66F, 99%RH all the concrete is sweating. Moist.
Funny sounding word, moist.
Moist is hell on packaging. Moist gums up the works. Moist leads to rot and decay.
Moist leads to corrosion. The opposite of a ‘cool dry place’ is our friend ‘moist’.
The wooden pallets in my driveway are rotting on the bottom. Moist. Gah.
Another week to get ready. Use the time wisely.
n
I did get some things done yesterday.
I bought a 30 gallon water storage tank, on wheels.
I repaired some stuff around the house.
I cleared a path to my freezer thru the garage (and found ‘inventory’ I’d forgotten about.)
I bought more storage shelves.
I worked on prepping some expensive stuff for sale.
I took a few minutes and worked on an antenna (this gets the half done parts out of the way once it’s installed, and moves a ham project a little bit along.)
I boxed an ebay sale for shipping.
I really didn’t get all that much done, for the amount of time. Dang.
n
50º and partly cloudy in the City by the Bay (that you can swim in safely again). The City that rocks (but you never really feel the quakes around here). The city that never stops (at stop signs).
The Grippe hit me last Thursday, and I went home from work knowing I wouldn’t show up again. Slept 19 hours on Friday and 15 on Saturday. A little tired on Sunday, and today I’m easily winded. Hope that’s it for this season. I didn’t show any of the gastrointestinal symptoms that #1 son showed early in the week, so I don’t know if it’s related. But I’m glad that’s over with.
I like “moist”. It annoys people. Like other words falling out of favor. “Gay”. “Retarded”. Others. In the meantime, I love me some moist chocolate cake.
57f and drizzle at commute time. Highs expected in the 70s for the next couple of days. Quite a change from frigid last week. But we will freeze again soon. We had a productive visit to Oklahoma. Picked out a retirement home and put down an offer. The negotiation process may be complicated because the house is owned by a church. It was left to them in a bequest. I have never negotiated with a non human, non real estate entity before. I understand the drivers of a regular seller and of a real estate firm but have no understanding of what the drivers and pain points are for a church. They may be happy to keep it on the market for years till they get their price or may just want it off their books as quickly as possible. This home has been on the market for almost a year now. We put in the standard low opening bid to start negotiations and will see. All church business goes through the committee and they meet every other Tuesday so no rush. We aren’t in a rush either. Most likely won’t be ready to move for another year. We looked at about 10 properties over the weekend. Most required too much $$ in modifications to meet our requirements. The one we settled on is move-in-ready with no mods and at the lower end of our price range. One reason we think the price is low is, even though it’s located in an upscale edition on a golf course, it’s in a very small town fairly remote from most amenities. But it’s closer to a hospital than our current home and given my wife’s medical conditions, that’s a good thing. It also has a huge newly built storm shelter (bunker) under the garage floor. About 10 ft square and over six foot high. It’s one of the few new shelters I can comfortably stand up in. Perfect for storing LTS and prepper stuff. We will see how the process goes.
Moist. Many things are best moist, not only Jim’s cake. Dog noses, for example.
Funny words. Having learned German as an adult, I have problems with “u” as opposed to “ü”. There are two words: “schwul” and “schwül”. Both are adjectives, one means “humid”, and the other means “homosexual”. I can never remember which is which, so it’s best if I avoid talking about how humid it is today…
Got a pile of exams graded. Last-chance repetition exam, and not many passed. It’s not a required course, but it’s either this course or a specific alternative. Some of those who didn’t pass have already failed the other course, meaning that they will now be tossed out of the bachelor program. In the worst case, they’ve managed to put this off until their 4th or 5th year. Not a happy result…
“Moist” is good. It’s certainly moist outside just now. Damp is also good. It reminds me of one of my favorite old Brity TV shows “Rising Damp”.
“It also has a huge newly built storm shelter (bunker) under the garage floor.”
– that is awesome! of course, most people don’t spend money on something like that unless there is a pressing need, so that kinda lets you know what to expect from local weather…..
WRT cake, “the cake is a lie.” WRT moist cake, just add a couple of tablespoons of veg oil to the mix, and it’ll be moist and shiny.
This is kinda interesting, from open sources.
That’s some major Continuity of Government sh!t right there…..
n
Well, we are supposed to be “flakey” today.
