Tues. April 13, 2021 – baby steps, time to get moving again

By on April 13th, 2021 in culture, decline and fall, personal, WuFlu

Warm and rainy. Or warm and sunny. But the forecast is for rain. Beautiful day yesterday and I spent it all inside.

I was making progress in my office, moving stuff around, cleaning, and finding stuff for ebay or the auctions, so I kept at it. It needs a lot more work too, but I have to get out of the house today. Unless it’s pouring down rain, then I’ll be happy indoors.

I took some time out to fix a couple of things as I came across them too. I’m really stuck in this weird malaise, and I’m having trouble shaking it. The best cure is actually making progress on the list, and I am making progress, but it’s very slow going. The most positive light I can put it in would be to compare it to ‘operational tempo’ and thinking that I can’t stay at that high level for a long time without a period of reduced effectiveness after. Sounds a bit like whining though.

One of the things I found behind my desk was an aphorism I had printed out. “Change is not death, fear of change is death.” It struck me at the time, but now I feel like it doesn’t quite get to profound. Change is our normal condition and leads to growth, stagnation leads to death. We’ve all been stagnant to some degree for the last year. Waking up, moving around, an end to the Groundhog Day we’ve been living- it’s harder than I thought it would be.

Do something from before the past year. Do something new. Start to get the blood flowing again. We’ll need to be fully awake and vigorous for what’s coming. Get started. And stack something. That will certainly help.

nick

116 Comments and discussion on "Tues. April 13, 2021 – baby steps, time to get moving again"

  1. Nick Flandrey says:

    74F and 81%RH moderate rain in the forecast.

    –holy cow.

    US Halts Use Of J&J COVID Vaccine After 6 Cases Of Deadly Rare Blood Clots Identified

    by Tyler Durden
    Tuesday, Apr 13, 2021 – 07:10 AM

    In a shocking report that could have dramatic implications for the US vaccine rollout, federal public health authorities in the US have decided to stop administering COVID jabs developed by Johnson & Johnson, and are asking states to do the same. The reason? Authorities have identified six cases of rare and life-threatening blood clots, at least one of which resulted in death.

    According to the NYT, which broke the news, all six recipients were women between the ages of 18 and 48. One woman died and a second woman in Nebraska has been hospitalized in critical condition, the officials said.

    The FDA published its own advisory shortly after the NYT broke the news.

    –it sure would be nice if they described what happens with this ‘different’ type of clot, and if there was a particular window for it to affect patients.

    –mostly peaceful….

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/04/breaking-msnbc-films-thugs-looting-dollar-star-looters-notice-attack-msnbc-live-tv-tell-go-fk-home-video/

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/04/portland-police-declare-riot-protesters-vow-burn-precinct-lob-debris-police-set-fires-street/

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/04/watch-man-cusses-cnn-live-television-making-things-worse-community-gets-destroyed-rioters/

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/04/brooklyn-center-police-deploy-crowd-control-munitions-disperse-blm-mob-make-arrests-video/

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/04/squad-leader-rashida-tlaib-calls-complete-anarchy-demands-no-police-prisons-following-daunte-wrights-death/

    –does the commie realize the only thing keeping it from being open season on rioters, and congresswomen, is rule of law? You want a bunch of [Tarrentino movie quote], this is how you get a bunch of [repeat for emphasis, put a sign on the lawn.]

  2. Greg Norton says:

    @Greg mentioned Six Sigma. I went through quality rah-rah programs for years, including Phil Crosby’s Quality College (as one colleague quipped, “Quality is free but this book costs $3.95”), had a brush with the Baldridge Award but was outside the fatal radius, and got passed over for an early SS “belt” 20+ years ago in favor of a fair-haired boy with an engineering MS on the management track.

    Engineering Masters degrees are commodity items anymore, bought and paid for as “Professional Development” at mid-grade state schools, particularly EE diplomas with a power industry emphasis, providing the ABET paper for the PE exam. The only roadblock I can think of is getting the individual through the EIT, but I’m sure that has been watered down like every other exam.

    And it isn’t a fair-haired boy these days. That’s not woke. Try a fair haired music coed from [insert fancy lad school name].

  3. Geoff Powell says:

    @nick:

    US Halts Use Of J&J COVID Vaccine After 6 Cases Of Deadly Rare Blood Clots Identified

    They’ve done the same with the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine in some parts of Europe. There is pressure to do it here in UK. But 6 cases? Out of how many million doses given? This is almost anti-vaxx level of hysteria – “How dare you risk our lives with a new vaccine!” read: any vaccine.

    I’ll take any protection I can get – remember: immuno-suppressed due to chemotherapy for cancer.

    G.

  4. Greg Norton says:

    Never. I told my partners three years ago that I needed five software engineers with HOT SKILZ! working for five years to port our user interface to a IOS app and a Android app. Although, I estimated that our app would not work for long as they used to have a 10 million limit on Javascript apps in Android. My understanding is that limit has been lifted though.

    The last time I checked, iOS didn’t allow Javascript running in the browser component as part of a compiled app to JIT the code. That may have changed with so many web pages dependent on megabytes of APIs to accomplish what used to be simple tasks, but Apple didn’t want developers to cheat, getting an app approved for iTunes and the bringing in the bulk of the functionality via Javascript running in the browser window.

    The CPUs inside iOS devices, even the iPod Touch, have been incredibly powerful for a while. The 7th generation Touch even has 2 GB RAM.

  5. Greg Norton says:

    In Texas, the funeral home fills out the death certificates and then they send the originals to Austin, TX for stamping and registration by three ??? state agencies. They then send death certificates back to the funeral home who mails them to you. We are having a serious problem with bogus death certificate fraud for land deeds in Texas. The state will not release the death certificates to anyone but the funeral home for a year afterwards.

    TWC is still not answering their phones in Austin. Whenever I get through, I know is a jammie-clad contractor “working” from home because most of the case information is inaccessible. I doubt the situation is much different in the other state agencies.

    “Swimming naked”.

    Texas has (or had) a law creating a special party to probate called an “informant”. Regardless of relation to the deceased, the entity covering funeral expenses has as much right to death certificates as the blood relatives or executor of the will. I can imagine the problems that created, having been through the ordeal of my father-in-law’s estate with his nurse anesthetist taking home the bulk of his life insurance.

  6. Clayton W. says:

    Six sigma makes a lot of sense for some applications.  If you are making 100,00+ pagers a week, tracking the wear on molds matters.  And a lot of other parameters.

    Lean makes sense if you are using enough product to be able to Dictate to your suppliers.  AND you don’t mind when a Black Swan comes in and shuts the plant down.

    The problem is when they want to apply Lean 6-Sigma to cases that make ZERO sense.  I’m making 6 prototypes.  Absolutely no purpose in tracking metrics on the design and production.  We won’t use it for anything.  The parts get here when they get here.  We are ordering Minimum Order Quantities.  Suppliers won’t bend over backwards for 1 reel or parts.

    Applying this stuff to development, troubleshooting, and recovery is absurd.  If we KNEW what was wrong, it wouldn’t have HAPPENED!

  7. Ray+Thompson says:

    Yep, two to three weeks for the death certificate. We ordered 15 copies at $3.oo a copy. The funeral home also charges $25.00 to mail the certificates to the home in TN. The wife is the executor of the will as she is the only beneficiary of what is left after beneficiary stuff is done. I will do the taxes again, electronically, for anything in 2021. I suspect there will be nothing owed, maybe a little due as a refund. Thus the checking account will remain open until that has transpired.

    I know about getting POA from the IRS as a regular POA does not work with the IRS. Why is beyond me other than to make it more difficult on people.

    Mail will have to forwarded for a year. And guess what? The UPS now charges for forwarding service beyond 30 days. So we have to pay to have that done as some mail only arrives once a year on items of which we are not aware.

    Handling a death of someone and their property is not for the weak or faint of heart. The obstacles are many, varied, complicated, daunting and downright annoying.

  8. brad says:

    It’s kind of funny. Our elderly cat would be much happier outside, but it’s still kind of cold. So, thunk I, nothing easier! We have a heating pad – I’ll put it under the rug in her kitty house.

    Only, our heating pad shuts off automatically after 90 minutes. So I go online and…all of the pads do this. I start to type in something like “heating pad no shutoff” (ok, I really typed in “Heizkissen ohne Abschaltautomatik”). This query autocompletes on Google, in Amazon, and in other places I tried it. I am not alone in my quest.

