What's Going On
08:59 Wednesday, 24 December 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 33.12°F Pressure: 1025hPa Humidity: 74% Wind: 16.2mph
Words: 208
I was playing around with this last night. Made a movie out of it this morning. The algorithm is here. I probably didn't implement it correctly, but it creates some interesting tapestry-like images. I switched the high-resolution Applesoft "white" from 3 to 7, which is why everything is purple and green. 3 gives orange and blue, which I think are more attractive.
Today I may play around with it and see if I can switch between 3 and 7 every other line, might make things more interesting.
(An important note: This program is running in Virtual ][ at max speed. This wouldn't be any fun at all at 1MHz.)
Anyway, it may be like watching paint dry, feel free to scrub through. The Applesoft BASIC program is listed at the end.
✍️ Reply by emailMore Fun
07:19 Wednesday, 24 December 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 33.71°F Pressure: 1021hPa Humidity: 72% Wind: 18.12mph
Words: 402
This is why Jack Baty should buy a Commodore 64 Ultimate. Well, this too.
I stumbled upon that first link yesterday as I was trying to do a deep dive on serendipitous circles. Which it seems I can't link to just now, because the Internet Archive is offline. Yeesh. [Update: It's back.}
I'm sure you could do all that stuff in a modern programming language, and at vastly higher resolutions. But I don't understand modern programming languages, I'd probably have to install a bunch of crap, and then maintain it. I don't want to do any of that. I just want to turn the machine on and start noodling around.
I've been capturing BASIC listings from books and magazines at the Internet Archive, editing them in Apple Notes and then pasting the cleaned-up code into Virtual ][. If there are still errors, it's easy enough to copy the virtual screen to the clipboard and paste it into Notes to edit it.
Then I was reading the feeds and happened upon this from the macosxguru. It kind of prompted me to think about simplifying things a bit. I use Apple Notes for a fair amount of stuff, partly because it's on the iPhone and iPad as well as the Mac, and I can share notes with Mitzi.
But since Virtual ][ only runs on the Mac, I could probably use Tinderbox for the same purpose. One of these days I'll have to figure out how to use Posters in Tinderbox, and install a Javascript Apple II emulator into Tinderbox.
The Apple IIc Plus (Which I've since learned, "Is the preferred nomenclature, Dude.") didn't arrive yesterday. It's supposed to arrive today. Paid a kid $50 to plow the driveway so the mail carrier wouldn't skip the delivery. We got about eight inches of snow. I played around with the Maverick in it and learned that FWD with all-season radials is no match for eight inches of wet snow. I'll have to invest in some snow tires.
Then the temperature went up last night, and a lot of the snow has melted, but whatever. I'm pretty confident the RAV4 would have been able to get out of the driveway with AWD and the Michelins.
Hopefully I will get my new toy today, and hopefully it'll have survived its journey. The world's still insane, so I'm grateful for the distraction.
As ever, the beat goes on...
✍️ Reply by emailFun
06:11 Monday, 22 December 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 20.64°F Pressure: 1033hPa Humidity: 76% Wind: 4.07mph
Words: 817
I really enjoyed Saturday's Tinderbox meetup. I always enjoy the social aspect of these virtual get-togethers, but there is often a performance element to these meetings, and that's part of the attraction as well.
And by "performance," I mean that someone, usually Michael Becker, demonstrates how to get Tinderbox to do something. And Tinderbox is a rich playground for performing "programming."
On Saturday, it was Jacob Evans performing, and it was something to behold.
The added benefit is that we often learn something in the process.
Earlier that morning, I'd skimmed this blog post from Les Orchard. In case you didn't click through, the title of the post is Making Computers Do Things Is Fun. If you're into making computers do things, it's probably worth clicking through.
I was born the year Russia orbited Sputnik, and the Space Age (and "race") was born. When I was at the Naval Academy, the micro-computer revolution was just getting started. My introduction to computers, as I've mentioned here before, was in a class that was intended to teach both calculus and programming, and I had no real way to wrap my brain around either concept, let alone putting them together in one class. Two five credit hour Ds did nothing to advance my academic opportunities. While I graduated with a designated degree in ocean engineering, passed the Engineer In Training exam, and scored in the 90-somethingth percentile in the GRE, my 2.2 QPR barred me from a graduate degree on the navy's dime.
Not a huge disappointment, I was never a "good" student, but it remains something of a regret.
Anyway, I acquired a bad opinion of "computing" from my experience using a timesharing Honeywell mainframe in hot little soundproof booths, housing the teletype terminals we used to "interact" with the computer.
But I recall that I was enamored with programmable calculators. A lot of engineering is "plug and chug," the cognitive portion of it is recognizing the problem to be solved, and the appropriate equations to solve it. After that, it's just grunt work with pencil and graph paper, and I was happy to let my TI-57 do that part.
That was fun.
So, after a couple of years in the fleet, after President Reagan and his administration gave the military a pretty big pay raise, and allowed unmarried officers on sea duty to draw Basic Allowance for Quarters, I had a lot more disposable income. (If you were on sea duty, you had "quarters" aboard the ship. If you wanted to live out in town, you had to do it on your own dime. Of course, if you were married, then you got BAQ anyway. I think there were two separate rates though, "married" and "single," and on shore duty, unmarried officers were entitled to draw "single" BAQ. I digress.)
And I've related here before that I began to encounter micro-computers in stores, and seeing them put text and graphics on a television screen was an epiphany for me, which got me started in the Apple ecosystem.
I can't say I really learned very much with the Apple II until several years later, when I as a lieutenant commander on the Atlantic Fleet staff, I took a course in Pascal programming at Old Dominion University. Another O-4 on the staff and I took it together. We were both Apple II users, and wanted to learn more about programming.
That was the class that finally made computers kind of make sense to me, to the extent that they ever have. I think I got a B in it, because, you know, "never a 'good' student."
The class used Borland's Turbo Pascal, my staff buddy and I used Instant Pascal, which was a Pascal interpreter, but could do all the homework assignments.
UCSD Pascal on the Apple II was an operating system and development environment. It was expensive, and you had to learn a whole new way of managing files, had to compile your programs and so on. It was a pretty heavy lift for just trying to learn "programming."
Anyway, pretty much everything I know about "programming," which ain't much, I learned in that Pascal course using Instant Pascal.
Fast forward to today, and I can muddle through a certain amount of AppleScript, and I'm probably a little better with Tinderbox Action Code, though I'm by no means as fluent as Jacob Evans, Michael Becker, Jack Baty or Mark Anderson.
But what little I can do is often fun. Sometimes it's frustrating, but mostly it's fun.
And the thing that Applesoft BASIC, Instant Pascal, AppleScript and Tinderbox Action Code all have in common is that they're interpreted languages, which makes them far more interactive, and it's the interaction with the computer, the instant feedback, that makes it fun. At least, when stuff, you know, works.
So, yeah, making computers do things is fun.
✍️ Reply by email"Plain" Text
05:33 Monday, 22 December 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 20.91°F Pressure: 1033hPa Humidity: 74% Wind: 7.63mph
Words: 247
Not entirely to revisit my complaints against markdown, I'd just like to mention an issue I've been grappling with just using "plain" text.
The objection to styled text is that it complicates processing strings, makes it harder for the computer get to the "data" through the "representation." Styling, or representation, is often handled in different ways by different applications, and that adds overhead for both programmers and programs. "Plain" text removes all that burden.
But "plain" text is, today, Unicode. I won't pretend that I understand what that chart in the linked Wikipedia web page means, except to say I think "plain" text today now encompasses over 100K characters, some of which are hard for humans distinguish from one another. These are called homographs, kind of like homonyms, and that particular human weakness is exploited in homograph attacks.
Where I encounter this vulnerability is using Text Sniper to capture text from program listings in books and magazines at archive.org. Many of these documents are relatively low resolution scans, or low contrast, often of dot matrix printouts, and Text Sniper tries to match this ambiguous graphical representation agains the entire universe of Unicode. As a result, I spend a lot of time correcting "typos," that are usually just homograph errors. I sent an email to the support address, asking for a setting to limit recognition to ASCII text.
You know, "plain" text.
