It was 13 degrees and snowing when Colin went out at 8am. Looks like we’ve had about an inch so far. This is not to be a big snow maker for us in the mountains; 1 to 3 inches. Again, the coast of NC will get more than we will, which also happened a couple of weeks ago.
Wednesday January 17, 2018
68 Comments and discussion on "Wednesday January 17, 2018"
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Currently 19F here in sunny Houston TX. Yup. 19F. For our European cousins, that is well below freezing 🙂
Snow in a few flurries yesterday, but mostly sleet and freezing rain.
A bit of sun today.
Man it is cold.
n
Currently 5F here in the land of OS. Snow on the ground and the roads. Will not get above freezing until sometime tomorrow afternoon.
Looking at the news the problems seem to be mostly ice caused by low temps. And bad drivers. Stay home and stay safe. Here the temps are mild but tule fog is thick in the Central Valley.
Thinking good wishes for Bob.
It had warmed to 5f when I started my commute and hour late this morning. Most of the snow on the roads had turned to ice overnight. Neighborhood roads are dangerous. The main roads aren’t must better till I cross from Mississippi to Tennessee where they at least spread some gravel at intersections.
The Memphis area is completely unused to these temperatures. I have lived her for 10 years now and never seen anything in the single digits. Damn global warming, we all will freeze.
I did see one Surburban blow up in front of us. Looked like a frozen radiator as steam was spewing everywhere. I made sure to over winterize our cars before this mess started a few weeks ago.
It is 24F in San Antone. Precip went away overnight, so our conference is in full swing. Two SA attendees couldn’t make since they are in the hospital with the flu. Please, don’t come.
It is 24F in San Antone. Precip went away overnight, so our conference is in full swing. Two SA attendees couldn’t make since they are in the hospital with the flu. Please, don’t come.
The Hilton is a nice place for a conference. Head up to Shilo’s for a mug of root beer if you get a chance one afternoon.
11F and clear at 7 AM. No ice or snow. A new record for me beating out 13F, icy, and no electricity for almost 2 weeks.
Thanks for the weather tips!
The Hilton is a nice place for a conference. Head up to Shilo’s for a mug of root beer if you get a chance one afternoon.
We have to go long to make up for yesterday, plus MrsAtoz has a pro bono tonight. Gonna be tired as shite after all the hugging, crying, and asking for free counseling for the snowflake kids. We hope to make a few bucks selling her books.
Sister-in-law, who has the misfortune to live in Detroit, called me in a panic last night saying that North Korea had nuked Detroit. She was taking the trash out and saw the “missile” fly overhead followed by a huge, bright, explosion that shook the neighborhood. She has always been convinced that Rocket Man has Detroit on his target list. While she was screaming about fallout, I did a quick search and found it was a meteor. Tried to calm her down, told her to go inside and turn on the local news, not CNN, and follow any emergency instructions. That made her feel better. This morning she is out hunting meteorite fragments like the news told her to. I told her not to turn them in as they would be very valuable.
Why would the Norks nuke Detroit? No one could tell the diference.
Do the NORKs hate muzzies too?
n
Would anyone care if Detroit was nuked?
Well, Ford is reportedly bringing production of the Ranger and Bronco back to Detroit, so yes, I would care. Two vehicles I really like and American jobs.
St. Al, save us from the cold and ice !
Well it has warmed up to 28F with the sun out, and I’ve got some melting ice where solar radiation can congregate. (Black tarps)
Think I’ve got at least one rat in a trap as the scratching noise hasn’t moved in a few hours. Not in a hurry to look.
n
By coincidence this week’s Woodpile Report feature 1943 Detroit
http://www.woodpilereport.com/html/index-512.htm
And California high speed rail costs for the 119 mile segment in the Central Valley goes up $2.8B. Surprise surprise.
http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-bullet-train-cost-overrun-20180116-story.html
The falsehoods and deception fall squarely on Moonbeam and the democrats.
” …California high speed rail …….”
When it’s finished in 23 years, I’ll take it see the show at the Buck Owens Crystal Palace.
Going soon to visit SIL’s mother in Kernville, so will have to drive this time.
Have you gotten to the “we’ve spent this much so far, we NEED to spend more and continue or it’s all wasted….” point yet??
n
(love that one, like no one ever heard of not throwing good money after bad)
Slim, you and I will never ride the HSR. But you know that. Enjoy Kernville, might get some rain this weekend. (or even snow high up)
Could be worse. The California and Federal governments could have allocated a hundred billion for Musk’s hyperloop, before the delays and cost overruns.
Would anyone care if Detroit was nuked?
What about the $$ to be made off of drugs, prostitution, …. Oh, wait, that’s New Detroit City run by OCP.
The falsehoods and deception fall squarely on Moonbeam and the democrats.
