27 January 2024


––– 凄い –––


––– 良くない –––

Verschlimbesserung in actionWhy are Thousands of Pharmacies Closing?

––– 良くない –––

The ghostly radio station that no one claims to run. I had a shortwave radio as a kid. It was fun discovering mysterious stations, where someone would just say numbers over and over, or read meaningless speeches to no one in particular. Or weird sounds.

––– 凄い –––

San Francisco's oldest toy store closing after 86 years.This is the one that inspired Toy Story. And yes, it's because of crime. Good going, SF, pretty soon you'll have nothing.

––– 良くない –––

Google's new Lumiere. In the beginning, it always looks fun. Just wait until sick people get a hold of this technology.

––– 凄い –––

Humans can get their pets sick: Reverse zoonoses more common than once thought. I'm convinced a pet dog I had died of swine flu.

––– 良くない –––

23andMe: Raw genetic data stolen in months-long cyberattack. This is under-reported. People's whole genome sequencing, with the names attached, were stolen. I think the only thing that's stopping this from being a real disaster is that the cyber criminals don't know enough molecular biology to make sense of the gene map.

––– 良くない –––


26 January 2024

Only 90s Web Developers Remember This.  Oh, yeah. Those were the days. How innocent the Web was then. Good times...

––– 凄い –––

Why didn't the CDC warn people about the risk of myocarditis from the mRNA vax? Because "because officials were concerned they would cause panic".

––– 良くない –––

What you should know if you’re about to fly on a Boeing Max 9. Already people are canceling or avoiding flights if they know it's going to be on a Boeing plane. If you want to know, get the FlightView app.

––– 凄い –––

Oregon graduation rate flat, with setbacks for Black, Indigenous students.

––– 良くない –––

All good things seem to come to an end. So Japan is retiring the Hadaka Matsuri, because there aren't enough young men to participate, and women want to join in? This year they're allowing fully-clothed women to make a ritual bamboo grass offering, but that's it. Not the momiai, which would have made it ... interesting.

––– 凄い –––

Worth your while to watch. The brilliant speaker Konstanin Kisin delivers another amazing speech. Why, as with Solzhenitsin and Yuri Besmenov, do we need to hear the obvious truth from ex-Soviets?

––– 凄い –––


25 January 2024

The Lone Star Rebellion is growing!  Enough is enough, already.
Edit: The Border Patrol is siding with Texas against the Biden administration. Amazing. What will Biden do now? Send in the Army?

––– 凄い –––

The 9th Circuit Is Wrong: There’s No Homelessness Protection Clause in Constitution. Fully agree.

––– 良くない –––

So PGE is going to charge us more because of the ice/wind storm?

––– 良くない –––

Portland city leaders ask residents to renew 10-cent gas tax.

––– 良くない –––

iPhone Apps Secretly Harvest Data When They Send You Notifications. Well, it's a good thing I don't have accounts on Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok or X/Twitter.

––– 良くない –––

The new Miss Japan is Ukranian. And some people are upset about that. So what, I say.

––– 凄い –––

Is this true? Are the Dems so blatant about it now?
––– 良くない –––


24 January 2024

Why did the National Education Association (NEA) and the Oregon Education Association (OEA) donate a combined $575,000 dollars of membership dues to the Oregon Votes Yes PAC?  This money paid for online advertisements and canvassing in support of four constitution-amending ballot measures related to healthcare, criminal justice, quorum requirements, and firearms, such as:

Measure 111, which redefined healthcare as a fundamental human right to the Oregon State constitution.  
Measure 112, which removed language in the constitution related to indentured servitude or slavery as a punishment for crime—previously used to reduce prison sentences in the criminal justice system.  
Measure 113, which prohibits a member of Oregon’s legislature from holding state office for one full term, if they have 10 or more unexcused absences, effectively ending a procedural move for the minority to deny quorum.  
Measure 114, which altered the state’s firearm and purchasing requirements, in addition to adding a magazine capacity limit.   
This mission creep and has nothing to do with education. It's the unions, wanting to exert control over government to sway things in their favor.
And here are the Democrats, thinking that they will overhaul 110 enough to make a dent in drug abuse.
Under the framework, Measure 110 would not be repealed, but drug decriminalization would be effectively ended. As things currently stand, being caught in possession of user amounts of drugs can earn a Class E violation — a ticket for $100 at most, which can be waived if the person fined contacts a substance use helpline. The new proposal would change that to a Class C misdemeanor, the lowest-level misdemeanor crime under Oregon law.
Does Kate Lieber really think these people are capable of making rational decisions about their drug abuse? Where are they going to get $100? Do you think they'll willingly give that up?  Criminalize drug abuse and get these guys off the streets.
We need to build more mental hospitals, and start putting people in them.
––– 良くない –––

Incredible!  Someone went to a lot of trouble to create an online infographic of Star Wars IV: A new hope. Very cool.

