Cold. Damp. Winter in Houston.
Tuesday it was high 40s most of the day, with overcast and misty drizzle. The sun did come out briefly in the late afternoon.
I turned on the heat for the first time last night. It was still 74F inside at 7pm, but by 11pm it had fallen to 72F. That’s too cold for everyone here. My hands get really stiff when it’s cold. I know it is winter coming because the skin at the end of my thumbs and side of my first finger gets thick and starts to crack. My dad’s fingers did the same thing. I’ll probably have cracks for the next couple of months, most of the time. Sealing them with superglue can help, as can packing them with AB gel overnight.
I had a fairly productive day, although mostly on a personal level. I got some more stuff moved and organized in the garage. Dug out some more stuff for ebay and auctions. Tested a couple of things. Got the basic shape cut out for my daughter’s COVID costume (she’s going as the virus, wife will be in yellow tyvek, daughter one will have her ‘I’m smart’ glasses, a lab coat, metal clipboard, and stethoscope. I don’t dress up, but I might throw on some tyvek and my new chainsaw hardhat and face shield…
I got my candy dispenser working. It’s a 5 foot long by one foot wide conveyor belt. It started life as some sort of UV curing tunnel, but the UV light was missing. It sat in my storage for years, waiting for me to use the motor and controller for something… so I’m using it as a conveyor belt. Whodathunkit? I need to dress it up a bit so it looks like a fantasy candy maker. I’ve got a little tiny fog machine, some blinking lights, a plasma ball, and if I have time, I’ll do some sort of moving thing on top. I’ll sit behind it and feed candy into it, which will then be conveyed to the kids…Fun! I hope the rain stops before Halloween.
I’ve got a couple of other things I want to add this year too, but that will be dependent on time…
And all the normal life things don’t stop while I’m making Halloween decor…
Like disasters, fortunately not happening to me, but unfortunate for Louisiana and Mississippi. Cat 2 hurricane, historic number of storms, 3rd in a row for New Orleans, aaannnndddd….. WAY down the page on news sites. I miss the 3 days of breathless modeling and speculation. Anyone here who is affected, reach out to us.
What a year when a Cat 2 hurricane barely rates a mention.
Keep stacking. If this is normal, think about what ‘worse’ looks like.
nick
#Win10 #Linux
Just to throw my two pence into the Win10 & Linux discussions.
I originally followed Bob as an excellent source on technology, as Jerry Pournelle declined. As a retired IBMer, I have a strong dislike for Microsoft and would choose not to use them given an option. I understand why individuals and companies continue to use Microsoft products, when to fight it would reduce productivity and effectiveness – but this individual has for a long time chosen to mainly follow the open source path. I do give advice to friends and family, as do many here, so keep my finger in the Win10 pie to facilitate that.
I have three systems, one a Lenovo Thinkpad with dual boot Win10 and Ubuntu 16.04LTS, currently set up as my Zoom goto device; the next is an HP based I5 with 8GB Ram and SSD boot drive – this has dual boot Win10 and Ubuntu 20.04LTS (default) with Virtualbox offering Win10 and WinXP environments; and finally I have an I3 based Win10 system under my TV to access live internet soccer (apps have no Linux support).
I am a typical home user, mainline use of Firefox and LibreOffice (more recently Zoom) and occasional use of GIMP. The WinXP VM is useful for some old applications and support of an old Canon scanner that very occasionally get called on.
I have found Ubuntu 16.04 a delight to use and very stable, just one very ocassonal minor problem that a reboot or command would fix. I moved my main system to 18.04LTS a few months ago: the interface has reverted to Gnome which I was less happy with – but could work with. However, I started having video driver issues with 18.04, which I got round by using nomodeset in the Grub file, but it still presented some problems. I decided a fresh install of Ubuntu might be best, but decided I might as well try an inplace upgrade to 20.04LTS. This has been a success, the user interface has been tweeked and improved and has been completely stable for a month or more. Very happy user.
As an aside, I established a small charity with a few staff (now running independent of me except for tech support) which from the start (2011) was based on Ubuntu and GoogleMail. With up to 4 staff, some of which have very low tech skills, the operation has been very reliable with little call for my support. I have had to fight off the ‘but it’s not Microsoft’ argument from time to time – from people happy to use Chrome, Android and Apple! IT costs for the Charity are next to zero, with second hand equipment and free web hosting as it is a Charity (I am webmaster – for a pretty static site).
Lastly, the PC-Pro magazine here in the UK is currently selling directly (to subscribers?) Win10 Pro for under GBP40.
The Ice Cream Sundae is on the second Wednesday of this week!
This being 2020 is it any surprise that October would have two Wednesday’s.
What a year when a Cat 2 hurricane barely rates a mention.
If you don’t live in a flood plain, your house well-built, and trees trimmed by a professional once a year, Cat 1-2 isn’t something to be overly concerned about beyond the follow-on effects — power outages, flooded roads, and, most scary, insurance rate increases if you aren’t dropped outright.
I lived it for 40 years, 10 of it as a homeowner.
It still sucks to be on the LA coast this year. I don’t miss sweating storms.
My last homeowners’ carrier in Florida was the direct coverage through the state’s re- pool. $4500/year. All of the FL-chartered carriers were technically insolvent then, and, while I could have obtained a better rate, I would have priority on a claim check out of the pool while customers of “The Good Hands” people waited.
The Cat 4/5 Charley was a wake up call for a lot of Florida, myself included. Go watch the videos on YouTube. Most of the financial hit was well inland, in Orlando.
Haha! That is SO fun!!! Lucky kids on your street, they will always remember this Halloween. Kudos to you for making it for them!!!!
I guess we’ll have to reset the counter on ‘days without an islamic terror attack’ back to zero.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8892233/Multiple-people-stabbed-terrorist-knife-attack-church-Nice.html
n
Did it ever exceed a single digit?
Mistakenly posted a few minutes ago in yesterdays stream:
I brought the Windows MS Office 2003 home many years ago for work at home as it was company subsidized. Still use it on W7 desktop but need Libre Office on W10 laptop as had trouble installing 2003 Excell there. Although it doesn’t have an Access equivalent, OK because I no longer do company work from home. Just need to remember on Libre to save files on 2003 formats.
Caution if you do use Access as I now think that cheaoer versions of current MS Office do not include Access.
