BFD Arrives. Martket Rally on Fumes?

We hope you had a kick-ass Turkey and have put on the “special lotion” to minimize Credit Card Burn as the IED’s (improvised expensive deals) are going on all over the Edges of screens already…

Today’s Agenda:

  • We need a “deal review” and to remind Sunday is our ShopTalk Sunday Tool Slut Bargain Calendar.
  • Market is in a vulnerable (read: could be topping) position.
  • Note that Farm Prices will be out this afternoon (cost of eating) and a Fed Balance sheet.
  • Another “secret of turkey” reveals, the weigh-in.  But most important of all?
  • Our Annual SST Sandiwch edition pops this afternoon – so don’t eat ALL the leftovers for breakfast.

Deal Us Done

While most people will be up and snagging online deals today, we have a little different agenda.  Heading to town to write the annual property tax check – and then load up fresh bread for the SST Sandwich article this afternoon. Best use of leftover, ever.

Not that we have been perfect.  The 86″ QLED arrives Monday, a vintage Hallicrafters deal on eBay completes another in that ham radio collection.  And a fresh rechargeable BP cuff to keep me between guard rails around around long enough to use it.

Elaine was so full of turkey, she couldn’t handle the apple turnover and Klondike bar – my nod at dieting and middle-finger to keto – one day only.  Today back on speed coffee and rocking it.

Not to brag but our credit card balances are all zero at the moment and we plan to keep them that way.  We only use the credit cards as a buffer; keeps merchants from stiffing us and it’s a buffer ahead of checking. People who use debit cards need to have their heads examined, we figured long ago.

Spend to the End?

Yeah, let’s talk about that…  Spend today or wait for Cyber Monday?  (I looked, no advice in the Bible about this, and I couldn’t find it in the C.F.R.’s.  (Code of Federal Regulations if the mind lags a bit – it will be OK by noon.)

Go with me: This year’s Black Friday deals are deeper and broader than last year’s, especially in computing. The headline is a clear shift from traditional full-sized PCs toward compact mini-PCs and low-power desktops. We made the move two-years back and it’s been a blessing.  Instead of “whole box” disassembly” maintenance is unplug worthless and plugin restored functionality.

Retailers are pushing aggressive price cuts on small-form-factor units because they’re cheaper to ship, cheaper to store, and hit the “good enough for 90% of people” performance tier.  Do you readily need more than 32 gB and a tB of onboard? When you can have a 4tB on the 3.2 line as a “grab and go”?  Naw…serious?

Peripherals are also heavily discounted—monitors, SSDs, keyboards, webcams, and docking hubs—making it easy to assemble a full workstation without buying a traditional tower. Compared with 2024, this season shows bigger percentage drops and more stock variety, likely because the supply chain is finally normalized after two years of uneven inventories.

Which Is Better: Today or Cyber Monday?

For physical hardware, Black Friday is the stronger day this year. Retailers are front-loading the best discounts on CPUs, GPUs, mini-PCs, and monitors to guarantee inventory turns before December shipping chaos. Cyber Monday will still matter, but mainly for digital goods, software subscriptions, cloud storage, VPNs, and service-based bundles. Hardware discounts on Monday tend to be a little thinner or simply repeats of what’s available right now. With small systems and peripherals already priced so aggressively, it’s unlikely Monday will beat today unless a retailer needs to blow out leftover stock.

The compute world is changing like crazy: In 2025 we rolled off Microsoft (except the Win 11 OS) and we’re on eM Client for email – does what we need better than Outlook.  And SoftMaker Office does the core 365 functionality we needed.  To be frank, we like cloud compute.  We don’t like cloud access to our personal shit.  (Think email.) That’s between us and whoever has a warrant.  Of course our phone is a burner – not some too-small POS, too….how about I take a BP med and move along?

