@AndyD said in Questions for Andy D:
Lock &co of St James
That shop looks totally cool.
I love hats. They don't look good on me, though, so I don't wear them. 
W
wtg
@wtg
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Questions for Andy D -
50 years of travel tipsI am not a traveler, but even I was intrigued by some of these tips.
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Elon has time on his handsPresident Donald Trump expressed frustration in recent days about the long wait for a pair of Boeing
747s that will serve as the new Air Force One planes.The jets are years behind schedule. Trump negotiated the $4 billion contract for the aircraft during his first term, and it isnât clear whether theyâll be ready during his current one. Cost overruns have totaled more than $2 billion to date.
Trump advisor Elon Musk is working with Boeing in hopes of delivering the aircraft faster, the manufacturerâs chief executive, Kelly Ortberg, reiterated on Thursday.
âThe presidentâs clearly not happy with the delivery timing. I think heâs made that well known,â Ortberg said at a Barclays industrials conference. âElon Musk is actually helping us a lot in working through the requirements ... to help us get the things that are non-value-added constraints out of the way so that we can move faster and get the president those airplanes delivered.â
Ortberg called Musk, CEO of SpaceX, which competes with Boeingâs defense and space unit, a âbrilliant guyâ who can âpretty quickly ascertain the difference between technical requirement and things that we can move out of the way.â
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/02/20/trump-boeing-air-force-one-delays.html
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Elon has time on his handsIn a remarkable statement Thursday, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said the International Space Station should be deorbited "as soon as possible."
This comment from Musk will surely set off a landmine in the global space community, with broad implications. And it appears to be no idle comment from Musk who, at times, indulges in deliberately provocative posts on the social media network X that he owns.
However, that does not seem to be the case here.
"It is time to begin preparations for deorbiting the @Space_Station. It has served its purpose. There is very little incremental utility. Letâs go to Mars," Musk wrote at midday on Thursday.
This original statement was somewhat ambiguous. Last July, NASA awarded Space X an $843 million contract to modify a Dragon spacecraft to serve as a propulsive vehicle to safely guide the aging space station into the Pacific Ocean in 2030. So in some sense, preparations are already underway to shut down the laboratory.
I asked Musk if he meant that NASA and the US government should commit to the 2030 end-of-life date, or if he wanted to accelerate the timeline for the station's demise.
"The decision is up to the President, but my recommendation is as soon as possible. I recommend 2 years from now," Musk replied.
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A previously unknown (to me) form of refluxI called Gaviscon Canada today. I try to limit sodium and wanted to have a better idea of how much I might be taking in while I'm taking the Canadian Gaviscon. I knew there was some sodium carbonate in the tablets but the amount wasn't listed on the label, so I couldn't calculate an approximate sodium content.
Final answer:
Regular strength: 22.6 mg sodium per tablet
Extra strength: 29.95 mg
Max Relief: 34 mgI can live with those numbers with the number of tablets I'm using daily.
I asked why the alginate products aren't available in the US. He said that the US Gaviscon is made by a company called Haleon, and that the Canadian Gaviscon is produced by a completely separate company that is only licensed to sell and market in Canada.
I had looked at the various Gaviscon products that show up on various sites. They all have different formulas. Some have aluminum or magnesium, some have potassium carbonate instead of sodium carbonate, and I saw different sweeteners, too. Sugar, aspartame, and saccharin.
With these GI and ENT docs developing their own alginate product lines, I wonder how long it will take Haleon to launch one here. Clearly there seems to be a market developing for it. The US Gaviscon does list alginic acid as an inactive ingredient in their product but from the anecdotal stories I've heard, people haven't had as good results with the US product because there isn't enough of it to form a good raft. Plus the US product has magnesium and aluminum and people often try to avoid aluminum.
Your useless facts for the day!
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Grok 3An AI flop. Bigly.
https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/humane-ai-shuts-down-flop-20175974.php
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Escapism -
Birthright citizenshipAppeals court declines to reinstate the EO. SCOTUS, here we come.
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Goodbyesville to ChromeDiscussion on reddit about Brave:
https://www.reddit.com/r/brave/comments/pqe6qi/what_are_your_guys_honest_thoughts_on_brave/
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Goodbyesville to ChromeBrave browser is great. Very fast. Have been using it for several years. Lots of protection built in.
I used Firefox for years but started having problems with it crashing pretty regularly. Haven't tried using it again recently, but it's worth looking at.
DuckDuckGo for search engine only. Haven't tried their browser.
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UkraineInterview with RadosĹaw Sikorski, Foreign Minister of Poland. Occurred during the Munich Conference.
Link to videoAnne Applebaum interview on Fresh Air. Conversations in her household must be pretty interesting. She's married to Sikorski...
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UkraineUkrainians are not amused. And they're rallying behind Zelinskyy.
And Europe responds.
