Cold today. Yesterday was rainy in the morning, but dried up and got hot in the afternoon. Temps started dropping in the late afternoon and it was down to 42F at 11pm. Wind was variable but quite gusty. Stuff was blowing around in the yard and driveway. Today is supposed to be cold with overcast. Joy.
Did my pickups. Got some stuff for the BOL. Got some stuff for this household. Picked up a couple of small things to resell to pay for the rest and one item for my hobby.
Got stuff to donate to school. White man’s burden? Noblesse oblige? Can’t call it either, but in our district they definitely expect parents with the means to step up and contribute in some way to the schools and the district in general and there isn’t a lot of diversite’ above certain income levels. It’s not just income though, it’s free time and the ability to work at something effectively. The loss of the fraternal service organizations and their ‘women’s auxiliary’ and the womens service clubs was a nearly fatal blow to US society and western culture. “Moms’ Clubs” and other informal groups are stepping up, but they lack the continuity and structure of the old groups. The transition from high trust to low trust is everywhere and increasingly common.
Stuff for the BOL is piling up. I need to close so we can start moving stuff out of my spaces and out to the country. Unfortunately, unless the title company pulls their head out of their backside, I don’t think we’ll be closing on Monday.
There is the additional macroeconomic consideration too. We transferred a bunch of money into one place, in preparation for buying the BOL. Now Canada has gone and said they will seize bank accounts if they feel like it. That SHOULD cause a bank run. There is some suggestion that at least a low key bank run is happening. A real bank run could cause widespread damage and disruption worldwide, but certainly in their largest trading partner, the US. So, I want to get the transaction done without delay, so as to avoid getting screwed if the banks shut down.
And all of the vehicles need maintenance of some kind. Ranger and Expy need oil changes. Expy is going to need new front brake pads soon. Wife’s minivan probably needs everything… it never ends.
The house still needs all the stuff it needed a couple of months ago, with the only exception being that the water heater is installed and making hot water. Not completely installed, or anywhere near finished, but installed.
After a month or two of feeling resigned, I feel like fighting again. Not rested, but going back at it anyway.
I’m stacking, hopefully the right things, and you should be too.
N
(and congrats to everyone that is, Mr Lynn, Mr Atoz, and anyone else who is trying out a prep, or stacking.)
I is! Thank you 🙂
Good luck with the closing, banks, stacking, etc.
I can confirm that is nice to get the keys of the "BOL", so the stacks prepared for it can move out of "home". We had stacked enough that the secondary household was pretty well equipped, and certainly livable and comfortable, on the day of moving in. Part of that was the fact of having had two residences before for work reasons, so we had doubles of a lot of household items.
I will be spending the weekend installing LED lights in the garage of our BOL. Didn't manage it last weekend despite the best of intentions… life intervened. Ah well. There is a horrible storm forecast for today and the weekend here, so indoor work is a good option. I just went out in the garden to put some bricks on the plastic compost tub to hold it down, and the few minutes outdoors were "bracing" enough.
37F when I woke up this morning. 74%RH.
Weird, in 2 days I've sold 4 cases of [a product]. It's been months since a single case sold, then 2 buyers for 2 cases each popped. I haven't done anything differently. Ebay weirdness.
n
I had a really pricey costume item move within a couple of days of posting this week.
The con/renaissance fair season might actually be something close to normal this year.
I wonder if the solar panels can power my car when I run out of compost for the Mr. Fusion.
I imagine they’ll dig, just like the cat cable comes in.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10523739/Clearview-AI-seeking-100-billion-photos-facial-recognition-database.html
IIRC google and FB stopped doing this publicly because it was creeping people out. Still likely doing it privately though.
n
I’ve got about 6 months of freeze dried food for four. I figure I’ll be in the “death zone” by the time the Barackalypse hits. If I have to go out and farm the back yard to survive, its game over, man, game over.
I’m entering the “goofing off for the rest of my life” stage. I’ll keep working for MrsAtoz *because* I’m not in the death zone yet.
Uh, called this one:
Canada's Justice Minister Says Trump Supporters Should Worry About Having Their Bank Accounts Frozen
I wonder what was discussed during *that* call between plugs and TrueDope? Probably plugs whining how that stupid Constitution cripples him. Now, plugs should tell TD, after threatening US Citizens, “the only thing YOU should be worried about is our tanks crossing your border.” But, plugs is a tyrant wanna-be. Our military would probably lose since Canada’s is more woke.
