i think the issues regarding one of the three cases are dealt with, at least, for now.

i got the paperwork for the landlord & tenant board case, which has given me a hearing date of feb 5, 2020. given that i will have paid my rent on feb 1st, and he'll still have last month's for march, it is very unlikely that the court would order me to evacuate any time before may 1st. that said, i make no request in my case to end the lease. so, he will need to file for that. if he does, that discussion will no doubt come up, in context. if he doesn't, and the issue stays mostly resolved, then i'll certainly withdraw - but i'll wait a long time before i do.

i have filed a t2 for repairs, and not a t6 for harassment. is the issue fixed? it's not clear. it's better, surely, but i'll need to wait for the weather to warm up to really know. but, we can update the file if he's going to come in here like that.

so, he's going to want to be very careful about doing things like entering the unit illegally. i can't find any evidence of any kind of tampering or anything (yet.), but the reality is that the electrical is enough to suggest that the unit was entered into. and, i will be keeping a closer eye on this - can i find a pattern of electrical spikes when i'm not home?

in fact, i noticed something like this a few months ago, but wasn't as sure. this time, i turned everything off to make a point - that spike must be from an illegal entry. i will be keeping a closer eye on the electrical and will catch further break-ins.

what's he doing in here? i've had some creepy feelings.

but, i'll remind you that i've wondered for a while if the guy is actually a cop. he appears to have no source of income, and yet goes away on expensive trips - with cars and kids, so these aren't my hobo trips across to detroit, he's staying somewhere, and he's feeding multiple mouths. - several times a month. further, there seems to be people up there, even when there's no car in the driveway. and, while i can't prove it, i'm sure that somebody - maybe a specific officer - is smoking up there.

i'll remind you that i filed a judicial review against the oiprd on tuesday afternoon, and had to put the windsor police on the paperwork. did they pay me a visit on tuesday night? is that what happened?

it would be consistent.

and, there is no legal excuse for this, at all. it would simply uphold my claim that i'm being harassed by the cops.

i still don't know if he filed, but, if he didn't, he has until the end of the year to do it. i filed immediately in order to be sure he wouldn't get the hearing first. he has until january 30th to file his own case. it won't be until close to then that i make any attempt to cancel my own...

so, it's not the best idea to confront him immediately about the illegal entry. i'm better off waiting this out, to see if i can build a pattern.

i will still need to call on monday morning, and periodically afterwards, to see if anything's in, yet. but, that's in motion....

so, what have i done since i got back on wednesday afternoon?

it might be my own fault this time, but i've barely been able to stay awake - i slept all night wednesday (which was needed), then essentially all day thursday and now most of the day friday (from very small amounts of pot).

the pot is gone. and, i actually want to do laundry this weekend.

i did figure out yesterday that the po box i got on tuesday is no longer in service. so, i am going to need to file the initial order again on monday. and, i will take note of the costs to the board, in the matter - $52 for searches and $43 for bus tickets. these expenses would have been unnecessary if the court had ordered the cops to provide the address (which is what it's going to do anyways.), so i feel i'm entitled to at least ask for them.

i am also going to need to prepare some documents that i will need to serve to the parties (despite the fact that they already have all of them), and then mail to the board in toronto. i won't be mailing this until after the first, but i want to have a solid handle on it by monday.

and, i'll need to call the landlord and tenant board on monday as well, if the documents i'm seeking aren't already in my box.

so, i didn't get much out of my half gram - it just knocked me out. i was hoping i could get through the reviews and other loose ends with it, but it just didn't work out that way. i got absolutely nothing done at all. do i at least feel caught up on sleep? no - i'm still tired. so, i'm trying to wake myself up by eating a lot of fruit and drinking a lot of soy, and will be able to make a big pot of coffee after 19:00.

so, i blew a few days and wish i hadn't, but so be it. perhaps more importantly, i'm learning to stay away from government pot...it's just a totally boring complete sedative, in terms of what it actually does. it doesn't feel like pot....

what about the energy use?

well, this is tuesday, which makes sense, although it means that the background fan is running at a lot more than i'd like it to. i guess the fluctuations are from the fridge, meaning the fan is still running at 65W, minimum, even on the low setting. i was hoping for 40-45W. so, i'm halving my savings. *shrug*. so be it. i still need it on...

you'll note that there's a spike at around 23:00 - odd considering that i was in toronto, at the time, and even odder considering the following graph, which is for wednesday:

so, there's a spike in the electrical between 23:00 on tuesday night and 1:00 on wednesday morning. i have not experienced previous spikes of this sort related to the fridges - those spikes can be seen in these charts, and are the fluctuations on the order of 0.02 or so.

rather, 0.17 would be in line with the amount generated by somebody turning all of the lights on at the same time.

this is pretty strong evidence that somebody was in here, and i'll need to put it aside for later.

for the afternoon, as mentioned, i'm just nursing myself a little. the focus for the night is going to be on cleaning - and looking for signs of illegal entry. i want to finish these reviews and put together loose ends in terms of blog posts. then, the focus to start the weekend (at least) is going to be on getting those three legal issues in order for monday morning. and, then i have those liner notes to finish....

it's only two days lost, it's not the end of the world. but, it's frustrating that the product they're selling is not what they're advertising - government pot doesn't get you high, it just makes you tired.

so, i tried to get some high thc / low cbd marijuana when i was in toronto to prevent me from falling asleep when i smoked it.

this pot is remarkably dry - it's more comparable to the basil or oregano in your cupboard than it is to any kind of high quality bud. but, my plan didn't work very well.

i had about a half a gram left.

so, i rolled a small joint at 7:30 yesterday morning, and i napped from it for most of the morning. i tried to smoke another one at about 15:30, and slept until after midnight. i smoked the last little bit this morning at around 3:00 and am just waking up now.

so, a sixth of a gram of this pot knocks me out for six-ten hours at a time. i have a low tolerance, and i know that cbd makes me tired, but i'm not inexperienced with marijuana - i smoked my first joint in 1996. right now, i feel less like i've smoked a half a gram of pot and more like i swallowed a bottle of lorazepam.

i kind of saw this coming, though. what they did in ontario was essentially to allow the medicinal business to sell recreational product. and, i've been clear on the point - the idea that marijuana is some kind of medicine is retarded, it's purely a recreational drug. but, what that means is that the strains you can buy in the store were mostly designed for couch potatoes and lifers, and all they're really going to do is make you take a nap.

the reality is that it's shitty pot for sale here in canada.

...and i hope that the pot in detroit is a little better, when they open the stores.

so, a bit of a polling update....

this is pretty much the catastrophe that seemed obvious when sanders decided to run directly against biden in the south - biden is still going to win the south by huge margins, while a younger centrist is apparently going to win the north by huge margins. sanders got greedy, and lost everything.

buttigieg is essentially carrying through with the only possible winning strategy against biden, while sanders is clinging to what was clearly a losing strategy, from the start.

so, you might find that sanders is doing ok in national polls, and i don't dispute the point with any zeal, but the fact that his campaign is pushing national polls in the november before an iowa primary is a sign of desperation, on his behalf. why isn't he pushing polls in any actual states? because he's losing everywhere. national polls are all he's got. he could finish second in every single state, and then what? take it to the convention and argue that you're consistently second-place, and deserve a consolation prize? likewise, if warren doesn't start showing us where she's going to actually win, it's time that people start telling her to go home.

the story on the fake left appears to be that not only are they not in each others' lanes, but they've both hit support ceilings. classic prisoner's dilemma. again: they had a winning strategy of co-operation, but they picked a losing strategy of competition. when firms compete against each other, they both lose. that's basic economics.

the narrative is "ok, but buttigieg has 0% support in the black states", but that suggests that the black states were ever actually in play, and, of course they weren't. biden has plurality black support, which nobody else has in any other demographic, and if somebody is going to cut into that, it's not going to be bernie sanders. you're going to need a black candidate to do that, and booker is too educated for them to relate to him.

so, you have to sweep the north to win. and, the only person in a position to do that right now, however tenuously, is actually buttigieg. sanders has alienated too many people, and warren can only fool a fraction of the pool with her phony rhetoric. buttigieg's surge may not be real, but it hasn't demonstrated a ceiling, yet.

that would mean that, realistically, the fight right now is between buttigieg and biden, but that buttigieg has a very difficult path. as mentioned, he will have to put up numbers in the north that essentially mirror biden's numbers in the south - he'll need to be getting 60-70% of white voters in these states. there's little evidence he's doing nearly that well, but if somebody is going to pull off the only strategy that there is, he's the only one doing it right...

it's a long shot, though. even if he can't do it, and he probably can't, buttigieg may be positioning himself as an impossible-to-ignore vp candidate, because if that's how this works out - if buttigieg ends up with clear wins in states like michigan and pennsylvania and minnesota and wisconsin - then biden is going to have little other choice. he will need those states to win.

can that change? sure. i don't suspect that buttigieg will survive a serious policy berating. i'm not sure that people really know what they're claiming they'll vote for. most of his support in the north does still appear to be coming from sanders, who is running fourth in the north right now by some polling estimates, and i pointed to the queer sympathy vote, but he may be enjoying some kind of default transitional state, as people rule out the other candidates.

if they've ruled out biden, and they've ruled out sanders, and they've ruled out warren, they might sit with "buttigieg. i guess." for a few weeks. who do they vote for, in the end? nobody knows, yet.

but, if measured voting intention translates into real votes, and the vote is tomorrow, you're looking at a biden/buttigeg ticket, as biden scrambles to find a white running mate that can help him win in wisconsin.

a few notes on the cabinet.

