Humid. Very humid. Slightly less hot than summer, but humid. I don’t think it got above 80F yesterday but it was so humid I was dripping sweat just standing in the garage.
I slept late. I actually got up early but my back hurt, and I’d been up way too late, so I thought I’d lie down for another hour. Two hours later, I got up again. Back pain is weird, it’s more spread out than normal, is closer to the skin in some way, and sharper. Usually it’s very much down in the bones, and the tissues close to them. Weird.
Fed the kids breakfast (hash browns fried in bacon fat) and spent the day doing things that needed doing, but not getting out or to my secondary to work there. I’ll try again today. The auction pickups that would normally get me out the door didn’t happen because the auction host company has been down for 2 days so far as victim of a ransomware attack. All of their auction customers nationwide are affected, and so are THEIR customers. Lots of disruption to what are usually small, local businesses.
Cut the grass, restocked the house, did some ebay and auction stuff. Poked at the computer and kibitzed about the changes here as our unsung hero Rick bangs on the machinery trying to bend it to his will. He’s had some successes. The goal is increased reliability, which is worth some disruption. Chasing the internal server 500 errors was getting to be a big frustration for him and all of the commentors alike. We will likely continue seeing tweaks and changes for a while. Be kind. Assume positive intent. Remember it’s an unpaid and unloved job that he’s doing, and it’s not one I’m competent to do, nor do I have any desire to do it. It would be nice to have some backup for Rick so if you have the skills or interest, leave a note.
It would be nice to have some backup for ME, so if you have a comment that is going to be long and self contained, consider emailing it to me for use as a guest post. No promises, guarantees, warranties, or predictions, at my sole discretion. If I don’t want to use it as a separate post, you can still post the comment… and if you have something to say or contribute but would rather not say it yourself, email me and I’ll use it like Bob did when one of the prepper couples would email him. I’d love an update from anyone Bob featured that way too. Email is my first name at aol dot com.
Comms, networks, information, all important, and all bear some additional thought. Might be that dial up BBSs come back in vogue. Takes more legally to mess with actual phone lines… but of course WROL that’s not much of a consideration. Might be worth looking at data over ham radio to mailing lists or BBSs… possibly some combination with the ip based linking and conference repeaters…hmm. Shortwave with a data stream embedded? Weather fax single sheets like the broadsheets of old? SSTV on ham freqs? Time, probably past time, to start thinking about long term and worst cases, at least as thought experiments. Alex Jones is certainly glad he has his show on shortwave radio, after being shut out of all other media. Just saying.
In the absence of orders, keep stacking.
nick
We still have a land line, wired, as our primary. No caller ID. And no 5G on our cell phones. But yes, we've noticed that the more VOIP there is, the worse the quality of phone service, including when the kids call from their iPhones in the cities. Delay, delay, delay. Ma Bell would have been hauled before the Regulators had they tried to charge for such terrible quality. You can no longer hear a pin drop.
Good explanation of delay from auto-dials, and thank you for that and for your effort. 🙂 Spam Calls are annoying. But VOIP from anyone, anywhere, has latency that is a regression in telephone service and the poor quality is indefensible, regardless of why or what causes it.
The delays that frustrate me are from actual people who are intending to call only me, or who I call. Their offices or homes or cells use VOIP. They hit a dialer without bothering to pick up their phone until I answer, which is rude to start with.
Add in the VOIP delay and the system truly behaves like operator-placed station-to-station calls in the far-off days before direct dial was possible. The companies aren't interested in fixing it, and they've trained young people to just meekly accept – or explain – the crappy "service" that does not meet any expectations for people who know what it SHOULD be.
@Paul+Hampson, That's great to hear. I've also begun saving undamaged lids. I have never tried canning in commercial jars/one piece lids, but with the price and unavailability of lids, I'm willing to give it a try. Thanks for sharing your experience!
I did a lot of canning to empty our freezer year before last, when I needed to make room for half a beef my dad gave us for Christmas. So I canned a lot of things I do not usually can, including store-bought and leftovers and meats. Amazing how well leftovers can – talk about fast-food-on-the-shelf! Keeping supplies on hand means if a freezer or power fails, we can save all that food, even if we don't normally do much preservation.
MS Office 365 was, I think, a strategic error on Microsoft's part. All of the office applications work just fine in a web browser, which eliminates a big reason businesses have stayed with MS Windows. With Win11 shaping up to be another mess, I hope to see more individuals and businesses moving to Linux.
Microsoft wants everyone on a monthly subscription fee, whether it is paid directly or indirectly through advertising. Office 365 is part of that objective.
Redmond doesn't care where Office runs as long as everyone is using Office, specifically Teams.
And get off my lawn, you rapskallions!
Times change. Acceptable customs change.
Comms, networks, information, all important, and all bear some additional thought. Might be that dial up BBSs come back in vogue. Takes more legally to mess with actual phone lines… but of course WROL that’s not much of a consideration.
More likely UUCP networks over dial. The BBS services relied on the developers of the software and hosts remaining sufficiently interested to bear the costs involved.
I looked into UUCP briefly a couple of years ago when a prepper-type asked about what was involved, to the point that I found a copy of the OReilly book used. Another unfinished project for the pile …
Standard phone lines still have a lot of legal and regulatory protection that the phone company would rather not deal with anymore. The frequently cited stats about lower demographics of copper line subscribers are mostly BS, especially in California. Wealthy people still have standard phone lines. The middle and lower classes are where the population has given up a lot of their expectation of privacy and rights with regard to reliability/access for the ability to stream Baby Yoda on their gadgets anywhere 24/7.
Most people have no idea what they've surrendered in terms of rights in telecommunications over the last 10 years. All hail the Baby … and TikTok … and Youtube. The carriers have played this brilliantly — dial is still available but for a price.
