Sun. Nov. 28, 2021 – to sleep, perchance to dream

Another overcast day with misty light rain? We’ll see. That’s what Saturday ended up being. Kinda cool too. Never got more than a misty drizzle, barely got the concrete wet.

I ended up watering the citrus in pots. One of the trees had all the leaves curled and faded, just like it got too cold. I didn’t think we got that cold here while I was away. It’s HARD to keep citrus alive in Houston.

I am going to get 3 more grapefruits from the other tree in a pot. Hooray for me. The collards are growing again, and the tomatoes continue to fruit. The tomato thing is weird. No way should we be getting fruits at this point. My wife likes it though, so hooray again.

I might hit the small HEB grocery later today. I let fresh stuff run way down because we were out of town, and I’d overbought. Our usage patterns have changed. We aren’t drinking anywhere near the milk we were. No cereal for breakfast either. And we are drinking more other stuff like soda, and I don’t like sharing with the kids 🙂

Keep in mind that your use may change too. Part of “store what you use, use what you store” is adapting to those changes. Unfortunately, you may end up with more in storage than you will use. UNLESS the “event” comes. At that point, you’ll be glad to have it, no matter what “it” is.

But in normal times, yeah, it’ll be a bummer to have two extra cases of oatmeal (or 10) if you no longer want to eat oatmeal. There is some risk in stacking it high… On the other hand, you don’t know when you’ll need it until you need it. Better to have it than not.

Speaking of eating, while others may not be, RBT’s advice was to go to the food disto center anyway, so that no one wondered why you were able to skip it. Reading the Mandibles, wherein an economic collapse happens to the US and the titular family, I’m re-energized to top up my food stores. Most scenarios will have you still existing in the community, so it might be worth having some clothes that are a size or two too big. Why? So you can look thinner than you are at a glance. The baggy shirt I’m wearing as I write this catches my eye every time I walk past the mirror. It HANGS. I look terrible. Which could come in handy. There are other reasons to have clothing bigger than your normal size, like hiding weapons or armor under it. Or if things are bad, layering for warmth. The bigger clothes let you get an extra layer or two. There might end up being really good reasons why a female might want to wear very baggy clothes, or a child might want to bulk up a bit. I’m sure your imagination can fill in the blanks.

I hope it’s all just intellectual wanking, doom pron, but I look around and the trajectory doesn’t seem to be headed toward “better”. Sarah Hoyt thinks it will be short but really bad, and then we’ll prevail. I’m not so certain. I think we’ll drift ever worse for a long time, until change has to happen, then things will get better. There’s a lot of ruin in a country, and in society too. Alcoholics and addicts usually have to come pretty close to rock bottom to change. Societies too.

So stack it up. Plan your garden. Practice your skills. Teach your children well.

nick

68 Comments and discussion on "Sun. Nov. 28, 2021 – to sleep, perchance to dream"

  1. Denis says:

    Pot to kettle…

    Get your clothes baggy by losing a few inches around the middle is a win-win strategy! Don't be the cannibal horde's hors d'oeuvre.

  2. lynn says:

    Pearls Before Swine: And Another Wands Gone

        https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2021/11/28

    Another tribute to Queen.  And Harry Potter.

       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY0WxgSXdEE

    And Weird Al.

       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZkouut-9RQ

  3. Greg Norton says:

    I hope it’s all just intellectual wanking, doom pron, but I look around and the trajectory doesn’t seem to be headed toward “better”. Sarah Hoyt thinks it will be short but really bad, and then we’ll prevail. I’m not so certain. I think we’ll drift ever worse for a long time, until change has to happen, then things will get better. There’s a lot of ruin in a country, and in society too. Alcoholics and addicts usually have to come pretty close to rock bottom to change. Societies too.

    Upward mobility based on merit rather than name on an otherwise worthless piece of paper will have to be established in Corporate America to get people to return to the cr*ptastic jobs like slinging a mop or turning bolts on an assembly line for less than six figures a year.

    The bad stuff will continue until the dweebs hawking PS5s are at least interested in opening the shipping containers again instead of playing Best Buy’s web site like a video game.

    (And Best Buy needs to realize that they will quickly go the way of Game Stop if they are content to be the wholesaler for You Ain’t Got No Ice Cream Inc.)

    Slinging the mop is really important in healthcare, and that's the industry that's been the worst offender in eliminating upward mobility and instead staffing management with MBAs or fancy school RNs with inflated senses of self worth who never did any real hands-on work.

    A whole wing of the facility where my wife occasionally rounds is currently shuttered because mold got established during the early days of Covid, when the hospital cut back on cleaning. The only solution that will work is razing/gutting, but the mangaement is in denial.

  4. lynn says:

    "How Austin Became One of the Least Affordable Cities in America"

        https://dnyuz.com/2021/11/27/how-austin-became-one-of-the-least-affordable-cities-in-america/

    Yup, Austin used to be a cheap place to live 30 years ago.  So was Houston, even closer than that.  My son's $123K house in Houston that he bought in 2009 is now worth $250K to $300K since he is just outside the inner loop.

