Yes. Of all cities in the US above some cut-off population number, Colorado Springs is most dependent on the federal government for paychecks. As I recall, around 21% of households are dependent in some part.
Lots of quite good wine comes with screw caps these days. The fungus that spoils the wine (produces the TCA chemical) has become widespread enough that sourcing untainted cork is a problem. Repeated testing by wineries has shown screw caps are essentially perfect -- no oxygen ingress or TCA taint -- for ten years. At that point the plastic used in the screw caps begins to break down and allow oxygen ingress. Unless you plan on laying the bottle down for longer than that, screw caps are actually the best choice.
From long ago... The Bell System was broken up in 1984. Some years later USWest, one of the Baby Bells, was found guilty of violating the consent decree multiple times, and paid fines. At the end of the court proceedings after the last of them, the judge told the CEO, "Next time it won't be a fine, you personally will go to jail." There were no more violations.
At the time, I was working in an organization that operated in one of the gray areas. Our training changed dramatically. One of the new trainers said specifically, "If the CEO goes to jail because of something you did, rest assured that you too will go to jail."
The last few runs of the National Weather Service's supercomputer-based Global Forecast System have a named storm developing in the Caribbean late next week and hitting somewhere in Florida near Election Day. I have as much faith in that prediction as polls that assert Trump will win the national popular vote by millions. More, actually, since the NWS will show you the computer code and raw data they use.
Thing of it is, if he doesn’t have the energy to make it through a full day of campaigning, does he have the energy to President come January?
Certainly the stories that came out of the White House while he was President the last time were that he didn't spend full days president-ing. That he didn't take meetings before 10 or 11 in the morning. That briefing booklets be cut to a single page. Record number of days spent off golfing.
OTOH, he gave the media a consistently rich set of outrageous Twitter comments, which seemed to make them quite happy.
ETA: When I was in the business of writing tech summaries that SVPs had requested, one of the rules that I learned was "one side of one page."
If there are enough of those to do the job, then it comes down to whether the regular military mutinies when Biden orders them to suppress the insurrection.
"Hon, get up early tomorrow morning and pack me a lunch. Then get online and book me a motel room for, let's see, tomorrow night south of Atlanta, and the next night in Virginia. Don't worry about the night after that, we'll be in charge in DC and occupy whatever hotels we need. Text me when you've got the details. This is an important deal, so I'm going to take the truck down to Jiffy Lube this afternoon and get the oil changed and tire pressure checked. Is there still room on the credit card for gas and a few meals at Mickey D's?"
Just for grins, the NWS's long-term model has a tropical storm sideswiping the Keys and Miami/Dade on Monday, Nov 4. Farther north along the coast on Nov 5.
It would be interesting to ask the 12% and 30% what sort of violence they envision. I suspect that the vast majority mean "the military installs my candidate" rather than "millions of us will roll out with our guns, shooting everyone/thing in sight, and install my candidate".
I completed my ballot and put it in the drop box last week, got confirmation yesterday that it had been collected, verified, and counted. I plan on spending the next two weeks retaining calm in the face of potential disaster. Like the princess in my granddaughters' fairy tale, having tea with the wyrm.
Nitpick... Europa Clipper was originally required by statute to launch on the SLS, which would have allowed a shorter faster trip. NASA had to go back to Congress and ask for permission to use something else after Boeing announced they would be unable to build SLS rockets for anything except Artemis until sometime in the 2030s.
SLS sidenote... Michael Bloomberg published an opinion piece calling for Congress to terminate the SLS program, and for NASA to redesign the Artemis program around commercial launch capabilities.
More "October (and the last week of September) was a good month for SpaceX"... The Crew-9 Dragon mission to the ISS launched on Sept 28. It flew with two empty seats for the astronauts that didn't return on the Boeing Starliner. It launched from SLC-40 in Florida, demonstrating that SpaceX now has two working human-qualilfied launch sites for Crew Dragon. SpaceX won contracts for eight more national security launches because no one else is currently qualified to bid for them.
