General Discussion, Thursday, December 13, 2018

Posted on December 13, 2018 by Stella

Lake Michigan in Winter

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106 Responses to General Discussion, Thursday, December 13, 2018

  1. Lucille says:
    December 13, 2018 at 12:10 am


    And may it be a great one!

    Liked by 6 people

    Reply
  2. MaryfromMarin says:
    December 13, 2018 at 12:21 am

    Old: “The devil made me buy this dress”
    New: “My baby said it was okay to be aborted”

    WATCH: Mom Sings Creepy Lullaby She Says Her Baby “Gave” Her Before Aborting Her

    https://www.lifenews.com/2018/12/12/watch-mom-sings-creepy-lullaby-she-says-her-baby-gave-her-before-killing-her-in-abortion/

    Liked by 4 people

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  3. Wooly Covfefe says:
    December 13, 2018 at 1:54 am

    This is how you eat an FM synthesizer on one chip, for breakfast.

    Yuzi Koshiro, on a 90’s Sega Geneisis. Not much he can’t do with that chip.

    Nobuo Uematsu was even better. He used the far-different architecture of the Super Nintendo sound chips instead. No FM. All sample-based. But he made incredible, unbelievable use of it. And it was concurrent with the Genesis’ lifespan. I could listen to the FF6 soundtrack over and over. And no FM. Just samples and effects. I really can’t decide which I like better.

    I do like Uemastsu better than Koshiro. Just barely, though.

    Liked by 2 people

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    • John Denney says:
      December 13, 2018 at 3:00 pm

      Great stuff, Wooly!

      About 30 years ago I had the idea to do digital synthesis all the way to the speakers using pulse width modulation, letting the speakers smooth out the waveform.

      The idea was to generate a 40kHz full amplitude square wave as a baseline. Of course, the speakers can’t vibrate that fast, and even if they could, it’s a higher frequency than a human can hear. But if you made one of the pulses wide enough, the speaker would respond. It would also respond to a series of square waves that weren’t square, that held high longer than low.

      Unfortunately, the 20 megaHertz Atari 520ST I had at the time did not have enough CPU horsepower to implement it, even writing in 68000 assembler code.

      Depressingly, even the modern, easily programmable Arduino board only run at 16 megaHertz, whereas my laptop is 1000 times faster, but the hardware interfaces are not as obvious to program as the Arduino.

      Pfft. High tech is often stupid tech; my old Windows 3.1 system took about 45 seconds to boot, so when I built a new system with a far faster CPU, I expected it to boot in about 3 seconds, but noooo, the Windows 2000 I loaded on it still took 45 seconds to boot. The trend continues; my laptop hardware is far faster than that desktop machine I built, but running Windows 10, the performance is often worse.

      I’m taking up machining; I’ve almost completed a one cylinder steam engine with a 3/8 inch bore and 0.8 inch stroke. Steel is dependable.

      Liked by 1 person

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      • Wooly Covfefe says:
        December 14, 2018 at 11:41 am

        Thank you, John, for a fascinating comment. I love 8-bit and 16-bit chiptune music.

        Rob Hubbard (and many others) made some phenomenal stuff on the Commodore 64’s SID chip. That was only monophonic FM synth, with three voices plus a white noise voice. These folks made it sound like a dozen voices by playing 128th note chords. You could get a five note (or more) chord out of one voice by playing each note in very fast succession. It, like animation or video, is an illusion that works.

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        • John Denney says:
          December 14, 2018 at 3:03 pm

          Ooo, I hadn’t considered that illusion in audio. Now I’m going to have to play with audio “frame rate” to see how fast it has to switch between two frequencies to make it seem as though they’re both being played simultaneously. Hm, visually, it’s 30 frames per second (fps); I’m thinking audio might require faster frame rate.

