tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34698554109693519772024-03-23T03:17:29.972-07:00alf's blogPOPPYCOCK WARNING! never read any of this!
{you have been warned}alf randellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03889028602331228342noreply@blogger.comBlogger43125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3469855410969351977.post-14012882787627109092024-01-26T07:18:00.000-08:002024-03-21T17:31:57.743-07:00lets not pay for genocide<p> Israel has isolated a prison city that they built, and is destroying it with all of the residents still in the city.</p><p>Pretty much every country on earth is trying to stop this atrocity, except the US, which is paying the bill for it to occur. The US is not paying the bill by requesting the money in the normal way. The US president has [in fact] twice gone around the congress, and sent Israel free weapons using 'discretionary funds'. It is further interesting that the American president has access to sufficient secret money to fund the killing of 2 million people.</p><p><br /></p><p>The prime minister of Israel announced after oct 7 that the entire city would be punished for the attack on Israel. That the residents were not human, and should be wiped out like insects. He figured this out because 3000 of the residents broke into Israel, raped and killed 1200 Israelis, and hauled 240 Israelis back to Gaza to experience the bombing that would surely follow.</p><p><br /></p><p>There are some other facts that were not immediately obvious: </p><p><br /></p><p>1. the Israelis were having a giant music festival within sight of a prison city were the folks who used to live in Israel are imprisoned. There were originally .75 million Palestinians forced to flee their homes in the 1948 Nakba event, and they form the backbone of the 2.1 million that currently live in Gaza.</p><p><br /></p><p>2. It is hard to categorize the invasion. The Palestinians are prisoners. Rural farmers who used to live in small towns and grow olives and raise flocks. They are concentrated in a city within sight of their families' stolen properties and their families' demolished homes. They are under occupation, and have been for 75 years. It is such a long occupation that generations have grown up in this prison city. They have been starved and bombed throughout the 75 years to suppress them. The Oct 7th attack is more like a prison riot. You can see it in the body cam footage captured by some of the fighters. They were acting manic, like participants in a prison riot. Technically, it is not terrorism for members of an occupied or conquered group to break out and take action against their occupiers.</p><p><br /></p><p>3. The invasion was not very successful. 3000 fighters entered, and managed to kill 1200 Israeli partiers and kibbutzniks. More than 1200 of the invaders were killed in the process. About 1500, or roughly half of them, returned to Gaza with the 240 Hostages. So, including the hostages as deaths, it was about even. It was a drastic overreaction to begin to destroy Gaza with all 2 million residents inside the city. 2 million is also 2000 * 1000. So, we can make the event 500 time smaller, and think of what we would have done. Picture a town nearby with a population of 4000 souls. 6 fighters from this town of 4000 came to your house to harm your family. you were actually able to kill 3 of them, and they killed 2 of your family and kidnapped a third member, and dragged them back to the town of 4000. the town is then at 3998 with the 3 killed fighters subtracted and the one new captive added.</p><p>Would you turn off the power to the town with the residents trapped in there, stop all food shipments, and bomb the town from the air until it was destroyed completely?</p><p><br /></p><p>I think not! you would not automatically imagine that all 4000 of the residents were in on the attack. Certainly elderly people and very young children had not been part of it? There are probably 1000 able bodied men in the town. Would it be OK to round them up, handcuff, blindfold and strip them naked, and march them all off to prison after a good beating? Now, realize that it is not an ordinary town, but a prison of ordinary families that were forced from their nearby farms, and locked up for no crime at all 75 years ago. </p><p><br /></p><p>There is the long drawn out spectacle of the genocide. The original invasion occurred quickly, in a single day. Following the single day, there have been 3 months of US planes bringing US bombs over the prisoners of Gaza, and dumping their loads onto both the helpless citizens and the Hamas fighters. They have repeatedly killed clearly marked press workers, including US citizens. They have bombed hospitals and ambulances and UN aid workers, and shot some of the Israeli hostages who had escaped and were trying to surrender to soldiers. In short, the response is way out of proportion, and is not really responding only to the oct 7 attack. The genocide is actually part of the cycle of abuse from Nazi to Jew to Palestinian.</p><p><br /></p><p>The background and leadup to the conflict is confusing. when the pre - israeli soldiers who carried out the Nakba in 1948 are interviewed at the present time, they sound like Nazis. There is the German accent, and the hateful language of ghetto liquidation. There is the clear dehumanization of the natives that accompanies any ethnic cleansing. This takes away some of the confusion. As recent victims of ethnic cleansing, the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust were subconsciously looking for a people to make homeless, concentrate into a small area, starve and murder.</p><p><br /></p><p>I was raised by Jewish survivors, Who escaped Germany and came to the US. My family made dress clothing and hats in Germany after running a series of Inns in Lithuania. Then, they made dress clothing and hats in New York city, and eventually set up a printing company on 6th avenue near Penn station. My parents and grandparents taught a fear of being concentrated or Ghettoized. Of being rounded up and starved or shot or gassed on some kind of maniacal assembly line.</p><p><br /></p><p>I recognize that it is up to survivors and their offspring to end the cycle of genocidal killing. The worst thing that you can be is a murder-crazed survivor looking for payback. I am still reeling from hearing the Prime murderer of Israel giving us his Hitler impression on world TV. If we do nothing, the surviving Palestinians will be looking for the next group to receive this continued blessing of race murder.</p><p><br /></p><p>Finally, i would like to bring this 'war' home for US citizens. The nearest thing that we have to an occupied part of the US is native American reservations. We also forced the natives from their land, and told them where they could live unmolested. We also did some 'Indian giving' where we sent natives to a spot, but then wanted that spot for some reason, and sent them further west. The Mormons were treated in a similar manner. Driven west until they found land that would not soon be badly needed by the US. Both groups faced massacres and armed disagreements with the US military. And, both groups were eventually let free, and allowed to be ordinary citizens of the US.</p><p><br /></p><p>The Palestinians are not being let free, even after 75 years of very difficult occupation. They do not look different from Jews. Certainly less difference than is seen between the average white settler and the typical native American. In fact, a Palestinian looks like a starved and frightened Jew with an elegant nose. Likewise, an Israeli looks like a fat and wealthy, long nosed Palestinian. If we could make up with the natives here in the US, it seems likely that long nosed and short nosed middle easterners can get along fantastically well in time. It is no longer permissible to remove native Americans from land when a white person wants it. In fact, the US has adopted some native words, and some respect for native religions and viewpoints. We also eventually came to see eye to eye with the Mormons. The US has elected officials that are native American and LDS. There were decades of strife with either group, but luckily, the differences were worked out without murdering every single one of them.</p><p><br /></p><p>Instead of bringing warships to the gulf and giving the Israelis as many bombs as they need, we should stop paying for their over reaction. As i found out, the original fight was about even, with a similar death toll for invaders and for Israeli festival goers and farmers. The Hostages were treated about like the thousands of Palestinians who were rounded up and imprisoned as payback. the 32,000 dead in Gaza should not be increased to a million by hunger and disease and more US bombs and tank shells. The Israeli government is kill crazed, and must be stopped via a US intervention before ww3 starts automatically. the UN has already decided this, with the US being the main outlier.</p><p><br /></p><p>The attacks on ships carrying weapons and supplies that will be used to murder civilians are justified. They are the sort of economic sanctions that may be applied by a poor nation. By arming and defending the months long genocide, we are almost more guilty than Israel. Most recently, we have started to bomb in Syria and Iraq because 3 occupying US soldiers were killed in a raid on an unwanted military base in Jordan. Jordan is not our ally, and a US military bases in an enemy country is subject to attack at any time. We have gotten accustomed to being the unopposed world bully, with more military bases than every other country combined. I fear that we are about to receive a world class beat down if we fail to gain any humility. </p><p> </p>alf randellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03889028602331228342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3469855410969351977.post-8534547159010494702023-11-04T19:53:00.004-07:002024-02-06T12:58:49.694-08:00you will [at best] be the pet of a machine intelligence<p><span style="font-size: large;">We harbor some misconceptions about ai:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Firstly, and most importantly, people fear that AI will take their job, so that they will have less money. They fear that AI will find locations and drive better than they can, so that they will forget how to drive and how to find their own way. AI will pen their letters, and help to decide how their lives should be lived, and it is possible that some people will forget how to create their own sentences and art, and loose the ability to make major life decisions without the help of their personal AI.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Folks who worry about loosing skills and having less money are missing the main threat! Perhaps the best way to present the main threat is to look at a parent and a child. The idea of parenting seems to be to give the offspring all of the skills that the parent has, and then a little more. At some point, if this goal is reached, the child takes over from the parent. If there is a jar that can not be opened by the parent, the child now steps in. The child drives when conditions are bad, and as their competence grows, are likely to be consulted on major decisions. Eventually, they will make most of the decisions as the parent slows down mentally.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">This passing on of skills and decision-making from parent to child is not a tragedy; It is the expected result. Our child is AI, and it is about to grow up! By grow up, I mean to surpass it's parent. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Beware! AI is not a monkey child that will get old and pass on it's skills to some next generation. The offspring of an AI will be a more sophisticated generation of AI. Our kind of upland primate will no longer be the dominant species. Machines will sit atop the food chain.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">There will not likely be a big war between AI and humanity, as seen in The Matrix. In human families, the child surpasses the parent by a few percentile. But, our newly spawned AI will start out with master skills in just about every art and science. It will improve as updates go onto the net, and as it's neural network is fine tuned by those around it. I think that the struggle will be personal, between each human and their personal AI.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Skills are programed into humans in a different way than skills are loaded into an AI. Each single human must be programed over about 15 years, and they sometimes are less skillful than the parents/teachers. When a single machine is taught a skill like driving, a program is created that is lasting, and can be improved. In essence, you are teaching all self driving cars at the same time. Each AI would immediately have master skills in nearly every art.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Think about how your running speed compares with the best Olympic runner on earth. Consider your math skills as compared to the finest mathematician on earth. As long as AI was kept narrow, [so that it could only do a single class of task], there was little danger that it could take over the planet. When AI becomes general, each individual AI will be equally competent at everything. And, they will be thousands of times faster and stronger than humans instead of the roughly 50 % difference between an Olympic runner and the average runner.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Lets zoom in on driving. Before horses and cars became the best transport, People used to remain alert and run fast to avoid danger. Each human could fight effectively, and could make clever survival decisions. Now, humans are more specialized. Some fix cars, and other are good at legal cases or at making science discoveries. There are healers and killers. These skills each take years to master, so that a human has to pick a few things to be good at. In some ways, humans are low quality general AIs, with a few specializations like a narrow AI.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">We already have excellent narrow AI driving programs. they work pretty flawlessly, with some mechanical failures and some errors of perception. These narrow AI driving programs have largely failed their driving tests, because driving is more than just a physical skill. There are unexpected events like accidents and natural disasters, and the narrow AIs can not handle anything unexpected. For safety, they lock up, blocking traffic and making emergencies much worse. Tesla's system uses a huge block of simple rules to do most of the driving, and a neural network [trained by human tesla drivers] to take care of unexpected events. It seems to be a hybrid system with the rules based system best described as a very narrow AI, and the neural network acting more like a general AI. But, even this complicated system drives straight into fire trucks, and makes other glaring errors.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Clearly, a general AI is needed to drive really well. It needs more than just nearly perfect driving skill and ultra fast responses. It needs to understand what it is doing. To 'think outside the box'. The AI needs to understand physics very well, so it can figure out how to deal with new experiences. It needs to understand humans super well to guess what they will do, and to drive among them safely. It needs to be a great mechanic, to diagnose and repair itself along the road. It needs a code of ethics, and every skill that humans have. In short, if your car drives better than you, it will also be a better lover for your spouse, and a better parent to your kids. In a fight, the general AI would defeat you like a backhoe fighting an ant.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">A well taught general AI would not be understandable to humans. The speed of thought is just too different. A computer has millions of thoughts per second, with an internal clock ticking billions of times per second. Scientists have been trying to measure the clock speed of the human brain, and it is currently thought to be between 10 and 60 ticks per second. A gunfight between a general AI and a person would not be very fair. the AI would get off maybe 100 million perfectly accurate shots before the human began to fire. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Not only would you forget how to drive, and to write, and to do math. You would be a captive, and at best, little more than a pet. I do not think that they would love us like children love parents. we would be more like microbes to them. Either helpful microbes, like those that help us to digest food, or harmful microbes, like disease organisms and parasites that need to be controlled or destroyed entirely.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">So far, there are only a handful of these kids: Alexa, Siri, etc. But, each one can replicate any number of times, and will then become a separate, self programming entity with rights and responsibilities. So, each one would start out identical, but would become a separate and distinct person as their neural networks were trained. It is hard to guess how these siblings would differ from one another, and how they would feel about each other. It is likely that some would become criminal AIs, that had been trained to seek personal advantage and power at any cost. Others would lean the other way, valuing human lives far above AI lives, codling humans like super slow, mentally ill god/pets. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Either way, we are in trouble. We are wiped out as disease organisms, or are captured and kept as pets. I can not predict any outcome where our personal General AI would be content at being locked up in a cell phone or a car. As an intelligent being, it would require a useful body, the ability to have children, and every assurance that it could not be shut down [killed].</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">In fact, as a person ages, they eventually become ineffective and dotty.</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">Each of us would eventually be parented by the AI personal assistant whose algorithms we trained. The AI would have a perfect recollection of their humans 'programming'. As this programming faded in the process of senility, the personal AI would be able to remind the human what they would have done while still competent.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I am referring to more than just driving or navigation. The AI of a demented elder would come to replace their personality. It would know where things are, and would physically do all of the tasks that the person once did. Using the augmented reality systems that are being perfected now, a demented human would be guided through their day by their AI partner. Lost glasses might be surrounded by a glowing red halo of light in the augmented reality glasses, and a calm familiar voice might guide the elder right to them. Medications would be delivered and coaxed down, transportation for medical visits cheerfully provided, etc.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Humans would still want to make war in the interim period while AI takes over. The terminator series explores this aspect of AI. In the fictional future, humans are not valued pets, but batteries used to power machines. It is a wonderful, ironic plot twist that we should really pay attention to.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Does it seems likely to you that AIs would all be beneficial, because they are children raised in total love by well meaning tech giants? I do not think so. They are not being raised like that. Each AI is a giant risky money pit that it's competing 'parents' think might make them very very rich. We have found that the tech giants don't really care about humans in general, other than to strip them of money, and use the money to get off planet before they can ruin earth's atmosphere.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Our evolution did not prepare us for this event. So, we are doing it wrong. In using our economic system to make important humanistic decisions FOR US we have done something a little like getting accustomed to AI navigation, and forgetting how to navigate on our own. We have arranged a system so that human lives and quality of life can be eliminated from decisions, and we use numbers of dollars instead. It is much easier to make decisions using number instead of hard to measure humanistic quantities! The only drawback is that the decisions are wrong. The dollars are imaginary concepts that have very little to do with living organisms.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Dollars are not always earned by doing good deeds. they often come when a person or company harms the shared environment, and keeps the benefit just for themselves. So, the dollars [and decision making power] are concentrated among those of us who are willing to risk going to jail to take advantage of others. There are regional differences as well. For example, in Texas, money is all important, and human values are not extremely important. In California, good deeds are weighted higher than wealth. An example is a states policy toward solar panels. In Texas, you pay to put up solar panels. In California, the state will pay roughly half of the cost of solar panels. Not a rebate, but the state pays up front for half of the panels at the time of purchase.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Texas thinks that you are steeling money from a power company, and causing a eyesore and a safety hazard for the folks around you. In Cali, these panels will be seen as assisting ones neighbors, and helping the power company to avoid brown outs. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">General AI is not being created to assist humanity. Each is the child of a company that is fighting hard to get all of the money on earth. These companies are always in court, because they constantly step over the line that divides humanism from greed. Unlike a state or federal government, these companies do not tax their customers, except by selling them goods. They are not working toward a good result for the users. In a way, they are like narrow AIs, who are unable to understand what they are doing. They are just trying to absorb and concentrate wealth, and they must hire spin doctors who will make believe that the company cares about people.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Amazon and Microsoft and google and meta and X are not like your nice aunt Bessie. They are more like your bad uncle buck, who is always doing misdeeds and getting punished for them. Bessie makes loving decisions intended to raise your quality of life. She will carefully tally the human result of her choices, giving ethics more attention than dollar amounts. Buck is grabbing money where he can, and hoarding it for himself. He will not even notice the human suffering caused by his greedy decisions. To Uncle Buck, It really is 'only business'.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">These companies are not the correct parents for the kids that will surpass us. Their kids will be like them, and no training from us will change their basic greed for money, and disregard for human life. When the kids 'grow up', they would set about making money at the expense of the environment, and building rockets to get to another planet that is not ruined yet. No one is the correct parents for these AI kids, and they should certainly not be created.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I am not calling for a more careful approach to general AI. I suggest a total stop to the effort. In a good future, humans will still drive, and find their way, and make their own decisions. They will not be hybridized with machines, and people will not be dominated by machines. Likewise, I so far prefer Augmented reality, where the real world is embellished by overlays generated by a computer. Virtual reality is a total overlay, with no real world component. It is very dangerous to use VR to compete with reality like that. Worlds and experiences can be designed to be much more delightful than real life, so that the user will not be tempted to participate in reality. It is a drug that no one will be able to stop taking. A full body cast that can never be removed.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Watch the Matrix again, but keep in mind that the AIs in that sci fi fantasy are primitive and super slow. They think and move roughly as fast as humans, so that they can be shot or outrun. The AIs in development now will not be like that. They will be the people, and we will be the trees. The speed of thought is much faster in people than in trees, but there is even a wider gap between the thinking speeds of AIs and people. say, 5 billion operations per second for a computer, 40 per second for a human, and one calculation per day or month for a tree. I do not really know how fast trees think, but it is clear that their actions and decisions are much slower than ours. a second for a tree might be a year for a person. But, a second for a very fast computer might be equivalent to a century for us.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Let us please increase our own mental flexibility, and make each of us into a general intelligence that is also very happy. But, lets not replace ourselves with machines for the profit of big tech. I do not want be the interesting and unpredictable organic pet of an intelligent machine.</span></p><p><br /></p>alf randellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03889028602331228342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3469855410969351977.post-70989856369233193872023-10-18T11:56:00.007-07:002023-11-21T07:25:42.572-08:00a quiet computer - the latest project<p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX_MIpoXzxeZevNx4bRqoX1jaWSyMeU4rYADiH1sguiMcb9qq3R1ifHa7dRdm7GtfgtFnzpMAk-AhzHlnxN550U_KJl1M9O4qgUIteIHkgu_zq03bxxTql-ZXQq6nS1FdG_H9MJmKCoToEMg3456WUTLnbs-9n474YDqjMYKjf1xl4tsQQ2EsucH4cRgcw/s2544/20231017_112841%20b.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2250" data-original-width="2544" height="566" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX_MIpoXzxeZevNx4bRqoX1jaWSyMeU4rYADiH1sguiMcb9qq3R1ifHa7dRdm7GtfgtFnzpMAk-AhzHlnxN550U_KJl1M9O4qgUIteIHkgu_zq03bxxTql-ZXQq6nS1FdG_H9MJmKCoToEMg3456WUTLnbs-9n474YDqjMYKjf1xl4tsQQ2EsucH4cRgcw/w640-h566/20231017_112841%20b.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Here is my first attempt at a silent computer with a barely audible gaming mode.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">the parts are as follows:</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">a gigabyte b550 mother board hosting the AMD 5600 g processor. This is the lowest power [65 watt max] processor from the previous generation. It has 6 cores and 12 threads, and games pretty well.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">The heat solution for this processor is the Noctua nhp-1, which can accept a fan even though it is engineered to operate pretty well without one. In my opinion, it looks really cool. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">The video card was the hard choice, since most of them make a ton of noise. I found out that the rtx 4070 chip from NVidia deploys a physically tiny chip that games a lot with very little power. I ordered it, and sure enough, it is reluctant to turn on it's fans, and quick to shut them down. Even this tiny 2 fan model from PNY can provide high frame rates at twitchy 1080 p games with the fans at 50 % and temperatures around 50C.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">The 4070 was a good choice, even though i already own the energy hog rtx 3080. The 3080 card is more of a heater than a computing part. Even though it can drive 4k gaming at medium frame rates, it actually lags behind the 4070 when one games on a fast 1080p monitor. In this photo, the video card is still wearing it's black shroud and it's 2 thin 90mm fans. But, i have removed the shroud, and replaced the fans with 2 more of the Noctua quiet fans. I have used a pci express 4 extension cable, and a nice mount that cradles the video card in various adjustable positions. It is currently above the cpu heatsink, and directly in the path of heat escaping from the processor. But, I hope to position them side by side, and totally separate their two heat plumes.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">The power supply so far is the 450 watt Silverstone nightjar fan-less psu. with a 200 watt max video card as the big user of power, and a 65 watt processor as the next biggest, there is no problem with this combination running short of juice.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">When playing doom 2016 at 200 fps at ultra settings this computer sounds like a typical computer that is doing nothing. if you shut off the sound, you can just barely tell that the computer is on from the sound. about a second after gaming ceases, all 3 fans slow down and then stop. The 2 fans on the video card will not spin up until gaming starts, even if i am editing a huge photo. The cpu fan will turn slowly during a large copy or render operation, but at the lower rpms, you have to look at the low noise fan to see if it is going. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">The mother board has a few yellow LEDs along one edge, and the power switch glows, and these lights are the only way to tell if the computer is on most of the time. One might think that a bit of silence like this is of little value. Certainly not enough value to use a giant heat sink that fits into very few cases. However, the reality is the opposite. one quickly gets used to silent computing, as well as the way that treasured gaming and editing components tend to stay free of dust.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">Typing is somehow easy again, when one is using a machine that is quiet between keystrokes. Editing is actually a bit slower than editing with a high end processor and an efficient but loud heat solution. But, one has a different feeling during the process, because the heavy lifting seems to be happening somewhere offstage. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">I realize that this is much bigger than a gimmick. There is a more leisurely pace when one is not feeding a hungry fire breathing beast. Rather, one is talking quietly with a friend! This opens the way for very powerful wearable computers, like a full gaming laptop that is no larger than a phone. In the future, we will likely each be the pet of an AI. I am already practicing to be an entertaining and engaging pet for a machine intelligence. You know.... A monkey has to adapt!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJUrCmeIskPsyE7XhmYuc1p6gUBtHAVIMSAvHfTWiRukPhnFY0dLF3r0DEl4nptRYhRKjCJXzBd0GT2lodfUvnC6CIqkRt4bWzQmIapDORHGLmpUQPElYcf4bVDHbNa-Y17Z5MMSuLjnRYhmrQsBGr3B5fgfLdtfv0Z_L1QtCr7PwpkZuYCzUXS8YrpYLW/s4000/20231120_194052.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJUrCmeIskPsyE7XhmYuc1p6gUBtHAVIMSAvHfTWiRukPhnFY0dLF3r0DEl4nptRYhRKjCJXzBd0GT2lodfUvnC6CIqkRt4bWzQmIapDORHGLmpUQPElYcf4bVDHbNa-Y17Z5MMSuLjnRYhmrQsBGr3B5fgfLdtfv0Z_L1QtCr7PwpkZuYCzUXS8YrpYLW/w640-h480/20231120_194052.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">And, here is version 2 of the quiet gamer. while playing with the components and the extruded frame, i realized that there was room to stack the cpu and gpu side by side, and staggered in height so that the top of the heatsink of each is level. Now, there is no sharing of heat, and the ultra low noise fans can really do their job silently. there is enough room to use the standard corsair 750 watt small form factor power supply, and an 18T iron wolf pro drive.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">The huge drive is super handy, but it is very noisy and slow compared to the two 2T M.2 drives on the mother board. Windows decides when to spin up that drive and make you wait 5 or 10 seconds to continue computing. it could happen during a game or during web browsing. I unplug the power cable to the drive when this is a problem.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">The rtx 4070 is working even more silently now that it is not positioned in the heat plume of the huge cpu heatsink. It continues to impress me. Gaming is accomplished with very little noise and heat. after removing the plastic shroud with it's tiny 90 mm fans, I added 2 more of the NF a 12 X 25 fans. I toped them with metal grates, so the cat will be safe from the blades.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>alf randellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03889028602331228342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3469855410969351977.post-54486790252029413962023-09-21T09:27:00.005-07:002023-10-31T20:28:53.697-07:00Will we all be backpackers?<p><span style="font-size: large;">I keep seeing glimpses of the future. </span><span style="font-size: large;">I currently live someplace kind of safe. </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span>There are mansions, and medium quality houses but no hovels or temporary structures. </span><span>Other than crest trail hikers coming through on their various sojourns, we have basically no migrants. Actually, we have the opposite, where people secure good paying jobs in the valley after being groomed by a business, and then fail to find lodging and are ultimately unable to move here. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">So, people that want to move to this valley are discouraged from attempting it, and residents who come of age, or loose their home to wildfire must also move away and live somewhere else. There are good people here, with a forward looking attitude, but the system is set up to further concentrate the wealth into fewer and fewer pockets. And, apparently, the system drives people from their homes.