Tues. Feb. 22, 2022 – or TWOs-day, 2-22-22, I’m not the only one messing with dates!

By on February 22nd, 2022 in decline and fall, personal, WuFlu

Or 22-2-22…

Warmer, windy, possibility of rain here.   Didn’t get rain per se yesterday and the sun came out later.  84F at one point…  sure felt like spring.   We’re on the edge of rain and storms for the next three days according to the national forecast.  That usually means we don’t get rained on.

Spent yesterday at home, nursing my back.  Felt ok, right on the edge of bad for most of the day with occasionally solid pain.  Took some pain reliever before bed again.  Don’t want to lose control of this and end up hurting for a week.

Saw the Optometrist yesterday.  I’ve got a long and varied medical history with my eyes.   Not good things either.*  Most Drs are surprised I can see at all, let alone in the 20/20 to 20/40 range when they go through my medical history.  Since I was there with the kid, and she had an appointment open, I figured I’d just get checked.  And it was good.  Some of the really old stuff has healed to the point you can’t even tell.   She wrote a prescription if I want to get some actual glasses and correct the mild astig in one eye, but otherwise they’re close enough to each other, and the diopter is close enough to OTC cheaters, I can keep using inexpensive reading glasses.  That is great news as I’ve been stocking up on cheaters in the auctions.  I buy the ones Costco sells.  The metal rimmed glasses are pretty good quality.  I’ve got a decent stock for a couple of years anyway.

Today I’ll do a pickup or two, then head over to my client to finish up some notes.   That should fill the day.

Stacking money is good too, and I’m working on it.

Things are getting weirder, quicker.  I think the pebbles are starting to roll and pick up speed.  Stack it high and deep.

n

 

*traumatic flap cut in cornea- resulting in scarring and ‘bubbles’, arc flash damage from welding, massive arc flash damage from an electrical accident, chemical burns from laundry soap, laser burn from an industrial accident, LASIK before it was FDA approved, ulcer on cornea that wouldn’t heal for decades (now healed), PRK to correct astigmatism, deep corneal abrasion from poking my eye with my safety glasses (the one she’s most concerned about), infection from dirty contacts, sensitivity to flicker, and eye saccadic movement issues.  I am a firm believer in using safety glasses.

106 Comments and discussion on "Tues. Feb. 22, 2022 – or TWOs-day, 2-22-22, I’m not the only one messing with dates!"

  1. brad says:

    Getting to know one's tools – the Ego snowblower. We had about 4" to 6" of snow last night, but with lots of wind. When the snow isn't wind-packed, I can do the whole driveway on one charge, with plenty of charge left. With the wind, the steep section of the driveway gets drifts, and the drifts are really hard-packed from the wind.

    With the Ego snowblower, I am discovering that I can make one, at most two runs _up_ the steep part with the packed snow, and the batteries are basically empty. On the other hand, if I run up an empty track to the top (not blowing), and then blow on the way down (no drive), the batteries last much longer. Apparently, pushing them to their limits is not a good thing.

    The problem is: from the house, I first have to go up. So I have to clear that first track, whatever it takes. Then I managed a run down and then let the batteries charge while I did the hand shoveling (steps, walkways, terrace, etc.). Afterwards, I could finish the job. Not ideal, but it is what it is…

  2. Denis says:

    Glad to hear your eyes are back to being healthy, Nick. Your list of insults is cringeworthy.

    I rely on my eyesight for earning my living (lots of reading and on-screen work), so I am fanatic about using safety glasses for anything "dynamic". Particularly so after I had a scare when gas blow-by from a bad cartridge in a gub hit my cornea. It healed, but slowly, and was a frightening experience.

    I buy multiples of safety glasses to my ophthalmologist's prescription from Zenni Optical, such that they are cheap enough I can have several pairs around the place, with one always to hand if I have stuff to do. Since I got vari-focals for everyday use recently, I noticed that I need separate distance-vision glasses to be able to watch videos from a reclining position, so I got multiples of those from Zenni too, for +/- 20 bucks a pair. Recommended.

  3. brad says:

    safety glasses to my ophthalmologist's prescription

    Can recommend. My optician gave me a prescription about 10 years ago, "predicting" where my eyes would be going. Progressive lenses, so they were expensive. Well worth it, though, and his prediction has panned out really well. Also, here, your accident insurance subsidizes prescription safety glasses, which made the price more bearable.

  4. Nick Flandrey says:

    Now if only I'd taken my own advice and used something stronger than aspirin last night.  This morning I have far more back pain than I did yesterday.  I will try some stretches and tricks with the inversion table and foam roll, but I might not be going anywhere today.

    Getting old is not for the weak.

    n

  5. SteveF says:

    If you write it as 22022022, today's date is a palindrome.

    If you use "calculator font", today's date is also an ambigram.

  6. drwilliams says:

    Happy Twosday

  7. Ray Thompson says:

    which is a factor of 778.16929721166

    Approximately.

    Hey, don't knock Cobol! While it's true that nothing sophisticated can be done in Cobol, what can be done can be done very well indeed!

    I wrote a language compiler in COBOL. Language supported free form text, five types of variables, expressions, conditional logic and output formatting. That was ported to ALGOL and a lot of improvements made. Went from creating pseudo code to actual machine code. The COBOL code was not pretty.

    COBOL was designed as a records processing language. Batch processing. Basically banking application and it worked very well.

    When the bank I was at wanted to join the PULSE ATM network I was tasked with doing the interface. It was all done in COBOL. Two programs. One program was minor. All it did was send a message to the main program every three seconds. The main program handled all the traffic from the ONUS ATM's and the PULSE network.

    It was a completely different paradigm going from record processing to state processing. It was necessary for the COBOL program to handle multiple transactions which depended on external processes that took time and the rest of the processing could not wait. Thus the program had to keep track of all the ONUS ATMs, and all PULSE transactions against our system. When a message came in one of the last thing that was done was having the program look through all the states of the transactions and find out which ones needed further action. Either the ONUS ATMs had timed out or PULSE had timed out. It was also necessary to store transactions if PULSE was done or forward any stored transactions because PULSE had been down. This was done at a minimum of every 3 seconds due to the message from the timing program.

    Usual transactions in the bank were get a transaction, process and be done. PULSE was a case of perhaps requiring 5 or 6 transactions to complete an ATM transaction. Along with health messages to and from the ATMs. A transaction status had to be remembered to be able to continue the flow. An ATM withdrawal may require as many as six transactions between the host and the ATM. On-us ATM transactions were one and done. PULSE required a lot more effort.

    I tried to learn COBOL back in 1979 or so.  Couldn't.  Me and Cobol are not buds.

    I learned COBOL back in 1969. I was quite good at COBOL I had one program that was about 35K lines of code. I also knew FORTRAN, somewhat. I was not good at FORTRAN. Different minds I guess

    I regret not getting a new enough Highlander for the backup camera.  I really miss the backup camera in the 2008.  It does have the four sensors in the back though that beep just before you hit something.

    My 2013 has the backup camera but no sensors. I guess the sensors were an option, or maybe not even available. The camera is not very good compared to my F-150. In the F-150 I have guidance lines and a center line for hooking up a trailer. There is even a zoom option that really helps when hooking up a trailer. The Highlander camera sucks in comparison. The newer Highlanders have much better cameras.

  8. Greg Norton says:

    When I heard back from the doctor's yesterday about HEB and Losartin, the medical assistant told me that the chain only buys from one manufacturer. Any disruption at that plant and the pharmacists can't fill prescriptions for a very common drug.

    Kinda surprising for HEB. I always thought grocery store pharmacies were about foot traffic for the rest of the store.

  9. Greg Norton says:

    I learned COBOL back in 1969. I was quite good at COBOL I had one program that was about 35K lines of code. I also knew FORTRAN, somewhat. I was not good at FORTRAN. Different minds I guess

    Perl is the new COBOL for legacy Unix/Linux. I just ran into it again prototyping something at the new job. It was the only interpreter in the target environment, and no one has ever tried to build a cross compiler outside of the main embedded system build process.

    I'm not great at Perl, but I muddle through.

  10. Nick Flandrey says:

    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/public-health-scotland-stops-releasing-covid-data-protect-public-reaching-bad-conclusions

    According to papers like The Herald, the PHS will now withhold data after critics noted that, for the first time, the case rate among vaccinated (and boosted) individuals had overtaken the unvaccinated for Covid. The PHS notes that there are various reasons for this shift and that it does not support anti-vax theories.

