Glibertarians.com 2018 Archive

Category: Entertainment

  • I Fucking Love Astrology: The Horoscope for the Week of June 10

    Between the skies not being terribly helpful, work being more nuts than usual (how can a chiller that works perfectly completely seize up because I moved it 600 yards into a different room?), me planning on heading north of the wall to meet up with a red-haired French teacher in about three hours, this look into the astral influences is going to be sparse.  Or, perhaps you can think of it as me giving you more room to experience your own personal relationship with the stars without having to worry about “rules” or “interpretations” that would impinge on your freedom.  Let’s go with that one.

    Which could happen. You know that line between "roguish teasing" and "You're sleeping on the couch tonight?" I have trouble with that.
    If I have time for stargazing this weekend, something has gone terribly wrong.

    Only one alignment to discuss:  Sol-Mars-Saturn (retrograde), Venus in opposition.  One meaning of that is a woman will be murdered in a particularly horrific fashion.  I really don’t like that one*, so hunting for alternates gives us “fight breaks out at peace talks,” or “some people claim that there’s a woman to blame.”  Expect Angela Merkel to fuck something up.  Possibly Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

    As to the whole planet-in-constellation list…

    Venus is transiting out of Cancer, lessening the overall feminine influences.

    Aquarius should expect a visit from… red? Woman? Scarlet woman? Something like that anyway.  Also, commies will gather by a large body of water.

    Saturn retrograde will not get the fuck out of Capricorn!  There are just so many goat jokes that a non-Welshman can make!

    This week will be good for thinking and intellectual work with Mercury sharing the Sun in Gemini.  The Venus/Cancer connection earlier will extend this to psychotherapy for all you madglibs out there.

    And of course, Jupiter retrograde keeps up governmental misrule, abuse, and general fuckings-over.  Speaking of general fuckings-over, here’s what you get when you get when you ask for recommendations for fun things to do in Ottawa (not intended to disparage any glibs advice, this came from a coworker):

    *It’s a question famously raised (but not answered) by the Dune books: does the prophet see the future, or create it?

  • I Fucking Love Astrology: the Horoscope for the Week of June 3rd

    This another of those really active weeks, celestial-behavior wise.  The kind of week where you need to lay out the charts on a card table with some pushpins, string, and a protractor.  Let’s see what’s there, shall we.

    Remember when you were in the back seat of your Chevy Caprice with Charlotte, and her pants were about to come off for the first time, and this asshole knocked on the window? Asshole.

    Alignment the first:  Venus-Earth-Luna-Saturn (retrograde); Jupiter (retrograde) in opposition.  Good luck in getting laid this week.  More receptive partners include:  civil servants, leaders, submissives, and depressed people.  Cock-block attempts by government officials.  It could also be interpreted as unfortunate HR repercussions.  The stars only say that you will be successful, it doesn’t say that you won’t come to regret your success.

    Alignment the second:  Mercury-Sol-Jupiter (retrograde); Venus in opposition.  Bad tidings from the government.  Since it shares two of the lights with the previous alignment, it strongly suggests an interrelation, and with Venus being the opposition planet, I don’t think I need to spell out the subject matter.  honestly, if I didn’t know UnCiv was OoO on his roadtrip, I would shout at him not to dip his pen in the Taxpayer’s ink.

    Actually, since these signs are both so clear and so complex, they must mean something big, or at least immediately applicable.  Hmmmm.  Bad news from the government…  sex…  censure…  will the Hooker Pee Videotape finally be released?  Huma/Hillary’s erotic skype logs?  Carlos Danger rubs one out in the Rotunda?  A sex worker sues the Clinton Foundation for non-payment?  I don’t know what, but something big is going to happen.

    Alignment the third:  A BARCO of Mars-Terra-Saturn (retrograde) indicating the outbreak of military hostilities.  Whether the BARCO nature indicates only a minor skirmish, or because such news is trivial is uncertain.

    same sand, different day

    So that’s it from the Heliocentric view.  As for observations you can make with your own eyeballs,  Mars in Aquarius means that Rufus is going to get into a fight.  Jupiter (retrograde) in Scorpio means wankery will continue.  Saturn (retrograde) in Capricorn means buttheads will continue to be buttheads.  Basically, if you expected your problems to go away this week, you are in for a disappointment.  On the upside, with Mercury conjoined with Sol in Gemini, you will not be overwhelmed —  you will be able to deal with multiple problems.  Venus in Cancer continues to amplify “feminine” virtues of peace, nurturing, and romance… enjoy it while it lasts, it’s halfway through its transit.

    While pondering the signs, here is some music (and fashion) to expand your mind:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rw1_FNdy-Y

    There are a couple of decades that I’m really glad a) existed, and b) are gone.

  • Movie Review: Otoko wa Tsurai yo

    You cannot step in the same river twice
    -Heraclitus

    Travelling salesman makes his way back to his hometown after leaving in a huff twenty years earlier because of a fight he had with his father. A prodigal son story, but Tora-san is not your typical character. Vulgar, heavy drinking and incapable of following social norms, this semi failure of a salesman is a combination of Dice Clay and Forest Gump. He is exactly what his hometown needs and he gives it to them good and hard.

    The creation of writer/director Yoji Yamada, Otoko wa Tsurai yo ran for an incredible 48 installments from 1969-1998. Western audiences and critics have largely failed to embrace Yamada’s masterpiece which stands in contrast to the love Akira Kurosawa (Yojimbo, Seven Samurai), Yasujiro Ozu (Tokyo Story), Takashi Miike (Ichi the Killer) and other Japanese directors have received over the years. Wanting to see Japan as subtle, cinematically pleasing and inscrutable or violent and grotesque, Western audiences just couldn’t find a place in their hearts for Yamada. Otoko wa Tsurai yo presents Japanese as people with simple, base desires and flaws that are universal. Tentacle porn can be amusing, but it doesn’t really help you understand what the average Japanese person is thinking.