True. But there is a cost. Acceptable latency in human response is why our military can't even drone a target in time to hit the right one. Oh well, darned rapscallions missed again!
Question for Dell. Do you have ANY English speaking people?
Question for Dell. Do you have ANY English speaking people?
Bangladesh and Vietnamese all the way Baby !
Why pay $15/hour when you can pay 50 cents ?
Customer support is expensive. I pay a guy $40/hour to sit on his rump all day to answer 3 to 10 emails a day. Horribly expensive. I may have to outsource him some day as he wants a raise. But the customers love having him at their beck and call.
You Ain't Got No Ice Cream.
China appears to have made an abrupt and key policy change with respect to their commodity markets approach. … Now the plan is to hoard all available supplies no matter the cost, to support continued economic growth, especially in a cold winter scenario.
Cold Earth is a freaking lifeboat in the cold Atlantic.
Don't read "The Life of Pi”.
Question for Dell. Do you have ANY English speaking people?
MJ Hegar speaks English. She works for them at HQ here doing … something … in Round Rock until the company finally gets their long-desired seat in Congress. Then, she will be Michael Dell's personal representation in DC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi6v4CYNSIQ
(No, I still don't believe the house is hers. We looked at that house when we were on the market.)
Anyone I know directly who works for Dell here is Subcontinent. One of the Chinese in-laws works for them through VMWare doing a nebulous c-suite job, but he is based in San Francisco.
When I worked at CGI in Belton, my corporate-issued Dell laptop died within a week of my start date. It took Dell nearly a month to find a tech to drive an hour up the road from HQ to replace the motherboard in the machine.
Cold Earth is a freaking lifeboat in the cold Atlantic.
Russia will be in the driver's seat in Europe this winter.
Closer to home, Texas is one major power outage away from a serious philosophical change in the Governor's Mansion, even if the incumbent decides that he wants to keep his job in 2023.
An outage before the December filing deadline for the Governor's race and the outcome of the Republican primary in March will be … do I dare? … yeah, too much fun …
All right, all right, all right!
Oh sure, lots of those… 🙂
I always use bacon fat to grease the bottom of my cast-iron pan when making cornbread. That's such an easy way to cook it. I'm surprised you haven't mentioned it over the years.
This is just crazy:
New DHS Guidelines: Entering U.S. Illegally is Not Enough to be Arrested
We are not a sovereign nation.
Customer support is expensive. I pay a guy $40/hour to sit on his rump all day to answer 3 to 10 emails a day. Horribly expensive. I may have to outsource him some day as he wants a raise. But the customers love having him at their beck and call.
A good pizza driver can make $300 a night here in Round Rock. The Domino's my son works at finally picked up another driver who got tired of dealing with the pot smoking crazies … managing her store!
Customer support is expensive. I pay a guy $40/hour to sit on his rump all day to answer 3 to 10 emails a day. Horribly expensive. I may have to outsource him some day as he wants a raise. But the customers love having him at their beck and call.
And, yes, the economy is a freak show right now. If the support guy is an SME on what your software does or he knows some Hot Skillz, $60/hr is not impossible if he looked around. Heck, he could probably do my current job.
My wife gasped when she saw the projected salaries at the new Samsung facility possibly going up in Taylor. "I'm in the wrong line of work!"
Tyler Durden cowardice … but not as cowardly as the reporter's attempt to spin the chant.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/nbc-reporter-goes-damage-control-after-nascar-fans-chant-fk-joe-bide
I suspect the support guy at Lynn's work might be his son….
My wife's company is hiring field technicians and finding it harder than in the past. And it's ALWAYS been hard. Not only to they have to know your products cold, they have to be able to work with the customer onsite, AND they have to be self-motivated, and self-managing. Very rare indeed.
WRT bacon fat, I've mentioned it alot, I thought even a bit too much! I love bacon. WRT the recipes, I like old books, and one that I read a while ago was all recipes from the Oregon Trail, handed down by people who took it, and included both the original and a "modern" cleaned up version, along with a bit about the person the recipe came from. A surprising number started out "Melt 4 pounds of bear fat…." Bear must have been a staple protein. It gets mentioned several times in the Little House books too.
My understanding is that most cases of trichinosis in the US come from undercooked wild bear.
Some must come from wild boar, pig, javalina, etc.
n
@~Jim
Thanks for the reminder. I have five pounds of applewood-smoked bacon to cook, and just picked up a box of Famous Dave's cornbread mix at Sam's Club.
F Joe Biden. NO thanks. Nor his drug addict son.
Watching that reporter spin like a top was entertaining in Nero kind of way.
n
An easy way to do the initial seasoning on cast iron after it's cleaned is to put a lot of oil in the bottom of the pan, and then pour in the cornbread batter. Then bake. It will displace the oil up the walls and does a good job, while making a tasty treat.
n
re: Bow making
I have been entertained watching YouTube videos by various bowyers. Two come to mind but I can't remember the channel names.
I think one was Backyard Bowyer. He makes bows from all sorts of materials, but largely PVC pipe.
There was another guy who painstakingly makes wooden bows, with lots of spokeshave work and measuring with scales as he goes.
I've never felt compelled to actually build any of these bows, but as Chance the gardener said, I like to watch.
canning:
I heard a claim from an employee at one of the big farm supply stores that a major reason for the canning ring shortage was the reduced supply of recycled aluminum. I think it's more a case of demand suddenly being at a multiple and production not able to keep up.
I don't see any problem with reuse with the proper care and inspection. But a product intended for one use probably does not have the durability for more than 2-3 uses on average. Reusable lids are available–modern materials updated old tech–and are worthwhile investigating. Tattler products are not very available in local stores, but their website has a dozen rings and lids for about ten bucks with free shipping.
Tangentially related, a report from India this week highlighted unintentional consequences of the greenie energy psychosis.
