09:39 – It was 33F (0.5C) when I took Colin out this morning, with a light breeze. Barbara is volunteering most of today, and preparing to leave tomorrow morning for Winston. She’ll spend the night with Frances and Al and then drive back up to Sparta Thursday. It’ll be wild women and parties for Colin and me while she’s gone.
Our Wi-Fi router has started acting hinky over the last few days. It locks up and I have to go downstairs to do a power reset. I’m almost certain it’s not a cable problem. Both the Wi-Fi and 100BaseT ports lock up, so the only cable it could be is the one running to the fiber optic TA, which I’ve swapped out more than once.
The problem router is a D-Link DIR-615, which I bought as a spare in May 2015, and swapped out for an older DIR-615 that had started to misbehave several months ago. I also had a DIR-826L router purchased in late 2013 sitting there as a spare. The short story is that neither of the DIR-615’s now works reliably and the DIR-826L is apparently completely dead. It doesn’t even light up when I connect it to power.
D-Link used to be a good brand–one of the Big Three along with LinkSys and NetGear–but given my recent experience I decided to buy something else to replace the D-Links. I ended up ordering a Netgear AC1200, which is to arrive tomorrow.
Just out of curiosity, I opened a #10 can of Nestle Nido dry whole milk powder the other day. It was purchased 1 June 2015 and had a best-by date of 31 March 2016. Since this isn’t non-fat dry milk, I was concerned that the fats in it might cause rancidity. When I opened it, I sniffed it, but I’m not sure how full-fat whole dry milk is supposed to smell. It had a distinct odor, but it didn’t seem to be rancid. I had Barbara sniff it, and she said it didn’t smell like milk, but it didn’t smell rancid either. So I mixed up a quart by adding 120 grams of the powder to a quart of warm tap water. The result just smelled milky to me, but Barbara said it didn’t smell like her fresh 2% milk and she wouldn’t drink it. I tasted it, but I’m not a milk drinker, so I wasn’t sure what it was supposed to taste like. It wasn’t bitter or anything. I used a pint of it last night to make a milkshake, which tasted fine. So the upshot is that I’m not sure whether or not I can consider Nido to be a long-term storage product.
* * * * *
I’ve got some in the cabinet that has been open a year. I’ll mix some up today.
n
Just got our second Tornado Warning of the morning.
That’s actually spotted on radar or by eye.
The rain just started at my house. Just a bit slower than I estimated from the wundermap animation.
It’s NICE to have weather and satellite with grid up.
I think it will be a good idea to look at getting weather imagery off the satellite directly. SDR and the right antenna, and some other software should be doable… Not a priority but something to consider.
n
Which brings me to some thoughts on projects and prepping while still living a “normal” life. Depending on the rain, and how much I’m tied to my desk today, I’ve been giving this some thought, and might have something useful to share.
n
I continue to be amazed at the amount of bad information on even the most respectable prepper sites. For example, I just read the following article by M. D. Creekmore:
http://www.thesurvivalistblog.net/urban-prepper-basics-for-catastrophe-survival/
In which he actually says (referring to urban/suburban) prepping, “Deer can easily be snared or shot.” Really? In the suburbs? In Winston, we lived on the very edge of the city, with farmland within an easy walk of our house. And we did in fact see deer. Once in a great while. I wouldn’t want to count on them to feed us, nor would squirrels and other small mammals be a realistic source of food in the suburbs. In rural areas, a typical squirrel population might be two per acre. There are more in the suburbs, but after TSHTF if I shot every single squirrel in our neighborhood, it might be enough to provide one small meal for all of the residents. And when they’re gone, they’re gone. Only an idiot would plan to survive on all of the wild game in a suburban area, and that’s assuming no competition from the neighbors.
Well, in fairness, the amount of deer available varies widely by suburb. I’ve been in some where you could say that. How LONG it would be true is debatable (not long in all likelyhood.)
WRT squirrels, someone online did the math, and got 2500 calories / acre for suburban squirrel iirc. That’s not much. Nevertheless, I’ve got some rat traps in my preps. There are lots of uses for the traps besides catching squirrel, and they are cheap and small. Some squirrel in the pot is a traditional supplement historically in many areas.
n
ADDED- just read the article, and I’d say that while it is a little bit glib, it is a nice summary. MOST of the info is good. But yeah, hit that ‘clanger’ and it kinda throws you out of the story….
I have the same reaction to all the ‘foragers’ out there planning to eat common weeds. YES, they might be edible, NO there are not enough to feed your family in North America. History shows (in every serious conflict) that it comes down to eating grass. Every tree is chopped down for firewood, every blade of grass is ripped up to eat.
