IANAL, but my guess is the judge had second thoughts about the whole legal theory that a New York jury could decide that Trump was guilty of felony federal law violations. Absent that, the state charges would have been for misdemeanor offenses. Given the scale of things -- $150K as part of tax returns that run to at least hundreds of millions of dollars -- the case would never have gone to court. Trump's accountants and the state Dept of Revenue would have worked it out.
I'll take a pass. Having lived/am living through my spouse's Alzheimer's, it's not something I'm ready for in a sitcom.
One of the reasons I struggle to deal with it is that I have always been personally terrified of no longer being smart, but remembering being smart. I made it through Flowers For Algernon once when I was young, but have never been able to face it again, or any of the movies/TV based on it. I count it as a blessing that my wife's situation means that while she's no longer smart, she can't remember being smart.
Back in 2006, the Colorado Front Range experienced a cold snap that dropped to -20 °F or so. Gas wells began freezing up because the dewatering equipment was at some distance from the wells proper. Residential heating service got priority so gas supplies to Xcel's power plants ran short. The situation never got to the sort of positive feedback that Texas experienced in 2011 or 2021; just 30-minute rolling blackouts for a day.
The state fined the snot out of a couple of the gas companies over failure to deliver product. The rest got the message and changed their dewatering practices. There's been no repeat of the experience during subsequent cold spells.
Texas also built a lot of transmission capacity to connect the windy areas in West Texas with the demand centers in the Houston/DFW/San Antonio triangle.
Lots of people are waiting for Erik Loomis's Carter obituary over at LG&M. The expectation is that Erik thinks Carter was a terrible President in many ways, but far and away the best person we've ever had as a retired President.
This comment makes me feel so old. When I went to work at Bell Labs, the philosophy was "We want to hire the best technical talent we can find. We'll teach them the specifics of the business after they arrive."
One of the technical jokes in academia at the time was that Bell Labs hired 25% of the new physics PhDs each year. And occasionally some of them got to do physics. A shiny new PhD in theoretical physics is usually a darned good applied mathematician. A shiny new PhD in experimental physics is usually an excellent electrical/electronics engineer with a bunch of hands-on experience.
On the 21st of the month, SpaceX aborted a commercial launch for Astranis, a company that builds multi-purpose satellites for geosynchronous orbit. The abort happened at the last possible second, due to some (not yet revealed) problem during engine ignition. SpaceX swapped out the problem booster with a replacement and launched the payload early this morning, eight days later. Orbital launch service is a different sort of business for a "hardware rich" company than for everyone else.
The problem is that some people say "lab leak" and mean loss of containment of a weaponized virus from a biosafety level 4 facility, and some people mean some poor post-doc got a snoot full of all sorts of stuff while doing routine intake of cave samples.
The local paper referenced this work, partially paid for by the feds, this morning. Some of the phase 3 trial was done at the children's hospital in Denver. A new treatment protocol raised the cure rate for some forms of childhood leukemia from 87% to 96%, even among those deemed high relapse risks.
Grandpa drawings for holidays and birthdays seem to have become a tradition rather quickly. Here is this year's glorified Christmas doodle, "Little monster characters decorate a tree".
The federal CISA security agency reported yesterday that the PRC has burrowed deep enough into the telephone networks they can capture SMS text messages to/from highly-targeted individuals. The new guidance pointed to from that page suggests not using SMS in multi-factor authentication.
The guidance also recommends using end-to-end encryption. I'm an old, so I can remember when the Dept of Defense and the intelligence community were fighting like hell to keep people from getting hold of strong end-to-end encryption algorithms.
The Montana supreme court upheld a landmark trial court decision last August in favor of 16 young people who said their health and futures were being jeopardized by climate change, which the state aggravates through its permitting of energy projects.... The 6-1 decision, the first of its kind by a US state supreme court, came in the first lawsuit to go to trial nationwide by young environmental activists challenging state and federal policies they say are exacerbating climate change.
This is interesting to me because it happened in a conservative western state. I have trouble imagining the top courts in North Carolina or Florida -- other states where the legislature has forbidden consideration of climate change -- making the same ruling.
So what happens? Johnson brings the CR, including some Democratic priorities, to the floor and passes it with Dem votes and a handful of Republicans who are retired come Jan 3? Johnson already has to take his chances with being voted Speaker in the new Congress. Doesn't seem like he has much to lose.
There were a series of confirmed nighttime drone flights in 2019-20 in NE Colorado and western Nebraska. No one ever publicly identified the operators. Some of the speculation was environmental groups looking for methane leaks, which are much easier to see with IR at night. Or even the gas companies, because leaks are easier to see at night.
My complaints about the SLS are about the total failure from a systems perspective. Congress spent $20B developing a heavy launch vehicle that can't actually meet Artemis objectives. It's not big enough to send a capsule plus lander that meet the Artemis specs in a single launch. It can't launch frequently enough to split the payload and do the job with two launches. The per-launch cost is non-competitive for anything except Artemis, and launches not committed to Artemis won't be available before 2030 anyway.
