Warm and damp, chance of rain. [I was WRONG, 68F!]
Yesterday was ominous and oppressive all day. Sweaty.
I did get a bunch of stuff done outside but I was definitely hot and wet doing it.
I cut the grass. I planted all that I could, based on the TX A&M ag extension guide for our region. That amounted to acorn squash, watermelon, zucchini, and cucumbers. This year I put the zukes and cukes in separate beds. No mutant giant bitter weird cross breeds this year. I didn’t have the right kind of peas, and I missed my chance for beans. I can still do a bit of salad greens in the window boxes, and maybe replant the radishes which haven’t sprouted. Other than that, I’m done planting until September.
Texas is going to try to reopen over the next few weeks. Schools will remain closed through the end of our normal year. Don’t know what that will mean for our swim team and our pool. A lot of smaller community based orgs are going to have a real hard time raising money and paying the bills. Hopefully we won’t have an increase in rate of infection. Texas has been managing so far, and Houston isn’t predicted to ever exceed our ICU capacity. This is mainly because they’ve kicked everyone else out, and built new temporary capacity.
Dinner was kielbasa sausage from the freezer, one large turnip from the last run, cubed and boiled, and 5 potatoes cubed and fried in my cast iron fryer pan. Daughter 2 loves the fried potatoes. “Best dinner of the virus lockdown.” I’m glad she likes it.
I’d love for this to be over, but it’s not. It is still expanding and growing. The second wave is starting to spread through asia and china, and the third world is starting to show some real issues.
Stay home, stay safe,
nick
What kills me is that that machine is behind my NAT router, has the windows firewall, and isn’t used for surfing or any other internet nonsense. There is no reason to worry about 99% of the possible exploits, but I gotta be updated….
Your home router should be able to block that machine’s access to the open Internet based on MAC address. You could cherry pick updates from WSUS Offline Update … are they still around?
Since I bought my bare bones T470 ThinkPad in … 2018 (?) … I’ve had to do a complete wipe/reinstall of Windows 10 from the Microsoft ISO twice. The machine has a Ubuntu partition which runs well, but the laptop is the only non-work system I own which has a clean Windows 10 license based on the CPU ID. Every now and then, I need a machine that just works where I don’t run science experiments and I have admin access.
My work laptop’s boot order and BIOS are locked. At least I can install software.
Another division of my employer manufactures LPR cameras running Windows. Everyone wants to see Linux versions of the cameras, including the engineers who work on them directly, but I believe the issue is patents. DVR systems probably face a similar situation moving to Linux, but free drivers aren’t there.
I’ve long believed that the push for cameras everywhere has a lot to do with individuals and companies with video patents who gave up actually making any physical devices and retreated up into the hills above San Jose 30 years ago to live cashing royalty checks while someone in China actually did the messy part of manufacturing.
From yesterday, I bought a Harbor Freight plug in electric chain saw two seasons ago for $40. I stll see them advertised for that price. I initially bought it because my gasoline saw needed a new chain that I couldn’t find. I hoped it would last long enough to clean up some tough dry 4-6″ cuttings. Well, it lasted the whole season, plus this past one.
It is light, reasonably powerful, but almost as noisy as my gas saw. I have now sharpened the chain twice, some measure of longevity. I would buy another. No batteries, but I have outlets and extension cords. Did I mention I hate batteries?
OTOH, a good bow saw is a joy, especially for small quick jobs. That thin blade with razor sharp bidirectional teeth cuts green wood anazingly well. Best of all, no batteries!
Paul, glad you like those battery chargers. My older version must have a transformer, because it is heavy. Yours might be a little more efficient.
Don’t forget, you can connect several batteries in parallel, if that is convenient. Just make sure they are fully charged before you connect them. I have done that, but mostly for batteries on a bench. Running wires all over is usually not convenient.
I got this chain saw last year.