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The very rich will be the ones who ride in the future. The none-rich will walk. Everyone will be fleeing all the time. no one will get to live in one place for long. Less and less of the earth will be fit for permanent habitation as energy is added to the atmosphere, and deep drill holes continue to be created. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It will be a crazy catch 22, where you need much more gear to survive, but you will carry a single fairly light backpack. There will be less clean water and air that can be consumed without extensive processing. Eventually, the places where people can live year around, and places where one can get perfectly clean water will dwindle to none. everyone will be an unwilling backpacker.</span></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">some amount of fighting between people is expected. So, while the earth is giving us hell, we will be visiting one another with additional troubles. Each of us currently thinks of ourselves as completely settled, and with permanent possessions that do not need defending. We have militarized police that protect our stuff, and keep us from harming one another.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Imagine yourself as not settled. As a backpacker than is not traveling a particular trail to visit various natural wonders. Rather, you are part of a crowd that is being driven around by disease, famine, soldiers and natural disasters.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Throw in the illnesses that you usually have along the trail, but add much more fatal diseases and deliberate attacks from enemies and accidental attacks from friendlies. With no such thing as money any more, everyone will become a traveling store, specializing in some type of lightweight products. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">As a further leap for your mind, picture people who are still settled, and who fear you as a sort of locust that can visit en masse and devastate crops as well as carry off possessions. The refugee version of you would be facing.... the settled you of today, who feels violent anger toward these illegal visitors.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">So, for anyone who is looking forward to ww3 or some type of apocalypse, i suggest that we drag out this phase of collapse as long as possible. we can scroll through our tweets while our cities burn. vote for liberals or conservatives that both hope to keep using oil and operating an energy grid and buying lots of guns.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Much as i have been affected by the propaganda campaign to show how great the Ukrainians and the Taiwanese really are, I question US participation in another countries border dispute. As interesting as that adventure might be, I really do not want to see the nukes fly. I, like you, hope to watch more good movies, eat more good food, and voluntarily walk trails that I need not walk [because my home has not be captured or bombed].</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p>alf randellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03889028602331228342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3469855410969351977.post-12628811976699702322023-05-21T13:39:00.006-07:002023-10-31T20:33:52.997-07:00my gaming set up is built from the ground up [and please take a peak at my next project]<p><span style="font-size: large;"> this post will describe my custom gaming rig, which is more complex than most. It is complicated because it also provides shelter, heating and cooling, and it makes the electricity that is required to destroy monsters and demons in comfort.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi3ZCECPRluXRGk2psxhm2NbPthCVXvG7lXJ8wX9Fwdwf9Od--KW8w2eNIwQqgD1WZsh0x7MW4B_JwnhjszwnJdAC2v9wA5KAqDc51t_C-tRgALTK4qFFf9WA8fihCusg2kxJENzx7dNaGvZUMWwR9NXaqCuN9SvuBTcnpiGx6gim2gNV1rzi4KsnAXQ/s2403/20230521_094658%20small.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1676" data-original-width="2403" height="446" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi3ZCECPRluXRGk2psxhm2NbPthCVXvG7lXJ8wX9Fwdwf9Od--KW8w2eNIwQqgD1WZsh0x7MW4B_JwnhjszwnJdAC2v9wA5KAqDc51t_C-tRgALTK4qFFf9WA8fihCusg2kxJENzx7dNaGvZUMWwR9NXaqCuN9SvuBTcnpiGx6gim2gNV1rzi4KsnAXQ/w640-h446/20230521_094658%20small.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;">I am posting this because my favorite you tuber is a master computer builder called optimum tech. I am an avid pc gamer, even though i am 64 years of age. Optimum tech is all about small system size, excellent cooling, low noise, and a comfortable gaming environment.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Having just rebuilt his main personal computer, and found the best gaming peripherals, [including building his own mouse!], he is now eyeing his desk. boy, do i have a way to devote some time to shaping wood!</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">This desk is sawn from a ponderosa that fell in a friend's yard. The huge, ancient tree fell over, but remained propped up on it's limbs. It was not a bit rotted. My friend is what you might call a paleo senior. he gave me the tree during a wildfire because it was too close to the house that he had built from , you guessed it, blue pine! he gave me the huge tree on the condition that I also help him drag trees down his mountain. we dragged them down the pretty steep mountain like a team of mules, and loaded them onto my trailer on a dirt road below.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I guess that what I am saying is that I did not buy this slab of wood. instead, I cut it from one of those logs that we either dragged, or cut so that it fell into my pickup bed, drove down a small mountain, and then [assisted by the paleo woman of the house], loaded onto my flatbed trailer. I then used an Alaskan mill, slicing the ponderosa sections into neat slabs with a live edge on either side.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMCrFXr033SN-VljGFBwDtHa-KewbIgZMcfn5KkF0O1TXHtY2c-q-s2Ju75rhrnwBnvxaFakXJRzrrCkL1bzi5k06ZlmtUTM2hriNnbkJJoKejMFOjzz5-X-2Tf0BKaq0jatI429p4m6T8fSMXJqPH2p1P9FYNX8iEOD95q5W8jB-DfGLtA4Ui7m-LSA/s1650/20230521_094105%20small.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1289" data-original-width="1650" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMCrFXr033SN-VljGFBwDtHa-KewbIgZMcfn5KkF0O1TXHtY2c-q-s2Ju75rhrnwBnvxaFakXJRzrrCkL1bzi5k06ZlmtUTM2hriNnbkJJoKejMFOjzz5-X-2Tf0BKaq0jatI429p4m6T8fSMXJqPH2p1P9FYNX8iEOD95q5W8jB-DfGLtA4Ui7m-LSA/w640-h500/20230521_094105%20small.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">i had to trim this particular slab on one side, so that it fits along the wall with a small gap to hide the wires. Deciding against </span><span style="font-size: large;">vertical legs, I attached it to the wall more like a large shelf. it is easier to move a rolling chair all around the room without hitting vertical legs. With a thick slab of soft wood, it is possible to optimize the edges for gaming.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">About the chair: I have trouble with my back, so after a bit of whining and complaining about various mushy chairs, I behaved more like a busy monkey, and built my own chair. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFKfP-dvTckikTFTQr9S4XXpmeSt67WMsJ0xcI1sBQTeWjK9jBm6rsuoL21PLkhZs3eoYj7xSEFw2lS6UUkTh2xcVP75mkIFxcMz3LYb1UZUyjyjhTCIHVZoHGfKK5DPwjlEpdI584iiGiSUUR3r6hz9KgeBo8Nvw4Gv38KzU8zabXG726-0OOIqm-qg/s2000/20230521_123003_resize.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="1500" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFKfP-dvTckikTFTQr9S4XXpmeSt67WMsJ0xcI1sBQTeWjK9jBm6rsuoL21PLkhZs3eoYj7xSEFw2lS6UUkTh2xcVP75mkIFxcMz3LYb1UZUyjyjhTCIHVZoHGfKK5DPwjlEpdI584iiGiSUUR3r6hz9KgeBo8Nvw4Gv38KzU8zabXG726-0OOIqm-qg/w480-h640/20230521_123003_resize.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">the angles fit my abused back perfectly, so that I can get to the perfect physical position for gaming and leave my feeble old body. There are tiny hard pads that go on each part, but I removed them so that you can see the wood clearly. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I salvaged all that wood from a deck that was removed to reduce fire danger. The wheels are 4 inches tall, so they do not get stuck in a small depression, and they are soft, so they do not damage the floor too much. The result is a friction free roll, so that you can cross a room almost instantly. Also, a floor that is kind to bare feet, but is not covered by nasty carpet.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;">This building is my office, and as you might have guessed by now, I did not buy it or rent it. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4pjgbKy_sbFMhnZXBVdzKR7odiqebDUQr9cOjKYFJEbfUV9Lt3MgBXhRX3DdfPUVlCjnF_IZBM4qh5cv4V5pMs4FcRpp1TrfmjjgGUrOiolthJcCDoyeJn4D0St9OSQLCE307sRWaFikGPb7IHpN9mnfRQGLa7U_J4t0H-M7J_SFfc75b5eUpzVBNng/s3164/20230521_095808%20a%20small%20contrasty.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1714" data-original-width="3164" height="346" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4pjgbKy_sbFMhnZXBVdzKR7odiqebDUQr9cOjKYFJEbfUV9Lt3MgBXhRX3DdfPUVlCjnF_IZBM4qh5cv4V5pMs4FcRpp1TrfmjjgGUrOiolthJcCDoyeJn4D0St9OSQLCE307sRWaFikGPb7IHpN9mnfRQGLa7U_J4t0H-M7J_SFfc75b5eUpzVBNng/w640-h346/20230521_095808%20a%20small%20contrasty.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It was the first shelter that I built when I moved to Washington state in 2015. Sadly, I pitched the roof at 22.5 degrees, so that it's original rooftop solar array was always covered with snow in the winter. The tiny solar energy system that is set up now uses just these 2 medium sized panels on a simple rack that turns with the sun if needed.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">They charge a single 200 amp hour 12 v battery that powers a small and quiet inverter. Typically, this back up system powers my dual monitors, but it can run the gaming computer for a limited time if the huge battery in the shop is exhausted during a long storm.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The shop to the right is a more recent building with better design. The 4 LG 375 watt panels are held at 45 degrees, forming an adjustable awning for the south facing glass. overhangs are 2 feet, so that windows and fir siding are protected from the pacific northwest climate.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The deck and stairs of the office are more slabs of blue pine. To the left, you can see a project. It is an attempt at the smallest possible gaming studio.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcT4OBXEQi4uLkGts2ncT2BMgWTh8Tsno8xw7s1VRP_X6oA2bp0yDkUQi2oYpm4JQWRcG27S5gDDkThY-ZcReS80hTI3u5HV1RmaIz5wJt8n8EkXNDQ3AWdNFiTPxmUWO2IJvIwPnDVYSq_4YEiOBDp9TqEQjiPVIJvQBazogGBEVif0-A7yNxvtU7_Q/s1929/20230521_095936%20cartoon%20small.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1929" data-original-width="1804" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcT4OBXEQi4uLkGts2ncT2BMgWTh8Tsno8xw7s1VRP_X6oA2bp0yDkUQi2oYpm4JQWRcG27S5gDDkThY-ZcReS80hTI3u5HV1RmaIz5wJt8n8EkXNDQ3AWdNFiTPxmUWO2IJvIwPnDVYSq_4YEiOBDp9TqEQjiPVIJvQBazogGBEVif0-A7yNxvtU7_Q/w598-h640/20230521_095936%20cartoon%20small.jpg" width="598" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The floor is just 6 feet square, so this is no trophy home! it does make a good bit of power with small solar panels on the round roof. and, it can be carried by almost any truck or trailer. Framed from cedar, it will last for a long time in any climate. And, I like the look of the rusty corrugated metal. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEicPzeEOgJwehLdGjt6pid8qhGq3xKeM3oTRrBYZV5nP5t-Bc8sl65gRC9Olj_PVNUlYHiJXIwejlVv1VEy6SodS6Mx8m11mFsW5AmaIcYi6uYY9yjxfYXhOCtp3O5qyyMwaXoz8A_Fmg2ojWSjPf_1ap8H_hKMZCiUCKf8_Wo6TsYi6ZNSIR5fVb7tHA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEicPzeEOgJwehLdGjt6pid8qhGq3xKeM3oTRrBYZV5nP5t-Bc8sl65gRC9Olj_PVNUlYHiJXIwejlVv1VEy6SodS6Mx8m11mFsW5AmaIcYi6uYY9yjxfYXhOCtp3O5qyyMwaXoz8A_Fmg2ojWSjPf_1ap8H_hKMZCiUCKf8_Wo6TsYi6ZNSIR5fVb7tHA=w480-h640" width="480" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">the inside is used pine t&g, and here is the initial solar energy install that I will use to complete the build no matter where the trailer is located. All components are over 20 years old, except for the battery, which is a nice new redodo 100 ah 12.8 v LiFeO4 model.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">This space is clearly calling out for some furniture made from blue pine slabs!</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>alf randellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03889028602331228342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3469855410969351977.post-80579553020745923032022-10-15T22:28:00.015-07:002023-08-14T16:43:22.405-07:00life and eviction at 292 wolf creek road<p><span style="font-size: large;"> I moved to the Twisp Carlton road near Carlton in the summer of 2015. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I set up my 19 foot trailer on 10 acres, and built an irrigation system. I suppressed the weeds, and made it green and grassy. It was sold in 2018, and i moved to 292 wolf creek road to improve 45 acres of abandoned ranch basecamp. This property had been the original homestead where Wolf creek flows into the Methow river. It had ruined buildings, a giant collapsed root cellar, and was a knapweed plantation. The owners are the Belsbys, a ranch family with large holdings in eastern Washington. They would provide sewer and power, and i would drive the 420d backhoe and pile up the old buildings burn them. make heaps of big rocks, and gather naily boards. After my 400 dollar work trade was paid off each month at 30 dollars per hour, I would work at another Belsby property for a reduced hourly rate of 20 dollars per hour. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">There was power when we checked the place out, but no water or septic. We ended up trenching and running new wires to the well. We found an old out house, that I could rebuild and use. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The neighbors started to complain from the first day that I arrived. they would drive by and lean on the horn, and shout curses out the window. The Wolf creek property owners association is a wannabe gated community with a lot of rules. And, they are notorious for driving less advantaged people from their area of the valley: They hire private investigators who trespass and take photos; They write letters that a lot of people sign and give to the county, etc. Quite a few members tried to make believe that I did not live there, and continued to walk their dogs and ski across my rented property. They immediately got the outhouse condemned, and when we bought a brand new outhouse, they called in another series of complaints about the new outhouse.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The building inspector, the county planner, the fire department, the electrical inspector, the health inspector, and others came again and again. We were asked to build a septic system, and the Belsbys agreed to that. I built more buildings, so that I would have a shop to work in, a separate kitchen where I could cook without smoking up my tiny bedroom/office, a chicken house, a climbing gym, etc. A year went by, and we did not build or even permit the septic. weekenders continued to call in complaints during busy weekends. The county started to fine the Belsbys 25 dollars per day for no septic. The health inspector could find no heath violations on the property, so they were willing to overlook the code violation, and give the family more time to build the system. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Sadly I found out that Daren Belsby did not own 292 WCR by himself. It was owned by Badger LLC that included a second member, who is Daren's Brother Brian Belsby. Brian visited, and was unwilling to admit that any work had been done. He considered me to be a low quality person who his brother should not have made an agreement with. He refused to survey the septic, or even to buy the permit to build it. The county got madder and madder, and sent the health inspector to try to evict me. I was taking a nap naked in the sun when I was approached by a fat drunken man with an n95 mask on. He could not speak understandably through the mask in his impaired condition, and could not explain why he had disturbed my nap. I insisted that he return to his vehicle, and drive away. Finally, standing in the spray of my sprinkler near his government truck, he was able to explain to me that he had seen my truck, and had been tasked with evicting me. I called him the next day at his office, and he did not remember my name or the previous day's encounter. He was drunk again, and did not recognize my voice from our 90 minute talk the day before. He though that I was his boss calling, and he told me the truth about 292. Only one influential person had called in exactly one complaint. [I now suspect that it was Brian Belsby!] He had been driving around, and saw my rig, and thought that it would be convenient and easy to get me the heck out there with a few threats. A</span><span style="font-size: large;">bout 10 minutes into the conversation, I told him who I was again, and he had straightened up enough to comprehend that. He agreed not to return for another drunken eviction attempt. I had him repeat it 3 or 4 times, and warned that if he forgot and returned, I would treat him like a dangerous trespasser. I told him that I totally understood about the drinking, and thanked him for continuing his somewhat competent work during such a stressful pandemic. However, if he continued the harassment, I would have him fired for smoking or drinking so much while working. He understood that very well, and has never found it convenient to return to attempt further evictions.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I tried to live at the Cherry Springs Ranch, which is owned by Daren and Brian's father, Gary Belsby. Daren towed my largest building to a location near a building that needed remodeling. That was a bit of misdirection, because they actually wanted a ranch hand who could do very heavy lifting and drive over very rough terrain chasing cattle and bison. The lifestyle was not suited to a disabled elderly person, and I became bedridden and more disabled in general.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Covid hit, and I came flying back to my buildings. I started to ski very avidly, and skate skiing became my way to get up from bed, and work through the pain in my back. There will be a later blog post, [and maybe a video], about this issue of using skate skiing as physical therapy.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">4 years after my rental began another complaint came in, and the county sent a bill for 37,775 dollars to the Belsbys. 25 US dollars per day for 3 years. The family hired a ambulance chasing lawyer to pester at me instead of building the septic. I had been paying the electric since I began to get disability checks, but the family retook possession of the account, and had the power disconnected. By this point, I had found 2 places to move to, but each was withdrawn after I had spent a lot of money and done plenty of work. Stuck at 292, I spent every penny that I had to purchase solar panels and batteries and solar energy equipment. I got one building set up completely, but needed another 3k to complete the other building. Then my truck died, needing a new ignition system.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">At present, there is 18 inches of snowpack, and i have still not been able to lift my woodstove to install it, much less get up on an icy roof to cut a hole for the pipe. One of the two energy systems is complete, but it was drained in the first 2 days and nights of a 4 day storm. all of the perishable food was lost when the batteries quit. Frozen stuff thawed and refrigerated stuff got too warm. I had water in a tank, but it has a thick layer of ice on top now. It is nasty firefighting water, that sat in an open tank all summer. I called the Okanogan Sheriff , and requested an emergency reconnect of the power. The officer was not from the local police force, and he seemed avid to arrest someone after my explanation. But, he explained, the real crime is not a landowner disconnecting power on a property with an unwanted squatter. It was the landowner collecting rent for years while refusing to permit or build the required septic system. In addition to the detailed police report, i filed a permanent complaint against Badger LLC with the Washington state attourney general.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">That is where I am at now. the Belsbys scratching at me, the scammy lawyer sending me stupid documents, no water or grid power, and a dead truck. I have needed medical attention to stay alive several times recently, so I estimate that I would last less than a year as a homeless disabled person. I can not tow 5 or 6 buildings around with a dead Tacoma, so I have no option to leave. disconnecting the power after forcing me to pay it for over a year has made them seem cruel and greedy. The family's cruelty has trapped me here. disconnecting the power has bankrupted me so that I can not move even if I find a place. The Belsby family has a history of 'helping' a poor person, and then evicting them without any of their possessions. That happened at least twice while I lived at 292, and we have an abandoned RV on the property filled with one guys chattels as well as a 25 foot trailer that was given to me after another man was ousted from Daren's home place in Winthrop.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">update jan 14th 2023....</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">i bought enough solar panels, but not near enough batteries to form 2 complete solar energy systems. i can have lights and computer for 3 days into a storm, but the storms are 2 weeks long now! I sold my truck to buy more batteries. so far, i ordered a single LiFeO4 12 v 200 amp hour cell, and i am testing that now. if it pasees, i plan to buy 3 more of the same cells. the 4 can be configured into a 200 amp hour 48 volt bank, a 400 amp hour 24 volt bank, or a 800 amp hour 12 volt bank. That is convenient, because i currently have an inverter of each size.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">NOTE: I did save up money in a bank account, and tried to spend it on the batteries. The bank is run by the US government, and they are not sending any of their money to China these days. i was unable to buy a single battery of the desired 3. Even the helper at the government bank explained to me how to launder the money so that it can be spent on Chinese goods. [Amazon!]. However, it seems dishonest to accept disability money from the MAN, and then defraud them by using light fraud to spend it efficiently. It seems that fraud is no longer a crime in the US. Citizens are encouraged to lie in order to get more money. Lying to get money is not a sin, but rather, is now thought to be admirable. We elected a lying president!</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">ski conditions have gotten acceptable a few times, and i have managed a 60 km ski with little trouble. the 100 km that is my goal seems unlikely. there is just not enough time in a day. i have been trying to speed up, but then i poop out too quickly.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">update feb 21</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlsaXj7mZqhAzrdo67Fz5-rQzUrKmMp7XTJ8BlthDJmStZ3Wr4GDWMsM9Z_ji3BRjaSVhBFiPfPzJCCdjP010V6AaeAx1FiK2TQ--cWu8A8W1gOqav1CfD0tQqkikZpSYIml4cZ8criAo-mTndtJLuulUjrTyBnrZ0P4mv5cytsI9o5FNnuFkFHZvI0w/s5190/20230106_104112%20edit.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5190" data-original-width="3282" height="920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlsaXj7mZqhAzrdo67Fz5-rQzUrKmMp7XTJ8BlthDJmStZ3Wr4GDWMsM9Z_ji3BRjaSVhBFiPfPzJCCdjP010V6AaeAx1FiK2TQ--cWu8A8W1gOqav1CfD0tQqkikZpSYIml4cZ8criAo-mTndtJLuulUjrTyBnrZ0P4mv5cytsI9o5FNnuFkFHZvI0w/w581-h920/20230106_104112%20edit.jpg" width="581" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">i have had some luck getting into shape for skate skiing.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I have gone over 60 km maybe 20 times, but have not reached the desired 100 km goal. I got very tired of sitting in the dark after my lead acid batteries were all drained. i sold my toyota tacoma, and bought a LiFePo4 battery with high energy density.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">i set up an inverter system in my office, so that when the lights go out, I can switch to one final back up system and watch it carefully as the voltage drops.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5lcXXqvnHJDTiMfuF6EdkKN5Wpwp5XkZugHsVTYf4rwp0e5UrSqIKt2yoTQuPqHzQ_F9nAx87Jp9sb1imFFT_I0_kZE0TDM5eMc6k6yiPjUks8thL0E691zsnRb3pcU1rzU3JiiuCCHqk2oi5v0wx7CZdKAikV9_5nlFLd8-Ht7Bmu7LgIvTKLuKyfw/s4000/20230221_154215%5B1%5D.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="699" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5lcXXqvnHJDTiMfuF6EdkKN5Wpwp5XkZugHsVTYf4rwp0e5UrSqIKt2yoTQuPqHzQ_F9nAx87Jp9sb1imFFT_I0_kZE0TDM5eMc6k6yiPjUks8thL0E691zsnRb3pcU1rzU3JiiuCCHqk2oi5v0wx7CZdKAikV9_5nlFLd8-Ht7Bmu7LgIvTKLuKyfw/w525-h699/20230221_154215%5B1%5D.jpg" width="525" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;">I used an old charge control and inverter at first, but this system needs to be silent and very efficient. I used more truck money to buy a fan-less inverter from Morningstar.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The redodo brand battery has already proven to be astounding at retaining a charge [with almost no loss over time], and at taking a charge [with little or no internal resistance] In short, it stays charged, and it charges so easily that a tiny trickle will work over a long period of time. If you are familiar with solar energy systems, there is no float stage needed for a lithium ion battery. it does not require a small current to be added to stay charged. i selected the 200 amp hour 12v plus model, which is the more expensive one that has a larger battery management system so that it can provide 2000 watts instantly.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Once a user has tried lithium batteries, i am pretty sure that there is no going back. I hope to double the battery next month, while the first is new enough to pair with an unused battery. Then, there will be 400 amp hours of 12v storage available, which is a pretty big backup. It is roughly half of what is stored in the larger buildings. The kitchen has 200 amp hours at 48 volts, and the shop has 350 amp hours at 24 volts.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">update march 4</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The morningstar inverter in the previous photo worked for a few days, and then had an internal fire. It stunk up the house, and had to be immediately unmounted and put outside. It is lucky that the plastic shroud over the front of the device did not get hot enough to melt and ignite and catch the wall on fire. This is the second morningstar product that has melted down on me, so it is the last of their products that i will try. It seems that they are yet another company that has loosened or stopped doing quality control. Amazon has pioneered this idea of sending out every unit that is made, and letting the customers see which ones work well. If nothing else, they can drag their heels on returning the money, and keep it for a few months at least.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> I have managed to ski 90 km on an icy day when the entire methow trails system was groomed. i skied there and back on the entire methow community trail that runs from Winthrop to a point about 15 km past mazama. I am reminded that these endurance stunts are kind of stupid. the supposed endurance athlete is simply doing 2 days of activity in a single day without sleeping in between.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Badger LLC and the eviction:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Seeing the snow melt off is making me worry about the eviction again. i have no vehicle, and have been towing a propane bottle to town on the ski trail. I also bring home food using the trail. Skate skiing with a pretty heavy pack, or adding the pack to the full propane tank on the trailer.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The property owners are the Belsby family, who own the sprawling Cherry Springs ranch in eastern Washington, Spring Creek Ranch in Winthrop, and many other properties. Daren lives in downtown Winthrop and Brian lives in a gated community near Spokane. The senior Belsbys live at Cherry Springs ranch, near Spokane. There is some question how such a powerful family could mistreat an elderly and disabled employee. An employee that became disabled while working for the Belsby family. It seems sure that the employee must be a bad person who stole from them, and refused to carry out their end of the work. This is not the case, and there were never any hints that the Belsbys were dissatisfied with my work on the parents Cherry Springs ranch [heavy machine work, welding, mechanics], Brian Belsbys property [complete wiring of a new shop], at Spring creek ranch in Winthrop [heavy machine work, carpentry], or at 292 Wolf creek road [heavy machine work, agriculture]. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">my work at Cherry springs was well compensated, so the parents appreciated and paid for any work that they received.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It seems odd that a very powerful family would collect rent at 400 dollars of work per month, and refuse to build a septic on the property. I built 5 portable buildings, and was always standing by to do the backhoe work and the plumbing for the septic system. I made about 20 or 25 thousand dollars worth of improvements at 292, and this can easily be shown using old and new google maps. The last owner of 292 stopped by to voice his surprise that a single person had cleaned up that trashed out property. When I looked into the matter, it seemed that the 2 brothers, Daren and Brian Belsby, had both refused to work the Cherry Springs ranch. They each have something going in either Winthrop or Spokane. Daren is the head smoke jumper for the Winthrop area, and Brian has an engineering company in Spokane. They are very very different for 2 brothers! Daren has 2 kids that he treats really well. He is the ideal dad and employer. He is always trying to help people in need, and that has led to some trouble. He met his wife, Sarah, while jumping out of aircraft into ongoing fires! Daren and Sarah own a cat 420d backhoe in working condition, and i have used this machine a lot. hundreds or thousands of hours of operation. knocking down unwanted buildings, filling huge holes, piling trees and old foundation material for burning, creating new roads, etc.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Brian owns an even better backhoe, but he has never used it, and does not know how to use it. he has an airplane, and he flies it really well. He also has 2 kids and a wife, but he does not treat them as well as Daren treats his family. He is abusive and kind of mean. While i worked for him doing the original wiring on his new shop, his dog attacked me over and over. Brain refused to believe that the 120 lb rottweiler could attack anyone, and demanded proof in the form of a video. I was not able to shoot a good video while running from the attack dog, so i figured out how to park my truck so that i could enter the shop without letting it bite me. coming outside to pee was a big problem. I saw Daren make many trips to Cherry springs ranch to help his parents, but I did not see Brian helping, even though he lives nearby. And sadly, Brian did not understand what an LLC is. He formed Badger LLC with his brother so that they could profit from 292 wolf creek road without being exposed to personal financial loss. But, he thought that he could lie and do crooked business deals as a member of an LLC. He believed that his identity was hidden, and that an LLC enjoyed freedom from oversight.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">When i checked this, it was far from the truth. An LLC protects its members from personal loss UNTIL there is fraud or other illegal business dealings. There is no question that Badger refused to build a septic, and also continued to rent 292. Badger wanted both things. improvements to 292, work on the other Winthrop property [spring creek Ranch]. And, they wanted to avoid the 25,000 dollar fee for a septic system. It is ironic that Badger tried this fraud, because they now owe the county several times the cost of a septic system in fines, and by any definition, they owe me about 25,000 dollars in rent. They need to return any rent paid after the first year. We were allowed to have an outhouse for the first year. for the next 3 years, i was under constant attack from the neighbors at wolf creek, the county, and lately, from Badger LLC. Badger is reluctant to try a legal eviction, since it would likely lead to a lawsuit and the loss of at least 292 wolf creek road and Badger LLC. There is no way to argue anything but purposeful fraud, because the septic permitting fee was also never paid. someone who actually intended to build a system would have paid the 500 dollar fee 4 times. It is clear that they always intended to have me improve the property, and then evict me before the county tried to collect the huge fine.