    These officials raise some interesting points to explain the differential, including what is viewed as a higher testing rate for the vaccinated and the overestimation of the size of the unvaxxed population. However, that is the point. I was able to read the interpretation of both sides and reach my own conclusions.  These are not particularly complex explanations for the different rates.

    -first you can't talk about your conclusions from the data, then you can't even have the data.

    n

  11. Greg Norton says:

    -first you can't talk about your conclusions from the data, then you can't even have the data.

    It is going to be a long Spring/Summer until the midterms.

    Invoking Trump's name, complete with image, still sells papers and gets clicks, even in Scotland.

    “Death in Paradise” wraps for the season on Friday night.

  12. Nick Flandrey says:

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10537161/CDC-refusing-publish-data-collected-booster-effectiveness-aged-18-49.html

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has withheld vast swaths of the information it holds about the impact of COVID-19, leading to anger from the scientific community and speculation the agency is not releasing the data because it weakens the case for booster shots in certain demographics.

    Two weeks ago, the CDC published the first significant data on the effectiveness of boosters in adults younger than 65.

    But the agency, led by Dr Rochelle Walensky, did not share the information on those aged 18-49, who are considered to be the least likely to benefit from a booster.

    It has also failed to provide information they held on child hospitalizations, scientists complained.

    Kristen Nordlund, a spokeswoman for the CDC, said the agency has been slow to release the different streams of data 'because basically, at the end of the day, it's not yet ready for prime time.'

    She said the agency's 'priority when gathering any data is to ensure that it's accurate and actionable,' and told The New York Times that they were concerned it might be misinterpreted to show the vaccines were ineffective.

    She also said that they were reluctant to publish the data because it represents only 10 percent of the population of the United States – accounting for 33 million people – the same sample size the CDC has used to track influenza for years.

    n

  13. Pecancorner says:

    She also said that they were reluctant to publish the data because it represents only 10 percent of the population of the United States – accounting for 33 million people – the same sample size the CDC has used to track influenza for years.

    Long before COVID, I started complaining about how the CDC was lying about Flu, and how they actually admit their lies.  Flu does not kill anyone, but there is a vaccine, so the CDC helps out by grossly inflating the numbers and inventing danger that doesn't exist. The CDC has long thrown every case of pneumonia (and other things) into a bucket and labelled it "flu". The CDC also doesn't think the Flu test results are "enough", so they make up imaginary numbers of cases and just add those pretend statistics into the Flu bucket.  And they admit it.

     However, "everyone" (other than Sharyl Attkisson and a few others) goes along with the Flu fiction, even people who have balked about COVID. So I guess the CDC is afraid someone of influence will draw back the curtain on Flu and show the whole mess for what it is: useless, imaginary, fiction, full of sound and fury but signifying nothing real.

  14. MrAtoz says:

    I feel sorry for Canadians now that TrueDope is their Emperor. Once you give goobermint supreme power, they aren’t giving it back. Of course politicians voted for it. They have nothing to lose and riches beyond their wildest dreams to gain.

    WWpD: What Will plugs Do now that Putin has called his bluff. Better yet, What Will NATO Do. Things are getting dicey in Europe/Russia. Do we really need to throw blood and treasure at it?

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  15. lpdbw says:

    I tried to learn COBOL back in 1979 or so.  Couldn't.  Me and Cobol are not buds.

    You're a Fortran guy because you're a "real" engineer, and COBOL isn't how you think.  As an "engineer" trained in Computer Science, I view all languages as 1) mostly equivalent and 2) flawed.  It's figuring out how to do things in a new language that you could do in an old one that's difficult.

    They finally added recursion to Fortran 77, right?  Now THAT was a severe limitation for CS guys like me.

    I'm not great at Perl, but I muddle through.

    If anyone tells you they write great Perl code, they're probably lying, or at least fooling themselves.  Maintenance of Perl is harder than C, because the language itself is too customizable and free from standards.  And the people who write Perl think their code is obvious, so why write comments?

  16. Chad says:

    I tried to learn COBOL back in 1979 or so. Couldn't.  Me and Cobol are not buds.

    I may have mentioned this before on here, but some of the local employers around here were so hard up for COBOL programmers back in the early 2000s that they would take high school graduates, pay to send them to community college to get a 6-month certificate (not an associates or bachelors) in COBOL programming, then guarantee them a job, and as long as they worked there for 3 years they didn't have to pay back the tuition.

    My high school only offered two programming languages: Pascal and Fortran. There were pre-reqs on what level of math you had to have completed before taking them and you also needed the teacher's approval. Now, I think basic coding (block coding) is part of most public school curriculum no matter what your math aptitude or the teacher's opinion of you.

    Saw the Optometrist yesterday.

    I was at like 20/200 in both eyes – farsighted. I got Lasik on 2022-01-28. So far, so good. First 4 or 5 hours afterwards sucked hardcore (itchy, burning, watery eyes that feel like there's sand in them but you can't touch them or rub them). After those first several hours they very quickly stop bothering you. I chose to sleep those hours like they recommended (they gave me a valium before the procedure and when I got home I added a couple of leftover oxy's to it and zonked out for most of the afternoon). Woke up with nearly perfect vision (distance was good, but up close was a bit blurry). By the next day I was pretty much good to go. I still have a random day (or part of a day here and there) where near or far is a tad blurry but random things like that are suppose to occur for the first month or two. There was a promo going on, but still ended up costing about $2K/eye. I looked at getting it done back in 2005, but back then they couldn't fully correct farsightedness as bad as mine (Lasik is more effective on nearsightedness which is what most people with corrective lenses have). If only the younger getting-made-fun-of-daily-for-my-coke-bottle-glasses version of me could see me now… lol

  17. Nick Flandrey says:

    Thousands of Russian troops are already in Ukraine, military sources have warned today, just hours after Putin gave the order for his forces to cross the border amid fears he is about to launch a land-grab in the country's east.

    More than 10,000 soldiers entered separatist-occupied areas overnight, a source with links to Ukrainian military intelligence told MailOnline, with 6,000 sent to Donetsk, 5,000 to Luhansk and 1,500 to the city of Horlivka. 'It is difficult to believe [Putin] could have moved that quickly – but he had a long time to prepare,' the source said.

    It came off the back of videos which showed a column of vehicles rolling through Donetsk in the early hours, including tanks, armoured troop carriers and trucks. Insignia were not visible, but there was little doubt they were Russian forces deployed on Putin's orders. Russia officially denied sending any troops, saying a decision on deploying will be made in response to 'threats'.

    –so the thing in Ukraine is kicking off with a 'fig leaf' of securing a separatist region…

    –the Canadian government went ahead and passed the Emergency Powers thing…

    what are the chinese up to that we're not seeing?

    what happened to the european banking crisis?

    where is the horror of Brits starving because of Brexit?

    meanwhile, the flood of invaders over our southern border continues

    the banks are all still in worse shape than they were in 2008

    Oil is back up to crazy highs

    what changed for Putin?  Did he finally get the financial alternatives in place?  I guess we'll see when the "sanctions" are announced.

    n

  18. Greg Norton says:

     However, "everyone" (other than Sharyl Attkisson and a few others) goes along with the Flu fiction, even people who have balked about COVID. So I guess the CDC is afraid someone of influence will draw back the curtain on Flu and show the whole mess for what it is: useless, imaginary, fiction, full of sound and fury but signifying nothing real.

    An ongoing flu emergency will make it easier for the FDA to issue an EUA for a mRNA-based "super" flu shot, similar to what was done for Covid, with full immunity for Pfizer or whoever else wants a piece of the action.

    Based on what I caught of a conference my wife attended virtually from our house last month, I believe a quiet effort is also underway to rev up an AIDS "crisis" to justify that upcoming vaccine experiment, but not many people are going buy into that concept anymore after 40 years of BS, a lot of the early nonsense coming from Pope Fauxi himself.

  19. Chad says:

    If anyone tells you they write great Perl code, they're probably lying, or at least fooling themselves.  Maintenance of Perl is harder than C, because the language itself is too customizable and free from standards.  And the people who write Perl think their code is obvious, so why write comments?

    Perl got real popular in the mid-90s when the web exploded. It was sort of the first really popular backend language for websites (remember, CGI?). I hated it. I was really into my personal homepage at the time and was teaching myself HTML and wanting to do more and Perl just seemed confusing to me at the time (coupled with the fact that my free webhost didn't give me any kind of access to do much with it). I was happy when PHP, Python, ASP/VBScript, and others came along and blew it out of the water as a web language. So, needless to say my early struggles and frustrations with Perl sort of permanently poisoned it to me.

