Post Race!

[jdc2000]

It is finally warming up, briefly, in some areas:

Boise reaches 60 degrees for first time in record 157 days:

https://www.ktvb.com/article/weather...1-b6d15730ed56

Don't get used to it just yet though.

[dday9]

And it's getting colder here. We're in April and it is 60 degrees. This is nuts!

[Shaggy Hiker]

Yeah, we may get close to 80, today, and then will be below 60 for the rest of the week.

Still, time to get a bit of spring cleaning done.

[dday9]

Welcome to VBForums, I love you.

[dilettante]

Brought to you by Carl's Jr.

[Shaggy Hiker]

That's getting strange.

We managed to set a record high temperature, then immediately swing back to below normal temperatures. The merry months of spring: You don't know whether to plant or not.

[dday9]

I would love to plant a garden but since it has been in the mid to low 60's this week it is still too early. Looking at next week it is expected to get even colder. My wife and I were talking about how it is almost never this cold in April.

[dilettante]

Yeah, 78F here now and something sort of rare here: Red Flag fire risk warning. We've gone from way too wet to really dry and now winds.

Dry days beat wet for spring yard cleanup though, so I'm not complaining. Just not ready for being this warm yet.

[dilettante]

Whew. Finally filed my 2022 income tax returns. Both easier and more complex each year now, so the anxiety level remains about the same.

I think I need to unload complicating factors related to financial dealings across borders. My Canadian holdings haven't done well in years anyway, and Chile is now almost a bureaucratic pit as bad as Australia.

[dday9]

My pirogue is ready!

[Shaggy Hiker]

I guess I'll put the garden off for another week.

We set a record of 82 degrees on Monday. On Thursday morning, I awoke to an inch of snow on the roof. This weekend is going to be up in the 70s, next week is going to be back down into the 50s, and we might even get a bit more snow at night.

[dilettante]

Yeah, we're moving from a week of very warm and dry into wet and chilly and even some snow potential again.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Well, we'll be sending you another such storm in a few more days. We're getting another cold, wet, week.

I'll do some planting as soon as I feel the temperature isn't going to freeze. I noticed today that the irrigation system has been filled (at least the canals are full, but the irrigation starts at about the same time), so I could water, even if I'm not sure I can plant.

[dilettante]

Found some interesting (to me) photos. This is a ratty personal web site with a teeny font.

https://usautoindustryworldwartwo.co...randrapids.htm

I lived just south of this plant in the late 50s and early 60s. Nobody ever spoke about the war machinery made there for WW II (and after?), though it was probably a legacy of wartime security culture in the area.

My Grandmother worked in another local General Motors plant making diesel engines and repair parts for tanks. When she retired she was given a plaque with a sliced-in-half diesel injector mounted on it. We'd only heard about her work during WW II when this plaque was awarded and us kids pestered her about its meaning. It seems most of these tanks were used by Marines, since the Army mostly used gasoline tanks.

Ships ran diesel and USMC diesel tanks were more fire-safe to transport fueled and ready. Army logistics were different and cold-weather fast starting was more necessary.


I ended up going down this rabbit hole of memories because that Fisher Body plant's water tower was painted red & white checkerboard when I lived nearby. That memory was triggered by the 2003 Hulk movie, of all things.

[dday9]

Ah yes, it may say photo uploaded in 2018 but the website screams 1995.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I was thinking that gun didn't seem right for WW II, and it looks like I was kind of right. It was designed prior to WW II, but didn't go into production until quite late in the war. I don't see any evidence that it was actually USED during WW II, which makes sense, to me. It seems like all large AA guns were also used as tank killers.

[dilettante]

I just had that water tower memory triggered, then wondered if there might be some military connection.

Nothing definitive on that, but those photos linked above got me wondering. We knew there was a history of war manufacture in auto plants, but we always assumed it was mostly some diesel engines and maybe jeep parts. It just was never talked about locally at all when I was a kid.

We assumed the "big stuff" was in Detroit and elsewhere.

[Shaggy Hiker]

From what I've seen, "the big stuff" was anywhere they could find the capacity. I've sometimes wondered whether or not we even COULD fight a war like that anymore. The kit is so complex compared to what it was that construction pipelines may never be able to produce at the levels seen back then. On the other hand, they didn't exist then, either. Everything got cobbled together and expanded using whatever was available. Maybe we could do it again, if necessary. Perhaps the war in Ukraine is just showing how much material can be consumed and at what rate, when you have a viable opponent.

[wes4dbt]

From what I've seen, "the big stuff" was anywhere they could find the capacity. I've sometimes wondered whether or not we even COULD fight a war like that anymore. The kit is so complex compared to what it was that construction pipelines may never be able to produce at the levels seen back then. On the other hand, they didn't exist then, either. Everything got cobbled together and expanded using whatever was available. Maybe we could do it again, if necessary. Perhaps the war in Ukraine is just showing how much material can be consumed and at what rate, when you have a viable opponent.

