Cooler and sunny.
Yesterday was nice. Even in the sun, there was a nice cooling breeze.
I picked up my auction stuff, mainly shelving. There was a bit of other stuff including 24 rat snap traps. I paid 50c each. I’m stocked up on rat traps now. Funny thing is, I originally bought rat traps to catch squirrels for dinner if SHTF big time. Then I used them on rats. Who knows where we’ll be in a year, but I sure hope squirrel isn’t a staple on the dinner table.
One of the other things I got was a small fire safe. It’s a little one, about the size of a dorm fridge. There are videos online showing how to decode and reset the combination. The door is currently open, so it should be a simple matter to get it working again. I’ll either resell it, or find a place for another safe. Maybe at my secondary location, although I’ve got several ‘security containers’ there already…
Today I’m going to continue chipping away at the list. The flood lights I was waiting to replace have died. I’ll change them out to LED today. There will also be some more cleaning and organizing and putting away.
I’ve got the meat to still break down and freeze too.
All after getting my covid test. Fun times.
There were some disturbing late reports before I went to bed suggesting Trump’s health was deteriorating. I REALLY hope not. We do not need the added distraction and uncertainty. The speculation that there might have been sabotage or deliberate infection is hard to consider, but I’m taking it as a sign of the state of things that it even occurs to so many people.
No matter what happens, it’ll be better if you have big stacks.
nick
I picked up my auction stuff, mainly shelving. There was a bit of other stuff including 24 rat snap traps. I paid 50c each. I’m stocked up on rat traps now. Funny thing is, I originally bought rat traps to catch squirrels for dinner if SHTF big time. Then I used them on rats. Who knows where we’ll be in a year, but I sure hope squirrel isn’t a staple on the dinner table.
When deploying the snap traps, make sure to secure them to something heavy. If the kill isn’t clean, the critter will try to run off with the trap to die someplace “safe” — read: expensive to find and decontaminate.
Squirrel brains can carry a variant of mad cow disease. A spring trap may not be advisable. Find someone in Meatspace to teach you how to hunt/dress squirrel. The skill isn’t uncommon — my wife’s nurse in Florida knew the routine.
Hopefully, things don’t reach that point. I’ve long believed that grid down in the US would be catastrophic for the rest of the world, possibly an extinction level event for humanity. We grow a lot of food, and we buy a lot of cr*p, even now.
Watch the “Star Trek” reruns on H&I sometime simply for the commercials. Just the number of useless masks being brought to market and sold is scary.
“Just the number of useless masks being brought to market and sold is scary.”
–there’s always opportunity…
Took a full half hour to get the code number I need for testing. The info taker had to have me repeat stuff multiple times, and it was clear the script/db was very slow. She warned me that we could be disconnected or the computer could go down. I’ve got the magic number though, and I will head over after breakfast and a shower. It’s the nasal swab, takes 3-5 business days for results, and it is VERY unpleasant – when I asked she spent a couple of minutes shuddering and talking about it. She’s been tested multiple times.
n
MicroCenter has Raspberry Pi kits on sale. The latest full on desktop kit is $90 and includes everything but a monitor. The bare board Pi Zero W is $8.
I know a lot of people suggest a Pi or and arduino kit to learn about programming, because they help interface to real world stuff, and it’s fun to make lights blink or motors spin. Adafruit has a bunch of kits if that sort of thing appeals to you.
n
Jeez 2020, FFS. We have another named storm off the Yucatan peninsula, with 3 more disturbances shaping up. Gamma is predicted to go around the peninsula and head along the coast, SSW for Central America.
n
45 degrees outside at 0800 this morning. Waiting until 0900 to go outside.
Today’s project is replacing 2 sections of our wood privacy fence. The north side stays fairly shaded, and I replaced a section of pickets due to rot. I started looking, and quite a few more pickets need replacing. As I looked further, I noticed one section seemed to be leaning. Yep, the post is loose, I did some exploration yesterday, and the post is not loose, it’s rotted at the base just above the concrete. Yay. At least my neighbor is a good guy. He offered to pay for his side without me having to ask.