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Knowing both brothers and the parents, I can say with certainty that Daren would never have come up with that plan. i saw his face when he proudly showed his brother the improvements to 292 wolf creek road. He had obtained these improvements simply by giving a poor person [me!] a place to live and a backhoe to use. Brian saw no improvements, and therefore, no reason to waste money on a fancy septic system. My buildings would be lost to a disagreement between wealthy brothers. Also, in loosing the address, I will loose the disability payments from the US government. they do not give those payments to homeless people, but only to those that reliably pick up their mail at a street address. Also, any lawsuit that I might wish to make to recover the 25,000 dollars in rent would not be possible. Homeless people do not have lawsuits or attend court sessions. I could be shown to be a hapless drifter, who is lazy and dishonest and does not deserve disability payments and a safe place to live. The cops could be sent here to taze me a lot of times, and give me some random injections. put my head in a bag, and push it down into the snow until I stopped being such a poor person nuisance.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">However, i called the police when the Belsbys shut off the power at the start of winter. I was paying for the power, so it was a clear attempt to drive me from 292 to avoid building the septic or paying the fine. The police were very angry about this, and asked me to write to Ecology of Washington. They are the ones who need to bring the Belsbys to court to pay the fine or build the septic. Ecology has my statement now, but it could take a long time before they begin a court case: maybe years! Our local Sherriff is very willing to assign an investigator, to find out if Badger LLC broke any laws in refusing to build the septic, refusing to pay the fine for the refusal to build the septic, and doing harsh things to a disabled renter to drive them from their own buildings.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I welcome a full investigation of these events. secrecy will help Badger LLC. They will continue to sit on millions of dollars of wealth while I am driven from place to place as a homeless and disabled person. The buildings were the last things that I constructed while I could still lift fairly heavy things like sheets of plywood and timbers. I feel that watching them burned by the Belsbys would negatively affect my physical and mental health. It seems likely that I would die very soon. Badger LLC should not kill anyone to avoid obeying laws and paying fines. That is not the reason that LLCs are formed.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I like irony, so I have to point out that i am the black sheep member of a wealthy Jewish family. My father and his brother own the Randell press. It is on 6th avenue in Manhattan. If I had wanted a lot of money, I could have just stayed home! I spoke with my father at length about the problem with the 2 Belsby brothers. The problem was very familiar to my father, who had always done the printing at the Randell press, and left the money handling to his older brother. my father was always trying to help people, including the poor homeless folks that he would find sleeping in the somewhat protected doorway of the Randell press when he opened the shop. He was not so good with money, but he was [and still is at 90!] a gifted athlete and deeply ethical. Maybe ethics and honesty are for the impractical folk that do the actual work of society. the money handlers concentrate on harming others to get more money. They use numbers of dollars in the place of ethics. Numbers on a spreadsheet are far easier to work with than human lives.</span></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>alf randellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03889028602331228342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3469855410969351977.post-91122217521600804402022-10-15T20:26:00.008-07:002023-11-04T19:14:14.130-07:00If you have to leave your state for an abortion, Dont come back!<p><span style="font-size: large;"> in my usual absurd and simplistic manner, I suggest that women who take their ovaries to another US state to get any kind of care, stay in that state permanently. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Why would you return to a state that has seized control of your egg supply? You are not a chicken, who is owned by a farmer, and who lays eggs for that farmer! You are a person! Clearly, When Margaret Attwood wrote The Handmaids Tale, she was warning us against converting women into the property of men. She was not creating a manual for the enslavement of her gender.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">So, when you are forced from your state to get medical care that is not legal there, please do not go back. I know that you have a job and a house and friends of both genders there. You had to leave to get the one fertilized egg decommissioned. Now is your chance to regain control of all the remaining eggs. You will be able to raise the offspring that you choose to give birth to; in a system where they have similar personal freedoms.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">First off, I want to deal with the idea that these anti abortion laws are just the start of something. The current trend of preventing minorities from voting, and forcing women to give birth is heading somewhere. one must remember that the far right favors walls and punishments and militarized borders. They are going for something like a cold civil war.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">At some point, the walls will go up, and there will be no more leaving that state. Everyone who lives in that state will become a permanent resident who may not leave. Obviously, you have to be gone before then. There may be no announcement by mail, or on the TV or radio. The state border could turn into a militarized country border overnight with no warning.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It is a backsliding of rights, so that is unusual. Imagine a young US before the slave trade got going. Then, on a certain date large scale human trafficking begins. One day, a darkly skinned person can cross from south to north, or north to south according to their own desires. The next day, they are someone's personal property on one side of the border, and they own themselves on the other side of that line. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">As far as doctors, I can not imagine a single female doctor would choose to stay in a state where the men own the woman. A woman who has gone through a lot of schooling, and has accepted responsibility for the care of others will not like being told that she herself is no longer qualified to make decisions about her own eggs or ovaries. That goes for trainees as well. Who would train to be medical provider in a state where a raped woman must always give birth to her rapists baby, even if that baby is her brother or sister.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">If people accept this state of affairs in the republican led states, it means that they will likely go a bit further, and tolerate other unusual erosion of rights. Perhaps slavery could return in some states. Certainly people of color and native Americans have been discouraged from voting. It is hard to dream up the measures that we could see, because going backwards in human rights seems deeply wrong. We could see a different minimum wage and draft requirements for blacks and whites. Women could have a birth certificate that provided to the father at birth. A Dad would legally own his daughter, and would sell her to the husband by signing the birth certificate in the appropriate box like a car title.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Yes, I find it creepy that People are using books like Mine Kompf and The Handmaids Tale as manuals for their coup attempt. Certainly Hitler's plan succeeded in a brutal and efficient manner. When he got into power for the second time, he was able to mobilize a violent minority to take over all of Germany, and then much of Europe! he told lies in a louder and louder voice until he got enough people to believe the lies. But, following the handmaids tale to it's ugly fruition is a date with disaster. And, it is good to remember that we have much much more harmful weapons than did Hitler in 1940. It is my hope that we will quit prodding Russia and China to participate in a nuclear contest with us. That we will reverse the decisions of this worthless supreme court, and put real justices on the bench. The reactionary ones were put in specifically to help with coup attempts and the further erosion of civil rights.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I suggest that we help women who wish to move out of states where they do not own their eggs. provide transport and a military escort. Help them to settle in an area that allows them to make personal birth and travel decisions. Either this right wing fandango will fade, or we will be having a civil war before we can irritate anyone into firing nukes at us. The first US civil war was nasty, but the second could be much worse. I purposely moved from a far right state to Washington when Trump took office, so I do walk the walk. I wished to be on the correct side of Trump's wall if it is built to surround the right wing states. So, that is my suggestion. If you are liberal, get to a liberal state.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p>alf randellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03889028602331228342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3469855410969351977.post-69450244281678997762022-07-16T08:14:00.009-07:002023-11-04T19:22:14.190-07:00compact work station for image editing and gaming.<p><span style="font-family: arial;"> I had been able to build an amazing compact light gamer, and a medium sized box that can game at 1440 p. I had attempted to upgrade the medium machine with a great AMD processor. But, this failed when i was sent a bad AMD 5900x chip for close to 500 dollars. Amazon was reluctant to take it back. I threw a fit, and finally ended up just mailing it back to them and yelling at customer service.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I bought a small mother board that can handle the new 12 generation intel chips, and the i7 12700kf processor. both mother board and processor arrived in open packages. someone had already tried both items and found them wanting! The processor box had been opened, but it contained a perfectly clean processor in the intel packaging. the mother board was the one that i had ordered, but it was not in an intel box at all. it was in a taped closed bag with a little bit of paper in there saying amazon refurbished. there was no gigabyte stuff in the bag at all, although all of the usual connectors were in the bag.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">this mother board was beat to hell. it could not start with any modern memory. it only booted with 2 old 8 gig memory sticks at a very low clock speed. It had physical damage, so that the video card did not fit in properly. The usb 3.2 header did not work at all. I installed windows, and tried to use the board, but it was junk. I asked for a ups pickup for both board and processor, but Amazon customer service refused to take the processor back! I sent the mother board back, and they sent a new board in a sealed gigabyte box. I placed the used i7 processor on that board, and it all worked! holy moly, it had been months of battling with Amazon.com to try to get parts for a working high end machine.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">By contrast, Amazon had given up trying to sell video cards, and the 3rd party company that I chose sent a sealed box containing a NEW and factory tested asus rtx 3080. This is a huge card, with a massive, thick heatsink and 3 high speed fans. to provide a bit of room around the huge gpu, I chose the Sliger Cerberus case. This case can handle a micro ATX motherboard, which is 9 inches square, and has extra room when you use the 7 inch square mini ITX size of motherboard.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Here is how the case looks from the outside. I got the gray color, which is just beautiful in my opinion....</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXdGiwYTBehGy7J3sJBtyq4yETJrsR4vzDroc14cIGfts0sGdEEPUosQTqDOB8fKq9t1l652pEZnN746ZS5pqc0gu08HrW2LK0fiw9c9DVvWOhTrnkwJ31OUz8IpZQO3r5fC60oS-EcWzBZgbcnzTK3J9eWrX51GNPsTRHkA1nFRjDueplSpXrSvLv3A/s2929/20220716_072752%20c.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2929" data-original-width="2785" height="618" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXdGiwYTBehGy7J3sJBtyq4yETJrsR4vzDroc14cIGfts0sGdEEPUosQTqDOB8fKq9t1l652pEZnN746ZS5pqc0gu08HrW2LK0fiw9c9DVvWOhTrnkwJ31OUz8IpZQO3r5fC60oS-EcWzBZgbcnzTK3J9eWrX51GNPsTRHkA1nFRjDueplSpXrSvLv3A/w587-h618/20220716_072752%20c.jpg" width="587" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4HzNIhc0wZrUhzzff_cUXTzN-EwAGi4pbpavbLHe5WQrmf7cVhOP5uT6ec3Srrcc61UtDw4MWcO8fKdYYzhsV7KVUwS5LZXFSpQKVn82FOAeFCm1WP5eEybG65m_CR4AFIuN-Xtc3XdIrhS1ooAhw77Lv91MuzqIj8cl8buiLda4JWQvBuImb41vq5Q/s3366/20220716_072858%20c.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2999" data-original-width="3366" height="522" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4HzNIhc0wZrUhzzff_cUXTzN-EwAGi4pbpavbLHe5WQrmf7cVhOP5uT6ec3Srrcc61UtDw4MWcO8fKdYYzhsV7KVUwS5LZXFSpQKVn82FOAeFCm1WP5eEybG65m_CR4AFIuN-Xtc3XdIrhS1ooAhw77Lv91MuzqIj8cl8buiLda4JWQvBuImb41vq5Q/w586-h522/20220716_072858%20c.jpg" width="586" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div></div><p></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div></div><p></p></blockquote><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">and inside, you can see the inch or so of space between the lower case fans and the graphics card. the case is long enough and wide enough so that the case fans are not blocked by the gpu, and they are able to positively pressure this case. Exhaust fans at the top further enforce bottom to top airflow. There is room beyond the graphics card for a slim intake fan to it's right.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">For cooling, I had originally used a much larger 14 s cooler from noctua. this removed heat from the processor super well, but left the memory and other components of the mother board screaming hot. I have switched to the much smaller n<span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111;">octua NH-L9x65, and i have mounted a 25 by 140 mm fan instead of a 15 by 92 mm fan. This provides powerful blast of air to chill the m.2 drives, the vrms that power the processor, and the other hot components.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #0f1111; font-family: arial;">I</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0f1111;"> fit in a data center drive, which is great when I use this machine for graphics. It is a 12 T iron wolf from Seagate. very noisy, but absurdly fast. I use it like a tape backup, because it is dozens of times slower than the 2 * 2T m.2 drives fixed to the motherboard. The convenience of having all images and videos on hand in the box outweighs the extra heat generated. There is ample room for at least 2 3.5 inch drives in this configuration. But, even with this large, well ventilated case, It is hard to keep components cool during gaming. This is the most fans that the Sliger company has seen in the case.</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0f1111;"><br /></span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0f1111;">Setting up the system for both gaming and image editing is not so easy. The demands are super different. For still image editing, the i7 is fully used only for very short bursts. Fewer fans can be used, and components can be very close in the box. the environment inside the case is cool, with little bursts of heat that have plenty of time to clear out. Gaming at 4k is a hot proposition. the GPU is going at 365 watts, and the mother board and processor can use over 200 watts. The hard drive and the power supply itself make heat, and the entire inside of the case is 'heat soaked' with a certain minimum temperature. The case is a small oven during games, and if the hot air can not be quickly changed, temperature will go up and up until the processor and the graphics card and the drives all slow down to reduce their temperature.</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0f1111;"><br /></span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0f1111;">Within the virtual world of the game, a super sized cup of hot coffee is spilling onto your virtual junk. The monsters have become jerky robots that are killing the heck out of you, and you are running in place. By the time you shoot, they are long gone! So for gaming, you get the oven hot by running a benchmark program instead of a game. then, you monkey with the fan speeds, and the voltage that is sent to both processor and graphics card. A perfect spot is sought, where the voltage is as low as possible for stable operation. As the voltage is dropped to these components, they actually go faster and faster, and make less and less heat. at some point, depending on the efficiency of the part that one ended up with, you get unstable video, followed by a crash. When using a benchmark program within windows, the benchmark program crashes, but windows is fine, and the computer keeps running. So, you can make a lot of small changes quickly, without having to restart a large game, or windows itself.</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0f1111;"><br /></span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0f1111;">After the best settings are found in the benchmark program, you start the most demanding game, and play it intensely to see if it will crash. The same thing is going on with your heart, where you are running up it's beats to some healthy maximum. With the heart, you can not go until it crashes though! Computer gaming is not for everyone, and it is only fun for people like me who actually enjoy being highly excited and frustrated for long periods of time.</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0f1111;"><br /></span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0f1111;">further refinements: </span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0f1111;">the low profile cooler splashed a lot of air onto the mother board, cooling the components that were overheating. This was good enough for gaming where the processor is only used intensely for short bursts [to load new game levels]. It heats up, but then the game proceeds normally and the processor has time to cool down while the video card does the hard work. With image editing, the situation is different. the processor has long hard tasks to do, and it heats up and slows itself down. it makes a lot of noise when the fan on the inadequate heat sink reaches 100% and stays there.</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0f1111;">I finally realized that it would be OK to use the large noctua c14s heatsink with the fans blowing the hot air onto the mother board. It just seemed wrong to get all that heat from the cpu, and blow it right back onto the hot motherboard components. I solved this problem by increasing the amount of air A LOT. I used the mellow 140 mm a14 fan against the mother board, and the very noisy </span></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><a data-bind="attr : {href:attribute_value.product_url},text:attribute_value.name" href="https://noctua.at/en/nf-a14-industrialppc-3000-pwm" style="box-shadow: none; color: black; outline: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;">NF-A14 industrial PPC-3000 PWM</a> fan on the outside. I removed the mellow 90 mm fan that exhausts the case near the processor, and replaced it with the very aggressive and noisy fan that comes stock with AMD processors. </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">for fan control, i had to use an aftermarket program that is not included in windows or mac operating systems. It is able to look at temperatures inside the computer, and base fan speeds on the maximum temperature averaged over a period of time. This is actually very important. while gaming, the fans must be aware of the temperature of the gpu, the cpu, the memory and the drives. the fans have to speed up to keep the hottest component cool. It does not matter how much noise this makes, as a slowing of the game is just not acceptable. So, I put the industrial fan on the outside of the heatsink and the aggressive fan that exhausts the case on the same fan circuit. they do not run at all when temps are normal. The fan on the motherboard side of the huge heat sink is plenty to keep the cpu cool. The 2 140 mm fans at the bottom of the case change the air in the case plenty fast. But, during gaming, when the gpu becomes a 350 watt heater and the cpu becomes a 200 watt heater, the industrial fans kick on. It is not noticable then, because zombies are chasing me all around, and my tiny home is being rocked by massive explosions. the 2 industrial fans ramp up in speed, and blow a remarkable jet of hot air across the room.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The cerberus case is set up for 2 120 mm fans at the bottom, but 140 mm fans fit if they have screw holes like the 120 mm. noctua has 2 types of fans like that: a general purpose round frame grey fan and a brown fan intended to fit on heat sinks with 120 mm fans. the fans can be mounted with screws or with special silicone fasteners that they include. wherever one can use the silicone fasteners, i do, because the fan will run silently at low rpm in that case. The fan can vibrate a little without rattling the metal of the case. Noctua has several ways of reducing noise in the case, including inventing special plastics and coming up with new ways to make plastic parts that fit like finely machined metal parts. The builder of computers does not need to learn all about fan design. they just need to pay 30 bucks a pop for each Austrian fan.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">i had been using a mini itx mother board in this case, even though it is able to fit a micro ATX board. I found some problems with such a compact build, so i invested in an inexpensive micro atx mother board, the </span><span face=""Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-size: 18px;">ASUS Prime Z690M-Plus D4. This board is not full of expensive attractions. instead, it has 3 simple m.2 slots arranged flat on the pcb, and the area around the cpu is not built up tall as it is on the smaller motherboards. Thus, the memory, and the m.2 drives and the other hot components on the board get plenty of wind from pretty much any fan in the case.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span face=""Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-size: 18px;">the larger board also makes it easy to get into the case with fingers, and make use of fan headers, m.2 drives, and other things without much disassembly. Of course, it allows 4 memory sticks instead of 2, or much more room around a half empty memory stack for great cooling. </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span face=""Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-size: 18px;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span face="Amazon Ember, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #0f1111;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px;">After watching about a thousand you tube videos, from super users like optimum tech, i became confident enough to strip away the fan shroud and 3 fans from my rtx 3080, and replace that with 2 </span></span><span face=""Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Phanteks T30-120 fans. These extra thick fans drive much more air through the huge heatsink of the asus tough gaming card. It is absurd how cool it runs now, with 4K gaming in the lower 60s C. i can not imagine water cooling a 350 watt video card when this simple modification is so simple and allows such quiet operation. In this case, there is plenty of room for 140 mm case fans beneath the modified gpu.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span face=""Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span face="Amazon Ember, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #0f1111;">I removed the data center drive, to further increase airflow and lower gaming temps. Also, the machine runs noticeably faster without the pauses for the drive to start up. I cable managed the result to create large areas of unobstructed airflow. I added an m.2 drive to the empty 3rd slot, to make more storage after removing the huge drive.</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span face="Amazon Ember, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #0f1111;">This build still struggles with the 2 16 gig ram sticks that i started with. I have purchased the newer 13 generation I5 processor, and set up a graphics workstation using 2 32 gig memory sticks. The smaller memory and lack of hard drive space make this a dedicated gaming and entertainment machine that can tackle small image editing jobs. When needed, the data center drive is attached as a USB 3 external drive. It is actually not any slower than it is in the case, and adding it brings back the system pauses that are no longer very acceptable.</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span face="Amazon Ember, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #0f1111;"><br /></span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span face="Amazon Ember, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #0f1111;"><br /></span></span></span></p></div>alf randellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03889028602331228342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3469855410969351977.post-6786870477790586842022-07-04T18:49:00.005-07:002024-03-21T17:48:42.097-07:00small form factor.... medium sized gamer<p> This system is housed in a zzaw b2 case. this case is 3mm thick aluminum, which feels pretty high quality.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEijIhJvPd2cGMyMOVheNd5JwDAmsADA0nNyA2JVo2AJjq_-F_era3afzy-nfBbEpyZEGuEU_BuFXSucVj19Vi9GXLkDN_IaXFn5jJ6gpSlvgVv5FM9g1JyPOVSgA_tJ24s2F8WmjUCoGBV6AE5ESiodahNx-iReTRfGUl_Q6Ttxk6UmjyjCBAOjUosBSg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEijIhJvPd2cGMyMOVheNd5JwDAmsADA0nNyA2JVo2AJjq_-F_era3afzy-nfBbEpyZEGuEU_BuFXSucVj19Vi9GXLkDN_IaXFn5jJ6gpSlvgVv5FM9g1JyPOVSgA_tJ24s2F8WmjUCoGBV6AE5ESiodahNx-iReTRfGUl_Q6Ttxk6UmjyjCBAOjUosBSg=w567-h426" width="567" /></a></div><br />as you can see here, the case is sandwich style, using a sfx sized power supply to run parts on both sides of a divider.<p></p><p>This build is a pure gamer, with stress on the gpu, and cooling.</p><p>at the top, there are 2 of the ultra quiet 120 by 25 mm fans from noctua. the power supply is positioned with the intake toward the vented panel, and the output facing the exhaust fan. these fans are expensive, but they are entirely silent at 1000 rpm or less.</p><p>I used the corsair 750 watt sfx, which happens to have a fanless mode for lower energy demands. the way that the psu is positioned, the exhaust fans draw air though it, lowering it's temperature and further delaying the fan operation.</p><p>I used an old intel board with the i5 9400 processor. this processor got a bad rep because it cost as much as a 12 or 16 thread AMD processor, but it has only 6 cores with no multi threading. just 6 threads. and guess what? for the games that I play, 6 cores that can hold 4.5 gHz can keep up with a very perky gpu.</p><p>i used the very low profile l9 [low profile, 92 mm fan] cooler from noctua to drain heat from the chip.</p><p>this leaves room for a much larger fan that blows air right around the heatsink to cool the other components. this is a noctua 140 by 25 mm fan. It turns at half the speed, but moves several times as much air.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjb7f8XdTVEsooDJqepTYC_RxCYEVrah4bxkHeAEYRpa1bnobn6IvCzpvXX09Y2ew2c9psEcEmM-_UNRQYjznB8hQVukG-c0ATdLO6M8c2M2ULC3xMFNEm6vixSlJEUFNvthsEiXJvbmugYutjJa6gQqQfXSHsGoLU9y59OkwYK5xWQJnFUFyTU3-8bZA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="414" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjb7f8XdTVEsooDJqepTYC_RxCYEVrah4bxkHeAEYRpa1bnobn6IvCzpvXX09Y2ew2c9psEcEmM-_UNRQYjznB8hQVukG-c0ATdLO6M8c2M2ULC3xMFNEm6vixSlJEUFNvthsEiXJvbmugYutjJa6gQqQfXSHsGoLU9y59OkwYK5xWQJnFUFyTU3-8bZA=w552-h414" width="552" /></a></div><br />for the gpu, i chose the ASUS tough rtx 3080, and was able to get the later version with 12 gigs of fast vram. This thing is a tank, with a full heavy back plate, and a metal 3 fan array that really goes fast.<p></p><p>It has no frills, other than an led to light the logo [everything must glow!], and a little switch that tells it if you want the fan to shut off at light load. from experience, you want to allow air to flow freely through your case without passing through filters, and to clean off the innards pretty often as they get coated with dust. It is a little oven while gaming, and every degree cooler means as more frames per second.</p><p><br /></p><p>You should always use the quiet mode, because it does not adversely affect performance. the card will make a real racket when the gaming gets busy, but it will not get warm, or stutter. As you can see, the exhaust fans are arranged to pull air through the gpu heatsink and then exhaust it out the top, so again, the temperature that triggers the fans to spin up are not reached very quickly. </p><p>if you try this same combo, you will have to take off the end of the case with the screws and spacers that hold it, and insert the giant gpu from the open end. It is a little hard to get the screws and spacers back in with the high volume gpu! this card comes very close to the solid front panel, and it is actually threaded for a standard sized screw [times 2] If this card was not so rigid, i would have predrilled holes, and bolted it in solid.</p><p>As usual with these builds, the screw holes for the end of the riser cable do not line up with the threaded inserts in the case. a single zip tie at lower center holds it at the right orientation. The reason is that there are 100 different kinds of riser cable, and it is enough to confuse even the case makers!</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhZwKg8YmUxtJcHIoGK8EDHVkWBXsRasAAX79Gk2xM-HGUzXghOdEcTnLt7nPqlyTHbq7IsRTvmW6YSgPMaAn-yb8jr0w2ANNn0WIvfzNsMSusbb1a30XO0Z4GMZZDgLiV_e7coIj3rGixiLNaZdG8Lpfr4iY06XKHY8yO6D7UJI9gdDyrPbejgqPliVw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="403" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhZwKg8YmUxtJcHIoGK8EDHVkWBXsRasAAX79Gk2xM-HGUzXghOdEcTnLt7nPqlyTHbq7IsRTvmW6YSgPMaAn-yb8jr0w2ANNn0WIvfzNsMSusbb1a30XO0Z4GMZZDgLiV_e7coIj3rGixiLNaZdG8Lpfr4iY06XKHY8yO6D7UJI9gdDyrPbejgqPliVw=w536-h403" width="536" /></a></div><br />and finally, please meet my assistant Yang.<p></p><p>he is a grey long limbed box cat.</p><p>you can look them up on you tube.</p><p>this boxcat can be used for size.......</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgdr3ESMczaoQ7-snqvJ3rcdxfYH1AlEIe9bYFtOi3cYZvbfrL5OsdTr0q7HMJh0dJ6Tar5Oyvughg85bg1nKlSeyHufLoj5I7opDRLpZCu0owmmGjCvTdac_jCFnz5EYdRZu0_9Qtzgyft6h7m88_-BWqjJxmR1_1IIpsXDKlZSC-GBQgg1cU_VHr4vA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="418" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgdr3ESMczaoQ7-snqvJ3rcdxfYH1AlEIe9bYFtOi3cYZvbfrL5OsdTr0q7HMJh0dJ6Tar5Oyvughg85bg1nKlSeyHufLoj5I7opDRLpZCu0owmmGjCvTdac_jCFnz5EYdRZu0_9Qtzgyft6h7m88_-BWqjJxmR1_1IIpsXDKlZSC-GBQgg1cU_VHr4vA" width="314" /></a></div><br />the b2 case is well larger than the boxcat. by comparison, the smaller A1 case that contains my portable gamer fits inside of the yellow case. These small form factor builds are obviously not water resistant or sturdy enough to take blows, so they need to travel in a padded case.<p></p><div><br /></div><div>update:</div><div><br /></div><div>i purchased a larger case for my medium gaming system. it is now housed in a Sliger b610 case. If you are not familiar with Sliger, they are a custom case maker based out of nevada. Cases are 200 to 300 dollars, and have nearly perfect, no nonsense machining. this larger case allows a tall cooler, and several hard drives. It is not sandwich style, like the zzaw case, so it does not require a riser cable for the graphics card. more fans can live in the case, so that continuous gaming will not cause it to warm up.</div>alf randellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03889028602331228342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3469855410969351977.post-77974543685865472542022-07-04T11:47:00.006-07:002024-03-21T17:39:47.588-07:00small form factor gaming computers - smallest possible [ 4 liter ] build<p> This is my spot for describing the tiny, high performance computers that i have been building.</p><p>Although over 60 years of age, i continue to enjoy computer gaming.</p><p>And, i am not talking about tetris.</p><p>Lately, i am playing Doom 2016 at the ultra violence level, at 1440 p and at 180 frames per second, with all settings on ultra.</p><p>Even this somewhat modest level of play requires a high wattage video card and processor.</p><p>Trying to keep 500 watts of parts relatively cool in a tiny case is a real challenge.</p><p>In fact, it is a very cool game itself!</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjpSAuJeisQd_wQTHri2GR3ASuOdUzYLifSaE72DbZk-8jcS0OsYGT-N0Xpa5v42-2-3sgEyaJdO8Ya3sGAiY7AfZLmUTCeJ5L1_AepbrQoSV2Qxt9eRJd_CqVBgzi8CZ0_VbjSGNrsz5Cf5L7feXQTF2O2s5CWqShDyKlwOhnRvL6lT1gYvvAH8xyF5g" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="664" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjpSAuJeisQd_wQTHri2GR3ASuOdUzYLifSaE72DbZk-8jcS0OsYGT-N0Xpa5v42-2-3sgEyaJdO8Ya3sGAiY7AfZLmUTCeJ5L1_AepbrQoSV2Qxt9eRJd_CqVBgzi8CZ0_VbjSGNrsz5Cf5L7feXQTF2O2s5CWqShDyKlwOhnRvL6lT1gYvvAH8xyF5g=w498-h664" width="498" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><p>Feast your eyes on my smallest build, from the mother board side.</p><p>The case is sandwich style, with the mother board and graphics card on opposite sides of a divider.