While working on Launch Vehicles I found it very successful to use MS VBS for Applications to merge flight data back and forth between the Office programs and older FII prorams into MS Word data containing numerical data for sending to CCAFS prior to the launches.
If the GPS devices in your cars work ok, I made no fatal mistakes.
;
If the GPS devices in your cars work ok, I made no fatal mistakes.
Most of the time, but I’ve encountered places in the country where the GPS seems to disappear, which I suspect is some kind of jamming for security purposes.
Caution if you do use Access as I now think that cheaoer versions of current MS Office do not include Access.
SQLite has eaten the small database market and offers JDBC/ODBC drivers as well as GUI editors and Python support “out of the box”.
In my personal experience, scaling from SQLite to MySQL is relatively painless. XAMPP offers an easy transition path with its MySQL server and web control interface.
Moving to Postgres with Windows development is possible too, but the field types supported are a little different, requiring the developer to know the difference.
Nooooooooooooooo
Changing the UI to accommodate phones and tablets I can understand, but why fix something that isn’t broken? Like that stoopid ribbon thing in Office — what were they thinking? It’s like GM suddenly swapping the positions of the brake and accelerator pedals…
GPS in cars? What will they think of next?!!
Spoken by the guy who still pours gasoline through a chamois. :p
It’s like GM suddenly swapping the positions of the brake and accelerator pedals…
Or like Chrysler getting rid of pushbuttons to control the transmission.
Get off my lawn!
Oh wait, I don’t have a lawn…
Yes and no. If you count all attacks, including on other Mohammedans, then no. If you count only attacks on people we care about, then yes.
I did not like the change to the ribbon. Frustrated me for awhile. Now that I have gotten used to the ribbon I actually like it better than the old menus. More context information in the ribbon. Increased real estate but easily moves out of the way.
To each their own.
Snarky you are today young Jedi. Well said.
I thought it was just the Ford Edsel that had pushbuttons, were there others? Now that I think about it, didn’t someone have them in the center of the steering column?
Way back when I had a friend w/ an Edsel. Got honks even then. Wonder if anyone even remembers it today.
Lol, that’s a great name for a dog, btw.
As mentioned previously I have avoided Msoft Office since forever, so can’t really comment on ribbon. Coming from a Lotus SmartSuite background and now using LibreOffice. However the best usability feature I have ever used was ‘Infobox’ in Lotus SmartSuite – only a right mouse click away from control of all settings, but never in the way whilst in normal use – still really miss that.
I remember our big, black, Batmobile looking, Chrysler in the ’60s. It had push button shifting on the console left of the steering wheel. I wasn’t old enough to drive it, but I remember my Dad saying the shifting was “so smooth.”
Ribbon? Menus? ISTR my wife complained about the Ribbon at her volunteer job, so I think I changed it back to a menu bar. Is this possible? All I remember is that she stopped complaining about it. She is a much better typist than I am, yet she routinely takes her hand off the home row to reach for the mouse – a lot. I have tried to teach her about the cursor keys, but no success: she struggles to select a word accurately using the mouse. For commands, she always uses the menus, in spite of keyboard shortcuts being so much easier and faster. And, I still can’t get her to remember to use the right mouse button, which I think is a great help.
I go back to the days when all we had was a terminal keyboard, and had to learn commands. It seemed natural to me. My first personal computer on the job was a tombstone Mac with one floppy drive; don’t remember the model. It was a big change from the terminals we had previously. I remember there being no cursor keys, and this mouse thing-y. Took some getting used to, and was very slooow. Also had no connectivity. Next employer-supplied computer was a hand-me-down IBM 6 MHz AT with an NEC Multisync 14″ color monitor. I was in heaven. Finally a computer that made sense to me, and it was all mine. That thing never missed a beat, and was perhaps the best computer experience I have ever had. Everything worked dependably, and I could finally concentrate on getting work done. That was the one that exposed me to DESQview and ultimately Windows 2.1. Such diversity in those days.
That DOS computer and its applications exposed me to a whole bunch of new keyboard shortcuts. I found them much easier to learn and remember than finding something on a menu. I still hunt and peck around menus sometimes. Just me, I guess. It also exposed me to Common User Access, the IBM (or Bell Labs?) developed sorta universal set of commands and shortcuts. I liked them, mostly because I didn’t have to find the mouse. Remember, a mouse was an option in those days. Also, functions like Alt-Tab could do things the mouse couldn’t.
One thing I don’t like about most presentation managers in desktop Linux is they don’t fully support CUA or many keyboard shortcuts, and the ones they do seem illogical to me. Old muscle memory just lingers. To be fair, some of these are correct GUI design. An example is having to use Alt-o to select OK on a dialog box. Windows violates consistency and allows Enter. Makes sense to me. One area where the keyboard is relatively useless is almost every browser I have tried. Can’t even Tab between hyperlinks. They just don’t get it.
Just reminiscing.
“‘Enough of this’: Limbaugh offers solution to stop riots”
https://www.wnd.com/2020/10/enough-limbaugh-offers-solution-stop-riots/
“With the possibility of riots across America in the wake of Election Day, radio star Rush Limbaugh is suggesting a potential solution to end domestic terror: send the rioters to the U.S. military base in Cuba.”
“”I think we’re getting close to the point – we’ve got Club Gitmo down there. We got Guantanamo Bay,” Limbaugh said Wednesday on his national broadcast.”
I am ok with this.
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/
You’re telling me! I still hit lowercase ‘l’ for the numeral ‘1’ on occasion because the Loyal Royal I grew up with didn’t have one. That was 40+ years ago.
Didn’t Microsoft announce a new “improvement” by mucking around with Alt+Tab? Sheesh.
Chrysler had mechanical pushbuttons 1956 through 1964. The new Chrysler cars with 9 speed transmissions use a rotary knob. Gee, they coulda had pushbuttons.
The usual argument against pushbuttons was that they were unusual. At some point, some fleets didn’t like them, and there were expectations of FMVSS (Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards) specifying something, but they never did AFAIK. Eventually , Chrysler, the longest user of PBs, went to the more common control.
According to Allpar, other makers to use PBs for a while were Packard, Edsel, Mercury, Rambler, and Monarch. Nowadays, with most transmissions electronically controlled, any kind of switch could be used. There have been experiments, but no universally liked result. That’s why we still see rotary knobs, sequential (like a motorcycle,) One PB (I think,) and a partridge in a pear tree.
Oh, and remember when PRNDL wasn’t the only sequence? Don’t get me started on manual patterns. Class dismissed!