Hence the old saying, "If it ain't ASCII, it ain't plain."
The beat goes on...
✍️ Reply by emailDefining Moments
09:43 Sunday, 21 December 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 25.25°F Pressure: 1022hPa Humidity: 71% Wind: 15.28mph
Words: 119
A brief essay in The New Yorker, that shines a light on history, character, integrity and meaning. In this strange moment, we are offered many opportunities to make meaning.
I've often said that the best way to make meaning in your life is through service to others. Another great way to make meaning is by adhering to one's principles, assuming you have any.
Something they each have in common is action. Life is meaningless.
We bring meaning to life.
Action.
What guides it? Internal principles, or external pressures? Radical acceptance, or denial?
"The way of the warrior is to say, 'Yes!' to it all."
This is the moment. This is your choice.
You are who you choose to be.
✍️ Reply by emailTonight's Sunset 12-20-25
17:41 Saturday, 20 December 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 32.9°F Pressure: 1013hPa Humidity: 56% Wind: 15.86mphWords: 723
All the snow is gone, but it's turning cold again. Got up to 50°F yesterday(?). A lot of wind, had a couple of power blips, but it remained up here where we are.
Had a very stimulating Tinderbox meetup this morning. If you're someone who knows about Tinderbox, or a user, you should check out the video. It's a tour de force in leveraging the power built into Tinderbox. The first part of the video is a rather unusual application of the Highlighter feature of Tinderbox, for programatic control of the appearance of text. Not so unusual when you think about it, but certainly not one that was contemplated when the feature was developed.
Not to be a tease, that first part is about using markup in Tinderbox, and I think I've made my feelings known. Still, I was impressed, to say the least.
The second part of the video is, well, mind-blowing to me. I'm not a "visual" thinker, and seldom use Map view. I tried using it once for a project where I was trying to capture a lot of the life lessons an old man accumulates over time, if he's lucky. Mitzi says I'm a pretty good photographer, but I think that's only because she loves me. I have no feeling for "design." (And no passion for fonts. Or fascist iconography.) I see some things and like them, but I could never come up with them on my own.
Jacob Evans, the guest and the author of the demo file (available here) clearly has the mind of a programmer, but also a very keen eye for appearance, which is a killer combo.
Some of the features of Tinderbox Jacob demo'ed included using MacOS Shortcuts to import data to Tinderbox via $RunCommand, likewise using $RunCommand to export data via AppleScript to OmniFocus. Using Tinderbox export $Templates as the basis for crafting prompts to Claude. And more that I can't recall just now. Watch the video.
Anyway, this was a bright spot in a time when any light is welcome. Even if you're not a Tinderbox user, but you're interested in the kinds of things computers can do besides blogging and (anti-)social media, you should check it out.
In other news, Plur1bus has turned out to be fascinating. Next week is the season finale and then we have the unsatisfactory experience of waiting a year or more for another season to drop. I may be dead before then. I guess the upside is it gives me something to live for.
We watched a movie on Thursday night, Neighborhood Watch with Jack Quaid (The Boys) and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, on Hulu. I was pleasantly surprised. For a "feel-good" movie, there were plenty of uncomfortable moments, and I thought Jack Quaid was amazing.
As cinematic comfort food, I got to pick Airport '75 as our Wednesday night feature. This really ought to be the time for a resurgence of the big-budget disaster movies, since we're living through one. Maybe too on the nose? But it's such a wonderful movie to enjoy mocking. I'll watch any movie with George Kennedy in it.
We watched F1 on Apple TV+ (or whatever it's called now) when it was streaming for free ("With subscription.") Felt like if Top Gun Maverick married Ford vs. Ferrari and they had a baby, that's what we were watching. I'm old enough to remember when John Wayne made The Shootist.
F1 was entertaining.
I didn't sleep much Thursday night. The Naval Institute Press Proceedings published an essay from a retired Air Force O-5 who justified/rationalized all of Trump's murderous fecklessness in the Caribbean. I didn't notice at first that they also published a piece from a retired Navy O-6 (Captain) who made the opposite case. The AF guy threw everything at the wall, and most of it smacked of "what-aboutism" but it made me very angry that they published it. I can fall asleep with no problem, but I'll walk up at 0200 and spend the rest of the night composing an intemperate and vituperative rejoinder. I'd get up and write, but it's cold at that hour, my blood boiling notwithstanding. Should I link to it? I think not. Search engines are wonderful things.
People will let you down.
Anyway, the beat goes on...
✍️ Reply by emailSunset 12-16-25
08:13 Wednesday, 17 December 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 37.06°F Pressure: 1009hPa Humidity: 80% Wind: 16.58mphWords: 1247
"We're havin' a heat wave, a tropical heat wave..."
It's 37°F out there this morning, and that's nice.
Sunset last night was pretty too.
I'm getting adapted to the external keyboard. Still missing some keys, but I'm not hammering my fingertips as much.
The MPB stand arrived and things are a little better. I can see the entire screen, but the stand also has the effect of moving the screen away from my eyes, so it's not in the sweet spot of my middle-distance vision. Close enough, but not ideal.
In other news, since nothing matters anymore, I spent some money on another Apple II. This one was kind of a unicorn, and it's interesting how the dynamics of what appears on eBay seem to play out. The model I bought is an Apple IIc+. For the uninitiated, the IIc+ was the last, and fastest stock Apple II Apple released. It shed the brick-on-leash power supply for an internal power supply. The downside to that is you can't run it straight off of USB-C. It has a built-in 3.5" disk drive for 800K of disk storage. And the highlight is that it runs at 4MHz, versus the stock 1MHz of every other Apple II except the IIgs, which ran at 2.8MHz. So the IIc+ is faster even than the IIgs.
The c+ doesn't appear very often on eBay. It's not unobtanium, but while there are always a dozen or more standard IIc machines available, there may be days or weeks when you won't find a c+ listed. One came up for auction a week or so ago, and I watched it hoping to put a bid in on it, thinking I'd go as high as $600. It ended up going north of $1100! That was insane.
But, all of a sudden, there are three c+ machines available on eBay. One was a very clean standard c+ for a "buy it now" price of $750. Another was a rather dingy, yellowed version, with an aftermarket 1MB battery-backed memory expansion card, with a starting bid of $550. That machine is a bit of unicorn, because you don't often find them with the memory expansion. But, to my surprise, there was another c+ with memory expansion installed, along with the carrying case and some documentation, also listed with a "no reserve" opening bid. That auction wouldn't end until today sometime. (It's currently at $320 with 37 bids. That seems weird.)
So we went from none, to one, to three c+ machines in fairly short order.
I almost bought the $750 model, because it looked pristine and the seller indicated they'd replaced a nylon gear in the 3.5" drive that has a tendency to break in these nearly forty-year-old machines, and it had a reasonable shipping price. But I figured I'd watch the $550 auction, because it had the memory expansion card. I expected it to go north of $1K, and I wasn't going to higher than $600. If I lost the bid, I'd immediately buy the $750 machine, expecting that the $320 model would likewise go higher than $1K.
Well, I was the only bidder on the $550 auction and got it for $550 plus a rather high shipping charge and sales tax. I just checked and the $750 machine is no longer available. It doesn't indicate that it was sold, just that the seller indicated it was no longer available. The $320 machine has been inert since yesterday. I rather expect it will not go for much more than $500 now, but we'll see.
So it appears to me that some of these folks with rather rare computers watch the eBay sales and when they see one go for a high price, judge that there's a high demand and immediately list their units for sale. If the currently $320 machine goes for less than $550, I will be disappointed.
I don't understand why there are 37 bids on it though. I'm not that experienced on eBay, but I've learned to wait until the final seconds of the auction, enter the highest amount I'm willing to pay and hope for the best. I discovered that if I gave myself any more time, I'd find myself caught up in the competitive aspect of bidding and pay more than I'd intended to, which is what I thought the item should be worth.
Anyway, this particular IIc+ scratches a number of itches for me, so I'm looking forward to getting it.
The IIgs would scratch almost as many itches, but I need to work on it and it's too cold to work in the garage. I really have no place to be disassembling a power supply and doing some soldering here in the house. And I'd also have to build a platform for it that I could mount beneath the desk and, again, too cold in the garage.