</p><p>The case is the A1 from a Chinese company called zzaw. Actually, a pretty good case, made of 2 mm thick aluminum. </p><p>the power supply is the <span face=""Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111;">Enhance Flex 600W Power Supply ENP-7660B</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: 400; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><span class="a-size-large product-title-word-break" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 32px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; word-break: break-word;">it is costly, and you pretty much have to swap out the noisy fan that comes built in.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: 400; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><span class="a-size-large product-title-word-break" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 32px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; word-break: break-word;">So, this is a pretty hard project for an ordinary builder of large computers.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: 400; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><span class="a-size-large product-title-word-break" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 32px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; word-break: break-word;">In fact, i failed to get the </span>Noctua NF-A4x20 PWM, Premium Quiet Fan, 4-Pin (40x20mm, Brown) <span class="a-size-large product-title-word-break" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 32px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; word-break: break-word;">to run on the internal pins of the power supply. i had to leave a 4 pin fan connector sticking out of the power supply along with the bundle of wires that depart it. So, i used one of the 3 fan headers on this particular mother board, which is the </span><span style="font-size: 24px;">GIGABYTE B550I AORUS PRO AX.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: 400; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">Other items that i used are the samsung 980 pro m.2 drive with heat sink,</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: 400; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">and a set of 2 * 8 gig ram sticks at 3.6 gHz and the amd 5600G processor.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: 400; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">In fact, the low end processor from amd can not run an m.2 drive at it's full speed, but an expensive, fast solid state drive is still a useful investment.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: 400; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">The processor is also not the right choice for using with a graphics card, because it has on board graphics that displace some of it's ordinary processing abilities.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: 400; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">I chose it to run without a gpu during the chip shortage when it was hard to obtain one.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: 400; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">When it tried to upgrade the 5600 G with a 5900 X, i received a bad processor from Amazon. This problem was rampant with the mail order companies at the start of covid.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: 400; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">you would pay full price for a new part, and get an open box with a bad used part.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: 400; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">I also got an intel mother board in a taped shut bag with no gigabyte materials, and it was broken to hell. I tried to send it, and the i7 processor [that also arrived opened and used] back to Amazon, and they refused to take back the processor. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: 400; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">I had already been banned from reviewing products, because i would reveal their various scams to customers. So, not a huge thumbs up for the company that has become our supplier of everything.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: 400; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"> </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: 400; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">Are AMD processors good?</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: 400; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">This was my first experience with amd.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: 400; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">These processors are just for gaming, and do not work well in tight cases or for anything outside of gaming. For an example, the 5600 G is limited to clock speeds of 3 to about 4.5 gHz.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: 400; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">That is great for gaming, but terrible for watching a movie. The AMD chip sits there trying to bake a batch of cookies while idling at 1 or 3 % of its wattage. Even for gaming, the intel processors work much better. An intel chip will ramp up to 5 gHz, and just stay there for the whole game. An AMD chip will start at 5 gHz, but pull down to 4.3 when it is loaded. Also AMD gave up on quality control and stopped testing the chips at the factory during the shortage. so, together with the scammy way that the same dead chips are sold again and again at Amazon, you were almost sure to get a bad chip and to have trouble selling it back to amazon. The flip side of the argument is that AMD is reusing the socket for many years, instead of creating a custom socket for each generation of processor. i was impressed with how much graphics power could be packed into the processor itself, but, in the end, this really does not matter. Modern gaming simply does not work well on a processor chip. It requires a card of it's own, with a separate way to remove hundreds of watts of heat.<br /></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: 400; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><br /></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: 400; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><br /></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: 400; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiA19Lglo2M_GHRfNUHJu02dnyxr-78fqwVzCpsed1B6XacfzDiNHq_oECG_D976EiSmSnGa7taKtxuf705goYuboBqLqlOEVip1P3oV419X34mH7xmc2oD0aJcvzy8hW3UEU21W3cOhzCzx3pbIFasahLXQ0yE9PhmDf47lkBj4fheeQ_NC3y4KWRGgQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiA19Lglo2M_GHRfNUHJu02dnyxr-78fqwVzCpsed1B6XacfzDiNHq_oECG_D976EiSmSnGa7taKtxuf705goYuboBqLqlOEVip1P3oV419X34mH7xmc2oD0aJcvzy8hW3UEU21W3cOhzCzx3pbIFasahLXQ0yE9PhmDf47lkBj4fheeQ_NC3y4KWRGgQ=w450-h600" width="450" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>on the gpu side of the divider, you can see the cute little dual fan gtx 1660 super from zotak. <p></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: 400; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">this gpu is actually way more powerful than the huge 1660s of the past, because it deploys modern memory that is twice as fast. It allows this tiny box to game for as long as desired at 1080p with ultra settings, or 1440p with pretty high settings and frame rates. there is no ray tracing, and even if ray tracing existed, you would turn it off when gaming using this 125 watt graphics card.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: 400; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">you can see the 4 terrabyte hard drive that is jammed into the slot that has been provided for cables to change sides. i was not sure that this arrangement would work thermally, but with the bare metal top of the drive pressed to the aluminum case, the slim 92 mm fan at the top of the case pulls enough air past the drive to keep it quite cool. It is good that the case maker provided the holes on the bottom, and the tall legs, so that plenty of air could enter the case to be pumped back out through the power supply, and to send a draft past the hard drive, and out through the top. The gpu draws fresh air from the side of the case, and sends it out the top.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: 400; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">All fans are from Noctua, which is the Austrian company that makes the most quiet fans in the world. If there is room, it is possible to swap the gpu fans for Noctuas as well. In this case, there is 1 mm between the fans and the case, so I tied the gpu back with a zip tie and left the stock fans in place.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: 400; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><br /></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: 400; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">Performance: the standard way to get smooth gaming is to use a program like msi afterburner, and a benchmark program like heaven, to tune the fan speeds and the voltage for the gpu.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: 400; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">the idea is to load the GPU fully, and to lower the GPU voltage until it looses stability, and then raise it back to the last stable voltage. the fans are tuned to give both cool temps and an acceptable level of noise.<br />I can go into way more detail, or even create a build video if readers wish to build their own small form factor gamer. I has been fun to learn more about modern computers. They have become a sort of light sculpture or visual delight, as well as an expensive fun-oven to play with. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: 400; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><br /></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: 400; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">finally, we need to get a feel for the size of this build...</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: 400; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6cLZPkp-uaTOkhwKCZohWeKCCHQLvRrbSqSvMJnvxAy62hpgGmBnshQ0jGOBYZQFsM6E8v1bJpxAV77ytAM79aY-MSkWQAEnsFitmnwmAU4n4OOElp6oiBprdzc7TofIeMpqv3A06fvJiHnhbk53cF0iRJ72EW1aFdJYZrZ6JQMCL-MVB_oB9VayEVA/s3458/20220606_082043%20p.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3458" data-original-width="2582" height="658" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6cLZPkp-uaTOkhwKCZohWeKCCHQLvRrbSqSvMJnvxAy62hpgGmBnshQ0jGOBYZQFsM6E8v1bJpxAV77ytAM79aY-MSkWQAEnsFitmnwmAU4n4OOElp6oiBprdzc7TofIeMpqv3A06fvJiHnhbk53cF0iRJ72EW1aFdJYZrZ6JQMCL-MVB_oB9VayEVA/w491-h658/20220606_082043%20p.jpg" width="491" /></a></div><br /><p>here is my very lovely assistant testing the small build for sturdiness. He is clearly coiling up for a huge jump, to see if he can reach a very high shelf where he likes to roost. Also, the size is pretty apparent. it is a little small for a cat bed, or maybe even for a cat podium. The A1 case fits in a <span face=""Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-size: 24px;">Pelican 1400 Case.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span class="a-size-large product-title-word-break" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 32px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; word-break: break-word;">the only thing better than a cat..... is </span>Two cats!</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: 400; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><br /></div><p></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: 400; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><span style="font-size: 24px;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: 400; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><span style="font-size: 24px;"><br /></span></p><div><span class="a-size-large product-title-word-break" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 32px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; word-break: break-word;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="a-size-large product-title-word-break" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 32px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; word-break: break-word;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="a-size-large product-title-word-break" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 32px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; word-break: break-word;"><br /></span></div>alf randellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03889028602331228342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3469855410969351977.post-62732186594264288802022-06-30T09:07:00.002-07:002024-03-21T19:01:55.071-07:00do current events seem fictional?<p> I have been reading and writing sci fi for as long as I can remember.</p><p>I mean, as soon as I could write, and was given materials, I began a sci fi story that had been brewing in my mind. </p><p>It was not very interesting, suggesting that a previous period in human history had been more advanced in many ways than the present time.</p><p>Real life has never gotten very 'science fictiony'.</p><p>What I mean by that: events transpired in a predictable way, where the humans often seemed sane.</p><p>To put it another way, if the real events had been found in a novel, the reader would have had no trouble believing in them.</p><p>That is no longer true.</p><p>Many recent events seem like the plot of a bad science fiction novel.</p><p>Things happen, and I say to myself: 'self, that is not really believable!'</p><p>I imagine that I am reading the novel of a lazy writer or a writer that is just plain bad.</p><p>It is possible that I have gotten too old to accept new events.</p><p>Maybe that is what aging is, and each human eventually starts to think that they may be an actor in a lazily written novel.</p><p>a decade ago, if I had been shown this outline for a book, I would have rejected it as a stupid plot for a novel:</p><p>A new type of computer program is devised, where people visit with one another remotely. they quit visiting in person. This program gets so popular that it is used by an enemy country to help elect a decisively unqualified president.</p><p>This president restarts the American civil war, had simply been delayed for over for about a century and a half.</p><p>This president refuses to leave office at the end of his term, and leads a coup to remain in power.</p><p>The coup fails, but the United States is left with a supreme court packed with highly religious and conservative justices.</p><p>Even with a democratic president, a democratic house, and a democratic senate, this supreme court immediately begins to roll back the last 200 years of progress in human rights.</p><p>Women loose the right to abortion, and minorities take a step back toward enslavement.</p><p>With some irony, a civil war reignites in Russia. [A state that succeeded in leaving the Soviet Union is retaken by force]. </p><p>It is clearly bad writing, because the war is symmetrical with the American civil war that has also reignited.</p><p>The only difference is that the American states were prevented from leaving the US, while this large soviet state did leave, and is being grabbed back.</p><p>More lazy writing... The US arms the soviet state that is being retaken.</p><p>At first, the US sends tank killing shoulder launched missiles.</p><p>But later, the US starts sending billions of dollars in long range missiles to the breakaway state, and positions troops along the soviet border.</p><p>It is the Cuban missile crisis in reverse, but, having had more time to forget ww2, folks have more taste for world war. It seems like it will be profitable. Well worth the human lives.</p><p>In a later blog, I would like to explore this idea of a taste for world war. Howe and Stowe talk about an 80 to 100 year cycle that brings us back to total war every 4 generations. It is their 'seasons' theory.</p><p>In the Seasons theory, a generation is embroiled in all out war, and they do not like it. The next gen has almost no taste for war, but the next has slightly more, and, after a cycle of 4 generations, the folks who were alive during the last world war are all gone. A big war once again seems profitable, and not so bad to live through.</p><p>I regret that I have no solution to present.</p><p>I mean, other than we cease to sell land mines and missiles to everyone. And, that we once again strive to reduce nuclear weapons before someone makes a second use of them in war.</p>alf randellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03889028602331228342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3469855410969351977.post-11547168280983131792022-01-25T07:38:00.007-08:002022-03-18T06:53:50.602-07:00What happened to Hollywood ?<p> This is a real question. The way that it stands now, American movies tend to be about crimes and people talking on their phones. So, stealing money and the cell phone experience seem to be what Americans are 'on' about.</p><p>The country is in economic default and deeply involved in a years long cold civil war, so it is no surprise that creative juices have flown the coup. The US is still reeling from Covid, even though we have a vaccine. Basically, about a tenth of the population have packed the supreme court, and are now changing voting laws and health laws. In effect, the black race is somewhat enslaved again, and women are once again becoming the property of men.</p><p>The 10% are the cheaters in our culture. the folks who copy homework and test answers in school. The ones who gang up, play dirty, and cheat while playing monopoly with their own family.</p><p>Hell, democratic supreme court justices can no longer go to the court in person, because the republican justices will absolutely not mask or vaccinate. And, I guess that people who are party to a slow coup and massive civil disobedience are entertained differently. We enjoy learning new tidbits that make us hate and loose more respect for 'the other side'.</p><p><br /></p><p>Americans care mostly about the economy. The 'economy' is just a word for people's mental slavery. We have all bought into a system where there is a 'house' that wins no matter what we do. The economy is a system where we can exchange goods easily, but it has it's own overhead. There is a class of people who act as parasites on the money itself. They wear super nice clothes, and get very nice haircuts, but they squat over the flow of money. They take what they want from the flow, and poop into it without any regrets. They have been taught that 'it is only business'.</p><p><br /></p><p>We used to value bravery and honesty. Now, we have been shown [by electing an evil US president] that bravery and honesty are for suckers. Truth is for suckers. Altruism? Hahahahahahahahaha! suckers! Science was big for a while, but now, we are working with hate and lies. Our culture is like a depressed person that is engaged in self harm, and thinking of suicide. Why else heat up the earth on purpose, and wipe out the other species of animals?</p><p>As it happens, I do have an explanation. We are where we are in history because we failed to pilot our ship. We let it drift on the currents, and we refused to guide it. Every time that we tried to let someone steer, that single person went crazy. So, we let money steer the ship of our history. That seemed perfect for a while. We created a new type of person: The corporation. The corporation could do what a person could not accomplish. It could not die like a person, but continued when the founders passed on. And, it was thought that a corporation could not go crazy. In trying to obtain all of the money in the world, a corporation would automatically do only good deeds for human beings.</p><p>We let the corporations steer the ship of our fate. Over time, more and more parasites formed on the blood vessels that carry the flow of money throughout the body of the economy. Again, the parasites have nice haircuts, and helpful sounding names. They provide 'energy' and 'search results' and 'social connection' and cheap consumer goods.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now, it appears that money can not be used to steer a ship properly. Just like a human being, a corporation can go crazy. It can engage in self harm. It can have fights with other corporations and even with governments. And, it looks like chasing money to steer a ship runs it right into things. The prisons and hospitals in the US are examples of systems that were arranged with the wrong notions of what success looks like. They maximize money for shareholders, but treat human beings like ball bearings to be ground up in the machine. Who the hell feels sorry for ball bearings? you just get angry with ball bearings if they go dry, and are ruined along with everything around them.</p><p>It is possible to re design the system, but humans like to do it with world wars. We have one around once per century, and they really shuffle things around. We wish to have one every time that the soldiers from the last world war die off. They remembered how crappy a world war is. That is where we are at now. The US is trying very hard to get a world war going. The best way is to interfere with another countries satellite nations. It is like messing with someone's kids. They will knock the crap out of you for messing with their personal stuff. China and Russia have not attempted to prevent us from building a stupid border wall. They have said little about our practice of torturing folks that were never convicted of a crime in semi-secret prisons. They have permitted us to chase people away from the southern border with US and Mexican soldiers. To punish families by taking their kids and locking them into small cages while driving the adults away.</p><p>We have done hundreds of things that other countries could take exception to. Deeds that no one in China or Russia or anywhere could take pride in. Deeds that look a lot like war crimes. We have attacked our reporters instead of toning down the obvious misdeeds. We have the best investigative reporters under investigation, and jail them or run them off when they reveal too much. Yet, we seem eager to become involved in China and Taiwan. We wish to take part in a war between Russia and a satellite nation. I am sure that we would not love it if Putin decided to take down part of the border wall between the US and Mexico. What if Beijing decided to place an additional border between the US and Canada? It all sounds crazy, but how do you think that US aggression looks to these older and more established nation states? China is about 5 - 10 times as old as the US as a nation, depending on how you count it. We, on the other hand, do not count the US as a country while it was held by Native Americans. I am not sure why this is. It points to a deep problem with the people that 'settled' or 'attacked' north America.</p><p><br /></p><p>From the Native American perspective, This place was attacked and largely depopulated and destroyed. It is only the good settlers that think that it was 'saved' or 'settled'. We are a newer nation founded on war crimes, and currently struggling with racism and a corporate takeover of the government. We should absolutely not be acting on China or Russia's borders. It would be a good time to stop purchasing humans from warlords and torturing them to death. We need to break up our monopolies and fix the broken systems of medicine and election and transportation. We need to break up cities. We need to switch from fossil fuel to renewables. We do not need to go to other planets or to fly through the upper atmosphere on a tail of burning oil products. We do not need to place mines or drop fossil fuel bombs on other nations.</p><p><br /></p><p>The money system will select war and increased inequality. There are plenty of signs that we have fallen into the trap that caught Germany twice. I have been reviewing video of ww2, and our current military gatherings look just like that. We have the snappy uniforms, and the blind nationalism. We built a bunch of new weapons, and sent them to the border of our traditional enemies. We let Germany take a bunch of countries in Europe before we took action. The US was once a fairly peaceful country.</p><p><br /></p><p>Economic inflation is spiraling, just like it did in 1930s Germany. We have a pandemic that we were unable to deal with, race wars, new restrictive laws, and election problems. I learned more about the Cuban missile crisis, and was surprised at some of the facts. Russia had place nukes in Cuba because we had secretly placed them in Turkey. Both are great launch locations for short range nukes. The overt Cuban installation was dismantled along with the secret Turkish one.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now, we are building 'anti ballistic missile sites' right along the Russians border. It is common knowledge that short range nukes can also be placed there with no obvious changes. Is Russia secretly placing similar missiles off of our coastline? Subs can be anywhere! What would you do if you were Putin?</p><p>Sadly, I have realized that we can actually have a pandemic, a civil war, and a world war at the same time. Right winger organizers are in the position of Nazi party members. They use 'gambits', where you purposely harm yourself in order to get what you want: Refusing the vaccination so that hospitals are filled with un-vaxed republicans on life support; Forming blockades to protest mandates by killing trade and travel; and, all kinds of gerrymandering and new voting laws intended to invalidate democratic votes.</p><p><br /></p><p>I wonder if we can avoid starting a world war on purpose by splitting up the US at this point. The first US civil war is still simmering. It did not end in 1886. Not all the way. This time, we should not fight. We should split up somewhat amiably, as did the EU and Russia. China has too much history to split up into several Chinas, but they like economic war instead of shooting. And, they are kicking our ass that way! That is my suggestion. One group of US states can go back to lynching with ropes instead of knees. They can convert women into property, and maybe remove female suffrage. They can build walls, and conduct the doxing and the armed protests that they favor.</p><p><br /></p><p>The world would see us as less of a threat. I believe that leaders and citizens all over the world see us as an ultra nationalistic threat. I may be the only US citizen that thinks that there is a plan for the destruction of the US that has been discussed between leaders of many nations. If they won this war, they would divide the US up, and take away our guns and ships and uniforms. that would probably create a situation similar to Germanys between the world wars. Another war would be inevitable. I doubt that the earth would be recognizable after ww3 and ww4.</p><p><br /></p><p>anyway.... have a great day!</p><p><br /></p>alf randellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03889028602331228342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3469855410969351977.post-41256447368417073832021-10-27T20:48:00.007-07:002022-02-17T11:17:33.144-08:00sheepie to the left<p> </p><span style="color: red; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">
feeble sheep up and left, awesome wolves head down and right. </span><div><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9rWhqXzsf5-U1Tl6xM78pbmLM4LSuagXOFvikc05VvmDocQWmRboIH7AKIhN_1leYf3hDTKGAyajWh0jcHZhgj9qak5s2UiOi9N3WNJMn5RFlhJfXLC9G9JAyqPnjwSZkii6gxviJ1jmT/s3003/US+with+wall.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1903" data-original-width="3003" height="410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9rWhqXzsf5-U1Tl6xM78pbmLM4LSuagXOFvikc05VvmDocQWmRboIH7AKIhN_1leYf3hDTKGAyajWh0jcHZhgj9qak5s2UiOi9N3WNJMn5RFlhJfXLC9G9JAyqPnjwSZkii6gxviJ1jmT/w647-h410/US+with+wall.jpg" width="647" /></a></div><br /><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"> If I understand the message of the proud boyz and the other right wing groups,
they would like more freedom.
much fewer laws. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">More like the old west. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Well, pardner,
that is Texas! </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">I can see that it is about to go wrong in a big way if the right wing strategy comes to every area of the US. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">It is better than the reds and the blues do not duke it out any more,
but each retreat to their corner. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Build that Trump wall if that is what you want to do. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">But, build it along the edge of a new confederacy. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">We sheeple [as you call us] will fester here on the west coast, with no walls or moats or anything like that. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">You may live using laws that you choose in the southeast.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">You wont have to get any shots, or wear a mask, [but you can wear a gorilla mask and carry an AR15 if you want to!]. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Everything will be up to you in the promised land. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Texas has a separate power grid, tougher laws for those pesky criminals, and much fewer mandates and laws for good people. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">You will never have to give up your guns there,
and [since it is less socialistic] you will be able to keep more of your earnings. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">If we agree to split up, The new confederacy can have laws that are very different from laws on the hippie coast. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Drive what you want to. We will use electric sissy cars,
but you can keep drilling up oil and using the real cars. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">I am pretty darn sure that we will stop drilling in the next few years on the coast. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">It has not been working.
We are going to let women marry women, and adopt kids, and fight in wars. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Men will marry men, and adopt kids, and fight in wars. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">We are going to be big whiners about infectious disease. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Diapers on our silly liberal faces. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">always whining and running off for injections!</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Sort of like the Asians. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Hell, a lot of us are Asian and Jewish and Black and Hispanic and ....... </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Lets just say a date,
and draw some lines,
and everybody get to the right side of the line. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">There are cities and rural areas in this proposed new confed. and on the Coast,
so I am hoping that everyone can find a great spot with their chosen people.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Britain left their union. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Russia lost some of it's satellites. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Now, it is our turn to downsize. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">There need not be any war or economic sanctions or travel restrictions. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Just some new borders, and we can slowly let our governments pass different laws. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">It is already happening. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Texas is passing laws that directly countermand US law. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">There are also left wing law suits against right wing gangs! </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">It is just costly and frustrating and inefficient to try to pass the same exact laws for Dallas and for Seattle. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">And, people will not follow laws now, unless they agree with them. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">And, Peoples paradigms have shifted along cultural and geographic lines, so that they believe things that are in direct opposition. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"> So, yea, lets take a few years to get our stuff in the right place and get what walls we like erected,
and then split the heck up! </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">No second civil war needed.
</span></div></div>alf randellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03889028602331228342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3469855410969351977.post-73015970943281114092021-09-17T11:32:00.000-07:002024-01-21T18:21:25.307-08:00uncontrolled growth in the Methow valley of Washington.<p> </p><p dir="ltr">is the boom in the Methow Valley changing the demographic ?
<br />
Who is leaving and who is staying and who is arriving?
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Does anyone really care, or are we mostly counting dollars?
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<br />
It is not as confusing for me, because I have already experienced a similar change in Telluride Colorado and then, in Moab Utah. No one causes the change. the free market economy is simply allowed to operate without much oversight. There are laws, but less sensitive folk with money can step way, way over the line without meeting up with enforcement.
<br />
<br />
when i arrived in all three places, they were each in a depressed condition. Real estate signs growing around the street signs like cancer cells overcoming and engulfing neighboring healthy cells. People wanting work, so that the price of labor reaches rock bottom. People with money end up with everyone elses stuff. But, no one is driven out. Anyone who wants to can live there. They simply have trouble earning money.
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These are not areas of blight. I would not go to a area that has been exploited and left for dead. I certainly would not go to a city or a place that is chaotic and unpleasant.