Didn’t Microsoft announce a new “improvement” by mucking around with Alt+Tab? Sheesh.
Yeah, just read it. Supposed to be part of a UI revamp to be released in 2021 second half, but could be staggered. If they do that, they should make the current behavior and some others user selectable. Some flavors of Linux do this.
They should make as much as possible controllable by the user. I am disliking the W10 color scheme, but I see there are many third party options. I have had essentially the same color scheme in Windows and Linux since about 1990, and like it. I use a light grey for the active window background because I use white elements when laying out pages; this prevents them from showing up on a print. Another thing to do.
I haven’t mailed my ballot. I think I’ll drop it at the polling place on Tues. BTW my mother, who passed away last Dec., did not receive one. I had the odds at 50-50 she might.
I don’t care who you are, if you start breaking into my truck while my kids are in the car and there is a riot going on, you are getting a face full of lead.
n
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8892689/Philadelphia-cops-filmed-smashing-windows-SUV-carrying-child-dragging-driver.html
Coming from the UK where the “gear stick” is always on the floor, the American style of having a huge handle behind the steering wheel seems very strange. I’ve never bought a car with that, it blocks the radio anyway. I’ve rented a few cars with the knob and I like that a lot.
Sarah is off her meds.
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2020/10/29/go-be-americans/
This is the most brutal and pessimistic she’s been in years.
n
(and that’s from the guy with the “rebuild western civ” library…)
From yesterday,
take a look at helpful downloads dot com
NO, don’t. You are using the software under their account, not yours. I would avoid.
Oops, I have a lot to learn about nonfree software. Thanks. I am cautious, but was just looking around.
Thanks also for the TechSoup recommendation. My wife and I are volunteers for a nonprofit. I glanced at it last night, and am not sure I could get anything for personal use. They do cover a lot.
Speaking of UIs, do any of the current Kindles do dark mode? I have a Paperwhite 2 and I’ve gotten to prefer the dark mode on my tablet.
Chrysler had mechanical pushbuttons 1956 through 1964. The new Chrysler cars with 9 speed transmissions use a rotary knob. Gee, they coulda had pushbuttons.
I have a ten speed automatic in my 2019 F-150 4×4. The transmission shifter is located on the steering column where God intended it to be, not taking up valuable console space. And I can shift individual gears using big plus and minus push buttons on the transmission shifter. Works great and even has a vertical 10 to 1 on the dash display showing me which gear it is in.
“With the possibility of riots across America in the wake of Election Day, radio star Rush Limbaugh is suggesting a potential solution to end domestic terror: send the rioters to the U.S. military base in Cuba.”
Gitmo is technically Cuban soil leased under a long-term agreement. It may not be legal to take a US citizen down there.
Plus, we don’t want to establish the precedent. My Bat Guano neighbor in FL who runs the snake tortures is going to be busy enough under the Biden administration.
Sarah is off her meds.
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2020/10/29/go-be-americans/
This is the most brutal and pessimistic she’s been in years.
n
(and that’s from the guy with the “rebuild western civ” library…)
“Will Lizard Man Zuckerborg and meth addict Dorsey also be dragged from their glittering mansions, their piles of white powder to be hanged in the street? I don’t know. In former times I would say no. I mean, at that level of wealth they can always move to another country and live it up, right?”
Wow, she called it.
“But what other country? No, seriously. I think most people, American born and bred, have absolutely no clue of what an outsized foot print America has in the world. America falls, the world falls.”
Yup. The USA is the last bastion of freedom in the world. All the others will fall quickly once the USA stick is removed.
That is ultimately what is eating at me. It’s come to this: I sit here feeling old and useless.
Me too.
“With the possibility of riots across America in the wake of Election Day, radio star Rush Limbaugh is suggesting a potential solution to end domestic terror: send the rioters to the U.S. military base in Cuba.”
Gitmo is technically Cuban soil leased under a long-term agreement. It may not be legal to take a US citizen down there.
Plus, we don’t want to establish the precedent. My Bat Guano neighbor in FL who runs the snake tortures is going to be busy enough under the Biden administration.
Sure it is. We’ve already taken several USA citizens there who were captured in the middle East.
I would rather be in a re-education camp in Camp Gitmo than one in North Dakota, given the choice. Both are going to be horrible, I saw the original “Red Dawn” movie.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dawn
One comment: “But I’ve also been wondering something else. You’ve got the firearms community who talk about the “4 boxes” to use.
Soap box
Ballot box
Jury box
Ammo box”
Mine is located in the middle console where real drivers want it located. God never drove a pickup. I can select manual shifting if I want using up/down buttons on the shifter. I also have 1st and 2nd as a position. Mine is a six speed transmission with overdrive (which I cannot disable). I also have a TOW/HAUL selection button that changes shift points, locks up the torque converter, adds engine braking and automatic downshifts for downhill. What I have never understood is that the truck knows I have a trailer connected and will not select TOW/HAUL mode automatically.
Coming from the UK where the “gear stick” is always on the floor, the American style of having a huge handle behind the steering wheel seems very strange. I’ve never bought a car with that, it blocks the radio anyway. I’ve rented a few cars with the knob and I like that a lot.
The current Ford Expedition has a rotary knob in the console. It was just another reason why I did not buy an Expedition.
BTW, I am loving my 2019 F-150 4×4. I drove it through two miles of six inch mud a couple of weeks ago looking at a large acreage property. I am still carrying 100 lbs of mud in the undercarriage from that experience. I ended up locking the rear axle differential about halfway through as I was sliding around so much. That really helped as we did not want to have to walk out of there.
As PaultheManc mentions above, I accepted Bob’s advice wrt Linux. After assembling a PC following his writings in BTPPC, I installed a second HDD and labeled it D:, leaving the initial HDD hosting Windows XP as C:.
Reading a number of posts on Bob’s technical forum wrt which Linux version to install, I chose Kubunto and installed it on D: as primary partition.
Oh-oh, then the surprises arose: booting the D: is now primary, non-favorite screen resolution, and unacceptable WiFi security.
Booting: I expected C: Windows to be the nominal and to use the BIOS to boot into Kubunto after tapping the start key. Nope, Kubunto booted and to get to Windows to do real work, I had to boot into the BIOS to get there. Well, I did find a file in the initial sequence of the C:Windows patition that contained the alterted sequences that BIOS followed. The initial installation of Kb altered that and made D:Kubuntu as the first bootable and C:Windows as the second. Okay, I then switched them and rebooted. Now, C:Windows came up when I had to work with MS Excel, etc., but boot through BIOS to D:Kb when I wanted to hobby.
