81F and 96%RH this am. Early this am. Did I really get up this early every day for school? Yes I did. I sure don’t feel like it today though.
Today we’ll be meeting the kids teachers and tomorrow is first day of school. Yikes. Fall is fast approaching. I used to consider Fall to be start of school, but we haven’t even had Labor Day yet, and there is plenty of hot sun left in the year.
Our school district added a Chief of Security and Safety. Unfortunately they promoted from within, and although the guy is a 28 year veteran of the District, they didn’t list a single credential related to his new job. They also promised campus based advisor teams, maybe I can get on ours. I guess we’ll see. I think it’s a step, hopefully in the right direction.
The world continues on its way. Perhaps the mess in Hong Kong will keep China’s attention focused inward for a while. Hmm, funny how that might work. How very convenient…
And Epstein’s guards might have been asleep on the job, literally. Funny that a guy so connected, so important as a potential informer, so much the focus of attention, could succeed with a suicide while in custody. No matter which way you look at it, from what starting or ending point, it’s Banana Republic time when it can happen in a federal lockup.
Keep stacking. We are further along than we realize.
n
Adaptive Curmudgeon sums up my feelings on the Epstein BS nicely.
http://adaptivecurmudgeon.com/2019/08/14/can-a-tinfoil-hat-wearing-blogger-be-insufficiently-paranoid/
If you needed any more evidence that rule of law is dead on a national level, I don’t know what would satisfy you. We’ll be working through the ramifications of this for years.
n
did I mention my prepper WIN last week?
Wife asks – Do you have any shortening? Kids want to bake…
Nick replies- I’ve got some lard in the freezer.
Wife – Cool, we’ll use that.
Win! Small, micro sized win, but still a win!
n
(nowhere near as big a prepper win as when daughter asked if we had any ascorbic acid for a slime project, and I went out into the garage and got the 5 pound bag…thanks to Barbara and RBT.)
Started local Sheriff’s Citizen Academy last night. Meet every Tuesday evening to learn about history, organization, operations, etc. And we get to try the FATS!! Fire Arm Training Simulator. And we are going on ride-alongs! Gonna be fun. Sheriff is born and raised in this area so is both good and bad, Vietnam vet, and very very supportive of working with community. Met his division heads last night and they seemed to be comfortable and confident in front of us two dozen “students.”
Thanks to Nick for sharing his experiences when going through similar programs. Sounded interesting so signed up when this one was first advertised. Looking for to attending the local PD program in the fall too.
If you needed any more evidence that rule of law is dead on a national level, I don’t know what would satisfy you. We’ll be working through the ramifications of this for years.
Shaming of pedos has to become a national priority again.
I’d say rule of law in that area has been dead since Sandusky. Regardless of whether he went to prison. More than a few Penn State alums will, if pressed hard enough, tell you that what he did while on the university payroll (including during a *bowl game* in Tampa) shouldn’t be held against “Joe Pa”, even if “Joe Pa” did turn a blind eye to the antics and enable a child molester.
It is too bad that the “Paterno” HBO movie was such a piece of junk. Probably deliberately so.
(“Joe Pa” is damned lucky that the State Attorney for Tampa was a candy a** — a *Republican* — when the Sandusky scandal broke. One county over, in Polk, the Sheriff has no tolerance for molesters, and “Joe Pa” would have been extradited from PA and frog marched into the Polk County lockup if the bowl game had been 30 miles down the road.)
I think there is a quiet movement to decriminalize the behavior within a generation. The same goal has been pursued in Europe for decades so they’re further ahead on the path to “enlightenment”.
@dennis, that’s great! I can almost guarantee you’ll learn stuff you didn’t know. It should open up some other training and volunteer opportunities too.
n
One … Trillion … Dollars. Not. Still, WeWork is going down. Another IPO which might pop the unicorn bubble.
I passed on a job last year because the company, a large behind-the-scenes Wall Street player, simply rented co-working space rather than establishing a real office here in town.
