Gold Price Forecasting

This is the price of gold forecast from J.P. Morgan on January 17, 2024:

Infographic depicting gold price forecasts for each quarter of 2024 and 2025.

It has not been below $2000 mid December and the asking price today was briefly over $2100. Via Gold Price Today | Gold Spot Price Charts | APMEX®:

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I’m reminded of Dad and Brother Doug talking to grain buyers about selling crops from the farm. The buyers would explain, in great detail and confidence, why the price would go up/down and encourage the farmers to hold/sell accordingly. Almost without exception you could count on their advice being exactly backward to the best interests of the farmer.

They Didn’t Test Barb

Quote of the Day

The recent experiment was conducted by Laura Battistel and involved four climate chambers with temperature control set between 23 and 25 degrees Celsius. The study included twenty-six participants, comprising an equal number of 13 men and 13 women. These volunteers were tasked with comparing pairs of chambers by moving between them and then determining which chamber felt warmer and which felt colder.

Each person made 120 comparisons between pairs of rooms, resulting in a total of 3120 comparisons. Analysis of the data revealed an average threshold for perception of temperature differences of 0.92 degrees Celsius. Moreover, all the participants showed very similar temperature sensitivity. “This indicates that this may be an inherent characteristic of our species,” Battistel says. “We are all endowed with a pronounced sensitivity to environmental temperature, although we are not aware of it.”

Eurac Research
February 2, 2024
New Research Reveals That Humans Are Much More Sensitive to Temperatures Than Previously Thought (scitechdaily.com)

This comes as zero surprise to me. Barb and I joke about her temperature comfort range being plus or minus 0.1 F. While that is a joke it is probably about plus or minus 1 F. I’m guessing her detection range is approaching 0.1 F.

Oh, and Barb and I are very aware of our temperature sensing abilities.

I’m Going to Live Forever or Die Trying

Quote of the Day

The exposure-response relationship suggested that consuming around 3 cups of tea or 6–8 g of tea leaves per day may offer the most evident anti-aging benefits.

Yi Xiang, Hao Xu, Hongxiang Chen, Dan Tang, Zitong Huang, Yuan Zhang, Zhenghong Wang, Ziyun Wang, Yangla, Mingming Han, Jianzhong Yin, Xiong Xiao, Xing Zhao,
November 21, 2023
Tea consumption and attenuation of biological aging: a longitudinal analysis from two cohort studies

See also Drinking tea every day slows biological aging • Earth.com.

I just increased my tea consumption. It was about half that.

This is just another step in my master plan of living forever or to die trying.

Zuckerberg’s Underground Bunker

Quote of the Day

If anybody has enough money to insulate himself from the damage created for society, it would be Zuck. That’s sort of what it is. He’s destroyed the government and society, and now he can go to Hawaii and build a fort.

Douglass Rushkoff
2023
Inside Mark Zuckerberg’s Top-Secret Hawaii Compound

From the same article:

The cost rivals that of the largest private, personal construction projects in human history. Building permits put the price tag for the main construction at around $100 million, in addition to $170 million in land purchases, but this is likely an underestimate.

I wonder why he thinks he needs something like that?

From Zero Hedge’s article on Zuckerberg’s bunker:

Other billionaires, like PayPal and Palantir founder Peter Thiel, have built or been planning doomsday bunkers in remote places worldwide.

There are several reasons why billionaires feel worried about the future and are compelled to build doomsday bunkers, some of which include spillover risks of the Russia-Ukraine war, possible regional conflict in the Middle East, imploding Western cities into crime-ridden hellholes, the surge in illegal migrants across West, deteriorating financial conditions in the West, and the list goes on and on.

My bunker does not compare.

Living in the Future

The Jetson One is supposed to be available for sale next year at a price of just under $100K.

This craft avoids some of the roadblocks of other attempts to get into this (create is probably aa better term) market because it is classified as an ultralight.

The specs on the current version indicate it could carry me but not if I had a small bag of groceries with me.

The payload would have to at least 50% more and the cost reduced by a factor of four before I would give it serious consideration, but it would be very handy for a quick trip to and from town at my place in Idaho. Because of the long and winding road into the nearest town it takes 30 minute of driving time. It is less than eight miles as a VTOL would fly. That translates into eight to ten minutes instead of the 30 minutes driving time. And when the roads are hazardous because of snow and ice, this would save even more time and might even be safer.

The flight time without a recharge is 20 minutes so the trip into town would be at the edge of its range for a round trip. Still, that is very cool.

I’ve been causally looking at personal affordable VTOL craft for at least 35 years now. There have lots of promises and nothing of substance.

