08:37 – Barbara left at 0800 to head over to the library, where she’s volunteering to help with their move to a new location. They’ve been boxing up books and other materials, which they have to move over to the new building, unpack, and reshelve.
She’ll be back home in time to meet the mattress delivery people. Frances and Al decided buy a new mattress for our guest room bed and have it delivered here. Barbara put her foot down, and said they will be hauling away the old mattress. She knew I’d want to keep it and stick it up in the attic. The secret to a happy marriage is to let your spouse win such debates, particularly when they don’t really matter much to you. That way, you can save up credits for issues that really matter.
I read an interesting series of comments to an article I read yesterday. FTC:
I Am Screwed says:
Comment ID: 3641814
December 12, 2016 at 2:51 pmIt’s hard to read some of the comments because I am black and I am screwed no matter what. Why do I say that? Well, because I am a black female in my 40s, voted for Bush/Cheney way back when, was on the Republican Women’s Committee at one time in my state and did not and would not ever vote for Obama. He is/was against everything I believe in. I was a Ted Cruz supporter but voted for Trump when Cruz didn’t get the nomination. So, I often think about getting out of dodge. Cause my husband is white and I fear for him cause of all the racism and hate coming from black people. But then where to? Idaho was on the list but if you see me coming you are thinking I am the enemy. And I am not! I love America, believe in the right to carry, believe in the Constitution and I have a wonderful life! I was a Pharmaceutical Rep and left that career to be a stay-home, homeschooling Mom. I am raising my children to love our country and to learn about the Constitutional Republic that we are or were. I am sad that now I don’t feel safe anywhere anymore on either side. We have been looking for a BOL, but I don’t know where to go. I think people who really love the US and our constitution are the conservatives who would see me as a person. It’s the liberals that worry me. Anyway, sorry for the rant. Just wanted you to know there are some black people who don’t live in in the inner city, don’t want handouts, don’t like rap music (I prefer Christian), don’t like liberal policies, always vote conservative, don’t like the moral decline of our nation or the immigration issue and want a wall built and certainly I am upset about the refugee craziness and never thought I would ever see someone in a Birka at TJ Maxx and someone who thinks Reagan was one of the best Presidents ever. God bless everyone and be safe.
I can sympathize with her. Preppers tend to be white, male, and Christian, so anyone who doesn’t fit those norms may feel marginalized. On the other hand, preppers tend strongly towards a live-and-let-live outlook, happy to welcome anyone who shares their concerns. I’d be happy to have this woman and her family as neighbors, and I suspect that most preppers would feel the same.
Yep, she’s screwed.
Humans seem to be programmed to huddle in small groups, family, tribe, etc, and reject outsiders. This seems to have survival benefits.
To work against that, we have to find a way to add those outsiders to our ‘in group.’
It can take time and effort for that outsider to pierce that barrier and cross over.
Thankfully, we live in a ‘high trust’ society where it’s even possible to do so. In low trust societies, you can never make that crossover.
Whites can have the same issues with groups, it’s just not as easily apparent from a distance. We’ve talked about it here before WRT BOL and moving to a different community. It takes time and effort to cross the barrier of the closed society of a small town, or rural area. And no matter what you do, in many places you are still gonna be ‘that yankee living on the old Johnson place.’
It happens whenever you try to cross a boundary, but it may be masked with politeness. Just look at when ‘new’ money meets ‘old.’ In Europe, look at when someone tries to cross class lines. In the US, especially in the south, you can be met with habitual politeness, and even genuine affection, but you are ‘not from here.’
I’ve had it happen, but it takes a long time, and a dominant ‘other’ interest for the group to develop around. When I was in college, I rode my motorcycle with the same loose group of guys every Saturday night. I was the only white in the group. I was pretty deeply tanned at the time, and fluent in the dialect. It still took a year before they ‘forgot’ I was white, and we were just bikers hanging out together. That’s when I got asked to do things outside the group, go to someone’s house, exchange favors, go to a family party, etc. It led to a few humorous moments when they’d remember and go OH!