  20. Greg Norton says:

    Perl got real popular in the mid-90s when the web exploded. It was sort of the first really popular backend language for websites

    Perl was the first Hot Skillz language, which sold a lot of books for O'Reilly and others.

    The problem is that the Hot Skillz crowd went to far in trying to turn Perl into a kind of career barrier, a “moat” in Buffett-speak, and Perl 6 was crushed under the weight of expectations that it would provide endless job security to those who bought all the books and wrote the undecipherable code.

    Cough … Javascript … cough.

    You know things are bad when a whole major release of a software product — Perl 6 — simply gets renamed and abandoned after a *decade* of work.

    While it has many downsides, one upside to Perl is that it is always around, even in our target embedded environment at work. And for file system manipulation, it is very fast, with Posix calls not locked behind layers of cross platform cruft like Python.

  21. nick flandrey says:

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10538587/Canadas-mounted-police-investigate-texts-officers-gloating-protesters-trampled.html

    'Just watch that horse video. That is awesome': Ottawa cops' gloating texts after peaceful Freedom Convoy protesters were TRAMPLED by police horse – including grandmother on mobility scooter – and beaten up by officers

    • Police forces in Canada are coming under scrutiny for their excessive violence with peaceful Freedom Convoy protesters in Ottawa 
    • Leaked messages from a police group chat showed cops gloating at the brutality 
    • The officers in the group chat were allegedly celebrating the moment a grandmother who uses a mobility scooter was trampled by mounted police 
    • The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) has not yet verified the authenticity of the messages, but said they will investigate the texts  
    • On Monday, police confirmed the arrest of 196 Freedom Convoy protesters 
    • Several video clips have shown peaceful protesters being beaten into submission, including one of a man who claims he was beaten after having peacefully turned himself in 
    • The approach has sparked fury at faux-liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau  

    It comes as the province's Special Investigations Unit (SIU) announced it was investigating an incident in which a 49-year-old woman was 'seriously injured' in an interaction with a police horse.  

    –nice turn of phrase, "interaction"

    'This material is not representative of those who have committed themselves to serving Canadians with integrity and professionalism,' the statement read, claiming the RCMP had 'put in place measures to ensure the continued integrity of police operations as well as the safety of our members.'

    –um, nope it's representative of those who glory in power over others, of which there are always some, in any org.   And I note that the spokesperson's mention of continued police operations and safety of cops, rather than any statements about the people they allegedly serve, is telling.    Officer Safety meme in the US — the highest goal of the org is officer safety, used to justify all sorts of tactics.

    n

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  22. Mark W says:

    Uh, isn’t that data right here,

    Thanks for the link. You do realize the mistake was at the DM, not by Nick? And anyway, it may have been correct at the time of publication, although it's DM so probably not.

  23. nick flandrey says:

    No it's more than that.

    Data isn't a chart that has been "age corrected" or massaged in any way, with no definitions given for the categories.  "Fully Vaccinated" changed, didn't it?   Whatever the outraged scientists wanted, and I admit the article isn't specific, they didn't get with a chart.

    Another expressed shock that the CDC had the data at all.

    'We have been begging for that sort of granularity of data for two years,' said Jessica Malaty Rivera, an epidemiologist and part of the team that ran the Covid Tracking Project, which brought together data on the pandemic for a website they ran until March 2021.

    –there isn't any granularity in the chart.   

    Another thing the chart is lacking is markers for when the "boosters" became available, or what percentage of the relevant population was vaccinated on any of the dates.   If no one is vaccinated, no vaxed people will show up in  the hospital.  (this is the flipped version of Ech's past argument that seeing more vaxed people in the sick category is natural if there are more vaxed people in the population.

    There are a bunch of other things you can say about the graphs too.  whether they mean anything or not is the question.

    n

  24. lynn says:

    "DS Arms 5.56X45 MM M193 Ammunition – 55 Gr. FMJ – 1000 Rounds – 50 Boxes – Free Shipping"

         https://dsarms.com/p-17395-ds-arms-556×45-mm-m193-ammunition-55-gr-fmj-1000-rounds-50-boxes-free-shipping.aspx

    1,000 rounds (20 boxes) of India made 5.56 FMJ for $470.  Packed in a .50 cal ammo box.

  25. Greg Norton says:

    Tyler Durden byline but linking to Jonathan Turley. No cowardice, but I doubt Mr. Turley plans to take a trip north anytime soon.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/turley-canada-extends-trudeaus-emergency-powers-after-protest-has-ended

    Close that barn door! That’ll get that horse’s mind right … wherever he went.

  26. lynn says:

    "Supreme Court to Decide Constitutional Right to Deny Service to Same-Sex Couples"

         https://www.wsj.com/articles/supreme-court-to-decide-constitutional-right-to-deny-service-to-same-sex-couples-11645542502

    "The high court has yet to rule squarely as to whose rights—the LGBT community’s or religious conservatives’—must yield when they directly conflict."

    Being religious, I think that the LGBT rights must yield to the religious rights when they conflict.  Religious rights and the right of association are both in the Bill of Rights.  LGBT rights are made up by Congress.

    Hat tip to (and you can go around the WSJ paywall when clicking at the Drudge Report middle column):

        https://drudgereport.com/

    I looked at https://www.scotusblog.com/ but could not find mention of the case yet.

  27. nick flandrey says:

    For instance, flip between the age groups and the charts look very similar, except the kids younger than 17.

    Flipping between age groups, there is a lot of 'noise' in the numbers for each date, except from roughly the end of June thru the beginning of Aug.  THAT part of the chart is VERY SMOOTH particularly for 50s, and pretty  damn smooth for 65+.   For kids it's jagged and noisy as hell, which suggests the sample size was FAR too small. 

    Also, I've never liked that the age 'buckets' aren't the same size range.  I haven't seen any graph showing that 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s all have the same response and can be lumped together, or that 60-65 should be in with the 50s group and not the "60+s" group.   You can skew the "adult" group of 18-65 higher if the 60-65 group has higher stats more similar to the 65+ group than the <60 group.

    All the age groups show a SHARP increase in "covid associated hospitalizations" among the "fully vaxed"  in Dec.

    kids go from .2 to 3.2  — 16x!

    adults go from 1 to ~ 10  — 10x!

    late middle age go from 3.6 to 20.6  — 5.7x

    seniors go from 14 to 57  — 4x

    While in percentage terms the unvaxed change much less.

    kids go from 2.7 to 12 — 4.5x

    adults go from 19 to 54 — 3x

    late middle age go from 78 to 137 — 1.7x

    seniors go from 190 to 426 — 2x

    One could say that covid hospitalizations increased among vaccinated kids almost 4 times the rate for unvaxed kids during December!

    Another thing you could say is that for a year (half year for kids) the hospitalization rate for vaxed people was essentially unchanged, until December when the rate increased dramatically across all ages. 

    OR no matter what percentage of the population was vaxed, their rate of hospitalization didn't change much until December, when it exploded.

    also, the December increases were not fueled by Holiday travel, as the spikes all started before the holidays, with infection happening even earlier.

    Another issue I have with the charts as presented is they keep changing the scale and the range of the axis.

    Looking at the booster charts, with all the changing scales you might not realize that UNvaxed adults (for the length of the chart, 11/27 – 1/8) start with a lower rate than fully vaxed oldsters, and end will a rate about HALF of fully vaxed oldsters.

    Easy to mislead with charts.

    gah, and now I really am behind in my day.

    n

  28. MrAtoz says:

    "Supreme Court to Decide Constitutional Right to Deny Service to Same-Sex Couples"

    Whatever happened to the FUSA? Any private business should be able to deny service to anyone for any reason. Period.

  29. nick flandrey says:

    @NaN  "Scroll down to the section I originally referred to (“Data Table for Rates of COVID-19-Associated Hospitalizations by Vaccination and Additional or Booster Dose Status”)."

    –did you look at the "data" in the d/l?   It's just the points from the charts.  It's not the data set the charts are derived from.   The 'angry scientists' want the data.

    n

  30. MrAtoz says:

    Just so you know American politicians are as dumb as Canadian politicians:

    Dem Rep. Ruben Gallego wants the government to seize trucks participating in the DC convoy and redistribute them

    I'm glad US Citizens have about a billion guns in their possession. Or in the river.

  31. Greg Norton says:

    also, the December increases were not fueled by Holiday travel, as the spikes all started before the holidays, with infection happening even earlier.