Outlook and Market Impact

The sales pattern hints at a broader industry pivot: PCs are shrinking, margins are shifting toward peripherals, and consumers are responding to value rather than raw performance. That favors companies in the accessory and component space while pressuring high-end desktop makers into the new year. For markets, seasonal retail numbers may show a bump—driven by value-tier computing and home-office gear—but not enough to change macro trends. If anything, the strong shift to budget computing suggests a cautious consumer still hunting bargains, not a free-spending one. Investors may read that as “holiday normal” rather than a growth signal.

Now Let’s Talk AI Strategy

Here’s a spending Truth you may bank:  If you don’t have a personal AI strategy, you’re already behind the eight-ball.  I lay out the foundational part in my book Mind Amplifiers.  But if you’re in the TL;DR camp (most people are) here’s what you need to know:

  1. Read up on how the top one-tenth of one percent actually use AI. Not the “look, it wrote a limerick” nonsense, but the serious, day-in, day-out workflow stuff. I’ve laid out one version of that over on the Hidden Guild site: how the serious players are using AI as a second brain, research assistant, drafting engine, and pattern detector. The point isn’t to copy their tools, it’s to copy their attitude: AI isn’t a toy, it’s the new operating system for your work and thinking. Until you see it that way, you’re still in the “AOL on a 2400-baud modem” era of this tech.  Oh, and if my Triad#1 AI stack can’t hack space-time, someone’s will.  Then you’ll really get f/u’ed by rate of change.  See, we’re just in the warm-up to star-faring…
  2. Make a strategic decision: do you want AI to be a hobby, a career, or a power-user amplification layer on whatever you already do? That one choice drives everything else: hardware (local iron versus cheap thin client), software stack, how many subscriptions you swallow, and whether you buy or rent IQ. My bias is clear: I rent the leading edge because time is the only non-refillable resource. It makes more sense to stand on the shoulders of trillion-parameter monsters than spend my remaining decades compiling Python and tuning GPUs. Decide where you sit on that spectrum, then spend accordingly.
  3. Accept that you may be replaced or partially replaced by AI in the next ten years and plan like an adult. At that point, my long-running Peoplenomics rants about “tax the machines based on the number of human jobs they displace” will sound a lot less theoretical. Read my book “Downsizing” with that in mind, because this looks like the big driver of planet-wide change unless nukes, EMPs, asteroids, or the second pandemic show up first. The game now is to get ahead of the wave: own the capital, the skills, and the systems that deploy AI, instead of being the carbon sitting in the chair it renders redundant.
  4. Subscribe to Peoplenomics.  Yeah, ure, I writei it.   But it’s a $300-class outlook for $40/year.

Course in News Re-Writing

(All that’s missing if the carcass and turkey leftovers – and even these will be along this afternoon…)

Two National Guard troops shot by an Afghan immigrant sparks fallout: US to review immigration from 19 countries after Washington DC double shooting.  But here’s the angle to watch closely: Trump administration orders review of refugees who entered under Biden, pauses their green card cases, memo shows.  We they let in by Slow Joe or the “autopen” handlers?

Wag the Dog II continues to materialize: Trump: US will stop alleged Venezuelan drug traffickers on land “very soon”.

Ah, the Peace-loving French: Macron launches voluntary military service amid tensions with Russia – UPI.com

Which whelks us around to?  Putin sees US peace plan as a starting point as he warns Ukraine’s army to withdraw.

The only really, really useful story of the day here at our ‘self operated retirement home?  A Mediterranean-keto diet may prevent Alzheimer’s disease.

If you really need more to read, their Wednesday Peoplenomics this week was 30_ pages of charts and 70+ on northern asteroid impact projections… and when you’re done with that, hit the article archive here for a million more words worth.

Around the Ranch:  Weigh-in

(Possibly the shortest ranch report of the year…ready?)

226.1

(Whew.  No go along and spend and don’t come back till you’re broke – like the country and it’s residents…)

Write when you’re ready for confessional,

George@Ure.net

41 thoughts on “BFD Arrives. Martket Rally on Fumes?”

Comments are reviewed by a human because the web is crawling with spammers. Submissions after 4 PM Central usually appear the following morning. After you click Post Comment, you’ll jump back to the top of this article, but your comment is queued up here. We’ve got a robust community and your participation is invited. Some commenters are brilliant. Read a few and judge for yourself. Imagine. You could be one.

