Weather, more of the same. Still no rain.
Morning was warm and overcast with some breeze.
Which was nice as we kayaked in the bay and between islands. We saw manatee snouts and backs, touched sea urchins, and starfish, and some sort of crab too. Just as the sun started to break through the overcast, we got to the mangrove swamp part of the tour, and spent about an hour floating through dim tunnels of the swamp, with a nice cool breeze. Then back to the put in, and home for lunch.
I enjoyed the morning on the water very much.
After lunch we went to the “big” pool by the complex clubhouse, and I was feeling pretty hot. I got wet, and then sat in the shade, but despite that, started to get symptoms of heat stress (rapid shallow breathing, elevated heartrate,) which I recognized, so I went inside to cool off for a while. Came home shortly after and napped until my heartrate was back to normal. I guess I’m not as fully recovered from my previous heat injury as I thought. That was a very unwelcome revelation.
Dinner and a couple of games with my mom and the kids, and then catching up on some internet time…..
And another day has passed. Today we have another ‘science’ museum visit booked, and possibly some more manatee stuff at the same place.
The only masks I’ve seen are a couple of older ladies playing cards at the clubhouse. It feels very nice to be out in the world without masks again, although all the outdoor stuff I’d have done without a mask anyway. Not a big believer in outdoor mask use. I didn’t get to the grocery store yet, my wife did the “touch up” trip yesterday while I napped. Gas is around $3/gal for regular unleaded.
Might have to go to the amish (or possibly mennonite) buffet restaurant tonight. There are two in town and they both serve a nice variety of really good ordinary food. (actual amish or mennonites, lots of them here. Not so many of the others.)
Don’t know if we’ll make it to the Ringling Bros. museum. I haven’t been yet, and I’m p!ssed at the culture warriors that shut down the circus. The traditions that will be lost should be on some sort of UN Cultural Heritage list, instead of outcast to Sarasota. The kids probably won’t understand what’s been lost, and they’ve never been to a real circus. The museum for a dead circus holds very little interest for them. Still have some open spots on the schedule though so we might still swing by.
We’ve already lost a lot of our culture. /yoda voice/ “Save you what can…” /end yoda voice/
And stack what you need.
nick
Of possible interest to several here: https://vdare.com/articles/michelle-malkin-blowing-the-lid-off-probate-predators
Any software of any size is moving to threads. The processor speed has hit the wall and threads are the only way to get more performance. Or in this particular case, I am updating a user’s file in memory and telling them what is going on because it can take a LONG time.
C++11 added abstractions for threads, particularly the async/future, which made things a little easier. I believe C++17 added more.
You young’n’s don’t know how good you have it with the modern debugging tools. Go back ~ 20 years, and gdb couldn’t handle Pthreads (Linux threading library) which made debugging core dumps or race conditions interesting.
Threads aren’t a cure all. So much code is network I/O bound that the event driven wheel is being reinvented, particularly with the Node.JS and Docker container Hot Skillz.
One modern performance problem is that all of the old IPC has been forgotten and developers use 127.0.0.1 sockets for everything.
Michelle Malkin is one of the good ones. The article is a perfect example of the ProgLibTurd PTBs. They don’t care about Blacks, Asians, Latinos: they want to rule from Elysium over us dirt people. They use unending resources drawn from our taxes to crush anybody in their way to maintain power. And it’s not just Dumbocrats. Redumblicans are in there as soon as they get “a whiff of the odors of Mordor.” Only the rich have a chance of a sole chance of defending themselves. The rest of us have to beg, borrow and steal and are still bankrupted. Gee, it’s almost like our legal system has evolved into “guilty until YOU prove you are innocent.”
Threads aren’t a cure all. So much code is network I/O bound that the event driven wheel is being reinvented, particularly with the Node.JS and Docker container Hot Skillz.
BTW, if you do have to get into embedding any application-level network communication like ftp or http, libcurl “multi” is a steep learning curve but worth the effort to avoid thread hassles while maintaining interactivity.