    Diwali was Nov. 4. Strictly anecdotal, but my wife sees the link between the holiday and cases where she works.

  32. nick flandrey says:

    Whatever happened to the FUSA? Any private business should be able to deny service to anyone for any reason.

    —  incrementalism, slippery slope, expansion of "protected classes", and 'making a Federal case' out of everything.   SCOTUS wanted to expand the power of the judiciary and took cases that should have been kicked to the curb at lower levels.  State supreme courts too.

    n

  33. nick flandrey says:

    Or in the river.

    I continue to be amazed at the number of guns the magnet fishers on youtube pull out of rivers.   I think the estimates of total guns in the US seriously underestimates the number of used once and thrown in a river crime guns.   I've watched just one guy, Dani Dips, pull dozens of guns out of the water.

    n

  34. lpdbw says:

    There's "in the river" and there's "lost in a tragic boating accident".

    Two different categories.

    I wonder how many sealed PVC pipes are buried in the ground with gubs in them…

  35. nick flandrey says:

    Looking further at the footnotes on the CDC page, there is a lot of data manipulation going on to normalize and adjust for various factors.   Some is only generally defined, some specifically.  You'd have to trust that it was consistent, accurate, and done in good faith…

    There are some other things in the footnotes that may or may not be relevant.  

    They discard "partially" vaxed patients.  

    Because of the way they "link" vax and booster status, " [it] can lead to over-estimates of first doses and under-estimates of subsequent doses, and underestimates of hospitalization rates in those who received additional or booster doses."   [bold added]

    The vax data is from a subset of the US — "COVID-19 vaccination data from COVID-NET catchment areas in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland (through November), Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee, and Utah are included."  [the data from these states may or may not accurately reflect the general condition of the whole of the US or of any other part of it  -n.]

    More data manipulation, more chances for bias or error — "Vaccination records missing county of residence (or state of residence for Maryland) are not included. Some COVID-NET sites collect vaccination data on only a subsample of cases; for those sites, data on vaccination status are statistically weighted to account for non-response and the probability of being selected as a sampled case.  "

    yet more data manipulation –" Continuity correction: A continuity correction has been applied to the denominators by capping the percent population vaccination coverage at 95%. To do this, we assumed that at least 5% of each age group would always be unvaccinated in each jurisdiction. Adding this correction ensures that there is always a reasonable denominator for the unvaccinated population that would prevent hospitalization rates from growing unrealistically large due to potential overestimates of vaccination coverage. 

    –I'm pretty sure that all these sorts of baked in corrections and adjustments are why other scientists want the actual data, not summary charts.   I'd like a live spreadsheet, so I can change some of their fudge factors and see if the changed results vary a lot or a little.  Maybe they are important, maybe they are not, but without being about to test the models, and see the adjustments, who knows?

    n

  36. nick flandrey says:

    I wonder how many sealed PVC pipes are buried in the ground with gubs in them…

    –probably more now than at any previous point, excepting maybe the start of the Semiauto weapons ban…

    n

  37. Greg Norton says:

    Diwali was Nov. 4. Strictly anecdotal, but my wife sees the link between the holiday and cases where she works.

    I forgot to add that the US eased inbound travel restrictions on November 8.

  38. nick flandrey says:

    Female World Cup official flees Qatar to avoid a sentence of 100 lashes and seven years in jail for 'extramarital sex' after reporting that she was RAPED

    • Paola Schietekat, 28, faces 100 lashes and seven years in jail for extramarital sex
    • Mexican woman charged after she reported being raped while working in Qatar
    • Lawyers told her she could possibly avoid a conviction by marrying her attacker
    • The man, a colleague, allegedly broke into her apartment, threatening to kill her 
    • Schietekat, who has since left the Gulf state, was helping to organise World Cup

    –islam is incompatible with western civilization.  Where are the p#ssy hats in support of this woman?  Where are the hashtag warriors? 

    Let them learn to drink oil and eat sand.  We need energy independence and to let the middle east rot in a hell of their own making.

    n

  39. lpdbw says:

    Sigh.  Dealing with a new account at my credit union, trying to enroll in bill pay.

    Error message pops up, and I reckon some programmer named Jenkins accidentally pointed production to his working directory.  At least, the C# error messages point to D:\Jenkins\workspace\…

    Version control?  Change control?  Testing? That's for weaklings.

  40. Ray Thompson says:

    Let them learn to drink oil and eat sand.  We need energy independence and to let the middle east rot in a hell of their own making.

    Let them learn to drink oil camel piss and eat sand.  We need energy independence and to let the middle east rot in a hell of their own making.

    Fixed it for you.

  41. Greg Norton says:

    —  incrementalism, slippery slope, expansion of "protected classes", and 'making a Federal case' out of everything.   SCOTUS wanted to expand the power of the judiciary and took cases that should have been kicked to the curb at lower levels.  State supreme courts too.

    Plus, never underestimate the power or tenacity of the Bridezilla. Notice how these denied services are wedding-related.

    Gay men can be Bridezillas too.

  42. Greg Norton says:

    Error message pops up, and I reckon some programmer named Jenkins accidentally pointed production to his working directory.  At least, the C# error messages point to D:\Jenkins\workspace\…

    Ha! Jenkins is a Hot Skillz build management system. "Continuous Integration".

    It isn't enough anymore to ask developers to not check in code which does not compile cleanly.

    Jenkins goes to far in some cases, however, IMHO, particularly in the case of Bash linters with some highly subjective catches. At the last job, the DevOps dweeb caught the boss's ear and became the defacto system architect, and his personal hangups about what was appropriate in Bash were expressed in the Jenkins build process.

    I spent days fixing working scripts because of something stupid like lines too long or variable names too short.

  43. Brad says:

    Serving LGBT customers? Hmmm… Seems to me this can go one of two ways. (1) a business has to serve *all* customets. In which case Facebook has to stop their stupid bans, financial services can't refuse either conservative business or sex workers, etc, etc. Or (2) businesses can serve who they want, and refuse who the want, for any reason at all.

    Re the woman fleeing Qatar: some cultures are better than others. Not PC, but true. I really don't understand why progs spend so much time fussing about minor issues, while ignoring the massive problems with Islamic culture. Like the child rapes in the UK, which were ignored for years, because no one wanted to be racist. 

    10
  44. lynn says:

    which is a factor of 778.16929721166

    Approximately.

    Yup.  I believe that when the FTL matter transmitters start being used, we will need at least 60 digits of precision. After all, you do not want to end up in the middle of a star. Disturbing a few hydrogen atoms is bad enough.

  45. nick flandrey says:

    BTW, why the CDC booster effectiveness data is important.

    Some things would be nice to know..

    – is there one 'booster' that exclusively or overwhelmingly shows up in hospitalization?

    -what is the length of time between booster shot and hospital admit, broken down by booster/initial vax/and any combo thereof.

    -are the vaxed and boosted showing up at the hospital with similar symptoms, ie SIDE EFFECTS of the shots?

    – what are their outcomes, length of admit, discharge status, broken down again by brand, combo, and time.

    – what complaints are leading to the admits, and are they different for jabbed and unjabbed? 

    -what are the RAW NUMBERS, not massaged and corrected into rates or percentages, or xtimes more likely …. again broken down as above.

    – what do the charts look like when you divide the age buckets equally, or are there natural break points?

    -what do the charts look like when the axis and ranges are held constant?

    -what do the charts look like when you graph the RATE OF CHANGE vs the RATE of hospitalization?

    -how does the data from the surveillance area compare to the US as a whole, the individual states, foreign countries?

    –I don't even play a scientist on TV or sleep at Holiday Inn Express, and I came up with those questions in seconds.  I'm sure there are even more important  questions that could be answered by some detailed data.

    n

  46. lynn says:

    Pearls Before Swine: Dog Doing Business On The Lawn

       https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2022/02/22

    Yes, that is outrageous.

  47. lynn says:

    Peanuts: Rain Or Shine

        https://www.gocomics.com/peanuts/2022/02/22

    Poor Rerun.

  48. SteveF says:

    Like the child rapes in the UK, which were ignored for years, because no one wanted to be racist.

    Some men in the police or political hierarchy were getting their wicks wet.

    BTW, why the CDC booster effectiveness data is important.

    Some things would be nice to know..

    Not only which brand of shots each patient got, but the lot numbers. For at least one of the brands, different doses were provided in different batches, with some of the batches being placebo.

    We need energy independence and to let the middle east rot in a hell of their own making.