Screen resolutiion: Kb booted with a non-likeable for me. I rebooted to Widows at wrote down its nominal that I preferred (nominal among about seven selectable for that and following Windows boot-ups). Rebooted Kb, but the resolution could not be easily changed by dragging cursor as ot was not one of the three available. I had to find the subject subroutine in the Kb start files and modify the code and then reboot through BIOS to get the resolution I desired, ad that was ok for now.
OK, then came an update and those in the forum said some had trouble, but here is the link to a complete reinstallation. OK, did that. But, again rebooted in to the new KB with bad resolution without going through BIOS. Well, had to go back into W XP and resequence C: and D: and the into KB ton switch resolutions.
Another Kb update and more minimally useful refixing boot options and resolutions.
About time for me to switch from home hard wired to home WiFi. I saw that the nominal security was WPA1 and noted that Bob had strongly suggested WPA2 as far more difficult to hack. Consequently, I could select and use it when connected with Windows OS but not with Kb active. Ok, went to a Linux forum and found a guy with the same make and model of the WiFi card that I had in my motherboard. He said download this xyz version of firmware, install it and you will be good to go with WPA2 as I am. Well, to no avail, totally stuck.
Finally, got fed up this partially useable hobby and gave up. Realizing the the
Advent of the Industrial Revolution was characterized by machines now working for man; however, I was now in the Terminal Phase of the Indusrial Revolution as I was now working for the machine..
Not sure about ‘real’ Kindles but Fire tablets do and that is what I and the wife use.
“Boeing assessing technologies for next commercial jet: CEO”
https://www.flightglobal.com/airframers/boeing-assessing-technologies-for-next-commercial-jet-ceo/140851.article
Boeing is gone. Sorry but they are so yesterday. They just need to fix the 737 Max by putting the ultra lean burn engines on the 757. They have to use the 757 in order to get the long landing struts to give the engines clearance in the proper position under the wing instead of forward of the wing.
The SpaceX Starship will also go ballistic. New York to Tokyo in 30 minutes. Refuel and back the same afternoon. Ballistic is the future for long hauls.
The day I bought my Toyota 4×4 I promptly buried it up to the hubs in a freshly plowed field ‘testing’ it with a friend. It was just pouring rain and I guess I wasn’t wearing my thinking cap. Some old geezer came by in battered old Ford pu and laughed along with us as he pulled me out with the tow rope he (always? ) carried.
Reminiscing – thanks for the memories.
“U.S. GDP Grew 33.1% in Third Quarter, Fastest Expansion Ever”
https://nworeport.me/2020/10/29/u-s-gdp-grew-33-1-in-third-quarter-fastest-expansion-ever/
“The standard formula for calculating GDP in the U.S. annualizes the quarterly changes, which can exaggerate the changes. Absent annualization, the economy grew at 7.4 percent in the third quarter, by far the biggest quarterly gain in records that began just after World War II. The previous record was 1950’s 3.9 percent gain.”
The USA economy is coming back. I am not sure that it is coming back fast enough to save Trump though. I am more and more convinced that the Chinese Flu was done on purpose to sink Trump.
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/
I am loving my 2019 F-150 4×4. I drove it through two miles of six inch mud…
The day I bought my Toyota 4×4 I promptly buried it up to the hubs in a freshly plowed field ‘testing’ it with a friend. It was just pouring rain and I guess I wasn’t wearing my thinking cap. Some old geezer came by in battered old Ford pu and laughed along with us as he pulled me out with the tow rope he (always? ) carried.
Reminiscing – thanks for the memories.
I buried my Expedition about ten years ago driving over to the septic tank to shut the alarm off since it had flooded during the ten+ inches of rain. It promptly got stuck. One of my guys pulled me out with his Tahoe and a tugem strap. Then I walked back to the septic tank in five inches of water to shut the alarm off.
That locking rear axle on my F-150 is really nice and keeps one spinning wheel on the rear axle from stranding you. It came with the Max Tow package that I specified with the vehicle.
Push buttons? Dials? Automatics!!! Real men drive manual transmissions. If you didn’t get a third pedal when you bought your vehicle, you were ripped-off. (Now where is my crank-handle so I can start my jalopy…)
Push buttons? Dials? Automatics!!! Real men drive manual transmissions. If you didn’t get a third pedal when you bought your vehicle, you were ripped-off. (Now where is my crank-handle so I can start my jalopy…)
My wife says that I drive a manual transmission nowadays like a spastic monkey. And that is her old ultra smooth Honda Civic EX 5 speed rice rod that we still own.
I got a shyte eatin’ grin on my face when I junked my last car and the pickup dude jumped out as fast as he jumped in sayin’ “I can’t drive this thing.” Best anti-theft, car jackin’ device evah.
Back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, I would be regularly pressganged on hi absentee Fridays at the auto assembly plant to drive new cars off the Final Assembly line out to the inventory lot ’cause I knew what the 3rd pedal was for.
I’ve read that 97% of new American autos come with auto trannys. (That sounds painful and VERY un-PC.) It is not possible to GET a manual on even many of the most inexpensive model cars. The various anti-collision warning systems won’t work with a manual.
Added: My parents drove Dodge/Chrysler products from the mid 50’s till 1971 and lamented the disappearance of the push button transmission.
“Tested: SpaceX’s Starlink Satellite Internet Service Is Fast, But It’ll Cost You”
https://www.pcmag.com/news/tested-spacexs-starlink-satellite-internet-service-is-fast-but-itll-cost
“Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet project is faster than its retail competitors, according to data from Ookla Speedtest Intelligence. But then again, nobody is really using it yet.”
“Starlink beta invites went out this week, but Speedtest Intelligence has been collecting data on it throughout its development period, which they just released to us. The system currently has 895 small, relatively low-flying satellites in the sky and aims to eventually deploy 12,000 of them.”
“The company quoted speeds of “50Mb/s to 150Mb/s” in a recent email to beta test users, so the results we’re seeing are by and large in line with that.”
Yup, who knows what it will look like when they get ten million users. Of course, they can keep on adding more and more satellites up there. And probably will as the average satellite apparently has a five year life before it drops into the atmosphere and burns up.