Foraging takes a LOT of time, and you have to be out and about to do it. Same with snares, hunting, etc. There are very few areas where you might live off the land (the Dunes areas on the shores of lake Michigan are very fecund during the summer). Even hard core mountain folk used the land as a supplement. They bought staples, and planted gardens. And you never see a picture of a FAT forager.
Have you tried updating the firmware in the router? Depending on the hardware revision there may be a firmware update availabe. It might keep you up and running until you get the new one.
“Disease ‘superspreaders’ fueled the Ebola epidemic: Two thirds of cases traceable to highly infection minority, study claims
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-4221166/Small-percentage-people-spread-Ebola-cases-study.html ”
Hmmm, SARS too.
“At the time, researchers counted cases according to those seen in medical centers, but they later realized these were a small fraction of the total.
‘There wasn’t a lot of transmission once people reached hospitals and care centers,’ said Dalziel.
‘In our analysis we were able to see a web of transmission that would often track back to a community-based superspreader.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-4221166/Small-percentage-people-spread-Ebola-cases-study.html “
We haven’t heard from Eugen for a few days. I hope he and his family are okay.
And on the latest news:
The source is full of self playing videos:
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/500-us-troops-arrive-romania-bolster-defense-45478246
Added: I came across this site, it has a full screen pop-up to subscribe but it is easily dismissed and did not set off any alarm bells:
https://www.socialeurope.eu/2017/02/the-silent-romania/
For some reason today I’ve got the idea of a “you might be a redneck” style list for preppers, all in good fun…
You might be taking this all too seriously if —
– you are storing more than 25 pounds of salt
– you have a library of books “to rebuild civilization after the collapse”
– you count your stored food in “person-years”
– you’ve never baked bread, but you have over 50 pounds of flour in storage
– you’re not a Dr, but you have surgery “kits”
– you think “Two is one and one is none” is for lightweights
– you have more than 6 ways to cook a meal
– you own your body weight in cast iron cookware
– your EDC includes a backpack
–
–
–
nick
Full disclosure, MOST of these apply to me…
FUSA troops in Romania now?
How would we like it if Russian troops deployed to Noveau Brunswick or Quebec? Or Baja California?
Clear and overcast today, 22 right now but heading up to the high 20s and low 30s this week w/intermittent snow showers.
I’m on the chores-and-errands treadmill today.
“Full disclosure, MOST of these apply to me…”
None of those apply to me except the one about cast-iron cookware. We’ve got a lot, but half of it is the enameled Le Creuset that wife has had for decades. Plus newer Le Creuset and Lodge pans and pots. And we have a fire pit smack in the middle of the back yard; we could cook over that, or on the PK Grill, using firewood and/or charcoal.
And we’ve both baked different kinds of bread over the years, just not every day or even week. We could do that outside, too.
I’ve found that I have fewer problems with my main router if I keep the power supply plugged into a small APC UPS. Every few months, I’ll hear the UPS click to “active” even though the lights remain on in the room so something is definitely up with our electric connection.
Strictly anecdotal at this point since I don’t have time for a lot of experimenting, but I haven’t had to a power cycle on the router/cable modem/MOCA (feeding to my home office) combination since installing the backup power.
They’re still doing their hokey security theater schtick at all the airports for passengers but not cargo holds (mathematically/physically a non-starter) and meanwhile how much and what exactly are they smuggling?
http://weaponsman.com/?p=39082
Like Concerned American says, put them on the border and give security responsibilities back to the airlines.
While we have very reliable power here, ALL of my electronics are powered through constant-voltage-regulated (CVR) UPCs. It is not uncommon for our supply voltage to drop 5 to 7 volts during periods of high electrical demand during the extreme hot days of summer and extreme cold days of winter (those voltage drops are “technically” a brown-out). The decreased voltage usually only lasts a few to 20 minutes before our electrical company ramps up supply (that is until the eco-weenies have all of our dams breached to “save the fish”), but without a CVR UPC my cable modem and router would be flaky.
Does anyone else consider it strange, or do you even care, that supposedly 180,000+ people have been mandatorily evacuated from below the Oroville CA dam and there are no pictures or live reports of the evacuation or “resettlement centers”. The only thing I have heard is that FEMA is handing out bottled water, blankets, and cots. Something is not right here and there is a preparedness lesson to be learned.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-14/california-crews-rush-to-relieve-dam-before-new-storms-hit/8268374
I hope Sodom on the Bay gets hit hard.
DC, could you advise what UPSes you use?
