Tues. April 6, 2021 – what am I paying you for???

By on April 6th, 2021 in personal, Random Stuff, WuFlu

Cool and clear, warming throughout the day. I hope.

Monday was partly cloudy and warm, with a hint of cool in the breeze once I got out of town. My client is about 30 miles outside of Houston, all freeway or country road, and the weather out there is always cooler than in town. They got through the freeze without much trouble. He’s got a big whole house generator, that FAILED to start, but they were only dark for 3 hours. The company that maintains and services the gennie, specifically so it starts when needed, sent out a guy right away and solved the issue, but they never needed the gennie again. Some switch was left in the wrong position. Anything can fail. Standby generators with automatic switches seem to be especially prone to failure, maybe for the same reason that “emergency food” universally tastes horrible- no one really expects to use it. In this case, they lose power frequently. The gennie gets used. It gets ‘exercised’ every week automatically. A service guy comes by regularly and maintains it. And it still failed to start automatically.

They had one outside plumbing line break during the three dark, windy, and very cold hours (no power, no well pump, no trickle for the faucet). There are a couple of lessons in this whole tale, including one that isn’t very obvious. His plumbing is all pex homeruns from a manifold in the attic. He could have simply closed the valves on the lines leading to outside faucets, and then opened the faucets to drain, without affecting the rest of the house. His plumber had him do that afterwards to stop the leaking at the faucet until he could come by and fix it. Simple right? But if you don’t know how your systems work, or what their capabilities are, even very smart people can miss straightforward preventative measures, and simple fixes.

So how did my actual work go? The problem was two pieces of gear got out of sync, probably during the power outage, and a reboot cleared the issue. While I was there anyway, I cleaned the outdoor TVs and cleaned all the camera domes. We talked about the rip and replace, and that will be going forward now. Just have to work out the design, get all the gear ordered, and find the time for an install, and we’ll be good to go.

Today I’m hoping for a dropoff at my ‘industrial’ auction house, but IDK if that will happen or not. I’m sure I can find more to do. Like paperwork for taxes- I spent the first part of my day yesterday doing Jan-June. Plenty more in that pile that needs doing.

In fact, plenty of stuff to do. I should really get started.

If you don’t have a list of what you need to do before CWII or the economic collapse really get going, you might want to make one. Just sayin’. Then you’ll have a better idea what to stack. And you KNOW you need to get stacking.

nick

69 Comments and discussion on "Tues. April 6, 2021 – what am I paying you for???"

  1. Greg Norton says:

    Faux-ci is the kind of ProgLibTurd who would squeal just at the sight of a water board and bucket.

    Corn snake and a burlap sack like my Colonel Bat Guano neighbor in Florida used at Gitmo.

    Googling around had her on John Poindexter’s payroll pre-9/11. She probably knows Fauci.

  2. Nick Flandrey says:

    All the more reason to avoid having your name turn up in a vanity search….

    n

  3. Nick Flandrey says:

    68F and 88%RH this morning. Kid2 gets special breakfast, spam and hash browns, as she has STAAR testing today.

    n

  4. Greg Norton says:

    The gennie gets used. It gets ‘exercised’ every week automatically. A service guy comes by regularly and maintains it. And it still failed to start automatically.

    So, during the pandemic, the service didn’t miss a single visit or send out someone underqualified do the maintenance?

    Based on what I saw at the last job with the high end trades working on our projects towards the end of summer, I’d be surprised.

    Texas was, to borrow a piece of Buffett’s Simple Homespun Wisdom (Ghostwritten by Carol Loomis of Fortune) (TM), “swimming naked when the tide went out”.

    And the towel boys were working from home that day.

  5. Greg Norton says:

    All the more reason to avoid having your name turn up in a vanity search….

    The Bat Guano types who have those freak show jobs love to run their mouths about their importance. She got called in to testify about Poindexter’s antics in hearings post-9/11.

    Plus, the house had two mortgages as well as being used as collateral for two more mortgages used to buy an investment condo (safe house?) near the base in Tampa, everything spread across three military credit unions. Then there were the $250k in “green” home improvements and converting their Prius to plug-in. It all generates quite a paper trail in Florida.

