79F and 97%RH this am. Turns out that the NOAA forecast calling for T-storms and heavy rain was correct for some parts of Houston, and the openweathermap forecast calling for tenths of a mm was correct for me. While we got just a spatter of fat drops, my wife got inundated in a classic gully washer. Microclimates.
As we kick May to the curb (or kerb, but then you guys don’t use the expression do you?) and prepare for June, local norms for weather begin to reassert themselves. We had a long cooler spring and it was great, but summer is here. For the east and Gulf coasts, that means Hurricane Season. Get ready, we’ve already had one named storm in the Atlantic.
The world continues to see upheaval in the geopolitical balance. It looks like a lot more than normal tussling to me, and not good for civilization. Think about what the fall of Rome must have looked like to the average well to do Roman. Did goods from far away trade begin to be scarce? Did soldiers fail to come home? Were there an awful lot of unfamiliar faces in the marketplace? Was there a lot of foreign gabble heard everywhere you went? Did neighborhoods and enclaves spring up around you that were full of those same foreigners? Was the news full of former subject lands telling Rome to GTFO? Did those subject lands begin to have adventures of their own? Did the familiar political process at home fall apart?
I think we’re well into the fall. How do you get through and how does your family? It’s a slow moving disaster, that lasts a long time. Your planning horizon needs to expand, outsiders probably won’t be a help, and you will have to accept that the change is permanent. I hope not. I hope the rise of movements can reclaim what we had, but I suspect it’s the last burst of energy before collapse.
Not a happy thought for today, but I had some disturbing dreams and woke early.
This should be the WDYDTPTW post, so what DID you do to prep this week??
n
One of my Emgmt newletters sourced this from Ars…
“Lessons learned from the Baltimore ransomware clean-up
It’s been three weeks since the City of Baltimore’s networks were shut down due to
a ransomware attack, and it may be weeks more before the city’s services return to something resembling normal.
To top it off, unlike the City of Atlanta—which suffered from a Samsam ransomware
attack in March of 2018—Baltimore has no insurance to cover the cost of a
cyberattack. So the cost of cleaning up the RobbinHood ransomware will be
borne entirely by Baltimore’s citizens and will far exceed the approximately
$70,000 ransom.
(Source: ArsTechnica)”
This week I got some work done on small engine repair. I haven’t gotten any repaired, but I’ve got one good prospect of the 4 chainsaws. I picked up a little 63cc generator, which turns out to be from Harbor Freight. I’d have left it if I knew. HF stuff is almost universally crap. I haven’t explored why it won’t start and it has moved to the bottom of the list.
I’m bidding on more solar stuff. It would be nice to get that going this year.
The garden continues to grow. Cukes and zukes haven’t died yet. Grapes are looking thin, but the bunches are still there. Littlest one harvests some blueberries almost every day. Just a handful, but she loves them and gets a kick out of picking them. Still only the one tomato growing, although the plants are doing fine.
Once again, I’d starve if I was relying on the garden. Gotta ramp up that game.
New rainwater barrel is almost in place. I got the concrete blocks, and put them in place, but they were too close to the garage. I have to move them only a little bit but ran out of time and oomph.
I added a couple of flats of cans to the pile, and we’ve eaten a few cans during the week. Rotate your preps! Or do like I do and just accept that there will be “breakage.”
Been working with the kids on money. Loans, interest, taxes, and most importantly what is money and what is not. Oldest doesn’t want to believe that paper currency isn’t money, and that it has no value unless everyone acts as if it does. I had her close her eyes, gave her two bills, and asked her to tell me which was worth more. OF COURSE she guessed correctly, but she did admit to it being a complete guess. The point wasn’t made as forcefully as it could have been but I could see some understanding dawning.
The little one really hated when I taxed her for enforcing her contract with big sis… hopefully the point was made- don’t get the .gov involved or you will both lose.
n
Nick:
Good for you! This is one of the many things completely neglected by our education system. I didn’t really learn about money till I was in my 50’s. All those wasted years. I should have listened to my grandfather, a self-made millionaire, but he was reluctant to discuss and I was an arrogant teen who thought I knew it all.