    I have found exactly one heating pad that does not have an auto-shutoff feature. From China. They could actually deliver by May, but I figure the weather will be warm enough by then…

    Anyway, I wrote to a well-known German manufacturer. Received a very prompt reply. This is “for my own safety”. Anyway it’s illegal to manufacture heating pads without auto-shutoff, because that would be a fire hazard. Also their pads are not certified for animals, so I should please not use one for our cat.

    God save us from well-intentioned government regulations. Saving us from ourselves, by limiting the actual usefulness of products. I mean, how many house fires have ever been caused by a heating pad that didn’t have an auto-off feature? Why does a “human” heating pad need to be separately certified so that a cat can sleep on it?

    A couple of years ago, I built a – dunno what to call it – a “seed sprouter” for my wife. For that, I bought what was essentially a heating pad from a local grow shop, and built it into an insulated box filled with sand. Works a treat. The pad came with a thermostat, and no auto-shutoff. Maybe it’s not dangerous, if you’re warming plants?

    So, if I continue this crazy quest, the next stop will be grow shops. I’m sure our cat resembles a marijuana plant, if you wear green-tinted glasses.

    – – – – –

    @Lynn: Porting your software to a web service would definitely be useful, if you ever port it again. It leaves you in charge of the computing infrastructure, making compatibility (for the compute engine) easier. It makes old-fashioned piracy impossible. And it should never be necessary to port again – browsers tend to stay backwards compatible, even when web standards change.

    That said, it would mean a web-based interface, and serious API security, both of which would be a huge effort.

  9. dkreck says:

    Heating pads. Not only do they shut off, try to get one that puts out a decent amount of heat. Same for electric blankets.

  10. Chad says:

    They’ve done the same with the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine in some parts of Europe. There is pressure to do it here in UK. But 6 cases? Out of how many million doses given? This is almost anti-vaxx level of hysteria – “How dare you risk our lives with a new vaccine!” read: any vaccine.

    Agreed. I don’t think the incidents of really bad adverse reactions when compared to the number of doses administered is out of line. I think we’re all just hyper-focused on it and so it ends up on the front page. As a percentage of vaccines administered I am guessing that blood clots occur in a fraction of a percent. It’s probably in line with reactions to other immunizations.

    @Lynn: Porting your software to a web service would definitely be useful, if you ever port it again. It leaves you in charge of the computing infrastructure, making compatibility (for the compute engine) easier. It makes old-fashioned piracy impossible. And it should never be necessary to port again – browsers tend to stay backwards compatible, even when web standards change.

    I’m waiting for the Xbox version.

  11. Nick Flandrey says:

    One student is shot dead after he opened fire on cop in Knoxville high school – officer is injured but expected to survive

    Shooting took place Monday at Austin-East Magnet School in Tennessee
    School was placed on lockdown; a reunification site for parents has been set up
    Students not involved in incident have been released to their parents
    The police officer who was shot was reportedly the Austin-East school resource officer; he is being treated for his injuries at an area hospital

  12. Nick Flandrey says:

    It never made sense to me that India with the same levels of poverty and crowding as China wouldn’t be a leader in covid sickness. Unless the prevalence of HQC malaria prevention had something to do with it.

    Tens of thousands of Hindus ignore social distancing rules to gather by the Ganges River for Kumbh Mela as India overtakes Brazil to become second-worst hit Covid country following a record 168,000 daily cases

    Tens of thousands of Hindus packed banks of Ganges today to bathe in the river as part of religious festival
    Police said enforcing social distancing is impossible due to number of people, with few masks being worn
    Festival was permitted despite India suffering worst-ever spike in Covid cases, with 168,000 logged Sunday
    India has now recorded more Covid cases than Brazil, making it the world’s second-worst affected country

  13. Nick Flandrey says:

    Time to buy a mine in the boonies as a hidey hole??

    Pentagon confirms video of six UFOs buzzing warships in 2019 IS real and says it has no idea what they were

    Pentagon confirmed that a set of images showing UFOs buzzing over Navy warships off the coast of California ‘were taken’ by branch personnel in 2019
    One of the images appears to be a pyramid-shaped object while others were thought to be drones or balloons; however, Navy has listed them as unknowns
    In a statement, a Pentagon spokesperson said: ‘I can confirm that the referenced photos and videos were taken by Navy personnel’
    UAP Task Force will share images as evidence in report due to Congress by June

    –regardless of how an alien might be disposed toward humanity, incontrovertible proof would be profoundly disruptive.

    n

  14. dkreck says:

    I’m confounded by the thinking that UFOs are something alien. Chances are they are not, just unidentified.

    5
    1
  15. Chad says:

    I’ve always been of the opinion that intelligent alien life in the vastness of the universe is probably a foregone conclusion. However, their interest in and relatively frequent visits to Earth seem odd and thus somewhat unbelievable to me. I’d love few things more than peaceful first contact, but I can’t imagine aliens capable of interstellar travel would be anymore interested in a cultural and technological exchange with us than we would with Neanderthals livings in caves. It would be a nice fantasy to think they were a benevolent species and wanted to establish contact to shepherd us through a dangerous chapter in our social and technological evolution. Or, perhaps we’re a zoo exhibit for them. I do love the theories that the little gray men so frequently described by people alleging alien contact are really us from far in the future traveling back in time to observe “early man.”

  16. Greg Norton says:

    It never made sense to me that India with the same levels of poverty and crowding as China wouldn’t be a leader in covid sickness. Unless the prevalence of HQC malaria prevention had something to do with it.

    Lots more poverty with limited redistribution of wealth due to the caste system. The thought process is that the lower classes deserve what they get. The highest classes can hide in gated compounds or go live with the Number One Sons in the US.

    The subdivision next door is a few hundred houses for H1Bs with lots of oldsters on the streets walking near sunset.

    They even have their own public elementary and middle schools next door, a fairly complete community except for shopping, but as I’ve discussed here before, the middle school is only half full with the neighborhood kids whose parents are bad at working the system.

  17. MrAtoz says:

    As an Ancient Alien Theorist (I’ve watched many episodes of “Ancient Aliens”), the qestion is how the Aliens got here. FTL, Time Travel, another Dimesion. All tech well beyond what we Hew-mons understand. I’m going with von Neumann probes. Lower tech and long lived.

  18. ech says:

    it sure would be nice if they described what happens with this ‘different’ type of clot, and if there was a particular window for it to affect patients.

    Since there are so few cases, the data are sketchy. They do seem to have figured out the mechanism from the cases in Europe, a reaction in a particular clotting factor (PF4) that is sometimes seen in patients getting heparin.

    The pause is probably good for a couple of reasons:
    – they need to get a handle on what they should tell patients that get the vaccine. This can be treated if caught early. That needs to be clearly laid out and all vaccine providers given copies so they can brief patients.

    – they might be able to tell if there is some other factor. i.e. Is it women only? (EU data I’ve seen were silent on that.) Is it due to another drug they are taking? Is there an age factor? Is is due to an OTC drug they are taking? (Herbal supplements can interfere with some drugs and cause side effects.)

    – they might want new guidelines. The EU countries are going to restrict it to older patients only age 60, 55, and 30 and up depending on the country.

    – it’s not as urgent in the US, as we were about to run out of J&J vaccine doses due to the manufacturing problems that were found at one subcontractor.

    I concur that the risk seen is much lower than the risk for death from COVID, but that might not be true in the very young who have much lower death rates.

  19. drwilliams says:

    @Brad

    consider a low-wattage 120v silicone pad heater (aka automotive battery heater) with a cheap controller and a type k thermocouple.

  20. ~jim says:

    @ Brad

    Or just a reptile heater from the pet store.

  21. lynn says:

    Never. I told my partners three years ago that I needed five software engineers with HOT SKILZ! working for five years to port our user interface to a IOS app and a Android app. Although, I estimated that our app would not work for long as they used to have a 10 million limit on Javascript apps in Android. My understanding is that limit has been lifted though.

    Sigh. I left out two words, instruction and count.

    “Although, I estimated that our app would not work for long as they used to have a 10 million instruction count limit on Javascript apps in Android. My understanding is that limit has been lifted though.”

    The instruction count limit is/was there to prevent runaway javascript apps in internet browsers. At first it was one million then as the internet browser apps got bigger they bumped it to ten million. I have heard that at least one of the internet browsers has gotten rid of the instruction count limit all together.

  22. lynn says:

    I know about getting POA from the IRS as a regular POA does not work with the IRS. Why is beyond me other than to make it more difficult on people.

    Mail will have to forwarded for a year. And guess what? The UPS now charges for forwarding service beyond 30 days. So we have to pay to have that done as some mail only arrives once a year on items of which we are not aware.