The c+ will plug into the Benq with an HDMI cable, and I have two video adapters to choose from. The battery-backed RAM card means I can set up the c+ in one configuration or another, and simply turn it on and have it be ready to go. Changing configurations isn't especially difficult either, using the Floppy Emu. I can have one configuration for running a fully configured AppleWorks suite, one for UCSD Pascal 1.3, one for Apple Logo, one for Applesoft BASIC and one for DOS 3.3/Integer (Woz) BASIC, depending on what I want to play with that week.
And the fact that it runs at 4MHz with an available RAM disk makes all of those activities more enjoyable. And it'll all fit on my desk, I just have to slide this wireless keyboard under the monitor.
Got a surprise check from the insurance company yesterday, for the homeowner's policy. I thought escrow paid that a year in advance, but Mitzi and the realtor said no. Either way, we got over $1K back on the homeowner's and $900+ on the flood, so that was a pleasant surprise. I don't feel as guilty about buying the c+.
Had the county watershed protection guy out yesterday morning to look at the property and talk about septic tanks. Apart from being an additional $20K expense, it all looks pretty doable. Probably have to wait until spring to do percolation tests, but he gave us some good insights on where to put the new tank, and that all has to be planned out before we go for a permit. But we'll also need a floor plan/design to see how that fits on the property where we plan to build and that piece isn't sorted out yet.
The watershed protection guy was really nice. He's been with the county a long time, did the approval for the existing septic tank and knows all the people around here. Enjoyed chatting with him, standing in the snow at 25°F. It's easy to work with people in county government out here. In Florida, St Johns County was, for many years, maybe still is, the fastest growing county in Florida. We didn't have to work with them often, but when we did, you always got the impression that they were busy and a bit overworked/overwhelmed. This guy drove out to the house and took his time with us, it was such a nice, friendly experience.
Even with the snow and the cold, it feels warmer here.
And that's priceless.
✍️ Reply by emailDesktop Follies
09:09 Monday, 15 December 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 17.65°F Pressure: 1027hPa Humidity: 82% Wind: 8.46mph
Words: 1369
If they could choose, about 3 times as many Americans would want to live in past as in future
Back in the day, when we had to walk six miles to school, in the snow, uphill, both ways, we only had 13-15 inches, sometimes less, of glass to peer into cyberspace through.
These days, people have multiple large screens on their desktops. Even I have two, this 27" Benq and the 14" MacBook Pro.
This abundance of real estate offers some advantage, but also imposes some demands, and "window management" is one of them. And it's not a lot of fun. They can host distractions, cause confusion, and add cognitive load to what otherwise might be simple tasks.
I recall what an improvement "integrated software" was in the early days of micro-computing. I think Lotus 1-2-3 is regarded as the "first" integrated software program, where more than one "productivity" feature could be used without launching another program. I never used Lotus 1-2-3, so I don't know what it was like. It's "suite" of "applications" were spreadsheet, database and business graphics. To my mind, that's only two applications, as there's not a lot of difference between a spreadsheet and a database. Heresy, I know. But I don't think it was a truly relational database that you could build applications on. But I could be wrong.
The Incredible Jack for the Apple II pre-dated Lotus 1-2-3 by about a year, and it was widely regarded as an "integrated software" application. But it was mostly a word processor with some sophisticated mail merge and calculation capabilities.
AppleWorks was, for me, the truly first "integrated software" application, and I believe I bought version 1.0 when I upgraded from my Apple ][+ to an Apple //e in 1984. It was based on a program for the Apple III called /// EZ Pieces released by Haba Systems, but developed by Rupert Lissner who later developed the version that became AppleWorks, released by Apple Computer, Inc.
The early 8-bit and 16-bit micros were, for the most part, single-tasking computers. The operating systems and memory architectures weren't really capable of genuine preemptive multi-tasking. There were "terminate and stay resident" programs that you could summon and perform some function while appearing to remain in the "main" program you were running, but that wasn't genuine multi-tasking, and the degree of "integration" between the TSR app and the main app was little to, mostly, none.
What was interesting about AppleWorks and /// EZ Pieces was that Lissner appeared to borrow the idea of the desktop and the clipboard from the Apple Lisa. (The Mac hadn't been released yet, as Lissner was developing /// EZ Pieces.) What those programs afforded was an application that appeared to allow you to work on several documents in different applications (file types, really) all at once, without closing or saving one file before switching to another.
That was the "desktop" feature, essentially a list of files, or documents, that you loaded into memory and could switch between at will. The number and size of these documents was limited by available memory, but even a 128K Apple II offered 51K of desktop "space" which could host several small documents that were either text documents, database files, or spreadsheets. I found it incredibly productive as a naval officer.
Memory on the Apple II could be expanded to a megabyte or more using memory expansion cards, and AppleWorks evolved to exploit expanded memory with more, and larger, files open on the "desktop."
The "clipboard" feature allowed sharing data between applications. You could either "copy" data to the clipboard, or "print" to the clipboard, and then "paste" that information into another document, which didn't have to be the same kind.
("Printing" spreadsheet cells to the clipboard resulted in a table that could be imported into a word processing document.)
But all this activity occurred on a single screen. A 9" one in the case of the Apple //c "ET" monitor. There was only one "window," but all of this data, which later included graphics.
Now we have gigabytes of RAM, terabytes of storage, ridiculous amounts of processor speed and compute power, and the responsibility of managing all these resources in a way that allows us to actually get something done. As a result, we have programs to manage our programs! These features are even built into the OS.
I recall one of the supposed appeals of the iPad was that it was going to be a one-window, single-task device. But people, mostly tech bloggers I think, who are most inclined to opine endlessly on such matters, demanded windows and multi-tasking. And now my iPad is as confusing to operate as my MBP. Oops! I accidentally touched a corner of the screen and now this app is in a window! Oops! I slid my finger over and now I've got two narrow windows that I have no idea how to get rid of!
I liked iPad OS the way it was.
I'm a dinosaur. I run Safari at full-screen (Width, not "full-screen." I like seeing the menu bar.) This is usually fine, but a lot of websites assume I want the text to run the full width of the display. Reader view helps here.
I have dozens of tabs open in Safari, and I should just close them and rely on History. I could use the MBP in clamshell mode, but I discovered I liked being able to export the marmot from Tinderbox and just slide over ("down" before I rearranged my "real" desktop) and click on the ForkLift favorites to upload it to the server.
Screwing around with this stuff is just so much friction.
I like what MacOS Guru does (linked above):
I am a one document, one application at a time, kind of guy. Boring, but that is the way my mind works.
I am fond of the following keyboard commands:
1
⌘-tab: to switch between open applications.2
⌘-`: to move between open windows in an application.3
⌘-H: Hide the current application and switch to the one last used.4
⌥⌘-H Hide all the other applications running.5
⌃-tab: To move to the tab on the right.6
⇧⌃-tab: To move to the tab on the left.I need to work on my self-discipline here. (Though "⌘-H" doesn't seem to work the way he says it does on my machine.) Quitting apps I'm not using. Rely on History, not innumerable tabs. Hide apps I'm not using right now. All these windows consume resources. Sure, we have an abundance of resources, but does that mean we should waste them? With all this speed, shouldn't quitting and launching apps be nearly as fast as leaving them open? If it's not, why not?
Preview is another app that I need to develop some discipline using. Closing files as soon as I'm done with them, like the new auto insurance card. That's another app that accumulates endless tabs and windows if I'm not closing them.
This even came up during the Tinderbox meetup. Though some of this looks kind of cool. I do use Tabs within a single Tinderbox file. Each tab is a separate view of the outline. On This Day in the Marmot is open in its own tab so I can inspect it each day and make sure the early entries are set up to export correctly. The first tab is the current month's archive. A middle tab overlooks the entire document, so I can get to some part of the archive or infrastructure relatively quickly.
But all of this is what makes the past seem more appealing. I'm not running the Worldwide Military Command and Control System (WWMCS) here. I don't need a "dashboard" monitoring the state of Marmot Industries. But I've got all this "stuff," all this "capability," and I guess I have some anxiety that I'm not getting my money's worth if I'm not using it.