    I must be getting old. It seems like barely over a year ago that the US was energy-independent.

  49. lynn says:

    Based on what I caught of a conference my wife attended virtually from our house last month, I believe a quiet effort is also underway to rev up an AIDS "crisis" to justify that upcoming vaccine experiment, but not many people are going buy into that concept anymore after 40 years of BS, a lot of the early nonsense coming from Pope Fauxi himself.

    My cousin Seanan wrote an entire sf series, "Feed", about the government inventing a zombie virus and then using the virus to manipulate the people of the nation.  Of course the virus got out of hand.  Of course there was no publicly known vaccine.

         https://www.amazon.com/Feed-Newsflesh-Book-Mira-Grant/dp/0316081051?tag=ttgnet-20/

    So, are we getting ready to have the AIDS virus go rampaging through the populace ?  Now that is a conspiracy theory worth mentioning.

  50. Ray Thompson says:

    What a cluster fornication. I went to the IRS website to signon and look at my account. ID.ME has to be used to signon. It requires uploading a copy of the front and back of a driver's license and the main page of the passport. VA identification will not work. Then there is the wait of 90 minutes for a video call where the same documents have to be presented. VA identification will not work. ID.ME has to do a screen capture. The lady on the other end of the video call was missing several front teeth, probably from meth at one time in her life. Probably had not seen a dentist in about 68 years.

    Not impressed. Since I already have an ID.ME account to signon to VA websites. Why does the IRS require another account on ID.ME? I feel sorry for older people without computers or technical skills. Important sites, especially government sites where access is needed for benefits, cannot be easily accessed. People are being shut out from access to important stuff.

    And in other news, got a check from the VA to reimburse for prescriptions I paid for since July. Since I am now at 50% or higher disability rating all prescriptions are paid 100% by the VA. No deductible or copay. The VA did the reimbursement without me even asking. I had planned to just ignore the reimbursement as filing would be another adventure in frustration. Now if I could just get the VA to properly reimburse for travel, another arduous adventure on the VA website.

  51. lynn says:

    I tried to learn COBOL back in 1979 or so.  Couldn't.  Me and Cobol are not buds.

    You're a Fortran guy because you're a "real" engineer, and COBOL isn't how you think.  As an "engineer" trained in Computer Science, I view all languages as 1) mostly equivalent and 2) flawed.  It's figuring out how to do things in a new language that you could do in an old one that's difficult.

    They finally added recursion to Fortran 77, right?  Now THAT was a severe limitation for CS guys like me.

    Yeah, but I love C++.  One of these days I am going to write my own Fortran to C++ converter and convert all my Fortran code to C++.  One of these days. 

    I wrote my own Smalltalk to C++ converter about 20 years ago.  It was fairly easy even though Smalltalk is untyped and C++ is strongly typed.  I just typed all the Smalltalk variables as "ObjPtr *" and then converted them all by hand.  Was not a huge problem with 250,000 lines of the resulting C++ code.

    The biggest problem in converting Fortran to C++ is the base index for arrays is different, 1 for Fortran and 0 for C++.  That is an incredibly difficult problem to solve automatically.  And our Fortran code is all about arrays.

    And the recursion came in Fortran 90.  I would not trust it.

  52. lynn says:

    "Supreme Court to Decide Constitutional Right to Deny Service to Same-Sex Couples"

    Whatever happened to the FUSA? Any private business should be able to deny service to anyone for any reason. Period.

    No shoes, no shirt, no service used to be incredibly popular.

  53. lynn says:

    Looking further at the footnotes on the CDC page, there is a lot of data manipulation going on to normalize and adjust for various factors.   Some is only generally defined, some specifically.  You'd have to trust that it was consistent, accurate, and done in good faith…

    There are some other things in the footnotes that may or may not be relevant.  

    They discard "partially" vaxed patients.  

    Because of the way they "link" vax and booster status, " [it] can lead to over-estimates of first doses and under-estimates of subsequent doses, and underestimates of hospitalization rates in those who received additional or booster doses."   [bold added]

    The vax data is from a subset of the US — "COVID-19 vaccination data from COVID-NET catchment areas in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland (through November), Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee, and Utah are included."  [the data from these states may or may not accurately reflect the general condition of the whole of the US or of any other part of it  -n.]

    More data manipulation, more chances for bias or error — "Vaccination records missing county of residence (or state of residence for Maryland) are not included. Some COVID-NET sites collect vaccination data on only a subsample of cases; for those sites, data on vaccination status are statistically weighted to account for non-response and the probability of being selected as a sampled case.  "

    yet more data manipulation –" Continuity correction: A continuity correction has been applied to the denominators by capping the percent population vaccination coverage at 95%. To do this, we assumed that at least 5% of each age group would always be unvaccinated in each jurisdiction. Adding this correction ensures that there is always a reasonable denominator for the unvaccinated population that would prevent hospitalization rates from growing unrealistically large due to potential overestimates of vaccination coverage. 

    –I'm pretty sure that all these sorts of baked in corrections and adjustments are why other scientists want the actual data, not summary charts.   I'd like a live spreadsheet, so I can change some of their fudge factors and see if the changed results vary a lot or a little.  Maybe they are important, maybe they are not, but without being about to test the models, and see the adjustments, who knows?

    n

    All this nonsense with manipulating base data before releasing it started with the Global Warming socalled scientists.  That crowd manipulates everything now and calls it base data.  The rest of the government salaried scientists are obviously jealous.

  54. RickH says:

    went to the IRS website to signon and look at my account. ID.ME has to be used to signon. It requires uploading a copy of the front and back of a driver's license and the main page of the passport.

    The IRS has announced (yesterday/Monday) that they are eliminating the ID.ME stuff from their web site relating to tax returns. This was announced 21 Feb 2022: https://www.npr.org/2022/02/22/1082283039/the-irs-is-allowing-taxpayers-to-opt-out-of-facial-recognition-to-verify-account

    That article does state:

    The agency says account holders can still choose the selfie option, administered by ID.Me. But if they'd rather not, the agency says, taxpayers will have the option of verifying their identity "during a live, virtual interview with agents; no biometric data – including facial recognition – will be required if taxpayers choose to authenticate their identity through a virtual interview."

    The IRS announced the new option on Monday. It says that ID.Me will destroy any selfie already submitted to the company, and that those selfies now on file will also be permanently deleted "over the course of the next few weeks."

  55. paul says:

    I wonder how many sealed PVC pipes are buried in the ground with gubs in them…

    I've thought about this.  A buried gub is useless.  If they are coming for gubs that's the time to use them.  If they are searching thoroughly enough that you need to bury your gub, I assume they have metal detectors.

    I've not used a metal detector.  How deep can they detect?

    Might as well hide them in the attic.  Or a hidey place in your house.  The kick panel under the kitchen cabinets sounds good.  Air ducts would work.  Flip your sofa over and ti-wrap it to the springs.  Be creative.

  56. Mark W says:

    >Like the child rapes in the UK, which were ignored deliberately covered up for years, because no one wanted to be racist.

    Thousands of kids sacrificed by the left because being seen not to be racist was more important.

  57. lynn says:

    We need energy independence and to let the middle east rot in a hell of their own making.

    I must be getting old. It seems like barely over a year ago that the US was energy-independent.

    Stop shipping 4 to 5 million barrels a day of crude oil, high octane gasoline, LNG, diesel, and natural gas to Mexico, Canada, Europe, and the Caribbean out of the 19 million barrels per day we use in the USA and we are close, very close to energy independence.  Creepy Joe is doing his best to stop all this.

  58. Mark W says:

    Is there a good reason why *all* government agency data is not released? Everything except HR data, including internal emails. We pay for it, so why not?

    As Nick pointed out, the downloadable data appears to only be the data used to create the graph. Why can't we see all the source data? Why can't we see all their internal data? They have data scientists who produce those graphs. We pay for the data and the analyses of it, it's ours.

  59. lynn says:

    "Tensions grow over calls to restrict financing for oil, gas industry"

       https://www.ogj.com/general-interest/economics-markets/article/14234388/tensions-grow-over-calls-to-restrict-financing-for-oil-gas-industry

    "The stage has been set for conflicts over the financing of oil, gas, and coal operations as the idea of boycotting or disinvesting in those industries has gained momentum."

    You know, at some point banks will not provide financing to anyone due to politics.

  60. paul says:

    Why can't we see all the source data? Why can't we see all their internal data? They have data scientists who produce those graphs. We pay for the data and the analyses of it, it's ours.

