Hot and humid. More of the same.
Yesterday was both hot AND humid. We got both kinds of summer here…
I mostly took it easy. My back was feeling better and I wanted to keep it that way. I did go out and do one quick pickup. That was it for me being productive. Oh, I did order some stuff for my client. I’d forgotten to order it last week.
I look around and I’m a bit stunned by the level of organization that the insurgents in Portland are using. I’m a bit stunned that they’re getting away with it. I watched a video of Joe Biden stumbling over words, rambling, and making strange statements. And I’m stunned he’s getting away with it. I look at BLM, the corporation, not the average joe in the streets, and I’m stunned they’re getting away with it. I see WNBA players who magically all have matching t-shirts with a political agenda, biting the hand that feeds them AGAIN and I’m stunned they’re getting away with it. Like Little Red Riding Hood, people can see the teeth, but they just continue on as if granny was still there. They are climbing into bed with granny and it won’t end well this time. I don’t think there is a huntsman coming to cut open the wolf and let granny back out…
Today I’m alternating paperwork with small things around the house and garage. That’s the plan anyway. My wife needs more tax stuff from me, I’ve got stuff stacked up that should have been addressed a while ago, and I have to invoice my client for materials and work. It’d be nice to do some ebay or other auction stuff too.
I might have bought some stuff last night that will need to be paid for soon. I better get some money coming in…
I hope you’ve done something to improve your positioning for the coming spicy times. If not, why not? Keep stacking, even if it’s just goodwill and friends.
n
At higher levels – say from age 12 or so – it can work. However, it requires actual motivation and interest on the part of the student. Virtual teachers cannot kick students in the derriere.
I’m not sure this is a bad thing. Unmotivated students will fail or drop out of school. They will then have to pursue hands-on jobs. Whether that’s a Starbucks barrista or a carpenter’s apprentice doesn’t much matter: the people will go where the jobs are, and learn by doing.
That’s better than the current fad of getting a degree – any degree – only to wind up as a Starbucks barrista with massive debts.
I think there will also be a huge increase in home-schooling, including smaller groups of people who work together to hire teachers and tutors. Micro-private schools, which will actually care about the quality of their teachers. Parents who make that kind of investment will also support and motivate their kids.
I have never understood cheating. So you manage to get through a course without understanding the material? Then what? You’re going to fail the next course, or cheat again.
Then you get a degree you don’t deserve (great for your self-respect), and get a job that you can’t do. What a great way to screw up your life…
I don’t really care one way or the other. When I have time to visit the site, which is most days, I read every comment. There aren’t any trolls here. Occasionally I hit a “thumbs-up”, if I think a comment is especially good, but the scores on the comments is completely irrelevant to my use of the site.
Tomorrow is cleaning day by the construction company, so it looks like we will truly be able to move in on the weekend.
Lots of stuff is still unfinished, but mostly outside: the patio is half-laid, the driveway isn’t paved (thanks to the nutty neighbors), the outside lamps aren’t here yet. Some lucky guy drilled into a water pipe yesterday, so they’re frantically fixing that.
We’ll have 10x the space we’ve had in this micro-apartment the past 8 months. Whew!
Most of them can’t do the job even with their degree. If colleges were honest, outside of STEM, they’d just say, “Pays us $100K up front and we’ll put your degree in xxxx-studies in the mail upon receipt.”
Most of them can’t do the job even with their degree. If colleges were honest, outside of STEM, they’d just say, “Pays us $100K up front and we’ll put your degree in xxxx-studies in the mail upon receipt.”
A lot of places already do that with Masters degrees under “Professional Development” graduate programs. The Chinese relations did that with one cousin, paying $60,000 to University of Washington for an MBA.
I’ve written before that the cousin was walked to the door of his first MBA job before lunchtime once the company realized they had been scammed by the resume and interview coaching.
A Professional Development Masters is even possible in STEM. My undergrad alma matter will sell you one in EE, but I believe they require a Bachelors in a science discipline to make it look legit.
Now for another positive update on Tony Stark Industries:
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/08/spacex-now-plans-for-5-million-starlink-customers-in-us-up-from-1-million/
Has anyone credible in the industry press received service from Starlink and posted a review?
Credible. Not the lap dog writers who argued that Apple needed to buy out Tesla and went along with the mafia protecting Magic Link with antisemitism smears.
Of course, Magic Link is so far gone now that the lapdogs don’t even try anymore. The local mafia in Fort Lauderdale got their beaks sufficiently wet.
(Note: lower case ‘m’ in mafia.)
If the astronauts were using Starlink on Sunday after splashdown, the voice quality was not impressive. I watched most of the coverage, continuously during the recovery operation from splashdown until both astronauts had been pulled from the capsule.
Voice. 32 kbps uncompressed would be adequate, AM radio quality.
I will concede that the uneventful landing of the astronauts was a triumph for SpaceX and “Tony”, but I never saw Gwynne Shotwell’s chair empty in Hawthorne on Sunday.
As an aside, I watched hipsters at Home Depot yesterday afternoon *carefully* loading lumber into their Model X. The wife even had the obligatory lightweight hiker backpack purse substitute which kept her hands free to hold the cart to protect the effectively bumperless X while the husband played origami games with the seats and “wing” doors, trying to protect the interior from the lumber. Austin.