Mine are all APC SmartUPSes, with the exception of a small and cheap Belkin for the cable modem.
We had a tornado touch down in Fairchilds, about ten miles west of the Land of Sugar. We’ve got fences and trees down all over the place.
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Houston-region-under-tornado-watch-until-1-p-m-10930882.php
BTW, that is Sugar Land, not Sugarland. The country band and the Steven Spielberg movie with Goldie Hawn got it wrong.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072226/
We had a UPS check at the office this morning. Several of them failed. Sigh.
DC wrote:
“We haven’t heard from Eugen for a few days. I hope he and his family are okay.”
Great minds think alike…
I was just thinking this myself a few hours ago.
What order is best for UPSes amd surge protectors?
Plug the protector into the wall, and the UPS into that, then the equipment into the UPS? Or is it wall-UPS-protector-equipment?
I used to know all this stuff, but my memory’s shot.
“Getting old is hell ™”.
What UPSes do you use at home/office Lynn?
What UPSes do you use at home/office Lynn?
I’ve been buying the CyberPower CP1000AVRLCD Intelligent LCD Series UPS 1000VA 600W AVR Mini-Tower for the last couple of years but I am not convinced that they are any good.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000QZ3UG0/
I’ve got just about everything at the office on UPS’s now. All the routers, switches, PCs, etc. We get way too many power outages, usually a group of outages every week.
WRT to Oroville Dam ‘refugees’, this story has some blurbs on where people are staying.
http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/water-and-drought/article132583524.html
I don’t think that “Governor Moonbeam” has asked for federal help yet, so FEMA not called in. Local resources are taking care of refugees.
And there are some reports that the state DWR has known about spillway problems for decades: http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/water-and-drought/article132528514.html .
Currently in Roseville CA, Oroville Dam is to the north a ways. Lots of water in the rivers and flood bypasses (basically farmland) because of all of the rain. Storm due later this week for some more rain. Lots of old dams ‘upriver’.
Problems with landslides and road erosions between here and Reno. Major highways are 50 and 80. Highway 50 is closed due to several landslides; has been for a couple of days. I-80 (major transportation route) has westbound closure due to an active slide; detour is 20 and 49, but those roads have has slides and washouts also. Not a good time of year to try to head east from here.
And I know from my personal experience and history that Ye Olden Commonwealth of Maffachufetts has quite a few dams and bridges that were built to replace those damaged by the hurricanes of 1938 and 1954, and I also know that most of them are crumbling away. I used to either hike or x-c ski through a lot of woods down there, but in the intervening years the population has doubled, often with sub-divisions and expanded downtowns very near to them. No one to my knowledge has ever looked into this or made plans for doing anything about it.
And an interesting incident just now out front of the house; a guy parked his pickup truck in the driveway across the street and took several pictures, with a decent camera, of either this house and/or the driveway here. A veteran license plate, which I took down, and then he pulled into the next driveway and was taking pictures of that building, too. Young 30-40 guy, cleancut, glasses. I’ll be keeping an eye out for him, and will be asking around, for the time being.
@OFD : you should have asked if the picture-taking guy didn’t know about Google Street View, which I am sure has passed through your neighborhood.
Others can insert various conspiracy theories here…
Almost 2″ of rain, but it never felt like a storm here.
WRT Cali, yeah it’s weird. Where is the ‘poor family with dirty urchins in the parking lot of the no tell motel’ story? Lost everything because of .gov chicanery?
ADDED- with 200k on the move, there shouldn’t be any shortage of lines of traffic, empty stores, wiped out gas stations, broken down vehicles, etc
WRT UPSs, I like the various APC ones.
n
ADDED- WRT FEMA, my daily FEMA Update has the dam listed as an issue yesterday and today. They typically only list issues that they are actively working on. I’ll read the detail and update.
ADDED- you can see FEMA’s take here:
https://content.govdelivery.com/attachments/USDHSFEMA/2017/02/14/file_attachments/770733/FEMA%2BDaily%2BOps%2BBriefing%2B02-14-2017.pdf
added- edited link to remove any of my tracking.
All this talk of dam busting is making me nervous.
I have all Falcon Electric true (on-line) UPSs. At this point, none of them are functional, so I’m running barefoot. I have three of them, one with an external battery pack. When the battery died in the first one, I put it aside intending to replace the battery when I got a round tuit, and connected up the second one. When the battery failed in that one, I did the same. When the battery failed in the third one, I really did intend to replace the batteries in all three of them, but I haven’t done that yet. Our power up here is extremely reliable. We’ve had one very short outage that I can remember since we moved here in early December of 2o15. Our notebooks both have built-in UPSs, so to speak, so it hasn’t been a high priority.