$30 and I have plenty of extension cord. I purchased it to cut down a small cherry tree and it worked as advertised. I used it for the second time last week to perform crepe murder on our crepe myrtle trees.
There is a nice piece of Mac software for NVR called SecuritySpy. I played with it a couple of years ago with some old cameras. It found them all and worked great. Someone even sells a phone app to access the system. You could build a Hackintosh. Of course, you aren’t a Mac guy. No ticket to Apple’s Elysium for you.
*Edit: It might be worth checking the web site to see what the other side has.
My mythology is weak. Is Elysium the Greek version of Hell?
Soooo not a mac guy……
Although at one point (1990) I was in charge of a campus computer lab that was mostly macs.
Loonnnngggg time ago and I wasn’t any good with them then.
n
Elysium, the movie. I always get the latest iPhone to refresh my ticket to Elysium. Sniff.
What Nick said… I have used or supervised just about every form of small computer system created up to 2002. Also had direct experience with several DEC mini incarnations. All this was in engineering and business environments. All these systems were fine, and did their job, except the Macs. I guess I didn’t Think Differently. A few of my associates did, and one actually got them to work with very little fuss. One. At some point, my location was among the world’s largest installations of Macs, due to worship by some of the management. Eventually, that went away to standardization on Windows, somewhere around 2000. I personally saw some snowflakes in disbelief that a Windows box could actually be used to get work done, and with no drama. I think they missed the drama of daily system freezes and lost data. Everyone’s mileage varies.
Although my first desktop computer was an early Mac, I was an early adopter of Windows, because I had moved jobs to an all DOS environment and needed Excel. Excel needed Windows, and for a while, my IBM AT was the only box running Windows for actual work. I got tired of people visiting to see Excel on a large (14″, wow) COLOR monitor. Heady stuff, and much better that Lotus 123.
Over the years, I moved to two other jobs that required me to use a Mac, and I always longed for the stability of other OSes. Meanwhile, my engineers used Sun, DEC, HP, and Silicon Graphics UNIX boxes that all had graphics presentation managers that showed what could be done. Of course, they cost $$$. Eventually, Windows boxes took over almost all of that, and the rest is history.
After I retired, I got scared of Windows going to activation, and that drove me to Linux. Dear Linux. I will always have something that runs desktop Linux, but same for Windows. I have tried to do some things on desktop Linux that are trivially easy on Windows. It has been a great learning experience, and I am grateful for that.
?? I looked at that reference, but I don’ get it. Not much of a movie fan, especially fantasy and sci fi.
Didn’t see the movie but wasn’t it rich people living in a perfect clean place far above the dirty dirt people stuck on the planet?
Ie Apple fanbois living in their beautiful and clean walled garden vs MS dirt people grubbing away with their tedious utilitarian boxen….
n
*how many in jokes and computer cultural references CAN one jam into just a couple of sentences?
Ah. I AM a dirty bird!
Yes, I too was a MacWhacker until they replaced on my desk with a Windows IBM AT in ’95.
At home, tried switching to Kubunto at home, buy gave it up. Realized I was entering the terminal phase of the industrial revolution ……. the machine was no longer working for me, I was now working for it.
Ie Apple fanbois living in their beautiful and clean walled garden vs MS dirt people grubbing away with their tedious utilitarian boxen….
Mac OS X is essentially modern NeXTStep. For now, it is possible to turn off protections and grub away in open source and third party apps, but I don’t see that continuing if Apple takes the laptops to ARM.
Apple will lock down the ARM laptops if for no other reason than to prevent them from becoming Linux boxes upon the forced obsolescence date.
I have noticed this on all platforms, except, of course the hobby ones, such as the Raspberry Pi. Computers are just appliances. Computer hardware as a hobby is no longer fun. Our former host and his wife were wise to move on from writing computer building books.