I’m not thrilled with our Exploder, but the big shelf unit I picked up went right into the back without any games or concern about the interior with the seats folded down.
The Exploder stays until the next big repair. Could be a year. Could be 10.
I am not impressed with Costco.com or the shipping. I have ordered two TV’s in the last couple of weeks. The first TV arrived with a busted screen. Took it back to the local store. Ordered another one. It arrived with a vertical line and horizontal line in the screen. Took it back to the store.
I am very limited in my choices because the TV goes in the travel trailer. The connections have to be on the side and the TV has to fit within the elevator opening through which the TV is raised and lowered. I am also restricted to 40″. I can go 43″ but will have to enlarge the opening and replace the lid over the opening.
I really want to use Costco as they have a four year warranty. Costco extends the manufacturer warranty another year for two years. Use the Costco CITI card and another two years gets added.
Will return to Costco today and look at the TV’s on the racks. The size we need the store does not have in stock but at least we can get measurements and check the connections against the bracket (VESA) for the lift system. We may have to go to 43″ and do the necessary surgery on the opening and replace the lid with one that we will construct ourselves.
But two TVs received damaged? It is either damaged in the warehouse or by UPS during shipping. Both came from Atlanta so not a long journey. The boxes do not show any damage. Perhaps the boxes were dropped in such away that did not affect the corners.
I see WNBA players who magically all have matching t-shirts with a political agenda, biting the hand that feeds them AGAIN and I’m stunned they’re getting away with it.
I’d be surprised if the real viewing numbers for the WNBA are anywhere close to meaningful. Part of Disney’s current problem is overpaying for the sports contracts while cord cutting continues unabated, in part because of the $16 “sports and entertainment” fee on the cable bill that actually supports ESPN instead of advertising.
I am very limited in my choices because the TV goes in the travel trailer. The connections have to be on the side and the TV has to fit within the elevator opening through which the TV is raised and lowered. I am also restricted to 40″. I can go 43″ but will have to enlarge the opening and replace the lid over the opening.
I guess the trailer getting hot is the concern with the warranty coverage, but they might nitpick that one. 40″ TVs are so cheap anymore, I’d shop around if Costco isn’t giving you satisfaction.
The 40″ Samsung in our bedroom came from Fred Meyer (Kroger) seven years ago and survived a cross country move, including nearly a month in the New Mexico desert sitting in an idle moving truck, with only the remote broken afterwards. Our TiVo and DVD player were also casualties.
We paid $279 for the TV — a very good deal at the time — and figured, eh, if we got a few years out of it, we’d be happy. To be fair, it is a “dumb” TV without streaming services built in.
I bought a 65″ Samsung about a month ago. Ordered online from Best Buy for curbside pickup. No real problem except when they bring the box out I’m told it has to stand up not lay down in the bed of the pickup or the sreen might be damaged. I did have cargo straps and placed it in the middle of the bed upright with two straps over the top. Drove the 5 miles home very carefully. Detailed unpacking instructions and warnings on how to lift. No pinching the screen. Box was well packed with styrofoam supports top and bottom but no real lateral bracing. No wonder they have problems laying flat.
BTW I love the TV.
@JimB: You might drive over to Daggett and look at the Solar One plant built 40 years ago. Shut down after 4 years of operation to end tax dollar wasting.
Yuuup, I performed thermodynamic analyses of the plant’s steam cycle in the late ’70s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Solar_Project
I entered the Service in ‘79 and retired in ‘99. Only blood for DNA was ever collected to my knowledge. I’ve posted before, there is a procedure, when you leave the Service, to have your DNA sample destroyed. There is no way to prove your DNA sample was destroyed.
Has anyone credible in the industry press received service from Starlink and posted a review?
Probably not, unless they live in the top tier of the US or Canada, the only North American areas served so far, and that is beta.
Youse guys and your fiber to the home and cable don’t remember what is like to be stuck at 3/0.7 mb DSL, pressing our noses to the window while you stream stuff. Oh, how I hate streaming, but that was the hollywierd mandate, which effectively banned local storage and buffering. We never got the promise of movies over DSL. Starlink, if it is not severely data capped, will be a godsend.
As I have written here before, I can’t get much better service than our DSL, which is finally reliable after struggling for years. There are actually two “Fixed Base Wireless” (the new term for whatever it used to be called) providers, but one is slower than my DSL, and the other, if they could reach me, is much more expensive for a little gain. The bigger picture is that if I give up my DSL account, I can probably never get it back. Complicated, but true: there is effectively a limit of something like 50 or fewer lucky households in our neighborhood that can have DSL, and vacant slots are taken almost immediately if someone vacates one. Meanwhile, the FBW guys could go out of business at any time. So, I stay for now. Starlink has deep pockets, and I like that over mom and pop locals.
BTW, for those who might suggest Hughes Net, a friend dropped his when DSL came to his home. He is the only slightly technical guy I know, and he said his DSL runs circles around his old (I think it was Wild Blue, the maybe predecessor of Hughes Net) service in real world terms.
So. I am cheering Tony on.
