4,051 Posts, But Three Short

At the start of the year, I made a goal of 20 posts a month this year.

Though I'll make that goal by averages, by numbers August fell three posts short.

This blog has turned into a journal of sorts, not really intended for a wide audience. Yet here it is. I hope I post things that are occasionally of value or entertaining.

Cold War, Still Paying Dividends

Seems fitting as I earn my keep at a federal facility cleaning up Cold War nuclear waste that we should visit a decommissioned Minuteman missile silo way out in the middle of nowhere.

Cold War is still paying dividends.

This, of course, applies:

He Is Not at His Appointed Location

Today in Rapid City, South Dakota, looking for Martin Landau or James Mason preparing for the final battle atop Mount Rushmore, and also looking for Richard M. Nixon among the city's presidential statuary.

At the location where Nixon was supposed to be, construction of a rather substantial building:

I am disappoint, I said.

But the son who suggested the visit found where he'd been moved, so I got to do this:

And thus:

I felt a tad underdressed there, with Nixon in his office/beach attire. But I got to see him.

How Old *Are* You?

Visiting Mount Rushmore today.

I wanted to use one of their machines to pay for parking, but it wasn't working. So I went into the nearby ice cream parlor and stood in A long line.

Finally my turn, and the following happened:

Cashier No. 1: Are you a senior?

Me: No.

Cashier No. 2: How old *are* you?

Me: I'm only 52 . . .

[Both cashiers look incredulously at .y white hair and beard]

Cashier No. 1: I'm going to.give you the senior discount anyway.

Feeling as old as the Founding Fathers. . .

Drilled

I had to go out to RWMC today for a drill -- making that long trek out to the desert for I think only the second time this year.

They didn't offer a firm time for the drill, so I drove out first thing in the morning. I started looking for a turnaround office where I could work until the drill started, but thought I'd stop by my old cubicle first. It was empty, still had my name on the wall, and had a network cable, so I set up shop.

I probably shouldn't have. It was very dusty and I found some rodent droppings. But the drill started shortly after 8 am, so it didn't matter much.

I did reclaim a few personal posessions I left there back in 2020:

I did leave the newer sign hanging on the outside of the cubicle, but took this old one home.

Also this, which is ironic, as we'll be back at Wall Drug next week:

The drill went OK. I'm a little rusty in my position, but there are some counterintuitive things I had failed to remember with this bit of software I use. It doesn't make sense how they've set it up. Well, in a way it does, but in a way it doesn't.

The Re-Junking Continues Apace

Because I have a genetic propensity to hoard bulky objects (Dad firmly believed in the theory of home improvement by making the property heavier) I finally figured out how to shoehorn the carport I mentioned earlier onto the property. I have to get the roof on along with the rest of the walls, and move one of my woodpiles for the fourth time, but it's coming together.

Or I'm having a psychotic episode. Either way . . .

I am close to realizing my goal of a condensed wood pile -- the small pile next to the carport is going to be moved adjacent to the larger woodpile in the photo. I had thought about putting some in the carport to keep it out of the snow, but that would mean less space for the other junk that's clogging the garage right now.

The slot where the little woodpile is now is going to be home to our canoe once I've got things cleaned out.

I'm not necessarily bragging in that last photo -- it's just our collection of PVC resting in the window well of the study until I can get things cleaned up enough to move it. I have thought of converting it into a shelf for the storing of PVC, but if I build the shelf I no longer have any PVC to store, so it's a real pickle.

NOTAFINGA!

[Finally finds the perfect thing to post on an ad that's been in my feed with an every-other- post frequency.]

[Ad disappears from my feed.]

I'm not complaining; just a little disappointed.

The crypto bros at BlockDAG must have done their rug pull, because seriously, they're gone.

Now that I've mentioned them, maybe they'll show up in my feed like Bloody Mary.

It's a beaut. They were gonna look at it and figure I'd just "notfinga"ed my feed.

A real crusher.

Oh, for the Love of Corn, Facebook.

It started innocently enough, with an admonition that I get a life when I noted the only thing I did for fun yesterday was clean the gutter and sidewalk in front of the house.

But then, as things do occasionally on Facebook, it took a left turn.