I know a lot of people suggest a Pi or and arduino kit to learn about programming, because they help interface to real world stuff, and it’s fun to make lights blink or motors spin. Adafruit has a bunch of kits if that sort of thing appeals to you.
Beaglebone Black is also worth a look. In addition to having more power than a standard Arduino and better I/O than a Raspberry Pi, the Beaglebone effectively has two Ethernet ports, one physical and one virtual, the latter accessible to Windows devices through rNDIS drivers (provided on the device’s virtual flash storage) and Mac/Linux using those platforms’ built-in support.
I have a Beaglebone around as part of yet another security related project I’ll get to … evenutally. Pakt Press has a couple of decent looking books on networking and security using the board.
Beaglebone Black is also worth a look. In addition to having more power than a standard Arduino and better I/O than a Raspberry Pi, the Beaglebone effectively has two Ethernet ports, one physical and one virtual, the latter accessible to Windows devices through rNDIS drivers (provided on the device’s virtual flash storage) and Mac/Linux using those platforms’ built-in support.
I neglected to add that the Beaglebone’s virtual Ethernet is Ethernet-over-USB, but that is implied by the use of rNDIS drivers. Build a firewall or a Tor proxy for your Windows laptop or desktop.
Jeez 2020, FFS. We have another named storm off the Yucatan peninsula, with 3 more disturbances shaping up. Gamma is predicted to go around the peninsula and head along the coast, SSW for Central America.
Spaghetti models for Gamma are crazy. It could go anywhere.
The Navy concurs with you, however, and I’ve rarely seen their predictions end up off by much.
The last “Greek letter” storm year saw the last named disturbance happen in the following January. I guess the start of hurricane season resets the calendar.
@Nick – Cleaning out my piles of junk, I found an Alphasmart Neo and looked at the going price on EBay. $40?!? And decent money for “parts only” machines. Mine works!
I bought the Neo for $5 at a school surplus sale six years ago. What’s the deal?
I just had another purchase end up being junk stuffed in a box, with the seller simply refunding the sale with shipping, telling me to keep the item or donate it rather than deal with the disposal problem themselves. No EBay nastygram this time, however.
Fence sections out, post was fairly easy. Broke it off at ground level, then started digging out the concrete. We got half way down, then I used a sledge to bust up the top half. I left the bottom half, since it was nicely formed to slide the new post int. Dumped two bags of quickcrete dry mix in, added water, and now waiting for it to set.
It turns out the standard Windows distribution for Python includes TCL/Tk. So Python will be the one. Easy simple. Not super fast, but it should be good enough.
And Python is in the software center at work, so it will even be useful for automating test suites, if I get that far. Bonus!
It turns out the standard Windows distribution for Python includes TCL/Tk. So Python will be the one. Easy simple. Not super fast, but it should be good enough.
Pylint is your friend. It should install easily with pip.
Home.
Got my test. MAN, that is uncomfortable. It brought tears to my eyes. Then delivered the shelving to my secondary and took a pickup worth of stuff to the dumpster. Got my forklift running.
Stopped at a yard sale on the way home. Across the street they were lifting the house over 3 feet. It’s a slab on grade house. Crazy to see it with air underneath. The owners were getting tired of flooding with every hard rain. $100K said the neighbor… but unsellable as a “floods every time” house so I guess you do what you have to do.
Time to cut the grass, electrons to the rescue…
n
Do I smell a conspiracy
When I first heard that orange man was infected my first thought was a conspiracy. I am thinking that someone in the democratic party found an infected person at the peak of the infection cycle and hired them to attend the event. Shaking hands, touching as much as possible, breathing on as many people as possible. Based on some of the other democratic stunts I do not put this scenario beyond reason.
