Thur. June 17, 2021 – too much left to do, no time

Warm and wet, with possible tropical storm pushing up from the Gulf. Not that I was right about yesterday. It was hot. And it was humid. But it was also clear and sunny for almost the whole day. There were some glowering clouds in the distance late evening, and some lightning, but no rain for me. It was 80F at 1 am.

I spent the day doing some auction stuff, cleaning and organizing, and playing with the puppy. I wanted to get out of the house but couldn’t drop the kids at the pool, which ended up with me stuck at home all day.

I don’t think I can get my stuff ready for the pallet auction before I leave on the trip. I was hoping my wife could work from home today, but she’s got in-person meetings all day. I can’t even do ebay listings because I’d have to stop them in a day anyway to go out of town. It is very frustrating, and I feel like I’m falling behind.

I KNOW I’m falling behind, but I’m not willing to have my family travel without me either. Spending time with my mom is kinda important too. It’s getting closer to just calling a haul off company time…

——————————————————————

The world situation is changing quickly too. There should be no doubt in the G7 about where the US is, and is headed, assuming the coup plotters can keep a lid on the dissent. No one really knows when or if that will happen. What is radical islam doing? What are they plotting for us? China, Turkey, Russia, all licking their lips and rubbing their hands together about something…

Some things I’ll be watching for- our allies now know we are F’ed internally. They either know who is really running Joe, and approve, or they are realizing they will be on their own (as we turn inward). If the UK increases their military posture, brings troops and assets home, that might be a pretty good indicator which it is. Germany and France have their own internal issues but they should be positioning themselves for whatever they see coming, and soon. When was the last time we heard about bank stress tests, IMF loans, European central banks, and negative interest rates? Remember the concern over the PIIGS? Think they are in better shape after a year of wuflu lockdowns?

Estonia is probably pretty nervous right now. We moved a bunch of assets into the Baltics, iirc, what are they up to now?

Israel and the middle east is up for grabs at the moment, or will be soon.

I expect a bunch of realignment in the next year. And while I’d normally be a kind of ‘let them deal with their own issues’ if it happens because of our weakness, I am concerned that it won’t end with them.

So if you needed more reasons to stack, there you are. Stack it high. Can’t hurt. Might save your life.

nick

79 Comments and discussion on "Thur. June 17, 2021 – too much left to do, no time"

  1. brad says:

    @SteveF: Good for you, letting the girl stay. Even if it’s just sibling crowding she’s escaping, you’re doing a good thing. Don’t let it go to your head šŸ˜›

  2. MrAtoz says:

    We’re presenting today at Judson ISD in San Antone. The school district was hit with ransom-wear last night. Who in the Hell ransoms a school district. Anything net or PC related is down. All we need is a projector. All of our phones have hot spots if we need them.

  3. MrAtoz says:

    WTAF:

    Washington Postā€™s Max Boot writes that President Biden ā€˜wiped the smirk off Putinā€™s faceā€™ Wednesday

    Max Boot. Appropriate name for a boot-licker.

    Please, sheeple, wake the eff up. Game over, man, game over.

  4. Ray Thompson says:

    She never, and I mean NEVER talks about the home she left

    I had a really difficult time talking about the abuse I was subjected to while living with the aunt and uncle. What helped me was sitting down and over the course of about three months writing a document that covered the abuse. It is amazing how well the memory stores those events. A copy was sent to all the relatives *after* the aunt and uncle had passed. Family members were shocked. My brothers all agreed with the assessment as they had suffered some of the same abuse.

    A copy was also sent to two of the neighbors I had while growing up. They both stated they knew something was wrong but could do or say nothing during the time. One neighbor said had they known the full extent of what was happening they would have taken me, forcibly, from my aunt and uncle and let me live with them. I would have taken that option if presented.

    At one of my class reunions a couple of teachers attended. They also stated that something was not right with my living arrangements. Even a couple of people that I knew in the area stated the same. This was in the 60’s where kids were not believed and people did not get involved. I was finally able to tell the others at my class reunion what was going on and why I wore long sleeve shirts (for which I was made fun of) when it was 90 degrees outside. The long sleeves were to cover the bruises. I really tried hard to avoid dressing out for gym and when I did I expended effort to hide the bruises.

    To this day I still firmly believe that my parents did not really want me, a surprise. After the divorce my mother was more concerned with her boyfriends and did not want me, or any of her kids in her life. For a year my brothers stayed with my grandparents.

    In spite of the abuse I was better off in Oregon with the aunt and uncle than staying in California with my mother. She would have been gone most of the time and I would have gotten myself in significant trouble. At least in Oregon I was kept busy and isolated as we lived 14 miles from town. Strange indeed.

  5. Greg Norton says:

    Max Boot. Appropriate name for a boot-licker.

    For a while, from just before the election until a couple of months ago, when Wuxu Flu numbers really started to drop, the local Faux News had the suspiciously-named Marin Austin delivering a nightly dose of what was known at our house as “Fear Porn Burlesque”, Prog spin on the virus and election results delivered with cleavage on display from her way-too-pink living room which, I assume, was her home.

    “Marin” has disappeared from the 10 PM broadcast as of late. I haven’t bothered to check the station bio page. Local — network owned — Faux News brought her in from LA as part of a drastic change in editorial slant, probably anticipating more unrest in Texas about the election and virus leading to bigger ratings.

    Last night was the first time since Saturday morning that local Faux News had a picture of one Amish lad arrested as part of the shooting incident. This was probably done because the arraignment documents dropped into public record, and the race/motivation of the shooters couldn’t be fudged any more.

