Caption: A lambert is a photometric brightness equal to one lumen, or 1/π candela per square centimeter. This luminance is produced by a blackbody source of luminous intensity 1 candela at a distance of 1 centimeter.
Bullet Points:
** Do you love buffets made up of starchy food and hot tub rash?
** Is there anything in the Bible that everyone agrees on besides the name? (there are so many versions of the Bible that agreeing on the “name” may be a bit too much to expect)
** San Diego, California – I drove past the government-issued tent city for the homeless. The illegal aliens received federally funded hotel rooms, EBT cards for meals, and ObamaPhones so they could call their families in their distant, squalid native lands. The madness fades once you get to Inland, but there are random tents and garbage piles along the freeway. Cal-Trans controls the land, and neither they nor the police wants to regulate it, so it continues. On the bright side, the fat lesbian mayor of San Diego is openly gay, so at least SD has that going for it…
** Back to hardcore scientific questions.
Economic Forecasts
(NY Times) “The U.S. economy is on track to grow faster this year than expected, the International Monetary Fund said on Friday, citing strength in the labor market and an acceleration in investment.
The I.M.F. projects 2.7 percent U.S. economic growth in 2025 in its latest World Economic Outlook report, up from an estimated 2.2 percent. This starkly contrasts with the fund’s reduced growth projections for the Euro area, which it attributed mainly to weakness in the manufacturing sector and heightened political uncertainty.
“The big story is the divergence between the U.S. and the rest of the world,” Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, the I.M.F.’s chief economist, said on a call with reporters this week. “We have stronger potential output growth in the U.S. compared to pre-pandemic, and weaker potential growth in other areas, like the euro area or China.”
***
Deathbed Statement – His Valediction
“I treated the native inhabitants of the kingdom with unreasonable severity, cruelly oppressed high and low, unjustly disinherited many, and caused the death of thousands by starvation and war, especially in Yorkshire….In mad fury, I descended on the English of the north like a raging lion and ordered that their homes and crops with all their equipment and furnishings should be burnt at once and their great flocks and herds of sheep and cattle slaughtered everywhere. So I chastised a great multitude of men and women with the lash of starvation and, alas! Was the cruel murderer of many thousands, both young and old, of this fair people. I tremble, my friends when I reflect on the grievous sins that burden my conscience, and now, about to be summoned before the awful tribunal of God, I know not what I ought to do. I was bred to arms from childhood and stained from the rivers of blood I have shed… It is out of my power to count all the injuries which I have caused during the sixty-four years of my troubled life.” — William the Conqueror, 1087
Identify the Aircraft
1
2
3
Identify the Armor
4
5
Identify the Ships
6
End
1 is de Havilland DH.110 Sea Vixen
2 looks like a Fokker T.VIII
6 is a Landing Ship Tank
Haven’t been to San Diego since 2017 and there were lots of homeless camps then. Imagine it’s way worse now.
The empowered homeless and illegal aliens whose sloth is funded by the taxpayers are aggressive, and why wouldn’t they be? They have what amounts to a get-out-of-jail-free card issued by the State of California.
In 2023 alone, California spent $30.9 billion feeding, housing, and health-insuring illegal aliens.
$31b of tax payer monies spent in support of the lawbreakers, and the people who did that keep getting elected. I don’t understand….
It’s well beyond my understanding. Why would anyone vote for demented old Pedo Joe or Kamala-the-Whore?
@ LL
I’m still of (what appears to be the minority) opinion that no one did elect poor old joe
I’m still of (what appears to be the minority) opinion that the 2020 election was the biggest scam ever played out on the American people
but that’s just my very humble opinion; I have no proof
I agree, Boron. It’s in the R/V mirror now.
Will Trump leave it in the rear view mirror?
Identify the Aircraft:
1. de Havilland Sea Vixen
2. Heinkel He 115
3. Kawasaki Ki-32 Mary
Identify the Armor:
4. Jagdpanther
5. M36 tank destroyer
Identify the Ships:
6. Landing Ship, Tank (LST)
Correct!
Soon LL will have to use AI to make up vehicles to identify. Surly’s ability to identify the fakes may help to identify Surly’s version of AI. The ship on the thumbnail / top of the post was nicely done being 3-d ish.
Since Surly is a supercomputer in a terminator alloy frame, he could spot the AI fakes easily.
A lambert- Well that explains it, you’re brightness is apparent. Remind me to wear sunglasses iff’n we meet up. 8th Grade humor aside, physics is cool…never knew that term, altho I won’t be able to separate the two from here on out. Love the opening scene tho, very cool.
***
Hardcore Science: Only in a British accent is that funny…she’s like Clarkson – The Greatest Living Englishman – only more velvet hammer in her delivery.
***
#4: “Damnit Bill, that’s the last time I let you tighten the tracks…I want this fixed within the hour or you’ll be eating raw lampreys and rotten stuffed cabbage for a month!”
Hardcore science: you’ve got to be pretty smart to be that stupid. If you take my meaning.
—
“You’ll be eating raw lampreys and rotten stuffed cabbage!”