    The plot for the 48 installments is simple: Tora-san, played by Kiyoshi Atsumi, returns to the Shibamata area of downtown Tokyo, falls in love with a woman known as the “Madonna” character and causes all hell to break loose with his antics. The “Madonna” shows interest in Tora-san, but his awkwardness with women destroys any chance he had with her and she ends up getting together with another man whom she was destined to be with. The series is a love story despite the crude jokes and domestic violence.

    I am Tora-san. I may not step out of your bathroom, patting my stomach and compliment you for having the fanciest toilet I’d ever seen. “That’s the sink, you idiot!” I haven’t bitch-slapped my demure sister for no good reason other than being drunk off my ass. I’ve yet to make jizz jokes at formal dinner parties where my sister is being introduced to her ultra conservative potential in-laws. I have mistakenly asked my mother-in-law, at first meeting, if she was still born. I’ve asked the elderly check out lady at the supermarket where she kept the breast milk. (Bo-nyu is breast milk, To-nyu is soy milk. Whoops.) We all fuck up and Tora-san is a ninth degree black belt in it.

    We don’t toss Tora-san in a pot of boiling water for a couple of vital reasons. First, he is an injection of chaos into what can be an oppressive and stratified group-centered society. Tora-san’s outrageous behavior gives the audience a look at the Honne (real feelings) of average people. They may look stoic, but all Japanese people have wanted to crack a relative in the head at some point. Many have a great spooge pun pop into their head during a meeting, but they keep it walled off behind their Tatemae (social face). Tora-san is a vent that releases some of the steam in a country that has 30,000 or so suicides a year. Good on him.

    Another reason we accept Tora-san is that without him, the star-crossed lovers would never end up together. Love, it seems, needs someone to smack it out of its reluctance. The “Madonna” can’t hook up with her true love unless someone kicks him in the balls and tells him to stop being such a pussy. While Tora-san’s advice may be awful, following terrible advice is better than whining like a bitch in the corner.

    At the end of each installment, Tora-san leaves Shibamata in an act of temporary self-exile. He has to leave of his own accord or he wouldn’t be allowed back. Pushing people to their limits and then backing off, giving them time to digest what happened, is a skill sorely missing these days. Being 100% pure, concentrated chaos, Tora-san realizes that prolonged exposure to chaos would destroy his family. He leaves Shibamata and crosses the Sumida river until his services are needed once more. You may not be able to step in the same river twice, but you can piss in it multiple times.

    The opening scene:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4mb5PbkxxY

     

  • What Are We Reading – May 2018

    Old Man With Candy

    After a conversation with Warty, I remembered perhaps my favorite scientific biography ever, Oliver Heaviside: The Life, Work, and Times of an Electrical Genius of the Victorian Age by Paul Nahin, and have been giving it a reread. Heaviside is only vaguely known among people in the physical sciences (I only knew the name because of the Heaviside step function in math), but ought to be far better known; for example, what physicists and engineers think of as the Maxwell equations (the foundations of electromagnetic theory) are actually the Heaviside equations. Maxwell’s formulation was clumsy and complex- Heaviside reworked them into a simple but comprehensive set of partial differential equations, the ones familiar to contemporary students and practitioners. His operational calculus laid the groundwork for Laplace transform methods routinely used in circuit analysis. His work solved the massive problems of the nascent telegraphy and telephony technologies and brought us into the 20th century.

    But that’s what makes him interesting specifically to geeks. What makes him interesting overall is the sociology associated with him. Unlike most prominent British scientists of the era. Heaviside was a true outsider, born into poverty, and completely self-taught. Moreover, he was an odd personality, and if he were alive today, we’d put him somewhere on the autism spectrum. He had almost no social interactions beyond his immediate family, refused to adopt the manners and mores of the gentlemanly scientists with whom he interacted in scholarly journals, and larded his papers and books with thinly veiled invective and humorous insights (“It is wonderful how little work there is when you know how to do it.” “It is as unfair to call a vector a quaternion as to call a man a quadruped.”). Of course, establishment figures fought to keep this outsider outside, but the sheer power of his intellect swept that aside. Trigger warning: to understand what Heaviside did, some equations will inevitably present themselves. If you’re on the other side of CP Snow’s two worlds, you can skip over them and take my word that what he did was brilliant, significant, and vastly influential. This book is fascinating, a study in sociology and psychology as much as it is about physics, an absolute delight.

    SugarFree

    I had been meaning to read Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer since it won the 2014 Nebula for Best Novel, but it wasn’t until the announcement of the Netflix adaptation that I finally got around to it. It involves a scientific expedition into Area X, a portion of the southern United States coast that has been inexplicably quarantined by an invisible and deadly barrier with a single, deliberate opening to allow people to explore. Inside, mutant animals and an inexplicable structure beg to be explored. Almost everyone that goes dies or disappears or comes back insane, with amnesia or riddled with strange cancers.

    I really have to say, I don’t understand the hype around this book. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t really anything groundbreaking or even exciting. It is written in a limited viewpoint from an unnamed and probably unreliable narrator in a journal. In fact, none of the characters have names and are just referred to by their job or functions on the expedition, The Biologist, the Linguist, The Psychologist, etc. In an experiment to find the optimum psychological conditions for an expedition that can both survive and return with some sort of coherent information about the conditions inside the barrier, all the members on this trip are women.

    Like much modern music, it seems like VanderMeer took a dozen or so better works, threw them into a blender, and hoped the reader wouldn’t find too many recognizable chunks floating around in the slurry. But I’m good at spotting chunks: There are bit and pieces of Solaris, Roadside Picnic, Rogue Moon and–for the first two–their cinematic adaptations, as well as all the movies and books derived from them (Event Horizon, Cube, et.al,) countless “found” memoirs of the inexplicable, the mind-flaying horrors of Lovecraft and even a solid piece of gristle from Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket.