––– 凄い –––

The City of Portland's boundary is a business kill zoneEveryone blames someone else for ice storm ineptitude.

––– 良くない –––

Trump's tax cuts will be expiring soon.  Soon a lot of people are going to realize why Trump supporters want Trump back.

––– 良くない –––

How Euler did it.  Leonhard Euler was the greatest mathematician who ever lived, I think. No one has matched his output. This is a nice resource for those who want to understand his work.

––– 凄い –––

––– 良くない –––

This is what happens when people overly rely on artificial intelligence. Computer vision is not yet foolproof. Poor guy has a good legal case for wrongdoing, in my opinion.

––– 良くない –––

Cool. There's an accurate blood test for making the diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease. It probably needs to be confirmed, and if so, would replace the need for spinal taps to sample CSF.

––– 凄い –––

Beautiful waterway mapLTC Rolt would have appreciated this.

––– 凄い –––

The Boeing plant in Renton was responsible for misinstallation of the door that blew off. Some of the commenters wonder if the workers were stoned or on other drugs, or if they were part of the DEI hiring process that afflicts so much of Seattle. "Boeing’s 737 production system is described as 'a rambling, shambling, disaster waiting to happen.' ”

––– 良くない –––

23 January 2024

Adulting in Middle Age.  Oh man, this essay is so spot on about Millennials, especially all the urban-smart denizens that often post on Reddit and Imgur.  There are so many excellent quotes from the article. Here are just a few (emphases are mine):

Childhood is the only carefree time millennials can remember, so they regress into an obnoxious, cringeworthy parody of youth. To become a Disney adult is to throw a kind of tantrum, clinging to the last time they were truly hopeful, like a cranky baby with a raggedy blankie.

This is the generation now entering middle age in America, and while they have thoroughly memed the apparently insurmountable daily task of “adulting,” they’re the ones who are reading Teen Vogue. They collect toys. They go to Disney World, unaccompanied by a minor, often alone, and on purpose. Troemel also notes that art galleries are morphing into adult playgrounds, where swing sets and ball pits are billed as “installation pieces.” They read young adult fiction (rebranded as NA, or “new adult,” to maintain some semblance of plausible deniability), watch YA movies and TV, and are dutiful completists of every all-ages franchise they’re sold, from Pixar to Marvel. They need a nap, and a treat, and time to scroll through a million instructional “adulting” videos that teach them how to poach an egg or fold their clothes, not to mention the ’90s kids nostalgia memes and posts to remind them of a past they may very well remember fondly — even a bit wistfully — but should have long outgrown.

What is new about millennial generational warfare is the strong current of wealth envy, and since Occupy Wall Street and the two Bernie Sanders campaigns brought class politics back, we’re just as stuck to the idea of “capital” as a metonym for Hunter S. Thompson’s “forces of Old and Evil.” To be old is to be evil; to be young is to be good. The very invocation of youth is tantamount to endorsing the future, rather than a barbaric past, an inverse of the right-wing “kids today!” that proudly proclaims, “I, too, am baby.”

Faced with the highly unrealistic task of having and raising children capable of reproducing the class position of the parents of millennials, one that most millennials never reached, it doesn’t even feel like a responsible decision to consciously start a family, compared to previous generations. Often we turn instead to crafts and the upbringing of an Instagrammable array of houseplants. (Allegedly low-maintenance succulents are still quite popular, though many listless gardeners quickly find them surprisingly easy to kill.) If we can manage something with as many needs as a pet, they are our “fur babies.”

If you’re approaching middle age right now, adulting is harder than it has been for generations. You can’t do your taxes because they’re intentionally byzantine, so you doomscroll and rage post about Taylor Swift. You enjoy the most juvenile and lowest effort entertainment because you don’t have the brain or the stomach for anything with teeth, and you take your little naps because you’re exhausted, anxious, and depressed (which is also why you can’t get out of your pajamas, cook a whole meal, or clean your room).

Yep. This sums up college-aged kids today. So true, so true.

––– 凄い –––

Insulin delivery without needles? That would be wonderful. Many insulin users develop knots of skin thickening, collagen and amyloid deposition when they don't rotate injection sites. This would eliminate that.

––– 凄い –––

This is why many people don't trust telehealth. Health apps (even used by Teladoc) have had privacy breaches. This is one condition that you don't want a privacy breach. 

––– 良くない –––

––– 凄い –––

It's harder to be spy these days. Because it's easier to rat someone out. Good then.

––– 凄い –––

Three Former Presidents Start NGO to Import Illegal Aliens into the U.S. There really never was a difference between Democrats and Republicans, until Trump came along. That's why they want to get rid of him. He's not playing along with the game.

