Mon. Oct. 4, 2021 – nose to grindstone

Hot and humid. Rain later. Maybe. For some people. It got pretty hot yesterday despite being somewhat cloudy and overcast for part of the day. It was so humid I had sweat rolling down my back at 6pm in the shade, standing still and cleaning my shelves. Oh yeah it was humid.

Has some back issues in the morning so I took it easy. Then I decided to finish cutting the grass (battery died with about 10 x 10 ft left.) Did that. Wanted to get set up for craft time with daughter two and that triggered the rest of the day’s work.

Which I detailed yesterday in the comments. Mostly it was a cautionary tale about food storage and expired puffy cans. CHECK YOUR STACKS. Time and heat are the enemy. Stuff just isn’t lasting as long as it should. WELL past best by date, but still I expect more. I will probably do some more work on cleanup and replacing stuff on the shelves today, depending on weather.

The rest of the day I’m hoping to get to my storage unit to load some stuff up, and drop it off. And to get some stuff done on my daughter’s projects would be nice. Stuff is slipping.

I’ve got to fit in a Costco run too.

This week is short and busy, with the school theater pickup tomorrow, and going to WDW at the end of the week, and I’m hoping for the ransomware delayed auction pickups to actually happen too. Days are FULL.

And time is short. China is flexing on Taiwan. Bad things will happen to the US and world economy if China moves on them. Violence and division here at home are ramping up too. Keep your eyes open and your head on a swivel.

Check your preps. Fill your gaps. Fix what’s broken. And stack it high.

nick

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{ ping }}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

— Harold Combs — welfare check — haven’t heard from you since you talked about going walkabout….
Let us know how it’s going…..

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{ ping }}}}}}}}}}}}}}

84 Comments and discussion on "Mon. Oct. 4, 2021 – nose to grindstone"

  1. brad says:

    Almost time here for the "last great mowing" before winter. I like to have the meadow mown before the snow hits, because otherwise it's a mess in the Spring when the snow melts.

    China and Taiwan: It's pretty clear that China has designs on the island, though it's frankly a shame. They may be able to take over the land, but – as with Hong Kong – they won't be able to retain the same level of productivity and innovation. I suppose it's more a point of pride. The only real questions are (1) how long will they wait, and (2) how will they do it? I expect they'll try to avoid a full military encounter, if at all possible…

  2. Nick Flandrey says:

    67F and 96%RH.  Dank.

    I can't imagine our stock market surviving a military takeover of Tiawan by China.  It'll either be swift or slow and stealthy.   I think they're done with slow.

    n

  3. Nick Flandrey says:

    FWIW, I'm still zooming to 130%.   Just manipulating the font size doesn't increase everything, like the comment box and there is a lag on reload where all the text is small, then jumps to the saved size.    So the widget works, it just isn't quite what I'd like.

    n

  4. Pecancorner says:

    Is there is a way to bookmark the last comment read. If this is true, how do you do that?

    Not an actual bookmark, but what I do is click on the date/time stamp of the last comment I read. Then, when I come back, I look at the "Recent Comments" list and that one I clicked is red. When I click it again from the Recent Comments List, it takes me to where I left off.   I'm glad to have that feature back because I use it a lot.

    Using FF in Windows 10, the list of Recent Comments is on the right sidebar where it used to be. Using FF in Ubuntu,  the list is at the bottom, and the right side is empty. I am able to scroll down to it and find it there.

  5. drwilliams says:

    @Brad

    "When it gets cold, and none of their models predicted it, I really want to see some groveling. Won't happen, of course."

    Their models have been failures for years. If they make corrections it undercuts the propaganda.

  6. Pecancorner says:

    drwilliams, thank you for the additional info re BPA. As usual, sounds like the eco lobby got in a panic without much reason and caused us all problems.   It is very annoying that they changed the formula for these plastics without really understanding what the consequences would be. 

    Especially, it is frustrating to me that industry makes formula changes to various products or packaging without notifying the public, and sometimes – as with chlorine bleach – outright lying about what they have done and why they did it. Bleach formulas still have problems, and are only just now coming back to being useful for stain removal after the complete changes made by the industry in 2011.   

  7. Nick Flandrey says:

    @jenny, please give us a boots on the ground read, but to me, this article is less than it looks.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10052919/3rd-Alaska-hospital-invokes-crisis-care-mode-COVID-spike.html

    Despite the implied desperation, the article also has statements like this–

    "I want to stress that our health care facilities in Alaska remain open and able to care for patients. Alaskans who need medical care should not delay seeking it, even during these difficult times,' Adam Crum, the state's health commissioner, said. 

    This statement is bracketed by sentances about high CASE counts, which we know come from increased testing as well as actual sick people. 

    The hospital says 35% of its patients on Saturday were being treated for COVID-19. 

    Roughly 1 in 7 Alaskans tested positive.  No mention of the test positivity rate or number of tests administered during the whole pandemic.   Roughly 1 in 300 Alaskans was hospitalized for chinaflu.  If you get hospitalized in AK, you have a 1 in 4 chance of dying.  That's pretty freaking bad results.    And it's 1 in 1300 died in AK during the pandemic.  Again, terrible results. This is roughly ONE death per day for the entire state

    And roughly a quarter of those infections have come in the last month, despite 60% of the population being vaxed.

    That is a big surge, no doubt.  I wonder what the preportion of vaxed to unvaxed is in the recent 24K cases.

    n

  8. Nick Flandrey says:

    Added— the article conflates two statements, with the sum being more than the parts.  COULD be confusion by the editor, but I'm betting not.

