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There's No Such Thing as a Free Lunch
        Taken literally, this is patently false, as anyone with a grandmother knows. You may say “well, Grandma paid for it so it isn't free.” But it is free – to you.
        I have a fruit tree in my front yard, and all its fruit is completely free.
        What this old saying means is “never trust a salesman”. If a salesman offers to buy your lunch, it will cost you.
        From a physicist's perspective, it means you can't break the three laws of thermodynamics; you can never get more energy out of a system than you put in.

You get what you pay for
        This is another salesman lie, with the sales lady getting you to believe that the higher priced item is always better than the cheap item. But you don’t always get what you pay for. Often the less expensive item is equal or superior, with over-the-counter drugs being an excellent example. Aleve costs three times what generic naproxin does, yet is the exact same drug.
        And of course there are swindlers. If someone sells you a counterfeit Rolex at a real Rolex price, or a diamond ring with a zirconium stone, you have been swindled and certainly didn’t get what you paid for.
        You usually pay for what you get, but often you pay far less than you otherwise did. Just yesterday I saw a “going out of business” sign at a Radio Shack, and since I needed a new soldering iron I went in. The iron and solder were a third what I would have paid had I not procrastinated, and I got a TV antenna for five bucks. I got a lot more than I paid for.
        Get what you pay for? Usually, but sometimes you get more than you paid for and sometimes a high priced item turns out to be utter junk.

What goes up must come down
        This was true until July of 1969, when astronauts left man-made objects on the moon. They're not likely to ever come back down.
        There are robots rolling around Mars. These, too, are unlikely to ever come down.
        Then there are the Voyager spacecraft, which are now outside the entire solar system. It's a certainty that these machines will never return to Earth.

Money doesn't grow on trees
        Of course it does, orchards grow lots of money. Not only does it grow on trees, it grows on corn stalks, tomato plants, soybean bushes...

A picture is worth a thousand words
        If it is, then draw me a picture that says “a picture's worth a thousand words.” Pictures can be aids in communication, and a picture is better than a description, but it's impossible to teach using only pictures.
        However, it is true in a monetary sense, in that a thousand word magazine article will garner a commercial writer less than the artist who made the cover art did.

What doesn't kill me makes me stronger
        Nietzsche was an idiot. Just ask any brain-damaged quadriplegic if he's stronger than he was before the accident.
        Oh, and also, God isn't dead, Nietzsche is.

You can never be too rich or too thin
        Whoever started this stupid meme was a gold plated idiot. Of course you can be too thin. Bulimia and anorexia have killed people.
        The “too rich” is subjective. I'd say if you have more money than anyone could spend in a lifetime when there are hungry people, you're too rich. How can someone like that live with themselves?

Lightning never strikes the same place twice
        It amazes me how gullible most people are, believing everything anyone tells them. They even believe stuff that was proven untrue centuries ago, as in this saying. It was believed for at least hundreds of years and likely longer until Ben Franklin disproved it with his kite and his invention of the lightning rod. If lightning never strikes the same place twice, lightning rods wouldn't work.

Only the good die young
Well, they showed you a statue, told you to pray
They built you a temple and locked you away
Aw, but they never told you the price that you pay
For things that you might have done
Only the good die young
That's what I said
Only the good die young – Billy Joel
        I've heard this nonsense all my life, and can’t understand why people actually believe that tripe. Yes, some good young people do die way before their time.
        But if only the good die young, then why are so many inner-city young men killed in gun battles with rival gangs? Good people never die in gang battles unless they're not a part of the fight and simply get caught in the crossfire.
        Why do so many young people get drunk and die in their cars when they wrap them around trees? Good people don't drive when they're drunk.
        And if you're Christian, remember that Jesus said “none are good, except God.” Only the very young; the small children who die innocent are good. But bad young people die all the time.

Now this is embarrassing.

Just now I discovered quite a serious bug in the software I'm working on.

I'm quite certain the general concept is valid, but my implementation is buggy.

This is something I can fix but that twenty grand I thought I made last week just flew out the window.