Anyway, that's my problem. And as "problems" go, it's hardly worth the time and effort I've put into this post. But it was on my mind.
Hopefully, now it's off.
✍️ Reply by emailDone
10:32 Sunday, 14 December 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 14.49°F Pressure: 1020hPa Humidity: 65% Wind: 12.86mphWords: 87
The sun was still behind the hill when I went out to the garage for some more screws. I thought the little ripples made by the windblown snow covering the tracks of where I turn around with the Maverick looked cool. It's not enough snow to pay $50 to get the driveway plowed, but it sure looks pretty.
Inserts are all done. Call Mom in a few minutes, get some lunch and then maybe there's a Tinderbox meetup at noon.
It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
✍️ Reply by emailWindows
07:36 Sunday, 14 December 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 13.69°F Pressure: 1019hPa Humidity: 72% Wind: 10.98mph
Words: 467
Yesterday morning's project turned out to be a most of the day project. We got the six large windows finished, we have two smaller, square windows to do this morning. The good news seems to be that we think we can already feel the difference.
Everything looks easier on YouTube, but it wasn't hard. I tried a shortcut and just pre-drilled for the screws without counter-sinking. Since I was screwing into the thin side of the board, the screw heads split the wood. Oh well, lesson learned. Back out to the garage, brought in the counter-sink drill bits.
The trickiest part is getting the measurements just right. I knew I had to subtract a bit to account for the weather-stripping. We were using ⅜" thick foam, which would suggest ¾" reduction, not taking into consideration some compression for sealing, and a tight fit within the window. I ended up subtracting 7/16" though I probably could have gotten a good seal with ½".
They were all a tight fit. On the first window we did, I had to remove the foam from one of the long sides to get it into the frame, and I can feel a little bit of a draft near the top on the side, but it's still loads better than it was before. That was the prototype with the cracked end of one board.
We also learned that every window was different, and the furring strips weren't always perfectly straight; but the weather-stripping allows for a certain amount of variation.
Mitzi applied the shrink wrap. I'm not convinced it shrinks much, if at all. She used an 1800 watt hair dryer, and I couldn't detect any tightening. She's convinced it does. But you can see through it pretty well and know what's going on outside. I wouldn't try to take a picture through it, but I didn't like shooting through the glass either, so no loss.
The worst part was that I spent a lot of time bent over, cutting, drilling and screwing and my lower back wasn't happy. But after we did the first one, I figured out that I could cut both of the boards at the same time, which saved a lot of bending. The drilling was the worst, because I had to get low to make sure the bit was going in straight at the right spot on a narrow target. I could screw them together pretty much standing up, as the holes guided the screws.
Two more square windows to knock out and we should be better off.
The temperature above is correct for our location (it's often a degree or two off), and we got about an inch or so of snow last night. It's sunny and everything's beautiful.
The beat goes on...
✍️ Reply by emailOne Step Up, Two Steps Sideways
07:57 Saturday, 13 December 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 20.88°F Pressure: 1016hPa Humidity: 84% Wind: 10.89mph
Words: 1095
The external keyboard and trackpad arrived yesterday. It was a FedEx delivery, and they usually get here around 1700, so I had the lights on outside and kept the window shades open so I could see the truck backing up the driveway.
By 1845, there had been no delivery and so I started checking the status. Amazingly, or not I guess, you can't check the status of an order from the Apple Store app on your phone. Because why would you want to, right? So I had to use Safari on the iPhone, and the store doesn't give you tracking, you have to click on the tracking number, which takes you to the FedEx site. So convenient.
There, it reported the package as "delivered," to our address, with a photo of a box in the snow. The snow?!
Fortunately, they did include the gps coordinates, so you could look on a Google Maps view in the browser. That's another horrible UI experience on the phone. After managing to get the scale such that I could figure out where that location was in relation to my house, I learned that it was up the road from here and I knew exactly what had happened.
Our address is 3740 South Hill Road. I have a neighbor up the road at 3470 South Hill Road. I discovered that when I made a typo that caused my SmallRig grip for the OM-3 to be delivered to my neighbor.
This was not a typo. This was apparently a different FedEx driver from the one that usually delivers here, who transposed the numbers in his head when finding the house.
So I got bundled up, jumped in the Mav and went up the road to visit my neighbor, who had been to our place today because the mail carrier accidentally delivered a piece of our mail to her address. I really need to get her number. Anyway, it's very dark around here at night, so I was watching carefully so as not to pass her house. I needn't have worried, she had all the lights on.
But I didn't need to stop in at all. As I drove up the road, I saw my box lying there in the snow next to her mailbox.
Well done, FedEx.
I collected the box and headed back home.
So this morning I tried setting everything up. Oy! 🤦🏻♂️
As it was configured, my 14" MBP was on the top of the workbench/desk, with the 27" Benq monitor on a stand behind and above it. When I was on Zoom, the camera on the MBP was always looking up into my nostrils. Yech.
I thought I could put the MBP on the same stand with the Benq and still use the camera from the MBP. Turns out, not so much. I've got it kind of kludged up that way right now, with the MBP to the right of the Benq. But the stand isn't wide enough, or deep enough, to accommodate the MBP in a way that allows me to view the entire screen. As it is right now, the left edge of the MBP screen is obscured by the Benq.
Worse, the Benq speakers are trash, so I've been using the speakers in the MBP which are remarkably good for a laptop. With the MBP beneath the Benq, audio aligned very well with video and life was good. With the laptop to the right of the monitor, the speakers are now to the right of the main screen and the "soundstage" doesn't align with the video.
Oh well, I use my AirPods half the time anyway. I guess I'll use them all the time now.
Possibly worse, I haven't typed on one of these Apple wireless keyboards in a long time. I used one with the 2019 27" iMac for a few years before I bought a MacAlly wired mechanical keyboard. I found that I did enjoy using the mechanical keyboard more than the Apple keyboard. But since we've moved up here, I've been typing exclusively on the MBP keyboard, and that has been a positive experience. No complaints at all.
I wanted the external keyboard so that I could use adjustable height feature of this workbench/desk as a standing desk. It worked fairly well with the laptop, but it was awkward to use the trackpad that way, and I couldn't get the MBP situated just the right way to make typing comfortable. It only had a couple of inches of space behind it and the shelf for the Benq. I thought the external keyboard would allow me to position it to make typing while standing more comfortable, and use of the trackpad easier and more comfortable.
Well, I haven't tried standing yet, I'm still trying to figure out if this sitting configuration is going to work for me. Right now, I'm not sure. I find I'm hitting these keys pretty hard, and they bottom out very quickly. I think they have less travel than even the MBP keyboard. So it's really kind of uncomfortable for my fingers.
I'm hoping I'll adapt to this and develop a lighter touch fairly quickly. The mechanical keyboard is in a box somewhere in storage, and I wasn't looking forward to another wire on this desk anyway. Especially if I was going to try to mount the IIgs below the desk and keep its keyboard (and coiled wire) stashed beneath the monitor stand when not in use.
So I'm kind of limping along right now. Probably should have left well enough alone. But I'm not giving up yet. I ordered a laptop stand with a smaller base that might fit well on this monitor stand. That might allow me to move the MBP a bit more to the right, revealing all the screen, and angle it a little better.
Surprisingly, as it is currently configured, the MBP screen is right in the sweet spot for the middle-distance vision in my graduated lenses. Even though the text is pretty small, and fairly distant, I can read it clearly enough to hit the targets on the user interface. The MBP is a secondary screen, and most of the time I use it with the Forklift screen visible, and for Messages and Settings.
That's probably more than enough about all that. Maybe a pic later, once I get everything put away. And we've got window inserts to make today too, so we'll see if I get back to this today.
In the meantime, the beat goes on...
✍️ Reply by emailThis Is (Frozen) Water
13:46 Friday, 12 December 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 29.59°F Pressure: 1017hPa Humidity: 63% Wind: 10.42mphWords: 455
This was a fairly productive morning, though not exactly in the way I might have hoped.
We're going to make some plastic inserts to go into the window frames to add another layer of still air between the glass and the interior of the house. This video at YouTube is what we have in mind. Of course, it seldom goes as easily as a YouTube video, but I think I can work it out.