    From the  DM article…

    'We have the most highly sophisticated medicine and advanced training in the world, and we're having to ration care,' Javid Kamali, an intensive-care doctor at Providence, told the newspaper. 'We didn't sign up for this.' 

    'I don't think anybody has experienced anything like this in their lifetime,' echoed Dr. John Cullen, Providence chief of staff.

    But the Cullen quote was originally —

    The 11-bed Providence Valdez Medical Center in southeast Alaska, which often sends patients to its corporate hub hospital in Anchorage, has started to conserve oxygen under the state’s crisis standards by limiting how much doctors pump into patients who are struggling to breathe, said chief of staff John Cullen.

    “I don’t think anybody has experienced anything like this in their lifetime,” Dr. Cullen said.

    Tiny regional facility.  Conserving O2.  I doubt the Dr said "pump into patients".  And the quote is NOT related to the other quote.

    Recently, the team had to choose which of two patients critically ill with Covid-19 should use a single specialized dialysis machine. The team saw little hope for one patient and selected the other to start dialysis. The patient who had to wait died.

    “We have the most highly sophisticated medicine and advanced training in the world, and we’re having to ration care,” said Javid Kamali, an intensive-care doctor at Providence. “We didn’t sign up for this.”

    ONE specialized machine.  Anything that brought two patients that needed the machine into the facility at the same time would have triggered the need for a decision.

    The Drs work at two different "Providence" facilities.  One in Anchorage, one in rural SE Alaska.

    And there is this detail, left out of the DM article…

    Dr. Kamali said he has in recent weeks had to inform numerous rural Alaska doctors requesting transfers that there were no ICU beds available. One case involved a patient stricken with sepsis, who was on a ventilator and needed round-the-clock care from a respiratory therapist that the small facility didn’t have, he said.

     "In recent weeks", IE BEFORE the chinaflu surge.

    It's jiggery pokery like this that puts ANYTHING they report in the 'questionable' column.

    n

    (and the outright LYING like the race car driver being interviewed in front of the crowd CLEARLY chanting F#ck Joe Biddn…… while the reported says "listen to them cheer for you!"_

  9. Nick Flandrey says:

    One last bit, they refer to the surge being caused by 'the more easily transmitted delta variant" but don't say how they know that.    Last I read from CDC itself, they were ONLY testing 'breakthrough' cases, ie. fully vaxed people who tested positive anyway.

    And isn't the delta variant less virulent so it's GOOD news that people are getting delta?

    n

    (one other thing I don't like about this comment editor hijacking the right click menu, I can't highlight a word, right click, and select 'search with google' which I routinely do to make sure my word choice is correct.  Did I mention  I hate it when some manky little programmer somewhere decides to hijack the right click menu?)

  10. MrAtoz says:

    Fuher FauXi:

    Dr. Fauci says ‘it’s just too soon to tell’ if it will be safe enough to ‘gather for Christmas’ this year

    Really, does he think families aren't going to gather for Christmas? This guy is so full of shite. I can't wait to be rid of him.

  11. Nick Flandrey says:

    Ah those rowdy amish with their custom buggies….

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10054963/Street-racers-filmed-doing-DONUTS-police-cruiser-outside-famed-Philadelphia-City-Hall.html

    A Dodge Charger muscle car was filmed spinning donuts around a cop car outside Downtown Philadelphia's famous city hall Saturday night.   

    The shameless act of hooliganism was snapped by an onlooker from the window of a nearby tall building just before midnight, with the car screeching around the Ford police cruiser multiple times as passengers sat on the vehicle's open windows.   

    'No f****** way,' onlookers could be heard yelling as the car drives by. 'Oh sh**, oh sh**.' Another onlooker was filmed clambering onto the cop car's bonnet moments later. 

    Despite the dangerous behavior, Philly PD did not make any arrests.

    Shortly before they arrived, the same group were filmed spinning donuts on the wide intersection outside Philadelphia City Hall as their cronies blocked traffic,  

    Some set off fireworks as the cars passed by, but miraculously did not hit any onlookers.

    'We really lawless as sh**,' one onlooker titled their video. 

    Cops were eventually able to move the racers on and restore the normal flow of traffic.   

    Philadelphians could later be seen dancing on top of the cop cars before the police were able to break up the crowd. 

    Then they did a victory dance on the carcass of their prey…

    This amid the usual violence of a blue hellhole, where someone went old school and used a zip gun to kill someone.

    Then at around 11.30am on Friday, a man armed with three 'spring shot' homemade guns and a knife shot a security guard in the head at a Philadelphia office complex, before heading to the Pathways to Housing PA's office on the third floor.

    n

  12. Mark W says:

    Update on the amazon solar panel. I put it out in the sun yesterday and connected 2 phones. I got a total charge rate of 1.9A at 5V. Not bad for a $32 panel. In a situation like February, that would be useful for keeping a phone charged and charging battery packs to run USB LED lights at night.

  13. Nick Flandrey says:

    Has anyone ever done this before?  This trooper shot himself in the head WHILE DRIVING on the freeway.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10053015/Illinois-troopers-expressway-shooting-death-ruled-suicide.html

    Something ain't right.

    n

  14. Jenny says:

    @nick

    The covid hysteria in that article is politically motivated. Shocking I know. 
    Zaletel is up for recall with $90k from unions who want masking. We've been fighting a three prong power grab the last week by our leftist Assembly. Three nights and counting testimony against the mask ordinance introduced by Zaletel. 
    The article is timed and written to induce panic and acquiesce to the ordinance so Zaletel can keep that $90k promise and beat the recall.