The frustrating part about DNA and privacy is that they don’t even need your DNA. All they need is the DNA of a sibling, parent, child, or few cousins or nieces/nephews who willingly supplied it to Ancestry, 23 & Me, GEDmatch, etc. and it’s easy enough for their software to deduce that the DNA they collected (for whatever reason – not saying you’re a felon… lol) is yours.
In m very first week of USAF Basic Training in 1995 I had to prick my finger and provide a drop of blood on some specially prepared paper card in 1995 and that was placed in my records. They also took finger prints and foot prints (makes sense as your feet are wrapped in a tough leather combat boot and so foot prints may survive a plane crash or whatever better than finger prints) .
I love these. The second I glance at Caller ID and suspect it’s a survey, especially a political survey, I jump to answer the phone. My wife laughs at me. I then proceed to say I’m a huge Trump supporter and then when they get to the demographics I say I’m a 28 year old black female with a PhD who makes less than $30K/year (I’ll swap out male for female if I’m speaking with a human, but for fully automated ones I always pick female). Anything I can do to royally F-up their statistics. I’ve done the opposite too where I’ll say I’m a middle-aged white male with a bachelor degree who makes $150K+/year and I’m an avid supporter of Hillary/Biden/Bernie/etc.
Society did that to them by brainwashing the last three generations of Americans that anything less than a bachelor degree makes you a loser. Honestly, it was the baby boomer parents that did it starting with their Gen-X kids. They turned bachelor degrees today into the equivalent of high school diplomas 50 years ago.
More and more people are advocating for skipping college and going into the trades. Mike Rowe is very eloquent on this subject. However, I’ve notice a “not my kid” approach to it. That is, most people now all agree the trades are great alternatives to getting a degree, in many cases pay more and can even be more rewarding, and so they fully encourage everyone BUT their kids to do it. Their kids are going to college. Lots of hypocrisy on this subject.
A valid point if most people actually learned something in college that would help them out at their job. lol 🙂 Which begs the question why so many career paths require a degree at all. Most of the programmers I know were good at writing code before they ever went off to college. What did college do for them except rack up debt and waste 4 years of their life?
@JimB: You might drive over to Daggett and look at the Solar One plant built 40 years ago. Shut down after 4 years of operation to end tax dollar wasting.
I have seen it in operation. Wow, has it been that long ago?
When we visit family, we go south on 395 right past 58, Kramer Junction. Just about a mile north of there is the former Luz, now NextEra 654 MW SEGS thermal plant. It was said to have been profitable when it was first put into operation, but that was probably with heavy tax subsidies.
I agree these solar thermal plants are not practical. I have always liked nukes, but they require lots of water to operate safely, and that has been said to be impractical in the desert. Not so for the little neighborhood ones, or the larger pebble bed designs we rejected and the Chinese are implementing. We lack a comprehensive energy plan, and probably always will. We should be building a bridge from coal and nat gas to fission to fusion. Anyone want to buy a bridge?
As an aside, I watched hipsters at Home Depot yesterday afternoon *carefully* loading lumber into their Model X. The wife even had the obligatory lightweight hiker backpack purse substitute which kept her hands free to hold the cart to protect the effectively bumperless X while the husband played origami games with the seats and “wing” doors, trying to protect the interior from the lumber. Austin.
I built our house using a trailer pulled by my venerable old car at the time. Could haul up to about two tons comfortably. Much later, I bought my first PU, a 77 Dodge D100 short bed standard cab. It was a little trashed when I bought it, so I hauled everything but rocks and manure in it for 28 years. Very practical, and fun to drive. Also practically indestructible: only needed tires and routine maintenance. Five years ago, sold it to a friend when I bought a mint 94 Dodge Ram 1500 with the 360 Magnum V8 and 75k miles. It is a standard 8′ bed with a fiberglass tonneau cover, and standard cab. A beautiful cowboy Cadillac. I have only hauled groceries in it. Took it out of town once, and it drives like a dream. Problem? I don’t want to mess it up. I would never find another as good. So, I will look for another trailer, this time a low boy for easy loading and storage. Full circle.
We have also hauled some light stuff in our minivans over the years. These boxes on wheels swallow a lot. The only thing better is a cargo van. Rented one of those years ago to help a friend pick up some furniture out of town. It rained that day (not here in the desert, of course,) and it was nice to have everything inside and dry. Also could park it for lunch without worrying about theft.
Reminds me. Nick should find a nice cargo van or small box truck. A guy I know has a repurposed refer delivery truck with his portable shop in it. He has heat and AC, both on and off external power. Imagine the convenience for auction pickups!
Oh, before I bought my first PU, I looked at a real truck. It was a near new Dodge 20+ foot flat bed single axle with a two speed rear end and five speed manual transmission. It was so cheap I almost bit. Asked the guy why he wanted to sell it, and he said he was done with his hauling, and it was impractical for everyday use. Too long to park in a lot of places, and poor gas mileage. That was before diesels. I passed, but it would have been fun. His asking price was cheaper than most decent 2WD pickups. 4WD pickups always go for a big premium here. Never wanted 4WD.
Yes, I recall that facilty. I buy gas at the SW corner of Kramer JCN going to Kennedy Meadows on 395. Otherwise at jcn of 58 and 14 when going that way.