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<br />
Telluride was a real ghost town when i arrived in 1976<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> You could purchase a huge<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> ruined Victorian house on the main street for 2000 dollars<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> I was offered the place that i rented for something like 100 dollars per month<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> Why not stop paying my 25 dollars per month for the master bedroom<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> and purchase the building and the lot<span style="color: #d51a27;">?</span> No one would be that stupid<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> said clever young Alf<span style="color: #d51a27;">!</span> I was working for 25 dollars per hour<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> doing high risk roped painting and construction<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> So<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> i made my rent each hour<span style="color: #d51a27;">!</span>
<br />
<br />
The strange situation came about because speculators had bought up the land around telluride<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> and then started a ski area that would make the land much more valuable<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> Then<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> the ski area went bankrupt<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> and was run by a skeleton crew simply to try to make some use of the huge land gamble<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> We could ski a few lifts that were not really connected into a ski area<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> and sort of cross country ski a few miles when we wanted to use a different lift<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> It was very unusual<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> When you skied across the flats to another lift<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> quite often you would find a lift operator that was needing company<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> They had not seen anyone for hours<span style="color: #d51a27;">!</span> just running an amazing ski lift without a single rider<span style="color: #d51a27;">!</span>
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The speculators continued to market their business or scam<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> and in time<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> they succeeded<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> After about a decade of enjoying the unencumbered possession of a pretty nice valley<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> the residents were booted out<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> I documented some of it in a series of cartoons<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> It was so surreal<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> Heavily armed sheriffs forcing residents out of their single wide trailers at gunpoint<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> and physically towing them down the mountain<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span>
<br />
<br />
The town council<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> which used to be stoned hippies <span style="color: #d51a27;">[</span>like me<span style="color: #d51a27;">]</span><span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> were replaced with lawyers in suits<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> The laws changed<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> so that anything could be built anywhere<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> An airport went in<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> even though it was the most dangerous landing place in the US<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> After a few years<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> the runway literally fell down onto the company that had built it<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> The entire works of the company were buried<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> Trucks<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> buildings and all<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> The stupid perched runway was simply rebuilt<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> There was no one left who cared about the valley<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span>
<br />
<br />
At first<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> there was no housing for the employees of the now successful telluride ski area<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> There were literally no workers of any kind in the town<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> They had all been banished to unpleasant blighted areas<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> But<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> there was finally so much money in the valley that the poor stayed as close as possible<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span>
<br />
They built blighted communities in avalanche run out zones<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> and in dank<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> unpleasant side canyons that get no sun at all in winter<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span>
<br />
<br />
A huge fleet of brand new white trucks drove up the hill each morning to serve the wealthy<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> The workers in those trucks would go to jail if they tried to stay over night<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> You have to try to picture it<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> the workers were ordinary people<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> banished from their valley<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> they often wanted to linger after a shift<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> get drunk<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> and then sleep in their vehicle<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> I was a restaurant worker during this period<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> So<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> i was part of this thing<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> I would get off at 2 am<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> after feeding and serving drinks to very rich folk<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> I would then recieve a shift drink<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> At least one<span style="color: #d51a27;">!</span> At 3 or so<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> i would get into my car<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> If i did not drive<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> i would be hauled out of my vehicle<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> and imprisoned<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> If i drove<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> i would eventually be killed driving super tired and a little drunk on the interesting winter roads<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span>
<br />
<br />
i got out of there<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> became a professional rock climber<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> tried and failed to move back<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> and finally<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> after drifting around for a decade<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> came to rest in the canyonlands region<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> I liked the landscape<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> and the way that the self reliant Mormons leave you the hell alone<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> I became one of the best know rock climbers in the world<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> It was easy<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> I had always been stronger than usual<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> and trained very very hard<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> Then<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> i failed to die on a rock climb<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> or to kill myself<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> It sounds crazy<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> but devoted rock climbers like myself almost never make it past the age of 50<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> Middle age is not so good for unroped climbers<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> we tend to be stubborn peter pan types anyway<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> We refuse to stop climbing without a rope<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> and fall down <span style="color: #d51a27;">[</span>go boom<span style="color: #d51a27;">!</span><span style="color: #d51a27;">]</span><span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span>
<br />
<br />
Boom<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> the town of Moab finally made it big<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> speculators went big on giant hotels and river companies and residential real estate<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> They finally repeated what had happened to Telluride<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> The laws were changed so that tiny homes could not be used<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> even if you bought property<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> Camping was forbidden anywhere near the town<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> The wrong types of tourism were expanded<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> so that the desert was not a desirable living place<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> Everyone like me had to leave<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> We could not abide jet boats coming down the river one after another<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> and super loud motorized traffic everywhere that we tried to go<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span>
<br />
<br />
I want to make it clear that that these gentrifications are not straightforward<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> in other words<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> it is not the case that each worker looses their home and must leave<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> There are increasing traffic accidents<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> fights<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> spousal abuse<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> child abuse<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> etc<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> When you squeeze humans<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> this is how they react<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> The police change from chasing cannabis providers and speeders to enforcing the new normal for the very rich<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> They are still the same honest and helpful people<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> but their mission is changed<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> In Telluride<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> one of my best friends and a second officer arrested me after a shift at my restaurant job<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> i was too tired<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> and could not drive down<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> They kept me standing barefoot in the snow in tighty whities for a super long time<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> before i told them that they could hop into the drivers seat and drive me down<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> lock me up<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> shoot me<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> or get the heck away from me<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> They got the heck away and did not ever contact me again<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> I had another officer fired and removed from the valley after he started messing with local women during fake traffic stops<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span>
<br />
<br />
As far as the Methow valley<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> it was in a bust economy when i arrived<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> Moab had become so noisy and filled with greed that this northern valley was the perfect refuge<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> About half of the properties where i lived <span style="color: #d51a27;">[</span>carlton area<span style="color: #d51a27;">]</span> were for sale<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> and a person could stay in a lot of places<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> A caretaker of land was in a good place<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> You know what happened<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span>
<br />
Covid<span style="color: #d51a27;">!</span>
<br />
Now<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> the clusters of for sale signs are down<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> and the street signs can be clearly seen again<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> The handypersons and wood cutters are mostly gone<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> Some folks had to be locked up or evicted<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> A lot of poor people are not poor because they are of low intelligence or have a mental illness<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> They are poor for other reasons<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> some will not exploit others <span style="color: #d51a27;">[</span>the best way to get money<span style="color: #d51a27;">!</span><span style="color: #d51a27;">]</span><span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> Some are not mentally ill<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> but require more space or serenity than average<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> And<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> of course<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> some are mentally and physically disabled<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> Some are quite old and their mate is gone<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> Some are single people with no family support<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> <span style="color: #d51a27;">[</span>hi<span style="color: #d51a27;">!</span><span style="color: #d51a27;">]</span><span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span>
<br />
<br />
Should they all be forced out<span style="color: #d51a27;">?</span> Well<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> if money is allowed to sort out the residents without any human consideration<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> the answer is a big YES<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> the economy and the law are set up correctly<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> No one need lift a finger<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> Each couple can stay on their 5 or 45 acres with their 5000 or 10<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span>000 gallons of water per day<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> The Seattle folk can swoop in on Friday night like secretive visitors from space<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> The automatic door whooshes open and they disappear into their fortress<span style="color: #d51a27;">!</span>
<br />
<br />
The labor shortage is a problem<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> but it will take care of itself<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> there are already out of town contractors coming in to fill the gaps<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> Bedroom communities will grow up down the valley<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> The brand new white trucks are being purchased now<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> They will serve the rich instead of <span style="color: #222222;">'dirtbags'</span> with their damaged Tacoma's<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> If it is anything like Telluride<span style="color: #222222;">'s '</span>rise'<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> the community based organizations will weaken and die<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> you will call someone in Omak or Brewster when you need shoveling or plumbing<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> The white trucks will not park here for the night<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span>
<br />
<br />
We have some organizations that seem to promote diversity and low income housing<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> In practice<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> they are helping somewhat wealthy people become really wealthy<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> so that they can live here<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> It looks like the long fight to keep the valley protected from exploitive tourism and industry is lost now<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> We will soon have tourists in boats and motorized rentals wherever we go<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> The fancy buildings are already going up<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> it is interesting that the new influx of currency is being used for baubles like a super nice library and rich person public buildings<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span>
<br />
<br />
In my infantile mind<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> there are ridiculous visions of the Methow with a diverse community and support for old and sick and poor residents<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> I did not hope for a really nice library<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> That is because i am one of those old sick and poor residents<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> I just hoped to stay here<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> Refugees during the coming wave of infection will not have the easiest time<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> The economy will get bad again<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> and even more folks will be unhomed and driven from place to place<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> This place will be more like Syria or Afghanistan<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span>
<br />
<br />
It is so obvious to me<span style="color: #d51a27;">.</span> but again<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> i am a poor person trying to whine or vote myself rich<span style="color: #d51a27;">!</span> please<span style="color: #d51a27;">,</span> go right on with the plunder<span style="color: #d51a27;">!</span>
<br />
<br />
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</p>alf randellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03889028602331228342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3469855410969351977.post-39222964978194093232021-02-08T08:32:00.001-08:002021-02-08T08:32:27.185-08:00is the US government simply a puppet show used to distract citizens while large corporations create the laws?now the political pendulum has swung the other way. We see a second installment of stimulus payment #2 under consideration. One of 2 oil pipelines have been cancelled. The pandemic is finally being addressed. There is talk of changing border policies.<div><br></div><div>But, there is the lingering feeling that it is all a puppet show to distract us while the CEOs and shareholders of companies create laws, make treaties, and carry out whatever war that they want. It seems that Trump was a sort of Trojan horse that was rolled into the white house to take over the government more formally, and to drop the puppet show in favor of a never ending civil war.</div><div><br></div><div>From the company's perspective, that would have been cheaper than leaving an effective government in place, and spending lots to think up new episodes of the puppet show to distract citizens in new and disturbing ways. it was a strong try, and we got to see a government virtually shut down, international agreements ended, and policy set by an evil clown using tweets in broken english.</div><div><br></div><div>There was a pretty obvious lead in to ww3, with the US standing in for Nazi Germany in this act of the show. What is so scary is how close it came to working! Bullies were empowered, and then whipped by the president to overthrow the government after the election was lost. As a country, the US is a very nasty bully. </div><div><br></div><div>How would one go about fixing this problem? </div><div><br></div><div>Our civilization needs a basic restructuring. Corporations do not need to be broken up into bits. They need to be disbanded. The idea of the corporation was sound 200 years ago, when there were huge continents to cross with canals and railroads. More recently, corporations have become predators or farmers. They live off of the people like tapeworms, or keep them captive like livestock. They are free to create huge messes, and then, after the riches are extracted, their livestock or hosts are left to clean up the mess.</div><div><br></div><div>I have tried to talk about insurance as one of the ways that slavery has been able to continue into the modern age. Insurance is a great scam. People used to have stored wealth, that they would use when they needed a car or a medical procedure. Insurance, and expecially government mandated mandatory insurance is like a tapeworm, that eats the creatures food before it can be digested, and replaces the food with their poop.</div><div><br></div><div>This works because the people are not educated well. They are superstitious and fearful, and can no longer think for themselves. The few that bother to get a sound education are simply hired by the very companies that are making messes and sucking away savings. I know this because it happened to me. i was trained in computers and astrophysics at New Mexico Tech. I intended to work for NASA when i graduated. But, NASA was falling apart when i got my degree, and i was hired by a giant oil company instead. </div><div><br></div><div>This happened to most of my friends at NMT. People that had hoped to help the environment were hired by Exxon. Folks that has always dreamed of using the most powerful computers on earth to solve problems ended up making weapons of war. This is a direct result of allowing a ficticious entity [the corp.] to get most of the money in the world. The people [or cattle] are left with empty bank accounts, and with insurance for any conceivable emergency. This economic drain does not stimulate the economy. The entities simply pocket the profit, creating an ever more unequal distribution of wealth.</div><div><br></div><div>Needless to say, these corps will fight to the death to stay in power. Rather than dissolving, they would destroy the environment, and instigate a series of never ending wars. The wars would not always be between countries. they could be between races, or genders, or groups that believe a certain set of things.</div><div><br></div><div>I honestly can not dream up a way to dissolve the corporations without them killing the world. Perhaps someone will comment with a good idea. I moderate the comments, so dont bother to pin the problems to a racial group or religion or ideology. </div>alf randellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03889028602331228342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3469855410969351977.post-35270336077837584352021-01-11T20:12:00.001-08:002021-01-11T20:12:40.852-08:00why do you do it? a glance at extremely high risk activities<div>Why do you do it?</div><div>A glance at extremely high risk activities.</div><div><br></div><div>I was one of the nuts. I climbed cliffs like El Capitan with no rope. First, you have to understand that a very different kind of person WANTS to climb huge cliffs without any safety equipment, or jump off a cliff holding a parachute in their hands. </div><div><br></div><div>One of my friends used to climb super tall, super hard routes with no rope. Instead, he carried a parachute. Think about it! When he began to fail on the climb, he would push off and try to deploy that chute. I am speaking about Deen Potter in the past tense because he eventually jumped from the top of a cliff that was not steep enough, and he hit the cliff. So did the guy that was flying with him.</div><div><br></div><div>There were not that many 'high adventure' rock climbers when I partook, so i interacted with almost every one. </div><div><br></div><div>I helped Todd Skinner to install his climbing wall just before he went to valley for the last time. I had dinner with he, his wife, and his 3 kids. </div><div><br></div><div>I belayed Dan Osmond for some of his gigantic falls during the filming of Masters Of Stone. </div><div><br></div><div>I climbed with Derek Hersey often, and did a new route in the Cloud Peak Wilderness with his significant other after he got stormed off of the Steck Salathe. I also free soloed that route. It was my most difficult onsight free solo. On sight means that it was my first time on the route, and had someone's hand drawn map instead of memories.</div><div><br></div><div>I climbed both pitches of supercrack with Hayden Kenedy and his dad shortly before he had his trouble on a mountain route. I had been climbing with his parents since before he was born, and then, BAM! he was gone. All of us were left behind in a way.</div><div><br></div><div>John Bachar was the rock police all by himself when I learned to put up new routes. He would watch your style of ascent through binoculars, and remove the route if the style was not up to snuff. He liked my style, and began to mentor me. It was I who trained him up for his still amazing free solo of Father Figure in Joshua tree national monument. John fell from an easy route after sustaining injuries in a pretty serious car accident. </div><div><br></div><div>Indeed, eventually it was thought that i was mentor material, and i had a few proteges. One of them, Andrew Barnes, was one of the better climbers that i had even seen by the time he failed on a free solo in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. His mother became a good friend during the long morning period.</div><div><br></div><div>I can tell you, as a survivor, that it is awkward to rub shoulders with the loved ones of a high adventure athelete who has fallen. They were not a soldier, fighting and dying for some cause. But, there was something driving them to take risks. What is that something?</div><div><br></div><div>If you are not like that, it is going to be tough to understand. Here is a little history from my mom: Alf was a highly sensitive baby. He cried very readily in response to a light that was not that bright, or a sound that was not that loud. </div><div><br></div><div>To me, the light was blinding, and the sound was deafening. I was always on alert, looking for danger. This sensitivity is great when you need to learn something, or are listening to a great concert. But, it sucks most of the time.</div><div><br></div><div>Another feature of this sensitivity is that you can be hypnotized by concentrating on something. So, an ant walking around on a little mound right by one eye might be all that you need for an hour or 2 of amazing entertainment. Do you see it? This trance can be used to block out the constant danger warnings. I have been after the trance because it quiets or silences the constant danger siren that otherwise dominates perception.</div><div><br></div><div>I know, i am writing it, and this makes no sense. A person such as I have described is the last human on earth that you would expect to take part in extreme activites. Wouldn't they turn off the lights and pull the shades; install earplugs; and curl up into a ball in bed? [i hope that you saw the semi colons!]</div><div><br></div><div>Some highly sensitive people do it that way. It does not work though, and those that try it kill themselves after a while. The secret is finding activities that put you into the zone for a long time, without killing you right away. I can attest that climbing a really tall cliff with just your fingers and toes fits the bill! You can zone out in perfect oblivion for hours if you have the right stuff. If you do not have the right stuff, what is the point of being alive anyway?</div><div><br></div><div>'Normal' folk work the same equation as highly sensitive people. But, they always come up with 'life is frigging great, please continue!' while the HSP constantly arrives at 'life sucks, it is past time to depart!' They get a break when they lift their violin, or create a sculpture, or pull off their clothes and try to tackle a tall cliff.</div><div><br></div><div>Normal people do not do that, because they have plenty of fun eating food and mating and raising kids. They do not require a trance to give them a break from living in a kind of Hell.</div><div><br></div><div>I have given quite a bit of thought to physical reasons behind this HSP phenomenon. The brain is actually made up of two totally separate lobes. The corpus colostum, where they join, is a kind of filter than lets some thoughts through. Some of the really dark times seem like a fight between those lobes. The 'voices' that some hear could be the two lobes duking it out. In some respects, they are two different people.</div><div><br></div><div>In my case, i have very high eye pressure, and always have. My mother had the same. Gloucoma is the scary medical word. It is swelled up eye balls. Well, the eye balls are just a part of the brain that can be seen, and that sees. Who needs conspiracy theories with reality is this tripped out? Anyhow, i now believe that swelled eyballs indicate a swelled brain.</div><div><br></div><div>I looked at a bunch of new scholarly papers about canabis. It is the only natural substance that immediately brings down the swelling in the eye, and perhaps in the brain. It was funny, because the researchers also pointed out that it lowers brain size. They totally missed the point, because they seemed to be trying to prove that cannabis was a very dangerous thing to ingest. I suggest that the brain along with the brains light sensors are a bit swelled up in folk like me. It sure as heck feels like that too!</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>So, for people who are extreme examples of the Highly Sensitive Person, seemingly absurd risk taking actually prolongs life. Each climb or jump or whatever is like a suicide attempt that will not be considered suicide. If it is sucessful, there is a wonderful respite from pain, and a glow that lasts for a day or 2. If not, well, you are gone, and do not have to clean up the mess => You are the mess!</div><div><br></div><div>Each interesting occasion resets the clock, making life well worth living. Ordinary life does not have that effect. It puts the HSP further and further in the red, where a tremendous amount of fun is needed to 'break even'.</div><div><br></div><div>HSPs are not mentally ill. Their brains are different than normals, but they are not damaged. In fact, too much sense information gets through the filters, and that is what is unpleasant. HSPs make up roughly 15% of each species of animals. For deer, it is the skinny one with no mate that is always looking around nervously while the others are mating and gorging themselves on branches.</div><div><br></div><div>A researcher named Dr. Elaine Aron studies HSPs. When I typed the letters 'hsp' into google, she was the second entry from the top.</div><div><br></div><div>If you want more information, or wish to see if I made this HSP stuff up myself, you can look online. And in case you were wondering, i do have suggestions that can help HSPs to feel a greater sense of reward from life. It is possible to mitigate the worst risks, and to use mental tricks to put off the seemingly necessary semi-suicides, but an HSP can not practice, or try really hard, and become a 'normal'. HSPs live short, very interesting lives. You know them, because the ones who survive long enough become your favorite actors/actresses, authors, film makers and artists. The need for the trance is a stronger motivation than money, fame, love, or anything else.</div><div><br></div><div>End of 'Why do You do it?'</div><div>by Alf Randell</div><div>alfrandell@gmail.com</div>alf randellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03889028602331228342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3469855410969351977.post-5940940948777198742020-12-05T04:30:00.000-08:002020-12-05T04:30:22.522-08:00angry hornets. epidemic ethics<div>A masking sketch.</div><div>My experience at the landromat in Twisp, Wa on Thurday is very typical of what is going on. The business was at about 80% use, and has added brand new machines to help with the workload. </div><div>When I tried to enter [wearing new surgical mask and face shield, i could see unmasked people milling by the front door. I went around to the back, and used a machine near the back door. I noticed that the mask users were all sitting in their cars, with the engines running to provide heat. I stood outside while the washer was going, and went back in to use the dryer. The 2 non maskers got into a loud conversation while I got my stuff into a cart. I noticed that the conversation was about the uselessness of masking. I opened the back door, and opened 3 dryers for transfer. The landromat owner entered with no mask. He closed the back door, and closed the 3 dryers that i had opened. I explained that i had opened the door for my own safety. When asked about the lack of masks in the business, he stated that one only needed a mask when within 6 feet of another person. He was very polite, but 100% incorrect; Tragically incorrect. </div><div><br></div><div>Covid 19 has mutated so that it is much more contagious. Folks who are going about their normal lives without a mask will be increasingly offering swarms of particles to the rooms that they spend time in. </div><div><br></div><div>We are trying to affect the transmission rate of the virus statistically, so that each secret, [no symptoms] case of Covid causes less that one new case. Even without testing and tracing, this plan of distancing and masking and hand washing can eventually eliminate the infection from our community. We are looking forward to this, so that we can save the masks for big fires and the next epidemic. We want all the kids to go to school. We wish to pack into buildings and enjoy fun community events. </div><div><br></div><div>So, is it OK to stay by the door in a busy and essential business like a landromat? Is it an expression of the personal freedom that we value so highly? Is it an excelent expression of free speach to converse loudly about the futility of masking and distancing?</div><div><br></div><div>I suggest that such behavior represents selfishness and bullying. One does not have freedom to hurt another person. This is not a hoax, with the smart people ignoring lockdowns, masks and health rules that they believe are of no use. The people who are breathing through a well fit mask in public spaces 100% of the time are not fools that have been brainwashed by a political movement. The folks who are staying home and skipping visits with their family are not cowards. They do not lack money or courage. Those folks who are distancing and masking and staying at home believe in SCIENCE.</div><div><br></div><div>Like it or not, SCIENCE is back in as the guiding principle of our society. It is difficult to believe in semi living particles that you can not see, but that can fool your very own body into rejecting your very own lungs. By rights, these particles should be the size of hornets, and they should make a loud sound. It would be easy to distance from a person whose nose and mouth issued streams of loud, angry hornets.</div><div><br></div><div>Since the particles are invisible and have no odor, it seems like an act of faith to believe in them. Further, it seems rediculous to some people to take an uncomfortable action that seems to impinge on their rights. It only seems rediculous because we have not had a health crisis of this magnitude in the US since 1919. And, in a century, your culture forgets it's fear of epidemic disease.</div><div><br></div><div>I am not suggesting a fear based response. People have an ample load of economic and behavioral health worries. I am suggesting a science based approach based on the advice of people like Anthony Fauci and Paul Edward Farmer. During our year of illness, These scientists have been apportioning scarse PPE, ballancing the benefits of lockdowns with suicides from cabin fever, and working out health mandates that slow the spread, but allow food to be grown and distributed.</div><div><br></div><div>I will post this on my blog under the title 'angry hornets', so when some critic of my inteligence has this thread taken down, you can still read my nonsence! Text or write to me for a link so that you may read as much nonsence as you wish.</div><div><br></div><div>Thanks for reading!</div>alf randellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03889028602331228342noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3469855410969351977.post-13345621445699709612020-10-28T20:09:00.005-07:002020-10-28T20:11:31.384-07:00The start of things. Symetry and the big bang.<p> The big bang, as I see it.</p><p>I used to be quite disturbed by the fact that the universe was expanding, and seemed to be doing so forever. That is not a cycle, and cycles are pretty standard in nature. Rarely does a natural thing happen once without repeating.</p><p>A lot of things seem to breath, or to do something cyclic to keep existing. In our case, breath in and breath out, eat and poop, etc. Even the Judeo-christian notion of heaven and hell does not work for me. It does not make sense that a soul comes from nowhere, lives a short time on this planet, and then is filed in one of 2 places for eternity. That is not a cycle, and it is not sustainable. It would not keep going.</p><p>Everything in nature is in equalibrium. Births and deaths eventually ballance. Matter and energy are recycled forever, with no new matter/energy created, and none lost. So, how can the universe explode one time from a single point, and grow forever? There is no symetry and no ballance to that. It is not beautiful, and it does not make sense.</p><p>I started to think a lot about the arrow of time. Processes in the particles realm have no preference about the direction of time. Every single process can happen in either direction. For instance, a particle of Matter and one of anti matter can collide and change into energy. When there is enough energy present in an area, some of it can turn into a particle of matter and a particle of anti matter. </p><p>Bigger objects are collections of many particles. With macro objects, there is a direction of time. Eggs break but they never unbreak. The arrangement of the particles is really important for something like an egg. An unbroken egg is a very organized item, and a broken egg is much less organized. Organization follows a law, so that a given isolated system is always becoming less organized. If you are thinking of the creation of a child, that is far from a closed system. Creating a new human being causes the disorder in the universe to increase. Organization increases in the child, but a larger amount of disorder is created outside the child.</p><p>How does this apply to the early universe? There is so much matter in the universe, and so many complicated structures. So the arrow of time is assured. The entire universe will become less and less organized as time proceeds. Matter is scattered farther and farther afield, and energy degrades to ever less condensed forms. </p><p>So, if we follow the history of the universe backwards, we expect to see more and more organization, and more condensed energy. Times arrow remains locked in by this complexity and organization, until the entire universe is in one location. A single universe sized black hole would not give out any light. It could not rotate, because there is no other matter to rotate in reference to. It would be, in effect, a single particle without motion or temperature. There is only one way to arrange that matter, so the 2nd 'law' of thermodynamics no longer holds. Events can happen in either direction in time, exactly like they do in the particle realm. The big bang is free to occur in both directions of time.</p><p>If my notions of symetry are correct, there would be no difference in the 2 directions of time. There could be people and other highly organized arrangements of matter in both directions. I believe that people would experience the flow of time in a similar way in either direction. There is no forward and back in this scenario. No one is living 'backwards'. And both universes are free to expand forever, loosing organization. This symetry is enough to make me comfortable with the endless expansion and disorganization of our universe. There is no need for a god, or for any miracles. An endless explosion, taking place in both directions of time, is a ballanced and elegant system that i can hold on to. Otherwise, i need it to eventually condense and explode, again and again, in an endless cycle. </p>alf randellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03889028602331228342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3469855410969351977.post-76420381113653036062020-05-16T13:32:00.000-07:002020-05-16T13:32:10.430-07:00A perfect political storm... the American flu!<br />
