Thoughts On A Sunday

While the calendar and the weather say it’s still summer, one sign of fall’s approach that is unmistakable is acorns, specifically acorns as they fall from the oak trees. It happens every year, starting towards the end of August and picking up as we progress through September. Most years the number of acorns falling are nothing spectacular. But the past two years have seen huge numbers of acorns falling, sometimes so much so it sounds almost like rain. But there is also the ‘thud’ when they hit the roof, the ‘bang’ when they hit the roof of a car or truck, or the ‘smack’ when they hit the driveway or road. There are pieces of acorn all over road, crunching under the tires as we drive along the road.

Another sign of the fall’s impending arrival is the foliage starting to change color. There isn’t much in the way of change yet, but the swamp maples are usually the first to change and I’ve seen a few already starting, with some sections of the tree already changing from green to red. I’ve also seen some of the birches, those ‘stressed’ during the April Nor’easter this past spring, changing earlier than the rest of them.

We won’t see peak foliage until early October, something I plan to take in from the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout as that’s one way to see it all without having to worry all that much about leaf peeper traffic on the roads.

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We’ll be experiencing a ‘twofer’ Tuesday night with a combination of a “super moon” and partial lunar eclipse. A super moon is when the moon is closer to the Earth which makes it appear larger than usual. Add in the partial lunar eclipse which will take place for about a half-hour between 10:15 and 10:45PM and it’s a nice twofer.

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This has certainly been true around here.

Housing prices have jumped more than 30 percent under Biden-Harris administration.

The majority of voters believe in the American dream but find it less attainable, a new poll found, thanks to sky-high housing prices, which have jumped more than 30 percent under the Biden-Harris administration.

The poll, conducted in July by the Rainey Center think tank and released through a report this week, found that although 54 percent of Americans believe in the American dream, 66 percent say it has fallen further out of reach. Respondents cited home ownership as a top source of pessimism—57 percent said owning a home has become less attainable over the last decade, compared with just 19 percent who said it's become more attainable.

Home prices have skyrocketed under the Biden-Harris administration, with the median price for an existing home jumping a whopping 17 percent in 2021. Housing affordability has since emerged as a top issue for young voters in November's election, polling shows.

Thirty percent? Around here, it’s closer 100%.

Checking the comments from the Instapundit post that linked the above article certainly seems to back up some of what I’ve seen regarding housing costs, with prices having doubled or more. They also back up the poll’s findings about housing costs.

The out-of-reach housing costs are having a negative effect on the economy, particularly for those looking for work. How can they take a job knowing they may not be able to afford a place to live. That’s certainly been the case here as we have lots of job openings but applicants can’t afford to move here if they take the jobs. It’s a Catch-22 that I have no doubt a Harris administration will make even worse.

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You know it’s bad when CNN is blasting the Harris campaign for spreading misinformation while at the same time aligning “herself with the kind of authoritarian logic that dictators throughout history have used to justify censorship, claiming it's necessary to protect the public from so-called disinformation.” It appears to be a “Do as I say, not as I do” moment for Harris. CNN lists a number of creatively edited video clips the campaign has used to make false claims about Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance.

A couple of examples:

The first post mentioned in the article falsely implied that Trump was confused about where he was during a rally in Pennsylvania by showing him mention North Carolina. In reality, he was acknowledging North Carolina supporters in the crowd. Another post falsely implied Trump was confused about his location again during an Arizona speech, but omitted the context that he was discussing Pennsylvania’s immigration issues.

--snip--

Kamala's campaign also lied about Sen. JD Vance. The campaign posted a clip suggesting he supported privatizing veterans' healthcare, but the full quote showed he advocated for more flexibility while maintaining federal care. Another post falsely tied Trump’s monument-damage penalties to Project 2025, "But the full video of the rally shows Trump was not even talking about Project 2025 or his future plans."

There are a number of other examples of other misinformation put forth by the Harris campaign. As the saying goes, Read The Whole Thing.

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If we need yet another example of just how off track the Pyrite State has gone, there’s this one that has caused a foreseeable problem because of its energy policies. What is ‘this’?