Another modern performance problem I’ve noticed is how every bit of network I/O seems to depend on a REST API with HTTPS anymore.
And it’s not just Dumbocrats. Redumblicans are in there as soon as they get “a whiff of the odors of Mordor.”
See Charlie Crist (R) -> (I) -> (D) FL, once again running for Governor. Even the Dems are fed up with him now.
Hospital Economics is just another cartel.
I recall the Canadian, iconoclast, cancelled YouTuber Stefan Molyneux jumped the line by getting a cancer-ectomy from this facility a few years ago in a bit of medical tourism.
I enjoyed the morning on the water very much.
I enjoy being ON the water. IN the water, not so much. Just one of my quirks.
Learn to walk on water, JimB. You can do it by controlling your thoughts: while walking, don’t think about anything heavy or deep.
Don’t know if we’ll make it to the Ringling Bros. museum. I haven’t been yet, and I’m p!ssed at the culture warriors that shut down the circus. The traditions that will be lost should be on some sort of UN Cultural Heritage list, instead of outcast to Sarasota. The kids probably won’t understand what’s been lost, and they’ve never been to a real circus. The museum for a dead circus holds very little interest for them. Still have some open spots on the schedule though so we might still swing by.
The circus museum is a small part of The Ringling complex. Kids would probably find most of exhibits boring, but that doesn’t stop every high school in the area from sending tours through there … at least under normal circumstances.
What is left of the Ringling Bros. B&B Circus is actually up the road in Ellenton, in the various Feld Entertainment facilities not far from the outlet mall, and not available for public viewing.
In a way, the circus evolved into the elaborate traveling productions which Feld still runs. Once the animals went away, there really wasn’t a point to calling the shows a “circus” anymore.
@JimB: When grandchildren were preteens, we would take thrm camping in Kennedy Meadows campground. Then down the bank to the South Fork of the Kern and into the water.
Learn to walk on water, JimB. You can do it by controlling your thoughts: while walking, don’t think about anything heavy or deep.
Awww, you’re getting all gospel-ly on me.
“Earth’s fifth ocean just confirmed”
https://www.space.com/earth-fifth-ocean-confirmed.html
“The Earth has finally attained popular recognition for its fifth ocean, with a decision by the National Geographic Society to add the Southern Ocean around Antarctica to the four it recognizes already: the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian and Arctic oceans.
Although the designation of the frigid waters around the icy southern continent as a separate ocean has kicked around for almost 100 years and is widely used by scientists, until now it has not had popular backing.
But on June 8 — World Oceans Day — the society announced it would henceforth be labeling the Southern Ocean as the fifth ocean on its maps of our planet.”
Interesting. I thought the Southern Ocean was already recognized as an ocean.
The Austin shooting continues to be a comedy of errors.
https://www.fox7austin.com/news/apd-da-to-give-update-on-investigation-into-deadly-sixth-st-shooting
Sixth Street is bad, m’kay.
Any software of any size is moving to threads. The processor speed has hit the wall and threads are the only way to get more performance. Or in this particular case, I am updating a user’s file in memory and telling them what is going on because it can take a LONG time.
C++11 added abstractions for threads, particularly the async/future, which made things a little easier. I believe C++17 added more.
You young’n’s don’t know how good you have it with the modern debugging tools. Go back ~ 20 years, and gdb couldn’t handle Pthreads (Linux threading library) which made debugging core dumps or race conditions interesting.
Threads aren’t a cure all. So much code is network I/O bound that the event driven wheel is being reinvented, particularly with the Node.JS and Docker container Hot Skillz.
One modern performance problem is that all of the old IPC has been forgotten and developers use 127.0.0.1 sockets for everything.
You have to remember, I been writing Fortran since 1975. We did not have a working debugger for our calculation engine until 1990 and even that one was so buggy itself that it continuously crashed until the 1995 or so version.