“‘Biological weapons attack’ conspiracies surface over ‘suspicious’ timing of Trump, GOP senators, suddenly getting COVID-19”
https://www.bizpacreview.com/2020/10/03/biological-weapons-attack-conspiracies-surface-over-suspicious-timing-of-trump-gop-senators-suddenly-getting-covid-19-980163
Have I mentioned that I love conspiracy theories ? The crappier the better of course.
My son thinks that an infected CNN intern at the Amy Coney Barrett nomination event did it.
“Governor DeSantis says closing schools in spring a mistake”
https://www.winknews.com/2020/10/03/governor-desantis-says-closing-schools-in-spring-a-mistake/
“Gov. Ron DeSantis said Friday that closing school campuses in the spring as the coronavirus pandemic took hold might have been one of the nation’s biggest “public health mistakes.””
“And, while appearing on the Drew Steele radio show, DeSantis equated people fighting the return of students to classrooms as the “flat earthers of our day.””
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/
My son thinks that an infected CNN intern at the Amy Coney Barrett nomination event did it.
CNN dies with the Trump Presidency. He’s their bread and butter.
Stankey already ordered everyone out of the CNN Center as part of cost cutting.
My crazy cousin just got back from his trip from Tennessee to California and back. He spent a couple of months on the road with his 4 year old son. They drove his 1929 Ford roadster. Highly modified. V8 motor, big wheels in the back. No windows except the windshield. Kinda like this in white and a top.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Cgyfdh5Ees
“Governor DeSantis says closing schools in spring a mistake”
His whole career rides on Florida recovering well over the next two years. The Dems are down to the Agriculture Commissioner as their only state-wide office holder.
My boss rescheduled my one-on-one to 4.30 on Friday. I was worried. Only bad part was that the team lead complained that I research technical details too much. I’m in a technical job though. Not sure how to handle that.
Similar here. I have an Elegoo kit that brings quite a few electronics components. Started using it ages ago. I will eventually go back to it. Maybe when I retire or get retired…
The other shoe dropped with work today. I got a call from Catbert for two hours at *five o’clock*.
You better be looking for a new job. Catbert just moved you to the top of the layoff list. And the big boss has probably decided that the demo debacle was your fault.
Home.
Got my test. MAN, that is uncomfortable. It brought tears to my eyes. Then delivered the shelving to my secondary and took a pickup worth of stuff to the dumpster. Got my forklift running.
Stopped at a yard sale on the way home. Across the street they were lifting the house over 3 feet. It’s a slab on grade house. Crazy to see it with air underneath. The owners were getting tired of flooding with every hard rain. $100K said the neighbor… but unsellable as a “floods every time” house so I guess you do what you have to do.
Did they get your health insurance info ?
Unfortunately, a quarter to a half of the houses in the Houston metropolitan are need to be raised or razed. Raising them is generally $100,000 for the first foot and $1,000 for each foot after that. Razing them is probably better though and building a new elevated house like my brother did.
“The other shoe dropped with work today. I got a call from Catbert for two hours at *five o’clock*.”
You better be looking for a new job. Catbert just moved you to the top of the layoff list. And the big boss has probably decided that the demo debacle was your fault.
Oh, yeah. I pulled Catbert’s resume from the Interwebz. All I’ll say for now is that they must be kidding.
“CDC ranks Thanksgiving activities by COVID-19 risk: No gatherings with out of town relatives or Black Friday shopping”
https://www.ksn.com/news/health/cdc-ranks-thanksgiving-activities-by-covid-19-risk-no-gatherings-with-out-of-town-relatives-or-black-friday-shopping/
Uh, that is not going to go over well with the American populace. Isn’t Thanksgiving the most travel time of the year for Americans ? Everybody wants to go to Grandma’s house and hug Grandma and get those special treats that you remember as a child that now taste like crap.
BCBS just notified us that they are raising our group health insurance by about 10% on Dec 1. Grrr. This is on top of a 20% increase last year. From $850/month/employee to $930/month/employee.