Hm, what was right wing conspiracy theory just a little while ago seems to be real after all….
–who pays the piper calls the tune….
n
Solar door knockers came to my house. Said to me: “Do you want to save money?”
Me: “Of course, sunshine is free. 10%, no, why bother. 30%, no, too ambitious. 20%, yes, with 100% certainty of 0% deviation from 20%.”
I explained the proposed contract in three sentences and they left. Nope, no screwing me over.
Same thing with another door knocker.
They no longer do door-to-door here.
If residential rooftop solar was a good deal, why did the legislature of Californication pass a law and Gov. SCREWsom sign it, a law requiring it for all new residential units starting 1/1/2020?
Actually, it resulted in a large increase in building permits issued in last two months of 2019.
Hm, what was right wing conspiracy theory just a little while ago seems to be real after all….
Tinseltown bows to Beijing: Hollywood is slammed for changing cast, plot, dialogue and settings to avoid antagonizing CHINA and ensuring access to the country’s multi-billion dollar box office, in bombshell report
–who pays the piper calls the tune….
Old news with regard to “Top Gun”. Beijing also wanted the “Bruce Lee, Professional Putz” scene cut out of “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood”, but Tarantino wouldn’t go along, citing the fairy tale/alternative universe nature of the script which changes significant Hollywood history at the end.
To be fair, Amazon cut “Doctor Who” loose because of an episode with thinly veiled harsh criticism of the company, but my former employers, desperate for HBO Max exclusive content, picked up the streaming contract.
Some sort of solar tax break must have been extended as I’m suddenly getting calls from freshers to install rooftop solar again.
n
BTW, for those who might suggest Hughes Net, a friend dropped his when DSL came to his home. He is the only slightly technical guy I know, and he said his DSL runs circles around his old (I think it was Wild Blue, the maybe predecessor of Hughes Net) service in real world terms.
Once HTTPS became the default for every web site, the satellite services were toast for general web browsing. The terrestrial ground stations on each end prioritize packets which are compressible, and very few packets going over WAN connections are compressible anymore.
It will be interesting to see how Starlink solves the bandwidth problem at promised latency short of Musk resorting to using crony capitalist ties to simply grab more spectrum where previous services, not led by The Real Life Tony Stark (TM) could not.
My guess is that Starlink will involve some serious client software installed on customers’ PCs or some combination of transparent proxy at the router and Blue Coat type SSL cracking as many high end corporate intranets handle web traffic, including my current employer, still involving a client package installed on every PC.
I spent a decade answering complaints from IBM-ers with rural and/or mountaintop retreats — one pretentious dork even went as far as refering to it as his friggin “aerie” — griping about Telnet/3270 performance over the NetClient VPN tunneling through the satellite link. It only got worse when we introduced our own SSL VPN against my repeated warnings to IBM CTO office people about performance.
Aerie. Who are you? Hawk from the lame second season of “Buck Rogers”?
Some sort of solar tax break must have been extended as I’m suddenly getting calls from freshers to install rooftop solar again.
Freshers with names like “Michael”.
The girls tend to go with “Friends” characters as pseudonyms. The primary female characters on “Big Bang Theory” are too obvious with the exception of Amy.
Summary from FEMA
Pictures like this tell me it’s WAY past time to be loading mags.
https://www.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/antifa-portland.jpg?itok=GnbUmmmZ
That is a potentially armed insurrection. Trump needs to call out the Marines to restore order in Portland like they did in the LA riots. One battalion of Marines from Camp Pendleton pacified the entire Los Angeles city in one day. Something about Humvees with 50 cal machine guns mounted tends to disperse crowds quickly. Of course, pacification was needed for just a small section of the city.
https://www.wearethemighty.com/history/marines-la-riots?rebelltitem=2#rebelltitem2
Why not? Wouldn’t you trust a Phd who’s also an anti-vaxer?
His costume was awesome, though.
Um, I might be in serious work avoidance mode if I”ve got youtube in a window and for some reason it recommended me 9 minutes and 27 seconds of ferret videos….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yawz3DjuzxU&list=RDmA7LRI_y0Eo
just saying.
n
Looks like those darn mormons are fighting with the amish again… oh, not them?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8600173/Two-people-stabbed-brawl-California-hotel-near-Disneyland-involved-100-people.html
–that second quote means using code enforcement to harass the business into either knuckling under or closing.
n
I look around and I’m a bit stunned by the level of organization that the insurgents in Portland are using. I’m a bit stunned that they’re getting away with it. I watched a video of Joe Biden stumbling over words, rambling, and making strange statements. And I’m stunned he’s getting away with it. I look at BLM, the corporation, not the average joe in the streets, and I’m stunned they’re getting away with it. I see WNBA players who magically all have matching t-shirts with a political agenda, biting the hand that feeds them AGAIN and I’m stunned they’re getting away with it. Like Little Red Riding Hood, people can see the teeth, but they just continue on as if granny was still there. They are climbing into bed with granny and it won’t end well this time. I don’t think there is a huntsman coming to cut open the wolf and let granny back out…
You know, the President does not have The Insurrection Act at his hand for nothing. This nonsense in Portland and other places needs to stop NOW before it spreads into an active rebellion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurrection_Act_of_1807
The Marines can be there in less than a week. Military convoys may be slow but they cover a lot of distance over many hours.