We are under a “Winter Storm Warning” from 10:00 a.m. PST today (Monday) until 10:00 a.m. PST on Tuesday. The NWS says 4 to 6-inches of snow.
IF the “warning” pans out this will be our first significant snow this Winter. We have had above average rain with above average temperatures — all driven by warm Pacific currents.
I’m sure that IF the snow comes it will happen just before the start of the evening commute. A real Jimmy Hendrix experience is possible.
Currently, the barometer is rising. There is a high-pressure zone up in Canada pushing down on two low-pressure zones, one off the Oregon Coast and the other in Central Oregon. Surface winds are from the North (generally from the Southwest here), but winds above 5000-feet are coming from the Southwest pulling warm “moist” Pacific air up into our area. Temperatures are continuing to fall by about 1-degree an hour.
Getting ready to hunker down for a day or two.
@Nick said:
I also like to add an extra egg (or 2 egg yolks), and I use whole milk instead of water. A dash of extra Vanilla never hurt anything. To be really decadent use a high quality melted butter instead of oil. Salted butter is okay as the extra salt also enhances flavor, BUT that is why I specify HIGH-QUALITY butter as low-quality butter usually has way too much salt in it. My favorite butter is Kerrygold from Costco; it is hard to beat the flavor of dairy products from pasture-grazed cows.
nick – I am well aware of the Oklahoma “weather” having been raised there before moving to California. At age nine our cinderblock home was destroyed by a tornado with us inside. The family hid under our huge dining table and one wall partially collapsed on it holding it down. Our only injury was some minor cuts from broken glass as we escaped the rubble after the storm. I can recall seeing three distinct funnels once while standing in a shopping center parking lot. But unlike California earthquakes, Oklahoma has excellent storm prediction services and tornadoes only hit a narrow path while earthquakes devastate for miles around. My parents home on the Marina was badly damaged in the 1989 San Francisco quake also caused damage up in Novato, 30 miles away, where we lived at the time. I’ll take my chances with the storms and a well stocked bunker.
🙂
There are two words: “schwul” and “schwül”.
Many years ago I was working in a company where the technology was an antibody coated 1/4″ round bead. I had none in the lab for an experiment so I went down to production department to get some. The production was mostly Spanish speaking ladies and I decided to try out my high school Spanish. They all burst out laughing. Instead of telling them I was out of beads, I told them I had no balls.
That’s some major Continuity of Government sh!t right there…..
Somebody always goes to Mount Weather. IIRC, Cheney lived there for a considerable part of 2001.
@harold, I’m a bit scared of tornadoes. The violence and especially the randomness bugs me. Being caught in more than one would make me want to live somewhere nice and calm…
n
“Somebody always goes to Mount Weather.”
–ok I understand that, but what scenario calls for Urban Search and Rescue short of a first strike?
n
I have been in a tornado event, really close. Driving on a road in Kansas trying to find a side road to get away from the tornado, Scary, really scary.
I have also been in two earthquakes, a forest fire in Rogue River Oregon around the ranch I grew up, a tsunami (not a big one) while stationed in Hawaii. Of all of them the most scary was the earthquake. Strikes without warning and is widespread. The tornado can be avoided and warnings are really good today. Earthquakes just happen with no warning. Forest fire was also avoidable although in our case we stayed to keep water flowing on the property and buildings.
@harold, I’m a bit scared of tornadoes. The violence and especially the randomness bugs me. Being caught in more than one would make me want to live somewhere nice and calm…
nick – It’s like people afraid of guns. If you spend much time around them you have respect for their power but also their limitations and how to handle them. Oklahoma has EXCELENT storm alert systems and with an underground shelter I’d feel very safe. Unlike earthquakes. When I worked in the Bay Area I was terrified of an earthquake each and every day I commuted over the long long Richmond Bay bridge. After watching the elevated freeways pancake onto cars in the 89 quake we decided to leave the Bay Area for the Midwest.
Here in N. Alabama, we have a lot of tornadoes. Remember the big outbreak in April of 2011? I was at a customer site that day, and spent some time in the fire escape stairwell while one passed. I then made my way home. Luckily, we live in an area with historically low activity. It’s fascinating to look at the maps of tornado outbreaks and see how they cluster around certain areas.