We debugged our code by putting in trace statements all over the place. The funniest thing was when you put TRACE=1234987 in the input to get a certain printout and dadgum format would be wrong for that platform, causing the calculation engine to crash right there. Or to spew endless lines of gibberish, burning 132 column paper by the 25 ? lb box. We supported up to ten platforms simultaneously, starting with the Univac 1108 in 1969, the IBM 370 in 1973, the CDC 7600 in 1976 (I did that port to 60 wonderful bits), the Prime 450 in 1978, the VAX VMS in 1983, the 386 PC in 1987, the Apollo workstation in 1989, the Sun workstation in 1991, HP-UX in 1991, RS/6000 in 1991, and Windows 92 XX 93 XX 94 XX 95 and NT in 1995. Now we only support Windows XP and above.
But I worked elsewhere from 1982 to 1989 and bought an AT&T PC in 1983 and a copy of Turbo Pascal for home edification. The debugger in Turbo Pascal was simply amazing. Followed by Turbo C in 1987. Simply amazing.
“With Its Power Grid Under Pressure, California Asks Residents to Avoid Charging Electric Vehicles”
https://www.theepochtimes.com/with-its-power-grid-under-pressure-california-asks-residents-to-avoid-charging-electric-vehicles_3870841.html/?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=TheLibertyDaily
“Amid a West Coast heat wave that includes triple-digit temperatures, California’s power grid operators have called on residents to not use as much electricity so as to put less strain on the state’s beleaguered grid.
In the past week, the California Independent System Operator (ISO) told residents several times to voluntarily conserve energy, including asking them on social media to stop charging their electric vehicles (EVs) during peak usage times. The operator also warned users to “[avoid] use of large appliances and turning off extra lights.”
“This usually happens in the evening hours when solar generation is going offline and consumers are returning home and switching on air conditioners, lights, and appliances,” wrote the ISO.
And on June 18, the California Flex Alert Twitter page wrote that “now is the perfect time to do a load of laundry,” and urged residents to “remember to use major appliances, charge cars and devices before #FlexAlert begins at 6 p.m. today.””
Now who could have predicted that ? Snicker.
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/
Looks like ERCOT got about 5,000 MW back off maintenance. We be fat, dumb, and happy in Texas now that we can cover 75,000 MW. 70,000 MW was not enough for this state with all of our newfound friends from California and New York State.
http://www.ercot.com/
My prediction is that we are going to need 80,000 MW by August or September. Pray that we do not need 85,000 MW because it is not there.
But I worked elsewhere from 1982 to 1989 and bought an AT&T PC in 1983 and a copy of Turbo Pascal for home edification. The debugger in Turbo Pascal was simply amazing. Followed by Turbo C in 1987. Simply amazing.
I worked for the Egghead Discount Ponzi Scheme when Turbo C 2.0 came out with Turbo Assembler and Turbo Debugger included in the package. The Ponzi’s deal with Borland allowed us to buy the complete box for $20 so that’s the compiler I used through the end of college.
Microsoft didn’t offer the Ponzi employees a similar deal on their compilers, but I did “evaluate” QuickBasic 4.5 which was the only sane way to do serial port comm development on DOS.
Gas is around $3/gal for regular unleaded.
The state gas tax in Florida is about double that of Texas IIRC. Notice that they have a lot of nice roads. We need to up our gas tax in Texas also so we can rebuild I-10 again and finish I-14 and I-69.
Three magic words, Lynn: Money is fungible.
And three more: Politicians are crooks.
“Gas is around $3/gal for regular unleaded.”
The state gas tax in Florida is about double that of Texas IIRC. Notice that they have a lot of nice roads. We need to up our gas tax in Texas also so we can rebuild I-10 again and finish I-14 and I-69.
Gas taxes in FL are $0.28 vs $0.20 in Texas, but Texas has crazier general sales taxes in places.
Tourist area. Any gas station close to I-75 is going to be pricey. Plus the distributor is probably taking advantage of the storm since gas arrives in that area by barge from New Orleans three times a week.
The two gas stations nearest to Orlando Airport are allowed by the courts to “gouge”. Their price was around $6/gallon the last time I drove out of that parking garage a decade ago. God only knows what they’re up to these days.