    When you are tested for Covid here they ask your vaccination status and crank up te PCR cycles to produce the desired result. 

    Our ICUs are always at capacity and have been long before Covid. They always have to decide who gets the ICU beds and who leaves ICU early to make room for the next bugger. I was deathly ill in 2012 and remember circling the drain while they decided if I was close enough to dead to bump someone out if ICU for me. It's common practice here. 
     

    Staffing shortages are from mandated vaccination not overflow of patients. Surge is from a backlog of cases not getting documented. Our cases are dropping. They call you unvaccinated if you aren’t two weeks past your second injection. They’re also lining up our newly elected conservative freedom loving Mayor for a recall effort the moment he is past his protected first 120 days in office. 
     

    It's all theater. 
    https://mustreadalaska.com/some-anchorage-doctors-dispute-new-york-times-story-on-alaskas-covid-crisis/

  15. ech says:

    And isn't the delta variant less virulent so it's GOOD news that people are getting delta?

    I don't think that is known yet. It's certainly more transmissable.

  16. nick flandrey says:

    Searching for some other stuff had me fall down the rabbit hole with old posts here.

    This one from Brad has about a year to run so it might make it. Won’t be the first time he’s been right btw, good on ya Brad.

    brad says:
    6 June 2017 at 15:28

    I’ll vote with Eugen: Europe will (probably) be fine. However, there will be some upheavals and general unpleasantness along the way. The terror attacks are leading to a very serious populist movement against Islam specifically and muslims in general. The current governments are still in denial, but they will either come around or be replaced.

    Just as an example: Today, a member of the Swiss parliament submitted an official proposal to declare the Islamic Central Council of Switzerland (ICCS) to be an illegal organization. This is the central lobbying organization for Islamists here, that works against any political proposals that would restrict Islamic practices, and actively proselytizes for the religion.

    This is just the first step of the coming reaction. I do believe that the borders will be closed in the next couple of years, and the deportations of illegal migrants will begin. Hopefully in 2-3 years, almost certainly within 5.

    As always seems to be the case, the reaction will do all the right things – and then keep going and head off to some form of extremism all its own. It’s unfortunate that we can’t somehow stop the pendulum in the middle.

  17. nick flandrey says:

    There was a comment from RBT lamenting the first time we would have an accident because a diversity hire designed a bridge or building, 2017…

    Collectively and singly we do get the occasional prediction right….

    n

  18. nick flandrey says:

    @rick, I am seeing some weirdness, the page reloaded without the comment box, then reloaded with the comment box but no buttons…. loaded fine this time.

    n

  19. Rick H says:

    Adjusted the 'recent comments' widget on the side to show date/time of the comment. Still has links: green if unread, blue if read (clicked).

  20. Greg Norton says:

    There was a comment from RBT lamenting the first time we would have an accident because a diversity hire designed a bridge or building, 2017…

    Collectively and singly we do get the occasional prediction right….

    This bridge design always struck me as weird. Given the area, the population demographics, and the involvement of the university's engineering department, a diversity hire in the wrong place or multiple places wouldn't surprise me.

    https://www.osha.gov/sites/default/files/2019-12/2019_r_03.pdf

    The collapse happened not long after RBT made his prediction.

    On the last job, we had multiple projects fail due to diversity hires in over their heads working in support roles, but no one dies if the toll doesn’t get collected.

  21. Rick H says:

    Formatting buttons: work just like other word processors.

    – Click to turn on. Type stuff. Click to turn off. Press enter to start the next paragraph

    – Type stuff. Highlight it. Click button to apply that format to the selected text. Wraps the selected text with the tag.

    And the "Source" button will switch between visual and text mode (for those that must mess with tags manually).

    I'm thinking of putting a plain comment editor box for smaller screens. The CKEditor one is less mobile-friendly (and the googles search thing complains about it). More investigation first, though.

  22. nick flandrey says:

    Well, I did an example of why that isn't strictly true for blockquote at least, but it causes the 500 error.

    I hate to think that it's the blockquote tag that causes the issue because I REALLY REALLY like blockquote to differentiate between external material quoted here, and locally generated content….

    n

  23. nick flandrey says:

    Not true for blockquote.  Pasted this —

    Formatting buttons: work just like other word prrocessors.

    – Click to turn on. Type stuff. Click to turn off.

    – Type stuff. Highlight it. Click button to apply that format to the selected text. Wraps the selected text with the tag.

    ===========================================================

    Highlighted all of it, click the "" button, clicked AFTER the period following 'tag' to put the cursor where I wanted blockquote to end,  clicked the "" button — and got what the first paste looks like, the last line was un-blockquoted.

    ==============================================================

        Formatting buttons: work just like other word prrocessors.

        – Click to turn on. Type stuff. Click to turn off.

        – Type stuff. Highlight it. Click button to apply that format to the selected text. Wraps the selected text with the tag.

     that time I put the cursor after the period and just hit enter twice.   Got one blockquoted newline, and then it closed the tag and gave me another newline.

    I just checked and while the first behavior matches wordpad, forex, the second doesn't (and it's related to the indent, all the other tags close where the cursor is).  You need at least a newline to click on the '' [close quote] button without changing the text.

    Quirks.