I have my issues with the current FL Governor, but I believe that turning down the high speed rail money saved the state a lot of grief.
A private group is currently testing trains for semi-high speed rail from Miami to West Palm Beach with a service extension planned to the Orlando airport.
And the private group is the right way to do it. They have every incentive to make it profitable, while govt funding has every incentive to be sure the government money keeps flowing.
It’s quite surprising that Houston doesn’t have any direct passenger rail service to Dallas. Some private/(wannabe)public partnership is pushing for a high speed link, but facing opposition from local landowners and Southwest Airline.
If it was cheap, didn’t have onerous security (no need to disarm, minimal to no bag screen) I’d use it a couple of times a year. Cheap would mean less than cost of gas, fast would be half the time of driving or less. convenient would be park, move short distance, swipe card, board, depart all in less than half hour. Trains would need to run on the hour in AM and PM commutes, possibly every 2 the rest of the day. TSA would need to stay the F away.
So I can guarantee it wouldn’t be that way.
n
“I believe that turning down the high speed rail money saved the state a lot of grief.”
I feel the same way about TX turning down the medicare money…
n
Which is why I predict that the first successful Falcon 9 Heavy launch will happen before the first successful United Launch Alliance Launch…
Also, I predict the next manned space launch from US soil will be by SpaceX.
Trains would need to run on the hour in AM and PM commutes, possibly every 2 the rest of the day. TSA would need to stay the F away.
The high speed train from Houston to Dallas would be 1.5 hours. The TSA wait would be 2.0 hours.
St. Al be blessed ! He has tamed the evil day star and brought it back to us !
Radiation from the fusion fire has warmed my neighborhood to a balmy 38F.
Doing weird things to my brain to see dirty leftover snow and ice melt. Like being back in the chicongo area during my yout.
n
The TSA wait would be 2.0 hours.
Even with only one person in line.
The problem with rail transportation in TN is that every taxing authority along the route wants a “piece of the action”. They want tax revenue. Train from Oak Ridge to/from Knoxville, which would serve the thousands of plant workers, is just not possible. Oak Ridge wants to tax the ride, Anderson County wants to tax the ride, Knox County wants to tax the ride, Knoxville wants to tax the ride. Thus making it too expensive.
A bus service was tried. The hours sucked. Had to be at the pickup point at 5:30 AM to make it to downtown Knoxville by 8:00. Leave downtown at 5:00 and arrive back in Oak Ridge at 7:30 PM. That is normally a 35 minute commute each way. The price was $10.00 each way. Riders would have to pay $20.00 round trip, spend an additional 3 hours riding each day plus you still had to use your vehicle.
Naturally the service was developed because of a government grant. Some company was paid a lot of money to develop the service. Making money was never an objective and was not a deliverable for the contract. The contract also never specified the level of service or hours, an admission on that omission that was later brought to light. The service was designed to fail, intentionally I believe. After two years, the length of the grant, the service just disappeared.
Also, I predict the next manned space launch from US soil will be by SpaceX.
Boeing currently has the earliest manned launch on the schedule, but the Starliner will not see its first unmanned test until August. SpaceX has been flying Dragon unmanned for a while.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/space/go-for-launch/os-manned-missions-spacex-boeing-starliner-20180111-story.html
Turns out I did get one raton last night out in the garage.
Also turns out that glue traps are a lot less sticky when the ambient temps are below freezing.
n
Currently sunny and 35F here in the western ‘burbs of the Crescent City. Despite wrapping exposed pipes and trickling the water out in the detached garage, the hot water line to the house froze up overnight, but I’m hoping it will thaw now that the sun is shining on the side of the house that the pipes are on.
The frigid weather here has claimed one and possibly two victims:
http://www.wwl.com/articles/baby-killed-woman-grave-condition-after-car-slips-icy-metairie-street
I take it that no one has heard from OFD in a while ?
Apparently Guillain-Barre syndrome can be devastating:
“These sensations can quickly spread, eventually paralyzing your whole body. In its most severe form Guillain-Barre syndrome is a medical emergency. Most people with the condition must be hospitalized to receive treatment.”
And there’s also the possibility that, given all that’s happened to him in the last year or so, OFD may be just a teensy bit depressed and in no mood to communicate.
Which is why I predict that the first successful Falcon 9 Heavy launch will happen before the first successful United Launch Alliance Launch…
Prediction wrong. Delta IV Heavy has the same payload as F9 Heavy and has launched 9 times since 2004.
@ech, you are absolutely correct. Yes, and I worked on the Delta from 1980 – 1984 and the Delta II from 1905 – 2002. Then I stayed with the company in others programs through 2007. I do know about launch vehicles.
Outside of that, I have no idea regarding the implication of the post to which you are responding.
I never got a reply from the email I sent OFD. I’m afraid it’s probably dire. Which really really sucks.
n
Not to be morbid but has anyone checked obituaries for OFD’s area?