Anyways, a tornado hit the distribution lines of the local nuclear power plant, which killed power to most of the region, along with lots of other lines down as well. It was spring, and luckily the weather was almost perfect. A LOT of people fled to areas with power. We didn’t have a generator, and while we technically had enough food, it wouldn’t have been fun.
The next day, we got up early and made our way to Target (announced on the radio that they would be open for limited hours.) We got there early, and got in line. It was very orderly, thank goodness. We ended up filling up a shopping cart, plug getting a small charcoal grill and, luckily, charcoal. We had a plan before going in. Most people headed immediately for the food. My wife did, but I went for the grill and charcoal. Lucky I did, as the charcoal went FAST.
We got our haul home and spent the next few days camping out in our house. 5+ days without power. That was the realization that I needed to be a little better prepared. I’m nowhere near where I want to be, but I’m in much better shape now. We could go a month with food on hand. I have some water stored, and can filter more. Have basic medical supplies, and keep general otc meds in supply. Have a small gas generator and a small portable ac unit.
My next prep is to get natural gas installed at our house. Lines were finally extended in our neighborhood last year. I’m going to have the meter installed now. Sometime this spring I’ll get our propane fireplace converted, and also have the lines put in for an outdoor gas grill. I know in a complete collapse, natural gas is not the answer, but for any practical emergency, it’s a good option. I talked with others and they said the gas never went out during the 2011 storms.
ITGuy1998 – Agree on Natural Gas. My multi-fuel generator has a NG option which will work well in our new (fingers crossed) home. With NG you can cook and have heat in a power down situation. If SHTF natural gas may stay up for much longer than the grid. I keep a propane grill and extra tanks on hand so we can cook if the power drops for a few days as it did a couple of years ago.
–ok I understand that, but what scenario calls for Urban Search and Rescue short of a first strike?
A Tom Clancy book ~ 25 years ago. “Sum of All Fears”?
Here in the Olympic Peninsula, we are having an unusual snow event. Not much by other area standards, but unusual for this area. Mostly along a north-south line from Canada into Puget Sound.
Started yesterday afternoon, and there was almost 4 inches on the ground by 11pm. More snow overnight, maybe an inch or two. Schools closed; some scattered power outages. Starting to get a bit windy now, 10-15mph. Current temp is 23F.
This much snow is unusual for this area. We’ve been here about 5 years, and while we get snow maybe once a winter, it’s usually only an inch or two. I brought a snow shovel from our move from UT; may have to use it. But, not planning on going anywhere, so maybe not. And, I have lots of FLASHLIGHTS.
All of this wind and snow caused by some cold air and wind out of the Fraiser River valley in Canada with the cold air and a bit of wind heading straight south across the Canada-US border into WA.
Build the Wall!
Was that the decapitation strike by the Jap pilot?
n
been a long time since I read clancy
Was that the decapitation strike by the Jap pilot?
n
been a long time since I read clancy
Yes, at the end of the book about a modern war with Japan.
I gave up on Clancy after he got weird following his divorce. “Bear and the Dragon” in 2000 was my last one, and I almost threw that one away when he got all pervy with the sex. Minister Sausage. Grrr.
Well, today has been fun so far. The tech support guy called from the office this morning and said that the hallway floor has a large puddle on it. The 55 gallon electric water heater split at the base. Since the tank split, it sprayed water out in a eight foot diameter getting the attic insulation all wet. I’ve got a water cleanup crew in here pulling base boards and doors frames so we can dry the sheetrock out. $2,100 for cleanup and dehumidifiers for three days. Plus $2,700 for a new water heater in the office building and I am proactively replacing the water heater in the warehouse also since it is 16 years old also. The little office building only has a toilet, no water heater so no replacement there.
Why do people put water heaters in the attic ? That is such a bad place. If we build a home, I am going put the water heater(s) in a attached garage.
I had about 4 links ready, rape, collapse, illegal immigrant crime, MS-13 shooting dead a guy in NYC, but I’m trying not to be all doom and gloom.
So instead just ponder some of the stuff in this article…
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-02-04/bill-gross-retiring-after-dismal-janus-bond-performance
Bill Gross was a fund SUPERSTAR. And he can’t make money in this economy.