The Hollywood Bowl had to cancel a concert because California’s electrical grid was so strained it caused a power outage in the area.

What did they expect when California has dismantled so much of its generation capacity all in the name supporting “Green Energy”?

The bill arrived because California chose to ignore reality in order to advance green energy initiatives based on dubious climate change theories. One of the first areas hit by a recent heat wave that overwhelmed the southern California power grid was directed at a Mecca of the environmentalist movement: Hollywood.

That seems appropriate, somehow. The ones who have pushed the unsustainable ‘feel good’ policies are some of the ones who suffer from the effects of those same policies. It might also explain why Hollywood studios are “moving to Las Vegas in which Nevada does a better job of providing reliable power to residents and businesses.”

I expect the problem will only get worse as California’s grid goes fully green. On the other hand, now that in increasing flood of businesses and residents are leaving the Pyrite State for greener pastures, the problem may solve itself. At the point the last businesses and last US citizens depart California, the green electrical grid will be able to supply all the power required for the few die hards, illegal immigrants, and government tools still living there. Maybe.

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Gee, this is a surprise...NOT.

It appears that yet another point that Donald Trump brought up during the debate that was “fact checked” by moderator David Muir and declared to be untrue was actually correct.

During the debate Trump stated “Crime here is up and through the roof. Despite their fraudulent statements that they made. Crime in this country is through the roof.”

Trump was correct, as Crime Prevention Research Center president John R. Lott Jr. wrote in a detailed piece published the next day:

In fact, Trump was correct about the increase in crime under Biden. While violent crime fell by 17 percent under Trump, Biden has seen it rise by 43 percent.

Muir doesn’t understand what the FBI is measuring. The FBI counts the number of crimes reported to police. Trump was right that less than half of police departments are now giving that data to the FBI, but, more importantly, Trump was discussing what was happening to total crime, not just the number of crimes reported to police.

But as it turns out, new data released by Joe Biden’s Dept. of Justice on Thursday essentially made Trump’s point for him:

The DOJ’s survey from the Bureau of Justice statistics is self-reported instances of violent crime over the last six months — meaning that it includes crimes that may not have been reported to police.

The annual National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) showed total instances of reported violent crime — including rape, robbery and aggravated assault — is up from 5.6 per 1,000 in 2020 to 8.7 per 1,000 in 2023.

The highest recent rate of violent crime was in 2022, when the survey tracked 9.8 instances per 1,000 people over the age of 12.

The rate of rape increased from 1.2 per 1,000 in 2020 to 1.7 in 2023, while robbery went from 1.6 per 1,000 in 2020 to 2.6 per 1,000 in 2023, and aggravated assault rose from 2.9 per 1,000 in 2020 to 4.5 per 1,000 in 2023.

This has me wondering how many other ABC “fact checks” are in error as well? We already know the Harris campaign has no problems with creative editing video to make it seem that Trump said ‘X’ when in fact he said “Y”. We also know ABC has no issues with overtly covering for Harris and inserting itself into the campaign, acting more like a propaganda organ rather than nominally neutral news media.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where summer weather remains, our boating season continues, and where Monday is coming back again.

A Tale Of Two States

This is about the contrast between two states, Ohio and New Hampshire, and specifically about how they handle voter registration.

Recently, New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu signed a bill into law that removes exceptions to the state’s voter ID law and adds new requirements for registering to vote.

On Thursday, Gov. Chris Sununu signed a much-debated voting rules bill into law.

House Bill 1569 requires anyone registering to vote in New Hampshire to prove valid citizenship with documents such as a birth certificate, passport, or naturalization papers.

The new law also removes all exceptions to the state's voter ID requirements and eliminates the affidavit ballot system.

That system, signed into law just two years ago, allowed voters without an ID to sign a sworn affidavit affirming their identity. If the voter did not return with proof of identification within seven days, the ballot could be subtracted from the final tally of votes.

The problem with the affidavit system is that too many voters who voted via affidavit didn’t return within the 7 days with proper ID which means the system wasn’t working. Why stay with a system that isn’t working well? Another thing: How did election officials know which votes should be subtracted from the vote tally? No one was able to tell me how that was achieved. As such, the change in the law does away with this flawed system.

