My Desultory Blog

Posted By RichC on April 13, 2024

Iran has threatened to retaliate for an attack in Damascus, Syria, that Tehran said was an Israeli airstrike on a diplomatic building. The strike killed several top Iranian military officials, including a senior member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Quds Force. According to the WSJ on Friday, “the U.S. rushed warships into position to protect Israel and American forces in the region, hoping to head off a direct attack from Iran on Israel that could come as soon as Friday or Saturday.”

After a solid first quarter for investors, the markets jitters are probably normal considering the geopolitical events … but added to that were inflation numbers rising again putting a damper on the thought the Federal Reserve cut rates in June. Now June cuts look off the table and cuts by the end of the year look questionable — unless you believe the Fed will act political because it is an election year?  

While reading the last three issues of Kiplinger’s, I found the Berkshire Hathaway trading interesting and wanted to archive the chart  … who doesn’t pay attention to Warren Buffett? 

For something a little less worrisome … I do enjoy tuning into FoxBusiness and Varney & Co over my lunch break. I rarely miss the trivia question while making my salad and will highlight the Jimmy Buffett and Alan Jackson end-of-segment music selection that I forwarded to Taylor and Megan yesterday. 😊
 

Category: Business, Financial, Music, News, Video-TV | No Comments »
Tags: alan jackson, berkshire, foxbusiness, hathaway, investing, iran, israel, jimmy buffett, kiplinger, middle east, varneyco, war, warren buffett, wsj

Posted By RichC on April 12, 2024

Who isn’t … or more appropriately wasn’t … fond of listening to the interesting and smooth-toned audio that was  part of National Public Radio (NPR) in the previous century. I spent an exorbitant amount of time in my car back then and listened to static-riddled politically conservative radio talk shows on AM radio and liberally slanted … but somewhat fair … NPR reporting and stories on the HQ-audio FM dial. Besides the better quality listening found on FM radio, I always felt it helped listening both perspectives when it came to the political news.  

Unfortunately over the years, the news segments being reported by NPR took a similar extreme slant, but from the political left. I accepted the slant from the political right on AM Talk Radio, but like many, was turned off by the woke slant of NPR. I questioned and harassed Congress why taxpayer funds were continuing to support this progressive “one point of view” radio? 

So I read with interest a piece in “The Free Press” by 25 year senior business editor Uri Berliner titled “Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust.”
 

ElevenLabs AI “Antonio” reading 10 minutes of
Uri Berliner’s “Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust”

As for the Tech Friday component, I wanted to retest the improving and impressive text to AI voice from ElevenLabs. Unfortunately the beta version that I’m using has size limitations, so I’ll share only the first portion of Uri’s article read by “Antoni” AI — still pretty impressive (see what Musk and Dimon are predicting). So start the article by listening and finish reading at yellow link above or the PDF version below. 

EDIT add: Testing Amazon’s Polly AI for the balance of the article. Give it a try even though the voice is different.
 

Amazon’s “Polly” AI reading final 16 minutes of
Uri Berliner’s “Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust”

Category: Audio, Human Interest, Innovation, News, Politics, Software, Technology | No Comments »
Tags: ai, amazon, elevenlabs, npr, polly ai, tech friday, techfriday, testing, uri berliner, voice

Posted By RichC on April 11, 2024

Brenda has been bugging me to remove a couple of pine trees (one 30 yo Blue Spruce that was nearly dead) from in front of the house (photo – house without the drooping pine). They were on the “to-do” list last year, but I’ve procrastinated until this year … and in my mind, I was planning to take care of them this summer .. cough, cough. 

We had a wind storm and it took out tons of branches and limb which we took care of last weekend, but the neighbor lost a White Pine. So while Precision Forestry was in the neighbor, I opted to have them quote and remove these trees. Although this isn’t the first time I’ve used an outside company to remove a tree  … it is usually something I have done myself since I worked cutting trees and firewood as a part-time job in high school. It feels wrong to have hired someone? 

To make this a Throwback Thursday #TBT post, here’s a photo from
12 years ago and a 👉 much better one from 2019 👈

Category: Archive, Personal, Photos, Repairs, TBT | No Comments »
Tags: house, landscaping, TBT, trees, wind storm, yardwork

Posted By RichC on April 10, 2024

We have been using the economical Wyze Cams to monitor things around home for a few years now, along with leftover Canary Cams … and our old school original wired security system. I do like the way these inexpensive cameras have held up and are improving, but the speed and notification tweaking of their Wyze Cam Plus service could use some improving.

That said, this month I noticed a $2/month price increase from my “promo” rate and had inquired about a special they were running on March 1st. I checked in with customer service back then about opting for the one-year promo, but was told my current $7.99/mo plan was almost the same deal and billed per month — so I didn’t switch. One month later, my current “deal” expired and so now I’m left paying $9.99/mo. After complaining, there wasn’t any recourse but to wait and hope a better deal appears (not the way to keep a loyal paying customer happy).

