Tues. Feb. 8, 2022 – the center cannot hold…

Cold edging to ‘cool’ later in the day.   Supposed to be sunny and clear, mid 60s at some point.  That would be nice.

Spent Monday sheparding the HVAC guy and managing my renters.  Didn’t get much done on the list.  Picked up D2 and we ended up spending the rest of the afternoon breaking down bulk meat and vac sealing it.  LOTS of opportunity to talk about economics, preps, sanitation, and cooking.  She weighed, ran the vac sealer, and marked the bags.  It was a nice hour and a half together.

I did get a couple of things put away, and made one small repair on something for my swapmeet.

I looked up the Houston area Hamfest, to see if I wanted to try and sell some stuff, or wait for the Hamfest, but it’s been canceled for this year.   That’s a real bummer.  No explanation was posted.

Today I will be heading to my client’s house.  I’ll set the new TV mounts, and get ready for Wednesday, when I think I’ll have some help  to hang the danged things.  They are just too high and too heavy for me to feel safe doing it by myself.  Getting older, and hopefully wiser.

Do what you can while you can.  Things continue to get weirder.   Stack it up.

n

79 Comments and discussion on "Tues. Feb. 8, 2022 – the center cannot hold…"

  1. Nick Flandrey says:

    Good thing I'm not paid for my weather forecasts.  It's 31F and 91%RH this morning.   On the other hand, they get paid whether they are wrong or right…

    n

  2. Nick Flandrey says:

    https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/largest-uk-supermarket-warns-worst-has-yet-come-amid-food-inflation-crisis

    "It troubles us, and I'm sure troubles many people, that people may have to struggle to choose between heating their homes and feeding their families," he said. "And that's clearly not a situation that any of us should tolerate."

    — love the 'tolerate'.  What else can you do?

    n

  3. Greg Norton says:

    HVAC guy found a board in town and will go back tomorrow to install it.   I'm more inclined to keep and repair the old one than ever.

    I'm guessing $500-600. Wholesale on the part is $300. He might have been exaggerating the availability — we got that spiel and, afterwards, I found the new board online, readily available overnight.

    Did the HVAC guy offer you a credit equal to the repair cost if you opt for a new unit in 6-12 months?

  4. Nick Flandrey says:

    Did the HVAC guy offer you a credit equal to the repair cost if you opt for a new unit in 6-12 months?

    —  nope.  Neighborhood guy.  Refilled my freon at home for free on a Sunday last year (and when we figured out how much he put in and what it cost, we wrote a check.  Pretty big check.  Ancient out of production freon ain't cheap.)   My rent house is outside the area he normally covers so it's a favor to me on a Sunday afternoon kinda deal. 

    Meatspace.  Not gonna nickel and dime on that, building a multi-year relationship…

    n

  5. Greg Norton says:

    Meatspace.  Not gonna nickel and dime on that, building a multi-year relationship…

    I didn't squeeze the HVAC guy for the credit. The total bill for the day was $800 after I got done with an igniter swap out, and the unit is ~ 25 years old.

    If the Fed really follows through on seven 25 point rate increases like they're hinting at, that could easily knock $200k off the price of the houses around here. What buyers won't be able to afford, however, is the maintenance.

  6. Nick Flandrey says:

    I asked my guy to update his quote for rip and replace in my house before summer.  I asked about availability issues and he said it is the super high SEER rated gear that is short supply.  Ordinary, one or two step down gear is available.   He said the biggest issue was getting insulated ducts.   Houston requires R8 ductwork, but it's hen's teeth.  R6 is widely available but will get your job red carded when they inspect.

    We wanted to do all the duct work at the same time, but if we have to, we'll just replace the mechanicals.

    n

  7. Nick Flandrey says:

    A week or so ago I got a survey call, which I took.   I like answering survey calls, and attempt to reverse engineer their goals from the questions and the topics.

    This call was about my support for a new bond issue by the school board to fund CTE (career and tech ed –  what used to be shop… but now is a lot more  stuff).  They asked about several different "messages" and were clearly looking for what language would generate the most support for the bond issue in the next election.

    Today I got an announcement from the district that they voted to put the bond issue up for consideration.    The messaging is heavy on a couple of the things the survey questions were also asking, namely that they want to improve facilities and continue to support CTE in the district, with NO INCREASE IN TAX RATE.  They admit that some people might still see a bigger tax bill  because of increasing home values.  They also made sure the seniors know that their bill won't go up in any case as they are frozen when they turn 65 both for rate and for amount.

    Interesting to me that after talking about the facility improvements (always very generally), they mention adding classrooms to an elementary school (that just got built in the last couple of years and is in the middle of a wealthy and established subdivision- so where is the increased student body coming from?) and that they want to fund a tech refresh for essentially everyone.  