I will give you one little taste: in 2001-2002 I worked on a database kernel for a Bahamian hedge fund. It's now a core component of a huge windows executable that trades a basket of 1000 commodities futures on the Chicago Board of Trade. It's consistently able to beat the best funds managers.

My invention isn't trading commodities but it's a conceptually similar program.

(I don't know how they fared with the 2007 subprime meltdown. My guess is that the fund's owner would have known to get out of the market, he's a real shrewd guy.)

My ship isn't at the dock yet but I think it's still headed in my general direction.

In any case I'm doing something more mentally challenging than reloading SN all day long.

I invented something about a year ago, and have been tinkering with it most of the time since.

I abandoned it in November when I concluded that it could not possibly work. But in December I started taking imipramine for my depression.

At first only one other person knew about my invention. I discussed it with him a couple weeks ago: "Which is truth and which is delusion? Will my invention work or not?"

"It seems like a reasonable idea," he replied but even so I was unsure as he is not an expert in this area. He only had my own explanations to go on. However I decided I really had nothing better to do so I continued my development.

I made twenty grand in just the last week.

Starting a week or two from now I confidently expect to make ten grand per day.

I apologize, I really do, but the value of my invention depends on secrecy. If I were to explain it to you, it would be very easy for you to build one. I've often puzzled over why no one else has done this before, eventually to conclude that others already have it, but are keeping a very low profile.

I'm going to donate every last penny of my money to homeless shelters, rescue missions and soup kitchens.

Last October or so, a drop-dead gorgeous woman said to me "That's a really nice shirt you're wearing." My reply?

"I bought it because I sleep under a highway overpass. The dark red doesn't show the dirt."

Hillary Clinton’s Energy Initiative Pressed Countries to Embrace Fracking, New Emails Reveal

BACK IN APRIL, just before the New York primary, Hillary Clinton’s campaign aired a commercial on upstate television stations touting her work as secretary of state forcing “China, India, some of the world’s worst polluters” to make “real change.” She promised to “stand firm with New Yorkers opposing fracking, giving communities the right to say ‘no.'”

The television spot, which was not announced and does not appear on the official campaign YouTube page with most of Clinton’s other ads, implied a history of opposition to fracking, here and abroad. But emails obtained by The Intercept from the Department of State reveal new details of behind-the-scenes efforts by Clinton and her close aides to export American-style hydraulic fracturing — the horizontal drilling technique best known as fracking — to countries all over the world.

My apologies for not posting this sooner.

I was told there was a "Mass" in my right lung. The definition I found online somewhere is that a mass is three centimeters or larger in diameter. A "Nodule" is smaller.

The CT scan tech said she was told it was a nodule.

The diagnostic radiologist sent my doctor a letter that said the nodule was one centimeter in diameter and "appears to be benign". He called it a "calcification".

However I may not yet be completely out of trouble. That my nodule is benign is most likely due to having a smooth surface. Cancer tumours have rough surfaces but the best way to tell the difference is to watch it over some period of time; Cancer grows much faster.

My doctor will order another CT scan in three months, then another after that in six.

However she too appeared confident that it was benign.

"Oh good" I said.

Oddly I was not worried about dying. It's not like I don't know how painful cancer is, I've seen it up close and personal several times.

In part it was because I've survived far worse things than cancer - I once read that "suicidal depression is the worst pain you can feel" - and in part because I have always wanted to leave something behind that is of lasting value.

I have already been able to do that through my writing.

Even so, I'm glad that I'm not likely to die. I still hope to have children. While we haven't discussed kids yet - that would be rather premature at this early stage - the lady I'm seeing likes kids, and she is young enough to bear them.

I feel very bad that I will no longer date women of my own age. I'm 52. It's not like I'm not attracted to them but I want to be with a woman who has at least the possibility of bearing my child.

However were I to fall in love with a women who simply did not want to have children, I would stay with her. That would be hard to accept but accept it I would.

"Would you like to come to my place for supper?"

I waited anxiously for the crushing blow of "Let's just be friends".