@nightraker:
Only applies in a default automatic transmission environment. Assuming the miscreant doesn’t just trash the vehicle.
G.
“Gitmo is technically Cuban soil leased under a long-term agreement. It may not be legal to take a US citizen down there.
Plus, we don’t want to establish the precedent. My Bat Guano neighbor in FL who runs the snake tortures is going to be busy enough under the Biden administration.”
Sure it is. We’ve already taken several USA citizens there who were captured in the middle East.
The Expatriation Act allows the Government to strip citizenship from individuals caught fighting as enemy combatants overseas. It would take a huge legal stretch to apply that to US citizens arrested domestically as part of BLM and Antifa.
It will only take one pretty white coed going on 60 minutes and describing being subjected to snake torture for the whole scheme to end and a lot of navel gazing to commence.
“She was in the wrong place at the wrong time …”
Meanwhile, Soros and company will be busy.
Boeing is gone. Sorry but they are so yesterday. They just need to fix the 737 Max by putting the ultra lean burn engines on the 757. They have to use the 757 in order to get the long landing struts to give the engines clearance in the proper position under the wing instead of forward of the wing.
The 757 assembly line is gone. If Boeing is going to start over, they might as well build a new plane.
The A220 will soon start rolling out of Mobile at the rate of 10 per month. I’ve always maintained that Boeing made a serious mistake having that tanker deal reopened to keep the 767 alive, leaving Airbus with an empty building in a right-to-work state with all the zoning in place to fly big planes in and out.
Yup, who knows what it will look like when they get ten million users. Of course, they can keep on adding more and more satellites up there. And probably will as the average satellite apparently has a five year life before it drops into the atmosphere and burns up.
My guess is that, sooner or later, Tony and the Telecom Co-Dominium will ask for what’s left of the terrestrial broadcast spectrum to fulfill the “pizza box” dream they’ve been teasing for 40 years.
This time, they’ll really mean it. Promise.
I’ve read that 97% of new American autos come with auto trannys. (That sounds painful and VERY un-PC.) It is not possible to GET a manual on even many of the most inexpensive model cars. The various anti-collision warning systems won’t work with a manual.
Thank CAFE for the disappearance of standard transmissions. With 8 and 10 speed transmissions, the computers can out shift humans. Of course, the transmissions won’t last as long and will be twice as much to fix, but that isn’t the EPA’s problem.
I don’t see standard transmissions surviving in the 54 MPG environment starting in 2025. That would require a diesel engine, and we all know the story there.
The move to fly-by-wire to make the fleet more amenable to automation isn’t a government mandate, just an agreement between all the parties, but eliminating standard transmissions doesn’t hurt the cause.
I remember my dad had a 1963 Plymouth Fury with a push button automatic transmission. Not the sexiest way to shift gears.
Very true. Enthusia$t vehicles will be the last hurrah for the stick shift and even those can come with the auto trans today. I know I’m a stick in the mud with the 6 speed, 1911’s and Zippo. I *DID* move on from DOS/Desqview…
Added: I had to reach back to a used 2018 Subie to avoid “EyeSight” “safety” driver override and get the stick when the 2004 bit the dust.
Yup, who knows what it will look like when they get ten million users. Of course, they can keep on adding more and more satellites up there. And probably will as the average satellite apparently has a five year life before it drops into the atmosphere and burns up.
My guess is that, sooner or later, Tony and the Telecom Co-Dominium will ask for what’s left of the terrestrial broadcast spectrum to fulfill the “pizza box” dream they’ve been teasing for 40 years.
This time, they’ll really mean it. Promise.
Tony ? You lost me.
Thank CAFE for the disappearance of standard transmissions. With 8 and 10 speed transmissions, the computers can out shift humans. Of course, the transmissions won’t last as long and will be twice as much to fix, but that isn’t the EPA’s problem
Very true. Enthusia$t vehicles will be the last hurrah for the stick shift and even those can come with the auto trans today. I know I’m a stick in the mud with the 6 speed, 1911’s and Zippo. I *DID* move on from DOS/Desqview…
Added: I had to reach back to a used 2018 Subie to avoid “EyeSight” “safety” driver override and get the stick when the 2004 bit the dust.
You can still get a 6 speed manual in the Jeep and the new Ford Bronco has a 7 speed manual option.
“My guess is that, sooner or later, Tony and the Telecom Co-Dominium will ask for what’s left of the terrestrial broadcast spectrum to fulfill the “pizza box” dream they’ve been teasing for 40 years.
This time, they’ll really mean it. Promise.”
Tony ? You lost me.
The Real Life Tony Stark (TM). Neither of the current Telecom Co-Dominium CEOs have the personality required to sell Congress on auctioning off the spectrum remaining below 1 GHz.
Boeing is gone. Sorry but they are so yesterday. They just need to fix the 737 Max by putting the ultra lean burn engines on the 757. They have to use the 757 in order to get the long landing struts to give the engines clearance in the proper position under the wing instead of forward of the wing.
The 757 assembly line is gone. If Boeing is going to start over, they might as well build a new plane.
The A220 will soon start rolling out of Mobile at the rate of 10 per month. I’ve always maintained that Boeing made a serious mistake having that tanker deal reopened to keep the 767 alive, leaving Airbus with an empty building in a right-to-work state with all the zoning in place to fly big planes in and out.
The 757 is still certified. Certifying a new plane is a 10 year journey. And I’ll bet that they still have the machine jigs for the 757. If not, they are idiots. Wait, Boeing is a bunch of idiots without a pilot CEO or a pilot in the BOD.
Boeing has a serious liability in the 737 MAX. All of those planes have to be fixed or replaced. The FAA wants them replaced.
Boeing should have modernized the 757 and used it as a replacement for the 737. From a non-pilot pov, it just feels like a slightly wider and longer 737 inside.
And it’s tall. Plenty of room for modern engines underneath.
The 757 is still certified. Certifying a new plane is a 10 year journey. And I’ll bet that they still have the machine jigs for the 757. If not, they are idiots. Wait, Boeing is a bunch of idiots without a pilot CEO or a pilot in the BOD.
Boeing has a serious liability in the 737 MAX. All of those planes have to be fixed or replaced. The FAA wants them replaced.
The 757 assembly line was in Renton, and the last plane rolled off the assembly line in the early 90s. Chances are all the tooling is gone.
Renton was a blighted industrial area even 20 years ago, but now it is very desirable real estate in the Seattle area. Boeing has sold off big chunks of the property as operations have would down at the site in the last decade.
