Cap'n Bob & the Damsel

Technobabble

2026 Autumnal Equinox

Happy Autumnal Equinox!

Astronomical autumn begins at 00:05 UTC on Wednesday, September 23, 2026 — that’s 5:05 p.m. Mountain Standard Time on Tuesday, September 22 here in Arizona. As you may know, most of Arizona stays on MST year around. Some of the reservations still do DST.

May this fall find y’all to be happy and healthy as we transition to our cooler months. God bless and stay armed, stay safe and stay alert.

Cap’n Bob and Damsel. 💖💖

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
—2 Corinthians 13:14

22 Sep 2026 by Arizona Environment Technobabble 0

Artificial Intelligence and
 the Resistance Thereto

Now that researchers in the US have made significant advances in Artificial Intelligence, there are hysterical cries about AI “destroying humanity.” What’s up with all of the crazy predictions?

The short version: most of those predictions are not about today’s chatbots turning into Skynet next Tuesday. They are about a hypothetical later system—something much more capable and autonomous than current models—getting goals that don’t stay lined up with human survival, then being competent enough to act on them. That idea is old, loud, and wildly contested.

As you might expect, the loudest opposition to AI is from the political left, who seem to want to destroy everything that President Trump is for. Moreover, they seem to want to destroy America, the Constitution, Christianity, the Family Unit and anything else that is normal and good about the country, AI destroying us is just the latest bullshit scam akin to Y2K, Covid19, etc.

Be sure to get out and vote this November. Stop the crazies from taking over. Stay armed, watch your six and pray.

Artificial Intelligence – a look into some of the terms being used.

Stage Meaning Status (2026)
ANI — Artificial Narrow Intelligence Good at specific tasks. Can be superhuman at chess, translation, or protein folding and still helpless outside that box. This is almost everything deployed today.
AGI — Artificial General Intelligence Roughly human-level across most cognitive work: learn new domains, transfer skills, handle messy real-world tasks. Contested. Some lab leaders say “we’re there or close.” Most researchers and independent tests say not yet.
ASI — Artificial Superintelligence Clearly beyond the best humans, and in stronger definitions beyond large teams of experts, across nearly all mental work. Still hypothetical.

Clickable image above from ChatGPT. Table from Grok.

And this from Cartoonist Gary Varvel:

15 Sep 2026 by Cyberspace Notions Technobabble Whacko Politics 0

New Mouse Pad

The old one was getting worn out so I replaced it with this one. Most armed patriots have the words pictured above committed to memory, but it’s nice to see them in the mouse pad format.

The old pad had a different message: I AM A VETERAN — MY OATH NEVER EXPIRES. It also had an image of an American Flag with silhouettes of several armed combat soldiers overlaid on the flag.

I thought about sending a couple of these 2A mouse pads as gifts to our anti-gun senators here in Arizona, but realized it would be a waste of effort and money. The pad cost about $12 after S&H +tax added.

Scanned image above is clickable.

09 Sep 2026 by Firearms Gun Grabbers Second Amendment Technobabble 0

Squall Line

We were expecting thunderstorms in our Arizona home which prompted me to look at the weather radar on-line. So, I pulled up the area radar and saw that we were likely clear (for the time being) of any serious weather.

As I usually do, I scanned elsewhere in these United States for what else might be going on when I saw this massive squall line over North Dakota extending into Canada in provinces Saskatchewan and Manitoba. It is highly unusual to see a squall line like this in North America. (Clickable) image above is screen capture of an Accuweather radar map of the area. I had a chat with Grok about squall lines in the area:

The most organized feature is the nearly north–south band of stronger echoes (yellows and reds) running through central North Dakota. It stretches from north of Minot, through the Bismarck–Mandan area, and south toward the South Dakota border near Mobridge. That is the classic look of a squall line / QLCS on radar: a relatively narrow, continuous line of thunderstorms rather than scattered individual cells. At the time of the image it was moving generally east.

A second, somewhat more broken area of stronger storms (also showing red cores) sits farther north and east across southeastern Saskatchewan into southwestern Manitoba, near Yorkton, Dauphin, and Brandon. That is the northern extension of the same larger system that produced the earlier severe weather and tornado reports in southern Saskatchewan.
The lighter green areas west of the main line are leftover lighter rain and weaker showers from earlier activity.

NWS Bismarck still had a Severe Thunderstorm Watch in effect until 11 p.m. CDT, and additional warnings were being issued as the line continued east (one around 8 p.m. CDT covered parts of Burleigh and Emmons counties with 60 mph wind gusts). The line was expected to weaken some as it moved into eastern North Dakota later in the evening.