We bought a bunch of 8-foot 2x1 furring strips, trying to pick out the straightest we could find. They'll all twist and warp anyway. They're in the house right now, acclimating to the temperature and humidity. We'll know how bad off we are tomorrow.
It's too cold to work in the garage, so we'll be cutting and screwing them together in the house. I'll use the jigsaw so the sawdust doesn't fly as much, and I'm less likely to chop off a finger. That'll be tomorrow morning's project.
We were going to pass through Montour Falls on our way home, (We went to Lowes in Elmira, rather than Home Depot in Ithaca. Change of scenery.) and I wanted to stop and see the falls. The result is above. Pretty damn cool, I think. Pun kind of intended.
Before we got to the falls, we passed by Jerlando's Pizza and you could smell it even with the windows rolled up in the Maverick. So that's where we went for lunch!
It's a beautiful day, and warmed up quite a bit from the 13°F this morning. It's 30°F out there now.
Kind of following up on the 12-11-25 post, it was very pleasant to read this in the local news feed:
The list showcases Watkins Glen, Montour Falls, Canandaigua, Aurora, Geneva, Penn Yan, Skaneateles, Trumansburg, Hammondsport, Seneca Falls and Corning. Each was selected for its scenic beauty, historic character, outdoor recreation and calm small-town atmosphere.
After lunch, we stopped in Watkins to visit a thrift store going out of business. I bought a couple of pair of blue jeans that were practically brand new. Not sure I can squeeze into them, but at $1.25 a pair, I thought it was worth a shot. Also bought a couple of what appear to be Moscow Mule mugs. I need to do some more investigation on them. One is in better shape than the other, but each has a little sentiment scratched into the bottom. $1.50 each.
Then a quick stop at Walmart for some milk, granola and dark chocolate, and back up the hill to Winterfell. Now I'm overdue for my nap!
The beat that can be counted is not the beat, but it goes on just the same.
✍️ Reply by emailGruber Makes Me Want to Puke (Sometimes)
21:52 Thursday, 11 December 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 19.22°F Pressure: 1013hPa Humidity: 69% Wind: 13.85mph
Words: 346
I haven't been subscribed to Daring Fireball for several years now. But I do subscribe to 512 Pixels, which is where I occasionally encounter Gruber, and did so today.
I knew the State Department font kerfuffle would eventually make its way into the blogosphere, populated as it is by many "design" esthetes, Gruber being among the most prominent. All of which would normally mean that I wouldn't bother to click through to Daring Fireball, except Hackett quotes Gruber, "It seems clear to me that The New York Times did Rubio dirty in their characterization of the directive."
Since he had the entire memo, because why wouldn't he? I clicked through to see how the Times was unfair to Little Marco.
Apart from the fact that it would be hysterically funny if it weren't so tragically sad that Trump's State Department is supposedly concerned about, "the authority and solemnity of written text," it's mostly just a bunch of bullshit bureaucratese that appeals only to these esthetes.
Was the Times unfair to Rubio? Gruber writes,
Rubio’s memo wasn’t merely “mostly framed as a matter of clarity and formality in presentation”. That’s entirely what the memo is about.
Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.
But thanks for sharing the memo, because that's where you'll find this:
And although switching to Calibri was not among the Department’s most illegal, immoral, radical, or wasteful instances of DEIA (see, e.g., Executive Orders 14151, 14173, 14281, and Memorandum on Removing Discrimination and Discriminatory Equity Ideology From the Foreign Service (DCPD202500375)) it was nonetheless cosmetic.
Kind of puts the lie to Gruber's assertion that clarity and formality were "entirely what the memo was about." And again, anything from the Trump administration about morality would just be laughable if it weren't so offensive.
I'm not going to suggest that Gruber is a fascist. I have no idea; but I do know that a certain horrifying fascist regime was fixated on "design." Symbols.
I mean, Hugo Boss designed their uniforms.
So while Gruber may not be a fascist, he certainly shares something rather significant in common with them.
✍️ Reply by emailBehold! The Power of Sharing!
11:54 Thursday, 11 December 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 22.08°F Pressure: 1007hPa Humidity: 71% Wind: 14.36mph
Words: 475
Found something else interesting in the feed-reader this morning. ldstephens shared a link to David Sparks' update to his AppleScript, um, script, that copies the URL of an email message to the clipboard. That's the core element to the email entry script in my Tinderbox file, Captain's Log.
I wondered what might have changed, so I clicked through to MacSparky and read the script. At first, I didn't think it really added much to what I was already doing; but further reflection suggested some improvements.
As the script was previously written, I had two dialogs to respond to after launching the script. The first created the $Name of the entry, and the second created the $Text. So I had two cognitive tasks to dispose of before logging an email, one of which was creating a title, and that's often a challenge for me. Certainly it's a pause in the workflow.
Using David's script, I made the subject line of the email the $Name of the note, which eliminated one dialog. Then I added a few lines to add the sender to the $DisplayedAttributes. In Tinderbox, I created a new $Prototype, "p_Email" for recording email log entries. That's where I created $Sender as a $DisplayedAttribute in that $Prototype.
Up until now, all entries shared the same $Prototype, "p_Entry" with the same $DisplayedAttributes. But an email entry is unique enough to merit its own $Prototype.
As it works now, I select the Mail to Log script from the FastScripts menu. I'm presented with one dialog, which is a note to myself about why I want to remember this email, then AppleScript and Tinderbox do all the rest.
This was also worthwhile from the standpoint that I needed something to kind of renew my interest in noodling around in Tinderbox. Last month I volunteered to kind of shepherd a community effort to develop a Tinderbox file for users of some level of experience that would identify ideas that might be called "best practices."
Well that got derailed by someone who objects to the superlative "best," because there are any number of "practices" one might use profitably in Tinderbox, and who am I to name this or that one "best"? Which then prompted some commentary about users and the next thing you know, it's like, What's the point?
Well, this, is kind of the point.
So we're (I'm?) going to re-brand the effort to something more along the lines of "Tips and Tricks," or "Secrets of the Tinderbox Obsessives." I just needed something to get the sour taste out of my mouth.
And I need something to distract me from the way this faithless, immoral leadership is abusing our armed forces in a dishonorable program of murder, and the fact that the retired leadership of the armed forces seems incapable of rousing itself to object.
✍️ Reply by email12-11-25
08:28 Thursday, 11 December 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 17.87°F Pressure: 1006hPa Humidity: 76% Wind: 13.42mph
Words: 841
Because I can't think of a title. Rather, I think of too many of them, and they all sound like bullshit.
Anyway, here I am.
I've been thinking about the guys who've been deployed in the Caribbean since at least September, missing Halloween, Thanksgiving, football season, and probably Christmas and New Year's soon. All to blow up some small boats and kill about 80-some little men, without any authority from Congress. There's undoubtedly a "legal" justification from Trump's "lawyers" who will rationalize anything the Mad Orange King wants to do, in the context of a Supreme Court that has ruled that the "Unitary Executive" is the de-facto King of the United States. Awesome. So proud of their service.
I guess we've seized a tanker now too. Winning!
But that's "service to your nation" in 2025. Killing people as spectacle. Posting the murders on social media, except when we think it might be a little embarrassing. I'm sure that video of the two guys being murdered in the re-strike was shared by that adolescent Hegseth on Signal with his "lethality"-porn homies. But he won't share it with the American people.
I can't believe more people aren't pissed off about it, but that's 2025 too. We all just shrug our shoulders and say, "Well, what can you do?"
Pretty chilly up here in Winterfell. Thought we were done with the Florida house, but our real estate agent mistakenly packed up the rotisserie equipment for the outdoor grill to ship up to us, along with a couple of pictures we somehow left hanging on the wall, the security camera and an AppleTV that was intended to act as the HomeKit hub, except I never set it up that way before we moved (almost) everything out in September. Now we have to ship the rotisserie stuff back to the new owners. All we wanted the agent to do was leave it on the island so the new owners could find it. It was tucked away pretty well in the pantry.
"No good deed..." and so on.
I've got to go to Home Depot and get some wood to make some window frame inserts we can attach that plastic sheeting that shrinks when you heat it with a blow-dryer. Creates another insulating layer between the interior of the house and the glass. We put some up with tape in front of the sliding glass door this morning. It's not pretty, but it should help make a difference.
