery. September 4th

Aortic valve replacement and bypass the LAD artery.  It is an all day procedure.  This is mildly scary.  But I know where I am going if it does not go well.

Surgical Aortic Valve Replacement (SAVR) 30 day mortality rate is 1.92%. Bypass graft mortality including high-risk patients (>80 years, emergency treatment, poor mobility, chronic kidney disease) was 1.9%.  You might almost think from the similar numbers that being ripped open is the common risk factor.

30 Round Repeating Rifled Gun Used in Combat in 1659

Go watch it.  It is an amazing clever design.

At the Jaguar Dealer

 A month or so ago, the tire store installing my new tires broke a pressure sensor.  To their credit, they admitted fault immediately and handed it off to their insurer.  The sensor took a while to arrive and waiting for a service appointment.  While I fixed the backup problem for backing up to OneDrive, it still has not finishing putting everything to OneDrive, so there is little that I can do right now.

And it could be worse.   When I called the insurer about paying the bill they were in a tornado shelter and could not come to the phone.

Embarrassing Miatake

I have a nightly backup script that uses xcopy to backup all the modified files of the day to local USB drives.

Then it does the same xcopy to OneDrive, which should put them all in the cloud.  It never seemed to happen.  I believe this is because the xcopy command resets the modified attribute when copying to the USB drive so nothing appears modified when I xcopy to OneDrive.  I need /a flag on xcopy to USB drive 

my Cardiologist Expects Surgeon To Open Me Ip in a Week or So

I look forward to breathing and walking at same time 

Does Anyone Make a Peltier Effect Cooling Fan for Laptops?

My laptop runs hot.  (3TB of SSD and 128GB of RAM does that.)  Defending gun rights takes a lot of processing power.

Conventional fan cooling pads are not doing enough.  A Peltier effect thermoelectric cooling unit under the fans seems an obvious solution. 

Yes under "Peltier effect laptop pad".  I ordered one promising 43 degree reduction in temperature in three seconds.

None of my CPUs are hitting 100 C NOW.

It works differently than I thought.  The Peltier effect is not under the fans but in a pressure activated panel that contacts the bottom of the laptop.  I may have to tape it down to get full activation. 

Excel Trendlines

The linear trendlines are computed using the method of least squares.   By experiment I can see that very large values at the ends of the data can substantially, perhaps even, unnaturally affect the slope.  Is there any rigorous mathematical discussion of this problem?

Michael York Playing John the Baptist

If you are, like me, ready for the scrap heap, you may remember Franco Zefferelli's miniseries Jesus of Nazareth.  This was presented on national TV so long ago thst it needed no trigger warnings or transvestite apostles.  We started watching it again.

Lots of prominent actors of the time were in it: Christopher Plummer, Peter Ustinov, Olivia Hussey, James Earl Jones.  Michael York's portrayal of John the Baptist as passionate,  wild-eyed berator of immorality and hypocrisy is just astonishing to watch.  Robert Powell's Jesus is also excellent but York's performance stands out among an impressive collection of actors.

The greatest catastrophe of movies about Jesus must be 1963's The Greatest Story Ever Told where John Wayne delivers: "Surely, this must have been, the Son of God," in one of the least persuasive lines ever recorded.

Sea Hunt

If you as ancient as me, you may recall this black & white TV series playing in syndication in the 1960s.  As I looked back on my memories of it, I asked myself what sort of stories could have made Lloyd Bridges scuba driving worth watching.   I just watched S1E1 on YouTube and it was really pretty good except for an aircraft company rep watching a military test flight from a private boat with a sailor aboard.  Still an exciting story of underwater rescue  

Are There Any Microsoft Access Users Out There?

 I used to know SQL.  I wrote queries every day.  But it was not Access.  SQL is different.

A simple example: TABLE2 has a field VEHICLE.  0 is never a valid value.

I think 

UPDATE TABLE2.VEHICLE=' ' WHERE TABLE2.VEHICLE = 0;

should do the job.  What am I doing wrong?  

Should be:

UPDATE TABLE2.VEHICLE=null WHERE TABLE2.VEHICLE = 0;

It would help if saving queries in Access actually saved them.

We Did Not Find What We Wanted: "Sad and shocked"

 Duke Medical School has studied the effects of gun control laws on child gun deaths.

Reading the release from Duke is more entertaining than one could imagine.  

From 2009-2020, there were 6,735 suicides and 10,278 homicides by firearm in the U.S., totaling 17,013 child deaths. Overlaid with the state law database, the researchers found:

• States with safe storage laws and mandatory waiting periods demonstrated lower suicide mortality rates among children.
• “Stand your ground” laws, prevalent in states with less restrictive firearm legislation, showed a correlation with higher suicide mortalities.
• There were no significant reductions in suicide death rates in states with laws setting minimum ages for possession or purchase of firearms.
• There were no notable distinctions between states with and without firearm laws for homicide mortality rates.

“It was surprising to me that no laws appear to be impacting the rates of homicide in children, not even safe access,” Haines said. “It’s sad and shocking.” [emphasis added]

Why would stand your ground laws increase suicides?  Homicides perhaps, but suicides?  She was sad and shocked that gun control laws make very little difference.  Maybe she should focus on finding what does matter.

This Confusion is Not New

Some years ago, I helped a friend's mother edit her autobiography from growing up in the 1930s.   At age 4, her aspiration in life was to be...a race horse. Fortunately,  there were no doctors available to help her accomplish her inner equine.

This Was The Least Invasive Entry Point

Upper arm