Trump has already warned the populace, “On June 1, 2020, President Donald Trump warned that he would invoke the Act in response to the demonstrations that led to violence following the death of George Floyd.[13][14][15] In his official June 1 statement, President Trump urged “every governor to deploy the National Guard in sufficient numbers” to re-establish civil law and order “until the violence has been quelled”.”
I wonder if this is how Trump cleared the rioters in Washington DC under the cover of darkness ?
Pictures like this tell me it’s WAY past time to be loading mags.
A firehose would take care of that lineup quickly.
Last day of work on the house!
Tomorrow is cleaning day by the construction company, so it looks like we will truly be able to move in on the weekend.
Lots of stuff is still unfinished, but mostly outside: the patio is half-laid, the driveway isn’t paved (thanks to the nutty neighbors), the outside lamps aren’t here yet. Some lucky guy drilled into a water pipe yesterday, so they’re frantically fixing that.
We’ll have 10x the space we’ve had in this micro-apartment the past 8 months. Whew!
Congrats !
I think that all interior and exterior wall pipes should be armor plated. Too many nails are pounded into sheetrock with no idea what is on the other side. After all PEX pipes are armor plated now, they all should be.
And what type of pipes did you get ?
Pictures like this tell me it’s WAY past time to be loading mags.
A firehose would take care of that lineup quickly.
The problem is that there are more willing idiots to stand up in their place.
It is time for M4s.
My white 4×4 F-150 truck now has dirt and mud all over it. The feral pigs visited my office property last weekend and tore the crap out of two+ acres. I was using my truck to smooth out the furrows that their snouts leave when I found a big hole in the front five acres. All of a sudden all four wheels were tossing muddy water into the air. But, she plowed right through the mess. I am glad for the two inch lift kit, that kept the cab above the fray.
And, the Fort Bend County Subsidence District held a public hearing on my water well today. They lost the application from 2013 for the replacement water well. So they have charged me $200 for a new permit and $50/year for an annual permit. And it looks like I get to keep the well, they did not say anything about condemning the well. We use the crap out of the water around here. In fact I am thinking about getting the elevated 10,000 gallon tank that the county fire marshall wants me to have.
The problem is that there are more willing idiots to stand up in their place.
It is time for M4s.
Portland? The people are spineless, but the politicians are even more so.
The problem is that there are more willing idiots to stand up in their place.
It is time for M4s.
Portland? The people are spineless, but the politicians are even more so.
US Marines carry M4 carbines now in addition to their crew served and squad weapons.
I don’t think so. The trailer is powered at all times while at home and the A/C is set for 80f. Also keeps the humidity down.
Found a 40″ Samsung at the Costco warehouse. Bought it for $219.00. Less than ideal because of the mounting situation. At least it was in stock, no shipping, box looked pristine so no thug/gorilla handling had taken place.
Flat bracket that is used for mounting is snug against the lift rails. The Samsung has a 1/2″ raised place on the bottom that made flush mounting difficult. That is what I need with the bracket and lift mechanism. I purchased some long M8 screws 1.5″, cut some wood blocks to fit between the TV and and the bracket to account for the lip. I had to drill new holes for the bracket support screws in the lift tubes because of the difference in the vertical location of the mounting holes in the TV verses the old TV. I also had to enlarge the holes in the mounting bracket.
We then had to alter the opening from which the TV rises. Needed to cut about 0.75″ on each side and widen the front to back width of the slot.
All now seems to be good for the main TV in the RV. There is also a TV on the wall in the bedroom that is used very little.
“75 Years Later, It’s Clear Truman Was Right To Drop The Atomic Bomb”
https://thefederalist.com/2020/08/06/75-years-later-its-clear-truman-was-right-to-drop-the-atomic-bomb/
A 95 year old friend (still alive !) of mine was the copilot on a B-24 during the War in the Pacific. His plane was the second bomber to land on Iwo Jima. As they were slowing down, a rock beside the runway flipped over and a Japanese soldier shot at them. The bullet passed through the front windshield right above my friend’s head. A US Marine immediately shot and killed the Japanese soldier before he could fire again.
Later, my friend and his crew were taking photographs of Japanese installations for military bombing priorities. As they slowly passed over a river bridge getting detailed photos of the structure, a hidden anti-aircraft gun opened up on them. Luckily, no one in the crew was hurt. When they got back to Iwo Jima, they counted over 130 twenty mm bullet holes in the plane.
My friend’s plane was being planned in the bombing support for the one+ million US soldier invasion of Japan. Then Nagasaki and Hiroshima happened and he realized that he had survived the war. He and his crew lost three planes in the island hopping across the Pacific getting there. He and his crew spent another year in Japan flying photographic compliance missions to verify the surrender.
Twelve years later, my Cherokee wife was born in Camp Zama in Japan, an Army occupation base. Life is wild.
Or…
Free lattes at the corner Starbucks!
Free lattes at the corner Starbucks!
Where do you think the militants work?