@Nick – That reminds me – a lot of counties removed the toll collectors from the booths last spring. If you didn’t prepay for the SunPass with the rental car company, pay attention to any authority signs on tolled bridges to the barrier islands and hit the web sites for instructions to settle the bill for the plate before the transponder charge goes back to the rental company.
Details are non-existent but John McAfee apparently epsteined in Spanish prison.
Sorry I wasn’t clear – what I was trying to say was that I only wanted the Pfizer vaccine for my (two) initial shots, which I got, and didn’t want Moderna, J&J or AstraZenica. As far as any variant-specific and/or yearly boosters, I’ll decide if/when they’re EUA approved.
They won’t complain for a second if we order 300 million doses of an annual Covid booster year after year.
This would revolutionize the current process of creating the annual flu vaccine.
This article mentions some of the “other positive effects”…
https://www.healio.com/news/endocrinology/20170207/beyond-diabetes-metformin-may-prove-to-be-a-wonder-drug#:~:text=Metformin%20is%20most%20commonly%20used,prediabetes%2C%20gestational%20diabetes%20and%20PCOS.
(IANAD)
They are planning an annual booster for covid vaccine.
Which they should be, in case it is needed.
Right now, the long term studies by Pfizer (and maybe Moderna, I haven’t seen a report by them) show that there is T-cell activation in the vaccinated people at 6 months after a dose, and they are doing followups at later stages. A recently approved test for T-cell response to SARS-CoV-2 is cheaper than previous tests, making such studies easier.
Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna don’t need annual boosters to keep the $$ rolling in. They have a whole host of other projects in work. A malaria vaccine that has shown 100% protection in mice. An HIV vaccine that was already in phase 2 trials. A flu vaccine that works on all variants. Individualized treatments for cancers. And more.
My brother-in-law was a missionary in New Guinea for several years in the 1970s. He came back to the states with a nasty case of malaria. That would be a nice vaccine to have.
My son took several experimental flu vaccines in the US Marine Corps. They made everyone sick as a dog for a couple of days. Better than being sick on deployment though. He took 38 shots for his second deployment to Iraq in 2007-8.
https://nypost.com/2021/06/23/john-mcafee-dies-by-suicide-inside-prison-in-barcelona/
He was one weird dude.
“If Matthew McConaughey wins Texas governor it’s because he’s so freaking fun”
https://www.chron.com/politics/article/If-Matthew-McConaughey-wins-Texas-governor-16268488.php?IPID=Chron-HP-CP-Spotlight
The push is starting.
The push is starting.
All right, all right, all right!
Republican.
Odd. I wrote a BBS terminal program in Turbo Pascal in the late ’80s or early ’90s. I had full access to the serial port and could easily set the UART parameters. Don’t ask how I did it because I don’t remember. I was communicating with a Hayes modem through the serial port.
One time I wrote a program to scan all phone numbers within a range and listen for modem tones. I would set the program to run at night, stating about 11:00 PM and run until about 6:00 AM. I am certain that I ticked a lot of people off when their phone rang at night. I would generally find a few numbers that were logged by the program. At least I wasn’t selling a car warranty.
One of those numbers was into an IBM mainframe. With a couple of password guesses I was given access to an operators console and could see all the jobs that were running. I knew a little about IBM and messed with a couple of jobs. Until it dawned on me that I worked for a large commercial bank and if I got caught it would mean instant “your job is terminated” resulting in loss of paycheck. So I backed off those games.
Medical or alcohol?
Odd. I wrote a BBS terminal program in Turbo Pascal in the late ’80s or early ’90s. I had full access to the serial port and could easily set the UART parameters. Don’t ask how I did it because I don’t remember. I was communicating with a Hayes modem through the serial port.
QuickBasic 4.5 was the *sanest* way to talk through the serial port, but there were alternatives.
IIRC, talking to the serial port required hooking an interrupt to handle the background task of receiving characters from the UART. A couple of libraries floated around to do it, and I’m sure articles popped up in magazines.
