Yeah, "retired" into doing a lot of other things anyway.

Good luck with the sump pump that's a good way to go. We had to do that one place I lived. It was the only way to do it. They last pretty long, or at least they DID about 45 years ago.
Installation often means digging a hole just for the pump to sit in. We did a concrete lined square hole to keep it clean.

Yep. Spent a could portion of today digging a pit in the bottom of the window well and putting a five-gallon bucket with holes drilled in it down into it. I've got everything set and working, but I'm going to have to do something different. Yesterday I dug most of the hole and dropped a submersible pump (not a sump pump -- no float switch). That did a good job, except you had to go down every hour-and-a-half and plug in the pump and unplug it as soon as it started cavitating -- makes for a long night. But when I pulled it up and pulled the pump out, the bucket was pretty hard packed in with the mud that had flowed into the hole and there was almost an inch of fine sediment (silt-like) in the bottom. After less than a day. So I need to come up with a much better arrangement to keep the sediment out. Currently I have a couple layers of river rock (about 3" across) in the bottom. I have a few ideas for a better solution, which involves using pavers to create a chamber that the bucket would sit in and that, if necessary, I could clean out easily. But I'm going to wait until things dry out some more.

 

Yep. Spent a could portion of today digging a pit in the bottom of the window well and putting a five-gallon bucket with holes drilled in it down into it. I've got everything set and working, but I'm going to have to do something different. Yesterday I dug most of the hole and dropped a submersible pump (not a sump pump -- no float switch). That did a good job, except you had to go down every hour-and-a-half and plug in the pump and unplug it as soon as it started cavitating -- makes for a long night. But when I pulled it up and pulled the pump out, the bucket was pretty hard packed in with the mud that had flowed into the hole and there was almost an inch of fine sediment (silt-like) in the bottom. After less than a day. So I need to come up with a much better arrangement to keep the sediment out. Currently I have a couple layers of river rock (about 3" across) in the bottom. I have a few ideas for a better solution, which involves using pavers to create a chamber that the bucket would sit in and that, if necessary, I could clean out easily. But I'm going to wait until things dry out some more.

Oh that sounds pretty nasty to deal with.

You might be able to try a second bucket or tub ahead of the main bucket if you can channel the water the way you want it to go. The second tub (actually the first in line with the flow) would have the water flow over the mouth. As the water flows the mud would settle in that bucket, then ideally only water would flow to the main bucket. The bucket first in line would have to be emptied now and then as the mud built up in the bottom.
It could also help to introduce a "low pass filter" for the water that evens out the flow so it is less turbulent. That would mean the mud would settle better in the first bucket. Perhaps a set of holes drilled in a plate that were still somewhat large just to quiet down the flow hopefully making it more laminar.
Of course the higher the holes are in the water catch bucket are the less mud will reach it, but then it will accumulate around the bucket which would make it harder to clean I think.

 

Sounds like Philly. Must be a lot of traffic lights along that road.
Why count the traffic lights though? Did you count the manhole covers too and the pot holes

Counting the traffic lights lets you know when to signal a "stop requested" and where to get off.

It can be very difficult to know exactly where you are when taking a bus that you have never taken before and are unfamiliar with the landmarks, and the street announcements don't always work properly.

There used to be a time when you could count on the driver to call out your stop for people with low vision or if you are new to the route, but those times are long gone with the advent of the automatic street announcements...that often don't work properly.

This system doesn't work very well if you have to go a long way without having a well-known stop somewhere near your stop. (Cottman Ave in this case)

 

Counting the traffic lights lets you know when to signal a "stop requested" and where to get off.

It can be very difficult to know exactly where you are when taking a bus that you have never taken before and are unfamiliar with the landmarks, and the street announcements don't always work properly.

There used to be a time when you could count on the driver to call out your stop for people with low vision or if you are new to the route, but those times are long gone with the advent of the automatic street announcements...that often don't work properly.

This system doesn't work very well if you have to go a long way without having a well-known stop somewhere near your stop. (Cottman Ave in this case)

Oh I see. What I do is look on Google maps and look for structures that I would recognize when I get near there, like a building of some type or something like that, that would stand out. When I had low vision acuity though I could not do that.

 

What I do is look on Google maps and look for structures that I would recognize when I get near there, like a building of some type or something like that, that would stand out.

I tried that once. When I made the journey my landmark had been replaced, so I missed a turn-off. Should have checked the image date !!

 

I tried that once. When I made the journey my landmark had been replaced, so I missed a turn-off. Should have checked the image date !!