          C64
          I was in a friend’s living room and we were doing 12 bar blues, taking turns between rhythm and lead. Getting bored with playing the same 3 chords endlessly, I spotted his C64 on a shelf, and posited to him that I could program it to play the chords. Sure enough, about an hour later I had it playing 12 bar blues chords in A, including tempo control. I also made it accent — duh-DAH duh-DAH duh-DAH duh-DAH . . .
          The sound chip in this one was just frequency, volume, start and stop. I based the program around the fact that A is 440 Hz and the frequency of the 5th tone in the major scale is 3/2 of the frequency of the 1st tone.
          We jammed happily along with it for some time, then I asked if he had a backup device.
          He didn’t; so when we finally turned it off, my program vaporized. 😦

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      • Wooly Covfefe says:
        December 14, 2018 at 11:49 am

        I lost interest in videogame and computer music with the advent of 32-bit and the CD. Yes, you could record a full orchestra, and there’s your soundtrack, but that’s not impressive. I wanted to see what could be done pushing one chip past its known limitations, with programming. When the Sony Playstation came out, I lost interest. That’s just recorded music. People are still pushing the C64 and Atari 800 to this day, every year, in demoscene competitions, and they’re doing things with these chips (graphically, too) that nobody ever thought could be done when the computers were still on the market.

        Just YouTube “c64 demoscene 2018” (or your compy of choice) to see and hear the genius.

        With the newer computers and power and memory, the competitions have to set limits. What can you do with 64k, and no more? And it’s pretty cool what they can do with those limitations.

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  5. nyetneetot says:
    December 13, 2018 at 4:14 am

    Mornin’ stella! (Smiter of those that ought to be smote) 😎 🍸 (Long Island Iced Tea)
    Mornin’ WeeWeed! (Master Mixologist Extrodinare) 😎 🍸 (Old Fashioned)
    Mornin’ Menagerie! 😎 |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| (Jack Daniels – Single Barrel )
    Mornin’ Ad rem! (Queen Felis catus) 🐱 🍸 (Flaming Lamborghini)
    Mornin’ Sharon! 😎 🍸 🍸 (earthquake)
    Mornin’ ytz4mee! 😎 🍸 (cosmopolitan)
    Mornin’ waltzingmtilda! 🙂 🍸 (white wine and perrier)
    Mornin’ partyzantski! 🙂 |_| (Tom Collins)
    Mornin’ texan59! 🙂 |_| (Black & Tan)
    Mornin’ ZurichMike! 🙂 🍸 (fuzzy navel)
    Mornin’ Col.(R) Ken! (hand salute) 🙂 |_| (Boilermaker)
    Mornin’ czarina33! (aka czarina) 🙂 🍸 (Lynchburg Lemonade)
    Mornin’ czarowniczy! 🙂 |_| (Wild Turkey Rare Breed)
    Mornin’ letjusticeprevail2014! 🙂 |_| (Irish Car Bomb)
    Mornin’ Patriot1783-ctdar! (aka “ctdar”) 🙂 🍸 (grasshopper)
    Mornin’ tessa50! 🙂 🍸 (flaming volcano)
    Mornin’ waltzingmtilda! 🙂 🍸 (sidecar)
    Mornin’ varsityward! 🙂 |_| (Godfather)
    Mornin’ MaryfromMarin! 😀 |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| (Mortlach)
    Mornin’ Wooly Covfefe! (aka “Wooly Phlox” aka “taqiyyologist”) 🙂 |_| (Roy Rogers)
    Mornin’ Howie! (aka “doodahdaze”) 🙂 |_| (Classic Daiquiri)
    Mornin’ TwoLaine! 🙂 |_| (Gin & Tonic)
    Mornin’ Sha! 🙂 🍸 (Lemon Drop)
    Mornin’ BigMamaTEA! 🙂 🍸 (Harvey Wallbanger)
    Mornin’ cetera5! (aka “Cetera”) 🙂 |_| (Blackberry wine)
    Mornin’ The Tundra PA! 🙂 🍸 (Gentleman Jack Whiskey Sling)
    Mornin’ lovely! 🙂 |_| (Backdraft)
    Mornin’ michellc! 🙂 🍸 (Salty dog)
    Mornin’ auscitizenmom! 🙂 🍸 (Kiss on the Lips)
    Mornin’ Margaret-Ann! 🙂 🍸 (White Russian)
    Mornin’ Auntie Lib! 🙂 🍸 (Tom and Jerry)
    Mornin’ holly100! 🙂 🍸 (Jack & Coke)
    Mornin’ Pam! 🙂 (Not even water)
    Mornin’ Ms.Tee! 🙂 🍸 (Mojito)
    Mornin’ koolkosherkitchen! 🙂 🍸 🍸 (Cuba Libre)
    Mornin’ ImpeachEmAll 🙂 |_| (Flaming Dr. Pepper)
    Mornin’ Monroe! 🙂 |_| (Stinger)
    Mornin’ Les! 🙂 |_| (Rusty Nail)
    Mornin’ shiloh1973! 🙂 |_| (Jack Daniels)
    Mornin’ TexasRanger! 🙂 |_| (Whiskey Smash)
    Mornin’ Ziiggii! 🙂 |_| (B52)
    Mornin’ oldiadguy! 🙂 |_| (Rum & Coke)
    Mornin’ smiley! (“stuck in spambucket”) 🙂 🍸 (Spanish coffee)
    Mornin’ derk! (“Stellars”) 🙂 🍸 (Kamikaze)
    Mornin’ Jacqueline Taylor Robson 🙂 🍸 (Shirley Temple)
    Mornin’ facebkwallflower! 🙂 |_| (Night Train Express)
    Mornin’ Ms. Cindy! (aka “Ms Cynlynn” aka “ms cynlynn”) 🙂 🍸 (1970 ducru beaucaillou)
    Mornin’ sandandsea2015! 🙂 🍸 (1961 Château Montrose)
    Mornin’ amwick! 🙂 🍸 (Blue motorcycle)
    Mornin’ hocuspocus13! 🙂 🍸 (1970 Chateau Latour)
    Mornin’ Sloth1963! 🙂 🍸 (1971 Moulin Touchais)
    Mornin’ MTeresa! (Ex-lurker) 🙂 |_| (Albanian Raki Moskat)
    Mornin’ rheavolans! (aka “Rhea Salacia Volans”) 🙂 |_| (Hot Buttered Rum)
    Mornin’ joshua! 🙂 |_| (Mudslide)
    Mornin’ John Denney! 🙂 |_| (RumChata)
    Mornin’ litenmaus! 🙂 |_| (Stolichnaya elit, no ice)
    Mornin’ kinthenorthwest! 🙂 🍸 (A Lonely Island Lost in the Middle of a Foggy Sea)
    Mornin’ TwoLaine! 🙂 |_| (Smoking Bishop)
    Mornin’ patternpuzzler! 🙂 🍸 (Old Lady)
    Mornin’ Senatssekretär FREISTAAT DANZIG! 🙂 |_| (Red Russian)
    Mornin’ G-d&Country! 🙂 🍸 (Blind Russian)
    Mornin’ Gary! 🙂 |_| (Yuengling)
    Mornin’ valeriecurren! 🙂 🍸 (Flaming Sambuca)
    Mornin’ Lucille! 🙂 🍸 (Peach Schnapps)
    Mornin’ Lburg! 🙂 🍸 (Lburg lemonade)
    Mornin’ davidhuntpe! 🙂 |_| (Baileys Irish Cream on the rocks)
    Mornin’ skipper1961! 🙂 |_| (Brompton’s Cocktail – No cherry, no umbrella, no plastic monkey)
    Mornin’ mightyconservative! 🙂 |_| (Benjamin Franklin’s clarified milk punch)
    Mornin’ NC Nana! 🙂 🍸 (Beautiful)
    Mornin’ whiners and complainers! 😛 (No drink for you!)
    Mornin’ to people posting that I missed. 😳
    Mornin’ to all you lurkers! 😕