    The IRS makes you get a new SS number for the estate as the estate tax rates are supposedly different than the individual tax rates. Supposedly. I’ll find out soon.

    We just paid USPS another $48 to forward our mail and the wife’s fathers mail for another year since we are still getting mail for him (and us). And the stupid HOA from the old house kept on billing me for 2021 so I was having to take the demand letters back to the new owner.

  23. Greg Norton says:

    Sigh. I left out two words, instruction and count.

    The instruction count limit is/was there to prevent runaway javascript apps in internet browsers. At first it was one million then as the internet browser apps got bigger they bumped it to ten million. I have heard that at least one of the internet browsers has gotten rid of the instruction count limit all together.

    I figured it was lines of code, but ok.

    I would imagine that Chrome would take the first step of eliminating any limit. I didn’t know there was one.

    The emscripten compiler generates a subset of JavaScript, asm.js, from C/C++ programs. I’m surprised that web apps haven’t suddenly grown monstrous in size incorporating open source APIs previously not available inside the JavaScript “box”, but that may be due to a lack of qualified developers more than lack of interest.

    If you think web pages are big now, just wait.

  24. lynn says:

    @Lynn: Porting your software to a web service would definitely be useful, if you ever port it again. It leaves you in charge of the computing infrastructure, making compatibility (for the compute engine) easier. It makes old-fashioned piracy impossible. And it should never be necessary to port again – browsers tend to stay backwards compatible, even when web standards change.

    That said, it would mean a web-based interface, and serious API security, both of which would be a huge effort.

    Yup, see the five software engineers with HOT SKILZ! working for five years quote for an IOS / Android app. It is the same level of work to run inside a browser. And I had Paul DiLascia at MSDN magazine helping me with our Visio like diagrammatic interface which I would have to rewrite in Javascript.
    https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/5145/Folder-Tab-Control-for-Windows-MFC-like-MS-Excel

    I have thought about porting to AWS using their Windows Server emulation. Or to Azure. I sure that our sloppy coding would eat us alive though in those emulation environments. And keeping the users separate from each other would be tricky.

    Never say impossible for old-fashioned piracy. The new pirates would figure out a way to get to us. The modern day pirates are very talented.

  25. lynn says:

    Heating pads. Not only do they shut off, try to get one that puts out a decent amount of heat. Same for electric blankets.

    The wife uses both electric heating pads and microwave heating pads. The microwave heating pads can get quite hot.
    https://www.amazon.com/Thermalon-Microwave-Activated-Heat-Cold-Shoulder/dp/B000E5BJV0/?tag=ttgnet-20

    She got rammed on Main street in Houston while sitting at a stop light just outside 610 loop when she was 20 back in 1978. The moron hit her Subaru going over 50 mph in a Cadillac. Totaled both cars. Messed up her neck something fierce.

  26. lynn says:

    Time to buy a mine in the boonies as a hidey hole??

    Pentagon confirms video of six UFOs buzzing warships in 2019 IS real and says it has no idea what they were

    Pentagon confirmed that a set of images showing UFOs buzzing over Navy warships off the coast of California ‘were taken’ by branch personnel in 2019
    One of the images appears to be a pyramid-shaped object while others were thought to be drones or balloons; however, Navy has listed them as unknowns
    In a statement, a Pentagon spokesperson said: ‘I can confirm that the referenced photos and videos were taken by Navy personnel’
    UAP Task Force will share images as evidence in report due to Congress by June

    –regardless of how an alien might be disposed toward humanity, incontrovertible proof would be profoundly disruptive.

    n

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9463375/Video-UFOs-buzzing-Navy-warship-leaked.html

    How long until the cockroach gigantus mother ship arrives in the Solar System ?

    You are going to need 50 years of food and water for each person in your hidey hole. Also an old missile silo would be good too if you pile six foot of dirt over the missile launch doors. Cause Will Smith and Jeff Glodblum are not going to fly an alien fighter spaceship to the mother ship with a nuclear weapon.

  27. nick flandrey says:

    I was thinking hard rock mine like the Tyler Vernon character in the  Ringo Maple syrup wars books…

    n

  28. nick flandrey says:

    Wow, just checked my paypal crypto balance.

    $140 across three *coins is at $472. It’s climbing faster than ammo prices.

    n

  29. lynn says:

    xkcd: ISS Vaccine
    https://xkcd.com/2449/

    I would be willing to bet two cents that the ISS astronauts got Pfizer vaccine several months ago in the SpaceX monthly resupply spaceship.

    Explained at:
    https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2449:_ISS_Vaccine

  30. lynn says:

    “The Hugo Awards at DisCon III” for 2021
    https://discon3.org/whats-on/hugo-awards-wsfs/hugo-awards/

    All the novels and novellas are women authors ?

  31. Brad says:

    Just cashed in the little crypto I owned. I had it left over from experiments and learning a few years ago. Iirc, I put in just over 1k to play with originally. Wrote a couple of articles for the popular press, created a student project or two, and then kind of forgot about it. Got a few thousand out, not the world, but a nice bonus.

  32. nick flandrey says:

    @lynn,

    consider using the actual link and NOT sending traffic to mike, who is vile and deceitful person.

    https://discon3.org/whats-on/hugo-awards-wsfs/hugo-awards/

    n

  33. nick flandrey says:

    ugg, 500 error, and lost my comment.

    @lynn, yes, they are woke.  Oh so very woke.   And VERY Tor-centric.

    I stopped caring during the second or third Sad Puppies spat.  I actually paid money so I could vote and the stories were SO BAD.

    scalzi and one other guy got a nod for a short, but other than that, you have to go way down into the weeds to find men.

    Seanan McGuire has a bunch of listings, but she’s getting more woke by the story….

    n

  34. nick flandrey says:

    Oh yeah, if we’re not at peak, we’re pretty freaking close…

    From college dropout to stock market expert: Woman, 20, who quit school to support her struggling family during the pandemic reveals how she raked in $50K within MONTHS by becoming an amateur stonk

    Kiersten Crum from Lawrence, Kansas, was attending the University of Kansas School of Business in 2020 when COVID-19 swept the US
    She moved home and started working two jobs to help her family, who were struggling to pay bills after the pandemic shut down her dad’s business
    Kiersten soon dropped out of school because she didn’t have enough money or time to continue to attend
    While working at a bar and a grocery store, she started investing money
    She used what she learned at an investment club at school, as well as what she taught herself from books and YouTube videos
    She grew her initial $500 to over $50,000 and now shares her progress and trading tips on TikTok

    –it’s much easier in an up market but in the end the house always wins.
    n

  35. Chad says:

    Amusing…

    Photo of BLM protest in MN after Daunte Wright shooting:

    https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/210412235352-01-daunte-wright-protests-brooklyn-minnesota-exlarge-169.jpg

    There’s only one black person in the photo.

    Nothing upsets middle class white kids like racism.

  36. Harold+Combs says:

    Re: Estates,  probate,  and end of life planning

    After seeing how well my parents trust functioned when they passed,  my wife and I invested in a trust last year. It cost about $1800 for the lawyer to draw up the papers and change all our titles but I consider it money well invested.  We, as individuals,  own nothing now, it all belongs to the trust, clothing,  cars, businesses,  etc. When we pass on, our son or other surviving family that we designated,  runs the trust and controls all assets. No lawyers or probate, just present the trust documents and they are set. I watched the wife’s family destroy itself fighting over who got 5 remote rural acres when her aunt died.  They spent far more than the land was worth in lawyers fees and will no longer speak to each other.  Turned out that the title was corrupted and the court sold it so neither side won.

  37. Greg Norton says:

    You are going to need 50 years of food and water for each person in your hidey hole. Also an old missile silo would be good too if you pile six foot of dirt over the missile launch doors. Cause Will Smith and Jeff Glodblum are not going to fly an alien fighter spaceship to the mother ship with a nuclear weapon.

    I thought Jeff Goldblum hacked the mother ship with a PowerBook 5300.

  38. Greg Norton says:

    Photo of BLM protest in MN after Daunte Wright shooting:

    There’s only one black person in the photo.

    Look at the footage of a BLM protest from Portland or Austin.

    That’s ok. BLM wants a pretty white coed martyred at one of those events, preferably with a bullet proven to be from a police weapon.

     

  39. Alan says:

    Mail will have to forwarded for a year. And guess what? The UPS now charges for forwarding service beyond 30 days. So we have to pay to have that done as some mail only arrives once a year on items of which we are not aware.

