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Plausible Nuclear Escalation

Plausible Nuclear Escalation

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In 1983, the movie “The Day After” was broadcast as a made for TV movie. 62% of Americans watched it. It became the highest rated television movie in history – a record it was still holding as of last check in 2009. The film postulates a fictional war between NATO forces and the Warsaw Pact countries that rapidly escalates into a full-scale nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union.

I remember seeing that movie. I was only about 10 years old, and I remember how terrifying it was. I don’t think people born since the 90’s appreciate the fact that whole generations in the 70’s and 80’s grew up with the idea that at any time – even by accident – the whole world could be nuked to the stone age in about 90 minutes. This movie brought the reality of nuclear world war into shocking focus.

Fast forward to 2022, and we are again hearing direct threats of a nuclear war. This video, Plan A, was created by a Princeton team that simulated how easily a conventional NATO conflict could turn into a full-scale nuclear exchange.

What’s frightening is that this very scenario of a NATO-Soviet start of nuclear war was posited in 1982. Fast forward to 2020 when this video was made – long before the 2022 Ukrainian conflict. Yet, we are edging closer and closer to this very scenario today. Still, there are those who have hope for a different outcome while we make every political effort towards peace.

Fr Stu

Fr Stu

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Stu Long was a classmate of mine during seminary days at Mt Angel. His story was like the story of many of other seminarians – people that you might never have expected being calling to discern the priesthood. His story, however, was more unique than most – and his path certainly more twisty. His life has now become a movie by Mark Wahlberg.

After having seen the movie, I can say that it’s about as accurate as one could fit in 2 hours. They combined a lot of real life people into a few characters for simplicity – but I remember almost all these stories in the movie. I highly recommend going to see it. It’s the very kind of person that God often calls and you might find discerning a call to religious life.

If you’d like to read more about Fr Stu, check out these links:

Here’s a news clip on the movie from a local Helena Montana news report:

And this clip exactly matches a lot of the stories Stu had and as I remembered him

Pullman Mansion in Chicago

Pullman Mansion in Chicago

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Chicago is a city full of amazing architecture – something you don’t see as much on the west coast with it’s more modern buildings. There are some really great Chicago architecture tours by the Chicago Architecture Center if you visit the city.

One such architectural marvel was the Pullman Mansion. The Pullman Mansion was built for George M. Pullman on Prairie Avenue and was known as the social center in Chicago for over 50 years. When the area surrounding the mansion became blighted in the 1920s, the Pullman family auctioned all the contents in 1921 and demolish the home.

At the sale, everything was sold – not just furnishings and art, but also the wall panels and decorative interiors. Everything that could be pried loose was sold.

In 1984, architect Michael Shymanski made a discovery in the basement of the old Chicago Historical Society Building that shed light on the Pullman mansion. He found a whole pile of pieces from the old Pullman home – along with the original construction plans. It turns out that the craftsman who built the home had numbered and labeled each of the pieces during fabrication (something very common for the time). It was possible to know exactly where each piece came from.

This video is one of the best put together documentaries about how the house was put together and what it looked like. Definitely worth a look if you like Chicago architecture.

Les Mystères de la Passion, de la Résurrection et de l’Ascension du Christ

Les Mystères de la Passion, de la Résurrection et de l’Ascension du Christ

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For Christians, we are about to enter the mysteries of Holy Week. Christ enters Jerusalem, is crucified by the temple leaders, and then rises from the dead – an act which opens the gates of eternal life for humanity. There is so much going on in such a few short days, one can barely keep up with it all. It’s no wonder the different events of Holy Week have been the subject of countless masterpieces over time.

On my first trip to Paris, I did the tourist things like visiting the Louvre and saw the Mona Lisa. But what’s much more interesting is that when I left the hall, I saw a painting that captivated me far more than fair Lisa. A painting by Antonio Campi called The Mystery of the Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension of Christ (1569).

Click the image below to see a full-sized scan (4018×3212 px (4,9 Mb))

What is fascinating about it is that the more you look at it, you see all the events of Holy Week until the Ascension of Christ in one picture. I spent a lot of time looking at it and finding all the different parts. There is so much detail in this one giant painting! Just some of the events are:

  • Meeting of the women while carrying the cross
  • Jesus is stripped and his garments nailed to the cross
  • Soldiers throwing lots for his garments
  • Crucifixion with the 2 thieves at Gogatha
  • Removal of the body from the cross by Joseph
  • Wrapping in burial cloth
  • Burial in the tomb
  • The Harrowing of Hell
  • Resurrection and frightening of Roman guards
  • Apostles finding the tomb empty
  • Mary encounters Jesus in the garden
  • The appearance on the Road to Emmaus
  • Thomas places his hand in the wounds of Christ
  • Jesus meets the apostles fishing and Peter swims to shore
  • Cooking of the fish together
  • Jesus tells Peter to feed his sheep
  • Jesus’ final discourse and ascension into heaven.
  • The descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles

Give this little video clip a watch to see what events you can see.

