Artist Alexey Kuzmich Denisov-Uralsky born in 1863 (presumably in Russia) and died in 1926.
Hat tip to Lucas Machias
Tuesday, January 13, 2026
The endless challenge of "Comms"
This video was suggested by frequent commentor "Gary" and is reposted with his permission.
In a nutshell, the video describes an off-the-shelf system that allows cell phones to interact with other cell phones without relying on cell towers or the internet.
The "network" are sets of low power repeaters that are positioned closely enough that they can talk with each other via redundant pathways. The cell phone speaks to the closest repeater via Bluetooth. The message propagates outward over the repeaters closest to the receiving repeater and thence to the intended receiver.
Low power means low bandwidth, i.e. text messages with few or no attachments. Low power means that repeaters can be installed in remote, less visible places and powered with solar + battery. Networks can be joined via repeaters on towers with optimized antenna (like a Yagi) to connect the two local networks...say Eaton Rapids to Albion. Then Albion to Hillsdale means a church (for example) in Albion could reach all of its congregation even though the farthest members lived 70 miles away from each other.
Why this might be useful
According to Insurrection Barbie*, protesters in Minnesota are using various apps and internet platforms to interfere with ICE agents. You don't have to be a brain surgeon to realize that those channels will be flooded with misinformation and performance will be degraded, perhaps with Denial of Service attacks.
At a local level, messages like:
"The peaches on my trees are ripe. I cannot pick them. Need three pickers and will pay 1/4 share to the pickers. Contact Timmy Gibson"
"My Australian Cattle Dog had pups. 3M 2F. Think papa was a Lab. Contact Chelsey Greene"
"Alpha Bapt Church picnic. Nobody signed up for pot salad. Need lifeguards and overwatch sign-up"
"Houses being broken into on Kemler btw 12 and 3 in morning. Beware"
"Have extra pallets. Looking to trade for 16d nails. Contact Brad Hammer"
"Riot forming outside Windsor Estates Trailer Park 5:17 p.m.. Avoid area."
Those kinds of messages put a trivial load on the network and are extremely useful.
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| Longer range than a conch shell |
This kind of system is not "secure" nor is it impervious to outside forces jamming or disabling it but it is WAY more useful than smoke-signals or waiting until Sunday church to catch-up on the neighborhood news.
*A tip of the hat to Bayou Renaissance Man for the Insurrection Barbie link
Novel flu H3N2 Clade K hitting hard
While walking at the gym yesterday, Mrs ERJ and I ran into one of the regulars who we had not seen for a while.
The woman, approximately 70, and two of her three daughters had the "flu" that has been going around.
"Flu" is in quotes because the woman said all three of them were tested and came up negative for flu, Covid and RSV.
She said that she has NEVER been that sick. She said it lasts for three weeks. Coughing. Can't catch your breath. Phlegm. High fever.
She also claimed that 900 kids have been hospitalized in Michigan with whatever-it-is. I don't have a good way to verify the numbers but here is some old data from the Detroit News "According to state data, there were more than 1,400 hospital admissions associated with acute respiratory virus for the week ending Dec. 27, the latest week for which data is available. Among those, 929 admissions were for influenza..."
I replaced the battery in our thermometer and verified function when we got back home. The only way we could be more read would be if we had a current prescription for albuterol for our nebulizer.
Considerations when planning a windbreak
Michael ask in the comments if the windbreak that Southern Belle and Handsome Hombre will be planting will have food-plants incorporated into it.
Not at this time
No, there are no plans to incorporate food-plants into the windbreak upwind of the house.
As a consultant, I need to be hyper-aware that I listen to what is important to the clients. This is not my wind-break. It is not my property. They have to "own" the windbreak.
Parameters that come into play
Handsome Hombre, Southern Belle and Quicksilver are very animal oriented. They want many different species of domestic animals. They want to see and touch them. They want the property to produce most of the food that sustains those animals.
A windbreak, or a shelterbelt in very severe climates like the Great Plains states, requires a substantial footprint. A single row of trees might mitigate high winds but a broad belt of trees and brush is required to really tame it and to trap the drifting snow. A single row of tall trees has the distressing tendency to increase wind velocity at ground level when the lower branches die.
SB's property does not have a shape that supports that kind of wide footprint. Her property is very long and skinny. A fifty or sixty foot wide shelter belt would obliterate a substantial portion of her pasture.
Fortunately, the parcel that is upwind of the house is swamp filled with buttonbush, dogwood (Gray, Silky and Red Osier), willow, poison ivy and other "pucker-brush". That will capture drifting snow.
From an elevation standpoint, though, the existing pucker-brush is far too low to slow wind velocity at the house which is 2-1/2 stories and is on a slight knoll.
On the plus side...
Handsome Hombre loves fruit. He is one of the very few people I know who will help himself to a ripe American Persimmon, eat it and then reach for another.
Southern Belle is open to the idea of "sacrificing" a 10' wide strip west of the pasture to plant trees like oak, chestnut, nut pines, hazelnuts, peach trees and persimmons.