  5. lynn says:

    We are doing church over youtube this morning.  Too cold (52 F) and wet.  My 65 year old brother-in-law can barely walk and I am worried that he will take a dive in our church.   He has Lewy Body Dementia.  Three years ago we would get out and walk a couple of miles each day when they visited.  Those days are gone.

       https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/lewy-body-dementia/symptoms-causes/syc-20352025

  6. JimB says:

    Lynn, sorry to hear about your BIL, and only 65.

  7. Greg Norton says:

    "How Austin Became One of the Least Affordable Cities in America"

    Yup, Austin used to be a cheap place to live 30 years ago.  So was Houston, even closer than that.  My son's $123K house in Houston that he bought in 2009 is now worth $250K to $300K since he is just outside the inner loop.

    The Locust Class has definitely found this place. A sure sign is that the Chinese relations are making noise about expanding their real estate empire into this area.

    One cousin's husband works for VMware as a C-suite exec, but they sank about $2 million of cash from the family rackets into buying and rehabbing a place outside San Francisco over the last decade, which they're having trouble playing property taxes on now. Plus, Dell is cutting VMware loose again so my guess is that the new company will return to its Silicon Valley origins.

    Driving back from Marble Falls through Bertram last night, we noticed that the master toll road plan for 183 is proceeding, building express lanes all the way up to 29. Eventually, a new E-W toll road will cut out to 35 from Burnet.

    Subcontinent doesn’t like “used” houses, and Californian stay-at-home mommies aren’t fans either. Since I-35 communities are anti growth north of Georgetown, pushing out along 183 to Lampasas is the only development option left. Every year, the post-Thanksgiving trip to Marble Falls takes us through increasingly suburban areas. “Look — another HEB.”

  8. MrAtoz says:

    My concern now about a booster jab is, if I don't get it (maybe regularly) will my first two jabs be invalidated. Then, will I have to start over with two jabs, two weeks apart. There are no real guidelines. Will my cruise line, two weeks before leaving, come up with a policy of: "you need to show a shot record with xxx number of jabs within the last year" since it will be over a year since jabs started. Or, if the goobermint starts special jab mixes for Xi variants: "sorry, you didn't get the Xi-4-8 jab, so your whole shot record is invalid".

    Also, I don't know about this one:

    Report: The Fully Vaccinated Account for 81% of the COVID Deaths in the UK

  9. Pecancorner says:

    We are doing church over youtube this morning.  Too cold (52 F) and wet.  My 65 year old brother-in-law can barely walk and I am worried that he will take a dive in our church. He has Lewy Body Dementia. 

    That is rough … my heart goes out to your sister.

    My husband is attending church in person this morning for the first time in a year and a half.  He finally has enough stamina to sit up for a couple of hours. 

    We are going to try to go each Sunday during Advent.  That should get him back in the habit of weekly attendance. Depending on how he feels, either the brief service at the tiny Methodist church a couple of blocks down the street, or if he is up for it, the two hour service at the cowboy church in Brownwood that is our home church. 

  10. Greg Norton says:

    Another tribute to Queen.  And Harry Potter.

    If you haven't seen it already, find a way to watch the DVD extra of the full recreation of the Live Aid Queen set for "Bohemian Rhapsody". And the movie itself if for no other reason than to see the payoff of a joke with a 25 year gestation.

    I told my kids that the context missing was Queen had to follow this at Live Aid — two rock stars becoming legends, if not rock gods, with one performance.

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

    Weeks of rehearsal probably went into that “just rolled out of bed in my jammies” vibe. Sting used to use my alma matter’s arena for rehearsals of his US tours in the late 80s.

    Queen not only equalled the performance, they generated the most donations of the concert with a set predicted to be a disaster. The movie recreates the 20 minutes perfectly and merited more Oscar consideration beyond the much deserved Best Actor.

  11. MrAtoz says:

    If lockdowns, mask mandates, and jabs save lives from COVID, why don't we do the same for the flu?

  12. Greg Norton says:

    If lockdowns, mask mandates, and jabs save lives from COVID, why don't we do the same for the flu?

    No money in the flu beyond the uber flu jabs Moderna and Pfizer have in the works now that EUA has shortcut a decade off of the approval process for mRNA-based “vaccines”.

    Don’t worry — once the new shots are ready, mandatory flu jabs are next.

  13. Greg Norton says:

    Replacing the case in my primary desktop this weekend, I applied so much force to one stuck SATA cable that the header came right off the motherboard, leaving the through hole connector pins.

    Never had that happen with IDE. Progress.

    The whole build will have to be taken apart when I have more time. The header is just one of several issues to fix eventually, but I separated the connector pins for now, until they can be desoldered.

    The case was so old that it was literally a “beige box”. The power button was increasingly becoming an issue, and circulation inside the housing was lousy.

  14. paul says:

    What's in Marble Falls after Thanksgiving?

  15. Nick Flandrey says:

    And Lo! It is cold and dreary.  Slept in a bit.  Been up for a while .  PC is in one of those times when everything is running at the same time, so browsing is painful.  Killed everything, running scan disk, will be adding a drive later today, possibly.  Got other PC issues happening too.

    Huh, scan disk finished.  Looks like disks were being scanned and de fragged weekly.  Who knew.

    N

  16. Greg Norton says:

    What's in Marble Falls after Thanksgiving?

    The light display along the river north (?) of the bridge. This year, the town added ice skating on a portable rink.