The hardest part of this from a prepping standpoint, is that we prep for when the worst happens, and when it does, people tend to pull back to their closest, tightest group, moving more and more people into the ‘outsider’ group.
The flip side is when disaster strikes and a new group forms, the group of disaster survivors. We see this very clearly too, during and after disasters. Belonging to this new group is why neighbors help each other, why strangers risk their own lives to help others, and where you see self organizing recovery efforts.
You DO see a difference though in communities with high trust and low trust social environments. You are much more likely to see the new group identity supplant the old one in a high trust, or ‘higher trust’ area. If your neighborhood is filled with generally trusting and law abiding citizens, you’re much better off than if your neighborhood is filled with low trust, angry, insular, and entitled scofflaws (and this goes for both ends of the wealth spectrum).
The only advice I could give this woman is to establish membership in the groups she wants to be in NOW. It will take work, and consistency, and persistence, because she is fighting in built behaviours and attitudes, and she DOES have hurdles to overcome. Unfair hurdles, but they are there. To her benefit, people are more open to the possibility now than at any other time in history. That window is probably closing though.
nick
On an unrelated note,
Cheaper than Dirt has a complete upper for $329 which is 20% off their normal price. Still seems a bit high, but less than parting it out yourself. Nice complement to an 80% lower…. (and NOT A FIREARM, so not regulated.)
https://www.cheaperthandirt.com/product/radical-firearms-16-556-nato-complete-upper-814034029995.do
nick
(appears to be “Made in Houston, Texas U.S.A.!”)
And on a preparedness note, a friend just called me for advice. His work laptop suddenly failed, and won’t even boot past the recovery screen. The diagnosis is damaged hard drive.
He’s sending it out for recovery (which has gotten surprisingly cheap) as the data ISN’T BACKED UP. It’s business data including design files, invoicing, ongoing and archived projects, etc.
Some of you may recall that I have a failed NAS drive controller, and need to recover MY backups (which I put to the side for now.)
BACK UP YOUR STUFF. DO IT! Get a copy offsite. Massive hard drives are available for $100. Make a backup and mail it to your parents, or kids, or a friend. Take it to the office, or put it in a safe deposit box.
You are much more likely to have an ‘ordinary’ disaster than an extraordinary one.
nick
We’ve not found Sparta to be that way. When we first moved up here, we’d mention to people that we’d just bought a house. Almost without exception, they’d ask if we were going to be living up here year-round. We told them we would be, and I could almost see them mentally putting us into the year-round resident category. That makes us part of the larger “us” group, as opposed to people who own a weekend/summer/vacation home up here. They’re still “them” and always will be.
But people seem to pretty much accept us at face value. That Barbara is a Winston-Salem native probably helps, as does the fact that she’s very active in volunteering and community service.
re backups: And label the media, and box them, and label the boxes, and store them away from regular-use media. An extra copy off-site is good, if you have a secure place you can store one.
I just trashed a backup drive of unsorted pictures and videos of my kids, especially the youngest. The drive was labeled and put in a box, but the label, just a post-it, fell off and in the course of cleaning up the piles of stuff in my office I’d moved the box next to the box with ready-to-use drives. When I needed a drive, of course I grabbed one that I shouldn’t have. (And then I skipped my usual step of checking that the drive was actually empty and ready to be used, which was doubly careless. And then I reformatted the drive because I needed it as a backup for the Mac I use on my current contract and Macs don’t read NTFS. Without that complication I wouldn’t have trashed the data and at worst would have muttered dire imprecations and had to copy either the old or the new data to yet another drive. However, the actual causes of the failure were a series of mistakes on my part.)
This is hardly the end of the world — many generations of parents raised their children without thousands of hours of video, and we have other copies of some of the data, and anyway do we really need five more 30-second vids of me pushing the daughter on the swing? But that’s not the point. Trashing this drive betrayed many levels of fail on the part of an allegedly conscientious, allegedly knowledgeable computer professional.
I used to use a pair of external USB drives. Ran the backup every night and a full backup over the weekend. Swapped the offsite drive every Monday.
That’s exactly the point though.