I noticed the other day that now all three Sonic restaurants in our community have closed.
Long John Silver's closed at the beginning of lockdowns.
Yesterday I noticed another chain fast food place was closed, although I can't remember which one it was atm. The nearest Whataburger is closed for remodel, so maybe they'll reopen.
Jack in the box was running with 2 employees Wed. night, a cook and a counter person. $18 for a Jumbo Jack combo (small fries and upgrade to small shake) and a Bacon Ultimate cheeseburger. $18 for two burgers, one fry and one shake.
Regular 87octane gas was $3.10 at exxon, and 2.90 at costco. When you're putting 30 gallons in the truck it is worth it to plan ahead and shop costco.
Turns out the school district didn't put an extra $900 on the kids food card. I've still got $39 left on it though.
Of all the strange things, we've had two new car washes open in our neighborhood, in purpose built structures, as the only business at the location. They have a bunch of people working there too, to wipe down and vacuum your car.
Just some random observations.
n
Here's what Google did in our neighborhood. They laid fiber underground in the subdivision (all underground utilities) on the opposite side of the death star fiber. On my street, it ended up across the street. The contractors took two approaches to get fiber to the house.
If there were no underground utilities in the path, they trenched. The sidewalk section where it crossed was broken out and replaced.
If underground utilities were in the path, they directional bored. The sidewalk section was still removed. This is what they did at my house. Still had 3 patches of sod they replaced.
For both cases, if they need to cross the road, a micro-trench is cut. Essentially just a half inch wide cut in the road with the cable shoved in and some patch mix to fill it in.
Nextdoor is full of whining about lack of workers in restaurants, tipping complaints, and more. I have very little info, since all the meals I eat are made at home (yes, I bring my lunch to work every day when I am onsite). The only exception is I get a salad every other week or so at a fast casual restaurant. I hadn't gone there in several months, when I decided to get one last week. The price was a dollar more than before. The size was also smaller.
I do enjoy going out for a nice dinner occasionally, but for a while now the price just isn't worth it. When I spend $100-$150 on a dinner for two, I stupidly expect not only great food, but great service. Even at our locally owned high end restaurant, we don't get that consistently anymore.
New car washes seem operate on a subscription model where you pay a monthly fee for unlimited access to the wash and air/vacuum stations. They also seem to be a franchise "opportunity" being peddled by several companies offering a nationwide network.
Thanks to the printing presses running at full blast, lots of money is sloshing around looking for any kind of return on investment. Things are being thrown against the wall to see what sticks. Car washes are mostly automated, with the required capital investment mostly being equipment which could be removed from the building and resold easily.
I haven't seen a Sonic close around here, but the local Chick-fil-A dining rooms are closed due to staffing problems. Drive-thru or online ordering only.
Sonic needs to bring back the two white guy doofuses in the car in their ads. They've tried to be too woke, and the ads as written don't work with the two women or the African American family.
The water heater replacement was one-for-one so the guys were done in a couple of hours yesterday, less than 24 hours after the water alarm started chirping in the drain pan. I paid a premium for the service, but, with this plumber, there is never a return visit to correct something they missed. Ever.
The tankless "conversation" involved $6000 so we passed on that.
The last water heater was installed in 2014 by the previous owners through Ben Franklin so it probably wasn’t high quality. Still, six years is fairly common anymore according to the plumber, and the manufacturer's warranty on the new unit is 72 months. What a coincidence!
Nextdoor in my neck of the woods is primarily this:
I'm not saying Nextdoor doesn't have its uses. I see people seeking recommendation for various services and some local motivated teens offering to do yardwork or babysitting to make a few bucks. However, I mostly find the site overwhelmingly annoying.
Tankless. Power goes out and you have no hot water unless you have backup power to spare. Or a large kettle on the back of your woodburning stove.
That's the tricky part. They can micro-trench at 90 degrees to the main fiber run, then just dig through your yard as usual, or micro-trench the grass. The interesting part is how do they splice the fiber to your house on to the main cable, which I've never seen done, or an explanation, but I assume they fusion splice to the main cable outside each house and then just bury the splice in the trench and cover it with grout.
It's like directional boring. I've looked for an explanation of how it works and every time it says "the operator steers the drill", but they never say HOW it's steered.
@Chad, same here in south texas minus the snow. I have the app on my phone and open it every month or so, for 30 seconds. It likes to remind me that I "may have missed" posts.
Mostly a karen-fest.