What will have to happen for another investor to open a store there?
Who owns the land and the building? We have a former Albertsons here locally that closed a decade ago. The company is not interested in leasing the building or selling the land. They're interested in the asset is appreciating at something over 10% per year. It looks like something will finally happen, but only because the city started waving around attractive nuisance (homeless people lighting fires) and eminent domain.
It is amazing that in the space of 18 months, Grandpa's glorified doodles for birthdays and Christmas have become a tradition. I have the sketch for Christmas this year done, and with any luck will finish it this next week.
Granddaughter #2's birthday was this past Friday. Neither she nor her older sister recognized that the idea was not original. "Your children have never seen The Wizard of Oz?" I asked my daughter, outraged. "What is wrong with you?" Always interesting to read about elderly special effects. The Surrender Dorothy effect used a hypodermic needle to draw the letters in black ink across the bottom of a glass tank filled with tinted water.
25 or so years ago when USWest was breaking up, the new CEO for the telco side of the split put a team of accountants and lawyers to work trying to find a way to break the promises that had been made about health insurance for retirees. I mentioned at the time that if he was successful, some retiree who lost a spouse to cancer because of the lack of insurance would murder the CEO. I wasn't really kidding.
I'll just casually note that this shooting bears at least a passing resemblance to a how-to description given by the assassin in The Eiger Sanction novel.
Have started trying to catch up on the stuff that got put off while my broken ribs healed enough to get around in reasonable comfort.
My sister broke a bone in her foot. Earlier this week the surgeon put in pins and a screw. The next day there were more x-rays to make sure everything was properly aligned. She'll wear a boot for 4-5 weeks to make sure it stays aligned. For my lower ribs, the medical profession sort of waved their hand and said, "Yeah, they'll heal, alignment's not important." Ribs need a union.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Open Mic for the week of 12/30/2024”
IANAL, but my guess is the judge had second thoughts about the whole legal theory that a New York jury could decide that Trump was guilty of felony federal law violations. Absent that, the state charges would have been for misdemeanor offenses. Given the scale of things -- $150K as part of tax returns that run to at least hundreds of millions of dollars -- the case would never have gone to court. Trump's accountants and the state Dept of Revenue would have worked it out.
On “A Man on the Inside”
For the assisted living part, right? Add a couple of thousand for the locked-down memory care side.
"
I'll take a pass. Having lived/am living through my spouse's Alzheimer's, it's not something I'm ready for in a sitcom.
One of the reasons I struggle to deal with it is that I have always been personally terrified of no longer being smart, but remembering being smart. I made it through Flowers For Algernon once when I was young, but have never been able to face it again, or any of the movies/TV based on it. I count it as a blessing that my wife's situation means that while she's no longer smart, she can't remember being smart.
On “Open Mic for the week of 12/30/2024”
Back in 2006, the Colorado Front Range experienced a cold snap that dropped to -20 °F or so. Gas wells began freezing up because the dewatering equipment was at some distance from the wells proper. Residential heating service got priority so gas supplies to Xcel's power plants ran short. The situation never got to the sort of positive feedback that Texas experienced in 2011 or 2021; just 30-minute rolling blackouts for a day.
The state fined the snot out of a couple of the gas companies over failure to deliver product. The rest got the message and changed their dewatering practices. There's been no repeat of the experience during subsequent cold spells.
"
Texas also built a lot of transmission capacity to connect the windy areas in West Texas with the demand centers in the Houston/DFW/San Antonio triangle.
On “Jimmy Carter Passes at Age 100”
Lots of people are waiting for Erik Loomis's Carter obituary over at LG&M. The expectation is that Erik thinks Carter was a terrible President in many ways, but far and away the best person we've ever had as a retired President.
On “Open Mic for the week of 12/23/2024”
This comment makes me feel so old. When I went to work at Bell Labs, the philosophy was "We want to hire the best technical talent we can find. We'll teach them the specifics of the business after they arrive."
One of the technical jokes in academia at the time was that Bell Labs hired 25% of the new physics PhDs each year. And occasionally some of them got to do physics. A shiny new PhD in theoretical physics is usually a darned good applied mathematician. A shiny new PhD in experimental physics is usually an excellent electrical/electronics engineer with a bunch of hands-on experience.
"
On the 21st of the month, SpaceX aborted a commercial launch for Astranis, a company that builds multi-purpose satellites for geosynchronous orbit. The abort happened at the last possible second, due to some (not yet revealed) problem during engine ignition. SpaceX swapped out the problem booster with a replacement and launched the payload early this morning, eight days later. Orbital launch service is a different sort of business for a "hardware rich" company than for everyone else.
https://spaceflightnow.com/2024/12/29/live-coverage-spacex-to-launch-4-astranis-satellites-on-falcon-9-rocket-from-cape-canaveral/
"
The problem is that some people say "lab leak" and mean loss of containment of a weaponized virus from a biosafety level 4 facility, and some people mean some poor post-doc got a snoot full of all sorts of stuff while doing routine intake of cave samples.
