Within 30 feet of you is a world of amazing wonder that sits hidden just out of sight. There are so many wonders hidden in plain sight that you don't think about, yet you need them to live a modern life. Let's pull back the curtain just a little.

If you have an old house, you have a gas water heater. A gas water heater is basically a steel tank full of water, insulation to make the thing hold in heat, a pipe going in and a pipe going out, and a fire on the bottom to make the water warm. The gas comes from a pipe line that stretches hundreds if not thousands of miles, which could be its own post. But let's talk about that fire at the bottom of the tank. If you look at the controller box, there is a gas in, a pilot tube, a gas out, and some weird looking copper cable/tube. That weird tube is the focus of this conversation; this device is amazing and you need to know about it. The way a gas water heater works is there is a small flame called a pilot light that stays lit 24/7. When the temperature of the water in the tank gets too low, a signal is triggered that sends a full blast of gas into the area with the pilot light, which starts the heating fire. But, what if that pilot light goes out? If there is no pilot light, and the gas triggers, your house/basement/garage will now fill with natural gas, which is BAD. Enter that copper tube. Next to the pilot light is a round chunk of metal, called a thermocouple Thermocouples are amazing in their own right and could be a post on their own. When the pilot light is lit, the thermocouple gets hot and produces a small bit of voltage. This voltage then generates a very small bit of current. This current then charges and electromagnet that opens a valve to the main gas input line. THIS! This amazing simple and wonderful bit of human brain output is what keeps you house from blowing up when the pilot light goes out!!!!! If something happens and that thermocouple stops being heated, the electromagnet can't pull the gas valve open, and no gas enters the burning chamber until you have to relight the pilot flame. Why tell you this? Thermocouples go bad after about a decade or so and will need to be replaced. Or, if you are like me, you need to call the company and have a part sent to replace the whole control apparatus due to a recall that never made it my way. a few days of cold showers, a 45 minute phone call and 25 minutes with a screwdriver and wrench and I am back in business.

In other news, I ate something that did not agree with me. I was not sick, but I had a bad intestinal weekend. Stomache went to war against the brain who told everyone to go to hell while he banged on my skull and laughed at our pain. The biological nozzle effect is a real thing and all. The result of all this was a involuntary 80 hour fast. I started to manage to drink enough water to not dehydrate myself, and fortunately the water just went right through the system and did not seem to linger. But I'm better now. This was probably the longest I went without eating anything in 20ish years, definitely the longest I've been without food and the means to procure it. The fast seems to have reset my food cravings, and I have been eating smaller portions since recovery. In all a-round-ways feel better after the disaster.

The kicker? Over the 80 or so hours, I gained eight mother fucking pounds.

And I have forty god damned pounds of books to get rolling on.

I rewarded myself with a shiny bauble: an atmospheric dispersion corrector for my planetary imaging adventure. I'm hoping to do better as the summer moves along. Mars is coming out of a major dust storm, and I hope to have better images this month.

I can do better. Assuming all goes well I am going to get a better telescope and sell the current gear.

We are in the middle of a suicide epidemic, and nobody gives a shit. Suicide is the second leading cause of death of male teenagers in the USA according to the CDC. More US military kill themselves than die in combat, by a factor of three. Some 3/4 of all firearm fatalities are suicides. More men kill themselves than are killed in car accidents and homicide, combined.

Bring any of this up and if you get a reaction at all, depending on the crowd you are with, you get silence, indifference, 'They should all have manned up' or some nonsense along those lines, or laughter.

You know who I don't see talking about this shit? average dudes.

Because any time us average dudes try to have a conversation about stuff like this we are accused of "mansplaining" or silencing marginalized voices or some garbage. One guy I knew back in the early 90's went to a mental health clinic to seek help for suicidal thoughts; the therapist felt he was a danger and reported him to the police. He did a year in jail as a 'threat to the community' and killed himself when he got out. At least in my friend groups we all know the universal truth is that nobody gives a shit if guys like us have problems. My friends have been down this road enough times with enough people we know that we all look for the signs of someone on the edge and deal with helping as best we can. Average dudes who have watched good people slip away all know nobody cares, so why bother talking?

