A President's Library With Mechanics Liens

There is an enormous amount of unpaid debt to contractors that built the Obama Library. Illinois allows the auction of property to satisfy liens. Whether that happens is to be seen, but even if it does, what would anyone do with such a large ugly structure without any real use? It's a mess, and those that trusted the general contractor are out of luck, can only file liens, and hope for a return of pennies on the dollar, if bankruptcy is the final result. 

Salivating Weather Forecasters

There's a tropical cyclone in the Eastern Gulf of America. The folks at NOAA are forecasting the system will change from a northwesterly track to a westerly track. With close proximity to land, and shear, they are forecasting a reduction in tropical storm strength over the next few days, and most of the rain south of the system....if it doesn't degrade into a trough. The final track, at this time, will take it along the coast to Southeast Texas, where it will come ashore and cross Texas. 

The NOAA folks summarize all of this is a text forecast advisory, and it can be read in about a minute. The Weather Channel folks take about 48 hours to show a summary of all the model tracks, pay high salaries for their meteorologists to pontificate, and have entire crews on different beaches to interview those that want to have their faces on television. It's expensive, and they're using resources provided by NOAA, but there's money to be made. It's weather porn, and leads to experts that not only help increase the anxiety, they continue it on their social media posts. If you pay close enough attention, you'll realize you not only need to panic, you need to go spend close to a thousand at Walmart and gather supplies you'll eventually throw away in January.

Daylight Saving and Darkness

It's looking like they'll make Daylight Saving Time permanent. It's a Summer madness, with the long days and light in the mornings. Winter will be different. Northern states will find they're navigating morning traffic, and their children waiting for school, is in what most would consider the night. We'll see how this future debacle will unfold, but I'm not thinking it will be pretty.

Thoughts July 17, 2026

Apparently, the last administration was not only hiding information of foreign election meddling, their hiding made them complicit. In a perfect society, those involved will face harsh punishments, including the death penalty for treason. Will this happen? Probably not. Too many in Congress were involved, and they won't prosecute those in their club. 

I Need to Rant

My printer, which is a few years old (HP...which stands for "Here you Putz) needed some ink cartridges. Being a frugal type of person, I ordered some from Amazon, and failed to read the 1 star reviews. Long story short, the discount non-HP cartridges are problematic. My printer warned me they were not genuine, and allowed me to print a few pages. I was satisfied. A few weeks later, I decided to print a document, and the printer stopped due to "damaged" print cartridges. This inspired me to look up some of the shenanigans of the printer industry. 

HP doesn't want you to save money on ink. They want to damn near just give you a printer, and then bend you over every time you need some ink. They do this by installing proprietary chips that tell the printer to stop, laugh at your discomfort, and point you to the line where they take your money at gunpoint. To make things worse, the other printer companies are following suit, and doing the same. Now, the big questions are whether HP downloaded software to defeat the cartridges, they're really not good, or maybe the printer has gone south. My options are either to buy a new printer, pay the exorbitant amount HP charges for cartridges, or pull out a Big Chief notepad and just scribble out documents like a demented old man in the 1800's.

*spit*

Badly Corroded Steel

A New York high rise under remodeling is collapsing. From one of the photos, the corrosion is apparent, and too much of the steel is gone to hold the weight of the stories above. If the rest of the building is in such bad shape, demolition is probably the only solution, and I don't have any idea on how that can be done without damaging the surrounding buildings. In my opinion, it's too dangerous to attempt any work inside, and I wouldn't want to deal with the lawsuits soon to appear. I know I wouldn't even want to expose some of the steel at ground level to see its condition.

This article give some more information. The contractor has multiple violations, and the work involved adding additional stories to the building. 

What gets my attention is the engineering involved. How can additional floors be added without careful examination of the existing structure? Regardless of engineering calculations for structural adequacy, if the original plans were used, they're basically useless. Structural steel design calculation are dependent on the sectional amount of steel, and the tensile strength. Corroded steel can't be calculated without a clear understanding of how much steel is gone, and whether the original shape used for calculations still applies. Considering what some of the pictures reveal, I can't imagine a competent engineer being willing to stamp the plans when a little examination would have revealed the degradation of the original structure. If I had to guess, some money was passed under the table, and a city employee is now in a world of shit.

Hyping the Weather

Weather forecasters (mostly TV personalities) are hyping the weather. It's hot, and the humidity is high, but I've seen much worse, worked in it, and the hype is making my patience wear thin. It's the weather, any changes in climate are gradual - if any - and the constant drivel about anthropogenic climate change is becoming something that makes me want to throw a shoe at the television. Enough already. All the predictions have been wrong, and the hype is ridiculous.