It's interesting. We left Florida partly because of the insanity, but also because of the extreme weather events. And my early investigation into what the climate was like up here these days showed that snow and cold weren't the ever-present feature they once were. We arrived in June at the beginning of hurricane season, and Florida didn't have any hurricanes this year! And, of course, we've been getting polar'ed in the vortex up here all this month.
It's ok. It won't always be like this. The snow has made everything very pretty. I'm just disinclined to be outside as much, and working in the garage is pretty much a non-starter. I'll look into installing a mini-split in the garage soon.
Not much going on in the blogosphere that seems noteworthy, but this is a nice piece that captures some of what we hope to be about up here. It's early days, so we're kind of light on the "community" piece, but we enjoy shopping locally. There's a little place in Burdett called the Burdett Exchange, or just BEX for short, and it carries local goods. It's pricey, but we think of it as investing in community and we're privileged enough to be able to afford that investment.
We went to the Ithaca Farmers' Market on Saturday and bought some ham hocks, bacon, collards, kale and spinach and a huge glass jar of buckwheat honey. It was supposedly only in the 30s, but it felt colder than that! They'll be closing at the end of the month, but BEX is open year round. And there's Crosswinds Farm and Creamery, not far from here.
When we're not buying locally (EcoFlow batteries and so on), the FedEx guy now calls me "captain". He's a navy veteran and we chatted a bit one day when he saw me wearing my Naval Academy sweatshirt. (I pretty much live in that thing these days.)
The watershed protection guy will be here this Tuesday to look at the property and give us some insight into where we can build on this piece of land. Apparently our current septic tank is sized for a two-bedroom home, which would be inadequate if we build a two-bedroom home on the property.
We need to understand this constraint to know how to site the new place, and what kind of footprint/floor plan might work within those constraints. Another septic system is a significant expense we'd hoped to avoid, but that's how these things go.
And the beat goes on...
✍️ Reply by emailStand-up Guy
10:47 Wednesday, 10 December 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 31.59°F Pressure: 996hPa Humidity: 86% Wind: 16.6mph
Words: 148
I spend too much time on this computer, seated in an office chair. So today I used the adjustable height feature and cranked it up enough to use it as a stand-up desk. I'm writing this on it now.
I'm not sure how much I like it as a writing platform. I've ordered a new wireless keyboard and trackpad, because I think it'll lower the typing surface just enough, and allow me more flexibility in terms of where it's located on the desk, to make it more comfortable than just typing on the MBP keyboard. I'm certain the trackpad will be more comfortable.
It's windy and cold here, though warmer than it's been in a few days. It's supposed to get colder again. Lows in the teens, highs approaching 30°. I'm not complaining. Still adapting, but not complaining.
Well, that's probably more than enough about all that.
✍️ Reply by emailDuty of Care
05:11 Sunday, 7 December 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 30.06°F Pressure: 1019hPa Humidity: 97% Wind: 4.61mph
Words: 1025
I have been criticizing the retired flag officer community in general, and retired ADM James Stavridis in particular, in comments on YouTube videos where he appears. Most recently, this one.
The reason for my criticism is because our country, that is to say, you and I, have a duty of care to ensure that the men and women who volunteer to serve us, our country, are not compelled to endure moral injury through the faithless exploitation of their service.
There's a lot to unpack here, it's important, and I don't happen to think that it should fall to me, a retired O-5 with only 22 years of active duty service to try and educate you about something you probably know nothing about. I never achieved high rank, I never commanded thousands of men and women, I never walked the halls of power where the decisions to deploy and exercise combat power, to "kill people and break things," as our juvenile SECDEF would say, are made.
That doesn't mean I don't know or understand the concept of "duty of care," it just means that I am perhaps not the most authoritative voice to write or speak on it.
Why should anyone listen to me? I never had stars on my shoulders.
But these flag officers are silent, and the duty of care we owe our armed forces is being ignored. This is a grievous failure, a profound breach of trust. It shames all of us.
And it's past time we began to talk about it.
Morality is a fraught concept. To the extent that it's discussed in the public sphere, it's used to divide us, rather than to find common ground in a search for "the good," in questions confronting our society.
"Moral injury," is a wound that a person suffers when they feel as though they have violated their own deeply held moral beliefs. This is part of the justification offered by intolerant people who don't wish to decorate cakes for gay wedding couples, and for health care workers who would rather withhold medical treatment from women than to offer care to women seeking to end a pregnancy.
That's quite a spectrum, from the trivial cake decorator to a doctor or a nurse confronting a patient seeking to terminate a pregnancy. It certainly extends farther than that, where you have members of the military being ordered to kill men in small boats, simply because they're carrying drugs.
Now, someone is going to get all upset about the use of the modifier "simply," there. It doesn't matter. Bear with me.
Presumably, in this country, there still remains a moral belief that it is wrong to kill. I say "presumably," because the NY Times recently interviewed some Trump voters, members of the "pro-life" party, and many of them seem pretty bloodthirsty to me. Here's a link that'll get you to the story, even if you're not a subscriber. It's not very long, but it's very troubling. Here's a taste:
“They should have done that strike regardless,” she said. “Every human being does have value, but if you’re caught up in something that’s very detrimental to society, I think that you should die.”
Let that one sink in for a while.
This is perhaps a result of the media diet they consume. In an opinion piece in the NY Times, which I strongly commend to your attention, Phil Klay writes:
The president’s supporters seem to grasp this. Fox News’s Jesse Watters responded with utter incredulity that the United States would offer quarter to an enemy. “We’re blowing up terrorists in the Caribbean,” he said on Monday, “but we’re supposed to rescue them from drowning if they survive?” Others went further. “I really do kind of not only want to see them killed in the water, whether they’re on the boat or in the water,” Megyn Kelly, the conservative podcaster, said, “but I’d really like to see them suffer. I would like Trump and Hegseth to make it last a long time so they lose a limb and bleed out.”
Seriously, read the whole thing, as we used to say back in the day.
I'm going to give you one more piece of homework, and ask you to read this piece by David French, which includes this paragraph:
Trump has put the military in an impossible situation. He’s making its most senior leaders complicit in his unlawful acts, and he’s burdening the consciences of soldiers who serve under his command. One of the great moral values of congressional declarations of war is that they provide soldiers with the assurance that the conflict has been debated and that their deployment is a matter of national will.
French alludes to moral injury when he writes of "burdening the consciences."
Moral injury is real, and it has genuine consequences.
People often regard military service as a duty, "a moral or legal obligation," to one's country. But that works both ways, and the reciprocal duty is seldom discussed apart from the seemingly ubiquitous notion that service members are owed gratitude.
"Thank you for your service."
We don't get off the hook that easy. We also have a duty of care, an obligation to uphold the trust placed in us when a person takes an oath of military service. Trust that their service will be used in honorable ways. Keeping faith with the values we supposedly share.
We have ignored our duty, and in so doing we are inflicting moral injury, wounds to the souls of our sons and daughters in uniform. We elected an immoral leader as president, appointed an incompetent person as Secretary of Defense, and surrendered the authority of the Congress to act as a check on the office of the president. We have abandoned our sons and daughters' souls to the greed and ambition of men not fit to polish their boots.
Shame on us.
And shame on the retired flag officers, who probably understand all of this as well as I do and probably better, for not speaking out. For not educating the public about our duty to safeguard the moral integrity of our soldiers and sailors.
✍️ Reply by emailYelling at Clouds
06:12 Saturday, 6 December 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 22.82°F Pressure: 1013hPa Humidity: 83% Wind: 6.26mphWords: 907
It's impossible to know what effect, if any, personal writing on the web has on the world at large. Or even at smaller scales. "Social media," is less uncertain in my mind. Its effect seems undeniably corrosive.
For a long time, I thought that it may have some positive effect by adding to a "net vector sum" of the zeitgeist, or "public opinion." Now I believe the only real value is some small personal satisfaction that I wasn't silent.