Voting rights activists had argued the bill would disenfranchise qualified voters.

"What we have here is a phantom, non-existent problem, which is what this bill is designed to address, and on the flip side, you have legitimate eligible voters who will be adversely impacted," Gilles Bissonnette, legal director of the ACLU of New Hampshire, said.

Bissonnette said the ACLU had not ruled out challenging the law in court.

In a statement, Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen chastised the governor for signing the bill and called the law "un-American."

These are the same people who support out-of-state college students voting in New Hampshire elections even though they aren’t residents, using the “You can’t deny their rights to vote” excuse to allow such an illegal action. No one’s right to vote was being denied. They had every right to vote...in their home state via absentee ballot, just like anyone else. As best I know New Hampshire is the only state that allows non-resident college students to vote in such a manner.

And then there’s Ohio.

Ohio’s problem is different, in this case Haitian refugees registering to vote in the town of Springfield. How is it non-citizens are registering to vote?

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose warned election boards to be extra vigilant in the weeks before the November election after an investigation uncovered illegal voter registration forms circulating in Clark County.

In a media advisory, the secretary of state's office noted, "The office’s Election Integrity Unit recently concluded an investigation into the origins of an illegal voter registration form translated into the Haitian Creole language. The Clark County Board of Elections reported this form to our office after rejecting its submission by a local applicant." According to the Public Integrity Division, the form had a name written on it but nothing else. Under Ohio law, anyone who commits election falsification is guilty of a fifth-degree felony.

--snip--

Clark County is home to Springfield, Ohio, where as many as 30,000 Haitians have unexpectedly migrated—most of them semi-legally after the Biden-Harris administration extended Temporary Protected Status to 300,000 Haitian migrants in June.

The mass migration to Springfield has taxed hospitals, schools, and social services as the population went from around 60,000 to more than 80,000 overnight.

LaRose's press release noted an ongoing investigation into "evidence of a pattern of fraudulent voter registration activity in multiple counties under the paid employment of a group called Black Fork Strategies."

Apparently Black Fork Strategies has a history of fraudulent voting activities.
It is described as “an Ohio based progressive organization that touts itself as ‘Building Long-Term Progressive Power’.” Gee, I wonder just who they might be supporting in the upcoming elections in November?
Last month the Ohio Secretary of State’s office ”referred a number of election fraud cases involving Black Fork for prosecution.” Why doesn’t that surprise me?

One state is clamping down to make it more difficult to commit voting fraud while the other is having problems with fraudulent voter registrations that involve a Progressive organization that seems to have no problem with ensuring Progressive power...even if they have to cheat to do it. (Sound familiar?)

And so it goes.

Friday Funny - N'Hampsha Humah - Pumpkin Spice Pandemic

One thing Fred neglected to mention is when this spreads to Dunkin' Donuts, Starbucks, and Aroma Joe's. That's when pumpkin spice coffee appears.

This pandemic seems to happen every year, spreads rapidly, hangs around for a while, then disappears almost without notice.

Tech Tuesday - Quantum Inertial Guidance

We are familiar with GPS – the Global Positioning System – a means of using orbiting satellites that allow for navigation on land, on the sea, and in the air. It has been around for some time, originally developed for the US military but later used for civilian and commercial purposes, even though the accuracy available to non-military uses isn’t nearly as good as that available to the military.

It’s use is pretty much ubiquitous as we see it in our cars in the form of built-in navigation systems, our cell phones for both E-911 calling location and navigation by way of various smart phone apps, in chart-plotters in our boats, and in navigation suites in our aircraft. I can access GPS info from a simple GPS Tools app on my smart phone. I can call up maps that can show me where I am and where I want to go. It’s all tied into GPS.

It isn’t just the US that has a GPS satellite constellation. Europe has their own, called Galileo. Russia has GLONASS. China has BeiDou.

However, before those satellite based systems there was LORAN – Long Range Navigation – that used land-based radio transmitters to provide navigation support for ships and aircraft. The system dated back to World War II and had its limitations, though as time and technology got better, so did the usability and reliability of the system. But it still had its limits.