    Because we would then know for sure that it's all lies?  Just making a guess.

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  61. lynn says:

    "Red Lightning (A Thunder and Lightning Novel)" by John Varley
       https://www.amazon.com/Red-Lightning-Thunder-Novel/dp/0441014887?tag=ttgnet-20/

    Book number two of a four book space opera series. I reread the well printed and well bound MMPB book published by Ace in 2005 that I bought used on Amazon since most of my books are boxed in the garage. In fact, I have read this book at least three to four times now. I have ordered new copies of books three and four. Too bad the first and second books in the series are out of print.

    I am a big fan of the Heinlein books, especially the juveniles. This book is extremely inspired by the Heinlein juveniles but it is not a juvenile. Somewhere of a cross between the juveniles and Stranger in a Strange Land and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. One note is that all of the characters in the book use names from Heinlein's books.

    The book is extreme hard science except for the squeezer that Jubal invents. Everything in the book is doable with today's science and engineering, and will be done, if someone invents a cheap spaceship drive that can boost thousands of tons at one gravity from Earth to anywhere in the Solar System. Or, Alpha Centauri or anywhere else in the 5 to 20 light years away distance.

    The book starts off with a space ship hitting the Earth at 0.999999 of light speed in the Atlantic off the coast of Florida. Millions dead with the 300 foot tsunami that washed over Florida and Caribbean. Then Jubal Broussard, the inventor of the Squeezer and in a virtual prison on the Falkland Islands, turns up missing.

    My review from the distant past: "Book number two of a four book space opera series. This is my second or third reread of this book, the sequel to one of my top ten all time favorite books. BTW, I would characterize this book as young adult SF but not juvenile SF.
    Generation starships need to have safety systems that do not allow them to hit the Earth if they get turned around. Just sayin'.
    I need a squeezer generator !"

    The author has a blog and posts there fairly often.
       https://varley.net/

    My rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
    Amazon rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars (160 reviews)

  62. Mark W says:

    Because we would then know for sure that it's all lies?

    Bingo.

    Also, "you aren't a certified doctor/epidemiologist/data scientist so clearly there's no way for you to understand the data"

  63. paul says:

    Morons abound.  I'm not exactly sure where the latest moron is.

    The cold front started rolling in about 45 minutes ago. 

    I've been hearing bulldozer sort of noises for a few days.  Somewhere between me and town.  North east  but a bit more to the east.

    So the front is kicking up enough that all of the wind chimes are uh, chiming and my yard is full of smoke.  The entire yard, in all directions.

    Smells like it's mostly cedar with a bit of oak.  No household trash.

  64. paul says:

    Also, "you aren't a certified doctor/epidemiologist/data scientist so clearly there's no way for you to understand the data"

    You left off PEON.

  65. Greg Norton says:

    So, are we getting ready to have the AIDS virus go rampaging through the populace ?  Now that is a conspiracy theory worth mentioning.

    Right now, there is an effort underway to raise awareness with the providers than AIDS has never really gone away and that the therapeutics that greatly extend life are not a vaccine.

    No conspiracy theory, but I find the timing odd. It was important enough that my wife had the day off from the VA to attend the teleconference.

    Of course, with AIDS, prevention is not very hard, but a lot of people have problems staying out of the bathhouses both in a figurative and, sometimes, literal sense.

  66. MrAtoz says:

    It says that ID.Me will destroy any selfie already submitted to the company, and that those selfies now on file will also be permanently deleted "over the course of the next few weeks."

    Sure they will. Right into the CIA database.

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  67. paul says:

    Sure they will. Right into the CIA database.

    Nah.  CIA and NSA already have it.

  68. SteveF says:

    We pay for the data and the analyses of it, it's ours.

    They don't work for you, you dog-faced pony soldier.

  69. Ray Thompson says:

    The agency says account holders can still choose the selfie option, administered by ID.Me. But if they'd rather not, the agency says, taxpayers will have the option of verifying their identity "during a live, virtual interview with agents; no biometric data – including facial recognition

    Yeh, right. That is why ID.ME and the IRS are requiring a government issued photo ID to gain access. Of course, in lieu of a passport one can use two copies of pay stubs or W-2's that clearly show the SSN. The original photo ID is still required, VA health card not accepted. No selfie, but a photo ID. Explain the difference.

    And some toothless hag that looks like she would steal McNuggets from a 10-year-old is getting access to all that information. Makes me feel comfortable.

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  70. Ray Thompson says:

    Nah.  CIA and NSA already have it.

    Having been in the military I am certain most 3-letter agencies have my photo, DNA, and condom size. I was not known as a dick head for no reason.

  71. Robert "Bob" Sprowl says:

    Spent yesterday trying to solve my CPU upgrade problem with no success.  

    I spent morning surfing for a fix (its not an uncommon problem with this motherboard) and found several that worked – sometimes – such as putting in a slower set of memory sticks then after it booted switching them out (WTF) or reseating the memory or or doing a bare install with a new hard drive. But most people just gave up. 

    First I reflashed the UEFI BIOS which still locked,  ie, did not finish properly.  Again Control-Alt-Delete got a reboot and everything worked fine.  (I think if I could get a normal completion to this I would be OK.)

    Then I downloaded and installed all of the system drivers – a total of 4.85 GB.  (I don't think this is the problem as I never get a display so the system is still in the UEFI BIOS in my option.)  The original system booted a bit faster with the updates. 

    Pulled the old CPU out (it stuck to the fan assembly) and put the new one it.  Got the same problem – system starts but shuts down on its own then restarts. 

    Removed the Video card. Same result.  Tried only two memory sticks and disconnected all case fans, the CD-ROM drive, the Seagate hard drive and all SSDs but the C:SSD to lessen the load on the power supply. Same result.   (Out curiosity I just put a watt meter on the power cord; the system is only using 48 watts with all 32 GB of RAM, all fans, 3 SSDs (1.8 TB total) and the 1 TB Seagate hard drive.)

    I hate to just give up and wonder if high speed memory is what is needed.

  72. MrAtoz says:

    I tried to drop my Jackery solar *generator* off at the sam FedEx as last time. The counter woman says "Oh, no, that is a battery and you have to take that to "distribution" location. "Uh, don't you remember me from the last time I came in, with the same box, same stickers on it, and you took it." Didn't matter, I had to go to a different location, but it is on its way to Kalifornia.

  73. paul says:

    I understand the fuss about ID.me.  But why would I need to log-in to the IRS site?  I have used http://www.olt.com for the last few years and it's just clicky click and done.

    When I applied for SS a lot of folks told me I would have to go the SS office in Round Rock.  Or in Austin.  And sit a couple of hours for my turn.  I did it all on-line, no problem.  Half an hour tops.

    Maybe there's a note attached to my SS number.  Someone used it way back in the early '80's and I had to go to the SS office in Austin… somewhere around 10th street?  7th?  The heifer, no wait, she was too old to be a heifer, scolded me for having laminated my SS card.  Go figure.  When I got the thing in 10th grade you could buy a metal copy from ads in the back of Popular Science and similar magazines.  Right next to the sea monkey ads.  

    Some how a laminated SS card was evil and I need to get another copy.  She didn't like it when I said "so send me one".  No, I have to fill out a form and mail it in.  She really didn't like it when I said "I'll just keep using this one".  She was not amoosed by my attitude.  I was not impressed by her "respect me" attitude.  I didn't start the conversation being an ass.  But that's how it went.

  74. Greg Norton says:

    Yeh, right. That is why ID.ME and the IRS are requiring a government issued photo ID to gain access. Of course, in lieu of a passport one can use two copies of pay stubs or W-2's that clearly show the SSN. The original photo ID is still required, VA health card not accepted. No selfie, but a photo ID. Explain the difference.

    A photo for the Real ID standard probably has to be clear enough for the CV system to break down mathematically into a reasonable set of numbers which can be stored and searched quickly.

    If you're interested, the place to start would be a search for "Eigenfaces". Something better may have come along since I last looked a decade ago.

    Eigenfaces had Python source available. Consider yourself warned — this is a scary rabbit hole to wander down if you are concerned about privacy.

  75. lpdbw says:

    Still researching the difference between 90% silver coins and American Sliver Eagles for balance.

    I know what the physical differences are; (coins: $1 face value = .715 oz Ag vs Silver Eagle = 1 oz pure Ag). I'm trying to come to grips with the price differential between them, the markup by my dealer, and how it changes with the change in the spot price of silver.  And how my local coin shop prices things compared to APMEX.