    Ice in a warm climate is about humidity control. Unfortunately, with the rink set up in a tent, there was none last night.

  17. JimB says:

    Cases and air circulation. Don't follow this any more, but IMO the airflow should be one inlet to provide positive pressure, so a good filter can be used to keep dust out. All my cases use negative pressure, so any opening lets dust in. In past days, this raised havoc with optical drives especially.

    Those optical drives, including all consumer CD and DVD players, have the lens pointing up, which traps dust on the lens surface. It is so problematic that I had to clean the lens on my wife's old CD changer about annually. Invert the design so the lens points down and the disc label is on the underside. The reverse side can be on top, where the rotation will keep it dust free.

    Don't get me started on slot load drives. These can't use cleaning discs, and must be disassembled. Cars are especially difficult, although a right angle brush can sometimes be snaked through the slot. Compressed air blows an incredible amount of junk out, and sometimes is sufficient. Just don't overdo the pressure.

    Good thing these devices are disappearing.

  18. Pecancorner says:

    If lockdowns, mask mandates, and jabs save lives from COVID, why don't we do the same for the flu?

    Because the flu doesn't actually kill anyone. Those "flu death" numbers are all imaginary.  I have never known anyone who died of flu. Never known anyone who had some family member die of flu.  Never heard of anyone who died of flu. 

    In some ways, we have better numbers for COVID deaths  because those are all people who actually tested positive for COVID.  But the CDC just makes up estimates for flu deaths, ignoring the test results and death certificates, and they admit it. The CDC includes anyone who dies of "pheumonia or other respiratory and circulatory causes, or other non-respiratory, non-circulatory causes of death" in their "modeling strategies ".

    https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/how-cdc-estimates.htm

    4
    2
  19. Ray Thompson says:

    but IMO the airflow should be one inlet to provide positive pressure

    My new build has three case fans. Two are blowing into the case, one is blowing. I also have two fans in the CPU water cooler that are blowing air from the top of the case and out the top. The interior seems cool enough. Air flow that can be felt in the case, but not a lot of volume. Not much to heat up, the RAM, some control chips, maybe the (2) M.2 SSDs. The temperature on the CPU is about 35C which is normal for not much workload. I have had the CPU up to 70C when rendering video or processing a few hundred pictures through Lightroom.

    I think the most important thing is to have more air coming into the case than is going out. But not by much. It is important to exhaust the hot air. I saw one case build that had 18 fans. I have no idea which way they were pushing air. LED fans of course. Way to much glitz for me. My current case has one light, the power light. That is enough.

  20. Ray Thompson says:

    Because the flu doesn't actually kill anyone.

    The underlying health issues are what kills people. Their body is not strong enough to support itself and fight off the flu. Many of these people are so weak health wise that an ingrown toenail might be fatal.

    In some ways, we have better numbers for COVID deaths because those are all people who actually tested positive for COVID

    Anyone that dies, regardless of circumstances or other health issues, if they test positive for Covid, they died of Covid. Hospitals get paid full rate, doctors get paid full rate, etc. There is money to be made when someone dies "from Covid" rather than a heart attack. They even offered to test my MIL for Covid and have her death listed as Covid if the wife and I wanted. No, her problem was her heart gave out, "failure to thrive" is a more accurate description.

  21. Greg Norton says:

    My new build has three case fans. Two are blowing into the case, one is blowing. I also have two fans in the CPU water cooler that are blowing air from the top of the case and out the top. The interior seems cool enough. Air flow that can be felt in the case, but not a lot of volume. Not much to heat up, the RAM, some control chips, maybe the (2) M.2 SSDs. The temperature on the CPU is about 35C which is normal for not much workload. I have had the CPU up to 70C when rendering video or processing a few hundred pictures through Lightroom.

    I bought a cheaper version of your Fractal Design case for my primary desktop. Sooner or later, a new motherboard will go into the machine, but the two fans with the CPU cooler are plenty of heat dissipation for now.

  22. MrAtoz says:

    Because the flu doesn't actually kill anyone. Those "flu death" numbers are all imaginary.  I have never known anyone who died of flu. Never known anyone who had some family member die of flu.  Never heard of anyone who died of flu.

    What exactly does COVID kill you by? I know cumulative damage to the respiratory system happens, but I bet secondary stuff is what really kills you. See Mr. Ray above. And we know the COVID test is shite. Too many false negatives to stop a pandemic.

    Influenza and pneumonia deaths

    Nobody cares if you die from the flu since there is no money in it. I bet many of those pneumonia deaths started out with the flu.

  23. MrAtoz says:

    Coming to a Best Buy near you:

    'Flash mob' of 30 looters rampage through two Minnesota Best Buys: Thieves take TVs, tablets and hoverboards as smash and grabs spread beyond California

    When is the shooting going to start? ProgLibTurds seem fine with *looting*, so only shooting will stop it. I wonder if the Amish were involved?

  24. Ray Thompson says:

    two fans with the CPU cooler are plenty of heat dissipation for now

    With a new MB consider water cooling. It is really quiet and will move a lot of air out of the case, quietly. Leaves more room in the case without the bulk of the CPU cooler. Takes a lot of air to cool the I9 11900 with a TDP of 65 watts.

    And we know the COVID test is shite. Too many false negatives to stop a pandemic

    And too many false positives which have the effect of really impacting people's lives negatively.

