December 24, 2019

My garage door just emailed me

Ok, this is getting ridiculous and scary.

I’m old. I’ve used a hand cranked telephone, my first computer job involved punched cards, a relative used a Model T as their working vehicle and I saw Sputnik.

My parents had a double car garage with a big metal door that you had to put up and down by hand. If the balancing spring broke you were fucked until somebody came over to fix it. Years later we got a roll up door that worked a lot better. Then along came electric garage door openers. Then they worked with a remote.

Telephones progressed to rotary with relays then push button with tones. Then my workplace handed me a mobile phone the size and weight of a brick. Computers went from mechanical to tubes to transistors to ICs to this god forsaken monster I’m holding right now.

It bemused me that I now use my “telephone” to open my garage door. Now it’s bitching it wants a new battery and knows what kind.

Are we far from Skynet?

October 10, 2019

Holy Crap, I know why Trump encouraged Turkey to invade Syria. It's a campaign promise

I was listening to POTUS on SiriusXM and somebody mentioned Trump making a campaign promise to “stop endless war”.

That’s a dog whistle.

It seems weird that Trump is supported by the Rabid Religious Right given his speech and behaviour. They believe he is a reincarnation of King Cyrus brought back to do two things.

1. Overturn Roe vs. Wade

2. Bring on Armageddon and the end of the world so they have The Rapture in their lifetime.

In other words he intends to stop endless warfare by starting the final war.

The invasion of Syria is the first step in destabilizing the region. If he is allowed to continue, the nukes will be flying by year end. He’ll probably push the first button.

War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength

August 28, 2019

First time at a canabis store

Craftygal is a kidney patient and has issues with nausea, migraine headaches and pain. Traditional medicine isn’t doing the trick so out of curiosity I dropped into a local cannabis store. There’s two within walking distance of my house.

The store is in a strip mall. When they moved in they completely redid the place. The windows are greyed out with one way viewable plastic so you can see out but not in.

When you go in past the big sign saying “you must be 18+ to enter. ID mandatory” there’s a big rectangular counter with 3 people inside. They were young and well but casually dressed. Overhead are big TV displays with brands and prices.

A approached one of the people, explained Craftygal’s situation and that I’m a truck driver and can’t be contaminated with THC. He brought me around to the other side of the counter where there were more TV displays of canabis in pill form. After a disclaimer that they were unable to offer medical advice a long discussion ensued with everybody contributing on the merits of combinations of CBD and THC. We eventually settled upon a bottle of 15 pills of something or other for $CAN20 + tax. I paid up and was sent over into a cubbyhole in the corner where another clerk dispensed it.

Everybody was friendly and knowledgeable and I intend to go back.

January 7, 2019

Mysterious red lights over Edmonton

https://www.express.co.uk/news/weird/1067693/Mysterious-beam-of-light-aliens-conspiracy-NASA-Canada-ISS

“AN EERIE beam of light spotted by multiple witnesses above Canadian skies has prompted an alien panic - with many viewers pointing out the similarities to a strange light earlier spotted near a NASA space probe.”

I live in Edmonton. There’s a huge chimney called a flare stack at one of the refineries on the east side of town. It’s normally pretty low key but occasionally they’ll fire it up to burn off impurities. Just before Christmas the pyre was about 60 feet tall and lit up the whole skyline. Looked suspiciously like the picture in the article.