Things will not be moving with lightning speed. There is never enough time or money to push a button and make everything happen at once. Fence costs money. Animals cost money. Brush-hogging costs money.
Given the cyclic nature of the cattle business, one way to proceed would be to fence half of the pasture. Seed the bare spots. Control the brush and weeds with a 2x a growing season mowing/brush-hogging. If a screaming-deal in terms of a couple of calves shows up, then pull the trigger.
Plant small seedlings, seed nuts, acorns, peach pits, etc. in the 10' wide band on the upwind side of the pasture. Mark it off so the man who is mowing or 'hoggin doesn't mow them down.
Monday, January 12, 2026
A lesson from the Holocaust
One of the things that seemed odd as I was looking at immigration patterns to the US over time was that very, very few Jews moved to the US in the 1930s as Hitler ramped up antisemitism in Germany.
Where did they go?
The went to France and Denmark and Poland and other nations that were over-run by the NAZI or crushed by the Soviets six-to-ten years later. Most of them did not run far enough.
History rhymes
It appears that the New York Democrats are in the midst of a major pivot from "Israel is genociding the poor, innocent Palestinians who support Hamas" to "Hamas is a terrorist organization" and "Hate has no place in NYC".
The abrupt reversal is causing whip-lash in political observers and major questions revolve around "Why? Why now?".
One possibility is that Jews know what happened to the Jews who were in denial and who stayed in Germany. They died.
They also have the institutional memory of what happened to the Jews who did not flee far enough away from the storm. They died.
The wealthy Jews in New York City are putting their homes and businesses up for sale and moving. They are not moving to Long Island, Scarsdale or White Plains. They are not moving to Connecticut or New Jersey. Nope. They are moving to Florida, Texas and the Carolinas.
Just 15 months ago that would not have been a huge issue for the New York Democrat machine. They still had funding spigots originating in US AID and other Federal agencies with lackadaisical oversight. Much of that cash-flow dried up.
With that no-strings-attached cash gone, the Democrats actually have to be responsive to their donors just as those donors are flocking to the exits.
Human nature is responsive to change. The US auto industry, for instance, was not responsive to their core customers in the 1960s because they thought they had a lock on the US market. The Japanese came in and ate their lunch. People will take their spouses for granted and then are surprised when the spouse cheats or leaves them.
The Democrats took their major funding sources for granted and now some of those funding sources are abandoning New York City and New York State and the metastasizing WOKE implosion.
The lesson in this for us is that if you have to leave a location due to political instability...make a big jump. Don't stop at the city limits or the county line. If you live where breakfast is always served with bagels then don't stop until the menus list waffles or grits as the default side.
Supplemental info
In 2019 the city of Seattle, Washington implemented a higher minimum wage than required by the state of Washington
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There were other factors: Covid shutdowns and Antifa activities, for instance. But one can argue that the draconian shutdown rules and the tolerance for Antifa activities were simply other manifestations of the creeping Marxism in Seattle.
Sunday, January 11, 2026
Some context for the time-line when the Pledge of Allegiance was popularlized
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| The Pledge of Allegiance was first popularized when it was published in The Youth's Companion magazine in 1892 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Columbus (re)discovering America. Peak percentage of foreign-born population occurred around 1890. |
The Pledge of Allegiance came out at a time in the middle of a period when the United States was absorbing a large number of non-Anglo Saxon, non-Protestant immigrants. They were also immigrating from regions that were not Constitutional Republics.
The floodgates opened during the Great Irish Potato Famine and didn't slow down until 1930. From the perspective of a Native, 13 Colonies descendant, the stream of newcomers became increasingly exotic; from the Catholic Irish with the weird cadence of speaking English to the Germans (still Saxons but not English speakers) to the "Hunkies" and "Wops".
For the record, my paternal grandmother was born in 1903 and spoke German at home. The first words of English she heard was when she went to school at age 5. Needless to say, she had a rough time during WWI when she was 14-15 and anti-German sentiment was rampant.
A time-line
1850 to 1880
Germany (Monarchy form of government) and Ireland (Constitutional Monarchy) were the largest immigrant origin countries in most states and territories. In 1860, Ireland was the largest origin country in 22 of the nation’s 39 states and territories.
By 1880, Germany was the largest origin country in 16 states and territories. Chinese immigrants (Imperial Monarchy) were the largest group in California, Nevada, Oregon, and the Idaho and Washington territories. Mexicans (Authoritarian Republic) were the largest group in Texas and the New Mexico and Arizona territories.
1890-1919
The next wave of immigration to the U.S. lasted from 1890 to 1919, when more than 18 million immigrants arrived. By then, over 60% came from Eastern (Constitutional Monarchies and Absolute Monarchy) and Southern Europe, with large numbers arriving from Italy(Constitutional Monarchy), Austria-Hungary(Constitutional Monarchy), Russia (Absolute Monarchy) and Poland (did not exist as a country but was ruled by Russia and Austria-Hungary and Germany). Source
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