    My local coin shop was of limited help.  Their price board lists APMEX pricing, but it didn't agree with what I saw an hour before I went there.  They point to the board as proof they are priced lower than APMEX.  I remain, as always, skeptical.

    I welcome suggestions for coin shops in the Houston area.  Or success stories from online dealers.

  76. paul says:

    My last renewal notice for my driver's license had a lot of goopy goo noise about having to have a birth certificate and a utility bill or two.

    I didn't take any of that.  I'm pretty sure they got my birth cert when I got my learner's permit.  I have a copy somewhere.  Pretty sure. 

    A bill from PEC is gonna prove what, exactly?  When I got the meter they just wanted my address.

    The guy was like, "yeah, you're cool, we have your stuff on file already".

    So what was the point?  I don't know. 

  77. Chad says:

    A bill from PEC is gonna prove what, exactly?  When I got the meter they just wanted my address.

    They do that here too. Starting about 10+ years ago they really started cracking down and making people prove that they live where they live when they renew their driver's license. You have to have recent statements from utilities (multiple sources) proving your address is your address. Can’t use credit card statements or bank statements as those can be mailed anywhere, but utility statements contain the service address.

  78. Pecancorner says:

    That's interesting! I keep reading tear jerking stories of struggling teachers. Individual cases, I guess, or teachers just starting off?

    @brad, a lot of those are exaggerations or misinformation. There was one case from 2018 that is a good example, that I remembered reading, and may have been one you heard, as it got a lot of national press.

    The reports claimed a Texas teacher "couldn't afford medicine" and died as a result.  It turned out the story was misleading. She had insurance, and could well afford the copay for TamiFlu, she was just cheap.   Her husband bought it for her but she died of sepsis. Eventually, the truth came out, but by then it was an old story. Even Snopes got this one [mostly] right!

  79. MrAtoz says:

    plugs just justified his whole shitty Presidency:

    President Biden warns in Ukraine statement that defending freedom will have costs for us here at home

    Now that COVID!!! has waned, plugs can use RUSSIA IS INVADING UKRAINE!!! to justify anything.

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  80. MrAtoz says:

    All the talk about silver got me excited, so I ordered some from Apmex.

  81. Gavin says:

    Bingo.

    Also, "you aren't a certified doctor/epidemiologist/data scientist so clearly there's no way for you to understand the data"

    After a few too many of my 'friends' posted similar You Don't Do Research memes I came up with a canned response to it, quoted below:

    "Did you take grant money from a source that is known for encouraging research that supports one particular viewpoint? Did you include the non-consensus papers in your search for prior studies? Did you ensure that all your data, positive and negative, was included, and did you honestly account for data that did not support your conclusion? Did you release a paper that did not support the position you held prior? Did you make sure your results were reproducible? Did your peer-review include people supporting different views of the thesis, and did your paper change any of their positions? And if your research didn't convince a peer with a differing view, did you include that information? Or…
    Did you just want laymen to accept that You Are Right because you've done the 'research'?"

  82. Alan says:

    @Bob, can you get the system to boot using classic BIOS?

  83. Alan says:

    >> Not impressed. Since I already have an ID.ME account to signon to VA websites. Why does the IRS require another account on ID.ME? I feel sorry for older people without computers or technical skills. Important sites, especially government sites where access is needed for benefits, cannot be easily accessed. People are being shut out from access to important stuff.

    So then "their" plan is working…move along please…

    3
    1
  84. dkreck says:

    Did you just want laymen to accept that You Are Right because you've done the 'research'?"

    The Doctor Jill method. (did she do research?)

  85. Nightraker says:

    I welcome suggestions for coin shops in the Houston area.  Or success stories from online dealers.

    I've dealt quite successfully with JM Bullion on several occasions.  Wire transfer the money and UPS truck shows up soon enough. 

  86. Greg Norton says:

    The reports claimed a Texas teacher "couldn't afford medicine" and died as a result.  It turned out the story was misleading. She had insurance, and could well afford the copay for TamiFlu, she was just cheap. 

    Something still doesn't smell right, even with the revised story. Brand Tamiflu would cost that much but not the generic. The pharmacists get commissions to move the generics.

  87. Greg Norton says:

    The Doctor Jill method. (did she do research?)

    The Ed D is not the most difficult degree to obtain. As our late host occasionally pointed out, doctorates were traditionally not awarded in the Liberal Arts in the US until ~ 150 years ago, when the universities felt compelled to compete with the German schools which started to award doctoral degrees in the arts for what was essentially Masters level degree work in the US.

    Even without Scranton Joe, Doctor Jill *in my opinion* may have still earned the degree on the basis of sympathy for losing a bitter divorce case fighting over ownership of one of the most successful college bars in the country, not far from the University of Delaware which granted the Ed D.

    Across three engineering departments at different state schools, I’ve seen Masters and PhDs awarded for less.

  88. lynn says:

    "Justices will hear free-speech claim from website designer who opposes same-sex marriage"

         https://www.scotusblog.com/2022/02/justices-will-hear-free-speech-claim-from-website-designer-who-opposes-same-sex-marriage/

    "Nearly four years after the Supreme Court declined to decide whether compelling a Colorado baker to bake a cake for same-sex couples would violate his right to freedom of speech, the justices agreed to take up a similar question in another case from Colorado, this time involving a website designer. The justices’ decision to grant review in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis sets up yet another major ruling on the intersection between LGBTQ rights and religious beliefs."

    Since the lady is good at making websites, the appeals court says that Colorado can force her to make websites that she does not agree with. That goes right over the forced work slave line for me.

    Man, SCOTUS is really busy now with all of these new implied rights and Creepy Joe Biden stepping over every line that he can.

  89. Greg Norton says:

    Since the lady is good at making websites, the appeals court says that Colorado can force her to make websites that she does not agree with. That goes right over the forced work slave line for me.

    Man, SCOTUS is really busy now with all of these new implied rights and Creepy Joe Biden stepping over every line that he can.

    Bridezilla. It knows no race, gender, or preference.

    My last negative strike as a seller on EBay came from a Bridezilla, an African American woman who bought my wife's spare wedding gown bra back when we moved to Vantucky and needed money more than sentimental items.

    My stated shipping window was two business days, and, after being paid on a Saturday morning while I was away from home, I sent the item out the following Monday morning.

    Starting Tuesday morning, when the bra was not in her possession two days after paying and not understanding (or pretending to not understand) the concept of business days, Bridezilla unleashed her fury, issuing a negative review as well as requesting the chargeback from her bank, PayPal, and EBay.

    Over $25. Of course she wanted to keep the item when it arrived the next day Priority.

    Fortunately, EBay and Paypal gave her the face push. The bank investigated but eventually denied her claim as well.

  90. RickH says:

    re: @Bob's geeky tasks today: I have been a bit more successful.

    The 2TB SSD drive (2.5 inch) came today. I needed the 2.5 inch format to replace the 1TB spinner. There was no place to put the 2TB SSD M2 drive. The 512GB SSD M2 drive I purchased was going to replace the 256GB SSD M2 that came with the system.

    I had to also buy a SSK M2 enclosure, which came with the USB 3 connector.  Plus an external 2.5" drive USB adapter (USB 3.0 to SATA connector).

    Using all of the above, I connected both drives to the laptop. A bit of Disk Manager to create the partitions on those drives. Then the free Crucial-branded Acronis disk cloning software was used to clone the existing C (256GB M2 SSD) to the new 512GB M2 SSD. Then another clone from the existing D drive (1TB spinner) to the new 2TB SSD 2.5" drive.

    That copying process took about 5 hours for both. They went much faster than I anticipated. The 256GB C drive was about 92% full, and the 1TB at about 90% full.

    With both current drives cloned to the new drive, I shut down the system, grounded myself, and removed the laptop case (from the bottom). The HP hardware docs were helpful the first time to figure out where all the screws where (some are hidden under the rubber bumper padding on the laptop case bottom.

    Using the appropriate bits (from the computer tool kit I mentioned the other day – it's a nice one to get), I replaced the two drives. The new SSD drives are not in the system. Reinstalled the battery (previously removed before removing components), I put the case back together (minus screws for the moment).

    Started the system. A CMOS checksum error on bootup, to be expected, since the drives were replaced (I had replaced the 4GB RAM with an 16GB yesterday, now have 24GBRAM). and the system booted right up. Had to go into disk manager and change the drive letter of the 2TB drive, but system booted up.