    They're going to ask for ~$381M to refresh, improve, and expand CTE (vo tech) programs, but also build an elementary school and do a tech refresh for the whole district….  wonder what percentage will actually be spent on labs and shops?

    n

    I'll add that we get to keep all the bond money, but the state "recaptures" our "excess" district property tax money and sends it to "disadvantaged" school districts.   $33M last year that we paid, but got stolen and given to other districts.  That was a significant reduction from what was originally estimated too, as the result of lawsuits for shenanigans on the state's part.  If not for the pandemic, they'd have stolen $66M this year and $90M next.

    for perspective, they added this note…

    SBISD offers every tax break allowed by law, including the full 20 percent homestead exemption. District homeowners have the second lowest tax burden in the Houston area. The annual school tax bill on a home valued at $500,000 is currently $4,891 in SBISD, compared to $5,009 in Cy-Fair ISD, $6,433 in Spring ISD, and $7,024 in Katy ISD.

  8. Nick Flandrey says:

    Random question for Geoff or any of our British cousins….

    Why the use of scare quotes around "pregnant" in DM headlines?

    Shia LaBeouf's 'pregnant' fiancee Mia Goth cuts an athletic figure as she grabs lunch in Pasadena

    They do it pretty consistently for any pregnant celebrity, and I find it odd, like they somehow doubt the pregnancy… but they accept the 'fiance' at face value.

    n

  9. Nick Flandrey says:

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-10489003/Duchess-Cambridge-visits-parental-support-project-London.html

    –not many typical english mums in that mum's support center.  

    "

    Set up by Citizens UK in 2014, PACT is a community-led social support project which aims to build a confident, resilient community of parents who can give their children the best start in life whatever their circumstances.

    It was initiated in Southwark after parents, community and faith leaders identified mental health issues and isolation as the biggest challenges impacting on their ability to parent and give their children the best start in life."

    –"mental health" -really?  Not their poverty or cultural differences?

    n

  10. Mark W says:

    At first I thought those were transformers but I now think that is a homebuilt three phase capacitor bank to steady the load on the wires and allow those big a/c chiller motors at the high school to not drop the voltage down to zero.

    Thanks Lynn, I just assumed you know everything about the transmission network 🙂

    I notice each capacitor is in series on each phase. I wondered also if they might be some kind of lightning arrestor. I'm a network guy, not an EE.

  11. Chad says:

    Picked up D2 and we ended up spending the rest of the afternoon breaking down bulk meat and vac sealing it

    What are you using for vac sealing?

  12. Nick Flandrey says:

    I use the FoodSaver and bags from Costco.   My current year's model needs a new strip of non-stick tape over the heating element, so I'm still using the last version of that model (only difference is less fake metal decoration) that I had as backup.

    I tried to order some kapton tape from amazon but there are so many counterfeit sellers I gave up and just kept using the older model.

    They work fine, but have a slightly reduced duty cycle, which just means that sometimes I try to seal something to soon after sealing the last bag, and have to wait 30 seconds for it to cool down.

    n

  13. Greg Norton says:

    Interesting to me that after talking about the facility improvements (always very generally), they mention adding classrooms to an elementary school (that just got built in the last couple of years and is in the middle of a wealthy and established subdivision- so where is the increased student body coming from?) and that they want to fund a tech refresh for essentially everyone.  

    They're going to ask for ~$381M to refresh, improve, and expand CTE (vo tech) programs, but also build an elementary school and do a tech refresh for the whole district….  wonder what percentage will actually be spent on labs and shops?

    You're sure there isn't an HOK football stadium or overbuilt PAC for a high school in there?

    As for the elementary school in the wealthy built-out neighborhood, the increased student body is coming from zoning exemptions from new arrivals to the district working the system for schools with better test scores.

    If you live in a district with a large amount of H1B labor working tech in some part of the area served, that demographic is very aggressive about getting exemptions, to the point that they engage in the culture's typical dishonesty in the face of bureaucracy which has stunted the development their homeland.

    Where we llive, the H1B parents even have (or had) copies of the entrance exam for the gifted program at the local middle school which is the most desired target for exemptions.

    The crazy thing is that the district *built* the demographic their own elementary and middle schools in the middle of the developments where they live, but, of course, a new school doesn't have the test scores so the buildings sit half empty while the most desirable middle school is 25% over intended capacity.

    It could be hyper-aggressive CA transplants too — I’ve seen situations where the mother obviously bullied the school authorities non-stop until they relented — but that crowd aren’t as organized and determined as the H1B parents. Either parent can win the “Visa lotto” that gets them out of the country, but it is always the wife’s money that pays for the house..

  14. Nick Flandrey says:

    Sympathetic protesters crossed police barricades to join truckers, assaulted officers and even caused a car crash while trying to ram into the Mounties, according to Global News. 

    –caused a car crash??

    THIS crash?

    'A 42yr old male is facing charges after driving through a group of protesters that were part of the Freedom Convoy at the Legislative grounds,' the Winnipeg Police tweeted Saturday. 