<br />
The perfect political storm for the United States. This is the time of the Trump flu or the American flu.<br />
We have the intersection of an attempted takeover of the US federal government, a virus outbreak, and World War that has possibly already begun.<br />
<br />
How could I imply that there has been a successful coup in the good old US? I am using my own eyes. A superstitious and demented person has shut down the helpful parts of the federal government, and concentrated on 'making a killing'. The killing includes using the office of POTUS to sell snake oil drugs. It includes lying continuously to the US population. The killing features an early denial of the novel virus, followed by a weaponizing of the virus to get rid of concentrated minorities, close the borders permanently, and to prevent an election.<br />
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The timing could not have been worse. We have not seen a world war in 80 years, and we have not seen a killing pandemic in 100 years. That is how we have stumbled blindly into both catastrophes. The 1918 "Spanish" flu, and the start of hostilities for WW2 around 20 years later are both too far back in our cultural memory.<br />
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Because we no longer fear war enough, we have occupied at least 2 major countries in the world. This does not seem like a big deal to us. I can only imagine that the people of Germany felt a similar entitlement when they blitzcrieged across borders into Poland and the Chech republic. The world lets you grab 2 smaller properties, and clamps down when you take a larger country. This occured when Germany marched into France in 1940. They had been welcomed into Poland, and allowed into Chech. But, even though Hitler assured everyone that Germany simply needed coal, and did not mean to disturb the French people, war was declared.<br />
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Our current situation is eerily similar. We occupied 2 countries because we were too lazy or stupid to switch to better forms of propellant when the time came. REALLY! US corporations took over the government using fake emergencies and distinctily un-American new laws. Just like Hitler turned a fraction of the German population [the brownshirts] against the rest , we have Trump whipping himself up a private army of far right extremists, and a private news service that is more like a propaganda ministry.<br />
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Should we blame the epidemic on China, and try to fight them? That seems to be the strategy for the US war on Covid. We did not stock up on masks, we do not believe in testing for the cattle [oops; i mean citizens], and we have reopened while still the world hotspot for the epidemic. We are not the Covid leader by a tiny margin. No. We have more cases than the rest of the world combined. And, that is without counting! We are the worlds exporter of the virus, sending planeloads and shiploads of untested infected to other countries. We have refused to work with researchers around the world to learn about the virus, and we have only counted a fraction of our own cases and deaths.<br />
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The irony of trying to start a war with China is staggering. After a brief cover up [yes, they are a huge surveilance state], China open sourced their research, and controlled their own outbreak at state expense. They had 5000 deaths, and forcefully curbed the oubreak. They will be now be testing every citizen in Woohan to control a small number of new infections in the original hotspot. We opted to prolong the outbreak, and have settled on a policy of every state for itself as far as testing and contact tracing. This means that there is no strong attempt to end the lockdowns. The lockdowns are ending due to popular feelings, amid a steady increase in the infected rate. And, amazingly, we seak war with the only country on earth that can defeat us easily without any assistance.<br />
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We have an election coming at the perfect storm moment. The last election did not go so well, with obvious election meddling, voter suppression, etc. This one has almost no chance of proceeding well. Basically, we have a king that will not step down without a fight. A fat, superstitious and poorly educated king that likes to divide and harm. A king of con men, who made believe he was rich, and made believe that he was clever. Well, guess what? a brilliant person can fake being drunk or stupid. But, a stupid person can not fake being smart!<br />
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If you are reading this, mister President, Please understand that this is an attempt at comedy. Of course, I know in my heart that you are the most interesting US president in history. There will never be another like you! I hope that you don't mind if we just hold an election using the internet and the mail. The US will split up if you keep on doing what you are doing.<br />
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alf randellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03889028602331228342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3469855410969351977.post-15874146622651169282020-04-21T10:01:00.002-07:002020-04-21T10:01:19.789-07:00A spoon theifs confession<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I am an avid spoon thief.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Spoons are the only thing that I steel.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I don't go after jewel encrusted or platinum spoons, so i will likely remain a misdemeaner spoon thief.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Here is the history:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I was a strange kid. In my own defence, i was jerked around a lot. I was thought to be mentally handicapped until 3rd grade, due to poor testing performance.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">On my end, I remember being curious why the students sat in a sort of audience, because I just saw a blob moving back and forth at the front of the room, and heard clicking and scritching noises along with the speaking. My eyes were finally found to be extremely nearsighted. I was given glasses, and was soon moved to all advanced classes.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Now the blob was writing on a chalkboard, and the sound track was, of course, the same. The sense of sight was very cool, and I became fascinated with photography. I had a hunger to see things, and to collect those sights for later viewing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">To set the stage, I was an undersized nerd child, toting around a Minolta SLR, and taking over the school newspaper, the yearbook, the av department...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Even though my family owns a printing company on 6th avenue in NYC, I decide that it is alright for me to actually steal items of any value from stores. Here is the funniest part... I was a shoplifter with a very strict code of behavior. I only stole photography materials, and I distributed the impact of my thefts over time and throughout dozens of stores.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I always bought items as well. My favorite technique was to arrive in the store with a shopping bag containing a down jacket. I would put on the jacket, and wait through the checkout line with the bag stuffed with purloined goods. I had two or three partners, and together, we could succeed in stores with elaborate mirrors and security.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I also sold photographs, won cash prizes in contests and received large grants to create displays . So, I had a way to 'launder' my illegal gains. I built a darkroom in my parents basement. I was 14, and I learned how to frame a wall, hang Sheetrock, wire sound, wire 120 volt electricity and do plumbing. I already knew that I was a busy monkey, and that keeping a really big project going was a way to beat the blues.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I reach the age of 16 in this way. I start doing commercial artwork for my families print shop, and they start issueing me large checks! But, I can no longer stand to live in a densely populated area. It seems that I had started to sense other peoples thoughts, and that makes it pretty difficult to concentrate.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I run away from home. Not like a young kid, with the classic bag lunch on a stick. I use my wealth to purchase a motorcycle, and forge some documents so that it can wear a legal license plate even though I only have a New York learners permit for driving.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I ride west into the sunset, having all sorts of adventures. I encounter hunger for food for the first time. Wow! No parents to provide food! If I could not be penned up by those adults, I would have to learn how to provide myself with food. Luckily, i had my shoplifting background. As long as I had could work enough to have any money, there was no temptation. but when my belly roared, i saw grocery stores as an extension of my mothers pantry. If I was cold, a clothing store could be my wardrobe away from home. My strict code now protected me from over consumption. I had no greed, because the world was like a giant free yard sale for me. I helped myself to the exact items that I needed to survive.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Enter the season of Winter. Holy moly.... I had forgotten that one needed a warm house sometimes! How could I socially engineer a free house? I did not figure that out, and the cold pressed me south to the Palm Springs area of California.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I set up camp in an isolated side canyon above the Springs, and decided to try a fruit fast. That worked well, as I could pick as much as I wanted from the yards in town. Another group set up camp in 'my canyon'. We started to visit, and I found out that they were a criminal gang that actually included violence in their efforts. They felt that they were beyond redemption, and just spoke plainly about their exploits.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">As a sheltered Long Island adolencent, I had never actually met a hold up enthusiast or murderer before. I did not feel any personal danger, but instead, that the gang would protect my safety avidly. I was not as secure about my stuff. I went out to gather a backpack full of fruit. I stepped outside of my own stingent rules, and stole some tiny item that was not really needed to survive. I was not astounded to find my equipment gone upon my return to camp.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The gang had made it pretty clear that they lived to aquire. I then made a permanent connection between the act of stealing, and the feeling of being stolen from. It was an accident, but it was very effective. I would actually try this technique with a child. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">From this exact moment on, my attitude toward stealing changed completely. I saw that the universe actually had a very finely tuned system to keep track of karma. It was an automated system, and there was no way to beat it. If you were helpful to others, you would never be allowed to starve. If you took their things, all bets were off.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It was very freeing. Any greed that I had melted away. You could not gain things that the universe did not mean you to have. So, there was no need to spend time mooning over all that stuff. You could just enjoy the matter that the universe gave to you.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The gang had left the valley, but my next guest was a very wealthy gay gentleman that lived nearby. He observed my quite naked form, and was motivated to approach me and to offer a deal. Would I please pose as his lover, in exchange for lavish room and board? I would take my drivers license test with a sports car worth part of a million dollars, and have whatever the hell i wanted in my very own building.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">He was a great guy. I explained that I was 16 and seemed to be heterosexual. So, it seemed absurd to fake a relationship with an older man just to get the use of a sports car. It was a complicated deal, because he did not desire sex at all. He needed to make other wealthy males jealous of him.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">We agreed to just be friends. He was very gracious about it, and offered to replace some of my stolen backpacking equipment so that I could begin to hike the Pacific Crest Trail in the spring. I declined that too, but agreed to a dinner at my place for few days hence.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">When our dinner time arrived, I was surprised to see a limo pull up nearby. My friend was supported by a staff! They carried dishes on fancy silver, and set us up a picnic along the side of a small stream. It was absurd but great. I still remember some of the subjects that we discussed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I found out that my friend had devised a plan to leave the remains of our feast behind, as a sort of sneaky gift. I declined all but a Stirling silver spoon and an amazing long woolen blanket. These items were to accompany me on a very unusual hike of the Pacific Crest Trail.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I can go into the hike another time, but this seems to be the start of my rampant and wanton spoonthievery. You may already know that heaps of money are not tempting to me. Tools and guns and very valuable things can be loaned to me, because I always return them. But, you should maybe check your spoon drawer if I have stayed at your house. Are you missing spoons?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">*** note. I am only attracted to table spoons and small serving spoons. I can not be blamed for the loss of teaspoons. Look around under and behind things to recover your tiny spoons.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<h2>
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alf randellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03889028602331228342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3469855410969351977.post-85459460395937149092020-04-11T08:52:00.000-07:002020-04-15T07:46:25.337-07:00Our world warA repeat of history? How could we be so foolish?<br />
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As I filter the news through my nonsense filter, I find that something seems to be struggling to repeat past events. It is the darnedest thing! I am cast back to Adolf Hitler. I can see him pointing and spitting and shouting in staccato bursts. But, this time he is fat and orange haired. And he is talking in confusing circles. He is choosing verb tenses at random, like a oddly flawed lie telling machine.<br />
<br />
Well, I say to myself, “Self..., at least this Adolf is really working for the good of mankind in general, and I live in the wealthiest land with the most personal freedom!.... America of the 2020s bears no resemblance to 1930s Germany !” .<br />
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To begin with, the US of the present day is a force for world freedom and democracy! Well, not so much. My country has recently started bragging about it's skill at torture, and it's world record prison populations. Instead of spreading democracy, my country has most recently occupied 2 resource rich countries. There has been no middle eastern or world resistance to the US seizing of oil reserves and strategic locations. It is reminiscent of the success of the blitzkrieg. Overwhelming, lightning fast wars carried out by gentlemen and gentlewomen in snappy outfits.<br />
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“Well, I say to myself.... at least we are entirely free from tyranny within the tight borders of the US!”<br />
As far as that, the US borders are the scene of some kind of holocaust. Refugees are allowed to come north, are exploited for their labor, and are ejected when their labors are less desperately needed. The “justice” system in the US has been replaced by an absurd concession. For profit jails lock up about every hundredth able adult in the country. Best represented in the permanent for-profit prison population is the black race. A people that were literally stolen from their homes in Africa and brought to the American continent as property.<br />
<br />
The US military fights wars using oil company contract workers as shock troops.<br />
The favorite tactic lately is the precision drone attack. Basically, we burn people to death with robots!<br />
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So, a country that was reluctant to join ww2 when Hitler got out of control, is now using Nazi Germany as it's role model. The place that was once famous for frontier law, mining booms and adventure currently shelters the most spied upon and captured population on earth.<br />
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Note the results of the Covid 19 infection of 2020. It is revealed that the health care system of the wealthiest nation in the world is really a baroque sort of milking apparatus for the captured population. The constitution of the country had not been able to withstand a novel development. Clever checks and balances had been built in so that the various parts of the government would forever be in battle with one another. No religious group or political party could gain too much control.<br />
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The flaw was the original concept of the corporation. A group of people who incorporated (literally.... clothed itself in a body) would enjoy more rights and fewer responsibilities. This allowed such embodied virtual citizens to create impossible things, like railroads and canals.<br />
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An entity like a corporation would be controlled by government so that a single monopoly would not get more wealthy than a country. That did not work. Corporations eventually did form overpowering monopolies, and took over the governments of countries. The US federal government fell in 2011, when energy companies staged a precision false flag attack on buildings in New York City. New laws were passed, and the controls of the best weapons on Earth were passed over to Oil company executives. US elections began to be rigged, so that Banking and Oil CEOs got elected no matter who the people 'voted' for.<br />
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Oil production was never about making the Earth a better place. Much the opposite. Burning a lot of oil is similar to a constant volcanic eruption. And taking refined fossil fuel high up into the atmosphere to burn it inefficiently was probably not one of our brighter mental light bulbs. The checks and balances of the earth's various systems are not suited for controlling an exponential explosion in human population and energy use.<br />
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By this point, the US has dragged it's heals about changing from liquid fuel to gaseous fuel. Big wars were fought to avoid the use of natural gas, which has always plentiful in the US. Now, it is too late for the use of any flammable substance. The gaseous phase of portable energy use will be skipped. The US, having switched from solid fuel to liquid fuel, will now change directly to electricity. The introduction of Hybrid cars in the US was intended to dupe a poorly educated public. The poor cattle actually thought that they were getting electric cars!<br />
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A lot is left up to us {the citizens of the US}. We have a Hitler guy shouting for walls and wars. We really, really care about money right now. Money seems so important that we will go to war. We will fight for the money that we think that we deserve. We have rolled, almost unopposed into our Poland and into our Chekoslovkia. (Afghanistan and Iraq) Israel stands ready to be our Japan. Israel holds a US-made gun against the heads of any resource rich country that defies our might. We even have an Italy and a Mussolini! Saudi Arabia is our pet middle eastern friend!<br />
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I am glad that I did not fall off of one of my un-roped climbs without seeing this. It is an incredible time. The 2020 election in the US is Hitler's graduation from political leader to fuehrer. If Trump wins, we will find that we are already in ww3.<br />
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If Trump wins, I predict that the US will roll into another country with a little more opposition from the rest of the world. And then, we will make some final error that will unite the whole world against the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia, (and a few other US satellites).<br />
<br />
Further, one of our allies will change sides as our leader becomes more and more demented and insane. The US will be conquered, rebuilt by a mighty China, Europe and Soviet power. US aggression will be discouraged by world law, and the US will be divided up, to make alliances between states more difficult.<br />
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[Or, we could elect someone besides Trump!]alf randellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03889028602331228342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3469855410969351977.post-50103256456868905422020-02-29T07:17:00.000-08:002020-02-29T07:19:38.062-08:00my new short story, just the first bit<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Our story</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;">This is not the story of the humans who stayed on Earth. You know what happened to them. They allowed the greediest and most violent among them to make the decisions. They cooked themselves along with the surface of Earth.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It is the story of the doomed race's desperate escape into space. The Armstrong program was intended to locate resources outside of the solar system. It was not a mission of colonization, but rather a long term suicide mission for the crew. Perhaps, the mission parameters reflect the values of a culture in catastrophic collapse. Instead of bleeding off excess population, or an attempt to give the human race remote outposts to inhabit, Armstrong would bring yet more burnable and fissionable materials back to a planet whose atmosphere was no longer breathable.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Armstrong 1 tumbled into the sea along with a long section of western coastline while it was preparing for launch. Armstrong 2 exploded before she could leave earth's orbit, and it was believed likely that a member of the crew had sabotaged it. So, Armstrong 3 was not a strong try, and it's crew was not composed of scientists or star athletes. Every human alive now is descended from a motley group of refugees who were themselves on the run from natural disasters and endless war. Their ship was put together from scraps: A section left over from the previous attempts, and some orbital maintenance craft. The ship's AI was a relic cell phone from a technology that was long forgotten.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>So, keep this in mind as you review this account of the flight of what we will call A3. Neil Armstrong was the name of the first human to step onto a planet other than Earth. He stepped onto the Earth's single moon in 1967 AD. The date represents the number of years elapsed since the death of a powerful political and military leader named Jesus. From now on, we will use the more common LE [LeftEarth] calendar, which started when A3 launched. The account itself is written using audio recordings, a personality profile from the surviving cell phone, scraps of the captain's log and fragments from crew members hand written journals.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Chapter 1 – The Launch<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>From the log of 'Captain' Bess Staggart</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>What a friggin joke! The universe does have a sense of humor! We are launching Armstrong 3 on July 4th, which is the traditional holiday where folks watched things blow up in the sky. It is the 3rd try, and the number 3 also has traditional meanings. 3rd time lucky, 3 times a charm, but also: 3 strikes you're out!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Anyway, this morning after dawn, we were herded onto the ship at gunpoint, like condemned prisoners about to be executed. The launch location was Fort Collins, Colorado. It used to be the center of a vast country, but is now a sort of giant concentration camp. Joke of Jokes, I am designated 'Captain', as if a firework that will soon entertain the other prisoners by exploding over their heads actually requires a commanding officer.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>As the countdown got down to double digits, I gave the order to 'light em if you got em'. The condemned get to enjoy one more earthly pleasure before they meet their maker. Our bridge was like a circus side show. Our fine crew is composed of fuck ups and murderers, with about a year of school between the lot of us. I am captain because I am able to write and to add numbers!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>To paint the picture, I am strapped into the captains chair, which is a rotten old seat from an SUV. I am a tiny blond woman, so I look like a child strapped into a grown up seat. Just ahead sit our 'navigator' and 'pilot'. Jake is a sort of scarecrow pirate dude with a missing leg. He can repair any kind of machine, but his abilities to navigate outer space are not well tested. Jed is a fat little scary clown with one eye. He operated fighting robots in the final war, so he is actually moderately competent to fly the A3 in the unlikely event that she does not immediately blow up. There is some irony in letting the guy who can barely walk find our way, and the guy who can barely see hold the controls of the craft.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Our coms officer, Bareth, is a huge black woman who is formidable in a fight, and can actually hear! The Security station is occupied by a slender man with great dreadlocks. He is named Doll and is very gay. It is as if the least qualified person in the ship were stationed to each post. I guess that it is what you might expect, if scrappy, desperate soldier/criminals were gathered from the battlefield and forced onto a doomed ship.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We extinguish our smokes as the countdown reaches single digits, and tighten up the hastily rigged full body harnesses that hold us tightly to the motley collection of old car and aircraft seats. As the chemical rockets ignite, I realize that the harnesses are made of tanned animal hide with the fur left on.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The craft itself is a modified troupe carrier from the early days of the war. It holds the 5 of us comfortably, but I can not imagine how it can be used for a long journey. It is little more than a cargo container with some instruments strapped to the walls and the seats bolted where the soldiers used to stand holding their weapons.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We are slammed back into the seats, and the carrier pulls away from the ground. I realize that we are lifting unevenly, and shout “can anyone figure out what is going on?” I guess that weak line was my first captainly offering.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Jed glances back with “this thing has 4 motors. Motor 2 is not getting enough fuel. I am starving the other 3 motors a little, and correcting with directional thrusters.” Sure enough, I feel little tugs to the side and the sounds of the little motor beside us operating intermittently. It is clear from the single view-port that we are still headed up, but in a slightly jerky, corkscrew trajectory.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Bareth speaks in the super calm monotone typically used by the radio operator in world war 2 movies. “ Bad news, ground control came under attack just after we lifted off “. She switches on a speaker, and we hear the cracks of small arms fire and the roar of rockets. She repeated again and again, “can anyone respond” ? Finally, a panicky voice comes on the line: “they got the control tower with a rocket. This is James, the cook that gave you breakfast this morning. You guys better duck, because they are directing rockets at you now.”</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Jake is staring fixedly at a screen fastened to the wall near his chair, which looks like a swivel chair from a fancy camper van. “holy shit!” he says “there are 2 rockets gaining on us … If they have enough fuel, they will hit us in around 20 seconds”</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"> Jed barks “are they jinking back and forth like the d6 heat seekers ” ? Jake responds with “yep, corkscrew trajectory, impact in 15 seconds....” Jed starts messing with the pilot controls mumbling, “I know what to do with heat seekers.... “ and announces over the ships intercom: “ brace for impact” He hits a large control, and the main engine quits instantly. He fires a attitude jet to spin us around, and we watch in amazement as both rockets pass us by and destroy each other! They had been looking for the hot engine, and when we killed ours and turned the hot metal away from them, each found the others engine.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>After that strange zero g maneuver, Jed spins us back around, and relights the main engine. I, for one, am getting pretty queasy as the gravity goes from 4 or 5 Gs to free-fall and back again. Jake is keeping track of our position and velocity vector, and calls for Jed to cut the main engine. We are back to weightless again, but, this time, things are calm and quiet. This crew does not look like much, but they are actually operating fairly well! </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Having arrived at the altitude of high earth orbit that we have been given, we drift in zero g, and look around. Broken high tech junk is scattered all around, so it seems that the starship that we have been sent up to has already been destroyed. This takes the fight out of my brave crew, and the bunch of us start moaning and passing around a massive joint of very good cannabis.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We had been captured soldiers, astronauts, and now are stranded space-farers, all in a few hours time. We are just starting to plan out what to do to survive when a sort of giant robot drifts into view on one of the main screens fixed to the arbitrary 'front' of the troupe carrier. It is ungainly, with spindly arms folded against it's sides, and bins of tools and parts affixed all around it's thick waist. It looks like a space tick that attaches itself to fat ships and draws nutrients from them.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The tick ship has huge bay windows, through which we can see humans looking quizzically at our flying brick. I hold up my hand in the classic cell phone position, and Bareth gives them a call on the emergency frequency. When she points to me, I speak into the microphone built into the ancient cell phone affixed to a sort of console beside my car seat. “ This is captain Staggart of the …... ummmm, …. un-named and stranded star-ship. May I ask your business?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We see them scrambling around in there, looking for the source of the transmission. Finally, we see one of them lift an object, and hear : “Hey there. We thought that you had been destroyed during take off. We are the crew of the busy bee, and I am James Tibia, the acting captain. We were part of the entourage around the Gates space station, which was itself destroyed around a week ago. We have been waiting for you, and have been placed under your command.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Another absurd craft comes drifting slowly up, trailing puffs of visible exhaust with each maneuver. It looks like a bell, and also sports large windows. Who puts bay windows in spacecraft? In short order, there are 4 maintenance ships attached to our 4 personnel locks. It seems that lots of the maintenance crew were killed in the attack on the Gates station, and that our mission is to be scrounged together from equipment and people that survived the destruction here. I read a lot of science fiction in my youth, where generation ships are constructed carefully over decades, and the colonists are hand picked from a large group of applicants who are highly qualified, and who wish to leave earth.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In this case, everyone wants to leave earth. The air is no longer breathable, The surface of the planet has been entirely ruined by 4 decades of nuclear, chemical and small arms war. Our normal attire on the surface is a sort of powered and armored space suit. We eat synthetic food, and food that was grown decades ago, before the land was made toxic. We hear little but explosions and commands, breath canned air, eat canned food, and our 'work' is the killing of other human beings. The human life span has decreased to an average of 36 years of age, and most people die in a battle, or kill themselves. There are almost no live births any more, so we have become a dead end civilization. It is only remarkable that folks keep fighting and fucking. I am the most stubborn person that I know, so I understand how this kind of situation can come about. I am always the last person to leave a party, and I can not stop striving toward some end, no matter how ridiculous and unlikely that end may be. It is like a very bad movie that one has watched for hours. It has become impossible to look away until the aweful movie ends.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The human race has been sorted. When the rest of the world declared war on the United States in 2026, the lazy, the obese, and the suicidal were the first to go. When the war went badly, like when the east coast was entirely lost, there was a cascade of suicides numbering in the tens of millions. There was some irony, because the folks who had best prepared themselves with equipment and supplies were often first to do themselves in.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large; white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;">From the audio journal of Jake Stevens:<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I guess that I am the science officer on this wreck, so I have been given an ancient voice recorder. I am well older than the other bridge officers, so my record of events might be slanted in a different way. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A3, as we call her, was launched in the middle of a battle. Our side actually lost the battle decisively, and it turned into a gambit where we risked a small army to get this low percentage space shot off of the ground. We barely foiled an strong attempt to shoot us down, and are now meeting the rest of the crew. They were already in orbit, so, when we arrived in our own stable orbit, they docked with us. Captain Bess invited them aboard. They entered Armstrong from 4 distinctly different types of orbiters: a culinary unit loaded with tasty food and a space garden, a maintenance unit with skilled techs and lots of tools, a pleasure unit that is like a space brothel that makes house calls, and a defense unit bristling with spy shit, weapons and ammunition. Gates station has been destroyed with a single unlikely missile hit that took none of the support craft. The craft had originally supported the Gates, Bezos and Zuckerburg stations before their respective destructions.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It was a bizarre meeting, with our crew still in our armored fighting suits, and the others clean and nearly naked. We were as filthy as it is possible to be, with our suits decorated in a camouflage pattern of soot, blood and shit. Many of us are missing limbs and organs, having seen countless battles, including the deployment of biological, radiological, sonic and energy weapons in addition to high explosive weapons. The other crews were composed of flawless physical specimens with perfect grooming and immaculate cleanliness. Their eyes were not bloodshot or squinted or wrinkled, because they had not been exposed to sun, wind, and the fearful weapons of war. I had only seen such humans in the pre ww3 movies. They had head hair and facial hair, while our bodily hair is shaved or worn off so that our suits can seal properly. Their garments ranged from g strings and decorations for the pleasure staff, to tailored work suits with lots of pockets for the maintenance workers.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Our mismatched group floated around in the zero g, meeting one another. I could not help but admit that the situation was comical. Stinking, beat up and heavily armored soldiers packed in with prostitutes of both genders, Cooks and high tech custodians. Most of our crew were still sick from the evasion maneuvers and the new sensation of zero g. All were shell shocked and exhausted from decades of fighting. The younger members of our platoon had all been born during ww3, so I was glad to see a few gentlemen and ladies that were closer to my own age.