    Long story short, the shooting was two Amish yout’s settling a grudge going back to middle school, with “social media” fueling the showdown. Both suspects arrested live in Killeen/Harker Heights, 60+ away from where the event took place.

    Regardless of what happens on base at Fort Hood, law enforcement in Bell County hasn’t been defunded or neutered through politics so adequately settling things around home probably wasn’t going to happen. The boys may not have even been able to get off one shot, much less enough to injure 13 people and kill one.

    6th Street is bad, m’kay.

  6. Chad says:

    Yes, but switching to a new machine would consist of installing the VM software (VMWare or whatever), copying down the image, and starting it. Bada-boom, bada-bing, youā€™re where you were as of the point that you made the most recent backup.

    (OK, itā€™s not quite that simple, but it is close. You certainly shouldnā€™t need more than an hour to get the new machine set up, the pass-through connected so the VM could use the printers, and so on.)

    We have something at work where there’s essentially a pool of virtual workstations on a server somewhere and then a thin client at the user’s desk goes at login and fetches one of the those virtual instances and displays it on the screen. Functions like a regular workstation, but the thin client box is maybe the size of a VHS cassette.

  7. Greg Norton says:

    We have something at work where thereā€™s essentially a pool of virtual workstations on a server somewhere and then a thin client at the userā€™s desk goes at login and fetches one of the those virtual instances and displays it on the screen. Functions like a regular workstation, but the thin client box is maybe the size of a VHS cassette.Ā 

    Sounds like Citrix. Their tech is seriously behind the curve, but they remain popular in medical and financial companies because of the control provided over the desktop.

    It would be overkill for Lynn’s company because my guess is that he can trust his users not to surf porn, online gamble, day trade, or install RDP, PPTP, TeamViewer, etc. to facilitate work from home without authorization

  8. MrAtoz says:

    LOL. An IT puke just came into our work shop and told all administrators to “go back to your schools and unplug everything from the network.” Two hour paid break for us. I guess they aren’t going to pony up Bitcoin unless SA gives them tax dollars to pay the ransom.

  9. ITGuy1998 says:

    Who in the Hell ransoms a school district.

    Ours got hit late last year. We had just transitioned to being back onsite some of the time. No school, in person or remote, for a week. Not surprisingly, no significant details have ever been released.

    https://www.waff.com/2020/12/01/huntsville-city-schools-cyber-attack-keeps-students-out-classroom/

  10. Greg Norton says:

    LOL. An IT puke just came into our work shop and told all administrators to ā€œgo back to your schools and unplug everything from the network.ā€ Two hour paid break for us. I guess they arenā€™t going to pony up Bitcoin unless SA gives them tax dollars to pay the ransom.Ā 

    The schools aren’t closed for the summer right now? Ours are usually shut from the end of school until mid-July.

    The kids former middle school has big dumpsters parked out front. It appears that all of the partitions installed for the Wuxu Flu are getting pulled. Geesh, what a waste of money.

    If everyone is back this Fall, the school will return to being overcrowded and there won’t be room for the partitions.

    The ISD built a new middle school in the Subcontinent development next to us, but no one wants to send their kids there, even the local parents who live within walking distance.

  11. SteveF says:

    Biden may not be perfect, but so far appears to be an improvement.

    A sentence which could be expressed only by a humorist, a lunatic, or a delusional partisan. (Some category overlap may be observed.)

    8
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  12. Nick Flandrey says:

    From the CDC–

    As we continue to support President Bidenā€™s goal for 70% of the U.S. adult population to have at least one vaccine shot and 160 million U.S. adults to be fully vaccinated by July 4th, the Chief Health Equity Officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention invites you to the webinar titled Motivate to Vaccinate: National Month of Action for COVID-19 Vaccinations.

    This webinar will be held on Thursday, June 24th, 2021 from 1:00pm to 2:30pm (Eastern Time)

    Registration is required.

    https://www.zoomgov.com/webinar/register/WN_yihAVgcxQ3aL3xJXmmg7uA

    The webinar is a call to action to increase the number of vaccinated persons in Black or African American and Hispanic or Latino communities. It will highlight organizations who have conducted successful mass vaccination activities for Black or African American and Hispanic or Latino persons.

    Presenting Organizations:

    Black Coalition Against COVID-19
    Latinx COVID-19 Task Force
    The National Resource for Refugees, Immigrants, and Migrants (NRC-RIM)
    Choose Healthy Life
    UnidosUS

    These organizations will share their successes, challenges, and strategies used to increase vaccine education, awareness, and uptake. In addition to hearing from these organizations, you will have the opportunity to have your questions and concerns about COVID-19 vaccination addressed.

    –hmmm. The black community has plenty good reason to distrust the government when it comes to experimenting on them. Whatever your personal beliefs about the vax, it was rushed, given emergency authorization, and makers were given immunity from lawsuits if it goes wrong. Those three things won’t engender trust in some people.

    — a large part of the hispanic community is here illegally. Simple fact. If they’re catching 180K per month at the border, over a million got in in the last year alone. That’s been going on for 10 years at least at a varying rate. As far as I could tell, there wasn’t any way to get the vax without doing 6 pages of paperwork, two of them devoted to different tracking systems and databases. There was no option to get the shot anonymously. At the very least they have a DNA sample tied to a time and place and photo. That isn’t going to be something an illegal wants to do.

    and if they start offering anonymous shots to some communities but insisting on fully identifying others, that’s informative too.

    n

  13. SteveF says:

    We have something at work where thereā€™s essentially a pool of virtual workstations on a server somewhere and then a thin client at the userā€™s desk goes at login and fetches one of the those virtual instances and displays it on the screen. Functions like a regular workstation, but the thin client box is maybe the size of a VHS cassette.