Co-working space just means they’re here to justify the Austin 6th St. bacchanalia on the expense report. No productive work actually gets done in one of those open floorplan offices.
(Well, beyond music majors driving spreadsheets. I’ll conceded they might be just as productive in an open office as a cube.)
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-08-14/wework-launches-3-billion-ipo-reveals-huge-losses
“I think there is a quiet movement to decriminalize the behavior within a generation. ”
–I don’t think it’s ‘quiet’. There are still enough people out there who find it repulsive that they are selective about the venue, but there are above board movements viz NAMBLA.
The whole ‘lolita’ thing is big in anime and has a long history going back to the book (which only captured something that already existed). I’m a whole lot less squicked by lolita than lolly, and should go without saying that I detest actual child porn or abuse. It’s ironic that there are so many pedos in high levels yet that is the establishment’s go to accusation when they want to ruin someone. Just find some ‘child porn’ on their computer or phone…
n
Public service repost…..
On Sunday, 13 August 2017 RBT had this to say about iodine tablets for protection from radiation…
and here–
The IOSAT tablets are back to the $6/strip price–
https://www.amazon.com/IOSAT-Iosat-Octobe-Expiration-Later/dp/B01LMPIR06/?tag=ttgnet-20
n
One … Trillion … Dollars.
Don’t nobody copy-edit nothing no more? Jeez.
And to add to my comment above about the move to normalize pedophilia, (or pederasty)- many in advertising and media have been accused of advancing that agenda with their programming and ad choices.
abercrombie and fitch in particular, as well as any child beauty pageant, and google for “accused of sexualizing children” should get a list of companies that have crossed the line.
n
“Don’t nobody copy-edit nothing no more? Jeez.”
Nope. Even the ‘non-tabloid’ sites are horrible. Tennant instead of tenet was the one that caught my eye recently.
Misuse of few an less is actually so common that dictionaries and grammars are starting to note that it is gaining legitimacy.
I see cut and past errors, missing words, noun verb mistakes, and all sorts of things any competent copy editor would catch.
Just remember, “layers and layers of editors” and they’re still getting it wrong.
n
I got a lawyer really peeved at me because she gave me their retainer agreement to sign and I insisted on reading the whole thing before signing. If that wasn’t bad enough, I then handed it back, edited. There had been massive copy-paste screwups, runs of words which didn’t make sentences, repeated paragraphs, almost-repeated paragraphs differing only in a “not”, and so on. That’s in addition to the retainer agreement committing me to paying whatever they demanded and them committing to nothing at all. But I didn’t comment on that. I merely commented that the agreement should be looked over by adults before the firm handed it out to clients. “But no one’s ever complained about it before!”
I got a lawyer really peeved at me because she gave me their retainer agreement to sign and I insisted on reading the whole thing before signing.
The non-compete for my Seattle job originally read that I couldn’t work for “any potential competitor” for a certain amount of time. They got grumpy when I made them clarify the list to actual competitors of their “spin” that quarter.
Freefall: fire is dangerous
http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff3400/fc03317.htm
Yup, stealing fire from the gods can be dangerous.
Note: this is an ongoing story of Sam’s peoples climb to the stars. The story starts here:
http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff3400/fc03301.htm
And to add to my comment above about the move to normalize pedophilia, (or pederasty)- many in advertising and media have been accused of advancing that agenda with their programming and ad choices.
It will be all over but the shouting the moment the LA District Attorney drops all charges against Roman Polanski. Certainly as far down as 13-14 year-olds will be toys for the rich and powerful.
Regardless of what he says in his speech, Robert Francis might be done tomorrow.
The only job he’s ever held for which he was truly qualified was au pair (nanny) so I’m guessing that Robert Francis is headed to CNN by the end of the year.
https://www.columbian.com/news/2019/aug/14/orourke-resuming-presidential-run-with-major-texas-speech/
And to add to my comment above about the move to normalize pedophilia, (or pederasty)- many in advertising and media have been accused of advancing that agenda with their programming and ad choices.
