Big Stick Physics

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Sparky doesn’t let me sleep.

December 26, 2024 / / 0 Comments

I should be at Costco or Planet Fitness right now, but since I usually wake up around 7 am, an early afternoon nap seemed like a good idea.  Being a well-mannered pup, Sparky waits for an invitation to hop up on the couch.  He is far too cute not to be invited up.

Sparky likes helping me take naps, but if I stop petting him for 10 seconds or so, he squirms his way into an alert posture. 

If my eyes are closed, he assumes that I intend to sleep the day away and hops off in search of better opportunities.  If my eyes are open, he stares at me trying to hypnotize me again.  If I start petting him, he reclines back to his adorable lounging posture. 

Sparky sleeps all the time, so I asked why he was being a dick about me falling asleep.  He said that he doesn’t sleep during the day, but takes power naps.  He pointed out that his eyes stay open, which I knew, and he is only 80% asleep.

Sparky said the artist, Salvador Dalí, adapted his dog nap trick when he started taking naps while holding a spoon over a plate sitting on the floor.  He also said that Dalí had the original idea to paint dogs playing poker, but dropped the concept because dogs can’t bluff. 

As usual, I’m not sure what Sparky is talking about.

Biden is getting ready to screw me over.

December 26, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Congress dragged me back in the game, so now I want to win.

Social Security is a game.  It’s not like roulette, where the risk corresponds to the reward.  It’s not much like blackjack where there is a clear strategy to narrow the odds.  Social Security is more like that Fun Fair “Mystery Fishing” game where every player gets a prize, but there are better prizes and worser prizes.

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Sparky’s Christmas present.

December 25, 2024 / / 0 Comments

It’s a good thing I ordered early.  Sparky would have lost all faith in my judgement.  The pet bed warmer I got for Sparky is completely ineffective.  I’d have better luck keeping Sparky warm by reciting bawdy limericks all night.

It has an Amazon rating of 4 1/2 stars with 7000 votes.  People are idiots or something.  The instructions recommend placing it under a couch cushion all night to test it.  The area gets about as warm as placing your hand under a couch cushion all night.  That isn’t convenient or comfortable, but it also isn’t very effective.  This pad uses 4 Watts of electricity. 

I bought it on reviews, and not the specifications, so my bad.

Instead, I bought him this heating pad that I didn’t know still existed.  It’s a Sunbeam old-style heating pad.  Old-style means that it just has a low-medium-high switch.  My heating pad is the modern variety that turns itself off after some length of time.  That is supposed to be a safety feature that i find very inconvenient.

On high, it uses 50 Watts, and is for when you really need heat.  For Sparky, it goes under the mat cover and is mildly warm on low.  Both pads are made about the same, and cost about $17.

I’m going to get a bigger one for myself, and throw the modern heating pad away.

The Die Hard soundtrack is all Christmas music.

December 23, 2024 / / 0 Comments

National Geographic: In Japan, Beethoven’s Ode to Joy is a Christmas Carol.

In Die Hard it’s a nice touch that Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, ‘Ode to Joy’ is a recurring musical theme in the movie.  Since NatGeo says “Ode to Joy” is a Christmas carol, then you’d have to be anti-science to disagree. 

Yes, I understand that NatGeo says “in Japan”.  To that, I say, “Nakatomi Plaza”.  Within the context of the movie, it’s a Christmas movie.  Quod erat demonstrandum.

Here is a nice Japanese rendition of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” sung by 10,000 Japanese at Christmas.

Die Hard for Christmas.

December 23, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Sparky and I watched another Christmas movie.  Die Hard is so good, that we also watched the corresponding episode of  The Movies That Made Us.   It was a leap of faith to take Bruce Willis from Moonlighting and turn him into John McClane, but not such a big leap since everyone else turned down the role.  Frank Sinatra had right of first refusal, but he was too old and rich to do it.  Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Clint Eastwood, and a bunch of other actors wouldn’t go for it.

For the science deniers who can’t accept that Die Hard is a Christmas movie, here is definitive proof.

The Die Hard soundtrack is all Christmas music.

Old Photo Project

December 23, 2024 / / 0 Comments

My current project is to digitize all of the photos I’ve ever taken.  That sounds daunting, but for the first half of my life, film had to be purchased and developed.  Figure 25 cents per photo, which would be 75 cents in today’s money.  

A photo scanner works well for loose photos.  A flat bed scanner will be used for the photos that are too big or attached to a photo album page.

Once a photo is scanned, GIMP is used to rotate or crop the photo.  GIMP has a couple of auto-functions to correct typical issues.  “White Balance” often helps quite a bit, as shown in the photo at the top.  “Color Enhance” may help, make no difference or make the photo over saturated.

GIMP is powerful open-source software.  It’s intimidating since it’s so powerful, but I just goggled the functionality that I need.   For video, I have Topaz Video AI to enhance movie film that’s been digitized.  They also have software to enhance photos.  I’m not going that far.

After the photos are digitized and processed, I name the photo files to capture any information on the back of photos, on the envelope or that I can ascertain from the photo.  The program, Bulk Rename Utility, is also open-source and helps with renaming.

My goal is to pack away the old physical photos, and forget them. 

Falling Skies is a 7.0

December 21, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Falling Skies is okay.  Not great science fiction, but good.  The special effects are convincing, but there isn’t much of it.  Most of the action takes place on a post-apocalyptic Earth.  I haven’t watch much of The Walking Dead, but it’s along that line.  The good guys are fighting the monsters in addition to a few bad guys.  The best thing about it is the series runs to completion, wrapping up the story. 

Do we even have a president right now?

December 19, 2024 / / 0 Comments

WSJ: Biden isn’t in the game.

WSJ: Biden isn’t in the game.

Shouldn’t that headline be in the present tense?  Nancy Pelosi coerced Biden into dropping out of the 2024 presidential election after the debate with Trump showed that Biden was too mentally feeble to continue with the campaign.  If Biden is too frail to run for president, he is too frail to be president.  We haven’t had a function president since July.

Perhaps the WSJ is suggesting that since the election, Trump has been in charge.  Everyone acts as if he is.   While Trump was in Paris, meeting global leaders, Biden was sleeping through meetings in Africa.

I don’t want to hear another thing about the January 6th self-guided tour of the Capital building being a threat to democracy.  The corporate media and Democrat handlers hid the fact that Biden was running out of juice so they could cling to power.

Senior advisers were often put into roles that some administration officials and lawmakers thought Biden should occupy, with people such as National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, senior counselor Steve Ricchetti and National Economic Council head Lael Brainard and her predecessor frequently in the position of being go-betweens for the president.

Read the WSJ article if you are interested.  Spoiler Alert:  These three people have effectively been running the country since Biden was elected.

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