    And blockquote doesn't seem to support internal (strong) tags anymore.  iirc it didn't originally either but at some point you changed it so it did, but with color not bold…  it does support bold tags if you add them manually.  (the button adds (strong)    

    quriks.

    n

    copypaste from wordpad looks like it dropped the blockquote tag –but it posted without the 500 error. so I manually added the blockquote tags to show the behaviour

  24. ~jim says:

    In re Joe Bob Briggs horrible jokes, I just got this from a friend. 

    Two cannibals eating a man: one says I'll start at the head you can start at the feet. As time goes by the cannibal that started at the head asks "How are you doing down there?" He replies "I'm having a ball!" His buddy replies "Slow down, you're eating too fast."

    <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Prometheus-Noomi-Rapace/dp/B009AJD5E0Prometheus/a?tag=ttgnet-20 showed up on Amazon Prime the other day. It's one of the few movies I can watch over and over again.

    https://www.amazon.com/Prometheus-Noomi-Rapace/dp/B009AJD5E0/p?tag=ttgnet-20

    EDIT: Oh my, that link button didn’t work so well, did it?

    EDIT EDIT: It’s that damn ttgnet-20 tag, I’m sure of it. I would gladly pay my share of whatever revenue that damn thing generates into a tip jar just to see it go away!

  25. MrAtoz says:

    More FauXi lies:

    Dr. Fauci says illegal immigrants not driving Covid spread, still unsure if Americans should gather for Christmas

    How can he know? plugs has distributed crimmigrants and Afghans all over the FUSA in the 100,000's this year alone. None have vax cards I bet. I'm also sure none of them have COVID.

    4
    1
  26. lynn says:

    And time is short. China is flexing on Taiwan. Bad things will happen to the US and world economy if China moves on them. Violence and division here at home are ramping up too. Keep your eyes open and your head on a swivel.

    Check your preps. Fill your gaps. Fix what’s broken. And stack it high.

    Can't they wait 20 or 30 years to start this crap ?  I am going to retire in 3 years, 8 months, and 24 days.  Sounds like they are going to mess up my retirement.  I will probably be working two jobs anyway until I die.

    Does anyone here remember the 1970s ?  Houses started off 1970 at $20,000, ended up at $80,000.  Cars started 1970 at $2,500, ended up at $8,000.  I suspect that we are going to do the 1970s all over again.

  27. lynn says:

    Facebook has been down for three hours.  The screams of withdrawal are starting.

        https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/04/facebook-instagram-and-whatsapp-are-down.html

     

  28. Greg Norton says:

    Does anyone here remember the 1970s ?  Houses started off 1970 at $20,000, ended up at $80,000.  Cars started 1970 at $2,500, ended up at $8,000.  I suspect that we are going to do the 1970s all over again.

    $80,000 with 12-13% mortgages. Good times.

    Of course, the same $80,000 stucco shack in Florida goes for $500k today.

    https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/941-Cortland-Way-Palm-Harbor-FL-34683/47048608_zpid/

    The house where one of my high school friends lived. The shack has a pool and school zoning that eliminates busing but $500k?!?

  29. Nick Flandrey says:

    Okay trying to comment from my phone to see how that works site looks great .

    N

  30. lynn says:

    More FauXi lies:

    Dr. Fauci says illegal immigrants not driving Covid spread, still unsure if Americans should gather for Christmas

    How can he know? plugs has distributed crimmigrants and Afghans all over the FUSA in the 100,000's this year alone. None have vax cards I bet. I'm also sure none of them have COVID.

    Fauci can kiss my grits. The dude is a lying scumbag. And at least partially responsible for the whole covid mess since he funded some of the work from his high position in the federal government.

  31. lynn says:

    Does anyone here remember the 1970s ?  Houses started off 1970 at $20,000, ended up at $80,000.  Cars started 1970 at $2,500, ended up at $8,000.  I suspect that we are going to do the 1970s all over again.

    $80,000 with 12-13% mortgages. Good times.

    Of course, the same $80,000 stucco shack in Florida goes for $500k today.

    https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/941-Cortland-Way-Palm-Harbor-FL-34683/47048608_zpid/

    The house where one of my high school friends lived. The shack has a pool and school zoning that eliminates busing but $500k?!?

    We probably need to knock two zeros off the Dollar.  Maybe three.  People scream when spending $1,000 for new tires.  But $10 is seen as cheap.

  32. SteveF says:

    Facebook's been deplatformed.

  33. Chad says:

    Fuher FauXi:

    Dr. Fauci says ‘it’s just too soon to tell’ if it will be safe enough to ‘gather for Christmas’ this year

    Really, does he think families aren't going to gather for Christmas? This guy is so full of shite. I can't wait to be rid of him.

    How amusing. I haven't skipped gathering for a holiday since this whole thing began. We all got together LAST YEAR for Easter, Mother's Day, Memorial Day…. Didn't bat an eye. We'll be getting together this year as well. I'll let the sheeple living in coastal blue states hide indoors alone. The rest of the country stopped caring (many never cared).

  34. ~jim says:

    Okay trying to comment from my phone to see how that works site looks great .

    Yes, it really does look great. Chrome 94, Android 10. Dark mode. Allowing the user to adjust the font size was a smart idea. Can't please everyone, so let them decide for themselves.

    Text size in the comment box is a little too small for me but I can live with it! 

  35. lynn says:

    BTW, not having to type my name and email every time is so cool.  I was thinking of reducing my name to L and my email to W but the retention of the same is so much better.