Links:

Kapla plank tricks

Kapla plank tricks

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Similar to dominos, Kapla are long thin planks you can use for building things – and set up to fall over like dominos. I was really impressed – especially the sequence right around 0:12 in which there are multiple back and forth movements using the same planks. Crazy!

Luck

Luck

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“I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more of it I seem to have.”

I have found this quote to be very true. We don’t exactly make our luck, but we certainly can help or hinder it.

Running Windows 1.01 and old versions of DOS

Running Windows 1.01 and old versions of DOS

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I learned to program back on an old TRS-80 Model III computer as a kid. Long before Windows and even DOS, most home computers required you type in programs or load them from cassette tapes. If you were really rich, you might afford a floppy drive, but that was an expensive luxury I never had. My next computer was an IBM XT, and it ran the advanced and stalwart DOS 3.30 – which was dramatically better.

Running those old operating systems today requires you either buy one of those old systems and keep it running, or you have to emulate them. You can easily emulate DOS 3.3 and Windows 3.0 and higher on VMWare or Virtualbox, but going earlier than doesn’t seem to be supported anymore.

Enter 86Box – an emulator that lets you emulate REALLY old machines. In fact, I was able to get Dos 3.2 running Windows 1.0.

Here’s what you’ll need:

Part 1 – 86Box Setup

  1. Download 86Box and install it (source is on github).
  2. Download the latest romset and put it in the directory for 86Box called roms\
  3. Download DOS 3.2 image disks here.
  4. Download Windows 1.01 image disks here.
  5. [For later fun: download any of the other amazing images on the parent page]
  6. Start 86Box and set up 86Box by selecting Tools->Settings from the top menu, and set the system up with the following settings.

Part 2: DOS 3.2 and Windows 1.01 install

  1. Start up the 86Box.
  2. Set Media->Floppy 1 to disk01.img, then issue a ‘CTRL-ALT-DEL’ to reset it. The system should start up and boot to the dos 3.20 floppy drive
  1. Run ‘fdisk’ and it should detect your hard drive. You’ll need to create a partition to set up the hard drive.
  1. Reboot and boot from the DOS 3.20 disk again.
  2. Format the hard drive by using ‘format c: /s’
  3. Set Media->Floppy 1 to ‘DISK1-SETUP.IMG’ from the Windows 1.01 (5.25)
  4. [optional] type ‘set prompt=$p$g’ if you want to see your full path in the command prompt
  5. Run ‘setup’ from a: and follow the instructions to install Windows 1.01 on C:. Change the disks when prompted by selecting Media->Floppy 1 and setting it to each of the floppy disks for the Windows setup until it’s completed.
  6. type ‘C:’ to switch to the hard drive
  7. ‘cd \windows’
  8. ‘win’ to start windows
  9. Voila!
How to buy video cards, PS5’s, Xbox, DDR5, and not pay scalper prices

How to buy video cards, PS5’s, Xbox, DDR5, and not pay scalper prices

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For well over 2 years, it’s been nearly impossible to buy graphics cards, PS5’s, Xbox’s, and more recently, DDR5. Some of this is attributable to the rise of crypto-currency mining, new technologies coming to market, chip shortages, labor shortages, and a host of other possibilities. But no matter how you slice it, scalpers are buying these up using automated scan and purchase bots. They can often sell these items at double the retail price. And as long as that continues, we can expect to get gouged and have shortages.

There is some hope however.

Queues and purchase opportunity drawings – check your favorite product websites. Many of them are trying to make things more fair

  • EVGA has created its Queue system in which users can sign up for a small number of graphics cards they want – and then get 24 hours to buy when they come up in the queue. I did this in 2021, and after about 8 months my number came up to buy a nVidia 3090. The rules for the queue have changed several times, so be sure to read them before registering for the cards you want.
  • Newegg now has a daily Newegg Shuffle in which they sell very hard to find items. I bought some DDR5 this way after a lot of trying every day. It took about 2 month of daily attempts to win a chance to buy some DDR5. Unfortunately, they are now bundling many of their offerings with really overpriced additional components (graphics cards with $100 power supplies) – so be sure to check the resell value of the bundled items before buying. Many are grossly overpriced to the point of negating the whole deal. And no, you can’t return just the item you don’t want later for a refund.
  • Sony has a registration system to

Stock Trackers – There are Youtube, Twitch, and Discord channels that constantly check and notify you of items in stock. Here’s some examples of the countless ones out there:

Stock Tracking Services – Just as scalpers are using bots to immediately detect desirable items being in stock and snatch them up, there are companies now providing this as a service.

Retail locations:

  • BestBuy has been one of the best retailers for getting graphics cards in stock. They have also done customers a huge favor by the website notifying you that a graphic card is in stock, but you must go in person to order and pick it up. While this seems inconvenient, this keeps the bots and auto-buyers from just snatching everything in your area up automatically.
  • Walmart Plus gives the first opportunity to buy Playstations/Xboxes to their Plus subscribers. I purchased my PS5 this way. But you have to be there right when the ordering opens. Within 5 minutes the stock sold out.