Saturday, April 29, 2017

Giving up the blog again

My giant burst of writing is over once more.  Although I am a hopeless blog-writing addict, I'm going to blog-rehab again.  My apologies to the 3 people that read me, but one day I'll be totally off the writing.  If I get too manic, the writing doesn't do me any good.


Friday, April 28, 2017

Chapman Valley - last tree frogs in Toronto

Or maybe not.  I'm sure someone could drag out a tree frog somewhere.  For a while, we had this tree frog at the cottage.  You were always finding it underfoot somewhere.  Then we would carefully place him in a tree, and the next day he'd be back again.  Was extremely loud when he went full blast.  In this valley you hear them all around, but you can never get close.  Sort of like the end of the rainbow.  


My current cause for the week is this valley, which will be destroyed soon, or maybe not.

This was our cottage frog.


Thursday, April 27, 2017

Amazon Slash and Burn in Toronto Part 2

This is a citizen news report.  As Google will soon suck all news outlets dry, this is the only thing you will get from now on.  This is protected by 'fair use' and 'freedom of the press'.  Should powerful people push libel chill and all that crap, then we can truly say we don't have a free press any more.  Actually, we never did, those guys had to be paid!  I am not getting paid for this, and I am not advancing a social cause.  This is merely a factual report, with a bit of poetic license, to make it interesting.  :)  I'm using my best 'sad BBC' voice and extrapolating.



If you are a sensitive soul, then believe all the talking heads that everything will be okay.  It will extend your life.

Amazon Slash and Burn in Toronto Part 1

This is citizen news.  Soon, that will be all you can get.  If this issue got popular, then the PR talking heads would deny everything.  Right now they get respectability by being framed in desperate news, or news outlets desperate for money.  Maybe, when they are all by themselves, people might see the truth -- that there has never been a talking head telling the truth, ever.

For 25 years, I have never done much to reveal the Chapman Valley.  It has become a nature paradise by neglect.  Now that is over.  Like the Amazon, a road has been hacked through it, and attention given by greedy property owners who can realize instant millions.  This is a story of Toronto slash and burn.


I still have to work on my video.  I'll do that when the rain starts.  I'm dividing the series up so to make it less popular.  :)

-- to be continued

Trumpalistic War on Canada Dead

Reference




Whew!  The man who governs by executive order has reached the end of his rope.  He can't get anything done, and his attempt to cast Canada as the Evil Empire has failed.  He's got the government totally seized and couldn't pass a fart in the wind.  We can now forget our neighbour, since they won't do anything for the next term.


Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Soon, no facts will be checked

Reference

Everything I say is from my own experience.  I don't check my own facts.  I do throw in some news clippings but soon they won't be around.  It's an interesting world we are entering.  Even established news sources aren't really checking many facts.  They just like to go with official talking heads who are parroting whatever the organization tells them.

News media still exist because they have exclusive access to talking heads.  See if you or I could talk to one of these Big Bananas.  And who believes them?  I think that all news media will soon be like those 'press release' outfits, and the talking heads will pay them to release their garbage.  We could elect a lot of trumpies in that environment.  I'm sure twitty is getting paid by trumpy.  :)

Mr. Googs is going to have trouble in this situation.  He gets his money from stealing facts everywhere.  What if there are no more facts?  What if I'm reduced to merely ranting that everybody is lying?  Is that interesting?

All my earthquake data will have to come from universities who have to maintain some sort of credibility, even though their PR departments are big payers of PR places, and countless phoney 'science' sites repeat it.  Government and these guys are still good for earthquake locations, and totally wrong on magnitudes.

So, tomorrow all the newspapers, tv news, and original news sources go out of business.  What can Mr. G do?  Give up his business?  No, he should expand 'citizen news'.  Ammyzon gives me stuff to review things, G should give me stuff.  Wait!  Is this just another attempt to get stuff?  Maybe.

Future Flash

I am a retired guy.  G. gives me $2 to go get some news.  The Toronto mayor is so desperate to make news that he talks to me and I put it on heweytube.  On to the next two bucks!


Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Toronto housing market is one big Ponzi scheme

Reference

Still a couple months to go before we can officially call it a crash.  That timing is totally dependent on desperate sellers, and how long they can hold out.  Still no listings in the neighbourhood.

But this stuff is coming out.  Toronto was such a hot market for the Chinese before Nov 8, that would do anything to get in.  Then trumpy attacked and, as well, the hot money tap was turned off in China.  These scams are coming out because in any Ponzi scheme you depend on money coming in to pay off the 'investors'.  Once that stops, the scheme collapses.  They mention $1B, it's probably more.