My education was jump started by realizing that my retirement money had disappeared with the bankruptcy of MCI. I started by reading “Rich Dad Poor Dad” and it really opened my eyes. I was making six figures but not investing or saving any, figuring that I would always be making good money. Now I have three businesses, some rental properties, and a nice income outside my 9-5 IT job to fall back on when I retire. Everything but my home is paid off and that will happen once I get my hands on my 401K. I introduced the grandkids to the “Cashflow for Kids” board game to help teach them about debt and investing. The eldest, 13, just bought a wrecked Prius (only front-end damage – hit a deer) and will spend the next couple of years fixing it up so he will have his first car when he gets his license at 15.
Anything we can do to educate our kids about the wage / debt trap will make a huge difference. I keep telling them “No one ever got rich working for someone else”.
The midwestern flooding is still having primary impacts and is starting to have secondary and tertiary effects…
From FEMA–
“Transportation
• Numerous road closures remain throughout impacted areas; road closures near West
Quincy, MO due to levee breach; alternate routes available
• Coast Guard closed portions of the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers due to extremely highwater levels
• Commercial navigation has been shut down along the Arkansas River
• Amtrak service suspended between Kansas City, KS to St. Louis, MO and between St.
Louis and Fort Worth, TX
• Train track damage north of West Quincy due to levee breach; impacts to BNSF
(cargo); alternate tracks available, will cause track congestion and slow cargo
movement”
From @dkreck yesterday:
the glaciers are likely to grow this year. Which is not, imho, a good thing, but it will make the greenies happy.
No it won’t. It will make all us deplorable deniers happy.
Yup, the climate change fakers will just say that it is going to make things even worse in 50 years. They always put the “horrible” conditions out decades so that they can say anything and everyone forgets the crazy by then.
xkcd: Diploma Legal Notes
https://www.xkcd.com/2157/
“All graduates are entitled to delete one word of their choice from the Oxford English Dictionary.”
Hmm. I wonder which word I would delete ? I am the class of 1982 so this must be a new feature as I do not recall it then.
Explained at:
https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2157:_Diploma_Legal_Notes
Over The Hedge: kiddie pool o’ twinkies
https://www.gocomics.com/overthehedge/2019/05/31
Looks like they ran out of the anti-vaxxer accusations.
Turns out that the NOAA forecast calling for T-storms and heavy rain was correct for some parts of Houston, and the openweathermap forecast calling for tenths of a mm was correct for me. While we got just a spatter of fat drops, my wife got inundated in a classic gully washer. Microclimates.
I got one drop per square foot at the warehouse while I was working on it yesterday. The boom lift rental place had standing water on their concrete lot about an inch deep when I got there at 2pm to return the awesome boom lift.
Went and visited my mother at the hospital last night. She has been there over eight weeks now. Yesterday the head ortho doc came in to her room and she asked him about a hard spot on her leg. He sent his fellow in two hours later to look at it and the guy drew a small sample of the fluid which turned out to be blood. By inserting the syringe, the doc caused the entire spot to drain which turned out to be a surface hematoma. After it drained for quite a while, the doc started yelling for help and about six nurses showed up to help. About a liter of blood came out, all over the doc and my mother. I don’t know what to think about this other than it is not good.
Mom’s spirits are good and her pain is at 3 so at least that is good. She made me promise again not to resuscitate her if it comes to to that. They are still putting three IV bags of antibiotics into her a day for the thigh bone and/or pelvic bone infection. They have that scheduled to continue through June 18. The Fellow doc also mentioned to my mom that her blood is not normal but did not explain what that means.
The leg nerve is still paralyzed or dead so Mom cannot feel or move her foot and toes. Plus she is still losing weight but she is eating now. Maybe 1,000 calories per day. Dad is bringing her Whataburger shakes trying to get some calories in her. And Boost (yuck !).
Once again, I’d starve if I was relying on the garden. Gotta ramp up that game.
Farming is an interesting mix of art, science, and weather. My grandmother used to tell the story of when their potato crop failed back in the early 1920s. They started eating the seed potatoes. She said her grandmother put her apron over her head and started crying when she realized that the food potatoes were the seed potatoes. They got through it somehow.