    'Four adult males were struck.' 

    Video of the horrific incident has since circulated on social media, showing a group of protesters as several are struck by the Jeep, with many chasing the vehicle as it sped from the scene.

    A 42-year-old male from Headingly, Manitoba, faces charges of four counts of assault with weapon, two counts of dangerous operation of a conveyance causing bodily harm, one count of dangerous operation of a conveyance, two counts of failure to stop after accident, and two counts of failure to stop at the scene of an accident. 

    wow, that's some spin.

    n

  15. Nick Flandrey says:

    Here is a witness to a crime that watched a movie in his head rather than what actually occurred.

    'The terror in the eyes of these people that came and took cover in my shop,' a nearby business owner, Robert Cronkite told KIRO Newsradio. 'I just, I mean, I had never seen terror in anyone’s eyes quite like what I saw there.'

    'The guy that did it …He literally walked out of there, casually pushing a shopping cart. And you can see the satchels, you know, the gurney bag, wherever he’s got these guns when he walked out. He gets in his white Dodge pickup, and the guy drives off.' 

    –shooter was driving a Honda Civic.  No one else mentions multiple guns which the guy seems to assume are in the something or other bag in the cart.

    and the suspect is "known to authorities."

    n

  16. Nick Flandrey says:

    Something more to this story…

    Navy FIRES all three leaders of Seabees battalion 'due to a loss of confidence in their abilities to effectively perform their leadership roles'

    • Three leaders of a Navy construction battalion have been has been striped of their duties following an internal investigation that was launched last December
    • Commanding officer Jeffrey Lengkeek, executive officer Michael Jarosz, and Master Chief Matthew Turner were relieved of their duties on February 3
    • The Navy is refusing to elaborate on the circumstances that led to the dismissals, but said no criminal charges are expected 
    • The men will remain in the Navy, but have been reassigned Region Mid-Atlantic indefinitely at Norfolk Naval Base in Virginia

     Housecleaning before the war?  Ideological purge?  No criminal charges, and their bios don't suggest incompetence…

    Any old chiefs wanna comment?

    n

  17. Greg Norton says:

    Sympathetic protesters crossed police barricades to join truckers, assaulted officers and even caused a car crash while trying to ram into the Mounties, according to Global News. 

    The fringe sites are reporting that the RCMP has told Trudeau that they won't go after the truckers absent commission of crimes that fall under their jurisdiction. Supposedly, the Army has informed the Prime Minister that it isn’t their problem either.

    If Trudeau is still in hiding, Canada has a serious crisis in leadership at the top of the government.

  18. Nick Flandrey says:

    Technology is in the realm of dark magic for the interns writing at the Daily Mail…

    EXCLUSIVE: Moment Long Island bodybuilder who shot his parents on Christmas Day is arrested after cops remotely disabled his SUV by logging into his GPS system: 30-year-old sobs in court as father glares at him while he's indicted for attempted murder

    • Dino Tomassetti Jr., 30, was caught with the help of a satellite controlled tracking system installed in his Cadillac Escalade SUV
    • Nassau County Police were able to track the car to New Jersey where the OnStar system slowed the car down before completely disabling it
    • The Long Island bodybuilder fled Hewlett Harbor Long Island after shooting his mother in the head and his father in the back and wrist
    • He allegedly pulled the gun on his  parents and his ex-girlfriend when they refused to allow him to take his two-year-old son for the holiday
    • Nassau County District Attorney Anne Connelly unsealed a nine-count indictment on Monday for attempted murder, assault, gun charges and endangering the welfare of a child
    • Tomassetti broke down in tears after exchanging glances with his disapproving, but supportive, dad

    –caught with the help of a satellite controlled tracking system –  ONstar.  Nothing special or sinister, just plain old OnStar.   Which can and will be used against you without a court of law.

    Doesn't Bidn's "infrastructure" bill mandate a remote kill switch in every vehicle?  That would solve stuff like the  trucker's protest wouldn't it?

    n

  19. Greg Norton says:

    Any old chiefs wanna comment?

    @DadCooks – Even if you have nothing to contribute about the Seabees, how about a check in. The local Faux News had the story off the national feed last night about the mass shooting in Richland at a Fred Meyer.

    It was a slow murder night in Austin. The only death to report was a volleyball player involved in a car accident due to ice on the road out in Hill Country.

    2022 will probably be another record year for homicides in Austin-Travis, the pace is currently pushing towards 95-100 by the end of December.

  20. JimB says:

    Remote kill switches will only be in NEW cars. Buy old 🙂

  21. JimB says:

    When we built our house in 1977, I put all ducting in conditioned space. No need for insulation. The inspector mentioned the requirement for a leak test. I pointed to a register, and called it a massive intentional leak. He scratched his head and mumbled something like "Forget it." Signed it off on the spot.