    The movie is a pretty disappointing follow-up to the excellent Ex Machina by Alex Garland. It takes a few things from the novel, but otherwise pretty much ignores it to create a strange mash-up of “The Colour Out of Space” and The Crystal World by J. G. Ballard (minus all of Ballard’s Heart of Darkness overtones.)

    Riven

    I finally passed my exam and have been celebrating by reading exactly nothing–except the dialogue in Persona 5. That said, Mr. Riven and I listen to some podcasts when we’re lifting or traveling. Last week we traveled to Missoula for the USPSA Area 1 Championship. Mr. Riven has been especially delighted with his recent find of the Myths and Legends podcast. It dovetails nicely with his current game of choice–God of War. The writer and host covers a wide variety of, well, myths and legends with a good deal of fairly dry humor and a flair for entertaining. Besides the Norse lore that’s so apropos for God of War, they also cover Slavic fairytales, epic Viking tales, and all of the standard classics: Greek and Roman mythology, King Arthur’s court, mythological beasts, etc. There’s plenty more besides what I’ve listed here, and we greatly enjoyed a lot of the Slavic tales on our trip. Fans of John Wick might also appreciate the stories that include Baba Yaga, who is seems to be equal parts hilarious and terrifying (just like an ancient boogeyman should be).

    mexican sharpshooter

    It came to my attention that my younger brother was not a prog, but is still in college, so I decided to pick up a few books he might benefit given his environment.  I got through this one pretty quickly, given Bastiat is pretty straightforward and concise.  I also picked up The Road to Serfdom.  This one is taking me longer.

    I also bought The Federalist Papers since I never read them.  I have to admit, I don’t like Hamilton.  I can deal with his arguments droning on, taking several pages and multiple essays to convey–I’ve read boring stuff before.  I simply find a lot of them ineffective, and he does not always adequately explain why something regulated by a state might be bad but it is totally okay for the federal government to do it.  It might be my biases as a former federal employee, and seeing ineffective, incompetent implementation of seemingly simple tasks for several years.  I do realize I should try to decouple that when reading a historical document.  I found myself flipping through Hamilton’s essays and finding the next one Madison wrote as his seem better thought out.  In all, it leaves me wondering if the natural born clause in the Constitution was intentionally written to keep certain assholes from being president, a certain asshole named Hamilton.

    Web Dominatrix

    I just started (and then finished in swift order) To Sell Is Human by Dan Pink. As a business owner I have to spend time selling, and I’ve hated it for years, which is why I was so delighted to discover this book which explains how to sell without feeling like a sleezeball backed up with case studies.

    I am now reading The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg as my habits need some major work. There are habits I have that are good, others that are bad, and others that just simply aren’t serving me in the best way.

    Tulip

    I would like to recommend three short story collections. First is American Housewife by Helen Ellis. These are great little vignettes. My two favorites are “The Wainscoting War” and “My Novel Is Brought to You by the Good People at Tampax.”

    The second is Let Me Tell You by Shirley Jackson. I love her short stories. She is probably familiar to most as the author of The Lottery. She also wrote The Haunting of Hill House. I read that in one sitting when I was fifteen. It was a hot, August day and when I finished, I was in a cold sweat. I’m still not sure why, but that book creeped me out like no other.

    The last is Beyond the Woods: Fairy Tales Retold by various authors. Most are based on old tales, but with a modern twist. They are dark, creepy and sometimes funny.

    SP

    I’ve just started reading Bad Things Happen (David Loogan Book 1) by Harry Dolan. I’m enjoying it very much so far. It’s a noir-ish mystery, which I love in books and film. If it stays true to the promising beginning chapters, I’ll most likely pick up the rest in the series.

    Also reading several vegetarian and vegan cookbooks. I’m getting a little tired of the same old plain stuff I’ve been eating during my 60 day 100% plant-based window (in which I’m trying to cement the practice), and need to mix it up some. Highly recommended: The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook: A Fresh Guide to Eating Well With 700 Foolproof Recipes from America’s Test Kitchen. 250 or so of these recipes are vegan. I’ve cooked from this before and everything just works. I’m thinking about putting a post together with brief reviews of several others, if there is any interest.

    And, last, but certainly not least, a quick read through Year-Round Indoor Salad Gardening: How to Grow Nutrient-Dense, Soil-Sprouted Greens in Less Than 10 days by Peter Burke has inspired me to begin growing soil-raised sprouts in the house. I love that I’ll be able to do so next winter!

    Brett L

    I finished Mark Lawrence’s latest, Grey Sister. Its probably his least best work, and still better than almost anything out there in the SF/F genre right now. It definitely ends on an Empire Strikes Back note, so I expect the third one to really kick ass. I read John Conroe’s latest collection The Demon Accords Compendium, Vol. 1. I give it a B. I think that universe has mostly run its course. And then Exam Ref 70-532 Developing Microsoft Azure Solutions because this Azure shit is hot and I need to keep my LinkedIn profile popular. Azure is fun and I wish I was 23 and single and could spend 2 or 3 nights a week messing around in it for 3-5 hours at a time.

    STEVE SMITH

    STEVE SMITH READ ABOMINABLE BY HOOMAN WRITER DAN SIMMONS. ABOMINABLE LONG BOOK BUT SHORT ON HOT YETI ACTION; STORY ALL MOUNTAIN CLIMBING AND NAZIS! STEVE SMITH FIND HOOMAN SIMMONS AND STEVE SMITH SHOW HIM WHAT ABOMINABLE REALLY MEANS!

    jesse.in.mb

    AWOL on the Appalachian Trail: I have a confession to make. Travelogues make me bitter; I was miserable thinking about how little I’d traveled while watching The Secret Life of Walter Mitty…on a flight to spend a week in Berlin and Prague on my own for New Years, and was bitter *both* times I saw Under the Tuscan Sun (some of you are too young to remember when airlines just played one movie at a time)…while flying back from a month in Rome with side trips through the Tuscan countryside. So I reaaaally shouldn’t have read this delightful travelogue about hiking the AT because his motivations felt familiar and the adventure sounds absolutely awful, but doable.