@ofd, re: photographer.
Used to be that was probably a realtor. But if it’s your house he’s snapping, that doesn’t make sense.
Or it could be the tax assessor, although most would have a state vehicle.
Could just be a guy who likes old houses… yours is pretty old, by your account…
n
Re: UPSs
APC has a nice trade up program, discounts off their product when you send them any other UPS. They ship it, and send a box. There’s even an online calculator to see what you get for yours.
I’ve found that you can usually get new for the cost of just replacing your batteries, so why not?
Also, if you drill down thru their website, they have a ‘scratch and dent’ section that can save a bunch of money.
n
“I have all Falcon Electric true (on-line) UPSs…..”
Oh-oh, I guess I got behind on this issue. I bought an APC UPS at least a dozen years ago as it was the brand recommended in BTPPC. Batteries replaced a couple of times.
Thanks Lynn. Yeah, those units look cheap. TOO CHEAP. I’ve been happy with my APC units, made in the Philippines. I once bought a cheap APC unit made in India. Big mistake.
I’d buy Falcons if they had an Australian distributor.
I think it will be a good idea to look at getting weather imagery off the satellite directly. SDR and the right antenna, and some other software should be doable… Not a priority but something to consider.
I use a Realtek HDTV dongle to listen to air traffic control data as part of a thesis idea I’ve had simmering for years. I believe the same hardware can listen to the weather satellite imagery with the right antenna mounted outside.
Google around. A lot of information is out there about using RTL2832 for SDR.
I had access to N200 Ettus hardware at my last grad program. I regret being a good citizen and not “accidentally” packing one during our moving prep. When the university essentially frog marched my advisor off campus, I’m sure a few of those boxes went out the door in his bag. Otherwise, the gear was probably tossed by the clueless lab admins. Sigh. I had a full OpenBTS system running at one point.
@greg, I’ve seen various antenna projects and pix of people decoding the imagery online, just one more thing to do 🙂 I did pick up a ground plane for my UHF eggbeater antenna (16″ pizza pan) so that will get put together and installed at some point, which will open up some possibilities.
I’ve got a tv dongle and SDR# running on my other desktop, but am not trying to decode or run any digital modes. I usually just use the waterfall to find local law enforcement to monitor.
So many projects, so little spare time…
n
WRT the damn dam-
First person info posted at https://survivalblog.com/
Not, however directly from an evacuee…
n
I am not convinced that they are any good
Much better than nothing.
APC has a nice trade up program
Had an APC at work, big ol’ sucker, required a 20 amp circuit (110V). But came in one morning and the place smelled horrible. Servers were quiet. Lady that comes in early said just a minute or two before I came in there was a loud pop, servers went dead, and the place started stinking.
I immediately unplugged the UPS and reworked some electrical cords to get the servers back up as that was the first priority. Then I tore into the APC UPS. One of the boards had smoked a component badly. Called APC to see about getting it repaired. Nope, they don’t repair UPS’. Only option was to buy new. No trade in for the old UPS either as the old UPS was not working.
So even APC, a supposedly reliable brand, can have failures. Consumer grade may not use as heavy duty components as commercial but are probably good enough. You no longer have large power hungry glass monitors. Many have laptops being used as desktops which inherently have backup power. You may lose the secondary monitor but you still have a working computer. May lose your WIFI and network without a UPS.
Unless you are keeping your UPS at the max capacity, which is highly unlikely, even consumer grade UPS’ should be good enough for a desktop system.
I personally don’t use surge protectors. Haven’t for 30+ years and never had a problem with any equipment. Have used a UPS for 30+ years at home without any issues other than replacing the batteries. A UPS will provide surge protection so no need to use any surge protection with a UPS.
On a side note I have a friend who works for Alabama Power. His opinion of surge protectors is basically zero. Says the sheer mass of the power system will absorb any harmful surges. Lightning striking close to your house can easily jump surge protection and is going to go where it wants to go. No surge protection will protect against lightning. Equipment failure from power problems are the result of wiring faults that surge protectors will not catch.
The place I go to get UPS equipment is ebay; what I look for is a working APC Smart-UPS series unit that’s sold with no batteries. Buying one of those _and_ a set of new batteries tends to cost about the same amount as buying just the battery pack from APC. (I don’t trust the new batteries that ebay sellers throw in, old batteries tend to be half dead, and shipping the unit with batteries installed makes it more likely to get damaged.) If your reaction to this suggestion is “no, I want reliability; I’m not going to buy from some random ebay seller”, well, I think that’s the usual psychology and it’s why they’re so cheap on ebay. But it’s not like the ebay sellers are going to sabotage them.