    Also just in case someday; mornin’ to Elvis Chupacabra, F.D.R. in Hell and sundance! :mrgreen:

    Breakfast!

    NEW and IMPROVED breakfast with extra bacon for ZurichMike!

    Doughnuts for coffee!

    Liked by 7 people

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  7. Wooly Covfefe says:
    December 13, 2018 at 11:37 am

    This one’s for Menagerie, and all Christians here, via Voxday:

    https://fencingbearatprayer.blogspot.com/2018/11/satan-be-gone.html

    The pic at the end is perfect and wonderful.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply
  8. czarowniczy says:
    December 13, 2018 at 12:51 pm

    Hey you California persons, you lucky yous. Looks like the state’s not been remiss in squeezing your wallets dry, they’ve once again proven they are at the cutting edge of governmental extortion , they’re going to tax your texts!

    Yes, sports fans, it seems their previous tax on voice calls was not generating enough revenue as users were switching to texts so the state moguls, after much thought and research, decided to also tax the texts! Ta daaaaaa…

    So far they haven’t implemented it as there is a wheelbarrow full of loopholes that have to be addressed but be sure they’ll work it out unless California texters raise hell. I like the irony that the proceeds go to giving the state’s poor and traditionally oppressed free phone service – will they have to pay taxes on texts texted from their taxpayer funded by text tax phones?

