Cold. Wet. [43F when I got up.]
Yesterday was 46F when I got up. That’s pretty chilly. It was high 50s when I went to bed.
I deleted over 100 cyber monday email offers unread. Not quite as many as Black Friday, but more than I want.
Tonight I’ve got the second installment of our CPA Alumni continuing ed class on human trafficking. Very timely considering Epstein didn’t kill himself.
I should get stuck in on my mom’s pc today too. We’ll see how that goes. I don’t know how much managing of the pagefile I can do with win10 home. That’s my current plan of attack, move the pagefile to the SDcard with space on it. If I can’t, I’ll look at joining the two drives (built in flash and SD card.) I didn’t see the option when I looked remotely. Failing that, I’ll move or delete as much as possible and set updates to ‘off’. It’s ridiculous that 32Gb isn’t enough for windows by itself. Absolute worst case is I get her an all in one to use and set that up before sending it to Florida.
Please be patient with Rick as he pokes at the site and host trying to figure out what is slowing down response and reloads. Just imagine you’re back on a 14.4 modem and watching jpegs fill in line by line….
And with that, I’m off…
n
It hadn’t occurred to me not to be patient, but now that you’ve mentioned it,
Hey, Rick, how’s the site fix going?
(wait 60 seconds)
Rick, any progress yet?
(wait 30 seconds)
Rick, the site isn’t going to fix itself, you know.
(wait 15 seconds)
Hey, Rick, how’s it going. It sure would be nice if the site were working better.
Why, yes, I do have kids. How did you guess?
Just a note from one UK reader. I haven’t seen significant site problems over the last couple of weeks, and certainly not recently. Weird.
At one time the routing for my site went through Ireland even though hosted in the US. I contacted the hosting company and about two months later it was resolved. I have not checked recently. It may now be going through Australia via South Africa.
FWIW – I am a regular reader from South Africa, and have noted the comments about these 500 errors for a while, but never experienced such issues.
Ray’s offhand remark about South Africa prompted me to reply with the above, BUT lo and behold: as I pressed the comment link, I got a 500 error, and had to reload the comment page ! weird….
@willem- now that’s funny!
Any comments about personal safety issues in SA, or changes in politics?
n
(I had a roommate from Natal ?province? but I haven’t heard from him in years. Great guy, very motivated, sold his business and retired in San Diego.)
I had a roommate from Natal ?province? but I haven’t heard from him in years. Great guy, very motivated, sold his business and retired in San Diego.
Austin has a decent sized SA expat community, but they keep pretty quiet.
We knew several pilots from SA air when we lived in Hong Kong.
They would bring the most fantastic SA sausage to our expat BBQs.
Wish we could get that here in the US.
SteveF, thanks for waking me up with your unique brand of humor! I was about to get my first cup of coffee; glad I waited. Phones do not get along with sprayed coffee.
Yup, another reason why this is the best bunch of people anywhere.
Tracert shows traffic routing through cogent communications. Cogent is based in DC. A certain 3-letter agency is likely involved, keeping tabs on yinz.
/s, of course.
really.
hmmm, tracert
2 2 ms 8 ms 8 ms 172-14-48-1.lightspeed.hstntx.sbcglobal.net [172
.14.48.1]
3 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 71.149.23.114
4 11 ms 14 ms 14 ms cr1.hs1tx.ip.att.net [12.122.103.46]
5 10 ms 14 ms 14 ms 12.122.2.197
6 12 ms 14 ms 7 ms 12.123.18.229
7 7 ms 7 ms 7 ms 192.205.36.102
8 40 ms 38 ms 38 ms 207.88.14.181.ptr.us.xo.net [207.88.14.181]
9 39 ms 39 ms 38 ms 209.48.43.58
10 40 ms 40 ms 40 ms ip-208-113-156-4.dreamhost.com [208.113.156.4]
11 41 ms 41 ms 41 ms ip-208-113-156-14.dreamhost.com [208.113.156.14]
12 39 ms 38 ms 39 ms apache2-quack.taliaferro.dreamhost.com [64.111.1
26.127]
Trace complete.
The site is MUCH faster today !
Rick, thanks !
Yes, faster today by a factor of ten
n
which might be random
Are you implying they are slow readers?
Oh, def /s
I’m in trouble now. Been nice knowing you fine folk. OFD, here I come. Hope it is the good place.
Rabbit hole warning.
I was curious about “yinz”. Here is something:
“http://www4.uwm.edu/FLL/linguistics/dialect/staticmaps/q_50.html”
Navigate up and all over this site at your own time risk! I saved you the ones I also tried and might go back to when the mood strikes.