I had to laugh when we saw that Boeing HQ in Chicago is in what used to be the Morton Salt building — yet another old line industrial company that is a shadow of its former self.
No one at Boeing complained when the Daley political machine carved up the runway at Meigs Field, eliminating the only runway downtown to make the swampy mess of a “park” anchored by a creepy-looking outdoor concert venue.
Will they climb out to max altitude essentially vertical and then go down, or as an airplane climb out and then cruise level before gliding down. If vertical, what type cabin environment system to prevent asphyxiation, total non-leakage, or active pressurization?
“Exxon to cut 1,900 jobs, mostly in Houston area, in downsizing effort”
https://www.chron.com/business/article/Exxon-Cutting-1-900-U-S-Jobs-in-Response-to-15685408.php
“(Bloomberg) — Exxon Mobil Corp. will slash its global workforce by 15% over the next two years, an unprecedented culling by North America’s biggest oil explorer as it struggles to preserve dividends.”
“The cuts will include 1,900 U.S. jobs, mostly in Houston, as well as an undisclosed number of positions around the world.”
“Exxon’s Big Oil rivals are also cutting thousands of jobs in response to the pandemic-induced demand slump. BP Plc plans to slash 10,000 jobs, Royal Dutch Shell Plc will cut as many as 9,000 roles and Chevron Corp. has announced around 6,000 reductions.”
Here we go. And many of the other premiere companies in oil and natural gas business have already been laying too.
The SpaceX Starship will also go ballistic. New York to Tokyo in 30 minutes. Refuel and back the same afternoon. Ballistic is the future for long hauls.
Will they climb out to max altitude essentially vertical and then go down, or as an airplane climb out and then cruise level before gliding down. If vertical, what type cabin environment system to prevent asphyxiation, total non-leakage, or active pressurization?
Musk gave a presentation on this 2 or 3 years ago. The route will be full ballistic with 15 minutes in free fall. Free barf bags. The initial ticket price will be $5,000 per seat.
The Starship will be used in 200 seat configuration. Fully pressurized using a non-leakage system, after all, it is a space ship.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship
My only real concern is, as you recall, the failure rate of the Space Shuttle was 1 in 99. The Starship will need to be way, way, way, better than this. 1 in 1,000,0000 failure rate is the target for me.
Boeing should have modernized the 757 and used it as a replacement for the 737. From a non-pilot pov, it just feels like a slightly wider and longer 737 inside.
And it’s tall. Plenty of room for modern engines underneath.
Tall is a problem at third world airports often lacking jetways. Plus, the 757 needed longer runways and had more delicate landing gear when Boeing had to make a decision about the plane to keep Delta happy as the 757 nears the end of its useful life.
While it isn’t ideal, 737s can land on grass strips if necessary, and Boeing sells a kit which allows the plane to operate from gravel strips on a regular basis.
Now, Delta is p*ssed off … and buying Airbus.
Here we go. And many of the other premiere companies in oil and natural gas business have already been laying too.
Exxon has been laying off and outsourcing IT to India for a while. I saw resumes at my last job starting two years ago.
The big chucklehead undergrad I know who went to work there from our CS department at the university still has a job, but it looks like he’s doing something in HR. “Development Talent Advisor”?
Chucklehead looks good in a suit and talks well. He can’t code worth a darn.
Boeing should have modernized the 757 and used it as a replacement for the 737. From a non-pilot pov, it just feels like a slightly wider and longer 737 inside.
And it’s tall. Plenty of room for modern engines underneath.
Yup, the minute that they had to decide about moving the new ultra lean burn engines ahead of the wings they should have abandoned the 737 modification. That is the problem with not having any pilots in top management. The 737 MAX would be ok for a cargo airplane, not a human transport plane. Too dangerous.
Boeing should have modernized the 757 and used it as a replacement for the 737. From a non-pilot pov, it just feels like a slightly wider and longer 737 inside.
And it’s tall. Plenty of room for modern engines underneath.
Tall is a problem at third world airports often lacking jetways. Plus, the 757 needed longer runways and had more delicate landing gear when Boeing had to make a decision about the plane to keep Delta happy as the 757 nears the end of its useful life.
While it isn’t ideal, 737s can land on grass strips if necessary, and Boeing sells a kit which allows the plane to operate from gravel strips on a regular basis.
Now, Delta is p*ssed off … and buying Airbus.
The 737 MAX has the same transport capability as the initial 757. The problem is that Southwest did not want to pay to re-educate its pilots. The FAA should have forced Boeing to recertify the 737 MAX anyway as it is essentially a new plane.
If you think Delta is upset, try Southwest. IIRC, they have 200 of 737 MAXes parked or on order. That is a lot of capital in a plane that has lost it certificate to fly in the USA.
Ha. When I was the Airfield Commander at Fort Drum, NY, the Air Force wanted to put in a gravel strip for training with C130s. I said go ahead, there is plenty of room. Months later it was done and looked great. A C130 came in, landed, and parked on our ramp. The crew found tons of dents in the undercarriage. That was the last time it was used. They took off on our concrete runway. We joked about dozing up the gravel and planting a pot farm.
Pretty much any high testosterone model still has a stick option. Today. Does the Raptor or any PU have a manual base or as an optional package? I see even new production 18 wheelers use auto trans standard.
I learned driving stick to manage my first car, an AMC ’75 Jeep CJ-5. 3 on the floor. The one Nader didn’t like. Got the top trim package with the V8 and the optional rear seat included. The passenger seat had become standard only the year before and I upgraded to power steering after I built up my arms for a couple years.
When I bought the used Subie last year, the Chrysler dealer had the modern equivalent Jeep stickered for almost exactly 10X what I paid back then and 2.5 times the year old Subaru. The Subaru makes sense in this Northern clime as an any weather, any road machine. Far more comfortable and capable for that purpose than my old choice.
The pun in their slogan didn’t become apparent to me until a few months ago.
I remember my dad had a 1963 Plymouth Fury with a push button automatic transmission. Not the sexiest way to shift gears.
Maybe not sexy, but a lot of street drag races were won using pushbuttons. Even serious dragstrip racers used them. Hard to miss a shift. Later, there were aftermarket shifters that did something similar.
Enthusia$t vehicles will be the last hurrah for the stick shift and even those can come with the auto trans today.