It's best to illustrate with pictures.

Here's the reason for Dennis' test:

I don't know what they objected to. The words? My cropping? The red circle I drew around the unrepaired damage to Homer's foundation?

I'm at a loss to explain it.

Dennis sums up the situation perfectly, hence the title of this post:

I'm sure they've got artificial intelligence involved in this -- their "naughty boy" message was instantaneous with me clicking post. But there is no explanation of how this goes against community standards. Or what those standards are. Or how those standards can allow scam crypto ads and fake links that lead one to scam computer repair links to remain. Oh, because they're getting *paid* for those . . . 

Update: I forgot to share the entire jpg I was sharing along with my pearl-clutching comment, in case that it what offended:

Treed

Do not doubt the war cry of the miniature dachshund. Daisy has a squirrel treed. Dottie comes in to take a look but isn't all that interested.

The squirrel, of course, ignored the dog and blithely went on eating the apricots.

Just Once or Twice . . .

Reading in "Captain Bonneville's County," a history of Bonneville County written in 1963. They share this tidbit from 1879:

Once or twice a summer a bitter three-day wind howls up the valley. Contrary gusts pick up the sharp sand and backlash it in mockery. The cottonwood trees and the willows bend low, as if turning their backs to the chill. The whole landscape is grey and cowering, and, summer or not, the air is raw.

From a journal written ty Tomas Moran, famed artist who painted Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons in the era:

"August 21, 1879. Left Fort Hall with Captain A.H. Bainbridge and 20 men 2 wagons on way to Taylor bridge. Reached Taylors Brfidge [Idaho Falls] later in the afternoon 27 miles desolation. Abandoned town, railroad bridge over the Snake. Andersons store. Dismal camp. Furious wind all night. Driven sand everywhere almost blinding. Gray dismal morning. Black basalt abomination. Rushing river like Niagara Rapids.

"August 22. Left camp at Taylor's Bridge at 7 o'clock. Cold and windy with dust following and blinding us all the way."

We now have a thunderstorm blowing in, and that wind, which comes only "once or twice a summer" is here.

Good to hear more than a century and a half of settlement and growth hasn't stopped the wind from blowing.

This is . . . Unfortunate

Headline:

Wyoming reporter caught using artificial intelligence to create fake quotes and stories

I wish it weren't true, but it appears to be so.

To sum up: A newspaper reporter used artificial intelligence to write stories, including fabricating quotes from people who on subsequent questioning said they'd never spoken to the guy.

Job is gone.

If you're going to use artificial intelligence in your professional life, rethinkg your approach and don't use it. Or use it judiciously. And disclose its use.

The Associated Press takes pains in the linked story to describe how journalists use AI -- in fairly vague terms -- but they also explain it's advisable to disclose how it's used.

And don't use it to make stuff up.

"Leave A Like, and Subscribe!"

In many ways, I miss the frontier days of the Internet.

Yes, waiting for twenty minutes while our slow service buffered a video from the likes of JibJab or Stupid Videos was a pain. And yet -- when the buffering was done, we got our video and that was that.

Right now I'm using the Brave browser exclusively as a YouTube video watcher, because to watch YouTube with anything else means having to install ad blockers and disable them from time to time when Google gets tired of subsidising my video watching.

I understand someone has to pay the bills. There are vast computers somewhere storing all of that video content, and the electricity to run them and the (maybe) salaries they pay the maintainers aren't cheap.

But I went to Brave when Google again put the thumb screws to ad blocking and interrupted an 11-minute video with a 14-minute unskippable commercial.

I should be willing to watch an ad or two to help keep the lights on.

Google should read the room and not drop commercials that are longer than the video being watched.

Another disadvantage: I'm not signed in to anything on Brave, meaning I have to manually keep up with the channels I like to watch, and I can't like or comment on anything. I don't want to sign in because I assume in some way that's going to bring up the entire ad conundrum again if I do.

So content creators don't get the likes they want from bums like me, viz:

And that makes me feel bad. I mean, not bad enough to go back to using other browsers or signing in, but bad enough. I guess I should donate to their channels or something.

