I Guess You Can Mess With Texas

Power failure! Mother Nature 1,Texas 0.

Long term investment in winterization prep seems to be the problem.

Its one thing when an ice storm hits Atlanta and we all learn they have less salt and plows on hand then Buffalo.

But Texas is going to have to dial it up after this. The last Epic Fail was 2011 and there have been others.

By Eerie Coincidence, geothermal power was in the news yesterday:

Chevron and BP back renewable start-up focused on geothermal energy

When last I waxed enthusiastic on geothermal in 2009 there were earthquake issues causing PR problems.

This startup, Eavor Technologies, has an ingenious closed loop system that sidesteps all of that. Basically, they leverage drilling technigues developed by the frackers to lay pipe deep underground with flow like a radiator. Water gets heated underground, rises up the intake pipe, passes heat to a heat exchanger which powers a turbine, and, having been cooled, flows down the, well, down pipe.

David Roberts, formerly of Vox, ran an extensive overview last fall. The eye-catching stat:

The ARPA-E project AltaRock Energy estimates that “just 0.1% of the heat content of Earth could supply humanity’s total energy needs for 2 million years.” 

Clean, green baseload power potentially available anywhere. A BFD.

Also investing: The Breakthrough Energy Ventures fund backed by Gates, Bezos, and wealthy investors who can toss the odd billion at wild tech which may never pay off.

Tine will tell, and maybe not that much time. Deeper drills are hotter, and potentially cheaper than any other baseload power system. YES, including natural gas plants. We need advances in materials technology. On the other hand, this looks more do-able than nuclear fusion the other Eternal Product of Tomorrow.

Comments

[Neo]

Blinded me with science

Modified RNA has a direct effect on DNA
https://phys.org/news/2020-01-rna-effect-dna.html

[Neo]

(CNN)New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been pleading with lawmakers for support and even threatening political retribution against Democrats who have criticized him in an aggressive effort to contain political fallout from revelations that his administration had concealed the full extent of nursing home-related deaths during the Covid pandemic.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/17/politics/cuomo-ron-kim-nursing-home/index.html

[Narciso]

Oh

https://mobile.twitter.com/seanmdav/status/1362140228543258624

[Narciso]

Never mind

https://mobile.twitter.com/TheologyJeremy/status/1362120979942498304

[Narciso]

How does that work

https://mobile.twitter.com/I_Katchanovski/status/1361676491667423233

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

I guess we're going with this thread;
--“just 0.1% of the heat content of Earth could supply humanity’s total energy needs for 2 million years.”--

This may or may not be a useful, profitable technology but "eye catching" is not the term for a pointless hyperbolic statement like the above. That's like the claims for how much energy the sun deposits on earth's surface each day.
We cannot tap .1% of the earth's heat content or even a meaningful fraction of .1% of it anymore than we can or should want to coat the surface of the earth with solar panels.
If we had any damned brains or weren't under the spell of prog imbeciles we would build whatever is the cheapest energy source and enjoy the benefits of it, including a greening, wetter planet if one of the cheap source's side effects was increased CO2.

[Jane]

So what happened to where I just posted? How rude!

[Melinda]

Back to the old Double Post game are you, TM?

[Pinandpuller]

And so it begins:

BREAKING: Pastor James Coates of GraceLife Church of Edmonton was just carried off to jail in hand and ankle cuffs. The condition of his release is that he cannot preach. His wife/kids are not allowed to see him.

The 1st Canadian pastor to be jailed for holding a church service

https://twitter.com/theologyjeremy/status/1362120979942498304?s=21

[Kathryn Anne]

Pin:
In the future he will be able to sue the Canadian government for false arrest.
This is outrageous!

[Melinda]

DJT on OANN, NewsMax AND Hannity, tonight.

[GUS]

Maguire is a BIDEN MAN!!!!!

[Jane]

I had a long talk with my kids about moving to freedom. Their oldest, at 6, in private school is already being taught thr liberal BS. Love where the live and have talked with similar thinking neighbors about starting a “pod” to teach their kids. I warned them that that isn’t enough if they are surrounded by the liberal mindset. I hope it sinks in - and the threat is real.