Apparently that particular McDonald's was closed to the public while the publicity event was conducted. I had been wondering how the more paranoid than usual Secret Service was going to handle security at an open McDonald's.
In a filing yesterday, in their new case arguing that states can regulate mifepristone regardless of the FDA, the state AGs of Idaho, Kansas, and Missouri say that states have the necessary interest because abortions reduce their potential population. That in turn reduces the number of Representatives they may get, and the size of federal grants based on population.
Dot-decimal notation for indicating structure or ordering has been around for a long time. ISO Standard 2145 (1978) covers dot-decimal notation for use in document subdivisions. It's been used to identify tables and figures and such for pretty much as far back as I can remember, eg "Figure 2.6". Are there people who think figure 9.25 comes before figure 9.6?
It gets used in unusual places. The sequence 88.5.3.2 is used in some orthopedic trauma situations to indicate a break in the little toe, outermost bone, in the center.
I've never tested positive for Covid. So far as I know, I've never had the flu either, whether I got a vaccination or not. My understanding is that for pretty much any given virus, 2% or so of the human population is naturally immune. This got a lot more attention when researchers realized that about 2% of the population doesn't get infected by HIV no matter how or how often they're exposed.
I anticipate the day when the Islamic Republic of Pakistan decides it wants a say. 240M people, nukes, and solid-fuel ballistic missiles with sufficient range to deliver those nukes to Israel.
My understanding is that the general position is determined by the size, shape, and orientation of the craft relative to the direction it's traveling. This is more Mike Siegel or Oscar Gordon's schtick than mine. Capsules don't have a gap; Starship does; I understand the Shuttle did as well, but there was no Starlink constellation at that time. Cheap phased array antennas also help.
No politics, just engineering... I made sure to get up in this this morning (Sunday) to watch SpaceX's fifth launch of their Starship rocket. This was their first attempt to return the Super Heavy booster to the launch site, and was successful. It's hard to realize the scale of things from the video. The booster is 70 meters tall, nine meters in diameter, and has an empty mass of 275,000 kg. Eases into place balanced on three engines while the 30-meter long "chopsticks" close and hold it. Starship, the orbiter, separated, went most of the way around the world, and executed what looked like a flawless reentry. It was close enough to the landing target that they had video from the ship they had out there waiting. For an oldster, who was told as a kid that the plasma around returning vehicles was impenetrable to radio, it's amazing to watch all of the video Starship sends during reentry. It's possible now because they have four Starlink antennas on the back of the vehicle that can transmit up through the gap in the plasma.
The north central part of the US settled relatively recently (as these things go) by Scandinavian immigrants. Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas, down into northern Iowa and parts of Nebraska. High voter turnout and high academic achievement when the Democrats were winning; high voter turnout and high academic achievement when Republicans are winning.
Most wars in history have ended with some territorial exchanges, very few of those including population displacements.
Many war settlements where there was a religious component to the war required in practice the losers who stayed in place to adopt the winners' religion, at least in public.
I've bitten my tongue on the reading subject, as my personal belief is the way to succeed is for the parents to read to the kids when they're small, then read with them when they're older, and always have a pile of age-appropriate interesting stories laying around the house.
This is time-consuming for the parents, and I don't think there's any way to duplicate it in a classroom.
Harry Potter addicted both my son, and now my granddaughters, to reading. There's lots of things to talk about with kids in the Harry Potter books.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “What If Trump Wins?”
Yes. Of all cities in the US above some cut-off population number, Colorado Springs is most dependent on the federal government for paychecks. As I recall, around 21% of households are dependent in some part.
On “POETS Day! William Faulkner’s Go at Anachronism”
It’s a bottlecap wine, now. Sigh.
Lots of quite good wine comes with screw caps these days. The fungus that spoils the wine (produces the TCA chemical) has become widespread enough that sourcing untainted cork is a problem. Repeated testing by wineries has shown screw caps are essentially perfect -- no oxygen ingress or TCA taint -- for ten years. At that point the plastic used in the screw caps begins to break down and allow oxygen ingress. Unless you plan on laying the bottle down for longer than that, screw caps are actually the best choice.