  25. nick flandrey says:

    So this is not my auction, but another local company.   They obviously do amazon or other store overstock and returns.

    https://hibid.com/catalog/333038/christmas–furniture–kitchen-appliances–accessories/?g=all-categories&ipp=10

    Almost NO bids with only 3 hours remaining.  Now they are using what I think of as high opening bids, and buyers HATE opening bids.

    It might be that people have just stopped buying.  I'll be watching this auction close later to see if there is any last minute bidding.

    n

  26. Greg Norton says:

    So this is not my auction, but another local company.   They obviously do amazon or other store overstock and returns.

    The artificial Christmas tree shortage seems like a myth to me. At least, if someone doesn't care about having the genuine Balsam Hill logo on their fake tree.

  27. Greg Norton says:

    With a new MB consider water cooling. It is really quiet and will move a lot of air out of the case, quietly. Leaves more room in the case without the bulk of the CPU cooler. Takes a lot of air to cool the I9 11900 with a TDP of 65 watts.

    My Q6600 is over 100 W now.

  28. drwilliams says:

    @Nick

    Looked at the auction. 400+ lots, most of it no-name. All stock photos–not the actual item. Maybe I missed any description. Is this stuff NIB, open box, returns of unknown provenance, or flat-out defective carp?

    Way too many cheap school and office supply lots. Lot of 3 packs of disposable mechanical pencils? Seriously?

    Rule of thumb for cookware sets is droppa-zero: $300–>$30. None of that stuff has ever sold for "retail".

    I'm waiting for the next-gen artificial tree: "Realistic Hologram Christmas Tree with Natural Scent". I'd pay an extra $5 for the "Officially Licensed National Lampoon Christmas Vacation" Squirrel.

  29. nick flandrey says:

    There were no trees out on the Scouts' lot in the little town I was in this week.  They hadn't received them yet, I guess.

    I'll look at the lots today and tomorrow, but I have heard that the tree growers had trouble finding crew to cut the trees, and trucks to ship them.

    I usually see at least one semi trailer on the road just in my normal day to day driving, but haven't seen any this year.

    n

  30. lynn says:

    Replacing the case in my primary desktop this weekend, I applied so much force to one stuck SATA cable that the header came right off the motherboard, leaving the through hole connector pins.

    Never had that happen with IDE. Progress.

    The whole build will have to be taken apart when I have more time. The header is just one of several issues to fix eventually, but I separated the connector pins for now, until they can be desoldered.

    The case was so old that it was literally a “beige box”. The power button was increasingly becoming an issue, and circulation inside the housing was lousy.

    I am rebuilding my ten year old home PC after the roof leak of 2019 dumped a few gallons of water in it.  I dried it out but the ongoing corrosion on the case and motherboard is killing it slowly.  The motherboard sound died a year ago and the replacement Soundblaster card died last July.  So I have no sound for now. 

    I have a new Be Quiet 600 model case

       https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N7PGIPS//p?tag=ttgnet-20

    Intel I5-9600K

       https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07HHLX1R8//p?tag=ttgnet-20

    Coolermaster cpu fan

       https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08KD6SPLW//p?tag=ttgnet-20

    MSI Z390-A PRO LGA1151 motherboard

       https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07J6Z9KJ2//p?tag=ttgnet-20

    Antec 650 watt power supply

       https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B077G9V84S/p?tag=ttgnet-20

    16 GB of Corsair DDR4 ram

       https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B083JX396K//p?tag=ttgnet-20

    And a WD Black 1 TB M.2 drive

       https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07M64QXMN//p?tag=ttgnet-20

  31. Marcelo says:

    Best spent 10 dollars in a very long time!

    I came across a Logitech Attack 3 joystick at a goodwill place and after checking the look decided to buy it.

     No instructions, no floppy or cd nor anything else but the box was in really good condition and the joystick looked shiny and with minimal wear. USB, not games port like the Microsoft stick I have stashed somewhere and have not used in ages.

    I could not see any references to OS nor dates and thought perhaps it was XP compatible… Hmmm, even though a lot has changed since then, for 10, I just bought it.

    Plug and pray? Nope. Plug it in and nothing happens. Search and discover it was released to be XP driven and Logitech actually provides drivers not only for XP but also up to and including Win10. Yep, there are still a few manufacturers that do the right thing. (Of note, Canon, Asus, Microsoft and now Logitech for me.).

    Installed drivers and found that all buttons and the stick work great! No calibration needed and rock stable (unlike my old stick…).

    So, try and find something to use it with and found Combat Flight Simulator 2 in my games box. Did not even remember having it. Install complete for a huuuge 1 GB, try to execute aaaand, no joy (as expected). 🙁

    Search on the game and it turns out that somebody actually went through this last year and documented how to go about it. Downloaded a NO-CD executable, defined XP SP2 compatibility mode and all works!

    I spent some time doing the first training scenario and was surprised at the graphics quality from back then and the smooth operation of the stick.

    Yep, like I said, best 10 bucks spent in a long time and not only because of the stick but because it took a relatively short period of time on getting this installed, tested and working when it is something developed more than 10 years ago and actually testing it using a 2001 game. It could have been impossible and it turned out not to be so.