A friend bought a NUC, but has yet to do much with it. I am curious what he finds, and he has the chops to really wring it out. I have a soft spot for small, low power consumption computers. I also spec’ed and oversaw the installation of a multi kilowatt clean power system for a large hardware in the loop simulation lab. Last I knew, it was still running, after 30+ years, with very little maintenance. And, NO BATTERIES!! Maybe that’s why I like small computers. Flea power!
Sigh. I’m going to miss you all on Elysium. Maybe I’ll vouch for Mr. Ray since he has a current iPhone. Sniff.
I have noticed this on all platforms, except, of course the hobby ones, such as the Raspberry Pi. Computers are just appliances. Computer hardware as a hobby is no longer fun. Our former host and his wife were wise to move on from writing computer building books.
Homebrew PCs declined over the last decade in part because, unlike Windows XP, Windows 7 was really hard to sneak out of the office and install on a homebrew PC using the corporate license. Every install “phoned home” to Redmond and dinged the companies’ bulk install accounts. Homebrew PCs suddenly required a Windows $129 license so, unless you were a hardcore gamer, building from parts no longer had a cost advantage.
Plus XP ran on *anything* without a lot of work, even if the drivers weren’t “WHQL Certified”, and a group in Redmond including a lot of entusiasts worked hard to ensure backwards compatibility for software, especially Win32/DirectX games. A decade of Windows 8/10 has resulted in a much better driver ecosystem, but outsourcing Windows to Bangalore has turned the OS into just another mediocre IT project from India.
My son’s friends are building PCs again, but the parents aren’t. $400 laptops are really decent for most needs anymore unless you want the best Minecraft experience possible.
Someone once compared Apple to BMW as a counter to low sales volume. Perfect comparison. I have four friends who have owned BMWs. They all report the cars were wonderful. Except for repairs.
I even drove one a friend was selling. He had owned it for ten years, and it looked like new. He had kept meticulous records, which he emailed me. Impressive. He admitted that it had cost him more than any other car he had owned, and by a large factor. Lots of things that shouldn’t have needed fixing for a car of low miles, about 75k.
The car seemed, uh, not to my liking. It was cramped and claustrophobia inducing. Its acceleration, supposed to be a feature, was unimpressive. Handling, well, I would never thrash someone else’s car, so undetermined. Lots of road noise, even compared to my PU. I just don’t get it.
Another guy I knew had a 1968 Rolls Royce. Now, THAT was a car! Unfortunately, it would have needed a paint job (lacquer crazing,) so when he offered it to me, I politely declined. Sure wished I could have driven it. Probably also a money pit, although he said it gave him very good trouble free service for all those years. He owned it since it was five years old. Dreams…
Sigh. I’m going to miss you all on Elysium. Maybe I’ll vouch for Mr. Ray since he has a current iPhone. Sniff.
I have the last generation SE as my daily carry phone. I consider it to be the lesser of the two available evils.
I’m undecided about the new SE. I don’t upgrade i-devices until the forced obsolescence date.
I have bought just about every version of Windows except NT. Some I didn’t even use, such as 98, although I did have that on a test system. A few years ago, I bought a refurb computer so I could have W7. It was like getting the computer free. Turned out I didn’t need the W7, and it was never used. My next refurb box came with W7, and I did the free upgrade to W10. I bought my wife a notebook that came with W10 Home. When I get those two into service, I might buy something so I can have W10 Pro on both. Maybe a two pack? A friend does computer support, and suggested I download the ISO, but I haven’t looked into what kind of license I need for those two computers. I never skimp on software, although I am fond of freeasinbeerware 🙂
I would never buy anything that has a forced obsolescence date. I don’t know how much longer I can say that.
I’m surprised our local fry’s is still open.
Yes it was buying BTPPC book at fry’s and then back for the parts that got me here.
“I don’t upgrade i-devices until the forced obsolescence date.”
I would never buy anything that has a forced obsolescence date. I don’t know how much longer I can say that.