Oh, I am still here. That TLA must be real slow. Or, they are waiting for a time when I am not expecting. 🙂
@jimb, that’s a pretty interesting map.
I grew up with you and the relaxed “youse” but of course I’m y’all or all y’all now.
other than the 4 limited regionals, it looks like most of the various choices are present in almost all the urban areas. I guess people have been moving around a lot….
n
The site is MUCH faster today !
Rick, thanks !
Nick Flandrey says:
3 December 2019 at 11:42
Yes, faster today by a factor of ten
n
which might be random
I figure that Rick cleaned out the bit bucket just by looking at it strongly.
We’re waiting for the other shoe to drop, regarding the crazy neighbors. I’m dead sure that they’ve put in some sort of official protest on our building project – the question is, what form it will take. If I haven’t heard anything by tomorrow, I may send the town a quiet inquiry.
Meanwhile, my wife is down near the building site, while I’m in my micro-apartment near work. She tells me that they’ve started the basement walls, which are concrete. It’s a bit dicey for pouring concrete, with temperatures not much above freezing, but I trust the experts know what they can get away with. If they can get that finished, the rest gets a lot easier, because the upper parts are mostly elements are built inside a (huge) local carpentry shop, and then transported and installed on-site by crane.
Just got a quote for widening my new used house single bay garage door from eight foot to ten foot. $3,800.00. I am thinking about it.
I have got the room (barely) between the side wall and the existing single door. That means that I can park my truck inside the garage without having to jump out and close the mirrors. Very tempting.
Near our house in Winter ten or so years ago, another house went up in flame. The detritus sat there for a month and then was cleaned up. Once the snow was gone, one day a chunk of new house was on the front lawn. The next day two more chunks were on the lawn and driveway. The day after that, there was a house when I passed on the way home from work. It took another month or so before anyone moved in, but that’s shockingly fast compared to putting up a house 2×4 by 2×4.
Another thing to worry about
And on the site response issues: it’s very intermittent. Last night was slow. Today is OK. Haven’t done anything yet. Maybe I should continue to do nothing so it will not happen again.
Another thing to worry about
An unusually cold and wet potato harvest season may lead to a French fry shortage in the US
https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/03/business/potato-harvest-french-fry-shortage-trnd/index.html
I have been seeing warnings on ALL the crops in the USA since the beginning of 2019. The Mississippi flood has affected “the breadbasket of America”.
My great grandfather grew potatoes about 25 miles away from here in Texas from 1910 ??? to 1945. One year the river came up and flooded his fields close to harvest time. He lost the entire crop. So they had to eat the seed potatoes. My grandmother used to talk about her grandmother flipping her apron over her head and crying because she thought that they were going to starve. But my great grandfather got more seed potatoes from somewhere and the next crop was just fine.
@Rick, it’s always safer to do nothing except when it’s not…
Is there any part of the template or fonts or JavaScript or anything else that comes from a third-party where the third-party’s site responsiveness might be slowing things down?
N
@nick
When I looked at the page load timings last night, the longest time was spent on the initial response from the server. The pieces after that loaded at normal speed.
That initial load was sometimes 1 1/2 minutes. I think that the database is queried during that time, along with loading of some other parts of WP, so there could be a delay in the database query being done.
But I think it is a loading problem on the shared server, possibly caused by the loads on other sites on the shared server spiking. But have no verification of that theory yet. Haven’t been able to spend too much time on it yet due to other higher priorities.
The fact that it is intermittent indicates to me that it is not the database or WP or any other WP-related code that is causing the problem. It *seems* to be more of a server load issue. But will have to talk to Dreamhost to figure that out.
This is weird. Some guy was just walking down my office road (which I own) yelling his head off. I opened the back door and yelled what was going on. He yelled back that he had called an ambulance and kept on walking away from me (he was about 100 ft away and across the back pond). I went and grabbed my keys and wallet and went out to my truck out front. I noted that there was an ambulance at my neighbors down the main road when I went out front.
So I jumped in my truck and went looking for him. There was a fire department pickup in the front of the warehouse, I could not see it before since we are behind the warehouse. I stopped there and asked if they had found this guy walking down the road. They replied yes and told me everything was over. They did not want to tell me anything else.
Weird. I wonder if he was riding a 4×4 down in the bayou and flipped it or something.
ADD: The LED floodlights at the corners only illuminate out about 50 feet or so. And it was pitch black dark so I could barely see the guy with my computer glasses on.
Always carry a high power LED FLASHLIGHT. Never know when you will need some light.
Always carry a high power LED FLASHLIGHT. Never know when you will need some light.