    Sometimes you just get lucky and when that happens you just have to be happy and share. 🙂

     

  32. lynn says:

    Ah, stuck in moderation again.

  33. MrAtoz says:

    Mr. Lynn, King of the Links.

  34. nick flandrey says:

    Looked at the auction. 400+ lots, most of it no-name.

    yep, that's amazon poisoning the well with china shite.  All the 'not quite' name brands and goofy company names.   I think their opening bids are all too high, but even the $1 items are marginal at that price.  I just looked and they tried the exact same auction in early November, and they didn't upload prices (not everyone does).  Since 90% of the items are exactly the same, I'm guessing they just relisted all the unsold from that earlier auction hoping for better luck this time.

    n

  35. Nick Flandrey says:

    I released you Mr Lynn….

    n

  36. Jenny says:

    @lynn

    We are doing church over youtube this morning.  Too cold (52 F)

    -6 this morning. We opted for YouTube as well, my husband is temporarily on crutches and home church is prudent today. 

    Sorry about your BiL. Brutal stuff.

    Plugging along in the cold. Extra straw for the rabbits. Warm oatmeal for the chickens for breakfast. They are laying again. 
     

    Spent some time messing about with acoustic and electric drum kits with nine year old last night. She’s enjoying snare drum far more than piano. A drum set will be coming home soon, I think. I messed around with a Taylor and also a Martin 3/4 guitar. Better sound and intonation than I expected, really easy action and pretty nice to play. I prefer the sound on my S6+Folk Seagull guitar I bought off eBay some 20 years ago. I was -very- tempted by the little Martin, though. 
     

    I need to jump my car today. The extended cold temps and infrequent use of the car killed the battery. After I get it running I’ll probably find I need to replace the battery. Lots of extra effort to perform that simple task with the Mini. Ah well. That’s not unexpected. 
     

    @Greg Some time ago you asked how the new gig was going. Well. I’m spending extra time at home rebuilding my skills. I’m not as quick at diagnosing problems as I was in the past, and it takes more thinking to remember how to do some tasks. I’m honest with my boss about my shortcomings and actions I’m taking to rectify. I’ve got good relations with my coworkers and am giving them solid expectations that I meet for how long stuff is going to take. That really helps. And my skills are returning so I’m not wasting everyone’s time. I’m more worried about my skill level than anyone else apparently. Six month probation completed soon. 
     

    Husband will get fired in January over vaxx. Another job is lined up and negotions under way for a four day 32 hour work week. The extra free time would be very good for him and we can afford it. 

  37. ~jim says:

    Don't get me started on slot load drives.

    Heh. When I had my shop you would not believe the number times I had to take one of those apart because children had stuffed pennies and quarters into them.

    One thing I noticed over the years of making house calls was keeping the box even 6 inches off the floor made a big difference in dust intake.

    Happy, happy, joy, joy Marcelo! 

  38. paul says:

    I looked at the auction for a few minutes.  "Local pick-up" is out as I didn't see anything worth the drive to Houston.   From Burnet to Austin?  Maybe.

    Nice day today.  Sunny, 65F, the cold breeze is not at hurricane speeds for a change.  Yesterday?  Greg picked a good day to drive from Round Rock as there was zero sun.  The misting rain and 50F, yeah, I'll pass.

    I looked on eBay today for truck parts.  Just looking.  Tail lights go for about $85 per side.  Head lights go about $120 each.  Plenty of brake pads and rotors.  And fender flares!  Mucho Macho there. 🙂   Someone offered a pair of Purulator cabin filters (takes two) for $45.  Which is nuts because Rock Auto sells about the same for much less.  I paid $25 and change for four sets.

    Plenty of "vent visors".  Vaguely tempting.  But Truck is white and should not get too hot in the summer.  Cracking the windows a bit while parked at the house is just asking for a big ol' mud dauber nest or twenty in the cab.

    Someone in Thailand is selling what appears to be a pair of lights that go under the dash to light up the foot wells.  Why?  Dunno.  At $150 with free shipping I'll never know.  Maybe they connect to the dome light power supply and then you turn the dome lights off?  Shrug. I can see the use if you are camping but a couple of sockets that hold a 168/194 wedge base bulb is a lot less money.

    Well.  It's Cookie Time.  Penny is laid back but Buddy, man…

  39. drwilliams says:

    The Liberal Case for Gun Ownership

    Bret Weinstein, November 27, 2021

    https://unherd.com/2021/11/the-liberal-case-for-gun-ownership/

    The guy is mildly interesting, even though he writes "fuzzy".

    He states:

    I should probably explain here that, although I believe that liberals are right about the unacceptable cost of our second amendment rights, conservatives are closer to correct, as I see it, about the governing of our cities — a fact that becomes glaringly obvious if you visit Los Angeles, Seattle or San Francisco and compare it to any major city in conservative Texas.

    but is clearly confused about the difference between Second Amendment rights and the gun violence and murder rates in the blue shiiteholes. The latter has virtually nothing to do with the Second Amendment or any other part of the Constitution, being purely the result of a failure of government to keep order, and specifically the failure of liberal Democrat governance.

  40. Greg Norton says:

    HMart and Sam's Club run today.

    HMart had our preferred brand of rice to top off the bin, which had been unavailable for the last month.