- putting marco mendicino in the immigration file is an interesting signal, considering that they took ahmed hussen out of it. one would assume that ahmed hussen at least had grandparents that identified as muslim. marco mendicino's primary claim to fame is his work in prosecuting the toronto 18, which was an entrapment operation on an "islamic terrorist cell". we'll see if the policy approach is different or not, but this could signal a move towards a more restrictive immigration policy, which would be the party listening to public opinion.

- jonathan wilkinson is an interesting choice for the environment. the right-wing press is describing him as "pro-business", while the pseudo-left is describing him as a "clean technology executive". his actual history is in working for companies that sell technology to make fossil fuels less polluting; his industry would profit from greater regulatory enforcement. so, it's suggesting that the party is going to try and salvage this orwellian pr strategy about not being able to separate the environment and the economy by putting somebody that can do more than repeat talking points in charge of the file. he has already worked in the department, as well. on it's face, this would suggest that the policies will be pro-extraction, but that there may be some effort to pass legislation to try to clean the sands up (and thereby benefit the interests that wilkinson represents). if so, that would be something kind of along the lines of what i might hope for in a liberal government. this is the bankers' party, after all. they're all about profit. but, it's because they're the bankers' party that they have a history of passing legislation that is well-informed by actual research, rather than by ideology or populism. actual, real bankers don't watch fox news. they're usually actually pretty smart. so, when i see that they've put an executive with strong ties to an industry that profits from regulating emissions in charge of the environmental file, it makes sense to presume that this is because he will have significant business opportunities in the sector, which will benefit the banks' investment in it. if we want to shut these pipelines down, we're going to have to do it in court - everybody's known that for years. but, there is grounds for a cautious optimism, here, in the only feasible ways that you could actually expect from this party. environmentalists generally argue against ccs-type proposals, but what if you put the ccs industry in charge of the ministry? it's worth a shot, if it's actually in good faith. so, we'll see if it works or not, but i like this pick, and hope it's a good way to project how the government thinks throughout the remnants of it's existing mandate - that green energy is big business, it just needs some corporate welfare to get going. let them build it, we can nationalize it later....

- putting seamus o'regan at natural resources seems to suggest that the pmo is centralizing the file. 

- likewise, i don't actually think that putting chrystia freeland at intergovernmental affairs is a promotion, at all. this is a centralized file, so he's essentially giving her a job in katie telford's office. you could argue that bringing her into the pmo is a promotion, i guess, but she's going to essentially be losing cabinet status, and, with it, a lot of independence and power. while i think it's mistake to give it to her, the role of "deputy prime minister" is not constitutionally defined, and should not be thought of as being similar to "vice president", even if what trudeau's doing probably actually has everything to do with julia louis dreyfus. this would appear to be a pr ploy to make justin look very feminist. we'll see how she's actually deployed to fight against "wexit", but i would expect it to be as an extension of the pmo, rather than independently of it - and perhaps often in contradiction to her own suggestions. they're keeping an eye on her, as much as they're bringing her in...

- as was the case with wilkinson, the actual promotion of francois-phillipe champagne to foreign affairs is about as good a pick as you can hope for from this government. in 2015, this post was awarded to stephane dion, who was considered a protege of jean chretien, and was at one time his hand-appointed successor. there was hope that he would undo much of the mess that harper created at foreign affairs, but was quickly scuttled out after the election of donald trump, under fears that the republicans would hate him. freeland seemed more keen on carrying on with harper's policies than reversing them. but, the new minister is another chretien protege, so there is some hope that he will return to a more historically normal canadian foreign policy. the first thing he appears to have done is reverse harper's policies on illegal israeli settlements in the west bank, which has hurt our international standing over the past 15 years. i like this pick, as well, and hope that's a good sign of things to come.

- karina gould has some history working in international aid, which is perhaps a positive sign. often, people end up with "international development" as a kind of throwaway ministry that's just used as a stepping-stone. maybe putting somebody with some interest in the topic in charge of the ministry could help spark some much needed reform within it. i am an advocate of the idea that better spending on foreign aid could help reduce unwanted types of immigration.

- patty hajdu is again an interesting choice at health, and there is some cautious optimism that it may signal a shift to a focus on creating better funding models. she has a history of working with vulnerable people.

there are things i don't like, but not many of them are new things that i don't like. in terms of the actual changes that occurred here, this is almost entirely positive. but, i do have one concerning thing to take note of.

- there is no minister of science at this point. the file has been folded into the title "minister of innovation, science and industry". this would seem to suggest that this government has the view that science is only important when it helps industry maximize profit. again: this is the bankers' party. but, smart bankers should understand the importance of doing basic research. this is a progression that occurred, rather than something that happened all at once. if the implication is that basic science is being phased out in favour of letting industry take control of the resources, that is an extremely concerning continuation of the underlying harperism of this government, and needs to be mobilized against.

broadly speaking, though, they seem to be moving in the right direction, if you can get over the kind of meaningless symbolism that defines so much of their messaging.

i am home, and i've been home since about 15:00 yesterday afternoon. but, i got something to eat, took a shower and crashed for roughly 13 hours - just out cold, crash. i'd been awake more or less since 3:30 monday morning...

so, i wanted to get some things done this morning...

....as it is, a review is coming, but i need to make some calls and do some other stuff this morning, first.

i got both of the things i wanted done done but i don't know how useful the information that i got actually was. we'll find out soon enough.

the address that i got from the corporate name search is indeed registered to the name i was given, but belongs to a split commercial space owned by a sushi bar and a money mart. i don't know if there was ever any other business registered there, but it would seem to be an odd location for a property management company. it's a strip mall with a grocery store and some fast food restaurants and a dollar store and...well, a money mart. you'd think a company that rents apartments would want a more professional space.

the other option would be that the person that owns the company also owns one of those businesses, or also owned a business that was located there, and the property management component doesn't have it's own retail space. i would be more inclined towards thinking it's the money mart - or even in....does money mart rent po boxes?

(checks to see if money mart rents po boxes)

i can't find any current ads for money mart selling po boxes, but i can find some references to them doing so in the past. either she has an account that is in deep legacy mode, or the account is very out of date. but, it is on record that she recently filed her taxes, and the account open date is actually fairly recent. maybe they do sell them still, but don't advertise them. i dunno.

but, that seems to be the address on file - a commercial po box at a money mart.

which actually means i still have no idea where it is, but that's fine if the documents get to her.

i am indeed currently in toronto, posting from the fake account.

i had to do two things today, and they are in fact both accomplished. the first was that i had to determine the identity of the person that frivolously charged me with stalking them. it's a surreal reality - needing to go to a different city to learn the identity of the person that accused you of stalking them, and doing so under an implicit court waiver to do so. it's absurd. but, i got a po box, and it's actually fairly close to home - near the mall that i currently do a lot of shopping in. weird. so, not only is it bizarre to be frivolously accused of stalking somebody you've never met, but it's doubly weird to realize they were right in front of you the whole time.

i also needed to file a judicial review on the order by the independent police review director on the legality of arresting me in the first place. it's a clear error in law, and should be open and shut once an actual judge looks at it. it's just a question of getting it there. so, i had to get the thing stamped, then copy it a few times and take it to the oiprd director, and the attorney general. i also mailed it to the windsor cops. then i had to file an oath saying i actually did it.

i expected long lineups at the court house and the service ontario branch, but they were pretty much empty when i went in. so, it took me four hours to do something i thought would take six or seven, minimum. i'm really early, and have a lot of time to blow.

so, i'm in the toronto public library, a little stoned, and just sort of hanging out, i guess.

i'm going to catch a show here tonight before i go back. well, i'm in toronto, why not do something there, right?

those kids will knife you in your sleep, and sacrifice your organs to allah.

oh, won't somebody think of the children?

with enough hugs and kisses and love and nice fluffy pillows, everything will be fine. you just need to have faith.

idiots.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/18/the-guardian-view-on-british-children-in-syria-bring-them-back

so, i'm going to send this one out to don.

hope he enjoys it.

if you want to commemorate the people that fought for the freedoms you enjoy today, you should march in a union parade, not wear a poppy.

don can't forget things that he never knew.

but, what we're remembering is not the "sacrifice that veterans made". no. that's a lie, that's historical ignorance.

what we're remembering is the tyranny of our own government in slaughtering it's own civilians - and we're standing for a few brief moments, together, to ensure that we never let that happen again.