  36. lynn says:

    China and Taiwan: It's pretty clear that China has designs on the island, though it's frankly a shame. They may be able to take over the land, but – as with Hong Kong – they won't be able to retain the same level of productivity and innovation. I suppose it's more a point of pride. The only real questions are (1) how long will they wait, and (2) how will they do it? I expect they'll try to avoid a full military encounter, if at all possible…

    I see them Chinese scouring the island down to the volcanic rock before the invasion.

    In fact, I am quite surprised that any Taiwanese still live there.  Talk about living next door to the cave bear, one day he will meander over and eat you and your children.

  37. Greg Norton says:

    In fact, I am quite surprised that any Taiwanese still live there.  Talk about living next door to the cave bear, one day he will meander over and eat you and your children.

    Taiwan was a Japanese colony for over 40 years prior to WWII and has been an independent entitiy for nearly 80 years since then. Most of the families go back generations, late 1800s or further. It isn't like no one lived out there until 1947, and, post revolution, the RoC government running out there with a bunch of Mainland syncophants in tow weren't exactly greeted with open arms.

    The oldsters in my wife's family actually prefered the Japanese Governor running things. As the saying goes, the trains ran on time.

  38. Greg Norton says:

    We probably need to knock two zeros off the Dollar.  Maybe three.  People scream when spending $1,000 for new tires.  But $10 is seen as cheap.

    It is a $160k house absent all the distortions of the last 20 years. Low crime. Unincorporated area. Decent schools. Some of the highest land in the county so no flood issues despite being close to the coast.

    Nightmare commutes to employment centers, however, and Tampa Bay eliminated any chances of fixing that with poor decisions made 30-40 years ago.

     

  39. lynn says:

    Dadgum it, the office got hit with another 4 or 5 power outages today and another UPS died.  I found out that somebody used one of the two spares so I am using the other spare.  So, we have no spare UPSes today and I am ordering two.

  40. lynn says:

    Nightmare commutes to employment centers, however, and Tampa Bay eliminated any chances of fixing that with poor decisions made 30-40 years ago.

    All decisions are poor, it is just that some are less poor than others.

  41. lynn says:

    "Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp Down Worldwide After DNS Records Vanish; Employees Badges Reportedly Not Working"

         https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/facebook-instagram-whatsapp-experience-global-outages

    "Update (1507ET): Facebook appears to have more than DNS issues, as NYT's Sheera Frenkel reports:

    "Was just on phone with someone who works for FB who described employees unable to enter buildings this morning to begin to evaluate extent of outage because their badges weren't working to access doors.""

    This is either sheer incompetence or an attack.  I vote for attack.

  42. Alan says:

    So…still cannot reach this site on my PC, getting ERR_TIMED_OUT.

    Loaded FireFox, same issue. So seems not to be a browser issue.

    ping www dot ttgnet dot com returns no errors, average response time is 77 ms.

    Still digging the Googles.

    Grrr!

  43. Alan says:

    More…first attempt at adding my previous comment returned an "Internal Server Error".

    In an effort to 'fix' it I made two changes and then it went through.

    1. Changed "can't" to "cannot"

    2. Changed http://www.ttgnet.com to www dot ttgnet dot com

    Weird. 

    ADDED: this comment went through fine on the first try.

  44. SteveF says:

    All decisions are poor, it is just that some are less poor than others.

    Eh, maybe. I prefer a more practical view: Some decisions which look poor to you are good decisions by the real criteria of the people making them.

     

  45. lpdbw says:

    This is either sheer incompetence or an attack.  I vote for attack.

    Imagine, if you will, a world without facebook.

    My heart skips a beat.

  46. Alan says:

    So Buckhead wants to secede from Atlanta and becoome its own incorporated city.

    From the article:
    “I think that much of what’s going on is about the inability of” White Buckhead residents “to have greater influence over the policy choices of the city of Atlanta”

    So when do they start putting up the walls and the checkpoint gates?

    More:
    “I’m not a Republican. I’m not a Democrat. I’m not an independent,” [Bill] White told a group of supporters this spring. “I’m not Black. I’m not White. I’m not gay or straight. I’m none of those things,” he continued. “And we want all of us to start thinking that way because that’s the way we win.”

    Yeah, 'I'm just rich and entitled.'

    (As an aside, interesting that Bloomberg capitalizes "White," mostly I don't see that in the MSM.

    Buckhead Cityhood Vote: District Wants to Secede From Atlanta – Bloomberg

     

  47. Alan says:

    Dadgum it, the office got hit with another 4 or 5 power outages today and another UPS died.  I found out that somebody used one of the two spares so I am using the other spare.  So, we have no spare UPSes today and I am ordering two.

    @lynn, how frequently do you pull from your reserves. IIRC those sealed lead acid batteries have limited lifespans.

  48. Pecancorner says:

        https://www.cnet.com/how-to/usps-slowdown-what-to-know-about-new-delivery-delays-and-price-hikes/

    "Millions of customers who rely on the US Postal Service now face longer delivery times for first-class mail and packages."

    Wonderful.  They are purposefully going to slow USPS down.

    Last Monday, I mailed a greeting card to my sister. Standard size, with a folded piece of paper in it. Usually, a first class letter to my mom in the same town is delivered within 2 days. This one didn't show … didn't show….   I was planning to put a trace on it (that can be done: the USPS takes a photograph of every piece of first class mail that goes through the system).