Outside of that, I have no idea regarding the implication of the post to which you are responding.
Maybe he’s alluding to the ULA’s Atlas V/Delta IV replacement, the Vulcan.
Or the SLS. NASA will fly that once. Eventually.
Searching for
david r hardy obituary vermont
brings up nothing definitive.
While pretty awful, G-B syndrome seems to be the sort of disease that only makes you *wish* you were dead. 😐
“Maybe he’s alluding to the ULA’s Atlas V/Delta IV replacement, the Vulcan.
Or the SLS. NASA will fly that once. Eventually.”
Possibly, OTOH, what may be recommended is a course of study in proper reporting and description of events.
In my career, I had to make 100% accurate memos for the engineers in Cape Canaveral AFS and Vandenberg AFB with which to comply.
@Lynn: I’ve noticed an uptick in emails I receive regarding C++ gigs over the past few weeks. I don’t know if it is related to the processor bugs, but people seem to want the performance all of a sudden.
I know the new grads aren’t coming out with enough C++ to be useful. One student in my compilers class was mystified by the deque template when he asked me how I approached our semester project.
I know the new grads aren’t coming out with enough C++ to be useful. One student in my compilers class was mystified by the deque template when he asked me how I approached our semester project.
I am not even smart enough to know what a deque is without duckduckgoing it. We just use std::map, std::vector, and std::string. I did roll my own tuple class using the smalltalk class as a model. But mine is homogeneous, not heterogeneous. And we do not write our own templates, just too scary for this country boy.
std::vector {StreamGroup *} aStreams = g_CurrentFormsMainPtr -> getStreams();
One of my guys is interrupting his version 16 project to add UTF-16 / UTF-8 file name support to all of our programs. So that our users can load filenames like “pi π .psd”. As with all off the cuff projects, it is turning into a deep well.
And everyone with more than 100,000 servers in their cloud is moving to C++. Facbook even wrote an automatic Python ??? to C++ converter several years ago for the 100X reduction in cpu time.
A fellow I went to high school with was on track to open a gun shop.
While not surprised at the turn of events, I am disappointed.
I hope he sues and shoves it down their throats.
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/7877275-181/healdsburg-officials-contemplating-way-out
Don’t we have laws about making a law to punish one person in particular?
This is the ‘cake’ argument writ large. Clearly we need time to figure out how to block this, is what the city is saying.
He should sue, take all the money, AND open the store. If the code specifically allows the use, they’ve got no business trying to block him.
n
On the other hand, IANAL or a sh!tweasel politician.
A fellow I went to high school with was on track to open a gun shop.
While not surprised at the turn of events, I am disappointed.
I hope he sues and shoves it down their throats.
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/7877275-181/healdsburg-officials-contemplating-way-out
Nothing surprises me about Kalifornia anymore. At first, I thought this was Alaska and I was surprised. I figure everyone in Alaska has 5 to 50 guns.
I read somewhere recently that Kalifornia is getting ready to do background checks on just buying ammo. And charging a background check fee of $32 ??? per transaction.
Don’t we have laws about making a law to punish one person in particular?
Bills of Attainder are prohibited by the Constitution, along with ex post facto laws. But, IANAL, it seems that Attainders are criminal, not civil.
California is trying to partition itself, “Independence Declared From California January 15, 2018”
https://newcaliforniastate.com/
I doubt that the split will happen. And the news that California has the highest amount of people living in poverty is not surprising.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-jackson-california-poverty-20180114-story,amp.html
I am not even smart enough to know what a deque is without duckduckgoing it.
Double Ended QUE. a vector with push/pop back and push/pop front. It made building the AST easier for math expressions IIRC.
I had one company give me a really hard online C++ test combined with an IQ exam this week. I felt stupid after that hour.
And everyone with more than 100,000 servers in their cloud is moving to C++. Facbook even wrote an automatic Python ??? to C++ converter several years ago for the 100X reduction in cpu time.
Facebook built a PHP to C++ compiler, HipHop, but they’ve since achieved bigger performance gains with their own PHP virtual machine, HHVM. The VM is interesting tech but a moving target.
Facebook built a PHP to C++ compiler, HipHop, but they’ve since achieved bigger performance gains with their own PHP virtual machine, HHVM.
Cool. Optimizing at the highest level is always better.
People have been trying to split CA for 100+ years. And there are competing plans for splits, such as the “State of Jefferson”, which would take some northern CA and a few southern Oregon counties: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_(proposed_Pacific_state)
You’ll see signs for the State of Jefferson as you travel I-5 in that area.
There’s a map of a proposed split into ‘Six Californias’ here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Californias
Plus, there’s the “earthquake option” …
A fellow I went to high school with was on track to open a gun shop.
While not surprised at the turn of events, I am disappointed.
