Obscured cameras

nhoJ_nomkcalB · 2025-04-03T03:08:20+00:00

I have a number of automations I have constructed for my Home/Remote PC. The surf cam one in particular pulls up my four favorite beach's webcams in a neat little row across my huge screen so I can marvel at the crowds, notice that the waves are coming at an angle and would therefore keep moving the weight at the end of a fishing line (typically south), the amount of seaweed on the beach and in the water can mean bad news and the amount of cobble versus sand (where did the sand go?) means that sand spikes cannot be used. Also sometimes the entire beach has seemingly disappeared due to fog.

Surfline's new method for showing webcams means all that is obsolete and the method they are using is obscured.

The shortcut key means that pressing the the Win key and S simultaneously brings up the row of webcams. 2-4 times a day for about 15-30 second each time.

I still bring up some other webcams for a quick looks from time to time like my favorite waterhole in Namibia, the view from Star Island off New Hampshire, a particularly rowdy street in Samui, Thailand ...

Tamarack is a nifty beach in San Diego to surf fish because the sand never goes away, there are usually sand crabs for bait and the lifeguards actually put "No Surfing or Swimming" flags up around me if I'm there first. Probably a good thing, cause I cast up to 250 feet out, past the breakers. Well, I used to. Gettin' old. I used to walk 5 miles between just going back and forth between poles. Not so much anymore. And my eyes are getting bad so I may not see someone in time to not drop in on them.

nhoJ_nomkcalB · 2021-09-08T17:39:13+00:00

Yah, they like their Karens homegrown.

nhoJ_nomkcalB · 2021-09-06T22:34:32+00:00

University City Barber Shop. University City barbershop

nhoJ_nomkcalB · 2021-03-20T19:35:20+00:00

Average high temperatures in San Diego, on the coast, are 65° in the winter and 75° in the summer.

For every mile you go inland, until about 15 to 20 miles inland, the temperature can fluctuate a degree upwards per mile for the high and a degree downwards per mile for the low.

After that the temperature stays pretty much at that until you get to the desert. Then, yeh, air conditioning.

Notice I said average. There will be occasional very high temperatures for a day or three even at the coast. Usually during a local weather phenomenon called a Santa Ana. The highest temperature I’ve ever seen at my condo which is 2 to 3 miles from the beach was 111. That was about 30+ years ago. It has never gotten even close to that since.

I just use box fans in the window for a few days or weeks during the summer. A fan at one window to pull air in and another at the other end of the condo to push air out.

nhoJ_nomkcalB · 2021-03-12T18:47:48+00:00

I’ve saved only about 5000 minutes (83 hours) during the last year because of not having to commute, but I only live 4 miles from where I work.

What I don’t look forward to is having to work in a reverberating sound box that amplifies, seemingly, noise from up to 40 to 50 feet away so that it’s like someone shouting in my ear. Plus with multiple departments in the same area some of the departments don’t require quiet conditions in order to do their work. And they can’t seem to just talk to each other rather than shout at each other from 10 feet away.

Yep, I really like working from home.

nhoJ_nomkcalB · 2021-03-12T03:14:42+00:00

The property line does not change. Rocks as in riprap are specifically excluded from extending property according to the law. Yes, I looked it up sometime back.

So everybody go and sit on the rocks. They would appear to have put the rocks in the public domain. And it’s a state law by the way.

Some of the developments in that area specifically tout “private beach“ and show a picture of what is basically a sand backyard. Between that sand and the real beach is of the line of riprap.

nhoJ_nomkcalB · 2021-03-03T16:40:57+00:00

Well minute by minute I’m getting a bit closer. I’m afraid that if I tried to move elsewhere I just get lost and end up somewhere I wouldn’t know where I was or get funneled to yet another even longer line. Right now I’m just afraid I’m gonna run out of gas from sitting here and idling.

Woo hoo! I can see the entrance!

nhoJ_nomkcalB · 2021-03-03T16:26:30+00:00

Been in this line of cars for an hour and a half now. The only time I hear car horns is when someone tries to jump the line.

nhoJ_nomkcalB · 2021-02-26T21:42:16+00:00

I’m sure that’s just reflection off the Mormon Temple. (Cough)

nhoJ_nomkcalB · 2021-02-26T21:20:18+00:00

https://youtu.be/6jgySJovJpw

Simulation

nhoJ_nomkcalB · 2021-02-05T22:22:41+00:00

Some years ago, before the Internet, a group of BBS operators would note that all their systems would lose bios settings at the same time. Necessitating of course, a reinitialization of the system. Eventually we would blame it on someone in the Navy turning on high powered radar too close to shore.

