Supposed to be clear and nice out. I hope I can get some outdoor work done, but I don’t want to risk any setback with my back troubles. Might have to just not do anything. Not good for the list.
Yesterday was a gorgeous day, and I mostly missed it. My wife and youngest child took advantage of the cool night and camped in the back yard with a fire in the pit. They had a great time. Oldest child went right to bed and crashed out. She’s eleven but knocking on puberty’s door and it wears her out. I am SO not looking forward to moody teen years.
I didn’t make it out to my client’s house. I was just hurting too bad. Grid down will purely suck if it hurts that bad. Analgesics and antibiotics, stack them high.
Some updates.
The toilet works. No one has had to plunge it in the weeks since install. What a HUGE difference. Speaking of, 3/4″ difference in throne height is a HUGE difference, if you’re used to it… I’m going to have to find a thicker seat to make up the height. Falling that last 1/2″ is – disconcerting.
Didn’t get anything into the garden yet. Grapevine is greening up. Peach tree has leaves. Something ate every single marble sized fruit off my potted grapefruit and lime trees. The blueberries are flowering and filling in. No green on the grapefruit, orange, or Meyer lemon that froze, but I’m still hopeful. There is some evidence of life under the bark on the bigger branches. Apple tree is leafing out. The wife’s tomato plants are flowering.
NVR computer is running, but since updating the linux install, the NVR software crashes about every other day, with a core dump. Seg faults and other issues. I think it may be something to do with ffmpg as it was one of the packages updated, and I have streams that now tear and turn into colored lines, and that never happened before. F me. I’m about ready to just spend the money on hardware and repurpose the pc for my wife or kids.
Haven’t replaced the Expedition yet either.
We’ll see what things on The List I feel up to today. I’m sure there is something I can do. And there are lots of things that need doing.
Keep plugging away, and keep stacking.
n
@nick
Sure hope you find relief soon. Chronic pain truly is debilitating.
Busy this week. Got the last couple of young rabbits into the freezer. Did two of the rabbits with our friends oldest boy. Good learner, keen and willing. I picked up salt and alum and he’s tanning the two hides. I’ll help him flesh the hides Saturday or Monday.
I broke down and ordered 6 really nice wire cages, 30”x24” with 18” high interior. I’ll be able to get all the does bred at once.
Not done moving. That sucks. A lot. Hoping to get a lot done tomorrow. Easter Sunday. Church and egg hunts and visiting, and contemplation of the miserable state of my soul.
Learned today my sister is hospitalized with cirrhosis. Conflicted. We were never close and are oil and water. We go months without talking. Went a year once and I didn’t notice. She has values that are very different from mine. I hope she is ok, I don’t wish her ill.
Anchorage Mayoral election draws to a close Tuesday. Mail in only. Difficult to not be cynical about results. Outside entities have poured three times in opposition to what locals have raised in support of the recall of my assembly man. I’ve put nearly all of my discretionary spending into the recall effort. I can earn more money.
The 26 chicks are happy and ready to move into larger accommodations. I saved the box from our bathtub. It’s a bit worse for wear from being outside on the deck, however it’s clean and roomy. I think it’ll work until they’re fully feathered and can move to coop and run.
lot of snow on the ground. Garage leak from improperly installed flashing between garage and house. Ice damming tells me we will be adding insulation this summer, not in three or four years. Shoveled a bunch of snow off the roof over a couple of days. Had help. Hard work.
Anchorage Mayoral election draws to a close Tuesday. Mail in only. Difficult to not be cynical about results. Outside entities have poured three times in opposition to what locals have raised in support of the recall of my assembly man. I’ve put nearly all of my discretionary spending into the recall effort. I can earn more money.
Austin has a special election May 1 to decide about granting the hypocrite Mayor more power and moving elections for the office to Presidential election years. The ballot also includes an initiative pretending to give voters some kind of choice about homeless camping.
The city’s latest solution for the urban camping problem is to move the homeless up into the sliver of the city that extends into the county where we live. Not many eligible city election voters live in that part of the metro because the point of annexation was to capture the tax base from the Applied Materials plant hidden near the hotel. Plus, the council seat went Republican in the last election so a price must be paid for that.
https://www.fox7austin.com/video/913659
Looking at Apple’s new buildings the other day while driving past the construction site, I noted that the footprint of their latest campus is carefully located *outside* the city limits. *Very* carefully located. We’re talking distances measured in feet.
I see the main problem with plug’s Infrastrure program: He does not, as Obola referred to his, as “shovel ready”.
Need more than a shovel to move that steaming pile.
This is a common problem. In Canada it’s the same – lots of money set aside for “shovel ready” construction, except years later nothing has started and the money is not spent. It is not as if the infrastructure repairs or new-build are not needed, it is just that no-one does all the prep work until funding is available. If that prep work includes environmental assessments, etc…, that can be years. Even longer depending upon how many conditions the government places around releasing the funds.