  6. Clayton W. says:

    Desolate Areas:  My Mom lives a few hours south of Albuquerque and she was showing me the sights.  It occurred to me that we hadn’t seen another car for HOURS.  A breakdown can literally be fatal.  She keeps a case of bottled water in the car all the time.

  7. Greg Norton says:

    But if you don’t know how your systems work, or what their capabilities are, even very smart people can miss straightforward preventative measures, and simple fixes.

    Anyone who owns a single family house should know where the main cutoff valve for the water is located and have easy access to the right tool to turn the valve.

  8. ITGuy1998 says:

    Anyone who owns a single family house should know where the main cutoff valve for the water is located and have easy access to the right tool to turn the valve.

    My wife and the boy know, but I should do a refresher course for them.

    I need to do some work on the sprinklers in one of the raised garden beds. Some water got trapped and I have several split pipes. I’m going to redesign so I can remove them completely when the season ends.

    I’m scheduled for my first Covid shot tomorrow (Moderna).

  9. Alan says:

    Anyone who owns a single family house should know where the main cutoff valve for the water is located and have easy access to the right tool to turn the valve.

    Same for the natural gas and electric power.

  10. ITGuy1998 says:

    In other news, the wife and I are headed out to pick up her new-to-her car this morning. Her dream car is a hard top convertible. We found a 2013 Lexus IS 250C at Carmax (why do I keep finding unicorn cars there?). The car has 8700 miles and is showroom new. Carmax has a new 24 hour test drive, so we did that last weekend. I was able to check it out at the house (put it on the lift and inspect everything, as well as hook up my scanner). My only concern is the top. If it breaks, it could be expensive, but you only live once. I have informed her that if it breaks in the closed position, she will likely just have a coupe from that point on.

    Carmax’s price is fair. Definitely on the high side, but not unreasonable.

    I’m selling her existing car to Carvana. They offered me 3k more than Carmax, and 4k more than the local Honda dealer (I don’t know why I keep trying to deal with them, but I do). I have a pickup scheduled for Saturday at the house. I requested a check in hand at time of transfer (they also have an ACH option). Hopefully the process goes smoothly.

  11. Greg Norton says:

    What? Tony needs more subsidies?

    I’m shocked! Shocked!

    https://www.fox7austin.com/news/elon-musk-calls-for-urgent-need-to-build-more-housing-in-austin

    I thought that the whole point of the local government mortgaging the future of their school system was that the Gigafactory would bring in jobs for the existing population living near the site, not transplanted Californians living two counties away in places like Taylor … or … Jarrell?!?

    As the management at CGI learned the hard way, there is a reason growth hasn’t happened along I35 in places like Jarrell — the people already living there don’t want it.

  12. Chad says:

    Anyone who owns a single family house should know where the main cutoff valve for the water is located and have easy access to the right tool to turn the valve.

    Same for the natural gas and electric power.

    Skip paying the bill for a few months and watch where the guy from the utility company goes when he visits. 🙂

  13. ed says:

    Anyone who owns a single family house should know where the main cutoff valve for the water is located and have easy access to the right tool to turn the valve.

    I do know, but gophers or ground squirrels have filled the utility box with dirt.  i’ve been meaning to clear it out.

    Oddly the meter guy apparently has X ray vision and can still read the buried old style meter.

  14. Greg Norton says:

    I do know, but gophers or ground squirrels have filled the utility box with dirt. i’ve been meaning to clear it out.

    Oddly the meter guy apparently has X ray vision and can still read the buried old style meter.

    I just took the weedeater to our box. I verified that I could get at the valve before the storm, but the neighbor’s grass was growing over the cover since he constantly fertilizes.

    If the meter guys can’t get inside the box, they extrapolate from the previous month and usage history. Heck, in Florida they would extrapolate if they simply didn’t want to get out of the truck in July.

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  15. Ray Thompson says:

    Oddly the meter guy apparently has X ray vision and can still read the buried old style meter.

    Meters are now read electronically. The guy just drives by and via BlueTooth or some other interface the meter responds with a reading to the vehicle. Some utilities will only read every other month extrapolating the amount from previous billings.

    MIL News.