    Happy Dreams: This novel, about a peasant who moves to the city to be a trash picker, was a constant aggravation and a struggle to read, but I’m glad I kept chipping away at it. Toward the end of the novel I ended up caring about the characters even if their behavior still grated deeply. The author’s afterward really should’ve been the intro. Once I understood where he was coming from the entire story came together as beautiful in its grind.

    Macbeth: A Novel: Audible had it on sale, and it was read by Alan Cumming. I’d never read it or seen the play (unless you count THRONE OF BLOOD), and I figured Cumming reading Macbeth would be awesome…except it’s not Shakespeare’s Macbeth, it’s Macbeth: A Novel. I kept thinking it didn’t *seem* very Shakespearean, and then looked into a it a bit and was annoyed.

  • I Fucking Love Astrology – The Horoscope for the Week of May 20th

    Well, well, well… what have we here?

    Pull out your star charts boy and girls, we’ve got something very interesting going on this week.

    Yes, yes, we’ve still got that Jupiter-retrograde-in-Scorpio, old news.  But see that Mercury-Sol-Venus alignment?  Change in relationships?  Well, this week, it’s moved in opposition to us.  And if that’s not enough we also have the moon in opposition to that opposition.  Double Opposition.  What does it mean?  This week, your relationships are going to be rock solid.  You can take advantage of this, as we can see from another alignment concurrent with the double opposition.  We have Venus (love) aligned with Mars (war) and Saturn (endings) retrograde (not).  So a fight this week will not end your relationship.  Having said that, while you can get away with having a spat this week, there’s no indications that you should.  There’s nothing here indicating that the makeup sex will be good, and with Venus having moved out of Gemini, there’s no indication to look up Heather and Holly on facebook to see if they are conveniently available this weekend.  Mars moving into Aquarius indicates “trouble with the provider,” so maybe it’s a good thing you’ve got a little stellar stability helping you out.

    One last alignment in this week’s very busy sky:  Sol – Jupiter retrograde – Luna.  Literally, good news for queens.  Elizabeth II is not going to die.  I don’t know if this also extends to drag queens, but it just might because:

    Both the Moon and Venus are in Cancer.  And of course, we’ve already mentioned how Luna has rulership of Cancer, but with Venus in the mix we literally have (almost) all the most feminine influences possible coming together and amplifying each other.  Indulge in your wildest stereotypes. Eat ice cream while watching rom-coms.  Cry every now and then for no reason whatsoever.

    People born under the sign of Taurus will receive good news this week.  Also, a new speed record for a racing cow will be set.

    If you are kidding this week, it will go successfully.  Both mother and child will be fine, but it won’t be twins.

    This week is also auspicious for naval forces.

     

     

     

  • Death of Stalin Review

    I once again entered the local hipsterplex to watch The Death of Stalin. The trailers before the film established once again that as a glib I was a stranger in a strange land. There was a trailer for a sad looking rodeo movie and a documentary about Ruth Bader Ginsberg which received audible applause from the audience. After the applause I couldn’t help but wonder what the rest of the audience thought of the film and of Stalin. I assume they all disliked Stalin but likely had blinders on for certain aspects of why he was terrible which is a trait I believe the film mostly shared.

    The film is directed by the creator of the HBO show Veep. I haven’t seen any of that show so I can’t comment on the similarities. The film’s tone reminded me of a more cosmopolitan take on Monty Python, less loose, less cutting. The Python connection is reinforced by the presence of Michael Palin as one of the minor cabinet members Molotov. The film brought forth a couple chuckles but it didn’t really have any laugh out loud moments. The film mostly explores what totalitarian power does to people, the mind games, the unsure standing and most of all constant fear.

    The film begins with a concert performance where Stalin calls the control board and asks them to call back, they do so only to find out he wanted a recording of the performance; unfortunately it wasn’t recorded. The reaction of the control board to this simple misunderstanding is the first example of the constant fear, the crew close the doors and prevent the orchestra and most of the audience from leaving this goes on for a while and a great deal of drama happens for a recording Stalin is likely only to listen to once. Stalin falls ill maybe a quarter way through the film and immediately the now open struggle for power begins before he is dead. In the film there are three main people in the straggle for power and they are arguably the three main characters of the film. They are Simon Beal as Beria, the director of security forces, Steve Buscemi as Khrushchev, head of the party and Jeffery Tambor as Malenkov.

    Steve Buscemi’s Khrushchev is pretty much Steve Buscemi, a bit neurotic but not to Larry David levels. Khrushchev has the main character arc of the film. He starts out as one of many ministers and isn’t particularly powerful within the dynamic of the group, but he rises to the occasion and ends up leading the group against Beria. The film seems to present him as the good one, the smart one, the reasonable one, and the film is largely about how the totalitarian system of the Soviet Union under Stalin corrupts him through the horrible things he must do to survive.

    Beria is portrayed as the villain, the one who gets things moving and forces a power struggle. He plots, he schemes, and seems to have been preparing for this for years. He is shown as being the most linked with Stalin’s system of terror and violence, but the most willing to openly distance himself from Stalin and the past. Simon Beal’s performance as Beria is tonally inconsistent; at times he is just goofy and slapstick as the rest of the group, but there are other moments where he seems to come from a darker and much more serious movie.

    Tambor’s Malenkov is quiet, nervous and confused. He doesn’t seem very intelligent and reminded me of Lurch from the Addams Family, which made it funnier for me when Beria compared him to Boris Karloff. His character isn’t very active throughout the film and the performance doesn’t go very deep because of that. He inherits the position of leader once Stalin dies and it seems like he was put in that position by Stalin as a political pace car for the rest of the ministers.

