January 10, 2020 8 PM Update

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Good evening! Rain showers and 40 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☔ There is a south breeze at 9 mph. 🍃. Temperatures will drop below freezing at Sunday around 10 pm. ☃️

I rode the exercise bike 🚲 for a while and now I’m laying back in bed. 😴 I’m tired so I’m heading to bed early. I also plan to get up at 6:30 tomorrow to help better maintain my sleep schedule and make more of the day. Feel a bit achy this evening, maybe its because I got up early again this morning.

Tonight will have a slight chance of rain. Mostly cloudy 🌧, with a low of 40 degrees at 8pm. 26 degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around April 22nd. Very mild tonight. South wind 8 to 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. In 2019, we had light snow in the evening, which became mostly clear by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 12 degrees. The record low of -25 occurred back in 1968.

Tonight will have the Wolf 🐺 Moon. At dusk you’ll see the moon in the east-northeast (64°) at an altitude of 6° from the horizon, some 233,203 miles away from where you are looking up from the earth. 🚀 The darkest hour is at 12:03 am, followed by dawn at 6:54 am, and sun starting to rise at 7:25 am in the east-southeast (120°) and last for 3 minutes and 21 seconds. Sunrise is 15 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌄 The golden hour ends at 8:10 am with sun in the southeast (128°) at an altitude of 6°. Tonight will have 14 hours and 43 minutes of darkness, a decrease of one minute and 21 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will have a chance of rain, mainly after 2pm. Cloudy 🌧, with a high of 60 degrees at 3pm. 30 degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around April 18th. Maximum dew point of 50 at 3pm. South wind 14 to 17 mph, with gusts as high as 29 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies in the morning with some clearing in the afternoon. The high last year was 24 degrees. The record high of 57 was set in 1975. 8 inches of snow fell back in 1922.❄

In four weeks on February 7 the sun will be setting in the west-southwest (250°) at 5:16 pm,🌄 which is 35 minutes later then tonight. In 2019 on that day, we had partly cloudy, mild, rain showers and temperatures between 47 and 36 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 33 and 16 degrees. The record high of 48 degrees was set back in 2005.

Looking ahead, Save the Pine Bush Turns 42 🦋 is in 4 weeks, Clean Your Computer Day 🧹 is a month away, Valentines Day ❤️ is in 5 weeks, 7 PM Sunset 🌆 is in 9 weeks, Spring 🌷 is in 10 weeks, Good Friday ✝️ is in 3 months, May 🕊 is in 16 weeks, Mothers Day 👩‍ is in 4 months and 8:30 PM Sunset ️⛱️ is in 21 weeks.

Blinds

NPR

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Eisenhower’s Military-Industry Complex Warning, 50 Years Later : NPR

The difference, Bowman says, is that before the late 1950s, companies such as Ford built everything from jeeps to bombers -- then went back to building cars. But that changed after the Korean War.

Bowman says that it's important to note that during the Cold War, the U.S. military didn't draw down its troops like it did after World War II.

Opinion | Who Killed the Knapp Family? – The New York Times

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Opinion | Who Killed the Knapp Family? – The New York Times

It would be easy but too simplistic to blame just automation and lost jobs: The problems are also rooted in disastrous policy choices over 50 years. The United States wrested power from labor and gave it to business, and it suppressed wages and cut taxes rather than invest in human capital, as our peer countries did. As other countries embraced universal health care, we did not; several counties in the United States have life expectancies shorter than those in Cambodia or Bangladesh.

One consequence is that the bottom end of America’s labor force is not very productive, in ways that reduce our country’s competitiveness. A low-end worker may not have a high school diploma and is often barely literate or numerate while also struggling with a dependency; more than seven million Americans also have suspended driver’s licenses for failing to pay child support or court-related debt, meaning that they may not reliably show up at work.

I've always been a bit interested in what killed off the great steel and manufacturing plants in New York. I think if you look at the record, a lot of the fault has to be with a lack of investment both by the state and by business owners. Nobody wanted to modernize the plants, because it would mean to immediate job loses due to greater productivity and it would cost money. But productivity is not the enemy, and when some jobs are lost by new technology, other ones are created. We can't be like Donald Trump, longing for a yesterday, we have to move forward, invest in a more modern economy that is more efficient and less wasteful, even if it leads to some job losses.

LGR Oddware – Thermaltake 5.25

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Y'know, sometimes you just wanna use your PC to light something on fire and hold your drink. Oddware has you covered with the Thermaltake Xray from 2004! Providing a 12V DC lighter alongside a cupholder in a single five and a quarter inch computer case drive bay.

Back in the day when you could smoke in your office, you might want a cigarette lighter in your computer.

No One Wants Your Used Clothes Anymore

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No One Wants Your Used Clothes Anymore

For decades, the donation bin has offered consumers in rich countries a guilt-free way to unload their old clothing. In a virtuous and profitable cycle, a global network of traders would collect these garments, grade them, and transport them around the world to be recycled, worn again, or turned into rags and stuffing.

Now that cycle is breaking down. Fashion trends are accelerating, new clothes are becoming as cheap as used ones, and poor countries are turning their backs on the secondhand trade. Without significant changes in the way that clothes are made and marketed, this could add up to an environmental disaster in the making.

I just want to be able to get a decent sweater or sweater-vest. Every sweater I get lately falls apart after about two washings, despite being quite expensive and full-price.