    We have been informed that MIL may not survive until the 10th when the wife is scheduled to fly out to San Antonio. We are trying to find a location to give my wife the second Maderna vaccination so she can leave early. She already has a flight reservation and we are hoping that Southwest Airlines will allow her to change the flight under the circumstances.

  16. TV says:

    His plumbing is all pex homeruns from a manifold in the attic.

    That sounds absolutely frightening to me. Every house I have owned (OK, 2, but still 100%) has had water leak problems ruining ceilings because the main bathroom is on the second floor by the bedrooms. The manifold is in the attic? Rodents like the taste of pex – oh boy…

  17. SteveF says:

    ITGuy1998, can you keep the same sprinkler design but set the pipes on a slant so they’ll drain naturally?

  18. Nick Flandrey says:

    “so they’ll drain naturally? ”

    –or install a schrader valve so you can use a compressor to blow them out in the fall.

    n
    re:pex. The worst freezing damage in the informal poll the local FB group did was copper pipe followed by CPVC and almost no one with pex had any damage at all. Since we were originally piped with galv steel, there were a few of those too.

    Of course, I’ve shared the story of my buddy and his two floods from rats eating the pex in his attic, so there is that as a balance.

    re:pex in the attic, in Houston, its very common to have plumbing runs in the attic, down into the house. Most people have their hot water heater in the attic too, and my client is no exception. At least you know pretty dang quick when you have a leak.

    n

  19. Nick Flandrey says:

    BREAKING NEWS: Suspect, 38, is shot dead by military personnel at Fort Detrick in Maryland after opening fire at base and injuring 2
    Just after 8am Tuesday, Frederick police said they responded to active shooting
    The department said two male victims have been flown to a Baltimore hospital where they remain in critical condition
    Police said the gunman, 38, was killed by military personnel at Fort Detrick
    First responders rendered aide, but the suspect later succumbed to his injuries

  20. JimB says:

    Re water heater in the attic, Why not put a pan under it and connect it to a drain? Seems sensible to me, especially considering extensive damage otherwise. Gravity works.

    I have always lived in places with low or no attics, even in snow country. No equipment was ever in any of those attics because of poor acessibility, and the possibility of freezing. Basement. In rare cases of no basement, furnace room. Yes, I am old fashioned.

  21. Nick Flandrey says:

    the pan is there, and required by code. Doesn’t always work.

    n

  22. brad says:

    Lazy Easter weekend, and now paying for it with lots of work :-/

    @Lynn: I saw your question a couple of days ago. No, the proposed buildings aren’t the crazy neighbors. It’s a couple of empty plots nearby that are in danger of being rezoned to agricultural land. Which would seriously reduce their value. So the owners are pulling out all the stops to find some way to keep them in the residential zone.

    The background: this part of Switzerland zoned way too much land as residential. This was a great way of boosting the land value, and lots of city folk came here and built their little mountain retreats in really stupid spots. The result is that you’ll see a beautiful mountainside, but a couple of rich jerks have built chalets right in the middle of it.

    As a belated reaction, the whole region is now required to massively reduce the areas where people can build. The new zoning is just now being finalized, and property owners see their valuable residential land about to be rezoned into cow pasture. Those with land on the edge of a town are trying desperate measures to get it suddenly *in* the town.

    My Mom lives a few hours south of Albuquerque and she was showing me the sights. It occurred to me that we hadn’t seen another car for HOURS. A breakdown can literally be fatal.

    I lived in Albuquerque for a large part of my childhood, and know the area south fairly well. Was this somewhere around Truth Or Consequences? There are roads that just go on forever, and you wonder who ever uses them. Lovely scenery, if you like the high desert. When I moved away from NM, I felt like I’d moved to an oppressive green jungle.

    Back to the high desert now, or as near as Switzerland comes to it. Feels like home.

    in Houston, its very common to have plumbing runs in the attic

    That would give me nightmares. In a month, or a year, or a decade – there will be a leak – why make the damage worse than it needs to be? Pipes belong down.

  23. Greg Norton says:

    the pan is there, and required by code. Doesn’t always work.

    The “last resort” drain pan under my air conditioner in Florida failed when the unit had a serious leak, creating a big mess.