We have gas lines for the water heater. In a sustained power outage situation, however, the MUD does not have a backup generator at their water treatment facility, and the plant depends on the big bankrupt electric co-op to supply power for their pumps.
In Warren Buffett-speak everyone “swims naked” in Texas. Last February, the tide went out.
From yesterday…
@TV, well, I'm glad it doesn't sound as dire to those of you north of the border, but I'm a lot less sanguine than you about governments USING the powers they've suddenly given themselves. Sooner or later, and sometimes a bit at a time, they use them until you find yourself at the bottom of the slippery slope looking back up, and wondering how the heII you ended up there.
For US examples, see the TSA, the creation of the Dept of Homeland Security, the war on (some) drugs, civil asset forfeiture, no knock raids, "first shoot the dog" policies, etc. We've come very far, very fast, and they weren't even announcing it ahead of time. Statements from your government should terrify you. Freeze bank accounts? Freeze driver's licenses? Got any due process? Where is the method to have those things restored to you?
n
The debate over whether the use of the Emergency Act is justified is underway, and is likely to continue for some time. Invoking it requires an explanation in Parliament at the time of invocation and a hearing afterwards to explain what was missing in the regular laws that required invoking something as drastic as the Emergency Act. (NB: This is as much looking for new laws to invoke as it is looking at how or why existing laws were not used). As well, invoking the Act requires a vote in parliament, and the Trudeau's Liberal party does not have a majority in parliament – they require another party or parties to agree to invoking the Act. (I do wonder what deal was cut to get those votes…). Authorization can be withdrawn at any time by a vote in Parliament.
As for freezing accounts, one clear result of that is how poorly Canada deals with tracking and reacting to suspicious financial transactions. Canada is known to be an easy mark for money laundering because of the lack of resources put against reacting to all the reporting required from the banks (these are international agreements also followed by US and European banks). I would expect those laws to get tightened up, but what would be better is if they hired sufficient staff to enforce the existing laws. The US has similar or more stringent laws on the books and much more resources available for enforcement.
In any event, Trudeau is still trying to play this as a wedge issue and the over-reaction is part of justifying that play (he is trapped in that mode). The over-the-top response in Parliament is part of the "wedge", but this is all political fun and games. The question was asked by the interim leader of the opposition (Conservative) party that not much more than a week ago supported the protests but has now changed position, having realized there was little popular support for the protests. Principal has little to do with any of this.
Finally, as I noted above, the additional powers granted in the Emergency Act are, by law, temporary. (You can of course doubt that, but this has happened once before in a far more serious situation (FLQ crisis in the 1970s) and it was temporary). Not so the TSA, DEA, DHS, etc… and what actions they can take. I don't see a new police bureaucracy being created out of the events of the last 3 weeks.
We actually have a local ordinance that states any automated car wash must be "attended." If it's one of those DIY things where you spray and brush your car yourself it's fine. However, if it has automated sprayers, brushes, blowers, or pulls your car through a human has to be on-site for, presumably, safety reasons. If it's attached to a gas station then the gas station attendant inside the c-store counts as the wash being attended. However, if it's a standalone wash someone has to be there. We only have one wash in town that this affects and so they usually have some teen standing at the entrance that presoaks the entering vehicles (probably just to give him something to do).
Most of the dining rooms have slowly reopened around here. The local Sonic was closing fairly early for awhile (like 8PM) due to staffing. Our Sonic has a drive thru in addition to the drive-in stalls. Due to the same staffing issues, the drive-in stalls were closed and there were signs up telling you to use the drive thru. It's mostly back to normal now. The last franchises I came across that consistently had closed dining rooms were the local Wendy's. I've have stopped by in a couple of months, so I don't know if that's changed.
Ah, one last hot shower. My solar water heater bottle can basically boil water in an hour with good Sun. Then pour it into several packs of freeze dried.
No need to go further than the US to see how this is abused. States are now trying to pass laws to limit Governor's Emergency Powers. Our FEMA here can basically run the country in an "emergency".
The new carwashes around here usually have a cute girl at the pay stations encouraging customers to buy subscriptions and then a couple of guys at the entrance to do minimal undercarriage scrubs and guide customers towards the belt as the vehicles approach the entrance. I assume a manager is inside watching the equipment alarms and monitors.
Labor costs are still less than a fast food restaurant.