  22. Greg Norton says:

    Remote kill switches will only be in NEW cars. Buy old

    Most new cars built in the last 20 years can be retrofitted for complete remote control. I imagine that it is just a software upgrade for anything built with Lane Assist or Collision Avoidance.

  23. Nick Flandrey says:

    It's the new hotness to put all ducts in conditioned space… but there is a lot, ie MOST of existing housing that have ducts in unconditioned attics, basements and crawlspaces.

    I wonder what part of the duct is the stumbling block for having it in stock.

    n

  24. MrAtoz says:

    Housecleaning before the war?  Ideological purge?  No criminal charges, and their bios don't suggest incompetence…

    Unusual they were just "reassigned". No criminal activity? Maybe JAG is still building a case? I was gonna say a Gay triad, but that is acceptable under plugs. Even if it is the entire chain of command.

  25. nick flandrey says:

    We've been watching Russia and China build out their alternative to SWIFT for some time, and have noted that they are ignoring the 'petro dollar' for at least some oil transactions.

    \\https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/latest-putin-and-xi-suggests-growing-political-interest-bitcoin

    “We are consistently expanding settlements in national currencies and creating mechanisms to offset the negative impact of unilateral sanctions,” Putin wrote in his letter to the Chinese people. “A major milestone in this work was the signing of an agreement between the Government of Russia and the Government of China on payments and settlements in 2019.”

    This is coming on the heels of threats to cut Russia off from the SWIFT system that were made just days prior. Russia is particularly well positioned to evade sanctions, considering the treasure trove of forex reserves it holds, valued at north of $600 billion only five months ago.

    The war won't start until the money is in place.   Soldiers gotta eat.  Nations need beans bullets and bandaids too.

    Every move to put payment systems and trade alternatives in place is a step closer to kickoff.

    n

  26. lynn says:

    At first I thought those were transformers but I now think that is a homebuilt three phase capacitor bank to steady the load on the wires and allow those big a/c chiller motors at the high school to not drop the voltage down to zero.

    Thanks Lynn, I just assumed you know everything about the transmission network

    I notice each capacitor is in series on each phase. I wondered also if they might be some kind of lightning arrestor. I'm a network guy, not an EE.

    Nick thinks that they are inductors, not capacitors.  I do not have a clue, I am an ME, not a EE.  I can tell you all about steam turbines, gas turbines, boilers, etc.  Not much about the electrical side other than the transmission and distribution voltages.

    We used to have serious problems with making too many megavars instead of megawatts (low power factors, both leading and lagging).  We installed capacitor banks all over the place to raise our system power factor from 0.90 to 0.95 since we had so many electric motors on our system (a/c and pumps).  I am not sure how successful we were.  The problems that it caused were overheating in our hydrogen cooled generators.  We had to add additional hydrogen and that caused more windage losses.

  27. lynn says:

    From SRW in the Fort Bend Journal, "Working on it":

    "My people skills are just fine.  It's my tolerance for idiots that needs work.".

  28. Geoff Powell says:

    @lynn:

    raise our system power factor 

    Reminds me of working a vacation job at a steelworks in South Wales, 50+ years ago. The hot mill there had had a 4 stand rolling mill, the 3rd and 4th stands of which were driven by 11kV separately excited synchronous motors (with an inline exciter generator on the back (non-mill) end of the motor). Those motors – big things they were – were deliberately over-excited to draw about 4MVAr, to adjust the steelworks overall power factor – when you're drawing that much power from the grid, your electricity tariff has a reactive power component, so to minimise that you adjust what you can. For all I know, they used capacitive compensation as well, but all I can speak to is those 2 over-excited synchronous motors.

    G.

  29. nick flandrey says:

    @Geoff, rolling mills were one of the specifically mentioned use cases for correcting power factor in the articles I looked at  while trying to find a good picture.

    n

  30. nick flandrey says:

    https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/largest-financial-seizure-ever-doj-announces-billions-bitcoin-2016-bitfinex-hack-recovered

    –so the next time you hear a .gov oppressor claim bitcoin or other crypto is a threat that must be stopped because it's a haven for criminals….  this isn't the first recovery .feds have made either.

    n

  31. lynn says:

    Got a nice little scare when I left the office last night at a little after 11pm.  I stepped outside after setting the alarm on and a pack of coyotes about a 100 feet away started yipping at me.  They were at the back of the office nine acres doing something.  I don't have lights out there (I have six 100 watt equiv LED lights around the little office building and twelve 100 watt equiv LED lights around the big office building) so I could not see them but they sounded like they were just behind the little office building.  I also have four 150 watt (actual rating, 70+ bulbs) LED floodlights at the warehouse but that was on the wrong side of the office.

    I honked the horn in my truck several times using the remote and I hurriedly finished locking the office and jumped in my truck. I hopped in my truck and drove off.  I got past the warehouse and realized that I could not see anything beyond 50 feet. I had forgotten to switch my computer glasses with my bifocals.  So I went back, got out very cautiously, and went in and swapped my glasses. The coyotes evidently left as they did not yip at me again.