They can’t all edit blogs about craft cocktails.
A 95 year old friend (still alive !) of mine was the copilot on a B-24 during the War in the Pacific.
When we went to FL last month for the 4th, we spent an afternoon at the museum on the edge of Eglin AFB. No B-24, but they had a B-25 in decent shape.
Of course, the Doolittle Raid trained at Eglin IIRC so not having a B-25 would have been embarrassing.
If you avoid the Destin crazy, Fort Walton Beach is a nice long weekend with low virus risk as long as you are careful.
We will soon find out:
Or, if you are in the area and interested, you will be able to find out first hand. 🙂
@JimB, that’s our situation here. We have the absolute best internet service and speed available for love or money here: DSL with a paid-for landline and they claim we get 3Mbps. It’s terrible. It was tolerable when Verizon owned it, but since they sold to Frontier, we are like serfs, just grateful they bother to keep the service up most of the time. Recently, they’ve begun throttling use of two computers at the same time. And we would face the same problem you do from those much-hyped “Rural Broadband” grant recipients. Unless/until ISPs are forced to be honest about their genuine speeds as realized, and their actual up-time, they will all continue to lie and to throttle access where-ever and whenever they wish in order to fake the numbers they report.
Glenn Reynolds has lately been pushing the notion of “Seditious Conspiracy” as a legal tool to go after the financers, organizers, and other enablers.
He says it is a serious proposal.
That’s better than the current fad of getting a degree – any degree – only to wind up as a Starbucks barrista with massive debts.
The massive debts fund Obamacare in part since the bill nationalized the student loan program to make the new healthcare racket revenue neutral, required for passage under reconciliation to avoid the Senate filibuster once the underwear model took Uncle Ted’s seat.
Remember, we had to pass the bill to find out what was in it.
I’m randomly poking around eBay for a Squeezebox. An SB 3 would work. Same for an SB 2…. but none are listed. SB 2, that is. My evil plan is to feed the audio to my monitor’s speakers.
A Squeezebox Radio would work, A Boom would be better. I can make shelf space and either would probably sound a lot better than my monitor’s speakers.
Oh well, I have a few on my watch list. I’m not in a hurry.
Hmm. Is “an SB 2” correct? I say “ess box 2” so, it seems correct. “A ess box” sounds off. Saying “a Squeezebox 3” is correct. It’s been a long time since HS English.
“Just” 100F today. Humidity seems to be down. There is some breeze. It’s not “shins sweating hot”.
Some sort of solar tax break must have been extended as I’m suddenly getting calls from freshers to install rooftop solar again.
Lucky you. I just got a call on my cell that my Social Security number has been suspended. I wonder how many people bite on that ?
https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/2018/12/what-social-security-scam-sounds
We got one of those last week. I gave the phone to my daughter, who stayed on the line a while on the chance a human would be there. She has my permission and encouragement to say anything she wants to telemarketers and worse scum.
I agree these solar thermal plants are not practical. I have always liked nukes, but they require lots of water to operate safely, and that has been said to be impractical in the desert. Not so for the little neighborhood ones, or the larger pebble bed designs we rejected and the Chinese are implementing. We lack a comprehensive energy plan, and probably always will. We should be building a bridge from coal and nat gas to fission to fusion. Anyone want to buy a bridge?
We can build a nuke power plant with air coolers instead of the natural flow cooling water towers. That will cut 90% of the water usage. I stood under a 1,500,000 lb/hr steam condenser using air coolers (24 foot blades turning at 400 rpm) with 1.0 psia back pressure in Sweetwater, Texas back in 1987 ?. It was July and 105 F that day, I was actually cool underneath all those huge ceiling fans.
Damn, only one *up vote* per person. Mr. SteveF, still KING OF THE DOWN VOTES!
I’m one of those crazies that think the goobermint should divert all these “green” power crap ideas into nuke development. It’s good enough for ole Sol.
I limited the number of times you can up or down vote to one each, mostly because of @SteveF.
Although, there is a way around that limit….
“FBI issues warning over Windows 7 end-of-life”
https://www.zdnet.com/article/fbi-issues-warning-over-windows-7-end-of-life/
“The FBI says companies running Windows 7 systems are now in greater risk of getting hacked due to a lack of security updates.”
The best thing that you can do for ANY computer is put a NAT box in front of it.
I have no idea how to address the IPv6 connectivity since NAT is only for IPv4.
A 95 year old friend (still alive !) of mine was the copilot on a B-24 during the War in the Pacific.
When we went to FL last month for the 4th, we spent an afternoon at the museum on the edge of Eglin AFB. No B-24, but they had a B-25 in decent shape.
Of course, the Doolittle Raid trained at Eglin IIRC so not having a B-25 would have been embarrassing.
Ford built around 10,000 of the B-24s in Michigan. Not many survived WWII and Korea. Jimmy Stewart flew many of them from England to Germany and was squadron commander for over a year. Lost 10,000 men under his command flying daylight bombing raids over Berlin.
https://www.amazon.com/Mission-Jimmy-Stewart-Fight-Europe-ebook/dp/B01MQ0TSND/?tag=ttgnet-20
@lynn
I found this on that … http://www.ipv6now.com.au/primers/IPv6Myths.php . That site looks to have some interesting information about IPv6.