As per the Aluminum Association of India,
The AAI added:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/09/28/fossil-free-energy-indias-aluminum-industry-in-peril/
I suspect the support guy at Lynn's work might be his son….
My wife's company is hiring field technicians and finding it harder than in the past. And it's ALWAYS been hard. Not only to they have to know your products cold, they have to be able to work with the customer onsite, AND they have to be self-motivated, and self-managing. Very rare indeed.
Speaking strictly in terms of short tierm financial gain, yes, Lynn's son could do better given his qualifications. Long term would be an entirely different story, however.
If your wife's company has a vaccine mandate, regardless of reason, self-motivating and self-managing with the IQ points to master the products are going to be more likely to question the jab.
Fake hate
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10054549/Black-woman-posed-KKK-member-posted-threatening-notes-African-American-neighborhood.html
Think anyone in 1890 was faking attacks on blacks? How about '51? We've come so far they have to fake it themselves to get the world that is inside their heads.
n
If your wife's company has a vaccine mandate, regardless of reason
not yet and not likely. The PARTNERS aren't vaxed. Customers might want vaxed techs but Abbott made it illegal to require them. Lot of scepticism here. Even teachers weren't getting vaxed until recently and there are still plenty in our district that aren't.
n
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/indias-ivermectin-blackout-secret-revealed
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/10/hiding-uk-government-blacks-details-conversations-fauci-british-doctors-covids-origins/
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/10/boom-sen-ron-johnson-drops-truth-bomb-senate-floor-63-uk-delta-deaths-last-7-5-months-fully-vaccinated-video/
links without comment
n
Had HEB branded Mango flavored cornflakes for breakfast. Tangy, tons of carbs (20% more than Cap'n Crunch) and very unusual. I liked them d2 did not.
Someone will see mango flavored breakfast cereal and write about the 'changing tastes of Americans' but it's really the "changing face of people living in America."
20 years ago, I'd bet money that most whites had never tasted mango, and if they had it was at an indian or thai restaurant.
n
But, but, but only the CDC and WHO are right on anything COVID. Dr. FauXi says so.
Think anyone in 1890 was faking attacks on blacks? How about '51? We've come so far they have to fake it themselves to get the world that is inside their heads.
I haven't seen the flick, but go Google for reviews of BET's "Karen".
I haven't torrented out of curiosity because even a pirated copy is a win for BET. Disney and Warner turned their entire movie year over to pirates.
With a casual check of my panty contents, I will say he doesn't know what he's talking about. All of the rings and lids are magnetic. I have a Ball "magnet stick" that is used to get the lids out of the hot water.
All of the cans in my pantry are magnetic as well as the lids on various jars.
I've got a furry long haired hamster on my desk!
D2 is cleaning the cage and someone needs to watch the rodent. I'm nominated. D1 had a sleepover with a friend last night so wife is out retrieving her, and I'm waiting to start my day.
It's sunny and 91F with 63%RH and I need to get some stuff done that can only be done when it's not raining.
n
grrrrr hate the lack of spellcheck. YES, I understand I can turn it on each and every comment. If I remember.
And do we have a comment policy? I've been thinking about it as some of the other blogs I read have had to go to moderation or shut them off. One of the reasons I've not tried to grow readership is I like the current readership just fine, and don't want an influx of trolls.
When did NRA supporters become the gun owner equivalent of self hating jews?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10054349/Wayne-LaPierre-elected-NRA-CEO-despite-corruption-lawsuit.html
n
and ffs people words have meanings. you could look it up.
despite a scandal over the group’s financing.
— it wasn’t the FINANCING, it was the FINANCES. One is where the money comes from, the other is what they’re doing with it. Yeah, DM. But still if the tool you work with is words, learn to use the right ones.
I think the comment policy is keep it clean enough for kids and grandma to read. IE, minimal swearing.
Works for me.
WRT the discussion on bow making; I learned how to make a bow at Summer Boy Scout Camp.
Too bad the minority with an agenda has changed our country for generations. Even worse, though, is the silent majority that is letting it happen. I don't like conflict, but when you avoid issues, you create more friction, and there will be an eventual explosion.
Keep stocking, stacking, and leading by example.
Do your best.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/10/venezuela-downsizes-the-bolivar-dont-tell-bernie.php
Making it very inexpensive to send AOC, the rest of The Squat, Bernie, three other senators TBD, and John Kerry on 30-day "fact-finding" mission with security personally supervised by General Milley.
@paul
quote without comment
@Nick
How about, "Nick knows what he doesn't like when he sees it?"
I know I plead guilty to going over the line of what Robert would have allowed. OTOH, these are The Crazy Years, we have commies in power, and by any objective measure more than half the elected government of the U.S. has violated their oaths of office.
How about, "Nick knows what he doesn't like when he sees it?"
ah, so it's like pornography and art, you know it when you see it…. that does put a lot of power in my hands. On the other hand, I'm under no obligation to host anyone's comments… I will try to be fair.
n
"quote without comment "
Have I said the text in the comment box looks like it's 8 point? At most?
Passed spell check!
@Lynn
I was reminded of your earlier query on the AoS HQ website as I caught up there this morning.
For library connoisseurs the site is worth visiting weekly just for the photos of libraries around the world.
Then there's the Saturday night joke…
The weekly gub thread…
And sometimes, it's the insightful comments:
"Lyndon (LaRouche) was a brilliant and sadistic madman who identified a market failure to supply cults to super high IQ post-grad whites and filled the void"
or, like today, interesting lists: Unfortunate Book Covers
or interestng words: throttlebottom
@paul
Mr. Spellcheck is not always your friend.
drwilliams (or others), have you used these? I bought one box of them some years ago for waterbath, and was not pleased. Had several jars not seal. I need to try them again, with pressure canning, and see if they work better for that.