    I’m not impressed with the pan under our water heater at our current house, located in the attic above our master bedroom closet. Our regular plumber, when he first saw the installation, arranged by the previous owner, said, “You’re going to call me about that one day.”

  24. lynn says:

    Desolate Areas: My Mom lives a few hours south of Albuquerque and she was showing me the sights. It occurred to me that we hadn’t seen another car for HOURS. A breakdown can literally be fatal. She keeps a case of bottled water in the car all the time.

    So do I. And in the wife’s Highlander. And we live in a swamp.

  25. Clayton W. says:

    Was this somewhere around Truth Or Consequences?

    She lives in Socorro, but we were in that area.  Desolate area.  I can’t even imagine covered wagons through there, even though I know they went through the area.

  26. Nick Flandrey says:

    funny thing, I had a case of water in 12oz cans in my Expy, and a case of flavored water. About 1/4 of each was empty when I took all the stuff out of my truck. They’d worn tiny holes in the cans and they drained slowly. So tiny, I could squeeze the can and it didn’t crush or noticeably deflate.

    Water in bottles is the better long term choice.

    n

  27. TV says:

    in Houston, its very common to have plumbing runs in the attic

    That would give me nightmares. In a month, or a year, or a decade – there will be a leak – why make the damage worse than it needs to be? Pipes belong down.

    I guess it depends if you have a basement. In Canada, you need to go down below the frostline with foundations, so it is rare to find a house without a basement, and that is where all utilities (water line, water heater, furnace, gas line, electrical panel) live/enter the premises. (Southern Ontario anyway. If you build on rock (Canadian Shield) or in the Arctic (permafrost), then no basement). Gas meter and electrical meter are on the outside wall, but they feed into the basement. I have never seen a house up here with water lines in the attic, if for no other reason than that the attic is usually unheated, and pipes would freeze up there.

  28. Alan says:

    In other news, the wife and I are headed out to pick up her new-to-her car this morning. Her dream car is a hard top convertible. We found a 2013 Lexus IS 250C at Carmax (why do I keep finding unicorn cars there?). The car has 8700 miles and is showroom new. Carmax has a new 24 hour test drive, so we did that last weekend. I was able to check it out at the house (put it on the lift and inspect everything, as well as hook up my scanner). My only concern is the top. If it breaks, it could be expensive, but you only live once. I have informed her that if it breaks in the closed position, she will likely just have a coupe from that point on.

    Carmax’s price is fair. Definitely on the high side, but not unreasonable.

    I’ve sold three cars to Carvana, two Subbies and a VW. One of the Subbies was so mint that one of the Carvana guys bought it. The other two went to auction. All three sales took at most 15 minutes, very friendly, no BS, and walked out with check in hand. So far, haven’t bought a car from them but they don’t care. They buy stuff they won’t sell just for goodwill and reputation points. They want to dominate the used car space.

    I’m selling her existing car to Carvana. They offered me 3k more than Carmax, and 4k more than the local Honda dealer (I don’t know why I keep trying to deal with them, but I do). I have a pickup scheduled for Saturday at the house. I requested a check in hand at time of transfer (they also have an ACH option). Hopefully the process goes smoothly.

    I know two people that have had VW EOS hardtop convertibles. Certainly slicker than a soft top but oh man, just looking at the associated up/down mechanism made queasy. Not sure if this applies to the Lexus but for the EOS VW has a special owner-applied lubricant that’s supposed to help keep the top in working order. Worth checking into.

  29. Alan says:

    I do know, but gophers or ground squirrels have filled the utility box with dirt. i’ve been meaning to clear it out.

    Depending on where you live, if your utility box needs cleaning out watch out for more dangerous critters that may have taken up residence therein.

  30. Alan says:

    She already has a flight reservation and we are hoping that Southwest Airlines will allow her to change the flight under the circumstances.

    Airlines are never your friend when it may cost them money. If they won’t help and you want to pursue it, if you or your wife has a big social media following, make your case there and include the airline, that sometimes gets their attention.

  31. lynn says:

    Pearls Before Swine: Finishing Ulysses
    https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2021/04/06

    Uh, I have NEVER done that. Ok, but less than a hundred times.

