Canada Can't 'Out-Protectionist' Trump

This is always stated as a 'zero sum game'.  If they pile on protections, then we must too, to save old industries.  The young people that voted for cannabis, don't care about the unions and inefficient industries.  However, these yo-yos have political power.

Every one of these people want tariff protection for themselves, but not for others.  They want to go back to monopolies, where they can shaft everyone else.  Who doesn't want a monopoly or cartel?  The end-game is our own wall of protection.  Want to buy a car?  Well, it's Chevy Impala for you, at three times the world price.  Cheese?  It has to be from Quebec, or all the provinces can put up their own walls.

Much like the 'war on drugs', this will get ridiculous.  We voted on cannabis, now we'll have to vote on 'freedom to buy'.  The only solution to Mexican back-stabbing is to drop all tariffs and protections.  If we think that companies anywhere are being predatory, we can deal with that.

FREEDOM TO BUY!

NO STINKIN' TARIFFS!

No hurricanes this season

The Atlantic belt gave up all its heat energy early this year.  All we have is a slow drifting of warm air fighting with the cold air.  So, in Toronto, we have warmth, and the rest of Canada has snow.  The UK is hoping for another heat wave but they might not get it.

I can't see any secondary effects of this bizarro micro-El Nino.  I suspect that the next ocean current map will show that it is gone. 

Linux - kernel 4.19 still has amdgpu regression

4.17 is now at end of life and it's not perfect.  There seems to be a memory leak that takes a week to freeze the system.  4.18 didn't boot, and now 4.19 doesn't boot as well.  Perhaps 4.20, or just go to 5.  :)

Jonathan and Cyrene get married

The wedding is over, and it was a great time.  I had a full dose of Sea Oil to reboot my brain and now I'm fine.  Here's the wedding photo.

The groom was nowhere to be found.  :)

Fixing the Famous Samsung Dryer Squeak

This is all over the internet and happens with brand-new dryers.  If your dryer is more than a year old, then you have to fix it yourself.  The problem is that all the wheels are bushings with grease, and things happen to those. 

This is exactly the same design as Inglis for the last ten years.  Parts are easy to find.  I bought a single support wheel in advance because they said it was always one wheel.  It wasn't for us, it was the idler wheel.  We just cleaned it and used high-temperature white super grease in a can.  The main wheels were fine, but I greased them. 

If it goes again, I'll get a full idler wheel assembly. 

Getting wedding clothes done overseas

Although this is quite cheap, I must assess a 50% chance of complete disaster.  We went through this with a 'mother' dress, which was garbage and no refund.  We also did this with a California start-up which allowed you to design a wedding dress.  A total fit disaster, although a seamstress managed to fix it up.

Finally, we did it with suits for the groomsmen and groom.  50% disasters.  Our local seamstress spent hours on fixing the suit.  We love her for it. 

Weak El Nino event is happening now

Darn, if it isn't actually happening, according to legal definition.  You can see that there is a source in the West Pacific, and it's spilling over the top right to Central America.  However, just the week before we had a total 'circular' circulation, and I can't imagine there's much energy in this.

My definition of a true El Nino is global impact, and a bump in the global temperatures.  I'll make a big 'walk back' if that happens, since I am convinced that the last one drained everything.  If there had been significant heat energy, then the North Pacific current would have started again.  Anyway, don't listen to me.  :)

We may get a bunch of these 'shudderings' as the Pacific current goes into convulsions.  And the UK is freezing right now!  Good for them.

ps.  El Nino events should have a magnitude scale based on total heat energy.  The last one was an M9, and this is maybe an M5. 

End of the stagnant air

July and August were the continental 'default weather', where stagnant air heats up tremendously.  In Toronto we got a lot humid air and rainstorms, because the Gulf air could creep up on us.  The UK broiled without the Gulf Stream.

The warmies have been busy dreaming up 'convenient explanations' of the day.  This used to be called 'ad hoc' reasoning, such as the clockwork universe.  Unfortunately, this is the common reasoning of the day.  Those very few of us that like to stick to the Scientific Method, can only roll our eyes.

Now the UK is going to suffer 'default winter', and they deserve it.  We are getting strong Arctic breezes, and we'll finish up with a default August.  Maybe some warmth in September, and then we plunge into Winter.  I told those guys in the UK to stock up on ice salt, but they all just send insults.  That's been the way of the warmies since the beginning.