    Not what I meant, nor was TV’s concern about security and complexity really on point. I’m talking about a fully-functional PC, which is already in place, but installing the software on a VMWare instance (or whatever they call it) running on that machine. Performance is almost as good as if the software was running on the native OS and, rather than opening new security holes it’s actually safer than running natively because if you go to a malicious website or unwisely click a link in email, only your virtual computer is damaged. Exit, delete the saved instance, restore from the most recent backup, and you’re back in business in minutes, rather than needing hours or forever to get the machine wiped and safe again.

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  14. Nick Flandrey says:

    Who in the Hell ransoms a school district.

    –our district has a half BILLION dollar operating budget, just adding up the categories in the budget roughly.

    THey spent $21M on “instructional support” for “school leadership”, $17M for “guidance and counseling, evaluation”, ~$7M on extra curricular activities. That is in addition to the $218M on “instruction”.

    They spent $110M on debt service.

    Willy Sutton said he robbed banks because “that’s where the money is”….

    n

  15. Nick Flandrey says:


    Biden may not be perfect, but so far appears to be an improvement.


    A sentence which could be expressed only by a humorist, a lunatic, or a delusional partisan. (Some category overlap may be observed.)

    — no, take it seriously. “appears”
    TV is outside the US media bubble, and if he sees a different part of the elephant I want to know the what’s and why’s…

    n

  16. Greg Norton says:

    and if they start offering anonymous shots to some communities but insisting on fully identifying others, thatā€™s informative too.

    I’ve seen stories about Mexican nationals flying into Dallas for shots in a case of reverse medical tourism. Texas dropped residency requirements early when vaccine started going unused and thrown away.

    No word on the amount of documentation requested.

    Once less fragile vaccines are approved, anonymous distribution for cash wouldn’t be a big surprise. All the paperwork was probably more about preventing all of the supply ending up at concierge clinics catering to the wealth early on when demand was high. Vaccine “passports” were never going to happen in some states even if the tech could be implemented properly.

  17. Mark W says:

    Local KSAT web site has no mention of the ransomware attack but does prominently feature several left wing issues.

    KSAT used to be the closest thing to real news in San Antonio. Not for the past couple of years.

  18. Nick Flandrey says:

    Added–

    4/5 (19/25) of our elementary schools are Title 1, meaning we get fed money because more than 40% of the students qualify for free food.

    6/7 of our middle schools (grade 6,7,8) are Title 1.

    We are considered the “rich” district compared to HISD (Houston proper) and the “good” district. HALF of our elementary schools are not having success teaching kids to read, so we’re changing how we do that, again. The math number is similar, but for now we’re sticking with modified Singapore math.

    Under “Robin Hood” or “recapture” our district was slated to send $66M of our property tax revenue to the state to be “redistributed” to “poor” districts. It was $33M last year. There was a lot of pushback and some of it mattered as we got some relief so IDK what this year’s number turned out to be.

    HISD LOVED!!!111!! Robin Hood for years as they GOT money. With downtown redevelopment and all the high end residential building in the core, HISD is now a “doner” district and is SCREAMING about the unfairness of Robin Hood taking their money when they need it. Nice cup of schadenfreude with my breakfast there…..

    n

  19. MrAtoz says:

    The schools arenā€™t closed for the summer right now? Ours are usually shut from the end of school until mid-July.

    The admin building is always staffed and PC/IT fully functional, but with minimal staffing. There is alway something going on at schools, like our workshop. It would suck if nobody noticed and came back in the Fall and nothing worked.

    Update: the Districts email servers (MS) are down and all employee emails and contacts and calendars are POOF! Apparently, a lot of teachers use their school email accounts for everything. Bye, bye!

    They even unplugged all their copy machines (networked), so I’m making copies for people on the little Epson ET-3760 we brought. I should charge $1/side for color. LOL!

  20. MrAtoz says:

    Remember plugs sqawking “120 days, 120 days” when asked about the border:

    Psaki tells us rubes not to believe our lying eyes because the ā€˜factsā€™ say that Joe Biden has given America a booming economy

    Now plugs has magically saved the FUSA in the same 120 days. What exactly did he do? Boot licking mudderfrickers.

  21. Nick Flandrey says:

    I’m not saying that any particular person is ugly, but it is a strategy of the progressives to attack beauty in all its forms.

    n

  22. Chad says:

    Sounds like Citrix. Their tech is seriously behind the curve, but they remain popular in medical and financial companies because of the control provided over the desktop.

    We had something similar when I worked at a bank. That place was so locked down you couldn’t even go to CNN.com (without a request from your manager to IT detailing why you had a business need to do so). Totally pointless. Everyone had a personal laptop, tablet, and/or smartphone at their desk that they spent a decent chunk of their day on instead of the ridiculously locked down bank network.

    Funny thing is that I worked at another equally large bank just prior to that and they didn’t have any of that crap locked down and it was a non-issue.

    Where I’m out now they were just trying to save on workstation costs. We have a bunch of hotel/walk-up PCs setup throughout the warehouse/fulfillment center and at any given time only maybe a third are being used. So, when we had to update to Win10 we discovered we had several ancient workstations that needed upgraded too. So, to save on Win10 licenses and save on purchasing new desktop PCs they went with those thin clients.

  23. lynn says:

    Update: the Districts email servers (MS) are down and all employee emails and contacts and calendars are POOF! Apparently, a lot of teachers use their school email accounts for everything. Bye, bye!