They are starting to sort you, and see if they can include you in that larger insider group. They are high trust, because you didn’t move to Mud Lick Holler- Moonshine capitol of Backwoods USA.
Barbara’s involvement in the community helps. You’re not just taking up space, you are contributing to the group’s welfare, ‘buying your way in’ so to speak with the only currency they will really accept. You are also not making demands on the group.
It’s likely that Lori (postal carrier) is helping you in this regard too. Even if she doesn’t talk much, I’m sure people know that she interacts with everyone and forms an opinion that she shares either explicitly or tacitly. If you were a weirdo recluse who got all those shipments of chemicals there would certainly be talk about it.
But you are not. You fixed up your place in visible ways (improving the community) without violating the standards of the area. You are not using group resources (like section 8, SNAP, etc.) Your wife is working in support of the community (and being vetted by the ladies of the community which is critical.) You are contributing to the economic welfare of the community by asking about and using local contractors. You are tying yourself to the community over time, by entering service contracts. You are a responsible dog owner.
About the only thing you could do in addition, would be to join a church. Barbara’s volunteer work might substitute for that, but joining a church adds automatic group membership. I would AVOID letting them know you are not “church people” as that will automatically put you in an ‘outsider’ category.
They will be polite. They will accept you at face value, and likely give you the benefit of the doubt, at least once. Continue giving them reasons to accept you into the group of full time, core, involved and contributing, residents. Don’t give them any reasons to put you outside of the group. [and in 15 or 20 years, you’ll be a ‘local’.]
nick
I actually brought up the idea of joining a church, but Barbara said NFW. I also intend to contact the local LDS pastor about volunteering with their emergency preparedness group. I suspect what Barbara is doing with Bonnie helps a lot. Bonnie has no children, but she has a ton of local nieces and nephews, many of whom Barbara has met.
Oh, yeah. I’m still trying to get hooked up to volunteer for 4H.
I’m guessing there are more “I Am Screwed” black people in the inner cities, too, who are trapped and for various reasons can’t get out. That must really, really suck.
You can probably get away w/o joining a church, but it would certainly grease the cultural skids a little better in an overtly Christian community. Up here it would matter not a whit, as no one cares at all. The Christian religion is not in our faces all the time and each denomination tends to keep to itself; the “ecumenical” stuff seems to happen at the behest of clergy and secular “authorities.”
On the IT backup front, thanks for the reminder and wake-up call again. Sounds like Mr. SteveF did the “perfect storm” of negligence to himself down there in the Capital District; I’ve done that, too. I sometimes remember to backup our stuff to the 4TB external drive off this (now) Linux Mint machine which is our main desktop. I should do that again RIGHT NOW. And set up a regular schedule; the important stuff is in the folder with wife’s job invoices and receipts, etc., and related files that she downloads and then they just sit in the Downloads folder until I notice them and move them accordingly.
Meanwhile I was mucking around researching which finance/budgeting sw package would work OK with our bank, figuring I’d be stuck with having to sift through user reviews of umpteen versions of Quicken and Quick Books over the decades, and found to my pleasant surprise that, with a little finagling, I can get GnuCash to work with it.
Mrs. OFD made it OK on the very long flight to Hawaii and is in a nice spot, while Mr. OFD scrapes ice and snow off the windshields and hauls in firewood as the temps slump down into the teens and single digits for a couple of days.
Nick – RE: Data Backup.
Very good point. I am paranoid about data accessibility. I have all my personal documents, passports, legal papers, car titles, etc. scanned and filed. I also have 50 years of photos on-line. I have these first on my local hard drive. Then I have a local NAS 2 TB unit that I synchronize with. I also have a JungleDisk (cloud storage) account that lets me copy my critical data to Amazon AWS storage AND it does a nightly backup to an AWS backup location. Overkill, possibly, but better to have the data in too many places than too few. And this way no matter where in the world I am I have access to copies of my passport, driving license, marriage certificate, etc. Believe me, this HAS come in handy before. Of course all this is protected by AES 256 bit encryption.
The only real issue with so many data stores is keeping versioning straight.