    Strangely, but not super surprisingly, the film doesn’t really address communism, there are hints towards it but for the most part the focus is on the idea of Stalin as a dictator who rules by murder and fear. The film goes into the constant cautiousness and the double think it requires to survive in Soviet Russia, but it never really explores how or why this system came about. One instance where a better understanding of how the filmmakers feel about this would have improved the film, is when we are shown the shabby conditions that Khrushchev and the others live in. Is this to show how even the powerful are poor under communism? Or more likely is this shown as a contrast to the wealth Stalin lives in and how a dictatorship is the ultimate system of inequality?

    Ultimately, the film has left me inspired to show my appreciation for this platform to ramble about movies by starting a coup of my own and rise up against the Eternals in The Vortex and post the first and almost certainly last Waterfall Insurance links. I also thought I would try something else new and stay on topic.

    • First the real deal.
    • And the NY Times. They almost get it right but they throw in a couple lines brown-nosing Mao.
    • The NY Times again, so brace yourself against the paywall, this time about Khrushchev.
    • And I will end with a music link a childhood favorite. My mom hated this song, especially when my brother would play the video on the living room tv.

  • I Fucking Love Astrology: The Horoscope for the week of May 13th

    This is going to be short, since for the next twelve weeks or so, I’ll be decontaminating, packing and moving a few megabucks worth of analytical equipment to a new cleanroom, while not reducing my fab support capability.  It’s demands like this that make me feel zero guilt about fucking around reading Glibertarians.com when I’m not required to be panicking over generating good data.

    Unambiguous good news:  For Taurus-folk (Taurans?  Tauroids?) this week is going to be awesome.  We have both geocentric and heliocentric indicators pointing to the same outcome.  With the change-driving effects of Mercury being made positive by the effects of the Sun, you have good luck.  By having a Four-light alignment also in your sign, you have better luck.  By having those four lights being the most important ones in the sky, you have even better luck.  By having one of those four lights being Jupiter (even retrograde), well, let’s just say you’re gonna have a good time.

    Relationships continue to be unstable (Mercury-Venus-Sol) but without last week’s good luck effects, this week’s might be a bit less pleasant.  You were using protection, right?

    In non-lovin’ news, there are indicators that martial belligerence will lead to good things.  Also, this is a good week to bet on buzkashi.

    If your local sports bookmaker doesn't have it, Swiss might be able to hook you up.
    This week’s money-maker

    In more astrology-vindicating news, world-renowned sciencey star-person Neil Degrasse Tyson is so made of science that he can be duplicated by a computer program!  Science!  Astrology is just as much Science as IFLS leader NdGT!

    Astrology music (not the right time of year, but oh well):

     

     

  • Ph34r mAh 1337 SkilLZ – The horoscope for the week of May 6th

    …and the confirmed predictions keep rolling in!  Between the Glibs engagement, hookups with hotties, and the fishing fotos we have further proof that the stars never lie.*

    What do we have for you this week?  Well, as always, some things stay the same.  The sun is still in Taurus, so that’s good for ranchers. We still have Mercury in Aries harshing everyone’s mellow and making my job harder.  And we still have a retrograde Jupiter in Scorpio.  But…

    I hate it when amateurs mix up celestial and Enochian scripts, but whatchagonnadoo?
    Celestial Ying-Yang

    This week we have an odd alignment of that retrograde Jupiter with Sol and our own Terra Firma.  That amplifies the Jovian effects out the celestial ying-yang.  So it becomes more important to get a handle what Jupiter is actually doing as it’s spinning the wrong way through Scorpio.  I think in this case, it’s crucial to get some context from the rest of the chart and how it relates to this.   So as above, we’ve got the Mercury in Aries thing.  This tension/ambivalence  simultaneously makes our interpretation both easier and harder.  It indicates that both of alternativeinterpretations will be true, but that we won’t be able to necessarily know how they are applying.  The conclusions are:

    • Your OCD is going to be worse than usual.
    • You should spend some time focusing on your genitals.
    • If you have the opportunity to cloister yourself with someone (actually two someones, see below) for said genital-focusing you should take it.
    • Said time should involve “unnatural acts.”

    Venus in Gemini indicates it’s a great time for three-way lovin’, twincest, and/or mirror use.  Related to that, there is also an alignment of Venus with Sol and Mercury, so if this is your first time with said twins, take it.  Actually, why would you need me to tell you to accept the offer of a threeway with a set of twins?  What is wrong with you?

    In non-hot-group-action signs,  we have an addition to the sports betting signals that have been hanging out for a few weeks:  the moon comes into conjunction with mars.  This is a change sign, so if you’ve been lucky betting on a particular team, this week they will let you down.

    Tarot update:  I suck at image editing, and I’ve been busier than something that is extremely busy in folksy analogies.  If there is anyone out there who is competent and enjoys this sort of thing, let me know.

    There is a reason the Rider-Waite deck is so popular: it’s got a ton of detail to fixate on and inspire drug-assisted mental connections.  So sometimes (barring the intervention of actual artists) I’ll be just adding things onto existing cards, like so:

    Awfully young for an empress, don't you think?

    So here, it’s a simple matter of replacing the scepter with a banhammer and adding Her initials to the shield.  We get to keep the reclining position, the crown of stars, etc. that are used for interpretation cues.

    While I do like R-W, it seems more appropriate for The Tower to use one from The Cthulu Mythos Tarot:

    Ia! Ia! ... you know the rest.

    Of course, this brings up a good question:  How do we communicate the glibness of the Arcana?  The SPempress is relatively easy, as is The Sun, Reversed:

    I really am supposed to be working right now.
    Hello, Rufus!

