It was 5 degrees, sunny with 15 to 20 mph winds and gusts to 40 when I took Colin out at 7:30.
Bob may be going to a rehab facility today or tomorrow.
Friday January 5, 2018
92 Comments and discussion on "Friday January 5, 2018"
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It was 5 degrees, sunny with 15 to 20 mph winds and gusts to 40 when I took Colin out at 7:30.
Bob may be going to a rehab facility today or tomorrow.
Comments are closed.
Wow, that is really excellent news that he is doing well enough to be moved. I guess they got the trach tube out?
I hope he’s feeling a lot better. Our continued best wishes….
nick
Not that you need any more stress in your life right now, Barbara, but if by “rehab” you mean a Skilled Nursing facility, then you’re going to need to watch them like a hawk. They almost all get horrible reviews and deservedly so.
Great news Barbara. A turn for the better.
Great news about Bob. He will have that place “rehabed” in no time flat.
And I agree with @Chad. “Skilled Nursing Facilities” employ too many unskilled people of dubious nationality, credentials, and experience. The pee and/or overpowering air freshener smell is the first bad indicator.
Anyone that can comment on intel processor choices?
i’ve currently got an i7-4770 and the onsale pc at costco is an i7-7700.
They’ve got almost identical clocks, cache, cores/threads, etc.
Am I really going to see any difference? the numbers look the same…
n
https://www.intel.com/content/dam/support/us/en/documents/processors/intel-core-i7-comparison-chart.pdf
and the browser developers seem to have forgotten who they are working for, or possibly now they are showing their true colors.
Example A: there is no setting switch to keep ALL websites from asking you if they can send you push notifications. Clearly allowing and building the ability to Push came from the website side, and not the user side. By not providing a way to easily kill this ‘feature’ they show where their loyalty lies.
Example B: no way to stop the new generation of popups (oh hey, we see you are using an ad blocker…) (oh hey, take our survey and tell us how we’re doing…) (oh hey, subscribe and we’ll have sex with you, otherwise we’ll drop this kitten into a blender…) short of an extension. NO USER wants ANY kind of popups. Not permission to get my location, not hey join our club, not hey we can’t pay our own way, not permission to interrupt me in the future with notifications…..
nick
Anyone that can comment on intel processor choices?
i’ve currently got an i7-4770 and the onsale pc at costco is an i7-7700.
They’ve got almost identical clocks, cache, cores/threads, etc.
Am I really going to see any difference? the numbers look the same…
Desktop or Laptop?
In addition to the die shrink, Kaby Lake (i7-7700) supports more memory, I/O channels, and 4k video decoding. Also, DDR4.
anyone else see a link between the current ‘tell all’ book and the surrounding MSM frenzy, and the changes in the status of the Clinton investigation, and the revelations of lying and complicity?
Anyone here have friends and family who are capable of believing that a man worth BILLIONS with a long history of success in business and media ‘has the mind of a child’?
Can they tie their own shoes and manage a fork?
n
“Desktop or Laptop?
In addition to the die shrink, Kaby Lake (i7-7700) supports more memory, I/O channels, and 4k video decoding.”
desktop.
the die shrink helps how?
Same memory both pcs.
Main use, processing and recording mpeg and h.264 video streams delivered by ethernet.
n
To disable such notifications in firefox altogether:
about:config
dom.push.enabled
Make it false.
I don’t know how effective this will be, as I’ve just found it myself. But I’m going to see. Push notifications just BUG me.
the die shrink helps how?
Power consumption on a laptop and performance overall.
DDR4 is probably the biggest change in Kaby Lake. If you haven’t maxed out the RAM in your current PC, DDR3 will start to get more expensive as the mainstream shift forces the manufacturers to move to the next generation.
If you stick to your current system, just be aware of the change in memory and watch the prices. I was not paying attention when the DDR2->DDR3 shift happened, and when I started grad school six years ago, I had to drop nearly $400 to max out my Q6600 PC with 16 GB RAM.
Is there any doubt Trump is an egotistical asshat? But left with the choice we had the most important thing still is that Hillary Clinton is not president.
I’ve got 16 gig ram but my framerates are less than the cameras are capable of. Trying from less powerful pc, framerates drop even more, which suggests to me a processor bottleneck. on my normal machine, CPU utilization jumps from 35% with one cam, to 70+% with streams. (and framerate for one cam drops from 8fps to 4, camera is capable of 15.)
I’ve been meaning to get the cams and recording DVR off my main desk machine (the 4770) as it is otherwise quite fast enough for what I do.
New dell at costco is the 7700.
I just have trouble believing that specs have basically remained unchanged for 4 years, at least by the numbers listed.
Will the smaller die increase actual speed or is that still tied to clock? ‘cuz there’s not much difference in clock.
Will the memory be enough faster to make any difference? (mem usage remains rock steady at 46% whether I’ve got 1 or 8 streams running.)
It sure seems like I won’t see any performance benefit, and should look further down the processor chart and save a few bucks….
n
“Hillary Clinton is not president.”
Still not dead, but getting closer…. wonder when the lizard will get tired of wearing the skin?
n
If this is to be believed, no one should be buying anything with a processor in it and you should be destroying all processors that you have. This is by CNN (via Drudge) (sorry, it autoplays) so I give it no credibility. IMHO the is a big kerfuffle to distract us from something.
http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/03/technology/computer-chip-flaw-security/index.html
The sky is falling.