In between LORAN and GPS there was what was called Inertial Guidance Systems, the original ones employed gyroscopes and accelerometers that were used to calculate position and velocity. This was a military system used in aircraft, submarines, and missiles to navigate. As long as the system knew its starting point it could help to navigate that aircraft, submarines, and missiles to a destination. As time has gone by Inertial Guidance has gotten better as the technology developed. Mechanical gyroscopes were replaced with laser gyroscopes, with each mechanical gyro replaced by a loop of optical fiber fed with a laser. Accelerometers which used a mass and inductor to measure the changes in speed in three axes have been replaced by Micro Electro Mechanical integrated circuits, also known as MEMs that were more sensitive to motion. These improvements increased both the sensitivity and accuracy of Inertial Guidance Systems.

One would think that even those systems would be replaced by GPS because of the accuracy of GPS, but you’d be wrong. The one reason Inertial Guidance is still used is because for some application GPS isn’t available. For instance, submarines can’t receive GPS signals while they are submerged. Also, during war it is possible for GPS to be jammed which can make it useless. That’s why the military still uses Inertial Guidance System in bombers, submarines, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles, just to name a few. But as good as the modern Inertial Guidance Systems are, they still have inaccuracies that will increase over time, something called drift and something that has plagued such systems since the beginning. But those days may soon come to an end if the efforts of the US Naval Research Lab comes to fruition.

Their solution: Quantum Inertial Navigation. (Note: This link takes you to a page that includes a number of articles but the referenced article is on the right-hand side of the page.)

Quantum inertial navigation is a new field of research and development that can increase inertial measurement accuracy by orders of magnitude.

"Our interferometer operates in a different regime than most other modern implementations of an atom interferometer," said Jonathan Kwolek, Ph.D., a research physicist from the NRL Quantum Optics Section within the Optical Sciences Division. "By operating with cold, continuous atoms, we have opened the door to a number of advantages as well as novel measurement techniques. Ultimately, we would like to use this technology to improve inertial navigation systems, thus reducing our reliance on GPS."

--snip--

Depending on the measurement platform, errors in the location estimation will accumulate and result in loss of accurate position information. Current commercially available inertial navigation systems, for example, can navigate with an error accumulation of roughly one nautical mile over 360 hours. NRL intends to develop new technologies to extend that time such that navigational drift does not limit mission duration.

"The field of inertial navigation aims to provide navigation information anywhere GPS is unavailable," said NRL Associate Director of Research for Systems Dr. Gerald Borsuk. "The advent of atom interferometry allows for a novel approach in inertial sensing, which has the potential to address some of the deficiencies in current state-of-the-art technologies."

GPS has become a backbone to the functionality of both our civilian and military world, providing high-accuracy distributed position and timing information anywhere in the world. However, there are certain battlespace environments in which GPS cannot function, such as under water or in space, as well as an increasing threat to GPS availability in the form of jamming, spoofing, or anti-satellite warfare.

With an increase of orders of magnitude in accuracy, that means the error of present commercial systems of 1 nautical mile over a period of 360 hours could be reduced to 0.01 or 0.001 nautical miles over that same 360 hours, or even less.

It delves into what we in the engineering game call ‘FM’ – Freakin’ Magic. As the late great Arthur C. Clarke once said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Thoughts On A Sunday

We’ve gotten a little taste of fall today with cooler temperatures along with a breeze. At least it was a sunny day. We’ll be back to summer weather later this week with temperatures in the 80’s, perfect boating weather!

This will also be a busy week, with our State Primary for county, state, and federal offices running the gamut of County Commissioner, Clerk of Probate, New Hampshire House and Senate, Governor, and the US House of Representatives. I will be spending all day Tuesday at our local polling place. I have no idea how many of the registered voters in our town will actually cast their votes as this is one of the ‘weirder’ elections we have, and it will be the third of four elections held this year which started with the New Hampshire Presidential Primary in February, then our Town Meeting in March, the State Primary this week, and the National Election in November. It means a lot of hours while the polls are open and a few more after they close to tally the votes.