For the market, in general, there is the 'Greater Fool Belief'.  It's sometimes called 'theory', but let's not tarnish the Scientific Method here.  :)  It's the belief that you can pay any price for anything as long as you think there are bigger fools out there.  That was the frenzy BT (before trumps).

Anyway, go back to sleep until June.  You can't really tell anything before then because you have no idea how many people are holding multiple housing units.  It was the standard way to make money in the outer house zone, so I suspect it is a lot.

US starts it's attack on Canada

Reference


Every populist, reading from the Big Book of Nastyism, requires a fake enemy to distract from the fact he isn't doing anything.  Trumpies started with the Chinese but found they were required for North Korea.  He has settled on Canada.

But we'll get our revenge.  He has got the Oklahoma earthquake zone really popping with increased fracking.  Won't be long now before the earthquakes stop all US fracking.  Then they'll pay through the nose for Canadian oil.  :)

Next, we'll expect an attack on maple syrup.

Sunday, April 23, 2017

Beautiful but useless Ottawa earthquake article

Reference


On the whole, I like it when a dying newspaper puts out something like this.  Newspapers live on anxiety, and something like raises the stomach acid.  Ottawa foundations vary from the very best (solid rock) to the very worst (Leda Clay).  The article left out studies that show Leda Clay amplification of 100 times in terms of PGV.


Saturday, April 22, 2017

Add years to your life

I found out that more old people are dying around me.  All are over-weight pear-shaped old men (and ladies).  My final product cures that.  :)

This is the fitness bracelet that will take you permanently to a svelte body.  Enjoy playing with your grandchildren, if the kids ever get off Tinder and do something.  I have chosen the brand new Fitbit Alta rose-gold, because it is so beautiful and expensive that you wouldn't dare let it down.  If you are working at the computer all day, it constantly nags you to get up every hour and do 250 steps.  It has virtual hikes at Yosemite or New York City.  You can issue challenges to your friends and you can't lose because you have Rosey Goldy.



Honestly this is the last one because my wife loves it so much.

Friday, April 21, 2017

More essential stuff

My mercenary streak continues.  The last one was so successful, that I got 2 clicks and one order.  That will probably give me $2.  I will continue in the tone of the famous hammer-schlammer catalogue.

******
This is the light you always wanted.  Good for those miserable storage spaces under the stairs and such where you have to go in by flashlight, and never find anything you want.  Charges with a standard usb and only turns on with movement.  The battery is good for months.  Comes off with a magnetic strip for charging.


********
This is the bum cream that turns out to be the best hand lotion you'll ever use.  Physics dictates that nothing penetrates our layer of dead skin, or the oxygen would kill us.  So all those super-expensive moisturizers do is put on a layer of oil to slow down the moisture leaving the skin.  This stuff does it better with an exotic polymer.  It is dry, and it provides an extra layer against stuff which dissolves the dead skin layer.  My wife loves it for the hands and keeps stealing the tube.  It is also the best stuff for an embarrassing anal rash which some people I know may or may not have.

Darn!  It's all sold out from Prime where it sells for $7, and all the sleazies have it for $30.  I won't list it.

Found it.



********

This is the solar light you've been waiting for.  It has a chance to last a while.  Uses lithium batteries, and it has the latest COB (chips on board) led panels which are super bright.  Brag to your friends.  Soon all led lights will be like this, it has something like 3 times the lumens per watt of the other stuff.



Can't think of anything more.

Thursday, April 20, 2017

Like White Sheets in the Sun

Once in a while, I'll push a good product (Shades of Gweneth!).  The last was my coffee roaster, which I'm still using all the time, and makes you healthy.  This time it is an air filter, which uses uv-c on titanium dioxide.  t-ox is just white paint, or whitening in sheets.  It's used everywhere.  When sunlight hits it, there is a marvelous reaction.  It might be the reason that fresh air is so anti-bacterial.  This is much better than the old 'negative ion' crap which always gave off enough ozone to kill you.





My old air filter gave up after 10 years, so I just recently bought this.  For now, I'm going with all the official replacements, rather than make my own, because they last a long time and are reasonably priced. You really, really need it come air conditioning time.  Air conditioned air is so dead you can feel it.

Here's the coffee roaster, only 2 left from Amazon at a reasonable price.  I got the 3 year Amazon warranty with it.