    I am trying to use my gmail account for personal email but I only check it once per week. So I am guilty of this too.

    However, I outsourced our business email to gmail a long time ago (two decades ago ??? I was a beta tester and still get it for free). Works awesomely. I cannot imagine running my own email server anymore, that was a freaking disaster. Every week was another challenge. My breaking point came when I had to go into our email server’s mail files and start deleting emails line by line because everything was overwhelmed by a Joe Job attack. I must have deleted 10,000 emails using vi (my web server runs FreeBSD). Line by line !

  24. Brad says:

    I hear that: running your own email server today is hard. Also, likely the big domains won’t trust your little server, and will treat all mail from it as spam.

    We used to use Gmail – it works really well! But Google has gotten too big, so we did a “googlectomy” as far as we could. Email is now at a local ISP, with non-Google clients. Browsers are a mix, but no pure Chrome. DuckDuckGo. Etc..

    It’s not perfect, of course – you can’t avoid Google entirely. But there’s no reason to make their data collection easy.

  25. lynn says:

    Where are people buying their desktop PCs from now ? I am tired of building PCs. But I do not want Dell or HP.

    We forgot to put the power supply in the new case first yesterday. The CPU fan is so tall that it blocked us from sliding in the power supply at the last minute so we had to pull the motherboard. So, if the power supply fails on this new PC, we have to pull the motherboard again. Lovely.
    https://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Master-SickleFlow-Contact-Technology/dp/B08KD6SPLW/

  26. Nick Flandrey says:

    https://www.ammunitiondepot.com/ammunition

    has stock, and prices are a little lower than recently.

    n

  27. Nick Flandrey says:

    @lynn, try microcenter

    n

    added- servermonkey is about 2 miles from my house.

    https://www.servermonkey.com/

    n

  28. Mark W says:

    running your own email server today is hard.

    I still have an email server that dates back a very long time, which I no longer use except for 4 family mailboxes. Most of the outgoing email is tagged as spam now.

    I still use some gmail, also protonmail and ctemplar. Not because I’m doing anything secret, but just because it makes it harder for the 3LAs to read my email.

     

  29. Greg Norton says:

    Where are people buying their desktop PCs from now ? I am tired of building PCs. But I do not want Dell or HP.

    The university bought Dell desktops, but not the consumer grade boxes you see at Costco.

    I forget the model number, but the desktops were built like tanks. 16 GB RAM. 2 GB discrete graphics cards — decent AMD Radeon. Spinning metal hard drives, but I don’t remember a drive ever failing during my two years monitoring the lab in Round Rock. The PCs ran 24/7. My boss ordered the machines with i7 CPUs, and I imagine they are still comparatively FAST.

    Everything just worked so I imagine they were spendy.

  30. Alan says:

    I had a really difficult time talking about the abuse I was subjected to while living with the aunt and uncle. What helped me was sitting down and over the course of about three months writing a document that covered the abuse. It is amazing how well the memory stores those events. A copy was sent to all the relatives *after* the aunt and uncle had passed. Family members were shocked. My brothers all agreed with the assessment as they had suffered some of the same abuse.

    If anyone knows someone that was similarly abused, they may be suffering from PTSD and a psychotherapist that practices EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) can, in many cases, work wonders. Suggest this if/when you can.

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  31. Alan says:

    Where are people buying their desktop PCs from now ? I am tired of building PCs. But I do not want Dell or HP.

    Lenovo for me. Check their “Outlet” section for good deals – stock in the Outlet turns over fast so if you see something appealing grab it while you can.

  32. Greg Norton says:

    @Nick – The Beefy King is a must-go if you are within easy driving distance during their business hours next week or on subsequent visits to the area.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wB1XsbIBk10

    Once part of a chain, the Orlando Beefy King is the last one still standing. The place is such an institution that the city covered part of the rehab of their hurricane-damaged sign a few years ago.

  33. MrAtoz says:

    Where are people buying their desktop PCs from now ? I am tired of building PCs. But I do not want Dell or HP.

    Apple. Sniff. Gotta keep my ticket renewed to Elysium.

    LOL. My Alienware gaming PC is, of course, from Dell. I keep waiting for a window to pop up “Let’s install Windows 11. It won’t break your VR setup or anything like that…” I’m going to wait before doing that. Let’s see what other gamers say.

  34. Nick Flandrey says:

    Closer to Tampa this trip, Sarasota actually.

    n

  35. TV says:

    Biden may not be perfect, but so far appears to be an improvement.

    A sentence which could be expressed only by a humorist, a lunatic, or a delusional partisan. (Some category overlap may be observed.)

    ā€” no, take it seriously. ā€œappearsā€
    TV is outside the US media bubble, and if he sees a different part of the elephant I want to know the whatā€™s and whyā€™sā€¦

    n

    As a Canadian, I am not inside the US media bubble, but boy do I ever have a front-row seat. That said, I am still outside it. To break my own rule (because, hey rules are meant to be broken, occasionally, and remember this is the opinion of an observer that would like the best for the USA), I am hoping for Biden to be a centrist domestically for the US, because I think you need that right now. Badly. The level of partisanship and mistrust from both sides within the US is extreme. If that continues and somehow gets exacerbated, it cannot end well. I am not interested in having a front-row seat to any of: a totally dysfunctional USA, a civil war, or a USA split into hostile daughter countries. Maybe Belgium can get away with behavior heading that way (and with the rest of the world not caring), I don’t think the USA can.