Remember the CDC stealth editing the definition of vaccination:
EVIL: CDC quietly lowers standards for speech in early development to avoid admitting DAMAGE lockdowns and masks have done to children
This could be cover for keeping masking or cover for masking dumbing down kids. Or both.
Well, you have to pay attention to the whole food chain, anyway.
My 3 acre pond in Illinois is stocked with bluegill, bass, and catfish. I have a resident heron and ducks visit during their migrations. There's plenty of sunshine and plant growth, and turtles and crawfish, and the fish seem to thrive.
Unfortunately, water birds flit from pond to pond, and bring other fish eggs with them on their feet. So my pond is overrun with carp. Trash fish. With all the carp and blue gill, the bass don't go hungry, and they are picky about striking at bait and lures. Catfish are just naturally picky, but they're well fed too.
I have read that when you raise catfish commercially (and I assume it's true for other species, like my carp's cousin tilapia), you have to feed them to get the needed growth. I heard the following plausible story:
Guy has a small rectangular pond stocked with small catfish. He feeds them dog food in kibble form. He loads up his pickup with buckets of food, and drives to a corner of the pond. Throw a bucket full into the pond, drive to the next corner, repeat.
After a month of this, someone rides along to watch. He goes to the first corner, drops in the food, and there's obviously feeding going on; lots of fish. He drives to the next corner, and the observer sees the entire herd of fish swimming to follow the truck. Same for the next 2 corners.
I took GF out for a nice celebration dinner at Lomonte's in the energy corridor at the end of January. With tip it was over $150.
That included salads, entrees, desserts, and a bottle of wine. And good to very good service from the waitress. Not as good as previous visits with the seasoned veteran waiter, but no complaints. They serve Italian food in the St. Louis style. They even have toasted ravioli. Since I grew up in the St. Louis area, this is a big deal to me.
Next time we'll go out will probably be for GF's birthday in a month or so.
"Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job."
Pearls Before Swine: The Judgement Age
https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2022/02/18
Oh yeah, we are there.
BC: Aim High
https://www.gocomics.com/bc/2022/02/18
Oh man, miss spider has a big reckoning coming.
There is the additional macroeconomic consideration too. We transferred a bunch of money into one place, in preparation for buying the BOL. Now Canada has gone and said they will seize bank accounts if they feel like it. That SHOULD cause a bank run. There is some suggestion that at least a low key bank run is happening. A real bank run could cause widespread damage and disruption worldwide, but certainly in their largest trading partner, the US. So, I want to get the transaction done without delay, so as to avoid getting screwed if the banks shut down.
There is apparently $21 trillion in the IRAs and 401Ks in the USA. Biden is reputedly somewhat considering seizing all those funds and reinvesting them in USA t-bills for us. The damage to real estate and the stock market will be immense. One of my friends is strongly considering pulling out his entire IRA and just paying the taxes.
Ah, one last hot shower. My solar water heater bottle can basically boil water in an hour with good Sun. Then pour it into several packs of freeze dried.
I am relying on my gas stove then my BBQ pit with three propane bottles in storage for hot water.
My big problem is that our three water wells at the house are poorly maintained. The two generators and the well pressure cutouts all failed during the Big Freeze. The water provider promises that they have improved things since then. I have 32 cases of water in the garage.
Cite, please. I just looked, again, and don't see anything other than babbling from before the 2020 election and a lot of fear mongering. Now, I don't doubt that there's a whole passel of commies who'd purely love to seize individual retirement savings, other savings, and investments, but I've seen no reports of anything that's been said.
@MrAtoZ
”freeze dried.”
Walt Garrison Special: “Just a pinch between cheek and gum”
Cite, please. I just looked, again, and don't see anything other than babbling from before the 2020 election and a lot of fear mongering. Now, I don't doubt that there's a whole passel of commies who'd purely love to seize individual retirement savings, other savings, and investments, but I've seen no reports of anything that's been said.
Just the fear mongers on Zero Hedge, Sovereign Man, and Gateway Pundit.
Take it for what it is worth. I just know that when things happen, they happen fast and it is difficult to get in the middle.
The site which has predicted 106 of the past 1 economic crashes and 17 of the past 0 civilizational crashes?
"Easy" survival garden:
https://urbansurvivalsite.com/easiest-crops-for-survival-gardeners/
No mention of actual potatoes or tomatoes.
"Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick proposes ending university tenure to combat critical race theory teachings"
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/02/18/dan-patrick-texas-tenure-critical-race-theory/
"Patrick’s declarations come days after the UT-Austin Faculty Council approved a measure reaffirming instructors’ right to teach about racial justice and critical race theory in the classroom."