I can't wait to see the global temps and Arctic ice volume.  The latest warmie thing is that all this funny weather is caused by the Arctic warming up.  Ha.

Linux - kernel 4.18.3 maintains the regression for amdgpu

A regression in Linux is when something that used to work, doesn't.  This is a big discussion, as they have chopped out the most common screen-set with amdgpu, and they don't have a clue what they did.

Thank goodness 4.17 still works, and we'll have to wait for 4.19 for better amdgpu support.

Going to be super-hot -- ha!

Reference

Using the great science of 'hindcasting', we get this projection.  Hindcasting was always used for the carbon projections, this is just more detailed.  At the old place, I usually got into great fights on the use of 'adjusted modelling', based on what you wanted.  They always boasted that their analysis always was exactly spot-on for the day, until the next day.  This is what is happening here.  The actual global temp graph is way below the original carbon projection.  They are now 'adjusting' it for the day.

When you are dealing with 'Grand Stupidities', then this is absolutely wonderful.  It's like doing this with stock prices.  A sure way to make money!  Not!

Anyway, I put this in for the record.  My take on it, is that this northern heat wave is a result of no ocean current activity, and is the default mid-west weather for summer.  We are into an 'old-school' August, and the nights are going down to 12 deg, with highs of 25.  We are going to get 'default' Winnipeg weather for the winter.  I'm thinking that the Atlantic heat is draining early, but we'll see.  I suspect that this month's global temps might still show a little lump.

I'm putting up the sides of the greenhouse, and I should get a good salad crop until the end of October.  Then we are in for a nice 70's winter.  Kills the fire ants.  :)

ps.  Everybody is 'hot' on the heatwaves.  Get up and protest!

pps.  On the positive side, they are drawing their line in the sand, and saying that global temps will zoom up even more to get back on track.

more:  They've come up with a new trend line that wipes out the old projections, and ignored the little bit at the end.  Very convincing.

I am not Your Enemy

Reference

Wow, what a great attempt to rise from the quicksand.  They could only find the owner of a store that sells newspapers, to pretend he is reading it. 

As for me, nobody reads me either, and although I go against all the Grand Stupidities of the world, I am happy to hide under a rock.  :)

Engineers drift away from physics

Reference

As a retired engineer and all-round gadfly, I have lost my faith in structural engineers.  They build buildings that tilt in earthquakes, and bridges that collapse in mild winds.

I blame this on a drift from physics, just like all the other sciences.  Everybody thinks they know what's going on, and make a stand on fossbook.  Then they can never retreat.  They test the dynamics on a shake table, but that isn't real physics.  They need more on-line monitors to see what the structures are doing, and physics experiments.

Sadly, just like carbon warming, nothing will get changed until there is a drastic change from assumptions.  That would mean an ice age, or lots more things collapsing.

ps.  As pointed out, the thing is from the 60's.  However, testing, maintenance, etc is modern.  Here's a grainy video of the centre span tipping. 

Linux - 4.18 doesn't boot with amdgpu

4.17.14 is finally working quite well.  Only very heavy use on Chrome is causing it to freeze.  4.18 can't get the frame buffer up.  It worked on earlier versions, but the last few have been bad.

ps.  14.18.1 does not boot either.  Looking things up, this is a 'scandal' for 4.18, so I am not alone.

Once again, Atlantic current on the nose

Once again we court disaster.  I've never seen it go below.  It usually drifts up again, on its own schedule.  I generally think that when it goes below the nose we freeze up North.  Probably a worse thing than Saudi Arabia dumping all its assets at a loss.

In a few weeks, it will probably turn again.

ps.  it has now gone up, Aug 18.

Number One Rule of Geotechnical Engineering - See what the neighbours did

A monster house near us (The Last Monster House).  They didn't ask the neighbours about their continuously running well point.  They just tried to bully their way in.

That water level is up to the top of the neighbour's well point.  Looks like another mill to get things fixed.

Getting Ready for October 17 Canadabis Business

Old Dougie won't limit business to just the LCBO.  He hates that monopoly crap.  Soon everybody will be selling their cottage wares.

This is the official t-shirt of my Magic Sea Oil (tm).  It's tailored to old men.  T-shirts and Sea Oil coming to a darknet near you!

Arctic Ice Volume Holds its Position

You recall earlier this year when we had a cold May and June, that Arctic ice volume crossed lanes and went back quite a few years.  This was quite consistent with my ocean current hypothesis and my greenhouse has produced the best tomatoes in the neighbourhood.