those new to the country can be forgiven for excusing themselves from the ceremonies that honour the dead, if they don't feel that that is their history. but, i do expect their support in standing strong against any future government that would revert to the past, in bringing back conscription - and wearing a poppy doesn't mean much, in the latter context.

well.

does anybody have any statistics on the incidence of poppy-wearing in first generation canadians? it's an empirical question.

i don't care about don cherry. he's kind of an institution in this country, but one of the things i remember about him was thinking he didn't even know that much about hockey. i don't actually know what he was trying to say, or if it was actually offensive.

if you said that recent immigrants don't celebrate easter, you'd mostly be right, because they largely aren't christians. now, if you implied that they should celebrate easter, you'd be saying something confusing. why is it reversed with remembrance day, which is a very specifically eurocentric event? why would we expect muslim or chinese immigrants to commemorate the deaths of white canadians fighting a pointless war for the british empire?

and, cherry is wrong on that point - world war one had nothing to do with democracy, and these people didn't die to save anybody. rather, their deaths were a symptom of their lack of freedom. most of the soldiers did not gain the franchise until after the war (if they survived it) because they didn't own property, and most of the people that died were conscripted to fight. those millions of dead did not choose their fate, they were pointlessly slaughtered for reasons that historians still can't entirely figure out, a hundred years later.

it's a completely orwellian holiday.

further, the canadian story is inherently ethnic in context - quebec nearly started a civil war over it, something called the conscription crisis. they didn't think they were dying for anybody's freedom, at all, they thought they were being marched off to die by the anglos.

if i were to move to china, i'd be faking it if i were to get into emotional reflections about the rape of nanking, even as i recognize that it was a horrible war crime. i don't know if they wear ribbons, or do something else to commemorate it, but i know i wouldn't do it. i'd have the respect to sit quietly and wait for them to finish, but it wouldn't be my holiday, and i wouldn't participate.

so, what he said was weird. but, if the premise is that the insinuation that immigrants don't celebrate remembrance day is insulting, i'd question it on it's face.

if there's an issue at hand here, it's maybe in coming to terms with the fact that remembrance day is kind of a white holiday that lacks relevance for a growing percentage of the country, while recognizing that it was never commemorated uniformly across the country in the first place.

in french canada, this is the day where we celebrate the end of conscription. but, don doesn't like the quebeckers, either - he's just allowed to talk about that, as he pleases.

so, i wanted to be extra thorough, and i don't apologize for that, even if it means i still haven't uploaded yet.

i guess it just gives me time to test on the chromebook, which i was hoping to have fixed by today but haven't even looked at yet..

but, i've got this worked out, even if it's later than i wanted it to be.

i need to do some running around today...

this is just a picture. but, we all need to start thinking more dialectically, in general, and this is a good example.

it's going to be cold in canada for a while, still.

but, you see all of that hot air in the atlantic? it's going to win the fight, sometimes. and, it's going to win more and more often over the upcoming years.

so, think of it like a struggle - an epic battle, a duality. that's reality: conflict, change.

if the line is over the st. lawerence, as it has been for the last several years, then it is true that cities that straddle the line - chicago, detroit, toronto, montreal - will have some absolutely brutal weather. again.

but, it's also likely that you'll get a few bouts of warmth.

this is my advice this winter: check the long range, and try to plan around the nice spots.

it's too early to lose hope in an early spring, because that hot water could still overwhelm, in the end.

i've posted this statement before, but it's not getting through. there seems to be some kind of misunderstanding.

when i say "i would never support elizabeth warren or pete buttigieg or joe biden, and now also bernie sanders, because they're too right-wing", that seems to be being misconstrued as though i'm pouting - as though i'm saying "i would normally support the democrats, but i don't like the candidate, so i'm withholding support".

in fact, i've been clear that i wouldn't normally support the democrats at all - that i would usually vote for a party to the left of the democrats, like the greens. i would usually be highly critical of the democrats.

so, it's not unusual that i'm withholding support for the democrats; what's unusual is that i was even thinking about supporting them in the first place, and that was due 100%, solely, entirely to bernie sanders. 98 years out of 100, i'm not going to even consider it.

and, i'm not a "non-voter". i'm just a communist.

i was born in 1981, but i'm comfortable in stating that i would not have voted for the anti-communist and pro-catholic jfk. and, while it is true that nixon was a racist despot, he still has an actual better legacy than jfk in terms of actual accomplishments. i would not feel ashamed about preferring nixon over jfk at all (although i would have voted for a socialist party).

hey, hey lbj! how many kids did you kill today?

i may have flirted a little with rfk - it's hard to tell how seriously i would have actually taken him  but, i would have more actively supported the various anti-war and pseudo-left candidates in the late 60s and early 70s, and then tuned out when they lost.

i would have interpreted jimmy carter as a sign of the apocalypse, and been a fan of punk rock and everything that that means from 1975-1993. so, i would have hated tipper gore and the pmrc with a passion. to the extent that i would have voted during these years at all, it would have been for people pretty far outside of the spectrum.

i might have supported clinton in 1993 just to get the republicans out and end the misery of it, and then horribly regretted it. but, i might have been a passive perot fan, too. you have to understand that clinton campaigned against most of what he did, in a time where you should have been able to believe him - he was the great deceiver, the great betrayer. would i have seen through it? it's hard to say. i know that chomsky saw through it, so there's some precedent, but i may have rationalized it. this is harder, for me, than jfk. by 1997, at least, i'd be looking at the greens. by 2000, we can start looking at reality.

- i did not support al gore, because i thought he was too pro-war and in bed with the oil companies. i do not think that a gore presidency would have significantly altered the course of history. i supported nader in 2000.
- the 1/50 fluke occurrence that caused me to seriously support the democrats was the invasion of iraq, and it's actually interesting to wonder what would have happened if it was gore that invaded iraq (as he had been arguing for since the 80s), and he had to go up against a republican. might they have elected a ron paul type? if so, i'd have had to have supported that ron paul type, against my better judgement. at the time, that war could still be reversed, and it had to take precedent over just about anything else. further, kerry had believable anti-war credentials. i supported kerry in 2004.
- by 2008, the moment to end the catastrophe had passed, and the democrats were running a guy that was promising to blow up afghanistan because he thought it was a tactical mistake to invade iraq. i did not support barack obama - i supported the greens in both 2008 and 2012.
- in 2016, i very weakly endorsed clinton, but, in the booth, i would have almost certainly voted for jill stein.

so, i'm not pouting; these people just aren't presenting proposals i'd actually support. i am seriously about twenty degrees to the left of the democrats. i look at a buttigieg and i agree with maybe 25% of what he's saying. then, i look at trump and i also agree with about 25% of what he's saying, which is unusual for a republican. if your argument is "you have to vote democrat because the republicans are so terrible", i might interject that trump isn't nearly as bad as bush or reagan or nixon, and might not even be as bad as clinton. sure, i'd rather somebody else was president. but, in context, trump isn't nearly as bad as he could be - and i'd certainly pick him over rubio or cruz. the urge and drive i felt in 2004 to get bush out is just lacking at the moment.

then, i look at the greens and agree with 90% of what they're saying. so, i'm going to vote for the greens and not against the republicans.

and, if you're upset by that, i don't give a fuck. rather, i will suggest that we have a debate about the policies that the democrats are supporting, and why i don't support them, and won't support them. but, you have to put me in context - i'm not a pouting democrat that's turning my nose up, i'm a hardened socialist that was dabbling in a party that i've spent most of my life fighting against.

in this particular election, i don't feel particularly conflicted, or like there's a hard choice to make. there's not a democrat in the field that would pull me away from the greens, this time. so, i'm going to be supporting the greens, to the extent i'm supporting anybody at all.

but, again - i can't vote in the united states. and, if i can't find a serious candidate that i actually like, i'm not going to spend a lot of time thinking about the process any further.

my position is essentially this - don't give me shit for standing my ground. if you want my vote, change your policies to reflect what i care about. and, if you won't do that, accept that we're in different political camps - i'm a socialist, and you're a capitalist.

the way you'd scale it would be by using a system made out of these.

every time i need more capacity to hold a new waste source, i'd just get more batteries.

https://www.18650batterystore.com/18650-Batteries-s/106.htm

so, what am i going to do?

well, i think i've saved myself from paying an electrical bill for a while, already. i don't need to start messing around with converting heat to electricity. yet.

i want to finish my thought with the usb fan, but it's only necessary to an extent.

however, every time they boost the price, i'll need to do something to compensate and take something else off the grid, or down somehow.

if i can just find a way to run the fan off the lights using mirrors or lenses, for now, that's a win. step two will be getting a small battery, and a larger panel. and i will need bigger and bigger batteries and more and more efficient recycling options as the price increases - which it will.

for now, i need to get back to focusing on what i was doing.

something more exotic - and i'm not exactly channeling tesla because this source didn't exist when he lived - is the question of whether you can pull down radio waves and wifi signals.

again: that's not "free". it's being generated.

but, it's out there.

this is smart.

i would support introducing it into the building code.

so, what's a smart way to do this?

well, if your heater is near the window - and it probably is - then you can put one side on the window, and the other over the heater, then dump what you generate into a battery. and, the colder it is outside, the better it will work.

you could also potentially dig up your floors..

it's true that you'll lose a little of the heat, but the point is that you're wasting oodles of it in the first place.

if you could potentially set up a system that takes a few watts an hour from a dozen different sources, you could salvage enough heat to charge your batteries. ten sources at two-three watts each would be twenty-thirty watts an hour.

so, these are the two ways to salvage excess energy from around your home - light and heat. a potential third source would be sound, but it probably is too low efficiency to bother with.

if you don't use a lot of energy to begin with, i think you should be able to reduce your consumption to the big appliances, and please understand that i'm not proposing you can get off of the grid using these methods. you will need something like a solar panel outside to run your stove and your fridge, and your lights and your heaters in the first place.

but, i've piqued my own curiosity, here.

i have two heaters in here.

in canada, we live with these devices that emit hot air into our living spaces, and we have them on half the year.

it's very wasteful, and there's a potential source of recycling, there.

i want to be clear.