Maybe even 2600. That sounds about right for your project. 🙂
Lol. I learned a new word last night and thought of OFD because he prodded me to read the entire Catholic catechism. I knew the verb catechise but catechumen threw me for a loop and discovering catechumenate is still making me laugh. I don’t think I’ll live long enough to use either, though. 😉
“Russian Warships Practice Sinking Aircraft Carrier 35 Miles Off Hawaii Coast As US Places F22s On Standby”
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/russian-war-games-approached-mere-35-miles-hawaiis-coast-included-mock-carrier-sinking
“For weeks Russia has mustered a large fleet and aerial assets in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii in what’s been widely recognized as Russia’s largest Pacific military drills since the end of the Cold War. The Pentagon has closely monitored the somewhat unprecedented exercises which have seen at least 20 warships, submarines, fighter jets, and long-range bombers operating a mere 300 miles off Hawaii’s coast.
But in a new alarming statement the US Navy is confirming that at one point Russian vessels and aircraft came a mere 35 miles off Hawaii’s coast as the massive war games were underway. While stressing that the foreign military assets stayed within international waters, spokesman for US Indo-Pacific Command Navy Capt. Mike Kafka, said, “At the closest point, some ships operated approximately 20 to 30 nautical miles (23 to 34 statute miles) off the coast of Hawaii,” he said. “We closely tracked all vessels.””
Yup, there are our buddies.
“Biden’s ‘Gun Grabbing’ ATF Nominee David Chipman Confirmation Set To Advance Despite Missing Personnel File Controversy”
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/bidens-gun-grabbing-atf-nominee-david-chipman-confirmation-set-advance-despite-missing
I agree with several of the commenters. Looks like a psychopath to me.
plugs the idiot:
Biden reminds #2A proponents to cool it because they’d need F-15s & nukes to take on the US gov’t
The biggest threat a goobermint could make against it’ “citizens”: Our guns are bigger than yours. Didn’t we go through this already with ProgLibTurds? Completely and total puppet plugsy McSpongeBrain.
I miss tRump. He seems reasonable at this point.
Makes sense. No one said I was *sane*.
I don’t think I did that. I think, and I could be mistaken, my code just ran in a loop and looked for input from the keyboard or the UART, displayed something or sent something, or both. The machine was fast enough that a 1200 baud modem was never going to exceed the speed of the program. But I really don’t remember responding to any interrupts.
So did he know the Clintons?
Biden reminds #2A proponents to cool it because they’d need F-15s & nukes to take on the US gov’t
That has been a standard Prog talking point for at least a decade.
The idiot Prog husband of my wife’s associate in Vantucky had a line, “You aren’t going ‘Wolverines’ against the US Government.”
As I’ve noted before, he’s probably Antifa in Portland these days.
“The Warrior’s Apprentice (Vorkosigan Saga) (Miles Vorsokigan Book 2)” by Lois McMaster Bujold
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1476781303/?tag=ttgnet-20
Book number four of a sixteen book space opera series. However, some people call this a military science fiction series. There are several other books and short stories in the Vorkosigan Universe. This series won the Hugo and Nebula awards for best series in 2017. Also, several of the individual books in the series have either won awards or been nominated for awards. I have read this book several times as it is one of my favorite books. I reread the well printed and well bound trade paperback published by Baen in 2016 that I just rebought on Amazon. I paid $15 but it now appears to be out of print as the new price has jumped to $24 and the seller is no longer Amazon. There is also a hardback from NESFA Press for $25. The original MMPB was published by Baen in 1986. I have rebought the rest of the books in the series in various formats, mostly MMPB.
There is a very nice introduction written about the first three books in the Vorkosiganverse by the author. Lois McMaster Bujold had been shopping the first two books to several publishers to no avail. She then shopped them to Jim Baen who purchased both of the first two books and the third book that she had just finished. The rest is history with many awards, translated into 20 languages, and a continuous availability in the 35 years since then.