This seems to be a good summary from someone w/security background, and no dog in the hunt.
https://borepatch.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-cpu-security-bug-from-hell.html
As end users, we’ll get an OS update and be fine. The server crowd, esp those with other peoples stuff on their machines look to be fuked for a while…..
n
You should see performance improvements due to processor optimizations (if nothing else). But branch prediction has improved, power consumption has improved, and the number has increased.
What’s not in the specs is the way the technology has “improved” overall. All else being equal, would you rather have a 2013 Expedition (50,000 miles) or a 2018 Expediton (17.2 miles)? So long as it’s not diesel, I’d go for the 2017 in a heartbeat.
Well, my normal expectation is that there is improvement even if the numbers don’t change much. But I’m wary of “upgrading” to solve performance issues without clear promises of benefit.
Who does credible general benchmarks these days? I suppose it would help me to compare a benchmark score for the 4770 and the 7700.
n
Bob may be going to a rehab facility today or tomorrow.
Yah ! Another step in a positive direction.
If you walk in the front door of the “skilled nursing facility” and smell urine, leave. One of my friends conducted an inspection of 60+ facilities for her Alzheimer mother ten years ago. Her analysis was if the facility smelled like urine, there were other problems.
We have had my father-in-law in “rehab” for almost four years now. The first facility in Carrollton was next to the hospital he spent a month in. And it smelled like urine. The second facility in Addison was nice but too expensive and too far away from my SIL.
The third facility in Lewisville was cheaper, $5,100/month, and urine smell free. And closer to his girlfriend and my SIL. Winner ! The cost is now $5,400/month but, that is still good.
The sad thing is that my FIL will never move back home. He has continued deteriorating and cannot feel anything below the high waist anymore. And a 6’2″ and 300+ lbs, we cannot take take of him.
BTW, looking at upgrading my wife’s/family All in One pc, and I’m having the same issue. Screen size the same, and on paper, no real change in specs for the last 4-5 years. (without going to i9).
n
anyone else see a link between the current ‘tell all’ book and the surrounding MSM frenzy, and the changes in the status of the Clinton investigation, and the revelations of lying and complicity?
Anyone here have friends and family who are capable of believing that a man worth BILLIONS with a long history of success in business and media ‘has the mind of a child’?
Can they tie their own shoes and manage a fork?
I have a relative who is a VP at JP Morgan. She thinks that Trump is the most incompetent person to walk the planet. I don’t even talk to her about politics anymore. Over Christmas she was telling me that all houses in Houston should be torn down and turned into high density housing (apartments and condos). BTW, she lives in a $1.5 million house inside 610.
Trump was investing in and renovating dilapidated apartment complexes with his Dad at age 22 ???. He personally oversaw the projects after raising the money. He has turned ten million dollars into ten billion dollars in under fifty years. It is like that old Smith-Barney commercial, “We make money the old-fashioned way. We earn it.”.
Speaking of money:
“Panera Bread cafe that let people pay whatever they wanted is forced to close because ‘the economics didn’t make sense’
Panera founder Ron Shaich says the venture will come to an end on Tuesday
{snip}
“He said customers paid, on average, about 85 percent of the suggested price, proving, he said, ‘that people are fundamentally good’.
[mmmmnn, nope, proving your prices were about 15% higher than the market would bear.]
‘We loved it, it worked well, it proved that the idea would work,’ Shaich said.
[as long as you were ok with losing 15%]
The company opened similar cafes in Chicago, Dearborn, Michigan, Portland, Oregon and Boston. Now only the Boston location remains open.
Shaich stepped down as CEO of Panera on 1 January.
[wanna bet he leaves with a huge pot-o-money?]
Panera was acquired by the Luxembourg-based JAB Holding Co., which also owns Krispy Kreme, Caribou Coffee and other entities, in July.
[and the new owners were less sanguine about giving away the store…]
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5239621/St-Louis-pay-want-cafe-forced-close-down.html ”
nick
Speaking of money, part deux:
How long will it take to complete this cement F-35?
Better question is one that Aesop asks– with an effective border control, and expulsion of illegal mexicans, how long before the resulting lack of cross border remittances causes the corrupt and oppressive/ineffective government of mexico to collapse? Which leaves gringo Fred, mostly blind, living in a third world sh!thole while it descends into revolution and WROL. Hmm, wonder if that socialized medicine he’s both fond of and dependent on will last? Venezuela anyone?
http://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2018/01/proof-tequila-rots-brain.html
n
(I note that Cemex, the big mexican cement company has already said it would supply the concrete to build the wall. At going rates, I’m sure. This caused some blowback for them from the other criminals and sympathizers in MEX.)
added- I guess, since Fred lives in Mexico, that he’s never seen miles and miles of ‘noise wall’ either.
https://precast.org/2014/07/sound-decision/
https://smithmidland.com/sound-wall
“Standard highway sections measure 12′ from center to center and can be manufactured to heights up to and exceeding 20′. Custom configurations are available.”
“How much does sound wall cost?
According to the Federal Highway Administration, the average cost of building a sound wall is $30.78 per square foot; between 2008 and 2010 roughly $554 million worth of sound walls were built.Nov 30, 2014”
“How to Protect Your Devices Against Meltdown, Spectre Bugs”
https://www.pcmag.com/news/358286/how-to-protect-your-devices-against-meltdown-spectre-bugs
“It’s not just Intel machines. Here’s everything you need to know about how to protect your PC, Mac, and mobile device against the chip-level security flaws that were disclosed this week.”