That's an interesting question. Not only the complexity issue but I wonder how many of the parts may come from other countries. I think it can be done but there would probably be a longer lag time getting started.

[Shaggy Hiker]

The number of artillery shells in WW II was staggering. I've often thought that we ought to have a simple ballistic option as a cheaper alternative to the higher tech versions that only get used for certain targets.

[dilettante]

Do you mean "slug and powder charge" as separate packages with no "shell casings" or something like slug-throwing rail guns?

I'm not an artillery or military student at all, just wondering as a layman.

[Shaggy Hiker]

A bit of both. The slug and powder seems to be largely driven by size: If a person can't lift the shell, then what good is it? Separating the two becomes essential at some size just because of that. Of course, mechanical loaders changes the equation, as do space constraints.

The point is that if you're going to be firing a million shells a year, but your industry can only produce ten thousand...then you have to fight mighty short wars.

[dilettante]

Good point.

No wonder the Federation and the Klingon Empire could dominate their working classes and the populations of alien planets. As long as they had enough workers (or obsolete holographic Doctors) to mine dilithium they could maintain their iron fists.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Another 16 inches of snow over the last two days, at least at 6000 feet. I was really hoping to start a bike ride in about three weeks, but that's not looking very likely. I'll probably have to give it a couple more weeks.

[dday9]

Am I the only one who see "Cleveland Guardians" and thinks: this doesn't sound right.

[dday9]

Washington Football Team sounds ok to me but I know that won't stay. But for some reason Cleveland Guardians just seems off.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Yeah, it sounds like the name you'd find on an amateur roller derby team.

[dilettante]

Maybe they should use colors. There are tons of color names.

Or maybe names of types of ships. "Cleveland Steamers" might be an attention grabber.

[Shaggy Hiker]

That might be a little bit too 'on point' for that team. I doubt they'd dare use a euphemism for a fresh pile of poo.

[wes4dbt]

That might be a little bit too 'on point' for that team. I doubt they'd dare use a euphemism for a fresh pile of poo.

I thought it was a really cool sounding name until you brought up the "poo" point of view.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Well, if it was a clam, then it would be good...but I'm not sure that I'd eat a clam that came from any of the water around there. Out here, there was a place that would occasionally hold a crayfish boil. I was never tempted to try it because I was afraid that they got their crayfish from the closest source...which would be the Snake River downstream of a couple hundred miles of agricultural runoff.

[dilettante]

Mining runoff can be pretty nasty too. Lots of crap can leach from tailings in quite a mix of toxicities that water creatures can concentrate.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Oh yeah. Back when I was in college, we toured an active strip mine in PA. We got to ride in the walking dragline and chat with the operator. He was quite the artist with that bucket, as he was able to carry on a casual conversation about the operation while never slowing down. They were trying to mitigate for the runoff. I kind of wonder whether or not they were going about it wrong, but back then I wasn't thinking about that. After all, what they were doing was trapping and sequestering the heavy metals leaching from the exposed ground. What were those metals? Were they ending up concentrated enough to be of value? The mine wasn't looking at that, as they were into coal, not metal, but I've always wondered.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I also have some excellent pictures from along the Appalachian Trail of mine remediation projects. The pH coming out of some of those mines is so low that some acidophilic organisms can survive it. The solution, of course, is Tums...or at least a generic version. I've got a picture of it.

[dilettante]

Arsenic, mercury, lead all come to mind. Probably other things like copper salts and random-metal sulfides in some places.

[Shaggy Hiker]

And then there's an excellent bike trail in northern Idaho. It's a beautiful, paved, route through rural country and some wetlands on the bed of a long abandoned railroad. A great place to spend a day or two, have a picnic, go bird watching, catch and release fish...but be sure to release them, because the route is paved to act as a cap for the old roadbed. The railroad serviced the mines in the silver valley. Since that ore is up to 50% lead, the soil in that area is toxic. There are signs along the route telling people not to go off the trail except in designated areas, not to drink the water, and so forth.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Arsenic, mercury, lead all come to mind. Probably other things like copper salts and random-metal sulfides in some places.

Yeah, and almost all of those (except lead, which is probably too common to be economically recovered) are potentially valuable. If a mine is doing something to concentrate out the metals in the runoff, it seems like they should be able to harvest and refine it profitably. Perhaps they are.

[dday9]

For my lunch break, I got my Nintendo 64 up and running.

[dday9]

It wasn't showing any output but would power on.

[dday9]

At first I thought it was my VGA cable, but a replacement cable didn't work.