My compensation rundown at work indicates that they pay $20,000 for my plan covering the four of us. $2500 deductible with HSA contributions of $100/mo out of my pretax income on top of $320/mo for the my share of the policy.
We don’t pay for health insurance for employee’s dependents, just the dependents of the officers (owners) of the company. So you have a way better deal there as that is untaxed benefits. I would like to give employees free dependent health insurance but that is an incredible expense that the corporation cannot afford.
Weird: I just looked at my checking account and I have a debit of $2.00 from Premier Parking of Nashville TN. This is a fairly new account, Jan. 2020, and I haven’t been to Nashville in 5 years. I’m going to look into this !!
“The other shoe dropped with work today. I got a call from Catbert for two hours at *five o’clock*.”
You better be looking for a new job. Catbert just moved you to the top of the layoff list. And the big boss has probably decided that the demo debacle was your fault.
Oh, yeah. I pulled Catbert’s resume from the Interwebz. All I’ll say for now is that they must be kidding.
So does Catbert remind you of the Macey’s HR manager in the movie “Miracle on 34th Street” ? The dude who thought he was a psychiatrist and was analyzing the employees ?
HR = human resistance. Remember that and all is well.
Fence is done. Neighbor was a big help, he did his side. I had the boy helping me too. He ran the nail gun, and had fun doing it. Rebuilt two 8 foot sections, including a new post. Replace pickets on our side on 6 more 8 foot sections. I have two more sections to do tomorrow, and the gate also needs to be redone. It’s sagging and the wood isn’t in great shape. That will be another day….
”
Did they get your health insurance info ?”
–no I went to the one that was specifically “free”. They got lots of personally identifiable information though. No SSN so no link to the medical reporting agency. WAY more info given up than was required. Should be like an HIV/AIDS test, you get a unique number, take the test, call with your unique number for the result. No id required. Or at least that’s how it worked over a decade and a half ago.
n
If it turns out that there are long term negative effects from wuflu, there is bound to be discrimination and all those tests will be out there. And what a backdoor way to do DNA cataloging if they wanted to.
n
We don’t pay for health insurance for employee’s dependents, just the dependents of the officers (owners) of the company. So you have a way better deal there as that is untaxed benefits. I would like to give employees free dependent health insurance but that is an incredible expense that the corporation cannot afford.
I wouldn’t take coverage for my wife and kids, but my wife’s US Government plan doesn’t offer an HSA. We use that debit card a *lot*, and I would be more limited as far as what I could put into the account annually if it was just me on the plan.
The HSA saves us a lot of money with the pre-tax mechanism.
$20,000 is crazy considering we never make a claim on it and the deductible is high. A relative of the CEO must be involved as is the case with most purchasing decisions at the company.
So does Catbert remind you of the Macey’s HR manager in the movie “Miracle on 34th Street” ? The dude who thought he was a psychiatrist and was analyzing the employees ?
They’re all like that in HR under 50 working in big companies. Most of them have psychology undergrad degrees or were “Sosh” majors.
If it turns out that there are long term negative effects from wuflu, there is bound to be discrimination and all those tests will be out there. And what a backdoor way to do DNA cataloging if they wanted to.
n
My plumber buddy’s father got a DNA test and put it into ancestry.com. He found out that he has a daughter from before he got married 50 years ago. So, my plumber buddy has an older sister in addition to his older brother. His mother is not amused, apparently getting a new daughter for your 50th wedding anniversary is not a high end gift. And my plumber buddy has yet to meet his new older sister.
–no I went to the one that was specifically “free”. They got lots of personally identifiable information though. No SSN so no link to the medical reporting agency. WAY more info given up than was required. Should be like an HIV/AIDS test, you get a unique number, take the test, call with your unique number for the result. No id required. Or at least that’s how it worked over a decade and a half ago.
You can still get an anonymous test depending on state law where you live. I have no clue about Texas statute.