    Our local cowboys (there is a 1,000 acre cattle ranch just 200+ yards away from the office) have been reporting that they shot both coyote packs in preparation for calving season.  They missed this one.  One of the packs was all coyotes, 8 to 12, and the other pack was mixed coyotes and feral dogs.  I don't want to mess with either pack.

  32. Geoff Powell says:

    @nick:

    I didn't mean to imply that this was in any way unique, I was just citing an example from personal experience.

    G.

  33. Mark W says:

    Bitfinex:

    The government now owns billions of dollars worth of bitcoins. I wonder if they will return them to bitfinex? I'm sure the exchange will have to sue to get them back. 

    I see one of the charges is "Conspiracy to defraud the US" – how is that? They helped steal from bitfinex and money laundered, but "defraud"? Maybe tax evasion?

    Also, how dumb do you have to be to move BTC around when it's stolen. Their first step should have been to convert the coins to another cryptocurrency, preferable a privacy coin. That way the money is untraceable. Also, they stored the wallet keys online. Just dumb.

  34. lynn says:

    "A Fight Over the Right to Repair Cars Turns Ugly"

        https://www.wired.com/story/fight-right-repair-cars-turns-ugly/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

    "In the wake of a voter-approved law, Subaru and Kia dealers in Massachusetts have disabled systems that allow remote starts and send maintenance alerts."

    Ok, if I owned a Subaru or a Kia, that would seriously piss me off.  And I would be filing a class action lawsuit against the manufacturer and dealers.

    And nobody should be able to disable features on my vehicle, remotely or locally.  I can remote start my F-150 from my key fob, I love the feature as it gets my a/c going.

  35. lynn says:

    Bitfinex:

    The government now owns billions of dollars worth of bitcoins. I wonder if they will return them to bitfinex? I'm sure the exchange will have to sue to get them back. 

    I see one of the charges is "Conspiracy to defraud the US" – how is that? They helped steal from bitfinex and money laundered, but "defraud"? Maybe tax evasion?

    Also, how dumb do you have to be to move BTC around when it's stolen. Their first step should have been to convert the coins to another cryptocurrency, preferable a privacy coin. That way the money is untraceable. Also, they stored the wallet keys online. Just dumb.

    Does Bitfinex hold the bitcoins for the exchange or private citizens ?

  36. Mark W says:

    Does Bitfinex hold the bitcoins for the exchange or private citizens ?

    They would be mostly customer funds, and probably the exchange's float and profit.

  37. paul says:

    Hey, that link to the first house Mom and Dad built?  That's the place.  The water tower is new since the last time I looked.

    Street view?  Looking up the driveway.  I wonder what happened to the house?  Sure, the chicken coop that was on the right hand side of the driveway is gone.  It was just landscape timbers for posts and plywood walls.  All covered with tar paper and asphalt shingles.  If it was still there it would be almost 50 years old.

    Anyway.  I don't know what is in the air but my eyes itch and I'm swallowing so much snot my throat is getting raw.  Buddy the Beagle seems miserable, too.  Penny?  Penny don't care, Penny will bark at you.

  38. Brad says:

    London parental project

    Reminds me of the video of the woman walking through NY city, being catcalled all the time. You're not supposed to notice that *all* of the catcalling is by black guys.

    Also, how dumb do you have to be to move BTC around when it's stolen. Their first step should have been to convert the coins to another cryptocurrency

    It's hard to say, given the crappy article, but it sounds like they did use mixers. Not totally clueless. The government must have thrown an incredible amount of resources at this.

    Crypto is in an interesting place. It has lost nearly all support from the tech world. Speculators love it. And it is actually serving one of its real purposes in the sex-work industry, where even legal sex workers have trouble with payment processors and banks refusing to do business with them. 

  39. paul says:

    I filed the taxes on the 28th.  Refund deposited yesterday.  Ten days.

  40. Mark W says:

    Mixers (not audio)

    Smart, but not smart enough. Atomic swap to XMR was where they should have gone, after a BTC mixer.

    There is a lot of blockchain work going on, although probably not by mainstream tech other than to rebrand services from existing blockchain companies.

  41. Greg Norton says:

    Ok, if I owned a Subaru or a Kia, that would seriously piss me off.  And I would be filing a class action lawsuit against the manufacturer and dealers.

    Unfortunately, the real target was probably Tesla.

  42. Ray Thompson says:

    I filed the taxes on the 28th.  Refund deposited yesterday.  Ten days.

    Electronic filing has always been fast. I filed on Sunday last year and the money was at my CU on Thursday. Alas, I cannot file yet. I have to wait for tax documents from the investment firm I use. They don't have to have the documents in the mail until the end of February.

    That limit is for the dark ages before computer systems of today. There is no reason any entity that reports earning to the IRS should not have documentation and forms available online to clients by the middle of January.