But no! To my great delight:

"Let's make it happen."

I have my own special pasta recipe. I could post it, but then I'd have to kill you.

A real good way to impress just about anyone is to be a good cook. I'm very improvisational about it. My father was heavily into cooking too, but he followed recipes scrupulously. I can make an interesting meal out of just about anything.

I don't usually drink but I'm going to buy a bottle of red wine. I even have real wine glasses. I've managed not to break any of them after all these years.

Donald Trump Releases List of Supreme Court Picks

I thought this quote from Ed Whelan was funny. The part about Erick Erickson was added since I first read the article:

Ed Whelan, a former clerk to Justice Scalia and a prominent conservative legal commentator, praised several of the names on the list but reserved judgment about whether conservatives should trust Mr. Trump to follow through on what he says he will do.

“It’s a good list of some of the outstanding judges who give ample sign of being faithful to the Constitution,” Mr. Whelan said. “Whether a President Trump could actually be counted on to pick folks like this is a different question.”

Some of Mr. Trump’s most vocal conservative critics remained doubtful despite the credentials of the judges on the list. Erick Erickson, the conservative blogger who has been working to derail his campaign, insisted that Mr. Trump still could not be trusted with the court.

“Like every clause of every sentence uttered in every breath Donald Trump takes, this is all subject to change,” Mr. Erickson said. “He will waffle, he will backtrack, and he simply cannot be believed.”

Trump's List Of Possible Supreme Court Nominees Includes A Judge Who Mocked Trump

And it's not just a single incident of Twitter mocking.

DONALD J. TRUMP RELEASES LIST OF POTENTIAL UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT JUSTICES

Steven Colloton

Steven Colloton of Iowa is a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, a position he has held since President George W. Bush appointed him in 2003. Judge Colloton has a résumé that also includes distinguished service as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa, a Special Assistant to the Attorney General in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, and a lecturer of law at the University of Iowa. He received his law degree from Yale, and he clerked for Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Judge Colloton is an Iowa native.

Allison Eid

Allison Eid of Colorado is an associate justice of the Colorado Supreme Court. Colorado Governor Bill Owens appointed her to the seat in 2006; she was later retained for a full term by the voters (with 75% of voters favoring retention). Prior to her judicial service, Justice Eid served as Colorado’s solicitor general and as a law professor at the University of Colorado. Justice Eid attended the University of Chicago Law School, and she clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas.

Raymond Gruender

Raymond Gruender of Missouri has been a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit since his 2004 appointment by President George W. Bush. Judge Gruender, who sits in St. Louis, Missouri, has extensive prosecutorial experience, culminating with his time as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri. Judge Gruender received a law degree and an M.B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis.

Thomas Hardiman

Thomas Hardiman of Pennsylvania has been a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit since 2007. Prior to serving as a circuit judge, he served as a judge of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania since 2003. Before his judicial service, Judge Hardiman worked in private practice in Washington, D.C. and Pittsburgh. Judge Hardiman was the first in his family to attend college, graduating from Notre Dame.

Raymond Kethledge

Raymond Kethledge of Michigan has been a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit since 2008. Before his judicial service, Judge Kethledge served as judiciary counsel to Michigan Senator Spencer Abraham, worked as a partner in two law firms, and worked as an in-house counsel for the Ford Motor Company. Judge Kethledge obtained his law degree from the University of Michigan and clerked for Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Joan Larsen

Joan Larsen of Michigan is an Associate Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court. Justice Larsen was a professor at the University of Michigan School of Law from 1998 until her appointment to the bench. In 2002, she temporarily left academia to work as an Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. Justice Larsen received her law degree from Northwestern and clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia.

Thomas Lee

Thomas Lee of Utah has been an Associate Justice of the Utah Supreme Court since 2010. Beginning in 1997, he served on the faculty of Brigham Young University Law School, where he still teaches in an adjunct capacity. Justice Lee was Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Department’s Civil Division from 2004 to 2005. Justice Lee attended the University of Chicago Law School, and he clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas. Justice Lee is also the son of former U.S. Solicitor General Rex Lee and the brother of current U.S. Senator Mike Lee.