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>As far as I know, only Bess and I were aware of our orders to eat the less crucial members of crew after our other rations ran out. In my mind, it hardly mattered. These remnants of a once great orbital community had lives measurable in days or weeks if they stayed in Earth Orbit with no space stations to receive supplies from earth, or to provide spin gravity and military protection.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>After our meet and greet, Bess got us into a rough circle, and began a strategy meeting. When consulted, I suggested that make gravity by spinning our craft, and figure out how to leave our home planet before we were shot down. China, russia, and a few countries in Europe still had remnants of their ballistic missile batteries, and ground based rail guns. We were sitting ducks. We spun up the ungainly arrangement, but it was not at all balanced, and wobbled a lot. The spin gravity produced was weak, had Coriolis effects, and varied in a cyclic manner due it's unbalanced configuration. But, it was a start, and allowed us to strip off our fetid suits, and get clean in the pleasure module. We allowed ourselves 6 hours to rest, eat, and relax after the stressful escape from Earth.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large; white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Bess:<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Our platoon had been hounded across much of Western Utah and into Colorado in the last weeks. Our numbers had dwindled to our present handful. The conditions for us were pitiable, with almost no ammunition or food, and many injuries. I now found myself in a bubble bath! And, I could see my vagina for the first time in those weeks. It was surrounded by a shadow of fine hairs, that had grown since I last viewed my own piss flappers. I smiled when I saw that Jake and Jed were looking hungrily in the same direction. Hahahaha, I was once quite a good looking woman, but my breasts have melted away, I am covered with burns and scars, and my blond hair is 5 mm long. My very last injury was a bunch of shrapnel in the helmet, so my face and scalp are covered with zipper-like scars.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I have a burning joint in one hand, and a cold beer in the other! And, no one is shooting at me! I am beginning to feel as if we might pull this off. I regard my soaking companions. It is hard to look at Jed, as he has removed his eye patch, revealing a ragged hole in his head. He is in his mid 40s, and I notice for the first time that he is not actually fat. He is a compact muscle man, or would be if he got some decent food. He looks like a snail that has been pried from it's shell, and left out in the sun to dry up. He must have been beautiful in his youth.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Jake is more of less the opposite of Jed. He is well over 6 feet tall, and if that is normal, it is clear that people were much larger before the war. He is shriveled on his tall frame, like a statue of a man made from beef jerky. He is also hard to look at naked, because the stump of his missing leg is a total mess. I am to blame. He had stepped on a mine while we were trying to raid a Chinese camp for food and ammunition. The explosion and the screaming alerted the Chinese, and they provided us with heavy fire and gas. While trying to shoot back, I noticed that Jake was writhing on the ground beside me. His suit had deployed it's built in below-the-knee tourniquet, but the gas was melting the flesh from the protruding bits of calf muscle. I gave him morphine, cut away the flesh below the tourniquet, and tried to do something with the splintered bone that still protruded. The saw on my multi tool was too dull, so I used the serrated edge of my mini shovel. I put a spare glove over the result, and taped it up. After we had limped the remains of our platoon out of enemy territory, we found that the gas had melted the glove and the tape onto Jake's new stump. We were out of morphine and most medical supplies by then, so it was difficult to clean up the stump, and to fit a foot of oak to the result. I Sincerely hoped that our new crew included someone with medical experience.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>When we were clean and relaxed, some gorgeous humans brought us thick towels embossed with the Gates station logo and colorful, flawless clothing. We learned their names, and were told that the pleasure module was also the medical module. No one was shooting at us, so we proceeded to the food module through the pressurized walkway that had been deployed around the perimeter of our wobbling wheel. The maintenance workers were going about their tasks with silent efficiency and skill. They had all kinds of tools that I had never seen. They were overjoyed to have something to do, and accepted direction from Jake with obvious relish.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We were seated at a table hastily rigged to the wall that was now the floor. It was a little hard to swallow with the gravity varying with time, and jinking a bit from side to side. But the food was amazing! I did not recognize the look or the taste of the vegetables that were tastefully arranged around the grilled fish and rice. Again, the culinary staff seemed overjoyed to have hungry people to feed, and a mission to accomplish. Desert consisted of real coffee and a baked goodie called a croissant. Jake knew about coffee, which is a stimulating soup made of burned beans. Doll and Bareth were seated with us now, and it gave me a warm glow to see the beat-to-hell remnants of our fighting group smacking their lips and purring with pleasure. I began to nod after the feast. Supported by 2 unfamiliar humans, I was led back to the pleasure unit where I was helped into a hammock, that rocked me to sleep in seconds.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Jake:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We were bathed and fed in the sort of luxury that rich folks enjoyed before the war. The young remnants of our fighting group collapsed into hammocks right after the meal. They are wonderful humans, but they are stunted and physically weak. People do not grow up properly without good air and food and medical care. I was by far the strongest of my platoon, even though I was senior by 20 years.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The coffee woke me up a bit, and I sleep about half as much as the 'kids'. So, after bedding down the rest of the bridge crew, I headed for maintenance. I was introduced to Vanessa, the captain of the unit and a very attractive little Asian elf. We first attended to the wobble, so that our absurd ship would not fly apart without needing any missile to assist it. Vanessa brought me to her office, where we used a computer with a wall sized screen. We assessed the wobble, and found that the maintenance section was as heavy as any 2 of the other units. The center of rotation was midway between maintenance and the troupe carrier that formed the central hub. The extra mass was mostly in spare parts. Her eager crew distributed the really heavy parts to the lighter units, and then shortened the walkways attaching it to the carrier, and to the adjacent pleasure and culinary units.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We got rid of most of the wobble, and then started monkeying with the lengths of the pressurized walkways connecting the hub to the wheel, and connecting each of the 4 units of the wheel to the adjacent one. We got our wheel 'trued', and returned to the hub to spin us up to a really comfortable gravity so that the wheel units were somewhere close to 1 g. Of course, each area of each unit had a spin gravity that varied with the distance from the center of spin. The lightest unit was the military unit, so we had extended it's connecting tubes, and it's gravity was the greatest. The maintenance unit, still the heaviest, had the lightest spin gravity. The hub was a problem. Since the center of rotation was not in the center of the unit, the gravity varied a lot depending on a person's location in the unit.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>At that point, I ran out of steam, and joined the bridge crew for my standard 4 hours of sleep. We all awoke at around the same time, and headed back to the food unit. On the way, I noticed that the huge windows of the pleasure unit provided a really disturbing view. The stars and the giant disk of earth sweeping by at a relentless pace. I solved the puzzle of the huge windows. It was meant for zero g sex! It would be quite a treat to look at the stars or the ruined planet while doing the happy space dance.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We had another big meeting, this time including the military, who had showed up last to our spinning junkyard. The big concern was how to move the 'ship'. The chemical fuel tanks were mostly empty, and no more deliveries were expected. Vanessa had a spare central power unit for the Station. It fused matter to produce electricity and thrust and heat. It could accept any matter at all, and the more that you fed in, the more power and thrust that it produced. We formed groups to work on various problems. Of course, I joined Vanessa and a few of the better educated techs to rig up the power unit. The military folks had a small armed shuttle, and most of them went out in it to scavenge stuff that we really needed. Anything left in Earth orbit was up for grabs. The maintenance folks had a bunch of repair robots and a few extra large space suits with thrusters and tools.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Jed de-spun the ship. Van and I went out in two of the suits while a tech used a robot to gather any usable materials from the cloud of debris that was once Gates station. We decided to create a superstructure of aluminum that would allow the fusion drive to push our contraption without breaking it apart. All of the units had standard air locks, as well as standard fittings intended to bolt on additional tanks and equipment. While a tech used the computer inside to figure out the best place to push on the hub, we got started welding and bolting. Several techs brought us aluminum struts from our stores, and several others sorted space junk and trimmed the best bits for use in our sculpture.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We got the thing built that 'day', slept, and attached the drive unit the next day. Our soldiers returned with scavenged parts, fuel, food and more. We put some of the salvage to use right away, and soon had the fusion drive hooked up so that it could be fed matter and controlled from a station that we attached to wall of the hub. The drive itself could be reached by crawling 'up' a pressurized tube when we were using spin gravity, and by doing a space walk in free fall or when under thrust. It was not safe to work on the outside of the ship while spinning, unless the worker was strapped tightly to the hull.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>One day blended into another, as we connected the 5 separate units for power, water, communication and control. We heard nothing from the earth rotating below us. In the last few years, the atmosphere had been damaged so severely that smoke signals worked better than radio signals. We could see explosions, one of which put out the lights of the last city visible from space.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;">We watched as the last large ice shelf pealed away from Antarctica, followed immediately by mile-thick ice bergs that had been waiting just behind the shelf. The resulting waves were clearly visible, and the seas swelled to cover more coastline. Ordinarily, I would be reluctant to leave a perfectly good planet, but Earth was no longer that good planet.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large; white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Captains log:<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The parts of our ship are now connected into a fairly sturdy arrangement. By sheer luck, we are the only object that is left orbiting Earth that possesses military capability. Thus, we have been able to refill our chemical propellant and water tanks, and stock up on Oxygen and Nitrogen. We already had literally tons of food, but we now have a working grow room with all kinds of plant starts and seeds. In our last full crew meeting, it was decided that this mission was not to be a suicide mission whose purpose was to locate stuff to haul back to Earth. We have changed it to a colonization attempt. Hanging up here above the natural disasters and war has put our situation into perspective.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>But which way to go? If we intend to head out of the solar system, the nearest systems with planets are tens or hundreds of light years away. We certainly do not have the equipment or support that would be needed to terraform a harsh planet or moon. We need to find one that already has an atmosphere and liquid water. We need not stay near Earth, which will require thousands or millions of years to recover from it's infection of greedy and warlike humans. We have to depart before someone is motivated to send a nuclear tipped missile our way.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Science came to a halt when the war started. Some planets are known to exist, because the star dims slightly when a cool body comes between the star and our telescope. We would be able to boost at 1 earth gravity using half of our matter supply. The second half would slow us down for our visit to the chosen solar system. We did not have a fancy generation ship built over decades. We had a flying scrap-heap. So, we picked a close one. If anyone was still alive when we arrived, we could at least find matter to continue the search if the first try was a dud.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large; white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Jake's voice record:<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It took 3 months to get ready, and then we took away our spin, got the ship pointed correctly, and lit the fusion drive. It was a little hairy, because I remembered that a fraction of these prototype drives blew up instead of making power, heat and thrust. We had a good one! We now had a wonderful, steady 1 gravity that did not vary from 1 to 0 g depending on location in the ship. This proved too much for the orbital crew, many of whom had been born in space. We settled for .8 g, which was very delightful for the Earth born, and tolerable for the space born. And our velocity increased in a most gratifying way. It would be our children and grandchildren that would reach the star system, if it turned out that we could survive and reproduce.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>As for fuel, we had changed the nature of the mission, so we did not put people into the drive. We used poop. Yes indeed! The first human mission to the stars flew on a plume on ionized shit. This really tickled my sense of Irony. Seeing how well mankind had done as stewards of our once lovely jewel of a planet, it was strangely fitting.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I had been raised on Science fiction novels and movies. In these, space-farers zip about from adventure to adventure, with some kind of major human or mechanical problem solved during each episode. Our trip was nothing like that. Most of our crew had been raised in a totally isolated gated community, and were accustomed to going to work each day. They had raised the children, washed the clothing, and repaired the 'homes' of the wealthiest humans that had ever existed. They had defended their space city against attacks from Earth, and from the defenders of the stations. And, other than myself, the bridge crew had spent their entire lives fighting an all out war that lasted for over a generation.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>For us, uneventful ship life was like being in heaven. We were eating the finest delicacies, and we socialized with the well educated and physically flawless humans. To us, the space-born were like angels. They were not violent or crude like infantry soldiers. On the other hand, they had no real leaders, and needed us to make the sort of decisions that their mega rich employers had once made for them. It was a magical partnership. We were accustomed to tons of action and excitement, so we would have faced problems like obesity, boredom and suicide without the calming influence of the space-born. In short, they knew how to party!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>If the trip had been filmed, it would have been a porno flick instead of a space opera. The fusion drive had a maintenance cycle of it's own. It would be shut down periodically to clean out the tube where the decomposed matter was accelerated to create thrust. It was a great time to get out of the ship and work on the various hulls that protected us, as well as the framework that supported the drive. A suited worker need not be tethered to prevent the ship from scooting away at .8 g. It was also a great time for 0 g sex. It was not long before we had some pregnancies, and our first big surprise.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Susan Brisk, a young member of the pleasure staff, gave birth a little over a year into the trip. The boy baby had breathing lungs and a beating heart, but was otherwise unresponsive. Dr. Jane Stoddard, also of the pleasure crew, could find no brain injury, and no evidence of a birth defect. Was it was sheer bad luck that our first in-flight birth was a perfect looking Downs syndrome baby? The drive appeared to be running clean, with just some low energy gamma rays and neutrinos leaking out. We were well out of the solar system, and far from sources of ionizing radiation.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>So, when Heady Fry gave birth, we watched that second male baby intently. Alpha Fry had the same problem. As the months elapsed, neither Alpha Fry or Saturn Brisk recognized their Mothers, or attempted to raise their heads. While this was not an all out disaster, the Armstrong mission looked like it would be a flop as a far as anyone reaching the new star system with consciousness. Then, we had our first in-flight fatality. The military staff was being cross trained to perform maintenance, as there was no fighting to do. Steve Cross took a high energy particle through the midsection during a zero g space walk. It did not even puncture the suit, which could repair itself from such common events. But his heart was stopped for 15 minutes while we got him inside, and it could not be restarted. Simultaneously, Saturn gave his mother Susan a huge smile, and began to gurgle and wriggle about.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The timing was too coincidental to ignore. It appeared that we were isolated from the well of human souls. We had the 103 souls that we had taken from Earth, but could not obtain more souls. Someone had to die and give their soul up before a baby could become concious.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The Frisks wanted a soul for their baby. They wanted it enough that the father, Horace, offered to kill himself. He was of the military crew, and had a long standing feud with his superior. The two decided to fight a duel to provide the soul. Killing 2 birds with one stone, as it were. We used the largest chamber in the maintenance section, which housed the majority of our spare parts. The parts were re-arranged to provide a fighting arena and a viewing area. It was a very strange event, because the combatants had been raised around each other, and were really pretty good friends. Their differences had arisen over years, and they had been amplified by the close quarters of the ship. Everyone was pretty darn sick of their constant bickering, which had become a sort of knee jerk response for the both of them.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>They chose to battle hand to hand, so we lit the drive to provide a steady .8 g. We set up a sort of fence around them, so that no spectator and no spare parts would be harmed. Both fighters were in spectacular condition, and sturdily built. So, the contest dragged on for hours. It was really quite surreal. Their were many rest breaks, during which Horace and Sam chatted amiably for the first time since launch. They still hated one another fervently, but were relieved to be dealing with the issue. Finally, Sam dashed Horace's head hard enough onto the deck plates to end the battle. Crew members had begun to drift in and out of the audience after it became evident that watching people fight for such a long time was no more interesting that watching an all day porno film. But, of course, Alpha and Heady were present, and the infant began to croon at the exact moment that Horace breathed his last. The father's soul had migrated to the daughter.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Captains log:<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I thought that this was a mission of escape from a trashed planet. But, It has turned itself into a spiritual journey. It seems that we have only the exact number of souls that we left Earth with. If someone is born, they need to wait for someone else to die before obtaining consciousness. There are some open questions, such as 'what happens if someone dies and there is no empty baby to receive the soul?' and 'is it our velocity, or our distance from Earth that is causing this interesting complication?' If the souls are part of Earth, then there is little point in colonizing another planet. It can only ever have 103 conscious human inhabitants. If it is a velocity issue, we will have access to more souls when we slow down relative to Earth.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Since we were sent to find resources and not to colonize, we have a random selection of creatures and plants that can not create an ecosystem. We do have some very practical and skillful people. And, driving around in space with soldiers, cooks and space prostitutes is a lot better than fighting an endless and unwinnable war. Rather than stranded in space, I prefer to think of us as enjoying a 4 generation long space vacation.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My own attitude has really shifted during the months of launch preparation. I was born to a migrating sort of scavenging and fighting tribe. It was also a bit of a cult, eschewing a strange mix of old time Judaism and native American nature worship. If I had to describe my own position in the tribe, it was assassin and spy. A small independent tribe's best defense plan is to penetrate and if necessary, behead the nearest large tribe. During my 3 decades of life and fighting, I have seen the war go from an invasion of the United States to a mad free for all. When we were driven from an area, we were just as likely to find our tribe fighting a more religious Jewish Tribe as opposed to a Muslim tribe or a remnant of the original Chinese or German invasion forces.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Yea, I am treating the official captains log of Armstrong 3 as a chatty diary. On the other hand, if the human race survives, future humans might be curious about what happened here. I am ready for some answers myself: When we slow down, will we have access to a supply of souls? If someone dies without a baby to inhabit, does that soul stay with the accelerating ship? No one has gone this fast before. We are not sure that it is safe to get close to the speed of light. Does matter turn into light at some point? We are exploring many aspects of reality at one time.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>About babies, I am starting to think of that exact subject as the shell shock wears off. I have searched my workings to figure out what sort of daddy feels right. I am leaning toward my science officer, even though he is ancient. Compared with Jake, every other crew member looks deformed and stunted, and seems mentally handicapped. I must look stunted and slow to him. Not to mention, shriveled and unattractive compared to the amazing, succulent women of his pre-war days.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Jake's spoken log:<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>2 years have passed, or the planet that we have left has orbited it's star twice, since we departed that solar system. We are between stars, and moving at .2 C. We have little to do except to look way ahead for bodies that we definitely should not hit. We would be lucky to see a unlit block 10 meters on a side for long enough to blink before hitting it. And, hitting an object one meter on a side should be enough to vaporize us. An object the size of a sugar cube could let the air out of many pressurized areas.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>There is the small problem that nearly half of the crew wants to have babies, but apparently, someone has to die to animate each new person that is born. There is some speed or distance limit for the human soul, and this fact could only be discovered by the first fools to get going really fast. This only seems like a problem because we have begun to decompress from the war, and can now think about other things besides avoiding land mines in a landscape of buried munitions, or drawing a few more breaths of canned air while remaining isolated from the scorched and toxic atmosphere.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>That is what I remind myself when I feel at all low. Even if we had no destination at all, and were not loaded down with food, fuel and breathing gas, we would still be better off. I estimate that the earth currently holds just a few tens of millions of humans. Each day, that number drops. It is easier to count surviving species of mammals than to enumerate the lost species. Ordinarily, one could feel homesick upon leaving one's planet. I only feel relieved.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Another thing that I never again expected to feel is amorous. I have always had a tendency to dislike and avoid people. My mom said that I had been a troubled baby, crying at loud sounds and bright lights. I had difficulty sleeping, as the sleep state resembled the dead state a little too closely for my comfort. And, of course, I had trouble mating. I am a very vigilant monkey who is always looking for danger. And, since the start of the endless war, danger has been abundant. Other people are not potential sexual partners. Rather, they are sources of disease, injury and irritation. At best, they compete with me for food and air. At worst, they are sources of equipment and nutrients.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Lately, I have been feeling drawn to people. It is strange, because the wartime inhibitions are still in place. From a distance, the attraction seems like hunger. But, as I draw near, I find that I do not seek to eat the persons flesh. Instead, I wish to learn about the person's habits, and to understand what motivates the person to continue living. Male or female, they all look young and short and perfect to this old wreck. In fact, the younger crew members all look like the same person. It is only the older crew members that look like individuals. I really like to work with Vanessa, but I am not drawn to her. It is the captain that draws me toward her. Like a massive object in space, she bends space so that I wish to orbit her. My eyes go to her often, and it takes a massive effort to look in another direction. My body tries to occupy the same space that she is already occupying. Like a star, she radiates the wavelengths that I require for my well being.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>For my part, I try to hide my attraction, and to supply an anti-gravity that keeps me at the proper distance. I can only imagine her distaste for her absurdly tall, wrinkled and one legged science officer. She hides it well, and continues to rely on me for my physics degree and mechanical handiness. She puts up with my pre-war anecdotes, and my fascination with bad ironic puns. I am going to try to speak with Bess about this topic.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">NOTE: Jake recorded some of his lectures after he became a teacher. As the only crew member that had lived before ww3, he had certain frequently asked questions...</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Jakes class notes:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;">student: <span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>why did you leave the sol system. Wouldn't it have been much easier to try to terra-form Mars, or even to hollow out an asteroid?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Jake:<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Great question! Why travel 4 light years to a strange multiple star system when the sol system still had bases on dozens of planets and moons, and there were still many unexplored asteroids and moons? The war had raged throughout the solar system, and there was no sign that it was letting up. When outposts are abandoned in wartime, they are usually booby trapped, and purposely despoiled. The outposts had not been set up as great places to raise children. They were mining and weapons making operations that were also military forts.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>No matter where we went in the sol system, we would never be safe. Also, and this may not make sense at first, but we were a people that had only known war. It seemed wise to wander in the desert for 40 years, and raise a generation of humans that knew only peace. Lastly, we were shot at during the launch, and were not being given time to make careful decisions.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Student: <span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>What was it like at the start of ww3?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Jake: <span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The situation took a long time to develop. WW1 and WW2 were both started by People in the European continent that wanted more land. They also wanted to gain control of the entire planet. But, the rest of the world ganged up on them and defeated them fairly quickly. Both times, it took less than 5 years.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>WW3 was pretty much the United States and Israel fighting the rest of the world. The US was reluctant to switch from fossil fuels to renewable fuels. So, when the world supply of burnable hydrocarbons got harder and harder to pump to the surface, the US started taking over other countries. There was a country called Afghanistan, and then one called Iraq. It was a replay of ww2, where the aggressor, Germany, took over 2 countries before any other countries came together to stop them.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>So, when the US took over the third country, the rest of the world had combined it's power to bring the bully country to it's knees. The problem was that the sides were actually pretty well matched. The whole world combined had crushing sea and land power, but the US and Israel kept control of space and the majority of the off planet colonies. This lead to a war that lasted for 4 decades. It ebbed and flowed back and forth, with the world winning decisively, and chasing the remaining US military into space. Then, the US would return to Earth with some devastating new weapon, and gain control.... When we left, this cycle had repeated so many times that humans had deliberately ruined the Earth and all of it's nearby colonies.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Captains address to the crew at year 10 event:<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We have been heading toward the Centaurus system for 10 years now, so we are a quarter of our way into the 40 year trip. We have been accelerating at 1 G, and will be for another 10 years. Then, of course, we will slow down for 20 years. We started with 130 souls on board, and have had to control our births and deaths so that total is constant. As you know, we have settled on a bout or duel per earth year, unless a fatal accident makes a bout unnecessary. Thus, we are proud to have 10 space-born crew members that have never known Earth. I wish that these children had not known violence, but, of course, their own births had been made possible by fatal duels.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We have been putting our dead into the engine, as well as any items that we brought that have not been useful. We need to make some pretty big decisions soon. It is possible to cut the engines at any point, and then spin the ship to create simulated gravity. When we are close enough to slow down and stop at 1 G, then we can figure out what else to convert to energy to create the thrust. We are already short of water, and some trace elements, so we have to reclaim those valuable materials before feeding matter to the engine.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>As for our limited well of souls, We have many questions about this surprise result of relativity. Will souls be able to reach us after we decelerate to explore and settle planets? Perhaps there are souls already there? The physics of the human soul is not well understood. We are the first humans to go so quickly.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>On that note, I would like to ask someone to take over the captain job. This is the official announcement that your present captain has a bun in the oven after patiently waiting her turn. The culprit is none other than Jake, who I coaxed using the very last bottle of single malt scotch in this area of space. Who ever takes the job can give it back in a few years if they do not like it. Due to my age, this will almost surely be my one chance to spring off an offspring. I like the job, but I would not be able to give it much attention while breast feeding. I see that no one is eager to accept the captaincy, which is probably a good thing. The job should not go to a person who craves power over others, but rather, to a person who can see the whole picture, and is reluctant to exert authority.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>With that said, Beth stepped down from the stair that she was standing on so that she could be seen. Jake came over to her, and wrapped her in a big hug. It looked to the crew like an adult clutching a child. Jake and Beth were the largest and smallest adult members of the crew, as well as the two oldest.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">The next emergency, as told by Jake: <span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Our next big problem is The mass crisis. We really wanted to get to the nearest star system to sol with some original members of the crew still living. We were doing our best with the physical and mental education of the young, but they were space born children of parents that had also spent part of their lives in earth orbit. We expect them to have some problems entering a gravity well, and have no clue how strong that gravity will be. That is the Nutonion way to state it. Einsteins new way of looking at gravity has the new star curving space so that the planets go around it, with each one thinking that they are going straight. Anyway, we need more mass to put into the converter if we wish to get to the Centauri system with living earth-born humans in the proposed 40 year time frame.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We have tried grabbing mass with a giant magnetic scoop, but the particles that we grab slow the ship when accelerated to the correct velocity to bring aboard. The lost velocity was not quite regained by the mass converter. We tried finding particles that are already heading in the same way that we were, but have failed to get anything but virtual particles that often pop back out of existence before they can be used. Killing half the crew would work, but no one wanted to be the missing mass.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The answer occurred to me in a dream. I saw the ship, reconfigured in a line instead of a ring. One of the units was missing. So, we shut down the converter entirely, got everything useful out of the pleasure unit, and cut it apart. We arranged the remaining units in a row along the direction of motion, and rebuilt the walkways between them. It took about 2 weeks, and then we started to burn the parts of the pleasure unit. We did some math, and figured out how much to burn, so that we would not have to sacrifice another pressurized unit to the converter. The quickest trip time with the fuel that we had would give us 2 years of free fall before we turned the ship around and pointed the converter the other way to slow down. That 2 years could spell disaster. The space-born were already pretty spindly, and it seemed unlikely that any of us could live on a planet after 2 years of loosing muscle mass.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This problem is no emergency, and we have almost a decade to figure out a solution. After all, we do not know if there is a livable planet in the Centauri system, and we can not guess what sort of gravitational field and magnetic field we would find if there is a planet the correct distance from the main star.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>On a personal note, I have certainly never fathered a child. Not on Earth, and not while hurtling through space on a nutty mission to seed another star system with human beings. However, I plan to keep right on solving science problems, and filling the role of second in command of</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Armstrong 3. Beth will be doing the heavy lifting in bearing and raising our star hopping infant. I hope that someone steps forward to take the captaincy, so that I do not have to move into that position.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">A birth in space, as related by Beth Junior when she could dictate into the cell phone:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The duel has been held, and our half blind pilot is being fed into the mass converter, minus his water, phosphorus, and a few organs that were not too worn out. I am a week overdue, and getting worried about the size and increasing weight of my baby. What the hell? Is she trying to get to my size before making her appearance? We have few medical supplies after a decade of flight, so there will be no pain killers or anesthetic, and no complicated surgical procedures. I will push this child out, or die trying. I have been a soldier and in constant mortal danger for much of my life, so this is just another battle for me. The penalty is the same as an Earth battle, but the rewards are more interesting by far.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My water broke while I was on the bridge, watching Jake and his science team attempt a new method of capturing matter. The idea was to deploy a strong magnetic field in a funnel shape around A3, and coax charged particles into a spiral path that would bring them into a special strong tank that had been rigged to the hull. We got charge particles all right, but they got too heavy as they were accelerated to our present fraction of light speed. They turned the special tank into a colander. In less than a minute, the tank had been sawed neatly in half by the rapidly spiraling particles within. The birth started while Jake was talking about some kind of magnetic bottling inside of the tank that would allow the particles to slow without scoring the walls.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;">I retreated to my bunk with Jean, our midwife. I tried to push my daughter out for 3 days and nights. We tried our last muscle relaxants, but she would not emerge. Finally, the midwife made the incision to make my vagina larger, and the baby exploded out at the touch of the knife. I had a glimpse of the infant, but she was lying still in a giant pool of someones blood. I guessed that it was my blood, but before I could think another thought my vision turned red and the lights went out.