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I saw this and I knew I had to include it in today’s post.

Frankly, it didn’t surprise me at all that the California Democrats are trying to lay the blame for their policy failures upon California Republicans. Considering the GOP makes up only 21% of the California Assembly and 22% of the California Senate it would seem impossible the GOP could be responsible for any of the self-inflicted ills plaguing the Pyrite State as the Democrats hold super-majorities in both chambers of the California legislature.

It sounds like they’re trying to blame the ‘victims’ for the insanity of their policies and the damage they have caused across the board.

What bothers me is that this attitude isn’t limited just to the Democrats in California.

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This is a question we need to start asking, that question being “Will Tim Walz do to the nation’s education systems what he did to Minnesota’s?” Sultan Knish brings to light that under Governor Walz, a former high school teacher, less than half of students in Minnesota can read.

The recent release of the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCA) test scores for 2024 by Education Commissioner Willie Jett, a Walz appointee, were described by the Minnesota Star Tribune as “stagnant with only about half of students meeting or beating grade-level standards in math and reading.” The paper struggled to describe an empty glass as half-full.

The actual numbers showed that 49.9% of Minnesota students reached grade-level proficiency standards in reading, only 45.5% did so in math and only 39.6% managed it in science: a more accurate description would be that well less than half of Walz’s school students are proficient.

The educational glass in Minnesota isn’t half full, it’s more than half empty.

A majority of Minnesota students aren’t proficient in math or science and a little less than half can read at grade level. These are catastrophic numbers that show a school system that has failed at its most fundamental function despite billions of dollars in runaway spending.

Is this something we can expect to see coast-to-coast under a Harris-Walz administration? Not that it isn’t already happening, but under the auspices of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz might we expect the trend to accelerate? After all, an undereducated populace is easier control and rule.

This would be yet another reason to homeschool our children.

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By way of Pirate’s Cove comes this list of Stupid People of the Week from This Ain’t Hell.

Taking a look at the list I’d have to say the folks who made the list are indeed quite stupid.

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Honestly, this didn’t surprise me in the least, particularly in light of so many other people of note who have been abandoning the Democrat Party because it has become the de facto Communist Party.

Who is the latest to tell the Democrat Party adios?

That bastion of civil liberties, Alan Dershowitz.

Prominent attorney Alan Dershowitz announced his departure from the Democratic Party, citing several "anti-Jewish" lawmakers that make up the ranks of the party and the recent Democratic National Convention in which Vice President Kamala Harris became the party's presidential nominee.

Speaking with radio host Zev Brenner on "Talkline with Zev Brenner," Dershowitz cited the DNC, which he said gave legitimacy to anti-Israel speakers, and anti-Israel protesters outside the gathering.

"It was the most anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, anti-Zionist convention I've experienced," he said. "I was disgusted at the Democratic National Convention. Absolutely disgusted."

Seeing how the Democrat Party has become increasingly antisemitic and is openly supporting groups whose only purpose is to see Israel destroyed, it is the only smart move. While Dershowitz has stated he will become an Independent, he has not stated for whom he will cast his vote for president, at least not until after November 1st.

It’s interesting to see how many old-style classic Democrats are abandoning their party since it no longer represents Democrat ideals.

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From the “Just When I Thought They Couldn’t Get Any Stupider” Department comes this latest bit of stupidity from Illinois.

Illinois Democrats Crack Down on Shampoo Bottles.

Shampoo bottles? Really?

Freedom is a current theme of Democrats. By “freedom,” the Party of Government means freedom to indulge in degeneracy and kill any children who result. Everything else is to be tightly regulated by Big Government — even shampoo bottles:

The days are numbered for small shampoo bottles in Illinois hotels because of a new law signed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker.

Hotels with more than 50 rooms are banned from providing single-use plastic bottles of shampoo, mouthwash and other toiletries starting July 1, 2025.

Illinois Democrats couldn’t find a reason to make shampoo bottles mandatory; therefore, they are forbidden.

Providing guests with the convenient bottles will result in fines of up to $1,500.