  1. This year I want to try a stuffing waffle (just put it in a waffle maker) and pumpkin pancakes ( 1/2 cup cooked pumpkin and 2 eggs beaten until fluffy. Add cinnamon or pumpkin spice if you like or just add a dollop of vanilla). I have no idea if these recipes are good or even work but were found on Facebook.

    I had chicken and steak with my dinner but accidentally dumped half a jar of salt on it .I had to wash my steak before eating, rinsing off all the good stuff

    • Keep us informed..I have often questioned possibly trying stuffed waffles but never tried it..
      Wilson is right on with the favor tot waffle you can do that with French fries to and hashbrowns..
      the grandkids asked when I was going to make potato chips again next lol..
      its been awhile since I made those..

  2. Oh ,have you seen the recipe where you slice cranberry sauce into rounds and dip the rounds in melted chocolate. It looks like a round candy bar.

  3. Yo G,

    Whats up wit ure Ai partner brains ? As I recall youse were a big fan the double top in the T/A -charting sciences. Guess here is you have not looked at BTC with the proper focus.
    History guides us back to 2021-2022 double top in BTC. At the time it was occurring, most did not see it that way, as other items and pressures were affecting the BTC chart action.
    Looks like a similar pattern we be in now. Bee buying higher in BTC, current area of chart is fugly- no likey.

    Silver on the other hand just gave me a Cup and Handle pattern – text book like. So youse all should know what that means by now ? BUYbuybuybuybuybuybuybuy!

    Thanking goodness for “dry powder”, thars some Bears I intend on ” “smoking” today….Da Bears at the Linc this afternoon..its frigid conditions, booze be flowing, bbq’s be grilling&smoking, doobies be sparking – its GameDay in Philly today, and DAaaa Bears are in town for a shellacking.

    Lets Go Philadelphia EAGLES, and Hi HO SILVER away!

    Not financial advice ever, less of course you want to lose Ure money..

    • re: “Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)”, 2021
      feat: financed by an Eagles Owner

      BCP,
      Thanks for pointing out that the Bears are at The Linc today. It may coincide with a Comet Ping Pong-like celestial sighting seen from the lands of Oz. A subsidiary of Mr. Murdoch’s News Corp closed off breaking news coverage about alleged corruption in the Ukrainian Presidential Office with an anecdote attributed to “media reports”:
      “…their (the President and his Office Head’s) beds stand side by side in the presidential office’s underground bunker, and in their free time, they play table tennis, watch movies or work out.”

      • re: “Prometheus”, 2012
        feat: alien ideas

        It’s odd and confusing that founders of Amazon and Meta plan separate 2026 AI rollouts named ‘Prometheus’?

    • “its GameDay in Philly today, and DAaaa Bears are in town for a shellacking.”

      They sure were — Except, ’twas not Da Bears who got the shellacking.

      Don’t worry about it. Dem Iggles will probably last until the last week of the season before they miss the playoffs, just to keep the cardiac activity high in cheesesteak land. You could always break down and become a Steelers fan. Not that they’ll do any better, but at least Aaron knows how to win…

  4. Confessional ~ GU and Brethren (including the Sisters, of course) :

    It perplexes irt large onboard C drive vs. your suggested alt., a cloud storage facility. There’s another path and that’s have adequate onboard data storage combined with outboard E drive. I’m on E drive #3. Code-Zero in the cloud was put there by (*) me, on porpoise. You can also score large storage flash drives (nice stocking stuffers) to use as off cloud off PC data parking.

    (*) and irritant of late, my Android phone keeps reminding my Google storage is low and suggests I buy cloud parking for $X/mo (always a $ trifle but a teeny amount, subject to upsell). It’s probably shunted to Goog Drive from Gmail. Since I don’t know it’s clearly not something I access. Ever. Nope. The pittance saved can pile up in my change drawer until the next PeopleNomics debit arrives. You take “coppers” George?