  43. lynn says:

    "Scientists Conclude Dire Climate Change Models Were Wrong, Now What?"

        https://www.zerohedge.com/political/scientists-conclude-dire-climate-change-models-were-wrong-now-what

    "Scientists admit they did not model clouds accurately and that they need a supercomputer 1000 times more powerful to accurately do that…"

    They did not model anything about the climate accurately.

  44. lynn says:

    I filed the taxes on the 28th.  Refund deposited yesterday.  Ten days.

    Electronic filing has always been fast. I filed on Sunday last year and the money was at my CU on Thursday. Alas, I cannot file yet. I have to wait for tax documents from the investment firm I use. They don't have to have the documents in the mail until the end of February.

    That limit is for the dark ages before computer systems of today. There is no reason any entity that reports earning to the IRS should not have documentation and forms available online to clients by the middle of January.

    It takes a while to cook the books.

    Seriously though, it takes a while for larger companies to decide what to expense and what to depreciate. And if depreciating, which method to use. Many studies are run on the effects on the books. And for the largest companies, they have to decide how to put certain types of income on the books. All very complicated.

  45. lynn says:

    "The U.S. is considering a radical rethinking of the dollar for today's digital world"

        https://www.npr.org/2022/02/06/1072406109/digital-dollar-federal-reserve-apple-pay-venmo-cbdc

    "The U.S. is gingerly considering whether to adopt a digital version of its currency, one better suited for today's increasingly cashless world, ushering in what could be one of the dollar's most fundamental transformations."

    What could go wrong ?

  46. SteveF says:

    They did not model anything about the climate accurately.

    When your FORTRAN source code has comments like "fudge factor to get the right result", slow computers aren't the problem.

  47. Greg Norton says:

    That limit is for the dark ages before computer systems of today. There is no reason any entity that reports earning to the IRS should not have documentation and forms available online to clients by the middle of January.

    No one in Corporate America is really working between Thanksgiving and MLK Day.

  48. nick flandrey says:

    @geoff, I was just pointing out that you actually worked at one of the canonical use cases.  Which is cool and an indicator of the SERIOUS breadth and depth of this place.

    It's also a bit interesting to me that I couldn't find any online pictures of inductors being used in the way I suspect those big cans were being used, although one of the other use cases involved very long transmission lines.  

     There are still things you can't find online.  Or maybe my googlefu isn't strong atm…

    n

  49. Greg Norton says:

    It's also a bit interesting to me that I couldn't find any online pictures of inductors being used in the way I suspect those big cans were being used, although one of the other use cases involved very long transmission lines.  

    Long distance phone lines before digital technology. Before that, the math was pioneered for telegraph connections.

  50. Alan says:

    >> HVAC guy found a board in town and will go back tomorrow to install it.   I'm more inclined to keep and repair the old one than ever.

    I always ask for the old parts back (except tires and items with a core charge), if nothing more than to validate that say, the brake pads really did need changing and were changed.

    My wife is scheduled for a knee replacement in April (yeah, Covid delays). I told her to tell the surgeon to save the removed 'parts' for her. She promptly threw a pillow at me.

  51. Alan says:

    >> Just when I thought that the Jesus Truck hype couldn't get any more bizarre …

    This company probably none too happy with Tony's truck delays…

    https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-tesla-cybertruck-camper-van-cyberlandrs-tiny-homes-on-wheeks-2021-8

  52. Alan says:

    >> Why would the time of day have any bearing on the health issues involved with smoking?

    The issue would be enforcing 'no smoking' rules outside of company time

    .

    >> — if you meant the employer, I'm pretty sure that's illegal.  Everyone in the group plan pays the same.   That is why everyone wants to be in a group, it dilutes their own "bad" behaviour. 

    Yes, it's the employer, but it's structured as a monthly "wellness credit" versus a surcharge. Everybody pays the same rate but if choose to smoke you forgo the credit. Same as at the gas station, the 'cash', price is a discount from the 'credit' price.

  53. Greg Norton says:

    This company probably none too happy with Tony's truck delays…

    They will be really unhappy with the actual price when deliveries start.

  54. lynn says:

    "The U.S. is considering a radical rethinking of the dollar for today's digital world"

        https://www.npr.org/2022/02/06/1072406109/digital-dollar-federal-reserve-apple-pay-venmo-cbdc

    "The U.S. is gingerly considering whether to adopt a digital version of its currency, one better suited for today's increasingly cashless world, ushering in what could be one of the dollar's most fundamental transformations."

    What could go wrong ?

    Right after the NPR article on the new USA digital Dollar is an article about the Bitcoin theft. 

    "More Stories From NPR

    DOJ arrests New York couple and seizes $3.6 billion in bitcoin related to 2016 hack "

    I find that simultaneously hilarious and cautioning.