[GUS]

Anyone see the video of RUSH LIMBAUGH getting the medal of Freedom from Melania Trump.
Pence and DJT are standing, clapping and smiling.

The dirty bitch is sitting and ignoring.
Pelosi is a dirty dried up tumbleweed.

[henry]

If fracking causes earthquakes, fracking up an underground radiator causes moar earthquakes. Just put a quarter in the motel 6 bed if you want to shake a while.

[henry]

Just wait until the fed $15 min wage hits...

https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/kroger-closes-more-grocery-stores-over-hazard-pay-laws

[henry]

Shemp, so who knows?

@thenewsoncnbc

The Texas Governor Greg Abbott is taking an extraordinary step. He is banning the export of natural gas to other states.
CNBC's @SullyCNBC has the story.

[Narciso]

The house that buckley built

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/02/rushs-place/

[Melinda]

Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸
@JackPosobiec
BREAKING: FBI, U.S. attorney in Brooklyn investigating Cuomo administration nursing home deaths
timesunion.com/news/article/c…

https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1362204904291528706

[Narciso]

Ah not sdny because strauss is de rosas mother in law.

[Jane]

I’m very very sad about Rush. Somebody here recently said he was a has-been. He never has, and never will be a has been.

[MissMarple2]

I am sad, too. I listened to him whenever I could - in the car, at home on days off, reruns late at night.

He bolstered my confidence in my thinking.

God bless him.

[matt - deplore me if you must]

Just another dick ar NR. The Democrats have been down in the gutter since Jefferson. One of the real eye openers for a lot of folks in Gangs of New York was the illustration of the rough and violent politics in the big cities that continues to a lesser extent to this day.

Rush didn't sink that low, but he was a harpoon in their blubber and fought backing their own tactics. Before Rush you had Main Street Republicans and the Country Club set and a vast silent majority who were often asleep. After we have a much more diverse base.

The Republican leadership still hasn't glommed onto that fact.The patricians in the senate and a large number of hucksters in the House just don't seem to get the existential crisis we are in.

As the left waves the bloody shirt they twiddle their thumbs. trump is a street fighter and more power to him. We need more like him. Sometimes it really is necessary to just tell the Pelosis of the world that they a just f'ing nuts to their faces and paint the Schumers and Schiff and Nadlers as the slime they are. If it walks like a BLM and acts like a BLM it's a BLM.

Rush had 20 million tuning in daily. We are going to need someone to take his place. No one will ever fill his shoes, but we desperately need a happy warrior to proclaim loudly the Left's lies and say the emperor has no clothes.

[Art in Newport]

I was a long-time listener to Rush.

His show was informative, educational, and entertaining. And the first that I recall thar delivered hard-core mockery of the left.

So long, Rush. Vaya con Dios.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

OK, people; pick one and stick with it.
I'm confused enough as it is in my natural state.

[sbwaters]

I always go with the latest and greatest thread.

[Narciso]

One of dough boys fans

https://mobile.twitter.com/Divitissimus

[MissMarple2]

Adam Kredo
@Kredo0

NEW: Ben Rhodes, creator of the Obama Iran 'echo chamber,' claims the "pro-Likud" US media is manipulated by Israel, that Jews use money to threaten/pressure lawmakers into doing their bidding -- "Netanyahu made our lives hell every day that he could"
==========================================
Anti-Semitism on full display. Wow.

[Narciso]

Ben rhodes was not only english in hebrew and farsi but probably spanish too

[MissMarple2]

Ignatz,

Since this was posted later (by milliseconds) I moved over here and kept a tab open. This is what I am sticking with.

[Stephanie Nene Not Your Normal Granma]

Michael Smith
·
Something to consider - if speech is verbalized thought, then free speech is free thought.

To control speech is to control thought.

When considered in that perspective, the attack on free speech takes on an entirely new significance. This isn't about banning a post, a tweet or a video, this is about the left giving America a lobotomy to cure a hangnail.

[Narciso]

In the 50s and into the china lobby was derided, of course the ones that embraced mao were considered enlightened the exile lobby really came into its own in the 80s after carters stupid attenpt at rapprochement the vietnamese exiles in orange county had less influence.