@Nick
Lot's of things are. Brewers that claim putting fruit in beer is part of their art, while I maintain it's more like pornography.
Thanks for this post, btw, Ms. Pecancorner. I've noticed even at my local HEB, checks are getting lax on the mask wearing. Plus they all wear the lame HEB cloth mask. I hope soon stores like HEB just drop it all together. The smaller guys will follow suit.
Thanks for this post, btw, Ms. Pecancorner. I've noticed even at my local HEB, checks are getting lax on the mask wearing. Plus they all wear the lame HEB cloth mask. I hope soon stores like HEB just drop it all together. The smaller guys will follow suit.
Our local HEB gave up on trying to enfoce masks, but I haven't been to the store inside the city limits since last Halloween.
Of course, just because the store gives up doesn't excuse the employees. Plus about half of the shoppers have masks since the annual Californian relocation period started with the beginning of the school year.
I went thru the first year of this wearing N95 around people. Worked great. Didn't wear anything around people if we were outdoors or essentially outdoors (like standing in a loading dock). I did change my body language and I try to stand at right angles to people so we're not spitting in each other's faces while talking. And I try not to be directly down wind.
I switched to the medical surgical masks for ease of donning and doffing at some point, when I was just putting it on to pop into a store. I forgot my mask at HEB the other week and it felt weird. It was VERY crowded because of weather and I wanted to avoid breathing all the people's stink.
I'm mentally debating whether I want N95 or surgical masks for WDW. Last trip to FL I don't think I wore one anywhere other than the manatee center. At home I haven't worn anything to restaurants. If you're gonna have it off for dinner, no point in wearing it while you order.
I have always worn it for my own reasons, and chosen my level of protection based on MY assessment of the risk.
And that's all I've got to say about that.
n
checks are getting lax on the mask wearing.
–checkers, I assume. If I was faced with an endless stream of filthy humans, I'd WANT a mask. I wear gloves and mask at the goodwill outlet, that place is skeevy.
I dont' wear gloves anywhere else any more but I do use my 90% alcohol spray on my hands as soon as I'm out of the hot zone.
n
You're welcome, Mr Atoz. I've found that JustFacts seems to do a pretty good job of giving both sides of things and sticking to facts (which not all "fact" places do).
Also, drwilliams, thanks for your comments yesterday about the UV light sanitization. My only use of it has been using black light to discover repairs to antique china, or to make uranium glass glow.
Customer support is expensive. I pay a guy $40/hour to sit on his rump all day to answer 3 to 10 emails a day. Horribly expensive. I may have to outsource him some day as he wants a raise. But the customers love having him at their beck and call.
A good pizza driver can make $300 a night here in Round Rock. The Domino's my son works at finally picked up another driver who got tired of dealing with the pot smoking crazies … managing her store!
I don't see pot smokling crazies being good for a pizza shop. They would eat all the product !
Customer support is expensive. I pay a guy $40/hour to sit on his rump all day to answer 3 to 10 emails a day. Horribly expensive. I may have to outsource him some day as he wants a raise. But the customers love having him at their beck and call.
And, yes, the economy is a freak show right now. If the support guy is an SME on what your software does or he knows some Hot Skillz, $60/hr is not impossible if he looked around. Heck, he could probably do my current job.
My wife gasped when she saw the projected salaries at the new Samsung facility possibly going up in Taylor. "I'm in the wrong line of work!"
Chemical Engineer with extensive hydrocarbon and other chemical process experience. No way a software engineer could support our software. The problem is not the user interface, the problem is how to get the chemical process to work. SME = Subject Matter Expert ???
And yes, he is way underpaid. He has worked for me since 1995 when I hired him out of The University of Alabama. I would pay him more if I could.
With you on that. I volunteer at a charity thrift store, putting clothes on hangers, and even though they are sorted before they get to me, I still wear gloves. There are a million things other than COVID that I do not want.
We've rather a COVID spike in Brown County, so I've retreated back into the house – no church or volunteering or general shopping – until it settles down. I had stopped wearing gloves for grocery/pharmacy, but after catching a COLD recently (yes, with actual test results), I've ordered a box of food service gloves to wear to the few places I go. I either failed to use my sanitizer fast enough or something.
I suspect the support guy at Lynn's work might be his son….
Nope. But the support guy has worked for me since 1995. He regrets coming to work for me and has told me so several times. He taught the process simulation class at U of Alabama. He is working a second job for a local land developer also.
I'm mentally debating whether I want N95 or surgical masks for WDW. Last trip to FL I don't think I wore one anywhere other than the manatee center. At home I haven't worn anything to restaurants. If you're gonna have it off for dinner, no point in wearing it while you order.
Disney requires masks at indoor locations. Crowds are insane this month because of the 50th anniversary of the Magic Kingdom. My preference would be an N95 to ward off the bad FOMO voodoo.
Take the mask off outside. We did a whole day at Universal with masks required everywhere, and that sucked the enthusiasm out of me.
When we stopped at Disney Springs in March, they were hitting everyone with a therm before entering, but that ended not long afterwards. You couldn’t enter the stores without a mask, but everyone except Asians walked around outside without a mask.
Off property in Orlando varies. Don't judge based on Sarasota because the political vibe is different south of Tampa along 75.
Chemical Engineer with extensive hydrocarbon and other chemical process experience. No way a software engineer could support our software. The problem is not the user interface, the problem is how to get the chemical process to work. SME = Subject Matter Expert ???
Yes. SME is Subject Matter Expert.
At the last job, we had to have an SME on configuring the old school "loop" vehicle detection systems, and the last person left actively working in the tech — and available — demanded the moon, including a management title and team to manage, for what turned out to be not a whole lot of expertise.