Get off the fucking computer, get off fucking twitter, go to a bar, have a drink and talk to people. Find a local bar with a trivia night and go have some wings and play. There are literally limitless hobbies that do not involve sitting in front of a screen. Join a maker space. Go to a Geek Dinner. Go to a comic book store and say hello to the people behind the counter. Get off the god damned couch, get off the TV/Netflix/Hulu what the fuck ever, and have direct human to human interactions.

Hell, you may find some people sort of, kinda like you that make going out worth the effort.

As long as you are off my fucking lawn, go DO something.

But then, I've been having online debates since before you were born. My first "internet" experience was using an acoustic coupler to dial into the University of Colorado to play a MUD on a terminal whose only output was a daisywheel printer. I missed being OG "eternal September" by a year. And what I've noticed over the past ten years (but not the past twenty, and not the past 25) is the retreat of anyone over 30. It didn't used to be this way. It started when GenZ hit college.

So those of us who remember? Those of us who know? We're left with a choice - figure out how to tell you that you're wrong in such a way that your feelings aren't hurt... or find something better to do.

Thank you for putting into words what I have been going through personally in regards to the internet over the last at least 5-6 years. Funny, now that you mention it, where are all the old farts on the internet? Where did they go? How is it that a whole class of people can just stop interacting and nobody noticed? Suddenly, I don't feel like the grumpy old codger of an asshole I have been dealing with as I walk away from the toxic swirling drain of garbage that is the Internet. Nothing in the online space is really worth the bullshit any more and I have better stuff to do that is actually worth spending my time on.

Your words have helped me and for that I will be eternally grateful. Be well.

http://archives.forusa.org/blogs/ivan-boothe/5-reasons-targeting-violence-media-wont-help-heal-our-society/12004

Want to make people REALLY and I mean REEEEEEAAAAALY uncomfortable? Ask how many of these kids are from divorced families. Ask how many are from single mother homes. Ask how many of these kids are from homes where the parents lost their jobs due to globalization. How many of these kids have been drug through the family court grinder.

As movies and media has become more violent, crime went down. But blaming movies and games? you can do something about that. Broken homes and divorces? Good luck fixing that and ever winning an election again.

I took a day off work, and got my first images of Mars and Saturn for the year.

Well that was shit news to wake up to this morning. Not a bad life for a man who was supposed to die at 30 though.

Very poor seeing and we need to clean the optics, seal and grease some gears, rebalance the main optical tube, resolve a finicky tracking error and then I have to git gud with the processing and cleaning of images.

First Mars of the 2018 opposition. Hoorah.

Don't die so fast. Everything else flows from that.

Weird fucking week here.

I had to get a HepA vaccination. I go to the place, verify paperwork, verify medical history, wait my turn. They take me back to the room and in walks a kid. This gal looked 18, maybe 19. I figured that she was an assistant or other low-level employee to check me in and ask all the medical and allergy stuff before the nurse came in. Then I saw her badge. BSN, RN, APRN. Holy shit. This "kid" has 10+ years of schooling and residency in letters after her name! Assuming starting school at 17, this puts her no younger than 26-28 range. Now, I hate this chick because I have scars older than her and now I feel bad about myself for being old. After the shot, I mentally added two years to her age; she was great with the injection, nearly perfect.

So yea, I'm "that age" now. Fuck.

In other heath news, I'm all but fucked. I'm giving up sugar, grains and starches for as long as I want to remain upright. I am definitely insulin restive but lacking the main markers of full on fuck-you-motherfucker diabetes. Giving up all the junk food, sugar, Chocolate (and that one hurts) has made the numbers move into the "You ain't dead yet" direction. And for the first time in for-fucking-ever? I'm losing about a pound or two a month. I should be losing more. I fast for 80 hours and shit my intestines clean and gain weight. Something they don't tell you about a Keto style diet is the other secondary changes that happen. Think about all the people you know that have trouble waking up in the morning. My working idea on this meme is that the standard western diet is mostly starch and carbs, and 8-9 hours after your last meal you have a major crash in insulin, blood sugar, etc. Those of you that have gone through the "keto flu?" I'm wondering if people are going through that every morning.