Now we are in 'no circulation' default weather.  This can be quite hot, and I'm surprised that it is reflected in the global temps.  Right now I'm thinking that the Atlantic heat is dumping early, but we haven't had good default weather for a long time.

At least the ice volume is just sliding down the summer curve and isn't losing years.  We'll see in September if it curves up and hits the old mean soon.

Meanwhile, all the papers are reporting that summer default weather is permanent, and we're all going to die.

Hot July brings global warming back to trend

Wow, this month I can't gloat over at the Gaurdian (sic).  The global temps have zoomed up to trend, even though that trend is below that extrapolated for carbon warming.  But enough about that, this was a hot summer, which I enjoyed tremendously.

Ice volume just slid down the normal summer decline.  It can only cross lanes (become thicker) at the seasonal turn.

I can only surmise that the lack of major ocean currents has allowed 'default weather', which is just the hot sun.  But I'm happy, let's see how we do from now on. 

If I put on my gloomy pants, I still see a major plunge in temps.  And this is the only way to expose the bad physics.

Petietown Assaults Tourists

*this is a fictional account of a town north of Toronto that's filled with the living dead.  I have a video that confirms this, but for now let's assume it doesn't exist.  This is just therapy for me since I nearly died.

There is a town that hates tourists.  It has been infected by the fat and pasty living dead disease.  You go shopping and they are always looking at you with their beady glowing eyes.  They hate you and want to kill you.  I blame the spread of the disease on that Facebook guy.  He made billions destroying the world.

So, my 'fake news' video shows me in a giant tourist traffic mess on the long weekend.  The 115 went to one lane.  The most efficient and legal way is to stay in both lanes and zipper in at the last.  However, the fatpasties have declared their own anti-tourist law.  I've seen this several times now.  So, I'm going along the ending lane when the guy ahead of me fearfully ducks into the jammed lane.  There's a hundred feet ahead of me.  I didn't know that violating their law meant death.  I'm trundling along when a small stationary car swerves into my lane a bit.  Fine, I go around him and a giant pickup truck lurches out and practically hits me.  If we had connected then I imaging everyone exiting their cars and rumbling towards us.  I could phone 911 but the local sheriff is also one of them.

Finally, a tourist lets me in.  The monster truck goes off ten seconds later.  They all drive pickup trucks up there.  I recommend that all tourists avoid that place and let them stew in their own unemployment.

Carbon Warming is Dead, Bring on Particulate Cooling

Reference

This was my comment on the Guardian.  It will get very harsh treatment.

What the heck? Arctic ice is building up again. Global temperatures are going down, if we look at the tail end of the curve, like this article does. We see here, more physics proposed without a tested mechanism. It would be extremely easy to test all these mechanisms with lasers and balloons, but nobody does it. By the end of year, these trends will have continued, and somebody will say that carbon warming induces particulate cooling. All without a tested mechanism, following the Scientific Method.

However, they do bring out the tail end of the curve for the ice.

They are preparing for the end of the warming cycle, laying in the paving stones for a new mechanism.  Nasa will continue to say they were never wrong, but that particulates are winning.  This is a big win for them.  :)

Linux - Ryzen5 amdgpu finally works on 4.17

OMG!  This has been an age.  It finally boots without all the fuzz.  And it comes up with the framebuffer.  I haven't run it long enough to see if heavy Chrome or Inkscape use freezes it.  But it looks good.  I was worried I had a bum processor.

poohey - still freezes under heavy load.  :(

Pickering Nuclear Meltdown Scenario - M7+ Earthquake

Nuclear plants are designed with 'defence in depth' meaning that there are multiple independent layers.  Although Candu reactors can't 'meltdown' in a classical US manner, they can dry up and release a fearful amount of radioactivity both into the lake and into the air.

Nobody knows how close we came to this during the recent Great Blackout, and nobody ever will.  Suffice to say that the odds of such a blackout had been stated at 'one in a million' and no defences were set up for it.  Afterwards, a totally new emergency power plant was built.

The odds of a major release should be kept at 'one in ten million', which is the official response.  Nothing is as opaque as Ontario Power Generation (OPG).  You'll only see their talking heads, and the media accepts this.  OPG has the advantage of being both a government and commercial organization.  They tell nothing.  Perhaps Doug Ford can change this.