    @Ray; did you mean USPS? If so, is a Change of Address not sufficient versus paying to have mail forwarded?

  40. Greg Norton says:

    I have thought about porting to AWS using their Windows Server emulation. Or to Azure. I sure that our sloppy coding would eat us alive though in those emulation environments. And keeping the users separate from each other would be tricky.

    Doesn’t AWS offer Citrix-based services?

    At the last job, the jump boxes to the field systems existed as Citrix virtual desktops. That worked ok except for the one application that configured our optical-based vehicle tracking which used OpenGL to render the 3D models.

    Of course, as with every other purchasing decision at that place, the deciding factor probably came down to a relative, friend, or neighbor of the CEO in Austria.

     

  41. lynn says:

    You are going to need 50 years of food and water for each person in your hidey hole. Also an old missile silo would be good too if you pile six foot of dirt over the missile launch doors. Cause Will Smith and Jeff Glodblum are not going to fly an alien fighter spaceship to the mother ship with a nuclear weapon.

    I thought Jeff Goldblum hacked the mother ship with a PowerBook 5300.

    And then they launched a nuclear sparrow.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN6uPD5fPfU

    And the cockroach gigantus space ship was actually a scout ship. The actual mother space ship showed 20 years later.

  42. Greg Norton says:

    And then they launched a nuclear sparrow.

    My bad. The 90s were a ‘work 80 hours a week’ blur for me. I regret spending my 20s and early 30s that way.

    “Toy Story 2” will be forever associated with yet another two hour period (88 minutes, actually, the running time of the flick) in my career when a manager decided to fire me, realized he would be f*cked Monday if I wasn’t in my chair, and then changed his mind about the termination. I played hooky that Sunday afternoon to see the flick, and management went “Al Pacino in ‘Scarface'” crazy when he found out, the drama all playing out on my home voice mail.

    “ID4” was probably similar. I definitely worked for “Scarface” at that time.

  43. Chad says:

    The whole alien hive with queen thing has, I think, been a little overdone in sci-fi.  “Oh no! The aliens are like locusts and are just here to consume all of our resources! We have to take out the mothership/queen!” 🙂

    Why can’t they be capitalist aliens here to set up vacation resorts for the wealthy of their kind? lol  Or, the alien equivalent of wildlife photographers here to film a documentary for their version of National Geographic?

  44. lynn says:

    The whole alien hive with queen thing has, I think, been a little overdone in sci-fi. “Oh no! The aliens are like locusts and are just here to consume all of our resources! We have to take out the mothership/queen!”

    Why can’t they be capitalist aliens here to set up vacation resorts for the wealthy of their kind? lol Or, the alien equivalent of wildlife photographers here to film a documentary for their version of National Geographic?

    I’ve always been partial to the Starman movie about a space alien who comes to Earth to impregnate the beautiful Karen Allen since Indiana Jones was not up to the job at that point.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starman_(film)

  45. lynn says:

    And then they launched a nuclear sparrow.

    My bad. The 90s were a ‘work 80 hours a week’ blur for me. I regret spending my 20s and early 30s that way.

    “Toy Story 2” will be forever associated with yet another two hour period (88 minutes, actually, the running time of the flick) in my career when a manager decided to fire me, realized he would be f*cked Monday if I wasn’t in my chair, and then changed his mind about the termination. I played hooky that Sunday afternoon to see the flick, and management went “Al Pacino in ‘Scarface’” crazy when he found out, the drama all playing out on my home voice mail.

    “ID4” was probably similar. I definitely worked for “Scarface” at that time.

    Dude, you worked at some crazy places ! Our shop was never like that nor the shops that I visited like Autodesk and the shops that I had friends working at (Microsoft, etc).

    What is ID4 ?

    The only time that I ever worked over 60 hours per work was unit turnarounds while I was a plant engineer in the early 1980s. Those twelve 10 hour days in a row with two days off for two to three months were killers.

  46. lynn says:

    I have thought about porting to AWS using their Windows Server emulation. Or to Azure. I sure that our sloppy coding would eat us alive though in those emulation environments. And keeping the users separate from each other would be tricky.

    Doesn’t AWS offer Citrix-based services?

    At the last job, the jump boxes to the field systems existed as Citrix virtual desktops. That worked ok except for the one application that configured our optical-based vehicle tracking which used OpenGL to render the 3D models.

    Of course, as with every other purchasing decision at that place, the deciding factor probably came down to a relative, friend, or neighbor of the CEO in Austria.

    We don’t use OpenGL thank goodness. Our refresh issues come from not refreshing enough. We accumulate screen trash until the user gets tired of it and hits F5 to get a View / Redraw.

  47. TV says:

    I know about getting POA from the IRS as a regular POA does not work with the IRS. Why is beyond me other than to make it more difficult on people.

    Here, the rule is the POA only applies (as I understand it) to someone when they are alive. My POA for my father allowing access to his tax information with the CRA (Canada Revenue Agency) expired with his death. I had to apply again as the executor, though I only needed to provide a (certified) copy of the will, and not go through probate first. Getting the death certificate also required I provide a copy of the will to the funeral home. For the certificate, I am not sure how it would work if the executor, near kin to the deceased, and whoever paid for the funeral were all different entities. I have handled all those roles 3 times now.

    We don’t issue a new SIN (social insurance number) after death. One wonders why a flag on the file indicating a status of “deceased” would not have worked for the IRS.

  48. lynn says:

    “Minnesota Police Chief Resigns After Reporters’ Rebuke For Calling Riot A “Riot””
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/dont-do-reporters-rebuke-police-chief-not-use-term-riot

    “The Minnesota police officer who shot and killed a Black man Sunday during a traffic stop, along with the Police Chief who supervised her and the department, have both resigned Tuesday after nights of rioting and looting rocked their community in the wake of the state’s latest officer-involved shooting.”

    “In her resignation letter, Office Kim Potter wrote this without referencing the shooting: “I believe it is in the best interest of the community, the department, and my fellow officers if I resign immediately.””

    “Brooklyn Center Police Chief Gannon: “I was front and center… at the riot.””

    “Reporter: “There was no riot.””

    “Gannon: “There was… the officers that were putting themselves in harm’s way were being pelted with frozen cans of pop, they were being pelted with concrete blocks.””

    I wonder how many more of the Minnesota police in this city are going to quit before tonight.

    And I will bet that the majority of the rioters are from outside Minnesota.

    At some point, the Minnesota citizens will start shooting the rioters.

  49. Greg Norton says:

    ‘“ID4” was probably similar. I definitely worked for “Scarface” at that time.’

    Dude, you worked at some crazy places ! Our shop was never like that nor the shops that I visited like Autodesk and the shops that I had friends working at (Microsoft, etc).

    What is ID4 ?

    “ID4” was the hipster name for “Independence Day” IIRC. It was derived from a stylized logo that appeared at the end of the trailer.

    Technical jobs in Tampa in the 90s were decimated by the end of the cold war so employers took advantage. In retrospect, I probably should have found something else to do while waiting for my wife to finish med school.

  50. Chad says:

    I probably should have found something else to do while waiting for my wife to finish med school.

    Victoria’s Secret dressing room attendant? “Excuse me, sir. Can you help me with this clasp…” 😉

  51. lynn says:

    We don’t issue a new SIN (social insurance number) after death. One wonders why a flag on the file indicating a status of “deceased” would not have worked for the IRS.

    One wonders many things about the IRS. For instance, why do you call them and get an answer to a question. Then call them back, ask the same question and get a different answer.

  52. nick flandrey says:

    I have worked some very long hours. Did 27hrs straight on the clock shooting a Coke commercial in downtown LA. Worked 110 hours between 8am Thursday and 2pm on Monday for a dinner show on North Island NAS. Spent months working 6/10s and then a couple weeks of 6/12s in Hollywood just before the Rodney King Riots. (our normal week was 5/10s plus 4 hours on Saturday)

    You can do it for a while. Some people thrive on the schedule. Most burn out or abuse drugs. It’s impossible to have relationships when you’re on that sort of schedule.

    n

  53. lynn says:

    “We are going to lose all the wars and diplomacy”
    https://gunfreezone.net/we-are-going-to-lose-all-the-wars-and-diplomacy/

    “Today, we’re taking an important step in that direction by naming Ambassador Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley as our chief diversity and inclusion officer – the first in the department’s history.”

    Another political officer at the USA Department of State.

  54. TV says:

    We don’t issue a new SIN (social insurance number) after death. One wonders why a flag on the file indicating a status of “deceased” would not have worked for the IRS.

