View From The Porch

Friday, January 30, 2026

Thursday, January 29, 2026

We’re stuck in an extended cold spell largely because of all snow to the south and west of us.

A couple days of southwesterly wind is what usually snaps us out of these, but wind out of TX/OK/AR is blowing across hundreds of miles of snow covered ground. Until they thaw, we aren’t going to get above freezing.

Depending on whose forecast you believe, it may be as late as next weekend before any of this starts to melt.

Wednesday, January 28, 2026

One thing I would not have predicted...

When I was five years old, if you told me that my opinions on Spaghetti-O's (actually Chef Boyardee products in general) and naps would swap places entirely, I would have thought you were fibbing.

These days, I'm a big fan of naps and not so much so with the Spaghetti-O's.

Meme Dump from the Frozen Wastes!

Tuesday, January 27, 2026

"At least it's an ethos..."

Employees at the surveillance company Palantir are apparently uneasy about one of the company's high profile clients:

In a Saturday thread on Slack discussing Pretti’s killing, Palantir workers questioned both the ethics and the business logic of continuing the company’s work with ICE.

I mean, given the company's entire portfolio is creepy-ass panopticon data mining stuff, it feels a little weird that this is the bridge too far.

“I mean, I’m proud to serve the White Hand,” said Ugluk the Uruk Hai, “The pay’s good and we get double rations of hafling tenderloin on Fridays, but nobody said anything about doing contract work for Sauron.”

It snowed some...

Fresh Market had cleared their lot and the surrounding sidewalks as best as they could, but temps in the low single digits really reduce the effectiveness of brine pretreatment and salt applied post-plowing.

I'd say that probably 70-80% of people had made at least a good faith effort at clearing their walks. Pretty decent, considering the volume of snow. If you don't want to shovel walks, why pay extra to live in a neighborhood where walkability is one of the main attractions? "We live in a society" and all that.