I'm sleeping marginally better now. I'm waking up better, not as good as I should, but better. My brain is de-fogging. And those fucking numbers are moving. So physically getting better; mentally pissed off and angry.

As someone going through health shit himself, my view is that every breath I get to make is a giant "Fuck you" to the universe. I'm in this for the long count. As an American, you gotta be your own advocate. get the data from each doc, make a folder, keep everything, and demand your medical records. If you skip over to a new doc, one that will listen to you, you will have all the charts to hand them.

Most doctors, IMO, are data nerds at heart and love to see info and test results. Even when shit does not make sense, if they see a puzzle, they want to solve it. The tricky part is fining a doc with 1. the time 2. the motivation 3. the "I still Give A Shit" drive and latch onto that doc like a parasite. Not getting an answer is a pain in the ass, but we gotta stick with it and hope for something to tick.

One positive out of today's appointment, I won't be having the transplant discussion for a while it seems. Sick, but not sick enough.

Awesome. Keep that out about 10-15 years and you will be talking about stem cell organ regeneration and shit. You'll make mk's week.

According to a conversation I had this week, I've been kicked out of the nerd/geek clubhouse. Their reasoning? I've only seen one of the Marvel movies (deadpool), not watched any of the new Star Trek movies, Never seen Dr. Who, and in general do not give a shit about pop culture. I've reached the point that I don't know who the actors are. Pop music will grate against my brain when out and about and I have no idea who or what the bands are. I heard a terrible song in a waiting room and it turned out to be one of the #1 hits this year.

Meanwhile I sit in a room with more computing power than all of planet earth in 1968, have four separate VPN tunnels, am running (at current count) nine different OS's on 14 running PCs/Pi's/laptops/servers/routers, have five pairs of binoculars, several telescopes, and a library that would have made a monk in the 1800's rage with envy. I have 20TB of raw astronomy data that I have been working on in my spare time (lol), I'm learning how to study for a test to get certifications, I'm active on several forums where the median education is a Master's degree (and I bring down that average having barely graduated high school), and can rattle off ten year old 4chan nonsense which flies over the head of those in the room. Yet I am not a nerd because I have not seen a movie or two. (How many of these Marvel movies are there now?)

After a good bout of friendly back and forth I realized that the words geek and nerd have been lost to people like me (aka I'm old get off my lawn, whippersnappers). Watching TV does not make you a nerd. Obsessing over a fandom where the entry cost is your cable bill... does that count? Knowing actors and roles and movies, does that now make one a nerd/geek? Hell, is there still a difference? Spouting lines of dialogue from a movie that grossed $1 billion, then calling yourself a geek?

Nerds and geeks were the the rejects and weirdos. The people who found something they loved and went all in, for better or worse. This love of betterment generated skills that (sometimes) lead to employment, or maybe enlightenment? A music nerd was someone that could tell you the influences of a band, provide examples, probably had a record collection that rivaled radio stations. Almost to the point you were afraid to talk to the guy because you knew the 3 hour dissertation on how 1970's California Punk fractured and influenced the people who wound up in Seattle and became Grunge. The guy who could tell you why a big-block Chevy engine was awesome, and go deep into detail, to the point of showing off pictures of his latest engine build. The girl who got into knitting and wants to tell you all about the stitches, where they came from, why different needles work with different threads etc. The gardening nerds excited that winter is over and want you to be happy that the tomatoes and peppers are growing.

Add into the mix that the tech industry pisses me off. I spent time looking at how to get a CDL and become a truck driver today. I sit on my ass all day anyway and there is a shortage, not that I would really do that. I caught myself doing the math on how much I really need to earn to live. I wanted to put something here other than a shaking fists at clouds rant, but lost the thoughts in the middle of two boring chapters on Microsoft Server. I can't tell if I am frustrated that our exclusive club of weirdos and oddballs has been burnt to the ground only for an amusement park to be built in its place, or that I've hit the age where everything new is shit, or even if I've lived inside my own head for so long that I'm angry that I did not see all the changes coming down the pike.