    But, it showed up today. She said it has no postmark, and has been opened and resealed. I guess some clerk somewhere wanted to see if it had a gift card or cash in it.  

  49. lynn says:

    Dadgum it, the office got hit with another 4 or 5 power outages today and another UPS died.  I found out that somebody used one of the two spares so I am using the other spare.  So, we have no spare UPSes today and I am ordering two.

    @lynn, how frequently do you pull from your reserves. IIRC those sealed lead acid batteries have limited lifespans.

    I have no freaking idea.  Big River tells me that the Cyberpower 1000VA UPS that I last ordered was on March 18, 2018 which I find hard to believe.  And, it is no longer available for sale.

       https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000QZ3UG0//p?tag=ttgnet-20

    The equivalent Cyberpower 1000VA UPS is $219 which I find absurd.  I did find a 1000 VA model for $159 but there is only one available.  I need two in reserve. 

        https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00429N192//p?tag=ttgnet-20

    I may be forced to order an APC 1000VA UPS for $169.

        https://www.amazon.com/APC-Sinewave-Battery-Protector-BR1000MS/dp/B0779KYKLB//p?tag=ttgnet-20

  50. paul says:

    I'm trying to clean up the clutter in the feed shed.  It's easier when down to two bags of cat food on a flat and working on the last bag of feed for the bird.  I managed to get rid of three feed sacks stuffed full of folded feed sacks last week.  That helped.

    Today, while sweeping out what looks like cobwebs full of dead ants and moving stuff around, why do I have four gallons of Delo 15W40 oil?  And two of Delo 10W30?  And one of Delo 30W?  Plus a couple of gallons of Rotella 10W30.  All un-opened.  I have a couple of 30W jugs half full, I use that in the lawnmowers.

    I rented a roll-off dumpster several years ago.  I forget the size but it was seven feet deep.  Filled it to the top.  I'm almost ready for another dumpster.

    Nice weather today.  Sunny and clear.  85F.  Humidity is down from "Sauna" almost to "I'm kinda chilled in the shade when the wind blows".

  51. paul says:

    If Big River ain't working for CyberPower UPS' try Provantage.  They were within a couple of bucks with shipping compared to Amazon and free shipping.

  52. nick flandrey says:

    Sold two things today, a 26 CD unabridged Ayn Rand audio book, and a case of disinfectant/viricide.  Then I get home to an offer on another thing, which I took.  3 sales today, about $75 profit.  Things are picking up.  So of course I'll be shutting it all down for a week……

    n

  53. Greg Norton says:

    So Buckhead wants to secede from Atlanta and becoome its own incorporated city.

    That won't happen. Unless things have changed dramatically in the last decade or so, Buckhead is the tax base of Fulton County.

     

  54. Rick H says:

    Today is "Smoky and the Bandit" day – that's a big '10-4' !

  55. Greg Norton says:

    Today is "Smoky and the Bandit" day – that's a big '10-4' !

    The fundamental flaw in the "Smokey and the Bandit" script — Texarkana was in a dry county in the late 70s, and the beer run would have involved driving another 20 miles into Texas.

    Here's hoping that the 45th or 50th anniversaries see a DVD/BluRay restoring the 'R' cut of the movie with Jackie Gleason's uncensored performance, arguably his last great contribution to comedy before sinking into material like "The Toy" and, unfortunately, the “Smokey and the Bandit” sequels.

    Every movie geek my age saw the uncut VHS version with the ‘R’ rating way too young and howled with laughter at the network TV airings with Jacking Gleason dropping the words “scum bum” in place of “son of a ….”.

  56. Rick H says:

    Changes for today:

    – larger font in the comment box area (Huzzah!)

    – recent comments list in the sidebar now have date/time stamps

    – some link color changes (not perfect yet)

    – additional text above the comment box

    – newer cookie consent bod

    – font resize defaults to normal 17px size if you have not changed it before. Any changes you make are stored in a local cookie for next time – unless you clear the cookies

  57. Geoff Powell says:

    @greg:

    dropping the words “scum bum” in place of “son of a ….”.

    Lo these many years ago, when I was working telecine at Auntie Beeb, we would transmit movies direct off the 35mm film print, normally with the COMbined OPTical sound track. Occasionally, we ould be supplied with an instruction "Run reel 2 with SEParate MAGnetic sound". So we did, and no-one thought anything more about it.

    Until the day the colourist decided he wanted to look at a scene again, so we backed up the telecine, and heard, loud and clear, a naughty word in the midst of reversed gibberish. THEN we realised why the sepmag instruction was given.

    For background, 35mm sepmag, in our practice, had  3 tracks. We normally transmitted track 1. But if you transfer the original optical track to tracks 1 and 3, you can flip one or more words end-for-end, resulting in an uncut picture, with unintelligible gibberish instead of the naughty word(s) on the soundtrack, and you don't notice – or at least we didn't.

    In the matter of "dry" counties, there was a similar situation in parts of Wales, where the county boundary ran down the middle of a river, with a village on each side, and a bridge between. One side "dry" on Sundays, the other not. So, of course, lots of the "dry" side men would come out of Chapel, after the service, and cross the bridge to a pub on the "not-dry" side, before returning across the bridge later for Sunday lunch.

    Note: that's Chapel, not church. Generally a more extreme form of religious worship.

    G.

     

  58. ~jim says:

    Lorem ipsum, oh my gosh. It's so big, Rick! 😉

    Love it. Keep up the good work! 

  59. Geoff Powell says:

    Trying a simple comment, after one it a uote got a 500 error.

