Wow. Spokane is having a bad day.
I thought I was done with this shit when I left San Diego.
Red zones are level 3 evac, yellow is power outages. I'm in the shaded level 2 (get ready) zone. Sheesh.
Minor heat wave here in the Pacific Northwest. Simultaneously, YouTube suggested two videos for me with beverage ideas: James May rating various brands/flavors of "squash" (diluted fruit juices) and a Vietnamese girl living in Germany sharing apple juice with bubbly water.
So I had to try the 1/3 cider + 2/3 bubbly water: it's every bit as refreshing as advertised.
Tasty, not sweet, bubbly. Highly Recommended!
This short has been stuck in my head for a day, because although I don't have any Russian skills, the story of musicians sharing cool sounds with each other is universal.
The joy and sharing.
About 10 days ago, my PC stopped working. It happened after I applied the May patches from Microsoft. The result was that the PC would boot normally, but after 5 minutes, it would fatally hang.
After some searching, some debugging, and much gnashing of teeth, I decided that Windows was no longer viable on my 7 year old hardware. I was very sad.
So I started shopping for a replacement machine with similar specs to my PC that I've hopped up over the years. But ram and GPU prices made this approach untenable - I don't want less than 64GB and a few TB of disk, and whoa - that's several thousand bucks now. Screw that.
Arch Linux took a few days to get installed and configured on my dead Windows machine. But I practiced by installing on my two 13 year old laptops until I pretty much understood the process. Most of the time was spent getting the NTFS disks fsck-ed and then moving the data off. But once that was done... it's FRICKING AWESOME.
The machine is zippier than it was new. I've had no insurmountable problems talking to my SDR hardware, or mounting drives from the NAS, or getting the video settings correct, or getting audio and video and my Bluetooth headphones working.
Most surprising to me is that all of my Steam games are running great. Some saves haven't carried over from Windows, but most have. This is incredibly cool. I'll start re-installing Windows apps on wine that I can't live without. So far, those have worked fine, too.
I haven't daily-ed a *nix box in 20 years, but boy am I stoked with this one!
If you've been considering a Linux desktop because of the M$ Windows 11 idiocy, I highly recommend taking the plunge.
I start playing back in January or so. Made good progress on the CPU. The audio subsystem was slower, but got that done. Then I hit the PPU (pixel processor). Oh my. I hit a road block where I passed almost all unit tests but failed to get stuff on screen - and I lost interest.
Today I finally decided fuck it - this function has under 50 lines of code so it can't be *that* broken. Let's get this working.
And with fresh eyes, I finally found my one-character typo. I used x in a function call when I should have used xx.
I really need to not cut and paste suggested example code without fixing the worst of the variable naming. I thought I learned that lesson decades ago. *sigh*
I first heard of Devo in the summer of '79. I was 13 and it made absolutely no sense to me. Catchy, but it took decades of listening to contemporary music before my ears could actually parse the lyrics. But the older kids I looked up to thought there was something there, so I persisted listening. At least until I got into jazz and classical stuff and it was at least a decade before I tried pop-ish music again.
It's fun to rediscover and appreciate art / punk stuff like this.
I hate myself for being surprised that Trump would start another war this close to the midterms.
So I took it out on my Congressman to urge him to refuse to support a war powers resolution. I told him that if he wants to support ending a regime that murders its citizens and preys on its most helpless victims, then he'd better defund ICE, impeach Trump, and start holding the Epstein rapists accountable.
I fucking HATE current events.
One night in Spokane, Washington, from the combined Police / Fire radio feed: https://www.broadcastify.com/webPlayer/17102
Move on the homeless (e.g., trespass, "illegal camping"). Put out their "unlawful burns" they use to keep warm. As the night goes on, ambulance calls for exposure.
Traffic collision (no injuries), truck flees. Cop examines the door mirror it left behind, googles part number, it's a 2014 Ram truck. Get on the Flock cameras and yup, there's one, and the license plate is readable. Call owner - he says he's out of town for work. Keep following the public surveillance, pull over and and arrest that truck. Oh, look - owner is in town (and drunk) after all. Felony hit and run.