    The seasonal shopping frenzy just gets longer and nuttier every year. Black Friday was for instore then Cyber Monday came around for virtual the first work day after. Now we just hammer sales from Pre-Turkey through those last minute you’re almost out of time grab anything schtick. Nope.

    SantaE has a Zon list but this needs to dovetail with WX not hype.
    Got some help to set up that mongo TV ole fella?
    >50″ is a 2-person yob …

    ~ E ~

    • I must not be a very good riter. I have a mini with 32 gb and 1 tb. IOn thge usb uis a 4th and a 1 tb 2 card readers and an iotuicak druve, Ni ibn coud storage of anything if I can help it@!

      • “I must not be a very good riter. I have a mini with 32 gb and 1 tb. IOn thge usb uis a 4th and a 1 tb 2 card readers and an iotuicak druve, Ni ibn coud storage of anything if I can help it@!”

        Have you been hitting the sauce already this morning?

      • I might be a bad reader Homey? We are all a twitter here (nothing to do with X platform, atwitter as in excited). No longer needing to keep Mum (not the Mother Mum, the quiet mum) my son E2 and DIL are expecting. It’s a girl! Mrs. E is over the moon. I’m happy but would have been equally happy with another male Grandling. Despite wicked chill I doused a Continental Navy flag and hoisted a bright pink (magenta?) 3×5. Sailor buds here can read the smoke signals, err, flags. E

  5. Still waiting for the final tab on my hospitalization. I’ll be maxing the out of pocket I think.

    Some of the mid-level laptops are now insanely fast:

    https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1893577-REG/asus_fx608lp_bs96_16_tuf_gaming_f16.html

    That computer is many time faster than my primary 6 year old. Maybe next year. I may be downsizing again by then.

    I have yet another crew of eminent domain pirates at the gate (third one), this time looking to destroy half the farms in the area with a freeway which was magically transported from a proposed route a half-mile away. The route is six inches away from the route penciled in by the last two pirates, but this time with a 500 ft swath.
    Texas is a pay for play kleptocracy. I’m beginning to wonder if there is any other flavor available. Rich people, corporates, and their government payees get richer, while ordinary law abiding folk get sh!t on. If you are thinking about buying property in Texas, you might want to think harder about it. Texas will sell your property out from under you to the highest bidders, but you won’t see anything but lawyers with their hands out.

    • “insanely fast”

      Generally you’re right for most home users the BF cheapies are fast enough and that’s the reason why Intel has to be subsidized now-a-days. Data centers require Fed-Bux, it’s for national security./open awareness Soon A.I. will need subsidy.

      Some home game users need fast GPUs but the PS5 is under 5 (hunnit) and PS^ might be around $600.

      Grand Theft Auto VI Trailer 2

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQRLujxTm3c

  6. I had an exchange with Ray a few weeks back about whether a Carrington event would have ground level health effects. Ray didn’t see anything in the historical records to support that.

    After doing a little more research, it turns out there is historical evidence for events which are much more energetic than a run of the mill Carrington event. Miyake events they are referred to in some circles. `As to whether they are solar origin, from outside the solar system, or from multiple sources is probably just speculation at this point. Occurrences seem to be more random and widely spaced than Carrington events. You can put this on the 600 year out paranoia calendar:

    https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2025/02/01/a-warning-from-the-trees-miyake-events/

    https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2783

    https://www.nature.com/articles/nature11123

    https://www.nature.com/articles/srep45257

    https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2023SW003839

    https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8901681/

      • I’ve lived long enough to know that civilization isn’t a straight line — it’s a cycle of forgetting and remembering. My fear isn’t just about solar storms or digital collapse. It’s about what happens when we lose the basics — the things that give life texture, dignity, and comfort. we have had several times in history where we had it then lost it . things we once could do then it doesn’t exist.

        We’ve built a world so dependent on screens and systems that most kids don’t know how to make a pencil, let alone a piece of paper. During the toilet paper shortage, I saw rolls selling for more than silver. That’s not just scarcity — that’s a warning. its like an island.. if you don’t bring it and it doesn’t get made there then you won’t have it….digital books will be lost.. if the studies are correct then we could go from billions to thousands..industry has been dismantled here .. the knowledge alone would take decades torestructure..