I hope he sues and shoves it down their throats.
How many weed stores popped up in Heraldsburg after the first?
When we went to Napa ~ 20 years ago, I remember that American Canyon had *two* Target stores across the freeway from each other near the Hwy 29 exit in order to meet the demand. The chain had been banished from most of the other towns in the area.
You’ll see signs for the State of Jefferson as you travel I-5 in that area.
You’ll see similar signs in Coos Bay, OR. They’re serious about it down there.
Cool. Optimizing at the highest level is always better.
I gave serious thought to extending my grad school sentence -er- tenure in order to do thesis work implementing a full C/C++-t0-HHVM compiler similar to what Emscripten provides for Javascript, but, unlike asm.js, the bytecode for HHVM is a moving target under Facebook’s control. I’m not a glutton for punishment.
#(@()^$)*&(@!
It’s only been a part of the standard for, what, 15 years?
Truth. Maybe not 100% true, but close enough as makes no never mind.
One of my guys is interrupting his version 16 project to add UTF-16 / UTF-8 file name support to all of our programs. So that our users can load filenames like “pi π .psd”. As with all off the cuff projects, it is turning into a deep well.
Just doing a little hand-waving here, but the Go language has a C FFI and UTF-8 as a native datatype, the “rune” …
Re: C++ jobs. Rumor has it that H1-bs renewals are not being rubber stamped any more, US companies are being forced to hire citizens…
Oh, the humanity!
As with all off the cuff projects, it is turning into a deep well.
Truth. Maybe not 100% true, but close enough as makes no never mind.
The hilarious part is that we are storing UTF-8 characters in our Fortran 77 strings. And they work. Of course, Fortran is just passing around characters and has no clue that the O/S will merge them as needed. And, those UTF-8 strings are displaying perfectly in text files using Notepad. Will wonders never cease ?
There’s been a lot of accidents like this happening in Oz due to hoons driving like a bat out of hell. I’m really pissed off…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-18/truck-driver-who-recorded-high-speed-crash-still-haunted/9337246
I read the article Jenny posted. What surprised me is that it gave no indication as to where Healdsburg is. Had to Google it.
Jerry Coyne, over at WhyEvolutionIsTrue was gloating a year or so back about how San Francisco made life hell for the last gun shop owner in the city, so much so that he was shut down.
Re: C++ jobs. Rumor has it that H1-bs renewals are not being rubber stamped any more, US companies are being forced to hire citizens…
In my experience, typical H1-B is not going to have high octane C++ skills. If they have decent abilities with the language, they’re working in their home countries.
The H1-Bs must be doing Spring. I get a lot of calls for that too lately.
… badly.
Twenty years ago, the Indian engineers and programmers who came to the US were very sharp. That’s changed.
An Indian former coworker who was an IT guy and also ran his own (small) consulting business with a few employees said that since India’s big push to become a science and tech powerhouse, the top tier of graduates of the Indian schools go to work as employees of the Indian tech companies. The second tier become consultants, working at the Indian tech companies. The third tier is what’s been going overseas to work. I haven’t confirmed that from any other source, but it does fit what I’ve seen of the H1-Bs’ skills and aptitude. It doesn’t address work ethic and other ethics, which are grossly different from American expectations.
C++ jobs – hmmm. Employers get all hung up on knowledge of specific languages, and that’s annoying. Show me a good programmer, and I’ll show you someone who can learn C++. Show me someone who already knows C++, and there’s only a small chance that they’re actually a good programmer. I know which I’d rather have.
Too many job ads list ridiculous numbers of specific technologies. I looked around a bit and found plenty of bad examples. Surprisingly, I came across one good example that shows they have a clue: instead of saying what languages you have to know, they say “willing to work in C#”. That’s how it ought to be.
Same goes for frameworks, of course. Actually, I’m generally of the opinion that one usually should ot use external frameworks at all. First, you are building in dependencies on code that you don’t control, and that can change at any time. Second, and the biggest problem, lots of people who use frameworks change them more often than they change underwear. Build your business apps on X today; start all over again with Y tomorrow. There was an article recently, that said that 2 years is typical. What a waste of time and effort!
Indian IT people: It is just hugely variable – there are some really good ones and some really lousy ones. Maybe we do see more of the lousy ones, I don’t really know. There are plenty of lousy IT people from all places. The biggest problem I have seen with Indian programmers is cultural. Apparently, they are used to a very authoritarian management style: you have to tell them exactly what to do; they execute this faithfully, exactly as instructed, no more and no less; then they wait for you to tell them what to do next. This is a lousy fit for a Western work environment, where people are expected to show initiative.
The H1-Bs must be doing Spring.
Huh ?
Huh ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_Framework
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_Framework
Thanks, we don’t use Java here so I am not very familiar with it. We use mostly Fortran 77 and C++ for our desktop software.