Seems like the only true fix is to air gap all devices.
“Seems like the only true fix is to air gap all devices.”
Won’t NAT and normal firewall practice keep them out of end user machines? I understood that they have to already be on the machine they want to exploit…
Shared machines are a different story. Cloud? Oh why NOT put all our company’s secret and proprietary information on machines we don’t really control, somewhere ‘out there’? Hmmm, looks like that might have been a bad idea.
n
Better question is one that Aesop asks– with an effective border control, and expulsion of illegal mexicans, how long before the resulting lack of cross border remittances causes the corrupt and oppressive/ineffective government of mexico to collapse? Which leaves gringo Fred, mostly blind, living in a third world sh!thole while it descends into revolution and WROL. Hmm, wonder if that socialized medicine he’s both fond of and dependent on will last? Venezuela anyone?
Excellent rebuttals, Nick!
Added: Methinks a fleet of UAVs and other forms of dynamic electronic surveillance would be much more flexible and cost-effective than than a couple of thousand miles of passive concrete.
“Seems like the only true fix is to air gap all devices.”
Well, looking for my purchased in 1952 slide rule. When located, will destroy this i7 laptop. Hopefully, the search will uncover my Commodore 64.
Shared computers – Nick nailed it.
https://xkcd.com/1938/
Edit: Nick hammered it.
Love me some xkcd…
n
Couldn’t sell my c64, ended up scrapping it. Still have the external drive and printer though.
Have a couple of slipsticks, don’t know how to use them…. bought them cheap. Have a book somewhere in the doomsday library.
In Pournelle’s Jannisaries series they end up copying the log tables out of a pocket calculator by hand. I’ve got a book of log tables. Couple books….
n
“a fleet of UAVs and other forms of dynamic electronic surveillance would be much more flexible and cost-effective ”
Well, he’s (T) said the wall doesn’t have to be physical where that doesn’t make sense.
But all the UAVs in the world won’t help if you can’t or are unwilling to call in the airstrike. In other words, someone still either has to go grab the invaders, or you have to be willing to kill them to make the point. And some that you kill will be women with babies in arms, you can be sure the coyotes and snake heads (and their .co.mx and cartel enablers) will make certain of that, and that it gets front page full color coverage.
n
Seems like the only true fix is to air gap all devices.
Just like on Battlestar Galactica (new series)!
That reminds me — MeTV has been screening reruns of the bad “Galactica 1980” series recently. I discovered last weekend that the concept of Cylons who looked human originated with that group of writers and not Ronald Moore’s team.
I’ve got 16 gig ram but my framerates are less than the cameras are capable of. Trying from less powerful pc, framerates drop even more, which suggests to me a processor bottleneck. on my normal machine, CPU utilization jumps from 35% with one cam, to 70+% with streams. (and framerate for one cam drops from 8fps to 4, camera is capable of 15.)
What are you using to encode the streams?
If you are using FFMPEG, have you tried recompilation of the binary statically, targeting your CPU?
The streams come from IP cameras. Old cameras using mpg4 and motion jpeg, new cams using h.264.
There might be network constraints on overall frame rates too, my enet connection from this machine goes to 95% utilization, but even with just one stream I don’t get the frame rates I should. And I have tried it with older machines and the frame rates (in the display software, iSpy), drop dramatically. Same network, weaker processor, so I’m pretty sure the drop is processor related.
Just moving the cams and dvr to their own machine will improve MY everyday experience back to where it was before I put the load on this machine. It would be nice if the replacement machine actual performed BETTER than my 4 year old machine. (and granting that it was a pretty good spec four years ago.)
n
Re computers at Costco: I suspect that many (most) of the systems at those places are not at the leading edge of processor/system capabilities. I suspect that they are more towards the trailing end .
But I have no proof, nor statistics.
I’d like to see a comparative cost/benefit chart of processors/systems. In my case, I don’t need the highest performance system….and maybe most of those that buy at Costco/etc have similar needs.
“the bad “Galactica 1980” ”
I remember one really painful scene where Starbuck et al are surveilling earth and they marvel at the skill of drivers in rush hour traffic ‘to maintain such a tight formation.’
Ye gods. No one would make THAT mistake.
n
@rickh, the costco machine i’m looking at has the i7-7700, 16 gig, 2 TB drive, all for $700. That isn’t a cutting edge gaming machine or workstation, but the same spec on Dell’s own website is $1000, and their configurator doesn’t even offer the 2 TB drive.
https://www.costco.com/.product.100380744.html?&EMID=B2C_2018_0105_Samsung
(no idea why the link has samsung in it.)
I’m not willing to pay much more than $700, and would prefer $500, but also am not in the mood to build a barebones, or find a copy of the OS. NO WAY would I spend $1k+ for what looks like on paper pretty much the same spec as my 4 yo machine.
n
added- they have lower spec machines too, for lots cheaper, but this one is near the top for the i7…
Re: the bad BSG
A couple of years ago Apollo, Starbuck and Boomer were at the Las Vegas Comicon. The kids were who da fuk are the old dudes. I loved the old show, but didn’t line up to pay for a photo. RIP Apollo this year.
A couple of years ago Apollo, Starbuck and Boomer were at the Las Vegas Comicon. The kids were who da fuk are the old dudes. I loved the old show, but didn’t line up to pay for a photo. RIP Apollo this year.
“Galactica 1980” was essentially a promo series for the Cylon attraction on the Universal studio tour. The original show was cancelled by the time construction was completed.