Same days I like Lt. Dan a lot.
The site which has predicted 106 of the past 1 economic crashes and 17 of the past 0 civilizational crashes?
Ah, you have visited the site !
I have read that when you raise catfish commercially (and I assume it's true for other species, like my carp's cousin tilapia), you have to feed them to get the needed growth. I heard the following plausible story:
Guy has a small rectangular pond stocked with small catfish. He feeds them dog food in kibble form. He loads up his pickup with buckets of food, and drives to a corner of the pond. Throw a bucket full into the pond, drive to the next corner, repeat.
After a month of this, someone rides along to watch. He goes to the first corner, drops in the food, and there's obviously feeding going on; lots of fish. He drives to the next corner, and the observer sees the entire herd of fish swimming to follow the truck. Same for the next 2 corners.
My grandfather used to feed his catfish daily in his five acre pond on his farm. He would stand on the levee and whistle before throwing the fish food. All of a sudden hundreds of fish would come swimming as fast as they could.
Tankless hot water: When we were having our well water filter system replaced 18 months ago, the plumber recommended a Rennai tankless hot water heater. He PROMISED that we'd always have hot water, as much as we could want.
He lied like a rug.
Sometimes it works. Most of the time, it doesn't. When my wife turns on the shower, it takes a measured 10 minutes for the water to get hot. We've got the "recirculating" feature turned on, so in theory, it's ALWAYS recirculating water. It doesn't work. DO NOT get a Rennai system. Expensive, and NOT worth it.
"Not Even $200 a Barrel: Shale Giants Swear They Won't Drill More"
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/shale-wildcatters-send-bullish-oil-002829906.html
"(Bloomberg) — The Texas wildcatters that ushered in America’s shale revolution are resisting the temptation to pump more oil as the market rallies, signaling higher gasoline prices for consumers already battered by the worst inflation in a generation."
Never believe a wildcatter. However, they cannot get any more drilling money from the banks.
Tankless. Power goes out and you have no hot water unless you have backup power to spare. Or a large kettle on the back of your woodburning stove.
== temporarily stopping at home between pickups…
I'll install a UPS for the heater. It only has to run the control board.
The heater I have is the big Rennai. It makes the water HOT. It does take a while to get to the far end of the house, but we don't have any recirc pump yet. When we do the pex upgrade, we'll do a recirc loop.
Fine Homebuilding had a great article on a tankless system that had a small tank and recirc for the best of all worlds. The recirc only works if you hit the button for it several minutes before you want hot. The same amount of water has to flow thru your pipes from the heater to the outlet no matter what, the recirc pump just allows you to capture that water and not pour it down the drain.
We've been playing with the desired temp because there is a temp vs flow rate trade off. At 125F we're getting decent flow, and hot water.
n
Off to get more stuff.
n
“Now, I don't doubt that there's a whole passel of commies who'd purely love to seize individual retirement savings, other savings, and investments, but I've seen no reports of anything that's been said.”
There’s going to be seizures at 900fps.
Just wondering. Are classified documents that were found in boxes in MiraLago equal to classified emails on Hillary's server?
https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-mar-a-lago-national-security-9c1f6dca7e3e8073ee029604c8253a5c
"Installing Windows 11 Pro to Require Internet Connection, Microsoft Account"
https://www.pcmag.com/news/installing-windows-11-pro-to-require-internet-connection-microsoft-account
I don't like this.
"'Stranger Things': The Duffer Brothers Reveal a Supersized Season 4 Rollout and Share News About the Series’ Future"
https://about.netflix.com/en/news/stranger-things-the-duffer-brothers-reveal-a-super-sized-season-4-rollout
Hat tip to:
https://www.pcmag.com/news/super-sized-stranger-things-season-4-returns-in-may
You can always grab a copy of Win 11 enterprise. No phone home requirement, though I have no idea what it costs. At work we get it "free" from the Army.
The "fair" retirement scheme where the 401(k) and private pensions would be liquidated and replaced with Treasuries has come up again and again for decades, but it couldn't happen with just an Executive Order.
I joke about Speaker Trump taking power in January 2023, but that's exactly what would happen if Biden simply seized the retirement money under an EO interpreting an obscure statute like the gold forfeiture in 1933.