The world continues to see upheaval in the geopolitical balance. It looks like a lot more than normal tussling to me, and not good for civilization. Think about what the fall of Rome must have looked like to the average well to do Roman. Did goods from far away trade begin to be scarce? Did soldiers fail to come home? Were there an awful lot of unfamiliar faces in the marketplace? Was there a lot of foreign gabble heard everywhere you went? Did neighborhoods and enclaves spring up around you that were full of those same foreigners? Was the news full of former subject lands telling Rome to GTFO? Did those subject lands begin to have adventures of their own? Did the familiar political process at home fall apart?
I am wondering about this 5% tariff that Trump just put on Mexican goods. “Trump announces new Mexican tariffs in response to migrants”.
https://www.apnews.com/afec271c5f9c4fdb82f57b48cb593add
“In a surprise announcement that could derail a major trade deal, President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he is slapping a 5% tariff on all Mexican imports, effective June 10, to pressure the country to do more to crack down on the surge of Central American migrants trying to cross the U.S. border.”
“He said the percentage will gradually increase — up to 25% — “until the Illegal Immigration problem is remedied.””
Hat tip to
https://drudgereport.com/
Trump is playing the long game here. I wonder how many people will support him ? I do, but I am not hurting. Yet.
The little one really hated when I taxed her for enforcing her contract with big sis… hopefully the point was made- don’t get the .gov involved or you will both lose.
Huh, in real life the .gov would have FAILED to enforce the contract and taxed BOTH parties.
Hmm. I wonder which word I would delete ? I am the class of 1982 so this must be a new feature as I do not recall it then.
Provenance.
I hate that word. No one used it prior to the “Portlandia” sketch about the chicken, and then the word spread like a cancer.
Runner up would be “kiddos” where one used do simply say “kids”, but I don’t think the former is in the dictionary … yet.
Mom’s spirits are good and her pain is at 3 so at least that is good. She made me promise again not to resuscitate her if it comes to to that.
So sorry about your Mom, Lynn. My Mom made it clear she didn’t want to be resuscitated or have any surgeries done if she was unconscious (she was 92). Her last three days were on Dilaudid. Unconscious and no pain. Until the Dilaudid, she was just groaning and crying, yet unconscious. I’m grateful the IC Doc sat down and talked about end-of-life comforts. My Mom didn’t get to sign a DNR/I at the hospital. She signed one at the rehab center, but it didn’t carry over. The rehab sent her right to the ER and she never woke up.
Trump is playing the long game here. I wonder how many people will support him ? I do, but I am not hurting. Yet.
You don’t like avocado toast … or Florida Key Lime Pie (main ingredient Hencho en Mexico).
All kidding aside, tomato pricess will probably be what most people notice first. Amazon plowed under the most productive tomato fields in the world outside Tampa to build their warehouse for west central Florida. Now most tomatoes come from Mexico.
And most complex things “Made in the USA” have Mexico in the supply chain.
In Chicago, one of my wife’s dinner brain farts was an Irish pub off North Michigan Avenue, a suggestion of the concierge at the hotel.
Once we arrived and didn’t want to back out because it was already 8 PM and the kids were getting impatient, I said, “This place doesn’t even try.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Avocado toast, straight from the Emerald Isle.”
Provenance. I’ll give credit to Antiques Road Show but what the hell, Portlandia was absurd enough.
What’s with avocado toast? I like ’em straight up, or sliced with some olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. But most of all guacamole with salsa and tortilla chips. Never had ‘toast’.
Edit –
Well I did indulge in one of these yesterday. So good but $12 for a combo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_QX2pUMAgg
What’s with avocado toast? I like ’em straight up, or sliced with some olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. But most of all guacamole with salsa and tortilla chips. Never had ‘toast’.
The first place I saw avocado toast on a menu was in a restaurant in Silicon Valley around 20 years ago, a Mexican restaurant up above San Jose.
Is there anything else to it?
(sounds like a progressive perversion, especially for a Mexican restaurant)
Supposedly it’s a millenial favorite comfort food.
YMMV.
In the kids room at the bowling alley, they gave us toasted white bread, with butter and sugar as a snack. It was cut into triangles. LOVE that stuff.
n
“This was the Dow’s 6th straight weekly loss (longest losing streak in 8 years)”
Hmmm.
n
“This was the Dow’s 6th straight weekly loss (longest losing streak in 8 years)”
Hmmm.
Who has real earnings?
The real estate silly season was still strong in Austin.