  36. lynn says:

    “8 Million Face Foreclosure or Eviction Beginning July 1 — Economic Recovery Is About to Crash”
    https://redstate.com/shipwreckedcrew/2021/06/17/8-million-face-foreclosure-or-eviction-beginning-july-1-economic-recovery-is-about-to-crash-n398158

    “This issue has been lurking in the background for months. Where I live, there are almost no homes on the market for rent. The inventory of the number of homes for sale is at record lows, and when combined with historically low home mortgage rates, the prices at which homes are selling have gone through the roof.
    There are no homes for rent because landlords have been unable to evict tenants for non-payment of rent for a year or more, depending on where you live. The federal government ā€” based on dubious legal authority ā€” imposed an eviction ā€œmoratoriumā€ during the pandemic, allowing renters to stop paying their rent safe in the knowledge that their landlords couldnā€™t do anything about it.
    There are fewer houses for sale on the market because homeowners in financial trouble have not had to sell their houses in order to eliminate their mortgage debt.
    That is all about to end. As reported in this story by CBS News, as many as 8 million people face eviction by their landlords or foreclosure by their banks and could lose their place to live beginning next month.”
    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/eviction-moratorium-ending-harvard-housing-report/

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

  37. ITGuy1998 says:

    I am hoping for Biden to be a centrist domestically for the US

    If you divide the left into thirds, then Biden might be considered a centrist. But honestly, centrist is just an alternate name for a liberal. Centrists and liberals want more government, more taxes, more socialist programs.

  38. Alan says:

    Sounds like Citrix. Their tech is seriously behind the curve, but they remain popular in medical and financial companies because of the control provided over the desktop.

    HP is also in this market. One place I know that uses it has dedicated ‘high-end’ cartridges in the server farm for most of the developers as even the maxed out virtual instances were just too slow.

  39. lynn says:

    “We celebrate Juneteenth.”
    https://gunfreezone.net/we-celebrate-juneteenth/

    Brought to you by Republicans.

  40. Chad says:

    Where are people buying their desktop PCs from now ? I am tired of building PCs. But I do not want Dell or HP.

    If you do decide to build another PC this is a great book to get you started:
    https://www.amazon.com/dp/1449388248/?tag=ttgnet-20

    šŸ˜‰

  41. lynn says:

    Where are people buying their desktop PCs from now ? I am tired of building PCs. But I do not want Dell or HP.

    If you do decide to build another PC this is a great book to get you started:
    https://www.amazon.com/dp/1449388248/?tag=ttgnet-20

    I have a copy of the first, second, and third editions.

    I have built over 100 PCs over the years. Maybe 200. I have made every mistake that you can make.

    Wait, no. No fires. Yet.

  42. Nick Flandrey says:

    @TV,

    I am hoping for Biden to be a centrist domestically for the US, because I think you need that right now.

    –are you seeing any evidence of that? Are you seeing a perception of that outside the US? Or is it just that they think he’s “one of them”, ie a morally compromised globalist, career politician?

    When the right in the US sees a statement like the one about him being welcome at the table (with all the euro globalists) and being ‘one of them’, that puts him in the “hated” or “enemy of the traditional US” column. Those sort of accolades describe the exact opposite of what the moderate center and right wanted, and a big part of Trump’s appeal is that he’s not “one of them.”

    From here, Joe’s pretty far left and the rest of his party is even farther left. Kamel is just an opportunist, with only her own interest at heart, but she sings in the far left choir.

    Many studies have shown the radicalization of both ends of the spectrum and the hollowing out of the middle. We are more divided ideologically than anytime in the last 100 years. And it is geographically very much a ‘big city’ vs everyone else divide.

    n

    always want to hear from observers outside our bubble, btw.

    n

  43. ITGuy1998 says:

    Where are people buying their desktop PCs from now ? I am tired of building PCs. But I do not want Dell or HP.

    I like Dell, but only their good stuff. The Precision line is what you want. Servers, only get a PowerEdge 5xx and above.

  44. Greg Norton says:

    Closer to Tampa this trip, Sarasota actually.

    I don’t know much about that part of Florida. Part of the reason is that I grew up before I75 went south to Miami, but the Skyway Bridge accident, which happened when I was still in middle school, spooked a lot of people, my parents included.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-D7o54eIqU

    As an aside, I’m glad to see someone preserved that piece of history while most of the principals were still alive, but I question the agenda of the film. The bridge was never intrinsically unsafe, and some argue that the concrete poured for the pilings, many in the bridge approaches left behind to make fishing piers, is still much better than the replacement’s.

    Still, Bradenton down to Port Charlotte may as well have been on Mars as far as my parents were concerned after that accident.

    We do know Fort Myers and the barrier islands well. The Samantha Brown PBS show just covered that area, including a visit to Cabbage Key, our favorite day trip.

    https://cabbagekey.com/

  45. TV says:

    @TV,

    I am hoping for Biden to be a centrist domestically for the US, because I think you need that right now.

    ā€“are you seeing any evidence of that? Are you seeing a perception of that outside the US? Or is it just that they think heā€™s ā€œone of themā€, ie a morally compromised globalist, career politician?

    When the right in the US sees a statement like the one about him being welcome at the table (with all the euro globalists) and being ā€˜one of themā€™, that puts him in the ā€œhatedā€ or ā€œenemy of the traditional USā€ column. Those sort of accolades describe the exact opposite of what the moderate center and right wanted, and a big part of Trumpā€™s appeal is that heā€™s not ā€œone of them.ā€

    From here, Joeā€™s pretty far left and the rest of his party is even farther left. Kamel is just an opportunist, with only her own interest at heart, but she sings in the far left choir.

