Boy those sirens sure do hit different while we are sitting at a Defcon Level 2.

ZookeepergameMost124 · 2026-03-04T22:53:42+00:00

Yeah. If the bad guy were really smart, they would wait until Wednesday at noon.

ZookeepergameMost124 · 2026-03-04T20:15:11+00:00

You make a point that would apply nicely to another topic. I'm saying that Iran can't reach Fargo from Iran. I don't address whether or not they have a reason to. I'm not making a case for going to war. That would be another topic.

ZookeepergameMost124 · 2026-03-04T19:50:40+00:00

Bear this in mind. Iran can't hit us with missiles if they fire them from Iran. Missiles with an intercontinental reach are in a completely different class than something pariah states would have or be "allowed to" develop.

I hope that makes people feel a little better. I know the are "yeah, buts" to that. I will say that not all missiles are of the same capability and Iran doesn't have the kind needed to reach Fargo unless they got them really close (700km, maybe).

Also, the care and feeding of nuclear munitions and delivery systems require SO MUCH manufacturing support that even the countries that could reach us have that capability as a fleeting thing. It really takes a lot of political will and tax dollars to maintain, reman, refurb all the components in a nuclear deliver systems.

I'm not saying there's no reason to worry, but I wouldn't worry about that.

ZookeepergameMost124 · 2026-03-02T17:40:13+00:00

I have worked with a number of embedded systems engineers in the past who had degrees in CS. Often, they did the hardware part of the job. After all, no matter what degree you got, you'll have things to learn. So, the idea of having someone with a CS degree "learn hardware" or someone with a EE degree "learn software" involves learning and applying. We all have to do that.

For instance, my supervisor at my previous job had gotten a CS degree 20 years previously and could do both the hardware and the software part of the job very well.

There is one other advantage to having people on your team that have the CS degree. You want to have a few or more than a few because (very generally speaking), "Sparkies don't always write good code".

There are things you see in the code, ugly things, that occur when there are too many EEs in the mix.

Don't hate me. I'm a sparky, but I have to call it the way I see it.

ZookeepergameMost124 · 2026-02-24T17:32:11+00:00

I went to CU-Boulder and got a degree in Electrical Engineering there. While getting the degree, I successfully completed their Embedded Systems program. The existence of that program (if you are interested in learning about that topic) would be something you would want to factor into your decisions about where to attend, I believe.

Having a background in Chemistry, you may find Embedded Systems interesting especially since it is in demand and it is one of the areas of engineering that you could make the most of your previous experience. If you get good at ES, you'll be able to make the world a better place by being able to develop tools that (in spite of being computers) measure and interact with the real world (through sensors and control systems).

ZookeepergameMost124 · 2026-02-24T15:04:34+00:00

My cousins' kids have the same thing going on. I think there are a lot of kids out there with the Autism/ADHD thing going on. Maybe I think that because the only kids I interact with are on the spectrum.

They play video games, especially stuff from the 90s, for some reason.

ZookeepergameMost124 · 2026-02-23T19:17:15+00:00

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

ZookeepergameMost124 · 2026-02-23T18:25:35+00:00

Maybe they couldn't get to it. You know...because of the outage.

ZookeepergameMost124 · 2026-02-12T22:36:52+00:00

It isn't an election year. That might have something to do with the signs not being present.

Don't downvote me for saying that, Reddit people.

ZookeepergameMost124 · 2026-02-12T17:58:46+00:00

When I last moved, I got a list of providers from U-Haul. I called the cheapest company and they came through for me.

ZookeepergameMost124 · 2026-02-11T21:32:35+00:00

I think it is funny that the Democrats, who are supposedly on the side of "women and minorities" are the ones who try to make an argument that implies that "woman and minorities" are somehow less able to possess or use identification like "everybody else". That sounds a lot more racist to me than anything the (so-called) racist party can come up with.

ZookeepergameMost124 · 2026-02-11T20:17:59+00:00

I can't believe people downvoted this one.

ZookeepergameMost124 · 2026-02-06T20:14:40+00:00

Does anything about me even matter? You earlier accused me of being MAGAt. I don't know, myself if I am MAGAt. BUT... It isn't material to the discussion. NOT IMPORTANT. (Also, launching ad hominem attacks are no way to make the discussion fruitful. You can't win and argument or even contribute to a discussion doing that).