From big ways to small, Democrats never rest from their mission to make your life worse.

I have to wonder who’s brilliant idea this was and why they thought it was needed.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the summerfolk are gone, the leaf peepers will be arriving starting in a few weeks, and where I’m still enjoying my boating season.

Smart Phone Bans Make Sense In Classrooms - Maybe It's Time To Disconnect Now And Then

When I saw the headline of this post I had no reason to doubt the veracity of it’s claim as I had seen some of the effects first hand.

Growing Body of Evidence That Phone Bans in Class Can Make a Big Difference in Student Performance.

Banning smartphones in class improves student performance, especially for lower-income students, and forces kids to interact with each other in ways they never did before. These conclusions and others are from a spate of academic studies that are just now being published after a few years of phone bans in several states.

--snip--

Pete Etchells, a professor of psychology and science communication at Bath Spa University in England says that “parents, schools, and policymakers are being scared by some really unhelpful rhetoric in the media.” He believes that parents and educators are looking for “immediate solutions because it feels like we’re in an emergency and need to do something quickly.”

Etchells is wrong. Students attended school for hundreds of years without the distraction of smartphones. And we are in an emergency. The plunge in test scores is alarming and needs to be addressed.

I have to agree that smart phones are a problem and have done so for a long time, whether it’s in schools, at home, at work, or out with friends or family. As I have written elsewhere, “I find it ironic that a technology that was seen as being able to bring people together instead separates them.”

I can’t count the number of times I have walked into a break room, cafeteria, or restaurant and seen them filled with people...and none of them are talking to each other. Instead they’re texting, web surfing, on Facebook or Instagram or Snapchat. Their heads are bowed almost as if in prayer and their attention is focused entirely on the screens of their smart phones and not the people they’re sitting with. They don’t actually talk to each other. They’ll text the person sitting next to them rather than talk to them.

It’s no different in classrooms.

Banning smart phones in classrooms makes sense as it brings students’ attention back to their teachers, their education, and away from the addictive environment portrayed on the screen.

There is a movement afoot to keep the distraction of cell phones out of classrooms, and it is rare these days of division. People and politicians on both sides are lining up to take action on a shared goal. Make Cell phone use in the classroom a thing of the past.

--snip--

Is it better than nothing? I don’t know, but cell phones are undoubtedly a distraction, and I can’t say I wouldn’t be paying more attention to it than classroom instruction…

The classrooms have problems of their own, but smart phones add to the problem.

As I mentioned earlier, I have seen just how distracting and isolating smart phones can be. I have seen – personally and on YouTube and Rumble and Locals – a couple at a restaurant and one of them has their nose buried in their phone, texting away. Their attention is not on their dinner companion at all. Their companion might as well not be there. I saw on more than one occasion the ‘invisible’ companion realizes their date wasn’t paying any attention to them, so they got up and left.

On the two occasions I witnessed personally, the woman was oblivious to anything but her phone and the man she was with finally had enough and left. On one of those occasions the man just left and on the other the man stopped long enough to pay the bill before leaving. And on both of these events the woman didn’t realize her dinner companion had been gone for some time. That’s sad.

Of course you probably want to ask me if I have a smart phone? I do. I tend to use it for four things – making phone calls, texting (generally a couple of times a day), taking pictures, and as a paperweight. That’s it.

Then again I grew up in the pre-cell phone/pre-Internet era, so my peers and I didn’t have to deal with the level of distractions kids and younger adults experience today. I don’t have that Fear Of Missing Out that so many others have. I don’t need to be connected all the time. I don’t feel naked or anxious if I don’t have my phone with me.

I guess I’m a throwback to a simpler time despite the fact that I work in the telecommunications industry.

Friday Funny - N'Hampsha Humah - Live Free Or Die

Ayuh. Everything he said is true. Some of our liquor stores even have their own exits off the Interstates!