    The store also had a sign up indicating that they would not accept Instacart's credit card for now. That one must hurt because whenever I hit HMart near closing on a week night, the place is filled with obvious Instacart shoppers working on lists for stay-at-home Asian mommies.

  41. drwilliams says:

    The other day I posted a link to the NYT video that is critical of blue state performance, and in the case of school districts specifically laid the blame on insufficient tax bases in inner cities to fund their schools.

    John Hinderaker over at Powerline blows that part of the argument out of the water:

    The video indicts liberal states for not sharing property tax revenues equally among school districts. But money isn’t the problem: in Minnesota, for example, property tax revenues are shared equally among school districts, and it makes no difference. The problem in inner-city public schools is not money, which in many cases is overflowing. The problems are 1) cultural, and 2) the result of the fact that the teachers’ unions run the schools, not for the benefit of kids but for the benefit of union members.

    https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/11/ny-times-asks-why-do-blue-states-suck.php

  42. Greg Norton says:

    @Greg Some time ago you asked how the new gig was going. Well. I’m spending extra time at home rebuilding my skills. I’m not as quick at diagnosing problems as I was in the past, and it takes more thinking to remember how to do some tasks. I’m honest with my boss about my shortcomings and actions I’m taking to rectify. I’ve got good relations with my coworkers and am giving them solid expectations that I meet for how long stuff is going to take. That really helps. And my skills are returning so I’m not wasting everyone’s time. I’m more worried about my skill level than anyone else apparently. Six month probation completed soon. 
     

    Husband will get fired in January over vaxx. Another job is lined up and negotions under way for a four day 32 hour work week. The extra free time would be very good for him and we can afford it. 

    I'm glad to hear things are going well. That sucks about your husband's job. The C-suites have definitely sold out the workers in Corporate America, and that’s going to hurt sooner or later.

    I don't like my current job enough to give the yoga pants-clad HR droids the brownie points for coercing me into the jab. And it is coercion, make no mistake.

    Fortunately it won't come to that … I hope. If I didn't screw up getting a drug test this week, I should have something new in mid December. If they want me to jab, fine, I’ll risk the vaccine because this is my chance to fix a decade of career issues.

    I'm not worried about passing the drug test. Ever. My concern was getting the test done and results filed under a very tight timeframe during a holiday week.

    Either way, I'm done at the current job on Friday. I've never really felt needed there, but they don't yell, which was a vast improvement over where I last worked.

  43. drwilliams says:

    posted at ace.mu.nu

    If anybody would like a FREE copy of our book, "The Law of Self Defense: Principles," just cover the S&H, I've set up a special free book offer just for the horde:

    The Law of Self Defense

    –Andrew

    Please note that the order sheet defaults to 3 free copies of the book, plus audiobook, etc., which will set you back $11 in addition to the $8.95 flat S&H for a free copy.

    Yes, I placed an order. Christmas is approaching.

    1
    1
  44. Greg Norton says:

    Oh, @Jenny, go see "Ghostbusters Afterlife" with your husband. Two lines might not work for your parent filter, but YMMV. Otherwise, it is "Stranger Things" busts ghosts like a strange "The Goonies" sequel.

    Plus, just try not to think of the "Back to the Future" theme when the kids chase the ghost around town.

    Spielberg was making “West Side Story” while the Reitman family cranked out an old school Amblin flick.

    To be fair, I think I get what he’s doing with “West Side Story”.

    And I saw this pop up today. PBS is getting it before the BBC?!?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76Ge6vO4q9Y

    Yeah, best not to remind people that "Doctor Who" used to be fun … just like "Good Omens" did.

  45. JimB says:

    Jenny, be careful with that battery. If it is frozen, it could go boom when jumped. A mess for your car, and potentially dangerous to you.

    Safest is to bring it to a warm place and charge slowly with a modern smart charger. Easiest way to tell if it is usable is to put it back in the car. If it starts the car for several days, it might last a year or two.

    Or… shop for a sale. Best to ya.

  46. lynn says:

    "Matthew McConaughey says he won’t run for Texas governor"

        https://www.texastribune.org/2021/11/28/matthew-mcconaughey-texas-governor-2022/

    "The actor said in a video Sunday that “political leadership” is a “path that I’m choosing not to take at this moment.”"

    Alright ! Alright ! Alright !

  47. Greg Norton says:

    "Matthew McConaughey says he won’t run for Texas governor"

    Alright ! Alright ! Alright !

    The weather forecast through next weekend is fairly warm. Two weeks from tomorrow is the filing deadline, and chances are slim we will get a week of sustained freezing temperatures between now and then.

    McConaughey isn’t going to take on Robert Francis.

  48. Ray Thompson says:

    @Lynn: Nice system you will be putting together.

    The price of the SSD has dropped $100.00 from when I purchased my SSDs. May have something to do with Black Friday or Cyber Monday.

    I do think you should consider water cooling instead of that huge fan. It might be noisy under high CPU loads (reviews are mixed). You have a quiet case, get quiet cooling. Yes, a few more dollars. When you get water cooling you also get a couple more fans to move air out of the case.

  49. lynn says:

    "Small Modular Reactors are needed in African countries"

        https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/11/28/small-modular-reactors-are-needed-in-african-countries/

    Nice article on the need for thousands of SMRs across the planet.