Miles Vorkosigan, son of Aral Vorkosigan and Cordelia Naismith, is going through the entrance examinations for the Barrarayan Imperial Academy. The written exams are a synch but the physical exams for his dwarfish body with very fragile bones are daunting.
My rating: 6 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars (480 reviews)
The Viet Cong and Taliban are pointing and laughing. As others pointed out, the British probably thought the same in 1770s.
This one is really interesting (at least to me):
Brave Launches a Search Engine
https://www.thurrott.com/cloud/252261/brave-launches-a-search-engine
I gave it a try. It was very fast and the results were completely different than Google and DuckDuckGo\Bing. Some weird sites showed up and even Stackoverflow entries were entries not showed by Google. Perhaps more accurate in that particular case.
Want to give it a go?
You can find Brave Search here
What has happened to the price of external hard drives ? The WD 8 TB is $190 ! It was $130 or close to that last December.
https://www.amazon.com/Book-Desktop-External-Drive-WDBBGB0080HBK-NESN/dp/B01LQQHLGC/?tag=ttgnet-20
The 12 TB is $310 ! It was $214 back in December 2020.
https://www.amazon.com/Book-Desktop-External-Drive-WDBBGB0080HBK-NESN/dp/B07X3RBTQT/?tag=ttgnet-20
I was going to purchase another 12 TB external and archive one of the old 8 TB drives on July 1. Now I don’t know. I may just get another 8 TB.
This inflation thing and shortages thing sucks.
Camel Camel says that the WD 12 TB external just jumped in price back in April from $190 to $349 and now back to $310. Wow, that is some price volatility.
https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B07X3RBTQT/
The biggest threat a goobermint could make against it’ “citizens”: Our guns are bigger than yours. Didn’t we go through this already with…
England’s George III in 1775?
But… things are different today. Yep, but OFD said a lot about this. Among them was, They have superior numbers and toys, but we know where they live. I hope it never comes to this, but if it does, rest assured they will do some really showy things to intimidate us. Some will work. The outcome is unpredictable.
Uhhh….remind me again when GM and Ford plan to switch to selling only EVs? That “Flex Alert” Twitter won’t be the only thing blowing some fuses when the masses all arrive home around 6pm and connect their 220 volt fast chargers.
Uhhh….remind me again when GM and Ford plan to switch to selling only EVs? That “Flex Alert” Twitter won’t be the only thing blowing some fuses when the masses all arrive home around 6pm and connect their 220 volt fast chargers.
WA State plans to ban any new car sales except EVs in 2030. CA in … 2035 (?)
Most people don’t realize that they won’t be sitting behind the wheel of a Tonymobile … or an E Mustang … or an EV F150. If the EV only mandate happens in the projected timeframes, they’ll either drive a glorified golf cart or private ownership of cars will go away for 95%+ of the population.
…when the masses all arrive home around 6pm and connect their 220 volt fast chargers.
I don’t really follow this, but I think the charging is controlled by the car, with charge schedules pushed out by the car manufacturer. At least, Tesla seems to do this. Seems. Certainly could be. Would have to read some fine print.
No matter. Those of us who know think there will be a major grid catastrophe if the electric vehicle fleet grows quickly. We will need fusion, plus lots of transmission lines. Neither seems very likely.
I have a vague memory that we used to call this “war dialling.”
Add StartPage to the list: https://www.startpage.com/
@Lynn
“Russian Warships Practice Sinking Aircraft Carrier 35 Miles Off Hawaii Coast As US Places F22s On Standby”
The economic zone is 200 miles.
We should have sent a fleet of boats out selling Shave Ice, Maui Onion Rings, and other delights. Chances are we could have got a couple boats to defect .
Me I would like the teeshirt concession:
“You can’t spell TINY PUSSY without P-U-T-I-N,”
English on the front, Cyrillic on the back*
*yeah, I know, have to work on the Cyrillic
ADDED: Yes, worn by wet teeshirt models (all 43 genders). Live internet feeds. Private chatrooms available.
No matter. Those of us who know think there will be a major grid catastrophe if the electric vehicle fleet grows quickly.