All Apple devices have forced obsolescence dates. They’re running ~ six years for desktops/laptops and four for most i-devices. Once Cupertino stops releasing OS upgrades for your device, at a minimum, you need to retire it to use just around the house on WiFi or on wired networks you trust completely.
The desktops and laptops made prior to 2018 can run Linux as a replacement OS with varying degrees of success.
And Apple Watch, and an iPad. Wife has iPhone and iPad. MIL has iPhone and iPad. But I refuse to concede the desktop. Largely because of licensing (re-licensing) of many products that are working just fine on Windows 10.
Wife has an SE, great size. The new SE is too large for her. I would like the capabilities (especially the camera) of my iPhone 11 Pro in the size form factor of the past iPhone 5, 5S and SE. I do not understand why Apple will not produce another phone in the SE form factor. In my opinion it would sell and sell well.
Ray, not sure what those models are, but I would buy a really big phone as long as it would fit in my shirt pocket. My wife wants one even bigger, because she is not limited by a pocket. Maybe I would consider a foldable, but those are $$$ and have other issues. If there was a small tablet that had a built-in phone, that might be good. I use my phone a LOT, but rarely the phone inside. Still, when I go out (hmm, over a month since) I want a phone. One device. One. Not two.
Also, I am not against Apple or any other company, as long as whoever chooses does so for a good reason. That would be most people here. Free choice, not herd mentality. When I was working, I used to tell others that some people like Fords, some Chevrolets; some even like Dodges or Peugots. All are fine cars. Well, most. 🙂
To go along with the Boston area homeless shelter story linked here yesterday (or the day before?):
https://www.redstate.com/streiff/2020/04/17/what-the-wuhan-virus-on-the-uss-theodore-roosevelt-tells-us-about-what-we-should-do-next/?utm_source=rsmorningbriefing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&bcid=11b4f48734f79f711190ff965b765887
Sent to me by a friend. I am not following this very closely, but is it also similar to the Diamond Princess? Just presented for the hive mind here.
Wife has an SE, great size. The new SE is too large for her. I would like the capabilities (especially the camera) of my iPhone 11 Pro in the size form factor of the past iPhone 5, 5S and SE. I do not understand why Apple will not produce another phone in the SE form factor. In my opinion it would sell and sell well.
Getting new quantities of the display and case were probably the issue once the Burberry pinhead had the SE eliminated, and Apple needs to keep the iPhone 8 going for the Chinese market.
8 is an extra lucky number.
Friends in FL sent this today. We don’t think it is a coincidence that a mosque is hidden around the corner from the strip mall — convenient how that didn’t make the story. Control freaks on the march.
https://www.wfla.com/news/pinellas-county/safer-at-home-violation-seminole-game-shop-owner-in-touch-with-lawyers-after-being-arrested-for-staying-open/
The game night probably consists of the same half-dozen nerds every week.
I am more and more convinced that I had SARS-2 on Feb 28 to Mar 3 or so.
Not likely unless you encountered someone from the Nile cruise that seems to be the origin in Houston area.
Nope. I encountered several mainland Chinese at an engineering conference in Oklahoma in February. 300 engineers from all over the world.
xkcd: Garbage Math
https://xkcd.com/2295/
Ah, a subject that I am very well acquainted with. Garbage in, Garbage out is a very well known concept in computer programming. And I’ve seen a lot of garbage over the years.
And I don’t even believe in the concept of garbage times zero equals a real number (zero). Rarely is this good in my experience.
Explained at:
https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2295:_Garbage_Math
Shhh. I’m buying a gaming PC. Don’t tell Apple.
