Author: Paul

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Parenting is Tough!

Especially in the Firemouth Cichlid realm of our tiny little aquatic animal kingdom:

They spawned about 3 weeks ago, and it’s been hell for the others in that tank ever since. I moved the smaller guys downstairs but the remaining 7 fish, including a Jack Dempsey of equal size to the mother Firemouth have been pinned to the far west 6 inches of the tank ever since. At one point early on they were being held against their will in just the one top-rear corner.

My fish guy in Boulder says Firemouths are pretty good about being aggressive towards their tankmates compared some others, and nobody’s been hurt yet, so far so good. There were literally probably over 500 fry initially. It looks like about half of them have since been predated. We’ll see how many remain to be captured and sent off to the fish store before they overrun this 190-gallon tank.

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Elon is (not) “the Man”

Falcon Heavy just opened a new outer space chapter, with exactly the right point of emphasis. It’s Space-X and Musk all the way – no government B$ to muddy up this rocket program:

The level of achievement here is massively impressive considering guaranteed profit scams sheltered by government regulation and unfair trade practices are the only consistently produced U.S. business ventures in recent decades. Lockheed and Boeing must be drawing big question marks around plans for their horribly subsidized United Launch Alliance – the U.S. government-run space launch monopoly.

They wanted “heavy lift” so a 2-ton car should do the trick for demonstration purposes, right? Where did they want it? Mars? OK, no problem. Track Starman’s progress here.

Go for it Elon!

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Man Cave Done

It will be an ongoing hobby of course, but the work involving the project portion was recently finished.

It’s not like I needed another project. This one was “in process” for 14 years – just low priority. Back in 2003 we moved here and I put most of “my” crap in the basement, and the process of working, raising kids and all that went on for the next decade+ until I eventually retired and had more time to do the optional stuff. Finishing the home theater ended up being the kickoff to a larger, seasonal winter basement re-org and cleanup.

This always was the “good” system, with Klipsch Forte-IIs backed by Carver amps. But over the years it was cannibalized to keep the main room system upstairs running and fell into complete disuse for at least the past 5 years or so. You can still see evidence of the well-served girl’s parties on the walls. So I committed myself to getting it properly refurbished this winter. The system sported the full array of DBX analog processing equipment, now obsoleted by digital signal processing technology. So another Outlaw 975 processor to replace the 80’s-era Yamaha DSP unit was procured along with a plethora of used Carver amps from eBay sellers.

At some point I realized the old-school audiophile stuff like Carver amps was getting scarce and prices were going UP. We got lucky on a couple of those after morons shipped them improperly packaged causing damage. BUT they didn’t want them back and eBay issued refunds. One is inop, but probably repairable. The nice AV-505 (5×100-watt) literally looked like it fell off a moving truck, but the Post Office left it on the doorstep. It was impacted so hard the weight of the transformer inside bent the mounting brackets. But it works fine and I was going to take the handles off anyway.

It was time to splurge on a proper sub, so a PSA V3601 was ordered. This thing is something special. I took Francie and Michelle to one of the nicer cinemas near here a few weeks ago, just to confirm what I already knew. This is what the movie theaters are trying to achieve. It’s the real deal, weighing in at 250lbs. That should give some idea the size of the voice coils and transformers in this beast. An active room-correction equalization processor is calibrated on initial setup to dynamically compensate for placement and room acoustics producing thunderous, clean, clear, tight bottom ALL the way down, almost everywhere in the entire >10,000³ foot basement – no mean feat.

I’m going to go ahead and upgrade that 2003-era Sony 60″ LCD rear-projection TV next, despite still having a spare projector bulb for it. I measured the 70″ Sharp upstairs before building the aquarium shelf, intending a >80″ replacement at some point and moving the Sharp Aquos down to the Man Cave. But attempting to keep electronics in service for decades with the way quality is trending down lately no longer makes that seem like such a good idea. Research indicates the Vizio M70-E3 now on sale at Costco again after several markdowns is probably one of the best bang-for-the-buck models in the small field of good candidates to fit in this space.