DSL isn’t a option here, too far from the switch.
Back in the good old days of dial-up connecting at 26.4, one of the local ISPs came out with wireless. It was pricey to have installed. But they spread the payments over a year. So, $83/month vs $25 and another $25 for a phone line. Yeah, we had at one time THREE phone lines. But hey, $83/month for the first year was awesome because it was always on and it was 10 times faster. After the first year, the bill dropped to $52 or so. Yeah, $300 too install but…. they needed a 40 foot push up mast. Not complaining.
Then along came PGRB. Pegasus. Something else. Rise. Lot of merging and buying out of the local ISPs. Ok, 2mb down. Then 3. Then the 5/1 plan. And then Rise oversold the tower.
So I changed to a new company. Local bubbas, they have a good handle on how to do it but are still working out the bugs. And now I have a 25/5 plan for $65/month taxes included (that actually runs 27 or so/6+. Tho they say it’s going to $83. Dunno about the taxes being included, my question was answered on Slack by somejerk saying I was on a special deal. Huh? The deal was $65/month total.
Anyway, it’s pretty cool that stuff over the Roku is in HD and not a stutter. But it was interesting to watch Amazon Prime over a 1mb down connection…. it kept the faces but everything else would blur out.
This is my plan. Everything goes through the router. As for IPv6, I don’t know. Do I want my Kindle to have a unique address? Or my PC? And why?
I think IPv6 is too late to matter. We’ve already put everyone behind routers. My ISP has a router that gives me a 10.x address. My router feeds my LAN 192.168.0.x addresses. But what do I know.
I have no idea how to address the IPv6 connectivity since NAT is only for IPv4.
I found this on that … http://www.ipv6now.com.au/primers/IPv6Myths.php . That site looks to have some interesting information about IPv6.
For my office, my NAT box is a Peplink 30 that I use to bond two DSL 12/2 mbps lines. If one DSL line is full then the Peplink 30 will automatically move all of the traffic over to the other DSL line. The Peplink box does not do IPv6, only IPv4. You will pry the Peplink out of my equipment room only when I am dead.
https://www.amazon.com/Peplink-Balance-20-Dual-WAN-Router/dp/B0042210U6/?tag=ttgnet-20
I do have IPv6 turned on for my dedicated web server which is colocated and under site management. But I have yet to update all of my custom written website software (in C++) to handle IPv6 so it just barfs when somebody hits it with a 128 bit address instead of 32 bit address. Too many things to do and not enough time.
107F in my driveway atm…
And about 95F in the garage. It almost feels cool when you come in from outside.
Then you start to sweat and realize, no 95F isn’t cool.
n
I have 2 clients on DSL, one with a peplink combiner and two DSL lines, one with only one. 700/500.
n
Turn off IP6 on the computer and router.
_Lost and Found _ by Orson Scott Card
https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Found-Orson-Scott-Card/dp/1982613416/?tag=ttgnet-20
A standalone young adult paranormal fantasy book with no prequel or sequel that I know of. I read the well printed and well bound hardback published in 2019. I would love to see a sequel to the book.
Ezekiel Blast is a smart aleck loner in high school and has a publicly known micropower. His high school nickname is “thief”. Lost objects call out to him to return themselves to their owners. Girl’s scrunchies, toy fire trucks, stolen bikes, and other odds and ends. But when he picks up the lost object and returns it, the owner usually accuses him of stealing it rather than being grateful for the return. His micropower manifested itself when he was five years old after his mother died.
OK, I stayed up until 4 am last night reading this book. I could not put it down. And I want to reread it again some time again so that means a five star book.
Please note that Orson Scott Card has a website at
http://www.hatrack.com/
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars (256 reviews)
I want to see the money put into a multi-gigawatt space solar power collector. Getting the low-cost power beamed down to Earth would be nice but that’s only a side benefit. The real reason is orbital death ray.
The best thing that you can do for ANY computer is put a NAT box in front of it.
I have no idea how to address the IPv6 connectivity since NAT is only for IPv4.
It is possible to set up NAT for IPv6 with a Linux box serving as a router, but if you’re going that far, the Linux firewall filter rules can effectively block unsolicited packets without maintaining a private address space and doing translation.
I want to see the money put into a multi-gigawatt space solar power collector. Getting the low-cost power beamed down to Earth would be nice but that’s only a side benefit. The real reason is orbital death ray.
Dr. Pournelle’s “Rods From God” concept would be far more effective.
The po po just did a drug bust and the one guy says there’s a lot of good stuff in the car… it’s got some of that ‘booger sugar’….
That was a phrase I’ve never heard, and I thought I’d heard them all.
n
The other team of surveillance is working a drug sale with an undercover across the street from our rec assn pool, about 2 miles from my house…
n
must be a pretty big player, they’ve got the air unit providing overhead surveillance.
It was tolerable when Verizon owned it, but since they sold to Frontier, we are like serfs, just grateful they bother to keep the service up most of the time. Recently, they’ve begun throttling use of two computers at the same time.
Sorry to hear that. Our experience is just the opposite.