Yup, it was sitting on my desk down the hallway.
Always carry a large, strong backpack with 40 pounds of gear, from flashlights to medical emergency stuff to ordinary things like a few common tools and string. Not only will you be prepared for emergencies, you’ll get a workout just going from hither to yon.
My tote-everywhere backpack comes in at a bit under 40 pounds, but it’s not all emergency gear. A good chunk of the weight is a couple 40 ounce thermoses (what can I say, I drink a lot of coffee; I make it weak, but I drink it all day), my work laptop, wallet, spectacles, and some other clutter. The rest of the weight is medical stuff, tools, repair supplies such as duct tape, and more emergency stuff. Oh, and several flashlights.
Remember … a FLASHLIGHT is only as good as the one that you can grab fast.
Probably also a good saying for several other things.
Remember … a FLASHLIGHT is only as good as the one that you can grab fast.
Probably also a good saying for several other things.
I should have grabbed a gun before opening the office back door. In the truck, I have a gun very handy.
I could not tell what in the world was going on behind the pond. I just barely hear somebody yelling and screaming through my office window.
Place your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark.
— Lazarus Long, from Robert A. Heinlein’s “Time Enough For Love”
Home from my class.
It was mostly a repeat of the previous class, with some additional detail and 10 minutes of a woman who used to be in that life… I get credit for the volunteer hours and I need 25/year to keep my credential, so it was worth the time. It wouldn’t be worth it again next year without add ons.
n
I spent 30 minutes talking with the motorcycle cop parked in front of the new used house this afternoon. My street is 30 mph. He gave a ticket to a guy last week for 71 mph. Plus running. That is how you turn a mis demeanor into a felony. My street is a country road, no curb, no shoulders, deep ditches. And kids on bikes. And walkers. No sidewalks.
He told me that our radar speed signs also grab your plate and take a video of you drIving towards the sign. It is all automatically uploaded to the intertubes. He can pull the video to his cell within a minute. All very connected, much more than I realized. Looks very bad in court.
He does traffic and wrecks. The wrecks are starting to get to him. He has been doing this for 30+ years. He had to pull a teenage girl out of a car last month and lifeflight her after an 18 wheeler ran a light and tboned her car. He said he almost retired on that day. He thinks she is still alive but not sure. Her mother pulled up as the helicopter took off and saw all the blood in her car and freaked out so he had to deal with that too.
He also told me that he has been hit five times on his motorcycle. He even has a blue and white light on pole in the back of his bike. I forgot to ask him how many of the drivers that hit him had licenses. I would surprised if half did.
I will see him again. He sits in front of my new used house five days a week for two hours in the afternoon, trying to slow people down. He knows everyone on the street of 50 houses. He even took my neighbor to the hospital two years ago for his first heart attack.
I have a nephew that is a Texas State Trooper. Works mostly the interstate. I asked him on the last visit what was the worst part of the job. He stated accidents involving kids, especially when it is fatal. He does not touch accident victims unless they are in danger or to stop bleeding. I asked what his worst accident was and he just said he did not want to talk about the incident.
He did comment the level of stupid is rampant. It is illegal to use a cell phone to talk or text while driving in Texas. It is not illegal to use the phone for navigation. He says he stops people using their phone and asks them if they were using the phone for navigation. Half say no and they get a ticket. The others that say navigation get nothing.
He also said that unless someone is going 10+ over the speed limit on the interstate he will not bother them, unless they are driving reckless such as weaving in and out, etc. I know I drive about 5 over the limit, pass patrol officers, get passed by patrol officers, without a blink. Except for that one jerk in Knoxville where I was the last car in a group of eight traveling 3 over the limit. Yep, I got tagged. Local officer, probably new on the job.
He also told me that he has been hit five times on his motorcycle. He even has a blue and white light on pole in the back of his bike. I forgot to ask him how many of the drivers that hit him had licenses. I would surprised if half did.
More to the point — How many drivers who hit him were illegal aliens?
He did comment the level of stupid is rampant. It is illegal to use a cell phone to talk or text while driving in Texas. It is not illegal to use the phone for navigation. He says he stops people using their phone and asks them if they were using the phone for navigation. Half say no and they get a ticket. The others that say navigation get nothing.
In the leadership vacuum in Texas on the issue, Austin, San Marcos, and other cities in the Prog corridor along I35 have more severe restrictions and extract a $500 fine for just touching the phone. I’ve seen Austin cops actively enforcing the law with binoculars and “wolfpack” operations on all the major roads into the city — I35, 71, 290.
No navigation!
Gotta keep those votes in the Legislature lined up for more abortion bills.
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