Get this, use a light-medium roast with Guatemala beans and you'll live forever.  :)  If only my doctor had done this.  :(




Trazodone in the News

Reference

Traz is an anti-depressant, and this news makes me happy.  For the last couple of centuries, the only cure for Hereditary Intellectual Depression was a bullet to the head, or lots of alcohol, which was the same thing.  :)  Now we have great drugs, and one that I'm taking is traz.  Yeah, I won't get Alzies!  Have to tell my shrink tomorrow.

I hoped they would try CBD and THC.  These have good potential to be a brain wonder drug.  But the researchers aren't based in Canada, so it might not be politically correct.  :)

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Over-Steering the Toronto Housing Market

Reference

Yeah, this will one of the definitive moments for the hind-sight of the Toronto housing market.  All the foreign money left in November with the trumpy bond route.  This is icing on the cake.  Next thing you know, they'll go after the numbered Ontario company giant money laundry.

Everybody told them to wait and see if there was a classical Spring market.  There wasn't.  Almost no new listings in the neighbourhood.  That would tell somebody there is something seriously wrong.

Anyway,we have to wait for our horribly slow numbers from the sleazy real-estate people.  The depth of the crash really depends on how strung out everybody is.  I was predicting that in June the listings would zoom up and the prices crash.  Now, with all this over-steering, we'll see no listings and prices crashing,  I don't know what that will mean, but I think people can only hold on for another month or so.

ps.  It's official now.  The Chinese will walk away from their condo deposits.  Expect blood on the streets.

Saturday, April 15, 2017

Oklahoma - no injection, no earthquakes

One big question is that, if they finally become scared with an 6.5, will the earthquakes stop on a dime?  This Easter weekend shows that there is hope.  No injection on Good Friday, something which I am sure about in OK.  :)  And the earthquakes stop.  I don't know when they'll start again, maybe Monday, which will give everybody a nice weekend.


ps.  it has started again on Sunday.

pps.  Since by Wed. it hasn't really popped up again, I'll just call it a random quiet phase.  bah.

Thursday, April 13, 2017

Alex Asmis, dead at 21


Humanity's luck is such that whenever we enter the doom and gloom of imminent destruction, an angel is sent to save us.  This has been throughout history, and without those angels, we wouldn't be writing this.  With whatever makes you feel better, you can believe that this is dumb luck by definition, or some power is looking over us.

Angels, by my definition, are not with us long.  They live such a large life, and affect so many people that things happen to take them away from us.  As his only great-uncle, I can add some perspective.  Alex had a fatal flaw in his personality, and it could be said that he could not have been an angel without it.  He had to seek greater and greater thrills.

As he went down the local suicide run, he had to be "The King".  Had he successfully negotiated the boulders this time, he would have done it again, perhaps a little faster.  He was not one to be deterred by a close call.  In the end, the miracle was that all his companions walked away from it.  From what I saw at the funeral, all the thrill-seeking may have been knocked out of all the students at Algonquin College.  If so, he has saved many lives.

In this new age of gloom, such as Trump leading us into World War 3, or baking by global warming, it is good to have faith to stop yourself from sinking into depression.  We are saved from the former by corruption, and the latter by physics.   And also angels.

Alex, you came, you saw, you conquered.  And by doing so, you have saved us all.

Harold Asmis

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Massive Petropoints Hack

You recall that all my Petropoints got sucked out of my account.  They relayed to 'hasmis@proton.com' in Malaysia and then got a $25 Bay web gift certificate.

I thought they hacked somewhere and got my low-level default password.  But no, further snooping by this reporter reveals that there has been a 'main system' hack.  Apparently, very suspicious people have been walking around trying to redeem points at the local places.  They just have a display on their phones and have something like 3 million points.

Petrocanada wants this to be a big secret, so there is no panic.  The guy beside me said he had 250,000 points.  To be fair, I am assuming that everybody is vulnerable, but maybe pigs can fly, and it's only a few people.  Certainly, the support people act like they never heard of it.

The criminals walking around will have a tough time trying to redeem millions of points on potato chips.  Watch out for them, they are desperate!  :)  And check your points.

OMG!  I don't think they offer enough money to hire service people.  blah...

wow, they can't clear my email from the system, corrupted database probably, couldn't happen to more competent people.  /\   (the mountain of sarcasm)

Garden and Fruit Tree Spraying 2017

My supply of the 'good stuff' has now been cut off.  I was using Amazon but Customs has cracked down, and nothing is available.