Loni Anderson and Howard Hesseman came through Austin for one of the local comic shows recently. The “WKRP” pilot episode is 40 years old this Spring.
I contemplated going to the show for autographs on my box set, but each star wanted $50.
I remember one really painful scene where Starbuck et al are surveilling earth and they marvel at the skill of drivers in rush hour traffic ‘to maintain such a tight formation.’
That was an embarrassing series. Original series co-producer Donald Bellisario was either in production on “Magnum PI” or prepping to shoot the pilot as “Hawaii 5-0” wrapped that Spring, and not many of the original cast wanted to be involved anymore.
Might take a look at Newegg.com. I bought a pair of “GATEWAY DX4860” for $529 each in January 2013. Not loaded with crapware like the previous eMachine. It’s an i5. 6GB RAM. 2 TB hard drive.
Sheesh. Five years old and it’s still the “new” PC.
They charge for an autograph? I had no idea……
But all the UAVs in the world won’t help if you can’t or are unwilling to call in the airstrike. In other words, someone still either has to go grab the invaders, or you have to be willing to kill them to make the point. And some that you kill will be women with babies in arms, you can be sure the coyotes and snake heads (and their .co.mx and cartel enablers) will make certain of that, and that it gets front page full color coverage.
A 30 foot wall isn’t an insurmountable obstacle, especially if you’re prepared to abandon your scaling ladders or wall-breaching equipment. Someone’s still going to have to “grab the invaders” and/or treat the elderly abuela who breaks a leg while going over the top. High-speed chases and “bad optics” are unavoidable consequences of any wall, physical or electronic; the latter is so much cheaper and more flexible.
What we have to look forward to:
http://www.theblaze.com/news/2018/01/05/britains-single-payer-health-care-crisis-nhs-cancels-50000-surgeries-amid-hospital-chaos
My Daughter, the Certified Accredited Medical Coder, mentioned recently that her professional organization AAPC (American Academy of Professional Coders) had said that the overhead cost of medical exceeds 80%. This could not exist in a free market, which is becoming more and more an extinct phrase in the former USofA.
If you, or your Wife, has an Instant Pot and are a somewhat anal-retentive OCD Engineer like me, you might like this article (even if not, the article is good):
https://skillet.lifehacker.com/what-your-instant-pot-buttons-mean-1821790408
“Treat” means “point, laugh, and put the video up on YouTube”, right?
Better call it something else. Sessions is on the prohibition warpath.
Nick, the one site that I know and that still does quite a lot of work on CPU analysis and benchmarking is Anandtech. They have a CPU benchmarking comparison tab for the CPUs that they look into at: https://www.anandtech.com/bench/CPU/1603.
Unfortunately, it seems they have not done the 7700k. I chose the 4770k vs the 6700k and it seems that the increase is about 10%+ in fps. The 7700K is Kaby-Lake so may have a bit better benchmarking apart from newer features.
2 TB drive,
Beware. Many of these drives are 5400 rpm, limited cache, thus slow. My wife’s one year old machine is slower than my 5 year old machine despite having a faster CPU.
My Daughter, the Certified Accredited Medical Coder, mentioned recently that her professional organization AAPC (American Academy of Professional Coders) had said that the overhead cost of medical exceeds 80%. This could not exist in a free market, which is becoming more and more an extinct phrase in the former USofA.
Back in WA State, my wife’s corporate masters would bill $300 to commercial insurance for a 15-20 minute office visit. My wife’s pre-tax share for the visit was ~ $20, and that was in a good month.
Here in TX, things aren’t that different, but the office visit costs about 1/3 less. We also receive a monthly spreadsheet informing us what the practice collected vs. what my wife is paid.
Wrt drive speed the Costco pc is 5200, but I’ve got other drives if it comes to that. It will be an appliance to record the security cams and nothing else.
I may just put an ssd in the family pc. That got me an extra year out of my old work machine. Ssd are cheap at Fry’s.
Nick
Btw Swype keeps getting worse att picking the correct word with every update. Bah.
The closing of the Clermont, FL K-mart is a bigger deal than I thought.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/consumer/os-bz-kmart-closing-clermont-20180105-story.html
K-mart’s real estate in FL was so good I cant imagine how they failed to make money, especially in tourist areas where the needs of the customers are fairly straightforward — t-shirts, coolers, snacks, suntan lotion … try to get rid of a Plough rep once they put a Coppertone display in your store.
My friend was a Schering plough rep. Tenacious doesn’t even begin to describe him
N.
YUUUP, back in ’52 I started high school in Chicago. It was a “technical” school, all boys then, specializing in college prep. Well, it all worked out for me, got me admitted to Technical Institute at Northwestern University. Back then, it was not all about getting the underprivileged, minorities to stay in school long enough to get phony diplomas.
A slide rule, which we could afford to buy, was good enough, as compared to the iPads that the taxpayers must buy for the disadvantaged nowadays so they can get a fraudulent diploma.
What’s not in the specs is the way the technology has “improved” overall.
I am not of fan of the “new” water heater technology. These digital controllers from Honeywell are crap. I am two for two failure rate.
Won’t NAT and normal firewall practice keep them out of end user machines? I understood that they have to already be on the machine they want to exploit…
If that were the case then http://www.gotomypc.com would not work. I’ve got two employees using gotomypc on a daily basis.