One of the biggest rock stars of the investment fund world, in the longest winning streak, returned <8%. Think about that. Think about the assumptions for returns built into pension fund financing. Think about the assumptions your own personal financial planner (if you ever used one) used for comparison purposes. 7% right? And that is what one of the BEST OF THE BEST managed over a lifetime, during which he benefited from the dotcom boom and the post 2008 recovery. And then he couldn't do it anymore, losing money and customers for the next 5 years.
It's become a casino. If you're still playing, why?
n
“Why do people put water heaters in the attic ? That is such a bad place. If we build a home, I am going put the water heater(s) in a attached garage. ”
Why not put in on demand heaters? No tank to leak at all.
n
added- and if you put the heater a long distance from use areas, you need to put in the recirculator too, or the water will always be cold.
I had about 4 links ready, rape, collapse, illegal immigrant crime, MS-13 shooting dead a guy in NYC, but I’m trying not to be all doom and gloom.
Day 4 of our gig in San Bernardino and I think all of those happened last night (except the dead buy was here)! It’s been rainy and cool our whole time here.
Off to Chicongo next weekend for a repeat of My. Nick’s links.
We decided to sell our two story house in Vegas and downsize to a one story. Currently living in our condo while we sell it. MrsAtoz says we should just live in the condo, but a Man needs space to hammer and saw n shit.
On-demand water heaters might be a good idea for a small office, where there is just a short-term need for it – like for washing hands, and your coffee cup.
Not sure about the benefits in a house, though. Especially with small children (and teenagers, who like long showers for some reason). Recirculating systems look interesting, but not easily done as a retrofit. On-demand for a whole house is expensive. As are the newer heat-pump types.
Mine have always been in the garage (CA. WA) or heated basement (UT). In basement, near a floor drain. In garage, with a water pan underneath and a drain to outside.
If I need to replace the current one, which is 15 years old, will probably continue with an electric tank model. (No natural gas here, and propane would be expensive.) Just the two of us, so needs are minimal.
I do drain mine occasionally, but no grit came out the last time I did it. I figure if you see grit in the bottom of the toilet tank, then draining/flushing the water heater should be done more often.
Why do people put water heaters in the attic ? That is such a bad place. If we build a home, I am going put the water heater(s) in a attached garage.
Our water heater is in the attic, sitting in an overflow pan. Is it a Texas thing?
The plumber left an alarm in the pan the last time he came out on something unrelated. He said, “It won’t be long, now. Call me when the alarm sounds.”
Unfortunately, the heater/pan sits right above the secondary closet at the back of our master closet. I’m wondering if that was the original location of the water heater since our master is on the ground floor. The previous owner was a wedding planner, and the auxiliary closet is tall enough to store formal gowns. It wouldn’t surprise me if she wanted that space.
Grrr. The water heater was in the garage in our houses in FL and WA.
Bill Gross was a fund SUPERSTAR. And he can’t make money in this economy.
There are lots of rumors of how Gross really made money in the boom years via questionable relationships with the Fed offshore. Regardless, interest rates haven’t been real in 10 years, and the only reason to buy Treasuries is liquidity.
Even if Gross was totally legit, it was easy to sell a 30 year paying 6% into a declining interest rate market where new paper pays 3%. With interest rates going the other way, a fund heavily invested in Treasuries is going to suffer.
3% mortgages and 2% car loans are not signs of a healthy economy.
No one saves money or water with an on demand heater, because water usage goes up. It’s the luxury of not running out of hot water that is awesome.
As soon as our tank dies, we’ll be putting in something that included on demand. I might put a small tank back in the same place to serve the laundry and kitchen, but a big on demand is going in over the main bath and feeding the master bath too. Fine Homebuilding featured a system that had both in the same house and there are advantages to having a tank ready to go. I’d probably be happy with two smaller on demand units, one for the kitchen/laundry and one for the baths.
Since my real world experience with water outage, I no longer consider the 50 gallons in the tank in my planning.
Still, on demand means having some other things covered for a prep minded individual.
They need power- so a big UPS or genny is advisable.
There isn’t a storage tank- so increase water storage elsewhere.
They are more complex. – may want a propane camp style heater as backup
They may need more gas – may need to increase gas service to accommodate the heater, your dryer, and your whole house genny, especially if you cook with gas too.