The Smart-UPS units are pure sine wave units, and APC doesn’t try too hard to cut costs on them, like they do on some of their other lines; there’s a big heavy transformer in there and plenty of other parts which they could have omitted but didn’t. They still sometimes fail, though; they’re not _that_ overbuilt.
The main drawback to those units is that they often have the battery voltage set too high (more than 14V/battery), which dries the batteries out and means APC can sell more overpriced batteries to people who are unaware that these are standard sized batteries and can be had for less than half the price elsewhere. On some of the Smart-UPS units the voltage can be adjusted digitally; on others you need a soldering iron.
I’ve got a tv dongle and SDR# running on my other desktop, but am not trying to decode or run any digital modes. I usually just use the waterfall to find local law enforcement to monitor.
Try ADS-B “Out” monitoring. dump1040 works really well.
Yes, it is legal … and a bit scary.
Like Concerned American says, put them on the border and give security responsibilities back to the airlines.
I’m sorry – that will never happen. It’s now a jobs program, and nobody wants to give up the federal bucks to have the airports do it again. (Never mind that the airports are paying for it now. People just don’t frickin’ SEE it.)
About that router – I retired a Linksys that was flaking out with a Buffalo Brand unit running DD-WRT. I’m not a huge Linux guy, but I do like the idea of being able to manage some of my hardware directly. The two features I found truly compelling:
1. Bandwidth usage. I have a record of every bit that goes in & out. If TWC (Spectrum) ever decides to impose limits, I’ll know where I stand. (600 Gb to 1 Tb a month right now.)
2. VPN. I have two options for VPN access to my home network. Throw in DynDNS and I can connect to my home computer from anywhere in the world. And I got rid of LogMeIn to boot.
@greg norton,
That’s dump1090. 1090 MHz is the air-to-ground secondary radar frequency, where all such traffic is carried, worldwide. The corresponding ground-to-air interrogation frequency is 1030 MHZ, but ADS-B doesn’t need ground interrogation, it’s stand-alone.
There is an extra frequency in the US – 9xx MHz, but it’s US-specific and I don’t know what is transmitted there – I’m in UK.
Geoff
I have Trip-lite surge suppressors. The UPS is plugged into that. Yeah, I know the UPS has suppression, I’m protecting the UPS.
My three UPS are http://www.provantage.com/cyberpower-systems-cp900avr~7CYPR029.htm
They just work.
Shipping makes it $105.39 vs $106.95 and free shipping from Amazon. I’ve been buying from Provantage for a while now… I bought my DeskJet 895Cxi from them as my “reward” for quitting smoking. 1997. At about $25 a carton/week, it doesn’t take long to have the cash for a $400 printer.
The 895Cxi is long gone. I gave it away. Tired of buying ink or refilling them. Replaced by a Xerox color laser that I really liked until it decided the way this stuff works is to feed half a sheet before starting to print… and then saying it had a paper jam. It’s in the barn waiting for my next trip to the recycle place.
Current printer is a Lexmark CX410dte. It’s a beast. Caught a combo of a sale and big rebate to snag it for $175 plus almost $50 for shipping. Perhaps my least expensive printer to date. I should have bought two and sold one to pay for both.
I have Trip-lite surge suppressors. The UPS is plugged into that. Yeah, I know the UPS has suppression, I’m protecting the UPS.
My three UPS are http://www.provantage.com/cyberpower-systems-cp900avr~7CYPR029.htm
Apparently we lost at least two UPSs this morning with the power rapidly going on and off a dozen or more times. I haven’t tested all of the UPSs yet since I am out of spares. We used one of the spares a month ago and I forgot to order more. Sigh. I had a plan and did not follow it.
And one of them was my pc so I am running without a UPS now. The main ethernet switch for the office and the two DSL modems got the spare UPS. Woo hoo ! I feel like I am in the wild west.
@Miles_Teg — I am currently using 4 of these CyberPower 1400VA / 900Watts True Sine Wave Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS):
https://www.costco.com/CyberPower-1400VA–900Watts-True-Sine-Wave-Uninterruptible-Power-Supply-(UPS).product.100215531.html
The oldest one is 4 years old and the newest is a bit more than a year old. There are better units by other companies, but not at this price point. I have had good luck with these and consider them “disposable”. The batteries can be replaced by the electronics that make it work deteriorate with age.
