Day: February 24, 2025

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Laundromat 🎽 👖 🫧

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One of the things that people say is wonderful about owning a house is not having to go to the laundromat. But I don’t know, I actually like going to the laundromat as a series of shopping chores in town. Like it or not at least once a week you need to go into town to get groceries and supplies.

You drop your wash in the machine, stick in some quarters then have time to make a few quick stops at nearby stores. Or it’s a good place to hop on the free Wi-Fi while the clothes are being done – as I doubt I’ll ever have home internet. I find not having laundry at home I wash clothes less, which helps them last longer as they don’t take such a beating. No need to wear every garment one day and wash it, especially if it’s not real dirty.

Not having a washing machine saves not only the regular purchase and disposal of a washing machine but also the necessity of having the space the machine takes up, a 220 volt wiring and more batteries and a bigger inverter and the water supply and water disposal infrastructure a washing machine requires. Plus at least at my parents house, their washing machine is incredibly slow and the drier does a poor job of drying clothes compared to what a laundromat does where not only is it speedy, if you use the drier there, you’re not stuck having to hang the clothes up that did not dry in the drier.

NPR

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A new document undercuts Trump admin’s denials about Tesla deal : NPR

The controversy started in a very Washington way: as a line item in a government spreadsheet buried on the State Department's website.

It appeared as if the State Department was taking steps to award Elon Musk's Tesla a $400 million government contract to buy armored electric vehicles to securely transport diplomats. The move to set in motion a lucrative contract to a company controlled by a high-profile ally of President Trump's seemed so bold it surprised even longtime observers of the norm-busting president.

In Hope of Nice Weekend Weather

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Maybe I’m just desperate for a nice weather weekend, or I wanted to practice my skills for work, but I created this quick little bash script that runs on the 29 and 59 minutes of each hour, so I get the latest NOAA forecast for the weekend, hot off the presses displayed on my screen for the weekend.

#!/bin/bash

wget "https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=42.4686&lon=-73.9294&unit=0&lg=english&FcstType=dwml" -O /var/tmp/forecast.xml

WEEKENDS=( Friday Saturday Sunday  )

for WEEKEND in "${WEEKENDS[@]}"
do
	DAY=$(xmllint /var/tmp/forecast.xml --xpath '/dwml/data/time-layout[2]/start-valid-time' | awk /$WEEKEND\"/'{print NR}')
	DAY12=$(xmllint /var/tmp/forecast.xml --xpath '/dwml/data/time-layout[1]/start-valid-time' | awk /$WEEKEND\"/'{print NR}')
	DAY12NIGHT=$((DAY12+1))
	HIGH=$(xmllint /var/tmp/forecast.xml --xpath "/dwml/data/parameters/temperature[@type=\"maximum\"]/value[$DAY]/text()" 2>/dev/null)
	LOW=$(xmllint /var/tmp/forecast.xml --xpath "/dwml/data/parameters/temperature[@type=\"minimum\"]/value[$DAY]/text()" 2> /dev/null)
	DAYSUMMARY=$(xmllint /var/tmp/forecast.xml --xpath "string(/dwml/data/parameters/weather/weather-conditions[$DAY12]/@weather-summary)" 2> /dev/null)
	NIGHTSUMMARY=$(xmllint /var/tmp/forecast.xml --xpath "string(/dwml/data/parameters/weather/weather-conditions[$DAY12NIGHT]/@weather-summary)" 2> /dev/null)
 
	[[ $WEEKEND == Saturday ]] && xmllint /var/tmp/forecast.xml --xpath "/dwml/data/parameters/conditions-icon/icon-link[$DAY12]/text()" 2> /dev/null | wget -i - -O /var/tmp/wxicon.png	


	[[  -z $HIGH ]] || OUTPUT+="\n $WEEKEND: "
	[[  -z $HIGH ]] || OUTPUT+="$DAYSUMMARY $HIGH "
	[[  -z $LOW ]]  || OUTPUT+="/ $NIGHTSUMMARY $LOW"

done
notify-send "Weekend Weather Update" "$OUTPUT" -t 15000 -i /var/tmp/wxicon.png

Mars Hill, Maine

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This wind farm on the eastern Canadian border of Maine really sticks up above the land.

Finding the right balance on ads 💰️

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I’ve been experimenting more with Google Ads. Where to place them, how to have them without interfering too much with my blog’s messaging and content. While the Google Auto Ads would splash them all over, including over content and pop-ups, that’s a bit much too me. I was hoping to keep them all in the sidebar, but the occasional one stuck in the middle brings in surprisingly a lot of revenue, as does the end of page ads, even though it’s not all that common that people scroll al the way to bottom, but they’re big and therefore valuable to advertisers..

Blogs ads aren’t getting me rich, but they do cover the cost of the domain and hosting and provide a little extra spending cash in the summer. They give me an incentive to develop new and interesting content including maps, knowing every two months or so I’ll be getting a hundred or so dollar deposit in my checking account. And I think placed in the right location, they can bring in revenue without being too commercial. I don’t like advertising, but I think I can live with it for now.

North Adams, Mass 1995 vs. 2020

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LEFT - Circa 2020
RIGHT - Circa 1995

In the past quarter century, there hasn't been that many changes to North Adams, Massachusetts although some of the mill buildings have been demolished and a large solar farm has been installed on a logged wooded area outside of the city.