Re moving a library: I recall a story where a library had to move to a new building next door. So they called for a bunch of volunteers, and set them up in a line between the old and new library. Books were passed one at a time down the line from the old library to the new library. Moving was completed quite fast.
Re backups: here’s mine: laptops to desktop via SyncToy. Desktop to Cloud via Code42’s CrashPlan (automatic). Done: local and off-site backup.
Nowadays, I use the Western Digital MyCloud:
https://www.amazon.com/Cloud-Personal-Network-Attached-Storage/dp/B00EVVGAC6
Back in the day, I followed whatever advice given in my copy of BTPPC.
Just read several items regarding cloud security and reliability, State spying and record-keeping and monitoring of us Dirt People, and various backup plans discussed here: it all presupposes an up-and-working Grid, running on electricity, itself running on fossil fuels delivered mainly by pipelines and trucks. I bet most Murkan derps don’t even know this extremely basic fact.
If the Grid goes down, so does all that stuff, including State command-and-control capabilities, which, of course, we really don’t want to happen; it’s a mixed bag: they spy on us but they’re also engaged just half a step ahead in an ongoing cyber war with other state and non-state actors who would love to see us blind, deaf and dumb and on our knees here. And of course they push this situation for all it’s worth all the time, as described in “1984” with a different “enemy” every month or year. In essence, they rule via the carrot reward of bread and circuses, and the stick punishment of constant surveillance and an ongoing climate of fear and dread.
O Kanada:
https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2016/12/foghorn/canadian-mp-allowing-women-defend-unrealistic-offensive/
Just like those treacherous European women politicians who said essentially the same thing. Basically, lie back and try to enjoy it. Meanwhile we’ll change the brain chemistry and physiology of the other sex.
RBT wrote:
“I actually brought up the idea of joining a church…”
You’re an ordained minister. Why not start your own? Good way to get rich, just ask L. Ron Hubbard.
If Bob got an answer, that would really affect my religious beliefs.
He’d have to hold seances and what a great way to make friends and influence people in meatspace! Screw going to some mainline vanilla Prod church; do not pass Go! Do not collect $200! OFD is all over it for you! See here:
http://paganwiccan.about.com/od/wiccanandpaganrituals/ht/Hold_Seance.htm
Dial up ol’ Ronny and ask him for some tips!*
* Be advised, however, that an entity identifying itself as Ron Hubbard may not, in fact, BE Ron Hubbard. A word to the wise, heh, heh.**
** Also, be advised that any entity identifying itself as a “Captain Howdy” should be told they’re in the wrong venue; direct them to the nearest Ouija board.
Don’t try to contact LRH via seances or otherwise, as he’s kinda preoccupied at the moment – trying to get used to the lake of fire.
Tried cloning a new 1TB WD drive this morning. Acronis/WD software has copied the drive but has borked both drives from booting. Look at them on another computer and all is there.
Now making a WIN10 recovery disk. Incredibly time consuming.
Was something wrong with the old mattress? Why not just keep it and not tell her?
“Don’t try to contact LRH via seances or otherwise, as he’s kinda preoccupied at the moment – trying to get used to the lake of fire.”
And thus my caveats, sir. One might have better luck, I dunno, with the late Wallace D. Fard or Garner Ted Armstrong.
“Now making a WIN10 recovery disk. Incredibly time consuming.”
It was equally time-consuming with earlier versions of Winblows. Good riddance up here, I say. If we need, and by “we” I mean Mrs. OFD, mainly, to use any Windows apps, I have Crossover installed on this Mint box and it works great.
Brain fart. It’s a fuckin UEFI computer and I wasn’t thinking. First it confuses itself then it confuses you.
“It’s a fuckin UEFI computer and I wasn’t thinking. First it confuses itself then it confuses you.”
Exactly. You can disable that lovely feature, of course.
“NASA researcher says Earth is long overdue for ‘extinction-level’ cosmic event”
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/earth-overdue-extinction-level-cosmic-event-article-1.2909425
OK, this is tough to prep for.
“OK, this is tough to prep for.”
Not really.
One simply uses one’s FLASHLIGHT to locate one’s TOILET and one sits there and puts one’s head between one’s knees and kisses one’s ass buh-bye.