It's not a great loss.  My spraying on the apples last year was a complete disaster.  I was spraying often with the good stuff and it was no good.  All the apples were destroyed by worms.  It's because nobody can spray any more, and the pests are thick.  So, I am going back to my own organic mix and spraying often.  I'll see if this has a chance.

FishOrganic (chemical) Spray

In half a small spray tank (4 litres) throw in 2 bloops (tablespoon) of Neem Oil, 2 bloops of Tea Tree Oil, 2 bloops of Home Defense spray, and a dab of dish soap. Shake well.

Neem oil is a fungicide, as well as Tea Oil.  Home Defense is pyrethins and you need the soap to mix it all.

It all smells so wonderful.  Right now we have those red bugs everywhere, and this kills them  Spray once a week, or after a heavy rain.  Should make the bugs have a tummy ache.  :)

Monday, April 10, 2017

Someone with brains is slowly putting in accelerometers in Oklahoma and Kansas

The latest Medford m4.1 had a lot of recordings.  This is the latest one.



This reads 3 cm/s PGV with an Intensity of 4.  I was quite impressed with all the instruments surrounding this earthquake.  If they have a notion to do it, they can now determine directivity, and correlate Intensity with PGV.  They won't though.

I would now like Mr. Mysterious to instrument buildings in Tulsa and OK City.  We must show that all existing engineering assumptions are wrong.  :)


The fun of sewer work

For a long time, I was tracking this project.  They hit quicksand, and counted on pumping to clog up the pores.  Six months later, they have finally reached the sewer.


Their idea is to open the sewer and jack out the old liner with a new one.  But now it appears that the main structure of the old sewer (bricks) is collapsing and jamming the old lining.  They'll never be able to jack in a new one, and they have all those lovely liner pieces hanging around.  The active sewer is now totally open and I died when I walked into the slip stream.  I can imagine bicycle guys zooming along and falling over.  I thought they'd put a tent on and filter through tree roots.  Silly me.  :)  Not going down there now.

Saturday, April 8, 2017

Russians Hack Google



It's a slow news day in Canada, so it is easy to slip in something that is totally fake.  And Google has no means to flag fake news.



I just did 2 screen grabs in case the stuff all disappears in a minute.  This reads so fake, that trumpy himself could have written it.  It's from a place that nobody heard of, and a very impressive web page.

We should thank his trumpiness that he's got poutine pulling out all the stops of his command over the Internet.  Put in a couple of billion dollars, and you've got something.

It still seems to be up.

To sum:  Poutine is a nice guy who destroyed all assady's chemical toys.  Nevermind all the other incidents.  They were all misunderstandings.  They informed everybody by registered mail that they were going to bomb a weapons bunker.  Pouty was shocked, shocked to find it was full of chemical weapons and the smoke got in their eyes.

ps.  This all gone now.  Not a trace.  It never happened.

pps.  Make a copy of this now, before it also goes poof.

ppps.  I'm getting paranoid.  My next headline, which will never appear.  will be "Google and Russia Attack the Fish".  Bye everybody.

epilogue - I'm still alive!  This has blown over.  Mr. Gootin has gone on to other things.

Petropoints account hacked

My email was changed to some Russian account.  But they notified my normal email account.  Petropoints are absolutely terrible at fixing this.  I had to phone and got cut off, with no hope of getting back.  This was one of my many accounts with my default password which is somewhat guessable, with a lot of effort, or an even older account was hacked.

In the past months I have changed all my accounts to something random from a local Java random password generator, and used Google Smart Lock.  I recommend this to everyone.  However, there are still accounts floating around that I hardly ever use.  It would suck to lose all my petro-money, probably about $30.

You must assume that lost accounts have been hacked because nobody defends them any more.  Change your passwords!

ps.  they changed my email to 'proton.com'.  I suppose they have to go through an effort to get my points.  I informed the owner of that service in Malaysia to remove the offending account (they are probably majorly hacked).  I don't expect a good response.  :)

pps.  confirmed that they took out $25 by using The Bay.  Wow, they used a number of companies.

Friday, April 7, 2017

Kansas tries the Arkansas trick


This is the first new injection zone in a year or two.  First we had Ohio, and they stopped at m4.  Then we had Arkansas.  Stopped at m4.  Then Texas tried injection freshwater frack waste at a few spots.  Stopped at m4.  Now Kansas is trying it.