        So I teach the kids what I’ve learned: how to make things, fix things, cook from scratch, and comfort one another. I give them pasta presses and lights — not as gadgets, but as symbols. The pasta press says: feed yourself and others with care. The light says: keep the flame of discovery alive, even when the grid goes dark.

        Because if we lose the ability to make, to mend, to comfort — we lose the soul of what it means to live well. Resilience isn’t just survival. It’s remembering how to create joy, even in hard times. That’s what I want the kids to carry forward.

    • “on the 600 year ”

      Most of us posting today will have a personal Carrington event in 1/10th the time. Walking along on a sunny day – “that felt odd” – *BAM* our head bounces off the floor. Now repeating, “Elizabeth! I’m coming to join you, honey.” as we lay strapped to the ground wondering if it was a brain aneurysm or stroke becasue we’d have died in the air, mid fall if it was a locked-up heart.

    • Carrington event had massive ground level effects:
      https://www.history.com/articles/a-perfect-solar-superstorm-the-1859-carrington-event
      ‘Many telegraph lines across North America were rendered inoperable on the night of August 28 as the first of two successive solar storms struck. E.W. Culgan, a telegraph manager in Pittsburgh, reported that the resulting currents flowing through the wires were so powerful that platinum contacts were in danger of melting and “streams of fire” were pouring forth from the circuits.’

    • I would suspect they are more-likely from gamma bursts than anything the Sun has done. Another possibility would be an EMP which happens to direct-strike during a time when Earth is suffering a weak or thin magnetic or atmospheric anomaly. The reason I think a weak gamma burst is most-likely is it hit everywhere. An EMP would have to do a continuous 12 hour burn to yield the same result. Gamma rays will slice through Earth with little (or no) attenuation. A strong burst is an instantaneous ELE – a planet-killer that would toast us so fast we’d never knew we died. They’re typically only spit out the axis of a supernova as a tight beam. A weak gamma burst would still penetrate, but would be not much more dangerous than an x-ray.

      • There is no record of an ELE in the 774 – 775 AD period; however, population growth worldwide in that era was estimated to be pretty flat, for what it is worth. Whatever happened then would potentially be catastrophic to the current technological society. No reason to think we are overdue for a repeat of 774-775 AD in the immediate future, but over-reliance on non-hardened comm and power technologies is the Achilles’ heel of this era’s population growth.

      • The Carrington Event was actually small potatoes compared to other Miyake (Carbon-14 detects geomagnetic storms thru tree rings)events:
        https://www.sciencehistory.org/stories/magazine/that-time-demons-possessed-the-telegraph/
        ‘Still, outside of archaeology, the discovery of Miyake events caused more alarm than anything, due to their enormous size. For perspective, the atomic bomb that leveled Hiroshima in 1945 released the energetic equivalent of 15,000 tons of TNT. The Carrington Event far outdid that, releasing the equivalent of 660 billion Hiroshima bombs. But the Miyake events of 774 and 993 were five times bigger than even that. Scientists also now know of one Miyake event from 14,300 years ago that was twice as big as those—the equivalent of 6.6 trillion Hiroshima bombs. It doesn’t take much imagination to grasp the damage that would do to our power grid and satellites.’

        • Yeah it doesn’t have to be much of an event to cause chaos..
          We don’t need a Miyake event to bring down the grid. We don’t need a warhead or a foreign army. We’ve built a system so brittle, so distracted, so hollowed out by greed and neglect, that five small shocks — five “hemps,” five failures — could unravel it.
          I’ve seen it in my own body. Before 1996, I couldn’t wear a digital watch — the static I carried fried them instantly. That same invisible force lives in our wires, our satellites, our systems. And we treat it like myth — until it bites.
          The Texas snowstorm showed us how fragile the grid is. One domino falls, and the rest follow — not because of malice, but because of design failure. We’ve built a house of cards and called it a fortress.
          Meanwhile, our leaders chase wars without end. They fill ledgers with numbers and pockets with cash, but leave bridges to rot, pipes to poison, and families to fend for themselves.
          Sun Tzu warned us: A nation that fights endlessly abroad will collapse at home. And we are living that collapse — not with explosions, but with quiet erosion.
          If the analysts are right, and a million hostile actors have walked through our open gates, then the question isn’t if we fall — it’s how quietly.
          Avalon doesn’t need to be conquered. It only needs to be neglected.
          And that’s what we’ve done