Not a lot of people owned gold beyond jewelry in 1933, and, for the most part, the voluntary compliance portion of the EO, where people would voluntarily turn in their gold bullion, was ignored for 40 years. That isn’t the case with 401(k) plans.
"Texas is no. 1 exporting state for 20 years in a row"
https://www.bicmagazine.com/departments/lift-transport/texas-is-no-1-exporting-state-for-20-years-in-a-row/
"Texas leads the nation as No. 1 exporting state for the 20th year in a row, accounting for more exports than California, New York and Louisiana combined, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), U.S. Department of Commerce, figures released this week."
You can always grab a copy of Win 11 enterprise. No phone home requirement, though I have no idea what it costs. At work we get it "free" from the Army.
I would have to establish a commercial relationship with Microsoft and pay for all of my software again on an annual basis. I have looked into it before, not interested.
The other complication with Enterprise is that, once you leave your job, you cannot simply upgrade the system to Professional later on, when Windows 12 (or whatever they will call it) drops, without losing the installed applications and files, which will end up dumped into Windows.old.
I have that problem now with the Windows 7 on my primary desktop which carries a license granted to the Death Star.
Microsoft will get their money.
Is that you, NaN?
Speaking of the NextDoor app:
Comments are piling up about people's ATT internet going out. Turns out the Google fiber contractors sawed through the main ATT cable at Thousand Oaks and Turkey Point. Whoops! "Call before you dig" or micro-trench in this case.
No. Because she wiped her server. Like, with a cloth.
And bleach.
Don’t forget the bleach.
I haven't kept up with Death Star labor relations since Steve Jobs helped them break the union in legacy Ameritech and Bell South in 2009, but I believe legacy Pac Bell is up for contract renewal this year. CA struck briefly after I left in 2012 IIRC.
Ironically, my access to Google and Duck Duck Go are down.
If the union is feeling frisky during a negotiation period, they'll spike or sever a cable. In 2008, it was the big cable that came ashore in Santa Cruz and went over the mountains to South San Jose, wiping out Cisco's Internet access among others.
UPDATE: AT&T Mobility is up for renewal, but I don’t see any active updates for Legacy Pacbell.
UPDATE 2: Legacy PacBell contract is in place until April 6, 2024. Frontier in CA settled recently.
Thousand Oaks was legacy GTE which went to Verizon. I don’t know about Frontier — GTE is even further in my past than The Death Star. Regardless, the severing of the cable probably was a real accident.
I have a plan for tomorrow.
My ISP is a wISP. They do have some fiber but it'll never be anywhere on my side of the tracks. My plan is 30 down and 10 up. My ISP says he can run 300 Mbps speed tests to my radio. That my speed problems are all my fault.
Ok, I'll accept that blame when I find the problem. Perhaps the NanoBeam bridge isn't up to snuff. I do need to trim a couple of tree branches to be sure. Then again, the NanoBeam, either one, says they are chatting together at what looks like a zippy 400 Mbps on one and from 220 to 300 on the other. Hence the tree trimming.
There is one small detail. The PC out there, Moa, is wired to a switch. The NanoBeam is on the same switch. The output from the radio that is about 40 feet up in the air, is, you guessed it, plugged into its' power supply and then into the router and that goes to TADA!!! the same switch.
Running various speed tests on this PC or on Moa, same results. That rules out the NanoBeam bridge as a problem.
I have a laptop. It's some AMD thing my Mom was talked into buying by my fat sister. Runs Win7. It's clean of junk, I did the entire re-install routine. About all I've installed is Firefox. A few months ago, I connected it to the radio's output. And what a pain in the backside… finding something to set the laptop on, finding an extension cord for power, and the whole "I hate touchpads" love happening.
Anyway. Same speed results. That rules out my router, the switch, /and/ my Ethernet cables. Tomorrow's project is to use the ISP's newly approved speed test site many many times and save the web page and attach it to a support ticket.
When they came to install, the skinny red head guy did all the work while his fat boss sat in the truck. With the a/c on. In early April. The only thing replaced was the radio. No new surge suppressor though there was one on the hood of the truck for a while. New wiring down the mast? "Nah, it's good enough".
I could be full of cow droppings but I think the Ethernet cable from the radio to the power supply is failing. I use to get 25 to 33 Mbps down and 4 to 8 Mbps up. That's when my plan was for 25/5. The ISP jacked it up to 30/10. That was nice. Now I get between 12 and 27 down, usually about 16 to 18 and about point 5 Mbps up. I haven't changed anything on my LAN.