    G.

     

  60. Geoff Powell says:

    OK, that went in. 

    Retyping my entire previously-failed comment…

    @rick:

    "Larger font"

    Could have fooled me, on the previous comment, but this one is good.

    Posting from 91.110.121.98 with Brave.

    G.

     

  61. Greg Norton says:

    In the matter of "dry" counties, there was a similar situation in parts of Wales, where the county boundary ran down the middle of a river, with a village on each side, and a bridge between. One side "dry" on Sundays, the other not. So, of course, lots of the "dry" side men would come out of Chapel, after the service, and cross the bridge to a pub on the "not-dry" side, before returning across the bridge later for Sunday lunch.

    Parts of Texas are still dry, but that is changing.

    The core of the "Smokey and the Bandit" script is a challenge to run from Atlanta to Texarkana and back, roughly 700 miles, in 28 hours, returning with a truckload of Coors, a brand not legally distributed in the eastern US at the time. This would not have been an easy run in the late 70s, when every state was forced to adopt the 55 MPH speed limit, and another 20 miles in each direction would have meant the Bandit and his cohorts losing the challenge if you pay attention to the movie.

    The 55 MPH limit in the states was greatly despised since it imposed an insane limit on how quickly a driver could cross the country. Burt Reynolds filmed the "Smokey and the Bandit" sequel simultaneously with "The Cannonball Run", the latter co-written by Brock Yates, a legendary car journalist who was at the forefront of the protest movement and creator of the real-life underground road race. Both movies tapped into the popular angst about the speed limits.

    The run from Atlanta to Texarkana still isn’t easy since a direct freeway route does not exist, and some of the routes are state highways “below the Manson-Nixon line” as Robin Williiams put it. Speed traps in little Southern US towns are an old tradition as are mirrored sunglasses on the troopers.

    “Mirrored on both sides”.

    (Again, thank you Mr. Williams)

  62. Geoff Powell says:

    @rick:

    BTW: I find the new theme to be working fine – for me. Others may differ, but as long as you maintain current functionality in future, I'm happy. Any problems are down to my flaky keyboard.

    G.

  63. Rick H says:

     Note: the 500 errors are not a result of the theme, I believe. They are a firewall rule that catches the text in a comment – some weird combinations of CR/LF's, I think. I need to contact hosting support for this, but have to have a block of time to do this, as it is more technical than the support script kiddies will be able to handle.

    The comment font size is now 17px. I need to adjust the line spacing, though. The next step is to adjust some settings in the comment editor box; like setting the spell checker on by default. There might be some delays; travelling issues upcoming.

  64. Greg Norton says:

    The core of the "Smokey and the Bandit" script is a challenge to run from Atlanta to Texarkana and back, roughly 700 miles, in 28 hours, returning with a truckload of Coors, a brand not legally distributed in the eastern US at the time.

    Maybe they could reboot "Smokey and the Bandit" except with the Bandit hauling truckloads of horse paste back to Atlanta. 🙂

    I'm thinking Jason Lee and Miranda Cosgrove in the Trans Am. Ethan Suplee driving the truck (“poopie trim”). And Jim Parsons breaking “Sheldon” typecasting as Sheriff Buford T. Justice.

  65. Rick H says:

    Added to the comment box editor – the spell checker automatically enabled by default. You can tell because the button has a white background. Can be turned off, but on by default.

    That's enough for one day….you guys are getting spoiled. Besides, have to catch up on FB.

  66. Geoff Powell says:

    @rick:

    Besides, have to catch up on FB.

    Why? If it's down, I count that as a good thing. The longer the better.

    And why are you feeding the Boy Zuck's data packrat tendencies? Not to mention his sociopathy.

    G.

  67. Alan says:

    @RickH, on my phone, this URL runs over the right margin (vertical line). 

    https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000QZ3UG0//p?tag=ttgnet-20

    Low priority though. 

  68. Alan says:

    Hmm…comment above got posted twice, still have issues on my phone with the Submit button not giving definitive feedback. 

    I notice that the second post didn't have the Edit option. Also in the past there was a 'already posted the same thing' message.

    Isn't software development fun? 

  69. Rick H says:

    @Alan: on my phone, this URL runs over the right margin (vertical line). 

    What phone? It wraps OK in the Emulator. There is CSS to set overflow-wrap to 'anywhere', which will line-break things in the middle of a word if necessary for the current viewport (screen width).

  70. Rick H says:

    Isn't software development fun? 

    Ask the guys at Facebook.

  71. drwilliams says:

    @Lynn

    "This is either sheer incompetence or an attack.  I vote for attack. "

    I'd like to vote with a contribution.

    @lpdbw

    "Imagine, if you will, a world without facebook."

    ..and one less pasty faced billionaire.

  72. Greg Norton says:

    Isn't software development fun? 

    Ask the guys at Facebook.

    Ask their network admins.

  73. lynn says:

    "World's Largest Commodity Traders Face Massive Margin Calls As Global NatGas Arb Explodes"

        https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/worlds-largest-commodity-traders-face-massive-margin-calls-natgas-arb-explodes

    USA natural gas is still at $6.  European is at $35.  If you are BRAVE, buy some USA natural gas futures.  Or is that foolish ?

    And they are putting a fire in the coal boilers around the world and saying bite me to the global warmers XXXXXX XXXXXX climate change XXXXX XXXX climate disruption XXXXX XXXXXX global cooling.  I am still trying to figure out how global warming causes global cooling ???