The JackintheBox near me had a kid working the other night that asked me to repeat my order, then asked what number it would be "because I'm not that familiar with the menu". Pimple face white boy, teen. First white teen I've seen in fast food outside of the midwest in years. And WTF? never ate at JintheBox before?
He was polite, and spoke clearly so I knew from the get go that something weird was going on.
n
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/china-sends-nearly-40-jets-toward-taiwan-2nd-consecutive-day
-bet they make them an offer they can't refuse.
n
old school "loop" vehicle detection
–which reminds me I've got a loop detector in a box in storage… kept it for my dirt road retreat… which hasn't happened yet of course.
n
That might be a throwaway line but there's a lot of wisdom in it. A friend of mine is full of them, and by way of example one of my favorites is, "Focus on the solution and not the problem."
*****
You guys don't know what mangoes are unless you've been in Kerala in March. Oh My God! The paltry excuses from Costa Rica (or wherever) we get here in the states can't shine a FLASHLIGHT to them. Same is true for bananas. You guys have no idea of the varieties of bananas available. Monoculture agriculture might be a great idea for banana Emperors (What was the Chiquita guy's name?), but be careful what you wish for.
@Rick
The little question mark icon in the Rich Text Editor box displays a pop-up which fills the entire width of my phone's screen, just as the accept cookie dialog box does. Could that be where the left margin problem is coming from?
-bet they make them an offer they can't refuse.
Drawing again on my experience with the in-laws, Taiwan vs. the Mainland strikes me as being similar to the ongoing argument in my wife's family about who is Number One Son among the cousins vying for control of the family rackets when Number One Uncle passes.
No shooting for now, but the last time we saw two Number One Sons together, one "accidentally" put what I would estimate as a $5000 dent in the other's brand new Acura SUV’s left rear corner panel.
Unibody SUVs are great for ride and handling, but crazy expensive for bodywork.
Number One Uncle smoothed over the situation, promising a check. Still, that won’t be a factory paint job in Seattle weather.
Oh, do you mean like the graphics for Washington state's earthquake preparedness site, Shakeout.org?
The image:
https://www.shakeout.org/images/Drop_Cover_Hold_On_ENG_Blue_Orange.png
At least one person here has a lot of experience with AT&T cell service. I was told by the local store I need to call and speak to the usually powerless non English speakers. So far, that has had limited results. Any suggestions?
I am getting close to quitting AT&T, but my second option is worse. At issue is the phones I have chosen have a ship date of FEBRUARY 10!!! No one seems to care about this.
How about, "Nick knows what he doesn't like when he sees it?"
Can I request a small item ? If you mention a website then please provide the URL for that website. Otherwise, you are relying upon the swiss cheese in my memory banks. And we all know how that goes.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/china-sends-nearly-40-jets-toward-taiwan-2nd-consecutive-day
-bet they make them an offer they can't refuse.
n
Reputedly, Taiwan is the biggest investor in China. It was Taiwan expertise that built all the chip fabs, steel foundries, etc. on the mainland. One of the conditions will be that Taiwan renounces all their stock in Chinese businesses. That will not happen.
I still think that Taiwan has an ace up their sleeve. One does not live next to the bear for 70+ years without storing a .458 Magnum in an easily accessible place next to the front door.
I still think that Taiwan has an ace up their sleeve. One does not live next to the bear for 70+ years without storing a .458 Magnum in an easily accessible place next to the front door.
Surprise nuke.
Plus, the TSMC fabs will be imploded. TSMC has fabs elsewhere, including the US.
I still think that Taiwan has an ace up their sleeve. One does not live next to the bear for 70+ years without storing a .458 Magnum in an easily accessible place next to the front door.
Surprise nuke.
Plus, the TSMC fabs will be imploded. TSMC has fabs elsewhere, including the US.
Taiwan is a huge investor in the USA. The Formosa Plastics plant in Point Comfort, TX has at least $20 billion invested in it. We watch the flares from Mom and Dad's house when I visit them.
I’ll bet that one could hose the 7 nm TSMS fab in Taiwan just by opening all the airlock doors up for an hour. There would go half of the silicon blanks for the world chip supply and restoring the clean room status from that salty ocean breeze would take an army.
’ll bet that one could hose the 7 nm TSMS fab in Taiwan just by opening all the airlock doors up for an hour. There would go half of the silicon blanks for the world chip supply and restoring the clean room status from that salty ocean breeze would take an army.
The Chinese want the x-ray lithography equipment inside. That has to be blowed up good. Moshe and the commandos probably have a contract and a bonus not to tell Tim Cook.
Simply cutting the power would compromise the fab itself. Samsung lost a bunch of money in February when Austin Energy cut power to their local fab in the freeze, and that was without any crompromise to the environment for just a few hours.
BTW, the new Samsung fab will go in Taylor, around the corner from ERCOT HQ.
Omaha in Kiewit Plaza would be better for reliability of electrical power, but the ERCOT puppet doesn't speak if Oncor is drinking a glass of water. The Koreans aren’t dumb.
Clicked a link above and noticed this in the "other stories":
Theranos Scandal: the Real Story – part 2 of 3
BY akrainer
Theranos was a fraud from the start and Elizabeth Holmes was merely fronting it. Here we look into what the real agenda was.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2021-10-03/theranos-scandal-real-story-part-2-3
Found this in the article:
Bold added. [NOTE: Strong tags are used for the title and in each paragraph, but do not display.]
I've pointed out many times that the PCR test has been misused–too many cycles–according to many experts, including Fauci himself clear back in August of 2020. The inventor of PCR has always contended it was not intended as a diagnostic tool. So why?
If the Theranos Part 2 article is true, then it adds a dimension to the misuse of PCR. It was not only a device to pump up the hysteria by inflating case counts with false positives. It was also a dry run in the "diagnostics as control" agenda.