No Thank You

Barb and I like to hike. Mountains are far more interesting that deserts, forests, and lowland trails. Mount Rainer, Yosemite, and Glacier National Parks are at the top of the list for us.

I stumbled across this and immediately eliminated any and all desire to try the big one. Even if I were to be rejuvenated to a state several decades younger and I had excess money to spend on the adventure the answer to an invitation would be a very firm, “No thank you.”:

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Fallout Shelters

I stumbled across some interesting facts on fallout shelters (emphasis added):

The former Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries often designed their underground mass-transit and subway tunnels to serve as bomb and fallout shelters in the event of an attack. Currently, the deepest subway line in the world is situated in St Petersburg in Russia, with an average depth of 60 meters, while the deepest subway station is Arsenalna in Kyiv, at 105.5 meters.[14]

Germany has protected shelters for 3% of its population, Austria for 30%, Finland for 70%, Sweden for 81%,[15] and Switzerland for 114%.

Switzerland built an extensive network of fallout shelters, not only through extra hardening of government buildings such as schools, but also through a building regulation requiring nuclear shelters in residential buildings since the 1960s (the first legal basis in this sense dates from 4 October 1963).[24] Later, the law ensured that all residential buildings built after 1978 contained a nuclear shelter able to withstand a blast from a 12-megaton explosion at a distance of 700 metres.

Those Swiss! See also:

Blue Lagoon

Speaking of volcanos…

In September of 2022 Barb and I visited the Blue Lagoon in Iceland. Ten days ago, on November 9th, it was closed due to an impending volcanic eruptions. It will remain closed until at least November 30th. And if it gets damaged by the eruption who knows how long until it opens, if ever. I’m glad we got to visit before the eruption.

It is a major tourist attraction. Barb and I probably spent an hour soaking and swimming in the water. It was nice with stunning views, but it didn’t take too long before we got bored. Of course it probably would be more interesting if you were staying there and enjoying the restaurants, all the spa amenities, and the Norther Lights were visible.

I didn’t take any pictures from the swimsuit area but here are a few from the area near the parking lot:

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Mount Etna

As I previously said Barb and I went on a long vacation to see some things before they are gone. Little did I know Mount Etna would erupt shortly after we visited. We were there on October 27th. It erupted just 16 days later on November 12th.

The view and scenery was nice, walking into a crater was interesting, but the wind was blowing really hard. I estimated it was between 50 and 60 MPH. We had to really lean into the wind and wear protective clothing. The wind was blowing hard enough to put rocks into our shoes.

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Radiation Exposure From a Nuclear Attack

Quote of the Day

About 300 million people in the United States would be put at risk of death from exposure to radioactive fallout in the four days following a nuclear attack, according to a new report that models the possible effects of such a grim event. If the US is attacked with nuclear weapons , an adversary would most likely concentrate all fire on the country’s intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch facilities (silos). Any retaliatory attack from the US would come from these silos, located in Colorado , Montana , Nebraska , North Dakota , and Wyoming – and taking them out would be an enemy’s first priority.

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Kevin OReilly
November 16, 2023
Report: Nuclear war in US would wipe out 90 percent of the population

The quote is deceptive and the article title is a lie. The quote can be interpreted to mean it is likely or even certain to kill 300 million people in the U.S..  If you read it carefully you will realize this is a worst case scenario for each area of the country. In reality the worst case would be for a much smaller area:

Using weather patterns recorded through 2021, scientists simulated the aftereffects of an 800-kiloton warhead hitting every one of the 450 silos at once to cripple the US arsenal. First, they mapped how wind patterns would have carried the fallout on each day of 2021.

For the map above, they recorded the worst possible outcome for each location. In this scenario, three million people living in communities around the silos would risk receiving eight grays (Gy) of radiation in the four days following the attack, resulting in certain death – one Gy is enough to cause radiation sickness.

The information above is for radioactive fallout. This is most severe from ground bursts. Nuking population centers and military bases would probably be done via air bursts which produce far less fallout while incinerating and a shock wave destroying almost everything within miles.

Still, a rule of thumb to keep in mind is that three feet of dirt will reduce the radiation by a factor of 1,000.

I want my underground bunker in Idaho.

House Near Boomershoot With a Stunning View

I stumbled across this house for sale a few miles from Boomershoot with a really nice view:

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It is a five bedroom, four bath, 4,044 square foot house going for $899,000.

You should know the road to the driveway is “primitive”. Much of it is single lane and it can be very rough.

I would like to see someone culturally similar to my blog readers get this house rather than some communist from California, Oregon, or Washington.