“Scientists are frantically copying U.S. climate data, fearing it might vanish under Trump”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/12/13/scientists-are-frantically-copying-u-s-climate-data-fearing-it-might-vanish-under-trump/
One can only hope. That data has been massaged and manipulated. The original data was destroyed years ago.
And Cheeto-Head-Elect is much more concerned with spending his weekends back in Manhattan with Mrs. Elect and the kid auditioning for “The Omen” sequel. I’m gonna go out on a limb again here and take a wild guess that climate data is not at the top of his priorities list.
And who could legitimately call themselves scientists if they lie about and manipulate data?
I call them political scientists.
Diplomatic Carry: an idea whose time hath come:
http://www.gunlaws.com/DiplomaticCarry.htm
I approve this message.
The progs have corrupted everything, including some science. It’s almost like they intended to destroy everything good and decent in Western society.
“It’s almost like they intended to destroy everything good and decent in Western society.”
Strike the first three words. And there it is.
Along with this:
“Today we wait for the signal. It is rare in the history of warfare that one moment in time might be known and recognized for what it is, but that is the luxury we have with the casting of votes by the electoral college. They have the power to inspire a rebellion, but not to stop the war. The war is inevitable, because the globalists have no peace in mind. ”
http://christianmerc.blogspot.com/2016/12/no-peace-in-mind.html
and the kid auditioning for “The Omen” sequel
@DH, really ? That is a 10 year old kid. I find it uncool to criticize anyone’s kids under age 18.
The progs have corrupted everything, including some science. It’s almost like they intended to destroy everything good and decent in Western society.
+1,000,000
Remember The Clean Air Act and The Clean Water Act ? Both desperately needed in the USA. Both enacted by Congress with very strict limits on who can change the definitions of the acts. Both acts wildly reinterpreted and significantly changed by bureaucrats in federal agencies and federal judges so that almost the entire country is in non-attainment just as the country was achieving attainment in 98% of areas.
“I find it uncool to criticize anyone’s kids under age 18.”
I was not criticizing him, per se, but rather his parents who dressed him like that and then someone took a picture. But I get your point. I did not bash Obama’s kids or Princess Chelsea when she was still a kid. So, Barron, I sorry. Won’t do again.
Meanwhile, Jesse James rides again:
https://virginiafreemen.com/2016/12/12/the-solzhenitsyn-solution/
As a professional thermodynamicist who is also knowledgeable regarding the Grand Method of Science, I will state this with reservation: Having not studied the data of the global warming zealots, what I have seen them yapping about leads me to be highly suspect of it and I categorize it as a fraud.
How often have we heard: “..we cannot let a crisis go to waste..”
Well, I see it as a manufactured crisis over which they can impose more control over us.
Hijinks and frivolity in Germany:
http://gatesofvienna.net/2016/12/pimping-out-the-rhinemaidens-to-the-culture-enrichers/
As Matt Bracken says in the very first comment, it’s surprising that the shooting hasn’t started yet but it will at some point, and also in other, more eastern European countries.
As a professional thermodynamicist who is also knowledgeable regarding the Grand Method of Science, I will state this with reservation: Having not studied the data of the global warming zealots, what I have seen them yapping about leads me to be highly suspect of it and I categorize it as a fraud.
How often have we heard: “..we cannot let a crisis go to waste..”
Well, I see it as a manufactured crisis over which they can impose more control over us.
Every time I hear someone say that it is not about the money, it is always about the money. The tax dollars from a carbon tax will dwarf the USA income tax in the second year. They will use the carbon taxes as a redistribution of wealth within the USA and around the entire world.
And as a commenter a couple farther down asks, where are the guns coming from?
As an American, I might find it a reasonable use of my tax dollars to air-drop Liberator pistols over Germany, but I also want the US out of NATO and US forces out of Germany.
As someone trained as an engineer but not a kind useful in analyzing weather data*, I agree. I don’t know the science and I don’t have access to the data**, but I’ve spent enough time around liars to know when I’m being lied to.
– “You can’t see the data or my algorithms because they’re proprietary.”