It will be all over but the shouting the moment the LA District Attorney drops all charges against Roman Polanski. Certainly as far down as 13-14 year-olds will be toys for the rich and powerful.
Didn’t he reputedly drug the 13 year old girl that he reputedly raped ? If so, is that not assault ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Polanski_sexual_abuse_case
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Polanski
I doubt that he would voluntarily submit to any type of confinement after growing up in the Warsaw Ghetto during WWII.
BTW, go see “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”. Very good and very wild. You will either love it or hate it, there is no middle line in this one (I think).
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/once_upon_a_time_in_hollywood
BTW, go see “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”. Very good and very wild. You will either love it or hate it, there is no middle line in this one (I think).
Brad Pitt in “Ingorious Bastards” was a blast. Way too much of that film probably ended up on the cutting room floor, but Pitt got the coolest lines even if Walz won the Oscar.
“I’ve been chewed out before.”
(That’s my career in a single sentence. If I had to add another sentence, I’d pick Shatner’s line from “Star Trek III”: “The word is ‘no’; therefore I am going anyway.”)
Tarantino is always interesting even if he is far removed from the days of “Pulp Fiction” and “Jackie Brown”.
Verizon blatantly ripped off “Jackie Brown” for their first TV commercial in 2000, right down to the camera angles. That one isn’t on YouTube AFAIK.
Jeez, I go out for a couple hours and the news explodes…
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7357885/Philadelphia-police-respond-active-shooting-situation.html
“Philadelphia police respond to active shooting situation that has left at least four officers injured
At least five cops have been injured in active shooter situation in Philadelphia
Situation unfolded along 3700 block of North 15th Street Wednesday afternoon
Officers could be seen crouching behind police cars on the blocked off street ”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7356699/Warnings-economic-crisis-Treasury-yields-invert-time-Great-Recession.html
“Dow plummets 800 points and 3% in a day amid fears of economic crisis as Treasury yields invert for the first time since the Great Recession
Dow Jones plunged more than 800 points on Wednesday on recession fears
Yield on the 10-year Treasury note briefly dipped below the two-year yield
Known as an ‘inverted yield curve,’ it is a sign investors fear a recession
The past five inverted yield curves have all preceded a recession
Trump blasts Fed over rates and calls chairman Jerome Powell ‘clueless'”
“Each of the last five times the two-year and 10-year Treasury yields have inverted, a recession has followed.
The average amount of time is around 22 months, according to Raymond James’ Giddis.”
n
“Each of the last five times the two-year and 10-year Treasury yields have inverted, a recession has followed.
The average amount of time is around 22 months, according to Raymond James’ Giddis.”
The rates for the last 10 years have been Fantasyland. It has to end at some point.
One more phone thing and I’ll try to shut up.
You know the little red dot showing how many unread e-mails and txts you have? Open your mail and look, maybe read one, close mail and the red dot is still there showing how many unread mails? (I don’t know if txt works the same, assuming so.)
I have my mail set to refresh when I open it. I don’t get the red dots any more. I did play with settings so it would self refresh. Yep, I get red dots with the number of new messages. Open mail, close mail, red dots gone.
It’s a different way…. like, you have 15 new e-mails, you looked and no more need for a red dot showing the number of unread e-mails… you know they are there. Red Dot is now for the number of NEW messages. Not unread messages.
It actually makes a lot of sense.
Oh, Android 8 aka Oreo. I’m really liking this phone. Oh yeah, it sounds very good on phone calls, too.
“”If you work at WeWork, drive home with Uber, and then order food by DoorDash, you’re engaging with three companies that are projected to lose about $13 billion this year,” tweeted Derek Thompson, a staff writer at The Atlantic. ”
https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/08/14/1952255/wework-ipo-reveals-it-lost-19-billion-last-year-and-is-losing-about-5200-per-customer
Apparently the people using http://www.Griddy.com in Texas to buy their electric power this month are getting hosed. Griddy apparently sells wholesale power direct to consumers plus a $10/month fee. One of my neighbors is reporting that the cost for this month just jumped from 9 cents/kwh to 30 cents/kwh. Griddy is forgiving their $10 fee this month but, I suspect that a lot of people are going to leave.