Fuck 'em. I am going to rebuild my home RAID as I am running out of room; the 12TB drives have come way down in price and now the controller cards are reasonable, can operate the big drives and all have build-in Linux functionality. I think this summer I will build a 100TB server to help get my mind back in focus. There are a few newer Linux builds that will do a full redundant file system and if you get the right hardware you can even expand the storage as you need more space. I think I can have the full rig done for $5K or so if the 12TB drives hit $300. I'll wipe the old server, put a decent OS on it get it set up and sell it to recover some of the cost. And I was so unsettled this week that I pulled the trigger on a new astronomy camera, so I get that to play with over the summer as well.

I'm starting to see news articles about the reddit redesign make it to the normie press; none of them are good. I'd post one or two but, eh I just don't care any more. Starting to get a Digg vibe. Hubski looks to be he 83,000 or so most popular website in the USA, and from that link we get a decent amount of traffic from Turkey and India as well, but not Canada. Then again Alexa is odd on the non-main websites and has weird reporting.

I was bored last night and went through some "reddit alternative" searches and the stuff from 2014-2017 Hubski is mentioned quite often. the current articles are mostly talking about how Voat imploded into racism and alt-right ethno-idiocy, while talking about the "chan" style boards. This explains why 4Chan has been a bigger pile of awful than normal of late. They also talk about Hacker News of all places. Maybe the shitlords will pass us over and we will escape the brunt of the exodus, which would be nice.

If there is an influx here this spring and summer? Welcome those that stick around. Don't forget to use the mute and block buttons on the trolls. Enjoy the temporary shitshow as things settle into the new normal.

And don't forget to get off the internet once in a while and go outside.

It's not just the usual 11-year cycle.

One thing that you have to understand reading an article like this is that we have been measuring cosmic ray impacts on the earth's atmosphere for fewer than 50 years. In the general scheme of things, that is nothing. If the sun has a 200 year cycle of magnetic pulses, we have not seen but a quarter of the cycle.

There has been an uptick of "OMG MAGNETIC FIELD DOOOOOM FLIPS!!!" lately. Since there was not a mass extinction, or even any long term damage to the planet from the last flip, we as biological critters are going to probably be fine. Our tech is going to have a rough time, but tech exists because smart people solved problems and came up with solutions to expected difficulties. Since these problems are solvable, I'm not worried about them per se. We are talking more hardening of orbital satellites and resources, requiring more launches (Thank you SpaceX) and heavier manned capsules and living quarters to compensate for the changing radiation environment.

I save thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of bullshit by switching to Single.

In a funny story, my doctor asked me why I don't date. My reply, "You mean other than my looks and personality?" did not go over well.

I am going to give a talk/class to a bar full of people expecting to be entertained and learn something. I am trying to not freak the fuck out. This bar wants to invite thinkers, scientists, artists etc and have then give a 30 minute talk on why you should give a shit about what they do. Not exactly the "Beer with a Scientist" events that are popping up, but in the same headspace.

My talk will be about the moon and how we came to figure out that the earth is round, moves around the sun and how people have used the sun, moon and stars to tell time since before Stonehenge. Since we are getting two Blue moons and a total lunar eclipse they wanted an astronomer and I picked the short straw. Oh, and this is going to be their first event and are going to use me and the turnout to judge if they are going to keep doing these sorts of things. So we are going to be outside. with telescopes. In January.

The title of the talk? New Moon, Full Moon, Red Moon, Blue Moon.

One of the nice things about all the GDPR is that I have a full on list of websites and idiots sending me messages about updated privacy policies. Or, as I call them, DELETE ALL THE THINGS messages. I'm working my way down the list, poisoning personal data, deleting posts, scrubbing histories. Why? Because the Internet is no longer fun, and I have privacy concerns. And I honestly no longer have any fucks to give.

