2017 Winter January 20 Friday

44 degrees this morning, walk 35:41 minutes.  

Very foggy out this morning, almost like walking through water!  Not really, but it was a strange experience .  My pace went back to about the average, but I expect that until I get back into walking again.  

The start of a four year dystopia.  Even if  (or I should say “when”) the lying bully gets impeached or removed for mental illness reasons or convicted of treason or whatever, the next two replacements are even worse.  Government by tax evading “think tanks” who think they know what is best for everyone and want to use their money to control everyone else and enrich themselves.   

What is worse is the ignorant,  incompetent  clowns (to be polite about it) the the lying bully appointed to his “cabinet”.  

Of course, this state doesn’t have any better.  Some Legislature who wastes his time crying about how the state ought to secede instead of worrying about the real problems.  Between that and wasting time groping high school interns and doing their personal work and taking money from lobbyists and doing their bidding, no wonder the state is such a mess. 

Finished listening to my “Great Course” lecture on science fiction this morning.  It was wonderful in that I learned a lot and discovered an entire sub-culture I really didn’t even know existed.  

Thinking of listening to it again, and reading the  course outline as I go, but I probably will go on to something else now and come back to it later.  

Thinking of listing to the Alan Turing biography.  I understand it can be a little challenging, but it should be interesting.  I don’t know a lot about him, other than his major achievements, but it should be interesting to hear about him.  If I don’t like it, at least I can cross it off my “round tu it’ list. 

I’m reminded of when I listened to the biography of Tesla, and I was amazed at what he had done, probably without a lot of credit.  A lot of it was probably his own fault, but still….

Thinking more about some of the basic infrastructure that we kind of assume will always be there.  

Obviously electricity, as I discussed yesterday, although I really think it should eventually be possible to provide batteries that power a house for several years (or even yearly replacement).  It would resolve a lot of problems, and be a lot cheaper, if the right kind of battery could be developed.

By the same token, I don’t know why they couldn’t develop a “long-term” battery for a car, say one you charge once a month or so, depending on mileage driven.  

I recently read about a utility that is filling it’s “peak demand” with solar batteries, so I feel we are approaching it.

Of course, GPS is now essential.  If we lose the satellites with GPS, a lot of major advancements are gone, to say the least.  

I think we first became consciously aware of GPS in around 2000 when we rented a car with GPS and were amazed to say the least.  Now I carry a GPS on my wrist!

That’s it for now, Friday, January 20, 2017, the start of the dystopian era.