William Pryor

William H. Pryor, Jr. of Alabama is a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. He has served on the court since 2004. Judge Pryor became the Alabama Attorney General in 1997 upon Jeff Sessions’s election to the U.S. Senate. Judge Pryor was then elected in his own right in 1998 and reelected in 2002. In 2013, Judge Pryor was confirmed to a term on the United States Sentencing Commission. Judge Pryor received his law degree from Tulane, and he clerked for Judge John Minor Wisdom of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

David Stras

David Stras of Minnesota has been an Associate Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court since 2010. After his initial appointment, he was elected to a six-year term in 2012. Prior to his judicial service, Judge Stras worked as a legal academic at the University of Minnesota Law School. In his time there, he wrote extensively about the function and structure of the judiciary. Justice Stras received his law degree and an M.B.A. from the University of Kansas. He clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas.

Diane Sykes

Diane Sykes of Wisconsin has served as a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit since 2004. Prior to her federal appointment, Judge Sykes had been a Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court since 1999 and a Wisconsin trial court judge of both civil and criminal matters before that. Judge Sykes received her law degree from Marquette.

Don Willett

Don Willett of Texas has been a Justice of the Texas Supreme Court since 2005. He was initially appointed by Governor Rick Perry and has been reelected by the voters twice. Prior to his judicial service, Judge Willett worked as a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, as an advisor in George W. Bush’s gubernatorial and presidential administrations, as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy, and as a Deputy Attorney General under then-Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott. Justice Willett received his law degree and a master’s degree from Duke.

It still has a mostly web-2.0 design as I have some reason to believe that truly technical people keep their own websites like that. It's not like Bjarne Stroustrup couldn't figure out jQuery but he's too busy being a C++ God to deal with that.

However I do agree that my site could be better. There's more work I'm going to do.

The site is more sophisticated than it looks, in that it also has a smartphone-specific stylesheet. Do a "View Page Source" then look in the head element to see how that works. In my recent work I didn't update the smartphone stylesheet but I will start doing that this evening.

Most important was that my technical articles did not have any mention of the fact that they were hosted on a consultant company's site. You would find out if you clicked the bug logo, but not everyone does that.

So far I've received about one potential client inquiry per month. If this, uh... "redesign" helps, then I'll get more than one per month.

I'm going to add a light colored margin around the edges of all the pages but that will take a little more time.

While I'm the only active coder in the company, there are other people. One is a Caltech schoolmate who does Javascript, the other is a very experienced technical salesman who acts has an advisor. I'm going to add a "Meet The Team" page sometime soon.

I'm moving some more of my technical articles over from warplife.com but I won't link them until I've updated their markup to match the rest of the site.

I also fixed lots of broken links and invalid markup.

http://en.zimagez.com/zimage/screenshot2016-05-1508-21-36.php

This is just a screenshot of my desktop - took it while playing around with different wallpapers. I may add some different screenshots later - or not. Pulled both of these wallpapers from this site: http://racodesign.com/

Feel free to post shots of your desktop! It may give me ideas.

Oh - this is Linux, in case someone failed to notice that. Specs?