On “Open Mic for the week of 10/21/2024”
From long ago... The Bell System was broken up in 1984. Some years later USWest, one of the Baby Bells, was found guilty of violating the consent decree multiple times, and paid fines. At the end of the court proceedings after the last of them, the judge told the CEO, "Next time it won't be a fine, you personally will go to jail." There were no more violations.
At the time, I was working in an organization that operated in one of the gray areas. Our training changed dramatically. One of the new trainers said specifically, "If the CEO goes to jail because of something you did, rest assured that you too will go to jail."
On “From The Atlantic: Trump: ‘I Need the Kind of Generals That Hitler Had’”
The last few runs of the National Weather Service's supercomputer-based Global Forecast System have a named storm developing in the Caribbean late next week and hitting somewhere in Florida near Election Day. I have as much faith in that prediction as polls that assert Trump will win the national popular vote by millions. More, actually, since the NWS will show you the computer code and raw data they use.
On “The Election’s Home Stretch”
Thing of it is, if he doesn’t have the energy to make it through a full day of campaigning, does he have the energy to President come January?
Certainly the stories that came out of the White House while he was President the last time were that he didn't spend full days president-ing. That he didn't take meetings before 10 or 11 in the morning. That briefing booklets be cut to a single page. Record number of days spent off golfing.
OTOH, he gave the media a consistently rich set of outrageous Twitter comments, which seemed to make them quite happy.
ETA: When I was in the business of writing tech summaries that SVPs had requested, one of the rules that I learned was "one side of one page."
"
If there are enough of those to do the job, then it comes down to whether the regular military mutinies when Biden orders them to suppress the insurrection.
"
"Hon, get up early tomorrow morning and pack me a lunch. Then get online and book me a motel room for, let's see, tomorrow night south of Atlanta, and the next night in Virginia. Don't worry about the night after that, we'll be in charge in DC and occupy whatever hotels we need. Text me when you've got the details. This is an important deal, so I'm going to take the truck down to Jiffy Lube this afternoon and get the oil changed and tire pressure checked. Is there still room on the credit card for gas and a few meals at Mickey D's?"
On “Campaign Scratchpad: Known Unknowns”
Just for grins, the NWS's long-term model has a tropical storm sideswiping the Keys and Miami/Dade on Monday, Nov 4. Farther north along the coast on Nov 5.
On “The Election’s Home Stretch”
It would be interesting to ask the 12% and 30% what sort of violence they envision. I suspect that the vast majority mean "the military installs my candidate" rather than "millions of us will roll out with our guns, shooting everyone/thing in sight, and install my candidate".
"
I completed my ballot and put it in the drop box last week, got confirmation yesterday that it had been collected, verified, and counted. I plan on spending the next two weeks retaining calm in the face of potential disaster. Like the princess in my granddaughters' fairy tale, having tea with the wyrm.
http://www.mcain6925.com/little_monsters/little-monsters-tea-color.pdf
On “Mini-Throughput: Rockets Rockets Everywhere”
Nitpick... Europa Clipper was originally required by statute to launch on the SLS, which would have allowed a shorter faster trip. NASA had to go back to Congress and ask for permission to use something else after Boeing announced they would be unable to build SLS rockets for anything except Artemis until sometime in the 2030s.
SLS sidenote... Michael Bloomberg published an opinion piece calling for Congress to terminate the SLS program, and for NASA to redesign the Artemis program around commercial launch capabilities.
More "October (and the last week of September) was a good month for SpaceX"... The Crew-9 Dragon mission to the ISS launched on Sept 28. It flew with two empty seats for the astronauts that didn't return on the Boeing Starliner. It launched from SLC-40 in Florida, demonstrating that SpaceX now has two working human-qualilfied launch sites for Crew Dragon. SpaceX won contracts for eight more national security launches because no one else is currently qualified to bid for them.
On “Open Mic for the week of 10/14/2024”
Apparently that particular McDonald's was closed to the public while the publicity event was conducted. I had been wondering how the more paranoid than usual Secret Service was going to handle security at an open McDonald's.