Costco does sell a couple of good APC units but they are stepped sine wave, which IMHO, is not as good for sensitive electronics over the long run (faster degredation of components).
WRT using a surge protector with a UPS, I do not, sorry but I the technical reason escapes me at the moment.
We are in Texas. Running commando w/ no UPS, eh? 🙂
I have three pulls of CAT5 between the house and the EDC (Embryo Development Centre). AKA the 13×20 building we have for the incubator and hatcher. Because we was gonna get rich raising emu. Er, and the market crashed just as I hatched my first batch. Oh well. We pulled the wire when a 1000 ft spool cost a lot of money. About a dollar a foot. Maybe 1993 or ’95. So we could connect the Mighty Win3.11 486DX to a Compaq suitcase running DOS. Good times.
My network connection is at the EDC. It’s a few feet higher than the house and being on a 50 foot push-up mast, I didn’t want a lighting rod bolted to the house and guy wires all over the yard. wISP is all you get here, just a 2000 feet to far for DSL.
One pull never worked for Ethernet. Ohmed out ok. Worked for telephone. The other pulls worked. One to feed the wISP connection to the hub in the house and one to feed the LAN back to the EDC. Hey, I was doing star topology before I knew it had a name.
Several years ago we had a thunderstorm come through. With one house shaking boom, I lost a couple of NICs, 2 hubs, an Intel print server, and my router. And one of the cables. Reconfigure to use just one cable? I got this. The storm also blew several resistors in my Radio Shack central alarm system. Oh, and ended my trying to use Ubuntu… ’cause I could not get that box to see the new NIC. WinXP had no problem…
Had another thunderstorm last year and I lost “just” an 8 port switch and a 4 port plus the router. Induced current is a bitch.
The wire is still there but not touching anything. I bought a couple of Ubiquity nano-beams and crazy as it seems, the network is working better than ever.
A couple of Ubiquity Unify make the wi-fi here very nice.
We are in Texas. Running commando w/ no UPS, eh?
Not any more. We just had our second power outage this afternoon (plus the dozen or so outages this morning). According to Ian Fleming, once is an accident. Twice is a coincidence. Three times is an enemy action.
I didn’t wait for the enemy action, the third outage, this afternoon. I went and plugged the building 24 port ethernet switch and the DSL modems into the phone switch UPS using a six plug power strip. Yup, I know, fire code violation. No fire marshalls out here in the sticks. We’ll fix it when the new UPSs get here. That new 1,000 VA UPS is now sitting behind my PC in my office. Sigh.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000QZ3UG0/
And according to Amazon, I bought that UPS in 2015. I cannot believe that we have not lost a UPS since then. And I found the other “spare” UPS, we put it on the CRM (contact relationship manager) file server in January.
When we get the two new spare UPSs, we need to do a check of all 18 or 20 UPSs in the office. No rest for the weary XXXXX wicked.
My network connection is at the EDC. It’s a few feet higher than the house and being on a 50 foot push-up mast, I didn’t want a lighting rod bolted to the house and guy wires all over the yard. wISP is all you get here, just a 2000 feet to far for DSL.
EDC = every day carry ???
I’ve got a 25 pair cable pulled to the AT&T CO switch over in Booth. Probably less than a mile of cable, I can see it on the power poles along FM 2759. Only about half of the pairs now work since the water well digger went right though it with his backhoe. The AT&T service dude repaired all 25 pairs but some of them are so noisy that they do not work. I’ve got five outside phone lines and two DSL modems on seven of the pairs. The warehouse dudes are using two more of the pairs for a phone line and a DSL modem.
Our DSL modems are 12 Mbps down and 1 Mbps up each. On a good day. And we use a Peplink 30 WAN load balancer router to combine those DSL lines.
https://www.amazon.com/Peplink-Balance-20-Dual-WAN-Router/dp/B0042210U6/
EDC = chicken house
Egg Development Cottage. Gotta boost the chickens’ self-esteem.
EDC just seemed fancier than Incubator Building. Beer may have been involved.
PEC, the electric company, calls it the emu shed.
The Peplink I put in for my customer out 290 way works great, and it gives me a nice portal to their system, and a vpn.
They are getting 5-6M down and 720 up on each of the dsl lines.
I’d love to get them on a wireless ISP, but nothing is available north of 10 generally…
n
Picked up a really nice wind up clock this weekend.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Schatz-Brass-Plated-Bell-Ship-Wheels-Clock-Royal-Mariner-Nautical-Ships-/262827595427?hash=item3d31bed6a3:g:CFwAAOSwopRYZEui
I’ve been buying wind up clocks here and there, but they are pretty cheap, don’t keep great time, and need winding every day.
