The word press template for a quick entry asks “What’s on your mind?”
Before coffee, and just after rising, the answer is “Not much.”
It’s 66F and light misty drizzle. I don’t think I’ll be doing yardwork, although, it might be nice and cool…..
A quick scan of headlines shows more of the same.
More of the march to war.
More march to bankruptcy.
(related as a war would allow ‘resetting’ the world of money like nothing else)
More perversion and depravity.
More lefty nonsense.
More anti-Constitutional nonsense.
More ordinary folks waking up… but is it too late?
Today, I think we’re headed for war, on a world wide scale. Money is the driver, particularly China and the USA, and our lack of it… this is one of those times OFD would have something relevant and it’s driving me nuts that Dave’s not here.
n
Son and daughter just left for an overnight in Seattle. She said she needed a road trip to see the Puffins at the Seattle Aquarium so she convinced her brother to drive her. It’s raining here and all the way to Seattle. At least Snoqualmie Pass is clear with no snow predicted. Last weekend Snoqualmie Pass was closed for almost a day because of snow.
Irrigation water got turned on yesterday, April 6. Earliest day that I can recall. We usually don’t get irrigation water until April 15. The snow pack is above 100% so we are “promised” a full water allotment this year.
Been working at updating and upgrading my internet; new modem (next on list), new mesh router from Costco (Netgear Orbi Mini 2-Pack AC2200 Tri-Band WiFi System), relabled ethernet cables, dressed all cables and wires. This router is currently a Costco exclusive and well worth the $199.00.
The setup for the Netgear Orbi mesh router went smooth. Power of my WiFi signal doubled from my old Linksys WRT54GL and even with my old modem my internet speed improved so that now I am consistently getting 66 Mb/s down and 7 Mb/s down (that is on the 60/4 connection I am paying for) whereas before was 24/4. The great part is that even when everbody in the house (all four of us) is streaming there is no more lag.
@Dad Cooks, nice setup. Don’t you live on a houseboat? If so, why the need for repeaters?
I have shielded walls and five acres, so my Wi-fi signal has always been spotty even with repeaters. I have Ethernet for all fixed devices, but need to upgrade to support a roaming notebook. What a PITA. Network speed isn’t an issue over Gb Ethernet, and web speed isn’t an issue with only 3 Mb DSL. Sure hope Airborne Wireless Network goes operational soon; my only hope for broadband.
I have a client with 3 hotspots in the house and a repeater out by the pond. I thought that was pretty extreme. Since we did it piecemeal it’s a mix of gear. These days I’d probably do all ubiquiti products. The repeater is a Hawking. The rest is mix of engenius and ubiquiti.
n
Huh, MD Creekmore is shutting down theSurvivalistBlog.net, effective immediately. No new content. That’s a shame if true, he’s built a nice community in the comments section. A bit heavy on woowoo like essential oils, foraging, and herbal remedies, but lots of folks at different points on their journey.
I’ll admit it isn’t on my daily read list anymore, and I guess I’m not the only one.
n
@DadCooks — To hell with the puffins! Tell her to see the octopus show at the aquarium!
Re OFD, I do wish he were with us. _Generation of Vipers_ is a real gem, not only because of his curmudgeonly cynicism, but his language, vocabulary, and lyrical prose in addition to “classical” references tossed about like drunken chef with a salt shaker.
40 degrees and light rain in North Alabama. We were going to have a garage sale today – local neighborhoods banding together – but we decided not to as neither the wife or I wanted t9 sit out in the rain and cold.
It was 20º and clear when I got to my race this morning. A Mud run. I expected them to cancel, but the race went on. 15 nuts running through snow, mud, ice, and muck for the privilege of getting a medal if they placed. (Most of them placed).
Wife was at another race and the power that we were supposed to have wasn’t there. I didn’t give her the generator because of the power situation, so…. But she got it done. I got mine done. Now we’re all headed to the house for an afternoon of naps and followup work. (Not necessarily in that order). The eldest daughter was a great help to her mother. I’m proud of her.
Woke up this morning to a text message that the legacy ERP system was down again. Stopped on my way to the race (5:30 am) and found the same situation as Wednesday. The difference is that this morning it came up & cleaned itself.
Monday I’m walking into the president’s office with two pieces of paper. One is the proposal for the replacement system. They HAVE to replace it. Let’s see if they will.