1) this isn't free energy, in the generative sense. it's energy recycling. i'm not generating energy out of nothing, i'm trying to find a way to reuse the light energy being ejected by the lights as waste. and, maybe you could reuse the energy from the heaters, too, which would be even more cost effective.

2) it's not free in terms of money, either. it costs me money to run the lights. it's just that i'm running the lights anyways, and the lights are currently relatively cheap. further, if i can find a way to generate electricity from the heaters, that's energy that my landlord is paying for.

3) it's therefore not a perpetual motion machine, and i'm not breaking the second law. certainly, i can't get more energy than i'm generating. but, lighting and heating are inherently wasteful, and if we go out of our way to efficiently recycle the energy we're wasting, then the end result may just go to show you how much you're actually wasting.

so.

could, i get some overhead led lights and feed a fresnel lens into a 200 W panel, with a homemade lithium battery array? at peak usage, i'm looking at 300 wh for a computer and maybe that much for extra gear, so if i can get 25 kw worth of battery space, and can get the fresnel lens running at something close to 50% efficiency, i could fill up more than i need for a full day in a few days. and, that's more than enough for continuous day-to-day use. i'd just have to scale it as best as i could.

one thing at a time....but, if electrical prices keep going up, i might have myself a new hobby.

but, wait.

if i use this panel, i can get 50-100 mA directly from the led.

i thought that wasn't enough.

but, if a fresnel lens can give me 5x that....

he showed a small fresnel lens at a 2x factor, and a big one at a 20x factor. surely, i can get one at 5x.

i'm going to wait until december, but we're still going with this.

i'm as curious as anything else, at this point. i'm an anarchist. fuck the 2nd law. or, at least, fuck being a slave to it. let's see how much we can break it, just for the fun of it.

so, i mentioned that empiricism is required for a valid epistemology.

my laptop was manufactured in 2006, and purchased as a refurbished model in mid-2010. the two t4300 processors were first manufactured in 2009, and the bios revision is likewise set to 2009, so i guess it got upgraded at the store. i should probably think of it as a 2009 model. nonetheless, it came with vista pre-installed, and is not a high-end machine at all.

usb 3.0 didn't exist until very late 2009, and you were probably unable to get your hands on a low-end consumer grade laptop with usb 3.0 ports until 2011 or 2012.

so, i must have usb 2.0 ports. and, if there's any further question about the issue, msinfo is clear enough about it:

why am i pulling more than an amp, then?

not 900 mA. 1.03 A.

see, those were my two options, logically - either i'm pulling more than i should be, or the device is restricted in what it can pull. it makes no sense that i'm getting over an amp out of the usb 2.0 ports. but, that's the actual answer.

so, the fan is indeed drawing at 2.5 W as advertised, and it's not a lot, for what it is. i'm not going to be able to drive this any further. that's as strong as it gets.

how, though? well, i guess that either the electricity in the board is faulty, or i got a very late usb 2.0 revision that can draw at usb 3.0 levels. well, do you have a better explanation?

i think that 500 mA is pushing it for a solar panel on a led light. i'll look into it, but it doesn't seem like a worthwhile investment, i don't think. rather, i've got it plugged into the wall socket drawing 2.5 W. there's a second usb slot; together, i can pull a maximum of 5 W from the wall over usb. so, i'm better off getting a second similar fan, maybe one that's just a tad bigger.

right now, i've got the 90W fan at half speed, which i hope is 45W. together, it's 47.5W. if i push this up to 50W, and i "only" save 40W, that's still pushing 30 kwh, or 15-20% of the total usage.

or, maybe i'll find the right solar cell technology, after all.

so, here's my updated information, in regard to the things i use frequently and want to get down to the 1.5-2.5 kwhish range:

ac fan (on full) - 0.08-0.09
ac fan (on low) - ??
laptop + monitor - 0.02-0.03
lights - 0.01-0.02 (per bulb)
modem - 0.01-0.02
usb fan - 0.002-0.003

also:
stove: 0.4-0.6
desktop pc - 0.2-0.3
coffee machine - 0.15-0.20
90s laptop - 0.05-0.06

i really only slept for about three hours yesterday morning, so it was actually kind of a long day, carrying over from thursday night. i wanted to get the finishing touches on inri000 done, but i instead ended up spending the afternoon clearing out shows for the rest of the week.

i have to get ready for the trip to toronto now, but i should hopefully have some time to upload a file or two before i go.

if i'm efficient about this, it might only take a few hours, but i don't want to get stuck.

no.

we need to start seeing them through a more realistic lens, which means understanding that they've been there for a long time and aren't going anywhere. instead of alienating and othering and attacking them, we need to accept them for what they are and work with them.

that doesn't mean being naive. the russians are different, but the chinese would wipe us out and colonize us if they could. lest we forget that we tried to do that to them? lest we forget the opium wars? so, they're the same as us. surprise? i don't know why, that should be obvious.

if we see them as adversaries, we will put a self-fulfilling prophesy in motion. but, if we try to work together despite our differences, we could potentially work together - which means making concessions - to build a better world, without conflict.

it's an error to conflate them. russia is an integral part of western culture, and china is an alien race that sees us as inferior, too. but, that doesn't matter much, in purely tactical considerations. we need to reach out to work together, not dig in and work against each other...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-russia-china-fadden-trump-1.5357109

if you put freeland in power, the conservatives will win the next election by splitting the vote in ontario.

what's the alternative?

no.

i think that it's clear enough that trudeau does not have a clear successor, and if the party wants to go through this, it's going to need to run a leadership contest. looking around, i don't see any great options, which is why we ended up here in the first place.

but, the next liberal leader should be making it a priority to reconnect with the party's historical positions on foreign policy and social services, and try to reverse the slide into neo-liberalism that set in after mulroney. one of the major reasons that trudeau was successful was that he projected a reversal of neo-liberalism by channeling the legacy of his father, even if the facts didn't uphold that. elevating freeland would drop the pretext around this, and almost certainly either resurrect the ndp from imminent destruction, or give people the resolve to actually vote green.

we've seen this movie before. it's what happened with paul martin.

liberals in canada want to vote for a social liberalism. if you want a market-centric, end-of-history, neo-liberal, progressive conservatism, we have that, too, but it's the other guys.

and, all that these consistent attempts to move the liberal party to the right accomplish is conservative governance.

they're only 13 seats short. they can win that back by focusing on some urban seats and investing in education, climate, housing and health care. but, if they don't, people will get fed up and vote for somebody else, instead...

i would like to see some renewal at foreign affairs, but if the pmo is going to bring back the deputy prime minister role, they should probably avoid appointing an upper class american that sits in a riding in toronto.

that would be pretty tone deaf.

it's not a constitutionally mandated position, and in the sense that it means "she's next", it would be broadly contradicting the changes that trudeau & butts brought in after 2013 to try and increase voter interest in the leadership.

i don't think she could win a leadership contest - she's a conservative, and the liberal base is way to the left of the actual party. she'd have a ceiling of around 20% against much of anybody. people would sign up to vote her out.

if there needs to be some process put in place to change the leadership of the party, and maybe there does, she's a one-way ticket back to opposition.

there's no way i would vote for her.

it's not clear to me what jurisdiction they have here, and my kneejerk reaction is consequently actually about canadian sovereignty. it's bad enough that warren is doing a poor job representing her own constituents. she has a lot of nerve calling for the canadian government to even answer her phone calls.

if i were the pmo, i'd tell her to write a letter to her mp.

that being said, it's really more reflective of the kind of right-wing populism that is defining the democratic primary at the moment. warren and sanders are the worst when it comes to this, because they're really just mirror reflections of donald trump. they're desperately grappling for some kind of enemy to define - bankers, the rich, technology, gays and, now, apparently, canada. and, she kind of is a south park republican, isn't she?