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Post-Vaccination SyndromeCOVID-19 vaccines have been instrumental in reducing the impact of the pandemic, preventing severe illness and death, and they appear to protect against long COVID. However, some individuals have reported chronic symptoms that developed soon after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine. This little-understood, persistent condition, referred to as post-vaccination syndrome (PVS), remains unrecognized by medical authorities, and little is known about its biological underpinnings.
Some of the most common chronic symptoms of PVS include exercise intolerance, excessive fatigue, brain fog, insomnia, and dizziness. They develop shortly after vaccination, within a day or two, can become more severe in the days that follow, and persist over time. More studies are needed to understand the prevalence of PVS.
âItâs clear that some individuals are experiencing significant challenges after vaccination. Our responsibility as scientists and clinicians is to listen to their experiences, rigorously investigate the underlying causes, and seek ways to help,â said Harlan Krumholz, the Harold H. Hines, Jr. Professor of Medicine (Cardiology) at YSM and co-senior author of the study.
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Grok 3Proving AI still needs some work.
https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/grok-3-beta-in-shambles?r=18ke&triedRedirect=true
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The Test -
Pet portraitsSome very nice embroidery. Not mine!
The crafter's website:
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And he's calling Zelenskyy a dictator?Trump signs order making independent regulators answerable to White House
Executive power grab would affect Securities and Exchange Commission and Federal Trade Commission
Donald Trump has signed an executive order making independent regulatory agencies established by Congress now accountable to the White House â a move that some experts said clashes with mainstream interpretations of the constitution.
The order forces major regulators such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to report new policy priorities to the executive branch for approval, which will also have a say over their budgets.
The sweeping order calls for âpresidential supervision and control of the entire executive branchâ and is a radical power move certain to attract lawsuits challenging the presidentâs assertions.
The latest apparent authority grab from the Trump administration would give the office of management and budget head, Russell Vought, oversight over a suite of major agencies â including regulators of Wall Street, campaign finance, telecommunications companies, labor and even the Postal Service.
The Trump order aligns with campaign promises to make independent agencies accountable to the president and a pledge Vought made in 2023: âWhat weâre trying to do is identify the pockets of independence and seize them.â
Weissman argued the move was an effort to shield major corporations from the scrutiny of such independent agencies. The SEC, for instance, often investigates major corporations on behalf of shareholders.
âNot incidentally, both the FTC and SEC have ongoing investigations or enforcement actions against companies owned by Elon Musk,â said Weissman.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/19/trump-independent-regulators-sec-ftc
The so-called "fact sheet"
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Cancelling Amazon@pique said in Cancelling Amazon:
Our Amazon Prime membership is in Mr Pique's name. He refuses to give it up, because he watches a lot of tv and movies on their streaming services. Somebody please tell me an alternative source of streaming that will placate him so he'll cancel our account.
I don't know what shows and movies he watches on Amazon. If it's the Amazon-produced stuff, he's stuck with Amazon. But if not, there are tons of streaming services, many free, that he could check out. Should be noted that Freevee is an Amazon channel, so if you're looking to keep bucks away from Bezos, then skip that one.
Free services:
https://www.tomsguide.com/best-picks/best-free-streaming-services
This list of free streaming from Cord Cutters News includes Hoopla and Kanopy, which you access via your library, if they subscribe to the services. You're limited to a certain number of checkouts in a month, but they are ad-free. I checked the library I think is yours and it looks like you have access to both Hoopla and Kanopy.
Of course there's PBS Passport, which you get full access to if you donate $60 a year to a PBS station.
If those don't work you can consider paid services. I tend to subscribe around Black Friday/Christmas when they have deals. I use the service until it goes back to full price. I got Hulu for 99 cents a month for a year and Max for $2.99 a month for six months. I subscribe to Netflix for a month if there's something I want to watch.
Walmart has a membership program similar to Prime; they call it Walmart+ They had a half price deal for $49 for a year, so I joined last year. That deal was around June/July. One of the membership perks is free access to Paramount+. And a reduced price if you want to add Showtime to that. I probably won't renew next year because I just don't use the delivery service very often, but something to consider.
Peacock has a deal going right now for $29 a year. You could watch Conclave!
BTW, if you're not aware of it, each of these paid services is associated with a major network. If you watch shows on the network, the episodes are mostly available to stream starting the day after they are broadcast.
Hulu: ABC
Peacock: NBC
Paramount+: CBS -
Drunk dialing YouTubeYouTube is about to turn 20. An unusual research method is unveiling statistics about the platform that Google would rather keep hidden.
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Changes to Kindle download rulesAnother day. Another cloud service changing the rules on stuff we already bought and paid for.
This time, Amazon is removing a feature that's been part of the Kindle experience for more than a decade: downloading files to your computer.
I'm not going to bury the lede: You have until Feb. 26, 2025, to download copies of your Kindle books to your computer. After that, Amazon will remove the ability to download books to files you can control yourself.
I'm a little disappointed that Amazon doesn't say anything about this in its main Digital Content management interface.