There is NO SUCH THING as “SHOVEL READY”. It is a lovely phrase, and there are (honest) good intentions, but we know the destination of that road much of the time.
Up and moving. MUCH less pain so far. Things must have relaxed and moved during the night, as I was hoping they would. I’m going to try to stay away from the keyboard as that is one of the aggravating factors for the mid back pain.
Wife went for shot number two and has returned. Said she drove thru heavy rain, so I don’t think we’ll be clear much longer.
I’m hoping for a slow weekend, world news wise, and locally.
n
This is a common problem. In Canada it’s the same – lots of money set aside for “shovel ready” construction, except years later nothing has started and the money is not spent. It is not as if the infrastructure repairs or new-build are not needed, it is just that no-one does all the prep work until funding is available. If that prep work includes environmental assessments, etc…, that can be years. Even longer depending upon how many conditions the government places around releasing the funds.
In the US, the money gets spent even if nothing tangible ever appears.
“Shovel ready” comes from the 1980s, when the Reagan Administration first got the Federal Government involved in projects which were actually the responsibility of state and local governments, as a gimmie to Congress in return for supporting the President’s other legislative priorities.
High speed rail comes to mind.
‘In the US, the money gets spent even if nothing tangible ever appears.’
High speed rail comes to mind.
Voters are fascinated by the Japanese trains. Most would ride … once.
Florida’s Brightline is a specific use case, but it will probably be another generation before the trains reach places where the economics truly make sense.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/least-3-killed-4-injured-north-carolina-mass-shooting
–whole lotta “wrong” baked into this short artile.
-yes it is a ‘mass’ shooting. Note that they’ve had to switch to that because if you know your victims it doesn’t meet the def for other types.
“Once upon a time, mass shooters targeted “soft” targets like, well, schools, office buildings and other public places. ”
–that’s because those shooters were classic “active shooters” or terror attacks. This was a personal beef or gang related
“We saw at least one incident unfold this past week at a sleepy office in Orange, Calif.”
–again, known victims = not a classic mass shooter, just mass murder
” Chief Williams said he doesn’t feel the public is in any danger. We’d be curious to learn how they determined that.”
–that would be because the Chief knows this is gang business or personal and thus “the public” is not a target.
“This was at least the fifth mass shooting since states in the US started relaxing their restrictions on movement and business operations, while allowing more people to gather at private dwellings.”
–implies that it’s caused by relaxed restrictions. Some parts of the population never paid any attention, the same parts that end up shooting into house parties.
–Look at the google street view for that area. Not too bad, but not great either. Broken windows, commercial mixed with residential, cars parked on front lawns.
This was just another gang shooting or low impulse control personal attack. It was NOT random attack on the public.
n
“The FBI does not use the term “mass shooting” and instead refers to these events as active shooter incidents. They exclude drug or gang violence .”
— and thank a benevolent deity for that!
the LAST thing we want is effective “lawmakers”.
n
According to a new study, Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is one of the least effective members of Congress.
But a lot of men still want to have sex with her so she will be reelected.
Even Scott Adams of “Dilbert” fame isn’t immune if you pay attention to his podcast.
Need to add a 1 TB internal SATA 3.0 HDD to a new PC. Any particular brand folks here are recommending these days? Thanks.
Need to add a 1 TB internal SATA 3.0 HDD to a new PC. Any particular brand folks here are recommending these days? Thanks.
For spinning metal, around here, the general consensus is WD Black, but the last one I bought runs hot and noisy. That reminds me — it is due for replacement since the warranty is up.
For internal SSD drives, I run Crucial exclusively in all of my laptops now.
I have had good service from Samsung drives. I have three of them.
lynn keeps track of drive performance issues, he’ll surely chime in soon…
I can’t remember ever having an issue with a modern drive, regardless of maker.
Get one optimized for your use though, they are getting to be specialized.
n
My current dream:
Mars Attacks!: They blew up Congress
WRT hard drive brands, I’ll be back in a while. Going to get my BTPPC and look it up.
I replaced all of the HDDs here with Western Digital Blue 3D NAND November 2018. No problems at all. Two 500GB in one PC, and a 1GB in two other PCs.
I don’t have any current hard disk info, but
https://www.storagereview.com/
was always my favorite review site. Haven’t followed it since Gene took on a partner years ago, but the fact it is still ariund is encouraging. As with all reviews, look at his methodology and decide for yourself.
Bl**dy Google. When I tried to view the “Mars Attacks” link above, I got shunted to consent.google.com, from whence I cannot escape, whatever I do.