    Liked by 4 people

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    • czarowniczy says:
      December 13, 2018 at 1:46 pm

      OH WAIT! It’s not a ‘tax’, it’s going to be one of those ‘fees/assessments’ yu find stacked up on the bottom of your bill. Phew, sure makes me feel better.
      OH WAIT! Now they’re talking about making it retroactive for FIVE YEARS!

      Liked by 4 people

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    • Gil says:
      December 13, 2018 at 6:17 pm

      Yeah they vote next month. Super majority 1 party rule. Sick. Theres nothing they wont tax.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply
      • czarowniczy says:
        December 13, 2018 at 6:28 pm

        If I had the $$$ I’d be setting up cell phone stores just over the California state line to the north and east. The buyers would get an out-of-state number and, if the state decided to tax based on the user’s address, they could use the store’s address where they bought it for the record.

        Liked by 2 people

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  9. litenmaus says:
    December 13, 2018 at 2:14 pm

    Another project finished…

    Four square feet of glitter = kitchen countertop inset

    Liked by 5 people

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  10. John Denney says:
    December 13, 2018 at 2:26 pm

    This very well done work of art brought tears of laughter to my eyes. Candidates Trump and Clinton singing, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” to each other.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply
  11. stella says:
    December 13, 2018 at 4:15 pm

    Wall Street Journal takes on the subject of President Trump and campaign finance:

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-and-campaign-finance-11544733632?fbclid=IwAR3BSAihAnFNBjeS7wQRzG_z1Yuuf0UqCHplixfqULXfXuHsQShKiuz4xTE

    How many reporters are covering the question of Donald Trump’s alleged liability for campaign finance violations as well as the President’s twitter feed? Mr. Trump is frequently criticized for making inaccurate comments, but this morning on social media he got right to the heart of the matter.

    In the following comment delivered via consecutive tweets, the President may not have managed to complete a sentence. But he fairly critiqued the idea that he violated campaign finance law when others made hush-money payments to his alleged mistresses:

    Despite that many campaign finance lawyers have strongly……

    ….stated that I did nothing wrong with respect to campaign finance laws, if they even apply, because this was not campaign finance.

    Mr. Trump is correct that such payments are not campaign expenses and he’s also correct that many lawyers in the field agree with him. Many people in the press likely also know he is correct—even if it’s hard to tell from current coverage.

    Here’s how the Associated Press reported in 2012 on the results of the Justice Department’s effort to claim that such payments were campaign expenses in the case of a former Democratic senator:

    A jury’s refusal to convict John Edwards was less a redemption of the former White House hopeful than a rejection of the Justice Department’s boldest attempt to make an example of someone in the name of enforcing campaign finance laws.

    Thursday’s verdict of not guilty on one count and a mistrial on five others bore out criticism from the earliest stages of the case that it was a reach…

    “As noted by nearly every campaign finance lawyer who considered the matter, this was a lousy case,” said Melanie Sloan, executive director for the campaign finance watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington…

    Edwards faced six felony charges involving nearly $1 million provided by two wealthy political donors that was used to help hide the Democrat’s mistress, Rielle Hunter, as he sought the White House in 2008. He faced a maximum sentence of up to 30 years in prison if convicted on all counts.

    Before Edwards’ prosecution, no federal candidate had been tried over payments from a third party that flowed to a mistress.

    After the Edwards verdict, Chris Matthews of MSNBC opened his television program by saying, “Let me start with this John Edwards trial, this waste of time, money and public attention.”

    The Los Angeles Times reported it this way:

    The case was unprecedented; no major political candidate has been charged with campaign finance corruption for attempts to hide a mistress…

    The chief financial officer for Edwards’ 2008 campaign testified that the Federal Election Commission did not require her to report the payments as campaign contributions — even after Edwards was indicted last year. And a former FEC commissioner, Scott Thomas, testified that in his 37 years of experience, no one had been prosecuted for payments from a third party to cover up an affair.

    The New York Times also called it “a case that had no precedent.” The Washington Post observed:

    As the investigation proceeded, one Justice official said, “people were squeamish about the theory of the prosecution but were reluctant to interfere with a U.S. attorney in the field.”

    …At the time, an array of legal experts, including former prosecutors, questioned the wisdom of bringing the charges against Edwards, saying it was an aggressive interpretation of campaign finance laws.

