Google's translation of Goodreads blurb (which is in German for some reason):
A special assignment for Aurelio: he is tasked with investigating the disappearance of a wealthy American resident in his hometown of Venice. The inspector immerses himself in the mysterious city of his past, once again succumbing to its morbid allure. When a skeleton is discovered near the lagoon island owned by the American, Aurelio Zen believes he sees a connection. Yet, in the hazy light of Venice, things only reveal their true nature at second glance.
A well connected old woman in Venice is being harassed by mysterious nighttime visitors. Her complaints reach Rome and Aurelio finds himself assigned to investigate. The old woman's complaints are sketchy at best, so Aurelio looks around and starts wondering about the missing American. The illegal drug trade is alive and well and when a couple of people turn up dead, Aurelio now has something to sink his teeth into. Looking for a missing package of heroin, they discover the body of the missing American, except it turns out he wasn't an American but bona-fide war criminal from the other side of the Adriatic - Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, that mess.
Meanwhile there is a populist political movement underway and Aurelio manages to get crosswise with a couple of players, mostly because of personality. Towards the end of the book we have a long foot chase (15 pages) that goes all over Venice. It's weird because there doesn't seem to be any point to it. It was so weird I made note of all the places they pass and then marked them on map. Now I'm wondering if maybe that was the whole point.
Defence Blog reports on Sceptre ramjet-powered 155 mm artillery shell:
Sceptre is designed to give standard artillery much longer reach. Most extended-range shells use a short rocket burn after leaving the barrel. Sceptre instead carries liquid fuel for a ramjet, an air-breathing engine with no moving parts that keeps pushing the shell for much of its flight. According to Tiberius, the round can strike targets up to 150 km (93 miles) away at speeds of about Mach 3.5, flies above 19,800 meters (65,000 feet), and fires from existing NATO-standard 155 mm howitzers without modification.
In April 2026, Tiberius fired Sceptre from a NATO-standard 155 mm howitzer in New Mexico and achieved ramjet ignition in flight, which the company said was the first time a liquid-fueled ramjet projectile had been launched this way.
I'm reading A Quantum Mythology by Gavin Smith, a book I picked up when we went to Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago. We spent a day wandering around outside the hotel / casino. We stopped in a couple shops along the way but ended up at Fashion Show Las Vegas, amassive shopping complex about a mile south of the hotel. Sweetie went off to go shopping at Nordstrom's or some such while I looked around for a bookstore and, lo and behold, I found one - R. D. Talley. A small storefront, one woman at a desk, some freestanding bookshelves and some against the wall. I don't think there were more than a thousand books on display, or maybe two thousand. This was a little suspect, could this be one of those religious bookstores? Or worse yet, a front for a cult? No, it was none of that. Somebody had put together quite a selection of books. In ten minutes I had seen half a dozen books that might interest me. I go to Powell's now and again, but I can spend hours in there and come out with one book that might be worth reading. Anyway, the person who selected the books was the woman at the desk, and no, she is not R. D. Talley.
almost monday - can't slow down (official video)
almost monday
Anyway, I'm sitting outside in the sun, trying to make headway in the book and listening to an album by Almost Monday (seems they are going to be at the Crystal Ballroom this December, but the only seats available are 'obscured'. Or standing on the floor.) and I have to engage my Bluetooth speaker.
I have the speaker sitting next to my computer display and facing the window, looking out into the backyard. When I am inside, the speaker gets the audio signal from the computer via an old fashioned stereo cable. When I want to listen to music outside, I switch the speaker to Bluetooth, open up the window and dial up YouTube Music on my Samsung (Android) smartphone.
Normally it works very well, but today for some reason, probably because I was already irritated with the toaster, I ham handed it and it got confused which necessitated cycling the power, which means I had to remember where the switch was and that one needs to hold the button down for like three seconds in order to turn it off. And now we are heading off down the 'how much worse everything is now' and 'why can't they put real switches on things anymore?' and goddamn commies.
Since we remodeled the house two years ago, half the light switches are now fancy. I've experimented with dimmers before, but I never found a situation where I was using one on a regular basis. Either the light is on or off. If it's too much, or too little, get a different light. Now it's a crap shoot what's going to happen when I hit a switch.
So now I'm thinking about electronic switches versus old time mechanical switches with real metal contacts. I went looking for a video mechanical contacts. I didn't find anything great, but I found these three short videos.
The Hidden Flaws of Relays | Contact Bounce & Arcing Explained
Engineeringness
Like I said: So now I'm thinking about electronic switches versus old time mechanical switches with real metal contacts. When you open a mechanical switch, there is liable to be some arcing between the contacts, and amount of arcing depends on the voltage. Household voltages don't need much air to insulate them, only a fraction of a millimeter if it's clean air. When you close the switch, the contacts are liable to bounce. It may not be much, maybe a ten-thousandth of an inch, but they will separate and there will be some arcing. This is were you get the electromagnetic noise that interferes with the radio - you turn off a light or switch on the A/C compressor and you are going to hear it, like a pop on you AM radio, no matter what station you are tuned to. What I want to see is a high speed video of contacts bouncing and the corresponding noise in the electromagnetic spectrum, all in one video.
Meanwhile, the toaster. I bought it a three years ago from Amazon for $25 and it's been a great little toaster until the latch quit working. It's an electromagnetic latch, not a mechanical one, so no mechanical components to wear out. I rattled it around in case there were some crumbs blocking the magnet, but no luck. I found that I could keep it down by wedging a sharpening steel between the lever and the microwave shelf just above it. Set the microwave timer for two minutes thirty seconds and I have toast. Not the most elegant solution, so I put it on the workbench with intention of opening it up and seeing if I could remedy the problem. I look at the bottom and I see ten little screws apparently holding the plastic base to the sheet metal shell. Cool, it's put together with screws, they didn't weld it shut or use some invisbile snap fasteners. Screws I can deal with, until I look at the heads and realize I need a screwdriver with triangular bit to turn them.
I ain't got one of those, but wait! Iowa Man gave me a pack-of-bits for dealing with security screws, surely there is a triangular bit in there. Unfortunately, that pack-of-bits is with my new Makita Drill and the drill is at older son's place. So I had to wait a week until he and I could get together and I could get the drill. That happened Saturday. Today got the notion to look at the toaster and what do you know? No triangular bit in the pack of security screw bits. Bah, double bah and humbug. What else have we got? I ended up using a small plastic screwdriver that likely came with some household do-dad and a small jeweler's screwdriver. The two together would just fit in the slot and I could turn the screw. I had to use a pair of pliers to turn them, some were very tight. Righteous pain in the tush. Got it open, didn't find anything that might be causing the problem, put it back together using Phillips head screws I found in my bin of sheet metal / wood screws. At first I found a nice set of black Torx screws that looked to be perfect for the job, they would not tighten up. I had to go up at least one full size, maybe two to get screws that would tighten up. And now it seems to be working.
P. S. When I started writing this I thought I bought the toaster a year ago for $7. Me memory is getting sloppy.
P. P. S. The book has at least three plot lines, some out of this world science fiction, some extreme magic and il y a beaucoup de violence. Probably going to take me a while.
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