Our former landlord is having trouble moving one of his rentals around the corner, but I’m guessing he wants a huge sum of money. He isn’t good about maintenance. He’ll probably wait until after the weekend to drop the rent in case someone, like us, needs a house “sight unseen” because an inspection fell through. Local apartments are catching CA-level rents as of late.
Families with kids need to start the closing process in the next two weeks. School starts in early August again despite Thanksgiving moving back a week into the end of November.
Got stuck behind a New York plate today. And another Florida. Plenty of CA and WA.
“The Surprisingly Solid Mathematical Case of the Tin Foil Hat Gun Prepper”
https://medium.com/s/story/the-surprisingly-solid-mathematical-case-of-the-tin-foil-hat-gun-prepper-15fce7d10437
“Or, “Who Needs an AR-15 Anyway?””
“In 2010, 8.5 million tourists visited Syria, accounting for 14% of their entire GDP. Eight years later, they have almost half a million dead citizens, and ten million more displaced into Europe. They didn’t see this coming, because if they did, they would have fled sooner. Nobody notices the signs of impending doom unless they’re looking carefully.”
Those are not good odds quoted in the paper for violent revolution.
Hat tip to my dad.
Those are not good odds quoted in the paper for violent revolution.
In 2013, we attended a recruiting dinner for the wife’s job in Vantucky, and one of the better paid doctors went on at length about her bike ride through Syria a couple of years prior.
Not only was it enlightening about how far Syria had fallen quickly, it was an education that not all of the “partners” were necessarily equal post Obamacare where my wife worked. That wasn’t my “it” moment for leaving, but that happened within a month.
“These Aren’t Your Ordinary Data Centers”
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/these-arent-your-ordinary-data-centers/
Heh. I like the one in a church.
“These Aren’t Your Ordinary Data Centers”
I’m surprised that more Sears stores weren’t at least partially converted partially into data centers to prevent complete closings. Post Advantis, they certainly had the bandwidth, and, in stores without Lands End, clothing seemed to be an afterthought anyway.
Another sign of the shortsighted management running things.
Another sign of the shortsighted management running things.
It is incredibly tough to find good management for any business. For all the success stories out there, there are a dozen failure stories. Make that a hundred failure stories for restaurants.
Amazon still blows me away. I do not understand how they exploded so big while many others failed. I guess the excellent website, quick response time, good prices, good availability, and free shipping were all parts of the puzzle.
Free returns, and they started with merch you didn’t need to try on or inspect first….
n
Out of the blue, my brother sent this to me:
https://www.amazon.com/Motion-Sensor-equivalent-Basement-LUXON/dp/B01MQ1HSOD?tag=ttgnet-20
Three of them. I don’t know what to do with them. I have ONE tabletop lamp, it’s in the “guest bedroom” and yeah, I bought the lamp at Target for at most $20 in 1985 or so because I had a corner in the living room and she said it needed a lamp. It’s still on the original 3-way bulb. Just saying. Lasting relationships…. 🙂
Anyway, the bulbs have radar for motion detection. Whee! I don’t see anything about water resistance. But since all of my X-10 timer controllers have died (the modules work), I think I’ll stick one in the floodlight fixture on the Feedshed. Hey, 5 watts…. compared to a 75W equivalent Halogen dimmed to 30% at 10PM until Dawn. Might spook off the coons eating the cat chow.
Or not. [shrug] I can put one in the Boat Shed in a clamp-on light but I can’t remember the last time I wandered out there after dark. So that’s silly.
I have a solution looking for a problem.
Wow, that medium.com article was really balanced and well done.
“There are certain things in the world you’d rather have and not need, than need and not have. And paramount among those things, given the state of the modern human condition, is a rifle.”
I can’t find anything in it to argue, and his math makes a compelling case.
n
@paul, I wonder if the ‘radar’ has any bad effect on your radio/tv/wifi reception….
n
I’ve put motion sensor lights in my entry way, and hallway. It’s very handy to stumble out and the light comes on.