    BTW, the USA switched to all digital currency with federal wallets in the the Mandibles book in 2045.  You got a chip in the back of your neck.  You paid income taxes on any income immediately.  Cash was outlawed.

        https://www.amazon.com/Mandibles-Family-2029-2047-Lionel-Shriver/dp/006232828X?tag=ttgnet-20/

  55. dcp says:

    Yes, it's the employer, but it's structured as a monthly "wellness credit" versus a surcharge.

    For comparison, my employer self-insures medical (the plans are administered by Anthem BCBS), and in the documentation sent out before the enrollment period for the last several years, there is a specific call-out for tobacco users (not limited to smokers).  I just rechecked my saved pdf of premium comparisons, and at the bottom of the chart there is a note saying that there is a $75/month surcharge this year for tobacco users.

  56. EdH says:

    Long distance phone lines before digital technology. Before that, the math was pioneered for telegraph connections.

    In “A Thread Across the Ocean” the author recounts how the long distance induction problem was predicted in about 1865. The builders piled up all the reels of transatlantic cable and tried it – and it worked fine. Of course it wasn’t all in a straight line but overlapping…

    A good read:

    https://www.amazon.com/Thread-Across-Ocean-Heroic-Transatlantic/dp/0060524464?tag=ttgnet-20

  57. drwilliams says:

    Blue shiiteholes don't just happen. It takes years of stupid decisions by fools and miscreants:

    Posted on February 7, 2022 by John Hinderaker in Crime

    Whose Future?

    There are almost two carjackings a day in Minneapolis, a city of a little over 400,000:

    [A]ccording to Minneapolis Police 75 percent of the suspects arrested were repeat offenders.

    “To put that a different way in that same frame, 39 juveniles have three or more arrests. That’s 39 individuals with three or more arrests,” said Mayor Jacob Frey at a press conference in December.

    Twin Cities prosecutors and police say they already know many of the repeat juvenile offenders in carjacking cases. Holding them accountable without jeopardizing their future is the challenge.

    The above are quotes from an online tv news story. Hinderaker finishes with

    Without jeopardizing their future?! They forfeited their future when they chose a life of crime and “recreational violence.” These people have no future, as things stand, and putting them back on the street to commit more crimes only makes their future bleaker. Their best chance, and it is a slim one, is that they might find God while in prison.

    The future that public officials should be concerned with is the future of a metropolitan area that is rapidly sliding downhill due to rampant crime. Also, the future of normal citizens who are carjacked, threatened with guns and knives, and knocked to the ground like the 81-year-old woman who suffered a concussion and a broken pelvis. At 81, she had a hell of a lot more useful life in front of her than did the worthless thug who assaulted her.

    When civic authorities think their main obligation is to the criminal, not to the criminal’s victim, the result, predictably, is what we see in the Twin Cities.

    https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/02/whose-future.php

    I don't see any follow-up on this:

    “To put that a different way in that same frame, 39 juveniles have three or more arrests. That’s 39 individuals with three or more arrests,” said Mayor Jacob Frey at a press conference in December.

    and I could not find any other information on the press conference. But it raises several questions.

    1) Have all the three-baggers been locked up since the third arrest?

    2) If not, have any been arrested since for another carjacking or other crime?

  58. drwilliams says:

    "I just rechecked my saved pdf of premium comparisons, and at the bottom of the chart there is a note saying that there is a $75/month surcharge this year for tobacco users."

    Does that include the wacky variety?

  59. Alan says:

    And how about vaping?

    1
    1
  60. lynn says:

    My mother and my wife report that "The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family" by Ron and Clint Howard is very, very good.

        https://www.amazon.com/Boys-Memoir-Hollywood-Family/dp/006306524X?tag=ttgnet-20/

    I did not realize that Clint is five years younger than Ron and played Balok in Star Trek, along with three other Star Trek appearances.  He was also the boy in the Gentle Ben tv series.  And has been in many movies, especially as his older brother likes to call him in for a trusted speaking part.

       https://www.startrek.com/database_article/howardclint2

    Ron of course was in the Andy Griffith tv show, Happy Days, several movies, and has directed several notable movies such as the amazing "Apollo 13".  His latest effort is "Seveneves".

       https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000165/

  61. Alan says:

    >> Crypto is in an interesting place. It has lost nearly all support from the tech world. Speculators love it. And it is actually serving one of its real purposes in the sex-work industry, where even legal sex workers have trouble with payment processors and banks refusing to do business with them. 

    Sounds like something that would also work for all the legal MJ dispensaries that the banks won't deal with.

  62. Greg Norton says:

    Ron of course was in the Andy Griffith tv show, Happy Days, several movies, and has directed several notable movies such as the amazing "Apollo 13".  His latest effort is "Seveneves".

    A Wise Latina saves humanity.