EXCLUSIVE: Maj Gen Ordered 50+ Evacuees off One of Last Flights out of Kabul to Make Room for Taliban Souvenir
By Jennifer Van Laar | Oct 03, 2021 4:15 PM ET
https://redstate.com/jenvanlaar/2021/10/03/exclusive-maj-gen-ordered-50-evacuees-off-one-of-last-flights-out-of-kabul-to-make-room-for-taliban-souvenir-n451105
This article has additional information on weapons left behind. Specifically,
Despite what the unnamed defense official told Defense One and what Gen. McKenzie said in a press conference, sources say that troops were ordered to remote detonate the C-RAMs once the last flights were in the air but that the detonators failed, leaving the C-RAMs fully operable. One intelligence community source said that aerial photographs of the C-RAM location taken since the withdrawal do not show any evidence of destruction.
A military intelligence source with knowledge of the systems who asked not to be identified in order to speak freely said that with the C-RAMs and the drones the US left behind:
“With access to the command and control software from the C-RAM, they know how it works and how it interfaces with fire control systems. With the drones, they know how the satellite and local control interact AND how that information propagates vertically and horizontally across the enterprise. Now I can blind IR spoof parts of the network and make it look like system errors or read the data in real-time.
“Essentially, the loss of the drones isn’t so much the aircraft themselves but the command and control capabilities and the frequencies/ countermeasures we use.”
"Betting on Time Inconsistency: Glencore Will Profit When Reality Intrudes on Renewables Reveries"
https://streetwiseprofessor.com/betting-on-time-inconsistency-glencore-will-profit-when-reality-intrudes-on-renewables-reveries/
"In my opinion, this is a very canny contrarian bet. The panicked flight from coal by the Anglos and BHPs and others of the world is directly attributable to political and policy pressure. Hydrocarbons bad. Renewables good. Hydrocarbon companies are evil. You will be punished you carbon spewing bastards! Your CEOs will be snubbed by righteous people. Oh Noes!
But these policies are predicated on a collective delusion about renewables. Bloomberg can preach all it wants about how renewables are as efficient as conventional generation, but the fact is and will remain that dispatchable, reliable, continuous conventional generation, producing power from cheaply stored chemical energy, will remain much cheaper that non-dispatchable, intermittent, unreliable renewables that will have to rely on expensive battery storage. Bloomberg’s “levelized cost” metric is total bullshit because it leaves out all of the costs associated with reliability, transmission, and intermittency–details, details!
Renewables will never be able to handle current electricity demand at reasonable cost, but policymakers in the grip of the delusion are adding to electricity demand by forcing the electrification of other energy consumption, including transportation and home heating and cooking."
Time is telling right now. Coal plants are being restarted world wide as renewables fail to meet power needs. And we are in a demand valley right now. Wait until winter really hits in the northern hemisphere in two months.
Allocating power plants and fuel together is a serious trick. I did that for three years when I worked for TXU back in the 1980s and do not miss it at all. And I just worked the valleys, the long range engineering guys worked the five year outlook with their forefingers wetted in the political winds.
Sorry for leaving that eight letter b******* word in the article that I quoted. I thought it was a great article and missed that word until after the time to edit it out.
Same goes for pineapples. I really never knew how good pineapple can be until I had fresh pineapple in Hawaii. The stuff is juicy, sweet, and an excellent flavor. Used to get mine from a roadside stand next a Dole plantation. Run by a old Hawaiin that had a deal with Dole to sell what he wanted in exchange for some property he sold to Dole. He would go out in the field and get a fresh pineapple when I came to his stand to purchase. Good stuff.
Computer parts have been ordered. All should arrive by October 23 with the CPU being the last to arrive. System will be comparable to my sons, Windows installs in 45 seconds, boots in 5 seconds. Should be a fast machine.
Well, speaking of working the problem… the stink coming from my patio food storage shelves. All cans so shouldn't be a problem. Smell like cats and rats etc…. until it didn't. Now there is an unmistakeable smell of rot. So, a can must have failed.
Yup. A bunch, but only one dramatically.
One of those egg shaped canned ham products popped along the seam and stunk up the place. Good thing too. 4 cans of keystone meat also a bit puffy. Three have dents in the side walls near and end. They came that way. One can keystone so soaked with foulness from the ham I just threw it out. One has no visible damage. Best by is 2025 so I might keep those and email keystone. Two six packs of spam had puffy cans- bb of 2013 and 2016. Two cans from brasil, meat balls and a can from holland, hot dogs, well past bb in 2018, slight swelling.
I touched every can in Mar. 2020 when I set up the shelves so they were still good then. My storage conditions suck hard. Note that you have to be looking for it to see the swelling, and you can press on the end and the other end moves outward. They are not super obvious. I know my stuff is aging so I'm always very observant when opening the cans but not everyone is. At least the bad can gave me a reason to touch every can and verify they are good.
the other bad smell was two dead kittens. We must have ferals in the driveway. They haven't been dead long, and there is a third live one under there. Mom I saw two days ago (based on appearance.) Don't know what got them, maybe poisoned rat. My bait boxes are empty so something is eating the poison blocks.
I've got to go out and clean up the shelves now. Sweet jebus it stinks.
n
"Invasion From Space (Perry Rhodan #4)" by Walter Ernsting and Kurt Mahr, translated by Wendayne Ackerman
https://www.amazon.com/Invasion-Space-Perry-Rhodan-4/dp/1441659730/br?tag=ttgnet-20
Book number four of a series of one hundred and twenty-six space opera books in English. The original German books, actually pamphlets, number in the thousands. The English books mostly have two translated German stories per book. The German books were written from 1961 to present time, having sold two billion copies and even recently been rebooted. I read the well printed and well bound book published by Ace in 1970 that I had to be very careful with due to age. I bought an almost complete box of Perry Rhodans a decade or two ago on ebay that I am finally getting to since I lost my original Perry Rhodans in The Great Flood of 1989.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Rhodan
In this alternate universe, USSF Major Perry Rhodan and his three fellow astronauts blasted off in a three stage rocket to the Moon in 1971. The first stage of the rocket was chemical, the second and third stages were nuclear. After crashing on the Moon due to a strange radio interference, they discover a massive crashed alien spaceship with an aged male scientist (Khrest), a female commander (Thora), and a crew of 500.