    Liked by 4 people

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    • Lucille says:
      December 13, 2018 at 6:41 pm

      All this hullabaloo is an attempt to get religious folk to abandon President Trump. Sorry, bozos, but it won’t work in my case and likely not with most supporters.

      Yeah, give Mitt another chance, huh? Or maybe vote for Beto instead? Kamala is probably more on the cash-receiving end than the payout end…but she’s being seriously considered. Hey, let’s beg Hillary to run again…she of cash-for-bimbo-eruption fame. Or ole Joe who likes to paw little girls.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply
  12. rheavolans says:
    December 13, 2018 at 6:41 pm

    I almost quit my job today. I’ve never just walked off a job before; today was a narrow miss on a first.

    I’m tired of being told that “I should have known.” In a situation that I had not been in before, I made what I thought was the best decision I could. But no. There was other information, that I didn’t have, that I should have known.

    What are you supposed to do when your best is never good enough, and there’s always something else you were supposed to do in any given situation?

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply
  13. Lucille says:
    December 13, 2018 at 6:55 pm

    “A Report From Hell: Seine Saint-Denis” by Hugh Fitzgerald: I previously posted parts One (https://www.jihadwatch.org/2018/12/a-report-from-hell-seine-saint-denis-part-one) and Two (https://www.jihadwatch.org/2018/12/a-report-from-hell-seine-saint-denis-part-two). Here are parts Three thru Five…

    (Part Three) – December 11, 2018
    The French police do not engage in “harassment,” as the Muslims complain; there is only the occasional attempt of a frazzled and frightened gendarmerie to discourage the drug dealers, the thieves, the criminals of all kinds, including terrorists on the run, who find their refuge in Saint-Denis.
    https://www.jihadwatch.org/2018/12/a-report-from-hell-seine-saint-denis-part-three

    (Part Four) – December 12, 2018
    Pulling down the makeshift camp at Calais had to be done, for the good of the French being threatened in Calais. The fault here is with those breaking the law with their makeshift camp, not with the French authorities who dare to enforce it.
    https://www.jihadwatch.org/2018/12/a-report-from-hell-seine-saint-denis-part-four

    (Part Five) – December 13, 2018
    France has, after all, been open to the world. It has welcomed millions of other, non-Muslim migrants — refugees from the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, Portuguese workers in the 1950s, Italian miners throughout the 20th century, and more recently, Latin Americans, Chinese, Vietnamese, Christians from black Africa and the Caribbean, Hindus, Buddhists, even Americans — without any of those migrants causing the problems that arise with Muslim immigrants, not just in France, but all over Europe.
    https://www.jihadwatch.org/2018/12/a-report-from-hell-seine-saint-denis-part-five

    Liked by 5 people

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  14. auscitizenmom says:
    December 13, 2018 at 8:59 pm

    lilbirdee12’s prayer:

    Our Heavenly Father, Your children come to you tonight to ask for healing and peace throughout our country so that we may return to being One Nation Under God. Guide us to be leaders in Your Kingdom, spreading Your Love and Salvation to all. Forgive us our sins and deliver us from evil.

    Lord, we ask for a blanket of protection over all our troops and law enforcement who serve to defend and protect us. Bless our representatives with the strength and wisdom they need to achieve the path You have chosen for us.

    Please place Your Guardian Angels of Protection around Donald Trump and Mike Pence and their families as they seek to lead America back to You.

    Grant us patience, Lord, as the evil ones try to anger us and cause us to fall.
    Spread blessings over Israel and Netanyahu.

    We humbly ask that You please comfort those who are grieving and in pain.
    Thank you Father, for Your Love and the gift of Life.

    In Jesus name, we pray. Amen.

    Liked by 3 people

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  15. auscitizenmom says:
    December 13, 2018 at 9:01 pm

    A prayer for Justice Kavanaugh:

    Prayer to St. Michael

    St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle;
    be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
    May God rebuke him, we humbly pray;
    and do you, O prince of the heavenly host,
    by the power of God,
    thrust into hell Satan and the other evil spirits
    who prowl about the world for the ruin of souls.

    In Jesus name, we pray. Amen.

    Liked by 3 people

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  16. auscitizenmom says:
    December 13, 2018 at 9:14 pm

    I’m sorry you are in that situation. 😦

    Like

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