    Many studies have shown the radicalization of both ends of the spectrum and the hollowing out of the middle. We are more divided ideologically than anytime in the last 100 years. And it is geographically very much a ā€˜big cityā€™ vs everyone else divide.

    n

    always want to hear from observers outside our bubble, btw.

    n

    Boy Howdy, here is how I get into places I don’t belong.

    Certainly Biden is being seen as more like “one of us” since he is behaving more like a traditional politician. How tough or effective a representative of USA interests he is in private meetings is something it will take time to determine. (People have friends, countries have interests, and politicians are good at lying in public). Trump seemed to always behave like a bull in a China shop publicly and to avoid the media fallout other politicians might just clam-up (I will recall a time he decided to call Trudeau names after leaving a conference). It is not clear that this behavior made Trump’s negotiations in private any better, I would suggest not, but who knows. Public pronouncements by politicians are always for the folks at home, and Trump was understood to play to his base, and only his base.

    Your second paragraph is all part of the partisanship problem. Either he is one of “us” or he is the enemy. It is very tribal. (I suspect there are multiple definitions of “US traditionalist” too.) No nuance or compromise seems to be allowed, and the left displays exactly the same behavior from their perspective (how do you think the US left & center left viewed Trump?), hence my hope for a centrist that might bridge the gap, even if temporarily, to allow some more bridge building or a pause in the rancor. This may be a forlorn hope and I may be hopelessly naĆÆve.

    I have read the same studies on US partisanship. It starts with how city and non-city life are different and have different needs from government, and then the opportunists, ideologists, and others get into it and make the divide worse. Others includes foreign actors who prefer you destroy yourselves via extreme partisanship leading to extreme dysfunctionality. All they need do is take actions and make statements that support extreme views on both sides of any debate. I see these trolls on Canadian newspaper sites all the time, pushing existing partisans to be more partisan, more tribal, less tolerant of a dissenting opinion. The internet has been weaponized against you/us. I see the problem, I don’t see a solution yet.

  46. Alan says:

    Remember plugs sqawking ā€œ120 days, 120 daysā€ when asked about the border:

    Psaki tells us rubes not to believe our lying eyes because the ā€˜factsā€™ say that Joe Biden has given America a booming economy

    Now plugs has magically saved the FUSA in the same 120 days. What exactly did he do? Boot licking mudderfrickers.

    According to ‘Spinnin Psaki’…
    The last time the economy was growing this fast, Republicans were telling us it was ā€œMorning in America.ā€

    Isn’t it the case that Joe’s done nothing with the economy other than ride on the previous administration’s coattails? Oh, and point the ship towards the Straits of Inflation.

  47. Alan says:

    @Nick ā€“ The Beefy King is a must-go if you are within easy driving distance during their business hours next week or on subsequent visits to the area.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wB1XsbIBk10

    Once part of a chain, the Orlando Beefy King is the last one still standing. The place is such an institution that the city covered part of the rehab of their hurricane-damaged sign a few years ago.

    And if ever in Brooklyn, NY, there’s another roast beef sandwich institution:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KREfNJ_ypM0

  48. Nick Flandrey says:

    I donā€™t see a solution yet.

    –yeah me either, but I see insurgency and terrorism and civil war in the future, and all the rest of the world will get swept in, like it or not.

    . Either he is one of ā€œusā€ or he is the enemy. It is very tribal. (I suspect there are multiple definitions of ā€œUS traditionalistā€ too.)

    –yep, deliberately used stronger language (loaded or politically charged wording), but still mild by many estimations.

    One of the problems from any centrist pov is the constant drumbeat from the left, and from the political establishment, about the threat of domestic terrorism, specifically white supremacists. Their definition is so broad that it encompasses most of the people in the red counties (ie everyone outside of big cities. There are no blue states, there are only blue cities in red states.) They WILL GET what they are asking for. When you demonize and marginalize people, there comes a point where they embrace it. When the right starts shooting back they will become what they’ve been labelled.

    Slow Joe is completely unpalatable to any of the 80 million Trump voters. They’d have voted for him if he was acceptable. Since his election, people have been jailed without bond, killed without investigation, told by the official state law enforcement agencies (that are widely perceived to be working against the interests of democracy and ‘the people’) that they are the biggest threat to the US, ever, and a laundry list of other offences against good order, including the BLATANT difference in treatment of two groups of protesters.

    There isn’t a middle ground left.

    The only question left is when it comes apart and how messy will it be?

    n

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  49. Alan says:

    Your second paragraph is all part of the partisanship problem. Either he is one of ā€œusā€ or he is the enemy. It is very tribal. (I suspect there are multiple definitions of ā€œUS traditionalistā€ too.) No nuance or compromise seems to be allowed, and the left displays exactly the same behavior from their perspective (how do you think the US left & center left viewed Trump?), hence my hope for a centrist that might bridge the gap, even if temporarily, to allow some more bridge building or a pause in the rancor. This may be a forlorn hope and I may be hopelessly naĆÆve.

    If you really think Joe being a ‘centrist’ will have any impact on partisanship, maybe share some of the good stuff. Term limits, for one, could go some ways towards changing things but without CWII I don’t see how that happens. Their (politicians) continued grasp for money and power just reinforces the status quo. (Half of our congresscritters are millionaires.) Do you not think there have been ‘dark’ conversations where McConnell has asked Manchin what his price would be to change parties and put the Senate back in Republican control? I feel bad for my grandkids.

  50. Nick Flandrey says:

    Worth a quick read thru as it might put words to your feelings.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/inflation-transitory-heres-your-simple-test

    n

  51. Alan says:

    The internet has been weaponized against you/us. I see the problem, I donā€™t see a solution yet.