    One wonders many things about the IRS. For instance, why do you call them and get an answer to a question. Then call them back, ask the same question and get a different answer.

    I wonder much the same about the CRA. It is particularly amusing (or really frustrating) when you are on the phone and you know they are wrong (according to their own documentation), but they are sure they are right. Lately, they have been getting crap for going after the little guy but leaving the rich and politically connected alone (all the Panama Papers revelations) because it is said by someone in the department to be “too expensive to pursue”. Not having “a few heads on pikes” may cost the government at election time, though COVID seems to obscure all other issues.

  55. lynn says:

    “Domino’s Begins Making Autonomous Pizza Deliveries in Houston”
    https://www.pcmag.com/news/dominos-begins-making-autonomous-pizza-deliveries-in-houston

    Look out !

    Is this a late April Fools joke ?

  56. nick flandrey says:

    Company is bound to fail.

    “”We want to build an equitable and accessible future with the promise of lower emissions, safer streets, and more communities that participate in the economic growth of autonomous delivery.””

    — they don’t want to build the best technology, or something “insanely great” , they want some nebulous idea.

    n

  57. Greg Norton says:

    You can do it for a while. Some people thrive on the schedule. Most burn out or abuse drugs. It’s impossible to have relationships when you’re on that sort of schedule.

    I had intense hours at the last job, even the week I was fired.

    I’ve decided that I won’t do a repeat at the new place, even if that’s it for my career. So far, however, the respect has been shown in both directions at this job and hours are tolerable so I’m not concerned.

    The irony is that most of the tech I learned working overtime last year to figure out how to pull images from plate cameras in parallel is directly applicable to the new job in pushing event data to a customer’s repository for further analysis.

  58. Ray+Thompson says:

    We just paid USPS another $48 to forward our mail and the wife’s fathers mail for another year

    Strange. We just paid $0.00 for 18 months of mail forwarding for MIL’s mail. I don’t know that my wife stated the MIL was dead but the Post Office did require a copy of the POA, which they kept.

    @Ray; did you mean USPS?

    I did indeed. But we all knew that.

    is a Change of Address not sufficient

    No. We don’t know from whom or what the MIL was getting mail. May be some critical stuff but I don’t think so. Don’t want to take a chance.

    Here, the rule is the POA only applies (as I understand it) to someone when they are alive.

    That is the case here. We had given the credit union the POA information weeks ago when MIL was alive. So we just provided the documents again. We, foolishly, did not bring a copy of the will with us to TX. I don’t know how it is all going to shake out. We will know within a couple of months when the dust settles. There is also a stipulation in the will that the wife must live for six months otherwise it goes to her brother. I don’t know if that means we have to wait six months to so anything.

    One wonders many things about the IRS. For instance, why do you call them and get an answer to a question. Then call them back, ask the same question and get a different answer.

    That is why I insist on everything in writing from the IRS. If in some bizarre situation I have to call, I get the agent number, write down the date and time, and a synopsis of the call. Even when I have called I have asked for a document mailed to me that supports the agents response that cites the specific tax code that generated the response.

  59. Greg Norton says:

    — they don’t want to build the best technology, or something “insanely great” , they want some nebulous idea.

    Proving they are not “Papa John” Schnatter is their new mission.

    IIRC, the Dominos founder moved to Florida and founded Ave Maria University out in the swamps near Fort Myers/Naples. Odd, but mainstream Catholicism, not New Age mysticism.

    Steve Jobs didn’t do charity … or dividends.

    2
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  60. lynn says:

    Today, in other news, we have “In recent days, Russian tanks, artillery, armor, trucks and troops have been moving by road and rail ever closer to Ukraine, and Moscow is said to be repositioning its 56th Guards Air Assault Brigade in Crimea.”

    “Military sources in Kyiv estimate there are now 85,000 Russian troops between six and 25 miles from Ukraine’s northern and eastern borders.”
    https://buchanan.org/blog/putin-xi-have-red-lines-too-149565

    If you are in Ukraine, leave now.

  61. lynn says:

    “Domino’s Begins Making Autonomous Pizza Deliveries in Houston”
    https://www.pcmag.com/news/dominos-begins-making-autonomous-pizza-deliveries-in-houston

    Company is bound to fail.

    “”We want to build an equitable and accessible future with the promise of lower emissions, safer streets, and more communities that participate in the economic growth of autonomous delivery.””

    — they don’t want to build the best technology, or something “insanely great” , they want some nebulous idea.

    n

    Pizza delivery drivers are expensive. Especially in the hood.

    But the machine looks expensive. I wonder if it can defend itself ?

  62. lynn says:

    Here, the rule is the POA only applies (as I understand it) to someone when they are alive.

    That is the case here. We had given the credit union the POA information weeks ago when MIL was alive. So we just provided the documents again. We, foolishly, did not bring a copy of the will with us to TX. I don’t know how it is all going to shake out. We will know within a couple of months when the dust settles. There is also a stipulation in the will that the wife must live for six months otherwise it goes to her brother. I don’t know if that means we have to wait six months to so anything.

    The wife has signed two new rent house leases since her father passed and so did his POA. She just went ahead and signed the leases even though the rent houses were in limbo until she was confirmed by the court to be executor of the will last week. And she hired a probate attorney last October but she was probably ok on that. She was a co-owner of three of his nine checking accounts when he passed. Yes, her father had nine checking accounts, he grew in the Depression and was paranoid about bank failures.

    Sounds like your wife’s brother has an interest in her passing away soon. One hopes that he likes her.

  63. Ray+Thompson says:

    The wife has signed two new rent houses leases since her father passed and so did his POA.

    A lot of the requirement of POA expiring, will precedence, beneficiary is to keep nefarious stuff from happening. If another family member sues there is some legal standing to resolve the issue. In this case I don’t see that happening. The beneficiary stuff is known. Grandkids get something, son gets some, wife gets the rest. We have informed them of their amount from the beneficiary designation on the CD. But we have not stipulated that amount that we will get. If wife splits that in half her brother will gain an extra several thousand. But he does not need to know that yet. I don’t want that to cause any friction.

    We have paid several expenses related to the funeral out of the MIL’s account. We sold the car with the POA. Depositing that check was an issue as it was made payable to MIL. Wife endorsed the check, went to the CU to deposit, and hit a snag. Even though wife is on the account. Wife should never have endorsed the check instead putting “FOR DEPOSIT ONLY” on the bag. There is NO legal requirement to sign a check with a persons name as long as the payee on the check matches the name on the account. The CU put a seven business day hold on the account because of the amount. That is understandable. Although a truly fake check, written on a large corporate account (I suspect CarMax is fairly large) could take up to 60 days to bounce back through the system.

    Yes, we have done some things to skirt the “legal to the letter” requirements to make it easier on us. Without access to the MIL’s account I would have to pay a lot of money out of my funds and that would be a problem. Since wife is joint on the checking account I suspect it is OK. My understanding is that the account is hers immediately upon the death of the MIL. I am not certain about the car sale and the check deposit. Whatever, it is done.

  64. MrAtoz says:

    “In her resignation letter, Office Kim Potter wrote this without referencing the shooting: “I believe it is in the best interest of the community, the department, and my fellow officers if I resign immediately.””

    I imagine she *resigned* with full pension and benefits. Probably recommended by a police union, which may pay for her defense. I guess she will be charged with murder. BLM’d DA’s always go with MURDER!!!!!!

    Like Mr. Lynn said about the Ukraine, if you live in Minneapolis, move now.

    5
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  65. Alan says:

    While working at a bar and a grocery store, she started investing money
    She used what she learned at an investment club at school, as well as what she taught herself from books and YouTube videos
    She grew her initial $500 to over $50,000 and now shares her progress and trading tips on TikTok

    People smarter than her that have better returns don’t share on social media, or write investment books, they keep their methods to themselves. (And they don’t stash their wealth in private vaults in Beverly Hills.)

    Those that can, do, those that can’t write books.

  66. MrAtoz says:

    I wonder if Brooklyn Center city will offer the family of Daunte Wright a $27 million dollar settlement? Maybe BC city can tap into Minneapolis’ apparently bottomless money trough for settling murderous cop incedents.

  67. Alan says:

    After seeing how well my parents trust functioned when they passed, my wife and I invested in a trust last year. It cost about $1800 for the lawyer to draw up the papers and change all our titles but I consider it money well invested. We, as individuals, own nothing now, it all belongs to the trust, clothing, cars, businesses, etc. When we pass on, our son or other surviving family that we designated, runs the trust and controls all assets. No lawyers or probate, just present the trust documents and they are set. I watched the wife’s family destroy itself fighting over who got 5 remote rural acres when her aunt died. They spent far more than the land was worth in lawyers fees and will no longer speak to each other. Turned out that the title was corrupted and the court sold it so neither side won.

