Lawn Mower

Troy-Bilt 21 inch Lawn Mower

Bought a new lawn mower last week. I have a small lawn in front of the house and another small lawn in the back of the house. The house is built on a hill, so the backyard is one story lower than the front. Once upon a time there was a path going down the side of the hill so a lawn mower could be wheeled up or down the hill, but a while back we put in some fancy stone stairs right over this path, so no more wheeling the lawn mower up and done the hill. Lawn man didn't care, he had a partner, so the two of them could easily carry the lawn mower up and down the stairs.

But now Rob's partner is moving on, Rob is cutting back, and so carrying the mower is no longer viable. For a long time I've been trying to think of a solution, like replacing the wooden steps on the other side so they incorporated a ramp, or making some kind of removable ramp that could be laid over the stone steps, but all these seemed like a lot of work (which meant expensive, like a couple of thousand dollars), so nothing ever came of it. But now push has come to shove and I realized simply buying a lawn mower and keeping it in backyard would solve the problem.

About a month ago I dialed up Craigslist and saw several ads for used mowers that looked like a good deal. I fiddle farted around and didn't do anything about it, and the next week when I went back all the good deals were gone. So I go to Home Depot and Amazon and found several mowers for under $400. Then I remembered Home Depot had sent me a coupon for 10% off, so I went with them.

There are cheaper mowers available, but I've found that the cheapest item is not always a good deal. Spend a little more and you are likely to get much better quality.

I thought about an electric mower, but the electronics and the battery scare me. Electronic circuits are generally very reliable these days, but if they fail there is usually no recourse than to replace the whole circuit, and it will likely cost as much as the mower. Same deal with the battery, except that it will almost certainly die before you want it to, which means buying an expensive replacement battery. Probably cost near as much as the mower in the first place. After all, tool companies practically give away the tools in order to sell you a battery.

Anyway, this mower with a cover and the discount was less than $350. It only took me nine years to arrive at this solution. Very sad.

Language, Donald, language

EVERY SINGLE TIME!!!🤣🤣🤣 pic.twitter.com/IMtMFNRf6h

— il Donaldo Trumpo (@PapiTrumpo) March 25, 2025

You can say that again.

 

Wind Changes Direction in Gaza

Anti-Hamas protests in Gaza (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)

I was beginning to think that this was never going to happen.

Rare Anti-Hamas Protests Erupt In Gaza As Residents Call For Peace by Kassy Akiva

Of course, you can't tell if this protest is 'organic' or paid for by some freedom loving psychopath, but I'm encouraged.

Whale Song

We FINALLY Understand How To Speak Whale
Dr Ben Miles

He breaks down human language and compares its structure to the patterns found in whale songs. Pretty cool.

Sentence Structure

I'm looking at Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox by Lina Khan and I come across this sentence:

"Second, because online platforms serve as critical intermediaries, integrating across business lines positions these platforms to control the essential infrastructure on which their rivals depend."

and I can't make sense of it, especially this phrase:

"integrating across business lines positions these platforms to control the essential infrastructure"

Eventually I realize that "integrating across business lines" is a noun. The sentence might have more easily made sense if those words were hyphenated, like this:

"Second, because online platforms serve as critical intermediaries, integrating-across-business-lines positions these platforms to control the essential infrastructure on which their rivals depend."

Once I finally deciphered it, I can no longer see what was so confusing about it.

Nuclear Power for Deep Space Missions

NASA'S Plutonium Problem
Real Engineering

He mentions the nuclear processing facility the Hague, which I thought was kind of weird. A little Googling turned up La Hague in France. 

La Hague, France (left) & The Hague, Netherlands (right)

The nuclear processing facility is at La Hague in France. It's in the middle of a bunch of farmland.

La Hague Nuclear Recycling and Reprocessing Plant

This facility is run by Orano. Wikipedia page.

Black Bag - Regal Movie

BLACK BAG - Official Trailer [HD] - Only in Theaters March 14
Focus Features

Wonderful psychological thriller.

Someone inside the UK's national security apparatus is selling secrets to the enemy and George (Michael Fassbender) is tasked with finding them. To this end he employs a man who comes up with a list of five people all of whom are co-workers, and one of whom is George's wife Kathryn (Cate Blanchett). George is the polygraph (lie detector) man and normally he would call each of these people in for a session with his machine, but this time he decides to try something different and instead invites them all for dinner at his home.

Nothing comes of this first dinner, but now his wife is off on Black Bag mission, 'Black Bag' meaning secret and she can't tell him anything about it other than she will be back in couple of days. George's professional curiosity is aroused, so he swaps his keycard for hers (a black plastic card with no identifying marks), uses it to sneak into her office, checks up on her and finds she is going to Zurich. Hmm.

He finds an old theater ticket in a trash can by her dresser, memorizes the date and time, and replaces it. He asks her if she has seen this film (Dark Windows) and she denies it. We see them in the theater when something shocking appears on the screen, everyone in the theater reacts except her. Then there is a second shocker and this time she reacts. So, was that ticket hers, or not? If not, how did it get there? I am puzzled.

Meanwhile, a Russian dissident who is under surveillance by this UK spy outfit manages to elude his watchers. They are watching the house where is using some kind of thermal camera that shows there are a number of people in the house. There is an interruption in the camera feed for a couple minutes and now the number of people is reduced by half. The conclusion is that he has slipped away and that he had advance knowledge of the glitch that he must have gotten from someone in this spy outfit.

Now George gets Clarrisa, the IT girl (Marisa Abela), to 'borrow' a surveillance satellite during a three minute period that occurs during a 'handoff', presumably while the satellite is changing its focus. They zoom in on the coordinates George stole from his wife's computer, and what do you know, we see his wife walk into the scene and sit down on a park bench in Zurich. A man comes in and sits down with her. IT girl uses a facial recognition program to identify this guy. Turns out he is in cahoots with the Russian dissident who slipped away. 

Kathryn meets with a CIA guy and tells him that these two Russians are driving across Poland. The CIA sends a big fat drone and blows up their truck, putting a stop to their plan to cause a meltdown of a Russian nuclear reactor. They expect such a disaster would bring down Putin.

George hosts a second get together at the same table in his house, but this time there is no food. He starts the meeting by throwing a handgun into the middle of the table. He explains the situation and waits for the culprit to reveal himself. He explains that the ticket in the trash was a very poor ploy to implicate his wife. She is an experienced spy and would not leave anything so obviously incriminating where George could find it. The culprit reveals themself by picking up the gun and firing a couple of rounds, but they are blanks. Kathryn reaches into her purse, pulls out a gun and shoots the culprit dead.

There were a couple of interesting little snippets. While George is preparing dinner, wearing a white  long sleeve dress shirt and an apron, he splashes a little bit of red sauce on the cuff of his shirt. It is barely noticeable, but he goes off to change it. Just reinforcing George's image as fastidious.

In another we have Arthur, the head of this department (Pierce Brosnan looking like an old man, well duh, he is an old man. Very disconcerting because James Bond never ages.), sitting down for dinner at the counter of a tiny restaurant. He is served a fish on a plate. We are treated to a close up of the fish's head and the fish is still alive. Never mind that people eat all kinds of weird food, Arthur is apparently a weirdo because eating live animals is pretty much verboten in Western Culture.