  32. Nick Flandrey says:

    I use a shop vac for digging small holes or cleaning dirt out of holes. It works really well and is the little brother to a legit excavation technique.

    n

  33. Alan says:

    the pan is there, and required by code. Doesn’t always work.

    Sometimes the leak will be such that it overflows the pan, Good reason to have a moisture sensor alarm there. Mine connects to my security system. Alarm company called one when the washing machine drain pipe got clogged and overflowed. Able to prevent a larger mess than we had.

  34. Chad says:

    I was trading in my soft top convertible many years ago for a regular sedan and the car salesman and I got to BS’ing about convertibles and he says, “I’ve hardly met anyone that ever owned two convertibles and none that owned two in a row.” He may have just been patronizing me since I was switching from a convertible to a regular, but now that I think back I’ve never met any of those people either. lol

  35. Ray Thompson says:

    Airlines are never your friend when it may cost them money. If they won’t help and you want to pursue it, if you or your wife has a big social media following, make your case there and include the airline, that sometimes gets their attention.

    Southwest Airlines, we will see what happens. I am not really that concerned as all I will be out is the $250.00 I paid for the round trip. There would be some negotiation involved, maybe just a credit for a future flight. The money is coming out out of the MIL’s funds and not my pocket.

    This whole thing has the wife fairly upset. Not so much with the impending demise of her mother, but with the aggravation it is causing. Her mother has become very demanding, “I want it my way, and now” scenario. Difficult to do when a person is present, daunting when having to do so on the phone. Wife’s brother is not helping. Wife asks him to do something, he doesn’t and does something entirely different. He threw away several boxes without looking in the box which is not good. MIL had a habit of hiding money in books and other places. Wife’s brother also took several boxes home and the disposition of the items in those boxes is very much in question.

    The family all know the end is close, just a matter of how soon. Wife hopes is not until she gets to SA on the 10th as currently scheduled. May even be driving her to Nashville tomorrow for a late flight to SA. While wife is there I expect the return trip to be delayed if MIL does not croak. If MIL croaks while wife is there I am facing a long 22 hour (two day) drive alone to San Antonio. Then a stay of who knows how long. Hopefully no more than four or five days.

  36. lynn says:

    The family all know the end is close, just a matter of how soon. Wife hopes is not until she gets to SA on the 10th as currently scheduled. May even be driving her to Nashville tomorrow for a late flight to SA. While wife is there I expect the return trip to be delayed if MIL does not croak. If MIL croaks while wife is there I am facing a long 22 hour (two day) drive alone to San Antonio. Then a stay of who knows how long. Hopefully no more than four or five days.

    Pack now. Throw in some of your favorite books, sounds like you will need some distraction.

    Where are the boxes at since she sold her home ?

    Will she be staying in a hotel or with her brother ?

  37. lynn says:

    the pan is there, and required by code. Doesn’t always work.

    Sometimes the leak will be such that it overflows the pan, Good reason to have a moisture sensor alarm there. Mine connects to my security system. Alarm company called one when the washing machine drain pipe got clogged and overflowed. Able to prevent a larger mess than we had.

    My 15 year old electric 50+ gallon water heater at the office split the tank in 2019 and overflowed the pan in the attic. Dumped a thousand gallons in the office ceiling, walls, and carpet. The water well had no idea what was going on so it just pumped water at 30 gpm.

  38. Nick Flandrey says:

    Looking at pricing for hunting ammo. F me, it’s even worse than target or defense. $5/rnd for 300 win mag. and other calibers are near or higher than that.

    jeez, good thing you only need a couple of rounds per hunt.

    n

  39. lynn says:

    “US, UAE say they’ll invest in Middle East decarbonization”
    https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/546486-us-uae-say-theyll-invest-in-financing-middle-east-decarbonization

    Why are they going to steal my tax money and spend it in the middle east ?

    This is crazy.

  40. lynn says:

    “Baltimore removes statue of slave-owning merchant from waterfront”
    https://thehill.com/changing-america/respect/equality/546784-baltimore-removes-statue-of-slave-owning-merchant-from

    At this rate, I am wondering when they are going to remove the Washington monument.

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  41. Ray+Thompson says:

    Where are the boxes at since she sold her home ?

    Will she be staying in a hotel or with her brother ?