– Concealing the raw data and releasing only “corrected” data.
– Memory-holing discoveries of lies.***
– The people saying it’s a crisis not acting like it’s a crisis.
– Personal attacks on anyone asking for more details on any of the claims.
– Denying or ignoring any other possible explanations.
– Denying or ignoring any inconvenient data.
It’s not science, it’s political science. The agenda comes first, and anything else is bullshit used to justify the agenda or to obscure the truth.
* EE, focusing on chip design and manufacture. When I graduated, the field was moving so fast that by the time I finished my Army stint my engineering knowledge was obsolete. Luckily, I had job offers resulting from the Army stint.
** The real data, I mean. The “corrected” data tells the story the political scientists want it to tell.
*** I was involved in going over University of East Anglia’s leaked program, 2009-ish. Even if it hadn’t been “adjusted” to give the desired answers no matter the input, the program was a piece of crap.
Tried cloning a new 1TB WD drive this morning. Acronis/WD software has copied the drive but has borked both drives from booting. Look at them on another computer and all is there.
I’ve never had good luck with Acronis and used it only when management insisted.
At home, I use the Gparted live Linux system on a USB or disc along with a USB->SATA/PIDE cable set to clone drives.
I back up to the cloud. Saturn’s clouds. I beam a laser at Saturn (or rather, where Saturn will be in a couple hours) and encode my data on the carrier. Get the return signal a couple hours later and repeat.
As a total dumbkopf recovering English major with nearly zero knowledge of climate science I also know when I’m being lied to and the points Mr. SteveF alerts us to involve a misuse of the English language for political reasons and to further a political and economic agenda. I can’t add much more than that to what he and Mr. CowboySlim have said here. Other than that I would recommend public flogging for the prime miscreants and removal to the labor battalions I’ll be organizing after the counter-revolution.
“At home, I use the Gparted live Linux system on a USB or disc along with a USB->SATA/PIDE cable set to clone drives.”
And there it is. GParted. http://gparted.org/download.php
“Get the return signal a couple hours later and repeat.”
That’s pretty dahn good for an EE whose knowledge of same became obsolete almost immediately upon graduating and doing hush-hush capers in the Army. As a recovering English major, I have only been able to bounce my data off passing nimbostratus clouds and the results have thus fah been less than encouraging.
From the Local Weather Update Department:
We have a “winter weather advisory/warning” in effect through Friday morning, to wit, a minus 27 chill facta.
It’s been pretty dahn windy today and the waves were splashing high against the pier and the shore—surf’s up!
Except it’s still fall.
Addendum: And it’s blowing snow sideways, everything covered. OFD hadn’t looked out the window for an hour or so. Hmmm….don’t look much like them pitchers I seen of the beeyooteeful Vermont fall landscape….
Hey, y’all keep your Polar Vortexes up there in Yankee land. We don’t need any of that nonsense down here next to the biggest hot tub in the world. We got a piece of that action in Christmas of 1989 and don’t need any more of it.
“We got a piece of that action in Christmas of 1989 and don’t need any more of it.”
Yeah, I know, I know; ‘let the Yankee bastids freeze in the dark.’ Sure.
Talked to wife just now; near 80 out there in Hawaii. Haha. But it just makes ya feel like takin’ a nap. Here ya feel ALIVE! Icy lake spray in yer face in the morning! ALIVE!
OFD is gonna try sleeping in a bed tonight like normal civilized human beans. Lying flat or more likely the fetal position with a pillow between my knees, like a pregnant woman. Pathetic.
Pax vobiscum, fratres
Christmas 89 – 2-4 inches of snow, I-95 closed from Daytona to the Georgia border, call it 120 miles. I was stationed in St, Mary’s, Ga then and MIL couldn’t make it for Xmas. Fun times.
When I woke this morning I noticed the wind. And cold. I went out to get the mail (wife didn’t because she’s hurt) and noted the cold an the almost total lack of solid precip. Looks like the lake effect went right over our heads. Wife came out around 4 and mentioned that it was snowing pretty hard & I’d have to run the snowthrower.