    Start by not getting your news from FaceCrack (present company exempted of course).

  52. Greg Norton says:

    “The internet has been weaponized against you/us. I see the problem, I donā€™t see a solution yet.”

    Start by not getting your news from FaceCrack (present company exempted of course).

    Don’t even visit the FaceCrack page.

    Other tips:

    DuckDuckGo instead of Google.

    Delete history/cookies on browser exit.

    iOS less intrusive than Android, but don’t web surf at home with an iPad.

    Don’t even think about web surfing on the road with an obsolete handheld device OS, iOS or Android.

    Ditch Microsoft as much as possible.

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  53. CowboySlim says:

    Where are people buying their desktop PCs from now ? I am tired of building PCs. But I do not want Dell or HP.

    I also built my first desktop from BTPPC by RBT as mentioned by Chad and Lynn above.Ā  However, I bought my last desktop, an ASUS model, from Newegg several years ago as the parts suggest in Bob’s book are a generation, or so, behind.Ā  I am very happy with it.

  54. lynn says:

    “Segregation come for Independence Day”
    https://gunfreezone.net/segregation-come-for-independence-day/

    “Do you really want to divide this nation into two waring racial factions that never unite over anything?
    What better way to do it than create two national independence days that differ depending on race.
    For a few years now, the Left has attacked Independence Day, the 4th of July, as an exclusively White peopleā€™s holiday.”

    Wow. Every Fourth of July celebration that I have been to is a total melting pot of the races that make up our area. It is mostly about Moms chasing the kids all over the place and the Dads drinking beer.

  55. Chad says:

    Where are people buying their desktop PCs from now ? I am tired of building PCs. But I do not want Dell or HP.

    I also built my first desktop from BTPPC by RBT as mentioned by Chad and Lynn above. However, I bought my last desktop, an ASUS model, from Newegg several years ago as the parts suggest in Bobā€™s book are a generation, or so, behind. I am very happy with it.

    I think I actually used RBT’s PC Hardware in a Nutshell (1st Edition) when I built my first PC which I think was dual proc Pentium 3 800mHz in 2000/2001.

    The first PC I ever bought for myself was a Gateway Pentium II 350MHz in 1998. Prior to that it was whatever mom or dad bought (and then some computerless years in the USAF dorm).

    I haven’t built or bought a PC for myself in years. The last one I built was probably a P4 2GHz in 2002. I did buy an 27″ iMac in 2011 which I enjoyed and used a lot, but it mostly collects dust now. My wife uses her work laptop, my daughter has a Dell G3 gaming laptop we bought her late last year, and I just use my tablet at home for most things (or bring my work laptop home when I think I may need it).

  56. Marcelo says:

    Where are people buying their desktop PCs from now ? I am tired of building PCs. But I do not want Dell or HP.

    Well, you now have most of the spectrum nominated so I’ll toss in Acer just for completeness. Nope, just kidding.

    I have not built or bought a desktop for about 25 years now, but if I were to buy a system,Ā  I would still go with a manufacturer that has solid hardware and support all around. I would buy Asus.

  57. Greg Norton says:

    Semi-bad news at the new job this morning, getting close to lunchtime, followed by a sudden decision that the company would celebrate the new Federal holiday tomorrow.

    I think it is time to dust off the private Roku channel serving TiVo content idea I’ve been thinking about for nearly a decade.

    If the worst happens, I won’t be totally surprised. The place has always struck me as on the bubble, but no one yells which is a huge improvement over the old job.

  58. lynn says:

    “Earth Lost: Earthrise Book 2” by Daniel Arenson
    https://www.amazon.com/Earth-Lost-Earthrise-Book-2/dp/1535349727/?tag=ttgnet-20

    Book number two of a fifteen book military science fiction alien invasion series. I read the well printed and well bound POD (print on demand) trade paperback self published by the author in 2016. I have ordered the third book in the series.

    “They came from deep space. They came to destroy us.
    Fifty years ago, bloodthirsty aliens devastated the Earth. Most of humanity perished. We fell into darkness.
    But now we rise from the ashes. Now we fight back.”

    Marco Emery and his platoon have joined an interstellar flight to a far off military base. On the way there, their space ship receives a SOS from a mining colony. So they divert and the 200 HDF (Human Defense Forces) deploy into the deserted colony.

    The book is a blatant ripoff of “Starship Troopers”, “Ender’s Game”, “Chtorr: A Matter For Men”, and “Alien”. So what ? I loved it anyway.

    The author has a website at:
    https://www.danielarenson.com/

    My rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars
    Amazon rating: 4.1 out of 5 stars (1,034 reviews)

  59. lynn says:

    “Weā€™ve Tested Windows 11 Ahead of Next Weekā€™s Launch”
    https://www.extremetech.com/computing/323761-windows-11-tested

    Looks like MacOS to me.

  60. Greg Norton says:

    ā€œWeā€™ve Tested Windows 11 Ahead of Next Weekā€™s Launchā€

    Looks like MacOS to me.

    Newish Gnome. I installed a beta of Pop! OS 21.04 on a machine last week, and it looked very similar.

    It also looks a bit like current Fedora with Wayland/Gnome, which makes me wonder if Redmond has a real Wayland Compositor in the works rather than the half-baked solution they introduced for running Linux GUI apps on the Windows desktop.

    A Compositor would be 1/2 of the significant development work necessary if Microsoft wanted to run Windows on top of a Linux kernel.

  61. lynn says:

    ā€œWeā€™ve Tested Windows 11 Ahead of Next Weekā€™s Launchā€

    Looks like MacOS to me.