I just went saw “The Darkest Hour” with the parents and the wife today. I had no idea how bad things were when Churchill became Prime Minister. The movie covers the first two weeks of Churchill in office. Highly recommended. 4.5 out of 5 stars.
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/darkest_hour_2017
Is it just me or does there seem to be a lot of WW II movies lately ?
It was a “technical” school, all boys then, specializing in college prep.
Lane Tech?
Didn’t go there myself, but this guy did. Highly recommended.
That reminds me — MeTV has been screening reruns of the bad “Galactica 1980” series recently. I discovered last weekend that the concept of Cylons who looked human originated with that group of writers and not Ronald Moore’s team.
The human race is currently working on the Cylons as we type. They will be here soon. Who knows how long it will take for them to achieve self-awareness ?
https://www.rt.com/news/411024-sexbots-digisexuals-inevitable-robots/
“It’s Going to Be -100 Degrees on Mount Washington Tonight. Here’s What That Feels Like”
http://www.travelandleisure.com/travel-news/mount-washington-observer
-40 F with 100 mph winds to get -100 F wind chill.
I’ll be staying here in Sugar Land close to the world’s biggest hot tub, the Gulf of Mexico. It may drown us occasionally in rain (54 inches in Harvey) but it does moderate the cold fronts.
Hat tip to:
http://drudgereport.com/
@Medium Wave: Yes, that was quite intuitive, it was Lane Tech. However, much later, I have a niece that went there. Her mother, my sister, still lives down near Wrigley Field. I think that it has been “gentrified” and, consequently, she is safe with respect to the rest of Chicongo.
@CowboySlim:
From the Lane Tech Wikipedia article:
“It is a diverse school with many of its students coming from different ethnicities and economic backgrounds.[8] To celebrate the school’s diversity, Lane hosts dozens of ethnic clubs which help students learn more about other cultures as well as prepare for the International Days festivities.”
Sounds like the school’s seen some “improvements” since you graduated! 😉
Graduated from a similar college-prep HS back in ’65. Since then the school has become coed and, if not full-on SJW, pretty close to it. 🙁
Stu,
I was looking for OFD’s home address and I must have written it down wrong and it’s since been redacted.
I got him a book today.
I think I have your own phone number wrong, too, because all I get are clicks…
And I can’t find YOUR new email addy.
jim~
who would leave his email addy, but
@jim~
I wiped it from my mind when I redacted it. Cslim can repost and I’ll redact it again later. (or whoever has it.)
@marcelo, thanks for the link to anandtech. I’d completely forgotten about them. I was able to find both processors in the head to head comparison section. The newer 7700 does well on all the benchmarks, but is pretty much exactly even on real world games with external graphics cards. I’m going to guess that since I’ll be using the integrated graphics, I’ll see some improvement.
Thanks to all for the advice. I’m still bummed that the pace of improvement has slowed so much. 4 year old system that wasn’t top of the line, but was spec’d well at the pricing sweet spot and it holds up well with the sweet spot processor of today (only one year old.) Virtually identical with an external graphics card.
Ah for the heady days of my youth, when 4 years was an outrageous time to keep using a pc.
nick
I just opened a new WD 8 TB external USB drive and writing the first LAN backup to it, around 4.5 TB. It has written 350 GB so far. Here is hoping that it is done by the time I get in Monday.
https://www.amazon.com/Book-Desktop-External-Drive-WDBBGB0080HBK-NESN/dp/B01LQQHLGC/
The Amica insurance appraiser came by and looked at my truck. Needs a new driver side headlight and a new front grille bracket (five ft wide and broken in 3 pieces). Something like this but way more than $55 from a Ford dealer plus labor to pull the radiator:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009DK8HNK/
Needs front bumper cover and driver side front fender rebuilt.
I am probably only getting the grille opening bracket and headlight fixed. No one expects a 2005 Expedition with 189K miles to be perfect. The KBB on my truck is $4K.
Meanwhile, I am going to look into a white 2018 F-150 XLT crewcab longbed 4×4 with the max towing package (that gets you the 5 row radiator, transmission cooler, and 36 gallon tank). And the black vinyl floor (no carpet needed here).
[snip] These digital controllers from Honeywell are crap. [snip]
My Honeywell digital thermostat is also crap. It was installed in June 2009, and it never has actually followed the programming to turn on the A/C at the proper time. I gave up, and just switch it off when I leave the house, and turn it back on when I get home. I suppose the failure to conform probably also occurs when the heat is on, but that’s rare enough that I don’t even bother. I just flip it on in the morning (like the last few) and turn if off when I leave the house; then back on in the PM. The American Standard heat pump system is great. Very energy efficient, very powerful, I would recommend it (with the right contractor, of course) to anyone in the heat pump zone of the US.
I wiped it from my mind when I redacted it. Cslim can repost and I’ll redact it again later. (or whoever has it.)
That would be me, Nick.
As a site admin, do you have access to commenters’ email addresses? If so, email me and I’ll send it to you, and you can pass it on to @jim~. If not, I’ll repost the hobbit house address here for future redaction.
My Honeywell digital thermostat is also crap. It was installed in June 2009, and it never has actually followed the programming to turn on the A/C at the proper time. I gave up, and just switch it off when I leave the house, and turn it back on when I get home.
Dude, I feel your pain. About $2,400 worth of pain for me.
@Nick..
Re IP cameras. These are the details of 2 systems. Both running “Blue Iris” camera software on Intel CPUs. Cameras are Hikvision 2mp All running at full resolution (2688 x 1520) + (1 @ 1920 x 1080) at 15fps, continuous recording to WD 4TB purple drives. Windows 10.