"About what," you ask? Well, climate change, the Iraq War, Donald Trump the First, Donald Trump the Second, using the United States military as a mercenary force for conducting extra-judicial killings, stuff like that. And since all of those things keep going on anyway, it's mostly been just a pointless effort in futility.
Which isn't much of an antidote to the profound sense of despair that is constantly threatening to overtake me.
It's hard to quantify the degree to which Donald Trump and the fascist, white-nationalist, reactionary incompetents that surround him are accelerating the collapse of this civilization.
But we only have moments to live, so it's probably wise to try to live them in the moment, rather than focus on the unmistakable trajectory hurtling us toward catastrophe.
In that vein, some lighter notes.
We were guests at my wife's daughter and son-in-law's Thanksgiving, and their other guests were a couple who had met a Kenyon College. I asked them if they were familiar with David Foster Wallace's commencement address, now popularly known as the essay, "This Is Water."
Not only were they familiar, they were present. They also knew one of the students on the speaker selection committee and felt as though they had some role in encouraging his selection, the other candidate being John Glenn.
So that was pretty cool, in a "six degrees of separation"-adjacent sort of way.
Selling the Florida house has genuinely given me some sense of relief. We split the proceeds, and since we don't have a project for the new house underway at the moment, we put our respective sums to work doing other things. In my case, I paid off the Maverick, so I own my truck now; and should I shuffle off this mortal coil anytime soon, it'll pass to my kids without a lot of unnecessary paperwork and financial rigamarole. I was also paying 4.03% interest on it, so that's also a net gain. I stuck the balance in a 10-month CD at 4.07% interest, expecting/hoping that that aligns with our new house, whatever that may be.
I have been distracting myself playing around with retro-computing, specifically either with my Apple IIc or in Virtual ][ on the MacBook Pro. It recalls a more innocent time, when computers kind of promised a better future. To the extent that they have, I suppose it's mostly behind the scenes as part of the infrastructure in things like MRI machines and CAT scans, emission controls in internal combustion engines, and navigation systems. In terms of the "personal" nature of "personal computing," I'm less convinced.
Anyway, I've been trying to figure out how I can use some actual hardware in my constrained environment here. I can use the IIc, but I have to store it in the closet when it's not in use because it occupies the same space as the MacBook Pro on the desk. That kind of mitigates against spontaneous "play." It's also not ideally situated for typing on it in that configuration.
But I recently bought a ROM 3 Apple IIgs that looks to be in pretty good shape. I haven't actually turned it on, because there are some filter capacitors in the power supply, known as RIFA capacitors from the manufacturer's name, which have a propensity to fail and expel a significant quantity of smelly gas popularly referred to in "the community" as "magic smoke." Since we're in a confined space, it would be inconsiderate to risk that indoors here, so I need to open up the power supply and remove those capacitors, which I haven't done yet.
But what makes the IIgs a candidate for retro-computing play in this confined space is that it was the only "modular" Apple II, with a detached keyboard. So it occurs to me that I could mount the computer vertically on a piece of plywood, and make a kind of shelf/bracket arrangement to rest on the rigid metal cross-beam that connect the legs of this workbench-cum-desk. The I/O connectors are all in the backplane, which would then be at the top of the computer, so I could connect to the HDMI port of the 27" Benq monitor, while the keyboard could sit under the monitor stand when it's not in use, not interfering with the MacBook Pro.
There are mass storage solutions that don't require connecting a floppy disk drive to the machine, and I have a number of them, which eliminates another space requirement. So all this seems rather doable. I need to figure out whether I want to conceal the machine behind the mounting board, or have it exposed so I can use the power button. That would be visually unappealing. I think I can conceal it, the power cord, and the keyboard cable and use a power strip with a switch on it to turn the computer on and off. Something to think about anyway.
✍️ Reply by emailFree At Last
11:20 Friday, 5 December 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 18.59°F Pressure: 1022hPa Humidity: 66% Wind: 11.74mph
Words: 133
The sale of our Florida house closed. Deleted four home automation apps, the gate access app, downloaded the lifetime data for the Powerwalls and deleted the Tesla app. Deleted the IQ Fiber app.
Canceled the homeowner's policy. On a whim, asked about the flood insurance. They transferred me to another desk and it turns out that I was (happily) wrong. So we're getting about $900 back from that premium, which was an unexpected surprise.
And in the vein of "irony is the fifth fundamental force of the universe":
Mission accomplished.
(IYKYK)
✍️ Reply by emailOut the Front Door 12-5-25
Current Wx: Temp: 6.87°F Pressure: 1026hPa Humidity: 85% Wind: 6.58mphWords: 122
One of the upcoming challenges is likely to be building a new house on this property. The back of the property is higher, and we think we can get the house to the point where the power lines and the sumacs are below the line of sight to the far hills. That's what I'm hoping for anyway.
But we're keeping our minds open right now. Everything is on the table. Build here, or buy some land and build somewhere else? Buy an existing home somewhere else? We're not ruling anything out at this point. There are constraints to every approach.
We're not in very much of a hurry. But I think we'd like to have a course of action decided by spring.
✍️ Reply by emailIn Other News
07:02 Friday, 5 December 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 6.62°F Pressure: 1027hPa Humidity: 85% Wind: 6.35mph
Words: 530
With a little bit of luck, we should be closing on the sale of our house in Florida today. Kind of a mixed-emotions thing. We're very happy to be financially liberated from the ongoing clusterfuck that is the state of Florida. We're pretty disappointed with the price and the process.
The house ended up selling for about 10% less than what it was appraised at when we put it on the market, which we thought was low then. But the reality we were facing was one of new home listings coming on the market each week with a price/square foot lower each week. That is to say, it doesn't seem as though we've reached the bottom of this price decline. So the house represented a stranded asset, one that was depreciating, and one that remained something of a risk given today's climate extremes.
At the first showing, the buyer was accompanied by her son and while she was thrilled with the house, "Love it, love it, love it," he wasn't thrilled with the price. We have a security camera in the house because it's our house, it's vacant, and we're almost a thousand miles away. While we've observed many of the showings, we didn't actively watch this one because they were usually disappointing. The camera automatically records several seconds of video whenever it detects motion, so that's how we learned that the buyer loved it, while her son didn't like the price.
We later learned that her daughter-in-law was the agent representing her. That's supposed to be disclosed to the sellers, but she never let that slip. We figured it out from the gate access records and an internet search. They bargained very hard, and brought their kids into the house the second time they viewed it, and they were running around, out of control, very unprofessional. During yesterday's "walk through" the son turned the camera around. So we turned it back. Our house, our rules.
Just big "entitled" vibes from these people. No courtesy. No respect. So, once it's closed, we're done with it. I had intended to facilitate the transfer of the flood insurance, at no cost to them because it's already paid for and I was pretty certain they wouldn't pay for it anyway, so screw it. They know we had a policy on it, but they haven't asked. If she buys flood coverage on her own, I think she'll still get the "continuous coverage" discount, but if she's like everyone else there, she won't.
Given today's rainfall extremes almost no place in Florida is immune to flooding. There are areas of isolated "high ground" here and there, but the Nocatee development is all pretty flat and much of it had to be raised with fill. If they get 24" of rain in 24 hours (like Fort Lauderdale did a few years ago), they'll flood. There's no place for that much water to go fast enough to keep it from rising.
So, well, good luck with that.
Anyway, it'll be good to finally have that off our plate. More challenges lie ahead, but hopefully they'll be more rewarding.
And the beat goes on...
✍️ Reply by emailQuestions for the Administration
10:58 Thursday, 4 December 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 26.76°F Pressure: 1020hPa Humidity: 80% Wind: 13.85mph
Words: 66
Although I believe these are wholly unnecessary to establish the unlawfulness of the program of murder undertaken in the Caribbean and Pacific against alleged drug smugglers, this is a relevant list of questions to establish that fact unequivocally.
And never forget the wisdom of Mack Bolan:
The only problem with killing sons of bitches who deserve it is it's so hard to know when to stop.✍️ Reply by email
Gen. Hertling
09:57 Thursday, 4 December 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 29.05°F Pressure: 1019hPa Humidity: 76% Wind: 14.81mph
Words: 71
General Mark Hertling has also been late to speak out, but it seems to me that he has been more direct in his criticism of Hegseth and the administration with regard to the Venezuelan boat attacks.
