Well, it’s the depth of winter now isn’t it?
A common enough expression heard often out on the prairies of North America. There is no question about it, dealing with -40 temps overnight and -30 during the daytime is hard on everything, man, beast and machinery. Machinery takes a terrible beating in such weather and must be plugged in with block heaters for even a chance of starting. Of course a heated shop large enough for all machinery is the desired goal but practically you are looking at very significant building costs.
More than a few farmers and ranchers are surprised when they go out to inspect their herd in the morning and find that a herd deer have moved in and are sharing the feed and bedding of the cattle. Both parties are quite comfortable with the arrangement being fellow creatures of wildlife united against the freezing cold and as soon as the weather breaks and warms up the deer are off on their way.
I have a wry smile when I read or hear discussions on should you let a cold engine idle. Cold is an engine that has its block heater plugged in overnight with electric battery blankets to even get the engine to turn over in the -30 temps. You do not even want to consider how that thick engine oil is not lubricating the engine sufficiently when it first starts. Then if you are successful you let it run for thirty minutes or longer so the heaters will defrost the windows so you can see out. Remember now out on the prairies a round trip of one hundred to two hundred miles or more is common just to get groceries and machinery parts. There is no quick start and go in the cold weather people. That’s a pipe dream for jungle climates.
D.A.R.I.A. is stunningly beautiful, she is brilliant, she is a hologram, and she is a Sentient Artificial Intelligence computer program who considers herself female!
Matt is looking for a partner that can watch his back during his Bounty Hunter endeavors. It never occurred to him that his partner might be a female Artificial Intelligence system.
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I know a lad who gets up at 5:30am in the winter, has breakfast and drives over an hour to work. Gets in his snowplow and plows snow all day and often to 9:00pm in the evening when they have been having a lot of snow and wind. Then drives over an hour home eats supper and collapses in bed to get enough energy to do it all again the next day. Oh and did I mention it is a seven day a week job? You want to earn the big-boy bucks you gotta do the big-boy work and hours. Not a lot of folks want to do that kind of work anymore.
Now I must confess as I become wiser (older) I find that winter is of less and less interest to me and as the winter temps drop my interest in my library increase accordingly.
So in between shoveling the driveway and taking the dogs for a walk in the snow I am quite content to spend my time indoors engrossed in a fine book.
And why in the world did Google unplug their quantum computer built around their Willow quantum computer chip? With the billions invested they must have really stubbed their toes hard to stop the research, don’t you think?
Best
Martin E. Silenus