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Fuck FaceBook

I’ve been harping on this for years. Glad to see people are starting to wake up. How they were doing it wasn’t clear, but the fact they were making huge bags of money manipulating people was pretty obvious. The fact they provided a vehicle for electioneering is just disgustingly insidious. We need more high-visibility celebrities like Jim Carrey coming out against this Social Media stupidity that is ruining society. Mr. Carrey put it bluntly and correctly: we need Capitalism with a Conscience.”

Fuck Facebook

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Looks like SBIRS is Done

My history with this program goes all the way back to 1983 when it was DSP (Defense Support Program), as a new Airman 1st Class at Buckley Air National Guard Base. The next chapter came 18 years later as a civilian Systems Security Manager in 2003-4, after it became SBIRS (Space-Based Infra Red System) at some point along the way. In 2003, the program was still riding high with hopes for the 3-tier constellation alive and money flowing. There were over 400 people working in the Boulder facility, with hundreds more scattered at various places all over the world.

15 years later, The country’s biggest, most expensive, longest-running space program has run it’s course and holds an oddly satisfying place in my career experience. The program’s future seemed all too obvious to me, after my last trip around the SBIRS 3-ring circus in 2014-15. Lockheed had already been engaged in an adversarial relationship with the Air Force for quite a few years before I returned for my last taste of it. That episode only demonstrated just how bad it had become by then.

So as expected, egregious mismanagement and government fiscal stupidity now delivers 4 GEO’s, 2 HEO’s and a requirement for an all-new missile warning system – instead of the fabulously comprehensive umpteen sat, 3-tier (LEO-GEO-HEO) mega system originally planned. That cash cow is now just so much dust scattered in Lockheed’s enormous DoD contracting wake. The thing they don’t tell you in the Satellite Today Article is this was the last SBIRS bird ever expected to see a launchpad. GEO-5 is scheduled in 2021 IIRC, but I doubt it will fly if they even finish putting it together. The program managed to set a new Nunn-Mcurdy record with no less than 4 separate budget breaches big enough to invoke the Congressional re-certification process. Those are just the biggest of the publicly available examples of fiscal malfeasance exhibited over the now 40+ years of total program timeline up to this point.

We as a nation have spent Billions of dollars on the highest of the high tech space systems the world has ever seen. It really is an amazingly effective, useful system that has proven it’s worth in our national defense many times. But it technically “belongs” to Lockheed, and as the final “affordable” piece went up last week, it was already being declared unsupportable, with new RFP’s now being developed for industry as I type. At least this time around the Air Force will not allow the contractor to maintain control over whatever they come up with next.

SBIRS never approached half the capability engendered in the original 3-tier constellation and ended up costing taxpayers orders of magnitude more than was ever officially budgeted for it. When will the Big Business USA scam ever be collectively recognized for what it really is? Big Business = U.S. Government. There is literally no distinction. My Lockheed pension will be guilt-laden for the rest of my life. As far as I am concerned it is dirty money. Not long out of high school I unwittingly joined the dark side, earned both government and contractor pensions, and now receive a fully-funded retirement from age 56 for my contributions to the War Machine. My entire working life from the time I took the oath of enlistment until the time I left Lockheed supported the insanity.

Take any industry sector, be it DoD Contracting (one of the biggest), Oil & Gas, Transportation, Pharmaceuticals – you name it, they all have correspondingly big government agencies populated with industry insiders and lobbyists with one common goal – extract as much revenue and profit from American taxpayers and consumers as possible. Who is buying what product or service, collateral damage and what companies grow or die fairly or not from the policies and laws they enforce matters not, as long as everybody on the inside gets paid. Elected officials are merely prone-to-human-exploitation gatekeepers and election-derived course corrections are just ripples in the economic vibe. When or where was the tipping point at which the government stopped being of the people, by the people and for the people?

SBIRS Certificate
SBIRS Certificate
SBIRS Certificate

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6×9's in a Standard Cab

This part of the restoration was unexpected. When I discovered the factory speakers screwed into this space on an open-air piece of stamped sheet metal, the course of action was clear: New speakers:

The stockers sounded just OK with the Infinity sub I had behind the seat, but that went bye-bye along with the door a couple years ago. Paired up with a JL Audio HO-110 sub, these should take it into the realm of true Hi-Fi. Only two pieces of the old system remain, so a new head unit and amp for these speakers is apparently called for now.