[Narciso]

What are they using an abacus

https://www.pennlive.com/news/2021/02/pa-discovers-big-covid-19-vaccine-glitch-thousands-of-second-doses-given-out-by-mistake.html

[Narciso]

Yes indeed

https://mobile.twitter.com/LeeSmithDC/status/1362183621457682440

[Narciso]

The late jorge mas canosa was a hate object by the left like scaife then koch and the mercers one of the whelps joe garcia ended up a congress critter for the democrats against top man david rivera (kind of like morning joke without the body count)

[CCGirl]

RIP, Rush.

My condolences, Barbara. For most people this virus is nothing, but for some it’s awful. So sorry.

My mother listened to Rush and so I was somewhat exposed. My best exposure was as a young mother, home alone with the kids. I listened to Rush and Howie Carr every day. It drove my hubs crazy, until he realized that this was my time to meet up with like-minded people. Parenting is great, but it also sucks in the real world. Many young mothers stuck at home liked listening to Rush and the regular voices calling in to the show. (Someone here wondered how so many were home to listen).

[Pinandpuller]

Boy, it’s really coming down. I haven’t seen this much white powder since the contract negotiations for ‘The Stand’.

[sbwaters]

Will Jamie Gorelick also be on Pelosi’s 9/11-type commission to investigate the Capitol dance?

[MissMarple2]

sbwaters,

Nothing would surprise me. That's a name I haven't heard in a while!

Heading to bed. More snow after midnight, another 1-3 inches.

Good night, everyone!

[fdcol63 🇺🇸]

If only we could harness the power of the Bull Shit spewed by politicians and journalists.

Cheap, endless, and renewable energy that is there in all weather.

[Pinandpuller]

Now do “Libertarian”:

“Ignorance is the quality that characterizes an ignoramus...Adding this prefix to the Greek cognate of gno- + the adjective suffix -tik-os results in the source of English agnostic, someone who believes that no one can know whether God exists.”

[Manuel Transmission]

From a friend:

Subject: Is that a Banana in your Republic?

The fence around the the U.S. Capital topped with concertina wire and manned by federalized National Guardsmen from U.S. States tells you that we’ve undergone a bloodless coup in America. Those soldiers and that fencing are not going away.

A free and democratic State doesn’t act like this after a National election. A fairly elected government doesn’t substitute an unprecedented slew of executive edicts for legislation unless it fears The People would not give their consent to be so governed.

Free speech and the freedom to assemble have been circumstantially attenuated. It’s no accident. Your individual liberties contained in the Bill of Rights have been suspended. Political opponents a being purged, silenced and removed. Prove me wrong.

We are no longer “The Home of the Brave” or the symbol of Democracy to the World. The United States of America has become the antithesis of all we were taught it would never be.

I don’t know what is on the horizon, but I do know it won’t be good. Prepare yourselves.

[Pinandpuller]

General Honore is the same guy who oversaw confiscating guns during Hurricane Katrina. Why isn’t he being questioned at Gitmo?

[Pinandpuller]

Whoa, take it easy with the anti-Semitism

*checks notes*

Ben Rhodes!

*Licks fingers, checks notes again*

Jerusalem Post!

https://www.jpost.com/us-elections/us-jews-contribute-half-of-all-donations-to-the-democratic-party-468774

[jim nj]

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/18/australias-treasurer-says-facebook-was-wrong-to-block-news-content.html

Another poor move by Facebook.

The proposed Australian bill to make big tech pay for ripping off Australian media was mostly aimed at Google.

Facebook chose to show it was more powerful than the Australian government.

It's not a good look.
Oh yeah, I got knocked off-line again.

[hoyden]

It will be interesting to see how the Fine Biden Investigators treat Killer Cuomo. Guilty-schmilty. The question is "Be he friend or be he foe?"

[hoyden]

Or the related question, "Be he useful or be he Beyond His Sell-by Date?"

[jim nj]

7-10 days ago I wondered if the Gov. Cuomo nursing home story was a short news-cycle thing, or if it had legs. Boy, does it have legs now.

People are piling on, including democrat state legislators claiming that the governor has threatened them with ruin if they oppose him.

People of his own party are going after him.

[jim nj]

Hi Hoyden,

I didn't see your posts before I posted mine.

Cuomo is in full bully mode according to local TV coverage.