Or maybe Google could stick to their fifteen-second ads. I mean, I'm Gen X and grew up watching ads on broadcast TV, so I'm used to commercial breaks. But I'm also from the Gen X whose families did not pay for cable. I wasn't able to use the Internet on a regular basis until I left home and went to college.

Over for Another Year

 

Yesterday I drove up to Island Park to tow the utility trailer home, marking the (almost) end of the Island Park Scout Camp season for my family. I say almost because Michelle will head up there for two (or possibly) three days to assist with groups wanting to use the camp's zipline.

It's nice to have them home, though it does mean that I again have to start maintenance and repair work on the camper again. Not looking forward to that. Still trying to track down an elusive roof leak in the rear bathroom area. I've also decided this fall I'm going to remove the water pump so we don't lose another one. I think the one we had in there before -- only about two or three years old -- got zapped by a sudden freeze that came after Michelle had the camper up in Island Park for the season. It's always dicey to think summer is going to come there as soon as it comes here in the valley.

I've also got to spend some time tinkering with her jeep brakes, as they failed completely after a fellow camper drove it around with the emergency brake on. I suspect some cooked brake pads, but I'll have to take a closer look.

We Put My Beard on Blast Hardcheese

 

I'm going to have to do something about the beard, because I suddenly realized I'm not heading in a good direction.

They Called *What* the Three Tetons?

I'm preparing to read "Captain Bonneville's County," a book of local history by Edith Haroldsen Lowell, and just with the introduction here, I can tell I'm not ready to encounter the truths therein.

I'm not very far into the book, but if the writing holds up, I think this'll be a much better book on local history than the one I read a few weeks ago.

Yet Another Apollo Program Book . . .

This book was a lucky find at a local thrift store. I'm a space program junkie so anything with "moon" in the title will catch my eye, and when I spotted the three names on the cover, buying the book was a no-brainer.

I didn't know if I'd learn anything new about the Apollo program reading the book, but I was wrong.

Remember that scene in "The Right Stuff," where Alan Shepard is shamed in the hospital for liking Bill Dana and his "Cowardly Astronaut" routine, and it's implied after the shaming (or maybe not; it could be just me) he never liked the humor again?

Wrong.

Turns out Shepard and several other astronauts became friends with Dana and acted as straight men in some privately-performed versions of the skits.

Does that make them racist?

I don't think so. I don't necessarily believe racism was a core part of Dana's humor either. But, yanno, times change and such.

An aside: Dana wrote this episode of "All in the Family." That that for what you will.

(I could be told I'm wrong, but I believe the conversations about race in the 1970s were a bit more honest and straighforward than the ones we have today.)

But back to the book.

There are a few passages that make this book unique among those I've read about the Apollo program. You can tell it was written by actual astronauts. I love, for example, these bits:

"Punching through maximum aerodynamic pressure was another adventure as enormous forces squeezed and shook the Saturn 1B. Vibration pummelled the entire rocket and the Apollo. Then, suddenly, they were through Max Q, and they shot upward like a frightened jack rabbit. Almost at once, now into the supersonic region, engine roar and the high-pitched howl of air dripping past the rocket vanished.

"While the noise of the liftoff abated, the booster complained with deep. hollow groans and the craking of an old wooden ship wallowing in rough seas. Finally came the burnout of the first stage. For a precious moment the creaks, groans, willges, shaking,vibration, and other unpleasantness were gone."

Quite a description of the sudden changes observed when a craft passes through the sound barrier.

Not credited on the cover are two co-authors, Jay Barbee, a space correspondent for NSAS and Howard Benedict, an AP aerospace writer. I have to imagine their input on the book was invaluable. And maybe could have been used on the books' final chapters which really wandered a bit and were not as tightly-written as the rest. Maybe the subject matter -- the buildup to the Apollo-Soyuz mission and the mission itself -- just wasn't as exciting to me as the rest, but the writing felt a little lackluster.

YouTube, Homey Don't Play Dat

To the goons at YouTube/Google:

AdBlock is back on. Trigger? You interrupted an 11-minute video with an unskippable 14-minute commercial.

Homey don't play dat.

Update: Even with AdBlock on, the blocking of ads lasted less than ten minutes. I'm now using the Brave browser for watching YouTube videos.