there's a level of randomness regarding the behaviour of whales, meaning some of them are going to get hurt, regardless. to an extent, you can't stop it. but, i'd like to see what the review says. i think we might come out fairly well in a systemic study, but if there are reasonable steps that the government can take then i think positive suggestions would be well received by both the sitting government and a large percentage of the canadian voting public. i do believe that there have been regulations introduced recently to restrict commercial vessels from operating at specific speeds; that is, this is something the government has actually legislated on fairly recently. they are more likely to be receptive than dismissive.

so, i think that canada would welcome any kind of constructive debate on the topic, actually.

but, warren doesn't want constructive debate - she wants to find an enemy to demonize and then try and build a campaign of hate around. the way to stop her from doing that is to call her on it and deconstruct it as she does it.

what i would like to support is a candidate that offers a positive socialist vision for the country and the continent, and she's about as far from that as is possible.

https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/u-s-senators-call-for-review-of-canadian-protections-of-endangered-right-whales-1.4688046

something i was able to isolate this afternoon is that the laptop only runs at 30 w if it's left on, or at least is only running at 30 w now that i've disabled everything i can. there does seem to be a small spike when it turns on, but it only comes out to around 0.01 or 0.02 added, so it's kind of just error. i was thinking it would be more than that...

i'll get a better bounds on the modem tomorrow.

so, if i leave it on all of the time, as i have been, i'm using

0.03(12*.105 + 6*.205 + 6*.144) = $0.10/day.

if, on the other hand, i'm strict about turning it off from 7:00-19:00, i'd be using:

0.03*12*.105 + .02 = $0.05-$0.06/day, which is just half the total amount.

if i leave it on for peak period and turn it off at night, it's:

0.03*6*(.205 + .144) + 0.02 =  $0.08/day

if i average that out, the difference is $0.02-$0.03 cents a day, or $0.60-$.90/month. so, let's say about $0.75/month.

it's not worth being neurotic about, i don't think.

i should just turn it off when i'm not using it. if that averages six hours a day, it's 5-6 kwh

https://wikileaks.org/vault7/document/SeaPea-User_Guide/SeaPea-User_Guide.pdf

today was completely lost, but in the end may not be wasted.

i was midway through writing the following post at around 9:15 this morning when i made a terrible error that resulted in me losing the day but may fix the access issues i was having on the drive.

this is what i was writing...

so, i was very, very slow getting started today.

i checked my email minutes after the post at 3:26 this morning and spent the next two hours dealing with that, including applying for a second mastercard through pc. they're threatening to shut down the site, now, if they don't get something in three days. i feel like i'm under an extortion attack by islamic terrorists - "give us the money in three days or it's all over". fuck.

i had to write several emails trying to order the thing out, and all i can do is hope it works.

but, it means i need to call td today. i'm in for the weekend, but will probably do an outside run on monday. that might include stopping by the bank and having a chat.

i used to have all of this information in boxes, but it's one of the things that disappeared when i left my items in storage. i have virtually everything from 2011-on, still. the credit karma site says the last payment was in june, 2006. really. i'm asking about a 13 year-old credit card. well, it's what google wants, what can i say...

i'll have to call the board today, too.

i then spent some more time thinking about the fan. can i just buy a 20 w desk fan? nobody seems to want that. 45 w? maybe if i import it from europe.

to finish the thought, i then experimented a little to see if i can plug the usb fan right into the wall, and i can, but i'm not getting as much amperage from it.

the next thing to check was my usage from the other day, and i noticed a spike where i didn't expect one (in hindsight, i can explain the spike). i thought i was sleeping (i wasn't). did i turn my laptop back on (yes)? so, i went to check the event log and couldn't open the file.

at that point, i realized that the entire system32 folder was owned by an alphanumeric s-12367tg77567896yp90 user. so, i went to take ownership and did, and then tried to remove the user, but couldn't. it said i had to remove the inheritance. i didn't think it through, i just clicked ok.

all of my security tabs disappeared.

fuck.

well, i can try a reboot, right? nope...

so, i was back in winpe on the desktop, and while the chkdsk was quick, the startup recovery couldn't find the operating system.

thankfully, i had a good understanding of what i did and the background to fix it (i did vista support, remember). just something else i'm technically an expert in. so, if you ever find yourself in the situation where you remove all ownership to a directory, accidentally or not, what you need to do is run the following script:

for /l %%x in (1, 1, n) do (
   echo %%x
   takeown /f dir /r /a /d y
   icacls dir /inheritance:e /t /q
   icacls dir /reset /t /q  
)

...where n is some appropriate number of iterations, dir is the directory.

if you do this for a system directory, as i did, n must be large, and you get something like this:

for /l %%x in (1, 1, 200) do (
   echo %%x
   takeown /f d:\windows\system32 /r /a /d y
   icacls d:\windows\system32 /inheritance:e /t /q
   icacls d:\windows\system32 /reset /t /q  
)

 so, i let that run and took a nap.

and, it still wasn't done when i woke up.

what i'm doing with the script is (1) recursively taking ownership of every file in the directory tree and putting it in the admin group, (2) turning inheritance back on and (3) resetting the acl to default. (1) will error out on each iteration, until it's done. (2) and (3) will then increase the size of the numbers processed over the next iteration of (1), so the loop is necessary to complete the process, and, while this should end, it can get frustrating when you only get through a few files per iteration, once you've been through a few thousand, already, because you have to do them again.

so, i did the last few thousand files manually by jumping directories. and, it wasn't done until 17:00...

that was brutal. it's my fault. i wanted to crawl into a hole somewhere. but, i merely lost a few hours on something that i've seen stump mcses. this is considered abstract in the field of tech support. i think they think there's a better answer, but there just isn't, you have to use brute force. fwiw, while i didn't write the tests (because they were charging a lot for them, and i wanted to get paid when i went to work), i went through three months of training by a certified microsoft employee that they flew in to ottawa from seattle, and then worked second tier microsoft support for a few months (until they shipped the jobs to the philipines). he hated the weather and couldn't get out fast enough. i bet it's nicer in manilla, if you can deal with the hurricanes. but, i basically have an mcse on top of the other degrees. i usually forget to mention that when enumerating my unofficial degrees, but that's in there, too. so, i figured this out quickly because i know what i did and how to fix it. most tech support agents would have had a hard time with that, though - that's a higher tier support problem because file systems are considered to be an abstract concept.

anyways.

i logged back in and noticed that the funny username, which i had up to this point assumed was myself from the previous install, had disappeared, at least, but that doing so had left a stream of previously hidden files, almost as though i had a rootkit. upon closer inspection, these files appeared to be exclusively related to remote access.

i've been pointing out for months that i think the cops have something installed on the drive....

so, i spent a few hours doing things like removing services, setting group policy settings and deleting directories. in the end, i can't say that i have any evidence of intrusion, but it's funny - i've turned on the event log (which was off, and i don't remember turning off) as well as the group policy editor (same.), so i should now be able to track any intrusion, when i previously couldn't. to be clear: if the cops installed something on the drive, they also turned off the software that would log them doing it. if they try it again, i should catch them in the act.

and, that's the day.

i didn't call the board. i didn't call td. i didn't finish the liner notes from inri000.

but, i'm going to get something to eat and try to push myself to finish it before i fall asleep.

it's just too cold to go out this weekend. this is normal for me - i shut down when it gets cold, and come back in the spring. i may come out of hibernation to forage if it seems nice, but i usually see my shadow. there are exceptions for artists i can't miss - i saw do make say think on a cold night in december, 2017 - but they are few and far between.

like, there's some chance i could be out once or twice between now and april.

so, there's some shows on saturday, but i'm staying in. and, we'll see if the weather co-operates a bit better next week or not.

there's a very high chance i'll get to plaid. that's the only thing coming up right now.

i ended up sleeping until after 22:00. so, it wasn't merely a nap. i'm up, now, and have eaten, but i need to take a shower before i get back to finishing this - and i really should finish it tonight.

i did get my fan.

the device is about the size i expected, but it's substantively weaker than the one running, which is not exactly a surprise. i knew it would be weaker, but how much weaker? i cannot seem to get rid of the burning smell, which currently smells like a burning wood log, like at a camp fire, which is still gross, but at least a little better. the type of burning shifts, but the burning is constant. the fan is absolutely necessary. so, this is not going to replace the fan, or at least won't for the moment, and i'm going to need to find other ways to cut down electrical, including turning the modem off when it isn't in use.

i tested it on the two usb 3 ports on the chromebook and on the usb 2 ports on the laptop and the chromebook. i could not a discern a difference in pull. but, i got a lot less out of the hub (which would have wired the fan, the mouse, a usb key and the wireless keyboard in series - presumably on 0.1 A.).

i suppose that it's possible that the different ports are running in series, locally. that would mean i could have gotten up to 0.5A on the laptop, and again on the chromebook. but, if i could pull at a higher amperage, why wouldn't i have pulled it out of the usb 3 ports? the fact that i didn't would indicate i'm pulling at 0.5A on the device, max.