"
In a filing yesterday, in their new case arguing that states can regulate mifepristone regardless of the FDA, the state AGs of Idaho, Kansas, and Missouri say that states have the necessary interest because abortions reduce their potential population. That in turn reduces the number of Representatives they may get, and the size of federal grants based on population.
On “Weekend Plans Post: Thinkin’ ’bout Numbers”
Dot-decimal notation for indicating structure or ordering has been around for a long time. ISO Standard 2145 (1978) covers dot-decimal notation for use in document subdivisions. It's been used to identify tables and figures and such for pretty much as far back as I can remember, eg "Figure 2.6". Are there people who think figure 9.25 comes before figure 9.6?
It gets used in unusual places. The sequence 88.5.3.2 is used in some orthopedic trauma situations to indicate a break in the little toe, outermost bone, in the center.
On “Open Mic for the week of 10/14/2024”
Put mine in the dropbox yesterday.
On “Lone Star Rising”
Win the suburbs there, win Texas.
On “The COVID-Flu Cocktail: A New Fall Tradition”
I've never tested positive for Covid. So far as I know, I've never had the flu either, whether I got a vaccination or not. My understanding is that for pretty much any given virus, 2% or so of the human population is naturally immune. This got a lot more attention when researchers realized that about 2% of the population doesn't get infected by HIV no matter how or how often they're exposed.
On “Open Mic for the week of 10/14/2024”
I anticipate the day when the Islamic Republic of Pakistan decides it wants a say. 240M people, nukes, and solid-fuel ballistic missiles with sufficient range to deliver those nukes to Israel.
On “Weekend Plans Post: Batchin’ It for The OTHER Thanksgiving (And Silent Hill 2)”
My understanding is that the general position is determined by the size, shape, and orientation of the craft relative to the direction it's traveling. This is more Mike Siegel or Oscar Gordon's schtick than mine. Capsules don't have a gap; Starship does; I understand the Shuttle did as well, but there was no Starlink constellation at that time. Cheap phased array antennas also help.
"
No politics, just engineering... I made sure to get up in this this morning (Sunday) to watch SpaceX's fifth launch of their Starship rocket. This was their first attempt to return the Super Heavy booster to the launch site, and was successful. It's hard to realize the scale of things from the video. The booster is 70 meters tall, nine meters in diameter, and has an empty mass of 275,000 kg. Eases into place balanced on three engines while the 30-meter long "chopsticks" close and hold it. Starship, the orbiter, separated, went most of the way around the world, and executed what looked like a flawless reentry. It was close enough to the landing target that they had video from the ship they had out there waiting. For an oldster, who was told as a kid that the plasma around returning vehicles was impenetrable to radio, it's amazing to watch all of the video Starship sends during reentry. It's possible now because they have four Starlink antennas on the back of the vehicle that can transmit up through the gap in the plasma.
On “From Freddie: The Basics: School Reform”
The north central part of the US settled relatively recently (as these things go) by Scandinavian immigrants. Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas, down into northern Iowa and parts of Nebraska. High voter turnout and high academic achievement when the Democrats were winning; high voter turnout and high academic achievement when Republicans are winning.
On “Open Mic for the week of 10/7/2024”
Has anyone figured out what he thinks he's accomplishing with rallies in blue cities and states?
"
Granddaughter #3 (now two years eight months) could do a grizzled grandpa ad for them. Cameras love her.
"
Most wars in history have ended with some territorial exchanges, very few of those including population displacements.
Many war settlements where there was a religious component to the war required in practice the losers who stayed in place to adopt the winners' religion, at least in public.
On “From Freddie: The Basics: School Reform”
I've bitten my tongue on the reading subject, as my personal belief is the way to succeed is for the parents to read to the kids when they're small, then read with them when they're older, and always have a pile of age-appropriate interesting stories laying around the house.
This is time-consuming for the parents, and I don't think there's any way to duplicate it in a classroom.
Harry Potter addicted both my son, and now my granddaughters, to reading. There's lots of things to talk about with kids in the Harry Potter books.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.