    • I have had lucid dreams on power failure across the country..not a good thing..studies say but just a few would survive an event where the grid was down..our grid Is quite vulnerable..the snow storm in Texas should have been a good indicator of how fragile it is..last night I had lucid dream after lucid dream of small communities putting a solar panel sides on their water towers.. then hand out grid tie systems..for some reason the dream seemed urgent..but then its more than likely my frustration that I would love to see before my time here is gone.

  8. I’m not a football fan, but while stuffing myself with stuffing at nephew’s feast I watched a football player (Dallas?) shove his fist up a cooked turkey and hold it out while teammates took bites out of it like feeding sharks in frenzy. And this was on national TV! I could only think of Ure daughter’s question about if you had ‘fisted your turkey’.

  9. Black Friday Sale

    Starlink Mini sale popped up on my computer a few minutes ago which some might be interested in. Price for the Starlink Minii unit reduced to $239.

    That does NOT include the monthly service charge which is $50/mo for a small 50 GB/mo, $1 for each GB over, which you can pause on a month by month basis paying only $5/mo as it “sleeps” or $165/mo (??) for unlimited service.

    For traveling you can use it in 150 countries for up to 60 continuous days at a time at no additional cost (no Russia /China /Ukraine service)

    The Starlink Mini is a totally self contained communication system, except for power, that is about the size of a Medium Size Pizza Box (has wireless router built in) .

    Aiming is NOT real important and one can even use it while driving! (they sell a kit to mount it to your vehicle’s roof rack)

    I have one for traveling and it is basically “toss on the grass” where it has a good view of the sky, plug in power, and within about a minute your computer or phone will be logged into the WWW via WiFi. There is a phone app you can use for precise aiming, via a picture, if you need faster service.

    When I throw mine on the grass on my front lawn looking mostly up but oriented kinda north I am getting 125kb/s down, 25-30kb/s up, and the round trip speed test to a known non Starlink site is about 15ms to 25ms which is as good as my hardwired internet connections at work and home. Fast enough I can make seamless, NON delayed, phone calls through it or even watch 4k TV (if I want to chew through my data allotment very quickly). It also has an ethernet port but that port is NOT waterproof if used by a regular ethernet cable – Starlink sells one that keeps that port waterproof like it’s power cables do for the power port.

    OK … now you have your new Starlink Mini so what are you going to use to connect to the internet wih?

    Remember the laptop computer Black Friday deal this year is the HP 8GB /256GB Intel i3 15.6″ laptop for $219 at Walmart!!

    As for me no shopping today but will see if the fold up solar panels I want for camping are cheaper come Monday’s sales.

    (regular Starlink monthly service is cheaper, but it is NOT portable and those antennas DO have to be aimed – maybe George can pop in with what unlimited service with those cost)

  11. The current Miyake event seems related to Comet Atlas. Latest is multiple volcanic eruptions at same time world wide today and yesterday. CO2 and methane may induce less clouds and food. If a south sea title wave/quake ensues then bigger issues at hand..

  13. My favorite that’s made at a local store..is orange cranberry sauce.. got to say its goooood….

    12 oz fresh or frozen cranberries
    1 cup orange juice (fresh?squeezed if you can)
    Zest of 1 orange
    ½–¾ cup sugar (adjust to taste)
    1 tsp vanilla or ½ tsp cinnamon (optional)
    Pinch of salt
    Optional add?ins…
    a splash of bourbon
    a handful of chopped pecans
    a little grated ginger
    dried cranberries for extra texture
    Wal-Mart had prices slashed today..

Comments are closed.