The action that was in PC building has shifted to two areas:
– really, really cutting edge gaming PCs with overclocking and water cooling
– the Arduino/Pi/3-d printing space of the “maker” community
Set up greenhouse Friday, heaters kept it to 55f last night. We set up shelves and moved 8 trays of five kinds of tomatos. I will start Japanese cukes and winter squash tomorrow inside. We will start moving herbs and flowers out next week and some more tomatoes when they get bigger. Everything looking good except had to restart jalapenos cause only 5 or 6 came up. We like Sungold and cherry 100s and are trying a blue cherry with a star shaped white mark. Big ones are Cherokee Purple and my wife’s Heirloom 8 oz paste tomatoes she got from an Italian family that brought them in late 40s to Canada. It feels like spring even though we still have snow in shady areas. Duluth Mn.
“13 Best Military Fantasy Books” by Dan Livingston
https://fantasybookworld.com/13-best-military-fantasy-books/
I am one for thirteen, the most excellent “World War Z” book.
Loved The Black Company, whole series.
Liked the Butcher, Furies series.
Read the Brandon Sanderson and enjoyed it, but can’t remember much. Everything of his I’ve at least liked.
Wasn’t impressed by WWZ
n
Trying a bread recipe, dinner rolls. Kinda iffy so far.
There you go. One size does not fit all. I want a smaller phone, the 5S that I had was great, the SE that my wife is great. Just the right size in my opinion. Of course neither one of us live our life on the phone. We don’t watch videos, play games, surf the web, do homework, etc. I think that is the major difference. The phone is a tool that I use to call, text, lookup information when needed, take some voice memos for trucks that are violating lane restrictions, calculations, weather. Those are not constant needs like watching videos and such.
My experience subbing at school is that a lot of kids cannot separate from their phone for even a few minutes. The need to text, snapchat, TikTok, whatever is stronger then the Jedi Force. Observation has also shown me that females are the worst offenders, by far. It even becomes difficult when they have a job where they are getting paid. I have had to sit down hard on a couple of my assistants at the church. Based on the time they actually work their pay is $20.00 an hour. Yet it is difficult for them to skip their phone for any time frame longer than 10 minutes. Much to my annoyance and some strong words mentioning “your phone or your paycheck, your choice”.
Ray, As you said, one size or type does not fit all. I have traveled with a notebook and a phone. Never again. It took me a while to get used to having just my phone, but it was worth it to me. It is a different way of doing things, but considering how portable it is, I like it. The only thing I can’t do is produce content in the office sense, or edit photos. I CAN display photos, though, and have on a few trips. Meanwhile, our trips these days are limited to visiting my aunt. She has no Internet, so I used to use my phone as a Wi-Fi hotspot. It worked, but was cumbersome. I really prefer my phone.
Unlike your employees, I can put my phone down, and do so for hours at a time. Most of my friends know not to call me on it because I will not likely answer until I think to review any voice mails, which will not be often. Speaking of employees, how about a rule that says they have to put their phones in a locker until after they leave for the day? I know places that enforce that.
And now, back to the shop. I might not check this site for a few hours.
I am leaning towards doing such. Put a small box in the studio and for the 80 minutes they are on the job the phone goes in the box. I have two people that are paid, teenagers, to give them a little extra money and some sense of responsibility. The rest are volunteers. Hard to clamp down on volunteers as they can simply quit. The volunteers are camera operators, sound, and graphics. The paid people are directors and run/direct the entire operation, thus paid because it is more work and responsibility.
Whelp, dinner was a mixed bag.
Chicken (breaded and pan fried) came out ok, but I left it in 5 minutes too long. Dinner rolls, were a bit ‘stout’ as they didn’t ‘double in size’ when rising. Tasted good, but not as advertised. I think I made them too wet (didn’t trust the recipe and added milk) and didn’t proof the yeast. Yeast was cold, and probably a bit old. Sides were all leftover canned veg and beans.
Peanut butter cookies were DRY. I added 1/2 cup flour, that the recipe said was optional, and I shouldn’t have. Dog and I will eat them.