I forgot the bleach. 🙂
Heh. Reminds of a amusing Slashdot article (yes, they do exist, though only about as common as a good SNL skit) from a while back:
https://it.slashdot.org/story/06/01/19/1643215/the-backhoe-the-internets-natural-enemy
Should I be concerned that I can remember a Slashdot title from 2006, but not my current debit card PIN?
>> Sonic needs to bring back the two white guy doofuses in the car in their ads.
+1
And speaking of ads, I'm dumbfounded at most of what ran during the Super Bowl ™. At $6.5M for 30 seconds, does no one in in the C-suite have enough sense to stand up and say WTF before game day?
>> I'm not saying Nextdoor doesn't have its uses. I see people seeking recommendation for various services and some local motivated teens offering to do yardwork or babysitting to make a few bucks. However, I mostly find the site overwhelmingly annoying.
You're just jealous that Nirav Tolia has a net worth of around $50M (albeit not all from NextDoor).
And for some NextDoor laughs, check out https://twitter.com/bestofnextdoor
>> The new carwashes around here usually have a cute girl at the pay stations encouraging customers to buy subscriptions and then a couple of guys at the entrance to do minimal undercarriage scrubs and guide customers towards the belt as the vehicles approach the entrance.
Something smart at the new car wash near us that I haven't seen before – a big rectangular mirror mounted at a 45 degree angle over the entrance. You can see where your left front tire is in relation to the moving belt. Much easier to line up properly than just a worker making hand signals.
>> "Installing Windows 11 Pro to Require Internet Connection, Microsoft Account"
https://www.pcmag.com/news/installing-windows-11-pro-to-require-internet-connection-microsoft-account
I don't like this.
I just created a new Outlook.com email account that gets used for nothing else and so far has gotten no mail.
I didn't watch the Super Bowl, but I heard that a lot of ads for cryptocurrency companies aired. Maybe we have reached Peak Crypto.
I checked this ad out after the fact. I'm getting a mixed message here, GM. You *want* people to buy those overpriced monstrosities, right?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPolp4bN7QY
Rob Lowe’s Robert Wagner impersonation is getting better. He’s the right age to nail “Hart to Hart”-era Wagner.
Not that the impersonation was bad 20 years ago. Go watch the original “The Pink Panther” movie and then the Austin Powers flicks.
And, no, I don't want to see another Austin Powers flick right now. Mike Myers is yet another comedian who keeps apologizing for his success from 20 years ago, and "woke" Austin Powers wouldn't be the same.
WRT any classified docs at Trump's place, what were they concerning? Lots of stuff is classified that isn't important in any way.
More importantly, were the russians, and the chinese reading those docs while they were in a desk drawer at Trump's? Did half the world have unfettered access to Trump's docs? Did the FBI tell him not to do it and then let him when he did it anyway?
Nope, not equivalent at all.
n
The Simple Homespun Wisdom Formerly Ghostwritten by Carol Loomis of Fortune (TM) isn't due for another week, but The Gecko wanted to set the record straight on buying Activision stock ahead of the Microsoft bailout -er- acquisition. The letter is linked from the B-H home page.
https://berkshirehathaway.com/activisionltr.pdf
Not a bonanza, but still weird with the timing. The Gecko famously avoids Microsoft stock to avoid the apperance of impropriety, which is a shame because it has been the mythical “tenbagger” for me, having bought shares when the company inflicted Windows 8 upon the world and things looked dark for Redmond.
Not that the actual money number is exciting. It was my beer … well, soda … money. I still drink the same stuff, however.
Vantucky. We were broke for four years there. The only time I haven’t subsidized my wife’s practice of medicine is during her last (almost) three years working for the VA.
How much classified paper was cleaned out of the Kennedy compound up the beach when Uncle Ted sold the place after the rape scandal in the 90s? 30+ years plus the secrets of old Joe's bootlegging empire?
There are few civilian pieces of real estate more secure than the Palm Beach barrier island. Chappaqua it is not. Mar-a-lago itself sits just across the Intercoastal from the Palm Beach County Sheriff's HQ, and spent most of the 70s under the ownership of the Park Service while being considered for a Presidential retreat.
Once again, the documents will probably be a nothingburger. The paperwork could be the classified research on Mar-a-lago itself conducted by the Park Service. Trump spent a lot of years fighting the county in court over various issues related to the property, and they'll probably go back to fighting him in court.
Maybe not legal to possess after Trump left office, but not, say, Putin’s horse’s vet records.