BTW, I wrote a small diatribe on this about the power costs jumping from $30/mwh to $9,000/mwh yesterday. We just do not not have enough peaking power in Texas to be able to afford all of these federally subsidized “renewables”.
I suspect that many of the middlemen power sellers in Texas are going to go bankrupt again like happened in 2017.
BTW, this place is hosted by Dreamhost. They are reporting some issues with one of their VPS (Virtual Private Servers) since yesterday morning that are affecting response time with sites.
I am assuming that issue is related to the slow response here. I’ll watch their status page (here, if you are interested: https://www.dreamhoststatus.com/ ) for any updates.
Thanks Rick, what I see is–
click reload, get spinning activity, while the bar says “waiting for ttgnet.com” with several seconds of that then the page loads in an eyeblink.
I’m seeing spinning nothing at other sites as well.
n
Well that was quick…
We just got a thunderstorm, dropped 1.34 inches in about a half hour, temps dropped to 79F and it got ‘dark and stormy’.
Most of the rain stopped and now we just hear distant rumbles and grumbles.
n
And yet, my site loads fine.
The slow loading issue is not with all Dreamhost-hosted sites. Just a few of the VPS servers. My assumption is that that is causing the slowness here.
Not at home at the moment, so can’t dig deeper..
Thunderstorm here in Bryan. Seems to be very localized. One end of town with showers, the other side just sprinkles. Dropped from 100f in the shade to 88f in the shade.
Heading out tomorrow for Austin to visit the daughter of a family friend whom we have known since she was about 3 years old. She is now married and 35 years old. Then on to visit a nephew in Round Rock. From there we will head to SA tomorrow evening for four nights.
Did I mention that Texas is hot. I know I lived in SA for 15 years but had really forgotten how hot it gets. Thankful for A/C.
I suspect that many of the middlemen power sellers in Texas are going to go bankrupt again like happened in 2017.
That’s about when Berkshire Hathaway picked up Oncor IIRC.
It is capital intensive, but that’s the part of the deregulated Texas power distribution system to own.
On a side note, ARSTechnica message boards have become full of whining sniveling little brats. The moderator is a jerk who despises, and bans, anyone that disagrees with him/her. Like most technical boards it has been ruined by zit face cretins whose idea of a good date is plenty of lube for their right hand. Most have only been to technical schools, know the acronyms, never had a real job, and are basically social misfits. I think it is time to abandon ARSTechnica boards as they have really become a joke. I left DSLReports for the same reason. Such a shame.
The domain family-prepping.com was a domain that RBT bought but there was never any organized content to it. Right now it’s just sitting with an ‘available’ message.
The domain registration will be expiring in September, and Barbara doesn’t have any plans for it.
I suggested that perhaps one of the gang here might be interested in the domain, and she agreed that a transfer to someone would be OK with her and Colin.
If anyone is interested, let me know at rhellewellgmailcom. I can host the place, and set up a WordPress site or whatever, but you would be responsible for the annual registration – about $15/year for the name, and $15/year for privacy add-in (approx cost) and the ongoing content.
Otherwise, I will let the domain registration lapse.
Most have only been to technical schools, know the acronyms, never had a real job, and are basically social misfits.
We had a new grad from a big time Texas school through today. Knew all the terminology and had the right buzzwords on the resume plus a CS diploma.
Couldn’t get through our in person coding test. That is increasingly common.
I suspect that many of the middlemen power sellers in Texas are going to go bankrupt again like happened in 2017.
That’s about when Berkshire Hathaway picked up Oncor IIRC.
It is capital intensive, but that’s the part of the deregulated Texas power distribution system to own.