That hurrah has already played. Exotics have all abandoned the manual for dual clutch designs. Other makes have deleted the torque converter to increase gas mileage. These are all dual clutch designs, and most are automatic shift with manual override. There have been many complaints, so they are probably having growing pains. I would like to try one of these, but I also like manuals. Haven’t had one for a while… Automatics with torque converters are still my favorite. That extra 2x torque multiplication and smoothness really help in all situations, especially drag starts.
How many here (excluding farmers?) have driven a crashbox? These are still in big rigs and motorcycles, but they probably disappeared from cars in ~1940. Not at all hard once you get the hang of it. Shifting them smoothly is an art, and I have seen some people who never learn.
I learned to drive from a friend who taught me how to shift w/out a clutch. He also taught me how to fly, albeit in a 172.
I was able to shift without using the clutch on my 1965 VW Bug. That was the last car that I had with manual transmission.
Although I still have the skillz to do that.
How many here (excluding farmers?) have driven a crashbox? These are still in big rigs and motorcycles, but they probably disappeared from cars in ~1940. Not at all hard once you get the hang of it. Shifting them smoothly is an art, and I have seen some people who never learn.
I always shift a crashbox (manual transmission with no synchromesh on the gears ???) by double clutching and matching the rpms.
@lynn:
It’s not deemed airworthy world-wide, and in fact the FAA were laggard in pulling its airworthiness certificate. Europe, at least, and, I think most of the world, acted before the FAA got off the pot.
As far as I know, the 737MAX will not be waved through in Europe, just because the FAA pass it. Although I will guarantee you that there will be attempts from the US to bully certification through. Boeing is too important, and lobbies too well, for that not to be tried.
“If it’s Boeing, I ain’t going.” Which is why RyanAir are already renaming the 737MAX as the 737-8200, or something similar.
G.
crashbox (manual transmission with no synchromesh on the gears ???)
Roger that
I’m watching Plugs on the ‘net down in FL, I think. Is it just me, or is he getting really angry? He really fumbles thoughts while raging. Something is wrong with the dude.
_Watchdog_ by Will McIntosh
https://www.amazon.com/Watchdog-Will-McIntosh/dp/1524713872/?tag=ttgnet-20
A standalone book, no prequel, no sequel of young adult science fiction. I read the well printed and well bound trade paperback. I have been eagerly reading books by Will McIntosh for several years now since reading his _Soft Apocalypse_ book several years ago.
Thirteen year old twins Vick and Tara are homeless in Chicago in the near future, searching the city dump for electronic parts to recondition and sell for food. They live on top of an abandoned apartment building in a shed they built.
In the near dystopian future, people use robots for menial tasks and protection. Vick and Tara build an almost sentient watchdog robot from parts found at the dump. Their robot is so popular that everyone wants it.
My rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.7 out of 5 stars (116 reviews)
I was able to shift without using the clutch on my 1965 VW Bug.
Not recommended on any synchronized transmission. Do that more than a little, and unless you match speeds perfectly you will turn it into a non synchro trans.
I had a 65 Bug. Only new car I have ever bought. Had a 62 before that, and a 70 much later. Liked them all, but kinda hard to work on. Easy to take the engine out, but never needed to. Helped others with theirs.
The clutch cable came loose once, and I drove it a mile or two home. Kept in one gear and did not shift or stop. Had trouble with a chattering clutch, and the dealer had done the factory recommended fix of putting a spacer in the cable tube back at the transmission. Somehow didn’t put the cable back on right; can’t remember which end. Simple fix, but glad it wasn’t at a critical time. Never met a VW whose clutch didn’t chatter at least a little. Smooth in reverse, unlike American cars, which were the opposite if they chattered at all.
“Tens of thousands of heart attacks caused by preexisting conditions are being counted as COVID-19 deaths: CDC”
https://noqreport.com/2020/10/29/cdc-shows-again-how-pretty-much-anyone-who-died-with-covid-19-died-from-covid-19/
“There is no evidence that the coronavirus causes heart attacks or anything that can lead to a heart attack, but tens of thousands of them were counted as COVID-19 deaths.”
We have had 237 deaths attributed to COVID-19 in Fort Bend County (population of 820,000). All but one of them had comorbidities listed according to the paper.
“Of the 220K+ deaths reported as CV-19, the actual cause was:
88,208-pneumonia/influenza
17,799-chronic respiratory disease
26,365-respiratory distress synd
44,261-hypertensive disease
23,275-heart disease
28,000-cardiac arrest”
https://principia-scientific.com/finally-cdc-admits-just-9210-americans-died-from-covid19/
This is crazy if it is true.
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/
I’m watching Plugs on the ‘net down in FL, I think. Is it just me, or is he getting really angry? He really fumbles thoughts while raging. Something is wrong with the dude.
Dementia. And it has been going on for a long time. “Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden told a worker he was “full of s***” during an argument over gun control while touring a Detroit plant on Tuesday morning.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k2UeoY4uyU
What a jerk !
I’m watching Plugs on the ‘net down in FL, I think. Is it just me, or is he getting really angry? He really fumbles thoughts while raging. Something is wrong with the dude.
Biden is easily enraged going back decades, long before the dementia.
Excellent. The more of those the merrier. 🙂
A beautiful day here in the high desert, 85F, no wind, the sage is in bloom.
I’ll drag a telescope out tonight, even though there is a waxing moon – Mars should be overhead at midnight. A little past opposition, but what’s a few million miles?
Downloaded MX Linux, looking for a USB key to put it on. I own dozens, but must have put them somewhere “safe”.
I did finally find my notebook on the Mint 19 install…password is what I thought it was. Reading through the notes, I’d forgotten about all the acpi issues I had, the hex core AMD just wouldn’t turn off. Such a 90’s issue – what’s next, hand editing the IRQ’s for a sound card?
Anyway, will try MXL, see how it fits. If not, there are options.
Also ordered a couple of Raspberry Pi 3’s. Slightly cheaper than a 4, and don’t need a fan. For a pi-hole and squid server more than good enough, probably. Went with Canakit, as they include the case, the card, and the power supply.
Trump should get one, call it “Space Force 1”.
Since a plane is “Air Force 1”, and the Marine Chopper is “Marine 1”.
Paint it up just right.
I can see him walking down the ramp now, in Japan or Australia, waving, with that big grin on his face, the blistered smoking hull in the background.
Musk should offer him on for free. What PR that would be.