On “Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024”
The local paper referenced this work, partially paid for by the feds, this morning. Some of the phase 3 trial was done at the children's hospital in Denver. A new treatment protocol raised the cure rate for some forms of childhood leukemia from 87% to 96%, even among those deemed high relapse risks.
On “The Church Entertainment”
Grandpa drawings for holidays and birthdays seem to have become a tradition rather quickly. Here is this year's glorified Christmas doodle, "Little monster characters decorate a tree".
http://mcain6925.com/obsidian/xmas-2024.pdf
On “Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024”
The federal CISA security agency reported yesterday that the PRC has burrowed deep enough into the telephone networks they can capture SMS text messages to/from highly-targeted individuals. The new guidance pointed to from that page suggests not using SMS in multi-factor authentication.
The guidance also recommends using end-to-end encryption. I'm an old, so I can remember when the Dept of Defense and the intelligence community were fighting like hell to keep people from getting hold of strong end-to-end encryption algorithms.
"
From the Guardian:
This is interesting to me because it happened in a conservative western state. I have trouble imagining the top courts in North Carolina or Florida -- other states where the legislature has forbidden consideration of climate change -- making the same ruling.
On “Are Republicans Waking Up?”
So what happens? Johnson brings the CR, including some Democratic priorities, to the floor and passes it with Dem votes and a handful of Republicans who are retired come Jan 3? Johnson already has to take his chances with being voted Speaker in the new Congress. Doesn't seem like he has much to lose.
On “Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024”
On paper Sarah was a successful governor which is better than Harris’ on-paper experience.
Size has to matter for something, doesn't it? California's population is 12% of the US total. Alaska's total is a good-sized city.
On “Weekend Plans Post: Back Into the Swing of Things”
Excellent. Your previous descriptions make my two broken ribs last month seem pretty easy once I got past the first week.
On “Droning On In New Jersey”
There were a series of confirmed nighttime drone flights in 2019-20 in NE Colorado and western Nebraska. No one ever publicly identified the operators. Some of the speculation was environmental groups looking for methane leaks, which are much easier to see with IR at night. Or even the gas companies, because leaks are easier to see at night.
On “Thursday Throughput: RFK Jr Edition”
My complaints about the SLS are about the total failure from a systems perspective. Congress spent $20B developing a heavy launch vehicle that can't actually meet Artemis objectives. It's not big enough to send a capsule plus lander that meet the Artemis specs in a single launch. It can't launch frequently enough to split the payload and do the job with two launches. The per-launch cost is non-competitive for anything except Artemis, and launches not committed to Artemis won't be available before 2030 anyway.
On “Open Mic for the week of 12/9/2024”
What will have to happen for another investor to open a store there?
Who owns the land and the building? We have a former Albertsons here locally that closed a decade ago. The company is not interested in leasing the building or selling the land. They're interested in the asset is appreciating at something over 10% per year. It looks like something will finally happen, but only because the city started waving around attractive nuisance (homeless people lighting fires) and eminent domain.
On “The Fourteenth Annual Mindless Diversions Unsolicited Shopping Guide”
I admit to a fondness for Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol (1962), probably because I was a kid when I saw it.
"
It is amazing that in the space of 18 months, Grandpa's glorified doodles for birthdays and Christmas have become a tradition. I have the sketch for Christmas this year done, and with any luck will finish it this next week.
Granddaughter #2's birthday was this past Friday. Neither she nor her older sister recognized that the idea was not original. "Your children have never seen The Wizard of Oz?" I asked my daughter, outraged. "What is wrong with you?" Always interesting to read about elderly special effects. The Surrender Dorothy effect used a hypodermic needle to draw the letters in black ink across the bottom of a glass tank filled with tinted water.
http://mcain6925.com/ordinary/birthday.webp
On “From the New York Post: UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fatally shot outside Hilton hotel in Midtown in targeted attack: cops”
25 or so years ago when USWest was breaking up, the new CEO for the telco side of the split put a team of accountants and lawyers to work trying to find a way to break the promises that had been made about health insurance for retirees. I mentioned at the time that if he was successful, some retiree who lost a spouse to cancer because of the lack of insurance would murder the CEO. I wasn't really kidding.
I'll just casually note that this shooting bears at least a passing resemblance to a how-to description given by the assassin in The Eiger Sanction novel.
On “Movie of a Man Awakened at Night”
Barely on topic... I am so looking forward to being able to sleep on my left side again.
On “I Told You So”
The biggest difference in the two terms, I suspect, will be the SCOTUS is prepared to make drastic changes to the rules.
On “Weekend Plans Post: On a Plane to Iceland”
Have started trying to catch up on the stuff that got put off while my broken ribs healed enough to get around in reasonable comfort.
My sister broke a bone in her foot. Earlier this week the surgeon put in pins and a screw. The next day there were more x-rays to make sure everything was properly aligned. She'll wear a boot for 4-5 weeks to make sure it stays aligned. For my lower ribs, the medical profession sort of waved their hand and said, "Yeah, they'll heal, alignment's not important." Ribs need a union.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.