We started with Verizon in 2003, and there were plans in 2006 or so to roll out FIOS. The meltdown of 2008 fixed that. Now Frontier for the last four years. I quip that Verizon had money but didn’t care, and now Frontier cares but has no money. Not quite that simple, but close enough.
Verizon never solved a problem that caused my DSL to go down about once a year, until someone went to the unattended CO and did something. They would never tell me what, so I had to start over almost every time. Frontier actually did something that solved my line quality issue between me and the central office, and it has been better lately. I am 19k wire feet from the CO, and all newer DSL schemes top out at a nominal distance of 16k feet. I have been told that I would not be allowed to get DSL today with my line quality.
My plan is 3/0.768, and used to always measure at that or slightly greater, +/- only a couple percent… when it worked. Now, it works almost all the time, but the speed varies between 2.8/0.5 and sometimes worse. The upload frequently drops to 0.1 or so. Good enough for normal surfing, but lousy for uploading stuff. Latency is very good at around 12-15ms. I have never seen any throttling, but don’t have large amounts of data per month.
My cell phone is all over the place, with a high of 24/5 and a low of 0.01/0.01 (no kidding,) when everyone is using it. In more populated areas, it routinely gets 40/10, and sometimes higher. Latencies are higher, about 25-50ms. It still has unlimited data, but does not officially support being a hotspot. I once thought I might use an old cell phone to feed a dual WAN port router, such as Lynn’s Peplink (see, I learn things here,) but never got around to that. Part is that the cell data is so variable. The other part is that those routers are $$$.
And, that’s the long story why I want Starlink. I just hope there are reasonable data caps. I would like to do TV over it and dump DirecTV.
And, that’s the long story why I want Starlink. I just hope there are reasonable data caps. I would like to do TV over it and dump DirecTV.
We dumped DirecTV last January. I spent a couple of days at Mom and Dads in July, they still have DirecTV. I can say that I admire the user interface but I do not miss it.
I am 19k wire feet from the CO, and all newer DSL schemes top out at a nominal distance of 16k feet. I have been told that I would not be allowed to get DSL today with my line quality.
DSL really needs to have a 50K or a 100K feet solution for rural area. Urban and suburban areas are now well served by fiber and cable. Oh well, maybe Starlink will provide a great new service for the entire USA at Tony Stark’s quoted 6,000 / 1,000 mpbs.
Or competitor(s). Bezos also wants to get into that game. Maybe start low first. 🙂
DSL really needs to have a 50K or a 100K feet solution for rural area. Urban and suburban areas are now well served by fiber and cable. Oh well, maybe Starlink will provide a great new service for the entire USA at Tony Stark’s quoted 6,000 / 1,000 mpbs.
Very unlikely that DSL distances will be increased. Many reasons.
Starlink already has possible competitors, Google Fixed Base Wireless (a long shot) or Airborne Wireless (a slightly shorter shot) Neither seem likely. Again, many reasons.
Starlink, or any satellite-based solution: it will be interesting to see what the latency is really like. Any signal has to make it up to a satellite, then be bounced to at least one further satellite before being sent to a ground station, from where it will have the normal ground-based latency.
That’s one aspect. The other is competition among users. If many users are trying to send data to the satellite at the same time, on the same set of frequencies, there will be a lot of interference and dropped packets.
And on the gripping hand, we have privacy issues. A satellite sending down packets – well, those packets can be picked up by anyone. Even if the contents are encrypted, they reveal a lot of information.
See:
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/03/spacex-gets-fcc-license-for-1-million-satellite-broadband-user-terminals/
Tony says:
It needs to comply with FCC regulations and meet those to be classified as broadband.
With respect to many users, the target user base is for people living outside cities that currently have lousy speeds or no speed at all.
It will be encrypted, obviously. Security will be looked into, obviously. Satellites are currently being used so if you are afraid of satellite packet sniffing and that somebody may use that then it should be avoided. It is a matter of cost/benefit…
“The Back-Up Gun: 3 Reasons To Carry One”
https://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/2020/7/24/the-back-up-gun-3-reasons-to-carry-one/
1. The first gun goes click instead of bang.
2. A primary defensive gun is not accessible.
3. Additional guns can be used to arm other responsible adults.
“Some ammunition malfunctions, like a faulty pistol primer, can be dealt with quickly. Semi-automatic pistols can be cleared of a dud round using a tap-and-rack drill while double-action revolvers allow the user to cycle past a dead cartridge by simply pulling the trigger.”
This is why I carry a revolver now. And I have several revolvers stashed in various places around the house, vehicles, and the office.
Besides that, I love revolvers. I have got Rugers, S&Ws, and Charters. All great guns.
12.36 us per mile round trip, 350 miles. Latency to and from the satellite should be 4.5 ms, not counting any time spent from satellite to satellite, if any. So 20 ms latency is feasible. I don’t know how much bandwidth the satellite has to the ground station(s). Divide that by the number of users.
I can’t see how it could be cheaper than a wired connection in urban/sub-urban areas, so I suspect it will be on the order of $100-200 a month, unsubsidized. If it were cheaper, there would be too many people on it.
I don’t see any data on data rates except for a military test at 610 Mbps. Current satellites do not have the laser satellite to satellite links that are planned.