    But for SF, should we use the current hedobot avatar, or the earlier Snidely Whiplash?  Hedobot with a Snidely Whiplash mustache?

    If anyone has a preference how they are to be represented, please let me know, or better yet, send me the artwork.  Honestly, an actual photo of Yusef with a bindle walking along the edge of a wall at Slab City would be AWESOME.

     

     

  • Hi-Fi Restoration Part 1: Background and Electronics Refurbish

    Engineering stimulates the mind. Kids get bored easily. They have got to get out and get their hands dirty: make things, dismantle things, and fix things. When the schools can offer that, you’ll have an engineer for life. — Bruce Dickinson

    It’s very satisfying to bring something back from the dead and make it work and look new again. I learned this feeling early on in my life thanks to my dad. When I was 8 or 9 years old, he caught me taking his lawn mower engine apart. Instead of beating my ass, he bought me an old lawn mower from a garage sale for $5 to tinker with and fix. His goal was primarily to keep me away from his machine, but he also wanted a safe outlet for my interests and worked with me when possible.

    Thanks dad, you and Bruce were right, I’m now both an engineer and Maiden Fan for life.

    Part 1: Background

    What is a Hi-Fi?

    A Hi-Fi is a 1950-60’s marketing term for a High Fidelity audio system. They began appearing in the early 1950’s in the US, Europe, and the rest of the world. It is basically what we would call a stereo system in the 1970-90’s. The major difference between a Hi-Fi and a stereo system is mostly one of aesthetics and partially sophistication. The Hi-Fi was typically an electronics package mounted into furniture in the style of the era. In the 50’s and early 60’s, this meant a mid-century modern look with simple lines and/or modern space-age like themes. In the later 60’s and 70’s, the Hi-Fi look became a more traditional Spanish or colonial furniture style. In comparison, a rack or bookshelf mounted stereo system of the 60’s-90’s were intended for the audiophile that wanted more audio power, fidelity, or customization. The appearance of the rack system was generally utilitarian with separate components and speakers.

          

    Why would I or anyone want to restore a vintage (old) Hi-Fi?

    The appeal of a vintage Hi-Fi over a rack system, or modern solutions such as MP3 speakers, is the style of the system. From a fidelity or sound quality perspective, the vintage Hi-Fi is likely inferior to a component rack or sophisticated surround sound system; however, it can be superior to many modern MP3 speakers and PC systems for certain types of music. Fidelity is not always a critical feature these days compared to storage, portability, or other factors. My own impression is that an older Hi-Fi in good working order can be superior to that of standalone MP3 speakers made by suppliers such as Bose or most PC cheap speaker systems.

    The Hi-Fi to me is a beautiful piece of furniture that can be the center of the entertaining area of your house. It is a throwback to a time when couples would have drinks and listen to a new record together. It can be in the background playing the sound track for the party or fill the house with sound while you are working. The final and most important factor for me was having a project that allowed me to tinker with electronic and mechanical systems, as well as apply some basic furniture refinishing with little financial risk.

    My Hi-Fi: Webcore Ravinia 1958

    I had passively been looking for a vintage Hi-Fi for a while on Craigslist. My criteria were the following:

    • 1950’s -1970 time frame due to the styling of that era and the likelihood of finding cheap offerings.
    • The wood furniture must be solid, in relatively good condition, and free of water damage or serious contamination from pets or the environment.
    • The electronics don’t have to be in working order as I plan on repairing or, if necessary, replacing the guts of the system.
    • The Hi-Fi must be cheap enough that I won’t mind putting it on the tree lawn for the gypsies to take away if I completely muck it up.

    I found what I was looking for after a few fits and starts of searching. I saw a Webcore Ravinia for sale for $40 locally. I made an appointment with the seller to meet and inspect it. The gentleman selling it inherited it from his grandmother and wanted to get the bulky thing out of this garage so he could fill it with used Firebird parts and meth fixins. It had a lot of dust and grime on it, but the wood was in relatively good shape for refinishing. Finally, the look and size of the system was close to what I was looking for.

    Thanks Brother

    The seller was adamant to demonstrate that the Hi-Fi worked, so he showed me that it could play Overkill’s Eliminate using his IPod through the Aux and remote control port. The electronics were functional enough to turn on without letting the smoke out of any components. The phonograph was barely able to turn and had no sound coming from it. I decided to take it that day. So I left my fledgling meth maker with $40 and brought it home and into the house. I proceeded to clean it up a bit, open up the back to ensure there were not pounds of dead mice or animal fur inside, and finally checked out the components and chassis for electrical damage prior to doing a quick test. I dusted the insides and vacuumed the cat fur out of the guts of the system. It looked in relatively good shape so I decided to fire it up to get a baseline assessment.

    My old Hi-Fi after a bit of basic dusting and the initial clean up.

    Assumptions and Constraints

    • I assume the electronics and speakers were worth repairing; if not, I will scrap them entirely.
    • Do the mechanicals such as the original turntable function, and do I care if they don’t?
    • Is the woodwork able to be refinished without expensive tools I don’t have and without taking the entire unit apart?
    • During the execution of this plan, the default is to scrap it if things go bad and cost me significant money to move forward. I set a budget of ~$100 for all expenses.
    • I plan on attacking this project in three parts
      • Assess and refurbish the electronics if possible, or scrap them and replace with something more modern if not.
      • Refurbish the turntable if possible or scrap/disable if not.
      • Refinish the furniture to a reasonable appearance with focus on the top and front of the Hi-Fi.
    • Finally, I’m not looking to keep the Hi-Fi system original if it means costing money or lowering the performance significantly. Do not use vintage or refurbished components; new components are your friend.

    Electronics Refurbishment

    Ass Covering Disclaimer: This is not a comprehensive how to article but a description of the path I took. Proceed at your own risk.