[jim nj]

nytol

[hoyden]

Our first morning above 0F. It's 7F heading for 14 later today. Hasta LA vista, Polar Vortex. Hello Glow Ball Warming.

[anonamom]

Please please, please--anybody who finds themself commenting on the NY/NJ/MI nursing home deaths---it happened in all three of those states--add

"and why did the governor make it illegal to prescribe HCQ???"

They killed tens of thousands more with that move too.

If Janet Dean could make what is happening to Cuomo happen all by herself, we can get that going.

[Jack Lillywhite]

1st question to ask when discussing any energy to electrics is can you baseload it? If so, what are its RAM metrics: Reliability, Availability, Maintainability. Without that consideration you are in a virtual crap soot.

[henry]

Virtual crap shoot? Looks like crap won this round.

[Old Lurker]

Man Tran "...Your individual liberties contained in the Bill of Rights have been suspended. Political opponents a being purged, silenced and removed. Prove me wrong.

We are no longer “The Home of the Brave”

Two comments:

The Founders debated bigly if the Bill of Rights might do more harm than good because by listing that short list, it would lead some to think that that was the entire list of personal liberties whereas their intent was to proclaim that God intended it to be the other way around: Man is totally free and is agreeing to form this government with powers voluntarily and temporarily loaned to the government for specific limited objectives. Now here we are: a majority of people including our leaders fail to understand the underlying concept or the full contract/compact itself, and focus just, ADD like, on erasing one by one a short list of ten things in pursuit of the world they imagine.

My second point about "Land of the Brave" is "Duh". Our population of 325 million is a Bell Curve of all sorts and sadly the hump has shifted well to the left leaving only a tail behind who might rise to the challenges of our parents and grandparents. They exist, sure, but the wagon they must pull is filled to overflowing with fellow travelers who don't want the wagon to go in that direction in the first place.

[Jim Eagle]

For us dog lovers out there, here is the newest chewy toy:)

https://patriotdepot.com/joe-biden-dog-chew-toy/?utm_source=display&utm_medium=conservativetribune&utm_campaign=cttopdt&utm_content=dfpbidenchewtoy

[henry]

When you’ve lost Bill Gates...

@cnbc

Trump probably should be allowed back on social media, Bill Gates says

[Jane]

Morning!

The schools are a huge problem. The indoctrination is constant. Kids are taught to not believe in Freedom. Our country is slipping away.

[MissMarple2]

Trump probably should be allowed back on social media, Bill Gates says

I wonder what THAT is all about.

[MissMarple2]

Bloomberg
@business
·
9m
U.S. life expectancy plunged by a full year in the first half of 2020, the biggest drop since World War II, as the Covid-19 pandemic ravaged the country https://trib.al/QCM5V8Y
=========================================
Quick, quick! Not enough people are taking the vaccine and Trump's still popular! Gin up the fear!

[Narciso]

I think ultimately the fact the creeping ooze has taken over, the kultursmog that tyrell now ignores finally did in Rush, he was around for much of my adult life.

[anonamom]

Why oh why oh why do we keep hearing about what Bill Gates thinks about ANYTHING???

When did he become someone whose opinion I should value?

My long held take on that Aspie, from a far remove:

His computers sucked, and were typically released before they should have been resulting in enormous stress for the buyers. And more expense, always.
He was a ruthless businessman, who screwed people out of what was rightfully theirs.
His business "success" was from killing competition, which often had a far better product.

That dope went into Africa thinking the problem was that the people needed computers.
They needed clean drinking water! (a couple of points for figuring that out.)

And maybe to RELOCATE!

PLease, correct me if I am wrong, and should be looking to him for guidance in my life.

[Narciso]

On of len deighton followup was an exercise in antiameicanism the billion dollar brain it was about a tech billionaire who wanted to spark a war with russia,

[James D.]

amom, I agree.

I'll grant him that he was smart enough to take full advantage of the shortsightness of IBM execs in the early 1980's, but in no way does that qualify him to run the world or tell anybody else how to live.

[Old Lurker]

Bill Gates bought more US Farmland in 2020 than any other individual.

Now in 2021 he wants to change what we eat.

Fool me once...etc.

[MissMarple2]

https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/initial-jobless-claims-unexpectedly-jump-due-surge-il-ca-claimants

[Melinda]

I didn't know Sykes had this much self-interest, but boy has he disproven that for me.