Bill Smith: 🤢
Bill O’Donnell: 😡
Bill Garcia: ☹️
Bill Zhang: 😃 (don’t threaten me with a good time, Sarnt!)
I love the scientist’s reaction.
At least your surname is identifiable and somewhat unadulterated, my definitively Polish one became American-ized at Ellis Island.
Ahh, iPad operator error, wrong spot.
The funny thing is, you can see the Will-to-Live exit HIS body. It mostly comes out of his eyes.
hahahaha – oh, yeah.
Heheh, so true! Had ‘haggis and mushy peas’ but thought they looked either German or Polish. I couldn’t stand stuffed peppers growing up, I got hot dogs (yes, an understanding mom).
Btw, MrsPaulM wasn’t up for Gladiator2 last night, told her grab whatever then…Crazy Rich Asians…still want to run the gamut at that Street Market. Amazing looking food (well, from a Hollywood perspective anyway).
Asian Street Food: You reminded me of a story from almost four decades ago. So as a miserable puling grad student I got to present a paper at this VLSI conference in Taipei (prolly because my thesis advisor was Technical Chair of the conference, but we won’t go there because I’m sure the decision was based purely on merit). Budget was limited so she saddled the invited Plenary Speaker (her friend from MIT Lincoln Laboratory) with me as a room mate. This guy was a signal processing god, who somehow never got a PhD despite contributing more to the field than any random dozen PhDs. (I’m sure several VM regulars can guess who this is.) For reasons I can’t remember, he took the bus to work rather than driving. He taught himself Chinese by dint of reading a Chinese-English dictionary while sitting on the bus. So he knew lots of characters, but his pronunciation was terrible, seeing as this was not only pre-WWW but almost pre-Usenet Before Times and you couldn’t just call up a YouTube video. This becomes relevant.
—
One of the conference days was a trip to Hsinchu to tour the TSMC fab (when I got to “meet” Morris Chang — basically my hand was one of about a hundred he shook in a reception line). The night before, my eminent roommate had jet-lag insomnia and wandered out on to the mean streets of Taipei at around 5AM. He returned with something like 20 dumplings in two plastic sacks. (He’d wanted four dumplings, but mispronounced “4” as something more like “10”. When he was handed 10 dumplings he said forcefully, “4!” Then tried a slightly different pronunciation and again “4!”. The vendor thought he said “four tens” which is how we say “40”. So he gave my roomie another sack of 10 dumplings and was ladling out another 20 as Roomie was protesting and gesticulating. Roomie is a tall man, and was literally a full head above the ordinary Taiwanese on the street, so he naturally drew attention, on top of the gesticulating. At this point a small crowd started to form, watching this sidewalk drama, so Roomie took the first two sacks of dumplings, handed over a wad of cash, and sensibly retreated. Anyway, he had all these extra dumplings, so he gave me a sack, which I gobbled down like any impecunious grad student.
—
The bus trip to TSMC and the tour were fine. On the way back I started to feel unwell. Turned out the dumplings were not freshly made that morning. They were leftovers from the afternoon before, and had sat on the sidewalk in 90-deg heat for like 12h before Roomie brought them back. They insisted on coming back up. The bus had a toilet, but it was broken and chained shut. The driver angrily refused to pull over for me. Desperate, I found a tiny plastic bag in my backpack. I puked into that. It turned out the bag had a small puncture on the side, and this little jet of puke was squirting out the side. I pressed my right index finger to the hole, effectively plugging it. Then I got to sit, hunched in misery, for over an hour, holding the bag with my left hand, with right finger pressed to the leak. I got a new appreciation for that legendary little Dutch boy plugging the dike with his finger. The stench was terrible because it was a little plastic bag and I couldn’t knot off the top due to the volume of puke.
—
The best part of this story is that my advisor (who saw herself in loco parentis regarding my love life, was trying to set me up with this cute female (Chinese) PhD student from Stanford. That was back when I was bright-tailed, bushy-eyed, and pretty (yes it was once true, he said modestly) and Stanford girl had been all smiley and friendly. But the day after this misadventure (she had been sitting two rows in front of me and got to enjoy the stench), she developed this weird focal neurological condition of localized blindness — her eyes simply rolled off of me as if I wasn’t there. Ahahahaha!
—
Clearly I did not manage to learn anything from this misadventure. Seeing as I had pajeet [1] street pizza in New York only a few days ago. Sigh.
[1] apologies to Meghna Pant:
https://x.com/MeghnaPant/status/1764517416720306180?lang=en
If I cared about Meghna Pant personally, I’d want to know about the men who felt her up in NYC, and who threatened her in Dubai, and the midnight Switzerland creeps. Ethnoreligious demographics matter. But we can’t have that, because it would be Noticing. And thus damaging to The Narrative. Not even going to ask why she was living in NYC, and Dubai, and Switzerland, if all are equally rapey dystopias? Might as well stay home where you are used to the food and the language while waiting to get raped. Sheesh.
Meghna Pant isn’t hideous. Does she smell of stale curry and sweat?
@MikeC: See, this is like Mike W’s Hunting in the Shadows only a different type of [mis]adventure abroad with a similar requisite 10 days off post op. Geez, that story would stay with a person indefinitely.