Tech Tuesday - Something 'New"

Many years ago I used to do a semi-regular post about technology, explaining the new technology in use or coming down the road. Some was groundbreaking while some was an upgrade to older technology that made it better. After a number of posts in a local forum dealing with the differences between the different Internet technologies in use or being installed here in New Hampshire, I remembered that I used to post about such things here and that maybe it was time to start doing so again. Maybe it’s the lecturer in me or maybe it’s that so many people have absolutely no idea how the technology that people use every day actually works. It used to be that most people had at least a basic grasp about how things they used daily – incandescent lights, cars and trucks, radios, TVs, telephones, and so on – actually work.

It used to be that our cars and trucks were something most of us could work on, performing oil changes and chassis lubrication, doing tune-ups which often included installing new spark plugs, plug wires, rotor, distributor cap, points, and condenser as well as setting the ignition dwell and timing, changing out wheel bearings or brake shoes, replacing a starter relay or a defective generator/alternator, and so on. A lot of people were “shade tree mechanics”, handling a lot of car maintenance on their own. Those days are long gone as cars and trucks have become much more sophisticated, more complex, and for the most part, a lot better. Oil changes and tuneups were done frequently, usually every couple of thousand miles for oil changes. Now oil changes are required every 7 to 10 thousand miles and tuneups as we knew them might be done every 100,000 miles and that usually entails just changing the spark plugs. Back then cars were ready for the junkyard after 100,000 miles on the odometer. Now they’re barely broken in with that many miles.

Telephones used to have dials rather than buttons and were connected by wires to the wall or baseboard in our homes. There was no such thing as caller ID, speed dial, or voice mail. Only the wealthy had mobile phones, not to be confused with cell phones which only came into use in the 1980’s. Those mobile phones and 1980’s cell phones could only make calls. There was no texting. These days cell phones are ubiquitous and landlines are fading away. Cell phones are also ‘smart’ which allows you to text, browse the web, take digital photos, shoot HD video...and make phone calls! While cell service isn’t quite ubiquitous (and won’t be unless such service becomes available by way of low earth orbit satellites) they are more numerous than landline phones.

Television was analog and you were lucky if you could pick up TV stations from the three major networks – ABC, NBC, and CBS – and even luckier if you were able to pick up PBS or some of the ‘independent’ TV stations. Some TVs used so-called ‘rabbit ear’ antennas located on top of the TV. You were lucky if you had an outdoor antenna mounted on the roof, and even luckier if it also had an antenna rotor so you could steer the antenna to point in the direction TV station’s transmitter. Cable TV didn’t really come into play until the 1970’s and satellite TV until late 1980’s. Digital TV started replacing analog TV in the 2000’s and analog TV transmissions ended in 2009. Today TV service has so many options between ‘traditional’ cable TV, Fiber To The Home (FTTH) offered by the telephone companies, some electrical utilities, increasingly some cable TV operators, and satellite services like DirectTV and Dish. Traditional “over the air” transmissions still exists, but not quite the same as back in the Good Old Days of analog TV as the new digital transmission format allows more than a single channel to be transmitted simultaneously.

Having dealt with technology in a number of areas over the past 50+ years or so does give me some small insight into that subject, past, present, and future. Hopefully I can actually make my posts interesting, and most important, understandable and relevant.

Look for my first Tech Tuesday post next Tuesday, September 10th. Be mindful that these posts will not occur every week, but will happen more often than not.

Thoughts On A Sunday

We’re getting another taste of summer weather today as we’ll expected to see temps in the 80’s along with higher humidity. Not that I’m complaining. I doubt we’ll see more than a few more days like this between now and Columbus Day. I won’t make it out on the lake today as I’m waiting for the summerfolk to depart before I venture out. To all intents and purposes the lake will be “ours” again and I’ll be spending quite a bit of time out on its waters from hereon out. It will be particularly nice during foliage season as it is easier to catch the fall colors from the lake and to see them from places that can only be reached by water.