HVAC and water heaters in the attic seem to be a TX thing.
n
Yes, I’m have seen the hot water problems more than once. Yesterday at daughter’s house. WH in far corner of a four car garage, has a recirculating pump but not sure SIL keeps it plugged in. Took a long time for hot water yesterday as I cut up chicken wings (need hot water and soap for that – goofed by buying whole wings).
Every failure I’ve had was a slow leak. Cross fingers.
Pop culture story, which I read due mainly to the photo….
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6665949/The-birth-certificate-reveals-Atlanta-rapper-21-Savage-born-UK.html
In the country illegally. Been in custody or under supervision most of his life. Gangbanger. FELON. Poses with guns making him a Felon in Possession- another felony, been shot 6 times, glorifies drug use and the gangsta life.
But oh, he’s such a good guy, we need him to stay, let him out…..
sweet jebus, people suck.
n
OTH those Halloween costumes you wore 40 years ago are coming back to haunt you.
BC: Grog gets a hair cut ?
https://www.gocomics.com/bc/2019/02/04
Heh.
I didn’t think they should hammer kavenaugh for school nonsense 35 years ago, and I don’t think the Dems should be hammered either.
That said, the unsubstantiated nothing burger that they hammered Kav with for a month, is NOTHING compared to the actual photos. They need some gander sauce for this guy. If you want to play the game with Rs, the you should get it good and hard for the Ds too.
n
(leaving aside the whole ‘the past is another country’ thing. It wasn’t uncommon at all for people to dress up for halloween as the complete opposite of what they were. Lot of people wore Buckwheat costumes, pimp costumes, hooker costumes, dressed in drag, etc. it was before all the little soy boys got their manginas sore…)
You gotta wonder just how short sighted the pussy-hat-wearing, SJW crowd can be. They’re the ones whose WHOLE LIVES are recorded FOREVER, often in their own words, in a searchable format, backed up in datacenters under mountains….
Do they not realize that the wheel of the world turns? The pendulum swings? How’s that sex tape gonna look when the New Puritan ™ party is in charge? naked selfie? No career for you! And no anonymity either with facial recognition run on all of the interwebs… Oh, kept the phone in front of your face? Well, that little tat on your shoulder and the geotag lets us know who you are. Kept the sheets up over your head? Post processing showing the vein pattern in your back and buttocks should ‘nail’ you down to 80% certainty, cross-referenced with that tat on your boyfriend’s back and social media posts, and we’ll get the certainty up to 99%…
but of course they don’t. The arrow of progress only goes one way for them… and they are boldly marching forward into the future.
n
Which is all a very lowbrow way of having a conversation about social norms, political movements, pervasive and invasive technology, and the ethical considerations of having a ‘permanent record’ that only the most oppressive regimes could have dreamt of.
🙂
n
It also has a huge newly built storm shelter (bunker) under the garage floor. About 10 ft square and over six foot high. It’s one of the few new shelters I can comfortably stand up in. Perfect for storing LTS and prepper stuff. We will see how the process goes.
Sweet, me like !
We lived in three homes in Norman, OK in the 1960s. That is smack dab in the middle of tornado alley. The first home had a concrete sump with a sheet metal roof in the back yard that was four ft tall. It always had three foot of water in it also. The neighbors had a standup storm shelter big enough to hold a car in it so we always went there when the sirens started going. The second house had nothing so we sheltered in the bathroom. The third house did not have anything either plus no sirens since it was out by the lake.
All houses should have safe rooms. Period.
War on women?
The other four are just as good.
https://pjmedia.com/trending/the-5-biggest-widely-accepted-lies-in-politics/
OTH those Halloween costumes you wore 40 years ago are coming back to haunt you.
I’ve already had one come back to bite me in Federal Court. Long story.
Nothing offensive, but older, churchgoing African American women have zero tolerance for Halloween. The opposing lawyer did his homework selecting the jury, and while my picture was deemed irrelevant to the case and inadmissible, the damage was done as soon as it got flashed. If it was a “Bull” episode, Marissa would say those two jurors went ‘red’.
Since my real world experience with water outage, I no longer consider the 50 gallons in the tank in my planning.
Still, on demand means having some other things covered for a prep minded individual.
They need power- so a big UPS or genny is advisable.
There isn’t a storage tank- so increase water storage elsewhere.