Oncor is the old electric meters and distribution (20,000 volts and less) network in North Texas. It is very highly regulated by the PUC. And yes, very capital intensive. We had two million meters when I was there. I understand that it is over four million meters now.
The meter readers were our number one source of lost time injuries. Dog bites.
We had a pair of meter readers spot checking meters in 1987 or so. The girl went in the back yard to read the meter and got bit. The dog raced through the gate, ran to the car, and jump in with the guy. Bit him.
Oncor is the old electric meters and distribution (20,000 volts and less) network in North Texas. It is very highly regulated by the PUC. And yes, very capital intensive. We had two million meters when I was there. I understand that it is over four million meters now.
The meter readers were our number one source of lost time injuries. Dog bites.
We have an Oncor fee here in Round Rock.
The meters are networked now. No more readers.
The meters are networked now. No more readers.
Yup. A buddy of mine wrote the software for polling them every 15 minutes.
I’ve got three meters at the moment. Soon I will have four of the little monsters.
“The meters are networked now. No more readers.”
Yup. A buddy of mine wrote the software for polling them every 15 minutes.
I’ve got three meters at the moment. Soon I will have four of the little monsters.
I had to laugh when I read about the problems with the GE Smart meters bursting into flame in CA about a decade back. The village idiot from my group at the Death Star essentially sold them that he did my job and GE mistakenly hired him as one of their lead architects.
En fuego!
They canned him, but I think he landed at Siemens to run their program into the ground.
Re Epstein: There’s that hoary old saying “never attribute to malice what is adequately explained by incompetence.” Only: I don’t think incompetence is an adequate explanation. Who authorized putting him in an ordinary prison? Who authorized taking him off of suicide watch? Even if the guards themselves were simply incompetent (unlikely, but possible), someone decided to put such an important prisoner into the care of such guards.
If this really was incompetence, then numerous heads should roll, all the way to the top. This won’t happen, although I do honestly expect a couple of low level, complicit people to die in a convenient accident in the near future. Just to clean up loose ends, as it were.
– – – – –
“Don’t nobody copy-edit nothing no more? Jeez.”
One of my wife’s pet peeves. She was originally trained as a professional translator, and gets really annoyed at the increasing number of grammatical errors she sees in mainstream journalism. My suspicion is that most media sites don’t even have editors any more. At least, no editors who actually read every single article that they publish.
– – – – –
@Ray: You’re a bit harsh on the ArsTechnica forums, but they are certainly naive, and politically leftist. As is typical of the breed, alternative views are unwelcome. Although it’s an odd mix of articles, I personally enjoy SoylentNews.
– – – – –
@Greg: “Couldn’t get through our in person coding test. That is increasingly common.”
I had a laugh the other day. One of my ex-students – who is not a great programmer – told me that he had to write “FizzBuzz” in an interview. Which is hilarious, because I use FizzBuzz as an example in my first-semester programming course. And he remembered it.
I don’t think I was harsh enough. I have been put in ARSTechnica jail for 24 hours because I blasted one of the commentators who just happened to be author of an article. He was complaining about people writing still writing checks and the time involved because “HE HAD THINGS TO DO”. I said that he was a special kind of snowflake. Apparently others on the board can call people names, blast someone, etc. and that is OK. I guess I am not part of the privileged few. I left DSLReports for the same reason. The boards have turned into bragging areas and puffery where clueless dorks blast others who do not see things their way.
I had a laugh the other day. One of my ex-students – who is not a great programmer – told me that he had to write “FizzBuzz” in an interview. Which is hilarious, because I use FizzBuzz as an example in my first-semester programming course. And he remembered it.
We sit them down in a cube in front of a bare-bones Linux X windows environment and a browser with a selection of three problems which they can choose from to write the code. They can consult any resource online they wish, but the program has to be done and compiling, preferably commented, within an hour.
I’m amazed at how many this year blow that step after impressing us in the two hours of interviews prior to the test. They are warned about the scenario by HR … I think.