    @Harold; how did you title soft goods such as clothes in the trust? And you didn’t mention it but I presume you have a ‘pour-over’ will to cover anything that slipped through the cracks and didn’t get titled into the trust. (Have one for my trust.) Worth the expense IMO.

  68. Marcelo says:

    Never say impossible for old-fashioned piracy. The new pirates would figure out a way to get to us. The modern day pirates are very talented.

    The modern day pirates are paid for with State funds. Think NK, China, Russia, Iran, etc.
    The alternative source of pirating comes with the backing from the drugs and terrorism funding.
    The final one is from free lancers. 🙂
    That is a lot of vested interests in getting to your stuff if it is really useful or you can really cut costs if you succeed. 🙁

  69. MrAtoz says:

    If you live in Philly, move now.

  70. lynn says:

    I wonder if Brooklyn Center city will offer the family of Daunte Wright a $27 million dollar settlement? Maybe BC city can tap into Minneapolis’ apparently bottomless money trough for settling murderous cop incedents.

    I really did not like the fact that the officer’s handgun and her taser were the same size, both with a pistol grip. The only difference was the color. She was not looking at her hands, she was looking at the criminal who was trying to escape arrest. Not good. And she had 26 years on the force, highly experienced.
    https://www.startribune.com/police-chief-officer-meant-to-use-taser-not-firearm-on-daunte-wright-brooklyn-center-shooting/600045076/

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  71. Alan says:

    My bad. The 90s were a ‘work 80 hours a week’ blur for me. I regret spending my 20s and early 30s that way.

    Too many of those in my 35+ years IT career. Regret many (but not entirely all) of them and the impacts on health and family. Passed on an opportunity years ago at one of the big Wall Street investment banks where 90-100 hours were not uncommon.

  72. Alan says:

    We don’t issue a new SIN (social insurance number) after death. One wonders why a flag on the file indicating a status of “deceased” would not have worked for the IRS.

    In the US, after death a new entity is formed, “Estate of John Smith,” to which the IRS assigns a TIN (Taxpayer Identification Number) rather than a SSN. The deceased is in fact flagged as such and for the year of death has two tax returns filed. Jan 1 through DOD for John Smith and then a second for the remainder of the year for the Estate.

  73. Greg Norton says:

    Dude, you worked at some crazy places ! Our shop was never like that nor the shops that I visited like Autodesk and the shops that I had friends working at (Microsoft, etc). 

    Also, as I’ve noted here before, kharma has always eventually caught up with my crazy management.

    Always.

  74. nick flandrey says:

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9466011/Video-Philadelphias-Skid-Row-shows-men-struggling-stay-feet.html

    –So a mainstream outlet finally picked up the story.   I saw it last month, linked from one of my “alt” sites.  I probably put the link here for everyone’s elucidation too.  It’s why I read Gateway Pundit and zerohedge.  They routinely ‘break’ stories that later get picked up by more mainstream press.  And DM isn’t MSM but they have tendencies that way now that they’ve ‘made it big’ in the US.

    n

    The blue hives are going to become death and money traps for middle class and above.  GET OUT.

  75. Alan says:

    “The Minnesota police officer who shot and killed a Black man Sunday during a traffic stop, along with the Police Chief who supervised her and the department, have both resigned Tuesday after nights of rioting and looting rocked their community in the wake of the state’s latest officer-involved shooting.”

    All it would have taken would have been this:
    “Yes Officer, I’m aware of my outstanding warrants and I respectfully ask to be taken to the station house to resolve this matter. I am not looking to create any trouble for you.”
    The man would still be alive, albeit probably in jail, and there would have been no rioting or looting.
    I won’t hold my breath waiting for this alternative to happen.

  76. nick flandrey says:

    Just for the record, when I was touring, 80 hours a week was ante.   Same same with Bigcorp, when working on the road.  10hrs or more on site.  2-4 hours at the hotel every day.  Travel outside of business hours.    And I did that for DECADES, 200-250 days a year.  Jebus I was dumb.

    n

  77. lynn says:

    Our disabled daughter got her first iron infusion in six months today. She waited too long and her blood iron dropped to 8 (she is suppose to be in 12 to 15 range). Now she is home and feels bad. And they already scheduled her for another iron infusion next Tuesday. She has been dizzy for months now and did not want the treatment. Sigh. She probably needs another five iron infusions to push her up to an 11 score so she can have a colonoscopy and an endoscopy to see if she is leaking blood.

  78. Greg Norton says:

    The blue hives are going to become death and money traps for middle class and above. GET OUT.

    Downtown Austin has large areas that look like the pictures from Philadelphia, within visible range of I-35 and just a few blocks north of the tourist/party district on 6th Street.

     

  79. Alan says:

    I have worked some very long hours. Did 27hrs straight on the clock shooting a Coke commercial in downtown LA.

    24+ hour stints are not all that uncommon in IT when something important breaks really badly.
    One planned one was NYE 1999 where I was our division’s manager for the Euro implementation for our securities movement (SMAC) system. Things went smoothly and wrangled me off for most of NYE 2000 (which for us was basically another non-event).

  80. lynn says:

    “The Minnesota police officer who shot and killed a Black man Sunday during a traffic stop, along with the Police Chief who supervised her and the department, have both resigned Tuesday after nights of rioting and looting rocked their community in the wake of the state’s latest officer-involved shooting.”

    All it would have taken would have been this:
    “Yes Officer, I’m aware of my outstanding warrants and I respectfully ask to be taken to the station house to resolve this matter. I am not looking to create any trouble for you.”
    The man would still be alive, albeit probably in jail, and there would have been no rioting or looting.
    I won’t hold my breath waiting for this alternative to happen.

    I’ve got a friend who is a Sheriff’s deputy here. His number one saying is running is how you turn a misdemeanor into a felony in Texas. People are likely to get hurt when they have to chase you down.

    I don’t like this situation at all. The officer screwed up big time. But the criminal started the incident and brought this down on himself.

  81. ed says:

    US Halts Use Of J&J COVID Vaccine After 6 Cases Of Deadly Rare Blood Clots Identified

    The Los Angeles times says about 7 million J&J shots have been given.

    So, 6 cases out of 7 million doses…less than 1-in-a-million incidence – quite literally.

     

  82. Ray+Thompson says:

    I wonder if Brooklyn Center city will offer the family of Daunte Wright a $27 million dollar settlement?

    Copicide is becoming the new lottery ticket. Especially for Ben Crump who receives 40% of any settlement of any client he represents. Ben Crump is a racist cretin, a scum of a lawyer, a leach, an ulcer on society, human feces, a disgusting human being. And those were the kind words. Everything he does he labels as racist. It is many times cheaper, and easier for a city to settle for a sum then a long protracted litigation. Both in the cost to the city from security and damages, but also court time. Ben Crump knows this and knows by making an event a racial issue the press is on his side.

    After the victim, of their own choosing, is no longer wasting oxygen, the person is described as a loving child, father, husband, brother, etc. who would drop anything to help someone in need. A pillar of the community. With 25 arrests, a drug habit, fathered 12 different children by 18 different like minded females, a welfare leach, poorly educated, and otherwise unfit to live in a civilized society. But oh my, the low life was such a stellar individual any community should have welcome him with open arms, given the key to the city. They are all worth more dead than they are alive.

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  83. lynn says:

    “Major News Outlets Pledge to Begin Calling ‘Climate Change’ a ‘Climate Emergency’”
    https://cnsnews.com/blog/craig-bannister/major-news-outlets-pledge-begin-calling-climate-change-climate-emergency

    “A number of major news organizations worldwide, ranging from Scientific American and The Columbia Journalism Review to The Guardian and Al Jazeera, have signed a pledge to begin referring to “climate change” as a “climate emergency” in their reporting.”

    You have got to be kidding me. And just another reason why I do not watch the mainstream news.

    Hat tip to:
    https://thelibertydaily.com/

  84. nick flandrey says:

    “So, 6 cases out of 7 million doses…less than 1-in-a-million incidence – quite literally.”

    Assuming a 50-50 split for male vs female…  all the blood clots were in females.  That bends the odds a bit depending your gender…

    n

  85. drwilliams says:

    @nick

    I was thinking hard rock mine like the Tyler Vernon character in the  Ringo Maple syrup wars books…

    More like Von Neumann’s War, John Ringo and Travis S Taylor

  86. Alan says:

    Without access to the MIL’s account I would have to pay a lot of money out of my funds and that would be a problem.