The race of the wasp-like Mind Snatchers has heard the destroyed Arkonide space cruiser distress signal. An extremely paranoid race, they are trying to destroy the Earth with the humans on it. Part II of the book is about Perry Rhodan's trip to the Moon to salvage more parts from the Arkonide cruiser and the trip to Venus to establish a new base of operations to backup the Earth operations. The book supposes that the Venus atmosphere will be human breathable and the temperatures bearable, alas, neither of these were found to be true by our Venus probes since the book was written.
One has to remember that this book was written in German in 1961 and translated to English in 1970. Many items that came about in the 1970s and beyond such as cell phones are not reflected in the book. However, commercial aircraft commonly traveling at Mach 3 are not available to the public as talked about in the book. Niels Bohr's saying "Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future" comes to mind.
My rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars (3 reviews)
Nick, when Ball/Jardin removed the BPA from their canning lids in January 2013, we started noticing failures on the shelf… sometimes immediate, sometimes 6 months later, sometimes a year later. Previously, or using lids made before 2013, a non-contaminated jar would hold its seal on the shelf for several years. In fact, I never had any failure of a well-processed jar with a lid made before 2013.
The manufacturers never ever admitted that this rash of failures was caused by their new BPA-free lids. What they did instead was introduce in 2017 a new lid called SureTight that they heralded as "Most significant performance improvement for home canning lids in 30 years." Ball also says right on the package that the SureTight lids will hold for at least 18 months.
https://www.rrc.k-state.edu/preservation/doc/suretightlids2017.pdf
To date, I have good luck with the SureTight lids, and very few on-the-shelf failures (more than the BPA lids, but still).
Also… the company recommends using lids within 5 years of purchase … that triggers my antenna: I suspect 5 years is when their new formula plastic begins to degrade.
I said that to say this: Conagra began removing BPA from their cans in 2010, and eliminated it from all of them by July 2015/early 2016. Given our experience with home canning, I suspect we are also seeing failure of commercial cans produced from 2010 through 2017 due to the lack of BPA and degradation of the untried new formula. And even after 2017, the cans will probably not store as long as those produced prior to 2010.
Given this, as a rule of thumb, I am estimating a 5 to 7 year life span on commercial cans post 2017 unless there is reason to expect longer, such as those dated for long-term storage, or MREs or products produced for US government use or distribution for food-aid projects etc.
Like everything else that uses plastics, and as you discussed the other day, the formulas to make plastics have been changed and they all now degrade faster than the old reliable ones we were used to.
Addendum: A survey this year showed that some foreign-produced foods still come in cans with BPA, and these may last longer, but most no longer have it. This article is well worth reading to learn more about the industry practices. I have not yet followed the links in it to try to identify products that might store longer.
https://www.pugetsoundinstitute.org/2021/06/voluntary-removal-of-bpa-from-food-cans-leaves-state-regulators-with-a-key-decision/
500 error, I did it a bunch of times so it should be obvioiu s s in the t logs.
n
Frick, forgot to copy save too
Some blather about the cleanup and plans for the future. Gone now.
n
No pastes or blockquote either
n
But of course you're right, Ray. I've lived in both Hawaii (Hilo) and Kerala (Thrissur) but I must say the pineapples in India beat the pineapples on the Big Island.
I tried to find a little tutorial I made years ago on how to cut a pineapple but this was the best I could find. It's my buddy Apu.
I haven't logged into Facebook in a coon's age, so pardon if the link is broken.
https://scontent-sea1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.18169-9/fr/cp0/e15/q65/582609_316151965148008_79789952_n.jpg?_nc_cat=105&ccb=1-5&_nc_sid=e007fa&efg=eyJpIjoidCJ9&_nc_ohc=H4iaK1HRD1cAX9i_3G2&tn=J-W4HnsWTKwmEluJ&_nc_ht=scontent-sea1-1.xx&oh=5d2d112a2e46735c77259b30a2a7b6c3&oe=6181C459
That’s what you call a ripe pineapple!
@Pecancorner
Good posts and nice explanation background for:
The wiki entry on BPA is worth reading if you're bored and have an understanding of chemistry.
Summarizing a few points that make be of interest in the canning discussion:
1 In the formulation of epoxies for coating cans, BPA is a precursor (i.e., it is reacted with another chemical to form a third chemical) to one part of a two-part epoxy system. The reactions result in a new chemical structure (epoxy) that does not have the same endocrine disrupting properties as BPA. Any remaining BPA in such a system is due to incomplete reaction of the components or an excess of BPA that is not consumed in the chemical reactions.
2 The biological activity of BPA was originally assessed as 1/37,000 that of estradiol in the earlier 1930's and later as high as 1/1,000-2,000, but the latter figure is not footnoted in the article.
3. I don't know of any work that tried to measure the migration of BPA from canning seals into food.
4.Under Health Effects:
In 2012, the United States' Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned the use of BPA in baby bottles.[32] The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) holds the position that BPA is not a health concern. In 2011, Andrew Wadge, the chief scientist of the United Kingdom's Food Standards Agency, commented on a 2011 U.S. study on dietary exposure of adult humans to BPA,[33] saying, "This corroborates other independent studies and adds to the evidence that BPA is rapidly absorbed, detoxified, and eliminated from humans – therefore is not a health concern."[34]
IIRC, the baby bottle ban was pretty much the result of recognizing that they get microwaved and the surface gets hot, greatly increasing any BPA migration into the contents.