Also, LinkedIn is shit. Seriously, why the fuck would you post anything there that is not job related? There is a curse to being knowledgeable about things.

Also, fuck Microsoft. Windows 10... If my userbase was even slightly more tech savvy than the apes banging on the monolith in 2001 I'd start rolling out some Linux test beds. If you pay extra fro a fucking Pro license, you cannot kill Cortana, the Windows Store, the XBOX gaming shit, and you have to run through hoops to prevent end users from doing shenanigans on the desktops that you do not want them to do. I'm about to just say fuck it and go to all terminal servers. Also, Win7 end of life in January 2020, but any new processors won't let you install the OS, so you are stuck with Win10 or Win8.1; 8.1 pro and enterprise are a gong show all their own. Fun little side note? If you go Win10 enterprise, you can kill all the bullshit and just run an OS. No gaming garbage, no ads, no Cortana, no store. Enterprise is about double the cost of a Pro license.

I've also had to explain why storing patient data, research data, HIPAA protected information etc in "THE CLOUD!" (said just like that) is not a good idea.

This week, if a phone call does not go in my favor, I am killing my home internet and using the cell phone as a hot spot for the little bit of net surfing I do any more. Some days I debate whether a career change to truck driver is worth considering.

If Sanders is racist, then everyone is.

I grew up less than five miles from Tom Metzger, may he burn in hell. The Klan was active in Southern California based on an anti-Catholic, anti-Mexican agenda and in the 1980's was one of the strongest in the country. Short Article on the KKK in San Diego if you are interested I've been told I'm not white because of my Irish heritage. I've had friends who were in gun battles with KKK members. There were parts of San Diego I was told that under no circumstances should I ever go there. When I got out into the world away from family etc, and interacted with blacks and Mexicans, we all realized were were in the same general boat. My racism all but died for good when I was living in my car for a few years.

The only privilege in this world is cash. If your mom and dad have money you get to start the game on easy mode. If not? LOL, Fuck you.

Democrats need to take a giant fucking page from the '92 Clinton run. Focus like a laser on the Economy. Every time there is a camera in your face say "economy, jobs, healthcare, environment." Make this election about rebuilding the middle class and a lot of the white people who voted Trump will switch, at least from the people I interact with here in Banjostan.

The gig Economy is the new serf class. No stability, no benefits, break the unions. The housing situation is just a byproduct, collateral damage if you will, on the assault on wages and labor.

Wednesday is Pubski day where there tends to be a long thread with more engagement. Start there to learn the community. If you see something interesting, jump in.

I wish I had that kind of spine.

Through a series of twists, turns and "What the fuck just happened?" something amazing has dropped in my lap that I hope to announce.... soonish. For the first time in a long while I have a goal, a mission and people cheering me on. Kinda weird to type that out, even weirder to be living it.

Nobody is exactly sure how I am able to pump enough blood to stay conscious. I don't have an answer myself.

Sounds like you are either stronger than you think or you have shit that you have not yet done and need to stick around long enough to finish it.

I spent some time completely offline. No Youtube, no websites, no any of this fuckery. The Universe and I had a pleasant chat, Nature send a million bloodsuckers after my precious bodily fluids, then I spent a few days in a room doing nothing by playing UT4 with 400 other nerds.

Speaking of reddit, I had to google a Linux error and one of the top links was to Reddit. I click on the link and HOLY WHAT THE FUCK. They changed the layout to Facebook. It sucks, like Digg 2.0 sucks.

Fuck Reddit.

The Witcher 3 will easily take you 500 hours or longer if you get "side-quest-itis" May be the best game of the 2010's. If you get the Witcher 3, get it from GOG, not Steam.

Speaking of GOG and CD Projekt Red... Cyberpunk 2077 is coming out soon. Looks like the hype is building, the game is getting finalized and it will be out this year. This is going to be my next big gaming purchase once it is out. DO NOT PREORDER VIDEO GAMES!