Texas had a major grid catastrophe in February without a lot of EVs on the roads around here.
We passed new neighborhoods in Leander this weekend with signs advertising the amenities now including natural gas lines. Great, but weren’t those neighborhoods the same places where Atmos cut off service during the worst part of the storm?
“Russian Warships Practice Sinking Aircraft Carrier 35 Miles Off Hawaii Coast As US Places F22s On Standby”
The F22s got a workout. Plus I’m sure the new Virginia class subs did as well. At least the subs with spare parts available.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-us-navy-says-parts-on-its-virginia-class-attack-submarines-are-breaking-sooner-than-expected/ar-AALjJ56
Both sides got a good look at each others’ radar and sonar signatures.
Russians: “Hi, we aren’t the Chinese Navy.”
Americans: “We aren’t Chinese Navy … or Air Force … either.”
we used to call this “war dialling asshole.”
Fixed it for you.
@Greg
No matter. Those of us who know think there will be a major grid catastrophe if the electric vehicle fleet grows quickly.
“Texas had a major grid catastrophe in February without a lot of EVs on the roads around here.”
The difference is that February was a result of poor planning intersecting a weather event that occurs every 20-30 years, whereas the EV debacle will be the result of idiocy intersecting the turn of the daily calendar.
The states surrounding CA should just declare their intention [corrected] to “assist” the Californians in sticking to their convictions by preventing the export of any power to CA generated by means not used in CA.
The difference is that February was a result of poor planning intersecting a weather event that occurs every 20-30 years, whereas the EV debacle will be the result of idiocy intersecting the turn of the daily calendar.
Texas has a significant cold weather event (below 20 F on the coast) every ten years.
The last ultra cold event (below 10 F on the coast) in Texas was in 1989.
You see the same thing in a lot of disaster planning, whether flooding or unusual cold snaps or crop failures. In almost all cases, the severity-frequency curve is bent so that severe problems seem less frequent than they really are — the standard deviation is reduced. Thus, a ten-foot surge in the river which actually happens every fifteen years or so is marked as a century event.
Disaster preparedness costs money and ties up resources. A levee to contain a ten-foot surge costs twice as much as one to contain a seven-foot surge. So… what with money being tight and all, we’ll just look at those assumptions a bit more carefully, and determine that they’re unduly pessimistic, so we can build the lower dam and it’ll be fine.
And then, when the measures come up short, blame it on climate change and unusual weather patterns and “hundred-year events occurring more and more frequently”.
The difference is that February was a result of poor planning intersecting a weather event that occurs every 20-30 years, whereas the EV debacle will be the result of idiocy intersecting the turn of the daily calendar.
Texas has a significant cold weather event (below 20 F on the coast) every ten years.
The last ultra cold event (below 10 F on the coast) in Texas was in 1989.
BTW, in that ultra cold event on Dec 24, 1989, there were no rotating blackouts. It was 6 F in Sugar Land, 8 F in Port Lavaca, and -4 F in Dallas. My former employer, TXU, whom I left in October of that year, was using over 330,000 barrels (not gallons !) of fuel oil #6 and diesel every day during the event. 330,000 barrels/day = 13,900,000 gallons/day of diesel and fuel oil. We made about 40% of the electric power in Texas at that point. HL&P made about 25% of the electric power in Texas then.
The states surrounding CA should just declare their intention [corrected] to “assist” the Californians in sticking to their convictions by preventing the export of any power to CA generated by means not used in CA.
Oregon has the same kind of p*ss poor planning as CA. Earlier this month, I heard a local talk host in Medford state a statatic that 60% of the power being cosumed in Oregon that week was from sources outside Oregon, most notably coal plants in Idaho and hydro power from Canada.
I have a vague memory that we used to call this “war dialling.”
–just re-watched Wargames with Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy with the kids last night? Night before last? One of the first things he does is wardial…
which evolved into ‘war driving’ ie. driving around logging wifi access points, like google and streetview, only not on such an industrial scale.