but, when plugged directly into the laptop, the fan doesn't seem to respond at all to changes in power consumption out of the other ports. it reacted to the keyboard in the hub, but not to the hard drive in the port next to it. i tried copying files to and from the drive, running media off of it - nothing affected this stoic fan, in the slightest. it just churns. keep in mind that the maximum power usage over usb 2.0 is only 2.5W, and an external drive is definitely going to use all of that if it can. that would suggest that the ports are really not in series at all, that it's getting it's maximum pull out of a 0.1 A connection and that it just can't pull any more than that. ever.

so, the device would be 0.5W max, rather than 2-3. that's kind of what i thought. tech specs are terrible across the board. you don't know what you're buying, anymore. if elizabeth warren wants to run against technology, why doesn't she insist on regulating specs so that you actually get what you pay for?

regardless, this is enough evidence to take a gamble on the solar panel, if i think it can do well in low light. i actually think that reducing the circuitry could increase the amount i can pull, if there's some kind of breaker being pushed down by the os. it might actually pull more power from the leds, if i can get a solid 250-300 mA signal. and, will that turn it up a little?

logic is fun, and logic is useful, but logic is not enough for a proper epistemology - i do defer to empiricism when required. i want a reading before i plan my next move, here. so, i got one of those little ammeter/voltmeter combos for what was left on the pre-paid debit ($11). i overpaid, but i don't want to wait a month for it to get here from china. it should be here by monday.

if i do the reading, and it's only pulling 100 mA then i've got the green light to go solar. if it's pulling higher than that after all, and this is the best the thing can do with sufficient power, then it's not worth it, after all, and i'm stuck.

so, i'm past my bed time now and i need a nap.

but, that sets up the template, which should speed me up.

i'm going to post a last update to this - and it's now done - because i'm solving some problems that some other people are having problems with.

java is actually one of the many things that i'm technically an expert in. so, this is very simple code - because it should be. there's no reason for this to be complicated, and that complexity is exactly what i want to avoid.

//i'm centering this. i guess you don't have to. but, it's more zen.
<p align="center">

//this produces a text box that will output the file name. i'm sort of cheating, because i typed in the playlist. but, it works.
<input disabled type = "text"  style="width:300px;background-color:#000000;border-width:0px;" id = "txtOutput"/>
<br>

//this is the new back button. no error handling, but it matters even less, now.
<button type="button"  style="font-size:50px;" onclick="Player.src = nextsrc[--elm]; Player.play(); txtOutput.value = titles[elm]">&lt;</button>

//this is the html5 control
<audio autoplay controls  style="width:500px;height:50px"  id="Player" src="first track">Your browser does not support the video tag.</audio>

//this is the forward button. still no error handling.
<button type="button"  style="font-size:50px;" onclick="Player.src = nextsrc[++elm]; Player.play(); txtOutput.value = titles[elm]">&gt;</button>

//this is the new, more interactive html table
//notice that the index increases for each entry
//i am also resetting the index here to keep things in sync
//the width is set to 200 because i'm actually using two columns (i've deleted the second for brevity and clarity)
<table>
<tr><td width=200 onclick="Player.src = nextsrc[0]; Player.play(); elm=0; txtOutput.value = this.innerHTML">1. track 1 </td>
<tr><td onclick="Player.src = nextsrc[1]; Player.play(); elm=1;  txtOutput.value = this.innerHTML">2. track 2</td>
.
.
.
</table>

//here is the script.
<script>
var nextsrc = [list of file paths];
var titles =[list of file titles]
var elm = 0; var Player = document.getElementById('Player');
Player.onended = function(){
    if(++elm < nextsrc.length){  
         Player.src = nextsrc[elm]; Player.play();
         txtOutput.value = titles[elm];
    }
}
</script>
</p>

============

again, this is a nice little player. you just need to input the titles manually - or you could write a short program to parse it from an m3u file.

i'm kind of proud of myself.

1) back/forth buttons work fine. if you keep pushing the buttons out of bounds, you will have to rewind them as far as you pushed them. you could be really retarded and create an error, i'm sure. i'm not worried about it.
2) even if you go way out of bounds, you can fall back in bounds by clicking a track in the list. it'll reset itself and works fine.
3) you can jump from any track to any other track. it's just an index.
4) the record actually plays through, and the "playing" track updates properly along the way.

so, basically, it works perfectly.

the buttons are fine for the forwards and backwards, but this is much nicer for the tables.

<table>
<tr><td onclick="Player.src = nextsrc[0]; Player.play();">1. track 1</td></tr>
<tr><td onclick="Player.src = nextsrc[1]; Player.play();">2. track 2</td></tr>
<tr><td onclick="Player.src = nextsrc[2]; Player.play();">3. track 3</td></tr>
<tr><td>4</td></tr>
.
.
.
.
</table>

error checking?

let the fuckers fuck up. i don't fucking care.

i stole the basic logic of this out of a forum, then added the extra buttons in. if you want a playlist, it's about as simple as it gets.

no js. no css. you can do that yourself. just paste this into an html document...

//back button. it just keeps going, so don't be stupid.
<button type="button" onclick="Player.src = nextsrc[--elm]; Player.play();">&lt;</button>

//html5 player
<audio autoplay controls id="Player" src="track 1"></audio>

//forward button. likewise, there's no end, here.
<button type="button" onclick="Player.src = nextsrc[++elm]; Player.play();">&gt;</button>

//tracklisting
<table>
<tr><td><button type="button" onclick="Player.src = nextsrc[0]; Player.play();">1</button></td></tr>
<tr><td><button type="button" onclick="Player.src = nextsrc[1]; Player.play();">2</button></td></tr>
<tr><td>3</td></tr>
<tr><td>4</td></tr>
.
.
.
</table>
</p>

//"script"
<script>
var nextsrc = [track list];
var elm = 0; var Player = document.getElementById('Player');
Player.onended = function(){
    if(++elm < nextsrc.length){   
         Player.src = nextsrc[elm]; Player.play();
    }
}
</script>

that's it.

so, there's no easy way to build an html5 playlist...

the only way i can do this that i actually like is to build my own java script directly into the document, utilizing the built-in functionality, but i'm not sure how well i'm going to like this. i don't want to cite external routines, i don't want to put in an existing player, etc. what if they move the document? i mean, look at what's coming up with my own site.

i don't want to stream the audio from the cloud - they just bought it, they have it in high quality in front of them. that's the point.

and, i don't want to enforce a plugin. i'll give you an m3u file instead as that's what i was trying to actually do. i use foobar. maybe you like something else.

and, then i kind of thought it through and it seemed silly, because buying the audio means you'll do what you will with it, and that's the point.

but, i still want a little front end.

i should be able to do this by just creating a couple of buttons right in the document. you'll need javascript on, unfortunately. it won't be pretty. but it'll work.

they're closed until the morning. and i'm going to get back to work and finish the html frontend before i stop to eat.

the fan is not here yet, but i've got some stats on what's running, anyways:

bathroom fan: 0.07 kwh/hr
laptop + modem + lights: 0.08 kwh/hr  (before turning devices off in dev mgr)
desktop fan: 0.09 kwh/hr

the only other thing running is the fridge, which i think is about 0.01.

so,

bathroom fan is 0.06*24*30 =  43.2 kwh
laptop + modem + lights is 0.07*24*30 =  50.4 kwh
desktop fan is .08*24*30 = 57.6 kwh

together, that's 151.2 kwh. my bills have been in the 160-190 kwh range, which would also include cooking and laundry. of course, the bathroom fan has been off here and there, while the computers have generally been off when i'm out, but the desktop fan has been on non-stop.

i was able to get monday close to 0.30 at off peak rates (although it was close to 0.50 at on peak rates). doing the math gets me close enough, and that's with the desktop fan on.

i want to do some more careful calculations. how much is just the modem + fan? how much is just the lights (in this room) + fan? laptop + fan? i'm confident about the fan, itself, so i should get some good estimates and be able to figure out what's worth shutting off and what isn't.

i might guess that it's something like the following to run each 24/7:

lights: 0.01 ----> 7.2----->$0.69
modem: 0.02 -----> 14.4---->$1.37
laptop: 0.04 -----> 28.8----> $2.73

....meaning i should probably be less neurotic about the time of day they're on and just turn them off when i'm not using them.

if i can take 50-70 out for this month by just keeping the fan off and the general usage down, i should offset the increase, at least.

the key point is that i can't be haphazard anymore.

i tried to go to google sites, and it's just....what?

i'm not a tactile learner. these guis-for-arts-students are just confusing as fuck. i don't want to draw it. let me code it, dammit...

but, i mean, theoretically? sure. i don't need to use the appengine, exactly - i'm not scripting. it's just text. but, i do need to be able to ftp it to the server.

ok. i'm calling td.

well, i applied through simplii.

i'd guess the chances are pretty low.

i did have a credit card with td at one point, but i cut up the card. i didn't cancel it. i just paid it down and threw it away. if i run a credit check on myself, the card does come up as active.

so, i'm going to call td and see what they say...

the amazon card needs a $100 downpayment, and appears to be through an american bank.

i'm not sure how to react to this.

i don't have any charges. i don't expect to incur any charges. but, i'm going to lose my site if i can't get them payment information, for a bill that i have no reason to think will ever exist.