‘ah sh!t,
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7092593/Shooting-municipal-center-Virginia-beach-leaves-multiple-people-injured.html
n
Twelve dead and six injured in shooting at Virginia Beach municipal center: Long-time city worker opens fire ‘at random’ near to his office before cops return fire and kill him
Virginia Beach police say they believe there was one active shooter
The shooting suspect is said to have died in the incident, according to reports
Gunman was ‘longterm, current’ city of Virginia Beach public utilities employee
Images show a heavy police presence as the courthouse remains on lockdown
At least two of those injured are currently being treated at hospital, reports say
The shooter opened fire in Building 2 of the municipal center, close to City Hall
@paul, I wonder if the ‘radar’ has any bad effect on your radio/tv/wifi reception….
n
That’s something to watch for.
Amazon still blows me away. I do not understand how they exploded so big while many others failed. I guess the excellent website, quick response time, good prices, good availability, and free shipping were all parts of the puzzle.
Bezos was a quant at DE Shaw and had a lot of connections on Wall Street. Mackenzie Bezos was Toni Morrison’s grad assistant and had a lot of literary contacts. The book distributors allowed him to play the cash flow game which fueled expansion, and Borders (as well as Toys R Us) made a stupid move handing Amazon their online fulfilment 20 years ago.
Plus, there was “The Legend of Jeff. Family Man. Wears the Same Shirt Every Day. Drives A Honda.” The press ate that cr*p up when the Internet bubble popped and all the stories of excess poured out of the Valley.
It helped that Amazon was in Seattle, away from the Valley competition for talent, and they took advantage of the available local retail talent when the Egghead ponzi melted down in Issaquah and Eddie Bauer imploded under Spiegel.
Bezos was also very lucky.
When I lived in Issaquah, I drove past the old Egghead Software building all the time. I doubt anyone in Seattle could have imagined 25 years ago how quickly that would disappear due to a security breach. Amazon could too.
“Texas on pace for ANOTHER record month in illegal immigration: 19% increase from April”
https://www.conservativereview.com/news/texas-pace-another-record-month-illegal-immigration-19-increase-april/
“According to preliminary weekly data used internally by CBP and given to CR by a Border Patrol agent who must remain anonymous because he is not authorized to speak to the press, 71,834 illegal aliens were apprehended between points of entry in the state of Texas from May 1 to May 28. That works out to a daily pace of 2,565.5 per day or a flow of 936,408 annually – just in the state of Texas alone. One has to go back to fiscal year 2006 to find this level of annual apprehensions in all four border states combined.”
“On Wednesday, a record 1,036 illegal immigrants came in one large group at El Paso, which is the most of any single group coming in at once. Clearly, the situation is getting worse, not better.”
This is freaking crazy. These people are thinking that we are going to have another amnesty where they will be granted automatic citizenship.
Hat tip to:
https://drudgereport.com/
This is freaking crazy. These people are thinking that we are going to have another amnesty where they will be granted automatic citizenship.
Every generation like clockwork since the 60s. Except Bush Jr. and Adam “Opie” Putnam, his point man in Congress on the issue, botched the last one and were punished by their Deep State masters.
I voted against Opie every two years we lived in his district, but if anyone told me 18 months ago that he would not be the current occupant of the FL Governor’s Mansion, I would have laughed at them.
Florida lucked out. The country might as well.
re: Trade Wars Can anyone tell me what exactly China sells us that we can’t manufacture ourselves, or have made in some other lower wage country? Wal Mart & Home Depot would be hurt in the short term, certainly, but I would happily pay double for a pair of shoes that are made in the USA.
The same goes for Mexico. Okay, we import some food from them, but is it things we can’t do without? And someone mentioned automobile supply chain. Okay, the starter for your auto might cost more, but absent all the illegal labor, wages would have to rise across the board. We’re all better off in the long run.
Oh, and we’ve got a used, empty, hurricane damaged mall here which would be a great site for a data center. It even had been a fully functional Sears. It seems that J C Penny owned their footprint, and they claim to still be working to renovate & re-open. Fencing, dumpsters, & banners tell me that they’re probably telling the truth. But it sure looks like the rest of the mall is never going to re-open.
To my mind the Trade Deficit is a measure of an exorbitant privilege. We get useful stuff, they get paper they must have to buy oil. Now I’m no admirer of Chinese “capitalism”, nor am I pleased so much manufacturing has left but I find much of the current weaponizing of the dollar as irrelevant at best and massively counter-productive at worst.
At least for work boots, domestic manufacture is priced close to double the import version.