The surname “Lambert” comes from the bastardized Norman French “Lambrecht” or people from the bright land. Vikings who settled in France. They crossed the channel to Hastings with William.
Polar vortex aside (6 here, not -6 as predicted, so easily handled with the right gear), in 2 Days America is about to take off like a Space X rocket, emerging as the laser-focused powerhouse The Colonies always were intended, have been historically, and will be once again. SISU MAGA ™
–
The world already has taken notice and are acting accordingly, especially the little dictators, and dare I say, Hamas. Can’t wait to see what transpires…Day 1 and 2 should be interesting as The Left, declining/irrelevant MSM, Dems, and feckless R’s go full Scanners because their Cheatery Club party is coming to an end.
I’m happy you survived the Polar Vortex. It’s warmer in Arizona’s mountains, but very little snow this winter. I’m not paying climate tax so it stands to reason.
40 miles south it is 11°. That isn’t bad but the 20 mph wind isn’t. Where is the balaclava I carefully put away last spring?
Just hit -2… Heimo Korth (Mr Last Alaskan) says “hold my frozen beer, that ain’t nuthin’.”
5° when I took Banner out for his last whiz a few minutes ago. In Steamboat s\Springs our recording thermometer was often stuck at -35°. Coldest recorded temperature in Colorado?
Maybell at -61°.
That’s your old neck of the woods, isn’t it?
LL’s Futures So Bright He’s gotta Wear SHADES.
Keep Up the Work and Enjoy the Spoils!
Illegal Aliens; Is it true that Federal Emergency Management Agency has diverted funds for housing ect? Which other alphabet agencies have contributed to the delinquency of O’biden’s trafficking racket? Where on the
“RESET” list of priorities will the cleanup of the carnage fall? Which departments will execute the orders, especially in the woke metro’s declaring declaring they are a sanctuary ? I saw APDJT saying funds will be diverted to solve the homeless ( mental / drug addicts) but I don’t remember exactly where from. Ukrainian aid? Less than 1/2 of 175 Billion that was channeled through there if it’s used EFFICIENTLY, should be enough to the go on the offense against the Demolition party’s act of war; The obscure indirect funding of drawing in the 15 million + migrant burden$ upon ” we the people ” needs to be called to account! I’d like to a complete victory. Swift and ferocious on this one battle front! An x2 on L.L.’s layout a while back, for possible citizenship for the few that can prove they can contribute with true patriotism to the Republic of the USA.
3.8 billion is the pocket change remaining in the Ukrainian aid bill. Sorry for bad grammar and typos in my first comment. I’m sure that what I’d like to see and what the New PTB can actually, and practically do through the GSA’s and NGO’s are entirely different.
We went up the coast to Quebec City and back on a cruise; I had a good time.
I don’t know about the “don’t go anywhere” kinds of cruises, but a new port every
day or two was nice. Lots of time to read.
I became quite fond of breakfast being a bowl of Filipino fried rice with sausage gravy
poured over it. If I felt like I might accidentally live too long (usually) , I would accompany
it with some eggs and meats.
*
There’s one good thing about those American Favelas like in San Diego – they clean up
nicely with a couple flamethrower tanks or a fuel-air bomb. It’s nice that they centralize
them for that.
*
– Kle.
My deck plate relatives tell me the General Maurice Rose (T-AP-126) was a cruise ship. Maybe, but I don’t care to find out if today’s cruise ships are more comfortable. One sea voyage is enough for this landlubber. No, I didn’t get sea sick, just bored. Boredom and my persona is a bad combination.
Reminded of a line from a Home Free singer – “Leaving me unsupervised is never a good idea” :)
I served in the US Navy but I’m not big on cruising. Serving in a navy ship at sea isn’t unlike being in a prison that rocks continuously. The walls are gray, the food is prison food and you have less personal space than a prisoner, while being expected to work for a living.
Precisely why I went Air Force.
On a submarine the walls literally close in as you dive deeper…
Perhaps the most disgruntled servicemen I ever encountered were the 40 or so Airmen sharing our cruise on the good ship Rose.
:) Unmet expectations…..
Lots of swamp critters are staying away from the swearing in ceremony – are they planning something, or are they just afraid things like honesty and hard work may splash on them?
It’s going to be cold and uncomfortable and is a triumph for their enemies. Did Caesar’s opponents show up at his Triumph? I don’t know, it’s an honest question.
I run the VFD monthly flea market. Today the Mexicans were buying American flags and wearing Native Texan shirts.
Interesting. They used to fly Mexican flags proudly and wear their Jesus Malverde t-shirts.
That mess in San Diego figures… nobody wants to enforce the law, so they stand off and point fingers at each other while that mess continues to fester…
I’m waiting for the rats living in the garbage to start spreading plague. It would solve the homeless problem.
@ LL % Ed
it’s not so much about who won; it’s more about the numerous EOs he issued and the bills he signed
they’d all be invalid; then what?.
I just want to know the guilty did not go free. That they did not get away with it.
Heh. FDR did, why start now?
– Kle.
I get your point.