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Hindsight Really "is" 20/20

I can see it so clearly, 17 years ago, preoccupied with defending USAF networks, oblivious to what Scott Adams had already recognized:

I jumped on the Internet/Social Media warning bandwagon about 5 years later, sometime after I retired and smartphones really took off. This particular aspect of the spectre of rampant, destructive capitalism has been on my personal radar for well over a decade. Awareness is building now. Finally, society is beginning to wake up from their electronic gadget-induced narcolepsy.

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600 Miles / Tank

The Bimmer continues to impress. This is in normal 70/30 highway/city localized driving. Not cross-country – me driving around Denver enjoying the diesel torque like the nutcase I am. I suspect the new injectors are recently settled in and MPG has, as well: 36mpg, average.

Big MPG
The big orange “27” in the middle is miles to empty. Added to the 566 already on the clock and we have a new record. It does mid 13 sec. 1/4 mile on street tires with a brake-effect traction-control open diff and I bet it passes smog with the exception of a snap smoke screen sans the emissions equipment as well. Here’s a suggestion for the auto industry and government on the air pollution and oil shortage issues: Build them like this and mandate owners keep them on the road for at least 10 years. Maybe a 4-banger with just one turbo for the smaller, inexpensive models. Why would anyone ever drive an electric car?

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More Damning Evidence Against Alcohol

All you big drinkers, don’t look now, but the evidence that alcohol consumption is very detrimental to your health is mounting. I wonder how widespread is knowledge of the simple fact that alcohol is by definition, the most dangerous drug known to man:

This is categorized under “politics” because, in case you were wondering, decades of political collusion have been the alcohol production chain’s primary enabler from the farmer’s field all the way to the liquor store. Aaaaaand in ring #2, we have Big Pharma with the ongoing painkiller crises, and in ring #3…

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CTD Progress Report

Finished fitting the seats last week. The bucket seat conversion mod was a bit more involved than I initially expected, but that’s typical with this type stuff. I don’t know how Dodge got the so-called “Captain’s Chairs” in the club cab models. They must have had a little different frame/chassis setup or additional bracing and brackets somewhere, because the standard cab floor is nothing but heavy stamped sheet metal between the frame rails. I suppose maybe they just fastened the inner mounts to the sheet steel somehow, but I doubt they did it anything like this:

The seats are 3rd row seats out of a new minivan from some guy on eBay who does van conversions. The bracketing is designed to allow easy removal with angle and height adjustment on any plane or axis. Positioning them correctly was the biggest challenge and a close 2nd priority to getting them properly installed with solid, safe mounting. Six assembly access plug holes still need welded shut, then I’ll smooth/level the floor stampings a bit. The last step before beginning the reassembly process will be applying bed liner to the floor. I’m not a big fan of carpet in a work vehicle.

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Maybe Somebody Just Needs to STFU

…Online, at least. Politics and Teaching – what a combination. Exactly what “is” a teacher or professor’s job these days? Apparently the job description now includes molding young minds in the likeness of their preferred political bent. Publicly. Really? I wonder if this guy’s classes often started with a review and discussion of his most recent Twitter posts? Must be quite a few cleaned-up minds coming out of Drexel these days.

This is for you, teachers and professors across the country: Teach. Mentor. Study. Research. Then when it’s time to spend your free time online, consider NOT waxing political. If you feel like you can’t keep it non-partisan, then just STFU. “Free thinking” is only supposed to be free for the person doing the thinking. If you expect to use taxpayer dollars intended for education (your salary) to run a political campaign or be some sort of political activist, your ass needs fired.

This is just the tip of the social media iceberg boogeyman.

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It's about Goddamned Time

The inefficiency and overspending of the United Nations are well known,” Haley said. “We will no longer let the generosity of the American people be taken advantage of or remain unchecked.

– Nikki Haley, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations

Bastards at the UN got what they asked for after the Jerusalem vote. $285M is a small dent in the multi-billion UN budget, but at least the a-holes are on notice now. Good luck to all the UN parasites – this has been a long time coming, and they can expect more of the same.