Wake up the fire department - there's a grass fire in the field. Fire discovers a flare gun. Witness said he saw a kid with a flare gun. Find the kid with Ring camera footage. Juvenile arsonist arrested.
And even more sadness: reports of an injured moose along the highway.
I left out the domestic violence calls. There are lots and lots.
I left out the chest pain calls and difficulty breathing calls and abdominal pain calls for the medics. There are lots and lots.
I heard one call that made me smile: driver pulled over for whatever, name checked for warrants - yup, an old one. Dispatch asks, "should I confirm?" meaning should she check that the warrant is still valid and that the jurisdiction will pay for transport. Pause... Cop replies, "No - she's pregnant."
This is a truly remarkable time in US politics.
There are apparently no descriptive nouns, fairly applied, that will cost the GOP and their billionaire donors any power.
Adulterer - nope.
Grifter - nope.
Felon - nope.
Racist - nope (on the contrary...)
Extortionist - nope.
Statutory rapist - nope.
Fascist - nope.
Neocolonialist - nope.
Pedophile protector - nope.
*IS *there a limit?
I'm asking because I'm serious wondering what, if any, the GOP reaction would be to Trump trying to cancel an elections. Would people revolt?
Or would we just write "Traitor" on the long list and complain about the sportsball event and hope the ICE death squads go to *some other *town.
Here's a nice and detailed piece from the Idaho Education News folks about the Lakeland School District that covers parts of Idaho north and west of Coeur d'Alene.
What struct me is the assumption that it's right and proper for the local GOP PAC to decide that they have an interest in the local school board. It is an explicitly nonpartisan body, except, now the GOP rates every candidate and publishes their rankings.
Which, in theory, is fine - whatever, folks. But the candidates - and now board members - aren't actually aware of how teaching works, the state requirements, and things like that.
So, hey, let's cut the budget item to buy state-approved curriculums and let each teacher write their own. Will they pay the teacher for this? Hell, no! They should know how to do that, right? When senior staff mentor junior teachers for X hours per week, that's all part of their current salary, right? So let's just cut those pesky tax levies that cover 25% of the district budget. Bummer if bus routes get cancelled. Bummer if the drama class can't rehearse for 5 weeks because the board is dragging their feet reviewing the allegedly satanic "Grimm's Fairy Tale" script.
Districts up and down the state are closing schools because they can't afford to keep them open - not due to a lack of kids. And a bunch of alt-right kooks who know jack-squat about schools have decided to take over districts to protect "parent's rights" because Steve Bannon told them to.
Partisanship. Harumph, I say.
https://www.idahoednews.org/top-news/a-republican-homeschooling-mom-came-to-love-her-public-schools/
Holy Shit. Sandpoint, Idaho, had a #NoKings turnout of almost 9%;
Bonner County is very red; but 800 people in a town of 9000? Damn.
https://bonnercountydailybee.com/news/2025/oct/19/no-kings-rally-draws-more-than-800/
90 minutes is a lot of time to drop on a documentary, but this one was very worth it to me. Camas. People honest to God went to war over this plant. I've driven through Idaho's Camas Prairie (near Grangeville), but I've never really seen enough of the plant to know what I was looking for.
Not only is there great footage of the plant, meadows of them, and grown in gardens, but there's good botany, and cooking, and some nice cat pics, too.
Seems to me I need to call the local plant places and see if there's any camas bulbs (or even better, seeds). I'd like to get these in the ground soonest since it's already in the 30s at night.
I'd like to give a shout to the Civilian Marksmanship Program, for their tireless dedication to helping the United States have more accurate shooters.
A hit in the neck at 200 yards, under pressure, not on a range.
That ain't bad, all things considered.
Oh, thoughts and prayers, etc. etc.
Weird how the administration's newfound belief in streamlining government, or trade protectionism, or rounding up and deporting illegal workers hasn't actually increased domestic employment or lowered inflation.