August 26

12:12 AM Today at 7 AM they came and finally replaced the programmer for the sprinklers, outside bedroom wall, after they were turning it on and someone was turning it back off. This time they put one with a lock. When it is working now it wets the grass that has dried and it rots and stinks like mold all the way inside. It causes me nose congestion.

Ok next one. I will skip what happened at Spirit Mountain where we left because of bass upstairs. When i came and searched for poops, i saw upstairs living light on, blinds off and no furniture in it. No car in the lot.

Don't know how to start this without screwing it up. It is a very simple idea though it could be very important.

Last few days i have been thinking especially yesterday when i was cleaning the apartment (i always think when doing routine things). All religion promise immortality, one way or another.

Christianity and Islam have a heaven and a reunion with God.

All esoteric religions of the recent past centuries promise us that we reincarnate in one way or another though without any (conscious) memory of past lives and in the end, upon perfecting our soul over and over, we will become gods.

Hinduism and Buddhism do not agree. For them, reincarnation is a curse that need to end so we can finally reach Nirvana witch means extinguishment in Sanskrit, but that should be done only through enlightenment.

How about this idea. Consciousness does not reside in our physical bodies, while brain is only an interface to it (like in Scientology, but there they say it is an interface with a unique thetan).

What i am saying is there is only one Consciousness and we all link to it though we all have our separate ways and separate memories.

What if consciousness and memory is nothing but a tangle of strings we live behind in the Universe.

Of course it will remain after we die at least for a while however i believe it will be next to impossible to re-attach to those severed links.

5:55 Was the cultural movement called hippy centered around San Francisco in the 60s a new renaissance, celebrating the rebirth of the bird Phoenix or 500 years since the youth of Leonardo daVinci, the most important figure of Italian Renaissance? The hippies called themselves flowers, did they know this may come from Florence, the birth and living place of the man?

9:20 Roses are red, violets are blue. BTW someone, one of the authors went in the code of Stellarium, changed a couple of things related to my posts. Phases of Venus are not shown anymore. The Solar System View which used to show orbits of planets around Sun seen from a solar system polar perspective now it shows orbits at an angle only, making it a bit confusing. 

August 25

6:09 AM I think it is safe to say, in his wisdom (a steady genius) Trump is chasing his own tail in Canada. Of all major US trade partners, Canada is the most balanced. 

3:10 When was that, two weeks ago when Trump said he is worried about communists taking over the country, but yet he favors China vs Canada in trade relations. More than that, though US imports 200 billions more than it exports to China instead of selling them cars to help balance the deficit, Tesla manufactures them in China.

The real reason? I always thought it was a good thing for us to buy iPhones from China because they could be cheaper ("because of cheap labor there") however i just discovered on the long term that is very bad for US trade balance and ultimately debt, because being made in China they are brought as imports and that adds to the trade deficit that turns to debt which interest is for now is covered by burdening the budget (one trillion) and stealing from Medicare (another trillion).

3:50 But i bet Ford and Apple are not the only us firms that manufacture in China and then import their products in the US. There are probably many more smaller firms and probably the same situation in Mexico and they are all imbalancing the trade.

And do you want to know the real cause of all these? I read a few days ago of a guy whose rent in San Francisco went from 3000 a month to 9000 a month.

I believe US is among the very few countries in the world that do not put a cap to rents.

Otherwise they could easily find the young people here that would be willing to work in those factories if only they cold afford the rent on a minimal or just above minimal wage.

4:44

He's got a Chinese name. He even looks Chinese. But i bet he is not. But that is another story.

5:20 Last of the summer wine. They are moving more stuff to the cars. However bass stopped just a few seconds ago when we were already dressing to leave for the day and i came to write here.

11:55 Sometimes i feel like Nicholas Cage in the movie. Discovering and re-discovering National Treasuries. Never heard about this book though.

August 24

6:06 AM Jackson Hole. Just posted about the hole in the wall, national debt and Federal Reserve.

12:21 PM Mai bine să mâncăm muguri! (isărești).

12:34


Us annual trade deficit.