Of course, I use Ublock Origin and Privacy Badger, both turned up to 11, but I can neither accept all cookies, nor can I select which cookies I am willing to accept.
This suggests that Youtube is now unusable for me, which is a pity, because I want to archive a UK TV show called “Time Team”.
So much for the Chocolate Factory not using 3rd party cookies.
G.
Link worked for me, but then I watch a lot of youtube and am signed in with my account.
I’m running uBlock origin too.
n
Geoff, give the Brave browser a try. I use multiple browsers for different purposes, and am inpressed at how good Brave is for YouTube. No ads, and no yammering from other sites about using an ad blocker.
Others have suggested Vivaldi, but I haven’t got around to trying it yet.
/me is not logged in. Whether that is significant, I don’t know. On the other hand, I’ve been trying to stop YT from prerolling ads. Maybe I’ve turned the blocking up too far. I need to check this – I think I remember what I did to stop ad prerolls – which worked for a couple of days. Now (before today) the video starts playing, then recues.
.
/me goes away and edits UBlock’s configuration. With no change.
/me installs Brave. It works. Still not logged in to YT.
G.
Geoff, I use AdBlock for YouTube™ on Dissenter, which is a fork of Brave.
I never see ads on yt, I log in and use ublock. It’s seamless too.
Drives me nuts to watch on the tv before bed, Freaking a loud ads. That’s why as soon as I get some time, I’m going to try pi hole…
n
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/dollars-share-global-reserves-tumbles-lowest-1995-yuan-hits-all-time-high
-if your only argument against the possibility of hyperinflation is that the dollar is the world’s reserve currency, what do you say when that is no longer true?
n
What is /me? All I find when searching is clearly not applicable.
@nick; lmk where you get yours, I could use some extra as the To Do list keeps expanding…
…loud ads.
My biggest complaint is that the preroll ads frequently are sent at very high resolution, and cause hugh delays on my slow Internet. Can’t change anything, so I used to simply skip any such content. With Brave, except for one week when the devs messed something up, no ads, no hassles.
BTW, who gets the revenue from those ads? The channel owner? I doubt it, because I mostly watch little mom and pop channels, and I doubt they would annoy their viewers.
I often say “All I need is time and space.” Please send a link for both.;)
Need to add a 1 TB internal SATA 3.0 HDD to a new PC. Any particular brand folks here are recommending these days? Thanks.
Stay away from spinning rust unless you need more than 2 TB. Soon to be 4 TB. WD Blue 1 TB SATA SSD is $101. I have got the WD Blue 500 GB SSD running in my home pc.
https://www.amazon.com/WD-Blue-Internal-Solid-State/dp/B0792LL46V/?tag=ttgnet-20
The smaller spinning drives have been converted to SMR instead of the faster CMR random access.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/04/caveat-emptor-smr-disks-are-being-submarined-into-unexpected-channels/
Youtube monetization is a huge topic, and many tubers have discussed it.
If you allow monetization, you get a split of the ad revenue. It used to be much bigger, but some whales were getting too much money for the suits at yt, so they changed the rules. The ‘tubers still get big money, just not BIG money.
Little guys, with 100K subs and 50K views are making very little money for most views, but it depends on the channels viewership demographics.
It’s even weirder when you are a musician and you use a licensed version of your own song, you might make far more from the license fees than you would from views alone… mary spender discussed this in the last month or so.
Monetization must be worth it for some, because I watch several channels that went full time when their subs got high enough. Most also have Patreon accounts, and some do chats on a platform that allows people to donate during the chat. That can add up quickly. Louis Rossmann does that and he’s talked about how little he makes off the channel.
Bedo’s Leatherworks uses his channel to drive business to his brick and mortar store. It’s mostly mail in stuff for him to work on, and he’s got more work than he can do.
Lots of different models for how to make it pay.
Remember, the corp is evil, the content creators are (probably) not.
n
Stay away from spinning rust unless you need more than 2 TB. Soon to be 4 TB. WD Blue 1 TB SATA SSD is $101. I have got the WD Blue 500 GB SSD running in my home pc.
https://www.amazon.com/WD-Blue-Internal-Solid-State/dp/B0792LL46V/?tag=ttgnet-20
Here is the correct link for the WD Blue 1 TB at $105.:
https://www.amazon.com/Blue-NAND-1TB-SSD-WDS100T2B0A/dp/B073SBQMCX/?tag=ttgnet-20
The other link was a reseller. There possibly be dragons at that link.
@JimB says:
I often say “All I need is time and space.” Please send a link for both.;)
Please send me your “money” link if you don’t need it.
Guess I should have said more time and space. I don’t need more money. I have enough money. Of course, with that attitude, I will never be wealthy.
I once read that at age 78 or something like that, J Paul Getty still worked 14+ hours a day. I wouldn’t do that. Life is too short. Obviously, Getty loved what he did.