I used to think 'What the heck?' -- Toronto will be in horribly bad shape.  True, but radiation is icing on the cake.  Surprisingly, all of Toronto's commercial buildings we be intact, but no power and no gas.  No workers can come in because all the lifelines are cut.  In the winter, we'll be chopping up the furniture for warmth.  Radiation would make rescue impossible.

Now, the talking heads can argue several points, which makes this whole article a useless thing.  :)

No chance of a big earthquake:  This is a true statement when you think that most people only think in terms of 'living memory', which is about 1 in 100 per year.  But the Hamilton Fault is as active as any zone east of the Rockies.  That concentrates the odds to one in a thousand or ten.  Those are Japanese odds!

Nuclear plants are designed for earthquakes:  That's true. All the heavy components are 'heavy'.  The are also on piles, so there has never been any chance that the pipes would be broken.  But everything else in a nuclear plant isn't designed like that.  Pickering B is a seismic disaster.  

Scenario:  Forget that Toronto will be destroyed, we're talking radiation here, far beyond what the pills can help with.  First, all power and gas will be cut off.  Most important is that Pickering uses a trench intake, and is surrounded by mountains of silt in the lake.  The intake channel barely has an equilibrium with the silt on the bottom.  Just the plant shut down and a big storm will block the channel.  But the earthquake is something else!  All the silt will explode with liquefaction.  Not a drop of water coming in.  As well, the M7+ thrust earthquake will cause a huge lake seiche, which is the lake version of a tsunami.

All the pressure tubes dry out.  The vacuum building can only take one reactor at a time.  The so-called emergency power plant is built on a swamp.  It is gone.  There is water storage, but again, for one reactor.  The tubes will melt and sag.  The heat will build up so the tubes might burn.  But the attempt to prevent that will create a lot of radioactive steam.

The citizens of Toronto can't flee.  They are trapped by the collapsing Gardner Expressway.  Not a very happy scene and I will wipe it from my mind.  If the wind is from the North, then no worries, just don't fish in the lake any more.

Where is the regulator in all of this?  Successive governments have made this a political plum for loyal retainers (Liberals started it).  The employees cringe and hide.

ps.  the various PR departments of all concerned contain all their intellect.  I am ignored and safe.  :)

'Stupidity Defence' goes wild

Reference

I've written about it for years, since it was so prevalent in the old company.  It's simply 'wilful ignorance' applied well in advance.

The story is "I'm the victim here.  I was so stupid!"  This has worked for all senior white males, since everybody believes them.  Can you imaging trumpy at a trial?

It doesn't work for people like Martha Stuart.  She tried and nobody believed her.  Probably no good for black people.  But really, is there any top white male executive that makes anybody believe he's not stupid?  Big Warren, maybe, but he can now claim senility.  :)

ps.  Figured it out.  He can't win with this defence.  He's playing to trumpy supporters, so there isn't civil war when trumps pardons him. 

Get ready for another El Nino - NOT!

Reference

Everybody loves a doom story.  This is not going to happen.  Of course, I'll take a 'walk back' if it happens.  :)

The Pacific equatorial belt current has been like this since the collapse of Monster El Nino.

It's bleeding heat right back in a big circle.  No heat coming to the north.  The Gulf Stream is gone, so the northern currents are dead.  This leaves us with 'Default Weather' according to latitude.  Super hot summers, extremely cold winters.

Global temperatures have been plunging this year.  I'm amazed that they say the opposite.  But these are the guys 'who can't be wrong' because it's bad optics.  This, from a country where 'Being Wrong is the New Right'.

Our climate doomers want this trend to go back up, but it won't.  No ocean currents.  We, in Toronto, have been lucky to get Atlantic moisture, but it stops here for the most part.  Just ask Parry Sound 33.

The physics of the standard El Nino is that heat builds up in the Pacific islands, and then bursts back every 7 years or so.  You can see that 1997 was the former big one, and this last one was huge.  My hypothesis is that we are going back into 70's weather, so be prepared.

**nasa could have done a zillion measurements to directly define the extent of the 'greenhouse gas' but they didn't.  Because it doesn't exist!  The only thing that will throw egg on their face is that this graph plunges to the bottom of the chart.

ps.  La Nina is just an overshoot, because the North Pacific current takes time to start up again.  Not happening this time.  I'm so glad they are finally calling this last El Nino 'huge'.  I've been saying this for a long time now.


pps. Ok, Noah, chief ninnies along with nasa are predicting this based on sea surface temperatures.

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf

Heat energy is 3d!