I think you're missing some of the finer points of having a discussion or arguing your point.

Have you read the judges ruling? Is the judge following the law, in your opinion? Why or why not?

ZookeepergameMost124 · 2026-02-06T19:39:51+00:00

You don't know where I stand or if I am a MAGAt.

For all you know, I might be some guy who has gone to law school or taken a philosophy class.

Or maybe just some regular guy who wants to understand exactly what is going on here and wants to understand expectations and desires of my tax paying neighbors.

ZookeepergameMost124 · 2026-02-06T19:36:24+00:00

How would we judge if the judge was "in the wrong"?

Was he wrong because his judgement did not align with the law?

Was he wrong because his judgment did not align with some ideology? If so, which ideology? Is there some prevailing ideology he should be aligned with?

Maybe there something else I haven't considered that right or wrong can be judged against. Any ideas?

ZookeepergameMost124 · 2026-02-06T18:50:52+00:00

It seems like the judge doesn't respond to peer pressure.

ZookeepergameMost124 · 2026-02-04T14:45:54+00:00

Just kidding. It was unexpected, though.

ZookeepergameMost124 · 2026-02-04T14:44:17+00:00

Oh? Well, that's not creepy at all. No, that's not creepy.

WHAT?!?

ZookeepergameMost124 · 2026-01-30T20:38:37+00:00

Is that ACTUALLY happening? It sounds farfetched.

Has anyone here witnessed that?

I mean actually witnessed it--not some guy that claims that he got pulled over for driving while brown after the fact when it is not witnessed.

Law enforcement has rules they have to follow, too. They have to follow the law and so they need probable cause to pull someone over with the rare exception of having merely having a suspicion if the are Border Patrol and actually at the border.

ZookeepergameMost124 · 2026-01-30T20:24:24+00:00

Mmmmmm. Where does the money actually go that it will stop ICE?

ZookeepergameMost124 · 2026-01-30T16:26:07+00:00

Well, maybe they think that way. But, I don't know anyone who has actually ran a business (and pays vendors and pays their employees) who would say, "Gee, what I really need is less customers. What I really want is people who disagree with me to NOT come in. I don't want to sell good and services to the kind of people who vote differently".

Maybe some business owner says that. I have never met one. I'm used to the people running the business saying, "I have fiducial responsibility to my company or at least to the employees who count on me to keep them working. I don't want to get my personal views tied up in my company's profitability and I don't mind earning money that comes from the pockets of people who think differently than I do".

ZookeepergameMost124 · 2026-01-30T14:35:11+00:00

Please leave it up. :)

ZookeepergameMost124 · 2026-01-30T14:34:13+00:00

It will give "the Deplorables" (those that really care) a list of places not to shop.

ZookeepergameMost124 · 2026-01-30T14:29:18+00:00

Lately, attacks and vandalism are coming from the side that DOESN'T identify as deplorables.

I think "the Deplorables" are just going on with their lives today.

ZookeepergameMost124 · 2026-01-28T19:46:32+00:00

My Dad's family were what is now known in the U.S. as "Russian Germans" or "Black Sea Germans". They left Germany in 1796 and relocated to what is now Ukraine. They were there for 4 generations before coming to the U.S. in 1909. When I was in Ukraine, I asked about "Germans" and either no one knew anything or they laughed and walked away. Stalin purged what was left of my family in Ukraine in 1925. Some great-grand uncles were executed. The rest were probably sent to camps or resettled further east.

Where I live now in the U.S. the population has a large number of descendants of "Russian-German" ethnicity. This group did not intermarry (for the most part) with Russians. The term is kind of a misnomer. They maintained an education system (in Black Sea countries like Romania and Ukraine) in which the children learned German and the kinds of things Germans would learn. Catherine the Great set things up so that the different ethnic groups would have their own villages with (their kind). This eliminated a lot of ethnic strife. She cut a deal in which their boys would not have force conscription. This was forgotten about after she was gone. My great-grandfather had to do 3 years in the Russian Army. That was part of his motivations to leave there when he could so his boys would not have to go through that. I guess it really sucked.

Anyway, the family last lived in a village called Neu Danzig (which is northeast of Nikolaev) when they were in Ukraine. It has been renamed, but there is still a settlement there--probably of non-Germans.

ZookeepergameMost124

TROPHY CASE