This one lasts 8 days and is pretty good quality for the money.
Wind up clocks only make sense in a full grid down collapse situation, so maybe I should add that to my “you might be a prepper if….” list.
nick
Just back from 2.5-hour meeting of the Town Planning Commission; very interesting and informative. Chatted with them briefly, I was the only attendee from the public. They thanked me for coming a couple of times, and looks like they’ll also be setting up a Historical Committee to meet less often; we evidently have 85 structures in the town that date prior to 1850 (this is laughable down in Maffachufetts, where they talk about 1650), plus a bunch of Native Murkan sites that date back 9,000 years.
Meatspace. Learn your AO and the major players.
Found out some more intel on the new marina that’s gonna go in, and they apparently expect it’ll fill up quickly, and we’re talking 150 boats, plus the parking, fuel facility, storage tanks, etc. This will change things considerably here and I am altogether unsure if it’s for the better. We shall see. We may end up spending our summers up in northern Nouveau Brunswick.
That’s dump1090. 1090 MHz is the air-to-ground secondary radar frequency, where all such traffic is carried, worldwide. The corresponding ground-to-air interrogation frequency is 1030 MHZ, but ADS-B doesn’t need ground interrogation, it’s stand-alone.
Doh. Tax season. I’ve hacked a few modifications into dump1090 so I should know the name.
So did anyone give the valentines a copy of Chelsea Clinton’s new book ? I understand that it is just the cats meow:
http://heatst.com/politics/chelsea-clintons-new-book-flop-being-talked-about-by-nobody-including-chelsea-clinton/
I ordered up a gross of Princess Chelsea’s books; just to get a start on evaluation of our new waste incinerator here in the village; a kickstart, if you will…
And speaking of Murkan infrastructure:
http://www.oftwominds.com/blogfeb17/elites-empire2-17.html
Meatspace: Our township council meeting is tonight. I haven’t attended in a couple of years, but I do know a couple of the councilmen personally. I’m not interested in anything in particular, but I do like to stick my head in occasionally and say “Hello.” I need to remain at least peripherally aware of what’s going on.
Of interest: We currently rely on the state police for criminal investigations and contract with other municipalities for patrolling shopping plazas and other places where actual police are required. There is a state move to impose a $25/person/year on municipalities that do not have their own police force.
I want to know the official stance of the council and remain aware if it. (25 bucks isn’t much, but it’s still 25 bucks.)
Meatspace- we have our local “Capital Improvement Plan” review meeting tonight. I will be attending.
While most of the decisions about how to spend our tax money are already made, we can express our feelings about them, and more importantly, get advanced warning of what’s coming.
For example, we have a bike trail long term plan with many hundreds of miles of bike trail planned. One of the planned “improvements” will connect the Fifth Ward (impoverished crime ridden black neighborhoods) with our neighborhood (racially mixed, same overall as Houston overall, and NOT impoverished, or crime ridden.)
This will allow someone with no vehicle to walk, bike, or push a shopping cart from the Fifth ward to my back yard without ever setting foot on a street.
This is NOT in the best interests of our neighborhood.
Knowing about it, we can fight to delay or cancel it, or I can start looking for a different neighborhood.
Many other things like this will be discussed, including street improvements and drainage improvements. Both of those impact short and long term plans in my neighborhood. (access routes, noise, flooding, outsiders moving thru…)
Important to have connections to the broader community.
n
Speaking of local taxes, one of the Tri-Cities, Richland, can’t find money to improve one of their most used roads so they are proposing a $20 surcharge on all vehicles license tabs sold to city residents. Our vehicle license bureaucracy has become a new source of funds for the state, counties, and cities. Basically any state gooberment entity can add surcharges. Not that many years ago the vehicle license tab fees were reduced and they “promised” that they would never be more than $35 for a car. I won’t bore you with all the “fees” that have been added, plus they automatically add fees for the state parks that you have to remember to opt-out of.
“This will allow someone with no vehicle to walk, bike, or push a shopping cart from the Fifth ward to my back yard without ever setting foot on a street.”
What was/is the official rationale for that particular “improvement?” If no satisfactory answer nor backing off it, I suggest mines. What possible reason would Fifth Ward residents have for be-bopping on down to your ‘hood?