Hands up — who else here has driven the barrier islands off Palm Beach county?
Drive onto the barrier islands in a Toyota, and you will be followed. I speak from experience.
BTW, the iHealth Koof test is available at Big River for $18 each (2 tests).
https://www.amazon.com/iHealth-COVID-19-Authorized-Non-invasive-Discomfort/dp/B09KZ6TBNY?tag=ttgnet-20/
The Binax Koof test (Abbott Labs) is available at Walmart for $20 each (2 tests).
https://www.walmart.com/ip/seort/142089281/
I've no idea what's in the docs at Mar-a-Lago, but does anyone think they can be worse than every one of Hillary's government emails on her private server, hacked by half the world, forwarded to her assistant, and some of those forwarded to her assistant's husband, Anthony Weiner?
Nope, didn't think so.
"A Cargo Ship With 4,000 Luxury Cars Is on Fire, Adrift in Atlantic Ocean"
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-cargo-ship-with-4-000-luxury-cars-is-on-fire-adrift-in-atlantic-ocean-11645201681
"Insurers estimated cargo worth $100 million; Porsche confirms 1,100 vehicles onboard"
There are pictures now. Looks like a total write-off.
I wonder how many of the Porsches were those 200 mph ePorsches with those huge batteries. I wonder if one of the batteries had an uh-oh.
If you cannot see the entire article then go through the Drudge Report.
https://www.drudgereport.com/
Once again, the documents will probably be a nothingburger. The paperwork could be the classified research on Mar-a-lago itself conducted by the Park Service. Trump spent a lot of years fighting the county in court over various issues related to the property, and they'll probably go back to fighting him in court.
Love letters from Kim Jong-un is my understanding of several of the papers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Jong-un
Re: classified docs. I don’t care what was on Hillary’s server and I don’t care what docs were in Trump’s possession. There are clear rules for handling classified, with different rules for different levels. One that applies to all though is it must be stored properly. A private email server? Nope. An ex-president’s house. I have no idea if there is approved storage there. To me it doesn’t seem like that would be allowed, but that is just a guess on my part. Does an ex-president retain clearance level forever? Is need to know revoked for a lot of things? Questions a few notches above my pay grade.
I've been thinking about this, and what I think is that it's bullshit. What you paying property taxes for? People with more money most likely have more expensive houses and thus pay more property tax. Bam, inequality rectified.
ISTR Nick saying that each elementary school class had a teacher and a paid assistant, plus parents to volunteer to help here and there. I'm guessing that the classes were fewer than sixty students, meaning that the teacher had a lighter load than the teachers did when I was in elementary school, and only very rarely did parents come in to help with anything. Nor were families expected to provide anything beyond paper and pencils and book covers (usually grocery bags).
@Lynn
" I wonder if one of the batteries had an uh-oh."
Made me start thinking about intentional uh-oh's.
[redacted]
Not posting that anywhere, or storing it in electronic form at all.
There is some irony in the electric vehicle zealots being pretty much a subset of the anti-nuke crowd.
@SteveF
"Nor were families expected to provide anything beyond paper and pencils and book covers (usually grocery bags)."
Primary was delivering the kid ready to learn–fed, clothed, and rested.
ADDED:
With education firmly under the control of the NEA and AFT in many states, having a bunch of parents around would inhibit the radical indoctrination crap that we’re seeing the full fruits of almost nationwide.
I have fond memories of my father buttonholing the school principal at an evening event at the junior high. He asked why the clocks were turned off in the halls, and was told that it was to keep students from waiting until the last second to go into class. Said principal then got thoroughly reamed, and to top it off was told that someone reasonably clever could repurpose the mechanisms to improve the traffic control in the notoriously uncontrolled parking lot, which was obviously designed by some over-edumacated idiot who knew nothing about traffic.
Watch the New Stasi making friends and influencing people with their equine friends in Canada.
Take a look at the horses being used, and compare breed selection with, say, the NYCPD mounted patrols in Central Park.
https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2022/02/18/watch-police-run-over-freedom-convoy-protesters-with-horses-face-lawsuit-n524427
The other day we were talking about sewing machines and I couldn't remember the name of another top brand, today I see it and it is — Pfaff.
WRT all the additional cr@p we do for the kid's school… it does keep the riff raff away, and there isn't actually an enforcement mechanism for the mandatory volunteering.
We both worked in theater so we have stuff and expertise to donate.
n