Lynn, I have some old (20+ years) bare drives. There is nothing of value on them, but I spin them up every year or two just to see if they still work. They do. How long do think a modern SSD would last if not powered up very often?
I know it is probably different, but I have some flash memory (SD) cards that sat in a drawer for probably five years. About 20% of them will not mount, even with one of the repair apps. They also contain nothing of importance. My theory is that the small charges dissipated. I don’t trust any form of flash memory for more than temporary storage.
Are SSDs different? How best to handle them?
Tempus Fugit and All the World is Corruption.
Entropy wins in the end.
I don’t really trust anything that sits. Even books acidify and get eaten by vermin.
n
anyone think this is a GOOD sign for the economy?
n
and keep in mind, a whole lot of reselling takes place off ebay. Ebay is like myspace right now.
n
@lynn; this will be my first opportunity to
mess upwork on a PC with an SSD. According to its specs it supports one SSD (already installed – M.2 format) and one HDD (not installed). if I go with a second SSD is it a plug/play replacement for the HDD? Am I correct that I may need a bracket to fit the 2.5″ SSD into the 3.5″ HDD bay?https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/04/03/epas-totalitarian-assault-on-america/
While people like Petey Buttjuice are driven most of the way to work in a Chebby Suburban, have their bicycle unloaded by Secret Service Agents (is their a ribbon or a badge for Excellence in Bicycle Unloading?) , and pedal triumphantly the last couple of blocks “zero carbonaceously”.
If I understand correctly FaceCrack Marketplace is the in thing. And CL seems to be mostly (sleazy?) dealers and people trying to sell things that are either rusty or ripped (or both).
Yes to both questions. You may have a 2.5” bay in the case. Power and data cables will be identical.
Lynn, I have some old (20+ years) bare drives. There is nothing of value on them, but I spin them up every year or two just to see if they still work. They do. How long do think a modern SSD would last if not powered up very often?
I know it is probably different, but I have some flash memory (SD) cards that sat in a drawer for probably five years. About 20% of them will not mount, even with one of the repair apps. They also contain nothing of importance. My theory is that the small charges dissipated. I don’t trust any form of flash memory for more than temporary storage.
Are SSDs different? How best to handle them?
Not a clue. I have bought a few hundred spinning drives in the last 30+ years from 20 MB to 12 TB. I have never worried about ability of them to work after ten years. I do have some externals that are approaching 20 years, maybe I should try one. I have had many spinning drives fail over the years in various manners, usually a head drop. Usually we outgrew the drives.
I have bought about 30 or 35 SSD drives in the last 10 years. About 2 or 3 have failed. Again, we outgrew a lot of them. So I passed them down the line so most of our PCs are running SSDs.
Flash drives are a whole another matter. I would guess my failure rate on the 10 or 20 that I have bought is 50%. I have a 128 GB in my truck, it has failed once and then I reformatted it EXFAT. It has yet to fail again but, who knows.
Over what time period? Failure rate is 100% over a long enough time.
Flash drives are a whole another matter. I would guess my failure rate on the 10 or 20 that I have bought is 50%. I have a 128 GB in my truck, it has failed once and then I reformatted it EXFAT. It has yet to fail again but, who knows.
Over what time period? Failure rate is 100% over a long enough time.
Ten years. And many of the flash drives that I have bought are the cheapest things I could buy for the capacity that I thought I needed.
I was really surprised when the 128 GB Sandisk failed in my truck. But my truck is a Ford Sync 3 Linux Android radio with two USB ports, no CD player. The 128 GB Sandisk came formatted FAT32 if I remember correctly. I have changed the content of the 128 GB from audio books and audio CDs to audio CDs only (about 200 CDs) since the Sync 3 has trouble indexing the Sandisk.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/04/03/epas-totalitarian-assault-on-america/
While people like Petey Buttjuice are driven most of the way to work in a Chebby Suburban, have their bicycle unloaded by Secret Service Agents (is their a ribbon or a badge for Excellence in Bicycle Unloading?) , and pedal triumphantly the last couple of blocks “zero carbonaceously”.
Here is the proper URL:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/04/03/buttigieg-caught-faking-green-lifestyle-rides-bike-to-work-after-car-drops-him-off-near-destination/
You know, the Ivy Leagers used to be the backbone of the USA. Not any more, many of them seem to be scumbags nowadays.
Scumbags is too nice.
And what it says about how they feel about us is damning too.
n
Stock up if you can find anything…
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/04/02/iowa-becomes-19th-state-end-concealed-carry-permit-requirement/
@jimb:
IRC-ism for person typing the text, used as such here. Probably archaic, except in IRC. May work in Slack and similar, but you’re likely to encounter similar questions.
G.