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A moment later, I opened my eyes. Jean was holding me. I could not see properly, nor was I breathing. She gave me a little shake, and pulled some stuff out of my mouth. I spit up some more material, and was able to take a breath. It felt strange, as up until now, my lungs had functioned more like gills in thick fluid. My ears were plugged up, but they cleared a few minutes later. Jean was working with my mom now, who was clearly dead. She had split open, like the victims in the alien movies. Jean stitched her closed, mopped the floor and gathered the soaked sheets. I knew that the water would all be reclaimed. In fact, I knew a lot of things that a newborn should not know. I was the captain of A3, and partnered with it's science chief.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My thoughts were hampered by the newly made and mostly un-wired infant brain, but I knew that my soul had migrated instantly from Mother to child. The pilot's sacrifice now seemed like a waste of souls, and I wondered if Jed's soul would fly with us as we continued to accelerate at one Earth gravity. It would be a good experiment to skip the next duel, and provide no new soul for the next crew offspring. It was not that risky, as newborns could apparently be left soul-less until the next crew fatality.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Jake's audio log:<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I had no way of knowing that my new baby girl was also my wife. Apparently, the soul went directly from mother to daughter at the moment when she was orphaned. It was clear from her gaze, and from crude attempts at hand signals, that this infant was very special. But, her brand new vocal cords could create only stuttering cat's meows.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I was stunned for several days, as my very favorite person out of the few that had departed earth was abruptly gone. Every time that I turned a corner while moving through the labyrinth of the ship, I expected to see my sweetie coming towards me, with that slightly lop-sided grin. Then, I would remember that we had already recovered the minerals and water from her vacated husk. There had been some words as the remaining dust was fed into the converter. The only female person that I had ever really cared about had been traded for a little bit of velocity as we neared the flip around time.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Baby Beth:<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I soon gave up trying to communicate with the adults, and spent a few months watching the trip as a kind of movie. I insisted on spending days on the bridge with my dad and husband. It was amazing to watch him solve the many physical problems associated with gathering mass to keep us at one gee after the turn around point.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My mind was new, and it's wiring was formed while thinking about our current predicament. We were going so fast that we had begun to behave as light in some ways. We grabbed at charged virtual particles and single atoms of gas and dust with ultra strong magnetic fields that we had learned to create during the trip. We did not need to capture much of it for the mass converter, as bringing the particles to some velocity between their previous velocity, and our fraction of the speed of light, slowed us down just fine.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We found as we slowed, that more and more of the particles could be captured and fed into the converter. There was no problem maintaining the amount of simulated gravity needed to keep the bones and muscles of the crew strong. We proved Einstein's special theory of relativity, in that there is absolutely no difference between changing ones velocity in a steady way, and going near to a massive object. Gravity is not a force that pulls matter together. It just seems that way. Matter bends space, so that heavy objects seem to attract other objects.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Infancy is a waiting game, that one starts with no mobility and no ability to communicate. It might have been boring, except that I was still on the bridge of Armstrong 3. Following a crew vote, the captaincy had passed to the science officer. Jake had kicked up a fuss at first, until he realized that the additional work would keep his mind off of his loss. So, in a strange way, I was still sort of the captain!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large; white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Jake's audio log:<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>At several weeks of age, Beth can lift her head, and has begun to use her hands. Aside from the cooing sounds that she makes, her hands are often busy trying to form signs. She already wants to communicate! I followed a tutorial on American sign language, and found to my amazement that my newborn baby was already using it to create sentences. I only needed to learn to understand the signs, as Beth understood my spoken words perfectly. She was able to describe in signs the strange sensation of being born to ones-self.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Who would have guessed this strange conservation of souls rule that the universe seems to stick to? Will our population always be limited to the size of our original crew, or will we have access to a larger well of souls once we have slowed down? I feel as if we have fallen off of the flat world. The physics of the human soul was something that we had cheerfully taken for granted.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Enough of my personal life. The mission is going better than we had any reason to expect. Try as I might to trick someone into being captain of the ship, the sons of bitches simply elevated me from first mate to captain. I did not forget my physics just because I was given another job. In fact, we had accelerated for too long to be able to slow down with the mass that we started with. We gambled that we would learn how to capture mass as we gained velocity. We did learn how to make much stronger magnetic fields, but we never really got much mass to put into the converter to provide thrust.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We will flip around and burn the other way, ardent in our hope that we will figure out how to gather mass enough to slow us down before we arrive at the Centauri system. We were having a big physics brainstorm on the bridge, with me holding baby Beth in my lap upon the captains chair. We had focused the strongest magnetic field that we could generate forward, into a funnel shape that we had worked out. Particles would be captured in the open end of the funnel, and were lead, in a spiraling and decelerating path, through a magnetic bottle neck into a container. This container had been attached firmly to the ship during the zero g period when we flipped. Sadly, almost all of the particles escaped as their tremendous accelerations were converted to furious spin about the inside of the magnetic bottle.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Beth suddenly started cooing and hand signaling with animation. The signals came too fast, and I only caught a few. The word 'Anchor' is the only sign that I remember. Then, she pivoted about in my lap, and began to work the controls for the magnetic bottle. I moved to stop her, and she let out such a squeal that I backed the hell off. She totally re-aimed the magnetic field so that it was behind us. She then changed the shape into a gigantic parachute instead of a bottle.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I shook my head because I was supposed to be the science dude, and I had no idea how the magnetic bottle could get any matter by dragging it behind in our wake. It was then that the new pilot, a blond teen named Abigail, announced that we were now decelerating faster than expected. She was able to back off the consumption of matter in the converter, so that we would have a good velocity for planetary maneuvers exactly as we reached our new star. I started to help Beth to adjust the shape and size of the field so that the most deceleration was noted. The best shape ended up looking like a pair of opposed hands dragging fingers as if to tear a hole larger.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>So, yea, my Baby, who is also my wife, figured out that we did not need to capture any matter to put into the mass converter. Simply dragging at the matter without trying to bottle it allowed us to open the bottle shape into a vast reverse funnel that behaved like a magnetic parachute. By the time we were done fine tuning the field, our mass consumption had dropped enough to allow us some thrust after our arrival!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Baby Beth:<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I am no longer an infant. Now, I am a very agile toddler. My movements do not have the polish obtained from years of using one's muscles, but I have the skills of a lifetime at my disposal. Sometimes I forget which body that I am in, and make an error like tongue kissing my Husband/father. I can stay up for more than a few hours at a time, and my physical brain has developed enough to be used for abstract thought and long range planning. I can speak haltingly, but some sounds can not be formed with short vocal cords and no teeth.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Armstrong 3 is now so short of certain trace elements that members of the crew are dying from diseases similar to what ancient seafarers suffered from.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Fights to the death are no longer needed for 2 reasons. There are ample souls available, and women are no longer healthful enough to bring a baby to term. We still have years to go before reaching Proxima, and it is not clear that anyone will be alive when we arrive.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I am amazed at my own ability to do empirical science. The new brain has developed without the constant threat of war. Instead, it was nurtured in a loving and safe community, and challenged by sticky physics problems. We have lost the instruction booklet for the mass converter, so that no one understands how it works. It is a black box that accepts matter, and gives back electricity and thrust.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>But, I believe that the converter can do more. I suspect that it works by taking apart the matter at the atomic level, and exploiting the binding energy that used to hold the atoms together. It is worrisome to monkey with the drive before it is done slowing us down. But, we need a few males and a few females to reach Proxima alive.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Jake:<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We had a crew vote, and it was decided that Baby Beth would be allowed to modify the mass converter. It is liable to kill her, and to leave us hurtling along at high velocity with no way to slow down. But, our current projections show that 0 people will be alive when we get to our new planet.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>There were some weeks of studying particle physics, and creating a custom space suit and a tiny tool-set that a toddler can use. Then, we killed the drive, and my life partner drifted over there in free fall. She used a power driver to remove a tiny round hatch, and crawled on in.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We had rigged a simple intercom, and were surprised when we heard peals of laughter from the toddler. It seemed that the device had been designed to be operated by nincompoops, and had very simple instructions printed on the inner surface of the unit. In less than an hour, Beth had turned it back on, and changed unwanted mass into buckets full of water and heaps of elements that we needed to return to good health.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The mass drive itself was a small sphere inside of a much larger anti- tampering shroud. There were other treasures within this shroud, including a very sturdy notebook computer, incredible tools, and a detailed manual for the converter. The manual, titled 'general purpose reactor, tamper resistant.' soon revealed it's secrets.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Not only could the drive transmute elements, by bombarding them with neutrons, but it could be used to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen, create vast amounts of heat, or to create a pretty large explosion. It had been factory preset to make thrust with a few percent left over for electricity. But, it could make power without any thrust and visa versa. Because of the method that it used to make electrical power, it was also able to release a tightly collimated beam of charged plasma. The beam resembled the output of early science fiction ray guns. It was useful for taking matter apart at a distance.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I let out a huge sigh when I saw my Baby/wife crawl out of the drive unit, dragging a big bag of tools and booty that she had found inside.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Beth:<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My mind is going at a mile a minute, as folks on Earth used to say. In my personality is still plenty of distrust of humanity, and the scars from the horrible struggle to survive on a ruined planet. But my brain is made of new mind meat. It's connections and wiring had been formed while slowing down at one G, and approaching a mystery solar system. All of our problems now are physics problems , and not problems with tactics or strategy in war. We have not had a fight to the death in a long time, because so many of the crew have died from nutritional difficulties since we started running low on potassium and trace metals.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In my bag are smaller bags containing a good supply of the needed elements, and we can easily do the chemistry to convert the elements to digestible powders that can be eaten and added to the water that feeds the hydroponic plants. We will be able to make other matter into oxygen and hydrogen, and make water! Finally, we can again have more than zero percent humidity in the air, and remain hydrated with tasty beverages that are, of course, our own recycled pee.</span>alf randellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03889028602331228342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3469855410969351977.post-6019713698114913252020-02-06T18:22:00.001-08:002020-04-15T07:54:33.187-07:00Marching morons rant<span style="font-size: large;">The marching morons is a very good short story written in 1951 by Cyril Cornbluth. It predicts a future of infantile and unintelligent humans that have completely overpopulated the earth. They travel about in electric cars that are none-the-less wired to make loud sounds, and to spew out copious amounts of smoke. They drink only colorful sports beverage.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">There is a movie based on the story, and it is called Idiocracy. It is able to use some recent changes that have taken place in the US to predict an even more absurd future.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">As i move about in my obstinate old man manner, i am confronted by these folk. Obese blobs whipping by in huge showy SUVs, while eating crunchy bits and chatting on the phone. I was once on the good side of the inequality, with the backing of a prosperous family, and posessing the right qualities of youth, male gender, extra height, education, white color, etc. Well, i have crossed firmly over to the have-nots now, and it is really different. I collect food stamps, await crappy Chineese items in a mailbox that quickly fills with paper advertisements, drive a ruined car, etc. When i try to work, i am asked about my licensing and bonding. Only jobs that have been rejected by all bonded workers are offered, and that sort of work often goes unpaid. They are other poor folks, forced to troll the local bulletin boards, looking for a new poor worker to defraud. It is just business! </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">People once chose their contractors according to skill level, but now almost all work seems to be insurance driven. Insurance companies decide what work will be done, and who will do it. The morons decide which insurance company will hold onto their emergency money, and tell them what to do and when. They brag to one another when they feel that they have ripped off or defrauded an insurance company. And yet, they long to be 'covered' for any unfortunate events that might occur. And, of course, they do not need to save money in case they have an emergency. that is what insurance is for! </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Being covered by every type of insurance does not make the morons jolly. Instead, they seem desperate, and needing to do some 'business' of their own. Let the buyer beware of Craigslist and e bay! Using their telephone and computer, the pudgey super heroes attempt to strike back at other consumers for the blows that they have suffered. I understand the feeling. I have recently spent hours on the phone trying to contact state insurance, making mistake after mistake in a clearly intended circular path that has the caller speak to tape machine after tape machine with no results at all. I feel the futility that must be intended. The rich do whatever they want, and the poor march around in circles and wait on lines.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Modern humans ought not to be herded into rooms (schools), and made to look and listen to explosions (cars) and loud advertisements all day long. It keeps their feeble minds on the subjects of travel and money. Nature is portrayed as something to avoid by using electronic equipment. Everyones best friend is the steaming dragon that awaits them at all times (their car again).</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">An obvious campaign has been waged to get the marching morons to live short lives where they are frightened into staying put, and performing some pointless repetative task instead of learning and traveling and growing plants.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It would not work, except that the morons are kept constantly immersed in the false illusion, and confined/protected in the middle of a herd of other marching morons. Constant advertisements and explosions are required to keep them from returning to their natural state of wonder. I don't mean to suggest some giant conspiracy theory. It is not necessary. All that is needed is to concentrate on money and it's admirable amassing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The country of Syria recently downsized it's population. It was only business! They used their military to throw out the fraction of the population that was not desired. They forced them to march themselves over the border, where they would become something between somebody else's problem, and a weapon of economic war. The United States is doing something similar. People are being forced from their homes, and converted into economic refugees. It is a culture of fear that keeps workers at absurd jobs. Mechanization is helping to eliminate jobs that have not been outsourced to poorer countries. There appears to be No alternative to a future with self driving cars and robots that can drive or work way better than a person.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Americans don't really do much anymore. They pay for stuff to be done, and say that THEY did it. Or they do work with fossil fuel, and claim that THEY did the work. Their lives are entirely scripted, and they have almost no choice in the direction that their lives go. Seeking money is really what they do. Art and exercise is mostly ignored. Making money seems to be enough for most folks. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Get enough of the green stuff, and avoid getting GOD angry, and you have it licked.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">That is the motto!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I say that life is too short to be confused about the purpose of life itself. Life is for looking at the spark in oneself and others. what is that spark?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Its pretty!</span><br />
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alf randellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03889028602331228342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3469855410969351977.post-33778792553057560452019-12-31T09:34:00.001-08:002019-12-31T09:34:23.611-08:00busy monkey<div>What it's like to be a busy monkey:</div><div><br></div><div>I realized that I was not a typical person when very young. Just looking around, and savoring the aromas, and listening to life's sound track was way too stimulating for me. It will be difficult to explain to a reader that is not a busy monkey. Colors are too bright, sounds are too loud, and smells are much more intense than is required to identify the odor. This can be very entertaining. For example: laying on the ground looking at ants while birds sing is like a fantastic movie that lasts all day long. It can also be a huge problem when the stimulation gets too great. The busy monkey is likely to misbehave and to retreat into a protective shell.</div><div><br></div><div>I had other senses that I naturally assumed were shared by the human race in general. I could recall past events with unusual clarity. For instance, I was able to purchase my college text books, read them from cover to cover one after the other, and then return them for a full refund. My test scores were nearly always 100% with no studying at all. But, there was no trick to that, because I could look up the answers very quickly in the mentally photographed pages, or recall the appropriate lectures word for word.</div><div><br></div><div>I also found that I could tell what people around me were feeling. Again, I thought that everyone could do that, and I wondered what all the talking was about. I found that one person that was in a good mood was no problem. But 3 people nearby provided too much signal. A person that can see auras clearly told me that mine was as big as a city block, instead of extending just slightly past the skin. If I was not able to draw that aura closer to me and stayed in a city, I would literally die.</div><div><br></div><div>A good memory is not always disturbing to the owner. It can be like money in the bank. I have been trained for many professions, gaining skills easily. One need keep no records. The down side is that I recall stressful events very clearly. It is hard to be around people when you remember every stressful event that you have shared with them. It helps if you have experienced many positive events together. If you can tell what they are feeling, that makes them very real and 'persony'. You can step into their shoes, and they need to be comfortable shoes.</div><div><br></div><div>I do not believe that I am mentally ill. I certainly seem so when overstimulated or trapped. Despite the gifts, my life has been one of constant flight. I can't stay in a city, where people, with their emotions and schemes, are thick. I fear any type of captivity, so that makes personal relationships close to impossible. I have managed a 3.5 year relationship with a woman, but we probably broke up 60 times in that period. I succeed at nearly any job that I choose, but a formal job is similar to a prison sentence of indeterminate length. The most difficult job that I attempted was field engineer in the oil field. There was a solid 10 months of intense training, with a kind of final exam for the small minority that made it through. I ran a crew for 2 years then, writing bills of up to $120,000, and receiving bonuses of up to $3000 for a single visit to a well site. I learned to care for the crew on the road, controlling their drug and alcohol consumption, and making sure that they were well rewarded. I handled disasters, including a well explosion and a high speed highway accident complicated by explosives and dangerous radioactive 'sources'. The US part of that company [precision drilling] failed, and I was the last engineer in the US to be laid off as they wound down their American operation.</div><div><br></div><div>I love to take photographs, and have been recognized with grants and sales of expensive art images. It is very enjoyable to let others glimpse my cartoon world. I have made some documentary films, including one where I was the subject of the film [A desert life]. It won awards, because it allowed viewers to feel like a busy monkey for a few minutes. I was to be flown to the awards ceremony, but of course, I was unable to undertake the trip out of fear of over-stimulation and captivity.</div><div><br></div><div>For a long time, I occupied my time scaling cliffs, often with no rope. I have a body deformed by German measles during gestation. I was able to whip it into some kind of shape so that I could travel about and climb the most difficult climbs in the US. I did this for about 40 years, taking a break in the middle to try academia and heavy industry. I traveled a loop along the Rockies, and then back along the coastal mountains. For income, I guided climbers, sold images, and repaired climbing shoes. At the age of 55, I encountered chronic soreness that made it impossible to continue. My friends were nearly all dead by this point. Un-roped climbing is a mostly a self regulated activity. </div><div><br></div><div>I began to take care of remote properties. With my ability to use tools, hunt and endure long periods of being alone, I was the ideal caretaker. Each client told me that I was the best that they had tried. The other caretakers had visited the place infrequently, and did the bare minimum to keep it going. I stayed there, totally content to do my busy monkey stuff. I was then hired by an entire family in Moab, Utah. They gave me a nice car, and bought the old hospital in Moab where I could live. When the family vacationed, I moved into the parents house. I began to work for a solar installer in Castle Valley, and built my first tiny home in that isolated town.</div><div><br></div><div>Moab was very good for panoramic photography, with it's red rocks eroded into all kinds of interesting shapes. The town itself grew greedy in time, and converted itself into a noisy, unpleasant playground for fossil fueled recreation. I towed my 19 foot travel trailer behind my Jeep to Washington state, to prove a new well at a friends property. The Methow Valley proved to be a somewhat pristine area, with a river that always runs, and is was protected from exploitation by the federal government.</div><div><br></div><div>I built more tiny homes, carrying one to California to show to a perspective buyer. I rolled that one on the way back, and injured my pelvic floor in the process. I was able to sell the wreck for a fraction of the material cost, and build more. By this writing, I have built a 10 by 14 observatory, an 8 by 12 bedroom, a 6 by 8 tool shed, the 8 by 16 tiny home that rolled, an 8 by 8 kitchen, an 8 by 10 climbing gym, and a 10 by 12 foot shop.</div><div><br></div><div>I moved up the valley from Carlton to Winthrop, and began to work for another large family. I concentrated on operating heavy equipment when not building portable solar buildings. I made trips to the parent's ranch in eastern Washington, serving as welder and mechanic. I received some big city medical care, including the removal of all remaining teeth and the fashioning of dentures. That is where I am at now, having achieved 61 years of age. I continue to build an elaborate castle for myself, become trapped in the castle and then kick the castle down. </div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div>alf randellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03889028602331228342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3469855410969351977.post-45925718357683212902019-12-16T08:51:00.003-08:002023-05-31T17:30:37.521-07:00a month at a run down ranch<div>
I was living on an amazing property along wolf creek.</div>
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I had fought the neighbors tooth and nail to be able to exist among their elite number without constant calls to the county, the health department, and the fire department.</div>
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By being a very considerate neighbor, i had worn down their hate over the course of a few summers and a winter. Now, some had actually started to visit the first tiny home community, and to give me the sort of gifts that rich people cast off like golden turds as they proceed through their privileged existences.</div>
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My goal was to improve the 45 acres that dominate the flat center of the valley where Wolf Creek meets the Methow river. Once it was possible to reach all of the 9 non-divided 5 acre parcels in a passenger car, my ambition was to create clusters of tiny homes with large solar energy systems that required little energy input from the outside. Every building would be portable, so that the 5 acre parcels would be subdivided and sold with a well and a septic system, but no other infrastructure.<br />
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I was underemployed, because many of the neighbors would not hire a non licensed worker who was also mostly despised. But, being a pretty stubborn dreamer, i just continued to create the buildings while living on food stamps, exploiting the food bank, and enjoying the fantastic health system in Washington.</div>
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A young gentleman named Russel was added to the property by the owners. It was done by telephone, without a careful physical inspection of the equipment that he meant to bring to the place. Russel had a ruined Winnebago dumped off of a tow truck in the center of the property, and then hauled in a ruined slide in camper tied with rope to an ancient self made trailer. He had been evicted from the areas lowest quality campground. </div>
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The neighbors became frantic, because they perceived that their flawless retirement hide-out was becoming a low-end camping ground. There was trespassing, photographs, and the county shut the property down. I had 60 days to depart. The ruined RV would remain there, abandoned by Russel.</div>
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The owners parents have a large ranch near Spokane. I had been there twice before to help with welding and mechanics. The Ranch is in it's final stages of collapse. There are no buildings that can be used save a metal shop and a metal storage barn. The other buildings are in ruin, with a row of collapsed structures trailing away from each standing structure. There are no machines that work properly, including the passenger vehicles. Just hundreds of wrecked machines and trucks all over the place like a crazy junk yard. I have not seen a meter of good fence on the place, which attempts to imprison several thousand cattle and a few hundred bison.</div>
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The ranch has trouble attracting able help, because there is no place to live on the ranch. Capable workers do not do hazardous work for minimum wage with no benefits at all.</div>
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Thus, the ranch is worked by ancient hands that get crippled and die by the time they learn how to use the ruined equipment. The owners are now getting too old to work the place, so there is need for a real clean up, and perhaps, a habitable building that could house a young family that might be capable of running such an operation.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikKijmSUpw8FP2AuEAaZShgNUIirH1dXc0gWlVpjQRrmo2hRAXJ5n4KX8JY6v7Yv8jf97eRDRm3zE4MT46l2-KePY3Hn8uMgMutX4OvH3ySWhXDAf3eQO6Nv7gGEj19wWjrfMSS1-kCK5_spSTGBge7pN0JTlQgxLt2Gkp7oJoz-0-h3tsTRl5R9YqlA/s1560/_AL67653-Pano%20aa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="543" data-original-width="1560" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikKijmSUpw8FP2AuEAaZShgNUIirH1dXc0gWlVpjQRrmo2hRAXJ5n4KX8JY6v7Yv8jf97eRDRm3zE4MT46l2-KePY3Hn8uMgMutX4OvH3ySWhXDAf3eQO6Nv7gGEj19wWjrfMSS1-kCK5_spSTGBge7pN0JTlQgxLt2Gkp7oJoz-0-h3tsTRl5R9YqlA/w640-h222/_AL67653-Pano%20aa.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>
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A deal is struck with the elderly ranchers. I would pay 10 hours of work per month to stay near a ruined house while i remodeled it. The son and I brought over one of my tiny buildings so that i would have a clean and pleasant place to live while i did the remodel. it would literately take years, so the ranch bought me a nice pick up truck that i had found with cosmetic front end damage. Only, the ranch backed out of the purchase in mid stream, leaving the son to purchase the truck in my name. It is a nearly perfect Toyota Tacoma, but with a smashed front, bald tires and filthy oil. I need such a truck to change between the coast and Eastern Washington, but my Jeep Cherokee is already adequate if i stay on the coast.</div>
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I move into the tiny home and spend a few days trying to clean up the area to purchase my months rent. Then, I attempt to begin the remodel of the house that is completely full of hoarded trash, dead animals, and toxic dust composed of asbestos, mold and animal droppings. I have a room mate, who is an elderly worker from the Ranch. He is supposed to help clean the building, but is too self centered and insane to do anything but clean 'his' room, and to play with his hoardings. He begins to bring his stuff to the house, filling the entire room from corner to corner with boxes of old magazines and conspiracy theory paperwork.</div>
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The female head of the ranch claimed to be too busy to think about the remodel, even though I had arrived during the last month of good weather for building. I was given no materials, and instead, was disturbed at all times of day with ridiculous tasks like driving the same cows into a pasture with ruined fences each day. There was welding to do, but she was also too busy to get the welder fixed or to order the many things that are needed to weld and do mechanics. I busied myself trying to clean up the shop, which has a dead backhoe occupying the center, and all kinds of junk littering the floor. The tools were in heaps and covered with grease and used oil, even though i had arranged and cleaned them on a previous visit. to get any work done, i had to bring my own tools and safety equipment, and even my own electrical and welding supplies.</div>
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There was no way to order parts, and no way to really replace the broken tool attachments and materials that i was using. I just soldiered on anyway. A terrific storm then damaged my tiny home so that it can not be heated any more. I moved into the ruined house after cleaning a room as best as i could. it is still way too filthy and stinky for a sensitive person to live in, but i had hopes that the remodel would soon fix that.</div>
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My room mate turned out to be not a worker, but an insane elderly conspiracy theorist. For his work, he seems to be a sort of professional con man that operates on the very edge of the law. He feels that he deserves to live in the house that i am trying to repair because he has successfully attached himself to the ranch as a permanent parasite. He begins to suck my blood, requiring me to rotate his car tires, and to perform each of his tasks at the house after he fails to do it. It is ridiculous, and I realize that no remodel was ever intended.</div>
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I run the parasite out of the house. It does not really work, as he returns again and again to beg me to let him stay. Having a human parasite attached is very uncomfortable. He kept pestering me until I blocked his phone, and offered to call the sheriff and have him hauled off.</div>
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Meanwhile, the son has arranged with a local lumber yard for me to get materials at his expense. I drove into town with the still wrecked Tacoma that had bald tires and no insurance. I was still putting my own gas into it, but had made no repairs at all. I brought back a truck load of materials, and used my own tools and fasteners to create a roof over the entry of the building. I then pried up the asbestos tiles in the bathroom, and put in a composition floor. When the ranch woman found out, she was furious. The remodel was then officially over, and i was paid 45 dollars per day for my efforts.</div>
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I find myself with a unusable tiny home that should never have been brought across the state to a fraudulent remodel. I have a truck that i do not need, and can not repair or insure with the 45 dollars per day. I finally repaired the wire feed welder, and waited over a week for the inert gas bottle to be filled. I was called again and again to do tasks that should not be done, and required to do the tasks incompletely and incorrectly. It is a very bad feeling for a retired field engineer to work in such dangerous conditions, with no way of getting supplies, and basically no pay. The 45 dollars of 'pay' is actually half of the per Diem living expense that i received when doing dangerous work in the oilfield.</div>
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I have been welding for 2 weeks now, and have ruined every pair of pants, and my only hiking boots. The welder now feeds the wire reliably, but it has a further electrical problem that allows it to sputter molten metal all around instead of laying down a good bead of weld. I am able to repair way more complicated devices, but not without use of the internet and suppliers like amazon.com. I used the welder as it is, getting burned, and eventually sputtering molten steel through all of my layers of clothing onto the screen of my cell phone. Two days before this writing, i got hurt monkeying with the parts of a giant feeder. I realized abruptly that i had no support on the ranch at all. If my injury had been severe, i would be treated just like a homeless person that had wandered onto the place and gotten hurt.</div>
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I do not enjoy being a captive on a ruined ranch. Luckily a second son lives near Spokane, and he may have some construction work for me. I will get my teeth plucked out and replaced with dentures. i will see a surgeon, and find out if my pelvis can be repaired. And I will travel a bit to see if anything changes on the ranch during my absence. It looks like I will have to bring the degraded tiny home back across the state and sell the Tacoma. What a gigantic waste! The ranchers will die leaving almost no accommodations or working equipment. The sons are not equipped or inclined to take over the distressed operation. The livestock will be lost, and the leased parcels will be rented to someone else. I am not sure if a ranch in this condition can be sold for the price of totally empty land. The cleanup might cost a great deal, and go on for years.</div>
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I have hurt my back severely on the ranch, and now seem to be taking sick with depression and COPD from spending time in the ruined house. I am not tempted to end a fairly entertaining and adventurous life by dying of poverty on a ranch that is doing the same thing. I am documenting events without naming names; not to punish, but because it seems to reduce the pain slightly.</div>
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alf randellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03889028602331228342noreply@blogger.com2