    Boxes are in the senior living apartment. She is no longer using. We have paid for two months so wife will stay there. BIL is 4 hours away in Bryan, lots of traffic so trips are always delayed.

    There is going to be a pissing contest between wife and her brother.

    If/when I go I will stay in a Hampton Inn by Sea World.

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  42. Harold+Combs says:

    This can’t be good for you Texans
    Exodus Underway as Record-Shattering Surge of Austin Police Officers Leave the Force
    https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/bryan-preston/2021/04/06/exclusive-exodus-underway-as-record-shattering-surge-of-austin-police-officers-leave-the-force-n1437738

  43. lynn says:

    So, Lynn is now vindicated:

    https://www.neowin.net/news/welcome-back-fortran-rejoins-list-of-top-20-popular-programming-languages/

    No. I dislike Fortran. I want to convert our Fortran code to C++ but it is a major effort. Fortran array indices start at one. C array indices start at zero. That is a huge change. Fable converts Fortran 77 to C++ but it does not address the array indexes problem.
    http://cci.lbl.gov/fable/

  44. lynn says:

    This can’t be good for you Texans
    Exodus Underway as Record-Shattering Surge of Austin Police Officers Leave the Force
    https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/bryan-preston/2021/04/06/exclusive-exodus-underway-as-record-shattering-surge-of-austin-police-officers-leave-the-force-n1437738

    Austin.

    Keep Austin weird is the city motto.

    Some of the most violent BLM demonstrations have been in Austin.
    https://gunfreezone.net/savages-have-no-fear-and-attack-a-man-walking-his-motorcycle/

  45. Greg Norton says:

    So, Lynn is now vindicated:

    https://www.neowin.net/news/welcome-back-fortran-rejoins-list-of-top-20-popular-programming-languages/

    The top 10 doesn’t have any Hot Skillz?!?

    (Python doesn’t qualify anymore)

    “Classic” Visual Basic will be around for a long time.

  46. Greg Norton says:

    Some of the most violent BLM demonstrations have been in Austin.

    Williamson County Sheriff is the real law enforcement agency on this end of town, but the cancel culture is working on the problem.

    https://www.fox7austin.com/news/former-wilco-sheriff-robert-chody-booked-into-jail-in-connection-to-javier-ambler-case

  47. ed says:

    The buried water meter: There could be rattlesnakes or scorpions I suppose, it is high desert.

    The LAND PROJECTS MUTUAL WATER ASSOCIATION, of which I am a proud 1 share owing member, is not a high tech outfit: no electronic meter reading for its one or two hundred customers.

    Were I to check I strongly suspect the back office runs Office ‘97 on a (single) Win98 box.

  48. Nick Flandrey says:

    “Were I to check I strongly suspect the back office runs Office ‘97 on a (single) Win98 box”

    — even I shuddered a little bit when I read that..
    n

  49. Nick Flandrey says:

    AstraZeneca Trial Involving Minors Halted As EMA Officials Admit Link Between Jab And Deadly Blood Clots

    The EMA declared at the conclusion of a hasty “safety review” last month that the benefits of the AstraZeneca jab (which is expected to to be the workhorse of the global vaccination rollout as Covax, the WHO/Gates Foundation program to vaccination developing countries, expects to heavily rely on the jab) far outweighed any risks, while saying it couldn’t definitively rule out the possibility that the blood clots and the vaccine might be connected. But researchers from Norway, Germany and elsewhere insisted they had found evidence of a connection. And after the UK acknowledged more than 2 dozen new cases of the rare clots – 9 of them fatal – it seems the dam has finally broken.
    New findings from the EMA show that there is indeed a link between the “very rare” blood clots in the brain and the AstraZeneca vaccine, but the exact possible causes are still unknown, according to a senior EMA official, who made the comments in an interview with the Italian newspaper Il Messagero. Here’s a Reuters summary of that report.

    “In my opinion, we can now say it, it is clear that there is an association (of the brain blood clots) with the vaccine. However, we still do not know what causes this reaction,” Marco Cavaleri, chair of the vaccine evaluation team at the EMA, told Italian daily Il Messagero.

    Cavaleri provided no evidence to support his comment.