    I doubt that the 10,000 MW in coal boilers in Texas that have been shut down over the last 7 to 8 years can be restarted.   That is, the units that still exist and have not been stripped.

  74. Greg Norton says:

    I doubt that the 10,000 MW in coal boilers in Texas that have been shut down over the last 7 to 8 years can be restarted.   That is, the units that still exist and have not been stripped.

    I read an article about one plant which was bought and converted to gas by bitcoin miners.

    How much more of the 20th century will we have to rebuild in the back half of the 21st?

    Certainly, retail and energy production. I’d add mass media if The Real Life Tony Stark manages to get the TV and radio spectrums auctioned off for one last attempt at the pizza box dream.

  75. drwilliams says:

    @Lynn

    "I am still trying to figure out how global warming causes global cooling ???"

    You're out of luck. It's only apparent to people with extreme recto-cranial inversion.

    "I doubt that the 10,000 MW in coal boilers in Texas that have been shut down over the last 7 to 8 years can be restarted.   That is, the units that still exist and have not been stripped."

    Even if someone did have the foresight to store them with a future restart in mind, and even if the coal to feed them was available, what would they need for federal licensing/paperwork/inspection that they wouldn't get without contributing heavily to The Big Guy's Fabulous Money Machine?

  76. Greg Norton says:

    Network TV isn't dead. Its just pining.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/brady-belichick-deliver-historic-sunday-night-football-ratings/ar-AAP8GLX

    The Yucs had the better pile of stories last night, including Richard Sherman going from his couch to starting Corner in less than a week. Of course that final kick went “boink” off the upright.

  77. lynn says:

    I read an article about one plant which was bought and converted to gas by bitcoin miners.

    I worked at that plant, Sandow Steam Electric Station in Rockdale, TX, for three months.  They were attached to a huge Alcoa Aluminium plant with nine pot lines using 700 ? 800 ? MW day and night with processed bauxite (alumina) from Point Comfort, TX from South America.  Pot line #9 produced 99.999% aluminum for the military to make floating tanks with.  It was all shut down in 2018.

         https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandow_Power_Plant

    The coal (lignite) units, a 545 MW built in 1981 and a 575 MW built in 2009, have been stripped and the metal sent to China for conversion into patio furniture.

    We called Sandow #4 Mikey because he would eat anything. The lignite fueling the steam boiler dipped to as low as 4,000 btu/lb. Regular Texas lignite was 5,000 to 6,000 btu/lb. Wyoming coal is 8,000 to 9,000 btu/lb. The coal that they use in the steel foundries is 13,000 btu/lb and comes mostly from Canada.

  78. Alan says:

    @Alan: on my phone, this URL runs over the right margin (vertical line). 

    What phone?

    Google Pixel 2XL. Let me know if you need a screen shot or any other information.

    Also it seems now that the long press to select text in Android conflicts with the long press in the RTE. The latter takes precedence and opens the cut/paste contextual menu, leaving me unable to select any text. 

  79. nick flandrey says:

    Now it's parents with kids in school that are the terrorists.

    The DOJ will be creating a task force “consisting of representatives from the department’s Criminal Division, National Security Division, Civil Rights Division, the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, the FBI, the Community Relations Service and the Office of Justice Programs, to determine how federal enforcement tools can be used to prosecute these crimes…”

    –yanno, push hard and long enough and they'll get what they are looking for.  The FBI is at their best when they are creating terrorists here at home.  Some of the hundreds of thousands of parents will be well trained, by .mill and .gov even.  And it isn't going to be pretty.

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/10/ag-merrick-garland-instructs-fbi-mobilize-parents-oppose-critical-race-theory-covid-mandates-public-schools/

    n

  80. lynn says:

    Even if someone did have the foresight to store them with a future restart in mind, and even if the coal to feed them was available, what would they need for federal licensing/paperwork/inspection that they wouldn't get without contributing heavily to The Big Guy's Fabulous Money Machine?

    Most of the coal units that were shut down in Texas do not have sulfur dioxide scrubbers, flyash collection baghouses, NOx catalytic reduction systems, and mercury minimization systems.   If they were required to get new emission permits then it would be cheaper to bulldoze them.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Texas#Defunct

  81. drwilliams says:

    “How much more of the 20th century will we have to rebuild in the back half of the 21st?”

    IIRC, 40 years ago the USPS standard was First Class mail overnight within 500 miles. 

    As commented yesterday (??), hearing a pin drop is long gone, in favor of a network designed to deliver crappy video to the two generations that can’t live without 2,000 jump cuts per hour. When the SHTF all it will take is a system hack to deliver a “buffering, pls stand by” msg and they will expire where they stand. 

  82. nick flandrey says:

    Question for the linux guys/gals–

    I've been restarting my NVR software every day when it is killed or seg faults.  Seems like I should be able to schedule a task to start daily….

    I start the software by opening a terminal window in a specific folder, then typing "dotnet agent.dll" at the command prompt.   And that's it.

    I'm happy losing some footage in the middle of the day, and the stupid thing runs for about 22 hours before puking.

    What exactly do I need to do to have it start every day at 12 noon?   Will it matter if it's already running by some miracle?  I usually stop it by closing the terminal window, and saying yes to the dialog warning me about running processes in the terminal.

    I want to have it running for the 5 days we're out of town.  Longer term solution is/will be forthcoming, but for this next month, I need something cobbled together that works, no matter how ugly.

    Thanks

    n

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