They are more complex. – may want a propane camp style heater as backup
They may need more gas – may need to increase gas service to accommodate the heater, your dryer, and your whole house genny, especially if you cook with gas too.
HVAC and water heaters in the attic seem to be a TX thing.
My natural gas service to the house is 2 psig after the meter. I have an additional letdown valve to 3 ounces gauge for the house natural gas usage. The spa tub heater is 400,000 btu/hr with forced combustion air.
When I worked at TXU, we used 80 psig natural gas supply pressure for our steam boiler burners. And six inch piping. The supply to the plants was 900 to 1,000 psig.
Hmm. Pervasive technology. When even the “secure”, “no microphone” devices are revealed to have microphones, where do you turn?
https://it.slashdot.org/story/19/02/04/2153219/nest-secure-has-an-unlisted-disabled-microphone?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29
In Sons of Anarchy, all cell phones went in a bowl outside the meeting room because they KNEW how insecure they were.
My family doesn’t understand why I don’t allow the smart speaker in the living room. I don’t take my phone with me everywhere, and my watch stays behind sometimes. Constant (and I mean constant) vigilence is required.
Mine is in my attached garage. Every 20 years, or so, it starts to leak. Then I see the effluent trickling down the driveway when I get home. Don’t park inside the garage so the plumber can get to it.
WRT to the discussion yesterday about computer science and coding and learning in college. It wasn’t a big deal to me. Going through college 60 years ago, nothing to learn there about coding. Had to self teach on the job. A real boost to my career as I did better that most, including younger ones who might have learned more formally.
OTOH, did Isaac Newton learn about gravitation and laws of motion in college? Albert Einstein about mass to energy conversion and speed of light limit?
What it really did for me was allowing me to learn the basics and fundamentals of technical subjects and more importantly earning the BS certificate without which I would not have been hired to perform very well.
Oh yeah, Isaac Newton could not attend the best of the universities as he was not properly schooled and therefore did not have the required documentation defining his level of Christianity and its beliefs as adequate for admittance.
At this house, the water heaters lime up. Draining once a year didn’t help the previous two. The current heater has the benefit of a water softener. As a side benefit, as long as my ears last, when the water heater starts to make noise the softener is almost out of salt.
It’s pretty nice to not need a razorblade to scrape the mineral ring out of the toilets. Never mind soaking faucet aerators in CLR because 9% vinegar isn’t enough.
I’m not calling “Spring” yet. But it’s near. There are tons of little sparrow birds chirping their happy butts off. The robins are gone. A few cute little half inch long crickets, too. We don’t get many crickets. The crab apple tree is starting to bud. It’s not very bright, it flowered a week after Thanksgiving. The Arizona Ash is budding and has tiny feathers of leaves showing. The “pet” mesquite tree’s twigs are greening. That’s different. The elms and the hackberryies still look dead…. they wait until mid to late March.
The Ash… twigs that appear dead are air temp. The twigs with greening buds are cooler. Hmm.
But. February. I wouldn’t be surprised to have a couple more hard 20F freezes.
Back to water heaters. I’ve looked at the instant heat units. They cost more and for the size I figure I need, sheesh, have you priced the wiring to run 80 to 100 amp service? It’s not like installing an electric range.
_Reamde: A Novel_ by Neal Stephenson
https://www.amazon.com/Reamde-Novel-Neal-Stephenson/dp/0062191497/?tag=ttgnet-20
Book number one of a two book action adventure series. I read the well printed and bound trade paperback. The font on the trade paperback was a little small though. I will order the sequel, _Fall; or, Dodge in Hell: A Novel_ when it comes out in trade paperback (it is to be released on June 4, 2019 in kindle and hardcover).
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/006245871X/?tag=ttgnet-20
The family reunion at the beginning of the book reminds me of family reunions here in Texas back in the 1960s and 1970s. Lots of food, lots of guns, lots of shooting, and lots of crazy. Oh yeah, and lots of kids. Nowadays, not so many kids.
OK, I guess that Neal Stephenson is throwing down the gauntlet for the longest book with David Weber. 1,042 pages of 9 ??? point type at 1.8 lbs for the trade paperback. And, Russian mafia, credit card thieves, Mulsim terrorists, and Idahoan isolationists, oh my ! And a detailed look at the relevancy of online role playing games to the real world. Definitely reads more like a Tom Clancy book than an SF book as the many protagonists travel from Idaho to Canada to Seattle to Russia to China to the Philippines to Seattle to Canada to Idaho.
My rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.1 out of 5 stars
Back to water heaters. I’ve looked at the instant heat units. They cost more and for the size I figure I need, sheesh, have you priced the wiring to run 80 to 100 amp service? It’s not like installing an electric range.
Yeah, the electrical requirements for a electric instant heat unit look to be not worthwhile. And I do not have natural gas at the office either.
My Dad put a 120 V instahot under his kitchen sink a decade or two ago. The one gallon tank gave him a little bit of hot water until the 40+ ft run from the water heater kicked in. I noticed the other day that it did not work anymore though. Entropy sucks.
On water heaters in offices I’ve seen small 120v instant heat ones under bathroom sinks that work ok. I’ve seen 120v 5 gal ones under kitchen sinks that also do okay.
Many years ago my in-laws installed an instant nat gas fired one just for one bathroom. The house had 80gal solar with electric backup for the whole house and the instant one had a transfer valve to move the bath over to the house unit. No one ever like the instant one. It fluctuated in temp constantly going up and down. Not that big a range, but enough to be annoying. Quit using it and just went on the house unit. Later the big one for the house was replaced with a gas one and several years after that the solar was taken down as it kept causing trouble.
Give me a large capacity natural gas unit any day.
WRT to the discussion yesterday about computer science and coding and learning in college. It wasn’t a big deal to me. Going through college 60 years ago, nothing to learn there about coding. Had to self teach on the job. A real boost to my career as I did better that most, including younger ones who might have learned more formally.
Contrary to popular belief, I think a certain level of inate talent is involved with people who do code at a very high level, and most of those I’ve met are self taught.
Roger that, Solar Energy is a total fraud.
YUUUP!!
Contrary to popular belief, I think a certain level of inate talent is involved with people who do code at a very high level, and most of those I’ve met are self taught.
That describes me to a T–the self-taught part, not necessarily the innate-talent part! 😉
Many years ago my in-laws installed an instant nat gas fired one just for one bathroom. The house had 80gal solar with electric backup for the whole house and the instant one had a transfer valve to move the bath over to the house unit. No one ever like the instant one. It fluctuated in temp constantly going up and down. Not that big a range, but enough to be annoying. Quit using it and just went on the house unit. Later the big one for the house was replaced with a gas one and several years after that the solar was taken down as it kept causing trouble.
Give me a large capacity natural gas unit any day.
That is the problem with solar and wind energy. They are inconsistent and inconvenient. They need huge and expensive storage mechanisms to make them consistent and convenient.
Definitely reads more like a Tom Clancy book than an SF book as the many protagonists travel from Idaho to Canada to Seattle to Russia to China to the Philippines to Seattle to Canada to Idaho.
Yeah, Tom Clancy pre-divorce.
Believe it or not, “Reamde” was Stephenson’s first book written with a word processor, Scrivener.
I worked in Downtown Seattle around the time “Reamde” hit bookstores. The only location details Stephenson fails to get right are those of the Lacey, WA Cabela’s. I stopped in that place plenty of times from 2010-2014, and the camo clothing is but a small section of a very large store.
Seattle is very different now than it was even six years ago.
It’s been about 12 years since I was there, maybe 15. Had good clear and warm weather. Walked around, took a boat ride, called my dad from the space needle. Could see the mountain. City was empty. walked across it two or three times. Weird.
n
WRT coding, yeah, most people could be taught do write simple stuff, just like most people can be taught to cut a 2×4, or run a nail gun. But I really believe you need a particular and not so common ability to do it well. Same goes for engineering. There is a real “type” of person that becomes a successful engineer. There are always exceptions. Some people can just gut it out, and do ok at the work thru stubbornness and education. To really be good though takes talent. Just like most human endeavors.
n
It’s been about 12 years since I was there, maybe 15. Had good clear and warm weather. Walked around, took a boat ride, called my dad from the space needle. Could see the mountain. City was empty. walked across it two or three times. Weird.
Amazon moved out of the old hospital and took over the north end of downtown since then. The tunnel replacement for the viaduct and the new floating bridge from Bill Gates house to downtown are for the company’s employees.