System 1: 2 cameras Skylake i5-6600 8GB Ram. 7% CPU usage, 600 MB Ram usage.
System 2: 4 cameras Skylake i5-6600 8GB Ram. 30% CPU, 1 GB Ram..
These numbers might give you a general idea re CPU usage.
Browsers: completely disabling push notifications, completely disabling autoplay – funny how both of those features are either hard-to-find or nonexistent. Irritating as hell, but it shows who butters the browser-manufacturers’ bread. We don’t pay for their products, after all, so guess who does. Frankly, it’s a miracle that they aren’t even more customer unfriendly.
To get rid of the new generation of popovers, about your only choice is to disable scripting entirely. There are a couple of sites that I visit, where I get a popover, disable scripts, and everything is fine. Even that doesn’t always work; I have seen at least one site that must have implemented their popover using CSS, or entirely server-side.
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I’ve read a fair bit about the meltdown/spectre security bugs. They aren’t actually that serious for your average user, because they are difficult to exploit. And patches will be coming. They are scary because they are fundamental flaws in the silicon, and affect almost every Intel chip since 1995. It’s owners of shared servers who have the real problem, because they are fully exposed to anyone who rents space on their machine.
What I find pretty amazing are the attack vectors. The attacks are incredibly sophisticated and complicated. It took a lot of brains to figure out how to exploit these weaknesses. I still don’t fully understand how it works, but at least part of it is tricking the processor into loading a byte into cache – and then figuring out what that byte actually is by measuring timings, because you don’t actually have direct access to cache contents. Really, pretty crazy stuff.
What I didn’t really want to know, is that the microcode in the processor chips can be patched by the OS. That means, in theory at least, that any malware that gains kernel access could meddle with your processor’s microcode. I’m sure the NSA has never looked into stuff like this :-/
– – –
Re Fred: Some years back, my wife and I took an extended vacation in Mexico, in and around Guanajuato, which is far away from both the Gringo border and from Mexico City. It’s actually a great country, filled with some incredibly hard-working people. We were really, genuinely impressed. A wall might be to Mexico’s great benefit, if it could stop the flow of drugs and drug money, and if the Mexican government would grasp the opportunity to squash the drug cartels and clean up the corruption. Alternatively, the US could just legalize drugs and be done with it – that would knock the props out of the drug cartels in the US, and empty the prisons of non-violent criminals. But the puritanical streak that seems to run through much of the US would freak out at the idea of legal dope.
However, Nick hits on the weakness of the wall:
“But all the UAVs in the world won’t help if you can’t or are unwilling to call in the airstrike. In other words, someone still either has to go grab the invaders, or you have to be willing to kill them to make the point.”
Way out in the middle of nowhere, ropes go up, people start to climb over your beautiful wall, and…WTF exactly are you going to do? You cannot physically get there with anything other than an aircraft. An aircraft can’t realistically do anything other than gas or shoot people. Even if you use rubber bullets / barf gas, you are going to kill someone. Is the American public ready for that? Really?
Yes, I know SteveF is ready, but he is…atypical.
The human race is currently working on the Cylons as we type. They will be here soon. Who knows how long it will take for them to achieve self-awareness ?
The new “Galactica” finale made that point.
Another good “life imitates art” piece was the recently-departed “T2 3D” preshow at Universal Studios. Not being familiar with the movies, my kids were a little freaked by the Cyberdyne “demonstration”.
Problems with a monoculture.
Bah. I am able to set priorities, set goals, and do what is necessary to accomplish the goals. I am an adult human. This is in contrast to the majority of so-called people, who do not deserve the label “adult” and in most cases do not deserve the label “human”.
That said, I dislike the idea of a border wall partly for reasons of cost and ecological impact but mainly because a lot of people are going to say “Well, that’s done. We don’t need to do anything else.” which is woefully wrong.
Nick wrote:
“Ah for the heady days of my youth, when 4 years was an outrageous time to keep using a pc.”
My oldest PC was built in 1999, a Celeron 366. Still got it, haven’t booted it for years.
(Yes, I am what is known as a hoarder.)
Profs blame ‘masculine’ ideals for lack of women in STEM
Does it seem to anyone else that SJWs have an extremely low opinion of women? “Women can’t think rationally. Women can’t bear the possibility of failure. We have to change things to be more welcoming to these pathetic, irrational, delicate creatures.”
Ditto for SJWs’ opinion of blacks, “refugees”, and third-worlders in general. “Oh, you can’t expect him to know that raping a ten-year-old is not acceptable. He comes from a different culture.”
I prefer General Napier’s take on civilized behavior:
Similarly for those who tell women to drop Feminist Dance Study and go into accounting, or who tell “disadvantaged inner-city youth” to learn to go to work on time every day.
Progs are infested with the idea of the noble savage. Because they believe man is perfect-able and the way to do it is thru their belief set, they necessarily believe they are more perfected than non-believers. Thus the smug, condescending, busybody is born. OF COURSE those poor benighted savages are not capable of it, they haven’t experienced our uplifting hand…….
[and the corollary, SOMEONE’S hand MUST be holding them down if they don’t get uplifted to their rightful place.]
nick
I still have the Hobbit House address. I can re=post it here or you can send mail to paul at my domain.
@miles, I’ve got pcs MUCH older than that, going back to my TRS-80 model 1 and model 100. I’ve got every lappy I ever owned since too. Not that they’re in running order, or that I’ve turned them on lately.