It so happens that sidewalks are a pressing issue here, too, and have already become a fustercluck, thanks to several developers and contractors and construction companies throwing them in willy-nilly wherever they felt like it. And the number “$30 per square foot” was also mentioned. I know they’ve had a sidewalk extension plan for the park behind us, and up in the city, where good work has been done already. As it stands now, undesirable elements have sort of an access to our back yard from the park, but they have to cross a sometimes fairly busy and hazardous state road, a drainage ditch, and then get through some fairly heavy brush and trees. I’ve also got the rear wire fence halfway across now, and will be finishing it as weather improves, and adding trip wires, solar motion-detector floods, and one of the web cams will be focused in that direction. I’ll also install a new deadbolt lockset and strike plate on wife’s studio door.
Meanwhile I’ve ordered a doorjamb security package to install on our back door, and I’ll get another new deadbolt and strike plate for that, too. If that goes OK, I’ll do the same for the front door.
http://armorconcepts.com/Door-Armor/
Glad to hear the upgrades are finally happening.
n
“What possible reason would Fifth Ward residents have for be-bopping on down to your ‘hood?”
better quality and quantity of stuff to steal? Better panhandling opportunities? Untapped markets for drugs?
Or the ever-popular “teh diversite’ ”
n
“Glad to hear the upgrades are finally happening.”
A little easier to stay on track now with two (and counting) regular sources of income other than from wife. Before, her checks would be so late and random, that the bills would just pile up and we couldn’t keep up. That’s still the situation with her checks, but mine hit the account automatically on the 1st and 20th of each month from now on, or until the whole mess finally implodes, by which time I hope to have several other sources of regular income developed.
“Or the ever-popular “teh diversite’ ”
Microaggression Alert! Diversity Is Our Vibrancy! Now move on, citizen!
I ordered up a gross of Princess Chelsea’s books; just to get a start on evaluation of our new waste incinerator here in the village; a kickstart, if you will…
Oh, that is not good. She, being a Clinton, probably gets $100 royalty for each book sale. She is, royalty after all (a princess !) and they get special treatment.
And the number “$30 per square foot” was also mentioned.
Wow, that must be extra special concrete and union laborers. I got quoted $6.25/square foot for new four inch thick concrete with rebar two years ago here in The Great State of Texas.
I wonder if they were quoting dollars per linear foot ?
Found out some more intel on the new marina that’s gonna go in, and they apparently expect it’ll fill up quickly, and we’re talking 150 boats, plus the parking, fuel facility, storage tanks, etc. This will change things considerably here and I am altogether unsure if it’s for the better. We shall see.
Won’t they have to pull the boats out of the water for winter up there in the frozen north ? Or will they heat the water in the marina “snicker” ?
Maybe it was linear feet; the chair mentioned it briefly in passing and then it didn’t come up again; I gotta read a bunch of documents prior to taking a volunteer seat on this or any other town committee; don’t wanna appear ignint.
“She is, royalty after all (a princess !) and they get special treatment.”
I’m pretty sure that’s how she thinks of herself, but few others do, including the poor slobs at the “Foundation” who were/are her “colleagues” and subordinates. Neither her parents nor her stepfather are any great shakes, the mother and stepfather both being war criminals, thieves and either drug addict or drunk. Her actual dad hasn’t been in the public eye very much for a long time, and that’s probably no accident. And the stepdad’s actual dad is a whole other bucket of rotting fish back in the ol’ hometown. We’re not talking nobility here such as we have come to understand it from the UK or Europe….
This will allow someone with no vehicle to walk, bike, or push a shopping cart from the Fifth ward to my back yard without ever setting foot on a street.
This will allow someone with no vehicle to steal a bike from my property to get their stolen booty back to the Fifth ward without ever setting foot on a street.
Fixed it for you.
Capo Chelsea has also been active on Twitter/Social Media trying to criticize President tRump and cabinet. She usually steps on a rake with dumb comments. I guess this is how Canklesore is preparing her to run against Caroline Kennedy in 2020 for a possible Senate seat. On Twitter. Hehe. Coffin should just throw her up for NYC Mayor. Give her her first loss to see what it feels like.
I wonder how much of that book Capo actually wrote. She probably sat around and spouted off while Coffin’s assistant took notes.
Ima gon go WAY out on a limb here and figga that we gon hab a lot more to worry about in 2020 than a race between princesses. That’s three years off and a whole chit-ton of chit is likely to happen here and in the world.
I just plan to have a party here, even if it’s only me and the animals, when Larry Klinton and Cankles finally croak. I am so, so tired of seeing them, hearing about them, reading about them, it’s been, what, nearly thirty years already? But it seems like centuries. And yet we’ll still have Princess Chelsea and a whole new generation of the Kennedy litters. Oh, plus the Obummer grrls.