We said a prayer for the people in the area to be granted the mercy of God’s grace. We pray for victims to be safe, sheltered, fed, clothed as required and given the ability to recover. We know that the volunteer organizations will see to their well being in time. Remember to donate to those charities.

30 Aug 2026 by Environment Science Technobabble

Starlink Surprise

I was alerted a couple of days ago by my Starlink App that a “Mesh Node” was trying to connect to the Router. I Had no idea why a mesh node might be trying to connect, so I asked Grok to explain it to me:

A new Starlink mesh node (or extra router used as one) will try to join your network automatically once you power it on. The Starlink app usually shows a “PAIR NEW MESH NODE” (or similar “New Mesh Node(s)”) notification within about 1–2 minutes if everything is working.

Grok then told me how to set up my new mesh node. Problem is that I don’t have a mesh node or anything else like that. Could it be that a neighbor has one?

Yes, it could be a neighbor’s mesh node.

Starlink mesh nodes broadcast a pairing request when they power up (or after a reset). Your app can detect a nearby unpaired node and show the “PAIR NEW MESH NODE” (or “New Mesh Node”) notification even if the hardware isn’t yours. The official Starlink Mesh Installation Guide includes this exact wording on the prompt:

“A new node is attempting to pair with your network. Please reject this request if you don’t own Starlink mesh nodes.”

What to do:

  • Deny / Block / Reject the request in the app. Do not pair it.
  • Check the Network > Nodes section afterward. You should be able to see previously blocked nodes if you need to manage them later.
  • The node will not join your network or use your bandwidth unless you explicitly approve the pairing.

I did as the AI instructed and blocked the node request.

Later, when I took Tucker out for a walk, I noticed someone finishing up installation of a Starlink Antenna on the house about 60 yards to the northwest of here (see the marked clickable image above for the circled locations of the neighbor’s antenna and our antenna).

Grok further instructed me that if I had the mystery node blocked, that I could just ignore it henceforth.

I looked into mesh nodes for possible use as a range extender for our use, but with our current setup, the range limitations for a barefoot Starlink Mini are sufficiently adequate for our needs, both at home and on the road.

22 Aug 2026 by Arizona Cyberspace Notions Technobabble

La Bella Luna

Not quite a full moon tonight, but La Bella Luna (Italian for “the beautiful moon”) was shining at 98 percent of full when I took this (clickable) photo. The official “Strawberry” full moon will be tomorrow afternoon at roughly 5 PM Arizona time. At sunset, if you are able, look to the east and the moonrise should put on a pretty good show.

I took this image using my Canon R10 and a recently acquired 100-400mm zoom lens. I cropped the image a bit to allow the moon to fill the frame. The resolution is good enough to see the craters shadows on the left side while all the remaining albedo appears closely to what the naked eye sees. The lens is only a telephoto and not a telescope, so the image needs a little cropping help to get the moon properly centered and prominently sized in the frame. Again, click to view enlarged.

Image details:

  • Camera: Canon EOS R10
  • Artist: Cap’n Bob [C] All rights reserved
  • Shutter: 1/4000sec
  • Aperture: F8.0
  • Program: Manual Control
  • ISO: 6400
  • Focal Length: 400mm
  • Lens: Canon RF 100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM
28 Jun 2026 by Astronomy Notions Photography Technobabble

R10 Panoramic Mode

Panoramic images have always been an interest of mine. Early on, I used to take a series of adjacent , overlapping images and would “stitch” them together using an old application that did the job. Now, the function has been integrated right into some cameras.

My Kodak PixPro FZ152 has a panoramic function, but it can be kind of picky in the stitching process, and frequently will overlap in the wrong places. Maybe that is due to the way I used it, but regardless, it seemed clumsy to me.

I took the panorama above with my Canon EOS R10 in its panoramic mode. It works much better; all I have to do is press the shutter button and hold while I smoothly pan from left to right (optionally the other way too) to get what my eye perceives as a smooth and seamless image. Click on the image and pan using the image viewer scroll bar at the bottom.

I took the image from our courtyard looking west; the image spans the west leg of the RV drive sweeping from the road across the west cactus and rock garden, mesquite and paloverde trees, the lemon tree to the back gate of the courtyard.

I will try and get some more interesting panoramas as the opportunities arise.

22 Jun 2026 by Arizona Home & Garden Notions Panorama Photography Technobabble

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