It’s true that a number of the summer businesses will be closing after this weekend though others will remain open for a few more weeks, though mainly on the weekends. (One such place, one of my favorite local ice cream stand/restaurant will only be open weekends from now and will close for the season before the end of September.) The summer traffic will soon be replaced by foliage tourists, also known as “leaf peepers”, as the colors of the leaves change from green to the reds, oranges, and yellows that draw tourists from all over the world. Around here the peak foliage usually appears around the first or second week of October and along with it peak tourist traffic. It still won’t be as heavy as we see during the summer, but it does mean tourist dollars will be flowing into the area. Then it will taper off and our area will be ours again. Yes, there is also plenty of winter tourism as folks come up ‘from away’ to go skiing, snowmobiling, snowshoeing, ice skating, and ice fishing, but nothing like we see during summer.

Despite my opinions on all of this, I do have to say that this summer passed by far more quickly than I expected. It feels like Memorial Day was just two weeks ago and the Fourth of July was last week. Where did the summer go?

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As much as I have expected the political campaigns for the various state and federal offices to go negative, I have to admit surprise to see just how negative they have become in a relatively short period of time. One of the nastiest turns has been for the Democrat race for New Hampshire governor, with the two major candidates going at each other “hammer and thong”. Not that the GOP front runner has been able to escape negative ads, though a majority of those have been put up by an allegedly non-partisan pro-abortion group.

Seeing as our state primary election is in a little over a week, I expect the levels of negativity to skyrocket the closer we get to primary day.

And so it goes.

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Speaking of negative campaigns, I have to wonder if these observations will be used to slam Kamala since they show her true colors:

- Harris has never spoken to any family member of the Abbey-Gate bombing. Trump was at Arlington at their request, as was his photographer. This is pretty gross.
These families have been ignored by the media, ignored by Harris, stood by while Biden checked his watch during the…

- Harris will send your kid to war ignore it if they get killed then whine about someone else laying the wreath to remember them.

- Kamala Harris conducted a more in-depth investigation into Trump comforting the grieving family of a soldier killed on her watch than she has into why those 13 soldiers died.

- It takes a special level of sociopathy for Kamala Harris to get on her high horse and wag her finger about respecting Arlington National Cemetery when the people she’s lecturing were there because *she* got people killed.
The moral vapidity of DC perfectly illustrated.

- NBC SHOULD BE ASHAMED.
NBC News asked Gold Star mom Kelly Hoover if it was “appropriate” for President Trump to visit Arlington National Cemetery.
"Are you in my shoes? I invited him. My son was murdered under the Biden-Harris administration."

Read the whole thing, particularly the comments.

There’s more on this here and here.

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Might this be a new trend with TDS – Trump Derangement Syndrome – in Hollywood, that being spontaneous healing taking place in some members of the Hollywood Left?

Whether it’s the thought of Comrade Kamala forcing price controls, the realization that the senile president of the United States has likely been vacationing on a beach the past three and a half years, or that inflation is quite literally out of control — no one can be sure.

But Hollywood actor Michael Rapaport is sure of one thing: that he was wrong.

“I was the first in line talking s**t about Trump,” Rapaport told Sage Steele in an interview. “I was all day every day.”

It shows us there’s some hope, even in Hollywood.

As the saying goes, Read The Whole Thing.

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From the “Just When I Thought They Couldn’t Get Any Stupider” Department comes this gem:

”Son” and “Daughter” Deleted From Newspeak Dictionary

Vermont public health officials are encouraging teachers and parents to ditch the phrases “son” and “daughter” this back-to-school season in the name of classroom equity.

“Use ‘child’ or ‘kid’ instead of ‘daughter’ or ‘son,’” reads an Inclusive Language for Families document published Wednesday on Facebook by the Vermont Department of Health.

The inclusive language guide is part of the department’s initiative for health equity, the central pillar of the state’s five-year strategic plan for health improvement.

Why doesn’t his surprise me in any way, shape or form? I figured it would reach this level of stupidity way back when ‘politically correct’ speech started being a thing, seeing it as a different name for 1984’s Newspeak. I’m sorry to see that I was right. Anyone pushing any of this, particularly in schools, needs to be fired for inflicting us with this divisive nonsense. They say it’s not offensive language, but I am thoroughly offended by the rape of our language and the logic behind language being replaced because of feelz.

Friggin’ morons.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where it’s the “last gasp” of summer, people are partying like it, and where this coming Monday is a holiday!