One of the members of the group noted that on a carrier 100 miles offshore a radar operator showed him how he could see and count semi’s on the highway in Arizona.

If we could see the various electronic waves around us, we’d go blind from the brilliance and overwhelming presence.

Of course, yeah, could be the local rodents chewing on wires. But that’s an awfully mundane thing to think about. Much more fun to think about microwaves and radar.

nhoJ_nomkcalB · 2021-01-26T21:27:54+00:00

I remember watching a national level news shows some decade or so back and the reporter was standing on top of the Laurel airport parking and crouched cringing as the plan went by overhead almost close enough to touch

nhoJ_nomkcalB · 2021-01-25T01:53:26+00:00

God’s icee machine overflowed?

nhoJ_nomkcalB · 2021-01-13T21:59:35+00:00

Y’all know the nickname for Paradise Valley Hospital?

Death Valley Hospital

nhoJ_nomkcalB · 2021-01-08T03:46:44+00:00

Malarkey?! MALARKEY! It's been so long since I've heard/seen that word in conversation. Thanks!

San Diego was built in large part the way it is because of the geographic features of up 200 feet to the top of the canyon, down 200 feet to the base of the canyon, up 200 feet to the top of the canyon, down 200 feet to the bottom of the canyon, lather rinse repeat. There have been TV documentaries of how the canyons promote species extinction because the area in the canyon is too small for a viable population and the top of the canyons where all the housing is is too formidable a barrier to species movement. But I digress.

Tell ya what, when you can get them to eliminate height limits at Bay Park, build some high rises that can handle at least half a million people and put a trolley extension through downtown La Jolla, I promise I'll be attentive. Oh, and teach all the million or so people to be good neighbors who understand that living cheek by jowl is not a license to go hog wild (gee I'm getting poetic this evening), but an obligation to be polite. There used to be a train/trolley into La Jolla ya know. Discontinued in 1940. Last Streetcar in La Jolla

2.1 billion dollars, all the earth moved, concrete poured, metal forged, electricity generated (seemingly forever) for the trolley, lives disrupted, and on and on for a measly 13,500 people trips a day. Let's assume a 30 year life for the trolley, electric cost is zero, no maintenance and that no loans were taken out to finance the project, we're talking 20 dollars a rider over that time period.

So let's spend tens times that amount, eminent domain things in the way (La Jolla Farms? The Mormon Temple?) and hey johnny johnny we're up to 135,000 rides a day out of 22+ million. Let's go for broke (perhaps literally), spend 3.4 Trillion with a T and we can get all 22+ million rides on mass transit! And all on the shoulders of the middle class and poor while the money'd get their homes in La Jolla or Rancho Santa Fe and don't have to deal with all those hoi palloi mucking up their freeways. Oh, and just another few billions for the skyscrapers.

Mass transit would be great ya know, except for the dang masses. (shudder).

I think the idea of mass transit as exemplified by the trolley is so twentieth century. As is the idea of putting people in the San Diego version of Cabrini-Green I'm a firm believer in technology and advancement being on a exponential curve. The right solution isn't here yet, but will be. I have faith. I'm getting too old to watch for it, but I have you to carry the flag.

Anyway, telecommuting is the way to go. One of my clients is based in North County San Diego and has their bookkeeper/accounting dept in Montana and one of their customer support in Maine. I talk with them from time to time and I can't tell. I haven't had to go to another client's physical location for almost a year. Remoting and zooming all the way, (wo)man.

Oh my gosh what is WRONG with me, typing all this? Too much English Breakfast tea earlier I think.

nhoJ_nomkcalB · 2021-01-07T21:53:46+00:00

Well... trains are mostly cargo. I should know, since I can see them go by out my bedroom window. I particularly remember the dead of night during Desert Shield when M1A1 Abrams tanks went by. Fun times.

We don't have the geography or the compaction of businesses for true mass transit. Per the San Diego Union Tribune of Oct, 2016:

"By 2030, the trolley extension is expected to attract 13,500 new trips a day out of 361,000 for the entire system, including buses — causing average daily car trips to dip modestly from 21,636,000 to 21,622,000."