    […]

    n

  50. lynn says:

    “Covert action: China could push Taiwan into nuclear defense”
    https://asiatimes.com/2020/12/covert-action-china-could-push-taiwan-into-nuclear-defense/

    “US pressure halted plutonium production, but Taiwan continued its secret nuclear program until the 1980s”

    Biden will not protect Taiwan from China. I wonder if they are working on nuclear weapons already ? Or, if they bought nuclear weapons from … Israel.

    A couple of ballistic nukes in Shenzhen would cripple China greatly as that is their Silicon Valley.

  51. Greg Norton says:

    No. I dislike Fortran. I want to convert our Fortran code to C++ but it is a major effort. Fortran array indices start at one. C array indices start at zero. That is a huge change. Fable converts Fortran 77 to C++ but it does not address the array indexes problem.

    Fable also depends on Python 2.x which is now deprecated. Someone keeps working on the project, however.

  52. lynn says:

    The buried water meter: There could be rattlesnakes or scorpions I suppose, it is high desert.

    The LAND PROJECTS MUTUAL WATER ASSOCIATION, of which I am a proud 1 share owing member, is not a high tech outfit: no electronic meter reading for its one or two hundred customers.

    Were I to check I strongly suspect the back office runs Office ‘97 on a (single) Win98 box.

    We have water moccasins in our water meter boxes. The meter readers open the boxen very carefully. Water moccasins are assholes and aggressive. I have been chased by one before when I did not have a gun on me.

    The association pc probably has quickbooks on it also.

  53. Nick Flandrey says:

    And the bookkeeper does billing using PCanywhere over dialup….
    n

  54. Greg Norton says:

    Biden will not protect Taiwan from China. I wonder if they are working on nuclear weapons already ? Or, if they bought nuclear weapons from … Israel.

    India has no love for China.

    And South Africa collaborated with Israel, supplying the uranium.

    Stories differ on whether Pretoria tested a bomb in the 70s, but they had penty of incentive.

    Khadafy’s fate opened a lot of eyes to the reality of deals with the United States regarding pursuit of nuclear weapons. The lesson? Get one. Fast. Better, get a dozen. Then talk.

    Just ask the North Koreans.

  55. Harold+Combs says:

    A couple of ballistic nukes in Shenzhen would cripple China greatly as that is their Silicon Valley.

    Nuking Shenzhen would irradiate Hong Kong and render a major export port unusable. It would also render the pink dolphins extinct bridging about the wrath of PETA

  56. drwilliams says:

    from the article linked above:

    44 cases, 9.2 million jabs

    from Wikipedia:

    an estimated 3-4 cases per million annual incidence in adults.

    3 to 4 times 9.2 million = 27.6 to 36.8 expected, median 32.2

    therefore, an excess of 12 over the median (37.2%)

    (note 1: The death rates are somewhat different but the numbers are already small, so overestimate by treating all cases as deaths)

    Wuhan flu mortality rate in the U.S. is about 0.13%

    .13% times 9.2 million = 12,000

    So as a first approximation, the risk of death by Wuhan flu is about 1,000 times greater than the excess deaths from CVST.

    The pat answer is that the risks far outweigh the rewards. The reality is that any excess deaths associated with this carp are tragedies.

    (note 2: Taking the AstroZeneca vaccine out of the mix does not leave people unvaccinated forever, but creates a delay in getting them vaccinated as other vaccines must be manufactured to make up the shortfall. Making this calculation involves a lot of assumptions, but it’s difficult to cut the 12,000 down to 12 with anything approaching real-world.)

    Final observation: 37.2 is very close to 30% which is the rule of thumb threshold for relevancy in this type of statistical estimation. The problem here is that CVST is probably underestimated as a cause of death due to lack of clear evidence without autopsy. If the real number is 5 per million, there is no excess.

     

  57. Marcelo says:

    “Covert action: China could push Taiwan into nuclear defense”
    https://asiatimes.com/2020/12/covert-action-china-could-push-taiwan-into-nuclear-defense/

    “US pressure halted plutonium production, but Taiwan continued its secret nuclear program until the 1980s”

    Biden will not protect Taiwan from China. I wonder if they are working on nuclear weapons already ? Or, if they bought nuclear weapons from … Israel.