    After a short pat on the back because I am awesome (nobody in the house agreed, as usual), the laptop is back in use. (Well, after I replace all the case screws, now that all is working.)

    I do have leftovers though: a 256GB SSD M2, a 2GB SSD M2, and the 1TB spinner (along with another 1TB from a previous laptop). Those will get put in the appropriate enclosures, and used for data backups.

    So, back online now. Things appear to be faster with all SSDs, and more memory.

    Huzzah for me!

  91. Robert "Bob" Sprowl says:

    Alan: The system boots correctly with the original CPU.  It cycles with the new one.  I have an UEFI BIOS that I flashed.  The flash did not complete properly and I'm surfing for a solution to that.

  92. Greg Norton says:

    Man, SCOTUS is really busy now with all of these new implied rights and Creepy Joe Biden stepping over every line that he can.

    Meanwhile in Texas. The "Judges" want the power to issue the mask mandates and override the Governor.

    I originally heard about the case on the radio running errands at lunchtime, but the only story on the Interwebz is pay walled.

    https://www.statesman.com/restricted/?return=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.statesman.com%2Fstory%2Fnews%2F2022%2F02%2F21%2Ftexas-supreme-court-mask-mandate-decide-power-greg-abbott-local%2F6705858001%2F

    I live in Williamson County, where the Right Reverend RINO Judge Bill Gravell, man of the cloth, blew all of his credibility early in the pandemic being a raging hypocrite about masks, social distancing, and retail lockdowns. However, the Travis County Judge is eager to impose masks, and, unfortunately, our regular Sam's and Home Depot are just inside the city limits.

    I've wondered why Austin PD seems to occasionally play Mask Enforcement Kabuki at Sam's over the last few months, parking in front of the store and sitting in the vehicle watching people walk in, face diapers present.

    With murders on pace for 100 in the city this year, another record, you would think APD would have better things to do.

    That reminds me — I need to go vote in the primary.

  93. Greg Norton says:

    The P. Diddly Bush dirty trick I was waiting to see in the Attorney General race?

    https://woai.iheart.com/content/2022-02-22-whistleblowers-speak-out-against-paxton/

  94. lynn says:

    Alan: The system boots correctly with the original CPU.  It cycles with the new one.  I have an UEFI BIOS that I flashed.  The flash did not complete properly and I'm surfing for a solution to that.

    Sorry, but I'll bet that you need a new motherboard.  The new CPU and the old motherboard sound incompatible with each other.

    My old office PC Gigabyte Z68K motherboard refused to take a hard drive bigger than 4 TB.  It would lockup on booting every time that I shoved an 8 TB drive in there.  I installed the latest BIOS and looked at everything.  I did note on the motherboard that it says release 1.0 which was a bad sign to me as there was a release 1.1 in the manufacturer notes.

  95. lynn says:

    The P. Diddly Bush dirty trick I was waiting to see in the Attorney General race?

    https://woai.iheart.com/content/2022-02-22-whistleblowers-speak-out-against-paxton/

    Sounds like a big case of butt-hurt.

  96. lynn says:

    That reminds me — I need to go vote in the primary.

    I am waiting for March 1.  I have a church on the way to work that does a great job of hosting our precinct in their fellowship hall.

  97. Greg Norton says:

    My old office PC Gigabyte Z68K motherboard refused to take a hard drive bigger than 4 TB.  It would lockup on booting every time that I shoved an 8 TB drive in there.  I installed the latest BIOS and looked at everything.  I did note on the motherboard that it says release 1.0 which was a bad sign to me as there was a release 1.1 in the manufacturer notes.

    If you still have the board, try booting from the UEFI partion on a USB flashed with a recent Fedora Linux release and see what Gparted thinks.

  98. Mark W says:

    I have an UEFI BIOS that I flashed. 

    try booting from the UEFI partion on a USB flashed with a recent Fedora Linux release and see what Gparted thinks.

    Most/all UEFI motherboards can be set to the old BIOS mode. It's often a pain though.

    Most likely it needs different memory or a new motherboard. $$$

  99. drwilliams says:

    Experts Blast CDC for Failing to Publish Critical Covid-Related Data

    It Collected CDC failed to publish a tranche of their data – omitting the impact on those aged 18-49, who are least likely to benefit from boosters.

    Posted by Leslie Eastman Tuesday, February 22, 2022 at 05:00pm

    https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/02/experts-blast-cdc-for-failing-to-publish-critical-covid-related-data-it-collected/

    Good summary, with link to the NYT article.

    Scroll down and push "play".

  100. nick flandrey says:

    @bob, I think there might be a glimmer above.  I recall having something similar happen but fixed it by using the traditional bios boot and not the UIEEFFOEIEOEIEO new fangled thing.   The new boot looks for something that isn't there, or doesn't like what it sees and boot loops.   There should be a bios setting to use the classic boot.

    n

  101. nick flandrey says:

    WRT coin shops in Houston, the guys at US COINS and Jewelry on I-10 in spring branch are friendly and the prices were reasonable when I made my purchases.

    Some people refer to junk silver pricing as some multiple of "face" value, ie. a dime at 16x face is $1.60 to purchase or sell…   IDK what the current multiple is though.  Pretty sure 16x was where it was a few years ago.

    I don't look at the pricing in my estate auctions, assuming that there are no bargains and it isn't worth the time.  I might be wrong.

    Canadian Maple Leafs and Austrian Philharmonik coins are very nice for gold.  I like 1/10ths and 1/4s thinking of them as dimes and quarters…  you pay a small premium over the ounce coins but they are potentially easier to spend or cash out.  US COIN webstore only has a couple of each…

    n

  102. nick flandrey says:

    Mea culpa.  Not blacks shooting into a crowd.   Much stranger than that.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10540379/Disabled-Portland-Antifa-protester-60-shot-dead-BLM-protest-far-right-FURRY-43.html

    A 60 year-old Antifa activist was shot dead by a far-right furry while blocking traffic at a Black Lives Matter rally in Portland, it was claimed.    

    June Knight was shot in the head at point-blank range on Saturday at Normandale Park when the suspect, named as Benjamin Jeffrey Smith, 43, walked up to her and a group of protesters and shot her in the head at close range. 

    Smith is a machinist who is said to have posted regularly on far-right forums, backed Kyle Rittenhouse and moaned about crime in Portland also shot four other women, it is claimed. He is also said to be a member of the furry community, who dress up in cartoonish animal outfits and attend gatherings together.

    After Smith allegedly shot and killed Knight, he was himself shot by another marcher who was armed. That marcher was arrested, but has since been freed by police, and has not been identified. 

    n

  103. Robert "Bob" Sprowl says:

    The ASRock Web site shows my motherboard with the new the CPU with the Flashed BIOS.  I opened a support tick with them.  We'll see what they suggest.

  104. Mark W says:

    The furrys are usually super lefties. Milo Yiannopolis caused a huge storm a couple of years ago when he claimed to have registered under a pseudonym for a big furry conference. They hardcore freaked out trying to decide how to find him without breaking their rules about unmasking.

    IIRC he didn't attend, just wanted to mess with them.

    This looks like deliberate murder, and not self-defense, as with Rittenhouse.

  105. nick flandrey says:

    This looks like deliberate murder, and not self-defense, as with Rittenhouse.

    –I agree.

    n

  106. brad says:

    I went to the IRS website to signon and look at my account. ID.ME has to be used to signon. It requires uploading a copy of the front and back of a driver's license and the main page of the passport.

    Oh, this stuff is great. Imagine me, trying to get onto either the IRS or the Social Security websites. I tried a couple of years ago, but not having a 5-digit zip code, or a US phone number, or other US-based stuff, it is simply impossible. It's still a couple of years out, but I expect lots of fun when I apply for SS.

    You'd think that the US government would realize that places and people exist outside of US borders. Apparently not…

    recursion came in Fortran 90

    Ah, recursion. As far as I know, it is not implemented properly in any mainstream language. Only in pure functional or logical languages. Tail recursion: not implemented in Java, not implemented in C++ or C# (last time I checked, anyway), certainly not implemented in scripting languages like JavaScript or Python. Without it, recursion is inefficient, and deep recursion blows up your stack.

    I've not used a metal detector.  How deep can they detect?

    Depends on the mass of the metal. Coin-sized objects, maybe 20cm. Something the size of a rifle? Probably a meter or more.

    Burying guns is dumb, because you cannot get at them in any reasonable period of time. If you really feel like you need to hide them, far better would be a hidden closet or room in your house. Given the hollow drywall in US houses, that's not even difficult.

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