    The baseline performance assessment was as follows

    • The system powered up and the tubes all seemed to be functional (they glowed).
    • The turntable was activated and rotated without turning it on by the selector knob.
    • The turntable would not turn with uniform speed and the needle appeared to be damaged.
    • The radio worked on all bands AM and FM with normal amounts of tuning noise.
    • The knobs for volume, treble, and bass all generated a great deal of crackle and spit when actuated.
    • I was able to play my IPod through the Aux and Remote control port using RCA and Microphone Aux plugs respectively. The thrash metal meth head was right.
    • There was a great deal of 60Hz hum present even without an input present that was amplified with increasing volume. Recapping will be needed to clean this up.
    • There was a moderate level of high frequency static hiss present that was not modulated by the volume level. Possibly a bad cap on the amplifier or noise generated somewhere and being picked up in the speakers.
    • The speakers sounded ok and looked good from the backside. Keep the speakers if possible.
    • There was no functional off switch, but there was a location where it used to be. Use a power strip with a fuse and on/of switch.
    • The sound output began to change, diminish, and distort after the unit was on for about 30 minutes prompting me to shut the unit off. I suspect there is a power supply issue somewhere based on this behavior.

    In summary, the electronics and speakers appear to be worth a refurbish instead of replacement.

    Electronics refurbish plan based on the initial assessment.

    • Research the system and try to get a schematic to help with the refurbishment
    • Clean up the chassis and all of the tube sockets during the refurbishment
    • Replace the old leaky electrolytic and paper caps in the power and preamp stages to minimize line and high frequency noise
    • Clean and or replace the pots if needed to eliminate the crackle and snap
    • Keep the turntable disconnected until it can be refurbished
    • Replace the speaker crossover capacitors with modern plastic film units
    • Check for and replace any significantly out of tolerance or damaged resistors or ceramic capacitors
    • Leave the radio tuner alone if possible as it is functional and not a high priority

    To be successful at this the following basic skills and abilities will be important:

    • Able read a electrical schematic and know the basics of AC electrical and high voltage safety (vacuum tubes operate at >300V and the electrolytic caps might have to be discharged)
    • Knowledge and application of basic wiring, soldering, and electrical testing with a multimeter
    • Have or gain some knowledge of basic components such as vacuum tubes, capacitors, resistors, and inductors

    Helpful Resources

    I found a great deal of advice on refurbishing vintage audio equipment as well as a site dedicated to providing information on these old systems.

    I learned about recapping systems from this site.

    I was able to get schematics called a Sam’s manual from this site.

    With schematics in hand, I went about removing the power supply chassis from the rest of the system, this involved cutting some wires and unplugging others. At this stage it’s important to take a lot of photos and label each connection you plan on cutting to be sure you remember how to put it all back together again. I used masking tape and a sharpie and a lot of photos.

         

    Once the power chassis is removed, you need to get an appropriate workspace, prepared to desolder, remove, and re-solder your components. I made a lot of paper copies of the schematics for taking notes and for reference during the process.

    I began the process by removing and carefully storing the vintage tubes. These tubes were old RCA units made in the 50’s and 60’s but they are likely still in good shape. I flipped the chassis over and began by inspecting and understanding how the schematic related to the components so I could assess what I was dealing with. I planned on removing and replacing the big electrolytic capacitor containing 4 separate cap values in one can and replacing them with separate modern components. I found some work had been done in the past as evidenced by additional components and connections that were not in the schematics. The system likely had some noise that cropped up as the electrolytic caps aged and a tech added a few new caps in parallel as a fix. This appeared to have been done many years ago based on the age of the components. These had to go, and new components had to be retrofitted. I went through the Bill of Materials (BOM) provided by the SAMs manual and purchased new replacements from Parts Express; you could also use any one of several electronic stores or distributors.

    Once the old components were removed, I cleaned and deoxidized the tube sockets with contact cleaner, cotton swabs, and pipe cleaners. After a lot of removal, rewiring, and replacement I found I had room to mount the new components in the chassis. I also checked each component for: tolerance, functionality, solder connection, ground isolation, and mechanical integrity. I also checked and rechecked the circuit for any errors on my part, as I had to rewire as well as replace components.

    Now that the power chassis is done, I’m ready for the Pre Amp. This required a bit more desoldering from other components of the Hi-Fi, as well as the removal of the pots from the body of the Hi-Fi. Again take a lot of pictures and label your desoldered and cut connections. The paper capacitors all need to go, and another multiple electrolytic cap can needs to be removed and replaced. I’ll replace the paper caps with newer metalized polymer film capacitors and the electrolytic can with new discrete axial leaded components like in the power supply.

    Make sure to check your schematic, look for cold solder joints, and test for bad components and connections.

    While I had the Amplifier chassis out, I decided to clean instead of replace my pots that control volume, treble and bass. They were very noisy during the baseline testing. I found a contact cleaner and lubricant that is supposed to be a miracle worker for bad pots and sliders. Caig DeoxIT Fader Spray is apparently used by musicians to clean faders and pots. I sprayed a few squirts into the body of the pots and worked them extensively. I repeated this process one more time prior to rejoining the chassis to the Hi-Fi case. I also used this opportunity to clean the chassis and tube sockets.

    Now I used my pictures and labels to reassemble the Hi-Fi. I took the opportunity to replace the crossover capacitors with modern units, while resoldering the power supply leads to the speakers.

    I took this opportunity to remove and deep clean the control knobs and display as they looked like they had 60 years of metal meth head’s grandma’s skin on them. Hot water and simple green did the trick for the knobs and a little bit of spray cleaner cleaned up the display.

          

    Once I had everything resembled and cleaned up, it was time to test the sound quality and compare it to the baseline.