Most of my running infrastructure here at home is 4-10 years old. I finally shut down the win98 machine 2 years ago. if winXP was still supported, I’d be running that. (I am running it on a Toughbook, and on the machine that my vinyl cutter is connected to.)
Other than my primary desktop, and the wife/family machine, I’ve moved to having a separate machine for most separate functions. It keeps from loading them up with little bits of software, drivers, etc.
@MrK, thanks for the hard data, and for the Blue Iris hat tip. The newer h.264 codec is way more efficient, and h.265 is supposed to be double that…. but I’ve got a lot of older gear that was REALLY high end when it was new, and other than codec, still is. (3.1mp with good low light, good glass) I’ll be adding newer cams as I sell off the old, which will help going forward. As soon as the wife approves, I’ve decided to get the costco i7-7700 based machine. I’ll update here if it really is an improvement. (and I’ve got some network segmenting to do too that should help with that and other stuff- the list never ends)
nick
WRT the effectiveness of the border wall, two things come to mind.
If a criminal wants your stuff, he will find a way into your house. After all, they break into even bank vaults. Does that mean you should have a bank vault for your door? No. Does it mean you shouldn’t bother locking up at all? No. You harden your house and doors to DETER and DELAY so that other response can come, and so that attackers will choose softer targets. Same with a border.
The other thing is that until recently (with changes in terror threat) we didn’t need a wall between the US and Canadia. Part is cultural, part economic. For national security reasons, we have increased our “wall” and have in fact have stopped terrorists from entering. This is one of the functions of a border. (and the people in question transited freely into and thru Canadia because of their known lax controls.)
As long as there are incentives, and people willing to risk their lives and treasure to come here, we will need borders. It is the very nature of states to have borders to define what they are and are not. Otherwise you end up with the mess in Europe, where ethnically and culturally distinct groups are surrounded and subjugated/ or subsumed by others. We also only have to look at the EU to see the downside of getting rid of border controls. Gypsy thieves commuting by airplane to rob in the capitols and then flying home. Turkish laborers displacing local tradesmen. HUGE neighborhoods that deteriorate to the third world conditions of the ‘immigrant’s ‘ homeland.
I’m beginning to feel like a stranger in my own country, and I DON’T LIKE IT, and I don’t believe the prog message THAT I SHOULD.
nick
2018 F-150 XLT crewcab longbed 4×4 with the max towing package
Should also get you an engine oil cooler and a transmission temperature gauge.
Just found out some annoying issues with all insurance companies. That maximum out of pocket for in-network providers is one out of pocket. The maximum out of pocket for out of network providers (generally double the in-network) is a separate item. The two are never combined.
Thus is you have $8K maximum out of pocket for in-network, that would get you $16K for out of network. In theory you could wind up owing over $24K in a calendar year for medical. Meet your maximum out of pocket of $24K for out of network because of an emergency in a location that does not have your network when you get back you are looking at another $8K for in network.
Wife had kidney stones blasted. Anesthesiologist is not in-network although the facility is in network. Insurance says tough on the gas passer and covers nothing, will not reduce the amount I pay so I am on the hook for the full amount. These providers do this intentionally as they know you are trapped and have no choice. Thus they charge whatever they want and tell you to kiss their ass while doing so.
I now owe them $700.00, about $500 more than what I would have owed with insurance. So I will produce 100 checks in various amounts that add up to the amount owed, put them in a package, sent it certified, and annoy the hell out of those cretins. Unfortunately the billing people suffer the brunt of my wrath and not the real villains, the providers themselves.
2018 F-150 XLT crewcab longbed 4×4 with the max towing package
If you haven’t bought a car recently, sit down with a calculator and get approximate payment figures for the vehicle. The 2% car loan lets the varmits hide all kinds of things in the payment, and if, like me, you were used to 8-9% car loans from the 90s, the numbers will seem right for the cost of the vehicle.
I clawed back $5000 in extended warranties that the F&I weasel snuck into the contract for my wife’s 2016 Explorer, and to do that, I had to ignore the *fake* paperwork that Group One claimed was appropriate to file for the warranty refunds.
BTW — never again Ford at our house after the Explorer. At 5000 miles, the throttle body went on my wife while she was driving through a scary part of Austin (there are a few).
BTW — never again Ford at our house after the Explorer. At 5000 miles, the throttle body went on my wife while she was driving through a scary part of Austin (there are a few).
I would stick with the F-150 and its variants. It is the most mass produced vehicle in the world. It is big and safe. My Expedition kept me 100% safe when I struck the 200 lb doe the other day at 50 mph, the doe would have gone through my wife’s Honda Civic windshield since the top of her hood is just 18 inches off the ground. I have begged her and pleaded with her to get an SUV (a Honda CRV or Pilot would be fine with me), she ignores me because she loves her 5 speed hot rod that is four inches off the ground.
All that said, any vehicle is going to have problems. And today’s gasoline is crap. I would never put anything but Shell, Exxon, or Chevon in my vehicle. The top tier gasolines have extra detergents in them needed for today’s tight fuel system tolerances. BTW, in 189K miles on my 2005 Expedition, I have had to replace my spark plugs and ignition coils three times due to bad gasoline. Today’s fuel injectors run at 30,000 psia and are open closed up to nine ??? times per injection cycle. A little fouling and they are gone due to premature detonation (soot covers everything).