My plumber buddy’s father got a DNA test and put it into ancestry.com. He found out that he has a daughter from before he got married 50 years ago. So, my plumber buddy has an older sister in addition to his older brother. His mother is not amused, apparently getting a new daughter for your 50th wedding anniversary is not a high end gift. And my plumber buddy has yet to meet his new older sister.
A girl I dated my freshman year of college got pregnant and had a kid within a year of us breaking up. The family is politically active in Boonies, FL — I think her father in law is Supervisor of Elections in one county these days — so we occasionally see the girl … well , woman, now .. and her kids in the paper. Since a strong resemblence is there, I always get the question, “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
The “kid” is 33 this year. Time flies.
$20,000 is crazy considering we never make a claim on it and the deductible is high. A relative of the CEO must be involved as is the case with most purchasing decisions at the company.
My wife’s breast cancer at age 47 was $350K: $225K from the insurance company, $50K from the clinical trial sponsor (Herceptin), $15K out of our pocket, and MDACC wrote off $60K.
My first heart attack at age 49 was $60K. I paid $3K out of pocket, the insurance company paid $9K, and the hospitals wrote off $48K.
My second heart attack at age 52 was $100K. I paid $6K out of pocket, the insurance company paid $15K, and the hospital wrote off $79K.
My heart surgery at age 58 was $130K. I paid $7K out of pocket, the insurance company paid $30K, and the hospital wrote off $93K.
Pray that you do not go through these nightmares and have to use your health insurance. There are a lot of other expenses that are associated with these issues that got paid out of pocket.
It is ridiculous all the amount of money that gets written-off. I would say that it is an outright rort…
I would say that it is an outright rort…
What is a rort ?
At first I thought you were kidding. I looked into a dictionary nevertheless. The entry has a qualifier. Maybe you were kidding me not…
INFORMAL•AUSTRALIAN/NZ
a fraudulent or dishonest act or practice.
What is a rort ?
At first I thought you were kidding. I looked into a dictionary nevertheless. The entry has a qualifier. Maybe you were kidding me not…
INFORMAL•AUSTRALIAN/NZ
a fraudulent or dishonest act or practice.
Medical care in the USA is superb. Paying for that medical care is freaking disaster.
Everyone wants medical care. Now. Nobody wants to pay for it.
And, if you have health insurance, you get a discount. Don’t try to pay with cash, no discount.
“19 Best Slipstream Books” by Dan Livingston
https://best-sci-fi-books.com/19-best-slipstream-books/
“Slipstream is an ill-defined subgenre that usually boils down to being some combination of literary, fantastical, illogical, surreal, and jarring.”
I have read only “Slaughterhouse Five” of the 19.
“27 Best Fantasy Adventure Books” by Dan Livingston
https://fantasybookworld.com/27-best-fantasy-adventure-books/
I have read “Dragonflight”, “Watership Down”, “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”, and “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” of the 27.
“Wildfires inhibiting solar power generation in California”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/09/30/wildfires-inhibiting-solar-power-generation-in-california/
Wow, irony.
This is why we left NZ to return to the US in 2004. The wife had a heart attack and after she was stabilized we were told not to expect any more care because she was over 50 and had diabetes. Social medicine you understand. At the time, private health insurance wasn’t allowed so we fled beautiful NZ, where we were in the midst of getting permanent residency, so she could be treated. In 2010 she had a triple bypass at Memphis Baptist hospital and received a VRE infection in the process. The VRE almost killed her and resulted in two more open chest operations and almost a year in hospital. The bill of over $1 million was paid by the hospital in return for not filing legal action.
I cut the grass, changed out the floodlights, made dinner. Watched a movie. Full day.
The mower has now cut the backyard twice and the front once and has 3 of 5 bars on the battery left. I really like that it’s so much quieter. It doesn’t quite move as fast as I’m in the habit of walking. The “Personal Pace” on the gas version is perfect. I never push the mower. The personal pace on the battery one is just a bit slow, and I feel like I’m pushing when I hurry. Still like the quiet.