Rain is coming down at 1/4-inch per hour, that is unusual for here and the weather radars show a strong system pumping rain up the Oregon Caost, through Central Oregon, right up to the Tri-Cities. The Kids are sending pictures as they travel I-82 to I-90 to Seattle. Heavy rain and nasty looking clouds. My Son says the Forester handles great in the heavy rain, other folks not so much.
@JimB said:
No house boat, just a 1600 sqft ranch. Cable comes in on one side of the house and that is where I have my cable modem and new Orbi Router, new Orbi Satellite in the middle of the house. Because of the way the house is built there is no straight line of site anywhere so WiFi signals really dropped off.
I have eight Cat7 (upgraded from Cat5 awhile ago, yes, overkill for now) ethernet lines run for fixed things (desktops, Fire TV, TiVo, etc.). (I wish the Echos had the ability for an ethernet connection.) There are four adults in our house and each has a number of wireless devices, a minimum of 22 wireless connections at any time.
Today, I think we’re headed for war, on a world wide scale. Money is the driver, particularly China and the USA, and our lack of it… this is one of those times OFD would have something relevant and it’s driving me nuts that Dave’s not here.
Economic war, the nastiest war. At the end of the war, the USA dollar will no longer be the reserve currency. But it may be a 10 to 30 year war.
It’s 66F and light misty drizzle. I don’t think I’ll be doing yardwork, although, it might be nice and cool…..
It is still dropping temperature out here in the sticks. We are 53 F with a 21 mph wind out of the north. The wife is loving it.
Economic war, the nastiest war. At the end of the war, the USA dollar will no longer be the reserve currency. But it may be a 10 to 30 year war.
I got Mrs. Atoz to watch “The Hidden Secrets of Money” on Youtube. Now she believes the monetary system will collapse. I recommend the 7th installment on Crypto Currency, Bitcoin, and Hashgraph.
The wife and I went to look at a house further out in the sticks yesterday with our realtor. I was thinking that I could buy this house and put a stair chair ($13,000) in for the daughter to live upstairs until we get around to adding a mother-in-law addition for her. But the upstairs is a multilevel and she cannot climb the three steps at the end of the hallway to the 4th bedroom and the game room. And the house has a huge amount of “deferred maintenance”, new paint, new carpet, new cooktop, air conditioning problems, pool problems, etc, etc, etc, required.
https://www.har.com/6422-bridlewood-drive/sale_10585090
So, if I bought this house, the wife and I would live upstairs and put the daughter in the downstairs master. Then I would leisurely build a new master addition to the house. Maybe a mancave also. Too much money !
We could not figure out how to get that driveway gate open to save our lives from the inside. So our realtor (58 years) climbed the fence and opened the gate using the outside keypad. That is a dangerous feature.
Just got back from a site survey for a potential new client. Some cameras and other low voltage work… They’re cool with my part time availability.
Cold at 52F and continuing to bluster and blow. Some very light spotting and drizzle.
I think I’ll do some inside work today.
n
War and rumors of war … and maybe something out of left field
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-04-06/ring-fire-becoming-more-active
Here on the OlyPen, we’ve got 52F, rain (intermittant, but will get an inch today), and wind (10-15mph, gusts to 25mph in my somewhat sheltered location; more wind elsewhere). We’re getting some of the ‘atmospheric river’ byproducts, but most of that hit CA. Keeping an eye on my weather station page at https://www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-station/dashboard?ID=KWAPORTL19 .
Been working on the basics of a new support forum area for The Home Scientist. Playing around with ‘extensions’ (the phpBB equivalent of plugins that allow you to insert text in various places on the pages). Found a great ‘extension’ that shows you where all of the ‘template insert’ areas are on a page.
Had to upgrade the site to PHP7 for that plugin, so decided to do that for all of my sites. No problems found on any of them so far.
And, some laundry work in the background. Just the two of us, so only 2-3 loads a week.
What do you guys think about installing a ‘short url’ plugin here (which I wrote) that automagically shortens all URLs in pages and comments?
What do you guys think about installing a ‘short url’ plugin here (which I wrote) that automagically shortens all URLs in pages and comments?
I don’t like short URLs. You have to trust the person that they are not going to send you to Timbuktu. I have trust issues …
As an IT security guy, I hate shortened URLs because that obfuscates the target destination making it hard to effectively block malware sites.
I don’t care for the short URLs because I don’t know where it’s sending me.
If It’s going to the Woodpile Report, I’ve probably read it already. Ditto for http://www.thediplomad.com/ and https://westhunt.wordpress.com/ among others.
I would still have to type/paste the original URL so I don’t see it as a way that’s going to save me any effort.
Maybe with an On/Off switch?