5. The replacements for BPA have not been as extensively studied, and may be slightly worse in terms of biological activity.
6. BPA degrades quickly and is not persistent in human tissues or the environment.
The bottom line is that the whole scare is pretty much the classic sequence: technology improves and detects ever-smaller amounts, lab studies are done based on much larger amounts, they find something that may be negative, then foment more anti-chemical hysteria and DEMAND ACTION BECAUSE THE GREEDY CHEMICAL COMPANIES ARE KILLING US!
And in the rush, the reformulated product does not perform as well as the old and the costs are borne by the consumers.
ADDED: In some respects, it’s too bad that the can manufacturers didn’t just quit coating the interiors, and tell people that they had to live with a six-month shelf life, except for tomatos and other acidic products, which would have to be in glass.
Some updates to the theme today; including fixes to link colors after visited; a font-adjust buttons at the top of the page, which are now cookies, so should persist if you don't clear cookies. Also, some smaller-screen fixes.
Working on changes to the font size in the comment editor. That's bit more difficult, especially for CDN-loaded CKEditor, and documentation is sparse or really old.
More coming.
"South Pole Sees Record Cold Winter, Smashing 1976 Record …WaPo Admits “Chill Was Exceptional”"
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/10/03/south-pole-sees-record-cold-winter-smashing-1976-record-wapo-admits-chill-was-exceptional/
"Record Antarctic winter this year (April to September) at the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station with average of -61.1 ° C, the coldest on record."
"The previous record was -60.6°C in 1976.
Operated by United States Antarctic Program, the South Pole station this past summer was “the coldest on record, dating back to 1957,” noted the climate alarmist Washington Post, and had to concede the event was “impressive and unexpected”."
Oh, crap. I passed up a quarter cord of free firewood two weeks ago.
"Taiwanese Foreign Minister warns his country is preparing for war with China, asks Australia for help"
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-04/taiwan-preparing-for-war-with-china/100511294
So if we, the USA, lose a carrier fleet or two in the strait of Formosa (Taiwan), are we going to be upset ?
Hat tip to:
https://drudgereport.com/
JOAN COLLINS lifts the lid on her showbiz pals in memoirs so candid they'd make Alexis Colby blush…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10050877/amp/Diaries-devilish-diva-JOAN-COLLINS-lifts-lid-showbiz-pals-candid-memoirs.html
@Rick
I'm still having trouble trying to select a range of text in the comment editor box. I can select one word, but that's about it.
The “accept cookie” box has gotten narrower, though!
We're going to armwave and let them have it if they promise to keep selling to the world.
n
@~jim
Re: selecting text – what kind of device?
I am working on increasing the font size in the comment box. A bit harder with a CDN-sourced CKEditor. Docs are flimsy on this issue. May need to localize the CKEditor script.
Umm, an LG-K51 mobile phone? Android 10.
I can live with the tiny font in the comment box, but for readability concerns, increasing the left margin and removing the vertical line which runs the page length seems more important.
That may have been my problem. I was using an obscure browser but in Chrome 93 on Android 10, LG-k51 text selection behaves normally.
I can live with the tiny font in the comment box, but for readability concerns, increasing the left margin and removing the vertical line which runs the page length seems more important.
EDIT:
The left margin indent is gone on Chrome, too. My bad. Problem between user and chair? Or whatever that acronym is…
Lorem ipsum hocus pocus.. Still too tiny even in Chrome 93 mobile
Text selection works, too.
500 error test*
@rick
This has become much more readable as you tweak the new theme. I appreciate the work you’re putting in.
I just spent a couple of minutes playing with copy/paste in the comment box, and finally figured out I get a paste popup if I right-click to the right of the cursor, in the same line, although I get a “browser can’t paste” error. (later: Waterfox doesn’t allow that. Worked in IE 11. Also got ‘500’ server errors and couldn’t post this.) Anywhere else I get the web page context menu. Seems odd… And I’m wondering if the links to individual comments could be just the date and time of the comment, instead of a continuous column of the post title? The date-time links were here recently, I’m sure of it.
Thanks again for the effort you put in.
*Posted by the expedient of posting the ‘500’ error test then editing (twice)
"Am I right ?!!!"
"Technically, if you don't cut a cake and simply eat it whole you are only eating one piece. Follow me for more dieting advice."
SRW in the Fort Bend Journal
Is there is a way to bookmark the last comment read. If this is true, how do you do that?
There's a date/time stamp beneath your name. That works as a bookmark, though it doesn't appear as a hyperlink.
@Lynn
"Technically, if you don't cut a cake and simply eat it whole you are only eating one piece. Follow me for more dieting advice."
yeah, but if you cut it the calories leak out
Speaking of calories, if I was anywhere near Cornwall, I'd be following in this guy's footsteps. I've linked him before, but I haven't watched him in a while. I'm glad to see him out and about making vids.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnfvGJ1TY-BG6-vzoLU1fSw
The Fish Locker – coastal foraging.
n
Some interesting numbers, actual numbers, in this article
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10052919/3rd-Alaska-hospital-invokes-crisis-care-mode-COVID-spike.html
Statewide, for the entirety of the outbreak, ~500 deaths.
Some other very interesting numbers in the bottom half of the article too.
And some really weasel words about the screeching declarations, followed by some truths. Like that the hospital is only 1/3 full of covid patients, and is still providing all levels of care.
When you lie by omission, rabble rouse, incite and excite, why should we trust you?
n
When the snowstorms hitHow will the panic-makers convince us all that they were right all along, ? Oh, right, that's why they swapped out "global warming" and put ing "climate change". It's great to have a hypothesis so general that it can never be disproven.
When it gets cold, and none of their models predicted it, I really want to see some groveling. Won't happen, of course.