—————-
Been fighting with “samsung smartthings” and a TV here. I just wanted to screen mirror to the tv to show the pics I got of the manatees. USED to be just a local app. Now you need to use their whole platform, and ecosystem, and set up an account.
Only then can you add the tv, but that doesn’t work, because you can’t tell the tv to send out a beacon, and you can’t tell the app to just use the tv’s address, because “reasons”. Where “reasons” = stupid programmers, and bad assumptions, and holes in the process wide enough to drive a truck thru. The first time I tried it, the tv DID beacon and my phone app saw it, but wouldn’t let me “control” the tv without permission from the TV’s owner (my sibling’s spouse).
Got that sorted, with an ‘invite’ generated at their end from IN APP, but somewhere it failed because samsung set up my account, with the “use your google id” option, which doesn’t ACTUALLY set up an account because the PASSWORD IS NOT USED. NOTHING tells you that though. I finally found an email telling me to set up a password. After that, the option to log in with google id isn’t present ever again… and the invite got lost somewhere in the welter of popups, cookie acceptances, chat requests, notices that the app was out of date, privacy policy click boxes and general Fuckery on samsung’s website.
Or possibly the router here is blocking the beacon with some sort of firewall that fails silently. Worked once. Maybe it’s some version of typical linux “you’re special devices will only work during the live boot, not after you install the “REAL” drivers” fuckery.
All this fail, not because I want to “control” anything, but because they moved the screen mirror option from a standalone app to their whole IOT control app. So no using it the way you might think, someone in the group shoots some photos to the big screen to share with the group. NOPE. Only after jumping thru a whole lotta hoops, can ONE PERSON, EVER, send pics to the tv. What a piece of work.
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I’m hoping, but not sanguine, that my installation of a nest camera for them will be much easier. So far, not impressed. It has a 12ft long, hard wired cord that ends in a USB connector, and a power cord, 15ft long, that ends in a round power pod, with a USB socket. I want to go 1 ft to the outlet. I’ll find somewhere to stuff the other cable or I’ll put the cam somewhere else, but WTF nest, you spent more time on the packaging design than the power cord?
pulling out my hair and cursing technology
n
@Nick
Smasung wants to look at your manatee photos…
and everything else.
(typo looks good uncorrected)
“How to Farm Chia Coin, the New Storage-Based Cryptocurrency”
https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/how-to-farm-chia-coin-the-new-storage-based-cryptocurrency
“The new Chia cryptocurrency has already started making waves in the storage industry, as we’ve reported back in April. With Chia trading now live, things have become even more interesting, though not always in a good way. The total netspace for Chia rapidly expanded from less than 1 exabyte when trading went live and now sits at nearly 17 EiB, scaling at about 05. EiB per day lately. It’s well on its way to triple-digit EiB levels if current trends continue. If you’re looking to join the latest crypto-bandwagon, here’s how to get started farming Chia coin, as well as some advice on whether that’s even a good idea.
First, if you’ve dabbled in other cryptocurrencies before, Chia is a very different beast. Some of the fundamental blockchain concepts aren’t radically different from what’s going before, but Chia coin ditches the Proof of Work algorithm for securing the blockchain and instead implements Proof of Space — technically Proof of Time and Space, but the latter appears to be the more pertinent factor. Rather than mining coins by dedicating large amounts of processing power to the task, Chia simply requires storage plots — but these plots need to be filled with the correct data.”
Just when I think that the world cannot get any weirder.
@nick: why not just hook up the USB cable from your phone to the TV’s USB port (assuming it has one). Most ‘smart’ TVs will recognize that as an input. Then ‘cast’ from your phone.
(I’d test it here, but my TV isn’t ‘smart’ … it’s a nice TV, Sony 50″ LCD, but about 8-9 years old. Although I could ‘cast’ to my FireTV device that is connected to the TV. Haven’t had the need to try that out, though.)
Brought to you by Western Digital, Seagate and your friendly storage provider. “We have free software for you. Go and get rich!”
Yeah, right.