The LED flood light fixture is MUCH brighter than the old 150w incan floods. MUCH!! brighter. The light is whiter too and the coverage is very even.
The movie was War Games with Mathew Broderick. Still a great and entertaining movie. Kids loved it. And serendipitously, the anniversary of the real life incident in the USSR was Sept 26. Google “the man who saved the world” to see the story of the Lt Col. who DIDN’T launch… The movie was from ’84? and is filled with vanished life. Rotary pay phones. Pay phones. Smoking. Smoking indoors. Pull tabs. Funny too that now hackers and computers are everywhere, while the other things are not. The version on Netflix must have been restored and remastered. It looked great.
n
RE: WarGames (1983)
I still get a kick out of saying “do you want to play a game?” in a robotic voice every time I get a boardgame or a card game out. Mostly, I am entertained by my daughter rolling her eyes at my “ancient” pop culture references.
In the early 80s I did a lot of work on synthetic voice response systems. At home I had a kit based on the TI voice synthesis chip that produced a voice almost identical to that in the movie. At that time synthetic voice was in its infancy and we had to go with stringing together prerecorded words and phrases. Today you see amazing synthetic voice software advertised on Facebook that does male / female in almost any language or accent and interests realistic pauses and “um”s.
My wife and I using that phrase on family game night triggered the kids to want to see the source material. NOW they get it. We’ve been drilling them on multiplication tables, and every time we do 7×6=42 we also shout out “the meaning of life”! If they don’t say it, their answer doesn’t count. I know. We’re strange.
n
(Hitchhiker’s Guide also provides “Don’t Panic!”, “Life. Overrated.”, and “=It’s a bit like being drunk. -Oh, that doesn’t sound so bad. =Ask a glass of water…”)
We’ve been drilling them on multiplication tables, and every time we do 7×6=42 we also shout out “the meaning of life”! If they don’t say it, their answer doesn’t count. I know. We’re strange.
On the BBC miniseries — still the definitive video version to watch IMHO — the ultimate question is finally revealed at the end as “What do you get if you multiply six by nine?”
“Six by nine? 42?”
“I always said there was something fundamentally wrong with the universe.”
Simon Jones is the only Arthur Dent … for now.
Disney had a chance and they mucked it up. Prior to that Bill Murray held the rights for years which prevented the BBC series from hitting home video in the US for almost two decades.
Haven’t seen the new version. No burning desire.
Of course I grew up with the BBC aesthetic for special effects and sets… between Dr Who and the other shows… and the python’s.
n
Haven’t seen the new version. No burning desire.
The US studios get involved and insist on making things relevant for an American audience.
“Red Dwarf” shot two US pilots before ABC/Disney gave up in the 90s. The writers couldn’t make the story ‘black’ enough to satisfy the network.
Lister and The Cat just happen to be black. The suits didn’t get it.
On the plus side for SciFi fans, the Kryten suit design currently used in the series came from the US pilots, and Terry Farrell went from playing The Cat in one of the attempts to working on “Deep Space Nine”.
Of course I grew up with the BBC aesthetic for special effects and sets… between Dr Who and the other shows… and the python’s.
The BBC “Hitchhikers Guide” TV miniseries was filmed, not taped, so the DVD set really holds up well after 40 years. The bonus features are hit or miss.
@Greg:
True, in part. BBC production practice at the time was to shoot exteriors on film (16mm) and interiors on tape, then to put all together in an edit suite.
Another alternative was to shoot the interiors in a studio, with the filmed exteriors played in live from a telecine, and record the result on tape in one hit.
Many’s the time I have sat in a telecine cubicle, listening to production talkback, and pushing the “run” button on command.
G.
Yes. They can’t leave well enough alone. I mind “Day of the Triffids” by John Wyndham. The BBC production was set in England, as is the book. The feature film is transported to the US.
And don’t get me started on most war films – looking at those, you’d think that Britain had no involvement in WWII, absent being the place from which America invaded Europe.
G.