––– 良くない –––

Is Apple Maps better than Google Maps?  This guy thinks so.

––– 凄い –––

"All nullification requires is a spine". Take the time to watch this video by Publius Huldah.
We have the right, we have the duty to alter abolish or throw off such government.  This is the natural right of self-defense. Of nullification.  It is a founding principle.  The nullification deniers reject these founding principles. They have reverted to the authoritarian German model, where people are the subjects of the state and must obey the state and that the ultimate authority in this country is five judges on the Supreme Court.

In Federalist paper number 33, at the fifth paragraph: "If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed that's the constitution, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the constitution, as the existency may suggest and prudence justify."

Did you hear what Hamilton said when the federal government usurps powers? We are the judge as to whether there is a violation and we decide what we are going to do about it.

Our framers saw that before nullification is proper, the act of the government must be unconstitutional – a usurpation of a power not delegated, or a violation of the Constitution.  Nullification takes various forms, depending on the circumstances, from refusal to obey it, to otherwise obstructing impeding or thwarting its enforcement.
Fighting words. And like what they are doing to the southern border, Texas should NOT comply.
Publius Huldah also has commentary on what states should do to ensure a fair election.

––– 良くない –––

OHSU is losing money. But what's worse is that "In a ranking done  by Vizient, a health care consulting company, OHSU dropped to 56th place overall in quality and accountability out of 116 academic medical centers, down from 15th the year before. OHSU ranked near the bottom—105th—in terms of safety, Vizient said.

––– 良くない –––


22 January 2024

Portland makes the WSJ. Its crime-friendly policies that made three major retailers flee the city, have made national news.

––– 良くない –––

OpenAI quietly removes ban on military use of its AI tools. The siren song of money was too great to ignore. Is this how Skynet will be created?

––– 良くない –––

What3Words has a plan to map every location on earth to a three-word mnemonic that can be used instead of numeric longitude-latitude coordinates. Earth's surface area is divided up into 3-meter squares, according to this scheme. Interesting concept, but I already don't like the words associated with my home. Any of them.

––– 良くない –––

The Floorp browser looks interesting. It's a fork of Midori, which is a Firefox-derived browser. Privacy focused, faster and more customizable. All good, but will my extensions work?

––– 凄い –––
CSS 3D Clouds is rather calming.

––– 凄い –––

11 Oregon snow storm blunders. Yeah, I don't recall being in one this bad in over thirty years since I've been around here. At least this pointed out the stupidity of relying exclusively on EVs and banning natural gas. And promoting tank-less water heaters. You can argue with lefties all you can, and they won't listen, until reality hits like it did this past week. Yeah, Oregon took the top spot in who had the most power outages during the winter storm. Even more than the midwestern states.

––– 良くない –––

Passengers must now do their own plane inspection before flying, because flight maintenance crews are no longer competent to do so themselves.

––– 良くない –––

Nearly all the commercially available artificial sweeteners were discovered by accident. What does this mean?

––– 凄い –––


21 January 2024

Weird. Ths term means something different now. Weird when I was growing up is different from today's weird. It was more benign and fairly harmless. Today's weird is pathological.

––– 良くない –––

Bitcoin is NOT anonymous.

––– 凄い –––

Unbelievable! Too much of the research that comes out of Harvard and Dana-Farber is fabricated. Is it any wonder that Americans have lost faith in the value of college?

––– 良くない –––

Stupid. Read this about how a West Hills resident couldn't get a permit to have a tree chopped down, only to have it fall down during the ice storm. Because the City of Portland couldn't be bothered to issue the permit. Then the Oregonian says that we need to build a culture of resilience.  How about a culture of competence???

––– 良くない –––

What a joke.
And I hear they might take this Friday off for a "Teachers Admin Day".

––– 良くない –––


20 January 2024

Oregon needs a broad path to stem homelessness. Broad path? I think Oregon needs to build a facility to put the drug-abusing, randomly-violent, property-defacing, disease-carrying people in. Separate them from their drugs. Force them to get on the path of rehab. It would have been easier had this problem been taken care of much earlier, but now it has to be a bulk effort, which is distasteful, but absolutely necessary. Instead, Oregon outsources the job to "agencies". These agencies know that if the problem is actually solved, there would be no need for them. Yes, Oregon has way too many committees, and not enough actionSo much ineptitude.

––– 良くない –––

Portland can't have nice things. REI is moving out of Portland soon. Going to Beaverton. And Hoffman Construction is moving out of downtown Portland for Lake Oswego. Enough is enough.

