WTF-Beta

@wtg said in Good night, stars?:

In the beginning, the Bible tells us,

God divided the light from the darkness.

And God called the light day, and the darkness He called night.

And so it has been ever since — until now.

Here in the 21st century, we humans are on the cusp of turning night into day — and bidding good night to the stars that have guided us home for thousands of years.

Two little-noted applications under review by the Federal Communications Commission would, if fully implemented, fundamentally remake the night sky. But the FCC, the satellite regulator, appears to have fast-tracked approval without much of a pause to weigh the benefits of these proposals against the harms they could cause to life on the planet.

A start-up called Reflect Orbital proposes to use large, mirrored satellites to redirect sunlight to Earth at night, with plans to bathe solar farms, industrial sites and even entire cities in light that could, if desired, reach the intensity of daylight. At the same time, Elon Musk’s SpaceX wants to launch as many as a million satellites to serve as orbiting data centers — 70 times the number of satellites now in orbit. We could have a million points of light streaking across our skies at night.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/good-night-stars-we-are-on-the-cusp-of-turning-darkness-into-day/ar-AA1XbQDM

Nightmare de jour.

This was one of many great things about living on Mauna Kea below the elevation where it snows. I was lucky to live there for seven years. The world's best observatories are located on the summit. There was no light pollution. The nighttime sky there is something I was lucky enough to see and won't see again. That was an awesome place to live.

Link to video

A bit beyond my budget but Wow!!

Exquisite and iteresting history.

One of my few regrets is selling the best one for $600. It needed service, the price of that was estimated not set but astronomical, around 1k, and I had bills to pay. It would be worth 5k today but I don't care about that. I wish I had changed the strap and just kept it without having it serviced. It was/ is beautiful. C'est la vie.

@CHAS said in What watch are you wearing?:

A: I feel naked without my watch.
B: Exactly where do you wear it?

My grandmother told me to always wear a watch. To interviews. To work. Etc. It's old school advice from after WWI actually when men started to wear wrist watches to tell the time. Her advice stayed with me.

I wear my watches sometimes. Sometimes not. It depends on my mood. I just happen to love them both and a good thing they're inexpensive too.

I had a watch collection a long time ago. Three mechanical watches. Variations on a theme. The same look. Different movements. Meant for different uses.

Today people would use the word-- "curated." Let them. I never will...

Apple watches are too big for my wrist! They're part of the watches got big phenomenon of approximately the last fifteen years.

Link to video

Short video about buying a manufactured home and its true costs.

Buying land and a new manufactured home was something I considered for a minute.

I decided it would be too complex and expensive not to mention these homes are made of new materials that are filled with toxic chemicals and would smell like it not to put too fine a point on it.

The attraction was land but all things considered I'm glad I won't be buying a mobile home (words used if built before 1980) or a manufactured home.

The safety factor in winds, floods, tornadoes (we had one here!; my first), and hurricanes by itself rules it out for me.

There's nothing safe about them. One here got almost reduced to matchsticks during Milton. My roof got torn apart. It started raining in my house a few months later. I had to buy a new roof. It took an entire year to fix the damage I could and to clean up the mess.

One in a park across the street actually got lifted into the air and then dumped upside down during the tornado.

I see several here that were clearly lifted into the air at some point and landed on their iron rails in a jacked way leaving visible damage and nothing where it should or like it should be. These ended up still being livable.

A number of homes have basically been abandoned out 400 total. These are on the market for 10k.

The one place I like in this park sold as of yesterday.

I always wanted to live in a small concrete block condo building built in the 60's and 70's since I lived in Hawaii. Those apartments were mega $ as you might imagine.

I think I would like living in an apartment building. Even before living for almost two decades in Hawaii I wanted to live in an apartment in the City. I thought great. No snow shoveling. Nothing like that.

Oh, and I learned that private equity firms often buy land lease parks, decline to renew the leases, effectively putting people in the street, renovate all the units, and then rent them. Yikes!

Interesting, Ax. I wish I still had mine. It was hand wound. I had a few over the years because we'd go to Disney World over summer vacation. I had one left when I graduated from high school in Tampa. I remember it in a drawer in my room. I have no idea what I did with it.

John Webber (1751- 1793), British artist who traveled with Captain Cook on his 3rd journey, who was the first European to paint Hawaii, its land, people and culture.

Highly recommend.

Around the world with James Cook – Swiss National Museum - Swiss history blog https://share.google/043JMMbwKbervkcfR

Andy, You're forgetting about Epstein. I guess we hear more about him here because he was an American.

I said Andrew should be in prison before any of us knew he would be arrested. I still believe he should be in prison.

@CHAS said in What watch are you wearing?:

That is a sharp IWC.

+1

@Bernard said in Bloomscrolling--what's in bloom where you are?:

Nothing.

Enchanting.

I wouldn't want to be employed in the tourism industry these days. Yikes.

Interesting that, Joe.

Walmart was the reason. I don't remember the details but it was basically they canceled an order and I remade it. I don't remember why it was canceled or why I didn't think I'd be charged twice.

Does anyone do this anymore?

I have a checking account and I don't write checks.

My bank gives me monthly statements online.

I don't try to balance it because with purchases technically being held funds and refunds to the account for actual refunds and refunds for correcting held amounts after the fact it wouldn't be possible to actually balance it.

I check the balance daily and even if I expect it to be the same as the day before the time lag built into the system surprises me sometimes.

I'm no accountant. That's certain.

My account was credited with one or more credits totalling an additional $130 yesterday.

Yay!

I should know why this happened but yeah, no.

My late grandfather (born 1919) always balanced his checkbook to the penny. I'm not exaggerating.

I never could come close to his exactitude back in the day and I didn't enjoy doing it.

I am much more conservative about money now. I plan to use all the lessons learned when I look back and think I should have done this or I shouldn't have done that in the future.

I'm actually planning to keep track of my finances on paper as well as I can do it.

I don't plan to write checks though. I can't see a good reason for it.

It is impossible to understand how the sublime heights of humanity and the depths of its depravity exist in the same universe.

I had an IWC Cal. 89.

Mechanical wound and a speed of 18,000 bph. In other words the speed of a pocket watch or "railroad watch."

My conclusion? Well, it's no wonder trains crashed because of time keeping errors.

My first Mickey Mouse watch was probably a better time keeper.

Mandelson was arrested? I guess that was inevitable.

@AdagioM said in Weather where you are thread:

Can’t believe that snowstorm! It’s 40 and rainy at home in Portland. I’m in Madrid, and it’s sunny and 67. Lucked out!

You're in Madrid? How exciting!

My sister-in-law had an easier time than the last storm. She ran out of propane last time and had to spend a night without heat. This time she was ready for it. She tried to buy a snowblower but they were sold out and she had to shovel snow last time. This time there was so much snow that her neighbors did it for her.

It was about 50 today and tonight it's about 40. I was bothered by the cold for a few hours after the sun set. Then I just decided not to let it bother me. It will be another 50/ 40 day tomorrow and then mercifully the temperatures will rise again.