Since I’m not all about complaining … cough, cough … I’ll include a few different videos. One of a bee being picked up on the cam and the other a time-lapse test (see tomorrow’s post) and finally getting out the 1982 Mercedes 300D Turbodiesel for the first time this spring.
 

Category: Financial, Misc, Technology, Video | No Comments »
Tags: Cam, cameras, canary, complant, gripe, inflation, monitoring, pricing, security, timelapse, video, wyze

Posted By RichC on April 9, 2024

Click images for larger images

Our backyard may not have been the absolute best location to view a perfectly covered sun for the solar eclipse, but it was very impressive.  

Taylor took an afternoon off of work and  came up with Gigi in the afternoon (we are north of Cincinnati), and I suspect he enjoyed the viewing. We were on the edge of the “full solar eclipse” path, while Katelyn, Drew and kids were equally at the other edge in Whitehouse, Ohio (map below). Nevertheless our views were impressive as you can tell from my photo with my Lumix GX8 and 100-300mm lens above (the full perfect corona was SOOooo close). 😊  

(more…)

Category: Archive, Human Interest, Memories, Personal, Photography, Photos, Space, Video, Weather | No Comments »
Tags: eclipse, event, family, gx8, interesting, lumix, moon, photography, skywatching, solar eclipse, sun

Posted By RichC on April 8, 2024

Whale sharks certainly know how to slurp their food — they are big eaters! 

Category: Nature, Video | No Comments »
Tags: eating, ocean, shark, whale

Posted By RichC on April 7, 2024

Graphic at: https://eclipse.aas.org/eye-safety

On April 8, 2024, much of North America will experience a solar eclipse. A solar eclipse (vs lunar eclipse) is an alignment of Sun, Moon, and Earth, verse the Sun, Earth and Moon. On Monday, the moon’s shadow path will make landfall on Mexico’s Pacific coast, cross the United States from Texas to Maine, and exit North America via Newfoundland, Canada, continuing into the Atlantic Ocean.

The only safe way to look directly at the uneclipsed or partially eclipsed Sun is through special-purpose solar filters, such as “eclipse glasses” or handheld solar viewers. Ordinary sunglasses, even very dark ones, are not safe for looking at the Sun; they transmit far more sunlight than is safe for our eyes. See our Suppliers of Safe Solar Viewers & Filters page for sources of solar viewers verified to be compliant with the transmittance requirements of the ISO 12312-2 international safety standard.

Tidbit: For those like me who plan on using a welding mask:
Even with a shade 14 rating, you should not stare at the sun for too long, and the helmet is only safe when viewing the sun in its totally eclipsed state. A partially eclipsed sun is still too bright for the helmet to protect you, and the damage to your eyes might not be immediate or noticeable.
LINK

Category: Space, Video | No Comments »
Tags: astronomy, map, moon, safety, solar eclipse, space, sun

Posted By RichC on April 6, 2024

The subject line is my questionable twist on the Francis Church response to Virginia O’Hanlon in 1897, Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus (see below).

All of us “seeing” inflation month after month really don’t question its existence, but we do wonder how long inflation will continue a higher than the desired two percent each year; some fear that the solution will be to suffer a recession (I’m still hoping for the Fed’s magical soft landing).   

So, how has inflation impacted us and those necessities of daily life … such as what we put in our grocery shopping carts. The WSJ took a look last week. 

(more…)

Category: Financial, News, Politics, Quotes | No Comments »
Tags: anigif, economy, graphic, inflation, santa claus, wikipedia, wsj

Posted By RichC on April 5, 2024

After posting the “Bald Eagle and 100K post,” I was feeling guilty in not including Taylor on the “goings-on” archive of my blog. So … to keep up, here’s photo from a bachelor trip to Las Vegas with his Miami University fraternity brothers last weekend. It sure looked and sounds as if they had a great time together (video below) … as they always do.

(more…)

Category: Archive, Friends, Travel, Video | No Comments »
Tags: brothers, fraternity, friends, las vegas, miami university, nevada, taylor

Posted By RichC on April 4, 2024

Katelyn’s 100K text message (above left) from her 2018 Volkswagen Tiguan reminded me of the one she sent 17 years ago (above right) … back when she was driving her 2001 Volkswagen Jetta TDI. Where have all the years and miles gone (hence #TBT)?

I’m so glad we have the technology to sporadically send messages and stay in touch at the click of a smartphone … or as we called them “Cellphones” back when I added it to the “Categories” column in 2005!

On a totally different, but archiving kind of comment, they spotted a Bald Eagle near their new house high up in a tree. Very cool to have them nearby in Whitehouse, Ohio. 

Category: Archive, Automotive, Cellphone, Memories, Nature, Photos, TBT, Technology, Volkswagen | No Comments »
Tags: bald eagle, birds, daughter, family, jetta, katelyn, messaging, ohio, tdi, tiguan, vw, whitehouse