You CAN Survive a Nuke Attack

Quote of the Day

You CAN survive a nuke attack … but you MUST make an effort to learn what to do! By learning about potential threats, we are all better prepared to know how to react if something happens.

Janet Liebsch
February 27, 2022
HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM NUCLEAR FALLOUT (TIPS ABOUT RADIATION, BUILDING AN EXPEDIENT SHELTER AND MORE)

The almost offhand post the other day about a Geiger counter had so many comments that I thought I would do a little more research on the topic.

The linked article above is pretty good stuff. It gives you the basics of the various types of threats such as initial blast and radiation, fallout radiation, and types of radiation (alpha, beta, gamma). Then it goes into types of shelters including how to make an expedient shelter.

If you are thinking of building an underground bunker then these have more detailed information:

The bottom line is:

To survive a nuclear blast, you would need to be at least 3 feet deep underground. Also, you need to be at least 36 inches of concrete or tightly-packed dirt to shield you from the blast radius.

There are other options to dirt and concrete, but in most cases those would be the cheapest.

To figure out the blast radius for the targets nearest to your bunker read Are You Living in a Nuclear Death Zone? Find Out with the U.S. Nuclear Target Map and use this nuke map.

The article also includes this image of the supposed Primary target locations for Soviet nuclear strikes during 1980s:

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I am more than a bit skeptical because, while I can understand Boomershoot being a primary target, Boomershoot didn’t even exist until 1998.

Overheard

Last Thursday, Mike B. was in the neighborhood and stopped by for a visit. We were talking about various threats to the social order. He mentioned EMPs were of concern to him. I mentioned another plague, the high crime rates of Seattle and other big cities, nuclear fallout, …
Mike: Kerry (mutual acquaintance and head of a university chemistry department) is the only person I know who owns a Geiger counter.
Joe: [gets up from his chair, opens the cupboard above Mike’s head, pulls out a box, and shows Mike a Geiger counter].
Mike: Okay. Two people.

Idaho Sunsets

It seems I see the most incredible sunsets and sunrises in Idaho.

Last night I climbed to the top of a pile of dirt near my gun range and took some pictures of the sunset.

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I sent the first one to Barb and she replied with one she had taken the evening before from the driveway to the gun range which is a 100 feet or so away from where I took mine:

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She wins.

Tolmie Peak Lookout

Barb and I visited Tolmie Peak Lookout six years ago. Yesterday, we hiked up there again. We left a little after 6:00 AM and arrived at the trailhead at about 8:00 AM. The last 19 miles were gravel with “high clearance vehicles recommended.” The speed limit was 25 MPH, but in places, I thought 15 MPH was plenty fast.
The sign at the trailhead said 5.8 miles round trip. They lied. My GPS step tracker said it was 3.47 one way.

The first part of the trail was really nice. It got a little more difficult in places. But it’s not so bad that we really complained about it. We knew the reward at the end would be well worth it.
Down toward the trailhead:

And on and up to the lookout:



We started out at just over 5,000’ elevation. This is the sign at Eunice Lake

The lookout is at 5,935.
Near Eunice Lake, we were swarmed with mosquitos. We applied insect repellant, but it was far from completely effective. Barb described it as her being their buffet.
This is Eunice Lake with the lookout on the skyline just right of center:

About halfway up the hill from the lake, we saw Mount Rainer to the Southeast. No matter how many times we have seen it, it never fails to impress us. This is from more than nine miles from the peak with a cell phone camera. The peak is nearly 9,000 feet above us.

To the Northwest was a valley filled with a river of fog.

We arrived at the lookout just before 10:00.

The lookout isn’t particularly special compared to many other lookouts. But the view is very special.

It is hard to capture it with a cellphone camera, but this is a very round valley carved by a glacier.

Last time, Barb got uncomfortable with the trail beyond the lookout. I turned around to stay with her. This time, I went on without her. I after traversing this section of the “trail” I stopped and reevaluated my life choices.

I had gone further than last time, but I didn’t see the risk/reward benefit analysis being all that favorable. This was the view forward shortly before I turned back.

Lake Twenty Two

On July 4th Barb and I hiked to Lake Twenty Two in the North Cascades.

We arrived at the trailhead by 8:20 and found the parking lot full. A couple hundreds yards down the road the day use picnic area had one spot we could squeeze the car into.

The trail is claimed to be 5.4 miles roundtrip and has a difficulty of “moderate”. They lie.

My GPS tracking app says it is 3.3 miles one way. Had the trail been on even ground instead of random sized, irregular shaped, rocks half of the distance we would have granted it a moderate classification. The constant attention required to our footing and the work to keep our balance make it above what we considered “moderate” difficulty.

That said, it was a very nice mountain lake with waterfalls and snow:

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