But this piece from The Bulwark (I'm sorry it's on the Substack platform.) is relevant to everything I've been harping on, or, as I've sometimes mentioned here, "Ranting into the void to no discernible effect."
✍️ Reply by emailSunset 12/3/25
09:26 Thursday, 4 December 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 29.39°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 75% Wind: 11.7mphWords: 611
Moderately entertaining sunset last night.
YouTube brought this video from yesterday to my attention this morning. I don't know anything about Michael Smerconish, I think this is the first Sirius YouTube video I've ever seen. Apparently he's a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer and has a Saturday spot on CNN, so not a complete unknown but not an A-lister either.
I offer all that because I was surprised to see his guest was Stavridis, and I was definitely interested in what he had to say.
If you watch the video, I think you'll find that he's very circumspect in his comments. A little more to the point than heretofore, but still very "diplomatic."
So I commented on the video, and here is what I wrote in case it's not visible in the comments to the video:
The men and women of the United States Armed Forces should NEVER have been placed in the position of having to evaluate the legality of orders to employ deadly force against non-combatants in what is in every respect a law enforcement operation. Drug cartels are criminal enterprises, they are businesses. Illegal businesses, but nevertheless businesses with a profit-seeking goal. They are not political or ideological non-state actors with political or ideological goals that threaten the United States in any meaningful way. They provide an illicit product to a market with an enormous demand in this country. This would have been an interdiction operation conducted by the Coast Guard, often in cooperation with, or supported by the United States Navy. Never a "seek and destroy" mission.
Retired flag officers, in my opinion, should have been speaking out from the moment of the first attack, asking what the lawful basis for these killings was. They owed it to the men and women of the armed forces to question this policy and demand answers, and to alert the public to the risk of moral injury to our soldiers and sailors from this administration turning them into murderers. Instead, they were silent. Why? Protecting their self-interests? They had the knowledge, experience and expertise, even absent the purported "intelligence" data the administration has been alluding to, to know that this was an unprecedented use of military power with a high risk of compromising the moral integrity of the armed forces. This is bad business, and they should have been screaming about it to the media and the public right from the beginning. Now we will witness the embarrassing efforts of this administration to justify this abuse of power. I am ashamed of ADM Stavridis and his fellow retired flag officers for failing to speak out, to defend the moral integrity of the young men and women who entrust us with their lives and their honor, that their service will be used in lawful ways in keeping with the highest standards of military service. Instead, they allowed them to become mercenaries.
I'm a retired Navy commander, a graduate of the United States Naval Academy, with 22 years of active duty service. I was a plebe in 1975 when a Navy chaplain, a captain, gave us a lecture about moral courage, less than five years after a court martial was convened to address the My Lai massacre. Ostensibly about the Naval Academy's honor code, it was also about having the courage to speak out when you know something is wrong. I've never forgotten that lecture, or the tall, imposing chaplain who served with the Marines in Viet Nam who gave it. ADM Stavridis was the brigade commander when I was a plebe. I wonder if he got a similar lecture when he was a plebe? Perhaps not.
✍️ Reply by emailMorality
07:42 Wednesday, 3 December 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 17.02°F Pressure: 1020hPa Humidity: 93% Wind: 5.01mph
Words: 510
Brief definition: Principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.
Moral authority. Moral courage. Moral hazard. Moral injury.
Values. Faith and honor.
What is a "good life"? What is "service to others"?
There is no more challenging crucible or more severe trial in confronting these questions than service in uniform that grants the authority to use violence in the course of doing one's duty.
"Right" and "wrong" are binary terms, and "reality" is seldom so clear, which is why it is so challenging to confront those questions in the moment.
Which is why leadership is so important.
When we elected a president who has exhibited, proudly, a personal character devoid of any morality, we invited the appointment of an entire leadership team similarly unequipped. And we are witnessing the consequences of that choice today.
Morality is a freighted concept. Rather than wrestle with difficult questions, some people rely on prescriptive rules laid down in ancient texts, which themselves are described as being "sacred," or "holy" and from a God that commands obedience. This empowers people who embrace one particular faith and set of holy texts to seek to impose those rules on everyone, whether they share that faith or not. Because God is an absolute, and must be obeyed.
This causes conflict and division. Politicians have exploited this view of morality to divide us for generations. They aren't questions we examine to try to find the common good, or to improve our relationships with one another. When they are discussed in the public sphere, they're used as cattle prods to herd us into red and blue corrals, where "red" and "blue" can be political parties or religious faiths.
These aren't "inviting" questions, they are repellant. We don't wish to question our own "morality," or have others question it either. So we ignore them, except insofar as they may be summoned from time to time by ambitious "leaders" to divide us from one another. Except insofar as we embrace them to judge and wholly condemn others over single issues where we may not agree. Our morality serves not so much to inform our actions, but to direct our attacks.
As a result, morality and ethics are ideas that aren't genuinely part of our popular culture. To the extent that they are live questions, they exist mostly in academic institutions, sometimes in the law and the courts. Sometimes in professional societies or organizations. But many voters have such an ill-defined sense of personal or public morality that they were unable to recognize the complete and utter amorality and immorality of a man like Trump, and what the consequences of that form of personal character in office would be.
To the extent that this whole sorry affair may invite a wider, more open, less judgmental, examination of the morals, ethics and values we wish to embrace as a society, it would be a worthwhile outcome. And it might go some way toward atoning for the sin of giving that creature, Donald J. Trump, power.
I'm not optimistic.
✍️ Reply by emailThe Cows Came Home
11:46 Tuesday, 2 December 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 28.49°F Pressure: 1013hPa Humidity: 95% Wind: 2.48mphWords: 23
Our neighbor got his cows back some time ago, but we haven't been seeing them as often. They're all near the barn today!
✍️ Reply by emailMark Kelly A Real American Hero
10:27 Tuesday, 2 December 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 27.18°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 95% Wind: 4.92mph
Words: 226
Arizona can be proud of two Navy veterans who became United States Senators, John McCain and Mark Kelly. Two men of genuine courage, both physical and moral.
When the video by Kelly and six other legislators was first reported, I hoped it would spark a deeper critical examination of the legal basis for these strikes in the Caribbean, but that story was immediately overshadowed by Trump's over-the-top reaction calling for their executions.
Nevertheless, it does seem to have had the desired effect, because something prompted the leaked reports to the Washington Post regarding the murder of the survivors in the water from the first strike. That has prompted the deeper and wider examination of this whole misbegotten effort, which should have been undertaken immediately after the first strike.
I watched a recording of Sen Kelly's news conference yesterday and I was proud of him directly confronting the incompetent, immoral and criminal actions of this administration. I commented that "Courage is contagious," and that we will begin to see more men and women of integrity standing up and demanding accountability for what Trump and his gang are doing to our country.
For the first time, in a long time, I'm beginning to feel as though the tide may be turning. We're by no means out of harm's way yet, but we have begun to fight.
✍️ Reply by emailWinter Is Here
09:53 Tuesday, 2 December 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 26.15°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 95% Wind: 4.92mphWords: 238
We're back from a trip down to DC to visit with family and spend Thanksgiving together. Didn't do any blogging there, plenty of other things going on with a three-year-old in the house. It was a nice visit, a good meal and a chance to get out a bit in our nation's capital.
We went to the Botanic Garden on a very chilly blustery Friday after Thanksgiving. We got there right when they were opening, which was a very smart move. By the time we left, you could barely move in the place.
From there, we went right across the street to the National Museum of the American Indian. The Friday after Thanksgiving is Native American Heritage Day, so that seemed appropriate. I'd visited the museum before, but it was several years ago so it was nice to see it again.
Unfortunately, we were also there when the two West Virginia National Guard members, SSgt Andrew Wolfe and Spc Sarah Beckstrom, were attacked and wounded, Beckstrom fatally. An unfathomable, bitter event that tragically marred an otherwise beautiful day.
We had a pleasant drive back up to Winterfell yesterday. It was on the cold side, but clear. I would not have wanted to be driving in this snow. But we're back now, snug in our little house with the lights still on, but ready this time if they should go out.
And the beat? It goes on...
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