guy@sabayon-pc /opt/foldingathome $ inxi -F
System: Host: sabayon-pc Kernel: 4.5.0-sabayon x86_64 (64 bit)
                      Desktop: Xfce 4.12.3 Distro: Sabayon Linux amd64 16.04
Machine: Mobo: Supermicro model: H8DM8-2 v: 1234567890
                      Bios: American Megatrends v: 080014 date: 10/22/2009
CPU(s): 2 Hexa core Six-Core AMD Opteron 8439 SEs (-HT-MCP-SMP-) cache: 6144 KB
                      clock speeds: max: 2800 MHz 1: 2800 MHz 2: 2800 MHz 3: 2800 MHz
                      4: 2800 MHz 5: 2800 MHz 6: 2800 MHz 7: 2800 MHz 8: 2800 MHz
                      9: 2800 MHz 10: 2800 MHz 11: 2800 MHz 12: 2800 MHz
Graphics: Card-1: NVIDIA GK208 [GeForce GT 630 Rev. 2]
                      Card-2: NVIDIA GK208 [GeForce GT 730]
                      Display Server: X.Org 1.17.4 driver: nvidia
                      Resolution: 1920x1080@60.00hz, 1920x1080@60.00hz
                      GLX Renderer: GeForce GT 730/PCIe/SSE2
                      GLX Version: 4.5.0 NVIDIA 358.09
Audio: Card-1 2x NVIDIA GK208 HDMI/DP Audio Controller
                      driver: snd_hda_intelsnd_hda_intel
                      Card-2 Plantronics driver: USB Audio
                      Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.5.0-sabayon
Network: Card-1: NVIDIA MCP55 Ethernet driver: forcedeth
                      IF: enp0s8 state: down mac: 00:30:48:c8:16:72
                      Card-2: NVIDIA MCP55 Ethernet driver: forcedeth
                      IF: enp0s9 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full
                      mac: 00:30:48:c8:16:73
Drives: HDD Total Size: 8561.7GB (6.6% used)
                      ID-1: /dev/sda model: MKNSSDCR240GB size: 240.1GB
                      ID-2: /dev/sdb model: WDC_WD3200AUDX size: 320.1GB
                      ID-3: /dev/sdc model: HUA722020ALA330 size: 2000.4GB
                      ID-4: /dev/sdd model: HUA722020ALA330 size: 2000.4GB
                      ID-5: /dev/sde model: HUA722020ALA330 size: 2000.4GB
                      ID-6: /dev/sdf model: HUA722020ALA330 size: 2000.4GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 22G used: 15G (69%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1
                      ID-2: /home size: 168G used: 3.0G (2%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda2
                      ID-3: swap-1 size: 33.56GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda3
RAID: Device-1: /dev/md127 - active raid: 5 components: online: 4/4 - sde1 sdc1 sdf1 sdd1
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 65.2C mobo: 52.5C gpu: 50C
                      Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: 0 fan-1: 0 fan-3: 0 fan-4: 0 fan-5: 0 fan-6: 0 fan-7: 3132
                      fan-8: 3375
Info: Processes: 333 Uptime: 1:08 Memory: 2759.9/20078.0MB
                      Client: Shell (bash) inxi: 2.2.19

Crossing the Line: How Donald Trump Behaved With Women in Private

The New York Times interviewed dozens of women who had worked with or for Mr. Trump over the past four decades, in the worlds of real estate, modeling and pageants; women who had dated him or interacted with him socially; and women and men who had closely observed his conduct since his adolescence. In all, more than 50 interviews were conducted over the course of six weeks.

Their accounts — many relayed here in their own words — reveal unwelcome romantic advances, unending commentary on the female form, a shrewd reliance on ambitious women, and unsettling workplace conduct, according to the interviews, as well as court records and written recollections. The interactions occurred in his offices at Trump Tower, at his homes, at construction sites and backstage at beauty pageants. They appeared to be fleeting, unimportant moments to him, but they left lasting impressions on the women who experienced them.

What emerges from the interviews is a complex, at times contradictory portrait of a wealthy, well-known and provocative man and the women around him, one that defies simple categorization. Some women found him gracious and encouraging. He promoted several to the loftiest heights of his company, a daring move for a major real estate developer at the time.

He simultaneously nurtured women’s careers and mocked their physical appearance. “You like your candy,” he told an overweight female executive who oversaw the construction of his headquarters in Midtown Manhattan. He could be lewd one moment and gentlemanly the next.

In an interview, Mr. Trump described himself as a champion of women, someone who took pride in hiring them and was in awe of their work ethic. “It would just seem,” he said, “that there was something that they want to really prove.”

Pressed on the women’s claims, Mr. Trump disputed many of the details, such as asking Ms. Brewer Lane to put on a swimsuit. “A lot of things get made up over the years,” he said. “I have always treated women with great respect. And women will tell you that.”