Oh well, if you don’t try, you won’t learn.
n
“#coronavirus New paper suggests it is more 75 times more widespread but less symptomatic”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/04/17/covid-19-antibody-seroprevalence-in-santa-clara-county-california-coronavirus/
“Estimated numbers of Covid19 antibodies based in random samples in Santa Clara County reveals approximately 75 times more people had COVID-19 than actual government reporting numbers. What this means; the numbers we have been using for symptom reporting and mortality may be all wrong. – Anthony”
I don’t believe 75 times. I do believe 10 times the reported rate.
I look forward to the USA government antibody testing the entire populace. With Abbott Labs only being able to produce one million test kits a month, it may take a while though.
Wait, am I going to voluntarily submit to governmental testing of my health ?
Aesop had some comments about the validity of that testing. Lots of statistical and sampling issues.
and are you going to let the gov have a DNA sample?
n
and are you going to let the gov have a DNA sample?
They already have it. My son had three ??? DNA samples taken when he was in the USMC. All US soldiers in the last 20 years have DNA pulled. The Vietnam dead soldier identification debacle enforced that. My alma mater, Texas A&M, just had another soldier’s remains from around 1975 identified using his families DNA and brought back to the USA.
Directly, no I would not let them have a DNA sample. But, they are going to get a DNA sample from all of us. And soon.
I have one of the new Texas Real ID drivers licenses now. Real fancy and several holograms. The next stage is some sort of biometric pattern embedded in there.
Aesop had some comments about the validity of that testing. Lots of statistical and sampling issues.
My son, with chemist and physics degrees, says that the testing has 40% false positives. Maybe that is the first stage of the test though, the son does not always give details.
I looked at his site for details, did not see much. Is this it ?
http://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2020/04/check-your-instruments.html
If true, that makes the test essentially useless, unless the only goal is to identify people who need to take a more accurate test. The final false positive rate has got to be below a couple of percent.
My favorite example of this came up back in the days of the Shrub, when the US got caught torturing suspected terrorists. Based on the fact that innocent people, when tortured, will confess to things they didn’t do (false positive), whereas terrorists are less likely to confess (false negative) you can show that a confession is statistically a sign of innocence.
Similarly with Corona: a relatively small proportion of the population is infected. With a 40% false positive rate, the majority of the positive tests will identify people who are *not* infected. If there is also a significant false negative rate, then test could as well be replaced with a dice roll.
“Torturing”. I’ve volunteered for worse than waterboarding and sleep deprivation as part of training. Journalists volunteered to be waterboarded on camera.
You know what I didn’t see? Journalists volunteering to have their fingernails ripped out.
“Torture” should be something to be feared, something which marks the subject for life physically or mentally. Defining it down to include inconveniences like humiliation renders the term useless.
@lynn, fifth comment down
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=714028479313834812&postID=53472342811804656&bpli=1
n
FEMA status update.
Woke to the sound of heavy thunder then heavy rain. Even got marble sized hail. Then it was past. Currently steady heavy drizzle.
Yuck.
n
If you have the flu, and test positive for COVID, then croak, how are you counted?
Such a test would never, ever be used. The data from some of the antibody test kits has false positives in the few percent range, similar values for false negatives.
Yeah, I looked at that.
The Santa Clara study did control for demographics. I can’t cite the line because it looks like the site holding the paper is being DDOSed right now.
Checking for comorbiditities has nothing to do with the infection rate.
As to why Italy and other areas had such high death tolls – over half of the deaths in Italy were nursing home residents. The same is true for several of the other countries and some US cities. The lowest where data were available was 40% nursing home deaths. So, it could well have a low CFR for the population that is much, much more lethal for the elderly/co-morbid cases and much milder in the young and healthy.
NYC is an outlier in the US because so many people use mass transit. They don’t in Santa Clara county.
One of the authors of this paper has a study in work on the staff and players of the major and minor leagues of baseball. Around 10000 individuals. He was also involved in planning other studies on: healthcare workers, Seattle and NYC, and a general population study. All are dependent on getting the test kits.