    It’s always coincidental when someone on death’s door manages to ‘write’ a bunch of large checks dated the day before they die – right??

  87. lynn says:

    @nick

    I was thinking hard rock mine like the Tyler Vernon character in the Ringo Maple syrup wars books…

    More like Von Neumann’s War, John Ringo and Travis S Taylor

    I so need to reread both of those books. Having 98% of my books in the garage is really cramping my style.
    https://www.amazon.com/Von-Neumanns-War-John-Ringo/dp/1416555307/?tag=ttgnet-20
    and
    https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1439133972?tag=ttgnet-20

    Wow, I bought a new MMPB of “Live Free or Die” the other day for $6.79. Looks like it was the last copy on Big River.

  88. Alan says:

    “So, 6 cases out of 7 million doses…less than 1-in-a-million incidence – quite literally.”

    Assuming a 50-50 split for male vs female… all the blood clots were in females. That bends the odds a bit depending your gender…

    Don’t forget to factor out the trans people from your calculations…or is that factor in??

  89. Harold+Combs says:

    “Toy Story 2” will be forever associated with yet another two hour period (88 minutes, actually, the running time of the flick) in my career when a manager decided to fire me, realized he would be f*cked Monday if I wasn’t in my chair, and then changed his mind about the termination. I played hooky that Sunday afternoon to see the flick, and management went “Al Pacino in ‘Scarface’” crazy when he found out, the drama all playing out on my home voice mail.

    Working for MCI/WorldCom in Hong Kong was the opposite for me. My manager was a friend from the Tulsa HQ where I had started and he would often swing by my office on a quiet afternoon and suggest we drop down 86 floos into the Central Plaza and catch a movie. Saw the first Spider-Man movie that way. Also saw a lot of strange Chinese films.

  90. Ray+Thompson says:

    Don’t forget to factor out the trans people from your calculations…or is that factor in??

    In, out, doesn’t matter. Even they don’t really know. And it could change day to day depending how they can use it to their advantage.

  91. Greg Norton says:

    News out of System76 this week. Right now, IMHO, Pop! OS is the closest anyone has come to producing a desktop Linux usable by more than just geeks.

    https://liliputing.com/2021/04/linux-pc-maker-system76-introduces-the-cosmic-desktop-environment-coming-to-pop_os-21-04.html

    My 2007 MacBook Pro where I run Pop! OS on and off got another reprieve this week when I was able to boot and install the upstream Ubuntu 21.04 beta. I’ll hold off buying a new battery for the laptop, but I’d love to put that machine back into active rotation.

  92. drwilliams says:

    I’d like to see stats on every LE district in the US:

    a) population

    b) number of outstanding warrants

    c) racial breakdown thereof

  93. Harold+Combs says:

    @Harold; how did you title soft goods such as clothes in the trust? And you didn’t mention it but I presume you have a ‘pour-over’ will to cover anything that slipped through the cracks and didn’t get titled into the trust.

    That must be in there somewhere, the lawyer said everything not specifically called out would automatically become trust property. He also did our living will and other misc. Documents at the same time. Oddly, the most difficult asset to transfer was my royalties in oil producing lands.

  94. TV says:

    24+ hour stints are not all that uncommon in IT when something important breaks really badly.

    As a developer 20+ years ago I did much the same – up 24+ hours for a big and risky implementation with all the fun stuff (Why is that not working? Do we back out? Can you fix it?) happening after 16+ hours have passed. Fun times. I could not do that now nor would I want to. It is a good company to work for, but is willing to take every hour you wish to give it, and the work available is endless. These days, they are actually very worried about overwork for people who can’t stop because they are at home, and are suggesting people block off lunch hours in their calendar and refuse any appointments at lunch or any too early or too late in the day.

  95. ed says:

    “So, 6 cases out of 7 million doses…less than 1-in-a-million incidence – quite literally.”

    Assuming a 50-50 split for male vs female… all the blood clots were in females. That bends the odds a bit depending your gender…

    Don’t forget to factor out the trans people from your calculations…or is that factor in??

    This had occurred to me.  Females, people identifying as females, females identifying as males?  There isn’t enough information to say.

    And there are some very strange drugs, prescribed or otherwise, out there.  And odd genetic makeups.

    …and I have no idea why that’s in red. I guess we can do color now here?

  96. TV says:

    In the US, after death a new entity is formed, “Estate of John Smith,” to which the IRS assigns a TIN (Taxpayer Identification Number) rather than a SSN. The deceased is in fact flagged as such and for the year of death has two tax returns filed. Jan 1 through DOD for John Smith and then a second for the remainder of the year for the Estate.

    In Canada, depending on where you are in the year for tax filing, you may file a return for the last tax year and then a “final” return for the deceased. Not sure what the CRA does internally, but the same SIN number is the reference number for each. Any tax matters for the estate are part of that final return. I am dealing with a rather ugly mess in that regard after the passing of my wife.

    As for joint accounts, in Canada after a death the account belongs in whole to whoever is left on the account, otherwise it is part of the estate. Prior to my father’s passing, we sold his house as he was in a home and quite incapable of managing his own affairs, or ever moving back (we waited 18 months in indecision just in case – foolish, but with the real estate market in Toronto on a permanent upward move on prices, a lucrative bout of indecision). The proceeds of the sale went into an account in all 3 names. On my father’s passing, my brother and I split the contents. Had a friend with 7 siblings that did the same. After death, wrote 7 cheques and closed the account. Doing this does require that your parent trusts you and that you and your siblings trust each other, or ugly games can get played.

  97. TV says:

    Don’t forget to factor out the trans people from your calculations…or is that factor in??

    This had occurred to me. Females, people identifying as females, females identifying as males? There isn’t enough information to say.

    One presumes (dangerous these days, but what the heck) the key factor here is whether you have a pair of “X” chromosomes or an “XY”. Appearances matter not, though it is possible large doses of hormones might have some bearing on side effects of the vaccine. This is less than 1% of the population so it is unlikely to matter to the overall results.

  98. nick flandrey says:

    https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/ercot-may-enter-emergency-grid-prices-spike-cold-blast

    –cold snap? It was 89F this afternoon.

    74F and light misty drizzle at the moment.

    n

  99. nick flandrey says:

    Freaking Lowe’s bait and switched me on a new fridge just now.    Claimed to have them in stock and at one of the 3 local stores.  Bought.  Paid.  Confirmed.  Then the email saying it would be delayed and next week it would be in a different (closer) store.  If I can find a scratch and dent tomorrow, I’m gonna cancel the order.  I bought the model that showed ‘in stock’ for a reason.  If there ERP software is so bad that they don’t know how many fridges they have and where, they should fire some bangladeshis.

    n

  100. lynn says:

    https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/ercot-may-enter-emergency-grid-prices-spike-cold-blast

    –cold snap? It was 89F this afternoon.

    74F and light misty drizzle at the moment.

    n

    Not cold. Hot. Much hotter than they planned today. The demand peaked at 49,000 MW at 4pm to 5pm and they had 50,000 MW of generation online. They probably should have shed some load but they decided to hang in there.
    http://www.ercot.com/

    The problem is that when a cold front stalls, everyone on the south side gets hot and muggy. And turns on the A/C. You’ve seen it a thousand times. And guess what about the vaunted wind turbines ? Yup, the wind died and so did they.

    ERCOT started off this morning at 34,000 MW at 4am. They should have scheduled on more base load at that time but hindsight is 20/20.

    This is why I bought an automatic generator for my house. Get ready, this summer is going to be up and down. I’ve been hearing nasty rumors that a lot of power generation was damaged during the Texas Deep Freeze in February. Looks like they are scrambling to rebuild a few gas turbines. Maybe a hundred gas turbines got wrecked (pure SWAG on my part as there are 300 gas turbines in Texas) ? If they did not have the parts in the warehouse then uh oh, neither does Schenectady and Philadelphia. Some gas turbine parts can take a year or two to get.

    I knew that when ERCOT let TXU shut down 4,200 MW of coal units in 2018 that we would regret this. And there was another couple of thousand MW of coal units shut down at LCRA and Brazos Coop and other places across Texas. Guess what, we may all regret what ERCOT has done to us.
    https://www.dallasnews.com/business/energy/2017/10/13/texas-largest-power-generator-speeds-up-coal-s-decline-with-closure-of-two-more-plants/

    Don’t worry, we will have plenty of electricity 98% of the time at cheap prices. The other 2% of the time, oh well.