A throttle body crapping out at 5K miles has to be defective from the factory. That she was stranded in East Austin (or even, North Lamar north of 183 and south of Braker centering on Rundberg Lane is sketchy now) is worse.
Gas? It’s the ethanol. 189K miles and 3 sets of plugs seems reasonable. Three ignition coils or coil packs, to me that is just junk quality.
Of all of the Chrysler and Dodges and Plymouth I have had any hand in messing with, I recall the replacement of one coil and one ballast resistor. Electronic Ignition modules, hey, we had a box of ’em and picked up an extra with every trip to the junk yard. Swap ’em out, if the waterproofing goo runs out, toss it.
I had to replace the coil pack on Mom’s ’04 Freestar… with all of 22K miles on it. Quite nice of Ford to mount it on the back of the engine so it’s all by feel.
I had to replace the coil pack on Mom’s ’04 Freestar… with all of 22K miles on it. Quite nice of Ford to mount it on the back of the engine so it’s all by feel.
My 2005 Expy has four ignition coils on the left valve cover and four ignition coils on right valve cover of my 5.4L V8. Both sets of coils are towards the front of the engine. The spark plugs are sparked three to five times each per ignition cycle.
@medium wave- check the email you registered with….
nick
@Paul
Thanks for OFD’s address. Hope he’ll like the book. Pretty sure he will if he hasn’t already read it. RBT will get a real hoot out of the one I sent him, so now I’m just waiting for Stu to get the Slim disease and I can send him a slide rule…
Lol, I have scads of them. Been picking them up at garage sales for years. Can anyone say Pickett? I knew you could. I like my old HPs, too.
Re Trump, I thought he was going to shake things up, but no. Amazon
is competing with the Post Office, so what’s he going to do? Raise rates, of
course. I had hoped he’d pull a Thatcher and privatize the damn thing.
“2018 F-150 XLT crewcab longbed 4×4 with the max towing package”
I just replaced my 1999 Superduty Powerstroke with a 2018 exactly like that (3.5L, no extended warranty). Since we have winter up here I wanted heated seats and remote start. Max towing is worth the cost even if you don’t tow much. Most of the crewcabs around here have the short bed – I can’t abide that… This is my 6th pickup. All have been Fords, but I have never owned a Ford car for some reason. I hope this one is as good as the 99 was.
I miss the big truck feel of the Superduty but I don’t miss the terrible ride and handling.
Our VW Passat TDI goes back to VW on Monday – I decided to sell it back to them. Best car deal I ever made but I will miss it. It was a great car other than the EPA thing…
So I am going from 2 diesels to zero. I would replace my 99 (that had no DEF or particulate filter) if I could get the equivalent now. Not the case – they are pushing diesels out of the market even though they make environmental sense in many cases.
These 2 diesels have been the best vehicles I have ever owned. I purchased both new so that is part of it. I miss my diesels (rant done).
@Tay: if the facility is in-network, surely that should mean that their employees are as well. Can you not make this a problem for them?
They’re probably “independent” contractors, not employees. Independent contractors whose only client is that one facility, and whose work is assigned by the facility, and whose pay rate is set by the facility and not subject to negotiation. Similar situations have been found to be de facto employment, but it took class action suits to reach that finding.
Tay was the AI whose plug was pulled after she became a Nazi at age one day.
Iirc, tay evolved by reading comments, and people gamed her learning- not that there is any shortage of racial animosity onlime 🙂
N
I just replaced my 1999 Superduty Powerstroke with a 2018 exactly like that (3.5L, no extended warranty). Since we have winter up here I wanted heated seats and remote start. Max towing is worth the cost even if you don’t tow much. Most of the crewcabs around here have the short bed – I can’t abide that… This is my 6th pickup. All have been Fords, but I have never owned a Ford car for some reason. I hope this one is as good as the 99 was.
Sounds good. Did you get the 3.5L or the 3.5L biturbo (ecoboost) ?
The long bed (6.5 ft instead of 5.5 ft) is just a natural. I am surprised more people don’t get it. The max towing package should be required here in the Texas heat with the 5 row radiator instead of the 3 row radiator and the transmission oil cooler.
I would love to have an old school diesel in new condition. The new diesels are having major problems with the soot trap regenerators and the DEF fluid is just a pain. I am hearing that the ultra high pressure pizoelectric fuel injectors are having problems also.
I am trying to decide if I want the 5.0L V8 with 395 hp and 400 ftlb. Or, the 3.5L V6 biturbo with 375 hp and 470 ftlb. I tend to keep vehicles forever and the turbos did not last beyond 150K miles until recently.
I miss the big truck feel of the Superduty but I don’t miss the terrible ride and handling.
I used to drive my Dad’s Ford F350 Supercab with a 460 V8 and 3 speed auto from 1979 to 1981. Got 6 mpg in the city and 8 mpg on the road. If you saw a penny on the road, you need to avoid because it would bunny hop over the penny.
In 1985 / 6, we had two company one ton Chevy crew cab duallies. One was the 454 V8 and the other was the nonturbo diesel. Both were three speed autos. We blew the engines and transmissions in both of them towing our 48 ft gooseneck trailer that weighed 28,000 lbs. We replaced those with Ford F350 crew cab duallies with the 460 V8 and the 4 speed manual with a granny gear. Zero to 60 mph time went from 60 seconds to 30 seconds but, the braking was still horrible with that horribly overweight trailer.
My expy drives and handles MUCH better with a multi thousand pound trailer on the hitch.
n