Not a word on the news about what they are doing here.  They've gone from m2's to an m4 in record time, perhaps one of the fastest ramp-ups yet.  They should hit an m5 soon, maybe even skip right to an m6.  This is so exciting!

ps.  the expected result will be the same as Azle, Tx.  The earthquakes will get bigger and bigger.  The people will complain more and more, and suddenly the earthquakes stop.  They now enter the Texas Conspiracy.  I hope that this time Kansas will be a bit more honest, and someone will whistle.

pps.  This is an extreme close-up of the new injection site.

Note the weird straight E-W line due to location rounding.  In reality, the line is probably extending from the well on the highway down to the SE, just like Azle Texas.  The line will get longer and the earthquakes will get bigger.  This transverse fault joins the megathrust.

Thursday, April 6, 2017

Tragedy for the Family

Reference

Algonquin College student Alex Asmis, 21, dies after rollover


Very sad, he was a grand-nephew.  But it is the way for young people in this modern world.  Everybody has done something like this in their youth.  1000 survive, one doesn't.

Italian Cruise Ship for Sale


Slightly damaged.  Does not do well with an Italian crew.  Giant bandaid on one side.  Available only for the price of a Toronto house.

http://www.yachtworld.com/boats/1997/Cruise-Ship%2C-2417-Passengers--3024096/Italy#.WOZKuHXyuV7


Toronto Housing Listings Still Scrape the Bottom


New figures show that listings are making a feeble rise.  The headline-grabbing average price is meaningless in a thin market.  We had one house sell in the neighbourhood.  It sold right away, and probably for a very high price.

It's a diseased market that can show such high prices and no listings.  If it follows the formula to death, then listings will surge in June because everybody has two houses and they become desperate.  The patient will recover if there is enough money in the market to take these listings.

Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Linux - Raspberry pi 3 twice as fast as zero

I always assumed that the raspi's were fast enough to take anything I threw at them.  Wrong!  The p3 can sample 2 accelerometers at 30 samp/sec, and the zero at about 15.  That's probably enough for a velocity seismometer running below 10 Hz.  All the damage comes at 1 to 2 Hz anyway.  So, I envision a bunch of zeros running these.  I have to wait until I can actually buy them.  I've used up my 'one to a customer'.  They still make them in fairlyland Wales, but they use robots.  Speed it up, boys!

Monday, April 3, 2017

El Nino is well and truly dead


Whew!  I wait every month for this chart, and the Toronto real estate figures.  Both are interesting, but this one shows the background microwave chatter for satellites.  It's related to how much heat energy is being thrown out by the Earth, which is a sort of dim infra-red light bulb.

El Nino events make the light bulb go brighter for a while.  That's because a lot of warm water is pushed to the poles.  Just ask Chile!  Then it settles, and we should get colder because all our heat went up the chimney.

Supporting this chart is the fact that all our major northern ocean currents are coming back to full strength.  This El Nino event was huge and did a number on them.  We in Toronto had our driest year, maybe on record.  That's been keeping up some slopes I expected to come down by now.  We're starting to get our big rains now.


Sunday, April 2, 2017

Letter to the Toronto Police

Dear Police,  a few days ago, a big contract-er, whom everybody thought was a contractor, was hit by a contractee, with a single bullet to the head.  That was just around the corner.

You went around the whole neighbourhood asking if anybody had any video.  I am now proposing that you give me an annual grant to run video from the house.  This would be a nifty 'starlight' video on a two day rotating file.  We are getting fiber to the home, and this would be a great use for it, if you want the video directly.

It would be only looked at if there is another contract.  We are full of contracters in big monster houses, and I'm sure there is a potential for more of this.  Maybe again in 20 years.

Now, I'm terrible in dealing with stupid people, who have all the money, so just give me the money and I'll figure things out.  Maybe you actually have a smart person, or maybe you don't, but you can trust me.  :)  I've got a horrible case of never-finishing-things-itis, but I'll make an exception.

Trump inciting violence

Reference



I'm limiting myself to a tiny fraction of my morbid attraction to trumpy news.  Everybody in Canada has this disease right now.  In fact, for the last few days we've been dying because of the lack something truly outrageous.  Or, as addicts, we crave ever greater hits.

So, I dug this up.  This is all about tone and situation.  Did Trump really say "Ok, Klan people, beat the shit out of them and drag their dead bodies out of here."  Or, the defense version of "Please kindly suggest another location for their protest."  I think he can plead insanity.  :)

GET 'EM OUT OF HERE!

ps.  Please note that I am no longer obscuring his name to avoid search engines, since I am no longer afraid of him.  :)  I've done my States trip for the year.