Jay Caruso
@JayCaruso
"I made an effort to talk about issues and struggled to find ways to repackage conservative ideas in fresh terms."

Would that include playing a clip from the, "It’s Free, Swipe Yo EBT!" food stamp parody rap video?

Karen Tumulty @ktumulty
Excellent piece from @SykesCharlie - "The fact is that Limbaugh was fundamentally uninterested in ideas, and by the time he had helped Trump’s improbable rise to the presidency, the host was essentially done with conservatism as a set of principles." washingtonpost.com/opinions/were-…

https://twitter.com/JayCaruso/status/1362398785989709824

[Jane]

https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2021/02/16/cnn-nbc-paid-left-wing-capitol-rioter-35000-each-for-footage-violence/

I assume this has been posted as it’s been out for a couple of days - rioters paid by CNN to go there.

[GUS]

I believe that BILL GATTES and his UGLY WIFE, should be ALLOWED to KISS MY ASS.

[GUS]

Charlie Sykes is also welcome to KISS MY ASS. He's a clown.

[Another Bob]

Old Lurker | February 18, 2021 at 08:46 AM

And Gates wraps talking his book in humanitarianism. Scumbag.

[sbwaters]

@sbwTweet:
#Nonsense! @ktumulty and @SykesCharlie, #RushLimbaugh was uninterested in *your* ideas that were too shallow to be realistic and, once implemented, would cause more problems than they solved.

[Melinda]

This looks like it could get fun:

Facebook 'is taking money from China to promote propaganda denying crimes against humanity targeting Uyghur Muslims'
Facebook is boosting articles downplaying oppression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang

Posts by Beijing mouthpieces are promoted to millions for a few hundred dollars

Facebook - which is banned in China - says ads do not promote political content

Comes as the Silicon Valley giant refuses to pay Australian media companies

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9274135/Facebook-taking-money-China-promote-propaganda-denying-crimes-against-Uyghur-Muslims.html

[Melinda]

At the same time Zuck ducks from this heavy handed play:

Facebook has 'attacked a sovereign nation' and 'shown tech giants think they're bigger than governments': Australian PM's fury after Zuckerberg BLOCKS all news and even COVID public information in fight over paying for content

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9273261/Facebook-news-ban-Australian-PM-says-tech-giants-think-theyre-bigger-governments.html

[Buckeye]

I hope one of these sovereign nations takes Zuckerberg out.

[Len]

OL - "The land of the free and the home of the brave." If we've truly lost that, and it sure looks grim, we're done.

[Narciso]

Gates controls the vertical and the horizontal volume as well.

[Narciso]

Rear admiral leaking bilge.

https://mobile.twitter.com/willchamberlain/status/1362406782082174985

[Narciso]

You mad bruh

https://dailycaller.com/2021/02/17/tim-miller-nicolle-wallace-donald-trump-blow-up-buildings-erase-memory-casino/

[sbwaters]

OL, when we were 13 colonies, not everyone cared to be free and not everyone was brave.

Victory came because enough people believed the concepts were compelling.

Michael Smith’s FB post on the history of Critical Theory is long but interesting prompting this reply from me:

Michael, You describe what they believe is wrong and how they plan to wreck it, but not what they plan to replace it with, and why their replacement doesn’t suffer the same “flaws”.

[Narciso]

They dont care what comes after, delenda est occidenta (best translation)

[sbwaters]

Smith compressed:

Cultural Marxism is real, based on Critical Theory, a proposition created by the communists of the Frankfurt School... Critical Theory seeks to explain the failure of communism to overcome Western forms of governance and economics by describing every element of each obstacle to the proletarian revolution as some form of master-slave oppression.

... since communism has failed to trigger a “workers” revolution in the West, the master-slave dichotomy must be found everywhere and in everything – in marriage, Christianity, republican government, nation-states, free market enterprise, and free speech. Even the family unit is ... a hierarchy. ... Under this definition of everybody being someone else’s oppressor, patriarchy is seen as an obstacle to revolution, so only by abolishing patriarchy, redefining, or eliminating marriage, and nationalizing children will the revolution be possible.