––– 凄い –––

This is why inflation isn't going away. Biden Cancels $5 Billion in Student Debt. This is going to affect a significant part of the economy, and injects more fiat currency into the economy, without any underlying productivity gain to society, keeping inflation high. Union employees will complain about their reduced purchasing power. And it's not debt cancellation. It's debt transferrence.
––– 良くない –––

Have you heard loud booms when it was freezing? Someone thought it was another transformer blowing. Instead it could be frost quakes

––– 凄い –––


19 January 2024

Fingertip oxygen sensors can fail on dark skin — now a physician is suing. You would think that these oximeter companies would have done some testing before releasing their machines. Or have a setting for different colored skin. Or incorporated some sensor calibration first. I guess that's what happens when these devices are made in China.

––– 良くない –––

Dear Doctor: Is it true COVID boosters are creating cancer recurrence in some patients? Ah, people are starting to take notice. Do you think he's heard of the plasmid contamination, and what it signifies? He says "you can safely disregard the claim, since that isn’t a real entity. That’s fearmongering." Then he says that the vax "provides pretty good protection against infection for a few months". Only a few months? What's the point of getting it? With regard to the safety and efficacy of getting the vax with cancer treatment, he says "your oncologist can help you decide the optimal time to get the vaccine if you are undergoing chemo". The truth is that oncologist don't really know how to juggle chemotherapy and the vax, because there's not been any testing on this. Many wait until a chemotherapy session is over before recommending the vax. Others say to get it right before chemotherapy starts, or just before the next cycle. It's just guessing, because no one knows for sure.

––– 良くない –––

Multnomah County can't handle the mental health crisis and asks the state to take over. But is the state really competent to handle it?

––– 良くない –––

Oregon's using more fossil fuels than before. Face it, "green energy" sources can only deliver so far.

––– 凄い –––

A hospital in New York's Mount Sinai hospital is offering genital swap surgery. This is criminal. But the urologist thinks he's doing the right thing. Primum non nocere?
––– 良くない –––

And Milford Regional Medical Center in Massachusetts can refuse to treat you if you spout "hate speech" or even if your boddy language offends someone. Don't wear your MAGA cap there.
––– 良くない –––

Sports Illlustrated is no more. Destroyed by wokeism. No one wants to see the swimsuit edition anymore, when certain pictures can make you physically ill. Good riddance.

––– 凄い –––

Great cartoon from Oregon Catalyst:
––– 凄い –––


18 January 2024

This could be interesting. Icelandic Faultline Has Awakened After 800 Years. Perhaps we'll see other sites along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge come to life.
––– 良くない –––

China is going into a recession. People are feeling it. Gone are the days during the Obama administration when China was handed so much wealth. It was unsustainable. Perhaps the only reason why China isn't benefiting from Biden being in office is that the United States is also suffering, and that there are significantly lower purchasers of Chinese goods. Also, many companies are realizing that Trump was right, and are now moving out of China.

––– 良くない –––

R.I.P. PDQ Bach. I saw his books and listened to some of his programs around the late 1970s. It was sort of humorous, but you had to have some knowledge about Baroque music to understand his jokes.

––– 良くない –––

Coder's Delight. Everything you wanted to know about text editors.

––– 凄い –––

The State’s Leading Psychiatrist Says Oregon’s Approach to Mental Health Is Wrong. I only disagree that we do indeed need more "cuckoo's nest" hospitals. He may think it's cruel, but I think it's necessary. When things get worse, which I'm sure they will, Dr. Keepers will probably agree. Portland's literally turning into a city of zombies now.

––– 良くない –––

Dutch Bros is slowly moving out of Oregon. The article tries to make it sound like it's not a big deal, but it is. This is just the first step.

––– 良くない –––

You think that's the reason? Low Vaccine Take-Up Blamed for Covid Deaths and Hospitalizations. Being that the people who get recurrent COVID are the ones who got the vax, I don't think this is the case. It's really looking like those who got the jab are chronically less healthy than the unvaxxed, and are more susceptible to infections and other causes of disability, such as POTS, chronic fatigue, cancer and thromboembolic complications.

––– 良くない –––

Google is getting to be full of fake news. Or so they say. But who is to judge? It seems that what the writer claims is fake news is stuff that appears on conservative news sites, which tend to be found true eventually.

––– 良くない –––

Proven time and again. EVs are not suitable for general use in America. They are great when you're a Silicon Valley worker commuting up and down 101. But for the rest of us, nah.

––– 良くない –––

Ticking time bombAmerica has a retirement crisis. Yes it does, and this will be a major crisis in ten to twenty years. The savings rate is abysmal. Democrats will call for a national pension, because they always think that solutions are just a Congressional bill away. People are just not saving for the future, thinking that someone or something will come along and bail them out. Just like many students haven't been paying off their loans for the past three years, thinking that Biden is going to make it all go away.

––– 良くない –––

Portland hipsters always think that the rep on Portland is overblown.
––– 凄い –––