  50. Nick Flandrey says:

    https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/black-friday-shopping-down-28-over-2019-levels-despite-improvement-over-last-year

    Online spending fell from 2020 levels, meanwhile, with e-retailers ringing up $8.9 billion in Black Friday sales – down from $9 billion last year, according to Adobe Analytics, which noted that this is the first year that growth reversed from the prior year as long as records have been kept. The company analyzes over 100 million items in 18 product categories spanning 1 trillion visits to US retail sites.

    Thanksgiving day online sales were flat from one year ago at $5.1billion, according to Adobe.

        The numbers provide even greater evidence that the holiday season has been stretched out as more Americans began their shopping as early as October.

    n

  51. lynn says:

    @Lynn: Nice system you will be putting together.

    The price of the SSD has dropped $100.00 from when I purchased my SSDs. May have something to do with Black Friday or Cyber Monday.

    I do think you should consider water cooling instead of that huge fan. It might be noisy under high CPU loads (reviews are mixed). You have a quiet case, get quiet cooling. Yes, a few more dollars. When you get water cooling you also get a couple more fans to move air out of the case.

    I paid $138 for the WD Black 1 TB M.2 SSD back in July.  The price has dropped a little bit to $110.  If I had built the new home system in July instead of being lazy, I would have been using it for several months now.

    I have built four new systems at the office since July.  I put that monster fan on two of them (one is my office PC).  Seems to work fine and is not noisy.  The only noisy thing that I have is the bearing on my 8 TB backup hard drive on my new office pc.

    Too many projects, so little energy and time !

  52. Alan says:

    >> When is the shooting going to start? ProgLibTurds seem fine with *looting*, so only shooting will stop it. 

    For the safety of the employees and customers, many corporate HQs will instruct the store manager and store security not to intervene and the losses just become another cost of doing business, which of course is paid for by the consumer. We could also go back to the days when everything was locked away and you got to look at empty boxes. 

  53. lynn says:

    >> When is the shooting going to start? ProgLibTurds seem fine with *looting*, so only shooting will stop it. 

    For the safety of the employees and customers, many corporate HQs will instruct the store manager and store security not to intervene and the losses just become another cost of doing business, which of course is paid for by the consumer. We could also go back to the days when everything was locked away and you got to look at empty boxes. 

    Or, you have to have a membership to get in a store with a double door type of entrance / exit.  Like Sam's Club and Costco.

  54. Greg Norton says:

    Or, you have to have a membership to get in a store with a double door type of entrance / exit.  Like Sam's Club and Costco.

    Or the Service Merchandise model. I remember half a dozen companies that ran like that in the early 80s.

    Toys and sporting goods were stocked on shelves. Everything else came out of a warehouse.

    Unfortunately, the shrink came from employee theft in that type of operation, and Amazon is the ultimate fence, no questions asked.

  55. JimB says:

    "Or, you have to have a membership to get in a store with a double door type of entrance / exit.  Like Sam's Club and Costco."

    I don't go to Sam's Club, but Costco stores here have wide open entrances and exits during business hours. Low security. They are closed by roll-up garage type doors when the store is closed.

    I assume you mean "airlock" type doors where the bad guys could be trapped. Not here, and that includes all I have visited in SoCal. Not even on my credit union.

    Actually, I would prefer making it open season on such looters.  Anyone could attack them with impunity, and that would include lethal force. Survivors could optionally be handed over to the authorities. Deep down, I am a nice guy.

  56. Alan says:

    >> Or, you have to have a membership to get in a store with a double door type of entrance / exit. Like Sam's Club and Costco.

    Anyone can walk into a warehouse club store without a membership just by saying that they are going to the pharmacy. Gotta find a way to stop them on the way out. Maybe drop the steel roll-up door and wait for the cops to sort it out. Of course, gotta be okay with the occasional innocent bystander becoming collateral damage. 

  57. drwilliams says:

    @JimB

    "Deep down, I am a nice guy."

    References besides the dog?

  58. Alan says:

    >> To be fair, I think I get what he’s doing with “West Side Story”.

    Which is? 

  59. lynn says:

    "Complete Madness In The Biden Administration: Energy Policy"

        https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/11/28/complete-madness-in-the-biden-administration-energy-policy/

    "Is President Biden doing anything right? To this observer, his policies range from at best merely incompetent, to at worst malicious hatred of the country and people whose interests he was elected to advance. Somewhere in between those two extremes we have Biden’s energy policy. In this arena, appropriate adjectives would be inconsistent, incoherent, and destructive. Don’t even attempt to make sense of it. To summarize in one word, it is complete madness."

    "Do everything possible within executive powers to restrict domestic supply of fossil fuels."

    "When energy prices inevitably soar, beg Russia and OPEC to increase supply."

    "Blame the soaring prices and supply shortages on anything but your own intentional policies."

  60. JimB says:

    @JimB

    "Deep down, I am a nice guy."

    References besides the dog?

    Dogs got old, and are waiting at the rainbow bridge. Same for the cats. Even the wild bobcat (is there any other kind?) disappeared. No references. You will have to trust my honesty.

    Sure miss all of them. Not eager to take on more responsibility. Need to visit friends' pets like I did as a kid. At Thanksgiving there were four dogs. Fun.