Critical Theory focuses on two primary obstacles they believe caused the failure of the Western proletariat to revolt: the family and Christianity. Through resynthesizing and incorporating Freudianism and Marxism, an unholy postmodernist golem was created, establishing a relationship between fatherhood and the nation-state. Therefore, for the destruction of the nation-state, the pre-revolution would have to abolish fatherhood, triggering a cascade of destruction of both the family and the nation-state.

Now, incorporate all that and then distill Critical Theory down one more level and apply it to race, where every issue is explained by racial oppression.

Critical Race Theory incorporates all the themes...

The nexus of left and right “conspiracy theory” is little more than the ongoing attempts of globalists and communists to foment revolution in the Western world in the face of a century of failure. Western culture proved too prosperous for too many for too long for economic issues to be leveraged, Religion and devotion to the family too resilient, so the collectivists chose to attack through playing the only card left, the race card.

... Cultural Marxism, Critical Theory and Critical Race Theory are as much part of our reality as the UN, Davos, Agenda 21 and the Great Reset.

To know what game is being played is the first step to winning.

[Old Lurker]

Well Len. I think on most global rankings of countries with economic freedoms, the US has fallen out of the top twenty.

As to Home of the Brave, can you imagine any other generation of Americans - ever - cowering under their beds for a year and counting because their Barnyard Masters shouted "Boo! Flu Bug!" and took away their properties, their businesses, their jobs, their children's' futures and their religious freedoms? All with nary a whimper?

[Narciso]

That is the rule of technocracy fauci and birx are the zenith but gottleib is nad enough of course atlas was double unplusgood you live in the hiviest of hives so you know this first hand

[Old Lurker]

SBW "OL, when we were 13 colonies, not everyone cared to be free and not everyone was brave."

A very common way to avoid facing the reality that we are not the same people, sharing the same histories, sharing the same beliefs, sharing even the same human values as were those people in the thirteen colonies.

[sbwaters]

Narciso, yes. A solution in search of a problem. Defective reality and absence of morality.

If they offer nothing better to replace it — and if they hurt more people than they help — then they are worse than the problem they sought to solve.

[Narciso]

They have their franework in place, it works for their purposes not ours.

[sbwaters]

we are not the same people, sharing the same histories...

We weren’t back then, either. We shared the same hope for the future.

[sbwaters]

it works for their purposes

Power. Retreat to the Law of the Jungle with no guarantees anyone will win.

[Old Lurker]

"then they are worse than the problem they sought to solve."

Only if you believe the problem they were trying to solve was the problem they told you they were trying to solve.

[henry]

I guess the free money tap didn’t flow to the lawyers.

https://www.kenoshanews.com/news/local/plaintiffs-drop-federal-suit-in-kyle-rittenhouse-case/article_8fda21ff-b5f7-5ae6-a762-9ef0a0ca3dfa.html

[sbwaters]

Well, now that we have solved the world’s problems ... at least laid them out clearly ...

I guess I’ll go walk our son’s dog. :-)

[Narciso]

Indeed

https://mobile.twitter.com/julie_kelly2/status/1362394636183101441

[Melinda]

New Scientist
@newscientist
Danes were using malted barley to make beer at least two millennia ago bit.ly/3k1BxsJ

https://twitter.com/newscientist/status/1362414367459975178

[Old Lurker]

Early Americans came from many specific different histories for sure but for the most part they were all from patches of the same quilt.

And if they "shared the same hope for the future", that right there is not the case today, and is the cancer eating us alive.

[Narciso]

How many tories like the father of the protagonist in turn name escapes me now. How many were indifferent.

[henry]

Hmmm, moar Cuomo grief. Then NYC can continue cowering under Deblasio’s thumb.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/ny-dems-move-end-cuomo-emergency-powers-lawmaker-says-gov-threatened-destroy-him

[Narciso]

This altercation in sunrise seems more and more suspicious

[Old Lurker]

Henry, I notice your link deletes the word "to" between Move and End. The story it self gets it right, and that confirms it is something that MIGHT happen in the future but which has not, yet.

[rse]

A'mom--

Met someone who knew gates well on a plane flight to west coast in the mid-90s and he said it was Gates' mom who was the brains in the family and recognized what could be done with the contract with IBM.