88F and sunny with a nice breeze yesterday. Today? All the way up to 38F and cloudy enough to need lights on in the house. The wind is nuts… blow you over.
On one hand, no rain and the wind has blown most of the oak pollen flowers off of the roof. On the other hand, a friend in Hutto had an inch of rain and enough hail to make his yard look like it was covered with snow.
Tomorrow is supposed to be mid-70s.
Yeah, Spring in Texas. Crazy stuff. 🙂
Re: url shorterners….. what about a shortened link that shows the full URL when you hover over the link?
a shortened link that shows the full URL when you hover over the link?
That sounds cool.
Difficult to Hoover on an iPad. I see no reason to change something for a problem that does not exist.
I do not like shortened URLs and I am too unsteady to “hover”. I like to see where I am going and only use you link button because it does show the full URL (yes, when hovered) unless someone has already used a URL shortener. Another problem with URL shorteners is that so many of the sites that do that have gone out of business or are planning to do so. That tells me a lot and makes me more adamant that they not be used.
Well @RickH, since you showed us your’s I’ll show you mine:
https://www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-station/dashboard?ID=KWAKENNE45
Ditto.
In general I don’t trust shorteners, but never found it a hassle to see the long url…
I like the link button (which does obscure the destination) to clean up the comment appearance though.
For reading on a tablet or phone, a shortener might make sense. Maybe for the mobile version, if we’re serving mobile versions?
I’m busy sucking down the creekmore site. Turns out I did a bunch of useful comments over there, google finds 42 but there must have been more than that. Of the 42, possibly a couple dozen are worth saving and maybe consolidating. Most of those are ham radio related. Some are general prepping related, a couple are ebola/flu/pandemic related.
Still, I hate for anything I’ve written to just disappear, and much of that over there needs context. Don’t know how to provide the context without reproducing the other comments or original article though…
n
My site is on DreamHost. No major problems since 2002. Sure, mail has crashed a couple of times. And they did something to cgi that I don’t know how to work around. But, all in all, good folks.
They have a rewards program. Refer someone and get a one time credit of $97 or an on-going 10% of whatever they pay. That’s been going for quite a while. I’ve had to pay nothing out of pocket for a long time…. one of my referrals had 3 domains at 10% and several sub-domains at 5%… but he died a few years ago.
I checked my rewards balance last month and hey! what’s this $35 charge? I finally connected with someone who figured it out. Back in 2008 I was charged the normal $119.40 “but you only paid $84.46, leaving a balance due of $34.94. It seems as though this balance has carried through statement after statement!” Which was probably all I had for referral rewards at the time.
Dang. Going back 10 years. I think bankruptcy and the IRS go back just 7 years. But if I owe, I owe.
No guilt here. If DreamHost wants to have a referral that pays enough that I don’t have to give them money, that’s their business.
Oh, and Rick, I’m not liking the current version of the control panel. It doesn’t flow with window size. Which is a pain. I have a 24″ monitor and I have to run the browser full screen to see everything. Normal for me is a couple of inches more than half the width of the screen… leaves room for silly stuff like e-mail and the window for bookmarks. I’m really getting more and more “get offa my lawn” as I slide towards the nursing home.
Don’t like shortened URLs for the reasons already stated.
I almost always use my ancient Note 3 to view this site, and everything works well. Ray, I never used an Apple tablet, but in Android there is a setting for hover sensitivity, and it works well. I think it even works with gloves. Maybe yours? I can also tap and hold to see the full URL, BUT I still prefer the convenience of fully displayed URLs. Keep it the way it is, please.
You can “Hoover” in IOS but you must press and hold the link to show the entire URL with options how you want to process the link. I prefer to just see the link rather than the time to press and hold.
“Al Gore just posted a new selfie”
https://esmemes.com/i/al-gore-just-posted-a-new-selfie-20102012
We are go for 45 F tonight, already at 47 F. Gonna be nippy going to church in the morn. And I am still watching the Astros …
Don’t know how cold it got but it’s 47 right now.
n
Don’t know how cold it got but it’s 47 right now.
Going to dinner last night in Round Rock, we noted 39 on the car’s outside thermometer.
I’ll still take it over Vantucky. March was usually when we would see the first >60 degree days in Portland, but they were rare.
We had the opposite in Tampa. April was when the temps started hitting close to 90 and the dry season started. The lapsed rabbi and ex-SpecOps sphincters running my HOA board would be tightly clenched about sod condition until thunderstorms started rolling every afternoon ~ June.