  61. JimB says:

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8VMmpKdq24Q

    Engines are getting too complex. Just look at all those castings. The vaunted Mercedes produced an oil burner. Bet it cost plenty.

  62. lynn says:

    "“Slow Disaster Playing Out” As Germany Moves To Shut Down 8.5 GW Of Baseload Nuclear Capacity"

        https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/11/28/slow-disaster-playing-out-as-germany-moves-to-shut-down-8-5-gw-of-baseload-nuclear-capacity/

    "In just over a month, Germany will close 3 of its newest and best nuclear power plants and more than 4050 MW of electricity will disappear from northern Europe’s power grid. 4050 MW is equivalent to the average electricity consumption of all of Denmark."

    Insane.  Just insane.  The slow suicide of the West.

  63. Alan says:

    >> Engines are getting too complex. Just look at all those castings. The vaunted Mercedes produced an oil burner. Bet it cost plenty.

    EV motors are simpler, yours will be ready in 5​​​​​​ 7​​​​​​ 10​​​​​ take a wild guess years. 

    Or ask President Pete.

  64. Nick Flandrey says:

    Right about the time we get practical fusion, room temperature superconductors and personal flying cars…….

    n

  65. Jenny says:

    @JimB

    Exploding battery if frozen?

    Boy Howdie that would be way more exciting than I desire. We’ve been below zero for a week or two, with brief forays to 10. Vehicle is outside so I’m assuming it’s frozen. Next door neighbor on the downhill side has a heated garage with room. If he and I can get it rolling perhaps we can tuck it into his garage for a day the jump it. 
     

    Ghostbusters – I was on the fence but now it sounds like date night. We enjoyed 1957 Westside Story tonight. Last half hour, when folks start dying, was a bit much for our deliberately sheltered nine year old. She bounced back but was pretty ticked we took her to a film where a character she grew to like got killed.

    Hard to imagine Spielberg improving on the original. It was a darn good film. Very telling of its time.

    I bought another guitar tonight. Because I am weak. I have a Seagull S6+Folk I love and have dinked around with for twenty years. It has a smaller neck and easier action than many acoustics, which is nice. I still can’t nail a C or G chord particularly well on it, regrettably. I fooled around with guitars at a local chain three or four times this week. I played a couple 3/4 guitars. My playing improved dramatically. I lusted after the acoustic-electric Little Martin and Baby Taylor, $500 I couldn’t justify. 

    I tried the under $200 3/4 size Yamaha, Martinez, etc. They didn’t stay in tune thru a song and intonation past the 6th fret fell apart. Ugh.

    Long story longer, I bought a $170 Ibanez Talmun acoustic-electric 3/4 size tonight. I like it, not as much as the $500 jobs, but enough that I played it for a couple hours after dinner tonight. It’s a cool looking instrument though that initially put me off. Sounded light years better than the other 3/4 at that price point. Good enough, better action and neck than my Seagull, sound not nearly as good.

    I was planning on leaving without making a purchase. As I was walking out the Talman shouted at me from its corner half hidden by the full sized ones surrounding it. ‘Hey lady – try me!’ ‘You ugly and cheap, nope.’ ‘Phth – shut up and try me’. Fine. And it turned out to be a nice little guitar! Very surprised. 

  66. brad says:

    Sarah Hoyt thinks it will be short but really bad, and then we’ll prevail. I’m not so certain. I think we’ll drift ever worse for a long time, until change has to happen, then things will get better.

    Societal collapse rarely brings anything positive. If it gets “really bad”, what comes after is more likely to be “awful” and stay that way for a long time.

    Better would be to find a way to end the crazy divisiveness. This is largely driven by liberals and progressives. In particular, the degree to which they have *increased* racism is just astounding. However, conservatives certainly make their contribution, if only as a response to being hated on.

    I don’t know how one fixes it…

    Yup, Austin used to be a cheap place to live 30 years ago.

    I looked at my little 1950s 3BR house on Zillow. I sold it for (iirc) $105k. It’s now supposed to be worth something like $650k. Crazy, for a little bungalow with a barely useable yard.

    If lockdowns, mask mandates, and jabs save lives from COVID, why don’t we do the same for the flu?

    The flu season here last year basically didn’t exist. The Covid measures pretty much killed it.

    Because the flu doesn’t actually kill anyone. Those “flu death” numbers are all imaginary.

    No one dies of a car accident. It’s the bruising, internal bleeding and broken bones that kill you. Still, we count those deaths as car accidents, because that was the original cause.

    The flu doesn’t kill all that many people. However, the subsequent pneumonia takes out a lot of elderly folk, or people with otherwise weakened immune systems. Those get counted as flu deaths, because the flu opened the door to the pneumonia.

  67. Geoff Powell says:

    @brad:

    I looked at my little 1950s 3BR house on Zillow

    Zillow does not understand non-US addresses, so I checked Zoopla, which I think is an approximate equivalent in UK. My house is a 3 bed semi-detached, which I bought for £105k in 1988. I've since added a loft conversion with another bedroom, a conservatory and solar panels, and extended the kitchen. Zoopla suggested a price range centred around £1M, which is ridiculous, resembling @greg's "tenbagger".

    It's not a useful measure anyway. We didn't buy this property as an investment, it's our home. It's arguably too big since our daughters moved out, but we've expanded to fill the space.

    G.

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