    Newish Gnome. I installed a beta of Pop! OS 21.04 on a machine last week, and it looked very similar.

    It also looks a bit like current Fedora, which makes me wonder if Redmond has a real Wayland Compositor in the works rather than the half-baked solution they introduced for running Linux GUI apps on the Windows desktop.

    A Compositor would be 1/2 of the significant development work necessary if Microsoft wanted to run Windows on top of a Linux kernel.

    You and my son with the same theory.

  62. Marcelo says:

    A Compositor would be 1/2 of the significant development work necessary if Microsoft wanted to run Windows on top of a Linux kernel.

    I doubt very much that Windows will ever be yet another Linux kernel distribution. Think about all the stuff that corporations are using that is closely tied to the kernel APIs, the security structure, the unique file system, etc.

    Microsoft has been the one and only software company that keeps backwards compatibility in place for years and years and years.

    Adding yet another layer would not make things better.

    They are using and contributing to Linux and Chrome where those things have strengths like Azure servers andĀ  the new Edge.

  63. Greg Norton says:

    I doubt very much that Windows will ever be yet another Linux kernel distribution. Think about all the stuff that corporations are using that is closely tied to the kernel APIs, the security structure, the unique file system, etc.

    Maybe not as mainstream “Windows”, but I could see them being interested in developing their own device vertically integrated ARM device like Apple’s M1 MacBook, except more locked down.

  64. Greg Norton says:

    “A Compositor would be 1/2 of the significant development work necessary if Microsoft wanted to run Windows on top of a Linux kernel.”

    You and my son with the same theory.

    I think Microsoft is also getting a bit concerned about the Linux-only hardware manufacturers. Most have a “fringe” air about the products, but System76 is for real, to the point that they have their own OS and BIOS development in house.

    The company’s Pangolin laptop even gets rid of Intel, replacing Chipzilla with AMD to positive reviews, but it has been out of stock since March due to the chip shortage.

  65. Marcelo says:

    The companyā€™s Pangolin laptop even gets rid of Intel, replacing Chipzilla with AMD to positive reviews, but it has been out of stock since March due to the chip shortage.

    Wouldn’t touch it. Wasn’t that the source of Covid? šŸ™‚

  66. Nick Flandrey says:

    Wasnā€™t that the source of Covid?

    –poor things got the blame, briefly. Frankly I didn’t believe they existed til I saw a video.

    n

  67. Greg Norton says:

    Wouldnā€™t touch it. Wasnā€™t that the source of Covid?

    That was a really unfortunate name, but it didn’t hurt sales of the laptop.

     

  68. SteveF says:

    The Pangolin laptop should run an OS called Corona.

  69. lynn says:

    “Texans can carry handguns without a license or training starting Sept. 1, after Gov. Greg Abbott signs permitless carry bill into law”
    https://www.texastribune.org/2021/06/16/texas-constitutional-carry-greg-abbott/

    “Texans can carry handguns without a license or training starting Sept. 1, after Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday signed the permitless carry bill into law.”

    I will still keep my LTC (License To Carry) current. And I will still keep my 250 out of 250 shooting test behind my office door.

    “HB 1927: Constitutional Carry FAQ”
    https://texas.gunowners.org/1927faq/

    Texas is now the 21st Constitutional Carry State. I thought that this would never happen.
    https://www.nraila.org/articles/20210525/alabama-texas-beats-alabama-to-become-21st-constitutional-carry-state

  70. SteveF says:

    my 250 out of 250 shooting test

    One time in the Army I was qualifying with the .45. Out of 20 (?) shots, every one went into the head of the silhouette. The company commander was so pissed — head shots counted for only 4 points, rather than 5 for a center-torso shot. I’m not sure why it mattered to him, as I passed the test easily.

  71. Nick Flandrey says:

    This is a great example of Meatspace Baby! unpacked and fully inflated…

    https://westernrifleshooters.us/2021/06/17/a-reader-sends-thoughts-on-building-resilient-communities/

    n

  72. Nick Flandrey says:

    From one of my emergency management eletters… originally from engadget

    The FBI will feed compromised passwords to Have I Been Pwned

    Have I Been Pwned (HIBP), the website that gives you a way to check which of your login details have been compromised by data breaches, is working with the FBI to grow its database. The partnership will give the website access to fresh passwords as they become compromised.

    The compromised passwords they find are often being used by crime rings, so the passwords’ quick addition to the HIBP database would be extremely helpful. That said, the website doesn’t have a way for the FBI to quickly feed passwords into its database yet. Thus, the websiteā€™s creator is asking people to help develop an ingestion route for the data now that HIBP has open sourced its code base.

    n

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  73. Nick Flandrey says:

    Popo working street racers again with a big task force tonight.

    Lots of chatter. They are watching social media posts from the racing group organizers to see where they will gather.

    n

  74. brad says:

    @Lynn: Where we buy PCs? The last round I bought for my wife and I were Acer Predators from an online retailer. Technically, they are “gaming” machines (complete with funky looking cases), but they are quiet, and they’ve run utterly reliably for the 3-4 years we’ve had them.

  75. Marcelo says:

    Thanks Brad. Now we are really complete. šŸ™‚

    Lynn, I think that you are now just where you started. šŸ™‚

  76. brad says:

    Lynn, I think that you are now just where you started.

    That was the goal, right?

  77. anonymous says:

    @Lynn: Where we buy PCs?

    Falcon-nw.comĀ  – the company that Alienware (before Dell) wanted to be.

    Super high quality gaming machines that double as superlative workstations (and really expensive, but worth it, unless you can build one like theirs).Ā  Had 4 over 20 years, all still alive and running.

     

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