Wind chill & lake effect through today (according to the weatherman). Wind chill and icy roads according to the people out in it. In other words: it’s winter.
I love driving in this stuff. Keep the truck in 2WD and know where the limits are. It’s a blast.
“and found to my pleasant surprise that, with a little finagling, I can get GnuCash to work with it. ”
I use ‘ledger’ to keep track of my evaporating money/savings. You use your favorite text editor to add new entries in plain text files, and ledger’s powerful command line options to get whatever report you need. Really smart.
http://ledger-cli.org/
From the author: “I had used Quicken rather heavily, and then Gnucash, but always found there were certain custom reports I wanted that were exceedingly hard to achieve.”
https://github.com/ledger/ledger/wiki/Who's-using-ledger%3F
Data backups. Geez. I tell all of my students in the first semester to backup their laptops. They have *all* their stuff on their laptops, after all: homework, notes, projects, everything. They all dutifully nod, but I’ll bet not one in ten actually does it.
Computers today are amazingly reliable, but we still have the occasional student with the inevitable disaster…
“I use ‘ledger’ to keep track of my evaporating money/savings.”
What are these “savings” you speak of?
I just want something other than Quicken, preferably, and preferably open-source, that will work with our bank’s system. Gnucash will, apparently.
No, we aren’t doomed re: death from above,
No, Earth is not overdue for a massive asteroid strike (Synopsis)
.mg
What a relief!
Now all I gotta worry about is my fellow human beans down here…..
“We got a piece of that action in Christmas of 1989 and don’t need any more of it.”
Yeah, I know, I know; ‘let the Yankee bastids freeze in the dark.’ Sure.
Man, I feel for you. Living up there next to the Arctic circle, I hope that you don’t freeze. But, don’t send an armed man to my house to collect tax money to pay for your heating. Instead, go out in the woods and cut some logs for winter heating. You know, prepare for winter.
“What are these “savings” you speak of?”
Money converted into shares (stock). I’ve talked before, that I’ll have to create an online trading account to manage them better, and soon to convert them back to money so I can sustain myself longer in this jobless period I choose to have.
Ledger allows me to track those shares too. And any kind of items / inventory:
http://ledger-cli.org/3.0/doc/ledger3.html#Buying-and-Selling-Stock
Yes, Eugen, that was only my very small attempt at humor and irony; we have zero savings here, and have lost four retirement accounts so far over the past 20 years to having to pay bills and taxes with them. We live pay check to pay check, like millions of other Murkans now and we are apparently extremely fortunate that one of us still has a job. If she loses that, we’ll both be stocking shelves on the midnight shift at the local supermarket, assuming those jobs haven’t already gone to musloid immigrants, or robbing armored cars and living the high life like Bonnie and Clyde for a very short while.
“Instead, go out in the woods and cut some logs for winter heating. You know, prepare for winter.”
We have a couple of cords of firewood already cut and mostly stacked here. Not to worry, the stove is kept going accordingly, with the oil tank serving as the backup. But what are we gonna do when we’re in our 80s, assuming we get that fah, and no one is delivering cut firewood here anymore? Meanwhile what are my siblings gonna do down in Maffachufetts when the oil and natural gas deliveries aren’t being made anymore in the dead of a frigid New England winter?
And I’m just a pussy for whining about it; those folks over in Alberta and Manitoba and the NWT have it much tougher.
But in those halcyon golden days of yesteryear, old folks still had extended families at home who would be cutting and hauling and stacking firewood for the stoves, and making sure the old buzzards were warm and fed. Such is no longer the case for all too many families now.
“Yes, Eugen, that was only my very small attempt at humor and irony; ”
hehe.. I didn’t caught it. I was kind of concentrated when I read your question and I thought I was using ‘savings’ in a wrong way. I even checked it with Google Translate.
In Romania, things are worse too. A recent stats says that we have 10 million people with a bank deposit (total population about 20 mil). But 40% of that is about $5 average, and 5% owns 75% of total amounts.
As a software developer I earned a high wage, a few times more than average. I’m gambling that I’ll easily find another job if I want to, and invest the already earned money, in me, and nothing else. I own no house, no car, nothing of value.