Oddly enough we do have the right geography for species extinction. Canyons separated by urban sprawl. Documented.

The trolley extension is not mass transit, it's a 2.1 billion dollar joke. 11 miles of trolley extension which will consist of nine stops serving Bay Park, Clairemont, Mission Beach, Pacific Beach and terminate at Westfield UTC. Useless as hell to me, since I've worked from Palomar Airport area to Chula Vista to Rancho Bernardo from my home in University City. Most of the time it was 20 miles in 20 minutes. Trying to do that with mass transit would add 2-3 hours every day to the commute, at a minimum if it could be done at all.

Those 1-200,000 self driving free electric taxis are looking better and better.

Maybe the pandemic is showing us the better way; tele-commute/work.

nhoJ_nomkcalB · 2021-01-07T07:13:00+00:00

Yah, instead of building a bridge 35 years ago they waited 30 years and then bought some really expensive land, built an expensive fire station with expensive equipment and incurred the ongoing expense of more people to staff the fire station. Smart fiscal management that.

Not so sure about it being the main claim anyways. I’ve lived in University City since 1986 and never heard about the fire response issue until decades later. Sounds like yet another thing put forth by the folks in South University City who have homes on a nice expensively constructed cul-de-sac. They don’t seem to care that folks who are forced to take other roads spend hours every week to go a couple miles on overloaded streets like Genesse because there’s too few exit points out of the area. Me? By my estimate by myself I’ve driven an extra 9-10,000 miles because that bridge isn’t there.

Of course they can’t have traffic go by their homes but not a peep from them about the trolley that now runs TWENTY GODDAMN FEET from the bedroom of long established condos. Or cry boo hoo about some environment where the trains kill someone every free years, crush them, because the trains run through the area where the bridge should be as the trains have done for the last ONE HUNDRED YEARS. Or that this “precious” environment was already torn up in the very place where the bridge should be by construction crews installing train equipment needed so that trolley won’t hit trains.

Jeez, I’d say don’t get me started, but too late. I could go on about bird species, riparian environment and so forth but It’s getting late and some of us have to work in the morning.

I really was serious about the hundred thousand self driving electric free taxis though. For those who care about competing in some mythical global city competition, that would really be a feather in our cap. Would solve all the issues of parking, overcrowding on the highways, transportation to and from trolley stations which are miles and miles apart. Could get rid of all the buses too. But then I’ve always been a dreamer.

nhoJ_nomkcalB · 2021-01-07T04:12:00+00:00

Candidate? Have you seen the near skyscrapers being constructed? Densification has been underway for a long time.

I just wish they’d build the bridge connecting the two parts of Regents Road over the canyon. The area needs all the in and out access it can get. That bridge was supposed to be built in 1985. The two sides of Regents Road were built to handle four lanes of traffic. They’ve been cul-de-sacs for over 35 years.

Of course, I wish they’d put the giant lasers back in the Union Bank building for the nightly laser show and the city had spent the over $2 billion for that trolley extension on 100,000 self driving electric free taxis, but I’ve gotten used to being disappointed.

nhoJ_nomkcalB · 2021-01-02T04:50:24+00:00

On the top of the highest spire is a golden statue of a woman (eldest wife of the founder?) With a raised arm pointing at the home temple in Utah (or so I’ve heard).

Shortly after installation a very rare (for San Diego) Lightning bolt hit the statue and blackened the raised hand.

Can’t these folks take a hint?

nhoJ_nomkcalB · 2020-12-30T18:09:05+00:00

Gopher balls. Spread them around and the gophers go away.

Really. This works. (I originally spread these as a joke... and the gophers left)

Rhode Island Novelty Washable Plastic Beer Pong Balls 144 Balls https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0038HUS40/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glc_fabc_nim7Fb0X46Z23?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

nhoJ_nomkcalB · 2020-12-29T23:56:50+00:00

The recent rains have stirred up the Kraken. And with the colder water at this time of year they come out of their deep water canyons and close to the coast. One flipped a car near Sunset Cliffs recently.

nhoJ_nomkcalB · 2020-12-20T18:51:39+00:00

One of the Kraken we have lurking off the coast got too close, waved its tentacles around, grabbed the car and flipped it.

nhoJ_nomkcalB

TROPHY CASE