Logos con carne

October 28, 2026

Bitter Battle with BofA

After 26 years as a good and fully satisfied customer I find myself caught in an extended ‘he said; she said’ back-and-forth battle with Bank of America. Though it’s not what he (let alone she) said, but what they claim I did despite clear and obvious evidence I didn’t. In fact, couldn’t have.

What’s aggravating is that the investigators don’t appear to be actually investigating. They won’t contact me or the merchant, so I’m not sure quite what they’re investigating.

This has been going on all summer, since late May…

11 Comments | tags: Bank of America, credit cards | posted in Life, The Interweb, Wednesday Wow

October 27, 2026

Only Two Left

By Wyrd Smythe

With the passing of Walter Koenig yesterday, memes like this have been making the rounds:

I made the one above from a good quality photo, but I don’t like how Uhura is hidden behind Spock. For that matter, can’t see much of Chekov, either. So, I made another one from a different photo:

Though this photo isn’t as good as the first one.

10 Comments | tags: Captain Kirk, Dr. McCoy, Mr. Spock, Pavel Chekov, Scotty, Star Trek, Walter Koenig | posted in TV Tuesday

October 26, 2026

21-Kiloton Paperclip

By Wyrd Smythe

Physics geeks are quite familiar with the implications of Einstein’s famous equation, E=mc². Firstly, that energy and matter are different guises of the same thing. Secondly, that the conversion rate between them is astronomical.

To kick off the week, let’s explore that well known equation and its astonishing conversion rate of matter to energy.

4 Comments | tags: atomic bombs, E=mc2, Joule, mass-energy | posted in Physics

October 24, 2026

Sci-Fi Saturday 10/24/26

By Wyrd Smythe

I’ve been up to no good lately — if by “no good” we mean reading and watching science fiction. That bad behavior has been a constant all my life. It began in early grade school when I started picking my own reading material.

Prominent in the very first SF books I ever read is the Lucky Starr series, by Isaac Asimov (writing as “Paul French”). The books were written for a juvenile audience, and I was exactly that audience.

Just recently, two of the six novels showed up as e-books at my local library. Nicely, one of the two is the first of the series, and I’m reading it now.

20 Comments | tags: Andy Weir, Daniel Wilson, Isaac Asimov, John Scalzi, Lucky Starr, Matt Dinniman | posted in Books, Sci-Fi Saturday

October 23, 2026

BB #96: Connoisseur vs Gourmet

By Wyrd Smythe

Contrary to the saying, this old dog learned a new trick recently.

Or rather, this old dog learned he’d been doing the trick wrong all these years and finally learned how it’s supposed to be done.

Learning an error of my ways is good but here I lose a distinction I’ve long enjoyed making between a connoisseur and a gourmet.

6 Comments | tags: words, geeks-nerds, definitions, parameter space | posted in Brain Bubble

October 22, 2026

The Missing $10

By Wyrd Smythe

This old gag caught my eye recently:

As usual in these cases, it’s a trick question.

5 Comments | tags: fun with numbers, math fun | posted in Math

October 16, 2026

Weather Notes (10/16/26)

By Wyrd Smythe

It occurs to me that the date format used in the title can be ambiguous. It’s certainly a local format. The longer form used for Friday Notes, (e.g. Oct 16, 2026), is specific but makes post titles longer than I like. I use the ambiguous form for brevity.

But for the record, throughout this blog, when used, I do mean month/day/year. Which I’ve long thought is an awful format because it doesn’t sort naturally, especially with no leading zeros on single digits. The sortable form is yyyy–mm–dd (with leading zeros on single digits).

But I digress (already!), so without further ado, here’s the local weather:

8 Comments | tags: autumn leaves, Bentley, charts, dew point, trees, weather, Weather Notes | posted in Friday Notes

October 2, 2026

Friday Notes (Oct 2, 2026)

By Wyrd Smythe

I’m off to a late start (it’s nearly noon) starting this early-in-the-month Friday Notes post. The delay is because I spent several hours this morning updating my Movies page (which lists my favorite movies as well as my rating system).

I’m not done updating it; I want to add some lists of films by favorite directors (Wes Anderson, Christopher Guest, Quentin Tarantino). Wikipedia has those lists, of course, but I like having a reference page with links I most care about.

But enough about movies. On to the Notes!

13 Comments | tags: AI, Bentley, fantasy BS, FBS, grammar, Lee Smolin, markdown text, Microsoft Windows | posted in Friday Notes

September 22, 2026

The SAD Season

By Wyrd Smythe

It’s that time again:

The Autumnal Equinox, the gateway to the coming winter.

6 Comments | tags: autumnal equinox, Bentley | posted in Life

September 18, 2026

Weather Notes (9/18/26)

By Wyrd Smythe

For a bit over a year now, I’ve included various monthly weather charts and observations in the Friday Notes posts. In some cases, those sections were lengthy enough to call for their own posts. (Which would also keep those not caring about my local weather out of said weather.)

Therefore, as of today, a new Weather Notes subdivision of Friday Notes (similar to the Science Notes subdivision established two years ago). Easy now to ignore if so inclined.

And now, the weather…

6 Comments | tags: dew point, Minnesota, rain, temperature, weather, Weather Notes, xkcd | posted in Friday Notes