  101. drwilliams says:

    worth reading:

    Climate Change Climate Emergency

    https://www.cnsnews.com/blog/craig-bannister/major-news-outlets-pledge-begin-calling-climate-change-climate-emergency

    The Dark Cold Years are Coming

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

    We blinked and Heinlein’s Crazy Years are upon us.

    First the progs will take your gubs, then they will take anything else they want.

    Nice generator. Permit and papers? Tax stamps? Looks like a zoning violation–going to have to confiscate that.

    repeat for:

    –solar cells

    –windmills

    yada yada yada

    If you’re designing new or remodeling, insulation and passive solar should be high on your list. Likewise blackout window treatments and anything else that can “stealth” improvements to the homestead.

    Highest of all? Exit the blue sh!tholes and get far away with like-minded people.

  102. nick flandrey says:

    –bu bu but I thought that was just  a right wing conspiracy theory….

    Our focus was to get Trump out of office’: CNN technical director makes candid admission to undercover Project Veritas reporter he thought he was date with after listing his employer on TINDER

    CNN Technical Director Charlie Chester was caught on hidden camera video
    Project Veritas released the clips on Tuesday showing Chester on several ‘dates’
    Conservative group found Chester through Tinder, where he listed his employer
    Video shows Chester boasting of ‘propaganda’ tactics used by the network
    ‘We would always show shots of him jogging’ Chester said of Biden
    Chester has no editorial input at CNN, but would witness daily decisions there

    n

  103. nick flandrey says:

    –stay with the vehicle and live. Period.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9467317/Congressional-staffer-died-Death-Valley-car-got-stranded-wife-injured-foot.html

    n

    Tires burn. Everyone should have a couple of road flares in their vehicle, especially if they are going off the beaten path. That Subi is not an off road vehicle, and if you think it might be, what are the chances it had off road tires mounted?

  104. nick flandrey says:

    More from the CNN guy

    In another clip, Chester said that there is ‘fatigue’ for stories about the coronavirus pandemic, and that CNN is looking for new stories to ‘latch onto’.

    ‘They’ve already announced in our office that once the public is – will be open to it – we’re going to start focusing mainly on climate,’ he said.

    ‘Pandemic-like story that we’ll beat to death, but that one’s got longevity. You know what I mean? Like there’s a definitive ending to the pandemic. It’ll taper off to a point that it’s not a problem anymore. Climate change can take years, so they’ll probably be able to milk that quite a bit,’ he said.

    ‘So, climate change overload,’ the woman responded.

    ‘Be prepared, it’s coming. Climate change is going to be the next COVID thing for CNN,’ said Chester.

    Matches the other story.

    n

  105. nick flandrey says:

    My School district.  Not a school we are zoned to.  Well regarded school though, people move to have their kids attend that school.

    High school teacher is placed on leave after asking class ‘How is the word n****r complicated?’

    The Houston English teacher posted the assignment on the board on Monday
    The prompt from the teacher was ‘How is the word n***** complicated? How has it changed?’ Students needed to answer in 75 words
    It was also accompanied by a quote from rapper Tupac Shakur, where the N-word was written out multiple times
    The teacher has been placed on leave pending the results of an investigation

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9467727/High-school-teacher-placed-leave-assignment-complicated-N-word.html

    Weak little pathetic snowflakes.

    n

  106. ITGuy1998 says:

    Freaking Lowe’s bait and switched me on a new fridge just now. Claimed to have them in stock and at one of the 3 local stores. Bought. Paid. Confirmed. Then the email saying it would be delayed and next week it would be in a different (closer) store. If I can find a scratch and dent tomorrow, I’m gonna cancel the order. I bought the model that showed ‘in stock’ for a reason. If there ERP software is so bad that they don’t know how many fridges they have and where, they should fire some bangladeshis.

    Lowe’s inventory management is iffy, at best. Luckily, there is one 4 miles away from me, so I’m not out a lot of time when their system leads me astray.

  107. Alan says:

    Freaking Lowe’s bait and switched me on a new fridge just now. Claimed to have them in stock and at one of the 3 local stores. Bought. Paid. Confirmed. Then the email saying it would be delayed and next week it would be in a different (closer) store. If I can find a scratch and dent tomorrow, I’m gonna cancel the order. I bought the model that showed ‘in stock’ for a reason. If there ERP software is so bad that they don’t know how many fridges they have and where, they should fire some bangladeshis.

    Something odd that I’ve been seeing lately with Lowe’s (both website and app) – typical hardware items that they show as in stock at a particular store are missing the item’s location (Aisle # and Bin #), and wind up at the store in the location they usually are. Strange.

  108. Nick Flandrey says:

    arg. let the record show I realized I made the ‘there, they’re, their’ error, and chose NOT to edit all the comments and quotes to hide my lapse. I could have yaknow.

    n

  109. brad says:

    Or just a reptile heater from the pet store.

    That’s also a good idea!

    We have visitors coming for the next couple of days, so this is not the time for the move. Probably Sunday night will be her first night in the garage, with whatever heating solution I’ve settled on by then. Thanks to everyone for their suggestions!

    Hugos and Nebulas

    A lost cause. The nadir came when the awarded Jemisin for her unreadable tripe. And, yes, I tried to read one of her books. She sets it in the future, so it’s “science fiction”, even though she has zero understanding of science – she doesn’t even try. And the writing…seriously awful. But she’s black, she’s female, she’s LGBT, she writes about woke topics –> so she get awards.

    I periodically look at one or the other winner, but mostly I take the Hugos and Nebulas as lists of books and authors to be avoided.

    You are going to need 50 years of food and water for each person in your hidey hole. Also an old missile silo

    Wool. If you haven’t read the series, definitely do. Now there’s a series that should have won awards, but he’s a white male, so…

    24+ hour stints are not all that uncommon in IT when something important breaks really badly.

    Emergencies do happen. But as a regular thing, it shows lousy management.

    You can pull a couple of long shifts, but day-after-day-after-day – no. You start spinning your wheels, missing the obvious, making mistakes. In the end, I suspect your real productivity drops, compared to what you could achieve if you were well-rested, and working normal hours.

    The one time I worked as a PM, I took over a team that was constantly being pestered by management and by the internal customers. Interrupted by phone calls, the customers dropping by their desks, it was crazy. They were working long hours, only because they couldn’t get anything done during the day. That was my hill to die on: “No one talks to my developers – if you want something, talk to me.” That made just a wee difference, both in productivity and in morale…

  110. Norman says:

    Re the astrazenica vaccine and blood clots, using figures to the end of March the risk looks like 1 per 250,000 tilted slightly toward younger females. The risk of blood clots due to the contraceptive pill in women is 1 per 1000. NB these are those with clots not fatalities.

    https://theconversation.com/blood-clot-risks-comparing-the-astrazeneca-vaccine-and-the-contraceptive-pill-158652

     

  111. Marcelo says:

    Re the astrazenica vaccine and blood clots, using figures to the end of March the risk looks like 1 per 250,000 tilted slightly toward younger females. The risk of blood clots due to the contraceptive pill in women is 1 per 1000. NB these are those with clots not fatalities.

    I have always had problems when things are presented like this when there is a death involved. You see, there is always one that makes that 1 in X and there is nothing special excluding you from being the 1.

  112. brad says:

    I have always had problems when things are presented like this when there is a death involved. You see, there is always one that makes that 1 in X and there is nothing special excluding you from being the 1.

    This is a very human problem. The idea of risking death from some unknown, unfamiliar thing scares us. Yet familiar risks are no problem at all – we still drive our cars; we still participate in risky sports; etc..

  113. Harold+Combs says:

    The one time I worked as a PM, I took over a team that was constantly being pestered by management and by the internal customers. Interrupted by phone calls, the customers dropping by their desks, it was crazy. They were working long hours, only because they couldn’t get anything done during the day. That was my hill to die on: “No one talks to my developers – if you want something, talk to me.” That made just a wee difference, both in productivity and in morale…

    Bravo. Having come up the ranks of development and support, when I became a manager my philosophy was that my job was to provide my team with direction and resources to meet our objectives and to keep management off their back. More than once I had to jump on VIPs for bothering my team when and delaying the fix. They soon learned that if they had a question on progress or a problem with my team they needed to speak to me. My team was instructed to not speak with management and direct all issues to me. It improved moral and productivity and I took a lot of heat from managers who were used to interrupting underlings. Happily I had the support of my direct management.

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