?

i  guess i'll need to call them tomorrow...

i guess i could try to get one, but, i mean...

"hi.

i have a $75,000 student loan that i haven't made a payment on since 2008. my income is $15,000/yr, and i live on permanent disability.

can i have a credit card, please?"

i don't expect it to work out so well.

maybe i could get one of those amazon cards....

we might lose the appspot site.

they're insisting on credit card information, and i simply don't have one, nor would i ever qualify for one. i couldn't get one...and, quite frankly, i really don't want one.

i'm actually a little uncomfortable about the premise. i have essentially no traffic, but what if i get traffic? i'm not paying to deploy the site, either. if i have to, i'll move to a different server. but, i might want to get the hint and get off before they start charging, too. it's a little heavy-handed, and i kind of don't like it.

if i can hook it up to paypal, and they don't actually charge me, that's an answer. but if they insist on a credit card then i'm at a dead-end i can't get out of and it looks like i might have to migrate...

the web component will eventually be important in the alter-reality, when i get further into the genealogical and paleoanthropological theories that i built up over 2002-2006. it's going to be a while, but it will eventually get up. for now, it's just a very loose frontend.

at the least, i have to waste some time tonight trying to understand what just happened.

i was up all morning typing offline, and i got the html frontend for inri000 done after i woke up. so that will be up in the next short while. i just need to figure out how to embed an html5 playlist, and run it through a double check.

it's designed so that you can unzip it and launch it in the folder, directly. i've tested it for mp3, ogg and flac and believe it should also work for m4a and wav. apple's proprietary software is not supported by open standards like html5, and it will not embed properly.

i was hoping my fan would be here today, but i guess they got snowed in. tomorrow, hopefully....

so, we're up against norway and ireland.

my vote is very securely with norway.

at this point, it probably matters less than i'd like to think it does.

but, the consequences of actually sitting on the unsc would very likely abolish any remaining concept of pride that i have in canada's foreign policy legacy.

i hope they vote for belgium or something, instead. i don't want to go through the trauma..

....but, in theory, if we were headed towards a maunder minimum (we're not.), could canada actually get colder while india burns and sinks?

sure.

and, that would be climate change happening in different directions, in different places; what would be happening in the north would be no less of a change in the climate than what is happening in the south.

but, we should expect some kind of reprieve in the north, for at least a few years.

don't let liberals trick you into thinking they understand science. they don't.

if you're driving off a cliff at 100 mph and a tank hits you in the perpendicular direction, it might alter your trajectory, but doesn't ultimately affect the factors underlying your propulsion - it's just a complication in the calculation.

what's going on with the weather, though?

well, it's cold. it's snowing. this is too early for this.

the liberal media wants to trot out this old canard about weather and climate, and it's just a function of their inability to actually explain anything, and their insistence on monolithic narratives.

the climate is not defined by one thing moving in one direction, but rather by many things moving in many directions. those other things moving in other directions are not any less defined by the term "climate". it's just more complicated than they think you're smart enough to understand.

right now, "global warming" isn't really happening in the atmosphere. it's not because the concentrations of carbon dioxide aren't increasing - they certainly are. you can check the readings in hawaii, they're still going up. but, there's something else happening in the atmosphere in addition to the increasing carbon emissions, namely a decrease in solar energy, and particularly in the northern latitudes.

so, it's not that the idea behind global warming stopped, it's just that this other thing showed up and, at the moment, has overpowered it.

think of it like this - if you boil water with the lid on, you build up lots of steam inside the pot. the reason it's hot is the stove. but, then, if you take the lid off, you release all the built up heat. that doesn't mean you turned the stove off; the element is still burning, but some factor interfered with the process.

and, there's absolutely no reason you shouldn't refer to that factor as a part of the climate, other than a bunch of liberals that insist on overly simplistic, linear thinking.

in the southern latitudes, where the weather is driven less by the atmosphere and more by the oceans, you haven't really noticed this. it just keeps getting hotter, and the mean temperatures just keep going up.

but, up here in the north, the climate is currently being dominated not by increases in carbon dioxide but by decreases in solar energy. and, we're getting swamped by polar air moving downwards.

i don't have to tell you this was predictable; i predicted it. it's there. but, it's just a basic understanding of how the system works, regionally.

now, if this decrease in solar energy was permanent, you would in fact expect it to be a shift in the climate. this would be the new normal, and you'd have to get used to it.

but, in fact, what we know is that we're at the bottom of a cycle, and this should be the worst of it.

i'm still hoping for an early spring. it's too early to say, though.

i was feeling disoriented, woozy and sick last night and i had to spend most of the day sleeping it off. i'm not feeling that much better right now. i dunno. i'm smelling something, and don't like it.

it just makes me tired and depressed. i don't like it, i don't like being lethargic...i like being alert. edgy. full of energy. i like coffee. i like caffeine....

i haven't pulled the trigger on the solar panel yet, but i'm looking at a 10 W panel for around $15 that i have evidence can run at 5 V and 100 mA in direct led light. that's only a 0.5 W of power, which seems like it's not enough. i'm considering waiting until it gets here tomorrow, though, because the specs are....

it says it runs at 1 A over usb, but the power specs on usb are 100 mA. so, maybe i should try and test the device, first. it might be intended for newer motherboards that can pull higher loads. or the specs might be confused.

if i understand correctly, getting it to run through my existing motherboard would put a maximum draw of 0.5 W, then, and if i want it to run at 2.5-3.0W, i'll need to find a way to quintuple the current. and, the whole point is that it's a clean usb solution. this will at least allow me to test to see what kind of power i can actually get out of the thing.

for now, it is surely an improvement to run the thing over usb if it's only a few watts. my existing fan would be running at 70W, at full draw.

how much is that, actually? 70*24*30/1000 = 50 kwh. my average bill recently has been 160-175 kwh. so, that's somewhere in the 20-30% range. my previous estimate was perhaps too conservative. but, it's also running all of the time, so it's disproportionately expensive. the new fan would be running at 3*24*30/1000=2 kwh. if i'm only getting a half watt, it's only a third of a kwh - essentially nothing. so, if it's a good enough replacement, and a combination of other changes can get my electrical down enough that i don't need to shut the laptop down during the day, then there's not really any point in taking it off the grid.

on the other hand, if the device doesn't work well, and i can get my usage down low enough by disconnecting during the day, then that's the preferable option. keeping that fan going is the number one priority.

if my x was $19, the cost of the fan would be around $4-$8 (using old consumption numbers - so that would be $6-$13 under the new prices). it's a big increase, but it's still not that much. i know that. but, it's a big percentage. (45-27)/1.55= 11.61. so, if i can get that down to $0.10-$.30 (new: $0.15-.50), that's almost there. if i keep the other fan off most of the time, that's another $4-$8, and if i be more conscious about keeping the lights and stuff off, that should essentially resolve the issue - it'll just take a little longer to get the balance worked out.

it's not that the fans are a lot. they were $5/month, each. roughly. now, they're going to be closer to $10/month, each. it's just that they're half the bill, together, and it takes me over the rebate point.

and, if turning the other fan off means i end up sleeping 20 hours a day...

i should be aiming for $0.30/day casual usage. that will give me extra space to play with to use the stove and stuff. if i can leave the laptop on all day and still get under $0.30, that will be fine. i should be able to start paying attention to usage stats in the next few days. for now, i'm going to continue keeping the power off during the day until i can get the numbers clear...

the fan should be here today, so we'll figure it out over the next week.

for now, i need to stop to eat, and then hopefully i'll get back to work...if i can stay awake, which isn't a clear certainty....

i know. i'm supposed to be working.

but this needs to get figured out...

the math with one of these charging ports just doesn't work, so i cancelled the order. the panels are just too small. if you're pulling in a watt, max, and you're pulling out 2-3, it's just not enough.

https://www.solarpanel.wiki/solar-power-bank/

so, what do i need? i should have done this from the start, i wasn't thinking clearly...

if i'm pulling 3 W constant all of the time, i need 24X3 = 72 W. i don't know how much wattage i can get from the leds, but i know it won't be much.

let's assume the worst case - that i can't get anything from the lights at all. then, i'll need the battery to run 20 hours a day in the worst days, and get all the sun from those 4 hours. 72/4 = 18. i need a 20 W panel...and a 20,000 mAh battery minimum.

on the other hand, if i can get the fan to run solely on the lights, then a 5 W charger should do it - and i won't need a battery at all. the signal from the leds should be constant, and it should just spin the thing.

i want to keep the cost down. and, i suspect i could turn a 5W charger into a component in a battery charger if it doesn't work. that will be one of the next things off the grid, and i can take my time with it.

so, i'm going to order a 5W solar cell that works in low light, without a battery. it should be a few dollars. it might not actually work, but if it doesn't i can use it for something else.

so, i was up around 22:00, got something to eat, did a star log entry, and am ready to get on to these notes - finally.