    A couple of ballistic nukes in Shenzhen would cripple China greatly as that is their Silicon Valley.

    which would lead to Taiwan being wiped out which, in turn, would make things really interesting…

  58. lynn says:

    “Covert action: China could push Taiwan into nuclear defense”
    https://asiatimes.com/2020/12/covert-action-china-could-push-taiwan-into-nuclear-defense/

    “US pressure halted plutonium production, but Taiwan continued its secret nuclear program until the 1980s”

    Biden will not protect Taiwan from China. I wonder if they are working on nuclear weapons already ? Or, if they bought nuclear weapons from … Israel.

    A couple of ballistic nukes in Shenzhen would cripple China greatly as that is their Silicon Valley.

    which would lead to Taiwan being wiped out which, in turn, would make things really interesting…

    If Taiwan nukes anything in China then things are already bad. The MAD rule applies here.

  59. drwilliams says:

    It pays to study history:

    “Does Coca-Cola not highlight its financial history with Nazi Germany when crowing about its racial purity tests today?  Or the fact that Germany’s inconvenient declaration of war against the United States made it sufficiently difficult for Coca-Cola to maintain its prominent reputation within the Reich that the company’s German representatives repurposed the operations of hundreds of bottling plants toward the production of a new drink called Fanta to serve thirsty German soldiers throughout the war?  Does the Coca-Cola Company not brag about Fanta’s wartime genesis as a Nazi beverage?  How strange. “

    https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/04/maybe_coke_should_be_cancelled_for_its_nazi_past.html

     

  60. Ray Thompson says:

    SWA changed my wife’s flight at no charge. 8:15 AM departure from Nashville requiring leaving the house at 4:30 AM EDT, three hour drive time, and the hour time change should get us to the airport by 06:30 CDT.

    If I was a betting man I will probably be driving out sometime by Sunday or Monday.

  61. JimB says:

    Why are they going to steal my tax money and spend it in the middle east ?

    C’mon man, you know why!

  62. Nick Flandrey says:

    Cuz you’re a dog faced pony soldier…

    no really it’s because they can.

    n

  63. Alan says:

    Just ask the North Koreans.

    Who have now withdrawn from the Tokyo Olympics. Seems it is to protect their athletes from being exposed to the world’s global health crisis which amazingly has totally missed NK (zero cases – right).

  64. lynn says:

    I think we still haven’t seen the last of this.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/gigantic-clusterfk-how-morgan-stanley-avoided-10bn-archegos-losses-selling-first

    n

    Every man for himself !

    A smaller version of the Bear Stearns failure in 2008.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear_Stearns

  65. Ray Thompson says:

    4:00 AM, which is still real late at night, up and at it getting ready for the 2.5 hour drive to Nashville. Stop at a 24 hour McDonald’s drive through for some breakfast. Should not be much traffic.

    Spousal unit is a bag of nerves, touchy, so I don’t say much. Need to let her handle this her way. Her and her mom were close, talked every day. The MIL is the last of the parents as most others passed on 12 to 30 years ago. Wife’s father went first, followed by my aunt and uncle, then my father whom I had no contact with since 1973, then my mother.

    I hope my wife is there, by the MIL’s side when the MIL passes. It would be best for both I think.

    It is the natural progression of life.

  66. brad says:

    @Ray: All the best to your wife. As you say, it’s the natural progression of life, but it’s still hard on those affected…

    Fortran array indices start at one. C array indices start at zero.

    It’s been a long, long time since I wrote Fortran. However, as I recall, Fortran also uses column-major order for arrays, whereas C uses row-major. Depending on what you’re doing, this can be a problem.

    Exodus Underway as Record-Shattering Surge of Austin Police Officers Leave the Force

    Austin was always “weird”, but it was still Texan. At least, it was when I last lived there in ’92. With the massive influx of ex-Californians and other progressives, it seems to have become another San Francisco or Portland.

    Take that BLM protest, where the protestors attack motorcycle guy for no reason: Try that in some other part of Texas, and they’d be breathing through bullet holes.

  67. ech says:

    I guess it depends if you have a basement.

    Houses in Houston don’t, because of the soil and the high water table in many places.

     

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