Oh yes I forgot to mention that. Google Maps information sometimes lags the actual real-life changes to buildings, roads, and even the name of establishments. When I looked for a few things around here I saw one place that had a name that had not been used for several years. It changed to a different company altogether. That meant that I would not be able to find the place I was looking for even though it was just 2 miles from where I live. The name listed was the old name so I could not find the new name. If I went by that alone, I would have never been able to find the place.

Another time I looked for a place and I could not find out where to park in order to be able to visit that place. It was very strange because the detail was so poor that time.

 

https://rudevulture.com/marines-man...-camera-undetected-thanks-to-hiding-in-boxes/

In what sounds like a scene from a comedy movie, a squad of Marines successfully outsmarted an advanced artificial intelligence system by employing tactics that would make any child playing hide-and-seek proud. The remarkable demonstration revealed both the impressive capabilities and surprising limitations of modern AI technology.

The experiment took place as part of DARPA’s Squad X program a while back. It aimed to develop advanced surveillance systems capable of identifying human threats in complex urban environments. The AI had undergone extensive training, spending six days learning to recognize Marines as they moved through various scenarios.
...
“An algorithm is brittle, and the takeaway from this is that there will always be these edge cases,” Scharre observed. “The real problem for the military is that it operates in an inherently adversarial environment, and people will always have the ability to evolve.”

While AI systems can process vast amounts of data at incredible speeds and excel at specific tasks, they lack the broader understanding that allows humans to think creatively and adapt to unexpected situations. “Humans tend to have a much richer understanding of the world,” Scharre noted, highlighting why the Marines could so easily outmaneuver a system designed to detect them.

MysteryMen (1999). (highly underrated film).

Invisible Boy can only go invisible when no one is looking at him.

An apparently useless skill - until the team needed someone who could get past the robot-activated laser.

 

​

 

View attachment 355654​

...and so the dumb get even dumber, and the dumber get even dumberer

 

The future is a world-wide immersive Potemkin village.

 

https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/09/ai_darwin_awards/

The Darwin Awards have traditionally been handed out (in a virtual sense) to individuals who have managed to remove themselves from the gene pool as a result of their own stupidity. The AI Darwin Awards, instead, are a collection of cautionary tales where an ill-conceived application of AI resulted in disaster.

The awards are not about poking fun at AI itself, but the consequences of its application without due care and attention.

 

https://gizmodo.com/ai-adoption-declining-at-large-companies-2000655693
AI Use at Large Companies Is in Decline, Census Bureau Says
A dip in corporate AI adoption isn't a great sign for an industry hellbent on world domination.

 

Albania uses AI as a minister

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/11/albania-diella-ai-minister-public-procurement

 

Some pretty weird stuff.
So it seems that technology will be the doom of mankind eventually. The more it is trusted, the more susceptible we become.

 

Some pretty weird stuff.
So it seems that technology will be the doom of mankind eventually. The more it is trusted, the more susceptible we become.

​

 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newf...cation-accord-nl-sources-dont-exist-1.7631364
N.L.'s 10-year education action plan cites sources that don't exist
MUN academics say fabricated citations may have been produced using AI

 

A technology to "protect reality" is urgently needed.

 

View attachment 355818​

Hi there,

I'm sorry I don't see your point.
Are you saying that technology is needed because the old stuff is too hard to use and inaccurate, or that we need to go back to the old stuff in order to avoid doom. Or perhaps something else?

I do kind of miss the old slide rules. I don't think I have one anymore after getting rid of stuff over the years.

 

A technology to "protect reality" is urgently needed.

That's an interesting idea. Some way of keeping tabs on all this new stuff. This is MUCH different than inventing an automobile to replace horses.

This is so complicated with far reaching consequences that I don't think anyone on earth can predict. That, in itself, should trigger a lot of red flags.
Once we lose control, we lose it forever.

I just asked an 'ai' bot what it thought about this. It responded by saying that there are safeguards and people that are aware of this and they suggest various ways to keep things calm.
Then, I told it that the 'people' are human and humans make mistakes. If a human makes a mistake with this then the 'ai' system would make mistakes with possible dramatic consequences.
There was already a false alarm with the Soviet 1983 fake nuclear missile launch that luckily was interpreted by a human who believed it did not really happen. That false alarm was due to technology even back then, and it was much simpler.

 

Hi there,

I'm sorry I don't see your point.
Are you saying that technology is needed because the old stuff is too hard to use and inaccurate, or that we need to go back to the old stuff in order to avoid doom. Or perhaps something else?

I do kind of miss the old slide rules. I don't think I have one anymore after getting rid of stuff over the years.

I was trying to show how deeply reliant on technology we are. Ever since the invention of the wheel.

My point is that the problem is that we're forgetting the fundamentals, the basic principles of everything that surrounds us. And there will be a price to pay, eventually.