    • The system powered up without any smoke or fire!!
    • The system selector worked as expected-> Radio, Aux, and Phono
    • The turntable was left unplugged
    • The Radio worked on all bands AM and FM with normal amounts of tuning noise
    • The knobs for volume, treble, and bass were free from any crackle and spit when actuated
    • I was able to play my IPod through the Aux and Remote control port using RCA and Microphone Aux plugs respectively
    • There was a no 60Hz hum present until the volume knob was turned to maximum with no input present
    • There was a small level of high frequency static hiss present that was not modulated by the volume level; it was present no matter what connected input was used
    • The speakers sounded great and had much more power than before
    • The sound clarity was much improved
    • The sound quality remained constant after 3 hours of use with no distortion or reduction of output

    Here is a video of the operation and sound after refurbishment and where it will be located. The performance compared to the baseline was very significant and the sound is now great.

    Part two will focus on the turntable

    Part three will focus on the repair and refurbish of the cabinet

  • Tricks of the Trade: The Horoscope for the Week of April 29th

    So you want to be a fortuneteller.  Congratulations!  You’re a moron!

    There are a very few limited instances when putting up a crystal ball shingle is a good less than catastrophically bad idea:

    1.  It’s a front for your illegal business
    2.  It’s a money-laundering operation
    3. You are otherwise unemployed, and/or bored AND you have no expenses involved with obtaining your venue.

    In the same vein as giving a junkie some chlorox with which to sterilize their shared needles, here’s a little advice about succeeding in the X-mancy business.

    "Cleo" was already taken, obviously
    This is the look you’re going for

    First off, be a woman.  You might get away with being an astrologer with a Y chromosome, but for palmisty, cartomancy, scrying or psychic reading ain’t nobody gonna pay you for your opinion.  Once you are a woman, invest in chunky jewelry and scarves.  Consider dying your hair, but for the love of Gaia, do not have it professionally done.  You need to do it yourself.  The look you are cultivating is “sketchy.”  Respectable people make crappy fortunetellers.  There needs to be something… off about your appearance — the difference between “underbridge dweller” and “reclusive gypsy” is in the attitude and how you set up your surroundings.

    Good luck with that
    Nice try

    Do you think you’re psychic?  Great!  This is going to help lot.  It’s like they say, “sincerity is important, once you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”  The most successful psychic I know acts exactly as if they believe their own bullshit completely.  She has never dropped the facade in front of me.  Remember, you’re mostly a salesperson at this point, so have confidence in your product!  What if you can’t actually believe that you have the power to foretell the future?  Well, there is a solution to that.

    Drugs.

    Remember the oracle at Delphi?  Paint huffer.  Not from a spray can, but all natural organic hydrocarbons straight from Mother Earth’s crack.   If you want to go with the classics, you can choose ether, but what with the usual accouterments of candles and incense, I wouldn’t recommend it if you don’t want to go all Richard Prior.  But be careful that you don’t overdo it.  “Not entirely safe, not entirely sane” will draw the attention of the mark; “Crackhead” will have them scurrying for the door without paying.  The point of the drugs is to take the edge off your internal censor and *ahem* “open your mind to” the possible connections between the real world and your divinatory tools.  The only difference between “psychic” and “psychotic” is “cot,” which is what you’re probably going to be sleeping on if you choose to ply this trade.

    There is one skill that is pretty much mandatory if you’re going to make this business a sole/unaugmented source of income:  cold reading. This is a skill that can be learned, so do it.  Prestidigitation is also extremely useful, both for forcing cards and well… we’ll get to that

    Ideally, they should be less physically imposing, as well
    Notice that the mark must ALWAYS be wealthier than you

    Last thing:  if you want to make real money, you’re going to need a permanent premises so that you can build a clientele of suckers.  And if you want to really take them for what you can get, you’re going to need to commit some felony-level fraud.  This is going to end badly, if for no other reason that former marks, even ones that you that you didn’t even rip off will eventually be upset with your advice and having a fixed place of business means they know where to find you to make their displeasure known, or to send the local constabulary.  If you are satisfied by the rewards of one-off clients and the occasional petty larceny (this is where prestidigitation comes in:  if you keep your workspace cluttered, claustophobic, and filled with garish colors and patterns, this can make the mark more distracted and less likely to remember that he set down something small and salable, particularly if he didn’t notice you palming it.) then it’s safer to adopt the M.O. of grifters everywhere and keep mobile.  Carney life here we come!  Actually, renaissance fairs are a pretty good deal for an aspiring fortuneteller: the one-person tent is the cheapest premises you can have and is perfect for the kind of work you need to do, you have a constant flow of new clients pushed right in front of your flap, and those clients are in a pretty good mood and won’t actually take your advice too seriously.  Plus lots of them are drunk.  Blessings to Eris and Dionysus for drunken marks!

    I should probably also mention that dial-a-psychic is a thing that exists and my closest fortuneteller friend makes her living doing this, but I’ve never seen it in operation first-hand.  so not only do I not know anything about it, I don’t even know enough to be entertainingly ignorant about it.

    Also the marijuana is usually ass.
    Renfair. Pros: lots of one-off clients, steady income. Cons: herpes.

     

    Now, on to this week’s chart!

    This week has a couple of strong markers, and an oddly large number of tension/uncertainty indicators.  The more definite signs are for good fishing, and an extraordinary alignment (Sol-Mercury-Venus-Saturn retrograde) for relationships.  This is an excellent week to meet new partners, but a terrible week for breakups.  If the squeeze hasn’t gotten his crap out of the house KK, maybe it would be better to put it off until next week.  On the tension front, we have TWO different cross-alignments of opposition influencts;  we have change and stability signs on top of each other (Mercury in Capricorn) as well as balance/flux juxtaposition (Luna in Libra). If you are having difficulty figuring out WTF is going on in your life, this probably is why.*  The positioning last week that encourages sports betting  (Mars-Saturn retrograde in Capricorn) and masturbation  (Jupiter retrograde in Scorpio) remain this week, so have fun with that .

    *no, this is not why at all.