“As a software developer…”
May I ask what programming languages and type of sw development? There always seems to be a need for those skills worldwide, so I’m sure you can do well wherever you may be.
My own IT background has primarily been in systems, network and security administration but it’s probably mostly out of date by now and no one here wants us if we’re over 40, apparently. And I am WELL beyond that.
What you don’t own can’t be taken from you….
So by some standards, you are better off than most.
I like the security of having lots of stuff.
All our vehicles, and our home are paid for in full. Our rental house is covering it’s own expenses, and we will pay if off, if it makes sense for the business.
I have food and other materiel’ stacked.
And yet I’m very aware it could all go away in a heartbeat. Hard work, discipline, luck, and ability got us to this point. Hopefully those same things will continue to keep us here and advance us in the directions we would like to go.
nick
“May I ask what programming languages and type of sw development?”
The Java language, since I’ve started in 2001. I’ve sticked with only it, to preserve the knowledge and skills learned, and because I didn’t want to be tied in Microsoft ecosystem. I’m for open source OSes, like Debian Linux, which I use since many years..
Mostly I worked on Java desktop applications, and lately web based. I had episodes working with Java on old mobile phones (Java midlets), or TV settopbox, or for a car navigation system UI.
But I feel how those knowledge fades away.. Luckly, new knowledge pour in everyday..
“What you don’t own can’t be taken from you….”
I do own some money, and they can be taken the easiest.
I would also like to own a lot of stuff, but that costs a lot of time and energy – all taken from what I really want to spend them on.
But, if I’ll have a family, then everything will change, and I’ll will start to own stuff..
“But, if I’ll have a family, then everything will change…”
Oh YES, it certainly WILL!!!
May you also come to enjoy the many blessings and fun and amusements that many of us have come to enjoy lo these many years now….
But, if I’ll have a family, then everything will change…
Eugen: Just get a dog and a cat. The dog is a faithful companion that will love you no matter what. A cat will keep you humble. You own a dog, a cat owns you.
Now some others on here may have other four-legged preferences but I don’t want to get them started.
Look, a flashlight.
“You own a dog”
Says a man who’s obviously never had a Border Collie.
Well, dang it, that was the backup plan in case the rubes caught on to the global warming scam. Now what will The Powers That Be use as an excuse to seize money and power?
Agreed. And I don’t want to hear you whining like a little bitch when a hurricane comes through, or killer bees, or killer heat waves.
“Look, a flashlight.”
You gotta capitalize “FLASHLIGHT.” And if that doesn’t work, try:
“Look, a TOILET!”
“Now what will The Powers That Be use as an excuse to seize money and power?”
Russian hackers. Where have YOU been?
“…I don’t want to hear you whining like a little bitch when a hurricane comes through, or killer bees, or killer heat waves.”
Or something going seriously wrong with that annual rattlesnake roundup down in Sweetwater:
http://www.rattlesnakeroundup.net/
We have a couple of cords of firewood already cut and mostly stacked here. Not to worry, the stove is kept going accordingly, with the oil tank serving as the backup. But what are we gonna do when we’re in our 80s, assuming we get that fah, and no one is delivering cut firewood here anymore? Meanwhile what are my siblings gonna do down in Maffachufetts when the oil and natural gas deliveries aren’t being made anymore in the dead of a frigid New England winter?
Move to a houseboat in flooded Florida ? After all, Florida is supposed to be below water soon, very soon.
http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/news/2016/08/03/over-900-000-florida-homes-could-be-underwater.html
Agreed. And I don’t want to hear you whining like a little bitch when a hurricane comes through, or killer bees, or killer heat waves.
According to the wife, there is nothing little about my whining.
“After all, Florida is supposed to be below water soon, very soon.”
If they go underwater, so will large sections of the Atlantic coastline, like Cape Cod and the Islands (thus submerging a bunch of my Quaker ancestors’ unmarked graves), plus Rhode Island on down through the Carolinas and the Gulf Coast. Matt Bracken and Dmitri Orlov both dig the bug-out-via-boat scene.
Ha!