“Netflix is raising the price of its most popular plan to $14 today, premium tier increasing to $18”
https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/29/21540346/netflix-price-increase-united-states-standard-premium-content-product-features
“The basic plan will remain $9 a month”
I am not sure if anyone in my house is watching Netflix lately. I am watching Hulu, the wife is watching imdb.com (Amazon), and the daughter is watching Disney+. They had better get the new Stranger Things on soon or we might cancel.
Real men uses manual shift period
Anyway, will try MXL, see how it fits. If not, there are options.
If MX Linux doesn’t work for you, try Fedora 33, just out today.
I run Fedora on my home server without problems, but where it really shines is on a 4 GB Dell Inspiron I use for a road laptop. Fedora 33 runs zram as the priority swap space, and the machine runs noticeably better.
I read somewhere it is now April 2021.
Real men uses manual shift period
60 is too old to shift manually. And the wife says I shift like a spastic monkey.
Getting into reverse in a VW Bug was weird. It was underneath 1st gear.
3 on the tree was a fun one.
Applied at the Microsoft non profit portal for the church. Got 10 years of Office 365 for 25 users for $0.00.
I could shift my 85 chevy chevette without the clutch. You had to listen, and COMMIT. No limp wristing it.
When I was in highschool all the street racers just jammed it with no clutch. you couldn’t be fast using the clutch. The motorcycle street racers had something called an ‘air shifter’ that banged it into gear so quick you didn’t have time to grind the gears.
I commuted in LA for a couple of years with a stick. Got rid of that as soon as I could after that. Jeez what a constant battle in heavy slow and go traffic.
n
Well, daughter one has a close classmate that tested positive today. We got the email to those that had “prolonged or intimate” contact with the infected. We are to ‘keep an eye’ on her and see if she develops symptoms.
The district only sends the letter on test confirmed cases, and the kid got pulled out of class, so mom got him a test then sent him back to school for a couple of days. Sweet. This is why we can’t have nice things.
Now I’ve got a worried little monkey.
n
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/10/huge-breaking-exclusive-hunter-biden-pornhub-account-uploaded-personal-porn-including-family-members/
–sh!t’s getting weird. The noose is tightening.
n
My dad bought be. 67 VW bug for my high school car. Then he took me into San Francisco to learn to drive it. You don’t know panic till your at the top of a steep SF hill, with traffic behind you and you are trying manual shift for the first time and you keep stalling it. When I got home I parked that car and never drove it again. Bought myself a Honda 450 instead. My next car was a 1968 IH scout but I never took it into SF.
Ah! I’d had a very few lessons with a stick before picking up that new Jeep. Bought it the next state over, so most of that first drive was on the freeway. No problem! Until I reached town. An extremely modest uphill bend in the right turn lane nearly stumped me. Musta stalled it 4-5 times before I got it going. Sweatin’ bullets for sure.
60 (which I am) is too young to let the car do the shifting.
As others are observing, it is getting very difficult to find a manual: either the bottom-of-the-line spare every expense econobox or the extra fancy super-sporty top-of-the-line models. It is the reason I have never owned a North American manufacturer’s car. VW, Mazda, and Audi for me. In another 6-8 years, I doubt I will find a manual transmission car for love or money.
@greg: Fedora 33. i admit it never occurred to me. last time was v.6, or maybe v.9? huh. no bad memories that i can recall.
Heh. That’s me at 16 in an old 3-speed Corvair in Martinez Ca.
My father thought it hysterical.
Newer cars with manual transmissions have an “automatic hold” feature that keeps the brake on if you are on an uphill until it thinks you have enough momentum to go forward. Really freaked me out the first few times as I would release the clutch and the car would not go until I gave it enough gas for it to start moving fast. I don’t need this feature, I know how to accelerate smoothly from a start on a moderate hill and have no trouble coordinating both hands and feet on a really steep hill (clutch accelerator, wheel, parking brake) to do the same. Annoying safety feature for noobies driving a manual. Trying to find out if there is a way to disable this in the electronics (this is a “feature” in 2016 Audis).
Subaru calls it “Hill Holder”. There is an unlikely procedure to disable it. Trawl thru an Audi forum (Edmunds?) is my suggestion. I rather enjoy it. Might be early trauma!
Clear, windless, and cold (47).
The nearly full moon and Mars were riding high.
Seeing was decent, so i took the opportunity to use the 3” refractor and an Orion zoom (7-21mm) someone had recommended. A far cry from the horrible horrible zooms of the 1980s. i’ll have to compare it against a decent fixed focal length plossl, but it’s good enough for casual viewing.
Getting into reverse in a VW Bug was weird. It was underneath 1st gear.
3 on the tree was a fun one.
Look up modern floorshift manual gear patterns, after someone declared first had to be a push forward, and reverse a pull rearward. Really wierd. Note that doesn’t apply to automatics.
@ed, glad there was some visibility. Nice to get a report here after all this time…
n
You think so?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jh09uIN6tl0
Watch the entire series for good Halloween stuff.
.mg
I learned on a “three on the tree ” on my Dad’s 1969 Pontiac Stratochief (well, bottom of the line Pontiac – this was happening already in 1969). For floor shift patterns, Audi/VW put reverse to the left of 1st gear. Mazda put reverse where 6th gear would be (it was a 5 speed) with a push down IIRC. Either makes sense as being out of the normal progression and so unlikely for you shift into reverse at speed and blow up the transmission.
All of these can be aggravated by COVID. Especially the first three. In fact, pneumonia is the main fatal side effect of a COVID infection. So I call bogus.
If it isn’t COVID, how do you explain 200k+ excess deaths? How?
Didn’t you answer your own question in the first sentence “can be” instead or “are”? A snippy answer, I know. The numbers are there, only the accuracy is questioned in my mind. I wonder more: how many deaths did “MASKS” and “SOCIAL DISTANCING” prevent? I also wonder how the testing was done? Was there a followup test done to eliminate false positives? Maybe the numbers include false p’s and the excess deaths were gonna happen anyway.
I know someone that had COVID. They were tested three times. Each test was counted as a positive even though only one person was affected. There is no linking of a current test to a previous test for an individual. A test that is positive, even on the same person, is a new positive test that is counted in the numbers. Three positive tests, but only one person. Thus the true number affected is not even close to being accurate. About as stupid an accounting system as can be used.
Second stupidest.
The stupidest is having hospitals report on the number of people dying of the Chinese Flu while giving the hospitals a financial incentive to report people as having it.