Kerbal space Program is not that expensive and fun as hell. 100 hours of play time is an easy target. I judge a game by how long it takes me to get bored with it... I have 3500 hours into KSP from back when the game cost $7, back in 2011? 2012? The Expansion adds parts, the ability to add and make missions, and is not needed unless you are into that.

If you are into map reading simulators, I like Galactic Civilization 3 Like most 4x games, the end game becomes tedious, but the early and mid games make the playthrough worthwhile. Civ4 is still my favorite conquer the world game, and Civ6 feels off to me. Not sure why; the game is pretty and after being out a few years the real problems and bugs are fixed.

Banished is a chill little problem solver. If you ever played the city builder games (and all of them are on GOG BTW) this will feel like a modern remake. Good graphics, rational choices, and everything works well.

Speaking of city builders, Cities:Skylines is a better SimCity that anything since SimCity4

The Religious Left is just as vile, toxic and dangerous and the Religious Right. My worry is that the nutjobs on my side are not being called out on being toxic nutjobs like the fuckwits on the far right have been.

I like to describe it this way. Don't think of it as "dark matter." Think of it as "dark gravity." SOMETHING is out there acting like a gravitational force. SOMETHING out there is bending space in very predictable ways that we can measure, test, and make predictions about. We know what this "force" is NOT. It is not the normal matter that makes up the stuff you and I and the stars are made of. It is not clouds of gas and dust. IT is also very cold and does not interact with normal matter and light or if it does interact it does so very weakly.

And the kicker is that when you make an energy budget for the whole universe, this "dark gravity" makes up 4x more of the universe than the stuff that you and I are made of. And stuff that is unknown makes me excited to be alive. Maybe this will be the solution to every issue we face as a people. Maybe it will be something we cannot use and exploit. Maybe it will be unknown for dozens of generations until we get a mind and the tools needed to say "Oh, that is what this force is."

The fact that humanity found something out in the universe that is driving the researchers bonkers makes me excited for the future.

https://snap.stanford.edu/conflict/

Key take away:

A small number of communities initiate most conflicts, with 1% of communities initiating 74% of all conflicts. The image above shows a 2-dimensional map of the various Reddit communities. The red nodes/communities in this map initiate a large amount of conflict, and we can see that these conflict intiating nodes are rare and clustered together in certain social regions. These communities attack other communities that are similar in topic but different in point of view.

Happens every 11 or so years. We are now seeing the impacts of a potential geomagnetic flip, the first one in 700K years or so. With a weaker field there will be more cosmic ray strikes on the upper atmosphere. This makes me wonder if they are going to have to re-calibrate the C14 baselines for radiocarbon dating. Also, if the geomagnetic field is weakening are there going to be impacts on the health of astronauts in low earth orbit? are new satellites going to need extra radiation hardening? Is this going to puff up the stratosphere and mesosphere layers of the atmosphere and help deorbit some of the bits of space junk in orbit? The last solar maximum did squat for helping the space garbage problems after all.

Louisville has a kick-ass bookstore. I like visiting the place once a month or so They run local author forums. The staff READS in a way that makes me and my goal of a book a week or 20K pages a quarter look like a lightweight. I went in a month ago and said I was reading Alone Together and had a 10 minute conversation on how the internet is creating a bigger demand for long form readers and people are joining the in-person book club because people are starting to get burnt out on social media. Good luck having that sort of interaction in anything other than an independent establishment that invests in its employees.

They also carry magazines, foreign newspapers, local schlock, NYT highbrow and will order just about everything and anything that they can get an ISBN number from. I've intentionally bought from them rather than Amazon because they earned my patronage. The one drawback is that I have to go there on the way home from work and getting in and out during those times is a bit rough.

They also do partner projects with the Library. They used to run a writer's forum to help kids write better school papers but I an not sure they do that any more. After all if they are in the library they might end up buying books as well as borrowing.

Bookstores can and do compete. They have to offer something that a website can't: people. That requires investment in your staff, the community and building more people reading books.