  63. nick flandrey says:

    Of all the Neil Stevenson Seveneves got the greenlight?

    yikes.

    n

  64. Alan says:

    >> Got a nice little scare when I left the office last night at a little after 11pm.  I stepped outside after setting the alarm on and a pack of coyotes about a 100 feet away started yipping at me.  They were at the back of the office nine acres doing something.

    Interesting story on coyotes…

    https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2022/02/07/coyotes-hunting-kansas

  65. SteveF says:

    There are almost two carjackings a day in Minneapolis, a city of a little over 400,000

    I lived about three hours from Minneapolis around twelve years ago. Hypothetically, if I ever got to feeling irritable or antsy I could have driven down and looked for people to beat. Hypothetically, if I ever did so, every single would-be mugger would have been black, every single group of young men who hassled or attacked individuals or small groups in "their" turf were would have been black, and the youth gang group of fun-loving urban youth who were going to gang rape a woman they'd caught would have been all black. This despite Minneapolis being less than 20% black at the time.

    Even back then, the crime rate was so high that if any of the hypothetical groups above were to have been stopped in their tracks it would have been barely a blip in the numbers.

  66. ech says:

    I use the FoodSaver and bags from Costco. 

    On a friend's recommendation, I bought some premade bags from Amazon. So far, they are cheaper than the official FoodSaver ones and work just as well. I bought this bundle of pint, quart, and gallon ones.
    https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BL8KZ6O/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1&tag=ttgnet-20

  67. ech says:

    re Long COVID.

    There have been a few studies of long COVID and they found that many of the people with it have never had COVID. And many of the symptoms were vague and non-specific.

    That said, it's a real phenomenon that can happen with any viral infection. I've mentioned before that I had pneumonia as a child and it affected me for months after I got better. I had lung scars that showed up on x-ray for 10 years or so.

  68. lpdbw says:

    There have been a few studies of long COVID and they found that many of the people with it have never had COVID. And many of the symptoms were vague and non-specific.

    I have long suspected that most of the re-infections are really cases of false positives on the wonky tests.  We know that PCR tests can produce false positives if you run enough generations.  I have my doubts about the quick tests like the ones that said I was positive for Covid and flu both in less than 15 minutes.

    That being said, I was really sick with something.  The medical community has completely discredited themselves, so even with positive tests, I wonder what it was.

  69. Denis says:

     I told her to tell the surgeon to save the removed 'parts' for her.

    I know of someone who did that. He gave the 'parts' to his dog!

  70. nick flandrey says:

    Total for two site visits, diagnosis, pickup and installation of new board, was $375.   And I never saw him.    As far as I'm concerned the guy is the king.

    Oh, and the phone call and texts while I tried to troubleshoot it on a Sunday afternoon.

    n

  71. drwilliams says:

    Pretty sure I saw him today. He's older now and driving a Black Tesla:

    https://twitter.com/Yoda4ever/status/1489931819411820551

  72. Nick Flandrey says:

    He gave the 'parts' to his dog!

    ==  no free samples.   you don't want them developing a taste for it, now do ya?

    n

  73. lynn says:

    My mother had emergency surgery tonight and survived it.  She fell over the weekend and developed internal bleeding in the hip she had replaced three years ago.  The surgeon in Victoria, TX opened up the hip, removed the hematoma that was pressing on the leg nerve, and put a wound vacuum in it.  The pain was immense so they put her into an artificial coma this afternoon.  My dad had to make the decision for the surgery which I told him was the right thing to do.  Now the plan is to keep the wound vac in the hip for a week and then discharge her to rehab for week. 

    My mother is just not doing very well.  Dad is totally freaked out.  I am freaked out.  My middle brother and I talked for two hours on the phone tonight.  We want to force Dad to bring in real help every day instead of the two days a week to wash and clean.  But, we are not sure how to do it other than the in your face thing.  Somebody who can help Mom out of bed and to the toilet, up from the toilet and to the chair, etc.

  74. lynn says:

    "In 5-4 vote, justices reinstate Alabama voting map despite lower court’s ruling that it dilutes Black votes"

        https://www.scotusblog.com/2022/02/in-5-4-vote-justices-reinstate-alabama-voting-map-despite-lower-courts-ruling-that-it-dilutes-black-votes/

    "The Supreme Court on Monday allowed Alabama to implement a redistricting plan that is being challenged as illegal racial gerrymandering. A lower court ruled last month that the state’s new congressional map likely violates the Voting Rights Act, and it ordered the state to draw a new map. But the Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision put the lower court’s ruling on hold, effectively allowing Alabama to proceed with its preferred map as it prepares for primary elections in May."

    Wow, I am impressed. 

  75. JimB says:

    Lynn, hoping for a complete recovery for your mother.

  76. Nick Flandrey says:

    Me too Lynn.   I can't imagine how hard it is right now.   No matter how stubborn, your dad should see the need after this latest setback, maybe it won't be a fight.  Not many people like to admit that they can't do for themselves anymore though.

    I wish you the best, and your mom a full recovery.

    n

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