i wanted to understand how i would install a small solar circuit down here last night. it's the battery that seems to continue to be the problem, in terms of building anything. the diodes seem to be getting better, but small scale consumer batteries of the size and type i'd need are largely not a real thing, right now.

i realized at the last minute that my $10 charger was actually a charging kit. oops. so, i had to cancel that order. i was in fact online this morning, trying to find a replacement, and tentatively purchased a similar 20,000 mah charger for a few extra dollars, but i'm waiting on a confirmation that there's a battery in there.

the usb fan shipped this afternoon.

this is doable. i'll figure it out.

i need to get back to work this morning, and i need to make some calls at 8:30. this will be the last day - we'll be shutting down at 7:00 am sharp on wednesday morning.

on second thought, today is canadian cannon fodder day, and i don't expect them to be open. we're shutting down in seconds...

ww1 was awful for canada, and ww2 was only better in the sense that we pushed back a little. every time that the brits needed to march some people into the ocean, they picked the canadian regiments. we were the most expendable, and the most wasted.

some historians will try to save face on this. we were great soldiers. we were brave! we defined ourselves...

this is nonsense.

we were ritually slaughtered. by the thousand...

my favourite fact about world war one was that it preceded the franchise for workers. lest we forget? we choose not to remember this. but, your relatives that died for democracy in the great war were actually probably unable to vote for the people that slaughtered them.

and, that is what can never happen again.

for now, let's try to fix one thing at a time.

i was getting absolutely brutal migraines before i turned the fan on, remember. it might have been the gas, and it might be a little better now, but who wants to run that experiment? i'm not really convinced.

i had a few dollars left on an amazon gift certificate, so i just bought a cheap usb fan to replace the one i have on my desk. they're claiming it should be here by wednesday. and, they're claiming it runs on 2.5-3.0w. i'm going to guess that the honeywell that's been running more or less nonstop (except when it seized) is more like 40 W, and i think it's roughly 20% of my bill. really. i think the two of them together are about 40% of it.

19*1.55*.6 = 17.47

is it that easy?

so, i got a $10 solar usb charger, too, which should power the fan, even if nothing else uses it. the only thing i'd power through usb is an mp3 player i bought in 2006. so, we've at least got the desktop fan off the grid, now...

if that $16 gets me back to saving credits, great.

for now, i'm going to keep the desktop fan on and the bathroom fan off for a bit and figure out what the statistics say.

i need to call the board this morning, so we'll have a bit of a delay in shutting things down, but we're going to need to do this for a few days, at least, until i'm able to understand what's happening better.

i wanted to be done the liner notes today. i can probably get a start on it when i turn the modem off, but i think i'm only going to get 2-3 hours on this battery before i need to shut down.

so, is getting off the grid with solar technology financially viable for a renter, yet?

we're on the cusp. really.

i can't get the appliances off, yet. so, whatever i do, the stove and washer and fridge are going to stay on the grid. the lights are going to stay on the grid, too.

but, it is almost realistic to get everything else off. and, i'm thinking about it.

if i spent all of this time typing on a modern phone, i would both use a lot less power and have more efficient charging options. they actually have chargers for around $20 that can handle anything with a few watts. that would be a very smart investment, if i was a completely different person.

but, as it is, i have four laptops and three desktops that i need to run down here at various frequencies, along with a wide assortment of recording gear. i need the ac out, one way or another.

to run one computer and some peripherals in this room at the same time, i would need something like 100-150 watts of direct power. the usb chargers (5-20 W) aren't enough, but the standard consumer line (400-1000 W) is way too much. so, i'm looking for a kind of niche product, and the price is less than optimal. but, i could work this out for around $200. that's a lot on first glance, but if it saves me $15/month, and the price of electricity continues to go up, it's not long before it pays for itself. if i could figure this out for something more like $100, i'd do it on the spot.

i would probably want to get a second or third comparable station down the road, rather than wait for the price of the big stations to come down. i probably couldn't really charge a 400 wh battery in one window, anyway. so, why not get one for each window and break the circuit up?

the obvious next question is "how long does the battery last, though?" and that's kind of fundamental. is it going to last more than a year? if not, i'm not saving anything.

but, it's getting close. phones can be off the grid at this point - it's feasible and financially viable to do it. laptops should be next.

i just need the alternating current. that's the problem.

hrmmn.

can i push the 2nd law, here, a little?

how much usable energy can i get from my lightbulbs?

answer: i don't have to calculate it to know the answer is not much. but, i wonder if i could string enough cells together....

https://www.ecopowerup.com/knowledge/charge-solar-without-sun/

and, how feasible is a diy solar option for a few kwh per day?

i know that the batteries suck, but i'm only using 5-6 kwh per day, with the fans running. when i was trying to save energy last winter, i was using closer to 2-3 on the average day.

so, if i can jimmy up the consumer circuit to a solar converter into a battery that only has to save a few kwh at a time and just let the grid take care of the appliances and lights, maybe i can get the number under $45 without worrying about it as much.

i don't know, though. i'll have to look at it.

so, i did my groceries this morning, made some pasta, took a shower and fell asleep.

the sage smell was back when i got out of the shower, and it might not be coming from upstairs at all. this is a constant problem in this place: i can't actually tell where the smells are coming from, or what is causing them. so, last night it seemed like somebody was burning sage to cover the smell; this morning, it seemed more like the smell was coming from the heaters. it seems to be better, now.

but, i have no choice: i'm going to need to turn the fan off between now and 7:00 in the morning, and i'm going to have to leave it off and i'm going to have to hope the smell clears out. if it doesn't, i'm going to have to suffer through it until i can get to the root source of it.

so, what happened on thursday?

mindful of the impending yearly catastrophe that canadians call winter, i did a large amount of grocery shopping on hallowe'en (which wasn't so bad weather wise, at least at first.) with the intent to allow for minimal foraging until the end of the month, while hoping for the opportunity to take advantage of a nice day or two, mid to late month. i knew i was going to have to get out to toronto at some point but i had no intention of getting to any concerts in the region until closer to the end of the month.

but, my laptop crashed on the night of the third (corrupt boot sector. lengthy but easy fix.), which gave me several days to sort through the listings for the month, and i pulled out a night i couldn't miss out on. would you skip this night?

detroit component:
early evening show: tchaikovsky's first piano concerto at the orchestra hall
evening show: black midi, which are a noise rock band from the uk that has worked with damo suzuki

windsor component:
late show: lushh, which are an electronic jazz band from kalamazoo
potential late late show: heart attack kids, which are a punk band from london, on

that's a stacked night. i couldn't miss it.

but, i missed it. this is what happened...

i was running a little late as it was, but when i got to the bus station in windsor, the attendant informed me that the tunnel was closing for the night. what that would mean is that i'd have to find a way to get back over the bridge after black midi and, even if i could figure it out, i'd blow the late shows. it just wasn't worth it. alas...

so, i just stayed in windsor, which meant i caught the early show at phog, and then the late show at phog and then the late late show at meteor (and then went back to phog for a beer).

lushh were passively enjoyable, but i actually didn't find them to be mind-bending in any particular way. i didn't want to just go home after coming face to face with the bus situation, so i stayed. but, i wouldn't actually go out of my way for this. it tended to drag a little with superfluous space-filling solos that actually weren't that great, creating a large amount of empty space that was often not taken advantage of as well as it could have been. i tend to pay more attention to guitarists, but it was the drummer that tended to carry them. he didn't seem that interested in the idea of aphex twin remixing queen, though; he treated the proposition like i was proposing some kind of infidelity. or, maybe that was masking a physical attraction that he didn't know how to grapple with. hey, that happens. i'll back off, but offer's open...

it's not like it was a bad show; if you get the chance, you should take the time to give it a few minutes. you'll note that the particular link i'm posting is a bit more guitar-focused (and also very recent), so it actually kind of demonstrates the point: it just didn't quite get off the ground, for me. i need a bit more than that to really get into it.

but, i would choose not to skip them a second time, just in case.

i ran across the street after the set to catch what was left and was kind of baffled by the energy, which i was not expecting. i'm actually not 100% certain what i even saw at all. what i was expecting was a kind of rootsy mid-period whites stripes kind of thing, but they showed up with a bassist and a female drummer (i think she was the drummer for wine lips, as she was using the wine lips kit) and just tore the place down. they introduced themselves as the heart attack kids, but this was not the same band. so, was it also the bassist for wine lips? is there some merging going on here?

it's been a while since i heard something quite like this, which actually had some nirvana-ish undertones in all of the right ways. like i say, it just ripped.

but, this is an emergent phenomenon, so i have no link to share - just the observation that the heart attack kids have evolved, and a recommendation that you check them out.

so, i ended up back at phog for a last beer, listened to some kids talk about philosophy and stuff and stumbled out late into the cold...

...and it was, indeed, cold - cold enough that i stopped a few times to warm up. i was reminded why i don't do this at this time of year. according to the thermostat, it wasn't that bad, but the wind was brutal. it was a difficult walk, at points.

but, i got me some nachos, took me a shower and then slept all day.

so, there's the review. it could be a while before the next one.