Dou you all have any idea what they are doing with the money? I'm gonna tell you. They keep buying stocks and bonds and one day when everything will crash and the Treasury will default under the enormous debt, they will start sending instead of cars and returnable goods on Amazon, (the) robots (like they already started in selected areas). Latest models from the future. To a neighborhood near you.

12:45 I believe in angels...

7:20

Did you know patriotic Ford last year imported 378,123 vehicles in the US, mainly from Mexico and Canada? While GM about 41% of all sales both contributing to raising the national debt by about... (should multiply the numbers by 50k? to figure the dollar value?)

10:20 I thought it would be irresponsible for me if i knew and did not write about this.

Fifty years ago or when i first saw them i was intrigued as why they don't have them. I mean, what separates the pads from the rotor after releasing brake pedal?

I guess in their wisdom engineers deemed it not necessary (as some except for Korean ones still do). After releasing the pedal, brake fluid pressure in the lines goes to zero, so the force must go to 0 they must have said. However... there must be transient phenomena, stickiness factor, name it, that makes the brake pads push a little on the rotors. How little? About 10% in mpg i recon.

Last Friday after my mileage decreased dramatically i took one of those appart, but unfortunately i was too incapacitated from smoke coming at night from upstairs to know for sure. If one of those jumped out of place that is but after i re-installed them correctly, the mpg went a bit higher.

Today i planed to look at the left rear (in the end should look at all), but it was too hot and in the evening i got too lazy, now i know how and what to look for without taking them apart, except for the wheel itself to gain better viewing. Jack, untorque, lug nuts etc..

But to my surprise, after i did a search i realized not all vehicles have them. A tiny piece of bent steel wire that could save you hundreds in one year, in gas, brake pads, rotors and engine wear out. The car had 70k when i got it, did 110 more (90% of it in long drives outside cities), don't know if they did the brakes prior to that, but the rears at least have 3 more mm to go.

In the image, the blue wire springs keep the pads apart when not breaking.

10:45 Went outside to smoke, a coal like smoke was already there.

Angela got a device for her bulged disk about ten days ago. She charges it for one hour then she can use it half hour. It makes a peculiar profound bass like sound audible in the whole apartment. I bet it has something to do with the unbearable bass yesterday at Chinook cause she used it inside the hotel at 3 rivers. Before she got the gift. The base sound in the apartment upstairs today. But it does not compare in intensity.

Also. She got a Windows update yesterday that changed a setting and moved all her email (thousands, some with attachment) in onedrive, which filled her onedrive free space and now she can't send or receive emails if she doesn't pay for extra space. It's a dejavu, it happened one year ago. Got to take a look tomorrow and fix it.

Last week she got diagnosed with severe arthritis at her right hand. Got a steroid injection that did not work mostly because the cartilage between two of her bones is gone.

BTW. The Cosori oven works fine however. First. You have to press several time on start button or until it flashes something (not sure). So i put there and it does not start though the pizza unfreezes.

Then the final alarm has a very week sound and i can't hear it except if i put another alarm. How many pizzas (frozen) i burnt so far (cause the oven stops by itself, but it's still hot).

August 23

9:25 Don't know if this legend is true but they managed to entangle global warming with the name of Christ.

10:05 Trying to imagine how may Spaniards lived in Peru in the early 1600 or 50 years after the establishment of viceroyalty and if they could give birth of such legend. How they got there (around South America?) and if they had a fishing fleet that could observe and document the phenomenon. 

August 22

10:3o AM Centrala a fost închisă pentru a menține Canalul Dunăre Marea Neagră funcțional. Din 1300 mc/s, 210 sunt pompați prin Stația de Pompare Complexă în canal.

12:25 PM Every time i say something about US debt, Trump does this (or something similar). Tariffs on Canadian imports cannot erase 40 years of car imports from Japan.

However debt to foreign countries is only about 24% of 32 trillions (or 40, not clear). Most of public US debt is towards domestic entities, including Federal Reserve (6.3 trillions), mutual funds, banks and retirement.

But those 6.3 trillion are not part of the mysterious 20%.