Even 12-15 years ago, there were question marks about Amazon surviving long term. Of course, that was before they introduced AWS, which subsidizes their otherwise unsustainable retail strategies.
I agree. I have a type of mind that can grasp the problem and figure out a coding solution. Some times it takes significant effort and some research, sometimes I have to build on the work of others. I am most certainly not at the top of the heap, better than many, worse than many. But I made a career out of slinging code.
Probably the most fun project was the building of a compiler for a custom language, writing that compiler on one computer with the target being another computer with a completely different architecture. Written in Algol, generated machine code for output. I was also able to make it a one pass compiler, thus fast.
The most rewarding was the writing of an input module for the bank. The software that was purchased (Florida Software) and used by the bank was fairly rigid in monetary input requirements. I spent a day in the teller line and watched how the tellers input numbers. The numbers had to have a decimal followed by two numbers, commas would error out, numbers had to be right justified (terminal fields helped in this regard), negative numbers had to have the sign in front. Tellers spent a lot of time on extra keystrokes.
So I wrote a module that would intercept all numeric field input and analyze the data. Commas were stripped as were any characters except the minus sign and decimal point. The number was properly justified. The scaling was applied if necessary based on the decimal point. The end result was multiple fields that provided everything that needed to be known about the number input. The resulting, properly formatted, number was passed on to the software.
The tellers loved it and productivity went up about 20%. No more having to think about the number and how it had to be input, savings of thousands of keystrokes each day, and more accurate.
Another company that we used for CIF (Central Information File) displayed all information on customers and their family members as this was linked in the system. They used a screen compression (these were character based terminals, 24 lines by 80 characters running on a 9600 baud line) removing blanks to reduce the amount of information transmitted and this improved response time.
But their logic had a problem. And these guys thought they were best programmers around. Occasionally an amount would show incorrectly on the screen. These “superman” programmers, who tended to look down on me, a mere mortal, were scratching their heads trying to find the issue. Finally I got tired of them not being able to find the issue.
I figured out they were looking in the wrong location. The problem was their screen compression software. It was leaving extra characters on the screen in some cases. Thus the wrong amounts (extra digits in front) were from the prior screen. I rewrote their screen compression routine to fix the problem and in the process saved an extra 20% on the data transmitted.
I installed the new routine in their software and the problems with incorrect amounts disappeared. I then contacted the company and provided them with the solution. They were just a little embarrassed at a lowly client finding, and fixing, the problem they had been hunting for months.
It was a good day when I was able to show the propeller heads that I was not just a lowly client and simpleton programmer. They did offer me a job which I declined.
Definitely reads more like a Tom Clancy book than an SF book as the many protagonists travel from Idaho to Canada to Seattle to Russia to China to the Philippines to Seattle to Canada to Idaho.
Yeah, Tom Clancy pre-divorce.
Have you read any of the post-Tom Clancy books ? The wife and I like them quite a bit. The Clancy family worked hard to find a stable of “ghost” writers who are pretty good.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075KJSFZZ?tag=ttgnet-20
and
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07JZH79MX?tag=ttgnet-20
WRT coding, yeah, most people could be taught do write simple stuff, just like most people can be taught to cut a 2×4, or run a nail gun. But I really believe you need a particular and not so common ability to do it well. Same goes for engineering. There is a real “type” of person that becomes a successful engineer. There are always exceptions. Some people can just gut it out, and do ok at the work thru stubbornness and education. To really be good though takes talent. Just like most human endeavors.
Anyone can be a programmer on simple stuff. Shoot, we program ourselves constantly.
The problem comes when the program rises above a 1,000 lines of code. Organization, or lack thereof, starts to bite. And the ability to focus and see the resulting product in your mind is incredibly important.
I have written around 400,000 to 600,000 lines of code in my lifetime. I really have no good idea. Some of it was really good stuff and some of it was total crap.
I am losing the ability to focus now. Reminds me a lot of the Kevin Costner movie “For Love of the Game”. He plays a baseball pitcher at the end of his long career and is facing the Yankees one last time. During the first innings of the game, he says “clear the machine” to himself and all of the crowd noise goes away. In the ninth inning, “clear the machine” no longer works. Great movie about balancing work and life.