Allen Edmonds dress shoes are made in the US. Some pairs are $300 USED on ebay. Still, you can get a good condition used pair of some models for $50. There is at least one sneaker brand made here.
My wife was saying that all her manufacturers are jacked up by the tariffs. My reply was that they are about to regret outsourcing all those jobs. She countered by saying that they couldn’t buy steel here. My response was that we have plenty of mills, still, and they couldn’t buy steel here for the price they were willing to pay.
Tariffs are supposed to sting. They are supposed to recapture some of the cost difference between foreign labor and domestic, recognizing that domestic is better for us as a whole and that foreign shifts costs to the .gov and the people who have to pay the unemployment, welfare, etc.
There is balance in the universe, and the cosmic tax collector never sleeps. Too many of these companies have been avoiding costs they should have been paying, and if it comes home to bite their asses, I’m not bothered.
n
Tariffs are yet another not so hidden tax on the intermediate or end domestic consumer. The “furriner” just jacks his price up to cover. The Treasury is the only beneficiary. The domestic consumer buys less of the tariff encumbered product(s). The foreign producer sells fewer units. A domestic producer might sell more units, but not if their current price is significantly higher than the tariff, ala shoes for example.
“but not if their current price is significantly higher than the tariff,”
–but that is the point of the tariff, the rate needs to be set where it negates the higher domestic costs.
It’s all .gov intervention in the markets, but it is intended to counter the (un)intended consequences of their previous interventions…
I’d prefer less meddling, but if they aren’t gonna put the tax structures back to make offshoring less attractive, or change the rules for how C-suite suits are compensated, then some intervention is called for. ESPECIALLY when all of our trade partners are intervening like crazy, and tariffing OUR products.
n
Sounds to me more like deck chair re-arranging with icebergs straight ahead. Maybe fix the mistake rather than add band-aids to an amputee.
Legislation is almost never undone, vis obamacare… or anything from the depression era, or really anything…
The only thing that springs to mind is prohibition and that was pushed thru by ‘the people’ and repealed by the people.
You normally just get layer after layer of cruft, each adding its own unintended consequences.
n
No argument there! I REALLY don’t look forward to the eventual collapse, implosion, explosion of the whole rotted mess.
“Dick Morris: Trump Is Waging (and Winning) a Peaceful World War III Against China”
https://www.westernjournal.com/dick-morris-trump-waging-winning-peaceful-world-war-iii-china/
“The stakes could not be higher in President Trump’s economic trade war with China. They go far beyond any usual economic conflict and amount to an economic World War III.”
“The issue is not just American jobs. It is the desire of one nation to rule the world — the same paradigm as we confronted in World War II and in the Cold War.”
“The current global ruler is the benign United States. We seek economic power to help the nations of the world — all of them — live free from want and fear. Whatever our shortcomings, our domination is benign and important only to stop more malign contenders from getting their hands on global power.”
The current global ruler is the benign United States. We seek economic power to help the nations of the world — all of them — live free from want and fear.
The problem is that the alcoholic pervert REMFs at MacDill are far from benign. I lived around those people, and the last thing they want is for peace to break out. God forbid they have to find work in the private sector — most of them are too f*cked up for that. When you run the Snake Torture for Booz Allen Hamilton at Gitmo, where do you take that resume entry?
The only thing that springs to mind is prohibition and that was pushed thru by ‘the people’ and repealed by the people.
Roosevelt needed political cover for his antics. Might as well let people get liquored up while you’re doing really unconstitutional things like confiscating their gold and attempting to expand the Supreme Court to 15 justices.
The Dems still dream about Supreme Court expansion by nomination, but it would require a compliant Senate to test the legal theory. Using the “nuclear option” for Gorsuch was dangerous long term.
No argument there! I REALLY don’t look forward to the eventual collapse, implosion, explosion of the whole rotted mess.
Grid down in a big part of civilization would most likely be be an extinction level event for humanity. It would take a generation or two to know for sure, and no one should desire even a partial collapse to “teach a lesson” to snowflakes or anyone else.
The clock starts ticking the moment the mops stop moving.
China has built up a huge infrastructure of rapid response manufacturing. Some of the other Asian countries and a few in Eastern Europe could, and will, take up some of the slack, but overall it would take years and significant capital investment to replicate what they have.